The San Francisco call., 1897-09-05

M OneY rules our COileSeS- DIIoeiE VI
education is rarely direct. Expulsion OF
teachers opposed to capitalism happens
rarely. But the simple fact Is that not
single university can exist without en-
dowment, and that endowment can only
come from those who have wealth. State
universitie' are only a partial exception.
Therefore the pro!e sor who occupies
chair founded by wealth must either teach
economics which wealth will support and
which will support wealth or not teach at
all.
Most of our collegiate professors are
honest; they honestly believe in capi-
tallsm, because they have been bred III
that atmosphere. But no one can ques-
tion the air that breathes in The halls OF
Harvard and Yale and the University OF
Chicago Recently railroad president
carried round in his private car TWO
eminent" teachers OF political economy
in America in order that they might
unGers and and lecture on the beauties oi
the American rall"ay system.
Plutocracy rules our chuI ches. Many
churches are not plutocratic; many
pulpits are perfectly free. But the bravest
clergyman and the most Christian church
can do little but talk about brotherhood
and apply the benetactions of the wealthy
To act, the church must have money,
and money comes from those who money
have. The mos. charitable churches are
usually the most plutocrahc. 1here
seems secret bond and a necessary tond
between associated charities and assocla-
ted villainies. Rockefeller makes many
millions by crushing all competitors III
selling oil ana gives a million or Two to
found university or church.
Wanamaker runs out small stores,
lowers prices, pays wages too low Tor girls
to live in res pectabilily and clears his mil
hons, and gives little portion OF II Tor
the support OF Sunday schools and MIS-
sions. We are again not condemnlng
Mr.. Rockefeller or Mr.. Wanamaker.
They are not worse, but perhaps better,
than most of their fellows. We are not
condemning any one. but stating facts.
Small PARISHES and churches may not al
ways be dependent on the very wealthy,
but they all depend on the somewhat
wealthy, and there are few tyrants worse
than those who rule small purse. Re
Gently IN San Francisco the labor unions
sent out 80 appeals 10 clergymen to aid
or call the attention OF their people to the
cause of the starving miners. One cler-
gyman replied, but he sent no money. Is
it strange that the churches are out OF
touch with the working masses?
But this leads to, if not a more serious,
at least more immediate and a more
burning wrong. One hundred and seventy
thousand miners in our land have been
can live. a commission in Pennsylvania
before the strike found miners wives in
destitution and miners children living on
garbage heaps. Naked children were un-
able 20 go to school. AT last the miners
struck. They tried to raise their voices in
appeal. They tried to induce heir fellow
miners also 10 strike. No one, not even
the employers, denied the facts. They
could not. Yet these miners destitute,
hungry, starving. committed scarcely one
act of petty violence and INDUCED in not
one public wrong. Yet corporations have
found Judges to issue injunctions forbid
ding the miners to walk The public roads
or 10 hold pubic meetings. For ignoring
such in functions borers can be committed
without jury and punished without ap-
peal.
Do we wonder to-day that workmen
laugh at American courts, and that there
is a talk of appeal to force? Do the
Americsn people know what they are do
ing? Do our corporations know the forces
with which they toy? The most sacred
rights OF American manhood are being VI
olated, and that in the name OF law. Our
corpora tons are practicing anarchy, Tor a
hundred cautious minds will tell you that
the great vlolaIors of our land are the cor.
poralions. The corporations practice an
archy, the courts issue writS TO defend
them and the militia is cal ed out to en-
force the rich meas will. We wonder to-
day not at the violence nor the Ignorance,
bur at the patience, the self-restraInt Of
the American workIngman. But 1t can
not last. There is blind old Samson in
our land grown old with labor and bowed
down with toll.
Bat that Samson is feeling for the pill
lars of our commonw wealth. He is grow
ing conscious OF his strenlth. This coun-
try has. we fear not seen be last OF Pitts
burg and Homestead and Pullman and
Chicago. The strikes OF our land grow
serious in geometric progression. What
are we to do? We find the real b.ame not
with the rich corporation, but with the
system which produces ii. Against this
system the Union Reform League raises
the standard of revolt.
The league strikes new note in polit-
ical reform. 1t is of the peop and for the
people, yet i: speaks not III wrath, but IN
thought 1t appeals not to rancor, but to
brotherhood. II indulge not in rant, but
in sermons. The Union Reform League is
not orsanized to oppose, or to denounce,
or to destroy. 1t is organized to aid, to
explain, to construct.
The great trouble in America to- day is
that we have conducted business each
man for himself. Hence competition,
hence the survival of the shrewdest, hence
the dominance of the strong, hence COM
binations, hence monopolies, hence plu-
tocracv, hence corruption OF the Govern
ment, of the conscience. In place OF this
ideal of each man for hims self the league
would place the new ideal OF cooperation,
practically applied Ill measures whose
success has been tested in Europe, in
Australia, even occasionally and very
partially in America.
This is socialism, we are told. There
are in this country various societies and
schemes and movements for bringing in
socialism. But usually these are either
wholly materialistic or po. iSical or they
strive to set up some partial cooper
ative colony or scheme which, after all, Will
have to compete with other industrial in
stitutions. Now, in such cooperative
colonies and schemes the Union Reform
League does not believe; nor does it have
faith in any merely political or material
istic movement. Politicians who stand
on self-interest alone will, if their party
grow large, inevitably become corrupt.
1t would pay the milionaires to buy out
the leaders of any Socialist party which
threatened to grow large. Ii they stood
Tor self-interest alone it would pay the
leaders 10 sell out the party. A material
lstic socialism is a mirage, cooperative
colonies, generally speaking, caEnct sue
ceed. Ii only remains to appeal not to
maierialistic interests but To the socialis-
tic conscience. Conscience alone can
produce q movement that will induce lead