The intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1887-1891, 1890-05-24
LABOR'S STRIFE.
DR.. Talmage on the Conflict Be.
tween Labor and Capital.
Human Wisdom Unable to Settle the Com
troversy-Christianity~ Can-strikes No
solution-The Real Way to Insure
Peace and Prosperity.

soiution-The Real Way to Insure
Peace and Prosperity.
IN o late sermon at Brooklyn Rev. T.
Jalmage preached on "The Old
Fight to be Settled" from the text.
whatsoever ye would that men should
40 to you, do you even so to them"
Matthew, vii. IL. Following IL the
m
Two hundred and fifty thousand Ia
borers in Hyde Park, London, and the
streets of American and European cities
nlled with professions of workmen carry
ing banners, brings the subject of labor
and capital to the front. That all this
was done in peace and that as q 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 that which in history
Is called the Thirty Years War, for it is
Q war OF centuries. 1t is q war Of the
nve continents, II Is a war hemisphere.
The middle classes of this country, upon
whom the Nation has depended for hold
Ing the balance of power and for acting
as mediators between the two extremes,
are diminishing, and IL things go on at
the same ratio rs they have been for
the last twenty years been going on, IL
Will not be long before there will be no
middle class in this country, but all will
be very rich or very poor, princes or
palaces or paupers, and the whole ooun-
try will be given up to palaces and
novels.
The an~tagonistic 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
1t by calling 1t Fourierism, or Socialism,
or st. Simonism, or Nihilism, or Com
munism, but that will not hinder the
fact that 1t is the mightiest, the dark
est, the o terrific threat OF this CEN
fury. Most Of the attempts at pacifica-
ton have been dead failures, and
monopoly is more arrogant, 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
q 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 workmen gradually using
up that which they accumulated in bet
ter times, unless there be some radical
change, we shall have soon in this
country {. 1000, 900 hungry men and
Women. Now, 5000, 900 hungry people
can not be kept quiet. All the enact
ments Of Legislatures and all the con-
stabularies of the cities, and all the
army and navy of the United States can
not keep 5000, 900 hungry people quiet.
What then? Will this war be-
tween capital and labor be
settled by human wisdom? Never.
The brow Of the one becomes
more rigid, the fist of the other more
clinched. But that which human wis
dom can not achieve will be accom-
plished by Christianity, II it be given
full sway. You have heard of medi-
cines SO powerful that one drop would
stop o disease and restore q patient, and
/ have to tell you that n drop Of my
text, properly administered, will stop
all these woes of society and give CON
valescence and complete health to all
classes. Whatsoever ye would that
men should do to you, do ye aver SO to
them"
/ shall first show you how this CON
troversy between monopoly and hard
work can not be stopped, and then I will
show you how this controversy will be
settled.
In the first place there will come no
p~acihcation to this trouble through an
outcry against rich men merely because
they are rich. There is no laboring man
on earth that would not be rich II he
could be. Sometimes through a fortu-
nate invention, or through some acct
dent OF prosperity, man who had moth
ing 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 1t comes to the top. But it is no
more sin to be rich than it is a sin to be
poor. There are those who have
gathered q great estate through fraud,
and then there are millionaires who
have gathered their fortunes 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 mending q 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 we'll of but they smoked or
chewed up their earnings, or they lived
beyond their means, while others on the
same wages and on the same salaries
went on to competency. l know q man
who is all the time complaining OF his
poverty and crying out against rich men,
while he himself keeps two dogs, and
chews and smokes, and 10 filed to the
chin with whisky and beerl And there
are vast multitudes OF people who are
kept poor because they are the victims
OF their own improvldence. 1t Is no sin
TO be rich, and 1t is no sin to be poor. 1
protest against this outcry which / hear
against those who, through economy
and self-denial and assiduity, have come
to large fortunes. This bombardment
of commercial success will stop
this controversy 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 draft horses. Their
nerves are nothing; their domestic COM
fort is nothing; their happiness is moth
ing. They have no more sympathy for
them than a hound has for q hare, or o
hawk for o hen, or a tiger for a calf.
When Jean Vatican, the greatest hero
of Victor Hugo's writings, after q life Of
suffering and great endurance, goes into
Incarceration and death, they clap tho
book shut and say: Good for him!"
They stamp their feet with Indignation
and say just the opposite of Save the
working classes" They have all their
sympathies with Shylock, and not with
Antonio and Portia. They are pluto
Gratis and their feeling are internal.
They are filed with irritation and irras-
cibility on this subject. To stop this
awful imbroglio between capital and
labor they will lift not so much as the
tip end Of the little finger.
Neither will there be any pacification
Of this angry controversy through vio-
lence. God never blessed murder. Blow
up tomorrow the country seats on the
banks Of the Hudson, and all the fine
houses on Madison Square and Brooklyn
Heights and Brooklyn Hill and Ritten-
house Square and Beacon street, and all
the bricks and timber and stone will
Just fall back on the bare head Of Amer
lean labor. The worst enemies Of the