The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1890-05-30
LABOR'S STRIFE.
DR.. Talmage on the Conflict Be.
tween Labor and Capital.
Human wisdom Unable to Settle the Con
troversy-Christianity Can-strikes No
solution-The Real Way to Insure
Peace and Prosperity.

troversy-Christianity Can-strikes No
solution-The Real Way to Insure
Peace and Prosperity.
In a late sermon at Brooklyn Rev. T.
Dewitt Talmage preached on THE Old
Fight to be Settled" from the text:
Whatsoever We would that men should
do to you, do you even so to them
Matthew, vii. IL. Following is the
sermon:
Two hundred and fifty thousand la
borers in Hyde Park. London, and the
streets of American and European cities
filled 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 . result in
many places arbitration has taken place
is 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 a war of the
five continents, it 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 II 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
| ralacau or ,,auparo apd tho ,rb ola oou,,
try will be given up to palaces and
| novels.
The sntagonistic 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 Com
munism, but that will not hinder the
| fact that it is the mightiest, the dark
est. the most terrific threat of this GEN.
fury. Most of the attempts at pacifca-
| 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
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 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, 10000 hungry people
can not be kept quiet. All the enact
rIents 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.
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, IL it be given
full sway. You have heard of medi-
cines so powerful that one drop would
stop disease and restore patient, and
1 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"
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 no
pacification 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. Sometimes through fortu-
nate invention. or through some acct
dent of prosperity, aman who had moth
ing comes to large estate, and We see
him arrogant and superclious, 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 sin to be
poor. There are those who have
gathered 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 pipe, or the
Sop ra,S for hni1dipD ua1I
There are those who keep in poverty
because of their own fault. They might
have been well 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. 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 |
rhews and smokes, and is filed to the |
chin with whisky and beer. 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. / |
protest against this cutlery which hear |
against those who, through economy |
and self-denial and assiduity. have come
to large fortunes. This bombardment |
of commercial success Will never 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; theF domestic COM
fort is nothing; their happiness is moth
ing. They have no more sympathy for