Connecticut western news., 1899-08-17
THE FLAG OF TRUCE.
DR. TALMAaE SUGGESTS A REMEDY
 FOR STRIKE EPIDEMlcs.

Interests of Capital and Labor Are
 Identical, and When They Cease to
 AntaGoni.e Each Other Strife Will 'Cea.e-Beneats of Cooperation.
 ICopyrght, Louis Klopsch, 1soel
 WAsHINGToN, Aug. 13.-In this dis course Dr. Talmage suggests how the everlasting war between capital and labor may be brought to a happy end The text Is Corinthians xii, 21, "The eye cannot say unto the hand, have no need of thee"
 Fifty thousand workmen in Chicago ceasing work in one day; Brooklyn stunned by the attempt to halt It's rail road cars; Cleveland in the throes of 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 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 1t. 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. A int nl of people interdependent. Capital and 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 should say: 1 oversee the entire physical mechanism. l despise the- other members of the body; If there Is anything l am disgusted with, 1t is with those miserable, low lived hands. Or, what If the hand should say: am the boss workman of the whole physic- al economy; have no respect for the other members of the body. If there is anything I despise, 1t is the eye seated under the dome of the forehead doing nothing but look.
 come in. and 1 wave the flag of truce between these two contestants, and I say, ''The eye cannot say to the hand, I 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 a 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 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 bad for one class of society will even- tually and in time be bad for all. Every speech that labor makes against capi- tai postpones the day of permanent ad- 1ustment Every speech that capital makes against labor postpones the day of permanent adjustment When capi- tai maligns labor, 1t Is the eye cursing the hand When labor maligns capital, 1t 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. ufacturers 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 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: 1t Is only 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 capi- taIists. Where are their investmentsi 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 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 fists were laborers, the laborers were capitalists. The sooner we understand that the better.
 Cooperative Associations.
 Again, there Is to come relief to the laboring classes of this country through cooperative associations. l 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 fists. Instead of being dependent upon the beck of this capitalist or that capi- talist, they manage their own affairs. Tn England and Wales there are 813 cooperative associations. They have 10000 members; they have a capital of S18.000, 900, or wha, corresponds to our dollars, and they do a business annually of $63, 900 900. 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 reap the rewards and the honors of our ad- vanced civilization" Lord Derby and John Stuart NH, who gave half their lives to the study of the labor question, believed in cooperative institutions.
 But" says some one, haven't these institutions sometimes been failure| Yes. Every great movement has been a failure at some time. Application of the steam power a failure, electro telegraphy failure railroading fail ure, but now the chief successes of the unrId