The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-08-18
The FLAG OF TRUCE
DIR. TALMAGE >UGGEsrS A REM.
EDY FDx >TRiK r. EPIDEMlCS

EDY FDH EFlDEMlCS
Interests OF Capital and Labor are
Identical, and when they Cease to
Antagonize Each other Strife Will
Cease-Benefit. of cooperation
Copyright, Louis Klopsch, 1899
In this discourse DR.. Talmage sug-
'gests how the everlasting war between
capital and labor may be brought to
a happy end. The text is I Corinthians
xii, u, The y cannot say unto the
hand, 1 have no need of thee"
Fifty thousand workmen in Chicago
ceasing work in one day; Brooklyn
stunned by the attempt to halt its rail-
road cars; Cleveland in the throes of
a labor agitation, and restlessness
among toilers all over the land have
caused an epidemic Of strikes, and,
somewhat to better things, I apply the
Pauline thought of my text.
You have seen an elaborate piece OF
machinery, with a thousand wheels
and a thousand bands and a thousand
pulleys all controlled by one great
waterwheel, the machinery so ad-
justed that when you jar one part OF 1t
you jar all parts of it. Well, human
society is a great piece of
controlled by one great and ever re-
volving force-the wheel of Gods PROV
idence. You harm n part of the ma
chinery of society, and you harm all
parts. All professions interdependent.
All trades interdependent. All classes
of people interdependent. Capital n
labor interdependent. No such thing as
independence. Dives cannot kick Laza-
rus without hurting his own foot. They
who threw Shadrach into the furnace
got their own bodies scorched. Or, to
come back to the figure of the text,
what a strange thing it would be if the
eye hould say: l oversee the entire
physical mechanism. I despise the
other members Of the body; If there is
anything, I am Disguised with, it Is
with those miserable, low loved hands.
Or, what if the hand should say: I am
the boss workman of THE whole physi-
cal economy; I hav no respect for the
other members of the body. If there
is anything l despise, it is the eye
seated under the dome of the forehead
doing nothing but look.
I come in, and 1 wave the flag Of
truce DeIW6tH UIl0Se lWO COIVl6S Id1lLS,
and I say, THE eye cannot say to the
hand, Il have NJ need of thee"
LABOR AND CAPITAL.
That brings me to the first sugges-
tion, and that is, hat labor and capital
are to be brought ito a better under
standing by a complete canvass of the
whole subject. They will he brought
to peace when they find that they are
identical in their interests. When one
goes down, they both go down.. When
one rises, they both rise. There will be
an equilibrium after awhile. There
never has been an exception to the
rule. That which is good for one class
of society eventually will be good for
all classes of society, and that which is
a for class of society will even
tually n in time be a for all. Every
speech thai labor makes against CAPT.
tai p~OstpOnes the day of permanent ad-
justment. Every speech that. capital
makes against labor postpones the day
Of permanent adjusc ment. When CAPT.
tai maligns labor, it is the eye cursing
the hand. When labor maligns capital,
it is the hand cursing the eye. AS far
as 1 have observed, the vast majority
of capitalists are successful labOrerS.
If the capitalists would their
glove, you would see the broken finger
nail, the scar of an old blister, the
stiffened finger joint. The great pub
fishers of the country for the most
part were Ib~ookbinders, or typesetters,
on small pay. The great carriage man
ufdcturers for the most part sand
papered wagon bodies in wheelwright
shops. While, on the other hand, in all
our large manufacturing establish
ments you will find men on wages who
once employed G. hundred or five hun-
dred hands. The distance between
capital and labor is not a great gulf
over which is swung a Niagara sus-
pension bridge; it is only a step, and
the capitalists are crossing over to be-
com laborers, n the laborers are
crossing over to become capitalists.
Would God they might shake hands
while they cross. On the other hand,
laborers are the highest style of CAPT.
taliSts. Where are their investments?
In banks? No! In the railroads? No!
Their nerve, their muscle, their bone,
their mechanical skill, their physical
health are magnificent capital. He who
has wv eyes, two ears, two feet, two
hands, ten fingers, has machinery that
puts into n~othingnesS carpet and screw
and cotton factory, and all the other
implements on the planet. The capital
lists were laborers, the laborers >Wsre
capitalists. The sooner we understand
that the better.
COOPERATIVE ASSOCIATIONS.
Again., Jnere IS TO come relief to the
laboring classes of this country
Through cooperative associations. I
am not at this moment speaking Of
trades unions, but of that plan by
which laborers put their surplus to-
gether n become their own capital
lists. Instead of being dependent upon
the beck of this capitalist or that capt.
talist, they manage their own affairs.
In England and Wales there are S13
cooperative associations. They have
340,0 900 members; they have q capital
of SIS, 600, 090, or what corresponds 20
our dollars, and they do a business ar
nually of 1858, 600, 900. Thomas Bras
sey, one of the foremost men in the
British parliament, on the subject
says: Cooperation is the one and the
only relief for the laboring populations.
This is the path" he says, ''by which,
they are to come up from the hand to
the mouth style of living, to rea the
rewards and the honors Of u ad-
anced civilization Lord Derby and
John Stuart Mill, who CAV half their
lives to the study Of the labor question,
believed in cooperative institutions.
But" says some one, haven't these
institutions Coma tima~ haeD q faj111ra 2''