St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1886-06-12
TA1EAliE'S SERMON.
Second Discourse of the Series
On the Labor Question.
how Employers Ought to Treat Employees
practical Suggestions Outside the
Question of Better Wages and
Shorter Hours.

Rev. T. Dewitt TaImage, in delivering
mis- second sermon ON the labor question at
Brooklyn Tabernacle, took two texts from
which to illustrate his subject, as follows:
Ii We bite and devour one another, take
heed that We be not consumed one of an
other Galatians ", Is.
Look not every man on his own things
but every man also on the things of others.
philippians ill.,.
The labor agitation will soon quiet. The
mills will again open, the railroads re-
sumo their traffic, our National properties
again start. OF course the damage done
by the strikes can not Immediately be re-
paired. Wages will not be so high as they
were Systematically they may be high
er, but they will drop lower. Strikes,
whether they are right or wrong, always
injure laborers more than they do capital
lists. You will see this in the starvation
of next winter. Boycotting and violence
and murder never pay. They are differ
ent stages of anarchy. God never blessed
murder. The worst use you can put a man
to is to kill him. Blow up tomorrow all
the country seats on the banks of the Hud-
son. and all the fine houses on Madison
square, and Brooklyn heights, and Bunker
hill, and Rittenhouse square, and Beacon
street, and all the bricks and timber and
stones will just fall back on the bare
hands of American labor. The worst
enemies of the working classes of the
United States and Ireland are their
demented coadjutors. The assassina-
nf oh
and Mr.. Burke in Phoenix Park, Dub
lin Ireland, in the attempt to avenge the
wrongs Of Ireland. only turned away from
that afflicted people millions of sympa-
thiZers. The attempt to blow up the
House of Commons in Lond on had only
this efYect-to throw out of employment
tens of thousands of innocent Irish people
in England. In this country the torch put
to the factories that have discharged
hands for good or bad reason; obstruc
tions on the rail-tracks in front of mid
night express trains, because the offenders
do not like the president of the company;
strikes on shipboard the hour they were
going to sail, or In printing offices the
hour the paper was to go to press, or in the
mines the day the coal was to be deliv cred,
Or on house scaffoIdings so the builder fails
in keeping his contract-all these are only
hard blow on the head of American Ia
Dor, and cripple it's arms, and lame it's
feet, and pierce it's heart. Traps sprung
suddenly on employers, and violence,
never took one knot out of the knuckles of
toll, or put one farthing of wages into
Gallons palm. Barbarism will never cure
the wrongs of civilization. Mark that!
But gradually the damages done the Ia
borer by the strikes will be repaired, and
some important things ought now to be
said.
The whole tendency of our times, as you
have noticed, is to make the chasm be-
tween employer and employee wider and
wider. In olden time the head man of the
factory. the master builder, the capitalist,
the head man of the firm worked side by
side with their employees, working some
times at the same bench, dining at the
same table; and there are those here who
can remember the time when the clerks of
large commercial establishments were ac-
customed to board with the head men of
the firm.
All that is changed, and the tendency is
70 make the distance between employer
and employee wider and wider. The ten
dency is to make the employee feel that he
is wronged by the success of the capitalist
and to make the capitalist feel:
"Now my iaborers are only beasts of
burden; must give so much money for so
much drudgery, just SO many pieces Of sill
yer for SO many beads of sweat"
In other words, the bridge of sympathy
Is broken down at both ends. That feel
ing was well described by Thomas Car
lyle when he said:
PIugson, Of st. Dolly understood, buc-
like says to his men "Noble spin
ners, this is the hundredth thousand we have
gained, wherein mean to dwell and plant
my vineyards. The hundred thousand
pound is mine, the daily wage was yours
Adieu, noble spinners; drink my health
with this groat each, which give you over
and above
Now what we want is to rebuild that
bridge OF sympathy, and put the trowel
TO one Of the abutments TO- day; and
preach more especially this morning to
employers as such, although what I have
to say will be appropriate to all who are in
she house.
The outrageous behavior of a multitude
Of laborers toward their employers during
the last three months, behavior infamous
and worthy of most condign punishment,
may have induced some employers to neg
Iect the real Christian duties that they
owe to those whom they employ. There
fore want to say to you whom / confront
face to face and those to whom these
words may come, that all ship-owners, all
all commercial firms, all mas
Ter builders, all housewives are bound to
be interested in the entire welfare of their
Years ago some one gave
three prescriptions for becoming million
lire:
/. Spend your life in getting and keep