THE PEOPLES' ANGRY by L. D. Mansfield

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 17, 1901

THE PEOPLES' ANGRY.

By L. D. Mansfield

(Rev. L. D. Mansfield.)

“And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come.” Rev. 11:18

“AND THE NATIONS WERE ANGRY, and thy wrath is come.” It has not been so strange a thing for nations to be angered toward each other, that it should be pointed out as a peculiarity of the time of the seventh trumpet; but if we examine the Greek text and notice the word here rendered nations, we shall perhaps get a suggestion of its proper significance in this connection. The word ethnos (plural in this place, ethne) is rendered “peoples,” “crowds,” “multitudes,”—hence, “swarms,” “herds,” “races,” “classes.”

During the last few years there have been developed throughout the civilized world phases of thought and organized conspiracies against government and against the prevailing social order, which are unique in their character, and most threatening to the welfare of society. The theories widely promulgated and largely accepted are subversive of all government, and logically lead to anarchy, while they deny those rights of property upon which the whole superstructure of human welfare, progress in civilization, and the rights of man in his relation to his fellows, has ever rested. Even the Ten Commandments—promulgated from Mount Sinai—become meaningless in the presence of theorists, one of whose axioms is, “Property is robbery.” “Thou shalt not steal,” and “Thou shalt not covet,” have no place in a theory which denies all ownership of property. Doubtless those utopian theorists who rest in the axiom just quoted, and are able to deduce from it conclusions which would throw all right into chaos, would resent as a personal wrong the appropriation of a hat, an overcoat, or an umbrella by a sneak-thief; and yet, if their finespun, sophistical theories and the underlying principles of their philosophy be true, the sneak-thief had as good a right to the hat, overcoat, or umbrella as the miscalled owner of these articles. But the Communists, Socialists, and Nihilists are not concerned about any want of harmony between their theories and their practice. They have proved by that kind of sophistry which they call logic, that “property is robbery,” and that “government is despotism;” and they propose to divide up the property and uproot the government. Nor do they stop to inquire how the property was accumulated—whether by honest industry or by fraud; or what kind of a government they live under—whether a free, democratic, or a hard, despotic government. The men who are Nihilists in Russia, Communists in France, and Socialists in Germany, become Anarchists in America.

St. Petersburg, Paris, and Berlin are not put in greater peril by these conspirators against society than London, New York, and Chicago. The recent scenes of mob violence and lawless plunder in London—a city noted for its good order and admirable police organization—show what is possible in all our great cities, if liberty of speech is to be permitted to take the form of instigation to crime. It seems to be conceded that the London mob was EXASPERATED TO VIOLENCE, madness, and plunder by the inflammatory speeches of a few Socialistic speakers. It is pitiful to think that we owe our immunity from like scenes in our great cities to the forbearance to speak of these moral and social incendiaries, whose words, like a spark upon tinder, would inflame the passions of these “swarms” of misguided men who have come to us from the Old World, and let them loose upon our fair heritage, to its great injury or destruction. But with tens of thousands of these men in our midst, armed and drilled for deadly conflict, we seem sleeping on a volcano, and know not at what moment we may be called to face the most deadly peril which can menace any community. Why do these men organize, arm, and drill? Do they fear any violence from our government—municipal, state, or national?—Not at all. Do they anticipate any interference with honest labor, or think they will be deprived of their earnings by oppressive law or military violence?—By no means. Have we any class legislation, against which they need to protest by force of arms?—None. Can they justly reproach us for any want of national hospitality? On the other hand, we have welcomed them to our shores with open arms, and have put no obstacles in their way to employment and business success. We even permit them, after a brief probation—alas! too brief for the country's welfare—to become citizens, and admit them to all the blessings of our free government. Roman citizenship was purchased at a great price; but though American citizenship is a higher honor than Roman citizenship, and is the passport to far higher privileges, no other tax is imposed upon the applicant for the rights of an American citizen than the necessary cost of his naturalization papers. How many of these Anarchists have availed themselves of this privilege of citizenship we know not; but every one who has and still holds his anarchical theories, and only waits for an opportunity to put them into practice, has committed a manifest and conspicuous perjury in his necessary oath to support the Constitution and the laws. Most of them, being atheists, have sworn upon a Bible which they do not believe, and to support a government which they are plotting to overthrow.

Are then wages too low? They are three or four times greater, in nearly all callings, than on the Continent or in the British Isles. Are they out of employment? Are we to blame because they have rushed to our shores in such “multitudes” that we cannot find places for them in our cities? There is room for them on our broad acres, but they will not go to the country—there is no place there for utopian, Socialistic theories! There men win their own bread—they want the bread that other hands have won, which is heaped up in our great cities. They wish to be where they can talk, and hear others talk! They are insidiously seeking to make common cause with honest wage-workers, and doubtless constitute the noisiest and most impracticable members of many trades unions and protective societies. The organization of labor to resist the encroachments of capital, and to secure reasonable hours and just compensation is unquestionably the right of all classes of artisans and workers. To deny this would be absurd. The power of vast accumulations of capital, in individual or corporate hands, to depress labor and put down wages below the point of comfortable subsistence must be recognized by every candid man. That labor should seek a counterpoise in organization and numbers is the most natural course to be pursued. But who does not see that this power is susceptible of abuse, as well as the power of accumulated capital? It is a gross perversion of its legitimate functions when an organization to protect labor forbids the employment of any man, who is able and willing to work, because he is not a member of “the union.”

Whether a man shall join one of these organizations or not should be left entirely to his own discretion. To coerce him into the society, under penalty of being deprived of a chance to earn bread for his wife and little ones, is a gross VIOLATION OF HIS PERSONAL RIGHTS, and a palpable contradiction to the principles which give to the organization any right to be. The tyranny of an executive committee may be as great as the tyranny of a great capitalist, or of a great corporation, and many men hesitate to put themselves in a position in which their own judgment and freedom are sacrificed to the dictum of an oligarchy of the Knights of Labor. Prudent men hesitate about pouring money into a treasury to support idle workmen in their strikes—knowing that these great accumulations may be misappropriated and lost. Who can blame them? Fraser's Magazine states that the expenditure of four great associations in London in a single year was £215,664, of which £126,000 were paid to support strikes. The original idea of these accumulations was to help workmen when thrown out of work. It was not the design of the fund to encourage men to quit work of their own accord. All that went to maintain strikes was lost. The accumulated funds of the four societies just reported amounted to £446,323. This is an immense sum to be under control of a few men. I have no statistics for this country, but doubtless the amount at the control of the Knights of Labor is very large. Every man, therefore, has a right to be or not to be a member of such a society, as he may deem best, and no one has a right to forbid his employment, if he declines to join any labor organization. . . .

But no aspect of this subject is so threatening as the possibility of these labor organizations being betrayed into the hands of Socialists. With them the honest, prudent workingman, who seeks to found for himself and family a modest home, support and educate his children, and live a God-fearing and Christian life, has nothing in common. The one class aims to secure a little competency and own property; the other is plotting to get hold of the accumulations of others' industry, and proposes to confiscate the property of others to support the confiscators in idleness. The workingman may feel that he gets too small a pro rata of what he earns now, but a state of things such as would logically ensue from putting into practice Socialistic theories, would be infinitely worse—scattering the accumulations of capital, which make great industries possible, throwing multitudes out of employment, and taking away all incentives to industry, by denying to men that which all systems of political economy and all theories of the rights of the individual have accorded to him; namely, the fruits of his labors. Before the workingman accepts the wild and fantastic theories of Socialism, and undertakes to reverse the whole order of things upon which the civilizations of the world have been built up; attempts to subvert all the principles which underlie the forms of law,—which recognize the rights of men to property, honestly acquired; and seeks to nullify the commands of God, which also recognize those rights,—let him consider the probability of success in his mad undertaking, and inquire what he is likely to gain if this conspiracy against nature, humanity, and God should succeed. The apples of Sodom, which turned to ashes in the hand, would fitly represent all he would grasp as the fruit of this Socialistic, Communistic, and Nihilistic subversion of the present

order of things. The consistency of Nihilism would only be vindicated in the choice of a name to express its destructive theories and purposes—all government, all social order, all rights, all religion, would be annihilated—nothing would be left.

All these theories rest upon an atheistic basis, and have nothing in common with “the golden rule” of Christ, or the spontaneous distribution of goods by the Christians of Jerusalem when they—to meet a special emergency—“had all things common.” The one sprang from love—the other is to be realized by brute force.

These organizations extend throughout Europe and America, and there are everywhere these “swarms,” “MULTITUDES OF ANGRY MEN,” who seem to be only waiting until they can secure concerted action to show forth their wrath, as indicated in the prophecy of the sounding of the seventh angel. The terrible scenes of the French Revolution, the assassinations and the destruction of the palaces and grand public buildings of the city of Paris in 1871, and the more recent crimes of the London mob, are probably but faint foreshadowings of the mischief which these conspirators intend to inflict on the world. That the nations of Europe—which has been the grand theater for all this dramatic action indicated by the prophet—will suffer from this “third woe,” as it is called, we cannot doubt. How we shall be affected in America is known only to God.

THE PEOPLES' ANGRY.*

THE PEOPLES' ANGRY.