St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1896-01-13
TALKED FOR LABOR
w. L. SHUMAKER, OF ST. PAUL, DIS
CUSSES IT'S RELATION TO
THEOSOPHY.
DANISH BROTHERHOOD BUSY.
COMMITTEE WORK COMPLETED
DELEGATES WILL BANQUET
TONIGHT.
OsTER EXHIBIT CONTINUED.
Art ShOwn-News of Mime
apOIis.

w. A. Shumaker, of ST. Paul, spoke
before the Minneapolis branch of the
T. S. A, on the subject: ''Theosophy
as a Solvent Of the Labor Problem"
yesterday. He was listened to with
great attention by the audience to whom
he addressed his remarks
Referring to the complete o-ganiZa
ton of society, the speaker found the
fair and equitable adjustment of the ex-
change of labor to be the essence of the
labor question. Maintenance of a fair
and equitable adjustment is honesty
ana justice between man and man, and
its violation, so that one is deprived Of
the product of his labor, to enrich an
other, no matter under what guise it is
done, is robbery and eXtOrtion. He said
LAS sickness and pain warn us that
our physical body is out of adjustment,
SO abuses and injustice and want and
suffering warn us that our economic
body has lost it's balance of fairness and
equity. Men throughout the land toll
through long days and nights at the
most eXhausting and disagreeable la
Dor, for barely enough to support life
while every impulse toward mental and
spiritual progress is crushed by the
weight of poverty and physical eXhauS-
ton. The average life of a cigarmaker
is thirty-one years, and Of glassblow-
er, Twenty-Five years, as against an aV-
erage of sixty for the employers. The
most despotic throne on earth would
be shaken by the tumult that would
follow decree that all glaSSblOWerS
should be put to death on arriving at
twenty-n1ne years of age. Yet the same
thing is done by the edict of business
Childhood, too helpless to question or
resist, has no sacrednesS to the spirit
OF commercial selfishnesS, and today 500
| children, under the age of fourteen,
taken from home and school, are stunt
ed IN body and mind in the stores and
factories of Minneapolis. Seven hun
dred women in this city work ten hours
a day over the sewing machine for So a
week or less, while their wealthy en-
ployers contribute to foreign missions
and wonder in holy horror at the de-
praVity Of the lower classes when some
| poor girl gives up the hard, unequal
battle against want and goes to a life
of shame"
| 1t is plain that noreal progress can be
/ made so long as the struggle OF life re-
/ mains upon the selfish plane If our
higher selves are to be developed here
upon earth, then in no selfish struggle
for wealth can the labor question be
solved Greed of gain in this life will
bring greed of gain in the next Among
primitive people physical force was the
arblter, and gradually the tyranny of
the physically strong over the physical
ly weak gave place to the tyranny of
the mentally strong over the mentally
weak. The mind working toward the
achievement of wealth built up it's own
/ ideals and wealth has come to be de-
/ sired for its self alone. This is some
/ thing peculiar to our times, for it marks
/ the higher point in the development of
intellect upon the line of business ac-
tlVlty. Farther than this it cannot CO.
1t must advance to higher and nobler
ideals and aspirations, or, beating blind
! against the law of it's own limitations.
destroy itself and all that depends upon
it, The path of time is thickly strewn
with the wreck of nations who thus ar
rived at the branching of the roads and
We're so bound to the false gods they
! had created that they could not take
the higher path when they reached it.
Thus fell Babylon and Rome-thus will
| we rail- unless we, as a race leave the
plane of thought whose lessons we have
considered, for the higher one now OPEN
ing before u.s.
Theosophy says above the mind
stands the SOUL whose eye is intuition
and whose voice is conscience. It's aims
are too high for worldly greed, it's ideals
too lofty for self1shness Occasionally
we see man whose life is far above the
strife for gain, to whom love and Justice
are the supreme laws of life Such men
give us elimpSes of the manifestation
OF the soul in human life but so long a.
material prosperity is the principal good
IN Ire, so loEg will the conflict go on
ana SO long will the weak be trampled
down.