The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-04-10
NOT A DHMAa0auE PULPIT.

The Rev. Newman Smith is better friend
of organized labor than many men who occupy
places in the pulpit and is honest enough to
give utterance to some very unpopular but
valuable advice. Like every fair-minded man
in the land, he recognizes the right Of work
ingmen to organize and to strike, If they
choose, to enforce their demands; but he is
not demagogue enough to ignore the rights of
workingmen not organized A man or men
may quit work whenever they please and for
whatever reason may be deemed sufficient.
But there their interference with the affairs
of the concern against which they strike must
end. They have no right, he maintains, to
prevent any other free American from taking
the places abandoned, nor any right to destroy
the property or harm the person Of any man
who may not think as they do. In the course
of his lecture on Sunday, at New Haven he
said.
81 don't blame man for striking when he
feels that his wages are not enough to support
him. and the wife he has vowed to support,
and the children God has given him, bus the
question asked by the public is as to the
method of agitation resorted to to benefit any
particular class. The broad principles on
which labor unions depend for theirssuccess
should be thatno class of men can allure ad-
vancement except it comes also to SECURE the
advancement of the whole of mankind An
other principle dear to the heart of every free
man is thorough respect for individual and
personal liberty. The fact is, that if seventy
men in any community say they won't work
in certain way, and the seventy first man
shan't work at all if not with them, the pub
lie will stand by the seventy first man every
time. | am sure that no class of American
citizens will put up with dictatiOn from any
other class of American citizens Walking del
egates should not become walking dictators
Some of us outsiders are strong and earnest in
this belief Liberty to us is dear as life, and
we are determined to have no Caesars among
us, whether rich or poor secret or avowed,
and some of us who stood up in the glorious
years gone by in defense of our country are
willing, if necessary to fight again against all
industrial Csesars the whole brood of them.
| whether or not they are produced as the out
come OF the wrongs and woes of men. The
boycott | am aware is your weapon, but in
my opinion it is weapon not of industrial
peace, but of industrial war. It is sharpest
when it is newest. 1t has already dulled, and
it will take very few examples to send it into
| innocuous desuetude, to disappear just as sud-
denly as it arose. For the strike there is
much more moral justification, but it is a
costly and wasteful weapon, and is used only
as last resort. What is wanted as the proper
remedy for industrial crises is more industrial
intelligence. conscience and fairness If
strikes are made in the face of falling mar
ket, or just as business is beginning to revive
capital will flee into its hiding place and the
workingmen will have killed the goose that
lays the golden eggs"
If the striking Knights Of Labor had more
friends like Newman Smith in the pulpit to
counteract the incendiary utterances Of min
listers more anxious to be popular than to be
right, it would undoubtedly be to their adj
vantage. Every true friend of labor hopes to
see the workingmen of this country succeed
in getting their every right; but they likewise
hope that organized labor will ever keep itself
in the right so as to deserve success. With
out this they can never hope for permanent
justice, for to this must it all come before a
permanent solution is reached.