St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-04-15
A MINISTER'S VIEW.

ers, but the Company Has
Rights.
At the First Unitarian church yester-
day Rev. H. NJ. Simmons preached ON
1.-The Strikers and the Larger Question
Behind It, He said the strikers have
the public sympathy at present, and
deserve it. They had entire right
to combine as employers have
long been in the habit of dong
in ever widening corporations. They
had entire right to refuse the reduced
wages and to call for more, for they
have evidently received buta small part
of the gains of their work, and the de-
crease of their pay meant privation in
many family. We wish their cause
might succeed. and are sorry to see that
it is hardly likely to, for the railway
company is firm and the public feeling
cannot long remain so strongly in
their favor. Any act of violence on
their part will diminish the public SYM
pathy and ought to; Even without VIC
lence, this sympathy will weaken by
much walking. Walking in so good a
cause is inspiring at first; but after a
few days, especially if rainy, the IA
tigued bodies and muddy boots will help
the other side. The cars will be ca led
back, the strike probably prove another
failure, and the strikers become another
list of unknown martyrs for the cause
of labor. We wish they might succeed,
but can hardly hope it. But all the
more for this failure do they have
and deserve our deepest sympathies.
But while giving them our fullest
sympathy, we cannot see how,
on mere business principles, their
employers are especially to blame.
If no express contract has been broken,
and the company claim there has not,
then where was the violation of bust
ness laws? Business principles allow
each one of these strikers to get his own
work done where it costs the least, and
to change his own hired help for
cheaper. And the same principle al
lows the company to cut down its
wages, if no contract is thereby broken,
and to hire laborers for less. Nor does
the question how much the company
was making have any more to do with
the matter, from strict business
point Of view. than the question how
much l save of my salary has to do with
the amount pay my gardener. | pay
him quite regardless of my bank ac-
count, and if he insists on working for
me at his own rate, when | prefer
cheaper help, rightly resent his claim,
and if. after that, he amuses himself by
breaking my garden tools and rose
bushes, | feel justified in calling
a policeman. So the railway COM
pany rightly resents any die
tSti0n from laborers or their
union, and when it arrests men who
are destroying its property, or stopping
its work, it does precisely what ought
to be done. Although my sympathies
are altogether on the side of the
strikers, L cannot see how the company
is violating strict business principles.
The trouble is that these business
principles are not enough; and there
are higher ones behind this labor ques-
ton. Business is selfish, and those
often only trying to help them M
selves at the expense of others. Much
of our commercial activity. from the
petty trader trying to get the best of
bargain. to the Spectator in stocks, is a
mere transfer of property, where the
gain of one means so much loss to an
other. Mercantile work is hardly so
much in selling to people what they
need as in Turing them to buy what
they do not need,aDd is pretty well illus
trated by the Jew of Howell's story, who
said the true merchant was not the one
that could sell coat to the man who
wanted it, but the one that could take
man who did not want coat and sell
him just the coat he wished to get rid
of. Too many men, both among capt.
talists and laborers, are only trying to
prey upon each other, with the princi-
pie of each for himself and perditiOn
take the hindmOst. This principle has
doubtless been very helpful in de-
velOping society and human wits:
but is more and more yielding to
the higher one of each for all and all for
each. For society is one body, and with
every advance in civilization its men,
bers are becoming more interdependent.
Both capitalists and laborers are but
parts of this body and have their higher
duties to it. Behind both employers and
employees, is the public that employs
them both. True laborers will think
ever of the public rights; and true
capitalists will think more of
them, remembering that their wealth
has come from mankind, and still be-
longs to mankind. and must be used for
the public good. Both will avoid con-
tiicts as much as possible. and settle
them as soon and as peaceably as posi-
bic by arbitration or whatever means.
The world is willing that its great men,
IN reward Tor their superior service,
should have more wealth and live in
more luxury if they want it: but it asks
that they and all should live by this
higher truth of social unity.
Whether the year 1000 A. d. shall see
that happy solution of the labor ques-
ton which Dr.. Bethany has just pct
ured in his Looking Backwards" re-
mains to be seen. But human nature
does not need to be changed to achieve
it. What men seek is not so much
riches as the honor that now comes
with them. Let that honor be given, as
it ought to be, and as it some time
will be-not to the men who make most
money, but to those who do most for
society, and the labor trouble will settle
itself. The natural and necessary
rivalry would remain, but would be
turned into an ambition for the honor
of human helpfulness; the riches of the
world would circulate freely and sup
ply abundance to all; and the social
troubles of our times would vanish like
the clouds of dawn before the light of a
brighter and happier day.