Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-05-19
TALMAGE ON STRIKES.
Violence and Threats Only So Many
Blows on the Head Of Labor.
GREATEST. CONTEST In HISTORY
Not to be Settled by the Economists, but by
Employers and Men.
NEEDING ALWAYS THE GOLDEN RULE
ESPECIAL rzLroxAM TO THE DIsPArcH.r

ing Of services. Alter the usual prellmin-
ary exercises this morning, DR.. Talmage
preached on The Old Fight to be Settled,
from the text: Whatsoever ye would that
men should do to you, DO We even so to
them. !" Matt vii:12.) Following is the
sermon in full:
Two hundred and fifty thousand laborers in
HYDE Park. London, and the streets of Amer
lean and European cities filled with professions
of workmen carrying banners, bring the sub
feet of labor and capital to the front. That all
this was done in peace. and that as a result in
many places. arbitration has taken place, Is q
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 il is a war Of centuries, 1t is
war of the five continents, il is war hemis-
pheric 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 dimin-
ishinc; aud if things go on at the same ratio as
they have for the last 20 years been going on, II
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
poon it; YOU may say that this trouble. like an
angry child will cry itself to sleep; you may be-
little it BY calling it Fourierism, or Socialism,
or st. Siomonsm, or Nihilism, or Communism.
but that will not hinder the fact that 1t is the
mightiest the darkest,
THE MOST TERRIFIC THREAT
of this century. Most OF the attempts at paci-
fcation have been dead failures, and monopoly
is more arrogant and the trades unions more
bitter. "Gve us more wages" cry the EN-
ployes "You shall have less" say the capital
lists. compel us to do fewer hours OF toll in
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 accumu-
lated in better times, unless there be some
radical chanre,we shall have Soon in this
country 900 hungry men and women Now,
100000 hungry people can not be kent quiet
All the enactments OF legislatures and all the
constabularies of the cities. and all the army
and navy of the United States cannot keep
100000 hungry people quiet. What then?
VIII this war between capital and labor be
settled by human wisdom? Never. The brow
OF the one becomes more rigid, the fist Of the
other more cllnched.
But that which human wisdom cannot
achieve will be accomplished by Christianity If
IL be given full sway. You have heard Of med
icines powerful that one drop would stop a
disease and restore patient; and have TO
tell you that one drop Of my text properly ad-
and give convalescence and complete health 10
all classes. Whatsoever ye would that men
should do to you, do ye even so TO them"
shall first show you this morning how this
controversy between monopoly and hard work
cannot be stopped, and then i will show you
how this controversy will be settled.
Futile remedies In the first place there will
come no pacitcauon 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 If he could be. Some
nah nR
through some accident of prosperity, a man
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
ECONOMY AND HAPPINESS.
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 door,
There are those who have gathered a great est ate
through fraud, and then there are millonaires
who have gathered their fortune through fore
sight 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 mendng a pipe or
the mason gets for building wall. There are
those who keep in poverty because of their
fault They might have been well off 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 a 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 is filed
to the chin with whisky and beer.
Micawber said to David Copperfeld: Cop
perfeld, my boy, El income, 2Os. and Cd. ex-
penses; result. misery. But. Copperield, my
boy, 81 income, expenses l9s. and 3d.; result
happiness" And there are vast multitudes of
people who are kept poor because they are the
victims of their own improvidence 1t is no
sin to be rich, and it is no sin to be poor pro-
test against this outcry which l hear against
those who, through economy and self-denial
and assiduity, have GENE to large fortune.
This bombardment of commercial Success will
never stop this controversy between capital and
labor.
Neither will the contest be settled by cynical
and unsympathctic treatment of the laboring
classes. There are those who speak of them as
though they were only cattle or draught-horses
Their nerves are nothing, their domestic COM
fort is nothing, their happiness is nothing.
They have no more sympathy for them than a
hound has for hare or hawk for hen, or a
tiger for calf When Jean Vatican, tn 9
greatest hero OF Victor Hugo's writings, after a
life of suffering ana brave endurance goes into
incarceration and death, they clap the book
shut and say, Good for himw They stamp
their feet with indignation and say Just the op-
Posite of Save the working classes" They
have all their sympathies 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 capital
and labor they will lift not so much as the tip
emo OF Ine little nnEer.
VIOLENCE WON'T WIN.
Neither will there be any pacifcation of this
angry controversy through violence. 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 Rit-
tenhouse square and Beacon street. and all the
bricks and timber and stone will lust fall back
on the bare head of American labor. The
worst enemies of the working classes in the
United States and Ireland are their demented
coadjutors. A few years ago assassination
the assassination of Lord Frederick Cayendish
ana Mr. Burke in Phoenix Park, Dublin Ire
land in the attempt to avenge the wrongs of
1reland-only turned away from that afflicted
people millions of sympathizers. The attemnt
TO blow up the House OF Commons, in London
had only this effect: to throw out of employ
ment tens of thousands Of innocent Irish peo-
pie inlEngland
In this country the torch put to the factories
that have discharged hands for good or bad
reason: obstructiOns on the rail-track in front
OF midnight express trains because the offend
ers do not like the President of the company:
strikes on shipboard the hour they were going
TO SAL, or In printing offices the hour the paper
was to 60 to press, or in mines the day the coal
was to be delivered, or on house scaffoldings
SO the builder fails in keeping his contract-all
these are only hard blow on the head of
American labor, and cripple its arms, and lame
its feet and pierce its heart. AS a result of one
OF our great American strikes you find that the
operatives lost 100000 worth of wages and
have had poorer wages ever since. Traps
sprung suddenly upon employers and violence,
never took one knot out of the knuckle of toll
or put one farthlng of wages into a callous
palm Barbarism will never cure the wrongs
of civilization. Mark that!
Well. If this controversy between capital and
labor cannot be settled by human wisdom it is
time for us to look somewhere else for relief
and il points from my text roseate and iubilant
and puts one hand on the broadcloth shoulder
OF capital, and puts the other hand on the
homespun-covered shoulder of toll, and says
with voice that will grandly and gloriously
settle this, and settle everything. Whatsoever
ye would that men should do to you, do We even