Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1914-09-05
Greed and Demagogue Are Its
Greatest Foes, Says
Pastor.
by Rev. Percival II. Barker.

Over the greater part Of this North
American continent Monday next
will be celebrated as Labor Day.
This Labor Day, wherever celebrated,
is one of the significant facts which
tell that the world is moving, and
not backward. More than ever be-
fore in the worlds history is the true
value of mans labor revealed. Man
was meant to toll; and his toll was
meant to give him mastery over the
world about him. Toll is the true
wizard the Merlin of the twentieth
century, the tabled tortoise that bears
the world upon its back. The toiler
includes not only the manual worker
of our cities, but the agrieulturist,
the fisherman, the miner, the thinker
and writer-every man who, in God S
great world today, is doing his part
to make the world a better place to
live in. Yet in the common speech
of today the term labor is largely
associated with organized labor; and
I shall use the word In that sense.
In the struggle of labor for its rights
it will be found that there are forces
that are friendly and forces that are
hostile. 1t is well that Labor knows
its friends and recognizes its foes.
Some Foes of Labor.
One of the worst foes of organized
labor is the demagogue. In the ex-
treme form a constituencies orator, a
self-seeking parasite, who has fas-
tened himself upon this great labor
movement, and who, without true
sympathy with it, seeks only to ex-
plot it for his own purposes. Such
H.. i Il
Is always for sale. The difficulty is
that often his excess of zeal prevents
him from forming q sober judgment
as to his reliability; and he may run
long and strange course before he
is finally unmasked. This extreme
type, however. is not very common.
The eommoner type is the man who,
while loyal at heart to laborS cause,
is SO ignorant and so bigoted that it
is impossible for him to see either far
or clearly. The effect of such a man
is to sow seeds of invincible distrust
of all employers in the minds of
laboring men. This necessarily means
unfair judgment and unwise action.
The men to be trusted are the
thoughtful, quiet, self-restrained men,
who, while capable of intense feeling.
are able to arouse greatest enthusi-
esSiiA ia ONiittof hie yet in0i u maj
velous mental poise. Such are the
men in whose hands the labor inter-
ests are safe.
LabOr's Foe Is Greed.
But worse foe is greed. The worst
handicaps under which labor rests
today spring from the greed of gain
Greed is color blind. 1t can only see
one color, and that the yellow of gold.
1t is stoned deaf: the only voice that
can penetrate its stiffness is the voice
of self-interest. A generation ago,
when employer and employee were
personally acquainted with each
other, greed found it harder to be
deaf and blind and callous; but now
that corporations have become well
nigh universal it is comparatively
easy to forget everything else but the
demand for dividends.
1t is easier now to turn a gray
haired workman out to starve; it il
easier now to get rid of o sickly
workman whose output is a trifle too
small; it is easier now to ask men tn
toll under conditions that mean a
shortening of life's active toll by ten