The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1913-09-18

Sef1non Dy the rev. herDerL booLn
Smith. My Father worketh until now
and I work."--John SIT.
This is the oldest labor union on
earth, my Father and l." The God
whom we worship is not the idle di-
vinity of some heather faiths. When
! He is first described to us in the Bible
He is represented as being engaged in
the work of creation week. He preach
es and lives a gospel of work and when
men came at Him for healing on the
Of the text that He was a member of
a labor union which antedated even
the Sabbath day, and one of the clos
ing utterances of his life was, II have
finished the work Thou gavest me to
! do" .. ..
1 will not discuss the objections to
the labor unions (there are only three),
these being employers Directing to col
lective bargaining, the interference of
the walking delegate and the failure
of the union to become an incorporated
body so that it could be sued at law
for non-performance of its contracts.
and we will consider it's history. Dean
Hodges carries it back as far as the
exodus of the children of Israel from
Egypt. He says that was a strike; in
dustrial revolution of the OF
a great nation. They stopped work
and betook themselves out of the land
to the CONSERVATION of the capitalists"
SO, too, he finds that there is a sug-
! SSSSAol VI oiIo ltlSA oAAOk 4CIAtoo AA kAAS
book of Judges, when we are told that
the tribes got together and agreed to
have no dealings with the sons of Ben
jamin-in other words, they b~oycotted
the Benjaminites. He concludes that
the boycott and strike are as ancient
as the world and are as natural a part
of human life as hands n feet. In
the time of Jesus all workmen, skilled
and unskilled, We're v No work.
ing class did exist till Jesus came.
A different spectacle faces us today.
Different even than twenty-five years
ago: Then a famous French statesman
said that the social problem is a fad
upon which serious-minded statesmen
should waste no time. Today it has
assumed proportions which challenge
our attention. This is the era of COM
mon man and embraces movements
among a very large percentage of the
working people of Germany, England,
Italy, Austria, Australia, Russia, to say
nothing of the social unrest which ex-
lists in this country.
4 In great social reforms of the pres
ent day, If the church is true to its
history, 1t will take the leadership. AS
soon as the church gets rid of the dis
tinction between sacred and secular
she will try to save mems bodies as
well as their souls. The claim is made
may pick up has almost nothing to say
about the social question:; hat men
have to go to the stage instead of the
pulpit to hear the great problems of
11lS, WHICH are 50 real 10 L1GIl,I u1S-
cussed. That in New York city the
church does not mak itself felt among
the great mass of the people save as
a protest against the peoples amuse-
ments. We are reminded of the words
of Keir Hardie when the Archbishop
Of Canterbury recently announced that
he worked seventeen hours a day and
had no time to form an opinion about
solving the problem of the unemployed.
Mr.. Hardie replied that a religion that
took seventeen hours a day for organ
ization and left no time for a single
thought about starving and despairing
women and children and men has no
message for this age.
Ever since Jesus preached the doc
trine of the. brotherhood of man we
have believed it theoretically, but it is
think the union practices it more fully
than the church, and they say, 1.-THE
union is all the church we want, for
we. find there the three essentials OF
A part of the pledge taken by every
applicant into the American Federation
Of Labor reads: st promise " to
discriminate against a fellow worker
on account of creed, color or nation
atty" Brotherhood is applied not
only r~acially but financially. 1T fire.
quently happens that when a member
Of a union who has run into debt de-
sires otskip the town, the union will
withhold his travelling card until his
debts are paid. The sick and death
USuSELS are d nODlG part OF Lne1r WORK
and very rarely does a trade u~nionist
apply to federated charities for aid.
No institution, not eye the church,
Is doing more to Americanize the i'm
migrant than the union. Tt teaches
him that the word government
which in the old country meant OPP
pressor, in this country means friend
So In working for the protection Of
for the shortening of hours of labor
and doing away with sweatshops and
~unsanitary conditions and for xaboli-
ton of child labor.
bated one and 1T is not our purpose
to enter into it here. There are many
arguments for and against. Statistics
shoW thu only 60 per sent Of the
the unions. only 1@1-2 per cent for rec
ognition of the union and only 3 per
cent sympathetic. ] do not know Of
any phenomenon of modern life which
TO sacrifice for a cause, even though
the policy of the sympathetic strike
is open to great debate.
Now this thing of sacrifice is reli-
gion. Jesus was not speaking exag-
g~eratingly when he said, This poor
woman hath cast in more than they
There Is a pamphlet In my study
headed by w words heavily under
scored The words are Remember
tact Lhat the matters union was forced
to pay to a loss In Danbury, Conn.
$210.000 because they had declared they
would not buy ~non-union hats and
We're sued for this amount. After de-
failing a number OF the wrongs which
the workinglnen suffer, 1T asks, .tWhy
Is this?' The answer is In large print.
The workers have no political unity.
They are divided 70 their ruin" The
fact Is. brothers. the bosses are deal
Ing with an un~organiZed political mob
that votes this way and thatIway ana
thereby destroys itself. The pamphlet
closes with an earnest appeal for uni
fled effort. sayinggthat a world waits to
he gained. The workiagrnen are find
Ing this out.
\ You can hitch 100 horses To 4 wagon