The wageworker. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1904-????, 1906-09-07
The Trades Unions and the Church

Your missionaries carry the light of
the gospel into dark lands Our trades
union missionaries carry it into the
Ecisome sweatshop. They take the
little children from the stunting and
GelnoraIizing mills and mines and give
them sunshine and playtime and
schooltime. They give the husband
into the bosom of his family at least
portion of that family's waking
hours. They give the wife and mother
to the home by enforcing conditions
that make it possible for the husband
and father to earn enough to support
his family instead of calling upon the
partner of his bosom to become a
breadwinner. Our trades unions have
builded for better citizenship by en-
forcing conditions that made it pos
sible for hundreds Of thousands of
children to acquire an education in
stead of toiling in the mills and mines.
Are these not great and good works,
worthy Of being placed alongside the
works of the church? AS trades union
lists we are striving to create condi-
tions that will make it possible for our
children to enjoy better conditions
than their parents enjoyed. And 1 de-
clare here and now that child labor
is the greatest curse of this country,
and I call upon you as Christians, as
church members, to join hands with
we Of the trades unions in an effort that
will effectually wipe it out. The worst
OF childhood, and deprives the child of
the playtime and the advantages Of
youth.
In the very shadow of the richest
churches in New York, Chicago, Bos-
ton, Philadelphia and other great
cities, there exists more of human
woe and misery than could be de-
scribed by tongue or pen, and men re-
sponsible for these conditions sit in
their comfortable pews and take upon
their lips the words uttered by the
workingman of Nazareth. Into the
contribution plates are dropped the
golden coins wrung from the tears and
sweat and blood of childhood and
Womanhood and manhood-offerings to
the Man whose every utterance was
an Indictment of the industrial condi-
lions enforced by these rich men and
women. With here and there a nota-
BILE exception, the pulpit is silent on
these things, or if it does speak at
all of these things it speaks in gilt
tering generalities, instead of pointing
the finger at the guilty ones, saying,
Thou art the man, and thou, and
facts, can you blame the workingman
for the prevalent belief that the church
is not doing it's duty? Into these foul
tenements the settlement workers are
worker goes he or she finds that the
union agent has been before them,
ministering to the sick, helping the
afflicted, clothing the naked, feeding
the hungry and burying the dead. The
first glimmer of hope entering into
these dark places was brought by the
unions. l shudder to think of the
sights l have seen in the East Side
not begin to describe if l would
sights that could not be more than
limited at in the presence of refined
women and men. Poverty, filth, dis
ease, crime-the fruits of a perverted
industrialism whose only god is gold
Sixty thousand tenement rooms in
New York City alone which have only
one opening, the door, and these sixty
thousand rooms sheltering 100000 peo-
pie, an average of five to the room, and
these rooms at once sitting room, work
room, dining room and bedroom.
Against these conditions unionism is
fighting a slow, unequal but at the
same time a successful warfare. Will
not the church help us? In Gods
helpless and hopeless thousands into a
fit physical condition to listen to the
words of the gospel. l have an abid-
ing faith in the final victory, both for
the church and the union. The closer
the two get together, and the quicker,
the sooner will all the wrongs be
righted.
The unions are not perfect, for per-
lection can not be achieved by man.
But if at the end of nineteen CEN
turtles the church still makes mistakes,
we are profiting by our mistakes, just
as the church has profited
l believe in my union because l be-
lieve in God. l believe true unionism
is Gods work. My faith in God has
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