p. 8 | OMENS OF STRIFE by C. M. S.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 12, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 24.

OMENS OF STRIFE.

By C. M. S.

With the growth of greed, the increase of avarice, there is an increase in the harshness with which many corporations are grinding the face of the poor; and these who feel the pressure and the rasping of the upper and the nether mill-stones grow more bitter in the hatred which they feel for that power that turns the mill, and bolts the product of the grinding. The elements of a terrible strife are in the situation as it exists to-day. The capitalist does not sense it; for he has only time to think of margins, compound interest, and stock dividends; but in the breast of the masses there is a smouldering fire being fanned into life by oppression, which will one day burst out into a terrible conflagration—an uprising of the masses which dollars can not buy off nor bayonets subdue. It is coming. The Word of God predicts it, and the elements are at work to-day to bring it about.

The following excerpts from an article in the International Socialist Review for March will give the reader an idea of how the toilers themselves are looking at the situation, and are quoted only to show the feeling that exists, and not for the purpose of arraying one class against another, or of taking up the controversy ourselves:—

“The miners and railroad boys of Birmingham, Ala., entertained me one evening some months ago with a graphic description of the conditions among the slaves of the Southern cotton mills. While I imagined that these must be something of a modern Siberia, I concluded that the boys were overdrawing the picture, and made up my mind to see for myself the conditions described. Accordingly I got a job, and mingled with the workers in the mill and in their homes. I found that children of six and seven years of age were dragged out of bed at 4:30 in the morning when the task-master’s whistle blew. They eat their scanty meal of black coffee and corn bread mixed with cotton-seed oil in place of butter, and then off trots the whole army of serfs, big and little. By 5:30 they are all behind the factory walls, where amid the whir of machinery they grind their young lives out for fourteen long hours each day. As one looks on this brood of

helpless human souls, one could almost hear their voices cry out, ‘Be still a moment, O you iron wheels of capitalistic greed, and let us hear each other’s voices, and let us feel for a moment that this is not all of life.’”

“We stopped at 12 for a scanty lunch and a half-hour’s rest. At 12:30 we were at it again with never a stop until 7. Then a dreary march home, where we swallowed our scanty supper, talked for a few minutes of our misery, and then dropped down upon a pallet of straw, to lie until the whistle should once more awaken us, summoning babes and all alike to another round of toil and misery.”

“I have seen mothers take their babes and slap cold water in their faces to wake the poor little things. I have watched them all day long tending the dangerous machinery. I have seen their helpless limbs torn off, and then when they were disabled and of no more use to their master, thrown out.”

The Rope Factory.

“I visited the factory in Tuscaloosa, Ala., at 10 o’clock at night. The superintendent, not knowing my mission, gave me the entire freedom of the factory, and I made good use of it. Standing by a siding that contained 155 spindles were two little girls. I asked a man standing near if the children were his, and he replied that they were. ‘How old are they?’ I asked. ‘This one is 9, the other 10,’ he replied. ‘How many hours do they work?’ ‘Twelve,’ was the answer. ‘How much do they get a night?’ ‘We all three together get 60 cents. They get 10 cents each, and I 40.’”

“I watched them as they left their slave-pen in the morning, and saw them gather their rags around their frail forms to hide them from the wintry blast. Half-fed, half-clothed, half-housed, they toil on, while the poodle dogs of their masters are petted and cuddled and sleep on pillows of down, and the capitalistic judges jail the agitators that would dare to help these helpless ones to better their condition.”

“The town of Gibson is owned by a banker who possesses both people and mills. One of his slaves told me she had received one dollar per week for her labor for one year. Every weekly pay day her employer gave her a dollar. On Monday she deposited that dollar in the ‘pluck me’ store to secure food enough to last until the next pay day, and so on week after week.”

“There was once a law on the statute books of Alabama prohibiting the employment of children under twelve years of age more than eight hours each day. The Gadston Company would not build their mill until they were promised that this law should be repealed.”

“I asked one member of the House why he voted to murder the children, and he replied that he did not think they could earn enough to support themselves if they only worked eight hours.”

“The Phoenix mills in Georgia were considering the possibility of a cut in wages something over a year ago; but after making one attempt, they reconsidered, and started a savings bank instead. At the end of six months the board of directors met, and found out that the poor wretches who were creating wealth for them were saving 10 per cent. of their wages. Whereupon they promptly cut them that 10 per cent., and the result was the ’96 strike. I wonder how long the American people will remain silent under such conditions as these.”

“Almost every one of my shop-mates in these mills was a victim of some disease or other. All are worked to the limit of existence. The weavers are expected to weave so many yards of cloth each working day. To come short of this estimate jeopardizes their job. The factory operator loses all energy either of body or of mind. The brain is so crushed as to be incapable of thinking, and one who mingles with these people soon discovers that their minds, like their bodies, are wrecked. Loss of sleep and loss of rest give rise to abnormal appetites, indigestion, shrinkage of stature, bent backs, and aching hearts.”

“Such a factory system is one of torture and murder as dreadful as a long-drawn-out Turkish massacre, and is a disgrace to any race or age. As the picture rises before me, I shudder for the future of a nation that is building up a moneyed aristocracy out of the life-blood of the children of the proletariat. It seems as if our flag is a funeral bandage splotched with blood. The whole picture is one of the most horrible avarice, selfishness, and cruelty, and is fraught with present horror and promise of future degeneration. The mother, over-worked and under-fed, gives birth to tired and worn-out human beings.”

“I can see no way out save in a complete overthrow of the capitalistic system; and to me, the father who casts a vote for the continuance of that system is as much a murderer as if he took a pistol and shot his own children.”

When time is called on the continuance of that system, it will be the fulfilment of that scripture which says: “Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers which have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth; and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.” James 5: 1-4. The day of the fulfilment of this scripture is not far distant. When the misery of the rich is such that the pen of inspiration records it, we may know that it is no ordinary time of trouble. When God tells a class to “weep and howl,” there is reason for it. We do not know just how it is going to come, or when; but we see it coming, fulfilling the Word of God step by step; and as sure as these conditions exist to-day, so surely is there coming a time of terror for those who have piled up treasure by fraud and oppression. That fraud and that oppression are being practised now, and the cry of the poor is growing louder and more desperate.

But while we see all these omens of the coming strife, and know what is before this generation, the Lord speaks these comforting words to those who have put their trust in Him, “Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.” James 5: 7. Thus the omens of strife become to God’s children harbingers of the coming of the Lord in the clouds of heaven.

C. M. S.