The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1897-09-10
TROUBLES OF LABOR.
REV. DR.. TALMAGE'S PLAN FOR SET
Ting THE GREAT WORK CONFLICT.

ent Ratio 1t Will Not He Long Before
All VIII Be Either Princes or Paupers.
His Remedy.
WASHINGTON, Sept 5.-Dr, Talmage's
plan for settling the industrial troubles
of our day is set forth in this sermon.
His text is Matthew vii, 10, "Whatso-
ever ye would that men should do to
you, do you even SO to them. "
The greatest war the world has ever
seen is between capital and labor. The
strife is not like tia which in history
is called the Thirty Years war, for it
is a war of centuries, it is war of the
five continents, it is 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
are now going 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 are closing in
upon each other. The Pennsylvania
miners strikes, the telegraph operators
strikes, the railroad employees strikes,
the movements of the boycotters and
the dynamiters are only skirmishers be-
fore a general engagement, or, if you
prefer it, escapes through the safety
valves of an imprisoned force which
promises the explosion of society. You
may poohpooh it; you may say that
this trouble, like an angry child, will
cry itself to sleep; you may belittle it
by calling it Fourierism or socialism
or St. Simonism or nihilism or COM
munism, but that will not hinder the
fact that it is the mightiest, the dark
est, the most terrific threat of this cen
fury. All attempts at pacification have
been dead failures, and monopoly is
more arrogant and the trades unions
more bitter. "Give us more wages"
Cry the employees. "You shall have
less" say the capitalists Compel us
to do fewer hours of toll in a day."
"You shall toll more hours, say the
others. "Then under certain conditions
we will not work at ALL" say these.
Then you shall starve," say those.
And, the workmen gradually using up
that which they accumulated in better
times, unless there be some radical
change we shall have soon in this
A
women. Now, 1000. 600 hungry people
cannot be kept quiet. All the'enact-
ments of legislatures and all the con-
stabularies of the cities and all the
army and navy of the United States
cannot keep 100000 hungry people
quiet. What, then? Will this war be-
tween capital and labor be settled by
human wisdom? Never. The brow of
the one becomes more rigid, the fist of
the other more clinched.
But that which human wisdom can
not achieve will be accomplished by
Christianity if it be given full sway.
You have heard of medicines so power
full that one drop will stop a disease
and restore patient, and 1 have to tell
you that one drop of my text properly
administered will stop all these woes of
society and give COnvalescence and COM
plete health to all classes. Whatsoever
ye would that men should do to you, do
you even so to them.
Futile Remedies.
l shall first show you how this quarrel
between monopoly and hard work can
not be stopped and then 1 will show
you how this controversy will be settled. |
Futile remedies. In the first place,
there will come no pacification to this .
trouble through an outcry against rich
men merely because they are rich.
There is no member of trades union
on earth that would not be rich if he
could be. Sometimes through fortu-
nate invention or through some acct
dent of prosperity man who had moth
ing comes to large estate, and we see
him arrogant and supercilious and tax
ing people by the throat just as other
people took him by the throat There is
something very mean about human ma
ture when it comes to the top. But it
is no more a sin to be rich than it is a
sin to be poor There are those who
have gathered great estate through
fraud, and then there are millionaires
who have gathered their fortunes
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 a
wall. There are those who keep in pow
erty because of their own fault. They
might have been well off, but they gave
themselves to strong drink, or 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 on to competency.
know a man who is all the time COM
planning 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.
Micawber said to David Copperfield:
"Copperfield, my boy, 81 income, 30
shillings and sixpence expenses; result,
misery Rut Connerfield INV how Ct