Selfishness Behind Labor and Trade Monopolies
The desire to be rich at any cost is evil in the poor as in the rich. In the former it develops in the labor union, which demands that all labor and capital shall be subject, and those who do not submit are pressed to the uttermost, the union only restrained by men better than its spirit and by fear of the law; in the latter the same spirit develops in the trust, which “freezes out” or absorbs all competition, restrained only by force of circumstances and perhaps some fear of the people. Labor monopoly and trade monopoly are one in spirit. Selfishness, dear reader, lies at the root of both. Only the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ received by faith can eliminate the baleful evil. Filled with His Spirit, we shall look upon every other soul as equally entitled to the same rights, the same free choice as ourselves. In short, we shall adopt the Golden Rule, in which oppression from either rich or poor, collectively or individually, can have no place. “All things therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them; for this is the law and the prophets.”