The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1900-05-25
TIE FIELD OF LABOR
Timely Discourse of DR.. T.,1racge
on Industrial Troubles.
Sermon Aimed to Bring Aboui More
Friendly Relations Between
Employer and Employee
Duty OF the Former.
copyright, 1900. by Louis K'opsch.l

WASHINGTON, May ~.
At time when in various districts
labor troubles are existing or impend-
ing the effort DR.. Talinage makes in
this discourse to bring ABOUT a better
feeling between both SIDES OF this diff
Acult question is well timed; texts,
Galatians 5:15: But if ye bite and
devour one another take heed that we
be not consumed one of another" and
Philippians ga: Loss 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
no high as they were. Spasmodically
they may be higher, but they will drop
lower. Strikes, whether right or
wrong, always injure laborers as well
as capitalists. You win 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 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 assassination-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 limo
cent people in England. In this coun-
try the torch put to the factories that
have discharged hands for good or bad
reason, Instructions on the rail tracks,
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-all these
are only hard blow en- the head of
American labor, and cripple it's arms
and lame it's 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 q
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
q 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 1t I'll take it anyhow"
The miller said: your majesty, you
won't" EYES," said the king, 81 will
take it," Then" said the miller, "if
your majesty does take it l 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
and submission to the
law will accomplish it.
But gradually the damages done the
la borer 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
1ency 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: Nov, my laborers are
only beasts of burden; 1 must give
them so much money for so much
irudgery, just so many pieces of silver
for SO many beads of sweat" In other
words, the bridge of sympathy is brok-
N down at both ends. That feeling
vas well described by Thomas Carlyle
when he said: 'Plugson, of st. Dolly
Jndershot, buccaneerhke, says to his
nan. rNohle sninners this is fhe hmm