The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1919-08-02
Rev. Ilsley Boone Hopes 1t
Will Aid in Fighting So
cial Inequalities
CLASSISM MUST NOT
BE ENCOURAGED

Church Must Champion Universal
Brotherhood and Should Work for
Remedial Legislation-Class Strug-
giles Are Dangerous to All Classes
NEW YORK, Aug. with the pro-
nouncement that any struggle within
society must not be class struggle,
the Rev. Ilsley Boone, who has been
active in the $6,000,000 Victory cam
paign Just closed by the national COM
mittee of Northern Baptist laymen, ex-
pressed his belief recently that the
church would have to devote itself
henceforth to solving the problem of
furnishing opportunity for workers to
share more equitably in the fruit of
their toll, and the limiting of those pro-
cesses whereby wealth multiphes itself
He expressed the hope that the church,
both directly and indirectly, would urge
| legislation which promised a just meth
cd of righting those inequalities in our
social order.
After commenting upon the great
changes going on in these days and de-
claring that "radical demands of age
| long customs, the demolition of institu-
| tions which, civilization with tremen-
dous energy, sacrifice and devotion has
been centuries in building DR.. Boone
points out that the labor movement at
present is class movement, but that it
cannot remain such without the gray
est danger to all, whether radical, con-
sentative or reactionary.
'In this struggle he continued,
call are equally concerned. The rights
| of labor are sacred. But so are the
rights of the rich Rights do not per-
| tain to property as such, nor even to
| labor as such, but to men. And in this
view there is no room for class struggle.
| There must be common effort on the
| part of all men to readjust society, with
| due regard to the shortcomings of
| things as they are, and with a passion
| ate devotion to make them as they
| ought to be For the workers to empha-
size their rights and ignore the rights
of those whom they regard as their OPP
| pressors, is just as vicious a mistake
as that which they accuse the capital
lists of having made. Within the
American democracy there must be nc
classism, but a common purpose to worn
out social order that shall be equit
able fair and just to rich and poor, Il
labor and to capital, to high and to low
to cultured and to uncultured, withou
regard to employment or race or creed
Tor any other marks by which men dlvld
themselves into groups.
ga second emphasis of the churel
must be upon the note of universe
!, brotherhood. 1t was great stride for
ward when the seer of ancient .Israe
< announced the doctrine that Jehoval
was not territorially limited to the Ian
( of the chosen people To the ancien
| Jew this was a startling new truth, Blu
il was the forerunner of that day whe
the Greeks, representing the non-Jew
, ish world, sought Jesus, and the latte
announced Himself as the One VIII
would attract all men to Himself an
! create thereby a common human brotl
erhood The 'One Big Union is ne
the property of the radicals. The tie
of Christianity have always been hel
theoretically to stand superior to tic
" of race. language, nationality. or eve
/ of blood. But social and civil barrier
r have for twenty centuries stood in II
r way of practical demonstration of tn
teaching on anything like a univers
d scale The truth which the church h;
). announced for all these years, Il
: brotherhood of man, is today beir
d forced to the forefront in our commC
consciousness and is demanding IL
world 5 attention. The church cann
ignore this opportunity to stress do
trne so fundamental to human welfa
and universal happiness
"Finally the church, both direct
and indirectly, should espouse legisl
ton and civil enactments which prom
u Just and feasible method of rightir
l. those inequalities in our social ord
which now afford ample ground for ST
lie cere and earnest protest on the part
0, workers. If the war has emphasiz,
lie any one thing. it has been the extren
liberalitv of the common people and
= the same time the utter selfishness of
- minority group. who have availed thel
10 selves of every opportunity to ma
themselves tremendously wealthy, wit
out regard to the fact that indirect
their wealth has been procured from t
:, pockets of every man, woman and chil
~ The trouble with society, as Preside
Faunce of Brown University pointed 0
II in his recent Denver address,, is not
wv much a matter of shorter hours or lar
al er pay, or even of profit sharing, but
matter of broken brotherhood This
Sc, where we have failed -. s1Nfi 5,