The Canton times. (Canton, Miss.) 1893-1906, 1900-06-01
The FIELD OF LABOR
Timely Discourse of DR.. Talmage
on Industrial Troubles.
Sermon Aimed 20 Bring About More
Friendly Relations Between
Employer and Employee
Duty of the Former.
copyright. 1900, by Louis Kropsch.l
Washington,

ing the effort DIR. Talmage makes in
this discourse to bring about 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 We
be not consumed one of another" and
Philippians ga: 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 will not be
so high as they were. systematically
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. 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
sympa thizers. 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 |
reason, distractions 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 We're 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 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
vas rough and terrible man, and he
ordered the miller into his presence,
md the king, with a stick in his hand
/ stick with which he sometimes
struck the officers of state-said to the ,
miller: NOW, have offered you three
lines the value of that property, and if ;
'ou won't sell it I'll take it anyhow" ,
The miller said: Your majesty, you
Won't" Yes" said the king, Il will
axe it." Then" said the miller. "if
our majesty does take it l will sue you !
n the chancery court" At that threat ,
frederick the Great yielded his in e
amous demand. And the most imperi- !
lasses will yet cover before the law. !,
'iolence and defiance of the law will \
ever accomplish anything; but q
ghteousness and submission to the :
NV will accomplish it. 9
But gradually the damages done the v
Iborer by the strikes will be repaired. n
nd some important things ought now n
, be said. The whole tendency of our 4
mes, as you have noticed, is to make h
he chasm between employer and en-
loye wider and wider. In olden times a
lie head man of the factory, the mas n
II builder, the capitalist, the head h
an of the firm, worked side by side $,
it'll their employees, working some O
mes at the same bench, dining at the g,
Ime table, and there are those here Il
no can remember the time when the s,
erks of large commercial establish D,
ents were accustomed to board with 81
e head men of the firm.
All that is changed, and the ten IL