The Capitalist and the Laborer
THE determined conflict between the capitalist and the laborer is shown in a new light through the lobby investigations that are being conducted in the United States Congress. Those investigations are showing without any question, that the capitalists have maintained a strong organization to influence legislation; they have agencies to color the matter that is put through the press; and in many other ways they seek to hold the business of the country under their power. This means, of course, that they would keep wages down, and do many other like things that would be to their advantage. Labor organizations have been claiming this for years, and so they have been uniting all the more closely and working all the more vigorously to combat the work of the men of colossal wealth. A great many people spend their time in studying and discussing the right and the wrong that may be in each of these contending forces of capital and labor; but a better way is for us to recognize the great struggle that is on, to observe that it is world-wide, and then to know the meaning of it as it is disclosed through the prophets. The world at the present time is very seldom free from outbreaks between these contending camps in the form of strikes and lockouts. These are becoming constantly more frequent; and if we knew the facts, we would doubtless find that what is in process in secret on each side would be much more alarming than what is out in the open. We have no disposition to discuss who is right, or who is wrong, in these things. It should pass without saying that there is more or less of right and wrong upon both sides, and that the men of wealth, being in the possession of power, carry the greater responsibility for the conditions that are existing at the present time. When the Master was here in person, He said that as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the coming of the Son of Man; and the same Master, some two thousand years before, had inspired Moses to tell us that in the days of Noah every imagination of the heart of man was only evil continually. And furthermore, He said: “The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.” Gen. 6:11, 12. We can not be held responsible for the statement that was made by the Master, nor for this other statement that He inspired Moses to write. If any one wishes to quarrel with these statements, he must see, if he stops to think, that he is not quarreling with men, but he is quarreling with the Author of the Bible. He told us that the days of violence and anarchy that existed in the times before the Flood, would be repeated just before His second coming. The conflict now on between capital and labor, not to speak of the other causes of violence and social discontent throughout the world, is assuming greater and greater intensity. Who can not see that these predictions that were made by the Lord of Glory are being most literally fulfilled?