The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1893-04-13
PROBLEM OF THE MOB
INCREASING DlscoNTENT AND sus-
PlcIoN AMONG THE VERY POOR.

Indifference to Christianity but Tempo
rary-The Church Must Take Hold.
NEW York. April 9.-Mr. Dixon an
nounced this morning that until next
fall the usual review of current events
would be omitted, as the special series of
sermons to be begun next Sunday morn
ing would occupy the full morning hour.
The sermon this morning was discourse
upon the needs of the ignorant and help
less masses. The text was taken from
Matthew tx, 80, But when he saw the
multitudes he was moved with compass
sion, because they were distressed and
scattered as sheep not having a shep-
herd"
And yet this same crowd--this vast
multitude of distressed and scattered
people that 80 moved Jesus with pain
gathered at last round his cross and
Joined with the proud and the rich in
mocldng and laughing at his agony.
Those that did not join in the mocking
stood beholding in silence. Hegel has
defined a mob to be that force in a ma
tion which acts without or apart from
the organization of the whole. There
may be thus an ignorant or learned
mob, a mob of men Of fashion or of men
of letters. But the spirit is the same,
and in its severance from the organic
people there is the same essential vulgar
ity. We must remember, in any discus
sion of the problem of the mob, that it is
capable Of this wider definition. The
church that seeks its own good as against
the good of the community would be it
self mob. The class or clique or fac
ton, educated or uneducated, that blind
ly seeks its own interests as against the
communal interests is animated by the
spirit of the mob.
When the leaders Of study join with
these factions in sympathy or in action,
they have abdicated the throne and Joined
the mob. When all England, and in fact
all the world, with uncovered head
mourned the death of Tennyson as he
was laid to rest in Westminster abbey,
the Prince of Wales preferred to go to
the race track and bet rather than to pay
homage to the immortal eulogist of his
father and the laureate Of the English
nation. In that act the Prince of Wales
was no better than the dirty leader Of
the anarchist mob that must be driven
into q corner, dubbed into submission
and dragged to the penitentiary.
THE FIGHT OF LABOR AND CAPITAL.
But it is not of this larger view Of the
spirit of the mob that / wish to speak
this morning. 1t is rather the cry of
need from the dark, vulgar mass, which
the world has misnamed the mob. that l
wish you to hear today. We are in the
midst Of labor wars, and one miserable
faction springs upon the throat Of an
other faction, and they fight each other to
the death. They call each other traitors,
liars, thieves, and while they destroy one
another their common enemy laughs at
their calamity and mocks at their weak
ness. We see the pitiable spectacle Of
the Knights Of Labor in one hostile
camp, the Federation Of Labor in an
other, the employers fighting both, and
the wretched people ground to death be-
tween the three. Do the masses need a
gospel? Thousands and hundreds of
thousands Of them are apparently alienat-
ed from Christianity Does this aliena-
ton mean a real clash between the needs
Of the people and the ideal Of Christian
ity? Far from it. The opposition is SIM
ply upon the surface. 1t is a temporary
misunderstanding. It must pass as the
veil of ignorance is lifted. Hundreds Of
thousands Of the masses are in heart
longing and praying for light, for guild
ance and salvation.
The problem Of the mob is the problem
Of the race,
First--It must be 50 because of the
ranscendent sacrifice made for the COM
mon people in the life and the death of
Jesus. Jesus Christ spent his life with
the poor, ,laboring for them, leading them,
teaching them, healing them. We are told
that God so loved the world that he gave
his only begotten Son that this world
nightly He gave himself. God was in
Christ reconciling the world unto him
self. The world here referred to is this
dark, restless throng, distressed and
scattered as sheep having no shepherd.
II was unto this mob, lost in tho wilder
ness of self and sin and ignorance, that
Jesus came. He said that he came not
to call the righteous, but sinners. So
great sacrifice as his life and death
could not have been made had not the
need been commensurate with the deed.
Love measures its work by needs, not by
deserts. So God measured his sacrifice,
not by what the mob deserved, but by
what it needed.
TRUE HISTORY OF THE COMMON PEOPLE.
Second-The history Of the world, so
far as it has been written at all, is the
story of the needs of this great multitude.
1t is the record Of their sorrows set to
universal music. 1t is the story of their
hopes, OF it is the sad record of their
despair. Real history tells the story of
their dumb and bitter struggle with the
material forces of the universe. How
they wrestled with famine and hunger
and cold and unexplored forests, wild
continents, slave chains, war, pestilence
and tyrannies. Beyond the story of this
great mass there is no human history.
The cry of the mob is the cry of the
world. The history Of the failure Of the
race, where it has failed, is the story of
their ignorance and their helplessness.
They are the prey of the strong and the
shrewd. Their folly and gullibility are
proverbial. When they have organized
for their own interests ald made few
steps of real progress in demanding from
the strong their rights, again and again
are they betrayed by their own leaders.
A young labor leader in New York
said to me some time ago with great bit
terness: "What is the use of entering into
any campaign, into any struggle, ON be-
half Of the laboring people? They arc so