Workmen's advocate., 1889-11-30
MARCHING ON.
SPIRIT AND TENDENCIES OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT.

WOrkingmen Don't go to Church.
 Justice ys. Free Soup. - The Foreigners"
 CHICAGO, Nov. 20. Last Sunday the Princess Opera House was crowded with people, who came to hear Nationalist, Henry D. Lloyd, deliver an address on "The Labor Movement. Mir. Lloyd is connected with the press of this city and the newspapers did not attempt to redi- cule or abuse him, as they would in fallibly have done of any grimy mecha- nic, laborer or mudsill, who might have given expression to the same sentiments He said in part:
 "The labor movement is an effort to cure fanaticism-the fanaticism of money -making-the mania of the mar kets. It believes that the world has gone mad with competition, delirous with supply and demand; that, however benefi- cent, legitimate and natural may be the instinct which invites men to exchange, the practice of it has been pushed into crueltIes, subtleties, falsehood and idio- cies which are defeating the very pur. pose of the tendency. The captain of industry, called upon to account for the starvation of his miners and their wives and children, gets behind competition. The labor T Tovement says to him: It's no excuse that this was done by compe- tition; competition is not the excuse, it is the crime itself
 "The labor movement is part of the great upward movement of humanity. To days popular doctrine of the rich, that poverty is the fault of the poor, is the old theological doctrine of total de- pravity applied to industry, and the labor movement rejects it, with the doctrine of modern competition, that death is the proper penalty of industrial mistakes. The labor movement is at the very fore front of civilization. It is in advance of the churches. It is the most religious movement of the day, for it carries the golden rule into the market and insists that the gospel which men profess in their families they shall also profess and practice in their factories. Why don't workingmen go to church 1? Because the principles of the labor move ment are more religious than the prin- ciples of the pulpit. Because the church refuses to leave off repeating its glitter ing generalities, and lacks either the courage or intelligence to apply the test and language of the ten commandments to the practices of the men who sit in the high places in the congregation. The churches, the political economists, the colleges, the existing political parties all stand impOtent in the face of the great question of the day-the social question. We are on the eve of great things and the labor movement, with its rule of love, will lead them, while the anti quated institutions and philosophies, the empires, wars. political economics and property founded on the hatred of man for man, and on social cannibalsn, will shrink away detested and repudlated into the gloom of the past, to be forgot ten with the other horrors of human ignorance and weakness.
 "The labor movements is intensely practical. Instead of coming out with newfangled notions it takes the old tangled ones and says: Let us act on them as if we really believed them. It is intensely practical. It plans that all the unemployed, the idle rich and idle poor, shall be put to work, and that instead of devouring the substance of others they shall support themselves and add a surplus to the common stock. It offers practical means of abolishing war and poverty. It is to practical to let babes and their mothers work, while able bodied men are idle. It says the practical task of mothers is to take care of their children, and that the best thing children can do for the world is not to work but to grow. It does not believe in making multitudes paupers by the laws of trade and then patching their poverty with free soup tickets. It means to make all men workmen and all work.