The advocate., 1891-09-02
CONCERNING STATESMEN.

cnurcn OF this CITY on tue preceUInS uayI
which is 80 marked departure from the
regulation church discourse, and which
contains 90 much hard sense that we are
pleased to reproduce 1t. If the Rev.
Sheldon continues to preach such doc
trine as this, his church should receive
the encouragement and patronage Of all
the tOilers Of our city.
Mr.. Sheldon said that craftsmanship does
not consist in beating the other fellow.
That is politics. Craftsmanship is fighting
the devil just as much as preaching is.
There Is no virtue in it unless il stands for
the continual improvement of the human
being in society. Pay the true statesman
is not party man. The time has come in
this country when parties must yield to
principles, and man has right to belong
only to the principles. wonder that men
have been enslaved so long to the crockery
god of psrtisanship.
If man has belonged to some party for
a great many years, and then seeing it's in
consistenCies and hypocrisy has had the
courage to break away from it for some
thing that promises better, the press has
howled at him treason! treason" ss if he
had committed the objectionable sin. And
there is now in the mind Of the purely party
man; "Once a Republican, always Re-
publican. Once a Democrat, always q
Democrat" If some of the great men of
our history were alive to day, very much
doubt if they would subscribe to the parties
that claimed them while living.
I believe that the time is drawing near
when the great political parties shall be
merged into something which can more
truly be called league of the great people.
Party lines are vanishing.
It would be refreshing, said Mr.. Sheldon,
to see some statesmen who are not Candi-
dates for Office.
large part of the sermon was devoted to
temperance and prohibition; the latter part
of it, however, was devoted to statesman
manship as applied to the rights of man.
The true statesman, said Mr.. Sheldon,
must attack the problem of the common
rights of man. Ask the most thoughtful
minds of the age what is the great question
of the age and they will answer, "The social
question" And what is the social question?
II is the question of the rights Of man in Or
gsnized society. And what are his rights?
The right to his share of the earth's pro-
ducts and of mans creative energy. And
what is his share? A just proportion neo-
essary for his growth and happiness as a
human being based upon his value not
singly as producer, but as a soul with an
immortal existence. The true statesman
confronts problem here, the solution of
which might well tax the energy of giant
in intellect and rouse the sympathy of a
Christ in compassion. believe that Christ
himself was a socialist TO this extent. He
taught the fatherhood Of God and the
brotherhood of man. He taught that rich
man could with difficulty enter the kingdom
of heaven. He taught that wages were to
be adjusted not simply by length of hours of
labor, but by individual need. He taught
that any combination of men by which the
poor were oppressed was a crime in the
eyes of God to be rebuked. If Christ were
here today he would attack men in high
places who have made great fortunes by
speculation. He would denounce the selfish
trusts which have captured the necessities Of
life and dole them out to the public at their
own prices. he would sCourge the rascally
high born landlords and mobiles of Europe
for making it possible for one man to own
a =. L.. A Z