Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-07-01
/" BREAKERS AHEAD. /"
AN EVERYDAY SUBJECT DISCUSSED
FROM THE PULPIT.
Rev. DIR. Fnben Expresses His Views OH
Dangers that are Threatening
the Nation.

At the Central NJ. E. Church, the pastor
Rev. Thomas Filben, last evening preached
patriotic sermon entitled, Breakers
Ahead" Mr.. Filben said 81 am neither
pessimist nor an alarmist as the topic |
announce might seem to imply. But we
nave been set to thinking by our national
centenary, and they are not few nor igno-
Die that see tokens of danger ahead for
our republic, We have done little, as a
people, for the last twenty-five or fifty
years but to grow big, and by all sorts of
accretions. We are being forced to call a
halt to see where we are. There las not
been much brains mixed with our pro-
gress, still less conscience and heart; we
must get these factors in. Some great
national problems are upon us. The more
recent years have been barren of these.
but some are here, if l mistake not. We
cannot much longer push them off. Pro-
gfess, the unexampled thing it is among
us, hao given new importance to the
worlds old and seemingly irrepres-
sible conflict of capital and labor. Never,
truly, had labor less cause for restlessness
IN any period or in any nation than with
US now. But never had the disparity of
estates such, witness as IN the colossal
fortunes of our times. There is on the one
side much vulgar display and the power of
possession is abused, and there are griey-
Gus inequalities of compensation for labor.
Many OF these disproportionate fortunes
nave not meant toll, many meant trickery
and over-reaching.
do not hesitate to say that these dis
proportionate fortunes are not consistent
with stable nationality They are not in
Gods plan; when he managed an earthly
government in the Jewish Theocracy he
had regulations that made the amassing of
them impossible.
ION the other side there is oppression
ana want, often self caused, but present,
and God only knows what the wears NAV
breed that is made possible by these condi-
tons. Some discomfort is already with us,
and less prosperity obtaining generally for
even single season, and the yexing con-
met OF wealth and socialism might be upon
as IN measures aggravated to the proper
ton of the evil with US. And in any con-
t1ict labor would have its own wav. No
force was ever better organized than Amer
lean labor to-day. He is a philosopher
who will declare and enforce the equities
IN these relations as they have not yet been.
Tins IS the leading question of our state
craft. We may not see it soon settled, but
signs fail II we do not see a struggle for its
settling.
Again, we have walked up as a people to
some of the evils of our unrestricted immi-
grafton. And, for the time the poetry of
our freedom is silent, the song of our asy-
lum for wOrld-oppression is lowered to q
minor key. Right immigration, with
right spirit and purposes, is as welcome as
ever, but we have not assimilated the MIL
hons OF the last years. Overriding our
national spirit, they are asSailing to change
the best institutions of our country. We
must readJust our national policy as to
future immigration, and we must be active
II we get only the least of evil from that
already here.
The most urgentquestion of our national
life is the relation of the liquor traffic, as
such, to our body polite. l do not mean
the question of temperance in itself, but
speak of the liquor question as a problem
of practical politics.
Il speak of the power that has grown
great among US by the unholy avails of our
degraded manhood and out of the price of
our peoples poverty and woe, and in
trenching itself behind this bulwark of
power and wealth thus gotten, offers or
gained defiance tn civil control of it. and
10 the exercise of the privileges of ordinary
sovereignty over it. The power repre-
scented in the saloon, l speak of, the as
socate and spring of the corrupt in our
politics, the recruiting ground and
the necessary adjunct of the po-
litical boss, efficient for these
ends until it can be said with
truth that less than 100000 of
our population, and these engaged in the
lowest of trades rule this nation. This
power, nevertheless defiant, has made wa
ger of war. The American people in turn
have branded it as a foe. 1t is almost
everywhere among Us an outlaw before
the bar OF public judgment. The struggle
is on. tits no play conflict. But the issue is
not uncertain. think the signs point to
not an open saloon in the United States in
the year 1900"
The speaker then alluded to the dangers
of Sabbath breaking and ballot corruption
and said in closing: While this may seem
dark picture, it becomes US TO look well
10 it. have faith in the moral purity and
the courage of the American people, when
well alive to these dangers, TO correct them
all, and to give US all the blessings of our
republican system without its Ills"