Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1900-05-21
SERMON o. ES.
DR.. TAlMAGE TAKES THE LABOR
QUESTION FOR A THEME.


when in various districts labor trou-
bIes are existing or impending the eff
fort Dr. Talmage makes in this dis.
course to bring about better feeling
between both sides of this difficult
question is we'll timed; texts, Gala
tians V, 10, But if We bite and deVeur
one another, take heed that ye be not
consumed one of another" and Philip
plans ii, i, Look not every man on his
own things, but every man also on the
things of others"
About every six months there is q
great labor agitation. There are VIC
lent questions now in discussion be-
tween employers and employees. The
present STRIKES" will go into the past.
OF course the damage done cannot inn
mediately be repaired. Wages will not
be so high as they were. SpasmOdical-
" they may be higher, but they will
drop lower. Strikes, whether right or
wrong, always injure laborers as well
as capitalists. You will see this in the
starvation of next winter. Boycotting
and violence and murder never pay.
They are different stages of anarchy.
God never blessed murder. The worst
use you can put man to is to Kill him.
The worst enemies of the working
classes in the United States and Ire
land are their ,demented cOadjutOrs.
Years ago assassinatiOn-the. assassina-
ton of Lord Frederick Cavendish and
Mr.. Burke in Phoenix park, Dublin, in
the attempt to ,avenge the wrongs of
Ireland, only turned away from that
afflicted people millions. of sympathiz-
ers. The attempts to blow up the house
of commons, in London, had only this
effect-to throw out of employment
tens of thousands of innocent Irish
people in England. In this country the
torch put to the factories that have dis
charged hands for good or bad reason,
distractions on the rail tracks in front
of midnight express trains because the
offenders do not like the president of
the company, strikes on Shipboard the
hour they were going to sail, or in print
ing 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 keep
ing his contract-all these are only
hard blow on the head of American la
Dor and cripple it's arms and lame its
feet and pierce its heart. Traps sprung
suddenly upon employers and violence
never took one knot out OF the knuc-
kles of toll or put a farthfng of wages
into calioHs palm.
Submit to the Law.
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
Ahab wanted it. Frederick the Great
was a rough and terrible man, and he
ordered the miller into his presence,
and the king, with q stick in his hand
q stick with which he sometimes struck
the officers of State-said to the miller,
E'Now, l 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"
Eyes" said the king; Il will take it"
''Then." said the miller, ''if your maj
esty does take it | will sue you in the
chancery court. At that threat Fred
erick the Great yielded his infamous
demand. And the most imperious out
rage against the working classes will
yet cover before the law. Violence
and defiance of the law will never ac-
complish anything, but righteousness
and submission TO the law will accom-
plish 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-
p1oyee wider and wider. Ia olden time
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
znents were accustomed to board with
the head men of the firm.
All that is changed. and the tendency
Is to make the distance between en-
pioyer and employee wider and wider.
The tendency is to make the employee
feel that he is wronged by the success
of the capitalist and to make the cap
atalist feel: 'Now, my laborers are only
beasts of burden. 1 must give 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 broken down at
both ends. That feeling was well de-
scribed by Thomas Carlyle when he
said: "Plugson of st. Dolly Under
shot. buccaneerlike, says to his men:
Noble spinners, this is the hundredth
thousand we have gained, wherein I
r1aaan To dwell and nlant NV uina-