Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1899-08-24

classes spend their share Of this
money. Now, suppose the laboring
man who has been expanding his
add up how much he has expended
during these past few years, and then
suppose that that money was put into
a cooperative association, and then
suppose he should have all his friends
in toll, who had made the same kind Of
expenditure, do the same thing, and
that should be added up and put into a
cooperative association. And then
take all that money expended for over
dress and over-style and everything
on the part of toiling people in order
that they may appear as well as per-
sons who have more income-gather
that all up and you could have coop
erative associations all over this land.
| am not saying anything now about
trades unions. You want to know
what think of trades unions. think
they are most beneficial in some direc-
tons, and they have a specific object,
and in this day, when there are vast
monopolies-a thousand monopolies
concentring the wealth of the peple
into the possession of few men, un-
less the laboring men of this country
and all countries band together they
will go under There is a lawful use
OF trade union, but then there is an
unlawful use of trade union. If it
means sympathy in time of sickness,
If it means finding work for people
when they are out of work, II it means
the improvement of the financial, the
moral or the religious condition of the
laboring classes, that is all right. Do
not singers band together in Handel
and Haydn societies? Do not news
paper men band together in press
clubs? Do not ministers of religion
band together in conferences and asso-
Citations? There is not in all the land a
city where clergymcn do not come to-
gether, many of them once a week,
to talk over affairs. For these reasons
you should not blame labor guilds.
When they are doing their legitimate
work they are most admirable, but
when they come around with drum and
fife and flag, and drive people Off from
their toll, from their scaffoldings, from
their factories, then they are nihilistic,
then they are communistic, then they
are barbaric, then they are curse. If
| a man wants to stop work let him stop
work, but he cannot stop me from
work.
But now suppose that all the labor
ing classes banded together for ben
eficent purposes in cooperative asso-
citation, under whatever name they put
their means together. Suppose they
take the money that they waste in rum
and tobacco, and use it for the eleva-
tion of their children, for their moral
intellectual and religious improve
ment, what a different state of things
we would have in this country, and
they would have in Great Britain!
Do you not realize the fact that men
work better without stimulant? You
say, will you deny the laboring men
this help which they get from strong
drink, borne down as they are with
many anxieties and exhausting work."
| would deny them nothing that is
good for them. l would deny them
strong drink, if l had the power, be-
cause it is damaging to them. My
father said, Il became a temperance
man in early life because found that
in the harvest field, while l was
naturally weaker than the other men, !
could hold out longer than any OF
them; they took stimulant and | took
none"
Every body knows they cannot en-
dure great fatigue-men who indulge
in stimulants. All our young men I'M
derstand that. When they are pre-
pairing for the regatta, or the ball club
or the athletic wrestling, they abstain
from strong drink. Now, suppose all
this money that is wasted were gath
cred together and put into cooperative
institutions-Oh. we would have a
very different state of things from
what we have now.
Let me say a word to all capitalists
Be your own executors. Make invest
ments for eternity. Do not be like some
of those capitalists 1 know who walk
around among their employees with a
superCilious air, or drive up to the fac
tory in a manner which seems to indi-
cate they are the autocrat Of the uni
verse, with the sun and moon in their
vest pockets, chiefly anxious when they
go among laboring men not to be
touched by the greasy or smirched
hand and have their broadcloth in
jured. Be a Christian employer. Re-
member those who are under your
charge are bone Of your bone and flesh
of your flesh; that Jesus Christ died
for them and that they are immortal
Divide up your estates, or portions OF
them, for the relief of the world, be-
fore you leave it, Do not go out of the
world like that man who died in New
York, leaving in his will $40, 1000, 900
yet giving how much for the church OF
God? how much for the alienation OF
human suffering? He gave some money
a little while before he died. That was
we'll; but in all this will of $1,000, DOC
how much? One million? No. Five
hundred thousand? No. One hundred
dollars? No. Two cents? No. One
cent! NO. ueSe great ClIleS STOdH-
ing in anguish, nations crying out for
the bread of everlasting life. A man in
will giving forty millions Of dollars
and not one cent to God. 1t is a dis
grace to our civilization. Or, as illus
trated in a letter which I have con-
corning a man who departed this life
leaving between five and eight millions
o. lnll loft