Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-07-03
THE CHURCH AND INDUSTRY

|0NE of the great ambitions of men
" who helped the Interchurch World
Movement because they saw it whole
was to eliminate, by the application Of
Christian philosophy, many of the
stresses common between labor and
capital. They felt that too much has
been done to dehumanize some of the
processes Of production in the United
States and elsewhere. And they felt.
too, that il is upon fields left hard and
barren Of logic and sympathy in bitter
conflicts of human purposes that the
future of civilization will be decided
and the codes of present day society
| justified or rejected.
| Out of his own experience, which in =
cluded a dramatic reversal from in =
herited views. the younger Rockefeller
received the inspiration which le6-him
to work tirelcssly in behalf of the inter-
church movement and to regard it as a
step toward a new set of human under
standings by which men might unite
for common and just ends. Many other
business men held similar views and
entertained similar hope. 1t is all
the more astonishing, therefore, to read
of powerful groups antagonistic to such
aims that withdrew their aid when it
became apparent that the interchurch
movement was to have q practical and
ethical as well as a religious side.
There were men of means and influ-
ence, it appears, who insisted that the
church should concern itself exclusively
with the future life and leave the pres
ent one to shape itself and so in its
own way.
This point of view led inevitably to
confusion in the organization formed to
give Christian purposes new express
sion. And it was responsible for bitter
opposition to voluminous report rela-
tive to the recent steel strike which the
interchurch commission prepared after
months of studies and surveys on the
ground. 1t may even prove that there
is some truth in the report that the
internal war over this proposed report
led finally to a break in the organiza-
ton and the partial abandonment Of
the interchurch plan.
Now, the steel strike was a symptom
of conditions that Americans cannot
huuN lOO hDouNs
reds and radicals obscured conditions
which. in some quarters at least, are
neither desirable nor safe in any ma
ton. A strike report made at the be-
hest of cooperating churches would
naturally be unbiased. There could be
nothing wrong in an attempt to view
an economic deadlock in the light of
Christian idealism. But the strike re-
port was delayed. 1t is 10 be published
now. and those who have insisted on
its publication have won a victory of
which they may be proud. For it
happens that the dominant forces in
our civilization are economic forces.
Business rules life to very great de-
gree. And if a time comes when the
church admits that it has no right to
leave the impress of its philosophy on
the active life about it and no right to
be force for truth and justice in the
weltcr Of practical affairs it will have
| failed.
No one who tried to see below the
surface Of the steel strike will be sur
prSod to hear that the report Of the
church Investigators is not entirely
favorable TO the ruling powers Of the
Steel Corporation or complimentary to
the civil authorities who were so eager
TO do their bidding. The strikers some
times adopted dangerous methods. Vio-
len"e vas not unknown among them
4 These things we all know. But there
is another side of the picture verified
now by competent and disinterested
witnesses 1t was found that Constitu-
tonaI rights and privileges were ignored
in the Pittsburgh area not only by the
steel officials, but by the civil authori-
ties, who ruthlessly rode down peaceful
labor meetings. Appeals for a hearing
were answered BY pollcemen's clubs.
Let US leave the case of the individual
out Of the matter altogether and ask
whether this sort of thing is good for
citizenship, whether it encourages faith
and loyalty and pride in government?
It doesn't. surely. And the church
and Christians generally will have
abandoned their ideals completely il
they do not continue to make war on
the forces which not only defeat what
is best in life but tend, wherever they
have become dominant, inevitably
toward national disintegration.