The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1905-07-08
.b|CELOW DON'T LIKE
DR.. GLADDEN'S ADVICE
The Way: Rockefeller s, Critic
Would Spend a Million Dol
lars If He Had It.
How Bigelow Would Use the
Same Amount to Secure
Justice for the People.

Cincinatti, O., July 9, 1905.-At the
Vine street Congregational church the
pastor, Herbert s. Bigelow, commented
on Dr. Washington Gladden's plan of
spending a million dollars. He said in
part:
DIR. Washington GLADDEN. said that if
he had million dollars he would spend
it on church. bath houses, free con-
certs, sanatarium for consumptives,
and model tenement houses for tho
por.
HE rules out charity. yet these
things are after all charities, though
less harmful than mere almsgiving.
rs DR.. Gladdens advice the best
the million? 1t may be, but it does
seem so to me. That use Of money does
not seem to be the highest. There is,
believe, another way by which a man
with a million might become a great
benefactor
Beneath all these proposed chari-
ties lies the problem of poverty. I
would spend my million teaching peo-
pie the political causes of poverty and
helping them to organize politically
for the eradication of those causes.
What kind of a social order Is this,
that 1t should seem beautiful or a
good thing for one man to provide for
another a church or a bath, or con-
cert, or hospital, or a model tene-
ment? DR.. GLADDEN. and l want to
maintain our own churches; we want
a ho in NJ -
for what we get, whether 1t be con-
cert or hospital service; and we do not
want to live even in a model tenement.
Sick of DOctoring Symphonic.
Last week I received a letter from
a Brooklyn. preacher which contained
this sentence: I am growing to be less
interested in doctoring the symptoms
of social ills and more interested in
going to the roots of the trouble. To
ity is clearly to me a more economical
use Of ones energies
II agree with that preacher. The
problem is how to spend our million
dollars. or our talents, or the working
years that are ahead of us, SO as most
speedily and surely to bring the people
into that condition in which they will
not have any need of charity, not even
the charity of bath houses and model
tenements and free concerts
Il would begin first of all by send
ing out crusaders, who by pen and voice
and organization, would teach the peo-
pie to get the initiative and raferen-
dum,. that Is, the constitutional right,
in city, county or state. by petition
of a reasonable number Of the voters
to compel the submission to the people
of any law, and the enactment Of any
law which receives the support of the
majority.
Portland Points the Way.
I'm Portland, Oregon, the other day,
a company asked for a telephone fran
chise. The council, protecting the in
terests of the old company, refused the
request. The people straightway de-
manded popular vote on the question,
and by vote of about eight thousand
to four hundred, they reversed the ac-
tion Of their supposed representatives.
.Whenever the people have the power
which they now enjoy in the state of
Oregon. they can get public baths, if
they wish them. and free concerts and
hospitals, supporting them by public
money. And when they have the in
telligence to meet the expense of these
public services. not. by tax on labor
products, but by taking, through tax
alton. the unearned increment of land
value, they will be in faid way to
help themselves
"Once headed IN this direction, they
will be able to work out their social
salvation without any mans charity"