Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1899-09-22
A Church and a Railroad Act.

At Eureka, ILL.,, the recent state con-
vention of the Christian church, rep
resenting $4,000 members, with TIA
churches and about 500 ministers,
adopted the following resolution: RE
solved, That it is the sense of this con-
vention that it would be advisable for
our ministers and church officers
throughout the state to invite the ac-
credited and credited representatives
of organized labor to occupy our pull
pits at proper times, that We may hear
Of their needs and aims and that we
may assure them of our Christian in
terest in them. Moreover, that next
year prominent place ON our pro-
gramme be given to prominent repre-
sentative of the labor interest so that
we may have a full and free discussion
of the great questions of labor and
capital that are now agitating society"
This resolution is extraordinary, and
shows that church that adopted it,
and proposes to carry it into effect, Is
wide awake TO the Importance of one of
the most difficult problems of modern
economics. With all the benefits that
have accrued to mankind from the sub
stitution of new and vastly improved
methods of production for the less eff
cient ones of the past, there have run
the deplorable facts that the situation
Of the individual worker has grown
more precarious, and the element of
human kindness has been forced ever
more out of business calculations. Not
that the average wage rate has not
steadily advanced, for it has; in addi-
ton, dollar for dollar, the wage buys
more and better; and hours Of toll
have been decreased. But there is less
room than ever for the worker who is
not of the highest efficiency; there is
the danger of finding no new job of
equivalent value when the machine
makes another step onward and dis
places another regiment, brigade, or
army of men. Further, industry
blooms" and 'slumps." National and
international connections are already
so intimate that boom" may exist
in two continents, to be followed by
slump" extending over an equally
large area. We ourselves have expert
enced this. These conditions exist.
The benefits that ensue from them are
not to any great extent due to the
philanthropic motives of any one; the
evils that follow not due to any ones
desire to Cypress. They follow, just
as grass grows where rain falls and
the sun shines, without intention
on the part of sun and rain to grow
grass, rather than diamonds and shoe
black. They simply follow conditions.
1t is very evident that there must he
injected into our economic systems a
leaven of regard for man as men, a
new factor that will tend to give
greater stability to the present, and
insure a tolerable future, for decent,
industrious people. Just how this is
to be done, do not know. Longhead-
ed men, and not all of the "theorist'
class, either, are trying to work it out
The latest great move in that direction
Is the act Of the Pennsylvania Rail-
road company, one of the richest cor
porations of the world, which has es-
ia blished an old-age pension fund, de-
signed to hold out to every one of its
many thousand employees the prospect
that If they do their part as men while
able to do the work of the company,
they shall draw pensions when old.
This is one Of numerous instances
where it may be said that formal decla-
ration is implicitly made that man is
not mere living machine, to be used
until worn out and then cast aside.
And the resolution of the Christian
church above quoted, is further evil
ience of progress in the same direc-
lion. While no church has ever held
men to be mere machines, many
churches have failed to recognize the |
trend that accompanies |
much industrial advance, hence have |
neglected to take steps even to coun-
.eract the evil, let alone to bringing
lbout the substitution therefor of no.
bier principles than have at any time
prevailed. The comparative ease of
production, the conditions that make
t possible for few men 20 create the |
.hings that will satisfy the wants OF
many, should, and / doubt not ulti-
nately will place the present and
uture well-being of workers upon
more stable basis than ever and at the
% mo time make II noSsih1p for man