The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1913-07-07
M'KELWAY FLAYS
PULPIT And BAR
Indolent, He Says, and Do
Not Fight for Cause
of Justice.
KILL MEN FOR WEALTH

Special to The Washington Hes,ld.

Special to The Washington Herald
Seattle, Wash, July Gin the annual
sermon before the National Conference 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 pulpit and the bar with be-
ing indolent in the cause Of social JUS
tice, and, therefore. q barrier to its real
ization-
mons to the conference" said DR.. Nc
Kelway, many eloquent and stirring
messages from the church to the social
worker. In this new demand for social
justice we have the social workers
message to the church. 1t is true that
we have with us those whom Micah
of old stigmatized as priests that
teach for hire and prophets that di-
vine for money 1t 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. I
am convinced that the great obstacles
to enlisting the powerful agency Of
the church in the cause Of social re-
form is the Incidence of the pulpit.
But the pulpit is not alone in resent
ing the necessity Of exploring new
fields of thought. The bar is reluctant
to consent to a constitutional conven-
tion which may upset the precedent. of
hundred or a thousand years and
make necessary a new line Of decisions.
How system Works.
We have gone far beyond the period
of human or animal sacrifices to pro-
pitiate 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 sup
port life, and We propitiate by putting
into effect a beautiful plan of workmen's
compensation. We atone for the facts
of poverty and misery and inhuman toll
and needless accidents and deaths by
building libraries out of the income of
a bond issue whose interest Is paid in
bloody sweat. We crush our competitors
through the employment of spies as book
keepers in rival establishments, through
rebate arrangements with complacent
railroad systems, and We endow universe
ties and foundations for the instruction
of youth and the alienation CT human
suffering.
we work women and children in cot
ton mills eleven hours a day; we resist
every eHOFI raise the age lOE
working children and to shorten the hours
for the mothers of the race, and then
out of the profits of their industry. be-
ycnd that which satisfies the stockhold-
ers. We build schools and churches and
hospitals and Fairgrounds, and do all
manner 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 cattle or our
our fellowmen. counting the unearned
Increment as the capital on which we
must have returns. and then we build
mission churches for the poor and make
large gifts for the conversion of heather
into what we think is Christianity.
Do Not Know Justice.
We kill men by the thousand every
year on our railroad systems that we may
nay dividends on watered stock, and tax
every man who must buy the myriad
products Of soil and forest and mine that
enter into transportation, and We are
The pillars of the church and the orna-
ments of the State. We hire women by
The thousands at wages below the cost
of decent living, and fill the houses of
with our victims, but We are
large contributors to the Associated |
Charities and the Magdalen homes.
Men do not always know what JUS |
tice is, and their thoughts of justice |
widen with their process of the suns, bat |
ii there is any current of American |
thought today that is running all i'll /
one direction, it is the demand among |
the masses of men for justice We can
tell its course by the rippIes on the sur
face, when some obstacle rears its head
Privilege of any kind must go down be-
fore the rush of that current. There are
some who fear that much that is precious
shall also be swept away if the stream
becomes a torrent. There are so,n.. who
believe that the stream will run red with
the blood of revolution ere it finds its
level that 1t seeks. So it may be, if the
demand for justice grows at the Same
time intelligent and passionate, and JUS
tee is denied