Connecticut western news., 1890-05-21


 icialism, or St. Simonism, or Nihilism, Or Communism, but that will not hin der the fact that it is the mightiest, the darkest, the most terrific threat of this century. Most of the attempts at pa cification 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 day" ';You shall toll more hours" say the others. ''Then under certain conditions, we will not work at all," say these. linen you shall starve, /" say those, and the workmen gradually using up that which they accumulated in better times, unless there be some radical change, we shall have soon ill this country three million hungry men and women. Now, three million hungry people cannotS5e kept quiet All the enact ments ofSsgislatures and all the con- stabularies ef the cities, and all the army and navy of the United States cannot keep three million hungry peo- pie quiet What then? Will this war between capital and labor be settled by human wisdom9 Never. The brow of the one becomes more rigid, the fist of the other more clinched.
 FUTILE REMEDIES PROPOSED.
 But that which human wisdom can not achieve will be accomplished by Christianity if it be given full sway. You have heard of medicines so pow erful that one drop would stop dis ease and restore a patient; and have to tell you that one 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 even so to them
 shall first show you this morning how this controversy between monop- oly and hard work cannot be stopped, ard then will show you how this controversy will be settled.
 Futile remedies. In the first place there will come no qualification to this trouble through an outcry against rich men merely because they are rich. l There is no laboring man on earth that would not be rich if he could be. Sometimes through fortunate inven- ton, or through some accident of prosperity, man who had nothing comes to large estate, and we see him arrogant and superciious, and taking people by the throat just as other peo- pie took him by the throat. There is something very mean about human nature when it comes to the top. But it is no more a sin to be rich than it is sin to be poor. There are those who have gathered great 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 mending 8 1 pipe, or the mason gets for building wall There are those who keep in l poverty because of their own fault. They might have been we'll off, but they smoked or chewed up their earn ings, or they lived beyond their means, while others on the same wages and on the same salaries went on to com potency 1 knowa man who is all the true complaining of his poverty and cr,ing out against rich men, while he himself keeps two dogs, and chews and smokes and is filled to the chin with whisky and beer!
 . Micawber said to David Copperfield: :: 'Copperdeld, my boy, one pound in- come, twenty shillings and sixpence expenses; result, misery. But Cop perfield, my boy, one pound income, expenses nineteen shillings and six pence; result, happiness. And there are vast multitudes of people who are kept poor because they are the vic tims of their own improvidence. It is no sin to be rich, and it is no sin. to be poor. protest against this outcry which I hear against those who, through economy and self denial and assiduity, have come to large fortune. This bombardment of commercial suc- cess will never stop this controversy between capital and labor.
 NEITHER THROUGH CONTEMPT NOR vIO-
 LENCE.
 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 draught horses Their nerves are nothing, their domestic comfort is nothing, their happiness is nothing. They have no more sympathy for them than hound has for hare, or hawk for hen, or a tiger for a calf. When Jean Valjean, the greatest hero of Victor Hugo's writings, after life of suffering and brave endurance, goes into incarceration and death, they clap the book shut and say, Good for himr They stamp their feet with in dignation and say just the opposite of Save the Working Classes" They have all their sympathies with Shy lock, and not with Antonio and Por- tia. They are plutocrats, and their feelings are internal They are filled 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 end of the little finger.
 Neither will there be any pacifica- tion 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 Bl ooklyn heights and Brooklyn hill and Rittenhouse square and Beacon