Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1886-06-11
DR.. TALMAGE'S SERMON.
HOW EMPLOYERS SHOULD TREAT
THEIR EMPLOYEES.

.
philippians ii, T.
The labor agitation will soon cease, and al
the mills will be reopene1, and all the rail.
trains resume traffic, and all our national
properties start again. or course it will be
some time before the country RECEIVERS from
the damage of the strikes Strikes ALWAYS
DAMAGE laborers more than they do capital.
ISIS. During this strike the laboring classes
have lost-never T. recover-one hundred mil
lion dollars. 1t does not make much differ
ence to every successful capitalist whether he
has fifty thou and dollars less or fifty
thousand dollars more; but when a
man Is dependent upon the days
WAGES it makes the difference be-
tween bread and no bread, between home
and no home. STasmOdically wages may be
higher but as a result of such thugs wages
get lower BoyCotting, violence and murder
never pay They are different stages of an
archy. The Poorest use you can put man
to is to kill him. Tomorrow, blow up all tho
fine residences on the Hudson River, and all
the great houses on Brooklyn Heights and
Brooklyn Hill and Ritter,ouse Square and
Peacon street, and all the stones aud timber
ana brick Will merely fall back on the bare
head of American labor The worst enc
mics of the working classes are their
demented coadutors The assassination
of Lord Cayendish and Mr.. Burke in Phoenix
Park, Dublin, Ire and, to avenge the wrongs
oil that unhappy country, had no result ex-
sept TO turn away the sympathies of millions
OF people from that afflicted land. The at
tempt two or three years ago to blow uD the
Parliament Houses of England had only one
result, and that to turn out of employment
thouSan Is of the Irish who had work in
England In this country the torch applied
u ia tories that lave discharged hands,
whether for good or bad reasons; obstacles
put on the rail tracks in front of midnight
incl Il
PRESIDENT OF the company; the sudden
throwing up of work on shipboard Just be-
lore they are going to sail, or in printing
Office, just before they are going to press, or
IN the mines just before they are to deliver
the coal, or on the house scaffolding SO that
the builder cannot meet his contract-all this
only cripples American labor and pierces its
fearE. All the sudden traps set for employ
erS never yet put one farthing in the callous
PAIN, never yet united one knot from the
knuckles of hard toll. In other words,
barbarlsm can never cure the wrongs
OF civilization. Mark that, my brother,
my sister. Frederick the Great
admired farm near his palace at
PotSdam. The farm was owned by miller.
The King offered him three times the value
OF the farm, buf the miller would not sellit,
le2au'e it was the old homestead and he felt
about it just as Naboth felt about the vine
yard when Ahab wanted it. The King or
nered the miller to come into his presence.
Ina King with stick in his hand with which
he sometimes struck his officers of state. said
TO the m Her: "Now, if you don't sell that to
your Majesty" said the miller, mo
YOU won't" eyes I WILL" said the
King II am King and I've a
right to take it." "No, you won't" said the
miller, eff your Majesty takes my farm, I'll
sue you in the Chancery Court" And the
law loomed up and the King backed down.
But have to tell you that the most out
raGeous wrong inflicted upon the working
classes will yet come before the law Vio-
lence and against the law achieves nothing,
but right business and according to law will
achieve everything. 1t is most important
at this point in the discussion, in this series
of sermons which am preaching on Sab
bath mornings, and which | shall continue
Tor three or four Sabbath mornings more, to
set forth the fact that the honest industri-
Gus workingmen of this country have no
sympathy with anarchy or outawry, and
to prove it | read from the newspaper organ
OF the knights of Labor. / read from the
first page in large letters this vehement dis
claimer:
Let it be understood by all the world that
the knights of Labor have no affiliating as
soclaton, sympathy or respect for the band
of cowardly murderers, cutthroats and rob-
the country like midnight assassins stirring
mp the passions of ignorant foreigners, un-
Turing the red flag of anarchy and causing
riot and bloodshed. All their followers, SYM
Tathizcrs, aiders and abettors shall be sum
marily dealt with They are entitled to no
more consideration than wild beasts. The
leaders ere towards and their followers are
foolsn
So declares the chief organ of the Knights
Of Labor Well, all the agitation, as l say,
will soon be gone, but there are some very
important things to be uttered. Now, all
this discussion Of the philosophy of the sub
Iectdoes not touch me bit. simply want to
Know what is my duty and what is your
duty in the crisis. The vast majority are
divided into two Classes-employerS and EN-
ployes. The chasm between the employer
and the employe is getting wider and wider.
You know the time was when the master
builder, the boss workmen aud the capitalist
toiled side by side with the laborer at the
lame bench, and there are many people in
THIS house who remember the time when
the clerks of great commercial establishments
boarded with the head man of the firm: that
the chasm between the employer and employe
is getting wider and wider, and the tempta-
ton is for the laborer to say: "My boss
workman, my capitalist, is wronging me by
all that he succeeds" and the tendency is for
the employer to say: "Now, the e men i'll
my employ are merely so many beasts of
burden, and it is my business to give so much
money for so much labor so many dollars
salary for 50 many beads of sweat )" and the
trouble is that the bridge is broken down at
both ends. Thomas Carlyle, in his quaint
but forcetul way, put it when he said:
"Togson, of st. Dolly understood SAYS to
his men: "Noble spinners, this is the hun
dred-thousandth we have gained, wherein
mean to drill and plant my vineyards. The
hundled-thousandth pound is mine The daily
wage was yours. Adieu, noble spinnerS,
drink my health with this .groat each which
give you over and above.n
Now, what we want is to rebuild the bridge
and put the trowel this day to one of the
abutments, while tell employers how they
ought to treat employees. As many laborers
during the past three months have maltreated
their employers and deserve condign punish
ment for their behavior the tendency is now
that employers shall forget their duty to
their employees. The old recipe that some
of you have heard, for getting wealth was
this: Three rules. First, get all the earnings
of others that you can get, and keep them.
Second rule Go right on without regard to
the hardships or sutferings of other people
Thirdly. Have no app cation of the fact
that your accumulation may / e the impover-
ishment of many others. Now, will under
take to say there is no employer in this house
who would want to start out and achieve a
fortune upon such an outrageous theory
You want to know what your duty is, and l
am here in the name Of Almighty Gcd and
as religious teacher to tell you.
First, charge you, oh employer, pay as
large wages as are reasonable and as YOU can
afford. Not necessarily what others gay
certainly not what an employee demands you
shall pay for that is tyranny unbearable
and the right of an employee to tell you what
you shall do implies your ri ght to tell him
what he shell do and either idea is descic-
able. He who yields to the demands Of a
nan who avs you must ay me 50 much,
or III ruin yoIr lu iness"-the employer who
yields to su"h demand wrongs every bust
ness man in Brook yn, and he yields to the
ory which would. il carried out dissolve
society. You find out by looking over your
q frnirl vi. nt Il Won