The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1900-05-25
THE FIELD OF LABOR
Timely Discourse of DR.. Talmage
on Industrial Troubles.
sermon Aimed to Bring AbaIt More
Friendly Relations Between
Employer and Employee
Duty of the Former.
Copyright, 1900, by Louis Kiopsch.l
WaShinVtOn

Copyright, 1900, by Louis Kfopsch.l
Washington,
At time when in various districts
labor troubles are existing or impend-
! ing the effort DIR. Talmage makes in
this discourse to bring about a better
feeling between both sides of this diff
ficult question is well timed; texts
Galatians 5:15: But if We bite and
devour one another take heed that ye
be not consumed one of another" and
Philippians 2:4: Look not every man
on his own things, but every man also
on the things of others"
About every six months there is a
| great labor agitation. There are viO-
| lent questions now in discussion be
tween employers and employees. The
present strikes" will go into the past.
OF course, the damage done cannot i'm
mediately be repaired. Wages willnot be
| so high as they were. Spasmodically
| they may be higher, but they will drop
| lower. Strikes, whether right OF
wrong, always injure laborers as well
| as capitalists. You will see this in
| the starvation of next winter. Boycott
| ting and violence and murder never
pay. They are different stages of an
| archy. God never blessed murder. The
worst use you can put a man to is to
kill him. Blow up tomorrow all the
country seats on the banks of the Hud-
son and the Rhine and all the fine
| houses on Madison square and Beacon
street, and all the bricks and timber
and stones will just fall back on the
| bare hands of American and European
| labor.
The worst enemies of the working
classes in the United States and Ireland
are their demented cOadjutors. Years
ago ssassination-the assassination
of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr..
Burke, in Phoenix park, Dublin, Ire
land, in the attempt to avenge the
wrongs of Ireland only turned away
from that afflicted people millions of
sympathiZers. The attempts to blow
up the house of commons in London
had only this effect-tO throw out of
employment tens of thousands of inno-
cent people in England. In this coun-
try the torch put to the factories that
have discharged hands for good or bad
in front of midnight express trains be-
cause the offenders do not like the
president of the company; strikes on
shipboard the hour they were going to
sail or in printing offices the hour the
paper was to go to press or in the mines
the day the coal was to be delivered, or
on house scaffoldings so the builder
fails in keeping his cOntract-aIl these
are only a hard blow on the head of
American labor, and cripple its arms
and lame its feet and pierce its heart.
Traps sprung suddenly upon employers
and violence never took one knot out of
the knuckles of toll or put one farthing
of wages into callous palm. Barbar-
ism will never cure the wrongs of civ
iliZation. Mark that!
Frederick the Great admired some
land near his palace at Potsdam, and he
resolved to get it. 1t was owned by a
miller. He offered the miller three
times the value of the property. The
miller would not take it because it was
the old homestead, and he felt about as
Naboth felt about his vineyard when
Ahad wanted it. Frederick the Great
was a rough and terrible man, and he
ordered the miller into his presence,
and the king, with stick in his hand
a stick with which he sometimes
struck the officers of state-said to the
miller: Now, have offered you three
times the value of that property, and if
you won't sell it I'll take it anyhow" :"
The miller said: "Your majesty, you
won't" YES" said the king. Il will
take it, Then" said the miller, IF
your majesty does take it | will sue you
in the chancery court" At that threat
Frederick the Great yielded his in
famous demand. And the most imperi-
Gus outrage against the working
classes will yet cover before the law.
Violence and defiance of the law will
never accomplish anything; but
righteousness and submission to the
law will accomplish it.
But gradually the damages done the
laborer by the strikes will be repaired,
and some important things ought now
to be said. The whole tendency of our
times, as you have noticed, is to make
the chasm between employer and en-
ploye wider and wider. In olden times
the head man of the factory, the mas
ter builder, the capitalist, the head
man of the firm, worked side by side
with their employees, working some
times at the same bench, dining at the
same table, and there are those here
who can remember the time when the
clerks of large commercial establish
ments were accustomed to board with
the head men of the firm.
All that is changed, and the ten
dency is to make the distance between
employer and employe wider and wider.
The tendency is to make the employe
feel that he is wronged by the success
of the capitalist, and to make the cap
italist feel: "Now, my laborers a-e
only beasts of burden; l must give
them so much money for so much
drudgery, just so many pieces of silver
for so many beads of sweat" In other
words, the bridge of sympathy is brok-
en- down at both ends. That feeling
was well described by Thomas Carlyle
when he said: "Plugson, of St. Dolly
Undershot, buccaneerlike, says to his
men: Noble spinners, this is the hun
dredth thousand we have gained,
wherein l mean to dwell and plant my
vineyards The c 100, 600 is mine. the
daily wage was yours. Adieu, noble
spinners! Drink my health with this
groat each, which 1 give you over and
above" Now, what we want is to re-
build that bridge of sympathy. and
put the trowel to one of the abutmentS