The Kinsley graphic. [volume] (Kinsley, Kan.) 1890-1940, 1890-05-23
LABOR'S STRIFE.
DR.. Talmage on the Conflict Be-
tween Labor and Capital.
Human Wisdom Unable to Settle the Con
troversy-ChristisnIty CRn-strikes No
soIution-The Real Way to Insure
Peace and Prosperity.

In late sermon at Brooklyn Rev. T.
Dewitt Talmage preached on THE Old
Fight to be Settled" from the text:
wv hatsoever ye would that men should
do to you, do you even so to them. Z"
Matthew, vii. IL. Following is the
sermon:
Two hundred and fifty thousand Ia
borers in Hyde Park, London, and the
streets of American and European cities
filed with professions of workmen carry
ing banners, brings the subject of labor
and capital to the front That ali this
was done in peace and that as a result in
many places arbitration has taken place
is a hopeful sign.
The greatest war the world has ever
seen is between cap tai and labor. The
strife is not like that which in history
is called the Thirty Years War, for 1t is
a war of centuries. 1t is war of the
five continents, it is a war hemisphere.
The middle classes of this country, upon
whom the Nation has expended for hold
ing the balance of rover and for acting
as mediators between the two extremes,
are diminishing, and if things go on at
the same ratio as they have been for
the last twenty years been going on, it
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 coun-
try Will be given up to palaces and
novels.
The antagonistic forces have again
and again closed in upon each other.
You may pooh-pooh 1T; you may say
that this trouble, like an angry child,
will cry itself to sleep; you may belittle
1t by calling it Fourierism, or Socialism,
or st. Simonism, or Nihilism, or Com
munism, but that will not hinder the
fact that it is the mightiest, the dark
est, the most 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
day" ''You shall toll moro 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 100000 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 100000 hungry people quiet.
What then? Will this war be-
tween capital and labor be
settled by human wisdom? Never.
Tho brow of tho 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, if it be given
full sway. You have heard of medi-
cines so powerful that one drop would
stop disease 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 We would that
men should do to you, do we even so to
them"
l shall first show you how this con-
troversy between monopoly and hard
work can not be stopped, and then will
show you how this controversy will be
settled.
In the first place there will come nc
pacification to this trouble through ar
outcry against rich men merely because
they are rich. There is no laboring mar
on earth that would not be rich if hi
could be. Sometimes through fortu
nate invention, or through some acci
dent of prosperity, man who had moth
ing comes to large estate, and we Sc:
him arrogant and supercilious, anC
faIr h. hn .,.g
as other people took him b,
the throat. There is something
very mean about human natur,
when it comes TO the top. But it is NJ
more sin to be rich than it is sin to b.
poor. There are those who hav
gathered great estate through fraud
and then there are millionaires VIII
have gathered their fortunes through
foresight in regard to changes in tn
markets, and through brilliant bushes
faculty, and every dollar of their estat
is as honest as the dollar which tn,
plumber gets for mending a pipe, or tn
mason gets for building wall.
There are those who keep in povert
because of their own fault. They Nigh
have been well of but they smoked o
chewed up their earnings, or they live
same wages and on the same salarie
went on to competency. / know a ma
who is all the time complaining of hi
poverty and crying out against rich men
while he himself keeps two dogs, an
chews and smokes, and is filled to tn
chin with whisky and beer! And ther
are vast multitudes of people who ar
kept poor because they are the victim
of their own improv.dence. 1t is no si
to be rich, and it is no sin to be poor.
protest against this outcry which hea
against those who, through econom
and self-denial and assiduity, have com
to large fortunes This bombardmen
IL commercial success VIII never sto
ihis controversy between capital an
labor.
Neither will the contest be settled b.
cynical and unsym pathetic treatment o
she laboring classes There are thos
who speak of them as though they wer
only cattle or draft horses. Thei
nerves are nothing; their domestic com
fort is nothing; their happiness is moth
ing. They have no more sympathy 70
them than hound has for hare, or
hawk for hen, or a tiger for calf
When Jean Vatican, the greatest her
of Victor Hugo's writ ngs. after life o
suffering and great endurance, goes int
incarceration and death, they clap tn
book shut and say: Good for himl
They stamp their feet with indignation
and say just the opposite of Save tn
working classes" They have all thei
sympathies with Shylocll, and not will
Antonio and Portia- They are pluto
Gratis and their feeling are internal
They are filled with irritation and irras