Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-03-03
PREVENTING REVOLUTIONS.


1 do not think that such an uprising"
will ever come, but it will be forestalled
less because Mrs. Davis prophesies it to the
the silks and velvets of Delmonico, or be-
cause Miss Van Etten's blood is stirred to
demand legislation and organization to fight
capital than because Mrs. Booth goes down
into the pit with her dressed pinned up
from assail, washes the filthy baby with
warm water, binds up softly, coaxingly, the
burned and suffering boy, thus emphasizing
the sympathy in her soothing tones and
friendly words, and bringing back the
dazed, despairing mother into the circle Of
human identity.
If Fifth avenue and the rectories will do
something besides make fad of Mrs.
Booth, will stay her hands as Hur and
Aaron stayed the hands of Moses, will fol-
low her with money and time and organiza-
ton into her haunts Of poverty, will help
her to send the mother and children, when
ever it is possible, out into the cheap coun-
tryside where fresh air costs nothing and
fresh water costs nothing. where rent is low
and work is greatly in demand; will help
her - support the poor mother there, will
exc out the labor of her feeble hands with
their own generous surplus till she shall
have grown strong to support her children
or even until her children have grown
strong to support her-why, it will not be
inexpensive, BUT it will be less EXPENSIVE
than 'revolt," less expensive than an
uprising"
The country villages will not permit city
paupers to be thrust upon them any more
than ''this upright and industrious" Re-
public will permit itself to be suffocated
under the failures of the old world. But an
Intelligent organization-not to fight capi-
tai, but to Christianize and utilize capital
in the equal interests of rich and poor, with
its arms reaching out into the country vii
lagos white with harvests waiting for reap
ers-might relieve the strain of muscle and
nerve in the too few village laborers and
equally relieve suffering labor, over-swoIlen
with its own eVer-increasing supply in the
city.
OUR BROTHERS. KEEPER.
Strike after strike comes and goes-and
fails or succeeds. But the suffering out of
Light, who can tell? The anxiety, the uu-
certainty, the'sad certainty, the apprehen-
sion, besides the actual privation in inno-
cent homes-is it not the moral duty of the
rich to prevent this? The laws of business
are, on business lines, inhexible. But
moral laws, did man but know it, are
equally 1nflexible. 1t is idle for labor to
run counter to the natural laws of supply
and demand. Men and women must do the
work that the world wants done. II they
persist in rushing at work already overdone,
or in doing work shabbily and weakly, they
must suffer. But it is equally idle for the
rich to run counter to the natural laws of
human brotherhood. If they persist in
looking at the mental powers which enable
them to make money as given merely for
their own pleasure and behoof; if they coldly
refuse to be brothers keeper and lend a
brothers hand, none the less, sooner or
cryeth from the ground, and the law an
we call it God or Revolution, or the plague
throws off slavery.
Blow, bugles, blow Set the wild echoes
flying, and let every echo bear to heaven
our swift acknowledgment that we are
our brothers keepers; that il is the business
of the strong to help the weak into the path
of self-help; to prevent the ignorant from
becoming the prey of his own ignorance If
strikes must be, let it be the strong and the
weak striking hands together through the
medium of those who understand both, and
can wisely apply the good will of the one
to the great need of the other.
Blow, bugles, blow, if your blast can
pierce the darkness of death Nuisance
the Salvation Army may be, beneath the
windows of Fifth avenue, but not SO great
nuisance as the reeking cellars out of
sight, where vice and wretchedness brood
and breed. If the Salvation Army can
purify those purlieus, blow, bugles, blow,
though every ear of Fifth avenue be deaf
ened with their din. GAIL HAMILTON.