The Union times. [volume] (Union, S.C.) 1894-1918, 1913-07-11
BAR AND PULPIT
ARE BARRIERS
DIR. McKelway Says They are Indo-
lent in Cause of Social Justice

Seattle, Wash, July Elm the an
nual sermon beore the National Con-
ference of Charities and Correction
here today, Rev. A. ]. McKelway, of
Washington, D. c., secretary of the
National Child labor Committee for
the Southern States, charged the pull
pit and the bar with being indolent
in the cause of social justice and
therefore barrier to it's realization.
eve have had at these annual SER
mons to the conference" said DR.. Nc
Kelway, "many eloquent and stirring
messages from the church to the So
cial worker. In this new demand for
social justice, we have the social
workers message to the church. It
is true that we have with us those
whom Micah of old stigmatized as
priests that teach for hire and
prophets that divine for money! it
is also true that the American pulpit
whether represented by Protestant
minister, Catholic priest, or Jewish
rabbi, has not yet fully awakened to
the demand for social justice that so
rings in our ears. l am convinced
that the great obstacles to enlisting
the powerful agency of the church
in the cause of social reform is the
Incidence of the pulpit. But the pull
pit is not alone resenting the neces-
sity of exploring new fields of
thought. The bar is reluctant to con-
sent to constitutional convention
which may upset the precedent of a
hundred or thousand years and
make necessary new line of decis-
ions.
eve have gone far beyond the per-
Iod of human or animal sacrifices to
propitiate Deity. We live in a more
refined age of the world. Now we
work men twelve hours day, seven
days of the week at wages barely
sufficient to support life, and we pro-
pitiate by putting into effect a beau
tiful plan of workmen's compensa-
tion. We atone for the facts of pow
erty and misery and inhuman toll
and needless accidents and deaths by
building libraries out of the income
of bond issue whose interest is paid
in bloody sweat. We crush our COM
petitors through the employment of
spies as bookkeepers in rival estab-
lishments through rebate arrange
ments with complacent railroad sys-
TENS, and we endow universities ani
foundations for the instruction
youth and the alleviation of hun
suffering. We work women and g
dren in cotton mills eleven hours
day, we resist every effort to q
.se .r, age INIT limit s... YSrsiag ssg chi +5g
mothers of the race, and then out of
the profits of the inlustry beyond
which satisfies the stockholders, we
build schools and churches and hospi-
tails and Fairgrounds and do all man.
ner of betterment work. We erect
tenements with so little regard for
light and air and even decency that
we would not house in them our cat
tie or our horses lest they die, and
rent these to our fellowmen, count
ing the unearned increment as the
capital on which we must have re.
turns, and then we build mission
churches for the poor and make large
gifts for the conversion of heather
into what we think is Christianity.
We Kill men by the thousand every
year on our railroad systems that
we might pay dividends on watered
stock and tax every man who must
buy the myriad products of soil and
forest and mine that enter into trans
portation, and we are the pillars of
the church and the ornaments of the
State. We hire women by the thous-
ands at wages below the cost Of de-
cent living and fill the houses of
prostitution with our victims, but we
are large contributors to the Asso-
ciated Charities and the Magdalene
homes.
Men do not always know what
justice is, and their thoughts of JUS
tice widen with the process of the
suns, but if there is any current of
American thought today that is run
nlng all in one direction it is the de.
mand among the masses of men for
justice. We can tell it's course bv tbe