The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1908-08-08
WEALTHY CHURCH IS
al. !. Il UNJUST TO TENANTS
While Pretending to Lead Men
Upward It's Practices Crush
il. @s Men Downward. win n
Conduct That Presents Wonderful
IL! III u Spectacle Of Contradictions
= @:f +. | and Inconsistencies.

CnarleS Russell IN recent issue OF
Everybody's Magazine, shows conclu
sively that the wealthiest church cor
porat1on in the world. Trinity Church,
New York is unjust to its tenants,
and that its practices and methods are
menace to society. w
It's Property Holdings.
It owns In the city property worth,
according to different estimators, from
$3s,o0o,ooo to $1oo,o0o,ooo, from which
1t draws an enormous revenue, the
amout Of which Is never made public
For many years no investigator has
been able to obtain any more definite
knowledge Of these matters than that
this Is the wealth Of Trinity which she
holds for good purposes.
What? Expressed in wretched, rot
ten, old tenement houses? Yes. Elk
pressed in hundreds of such tenement
houses.
Tenement House Effects.
Il have before me-" said Mr.: Russell,
the testimony of very eminent
authority about tenement houses, and
she says that confirmed tenement
house jewellers are as a class sickly,
anemic, lethargic and show unmistak
able tendencies toward constitutional
weakness. tuberculosis has strong
hold upon them; the effect Of tene-
ment house life is such that the third
generation Of tenement house jewellers
(if you can concveive of a third gen.
Grafton is usually of an inferior men
tality, without intelligent interest in
anything, leads dull and vacant lives
and furnishes recruits for the reform
atory and the state prison.
Worst in New York.
1T appears, therefore, that while the
charities established by Trinity since
1857 are trying to lead men upward,
the Trinity tenements, with an ire
sistable force, are crushing men down
ward; and we are therefore presented
at once with a very memorable spec.
tacle of the contradictions and incon-
sistencies of this our mortal state.
Because If the tenement, speaking
generally, works i'll, Trinity's tene-
ments must be a matter of grave con-
Germ to us all, Trinity's tenements
must work more than common Ill, for
they are the worst tenements in New
York."
are OenS OF Oeatn.
After describing the almost. incredi-
BILE conditions that prevail in. these
tenements, and explaining Trinity's
method Of managing its properties,
Russell comments, as follows: ::
TASTES differ, I. know that the yes
try of Trinity would be =. terribly
shocked at suggestion that the cor
poration should make money by ad-
ministering arsenic to people, or car
bolic acid, or deadly night-shade. But
the vestry or the standing committee
that represents it in these matters has
no objection whatever to making
money for the corporation by main
tanning poisonous tenements.
"As between tuberculosis and arsenic
where lies the choice?
Beautiful Blessingsl
"Ah, yes, blessings on the Sunday
School excursions, blessings on the
trade schools, blessings on the paroch-
ial schools, blessings on the fruit and
flower missions, blessings on the organ
music, blessings on the chapel guilds
blessings on the contributions for the
poor of st. Johns. Beautiful, indeed,
are all these things. But while they
keep their wonted way, the mill Of
the tenement houses goes on crushing,
and the products Of the crushing stare
US in the face with ugly questions, not
to be answered with Sunday school
excursions.