Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1885-06-01
FISTS VERSUS BRAINS.
DIR. TALNIAGE SEES DANGER IN
LABOR'S WAR WITH CAPITAL.

BROOKLYN, n. Y, May 31.-Dr. Tai
mage preached this morning in the Brook
Ign Tabernacle on the subject Fist
versus Brain" Before the sermon he
read passages from the Book Of Proverbs
and from one Of the epistles-the one in
regard to slothfuluess and the other in
regard tosinsuflicient compensation. The
opening hymn was:
''The morning light is breaking,
The darkness disappears,
The sons OF men are waking
To penltential tears"
The text was from Matthew vii, 10:
"WhatsOever We would that men should
do to you, do We even so to them" DR..
Talmage said:
The greatest war the world has ever
seen is that going on between labor and
capital; not a strife like the thirty years
war of which history tells us, for this is a
war OF centuries. 1t is a war Of five con-
tlnents, war hemisphere. In this cOun-
try the middle classes, who have held the
balance of power and upon whom the ma
ton has depended as mediatOrs between
the two extremes, are diminishing, and at
the same ratio we will soon have no mid
die class, for all the people will be very
rich or very poor, and the country be di-
vided between princes and paupers, be-
tween palaces and novels. The two great
antagonistc forces are closing in upon
each other. Telegraph operators
Strikes" Railroad employees strikes"
pennsylvania miners strikes" The
movements on the part OF boycOtters and
dynamiters are only skirmishes before the
general engagement, or, if you prefer, they
are escapes through the safety-valve of an
imprisoned force that promises the explO-
sion of society.
You may pooh-pooh it, ana prophesy
that this trouble, like an angry child, will
cry itself to sleep, and think you have
belittled il into insigniticaDce by calling
it Socialism, FOurierism, st. Simonism,
Nihilism, or Communism, but that cannot
binder the fact that it is the mightiest,
darkest, most terrific threat of this
century. Moreover, all the attempts at
pacitication have been dead failure.
MOnOpOlists are more arrogant, trades
unions more bitter. "GiVe us more
wages" cry the employees. "We will
give you less" respond the capitalists.
"Give us less hours of work." say these.
"YOu shall have mOre," say those. eve
won't work under such conditions cry
these. "Then you shall starve," respond
those. Soon the laboring classes will
have exhausted what little property
they had accumulated under better
state OF things, and unless there be
something done there will be in
this country three million hungry men
and women. Well, three million hungry
people cannot be kept quiet. All the en-
actments Of legislatures and all the con-
stabularies of the cities, and all the army
and navy of the United States cannot
keep them quiet. What then? VIII
capital and labor ever settle their quar-
rel by their own wisdOmi No. The
brow of the one will be more rigid and the
fist Of the other tighter clenched. But
what secular wisdom cannot do Christi
anity can accomplish if it be given full
swing. You have heard of medicines so
powerful that one drop would stop a dis
ease and restore the patient; and one
drop of my text will kin all this trouble
and give convalescence and health to all
classes: Whatsoever ye would that men
should do to you, do We even so to them"
The pulpit must be heard on this sub
ject. When Benjamin Franklin made his
discoveries in electricity, John Wesley
put electrical machines in several neigh
borhoOds that people might by them be
healed Of their nervous disorders. Our
gospel is a gospel for the body as well as
the soul. First will show you how this
capitalistic war won't be stopped and
then how il will be stopped.
First, IL will not be stopped by an out
cry against rich men because they are
rich. There is not a member of a trades
union in the United States who would not
be rich il he could. Sometimes, through
fortunate invention or some accident of
prosperity, man with nothing rises to
atiluence, and he Immediately becomes
superciliOus and oVerbearing, and takes
people by the throat with as tight grip
as he himself was taken by the throat.
Human nature is a mean thing when it
comes to the supremacy. 1t is no more
sin 10 be rich than to be poor. While
there are men who have got their prop
erty by fraud, there are millionaires who.
by foresight of changes 10 take place in
markets or business brilliancy, won their
property as honestly as the plumber ever
earned his money for mending pipe or
mason for building a wall. With vast
mulutudes' OF people the poverty is their
own fault. They might have been well
of, but they smoked or
drank up their earnings, or
they lived beyond their means. Men on
the same wages or salaries as they had
went on TO competency. / know men
who complain of poverty who keep two
dogs and smoke and chew and 20 loaded
10 the chin with whisky and beer. Mi
cawber in prison for debt is reported as
saying to David COpperiield: my boy,
income, one pound; expenses, twenty
shllllngs and six pence; result, misery.
Income, one pound; expenses, nineteen
shiliings and six pence; result, happi- /
ness" A vast multitude of the poor are |
the victims OF their own improYidence. |
/ protest against the assault Of men who, |
through economy and seli-denial and as /
siduity, have amassed great fortunes.
Thank God for honest rich men. They |
build art galleries and endow colleges and I
adorn cities and erect churches, and if /
foreign despotisms should threaten US
would subscribe, if need be, $50, 0O0 O00to /
sink them before they got through the
Narrows. By indiscriminate attack upon Z
success you can never settle this fight.
Neither viii this paciication come
through cynical and unsympathetic I
treatment Of the laboring classes. some
TAX of them as though they were cattle Z
or draft horses. Their nerves are nothing. /
Their tastes are nothing. Their domestic .
comfort Is nothing, and there are men who I
nave no more feeling for the toilers than |
Tie hound has for the hare, or a hawk for /
the ben, or a tiger for the calf. I'm warm +
= ippers what do they care for cold feet.
W hen Jean Vatican, the grandest hero OF .
victor Hugo, after q lie OF misfortune,
goes down into Incarceration and death, +
they shut the book in eXutatiOn and say: .
'Good for him" They stamp tho foot in .
regard TO those people and say lust the
opposite OF save tine laboring classes"
Their sympainica are with Shylock rather
Than with Antonio and Portia. Pluto
Gratis, their feelings are simply Internal
'IInE irritation nj gua..tEfttt..