Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1903-01-03
rs AN D SHELTON
AsAGH sALARlED CHRISTIAN PREACH
En- AND HIS PRESS AGENT.


AislGH sALARlED Christian PREACH
ER AND HIS PRESS AGENT.
R1ea For Low Wages, Long Hours:
l aad Contentment-.F Fellow with
Degrees and other F'Iubdubs NO
Match For Labor Union Chanpions.
Especial Correspondence
3 The Rev. DR.. Hills of Plymouth
church thought he would contribute to
the general harmony by preaching to
One class of society against another
class With a show Of courage which
implied that organized labor had never
been confronted with the command
ments and Of all men needed to be he
took for his text, "Thou shalt not kill. -
With like show of magnanimity he
admitted that laborers had a right to
organize for charitable and other pur-
poses, but he said it ought to love it's
enemies and not use it's organizations
fpr increasing wages or shortening
hours. - -:
Each family must solve the wage
question for itself. DR.. Hills had all the
facts and had studied the labor ques-
ton. Out Of 100 millionaires he. found
that eighty had become rich by saving
waste materials. One poor foreigner
got we'll to do this way: He resolved to
educate all his children. mot content
with sending them to one Sunday
school, he sent them to two and to
n,
climbed to positions Of influence and
wealth, and every one of the daughters
became schoolteacher. &c
This sermon being entitled "a Plea
For the Poor and Weak" and intended
to avert coming crisis, DR.. Hills re-
lated all the human faults that he had
time to relate which the 20 per cent of
organized laborers have, in common
with the rest of humanity, but for the
30 per cent of aonunion laborers and
for all the capitalists except the '.un-
scrupulous capitalists" he pleaded pity
angly. He said that If all the trusts
were annihilated, all class privileges,
monopol1es and unjust taxation were
done away with and every strike and
boycott was absolutely successful the
Income Of the average American would
be increased by only 500 or possibly
400 per year.
1.-The way to increase our wdge,
then" he said, '.is to increase the
quantity and quality Of our work. A
workman's reward Is not in his wage.
but In the consciousness Of having done
good work. Was Milton rewarded for
Paradise Lost in the $40 he received?
Did the soldiers In the late war. who
worked for $13 month. strike for
higher wages just before Gettysburg?
Was DR.. Morton, working for life to
discover chloroform, unhappy because
he died poor, not having had his share
nf wealth." <-.~> ~ - = : -
The people Of this church will not, as
logically they could, cut down their
pas or's wages because of his utter dis
regard of wages. Whether DR.. Hills
would work in dark slums and In
mines and find all his pleasure in work
1or the Beers is open to some doubt.
Union labor is Lot attending Plym-
outh church now with any great fire.
Quency, SO it was feared that these ex-
hortations might not reach them, al
though for that matter the sermon as
whole seems to have been intended for
capitalists and antisuffragist women
and imperialists, which the Outlook's
more recent positions on public ques-
Hons had collected about Henry Ward
Beecher's historic church. ~, -
A fearful Mr.. James A. Skilton,
nH>o3 - +Io nh
sociology, sent out samples of this
great sermon Ito the clergymen Of the
American churches, exhorted them to
use the topic for their Thanksgiving
sermons and also exhorted all whom it
may concern to buy and distribute this
sermon at S. per 500 and help to avert
the present and impending crisis"
Mr.. Skilton says the sermon is begin
ming of return to the old type of
righteo usness, and he urges patriots to
distribute the same. A letter from
Herbert Spencer also says that he
sympathizes with this effort, but that
he believes that it will prove futile.
.In the United States, as here and
elsewhere" says Spencer, ''the move
ment toward dissolution of I existing
forms and reorganization on socialis-
tic basis believe to be irresistible. We
have bad times before us, and you have
still more dreadful times before you
civil war, immense bloodshed and
eventually military despotisln of the
severest type" y :&zs@s. s:ss5
The country has involuntarily burst
out into applause at the marvellous
work and the self restraint of Mr.,
& Mitchell and his miners and at their
patience under insult and misrepresen-
4 tation: To bring the churches lovingly
back TO the attitude of solid hostility to
/ the name Of organized labor and all its
work seems to be the purpose Of the
Hillises and Skiltons. ..5ss .Ss:ss:fs
;sS 1T. seems to us fortunate that what
Carlyle calls the 'dumb maj orit be-
Ing now org nized Ia Dor. has represent
#satives to speak for its side Of the mat
ter 81.
The Greenfield Recorder, paper