Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1890-05-22
CAPITAL AND LABOR.
DIR. TALEAGk BREACHES ON THEIR
PROpER RELATION.
To the Common Eye There Seems Great
Conflict Just Now. But the Eye OF Faith
Disoorus = Remedy Near-There' Is =
straIKhs Road to RsoonoIIiutIon.


In tho Brooklyn Academy Of Music. on
Sunday morning. May Is. DIR. Talmage
preached on The Old Fight TO Be Settled
from the text: Whatsoever ye would that
them. Matt. vii, IL. Following is the ser
mon in full.
Two hundred thousand laborers in Hyde
Park. London. and the streets OF American
and European cities fllled with professions
OF workmen carrying banners. brings the
subject of Labor and Capital to the front.
That all this was done in peace. and that as
result, in many places. arbitration has
taken place. is a hopeful sign.
The greatest war the world has ever seen
is between capital and labor. The strife is
not like (which in history is called the
Thirty Years War, for it is war Of GEN.
turies, it is war OF the fivescontinents, it is
a war hemisphere. The middle classes in
this country, upon whom the nation has de-
pended for holding the balance of power
and for acting as mediators between the
two extremes, are diminishing; and il
things go on at the same ratio as they have
for the last twenty years been going on, it
will not be very long before there will be no
middle class In this country, but all will be
very rich or very poor. princes or paupers,
and the country will be given up to palaces
and novels.
The antagonistic forces have again and
again closed in upon each other. You may
pooh pooh it; you may say that this trouble.
like an angry child, will cry itself to sleep;
you may belittle it by calling it Fourierism,
or Socialism, or st. Simonism, or Nihilism,
or Communism, but that will not hinder the
fact that it is the mightiest, the darkest. the
most terrific threat of this century. Most
Of the attempts at pacification have been
dead failures, and monopoly is more arro-
CANT and the trades unions more bitter.
Give us more wages, cry the employees.
You shall have less" say the capitalists.
Compel us to do fewer hours of toll in a
day" You shall toll more hours" say the
others. Then, under certain conditions,
we will not work at;all" say these. Then
you shall starve," say those, and the work.
men gradually using up that which they
accumulated in better times, unless there
besome radical change, we shall have soon
in this country three million hungry men
and women. Now, three million hungry
people cannot be kept quiet. All the enact
mentS OF Legislatures and all the constabu-
laries of the cities, and all the army, and
navy of the United States cannotkeep three
million hungry people quiet. What then?
Will this war between capital and labor be
settled by human wisdom2 Never. The
brow OF one becomes more rigid, the fist of
the other more clinched.
achieve will be accomplished by Christian
ity if it be given full sway. You have heard
of medicines so powerful that one drop
would stop disease and restore q patient,
and have to tell you that one drop of my
text properly administered will stop all
these woes of society and give GONZALES
cence and complete health to all classes.
Whatsoever ye would that man should do
to you, do We even so to them" / shall first
show you this morning how this contro-
yersy between monopoly and hard work
cannot be stopped, and then / will show
you how this controversy will be settled.
Futile remedies. In the first place there
will come no pacification to this trouble
through an outcry against rich men merely
because they are rich. There is no labor
ing man on earth that would not be rich il
he could be. Sometimes through fortun-
ate invention, or through some accident
Of ofprosperity. aman who had nothing comes
to large estate, and we see him arrogant
and supercilious. and taking people by the
throat, just as other people took him by the
throat.
There is something very mean about
human nature when it comes to the top.
But it is no more sin to be rich than it is
a sin to be poor. There are these who
have gathered large estate through fraud,
and then there are millionaires who have
gathered their fortune through foresight
in regard to changes in the markets, and
through brilliant business faculty, and
every dollar of their estate is as honest as
the dollar which the plumber gets for mend
ing pipe, or the mason gets for building a
wall. There are those who keep in poverty
because Of their own fault. They might
have been well off, but they smoked or
chewed up all their earnings, or they lived
beyond their means, while others on the
same wages and on the same salaries went
on to competency. know man who is
all the time dDmplaining of his poverty and
crying out against rich men. while he him
self keeps two dogs, and chews and
smokes. and is filled to-, the chin with
whisky and beer!
Micawber said to David CopperAeld:
"Copperffeld, my boy, one pound income,
twenty shillings and sixpence expenses;
result. misery. But Copperfeld, my boy.
one pound income, expenses nineteen
shill1ngs and sixpence; result, happiness"
And there are vast multitudes of people
who are kept poor because they are the VIC
Tins of their own improvidence. 1t is no
sin to be rich, and it is no sin to be poor. /
protest against this outcry which 1 hear
against those who. through economy and
self denial and assiduity. have come to
large fortune. The bombardment of com
mercial success will never stop this contro-
versy between capital and labor,
Neither will the contest be settled by
cynical and unsympathetic treatment of the
laboring classes. There are those who
speak of them as though they were only
cattle or dranght horses. There nerves are
nothing. their domestic comfort is nothing,
They have no more sympathy for them than
hound has for hare, or hawk for hen,
or tiger for a calf. When Jean Vatican,
the greatest hero of Victor Hugo's writings,
after a life of suffering and brave endur-
ance, goes into incarceration and death,
they clap the book shut and say, Good for
himT They stamp their feet with indigna-
tion and say just the opposite of Save the
working classes" They have all their sym
pathies with Shylock, and not with Antonio
and Portia. They are plutocrats and their
feelings are internal. They are filed with
irritation and irascibility on this subject.
To stop this awful imbroglio between capi-
tai and labor they will lift not SO much as
the tip end of the little finger.
Neither will there be any paciflcation OF
this angry controversy through violence.
God never blessed murder. Blow up to-
morrow the country seats on the banks Of
the Hudson, and all the fine houses on the
Madison Square and Brooklyn Heights and
Brookly Hill and Rittenhouse Square and
Beacon Street, and all the bricks and timber
and stone will just fall back on the bare
head OF American labor. The worst ene-
mics of the working classes in the United
States and Ireland are their demented
coadjutors. A few years ago assassination
the assassination of Lord Frederick
Cavendish and Mr.. Burke in Phoenix Park,
Dublin, Ireland, in the attempt to avenge
the wrongs of Ireland--only turned away
from that afflicted people millions of sympa.
thizers. The attempt to blow up the House
OF Commons, in London, had only this efl
feet to throw out of employment tens of
thousands of innocent Irish people in En-