The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-09-30
Assumes the Role of a
Preacher at Metropolitan
Temple.
HIS REASONS FOR SOCIALISM.
Christ - Heard by Big
Audience.

Qlgnl-eVen the galleries were CroWucu
until hardly standing-room was left-to
hear James Keir Hardie, the English
Socialist, speak. The ex-Member of Par
lament and present president of the indie
pendent Labor party of Great Britain,
chose for his subject, as sort of text, the
words of Christ, Consider the Lilies, How
They Grow"
T. J. Burns, the president of the Cigar
makers Union, was the chairman, and on
the platform was large number of repre-
sentatives of labor organizations, including
Harry A. Knox of the A. R. o., who led the
Sacramento strike, Secretary A. Furuseth
of the Coast Seamen's Union, Secretary
James H. Rose of the National Labor
Army, President Windsor of the recently
organized Painters Union, Mrs. Anna +.
with labor reform movements.
There was quite a select musical pro-
gramme with some choral singing by the
audience besides the addresses, and the
organ of the temple was put to effective
use. The programme opened with the
"Marseillaise" as an organ solo, by Mrs. M.
W. Fairweather. The Bel Canto quartet
followed and was encored, and Chairman
Burns made the opening address. In Mr..
Burns opinion change in present social
conditions is needed, considering the way
machinery is supplanting hand labor and
the ability of capital to control the
machinery. The large audience present,
he said, justified him in the belief that the
people were DESTROYS of change.
After some singing by II. w. Fairweather
Mr.. Hardie spoke. Near him stood large
crayon portrait of himself facing the audi
ence. His accent was broad, as might be
expected Of Scotchman.
The application of his text came quickly.
He alluded to the great agitator of 1860
years ago, in Judea, and his doctrines OF
taking no thought for the morrow" and
the address assumed the nature OF ser
mon in its way. His point was tina
humanity had departed from nature and
He observed with rising infection, in
connection with fitting anecdote:
gone over to stupid worship of Mammon.
We expect men and women TO grow up and
live beautiful lives under surroundings which
kill the plant.
The similitude of sickly, thorn pierced,
weed-robbed flower he made to suit the
struggling worker OF to-day, observing:
And so We stand to protest against a system
which makes life and conditions unnatural.
He proceeded in the following strain:
We are told that competition and natural Sc
lection are the order Of the life of plants and
and selection under natural laws. Upon our
system, however, have been imposed unnatural
laws.
What is the type of man who survives in
the employ of say, the Southern Pacific? Is it
the strong, sturdy, self-reliant man who has
courage OF his convictions; who stands up for
his manhood and insists upon living full,
round life? No. Is it not rather the mean,
crayen-spirited, cowardly tale-bearer-the lick
spittle-who survives? Is it not such who be-
come the superintendents and are held up as
M dolS n hp fOllOyTad0
a man? Why, man to survive properly must
be surrounded with natural conditions.
Then as to the text again, the speaker
thought that to apply its words ito
the million and quarter Of men
out of work in Great Britain and
the several millions of unemployed in
this Countrywide great mass of voorhees,,
starving men, women and children who do
not know from where the next days food
is to come fronts to add insult to their
misery" And for any preacher who would
tell them to take no thought of the NOR
row, in Mr.. Harrison's apinion. would be
"simply to play the fool.'
The conflict between the theories of the
schools, respectively, of individualism
and collectivism, in the controversy of
political economy, next engaged his atten-
ton. This gave him occasion to refer
to the debate some time ago between
Congressman Mcguire, single-taxer, and
Job Hartman, Socialist, reports of which
he had read. He constructed an argument
in favor of socialism and against the
theory of indivldualistic effort.
A caustic allusion to the millionaires of
this country and their alliances with the
"titled nobodies" abroad he INDUCED in
as showing what individualistic effort in
the financial, commercial and industrial
survival of the fittest' system of America
had produced.
Socialism, he explained, was system of
grand cooperation of all the individuals
for their welfare as a whole, and he ad-
vocated socialism in its entirety and its
most extreme sense. He believed in ''work-
ing for it free from complications with any
other question under the sum-" He con-
tinued:
There Is great outcry against the sports
and pleasures of the masses; against sensa-
tional newspapers and amusements, democrat.
izing literature and vice, but nothing is said of
the cause-that no right and proper vent is
given to humanity's surplus energy, and it
therefore finds its outlet in questionable chan
nels
We hear much said about men not going to
church, and thank God that workingmen are
not going to church to-day. The so-called
driving people from the churches The work
ingmen of to-day, who are laboring six days in
the week for their oppressors. refuse to be
cribbed, cabined and confined by the dogmas,
and to enter and find their oppressors sitting
in the front pews
never feel like worshiping in city. Why,
city life is not human lifel We want to get
men out of the sordid rut, in which the COM
mercial spirit has crushed them to-day. Your
business men-your middle-class men-are en-
gagged in the one sordid pursuit of making
money, and the workingman' s time is all taken
up in procuring bread and butter for his family.
We want system which will allow a man to
be free to develop the highest of which he is
capable. I don't believe in machine-made
humanity. l want men to be free and TO de-
velop properly.
Socialism, he said, was not a purely
materialistic theory-not a mere bread
and butter gospel. In this connection he
found opportunity to satirize the fashion
following among the aristocrats of the old
country, and acknowledging in general.
In his conclusion he said the movement
was class movement, and it remained
with the workingmen themselves to have
its aims realized. The ultimatum of So
cialism was the ownership and control by
the people of the means of production and
exchange, and loye-"loving thy neighbor
as myself '-reasoned Mr.. Hardie, was the
true law of life. instead of competition