"CONSOLIDATING THE COMPETITIVE SYSTEM."
By Editor
A New York paper quotes Mr. Rockefeller as saying: When we (the Standard Oil Company) first began work in consolidating the competitive system it was said that it could not be done. To-day we are vindicated on our judgment, for we can show the world the progress achieved by consolidation and its benefits to civilization. As we become more and more imbued with the spirit of Jesus Christ—individually, I mean—the church will naturally follow in the same channels and tend toward one great end. The paper from which we take this quotation adds that "perhaps Rockefeller will become a union man." But it is surprising that the editor, who flies the union label at his masthead, does not discern that the Standard Oil magnate is a top-notch "union man." His great success financially has been reached on the union principle of rule or ruin. The union theory is that the man who does not cast in his lot with the union has no right to live—has no right to any public patronage or business recognition at all. And the Standard Oil theory is that all opposition or competition must be crushed. Standard Oil stands as the exponent of confederation success, and the wrecked firms and individual enterprises that strew its pathway fairly represent the laboring men and business concerns that ignore union methods—where unionism holds sway. Like Standard Oil, labor unionism presumes to be imbued with the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Mr. Rockefeller claims that as Christians become more imbued with the Spirit of Christ, the church will follow in the same channels of progress that Standard Oil has followed. And this labor union editor assumes that the Christian motto of "Love ye one another" is "the grand, beautiful, all-sufficient lesson of unionism," etc. It would be indeed a curiosity to know where Standard Oil ever found any one to love in the ranks of anti-monopoly business men, or where labor unionism ever showed any love for a neighbor of the non-union class. The editor whose logic we have noted reasons in this wise: If "consolidation of the competitive system" in respect of church, or petroleum, means progress of civilization, surely, "consolidation of the competitive system" in the field of human labor is a good thing. But will Rockefeller, imbued with the Spirit of Jesus Christ, individually, as he himself intimates, agree to this? Of course Mr. Rockefeller would not agree to this proposition, neither would the editor agree to the reverse statement, which is equally logical. It is just as true that if "consolidation of the competitive system in the field of human labor is a good thing," surely "consolidation of the competitive system in respect of church, or petroleum," is a good thing. But the spirit of Christ is not in either proposition. His command to "love thy neighbor as thyself" has no exceptions. His Word is, "I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you."