The Labor enquirer., 1886-12-04
THE PULPIT SPEAKS
Concluded nom first pags.l

working masses bv wealth and corpora
tions, but in passing let me ask OF
which side have been forbearance and
patience, on which side has been even
extreme and ] deliberately sty Chris
tian acceptance Of wrong rather than tt
/ precipitate Revolution?
The oppressionse ef the masses Of thii
/ country by corporations have been al
most unspeakable, yet the masses have
patiently endured them. The7 bave
been unspeakable, for no man car
reckon them up in order. The great
railroad corpor atoms in many cases have
been gigantic swindles with only now
and then, indeed. conspicuous exeep
ton, and everybody knows it. Ifa poor
man should do on small scale what
these rich corporations have done or
the scale of millions upon millions oi
dollars he would be instantly locked up
as thief or robber. A few railroads
and few men controlling these rail.
roads are outlaws, not amenable to fed
ersl or state Jurisdiction aud they regu-
late in large measure the commerce of
the country and upon the labor and
earnings of their employees they grow
enormously rich, their riches reaching
into hundred millions IN the hands OF
single individual, while their work
people, when they fall sick, perish OF
hunger.
The telegraph monopoly of this coun-
try is so outrageous that 1t is indecent,
and vet there is not power among the
people to lay the weight of alittle finger
upon it. The gas that lights not only
our private houses but our public thor
ougnfares, the water that we drink, are
in the hands of corporations. In the
case of such a community as our own
every honest man knows that the pub
lie good is not set before the ewes of the
rich, but the good of their own excheq-
uers. Streets, are not opened, are not
graded, are not paved sidewalks are not
built, are not kept in repair. Public i'm
provements, such as drainage, urgen tly
demanded, are estopped. Human life is
not only endangered but DESTROYED,
through the selfish greed of the rich an d
corporations.
Will it always be SOP I hope not. I
should despair of my fellow citizens if
thought the poorer classes of this or like
communities would consent for all time
or long time to endure these heinous
wrongs. These reflections bring me to
the consideration of the demands made
by the organized Socialism of America.
1 accentuste this qualitative term "or-
ganized" There is Socialism every
where that is unorganized. In time it
will fall into line and will close up the
ranks of conservation, Christian social
reform. Men and women and univer-
sity students are opening their eyes to a
slavery worse, in everv essential feature,
than negro slavery, ana as emancipation
became the creed of the honest and the
conscientious 80 again Christian Social
ism will become the creed of the unsel-
fish and the humane.
But Socialism has made an organised
demand which covers vast concerts; !;
indeed, no less than a reorganization of
universal society.
The vote cast in New York for Mr..
Henry George in the recent municipal
election counted $1,000, which, at a
small estimate, will represent 100000
souls. These figures do not stand, as
many assume, for 80 many outlaws, 80
many dissolute and disreputabls people.
These figures represent among the best
100000 people IN New York ity. They
are the bone and sinew, the earnest
workers, the toilers, the hewers of wood
and the drawers of water of that whole
population. They are about the only
100000 people there who think they
know what they want and who in the
main issue are 80 right in the eyes of
men and in the sight of God that they
will bring in an inevitable change in
the relations of capital and labor. |
shall state these demands of organized
Socialism in the exact language of the
Socialists themselves.
The preamble to the resolutions, at
least, is a sensible, digniied and moder-
ate utterance, to which no Christian or
riQht-feellng man can take any e1cep'
ton. 1t is essentially Christian state
ment. No political party. except the
old abolition party, has set forth sc
Christian view of life in the whole
history of this government:
"We reafirm the principles set forth
in the platform of the recent labor con-
vention of this city as of general appli-
cation to the whole country. We are
citizens desirous of purging our political
system of its corruption and carving
into full effect the great principles of
individual liberty proclaimed in the
Declaration of Independence.
I'VE are upholders of ,cial order, de-
tenders of tue true right of property and
advocates of that equal justice between
man and man which is the essence OF
all true religion.
ave believe in the Fatherhood OF
God and assert the Brotherhood of Man
and, by arriving at the abolition of the