The wageworker. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1904-????, 1906-09-07

do say that workingmen who have
been guilty of the crimes charged
against trades unions were not trades
unionists, but merely members of
trades unions. There is a wide diff
ference between religion and Chris
tianity; and there is an equally wide
distance between being a trades union
ist and member of trades union.
1t has been charged that the trades
unions endeavor to run the employers
business. The charge is absolutely
false. Unions merely undertake to pre-
vent the employer absolutely control
ling our destinies, both physical and
spiritual. The trades unionist insists
that he shall have some voice in the
disposition Of his wareS-his labor
and to enforce this position he asso-
like occupation and by collective bar
gaining is able to make this demand
felt. Christians band themselves to-
gether in church organizations for very
ness, and to permit their work in the
cause of the moral uplift of humanity
to be of greater force and effect. In
their very essence the church and the
trades unions are conducted along SIM
liar lines, the one seeking more to
strengthen the spiritual side of man,
the other to guard more carefully his
physical well being. These two things
are most intimately related, for a
starving man is but little removed
from the wild animal, and therefore
not in good position to listen to ap-
peals to his conscience. The man
driven from bed to work and from
work to bed cannot, in the very nature
of things, be either a good parent, a
good citizen or a good Christian. One
of the objects of trades unionism is
to give the workman time in which
to improve his mind and therefore his
morals and his citizenship. Are not
objects such as this one worthy of
the support and commentator of the
church made up of men and women
who seek to spread the pure and simple
gospel OF the Carpenter of Nazareth?
1t has been charged by men who
should know better that the trades
unions deny the non-unionist the right
to work. The charge is absolutely un-
true. l have been trades unionist
for upwards of twenty years, and dur
ing all that time l have never known
my union, or any of my fellow union
lists, to deny to the non-union printer
the right to work for whom he pleases.
for what wage he pleases and as many
hours a day as he pleases But let ME
call your attention to few pertinent
upon the statute books protecting the
life and limb of the toilers was put
there by the energy, the devotion and
the self-sacrifice of trades unions, and
in the face of the opposition of the
employers of labor. Every child labor
law, protecting the playtime and the
innocence of childhood, is the result
of trades union activity. Every law
guarding the interests of the toilers
against the greed and rapacity of the
employers is the result of the cease
less energy and sacrifice of the trades
unions. Mine laws, factory laws, safe
ty appliance laws-all these have been
put upon the statute books by the eff
forts of organized labor. The benefits
of these laws are shared equally by
the union man and the non-union man.
The union man, however, his given of
his time and his money to bring about
these bettered conditions, while the
non-union man. profiting equally, has
given nothing. He is a human sponge.
And while l will admit his right to
work as he pleases, as a trades union
ist who has endeavored to bear his
share of the burden of bringing about
and maintaining these improved con-
ditions, l refuse to work by the side
Of such a man.
Is the position of the union man
wrong? Before you answer pause and
consider the church organizations to
which we belong. What do you think
of the unctuous individual who prays
long and sings loud, is regular at
tendant at church, always raises his
voice in social and business meetings,
and then takes literally the words of
the old song, Thank God, salvation's s
Free" and refuses to pay penny to
the furtherance of church work?
What do you think of the man who
claims to be a Christian and yet re-