Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1886-05-26
more assiduity than has ever characterised

best for you and best for everybody to 60
back Immediately. Do not wait to see
what others do. Get on board the train of
national prosperity before it starts again.
for start it will, start soon and start mighti-
ly. Last year in the city of New York
there were forty-fve general strikes and
III shop strikes. Successful strikes, ninety
seven; strikes lost, thirty -four; strikes pend
ing at the time the statistics were made,
fifty-nine; strikes compromised, thirty two.
Would you like me to tell you who would
make the most out of the present almost
universal strike? can and will. Those
will make the most out it who go first to
work.
My third word of brotherly advice is to
another class of laborers; namely, those
who have been long time out of work.
How many of them? Before this present
trouble began there were nearly two mil
lion people in this country out of work and
could not get work. have for the last
! ten years been busy much of the time in
trying to get people work who asked for it.
have worn myself out again and again, as
many of you have, to get employment for
those who sought it. In some cases we
succeeded, in others failed. My brotherly
counsel is to nearly two million people who
could not get work before this trouble be-
gan and who have themselves and their
families to support, to 60 now and take the
vacated places. Go in and take those places
million and half strong. Green hands
you may be now, but you will not be green
hands long. Ny sentiment is full ofliberty
for all who want to strike to do so, and full
liberty for all who want to take the vacated
places. Other industries will open for
those who are now takiug vacation, for
we have only opened the outside door of
this continent and there is room in this
country for eight hundred million people
and for each one of them home and a
livelihood and God.
| So, however others may feel about this
excitement as wide as the continent, | am
not scared a bit. The storm will hush
Christ will put His foot upon it as upon
agitated Galilee. As at the beginning,
chaos will give place to order as the spirit
of God moves upon the waters. But hear
it, workingmen of America Your first
step toward light and betterment of con-
dition will be an assertion of your invidual
independence from the dictation of your
fellow workmen. You are free man,
and let no organisation come between you
and your best interests. Do not let any
man or anybody of men tell you where you
shall work, or where you shall not work.
If a man wants to belong to labor Or
ganisation, let him belong. If he does not
want to belong to labor organisation let
him have perfect liberty to stay out. You
own yourself Let no man put manacle
on your hand or foot or head or heart.
| | belong to ministerial association that
meets once week. love all the members
very much We may help each other in a
hundred ways, but when that association
shall tell me to quit my work and go some
where else, that must stop right away be-
cause brother minister has been badly
treated down in Texas, l will say to that
ministerial association, sect thee behind
me, Satan'' Furthermore, 1 have right
to resign my pastorate of this church and
say to the people: 81 decline to work for
you any louger am going. Goodbye"
But have no right, after have quit this
pulpit, to linger around the doors on Sun
day mornings and evenings with q shot gun
comes to take my place. l may quit my
place and continue to be gentleman, but
when | interfere with my successor in this
pulpit I become a criminal and deserve
nothing better than soup in a tin bowl in
Sing Sing penitentiary. Here is a state
ment that would have every laborer put
in his memorandum book or paste in his
hat, and every newspaper put at the head
of its columns. There are now about twelve
million people in this country receiving
wages and about six hundred thousand be-
longing to organizations that control their
labor. 1 would have all the six hundred
thousand do as they please and l would
have all the other eleven million four hnn-
dred thousand do as they please. You will
admit that the six hundred thousand in such
organizations ought not to control the
eleven million four hundred thousand labor
ers not in them. Your first duty, o labor
ing man! is to your family. Let no one
but Almighty God dictate to you how you
shall support them. Work when you please,
where you please, at what you please, and
allow no one for hundred millionth part
of a second to interfere with your right
When we emerge from the present unhap-
piness, as we soon will, we shall find many
tyrannies broken and Labor and Capital will
march shoulder to shoulder.
This day declare the mutual dependence
of Labor and Capital. An old tent-maker
put it just right mean Paul-when he
declared: "The eye cannot say to the hand,
l have no need o. thee.'' You have exam
ined some elaborate machinery-a thousand
wheels, thousand bands, thousand
levers a thousand pulleys, but all controlled
by one great water-wheel, all the parts ad-
joined SO that if you Jared one part you jar
red all the parts. Well, society is a great
piece of mechanism, a thousand wheels, a
thousand pulleys, thousand levers, but all
controlled by one great and ever-revolving
force-the wheel Of Gods providence. So
thoroughly is society balanced and adjust
ed, that if you harm one part you harm all
the parts. The professions interdependent,
all the trades interdependent, Capital and
Labor interdependent, so that the man who
lives in mansion on the hill, and the man
who breaks cobble stones at the foot of the
hill, affect each others misfortune or pros
perity. Dives cannot kick Lazarus without
hurting his own foot. They who throw
Shadrach into the furnace get their own
faces seorched and blackened. No such
thing as independence. Smite society at
munity. Or to fall back on the old tent
makers figure, what if the eye should say:
81 am overseer of this physical anatomy; /
am independent of all the other members; if
there is anything despise it is those miser-
able and low-lived fingers?" What if the
hand should say: 81 am boss workman; l
am independent of all the other members;
look at the callous in my palm and the
knots of my knuckles; if there is anything
I hate it is the human eye, seated under the
dome of the forehead, doing nothing but
look?" Now, we come in this morning to
break up that quarrel, and we say: "Oh!
silly eye, how soon you would swim in
death if you had not the hand to support
and defend you. Oh! silly hand, you would
be mere fumbler in the darkness if it were
not for the human eye" "The eye cannot
say unto the hand, l have no need of thee. :"
Relief will come to the working classes of
this country through better understand
ing between Capital and Labor. Before this
contest goes much further it will be found
that their interests are identical; what helps
one helps both; what Injuries one Injuries
both. Show me any point in the worlds
history of six thousand years where Capital
was prospered and Labor oppressed, or
where Labor was prospered and Capital op-
pressed. What is the state of things now :?
Labor at its wits end to get bread. Capital
at its wits end to pay the taxes and to keep
the store and factory running. Show me
any point in the last fifty years where Capt.
tai was getting large accumulation and
will show you the point at which Labor was
getting large wages. Show me point at