The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1913-07-10
NJ KELWAY
On CHILD
LABOR

Seattle. July 10.-In the annual SER
mon before the National Conference
Of Charities and Correction here yes
terday, Rev. A. j, McKelway Of Wash
ington, d. c., secretary of the Ma
tional Child Labor committee for the
southern states, charged the pulpit and
the bar with being indolent in the
cause of social justice and therefore
a barrier to it's realization.
we have had at these annual SER
mons to the conference" said DIR. Nc
Kelway, many eloquent and stirring
messages from the church to the 500
cial 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
divine for money; it is also true that
the American pulpit, whether repre-
sented by Protestant minister, Cath
Ollie 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 pulpit is not alone in r~esenting
the necessity of exploring new fields
of thought. The bar is reluctant to
consent to a constitutional convention
which may upset the precedent of a.
hundred or a thousand years and
make necessary a new line Of de-.
%Cisions. .
we have gone far beyond the period
Of human or animal sacrifices to pro-
pitiate Deity. We live in a more re-
fined age of the world. Now we work
men twelve hours a day, seven days
of the week at wages barely sufficient
to support 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 in
terest is paid in bloody sweat. We
crush III competitors through the en-
ployment of spies as bookkeepers in
rival establishments, through rebate
arrangements with complacent rail-
road systems, n we endoW universe
ties and foundations for the instruc-
ton Of youth and the alienation of
human suffering. We work women and
children in cotton mills eleven hours
a day, we resist every effort to raise
the age limit for working children and
to shorten the hours for the mothers
of the race, and then out of the profits
of their industry beyond that which
satisfies the stockholders, we build
schools and churches and hospitals
and Fairgrounds and do all name
Of betterment work. We erect tene-
ments with so little regard for light
and air and even decency hat we
would not house in them our cattle
Or u horses lest they die. and rent
these to our fellowmen, counting the
unearned increment as the capital on
which we must have. returns, and then
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 may pay 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 n the ornaments of
the state. We hire women by the
thousands at wages below the cost. Of
decent living and fill the houses of
prostitution with our victims, but we
are large contributors to the Asso-
ciated Charities and the Magdalen
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 hat is run
ming all in n direction, it is the
demand among the masses Of men for
justice. We can tell its course by
the ripples on the surface, when some
obstacle rears it's head. Privilege of
any kind must go down before 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 some
who believe that the stream will run
red with the blood of revolution ere
it finds the level that it seeks. So it
may be, if the demand for justice
grows at the same time Intelligent
and passionate, and justice is denied