The Tendency of Our Times by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 29, 1907

The Tendency of Our Times

By C. M. S.

ON the morning of July 18 there occurred at Oak Grove, Ky., an incident which shows that the spirit of unionism is the same in all parts of the country and among all classes. The planters of tobacco and wheat had formed a Farmer’s Association in the above vicinity, and had begun the work of compelling their neighbors to join. Persuasion failing, threats were used, and these failing, the threats were carried out. One man who refused to join the organization received an order not to thrash his wheat. He thrashed the wheat, and a stick of dynamite hidden in a sheaf exploded in the threshing-machine, destroying the machine and injuring four men. Twenty-five night-riders made a raid on the home of another farmer, and at the point of a gun mercilessly flogged him with a rawhide, and before his release brutally kicked him. He had been a member of the association and had withdrawn from it. He had been ordered not to raise any more tobacco or wheat, and had not heeded the order. Tobacco stemmeries have been burned, and the plant beds of non-association growers have been dug up. No one dares to appear against the offenders, and their depredations go on unchecked. These acts of lawlessness are indicative of our times, and carry their own lessons for the people of our day.

While these things were going on in Kentucky, the labor unions of the West were making, against the capitalists of the country, dire threats whose execution hung upon the conviction of Haywood and Moyer. In some of their halls were hung the following mottoes:—

If Moyer and Haywood die, for every hair in their heads we will have the life of a capitalist.

If the capitalists convict Moyer and Haywood, there will be death sentences in every rich man’s family.

These expressions all have in them the threat of murder, a spirit at variance with the laws both of God and of the country; and this movement of combinations of men for selfish purposes is spreading through all the world. It is a spirit of intolerance toward the wishes and the rights of others — intolerance of another’s liberty when it does not promote my temporal advantage. It is manifest in the labor unions, agricultural associations, in the trusts, and among those religious bodies whose religion is more an affair of the head than of the heart. When men have lost their faith and their trust in God, the tendency of the times in this direction is a striking comment upon the waning spirituality of the people. With the tide set so strongly in this direction, the soul that would be true to God needs to set his face resolutely toward the city of God, and keep strong hold of the hand of the Infinite. C. M. S.