Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1899-08-14


! Cease-Benefits of Corporation.
copyright, Louis Klopsch 1891
WASHINGTON, Aug. 13.-In this dis
course DR.. Talmage suggests how the
everlasting war between capital and
labor may be brought to happy end.
THE text is 1 Corinthians xii, p, ''The
eye cannot say unto the hand, Y have
mo 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
q labor agitation, and restleSsness
among tOilers all over the land
have caused an epidemic of strikes,
and, somewhat to better things, apply
the Pauline thought of my text
You have seen an elaborate piece OF
machinery, with a thousand wheels
and a thousand bands and thousand
pulleys all controlled by one great
waterwheel, the machinery so adj
justed that when you jar one part OF 1t
you jar all parts Of it. Well, human
society is a great piece of mechanism
controlled by one great and ever re-
Volving force-the wheel of Gods prov
idence. You harm one part of the ma
chinery of society, and you harm all
parts. All professions interdependent.
All trades interdependent. All classes
of people interdependent. Capital and
labor interdependent. No such thing as
independence. Dives cannot kick LaZa-
rus without hurting his own foot. They
int
got their own bodies scorched. Or, to
come back to the figure of the text,
what q strange thing it would be if the
eye should say: l oversee the entire
physical mechanism. l deSp1Se the
other members of the body; if there is
anything 1 am disguised with, it is
with those miserable, low lived hands.
Or, what if the hand should say: l am
the boss workman of the whole phySic-
al economy; I have no respect for the
other members of the body. If there
is anything I despise, it is the eye
seated under the dome of the forehead
doing nothing but look.
I come in, and l wave the flag Of
truce between these two contestants,
and L say, 1.-THE eye cannot say to the
hand, L have no need of thee.
Labor and Capital.
That brings me to the first sugges-
ton, and that is, that labor and capital
are to be brought to a better under
standing by Il complete canvass of the
whole subject. They will be brought
to peace when they find that they are
identical in their interests. When one
goes down, they both go down. When
Il, n, 1N.n
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
bad for one class of society will even
fually and in time be bad for all. Every
speech that labor makes against capt.
tai postpones the day of permanent a0'
justment. Every speech that capital
makes against labor pOstpOnes the day
of permanent adjustment. 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 have observed, the vast majority
of capitalists are successful labOrers.
If the capitalists would draw 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 bookbinders, or typesetters,
on small pay. The great carriage man.
1facturers for the most part sand
papered wagon bodies in wheelwright
shops While, on the other hand, in all
our large manufacturing establish
FIN N
once employed q 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-
come laborers, and 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? MOI In the railroads? No!
Their nerve, their muscle, their bone,
their mechanical skill, their physical
health are magnificent capital He who
has two eyes, two ears, two feet, two
hands, ten fingers, has machinery that
puts into nothingness carpet and screw
and cotton factory, and all the other
implements on the planet. The capital
lists were laborers, the laborers were
capitalists. The sooner we understand
that the better.
Co-operative Associations.
Again, there is to come relief to the
laboring classes of this country
through cooperative associations.
am not at this moment speaking Of
trades unions, but of that plan by
which laborers put their surplus to-
gether and become their own capital
lists InStead of being deDendent upOn