The Industrial Conflict in the Light of Revelation.
By Geo. W. Rine
In some of the previous articles of this series, it was shown that many of the prophets of our Christian Bible foresaw that a marvelous increase of wealth, and an unprecedented concentration of wealth, would be a strikingly-marked characteristic of the time immediately preceding the second advent of the Messiah. They foresaw, too, that this mighty evolution and well-nigh complete centralization of wealth would lead inevitably to Mammonism, wanton luxury, and reckless display. “In the last days . . . men shall be . . . LOVERS OF PLEASURES more than lovers of God,” is the plain, unqualified prediction of the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul. 2 Tim. 3:1-4. Again, the Apostle James wrote: “Come now, ye rich. . . Ye have laid up treasures in the last days. . . . Ye have lived delicately on the earth, and taken your pleasure; ye have nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter.” James 5:1-5, A. R. V. In the thirteenth verse of the twenty-second chapter of Isaiah, the prophet gives a graphic portrayal of the voluptuous pleasures and sensual indulgence of our day—in that day when the Lord calls upon the people to weep and to mourn and to gird themselves with sackcloth (verse 12). Thus: “And, behold, joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine: Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we shall die.” Verse 13. Do these divinely-inspired, last-day prophecies find their verification and fulfilment in our day? Are we not living in an age of lavish luxury, of dazzling extravagance, of vulgar display, on the part of the rich and “fashionable”? The ostentation, the sumptuousness, the wanton luxury of the so-called fashionable society of to-day, are so conspicuously in evidence that they have become a matter of every-day comment. Mr. W. J. Ghent, a well-known writer on momentary questions, recently said: “It is probable that no aristocracy—not even that of profligate Rome under the later Cæsars—ever spent such enormous sums in display.” This he said in reference to our American aristocracy of wealth. He said further:— Our aristocracy, avoiding the English standards relating to persons engaged in trade, welcomes the industrial magnate; and his vast wealth and love of ostentation have set the pace for lavish expenditure. Trade is the dominant phase of American life, . . . and, as it has achieved the conquest of most of our social institutions and of our political powers, that it should also dominate “society” is but a natural sequence. Flaunting and garish consumption becomes the basic canon in fashionable affairs.
Apropos of the typical American money prince, Mr. Thorstein Veblen writes:— Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability. . . . As wealth accumulates on his hands, his own unaided effort will not avail sufficiently to put his opulence in evidence by this method. The aid of friends and competitors is therefore brought in by resorting to the giving of valuable presents and expensive feasts and entertainments.
The writer goes on to show that these gross and disgusting methods of flaunting one's wealth before the eyes of a staring and gazing public were conspicuously in vogue during the declining and decadent years of ancient Babylon, Greece, and Rome. Mr. Ghent, in respect to Mr. Veblen's latter statement, says:— The conspicuous consumption of other days was, however, as compared with that of the present, but a flickering candle flame to a great cluster of electric lights. Against the few classic examples, such as those of Cleopatra and Lucullus, our present aristocracy can show hundreds; and the daily spectacle of wasteful display might serve to make the earlier Sybarites stare and gasp. Present-day fashionable events come to be distinguished and remembered, not so much on the score of their particular features, as of their cost. A certain event is known as Mr. A's $5,000 breakfast; another as the Smith-Jones's $15,000 dinner; and another as Mrs. C's $30,000 entertainment and ball.
Commenting on one of the society balls of New York City, the California Christian Advocate, a year or two ago, said:— The lavish luxury and dazzling extravagance displayed by the wealthy Greeks and Romans of “the olden times” is a matter of history. Such reckless display is beginning to make its appearance in what is called fashionable society in this country. One of our exchanges tells of a New York lady who spent $125,000 in a single season in entertaining. The character and value of the entertainments may be judged by the fact that she taught society how to freeze Roman punch in the heart of crimson and yellow tulips, and how to eat terrapin with gold spoons out of silver canoes. One of “the four hundred” is said to have spent $50,000 on a single entertainment. Such lavish expenditure to such poor purposes is sinful and shameful.
Somewhat more than a year ago, one hundred and forty-four society devotees, headed by a distinguished money lord, held a great ball. It had never been surpassed even by royalty. It was exceptionally exclusive. Wine flowed like water. Beauty lavished her charms. Mark Antony and Cleopatra never reveled in such gorgeousness. It was a collection of millionaires. The world was searched for pearls and diamonds. Scores of necks were emblazoned with necklaces of gems costing from $200,000 downward. While the dance went on amid Aladdin splendors, 100,000 starving miners in Pennsylvania were scouring the roads like cattle in search of forage, says an Eastern journal. Some of them lived on cars and some committed suicide to avoid seeing their children starve. “Yet one necklace from the metropolitan ball would have rescued all these from hunger.” It was one of the “great social events” of a nation called Christian. Sometime ago the Philadelphia Press published the following: “There is no doubt about it that New York is divided into two great classes, the very rich and the very poor. The middle class of reputable, industrious, fair-to-do people are gradually disappearing, going up in the scale of worldly wealth or down into poverty and embarrassment. It seems unquestioned that between these classes exists, and is rapidly growing, under intentional fostering of evil men, a distinct, pronounced, malignant hatred. There are men5here who are worth $10,000,000 and $20,000,000, of whom you know nothing. There are men here who twenty years ago sold clothes on Chatham Street, who to-day live at an annual expense of $100,000, who wear jewels costing at reasonable stores $25,000.” In the World's Work, for September, 1903, it was affirmed that during the year 1902, this country spent $10,000,000 for sporting goods, two millions of it being for golf clubs and balls. The golf club houses, with their grounds, were, in the same year, valued at $20,000,000. Wealthy Americans have invested $50,000,000 in yachts and other pleasure craft. The expenses incident to the running of a first-class yacht for one year are $100,000. A yacht can be chartered at $5,000 to $20,000 a month, exclusive of running expenses. Yachting “fairly smells of money.” Each of Sir Thomas Lipton's efforts to recover the famous British cup cost him $1,000,000, and the defenders twice that amount. In 1898 there were only thirty-five automobiles in the United States. In 1902 there were 7,000 in the city of New York, alone, valued at $20,000,000. These machines were all devoted exclusively to pleasure and recreation. In New York State the average daily amount of money bet on horse-racing amounts to $1,000,000. At Saratoga alone the daily betting aggregates $200,000. In 1895 the people of New York State paid for admission to racing grounds $500,000; in 1902 they paid for the same purpose $3,500,000. A wealthy man of New York City spent $1,000,000 in simply furnishing his palatial home. Another magnate of the same city paid $500,000 for three pieces of French tapestry. A New York woman of wealth paid $125,000 for a set of furniture consisting of but four pieces. A wealthy United States senator invested $250,000 in a set of French rugs. Rev. Thomas Dixon, of New York, in a sermon given nearly ten years ago, said:— In the midst of hunger and cold, and even starvation among thousands, the rich are busy amusing themselves. There has been no time since the days of the Emperor Nero, when wealth strutted amid squalor with greater contempt for its surroundings, and with vainer display of all its vulgar trappings of gold and silver. The palaces of the rich in the days preceding the fall of Rome were pig-pens compared with the marvelous piles of architecture and decorative art of which our modern cities are full. The banquets given by the great gluttons of Nero's day are not to be compared in cost or display to the elaborate affairs of the year of our Lord 1893, at a time when 20,000,000 of the human race are in a starving condition. Tailors are busy inventing costumes for dogs, while children freeze for want of clothes. With threatened labor uprisings in many nations, the money kings of the world have just precipitated one of the greatest panics of the nineteenth century. They have made billions of dollars.
In England no less than $20,000,000 are yearly expended for the cruel sport of fox hunting. While thousands of poor families are huddled away in dark garrets and damp cellars, hunting dogs have palatial houses lighted by electricity. There, where the poor man is not allowed land enough to raise a hill of potatoes, there are 15,700,000 acres of land kept only for a game preserve and shooting ground for “my lord.” The following description of a dog banquet given several years ago in New York, is taken from the Young Lutheran:— A Mrs. ———, one of the upper “four hundred,” owns a pet Japanese dog that listens to the name of “Ootah.” In order to please her pet, the other day she sent out invitations printed in the English and Japanese languages, to a number of Japanese dogs (or their owners), inviting them to a banquet. Twenty of these high-bred canines accepted the invitation. Ootah, in company with his nurse, who appeared in full Japanese costume, received the guests, whose nurses were also clad in appropriate costume. Whenever one of the pets became unruly, the nurse would mollify his temper by tender kisses. Ootah's guests were led to the banquet tables, which were six inches high and accommodated four dogs each. The banquet consisted of fried chicken, Japanese cake, sweetmeats, and ice-cream. After the banquet was over, the dear little creatures were carefully wrapped up and taken home in cabs. Instead of sending missionaries to the heathen in Africa to convert them, they should be sent among the “four hundred” of New York to make men and women out of them.
In a description of the palace belonging to an English millionaire, which cost $15,000,000, the London Weekly Sun says: “The pictures in the galleries alone are worth $500,000, and the books in the libraries as much more. It is without doubt the finest private residence on the globe.” At an art sale in London, $10,000 was paid for a dessert service; $6,000 for two flower-pots; $15,000 for a chimney ornament; $50,000 for two vases; $5,000 for the flowers of a single ball. The papers recently stated that a gentleman of Syracuse, New York, had just completed a barn costing $700,000, and that a $200,000 necklace is worn by one of the fair leaders of New York society. One of the wealthiest women of New York, February 10, 1897, gave a fancy ball, which in the aggregate actually cost $369,000. There were 700 guests present, attired in silks and satins and decked with diamonds. Almost every character of note in the times of Louis XIV. and Louis XV., from the plebeian peasant to the jewel-crowned king or queen, was personated. The furniture was exclusively of the Louis XV. period. The fabulous cost of this affair is vouched for by the Boston Herald, of about February 3, 1897. The San Francisco Examiner, of June 12, 1904, gave an illustrated description of a $500,000 gown, worn by a millionaire lady of Boston, when she was presented to the king and queen of England. The following is a part of the Examiner's description of perhaps the most magnificent gown the world has ever known:— Think of a gown costing five hundred thousand dollars! A gown sewn with pearls and spangled with real diamonds for dewdrops! A gown of shimmering satin softly losing itself in the dazzling lengths of a court train of cloth of silver veiled in silver tulle, like moonlight shining through the fretwork of fine cobwebs. The whole effect of the gown was to suggest a brilliant moonlight idyl of spring. In glittering folds the gown fell away from a corsage magnificently wrought in real emeralds, whose beauty was brought strongly out by the diamond settings mingled with them. Upon her beautifully-coifed head Mrs. Anderson wore a tiara of emeralds, picked out in diamonds, that was more splendid than many a queen's crown. About her beautifully-rounded throat the young American matron wore emeralds that defied any but the clearest skin to so adorn itself. Indeed, only a dazzling complexion and the loveliest neck and arms could stand the white glimmer of satin, the silver shining of a moonlight veil, and the sharp green of emeralds, all combining to show unsparingly any defect in the texture of the skin in pitiless contact with them.
The whole gown was richly embroidered in wheat heads, wrought in small imitation Hindoo pearls, the silver spears of the wheat being tipped by dewdrops of real diamonds. The fashionable and beautiful decoration was intermingled with a delicate fretwork of pearls and diamonds over the gown, and sewn in such a manner as to accentuate the beauty of the decorative scheme.
The splendor of the gown, however, culminated in the corsage, which was draped in sheer silver tulle that was confined beneath a wide stomacher wrought in rare jewels, which vied with the fringes of jewels that fell over the tulle draperies, in the sparks and rays of vivid light which they emitted. These rays seemed concentrated in the jewelled ornaments and epaulets which decorated the shoulders and held in place the court train. The soft round arms glimmered delicately beneath the loops and fringes of jewels which fell over them from the shoulder, and the sparkling rays of the emerald necklace were repeated in those which flashed from the tiara which graced the rippling hair piled softly about the head.
We could go on illustrating the fulfilment, in our day, of the foregoing prophecies, almost endlessly. Space, however, will not admit of additional illustrations. O, think of the countless numbers of helpless children, for whom the Saviour died, that are sobbing and famishing for bread! O, the wantonness, the heartlessness, the inhumanity, of these votaries of fashion and pleasure! Women and men of boundless wealth and exclusive fashion are dawdling over champagnes and iced teas, coddling and pampering dogs, while the children of the poor, cold and famishing, are growing up in hopeless ignorance, squalor, and vice! The student of prophecy, however, need not be surprised; for one of the many sins that Paul tells us will be prevalent in the last days is that of being “without natural affection.” Do we not all feel constrained to pray, with the Apostle John, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus”?