The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1897-02-01
Hysteria versus Economies.

The clerical -demagogues continued to
spew ignorance and narrow-mindedness
over the subject of the Bradley-Martin
ball. They denounced the frivolous ex-
penditure of wealth, as if any expendi-
fure of wealth could be anything but
frivolous from an ecclesiastical point of
view, and they urge the distribution of
riches among the poor as a matter of
expediency, with a contempt for the
teachings Of st. Paul which is somewhat
niscouraging.
In contrast with their mischievous talk,
1t is comforting to find words of strong
common sense emanating from a labor
union officer. In a New York evening
paper. or Saturday, Mr.. E. P. McDer-
mott, who describes himself as delegate
Of the Plasterers' Union, says
v read the Warning to the
Rich and regard it both ill-timed and
very d~emagogical. If entertainments of
the KIND which gave Inspiration to that
warning are proper at any time, they
are proper at all times.
- o~4 "a dAAo lOQ0ct ClCC
tion, which might well have occurred to
the Rev. DR.. Rainsford, and hoked his
foolish n untimely outburst of hyste-
ria. Mr.. McDermott enforces it on the
clergymen by this vigorous a~rgunentum
I'D hominem:-
Be they ever so costly, they no more
s~saccentuate social differences thar do
Fashionable churches with fashionable
congregations.
e we lave a whole treatise ON po-
litical economy condensed into a few
sentences
The amount of money which this pros
pective ball is estimated as likely to cost
will not be a proftless consumption of
wealth for the community, for it will set
in motion the productive wheel, not only
for all that is directly demanded by it,
but it will also give rise to .recurrent
demands for other products.
Although intended to give amusement
to certain invited guests, it will, by a
ramifying productive operation, afford
more relief to needy workers than if
deled out by -ssorganized' charity in
1oaves of bread, pals of coal or those
other necessities of life for which the
poor are really suffering.
And what a blessing it is to the poor
that this ball gives them the great human
privilege of working for the bread that
they need, instead of accepting the degra-
dation of charitable offering. If RAINS
ford and his like had their "a the
community would soon be divided into
two 1amcntable classes, the aims givers
md the aims takers.
But Mr.. McDermott's sensible remarks
are not exhausted. He goes on
The working classes are certainly dis
satisfied with existing conditions as Gre
ated and sustained by political authority,
These they desire to have changed, but
they ave no quarrel with purely social
affairs, and least of all with those that
propel the wheels of industry. Trade
unions, it may be seem, do not take in
all the -dernagogues of life.
r Il be true that history repeats It
more TO fear today from clerical than
from labor demagogues. In making these
statements / am speaking in the broadcast
possible sense, and do not wish to be
understood as being in any respect per-
Eonal.
This is true. One of the most potent
causes of revolution in every country has
been church domination. church tyran-
ny. In the old countries and in Spanish
America it has generally been the Cath
Ole Church that has been to blame. But
anyone can see that the growing strength
Of the puritanic spirit threatens similar
danger to this country. Politics, legis-
lation, the social system have all been
INVADED with disastrous consequences to
liberty and progress. Now We a
something new in the substitution of pull
pit economics for the thought products
Df science. Where is to end? How long
will people endure it?