The Great Industrial War by F. M. W.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Sep 14, 1916

The Great Industrial War

By F. M. W.

Mutterings of the Coming Storm

A GREAT industrial war is impending. For long years its distinct mutterings have been heard, as underneath the surface the elements of discord and disintegration have been silently marshaling their forces. The growing difficulties between capital and labor are reaching more and more an acute and critical stage. The cause of this is found in the rapidly widening class distinctions which exist: the great aggregation of wealth in the hands of a favored few on the one side, and on the other the intolerable conditions under which many of the wage earners live, and the little hope they see for the alleviation of their situation.

Dividing the country into three classes, the rich, so called, comprise two per cent of the population, and these own sixty per cent of the wealth; the middle classes comprise thirty-three per cent of the population, owning thirty-five per cent of the wealth; while the poor represent sixty-five per cent of the population, and own about five per cent of the wealth. This is an age of great fortunes; a day not merely of millionaires, but of billionaires; a time when the fortune of one man equals the annual income of more than two million American wage earners.

The world owes much to the great captains of industry. They have been instrumental in the establishment and operation of many great enterprises which have proved of untold value to their fellows. It is difficult to see how, without the foresight, sagacity, and executive ability of some of these great commercial leaders, the world's work could be carried forward. Unquestionably, however, there has been on the part of invested wealth a marked tendency to overstep the bounds of justice and to impose upon laboring men unbearable conditions. The employees feel that while they are largely responsible for the creation of the wealth of their employers, they do not share in its just distribution. As a result, the laboring men have combined into trade unions to force from confederated wealth what they consider their just portion of the returns of their labor. The consequence has been labor strikes, riots, and violence, times without number, in practically every nation on both sides of the Atlantic.

Speaking of these conditions, Dr. C. H. Parkhurst, of New York, writing for the Evening Journal of that city just before the beginning of the great European war, said:—

“Certainly to the observant eye the signs of tempest are already in the air, and to one who looks across the world with a glance that takes in the whole collective scene, it is not easy and it is not reasonable to maintain oneself in perfect serenity of mind. . . .

“The more serious thing to consider is that what we listen to here is but a few notes of the general concert of discontent that prevails on both sides of the sea, and that that discontent is everywhere declaring itself in tones that are increasingly confident and bold. And so far as appears, nothing essential is being done to stay the forward march of dissatisfaction. We had a civil war half a century ago, and the mutterings of another civil war of an economic kind are distinctly audible.”

To this statement of Dr. Parkhurst’s might be added many of similar import from other writers and thinkers. This spirit of discontent is not confined alone to the more ignorant part of our population. It embraces men who have learned to think for themselves, who have studied the existing economic conditions, and as the result of such study have deliberately concluded that they are suffering injustice. Speaking of this, Vice President Marshall, in an address at Mooseheart, Ill., July 27, 1913, and reported in the Washington Post the next day, declared:—

“Thoughtful men who believed that the republic was founded, not only to maintain the equality of all men before the law, but also to furnish each individual man a fair field in which to work out his individual life, stand aghast at much of the discontent in America.

“The thoughtless man believes that the public mind is being agitated by the flannel-mouthed anarchist who waves his red flag, curses God and man, law and order. This is not so. A policeman’s squad whenever it chooses can settle, and settle forever, this agitation. The discontent is produced by the hundreds and thousands of high school, college, and university men and women who find themselves thrust into a modern warfare with no weapon of offense or defense save those of the ancient crusader.

“They have been eking out precarious existences in callings which God did not intend them to follow, and at the same time have been seeing some low-browed inferior, barely able to read and write, gathering unto himself all the good things of life. Unless some way be devised to minister to the wants, physical and mental, of these educated men and women, they sometime will trample underfoot all the theories of the republic in order to reach a better condition of life.”

Canon George William Douglas, writing on ‘The Close Kinship of Capital and Labor,’ in the New York Times, declares:—

“Few Americans, except politicians, and the settlement workers like Jane Addams, know how great the danger in this country is of a real revolt of labor.”

These conditions, which the last few years have served greatly to develop, afford a striking fulfilment of the prophecy contained in the fifth chapter of the epistle of James. Says the apostle, in speaking of the strife between capital and labor in the times just preceding the coming of the Lord:—

“Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you. Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” James 5: 1-8.

A striking illustration of the conflict between capital and labor has been witnessed in this country during the last few days. A strike of far-reaching consequence was threatened by the railroad brotherhoods. It was only by the strenuous

efforts of President Wilson, aided by speedy legislative action, that the great arteries of travel were not closed, resulting in incalculable loss to every business interest, and imposing untold suffering upon thousands.

This action on the part of Congress in providing an eight-hour law has been hailed by the labor unions as a great victory to the cause of labor. On the other hand, it has served to embitter the heads of the great railroad interests, who declare that they will test the constitutionality of the law by appeal to the Supreme Court. Thus the controversy has not been settled, although the immediate crisis has been bridged.

Of this particular controversy and of the far-reaching effects of this great industrial conflict we will speak further at another time. F. M. W.