The Industrial Conflict in the Light of Revelation.
By Geo. W. Rine
THE GREAT CLASS STRUGGLE FORETOLD BY PROPHETS.
In the article of this series, contributed to the last week's issue of this journal, indisputable evidence, both from current industrial history and from the infallible predictions of inspired prophets, was adduced showing that the laborer, the producer of wealth at first hand, is not receiving a just share of the finished product of his toil. It was shown also that this deplorable fact is very largely responsible for the terrible poverty so generally prevalent to-day. Further Prophetic Evidence.
Dear reader, I beg to repeat: We must study the perplexing present-day social problems in the light of divine revelation. Otherwise we shall, like all others who refuse to accept Holy Writ as the definitive solvent of all difficulties, be hopelessly “at sea.” Like them, we shall be groping in the mists, if we shut our eyes to the light which only God can give. Let us remind ourselves again of the significant testimony borne by the Apostle Peter as to the nature and mission of prophecy: “We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts.” 2 Peter 1:19, 20. When our Lord walked among men He declared: “I am the light of the world; he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” John 8:12. To follow Jesus is to follow His word,—who Himself is the representative of the Father of all prophecy. See 1 Peter 1:11. In Mal. 3:5, our Lord, in reference to the final judgment, warns those who live in the time when the judgment is imminent, in these solemn words: “And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers [spirit mediums of these last days], and against the adulterers, and against the false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, and the widow, and the fatherless.” These are evidently sins that would be peculiarly rife in the closing years of time. Here Malachi confirms the testimony of James, which was emphasized in last week's article, that in the last days the laborer would be oppressed by having his just wages “kept back by fraud.” Such oppression is in the sight of God most heinous. Note the terrible anathema uttered against those who are guilty of such fraud: “Woe unto him that . . . useth his neighbor's service without wages, and giveth him not for his work.” Jer. 22:13. So prone is the wealthy employer to underpay his employees that the Lord deemed it necessary to peremptorily forbid the practise of this specific form of injustice. “Thou shalt not,” is the unqualified command, “oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are . . . within thy gates.” Deut. 24:14. In the New Testament we have a precept of exactly the same tenor, but positively rather than negatively expressed. Thus, “Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal.” Col. 4:1. These precepts are mandatory, and therefore just as binding on the conscience as the commandment, “Thou shalt not steal.” To disregard the former precepts is to transgress the latter. In those precepts are packed all the philosophy and wisdom of true economics. And it is because these divine rules are almost universally ignored that society finds itself to-day in the seething maelstrom of the most bitter and hopeless industrial struggle that the world has yet known. “Business is business,” epigrammatically expresses the dominant law in the world of business and industry. It means simply that I must seek my own aggrandizement at whatever cost to the other man. This business law is the antithesis of the law of love, the law of Christ. Some one has wittily said that the prayer of the modern Pharisee runs substantially thus: “God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are; I feast seven days in a week while I have made other men fast.” How true it is that while the few are feasting the many are fasting. The palace of plenty is casting its shadow on the hovel of want. The editor of the Saturday Evening Post, Mr. Lorimer, recently expressed the law of economic selfishness, the law which precipitated the great conflict, in the following witty metaphor: “Labor and Capital once went for a walk, but they soon quarrelled because both wanted the sunny side of the path.” It is true that the contentions of labor are not always righteous, its demands are not always just. Labor has been guilty of much that is foolish, unreasonable, and even lawless, as I shall show in a later paper. Yet the fact that labor, as a rule, is notoriously underpaid, is incontrovertible. Practically all unprejudiced thinkers bear testimony to the truth of the foregoing statement. In this they attest the fulfilment of the inspired predictions already referred to. The popular author, Mr. Jack London, contends that the interests of the two classes—capitalists and laborers—are hopelessly at variance. But I am morally certain that it is only their selfish interests that are antagonistic. If both classes were governed by the law of love—the Golden Rule—there could be no conflict between the interests of the one and those of the other. The law of love expresses itself practically in this divine mandate: “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.” This is the law of self-denial, of mutual helpfulness, of love. But very rarely indeed does this supernal law govern the relations of employer and employed. Were this rule the supreme law of the economic world, that world would be an industrial paradise. In a paper contributed to a late number of the Arena, a noted writer says: “The laborer and the capitalist throughout the civilized world stand face to face this day in grim antagonism. The most peaceful relation existing anywhere between them is one of armed truce, which may be broken at a moment’s notice. . . . The only disadvantage under which the laborer fights, is the difficulty of maintaining organization in so vast and mixed a multitude. That so thorough an organization has been affected and is maintained is one of the signs of the times. . . . The element in the struggle which excites the gravest apprehension is the intense bitterness and animosity, which occasionally flash out in acts of violence, and which characterize the literature and oratory of the conflict. They give a passing glimpse into a volcano of hate smouldering beneath the crust of seeming deference to law, which may at any moment burst out into acts of fiery violence.” Congressman Hatch, of Missouri, is reported in the public press to have said recently: “Mark what I say! If the inexorable law of cause and effect has not been expunged from the statute book of the Almighty, unless a halt is called very soon, you may expect to see the horrors of the French Revolution put on the American stage with all the modern improvements, and that within the next decade.” The following extract is taken from a speech delivered in the United States Senate, a few years ago, by one of its members:— “We can not disguise the truth that we are on the verge of an impending revolution. . . . The people are arraying themselves on one side or the other of a portentous contest. On the one side is capital, formidably entrenched in privilege, arrogant from continued triumph, tenacious of old theories, enriched by domestic levy and foreign commerce, and struggling to bring all values to its own gold standard. On the other side is labor, starving and sullen in the cities, resolutely determined to overthrow a system under which the rich are growing richer and the poor are growing poorer—a system which gives to a Vanderbilt or a Gould wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, and condemns the poor to a poverty from which there is no escape or refuge but the grave. Demands for justice have been met with indifference and disdain. Laborers, asking for employment, are treated like impudent mendicants begging for bread.” In a late sermon, a famous clergyman and scholar of the Middle West said: “The pulpit has been saying that these ugly-looking trusts are object lessons of the higher associate possibilities of our new age, and has preached hope and not despair, has believed that the American people will find a peaceable solution of the present troubles, and that we should talk and work and pray for peace, appeal to the high and noble sense of right and conscience, of love and brotherhood, and not to the sword. But if not in this way, justice must come in severer forms. It is evolution or revolution. We shall hear more of this evolution or revolution.” [The remainder of this interesting article will be given next week.]