Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1890-05-24
THE TALMAGE SERMON.
What the Well-KnoWn Divine Has to
Say on the Labor Question
Subject Of Discourse: .sThe Old Fight
10 he Settled.o

Subject Of Discourse: s.The Old Fight
10 he Settled"
Text: Whatsoever ge ,could that men
should do to you, do ye eren so unto them. y
Matt. VII, II.
Two hundred and fifty thousand laborers
IN Hyde Park London, and the streets of
American and European cities filled with
professions of workmen carrying 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, arbitra-
ton 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 it is a war of CEN
furles, il is war of the five continents, it
is a war hemisphere. The middle classes
IN this country, upon whom the nation has
depended for holding the balance of power
and for acting as mediators between the
two extremes, are diminishing; and if
things go on at the same ratio as they have
for the last twenty years been going on it
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 pooh it. you may say that this trou-
bic, like an angry child, will cry itself to
sleep, you may belittle it by calling it Fou-
rierism, OF Socialism, or st. Simonism, or
Nlhlllsn. or Communism, but that will not
hinder the fact that it is the mightiest, the
darkest the most terrific threat of this
century. Most of the attempts at pacifi-
cation have been dead failures. and monop-
oily is more arrogant and the trades unions
more bitter. Give us more wages cry the
employees. You shall have less, says the
capitalists. compel MS to do fewer hours
of toll in day "You shall toll more
hours, say the others Then, under GER
tain conditions, we will not work at all,
say these Then you shall starve" say
those, and the workbench gradually using up
that which they accumulated in better times,
unless there be some radical change. we shall
have soon in this country three million
hungry men and women. Now three mill
ion hungry people cannot be kept quiet All
the enactments of legislatures and all the
consta bularies of the cities, and all the army
AMI navy OF the United States cannot keep
three million hungry people quiet. What
them 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 clinche1.
But that which human wisdom cannot
achieve will be accomplished by Christian
ilN II u tH gwen Auli sway. L on nave heard
of medicines so powerful that one drop
would stop a 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 conyalescence
and complete health 10 all classes. "What-.
soever We would that men should do TO you,
do You even SO TO them | shall first show
We this morning how this controversy be-
tween monopoly and hard work cannot be
gfnprqA nd fbap I will ShDyN how this
controversy will be settled.
Futile remedies. In the first place there
viii come no pacification 10 this trouble
through an cutlery 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 fortunate in
veution, or through some accident of pros
perity. man who had nothing comes TO
large estate, and we see him arrogant and
supercihous, and taking people by the throat
Just as other people took him by the throat.
There Is something very mean about
human nature when il cones to the top.
But II IS no more sin to be rich than it is a
sin 10 he poor There are thoss who have
gathered a 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 a
pipe, or the mason gets for building wall.
There are those who keep i'll poverty because
of their own 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 en- to competency. |
know 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
Micawher said to David Copperfeld:.
"Copperfeld, my boy, one pound income,
twenty shillings and sixpence expenses; re
suit. misery. But Copperfeld my boy, one
pound income, expenses nineteen shuilngs
and sixpence; 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. | protest against
this cutlery which | hear against those who,
through economy and self-denial and
/ assiduity, have come 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 unsympathetic treatment of
the laboring classes. There are those who
speak of them as though they were only cat
tie or draught horses. Their nerves are
nothing. their domestic comfort is nothing.
They have no more sympathy for them than
hound has for a hare, or hawk for a hen,
or tiger for a calf. When Jean Vatican,
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 him. They
stamp their feet with indignation and say
Just the opposite of Save the working
classes They have all their sympathies
with Shylocs and not with Antonio AMI
Porta, They are plutocrats, and their feel
ings are internal. They are filed with irrita-
ton and Feasibility 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 paciicatiOn of
this angry controversy through violence.
God never blessed murder. Blow up to-
morrow the country seats on the banks of
the Hudson, and all the fine houses on Madi-
son Square AMI Brooklyn Heights and
and Brooklyn Hill and Ritteuhouse Square
aud Beacon street. AMI all the bricks and
timber and stone viii Just fall back on the
bare head of American labor. The worst
enemies of the working classes in the United
States and ireland arr their demented Co
adjutors A few years ago assassination
the assassination of Lord Frederick Caven-
dish and Mr. Burke in Phoenix PARK, Dub
wrongs of lreland-ouly turned away from
that afflicted people millions OF sympa-
thi2ers. The attempt to blow up the HOUSE
of Commons, IN London, had only this effect:
70 throw out of employment tens of thou
sands Of innocent Irish people in England.
In this country the torch Put to the fac
tories that have discharged hands for good
or bad reason. distractions on the rail track
in front of midnight express trains because
the offenders douot like the President of the
company strikes on shipboard the hour they
We're going to sail, or in printing offices the
hour the paper was to go to press III 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 a 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 four hundred thousand dol
| lars worth of wages and have had poorer
wages ever since. Traps sprung suddenly
| upon employer, and violence, never took
one knot out of the knuckle of toll, or Put
one farthing of wages into a callous palm.
| Barharism will never cure the wrongs OF
/ civilization. Mark that
Frederick the Great admired some land
near his palace at Potsdam and he resolved
to get it. 1t was owned by miller He Of
fered the miller three times the value OF the
| property. The miller would not take it, be
/ cause it was the old homestead and he felt
about it as Naboth felt about his vineyard
when Ahab wanted it, Frederick the Great
was rough and terrible man. and he ordere /
the miller into his presence; and the King,
with stick In his hand-a stick with which
he sometimes struck his officers of state-sad
TO this miller: Nov | have offered YOU
three times the value of that property, auC
If you won't sell it III take it anyhow Tn,