p. 6 | A Union Labor Church

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 9, 1903

A Union Labor Church

AN announcement which perhaps is of little or no importance, yet which suggests possibilities of great consequence, is the following, which was printed in a Chicago daily of June 2:—

A union labor church is to be established in Chicago. At least W. B. Cook, of 314 West Monroe St., who writes to The Examiner with the appended cognomen of “Max O’Rell,” and who is self-styled “The Labor Preacher,” declares so. And Mr. Cook, or the Rev. Mr. Cook, says that this new church will be built strictly upon union principles. First of all, the “Rev.” Mr. Cook will secure union headquarters. The building must be erected by union tradesmen and furnished by union clerks and furnishers. The pastor must be union labeled, and the congregation will be compelled to show the union card at the door of the edifice. From union labeled prayer books and hymn books the supplications and chants of union tongues will rise, and union buttons will be the symbol of the church. The choir will be paid the union musicians’ wage scale, and the contribution basket collectors will wear the card. Those are some of the requisites to the ideal state from the religious standpoint as judged by the “labor preacher.”

It is a well-known fact that workingmen to-day are for the most part not in sympathy with the methods and institutions of modern orthodoxy. If the union labor movement should enter the field of religion, it is not impossible that it might assume an independent form, such as is outlined in the report given above.