The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1919-06-21
POLITICS IN THE PULPIT.
Some Recent Emanations and Their Por'
tent--Golden Rule as Good Business.

1t is gratifying to find preachers and
| politicians-or some of them-abreast
and in agreement on some of the leading
questions of the day, respecting which
politicians are customarily the more adj
Sanced. Thus the president OF Cana
dian university, Rev DR.. Braithwaite,
who delivered the baecalaureate sermon
at Columbia, asserted that the issues of
the war resulted in a challenge to the
nations "to adopt the golden rule as a
practical matter of good politics and
good business, as well as OF good re-
| ligion." The same sentiment was ex-
pressed by the chairman of our tariff
commission but little while ago. What
ever tariff system we adopt, we should
wish that country to apply it to our
selves on the same terms and in the same
way as to others" That has not been
the way of the world, and particularly
not the way of the United States. 1t is
timely to consider this new way now,
because commercial treaties have been
Cancelled Wholesale as the result of the
war, and there must be care in their re-
newal The worlds nerves are ragged,
and there is talk of all sorts of CONNER
cial warfare, ranging from boycott to
retaliation and exclusive customs, 1t
would be a great gain if the discussion
could proceed in the tone of the preach
ers rather than of the ultra patriots who
find it so easy to rally the thoughtless to
the cry of the national interests above
all others
Commerce may be competition, but it
IL H.. l.
Quoted in neither the language nor the
manner of war Any step toward an ex-
clusionist tariff on our part would con-
| firm and exaggerate that tendency, and
would react against our own interests.
Mutual counsel" in the words of the
Canadian preacher and the sentiment of
our tariff commission, is better policy,
both more moral and more profitable
good business and good religion Our
own interest fayors this more than it
ever did before The entire situation is
altered by the state of policy by Bonar
Law that "the most vital vested interest
in the country is high wages, The low
est cost and so-called free trade country
has become one of the highcost eoun-
tries; and this country, which has based
its tariffs on Laws sentiment regarding
high wages, has become one Of the low
cost countries. This is no time for us
to practice restriction of trade by tariff
shackles
1t is singular to find the pulpit preach
ing on the tariff; il is less surprising to
| find it taking an early stand on the issue
of humanity by robbery. Dr. Van Dyke
said that all the teachings of the Bible,
from the earliest prophets of Israel to
Jesus, are "at the opposite extreme from
the crazy theories of the bolsheyiki and
anarchists who deny God, degrade man,
and destroy that which they propose
forcibly to divide" That pulpit utter
ance accords with the sentiments Of such
labor politicians as our federationists
and the Canadian minister who says not
of all the Winnipeg strikers, but of the
Winnipeg bolsheyiki, that they ARE all
revoutionsts of various degrees and
| types from crazy idealists to ordinary
/ thieves, with the bigger part perhaps Of
the latter type" There are some clergy
men still deceived BY the professions of
humanity uttered in defense Of many
current agitations Whatever their mer-
its they are not adyantaged by procedure
in either the German, Russian, or Winni-
peg manner, and ii is well to have the
pulpit so declare itself betimes There
Is a new sense of humanity abroad, but,
as DR.. Van Dyke says, it is at the oppo-
site extreme from such activities. New
York Times.