THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLIGT PARLEY PAUL WOMER (Sl^arttcU UttittBraita Uihrary 3tl}aca, Weu) f atk THE GIFT OF ALFRED C. BARNES 1889 Cornell University Library HD6338 .W87 The church and the la';o';,,,f;S'J,Jl'{rJi olin 3 1924 030 085 595 The original of tliis bool< is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030085595 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON ■ BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOnENE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT BY PARLEY PAUL WOMER AUTHOR OF " RELATION OF HEALING TO LAW," " A VALID RELIGION FOR THE TIMES," " THE COMING CREED" Nrm fork THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1913 All riskls reserved Copyright, 191 3, By the MACMILLAN COMPANY Set up and electrotyped. Published June, 1913. PRESS OF T MOEET & SON. GREENFIELD, MASS., U S a Ko lag mat "3lur etn grcmbling, fagt man mit SRec^t, ift ber SJIenfd^ ^ier auf ©rben ; Me^t etn grembling al8 jemalg ift nun ein ieber gerootben." "aHeS regt ftc|, a\i maUtt bte SBelt, bte geftaltete, rUcfmiirtS Sofen in E6ao§ unb 9Ja(5t fi(^ auf, unb neu fid) geftalten. 5Du 6emal)rft mit bein $erj ; unb finben bereinft mit un8 tniebet ilbct ben Stltmmetn bet SBelt, fo finb mit etneute ©efc^opfe." "Sefto feftet fei, bci aHgemeinen Stfd^litt'tung, SBetna, bet SSunb! SBit motlcn ^alten unb bauetn, geft uttS l)altcn unb feft bet fc^onen (Siitet SSefi^tum. Senn bet aWenfc^, bet jut fi^roantenben 3«it aui^ ft^roanfenb gefinnt ift, Set t)etme()tet bag libel, unb bteitet eS meitet unb meitet. Slbet met feft ouf bem ©inne betiattt, bet bilbet bie SBelt fic^." PREFACE A very considerable body of literature has been produced in recent years that from various stand- points deals with the social mission of the church. Much of this Hterature is highly instructive and valuable, reflecting as it does the changed emphasis and the larger vision of present religious thought. One criticism, however, that must be passed upon nearly aU of this literature is its lack of definiteness, and its failure to grapple satisfactorily with the particular and fundamental facts of our contempo- rary social and economic development. Especially is it true of the Hterature that deals with the rela- tion of the church to the problems of labor that it is characterized, for the most part, by a vague and more or less unprofitable generality. The purpose of this book is to supply to some extent this needed concreteness to the current discussion of the social mission of the church. This, to be sure, is a hazard- ous undertaking. The ground to be covered is so extensive, and the chances of misreading at least some of the conditions and tendencies that must vii Vlil PREFACE be dealt with are so great, that one's success in the execution of the task must necessarily be more or less inadequate. It is not without hope, however, that the study here presented will be of some value to those among us who are laboring in social service, and especially to those who are so eager to lead the church to a more advanced ground in reference to the social and economic problems of our time, that this volume is sent forth. PARLEY P. WOMER. Plymouth Congregational Church, St. Paul, Minn. CONTENTS CHAPTER I fACE The Class Chabacter of the Labor CoNrLicT . i CHAPTER n Inevitable Change Foreshadowed .... 19 CHAPTER in The Industrial Issue and the Church • • ■ 37 CHAPTER IV The BEcmNiNG of Another Reformation ... 60 CHAPTER V What the Church Should Contribute ... 83 CHAPTER VI The Question op Justice for the Wage-Earners . 105 CHAPTER VII Other Claims of Justice 134 CHAPTER VIII The Protection of the Wage-Earning Woman and Child 162 ix THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT CHAPTER I THE CLASS CHARACTER OF THE LABOR CONFLICT That a social movement is now in progress, the greatest perhaps that the ages have witnessed, is becoming more apparent every day. People in every walk of life are speaking with increas- ing frequency of "the labor war." The forces of production are maintained on a war footing. The captain of industry is of the same stuff that makes great generals. "Strikes, lockouts, and boycotts are temporary raids across the enemy's frontier. Even international diplomacy is concerned quite as much with questions of industrial warfare as with poHtical issues." ^ The noise of the struggle is steadily growing louder and more insistent. Thus, it is not without reason that the labor con- flict has been characterized as "the dominating and aU-absorbing fact of the age." ^ ' Peabody, Jesus Christ and the Social Question, p. 269. 'Spargo, Socialism, p. 163. I 2 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT It requires, however, but slight familiarity with the situation to realize that, while its seriousness is apparent to the most casual observer, there is by no means general agreement as to its underlying cause. To some minds the difficulty presents itself as nothing more than a matter of mutual mis- understanding that only needs to be removed and all will be well. Thus Mr. Hinnessy sagely remarks to Mr. Dooley at the close of their discussion on the strike question, "that capital and labor ought to git together and settle their gravence," to which Mr. Dooley shrewdly makes reply, that, "it would be hard for them to git any closer together than their prisint cHnch, for they're so close together now that those that are between them are crushed to death." To other minds unwise agitation is the source of all the trouble. Their belief is that the demagogue has played upon the ignorance of the wage-earners, has filled their minds with vain hopes and visionary ideas, and that the chief need is to find an effective means of silencing him. To still other minds, the greed of the wage-earners, and that alone, is responsible for the whole un- pleasant melle. "Having eaten of the fruit of the tree," as one writer puts it, "the wage-earners' eyes have been opened." In other words, having CLASS CHARACTER OF THE LABOR CONFLICT 3 shared in the general economic prosperity, they have begun to experience new desires that need to be met, and the more they get the more they want. Their prosperity has made them miserable because it has filled them with new cravings which must be satisfied. Whatever truth these different points of view represent — and there can be no doubt of the truth in them — it is sufl&ciently clear that such interpretations of the situation do not grasp the real nature of the problem, nor do they apprehend the magnitude of the issue that it implies. The labor situation with which the modern world is grappling is in point of fact the inevitable ac- companiment of an industrial policy that exacts from the wage-earner the longest hours and the largest possible amount of labor-power for the smallest wage that he can be induced to accept, and of a social arrangement that makes it possible, as all available evidence shows, to compel a maxi- miim of service for a wage that represents but a fraction of the value of the service bestowed. How this unsatisfactory relation of employer and em- ployed, of capitalist-owner and wage-earner came to exist is a lengthy story and one that can be told here only in part, but it is necessary to apprehend at least certain features if we would interpret 4 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT rightly the problem with which we have to deal, and if we would really understand the greatness of the issue at stake. I The rise of the bourgeoisie, or business class, to wealth, education, and power, is the great out- standing fact in the social development of the past four hundred years. The pioneers of this class, as nearly as can be traced, were the free craftsmen and the small urban landowners of the Middle Ages. Alongside the feudal estate with its three- fold division of noble, peasant, and serf, gradually arose the free craftsmen and the independent traders of the towns, who for the protection and furtherance of their interests organized themselves into gmlds and civic leagues, and in time acquired the begiimings of a capital for business enterprise. At the outset the industrial and trade under- takings attempted under this system were of the most simple character and exceedingly small. It was a period of home production and home markets. Production was necessarily on a Hmited scale and no large capital was required. The craftsman worked on ordered piecework and the entire process of transforming the raw material into the finished CLASS CHARACTER OF THE LABOR CONFLICT S product was accomplished by one pair of hands. The social development, however, that was reached by the end of the fifteenth century, created the necessity of production on a larger scale, and the great geographical discoveries that took place prepared the way for a world commerce. The grow- ing demand for such production and the need of capital to make it possible led to the organization of industrial and trading companies which eventu- ally overshadowed, discredited and at last destroyed the guilds.^ Thus, as early as the close of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centu- ries the class that was destined to challenge the rule of the feudal nobility and to wrest from it the most of its power, had already taken definite form. While the feudal class was a landed class, this new class was a moneyed and commercial class. It built up the cities and towns from which the chief revenue of modern nations is derived; it swept away the institutions of feudalism, and eventually made its interests the dominant ones in the social body. The democratic movement of the nineteenth cen- tury was, to a great extent, the advance of this class to complete ascendency. It has become so ' Lindsay, T. M., A History of the Reformation, Vol. I, p. 36, BUcher, Carl, Industrial Evolution, Chap. V. 6 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT fully enthroned in our social organization that it frequently assumes to be the whole. In the words of Professor Rauchenbush,* "The possessing classes are strong by mere possession long continued. They control nearly all property. The law is on their side for they made it. They control the ma- chinery of the government and can use force under the form of law. Their self-interest makes them almost impervious to moral truth if it calls in question the sources from which they draw their income. In the past they have laughed at the idealists if they seemed harmless, or have suppressed them if they became troublesome." The purpose here is not, of course, to enter an impeachment of the integrity of individual business men. With gratitude and gladness one recognizes the great, and apparently increasing, host of large-minded employers who make the interest of their workers their own, who beheve with Ruskin that "the only wealth consists in noble and happy human beings."^ We know, too, that many employers drive because they themselves are driven. They, with the workers under them, are the victims of remorseless competition. In general, the members of this class ' Christianity and the Social Crisis, p. 400. 2 Ruskin, Essay — Ad Valorem. CLASS CHARACTER OF THE LABOR CONFLICT 7 are good and bad like all other men; they are honor- able according to the ethics of their class, disposed to be fair as they understand fairness, and public spirited as they understand public needs. Their class instinct, rather, is questioned, upon the ground that it is particular and not general, individuahstic instead of social, looking toward exploitation in- stead of service, toward personal profit instead of social justice. The bourgeoisie as a class has had no fundamental economic conviction that it has been willing to regard as equally appKcable to the whole of mankind, but has incKned in the main to rate its power to exploit others as an inviolable prerogative, conferred upon it, Hke the "divine right of kings," in the best interests of the world. ^ II Going back into antiquity, we find an industrial system based upon slavery. How slavery arose, the economic conditions that made it natural and perhaps inevitable, need not be described here. It will be sufficient to note that the condition of the working population under this system was that of utter helplessness and degradation. In- surrection of the slaves for redress of bitter griev- ances, or for whatever reason, was certain to be 1 Ghent, W. J., Mass and Class, Chapter VI, Class Ethics. 8 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT put down in blood, since the ruling class was backed by all the power of the state. Under feud- alism a system of serfdom took the place of chattel slavery, but the condition of the serf underwent but little change. He was treated quite as brutally, on the whole, as the slaves of other years had been. He, too, rebelled at times, but his struggles could not prove otherwise than abortive. As a rule their only outcome was to accentuate further the power of the ruling class. With the breaking up of feudaUsm and the rise to power of the business class, the chattel slavery of the earher period and the serfdom of mediaeval times was succeeded by another form of servitude. This harsh term, be- cause of the cruel laws which shackled the free action of labor until within comparatively recent years, may properly characterize the new status of the laboring population in all the European countries which have felt the civihzing influence of Rome. Thus in England until as late as 1896, when the Trades Dispute Act was passed, the labor laws were an extraordinary composite of tyranny and spoliation in the interest of the propertied and ruling class.^ From the year 1563 and continuing 1 Cheyney, Original Sources of European History — The King's Proclamation Concerning Labour — A. D. 1349. CLASS CHARACTER OF THE LABOR CONFLICT 9 for a period of two hundred and fifty years, the rate of wages in England had been fixed by justices of the peace; it was made a crime for labor to accept a higher wage than prescribed, and the penalty provided for the culprit was the pillory or the loss of an ear. As late as 1795 an EngHsh workman could not legally seek work outside of his own parish. The hours of labor were as long as em- ployers chose to make them. The workers had absolutely no protection, and in certain instances, notably in the case of the miners of England and Scotland, they were literally bought and sold as part of the plant. During the same time and until a much later period a strike was regarded as a crim- inal conspiracy, and even to meet for the purpose of discussing the wages they should expect, or the hours a day that they should toil, was regarded until as late as 1825 as a criminal action. This con- ception of labor was also brought to America, and in numerous instances all through the early history of the nation it found expression in legal statutes and court decisions. Until the period of the Revolution wages were fixed in many of the colonies by civil officials, usually the constable, and wage-workers who tried to raise the market price of their labor were regarded as anarchists 10 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT and criminals, and dragged before the nearest judge. In 1806 certain Philadelphia shoemakers were convicted of criminal conspiracy because they combined to compel certain other shoemakers to quit work in order to secure a higher wage. As late as 1836 twenty tailors of New York City who struck in order to raise the wage were haled before the court and fined a total amount of a thousand one hundred and fifty dollars, and the su- preme court of New York State, which later sat upon the case, rendered the decision that labor unions were not lawful.^ Not until 1884 were the conspiracy laws against labor unions abolished from all the states. France had aboHshed her conspiracy laws in 1864, Germany in 1867, the state of Massachusetts in 1842, but not until this late date was our country free from such laws, Maryland being the last of the states to take such action. Ill Through the long historic story the masses have been voiceless under these cruel and oppres- sive conditions because they lacked coherence other than that of the trampled dust, and unity of aim other than that which animates a herd 1 Casson, H. N., Organized Self Help, pages 83-84. CLASS CHARACTER OF THE LABOR CONFLICT il of terror stricken cattle. When occasionally under the stress of some immediate oppression a brief sense of fellowship has sprung into a transient flame it has soon perished. At last, however, a new class consciousness has begun to appear. A healthful fire has been kindled that is sweeping steadily on, spreading from country to country and from speech to speech. Tired, dispirited, and unheeding workingmen are beginning to feel their kinship with their brothers in many lands and the result is what we see to-day. The barrier of self- centered egotism that hitherto has stood in the way of a true social state is beginning at last to be overcome. It is not true, of course, that this new class feeling of the proletariat is universal or uniform. The facts clearly show that as yet the conscious interest of a countless number ends with self. In the case of all these the larger interest of class is but vaguely felt, and so it happens that in the conflicts between labor and capital they can so readily be used to defeat the very ends that a true class interest would lead them to support, thus help- ing to rivet upon both themselves and others the very conditions against which a truer insight and a more comprehending spirit would lead them to pro- 12 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT test. Among the rural and isolated workers es- pecially, the sense of a common interest develops slowly. Their scattered condition and the lack of personal intercourse works in the direction of a self- centralism that is hard to overcome. Yet even in the rural districts the new class-consciousness has made surprising headway, so much so that in any political movement of the proletariat the rural laborers may be counted upon to support it no less enthusiastically than their fellows from the cities and the larger towns. Trades-unionism and sociahsm are the two chief groups of this new rising force, and, viewed from without they both at times seem to be actuated by impulses that make of them a great menace. Their demands seem unreasonable, their methods ruthless and stubbornly self-seeking, and their spirit petty and disobhging in many ways. The enforcement of rules which forbid a plasterer to drive a nail, or a plumber to perform the simplest task that belongs to the brick layer, or that rigidly fixes the hours of labor, or makes it a misdemeanor for a workingman to finish a job when a few minutes remain at the closing hour, seem to be a training in selfishness and ill-will rather than in devotion to the common good. Even worse, if anything, are CLASS CHARACTER OF THE LABOR CONFLICT 13 the frequent concomitants of the strike, the violence and brutality, the coercion and vandalism, the destruction of property, the beating, the maiming, or killing of workingmen who take the places that strikers have left. Judged by these things, organ- ized labor appears to be a great public peril, a ruthless instrument to wrest from the employer the largest wage, the shortest hours, and the smallest service that he can be made to accept, and because many otherwise kind-hearted and fair- minded men see the trades-union only from this standpoint they regard it as an unmitigated evil that must be fought "to the last ditch," in order that the welfare of society may be conserved. A closer and more sympathetic view, however, makes it clear that such abuses are by no means essential parts of the labor movement, or of the labor groups. Neither the petty restrictions upon work, nor the violence attendant upon labor struggles, nor the ungracious and arbitrary methods employed can be counted necessary features of organized labor. All these are but perversions of its true functions, excrescences which in due time will be cleared away. Looking deep enough into the labor group we come upon this truth that the workers have crudely grasped and which the 14 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT organization is designed to express, that freedom consists not in separateness but in fellowship, not in self-assertion but in self-effacement.^ In its real and essential spirit organized labor is not merely a ruthless umt fighting for selfish ends, but a throng of individuals inspired and urged forward by the sense of a common interest and a common need. Instead of being a menace to so- ciety the labor union is in reality a safeguard, be- cause it acts as a melting pot, in the fire of which a vast amount of ignorance, selfishness and dis- trust are dissipated, and humility, courage and self-effacement, the most essential social virtues, are produced. It is doubtful whether any other organization could do for the wage-earners what the labor union is doing, for only the bread and butter necessity would be potent enough as an influence to bring these people out of the fixed forms and crystallizations of life into which they have been compressed. Certain it is that no other organization is attempting to do this work, at least not by amalgamation, which is the only way assimilation can be secured. The very essence of ' Seligman, Principles of Economics, p. 435. The trades-union is an attempt to restore to the individual as a member of a group the equality which has been lost. Taussig, F. W., Principles of Economics, Vol. II, pages 280-290. CLASS CHARACTER OF THE LABOR CONFLICT 15 the trade argument upon the immigrant is uncon- sciously an uplifting and Americanizing influence.^ Socialism, too, menacing though it seems, es- pecially in the crude and embittered types which drift to us from southern Europe, is nevertheless a strong force at work among the people, giving to them a wider horizon, inspiring them with a passion for service, and kindhng in them a sense of brotherhood. IV Here then the true inwardness of the labor strug- gle lies. It represents the upward movement of a class. It is at the background a struggle of the wage- workers for economic freedom, for self-realization, for a chance to know himself as a sharer of the infinite life, and the movement carries with it an altruism that is full of promise for the entire race. While capitahsm has avowedly no aim beyond self- protection and the maintenance of a new type of "benevolent feudalism," the proletariat movement is "inspired by a passion of good will for all men, and it never loses sight of a universal good. Nay, it is concerned with the welfare of the very enemies whom it is fighting, for it is aware that rich as well 1 Stelzle, The Church and Labor, p. 70. Scudder, Vida D., Re- ligion and Socialism, Harvard Review, April, 1910. l6 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT as poor are to-day so fast in prison that they cannot escape." ^ Thus the American Federation of Labor, nearly three million strong, lays upon each member an obligation to work for the emancipation of their class from poverty, ignorance, and selfishness; to make no discrimination against a fellow-worker on account of creed, color, or nativity; to defend freedom of thought, whether expressed by tongue or pen; to educate himself and his fellow- workers in the history of the labor movement; never to wrong a brother knowingly, or see him wronged if in his power to prevent it; and to endeavor to subordinate every selfish impulse to the task of elevating the material, intellectual and moral conditions of the entire laboring class. ^ It may be said indeed that in the case of an ever-increasing number of wage-earners the passion to uplift their class, and to secure equahty of opportunity for all the various units of the race has virtually become a rehgion, and the labor organization has become a substitute for the church. The chosen battle hymn of five hundred thousand English working- men is but one of many indications that point to this fact; • Scudder, Vida D., Allantic Monthly, March, 1911. ' See Pledge of the American Federation of Labor. CLASS CHARACTER OF THE LABOR CONFLICT 17 "When will Thou save the people? O, God of mercy, when? Not kings alone, but nations! Not thrones and crowns, but men ! Flowers of thy heart, God, are they! Let them not pass, hke weeds, away, Their heritage a sunless day, God save the people." ^ The simple truth is that the spirit of democracy in its broadest sense has begun to grip the masses. They are becoming conscious of a heritage that was purchased for them by the best blood of the human race, but from which hitherto they have been shut out. This is what lies at the back of the labor conflict. Whether we speak of the wage-workers of Europe or America, this fundamental convic- tion is fighting its way to the front in spite of every obstacle, and to think of it in any other light is to misinterpret the whole situation. It is evident, furthermore, that there is no human power that can stop this upward movement. It has behind it not only a sense of right and justice that is infinite, but it represents a necessary link in the chain of human progress, an ordered step in the evolution of the race. The past centuries have been a long ' Elliott, Ebenezer, The Pilgrim Hymnal, p. 324. 1 8 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT preliminary stage of growth, and now the fruitage is to come. If in this crisis that is upon us we can but rally earnestness and inteihgence enough to direct properly the movement, the generations yet unborn will mark this as "that great day of the Lord," ' for which men have waited so patiently and for which they have so earnestly prayed. ' Isa. 2: 12, 13; 6. Je. 46: 10. Amos 5: 18. Mai. 4: 5. I Cor. 5:5. n Cor. 1:14. IThes. 5:2. H Peter 2: 3. CHAPTER II INEVITABLE CHANGE FORESHADOWED "The time is ripe, the fight begins, the status quo is to be changed. Only the morally and in- tellectually deaf cannot hear the sound of the call of the people. The social order which has served us and our fathers for uncounted centuries is dissolv- ing before our eyes." ^ These words from the pen of an ordinarily careful and moderate critic of social and economic conditions might well seem nervous and strained were it not for the fact that they rep- resent the sober conviction of so many people in nearly every social rank. No age has ever come to a great crisis wholly unawares. The hterature of the eighteenth century abounds in the opinions of well-informed observers both in France and America that history had reached a turning point. In the same way the men of to-day are becoming increasingly conscious that a far reaching change impends. • Martin, Frederick Townsend. The Passing of the Idle Rich. Everybody's. March, 191 1. 19 30 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT Nearly fifty years ago John Stuart Mill de- clared that "The form of association, which if man-kind continues to improve, must be expected to predominate, is not that which can exist be- tween a capitahst as chief and work people without a voice in the management of industrial affairs." ^ A man of splendid sobriety, with the best economic training of his day, subjecting the current com- munistic schemes to minute and fearless criticism, letting no weakness or danger in the program of coUectivist hopes escape him, he nevertheless affirmed that "between communism with all its chances, and the present state of society with all its sufferings and injustices, all the difiiculties great or small of communism would be but as dust in the balance. ' ' ^ Properly understood, these words of the great economist by no means commit him to an endorsement of collectivism as has sometimes been claimed, but without doubt they register his conviction that industrial society as now con- stituted does not subserve the best interests of the vast majority of its members, and that reorganiza- tion of some kind there must be if the proper ends of humanity are to be attained. The conviction ^ Mill, J. S., Principles of Economics, People's Edition, p. 463. ' Mill, J. S., loc. cit., p. 465 seq. INEVITABLE CHANGE FORESHADOWED 21 of Mill at this point is manifestly shared by an ever increasing number of the most careful observers and students of economic affairs. It is championed in the most surprising quarters. Where a few years ago the idea of industrial change was whispered only with bated breath it is now proclaimed from the housetops. I The glaring contrasts which exist between the condition of a comparatively small group who control the sources of wealth, direct business enter- prise, and draw the dividends, and the condition of those who, struggle as they will, save as they may, Hft their voices and protest as they dare, can obtain from this industrial hierarchy scarcely a Hving wage, makes a change of some sort in- evitable. Centuries ago the two famous Greek thinkers, Plato and Aristotle,' suggested the pos- ' Aristotle, Politics, I, 4, 3. If every instrument could accom- plish its own work, obeying or anticipating the will of others, hke the legendary figures of Djedalus or the tripods of Hephaestus, which, if we may believe the poet, " Entered self-moved the con- clave of the Gods," if, in like manner, the shuttle would weave, and the plectrum strike the lyre without a hand to guide them, master-craftsmen would not need assistants, nor would masters need slaves. Plato. Republic, Discussion of Communism. Book V., 462. Plato declares that when one member of the true state suffers all others suffer with him, and in like manner all rejoice in the 22 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT sibility of a time when the tools of wealth produc- tion would have reached such an advanced stage of development that the exploitation of labor which was characteristic of that age would no longer be necessary. These two great leaders be- Heved in slavery during that period of the world's development, upon the ground that only by such means could any class be left free to develop the higher attributes of mankind, but apparently they both looked forward to a time when in the course of social progress, perfection of mechanical devices would permit the emancipation of all mankind. These men were by no means visionaries. Their dream so far as methods are concerned has become reality, but thus far the outcome is somehow very different from that which they promised. Instead of emancipation a condition of economic dependence amounting to virtual servitude, at least in the case of the less intelHgent and ef&cient, still endures. While exploitation of men's bodies by ownership has been wiped out in every civilized land, the exploitation that now takes its place, considering prosperity of each. V, 463. He declares that in the true state the people shall be called maintainers and foster-fathers instead of being called slaves as was the case in his time. See Marx, Karl. Capital, p. 407, for a discussion of the idealism of Plato and Aristotle. INEVITABLE CHANGE FORESHADOWED 33 the fact that it is much more expansive, and em- braces a far greater number of people, may be said to represent a social evil almost if not equally as great, and one that in view of the immense gain that has taken place in productive method is even less justified. It is doubtless true, as has so frequently been pointed out, that the advent of the power machine, and the immense increase of production that has resulted therefrom, have been to the advantage of wage-earners as well as to that of every other class. Many indeed have come into better circum- stances than their fathers or their forefathers ever knew, and they enjoy a degree of luxury that in the not distant past was beyond the reach of any class, but it is only of the more skillful and better organized of the wage-earners that this is in'^any considerable measure true. All things considered, it is a question whether the majority are any better off, whether in many cases they are not worse off than they were a century or more ago.' In any case the point to be remembered is that men do not compare themselves with their ancestors but with their contemporaries. It is folly to expect ' Commons, John R., Social Reform and the Church, p. 7. MiU, J. S., he. cit., Laughlin's Edition, p. 516. 24 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT to appease the restless worker by reminding him of how much more prosperous he is than was his simian progenitor. What the wage-earner feels most is that his pros- perity has not kept pace with the general prosper- ity, that the advance of wages "has been on foot only, while profits have taken the limited express." ' The fact is we have allowed the fruit of the genius of invention to be plucked not by the mass of people, but by the hands of a comparatively small and relatively insignificant group, who by virtue of the genius of their fathers or by mere chance are permitted to administer all the tremendous power that such invention represents. "Our wealth producing machinery," says Professor Smart, "has the capacity to give all men knowledge and culture and the opportunity of leisure, which are their birthright. When such machinery is replacing man and doing the heavy work of industry, it is time to get rid of the ancient prejudice that the wage- earner must toil for ten hours a day to keep the world up to the level of the comfort it has attained. If we clear our minds from cant, it is possible that we may see that the reason why we still require him to work so many hours is that we, the com- • Rauchenbush, he. cii., p. 233. INEVITABLE CHANGE FORESHADOWED 25 fortable classes, may go on receiving the lion's share of the wealth that these machines, iron and human, are turning out." ^ II It seems reasonably certain also that under the present system the economic subservience of the masses of wage-earners is Hkely to become aggra- vated rather than improved. In his unique work, The Economic Foundations of Society Professor Loria^ has pointed out that the normal increase of population which eventually results in the appro- priation of all lands cultivated by labor must inevitably cause the laborer to lose that liberty of choice which to this time was his safeguard against the usurpations of capital, that henceforth his only means of Hvelihood is to sell his labor to the capitaKst for such wages as it pleases the latter to determine, and that in this way excessive profits are "instituted automatically, no longer through violence but simply by dint of the progressive appropriation of the soil." This, manifestly, is the condition, that we are rapidly attaining in the ' Smart, William, Lecture at University of Glasgow, 1903. Smart's Studies in Economics presents the same general attitude, pages 312-316. ' Loria, Economic Foundations of Society, Introductory chapter. a6 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT United States. Hitherto the vastness, variety, and wealth of our land have been a great protection to our working population. Our national home- stead system' by which such generous allotments of land have been portioned out has been "a kind of automatic safety-valve," ^ for the over-heated machine of our commercial and poUtical life. It has absorbed the great mass of our immigrants and given us a large body of independent farmers who have been and still are the chief dependence of the nation, but we have now reached a point where our free lands are almost exhausted. The first who arrived are well provided for, since they have both their land and their labor power, but the numberless throngs who are still coming will have nothing but their labor. Many no doubt who now own the land will eventually become dispossessed by the new arrivals, but henceforth our increase of population will be shut out more and more from a ready outlet to the soil, and this can mean nothing else than a further choking of the industrial centers of the nation with a vast population of those who have been disinherited of their liberty of choice and for whom no other course is open than to dis- ' Brooks, John Graham, The Social Unrest, p. 91. ' Rauchenbush, loc. cit., p. 331. INEVITABLE CHANGE FORESHADOWED 37 pose of their labor for whatever they can get in return. Thus the future outlook under the present industrial system is by no means encouraging. With the appropriation of all the best land and only that remaining which would require great outlays of capital to make it profitable, the result can hardly be otherwise than a further restriction of the wage-earner's liberty by a purely automatic process. Ill The fact here which is surely being driven home to the pubhc conscience, that capitahsm has not produced social justice and that it is not Hkely to, is one that foreshadows ultimate change. It has already begun to liberate a redemptive force that in due time, if allowed to develop in normal ways, will set every captive free, and break every yoke. No previous generation has ever witnessed such a sharp campaign of social and economic ex- posure as that which is now under way. In the words of Professor Peabody, "There never were so many people learned and ignorant, rich and poor, philosophers and agitators, men and women, so stirred by this recognition of inequahty in social opportunity. . . . Workingmen with grimy hands and women with eager eyes are turning the pages 28 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT of the economists in search of practical guidance." ^ Our great commercial and industrial enterprises are being analyzed, national and municipal govern- ments are being dissected, and the whole light of the midday sun is being allowed to beat down upon the roots of social and industrial life which have hitherto been buried deeply from the pubhc sight. The result is that a new social consciousness is being created.^ Travehng in the darkness, we are oblivious to our surroundings, we behold neither the beauties nor the repeUing features of the land- scape. Only when the sun breaks through the dark- ness, or the wind sweeps away the fog, are the facts of our situation revealed. Somewhat similar in effect is the campaign of exposure that is now under way. The light is appearing, the facts of our industrial life are becoming known, and as a result of it we are not comfortable. A whiff from the mining towns of Pennsylvania, or from the Chicago stock yards, sweeps across the table and destroys our appetite. Civilized society has trav- eled a long distance from the day when medieval barons could feast merrily in their halls, all the mer- rier for knowing that sixty feet beneath were miser- ' Peabody, loc. cit., p. 3. ' Peabody, Jesus Christ and the Christian Character, Chapter on the Modem World. INEVITABLE CHANGE FORESHADOWED 29 able wretches, their captives, suffering in horrible prisons, without light, air, or hope. To-day men do not feel it right to claim happiness while others are unhappy. They are coming to believe, also, that these great human wrongs can be set right, and that it is for us to set them right. This, it can hardly be doubted, is a factor of the present industrial situation that spells eventual change.^ IV There is developing, furthermore, an enUghtened self-interest that is clearly against the mainte- nance of the status quo. We are beginning to recog- nize that the present industrial arrangement is too costly to be continued. The first great requisite of intensive production is a high quaUty of work- manship. So long as civiUzed society endures, it wiU be found that the more intelligent and efficient the labor the greater its value as an in- dustrial and commercial asset. In the long run the industry whose average worker is most efficient will turn out the best product. Forty years ago a shoe manufacturer of North Adams, Massa- chusetts, imported a hundred and thirty Chinese ^ Seagre, H. R., A Program of Social Legislation — Proceedings of the First Annual Meeting of the American Association for Labor Legislation, Madison, Wis., 1907. 30 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT to take the place of as many American workers in his factory. He had tried unsuccessfully to prevent his workmen from organizing a union and in a fit of rage dismissed them all and sent for the Chinese.^ The white workers had received three dollars a day, and he paid the others six dollars a week. The fallacy of this employer was, as the fallacy of many still is, that labor can be both efficient and cheap.* His experiment with the Chinese failed as it deserved to fail. Inefficient work and waste subtracted from the profits, decrease in the quality of the product destroyed the demand for it and the factory was compelled to close. The human at his best is the greatest industrial asset and whatever tends to depress him is an economic loss. Here as much perhaps as an)rwhere our present industrial system fails. It is not calculated to evoke the worker's best. There is reason to believe that even snails and angleworms will grow bigger in a barrel than if kept in a small tin box. With the growing complexity of society and the increasing need of intensive and high class production this principle that prosperous and contented workmen means ' Casson, H. N., A History and Defense of the American Labor Movement, p. 102. ' Hadley, A. T., Economics, p. 328. INEVITABLE CHANGE FORESHADOWED 31 more efficient work and, therefore, increased pro- duction, is certain to be more and more recognized. It is another factor which in the normal progress of industrial society is on the side of change. V The pressure in this direction, however, which is most immediate, and which is clearly destined to '■ increase, is the upheaval of the wage-working class. Just as the bourgeois movement of the last four centuries supplied the impetus for a great social and economic advance, so the proletarian move- ment of to-day is bringing such advance. While to many it may come as a humiliating truth, never- theless all historians and sociologists now recognize that thus far spiritual and moral agencies alone have never succeeded in producing social recon- struction. The extinction of slavery in civilized countries, for example, was not brought about by ethical and religious feeling alone, since for many centuries after Christianity had established itself slavery was accepted as a part of the social order. ^ Great changes transpire in the social body when there is a redistribution of social power. Moral and spiritual forces become effective in collective 1 Ingram, J. K., Article Slavery, Encyclopedia Brilannica, Ninth edition, Vol. 22. 32 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT action when they are the accompaniments of social and economic ones. "Truth is mighty, but for a definite historical victory a given truth must depend on the class which makes that truth its own and fights for it." ^ The alliance of truth with industrial interests in the bourgeois movement gave us politi- cal democracy, and the same sort of alliance in the proletarian movement of to-day is preparing for the larger democracy that is to be. While the wage- earners were unorganized, their power, so far as their own objects were concerned, was a waste Niagara, an energy that was useless and futile, but to-day the thinkers of this class are appearing, the regimented workers are being drilled, the energy that hitherto has been a waste is being harnessed and directed to specific ends over the whole industrial realm. What we at present see of the actions of the proletariat are but the first tentative experiments. When the machine is fully under control, and its incalculable forces skillfully applied, the system of things will be changed. VI That the trend of the movement is ever more strongly in the direction of political arbitrament ' Rauchenbush, he. cit., p. 401. INEVITABLE CHANGE FORESHADOWED :i;i there can be no doubt. The appearance of the British labor party in 1906 marks not only a new epoch in British history, but in every likelihood it signifies the approaching end of that disinclina- tion for poUtical organization which thus far has characterized the pohcy of labor bodies and labor leaders in the United States. Heretofore it seems to have been taken for granted by the great body of American wage-earners that politics pertain to the general welfare, that political action should represent the common good rather than that of any social class. In recent years, however, they have been learning rapidly from the action of great business interests the varied uses which govern- ment and politics may be made to subserve. In fact the magnates of industry have not only looked to the government to assist their enterprises, but in numerous instances they have actually taken possession of it. "Hat in hand," as one writer puts it, "they have begged with such importunity that the law-making power, federal, sta.te and mimicipal, appears to have been looked upon as a private preserve." ^ The practical result of such action is that the millions of wage-earners are being taught to adopt a hke course for them- ' Brooks, John Graham, loc. cit., p. 47. 34 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT selves. The unconcealed and audacious use of government for private ends, coupled with the disposition to discredit every sound legislative proposal in the interest of the wage-earners, upon the ground that it is not constitutional, or that business interests will suffer, is surely and rapidly accustoming the people to bring politics into the industrial held. It is also responsible for a growing radicalism of political view-point in the presence of which the more thoughtful and sober among us may well feel appalled. The obverse of a class- owned and controlled government is a growing violence of feeling among the people that bodes ill for the common good. The old saying that every country gets the kind of Jew it deserves is again verified in that each country appears to be getting the kind of labor party that it deserves. That socialism as curse or blessing is upon us is a most obvious fact. The Frenchman Scherer,^ writing twenty years ago, declared that all signs point to the steady spread of socialism within a future that we may all hve to see. These words are already verified. The steady advance of social- istic sentiment during the past quarter of a century makes it practically certain that unless some swift '■ Scherer, Edmond, La Democratie el la France, p. 63. INEVITABLE CHANGE FORESHADOWED 35 and marvelous change in the industrial system takes place, looking toward a more equitable distribution of the combined earnings of capital and labor, before long a socialism of a revolution- ary type wiU be a serious fact with which to reckon. Nor should one necessarily be considered an alarmist, crying danger from the housetops, in asserting that a graver peril than the most radical socialism may be near at hand. Even a casual study of eighteenth century France should suffice to show us that the rejection by the beneficiaries of special privilege of wise and moderate reforms, inevitably tends to produce calamitous and de- structive explosion. Reluctant though we may be to admit the fact, we can scarcely deny that the conditions out of which disaster comes are working powerfully in our midst. On the one hand the idea that is consciously or unconsciously acted upon by so many magnates of industry, that human Hfe Hke the raw materials of production, is but a means to an end, which is the creation of wealth, and on the other hand the increasing sense of injustice among the wage-workers and their growing capacity to act en masse is rapidly pro- ducing a situation which contains at least the pos- sibihty of disturbance fully the equal of that which 36 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT rent the social fabric of eighteenth century France. That society if given proper time will find the way out of this perplexing puzzle there can be no doubt. The nation which put slavery down, if given a proper chance, will put other evils down. In the development of civiHzation evolution is better than revolution, and it is to prevent the latter that every proper influence should just now be used. Some one has recently declared that what America needs most is a Marius, a Pitt, and a Peel.^ These will come in due time to lead us to freedom, if we but have the patience to wait, but the problem now is to transfuse our social and industrial con- ditions with such influence that will keep them from breeding a Danton and a Robespierre. ' Martyn, F. C, loc. cit., March, 191 1. CHAPTER III THE INDUSTRIAL ISSUE AND THE CHURCH A significant feature of the industrial situation that must now be taken into account is the wide- spread revolt of the wage-earners against the church. Mr. Gompers puts the matter clearly and perhaps none too strongly in asserting that the wage- earners "have come to look upon the church and the ministry as the apologists and defenders of the wrong committed against the interests of the people, simply because the perpetrators are pos- sessors of wealth, whose real god is the almighty dollar, and who contribute a few of their idols to suborn the intellect and eloquence of the divines, and to make even their otherwise generous hearts callous to the sufferings of the poor and struggling workers, so that they may use their exalted posi- tions to discourage and discountenance all practical efforts oi the toilers to lift themselves out of the slough of despondency and despair." ^ Cited by Matthews, Shailer. The Church and the Changing Social Order, p. 129. 37 38 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT Socialists in particular reprobate the church. To the socialistic mind the church is the exclusive property and support of capitalism; the "ally of caste despotism and the ancient regimen"; the "chloroform agency of the confiscating classes"; ^ a "bourgeois club, a marriage bureau, and fashion- able lounge," with a doctrine "more revolting to the highest moral sense of to-day than the satur- naha of the cult of Proserpina could have been to the conscience of the early Christians." ^ Because the church has preached peace instead of justice, amelioration instead of reconstruction, says the socialist critic, it has been a hindrance rather than a help to the real good of the masses, and a drag to social progress. A very suggestive fact also is that while the church is reprobated, it not infrequently happens that the founder of the church is hailed as the friend of the struggling workers. While the Christ of the churches is scorned and rejected, the Naza- rene carpenter is enthusiastically lauded as a labor leader and revolutionist, a man of the common people, who fought hard for their moral and eco- nomic welfare, to all intents and purposes the first ^Kaufman, Christian Socialism, p. 223. ' Bax, The Religion of Socialism, p. 140. THE INDUSTRIAL ISSUE AND THE CHURGH 39 socialist. Because the church is untrue to the ideals of the Nazarene, say these spokesmen of the wage-earners, it is looked upon with suspicion and hostility. The church is repudiated, they affirm, not because it is Christian, but precisely because it is not Christian. Partisan and indiscriminating as these stric- tures are, they nevertheless contain a certain basis of fact. If they are not wholly true, neither are they wholly false. At all events they represent an actual element in the social mind that must be reckoned with. For the church simply to ignore them, or to belittle them, is to take the most fatal risk that it has faced in all its history. It is the risk of suffering a complete loss of influence in the social reconstruction that is now in progress. I Manifestly the first and most important thing to be decided is the social ideal of Jesus and its bearing upon industrial conditions. If it may be assumed that the church is founded upon his principles and ideals, and that it is here to repro- duce his spirit, and to reinterpret his message to each generation, the paramount importance of this inquiry becomes evident. That Jesus had 40 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT a social message, that, indeed, his point of view, aim, and goal were social, is now beginning to be recognized. So evident is the social emphasis of Jesus that the failure hitherto to recognize and to appreciate this great central fact can only be explained upon the ground that "men's eyes were holden," and that there was some defect in their organ of vision. It was not that the founder of Christianity stood for a specific program of social reform. The claim that he was primarily a labor leader, a social revolutionist, an economic reformer, or a political agitator, is met by the fact that he definitely and positively refused to be entangled in special re- formatory measures of any kind. He said that questions pertaining to the distribution of property were not within his province. "Man," he asks, "who made me a judge or divider over you?" ^ He declared, also, that forms of government were not for him to change. "Render therefore to Csesar the things that are Csesar's." ^ In his day there was far-reaching social and economic un- righteousness that needed to be remedied, terrible political oppression to be condemned, but Jesus steadfastly refused to throw himself into such iLuke 12: 14. 2 Matt. 22:21. THE INDUSTRIAL ISSUE AND THE CHURCH 41 issues. On the other hand he moved through them with what must have seemed to many of his con- temporaries a strange and unaccountable tranquil- ity. When all the facts are considered, hov/ever, it becomes clear that Jesus was not so indifferent to such problems as might at first sight appear. On the contrary his point of view and his goal were distinctively social. The principles that he endeavored to inculcate have tremendous social consequences. The very idea of God that he tried to impart is a social idea. The word father appHed to the Deity as he applied it contains the most drastic social implications. Religion to him was by no means an ultimate fact, it was for character and service, to make people better and to make the world better. That Jesus' aim of redemption did not stop with a few individuals, but included the social order, is clearly shown by his declaration, "I am come not to judge the world but to save the world." ^ His conception of the kingdom of God, accord- ing to the synoptic gospels, was the very center of all his teachings, in which the social ideal of Jesus found its most definite expression. That he was ' John 12: 47. 42 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT not thinking of people being saved and going to heaven, or of some far off millenium, by his oft repeated references to the "kingdom of God," or the "kingdom of heaven," as is so generally be- lieved, is shown by his affirmation that the "king- dom is at hand," ^ that it was actually there in their midst. ^ Like every great creative mind Jesus maintained connection with the past. He made use of terms that were already familiar to the people, although he did not hesitate to set these terms in new relations and to fill them with new connotations. His use of the word "kingdom" is the most striking illustration of the fact. For centuries the Jewish people had been familiar with this conception, but it had stood in their minds primarily for a theocratic idea of the state, with the religious purity, social justice, economic pros- perity and happiness which they associated with the idea of theocracy. Deprived of their political autonomy, first by the Babylonians, then by the Greeks, and later by the Romans, their hopes gathered more and more about the theocratic ideal, the coming of which they pictured as the result of Divine interference and catastrophe. The later Jewish Hterature is filled with this con- 'Marki:is. ' Luke 17: 21. THE INDUSTRIAL ISSUE AND THE CHURCH 43 ception/ it was the great note of popular expecta- tion, and Jesus took this idea as the basis of his appeal. He endeavored to free it from erroneous suggestions and to breathe into it higher meanings. With unerring insight he pointed out that the divine processes are evolutionary and not cata- clysmic, that the present has grown from the past, and the future must grow from the present. "First the blade, then the ear, and after that cometh the full corn in the ear." ^ He endeavored also to displace the crude theocratic ideal with a social ideal. As he proclaimed it, the kingdom was the sway of God's truth, Justice, and right; the reestab- lishment of social life upon a basis of mutual sym- pathy, and service, rather than upon a basis of mere self-interest; the creation of a brotherhood in which all ^ men should be united in Godly fear, in brotherly love, and in the effort to convert society into a great fraternity, and to innoculate all human conditions with the spirit of helpfulness and good will. He used the word "kingdom " because there was no other idea of society that was current among those whom he addressed. He might with equal accuracy have spoken of the repubhc, the commonwealth, or the society of God, ' Cf. Daniel 7: 13, 14. ' Mark 4: 28. * Matt. 8: 10-12. 44 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT since his evident purpose was to impart the concep- tion of a corporate union of men upon the basis of trust in the government of an all-encompassing, loving and righteous God. That he did not insist upon a particular program of social reform, or concern himself with the machinery of social hfe, was because he felt that no kind of social machinery will produce happiness, or welfare, when it is run by selfish men; that no real empire of prosperity and peace can exist until the deepest region of human Hfe is reached. Thus he wasted no time in pohshing the outside of the cups and platters on which man's exterior wants are served. He chose rather to supply incentive, and moral motive power. II The failure of the church to comprehend the ideal of Jesus, and to work for social reconstruction on his lines, declares a well known writer,^ is the great failure of history. "The church," he says, "has always been putting the emphasis somewhere else than where he put it; she has always been doing something else instead of the great task which he began and left her to finish. It is the great fail- ure of history, the turning aside of the Christian ' Gladden, The Church and Modern Life, p. 95. THE INDUSTRIAL ISSUE AND THE CHURCH 45 church from the work of Christianizing the social order, and the expenditure of her energies, for nine- teen centuries, on other pursuits." Those who have studied history impartially are not hkely to chal- lenge this judgment, but in justice to the church the reasons for this failure should be considered, and the benefits to the social order that have come indi- rectly, as by-products from the church's work and witness should be taken into account. For one thing the rigid limitations under which the church for centuries had to do its work was a force that operated against any thorough-going apphcation of Jesus' message to social and economic conditions. Industry in the Roman empire was based upon slavery, and society was very alert against any possible slave uprising. If a slave killed his master, the law provided that every slave of the household might be killed, even when there was no trace of complicity. Had the early church tried to hold anti-slavery meetings, had it attempted in any pubHc way to protest against the cruel wrongs that were then perpetrated, it is a question whether it would have outlived the first century. "Under such conditions," says Prof. Rauchen- bush, "the prudent man will husband his chances of life and usefukiess, and drop the seeds of truth 46 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT warily." ^ Neither was this by any means the only influence that in the early years of the church's propulsion operated against an adequate appre- ciation, and a proper apphcation of Jesus' social ideal. It should be remembered all the while that the first Christian propagandists were of those who had inherited Jewish modes of thought, and they were never entirely able to free their minds from this influence. Thus, the idea of a divine visitation and a cataclysm that would destroy the unbeUeving world, and issue in the establishment of a theocracy, which had been developed in the later Jewish period, was in cer- tain of its features carried over into Christianity, and become a very prominent, although a devital- izing element of Christian teaching. For centuries after the death of Jesus the chief thought of his followers was that he would come again in a visible way and with power, and that by miracle he would destroy the unbelievers, and establish the kindgom of God. The "day of the Lord," ^ when Jesus would appear in the clouds to confound and to overthrow the heathen world, and inaugur- ate the "kingdom" was the great note of early ' Rauchenbush, loc. cil., p. 152. 2 1 Cor. 5: s; n Cor. i: 14; I Thes. 5: 2; II Peter 3: 10. THE INDUSTRIAL ISSUE AND THE CHURCH 47 Christian hope. What use to enter upon any moral crusade against the world, or to formulate plans for a thorough-going social reorganization, if in a few brief years the departed king was to return again and by force estabhsb his reign. Moreover, as the long centuries wore themselves out and this expectation was not realized, another idea began to emerge and to find a place in Christian thought, the idea that the main business of the church was to get men ready to die and to prepare them for the life of heaven. This thought gradually gathered force, and for centuries has been upper- most in the Christian mind. The organization and direction of Christian activity have proceeded very largely upon this assumption. The world has been esteemed a wreck, and Christian service has been supposed to be for the purpose of saving as many as possible from the wreck. Still later came the paganizing influence of the Middle Ages, which made ritual supreme and overlooked the ethical motive. Then followed the controversies about dogma, which all but destroyed the church's moral vitality, ending in the establishment of a great ecclesiasticism, an empire in itself, existing separate from the world, and arrogating to itself the honors and powers of the kingdom of God, 48 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT instead of regarding itself as an instrument for the work of Christianizing and upHfting the social order. Had the church at the outset understood the social ideal of Jesus, and had it been free to apply and develop it, history would have a vastly different story to tell. So too would the story of each individual be different if we began life with perfect insight, and if our environment contained no frustrating influence. In point of fact the history of the church, Hke the history of each individual reveals the great law of nature that for every inch of real progress there are miles of wandering in the dark. Ill Notwithstanding the church's failure to work for social reconstruction on the Hnes of Jesus, it has never been able to depart wholly from his spirit. Its message has always been instinct with a power of social renewal. Its witness has liber- ated forces that have reacted mightily for the im- provement of social conditions, and that have been a factor in every great social reform. Thus the emphasis that from the very outset the church has put upon the service of the weak and the helpless, and its summons to the comfortable and prosperous THE INDUSTRIAL ISSUE AND THE CHURCH 49 to share their prosperity with the needy, have helped not only to relieve misery but have been a constant afl&rmation of the principle that the pro- duction of inner emotions must be supplemented by the production of external conditions and rela- tions in order that the ends of justice may be met. The voluntary communism of the early church, when "all that beheved had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men as every man had need," ^ was a striking exhibition of the new social impulse and sense of responsibiHty to the disinherited and weak which sprang into existence with the church. Though the wisdom of the early communistic movement is by no means evident, since in the end it apparently helped to aggravate rather than to reheve the pressure of material want, it sprang, nevertheless, from the laudable desire to improve the outward condition of the needy and oppressed class. ^ Christian philanthropy has also carried with it muck of this impulse. The practice of philanthropy did not originate with Christianity, since there is evidence of its existence both in ancient Hebrew, 1 Acts 2: 44, 45. 2 Pfliderer, Primitive Christianity, Vol. I, p. 31. 50 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT Greek and Roman society, but Christianity did bring a great expansion of the range and depth of philanthropy. The worship, and fraternal relations of the early Christians abound in a quality of com- prehensive tenderness that had never previously been witnessed. Evidence of this is to be found in all the early Christian hterature. Thus Clement of Rome concludes a writing that belongs to the close of the iirst century, "Save among us those who are in tribulation, have mercy on the lowly, lift up the fallen, show thyself unto the needy, heal the un- godly, convert the wanderers of the people, feed the hungry, release our prisoners, raise up the weak, comfort the faint hearted." ^ The Epistle of Barnabas, which coming a little later, admonishes Christians not to consider anything as belonging to themselves alone, but to share everything with their neighbors," ^ and the Apostolic Constitutions, coming still later, summons the church to "find work for the artisans, to have pity on the infirm, to receive strangers, to give food and drink to those who are hungry and thirsty, clothes to the naked, and to visit the sick and the prisoners." ' The out- ' First Epistle of Clement. ' Epistle of Barnabas, Chap. ig. ' Apostolic Conslitulions, Book 4. THE INDUSTRIAL ISSUE AND THE CHURCH 51 come of this compassion is the immense and far- reaching philanthropy that has expanded from century to century with the growth of the church, "adorning the conduct of Christian congregations in every generation and in every land, illumining the dark periods of controversy, brightening the somber history of monasticism and the mendicant orders, drawing to the influence of the Christian message milHons of persons who could not have been compelled by threats of perdition, but who could not turn from this witness of love." ^ Though from the standpoint of our present knowledge, it is not possible to view with undis- criminating admiration this vast enterprise of Christian beneficence, because, for the most part, it has concerned itself with effects rather than with causes, and has been extended in ways that were adapted to promote evils for which it appHed only a partial and temporary remedy, we ought not to be bHnd to what is truly admirable in the temper of mind and heart out of which all this philanthropy has sprung, or to the fact that it has marked a definite transition in the evolution of human char- acter. Furthermore, it should be noted that the vast undertakings of secular philanthropy that ' Peabody, loc. cit., p. 232. 52 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT characterize the modern world have had their chief inspiration in the teachings of the Christian pulpit, and the practice of the Christian church. The enormous sums which are devoted annually to works of rehef cannot easily be computed or appre- ciated. The taxes for this purpose in the United States average not less than two dollars per capita,'^ and when to this is added the munificence of other Christian countries, and the private benefactions through various organizations and individuals, it makes a total that is bewildering to contemplate. This tremendous and far-reaching philanthropy marks one of the chief differences between the mod- ern and the ancient world, and, however it may be regarded, it has sprung chiefly from the church. The emphasis, too, that the church has ever put on the sacredness of Hfe, the right of each man to his body as well as to his soul, has been an in- fluence that has acted powerfully in the interest of the disinherited class. Slavery, as we have seen, was the basis of industrial society in the ancient world. At the time the church began to take root in the Roman Empire, according to all authorities, the slave population was far in excess of the free population, and the condition of the slave under 1 Peabody, loc. cit., p. 233. THE INDUSTRIAL ISSUE AND THE CHURCH 53 the law was one of utter cruelty and barbarity. He had no civil, or moral standing. He could be sold, killed, fed to the fishes or violated with impunity. The system had arisen out of the mihtary and eco- nomic necessities of the Empire, and it rested upon ideas that were centuries old, and, though the church did not denounce slavery as a social crime and insist upon its immediate aboHtion, it is evident that from the first it began to modify the ideas upon which slavery rested and to create sentiments which were not only favorable to the humane treat- ment of the slave class, but which were the germs out of which its liberation was destined at a later period in part to arise. "The world is a vast re- public," said the teachers of the early church, "a great family of God's children." ^ "Rich and poor, strong and weak, servant and freeman, have only one Head, from which everything comes." ^ Masters were enjoined to love their slaves as sons and as equals, and the church refused to receive the gift of the master who ill-treated his slave. ^ The church also encouraged the individual manu- mission of slaves, and the history of the early Christian centuries abounds with such instances. ' Turtullian Apology, p. 38. ^ Gregory Nazyanzen Orations, p. 16. ' Apostolic Constitutions, Book 4. 54 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT With the growth of the church's power and influence the freeing of slaves on Sunday by the word of a priest in the presence of witnesses became a rec- ognized custom. Thus Hermes, prefect of Rome under Trajan, upon the day of his baptism into Christianity which occurred on Easter Sunday, gave freedom to a thousand two hundred and fifty slaves. Cromatius, also, another prefect of Rome under Diocletian, becoming convinced that those "who had God for their father ought not to be the slaves of any man," gave freedom to a thousand four hundred slaves.^ Gradually the church coun- cils began to adopt measures that were favorable to the slave, and through the influence of Theo- dosius upon the Emperor Justinian in the sixth century, there began a series of enactments that gave a new civil standing to the slave and that proved in the end to be the entering wedge by which his freedom was wrought.^ With the passing of slavery came the inter- mediate stage of serfdom which sprang out of the chaos of the times. Many of the freed slaves, dis- ' Article, Christianity and Social Refonn — Bliss — New Encyc. Social Reform, p. 297. 2 Ingraham, Slavery, Britannica Encyclopedia, Vol. 22. Schmidt, Karl, Social Result of Early Christianity, for a discussion of this entire subject. THE INDUSTRIAL ISSUE AND THE CHURCH 55 covering that they could not adequately protect themselves, preferred to join some master. The small farmer found himself better guarded from robbers by thus securing the protection of some powerful landlord. Wealthy patrons at Rome re- warded their faithful cHents with parcels of land in the provinces, where they became attached as coloni to the soil, or the government in the same way settled bodies of prisoners, and immigrants on public land, and thus the system of land-slavery or serfdom arose. Under this regime, also, the in- fluence of the church was a great ameliorative force. Its teachings did much to soften the rigors of serfdom, to create sentiments against it, and to prepare the way for a better system of things. Its ministries brought comfort and incentive to in- dividual members of the dependent class. In va- rious ways the church offered them protection and gave them a chance to rise, and in not a few in- stances, as in the case of the learned Grostete of Oxford, a place of dignity and honor was opened to the serf. The Sachsenspiegel,^ a German legal code of the thirteenth century, reveals to some extent ' The Sachsenspiegel and the Schwabenspiegel were the two j great German collections of local laws in the thirteenth centuryil and they both powerfully reflect the influence that Christianity had begun to exercise in the interest of the oppressed classes. ^ 56 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT the powerful influence that Christianity had come to exercise in the interest of the oppressed. Affirm- ing that the Lord had put rich and poor equally under his love, and that man belongs to God alone, it declared that whoever holds him in bondage is a siimer against the Almighty. Sgniiicant, also, as showing the extent to which by this period the Christian leaven had worked, was the action of the city of Bologne extending freedom to all its serfs in honor of Jesus Christ as the proclamation said, the extension of freedom to the serfs of Norway by Knute the Holy, one of the first Norwegian Chris- tian kings, the abolition of serfdom from the Compte de Valois in France, upon the ground that "the human creature who has been formed in the image of our Lord ought to be free," the abolition of serf- dom by Magnus Erickson, the Christian king of Sweden, from his dominion, and the campaign in England of John Ball, the mad priest of Kent, whose assertion of the universal rights of men,^ according to Green, was the force that sounded ' Cited by Green, John Richard, A Short History of the English People, Vol. II, p. 483. " Good people, things will never go well in England so long as goods be not in common, so long as there be villians and gentlemen. By what right are they whom we call lords, greater than we? If we all came from the same father and mother, Adam and Eve, how can they say or prove that they are better than we?" THE INDUSTRIAL ISSUE AND THE CHURCH 57 the death knell of feudahsm in the British Isles. IV Such is a brief hint of the influence of the church as it bore upon industrial conditions in the past. This was not, of course, the only influence that contributed to these results. The influence of the church was but a concomitant of various others, each of which played its part in the general ad- vance. True social progress always comes from the reciprocating action ot many forces. Just as soil, heat, moisture, and hght condition plant growth, so various forces, social, economic, and religious, enter into and determine the develop- ment of social hfe. ReKgious influence at the most was but one blade of the shears. It is, therefore, easy, on the one hand, to magnify the influence of the church, just as it is easy on the other hand to minimize it or to leave it out of account. Between the extreme view that the church has done every- thing, and the equally extreme view that it has done nothing, Hes the real truth that it has been a great contributing factor in the general upHft and betterment of social and industrial life. While the church, however, has exerted in- directly a strong social influence, its main pur- 58 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT pose for the most part has been directed otherwise than toward social ends, indeed, it has interposed at times between man and humanity, and has made itself the chief object of social service, thereby- proving a hindrance and not a help, but when all the facts are considered and it is remembered how the whole sweep of our civilization has been played upon, awakened, informed, wrought over from its first estate, and in spite of continuous and brutal resistance, charged with Christian sympathies and standards, it becomes evident that in many ways the church has played a great and noble part. Now that the light of critical research is being turned upon the past, with the result that the social mis- sion of Jesus is becoming more fully understood and the failure of the church to work for social recon- struction on His lines is beginning to be realized, there is every reason to believe that in due time the needed readjustment of purpose will come and the vast energies of the church will be directed more definitely toward social ends. That the church is here to "seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness," to concentrate its energies upon reahzing a truly fraternal and just society, has now begun to be evident to many of the church's strongest and most influential leaders, THE INDUSTRIAL ISSUE AND THE CHURCH 59 and the call to the church to bestir herself and take up the work so long neglected is becoming ever louder and more insistent, and the signs are multi- plying that although painfully slow to comprehend, the church will not in the end remain unresponsive to this call. CHAPTER rV THE BEGINNINGS OF ANOTHER REFORMATION At only one period in its long history has the church come nearly realizing its social mission, the period of the Reformation in the sixteenth century. What occurred then should be carefully studied by the church of to-day, because it throws a flood of light upon many things that are now happening, which cannot fail in the end to affect powerfully the position and influence of the church. We have been accustomed to think of the Refor- mation as a theological crisis, a doctrinal revolt against the Roman hierarchy, and that it did involve such an issue is unquestionable, but in its deepest character, as it is now beginning to appear, the movement was largely social and economic. It was less a revolt against bad theology than against unchristian social and economic con- ditions. This was the period of transition from the old system of home production and home markets referred to in a previous chapter.' The iP.4. 60 BEGINNINGS OF ANOTHER REFORMATION 61 new geographical discoveries that had been made, and the beginnings of a world commerce resulting from them, had given rise to great trading com- panies that overshadowed and caused the downfall of the guilds which hitherto had directed business enterprise. Industry was capitaHzed to an extent that had never been known before, the wealth of a few was enormously increased, great "merchant princes confronted the princes of the state, and their influence dislocated the old social relations." ' The situation was in many ways a parallel to that which is presented by the modern world. The extreme wealth on the one side, that manifested itself in every kind of fooKsh extravagance, coarse pleasure, animal indulgence, and the extreme pov- erty on the other produced a situation that was full of bitterness, and discontent. Extravagance at the top of the social scale ever tends to bring misery, degradation, and upheaval at the bottom. Society has never yet been so rich that waste did not work harm to the needier classes, and even if the poor are no poorer the contrast of their condition with the luxury and profusion of those above them is certain to be exasperating.^ 1 Lindsay, T. M., A History of the Reformation, Vol. I, p. 86. 2 Gladden, loc. cit., p. 130. 62 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT In the midst of these conditions, Luther appeared with his strong indictment of hierarchical tyranny, and priestly misrule. With smiting words that seemed to cleave to the very heart of things, he destroyed "the aristocracy of the saints," he leveled the barriers between the layman and the priest, he taught the equality of all men before God, and the right of every man of faith to stand in God's presence whatever his rank or condition in Hfe. Luther did not confine himself to preaching theology but voiced in various ways all the grievances of the time and laid his hand upon the open sores. "His words," says Prof. Lindsay, "fell into souls full of the fomenting passion of the times. They drank in with eagerness the thoughts that all men are equal before God, and that there are divine com- mandments about the brotherhood of mankind of more importance than all human legislation, and they refused to beHeve that such golden ideas belonged to the realm of the spiritual life above." ^ They very naturally interpreted the message of the Reformation in the terms of their own experience and the result was a great popular uprising. The people felt that the new evangel meant the en- largement of their opportunities, and they pro- 1 Lindsay T. M., loc. cit., p. 327. BEGINNINGS OF ANOTHER REFORMATION 63 ceeded to claim for themselves the liberty which they esteemed to be theirs by God given right. In connection with this popular uprising, a great limitation of the reformatory movement comes into sight. Superb leader that he was, Luther, nevertheless, appears to have failed to interpret adequately the peasants' revolt.^ Professing at first to be in sympathy with its fundamental aims, he later turned against it and threw his influence on the side of the princes, and the peasants' move- ment was put down in blood. Perhaps this action on Luther's part was necessary in order to save the Reformation in Germany, but at this distance it looks very much as though the most promising opportunity that has ever presented itself for the church to become a great constructive force in re- casting the social order on the hues of Jesus, was lost. At any rate the movement for social recon- struction that was then precipitated was thwarted, with the result that the task is still before us. While conditions in some respects have greatly altered since the sixteenth century, the real issue that confronts the church to-day is substantially the same as it was in the time of Luther. While many oppressions and wrongs under which the > The Peasants' Revolt began in 1534. 64 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT common people then suffered have been removed, the present labor upheaval makes it clear that the essential problem still remains to be grappled with, and the attitude that is taken by the church to- day cannot fail to be of the utmost consequence. That the church, although painfully slow to recog- nize the true situation, is beginning at last to awaken is now apparent. Indeed, there is much to indicate that another reformation, more sweep- ing than that of the sixteenth century is even now on the way. I Significant, for example, is the recent declaration with reference to labor that was made at Philadel- phia ^ by the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America in behalf of thirty-three denom- inations, representing eighteen milhons of church members and nearly forty millions of adherents. "We deem it the duty of all Christian people" say the framers of this declaration, "to concern them- selves directly with certain practical industrial prob- lems. To us it seems that the churches must stand: For equal rights and complete justice for all men in all stations of life. ' The Council met in Philadelphia, December 1898. BEGINNINGS OF ANOTHER REFORMATION 65 For the right of all men to the opportunity for self-maintenance, a right ever to be wisely and strQngly safeguarded against encroachments of every kind. For the right of the workers for some protection against the hardships often resulting from the swift crises of industrial change. For the principle of conciliation and arbitration in industrial dissensions. For the protection of the worker from dangerous machinery, occupational diseases, injuries and mortahty. For the aboHtion of child labor. For such regulation of the conditions of toil for women as shall safeguard the physical and moral health of the community. For the suppression of the sweating system. For the gradual and reasonable reduction of the hours of labor to the lowest practicable point, and for that degree of leisure for all which is a con- dition of the highest human Ufe. For a release from employment one day in seven. For a living wage as a minimum in every in- dustry and for the highest wage that each industry can afford. 66 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT For the most equitable division of the products of industry that can be ultimately devised. For suitable provision for the old age of the workers and for those incapacitated by injury. For the abatement of poverty." ^ In addition to this declaration of principles the council recommended to the various Christian bodies "that the churches more fully recognize through their pulpits, press, and public assemblies, the great work of social reconstruction which is now in progress, the character, extent, and ethical value of the labor movement, the responsibihty of Chris- tian men for the formation of social ideals, and the obHgation of the churches to supply the spiritual motive and standards for all movements which aim to realize in the modern social order the fulfillment of the second great commandment, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself; that the study of existing conditions in the industrial world, their origin and outcome, be more definitely enforced as an immediate Christian duty; that to this end in all theological seminaries, and as far as practicable, in other schools and colleges, there be estabhshed, wherever they do not now exist, courses in eco- '■ Report of the Federal Council of the Church of Christ in America for December, 1898. BEGINNINGS OF ANOTHER REFORMATION dj nomics, sociology, and the social teachings of JeSus, supplemented, wherever possible, by investigation of concrete social fact, and that study classes and reading courses on social questions be instituted in connection with the churches and their societies to foster an intelKgent appreciation of existing con- ditions and to create a public sentiment through which reUef and reform may be more effectively secured; that the churches with quickened zeal and keener appreciation, through their pastors, lay- leaders, and members, wherever possible, enter into sympathetic and fraternal relations with working- men, by candid pubHc discussion of the problems which especially concern them, by advocating their cause when just, by finding the neighborly community of interest, and by welcoming them and their families to the use and privileges of the local churches; that the proper general authorities of the denominations endeavor by special bureau, or de- partment to collate facts and mould opinion in the interests of a better understanding between the church and workingmen, and particularly to obtain a more accurate and general knowledge of the meaning of trades-unionism, and especially that aU church members, who, either as employers or mean- bars of trades-unions, are more specifically involved 68 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT in the practical problems of industry, be urged to accept their unparalleled opportunity for serving the cause of Christ and humanity by acting, in his spirit, as mediators between opposing forces in our modern world of work; that the church in general not only aim to socialize its message, to understand the forces which now dispute its supremacy, to stay by the people in the effort to solve with them their problems, but also to modify its own equip- ment and procedure in the interest of more demo- cratic administration and larger social activity; that the church fail not to emphasize its own rela- tion, throughout the centuries and in the life of the world to-day, to the mighty movements which make for the betterment of social and industrial conditions." ^ This statement of the Federal Council now stands and will doubtless long continue to stand as the most comprehensive expression of sympathy for the struggling wage-earners that has ever em- anated from the church. However, since resolution making is one of the church's besetting sins, it would be very easy to overestimate the practical value of such a statement. In too many instances ' Report of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America for December, 1898. BEGINNINGS OF ANOTHER REFORMATION 69 resolutions are but a means of avoiding trouble- some issues. Challenged by some daring leader and not caring to oppose, the church keeps the peace by accepting a body of resolutions that are never put into actual practice. Nevertheless, the above expression appears to have been made in all sincer- ity and after due reflection upon the gravity of the present industrial situation. Furthermore, it rep- resents the profound conviction of a rapidly grow- ing number in every branch of the church, and for that reason it seems not unhkely that it will prove a very useful instrument in helping to shape the future attitude of the church in reference to the industrial issue. This expression by the Federal Council may be accepted as a fore-gleam and a prophecy of a new mighty movement of the church in the not distant future. II Important, also, as an indication of the new interest in the industrial question that is rising in the church is the action of the leading religious bodies in instituting the great public gatherings which have been held in recent years for the dis- cussion of the problems involved in the labor con- flict, the organization of labor departments, the 70 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT appointment of labor committees, secretaries, and fraternal delegates to labor organizations, the ob- servance of "labor Sunday," and the establishment of the men's class for the study of social and in- dustrial problems. The great public gatherings, the most import- ant of which have been held in connection with the national conventions of various leading church bodies, have been for the purpose of bringing em- ployers, employes, and the general pubHc together, in order to face squarely under the overshadowing ideals, insistent ethical standards, and the brother- hood spirit of the Christian religion the issues that divide them. Thus the Congregationalists at their national meeting at Cleveland, Ohio, in October 1897, succeeded in rallying a great audience of representative trade-unionists, employers, citizens, and churchmen to discuss "The modern Christian and the modern world of industry." Stirring addresses were made by a representative of the National Association of Manufacturers, by the Secretary of the American Federation of Labor, and by the prominent members of the convention. The speakers were all plain spoken and fearless, dealing without evasion or subterfuge with the real issues, and yet maintaining all the while the BEGINNINGS OF ANOTHER REFORMATION 71 spirit of courtesy and good fellowship. At a sim- ilar meeting that was held by the Presbyterians at Kansas City, Mo., in 1909, more than fifteen thousand people were in attendance, more than half of whom were wage-earners, and the com- mon verdict of the churchmen present was that in point of interest, no such meeting had been held by the Presbyterians in the course of a century. The object of the department of labor that has been established in connection with many leading denominations, notably the Presbyterians, Con- gregationalists, Methodists, Episcopalians, Bap- tists, and Unitarians, is to make a systematic study of the entire industrial problem, thus con- tributing to a truer, saner, and safer understanding of it upon the part of religious, and labor bodies, employers, and the pubhc generally. Through this agency mass-meetings of church members and labor unionists have been held in nearly all the leading industrial centers of the country, local committees have been appointed to confer with labor bodies, to conduct noon-day shop meetings, and in various other ways to bring to bear upon the labor situation the influence of the Christian message, and one or more articles dealing with some phase of the labor question have been reg- 72 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT ularly sent to three hundred labor papers in this country and Canada, thus enabling the Church to speak every week to approximately ten million wage-earners. The object of the exchange of fraternal delegates between ministers' associations and central labor unions is that each of these bodies may see the other with clearer vision. In a hundred and twenty- five cities of the country this plan has been accepted and about two hundred ministers of the various denominations are serving in this capacity. The fraternal delegate goes unpledged to secrecy. He does not have the privilege of voting, but is given the right of the floor upon all occasions. In some instances the labor unions have created the office of chaplain for the ministers and the regular meet- ing of the union is opened by " short devotional exercise." The plan has proven, on the whole, ac- ceptable to all concerned and it is rapidly being adopted by city after city, and it seems not un- likely that it will soon be in operation in practically all of the six hundred cities of America which support ministers' associations and central labor unions. The object of "Labor Sunday," which is ob- served by special services in a large number of BEGINNINGS OF ANOTHER REFORMATION 73 churches, is primarily to interest the rank and file of church-goers in the problems of the working- people. The plan of observing this day has now been in operation for nearly five years, and, while it has by no means been universally adopted by the churches, it nevertheless has grown constantly in favor. Each year thousands of workingmen who had not previously attended church in many years have gone on this occasion, and in not a few cases the workingmen have marched in a body from their meeting place to the church where the service was conducted. The chief value of the Labor Sunday is that it affords a method of contact be- tween the churches and the labor organizations thus offering an opportunity to promote the needed sympathy and mutual understanding. The object of the men's class for the study of social and industrial problems is to create intelli- gent opinion in respect to the vital issues that are more and more demanding the attention of the church. Hundreds of such classes have been organ- ized during the past ten years, and almost without exception their Sunday meetings and discussions have been characterized by a growing interest and insight which are of the utmost importance to the church. The American Institute of Social 74 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT Service ^ has proven especially effective in further- ing such work. The studies that are regularly issued by the Institute covering such subjects as, "The ethics of work," "The facts as to child labor," "Child labor legislation," "Working women," "Women's wages," "Effects of women's work on home hfe," "The use of wealth," "The distribu- tion of wealth," "Corporate capital," "Labor and capital," "Strikes and their lessons," "Industrial peace," "The open or closed shop," "Number and character of the unemployed," "Causes of unem- ployment and methods of relief," are used by an increasing number of these classes.^ The value of such studies, both in helping the church to an intelligent attitude toward the pressing social and industrial issues, and in helping men to act in- telligently in their individual capacities toward such issues becomes obvious. The multiplication of such classes in the church may, therefore, be regarded as a matter of very great moment. Ill Still another type of church activity which, in its bearing upon industrial conditions must be ^ American Institute of Social Service, Bible House, N. Y., founded in 1892. ' See Stitdies of the Kingdom for igio. BEGINNINGS OF ANOTHER REFORMATION 75 considered, is the institutional church, the social settlement, and the labor temple. The institutional church has grown out of the needs of the tenement districts. In nearly every industrial center of any importance throughout this country is one or more of these churches, among the most prominent of which are Berkley Temple,^ Morgan Memorial Church,^ Ruggles St. Baptist Church, and Bulfinch Place Church of Boston; ^ St. Bartholomew's Parish House,* St. George's Church,^ Holy Communion Church,^ Church of the Land and Sea,^ and Spring St. Presbyterian Church of New York City; First Congregational Church of Jersey City; Baptist Temple of Philadelphia; and Good Samaritan Cathedral of San Francisco. Besides the churches which may be regarded as strictly institutional, hundreds of others have certain institutional features. The aim of the institutional church as defined by a representative exponent of the idea is to reach "all the man, and all men, by all means." ^ 1 Congregational. 2 Supported by Unitarians and Methodists. ' Unitarian. ^ Protestant Episcopal. ' Protestant Episcopal. ' Presbyterian. ' Dickinson, Dr. A., formerly of Berkley Temple. Ar- 76 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT It is to perform for portions of the community the functions that are not performed for them by the home, and by society at large. Thus St. Bartholo- mew's Church of New York spends a hundred thousand dollars a year upon its parish house activities. It has clubs of every kind, social, educational, musical, literary, and g)Tnnastic; debating societies, penny provident and mutual benefit funds, classes in dressmaking, millinery, cooking, stenography, typewriting, and book- keeping. It has roof gardens upon the tops of nine busy buildings, maintains a country holiday house, a fresh air fund, a tailor shop, a clinic, and a loan association. It has also a bureau of labor for the purpose of assisting the unemployed and is reported to have found work for as many as 2,559 appHcants in one year.^ The material helpfulness of such activities is evident and the contribution thus made toward the improvement of the present situation is prob- ably much larger than is ordinarily suspected. Besides the relief of much distress there is an influ- ence that tends to uplift the workers and to make tide, by Strong, Josiah, Institutional Churches, Bliss, loc. cit., p. 629. 1 Article by Strong, Josiah, loc. cit., p. 629. BEGINNINGS OF ANOTHER REFORMATION 77 them more self-respecting and independent.^ The testimony of such observers as Charles Booth is, that districts where well supported institutional churches abound, have been vastly improved dur- ing the past two decades. The vocational training that is supplied by these churches, although but "a drop in the bucket" has a value that cannot be overestimated. Everywhere the unskilled in the present industrial pressure are the greatest sufferers. Thousands are "sweated" because they know no craft that will bring them a better wage. Abihty and efi&ciency nearly always command a price, and not a little of the work of the in- stitutional church is in the direction of creating these. The work of the social settlement, because so largely inspired and fostered by the church,^ must be recognized here. Statistics gathered in 1 Thompson, C. Bertrand, The Church and the Wage-Earners, p. 74. ''The development of the settlement idea has been gradual. In i860, F. D. Maurice founded the Working Men's College, where classes were taught by young Cambridge graduates in their leisure hours. In 1897 the university extension movement began in Cambridge. Rev. John Richard Green, vicar of St. Phihp's, Stepney, and better known as the historian of the English people, was one of the leading spirits of the movement. Through Green's influence Edward Denison became the leader of a settle- ment in East London. 78 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT 1906 showed that there were at thai time 170 settlements in the various cities of tMs country, 837 regular resident workers, and 3,907 non-resi- dent workers, making a total of 4,744 persons en- gaged in settlement work, of whom 1,188 were men, and 3,556 were women, and these settlements re- ported 1,568 clubs, and 1,502 classes, reaching annually some 55,000 persons.^ At the present time there are something over two hundred settle- ments in the United States and its possessions, fifty-six in England, eleven in Scotland, four in Germany, one in Austria, and one in Australia. These are not all rehgious in the ordinary sense, but their spirit is the same as the best in organized religion, and their distinct aim is to "apply ethical convictions to social and industrial conditions in the localities where life has become most com- plicated and difficult." ^ In many of the settle- ments the same type of work is done as by the in- stitutional church, but the primary interest of the former is not the institutional features that gather about the latter, it is inspiration through personal contact, in the words of Canon Barnett, "to give individuals a chance to tell on individuals, to en- • Strong, Josiah, Social Progress (1904-5-6). ^ Addams, Jane, Philanthropy and Social Progress, p. 19. BEGINNINGS OF ANOTHER REFORMATION 79 rich and to uplift through personal intimacy and friendship." ^ Somewhat similar in aim, though different in method is the "labor temple," which represents the most recent experiment of the church in behalf of the wage-earners. The labor temple is a church enterprise, but it is not a church as the term is usually understood, and whether it will become one is yet an open question. It stands in the midst of a district in New York which is not only un- churched, but where the very name of the church is obnoxious, and yet the people have come to it in such numbers that it has been sometimes difficult to provide accommodations for them. The declared object of this enterprise is to leaven the community with the spirit of reHgion along Hnes of fundamental agreement. Regular Sunday evening addresses and lecture courses are given by men of recognized abiHty in deaHng with social and industrial prob- lems. Free general discussion is also encouraged with the result that many conflicting views find expression. The significance of this enterprise lies in the fact that it represents a growing con- viction in the church that a new point of contact with the laboring population must be discovered, 1 Fifteenth Annual Report of Toynbee Hall, June 30, 1899. 8o THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT and that new methods must be devised that will make the church more directly helpful to the wage- earners in trying to grapple with the difficult problems that are pressing upon them. IV Thus it is that whole denominations are be- ginning to concern themselves with the moral and religious issues that are involved in the industrial conflict. The tone of religious teaching is surely if slowly becoming more intelligent and more sym- pathetic in applying fundamental Christian prin- ciples to the industrial conditions of common hfe. Though the heart of the problem is not yet under- stood by the church at large, and though but httle headway has been made in the actual work of social reconstruction, it is clear, nevertheless, that there is coming to the church a new sense of re- sponsibility to right the wrongs of the present order, that augurs much for the future. "Now as in the sixteenth century there is in the minds of the toiling millions a confused dream that the kingdom of God might be set up in the land and that the time is ripe for it." ^ Moreover, it does not seem possible that this great expectation will be dis- ' Gladden, loc. cii., p. 146. BEGINNINGS OF ANOTHER REFORMATION 8l appointed. The facts would seem to indicate that we are to have another reformation, indeed, that such a movement is even now begun. The fore- gleams of a better day have appeared and the very atmosphere is charged with anticipation. The indications are that the church of the future in- stead of turning its back upon the toiling millions as it did in Luther's time, and instead of maintain- ing a kindly patronage toward them as it has done in more recent years, will recognize that its welfare is bound up with the people, that "the barriers that separate them from its sympathies and fel- lowship must be broken down at whatever cost"; that it needs the people quite as much as they need the church, that it is a " monstrous thing even to think that a Christian church could exist as a class institution, with the largest social class of the com- munity outside of it." ^ The church of the future will realize also that apart from the great army of those who toil its fundamental ideals can never be realized. Life as a whole will never be understood except the view of these toilers enters into it. There is something about their very toil that clears their vision, and makes them a constituency to be reckoned with in the establishment of the new social 1 Gladden, loc. cii., p. 142. 82 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT order that is the church's fundamental mission. The ideal of a humanity that includes all of its elements, a republic of souls from which no social class is excluded, that and nothing less, is beginning to cast its spell upon us, and that it will dominate the church of the future can hardly be questioned. "There shall come from out the noise and strife and groaning A broader and a juster brotherhood, A deep equality of aim postponing All selfish seeking to the general good. There shall come a time when each shall to an- other Be as Christ would have him, brother unto brother." ' ' Cited by Cady, G. L., Report of Fourteenth Trien. Conv. Cong. Churches, 1910, p. 70. CHAPTER V WHAT THE CHURCH SHOULD CONTRIBUTE The question of what the church should con- tribute to the social movement is of supreme im- portance. The discussion has now reached the point where this question must be fully and ex- plicitly considered, and because it is of such moment the remaining chapters will for the most part be devoted to it. In setting itself to the task of social reconstruc- tion on the Hnes laid down by Jesus, the church necessarily must take account of the agencies which it is at Hberty to use. It must consider also whether it is any part of its office to prescribe the forms of industrial society, to dictate the method of busi- ness organization and to decide between the dif- ferent ways of business management. The pressure to commit the church to a social and industrial pro- gram has come insistently both from within and without the Christian body. Many have felt that the specific problems of industrial change must be met in the name of the church, that there must be 83 84 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT a Christian doctrine of economics and that unless the church is thus committed its chance of render- ing any important service to the movement for social betterment is very small. What reason, it is asked, has the church for existing at all if it is not to have a definite part in the shaping of a better society? The church should have ideals, to be sure, but until these are coupled to a definite economic doctrine "they are only in the air." This consider- ation has prompted numerous schemes and propo- sitions that look toward the reconcihation of eco- nomic needs with Christian ideals and that range all the way from practical undertakings to the most highly visionary and impracticable philosophies. I The first and most elementary scheme which has thus been proposed is that of a literal reproduction of the economic life of the early church "When the disciples sold their possessions and their goods, and parted them to all, according as any man had need, and had all things in common." ^ The mo- nastic movement which began early in the fourth century of the Christian era has been the most ex- tensive and thorough-going effort of this kind. 1 Acts 2: 45- WHAT THE CHURCH SHOULD CONTRIBUTE 85 How the monastic ideal laid hold of men in ever widening circles until Egypt, Asia Minor, and Europe were literally dotted with monastic com- munities that at one period controlled as much as a third of the tillable land of several leading European states,^ is a story that needs not to be recounted here. At the back of the movement was the hope of reviving an ideal hfe, but in fact it was an aberra- tion of a fearful kind. The failure to realize that the "kingdom of God" was to be built up in the world by making all natural relations normal and wholesome that characterized the monastic move- ment, and the assumption that such relations must be destroyed in order that the ideal hfe might be found, could not result otherwise than in dreadful social loss. Though it may be shown that in spite of its false economic and rehgious ideals the move- ment was rich in beneficent social effects,^ it must not be forgotten that these are more than offset by results of the opposite kind. While recognizing that the monastery was a center of charitable aid, and that in many a wild and desert place it be- came a pioneer of civiHzation and a stimulus to a better kind of hfe, it must not be forgotten that by 1 Pierson, History of England, p. 494. 2 Fisher, G. P., History of the Christian Church, p. 115. 86 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT picking out the most earnest natures, isolating them in communities by themselves, condemning them to sterility, and employing the energy which they ought to have devoted to making the world normal, in making themselves abnormal, society was robbed of its most vital force, and the laws of heredity turned against moral progress. "God alone knows," as Rauchenbush remarks, "where the race might be to-day if the natural leaders had not so long been made childless by their own good- ness." ^ Somewhat similar in character, and inspired by essentially the same hope are the communistic experiments of the various Protestant sects, of which the most important that now survive are the Ephrata community of Ephrata, Pennsylvania, that has had an existence of 177 years; the fifteen Shaker communities that are scattered through eight different states and represent a history of 133 years; the Amana community of Amana, Iowa, that has existed for sixty years; the Oneida community of Oneida, New York, that has stood for sixty-one years; the Koreshan community of Estero, Florida, and the Bruderhof communities of Russian Mennonites in South Dakota, which are ' Rauchenbush, he. cit., p. 174. WHAT THE CHURCH SHOULD CONTRIBUTE 87 of more recent date. Doubtless all these efforts to revive the economic experiment of the first Christian disciples have been thoroughly con- scientious and even to think of them is to experience a glow of admiration, and yet when all is said for them that fairly can be said the fact remains that they have by no means justified themselves. ' ' They have not met the real problem of modern economic life but have simply run away from it. They have not existed for the many, still less for all. The world's work has had to go on, and the unpro- ductive saints have had in large part to be sup- ported by the toiling and unsanctified world from which the saints have fled, deceiving themselves with the idea that they had subdued the world when in reality they had only beat a retreat." ' Christian sodaKsm is another and a more recent plan to interpret Christianity in the terms of an economic program. In a larger and looser sense this caption is sometimes used to denote the appli- cation of Christian ideals to the problems of social life, but in its more accurate sense it stands for an effort to couple the teachings of Christianity with the economic principles of socialism. The French- men Claude Fauchet, Saint Simon, Lamanais, and 1 Peabody, loc. cit., p. 23. 88 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT Cabet may properly be said to be the fore-runners of the Christian sociahst movement. As early as 1790 Fauchet estabHshed the Bouche de Fer in the interest of a radical Christian communism, and set himself to the task of organizing socialist clubs. At about the same period Saint Simon endeavored to induce the Pope to found a new Christian social order, and faihng in this he began to agitate what he called a new Christianity. In 1830 Lamanais estabHshed a Christian socialist journal which had for some years a very considerable influence, and Cabet a little later pubHshed his brilliant romance, Voyage en Icaria which resulted in an effort to found a community in the United States according to a plan which was outlined therein.^ The real originators of the Christian sociahst movement, however, were a group of Enghsh churchmen, Fredrick Dennison Maurice, Charles Kjngsley, and J. M. Ludlow. These men, as has often been pointed out, betrayed a good deal of simplicity in regard to the real nature of the economic problem, ^ A considerable tract of land was purchased on the Red River, Texas, and in 1848 an advance guard of sixty-nine per- sons attempted to form a settlement, but they were not able to endure the climate. A little later they were reinforced by six hundred more people and they all went to Nauvoo, 111., which had recently been abandoned by the Mormons and founded a settlement there. See Icharia by Albert Shaw. WHAT THE CHURCH SHOULD CONTRIBUTE 89 and their program was never so clearly worked out as that which is characteristic of Christian Social- ism to-day, but it was they who originated the term and who gave Christian socialism the impulse that has made it a world wide movement. The watch- words of The Christian Socialist, a periodical that was founded in 1849 and edited by Ludlow, As- sociation and Exchange instead of Competition aiid Profit, express very well both the aim of these early Christian Sociahst leaders and that by which all along the movement has been characterized.^ In more recent years a good many churchmen, both Catholic and Protestant, have come forward in the interest of a program which is far more radical than the economic ideas held by the fore- runners of Christian Socialism. Among the most prominent of these are Baron von Kettler, Arch- bishop of Mayence, a gallant prince of the CathoHc church, the Compte de Mun, and Leon Harmel, two eminent CathoHc laymen; Victor Huber, Pastors Stocker, Todt, and Naumen who represent the Protestant faith. In spite of ecclesiastical dif- ferences these leaders are practically one in accept- ' For the history of this early Christian socialist movement in England, see the Life of Frederick Dennison Maurice, as told in his own letters. 90 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT ing the economic program of socialism but inter- preting and maintaining it as a witness of the Christian religion. Their position is that against an atheistic sociaUsm a Christian socialism must be organized, and that it must be made a political alternative to be presented to the wage-earners as an offset to the non-christian sociahsm that is be- giiming so largely to claim their votes. ^ II As the sense of responsibility to Christianize the social order grows in the church it is not at all surprising that determined efforts should be made to formulate a Christian doctrine of eco- nomics and to commit the church to a definite social and industrial program. Such efforts arise in part from the desire to put the organized power of the church at the service of the needy, in part from the fear that unless the church take some such action the social movement will be dominated by non-christian, or anti-christian influence, and in part by the instinct of self-assertion and self- aggrandizement that resides in every social organ- ization. Thus it is not unhkely that the future will ' Kauffman, Christian Socialism, pp. 57-108. Kettler, Die Arbeiterfrage und das Christentum. Nitti, Catholic Socialism, pp. 100 seq. WHAT THE CHURCH SHOULD CONTRIBUTE 91 witness a great multiplication of such efforts, Christian sociahst parties in politics, ecclesiastical labor bureaus, church insurance societies and co- operative undertakings of many types. The ques- tion, therefore, whether it is expedient or wise for the church to commit itself to a program of any kind is one that needs to be considered with the utmost care. That the movement for social and industrial betterment could have no stronger ally than rehgious faith and enthusiasm is very clear, but that the church should undertake to settle the questions of economic method, or prescribe the forms of social and industrial Hfe is a proposition of a vastly different sort. It is evident, for one thing, that there are many purely economic questions involved in the labor movement that must be estimated and de- cided only from the economic standpoint, since the technical knowledge required to settle them is wholly outside the province of the church, and for the church to attempt to meddle with them would most certainly imperil its own usefulness, and it is not imlikely that it would imperil the cause of justice itself.^ In the case of Christian sociaUsm in particular it is urged as a sufEcient reason for 1 Hamack aad Herrman, The Social Gospel, p. 85. 92 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT the effort to commit the church to the coUectivist creed that the present order of individual initiative and private capital inevitably tends to make men selfish and unbrotherly, while the regime that is proposed by sociahsm would tend to make them un- selfish and fraternal. If it were clearly estabUshed that this is so, it would doubtless be the duty of the church to cast aU its influence on the side of so- ciaKsm, but it is just here that a big and momen- tous uncertainty lies, at least so far as the church is concerned. That the conditions which are nec- essary for the training of free and independent personaHties would be maintained under sociaKsm is by no means certain. Many thinkers of the first rank, whose impartiahty is above suspicion, are profoundly convinced that socialism would tend to merge the individual in the mass and to undermine the virtues of self-respect and self-reliance, thus weakening the very fiber of moral manhood. Such an outcome would be an inexpressible disaster, and so long as there is any reasonable doubt at this point it should be sufficient to keep the church from any aUiance such as that which Christian socialism has proposed.* ' Matthews, Shailer, he. cit., pp. 150-181. Peabody, he. cit., pp. 267-316. Tausig, F. W., he. eit., pp. 443-478. WHAT THE CHURCH SHOULD CONTRIBUTE 93 Neither is it altogether clear that the presuppo- sition of the socialist creed is not in flat contradic- tion to that of Christianity. It may be recognized that they both seek a new and higher social order in which every one shall be able to Hve a better and a happier hfe, and in this tbey are most certainly ahke, but the real test of a system's worth, as Professor Matthews puts it/ is not in what it pro- poses so much as in what it presupposes. It is evi- dent of course that there is always a measure of imtruth in any antithesis, but after due allowance has been made for this it seems not unfair to say that socialism stands for a process of social re- generation by organization while Christianity stands for a process of social regeneration by in- spiration. The assumption of one is that the in- dividual must be raised through his connection with a better social order, and of the other that it is impossible to have a better social order so long as it is composed of unworthy individuals, and hence the point of attack in the case of sociahsm is the environment, and in the case of Christianity the individual. In a word it may be said that Chris- tianity has chosen the slower and the harder way, since it is always easier to attempt reform by or- ' The Church and the Changing Social Order, p. 170. 94 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT ganization than by the education and uphfting of individual lives. It is most certainly true that the machinery of society is of great importance if we are to have social justice, and hence no effort should be spared to perfect the machinery, but the founder of Christianity very clearly trusted to the capacity of men if only their hearts should have received the spirit of truth, to create for them- selves the right social machinery. He was not pri- marily a deviser of a social system, but the quick- ener of character. "I am come," he said " that they might have life and that they might have it above measure," ^ and the church to remain Christian must in this respect as well as in every other be loyal to the example of its founder. The church, also, must be on its guard against the falsehood creeping in through the sociahstic agitation that a revolutionized and perfected social order would mean the guarantee of welfare, intel- lectual, aesthetic, religious, and everywise. Good economic conditions, a sufficiency of eating and drinking, the glutting of the appetites, the feeding of the senses, are by no means, so far as ordinary human observation goes, the guarantees of good or even contented men. Here also indiscriminate ' John io:io. WHAT THE CHURCH SHOULD CONTRIBUTE 95 criticism is unwise. No one can deny the influence of economic conditions upon character and upon happiness, and the church should most certainly seek to make common cause with every rational effort at producing greater economic equahty, but the fact remains that people can only beUeve in per- fect economic conditions as the guarantee of hap- piness and welfare because they have never tried them. After the best possible outward conditions had been secured nearly all the bottom facts of existence would be still untouched. All the really great pressures would still abide. Time would still carry man on its resistless tide, would inflict on him its experience of age and decay, the awe of the un- seen would still encompass him, death would threaten him and bereavement would smite his heart. For the church to remember this and to bear witness to it is to do much to keep the social move- ment temperate and sane. It may be indeed that the many who have not yet tried it will have to make their own experiment with material fulness before this fact can be widely realized. It may be that to such a pass things will have to come in order that our poor humanity, which seems unable to keep the upward road except under the cuffs and blows of hard necessity, may reaHze over its whole 96 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT extent what has ever been so clear to the wise that man is rich only in the riches of the inner life, that he finds himself only in finding a Greater, and that his inheritance is not of time. Ill It may be said that the part of the church in the social movement is to contribute moral in- spiration and leadership. If the church be wise it will have nothing to do as an organization with economic programs of any sort, but will seek rather to inspire the social movement with reHgious faith, insight, courage and the spirit of sacrifice. It is preeminently the task of the church "to raise up a generation of men who will hate iniquity in all its guises, who are determined never to prosper at the expense of their neighbors, and who know how to find their highest pleasure in helping their fellowmen." ^ Where the Christian ideal of the kingdom of God differs from other social schemes and panaceas is in the clear recognition of the fact that in the last analysis irreligion is at the back of all our social miseries and iniquities. The New Testament morahty cuts deep into the heart of the he that social misery is simply the result of ' Gladden, Washington, The Church and the Modern Life, p. 154. WHAT THE CHURCH SHOULD CONTRIBUTE 97 environment. "Cleanse first," said the founder of Christianity, "the inside of the cup and the platter." ^ "What doth it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his hfe." ^ "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." ^ Such was Jesus' way of saying that the economic problem is at bottom a religious problem, that men have fijrst to see their Hves in relation to God, or what is the same thing, in relation to the moral order, and they have to learn to interpret their lives in terms of the moral order before there can be any real betterment of social conditions. In the words of Mrs. Browning, "It takes a soul To move a body; it takes a high souled man To move the masses even to a cleaner sty. Ah, your Fouriers failed Because not poets enough to understand That Ufe develops from within." * This without a doubt is the most important factor in the re-making of the social order, the re-making of personalities pledged to righteousness and un- selfishness, and it is this factor which the church iMat. 23: 26. ^Mat. 4: 4. ' Mark 8:36. ' Aurora Leigh. 98 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT more than any other social institution is here to contribute. It was for this purpose that the church was established, and it is in striving for this end that its existence is justified.' The work of the church, however, does not end here. If it did the church clearly would be exempt from much of the blame for our social failures that is now so freely and so justly laid at its door. The church, it must be admitted, has been in every generation a mighty influence in constraining men to goodness, but to a very great extent it has stood for a goodness of a negative and self-regarding kind. It has not succeeded in any thorough going manner in directing goodness to social ends. It has very largely connected the idea of religious duty with the service of the church. It has made itself the object of all religious aims and to that extent it has monopoh'^ed for itself the power of devotion that was begotten in regenerate lives, and has failed to direct that great and incalculable force to the making of a better world. The failure of the church at this point has re- sulted not only in social loss, but in the perpetuation of abuses and injustices which have been a social curse. By monopolizing the devotion of men for 1 Brierley, J., Our City of God, p. 136. WHAT THE CHURCH SHOULD CONTRIBUTE 99 itself the church prepared the way, if it did not actually originate the notion which has been one of the monstrosities of history, that rehgion is an interest wholly separate from the rest of hfe, that religion is sacred, while business, poHtics, amuse- ment, education and art, are essentially and neces- sarily secular, and that rehgion, if brought into contact with these other interests suffers some serious loss of its own purity and dignity. To such an extent has this shutting rehgion in the church and this shutting it out from the rest of Hfe been carried at certain times that a Benvenuto Cellini could regard himself as a loyal son of the church, find his favorite pastime in reading the New Testament, and then could arise from his devotions and turn with equal ardor to his amours and murders; that a Charles the Ninth on Black Bartholomew's day could spend nine hours in prayer and then go from the place of worship to give the order that issued in the most atrocious massacre of history, and that a Sir John Hawkins voyaging from Africa with a cargo of negro slaves to sell in a Spanish settlement, leaving a trail of blood behind him, could conduct with regularity his devotions, and exclaim with genuine elation when a storm had been successfully weathered, 100 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT "that the good God would not permit His elect to perish." ^ That popular notions at this point are becom- ing greatly modified is evident, but nevertheless the fact must be frankly faced that many a man whose greed has made him unscrupulous in pushing his fortunes, who has trampled upon equity, justice, honor and all the rights of his neighbors is able to maintain a very honorable and respectable place in the church and to all appearances at least be very comfortable. Not many years ago a pros- perous manufacturing company was doing business in a thriving village, giving employment to hun- dreds of men and women, many of whom had pur- chased homes in the expectation of having a per- manent occupation and a Hvelihood. It was known to be a well paying business, its stock was in few hands, and not in the market. All at once a pro- ject of reorganization was announced, and stock amounting to five times the value of the property was placed on the market. It was eagerly taken and with the proceeds of the sale the managers made themselves very rich, and it was not necessary for them to engage any longer in business. In fact ' Brierley, J., The Common Life, p. 152. Hodges, George, The Heresy of Cain, p. 11. WHAT THE CHURCH SHOULD CONTRIBUTE loi they could not have continued to pay dividends on the amount of stock which they had sold, and so they promptly closed the business, the price of the stock dropped almost to nothing, millions of values were cancelled, and thousands of in- vestors were made to suffer loss, and the prosperity of the village which had grown up about the indus- try was suddenly destroyed. At one stroke hun- dreds of dependent people were deprived of em- plojonent and of the means of making a Hving. The result very naturally was great destitution and suffering. Homes had to be sacrificed, people in large numbers had to seek employment else- where, famihes were scattered, and there was dire distress and discouragement. " The men who did this thing," says Dr. Washington Gladden, who has given the incident to the pubHc, " were church members in good standing, they did not suffer any discredit in the church to which they belonged and to whose revenues they continued to contribute out of the plunder by which they had impoverished and ruined so many.^ The church had not sufficient moral force to reprove and denounce this iniquity, and what is worse the chui-ch had not had sufficient moral force to 1 Gladden, Washington, loc. cit., p. 159. I02 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT make these men see beforehand that such an act was infamous.^ It is this kind of thing, by no means so uncommon, that reveals the terrible failure of the church to socialize religion and make it the well-spring of social righteousness and service. The church has preached moral regeneration as a condition of future happiness and reward in heaven but it has not sufficiently educated the social sympathies of men, and it has not succeeded in making them feel with sufficient earnestness and conviction that the question of right and wrong must have its answer from the counting room as well as from the pulpit, and in the terms of business, social and pohtical life as well as in the terms of religious worship. Besides the conscious deceit and wrongdoing which characterize the industrial situation, and which are responsible for many social miseries and injustices, there is also a certain moral blindness which is the chief cause of many serious difficulties and abuses with which we have to deal. A signif- ' In his account of this incident, Dr. Gladden has not stated the method whereby this business was closed. Inquiry from other sources seems to indicate that it had to close because the com- pany could not make profit enough to pay dividends on the enormous capitalization. WHAT THE CHURCH SHOULD CONTRIBUTE 103 icant fact and one that was never more obvious is that self-interest tends to prejudice and to warp the moral judgment. Lord Macaulay is said to have declared that the doctrine of gravitation would not yet be accepted if it interfered with the self-interest of men. It was this fact which in other years led many good men to justify slavery, that led many apparently high-minded employers in the early part of the nineteenth century when young children in England were driven to the looms with whips, and women lost even the physical appearance of woman- hood in the mines, to resist the proposed reform- atory laws upon the ground that they would ruin industry, and that in recent years has led good men holding stock in traction companies that yield immense profits to assert that municipal owner- ship is un-American, or to declare in the words of Mr. Baer that "God in his infinite wisdom has given the control of the property interests of the country to certain capitalists who can be trusted to do all things well." The duty of the church is to kindle a fire on earth in whose clear shining light men will be compelled to see through the fallacies of self-interest, and in the purifying flames of which the monstrous self-deception by which so many social wrongs are justified will be utterly consumed. 104 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT To be sure we must have laws that will make social wrong more difficult, but behind the laws must be the moral insight and passion which are always necessary to make laws effective, and it is the duty of the church to furnish such insight and passion. When this is done, and not till then, a true begin- ning will have been made at the work of social reconstruction. CHAPTER VI THE QUESTION OF JUSTICE FOR THF WAGE -EARNERS One of the most significant features of the in- dustrial situation, and one that it is rather strange has excited on the whole so little recognition, is the passionate cry for justice that is coming from the masses of the people. Among the rank, and file the subject of justice has everywhere come to the front. Pity and charity are scorned in the name of justice and right. The demand is that in- stead of inquiring what ways of charity are wise, society should ask why charity is necessary; in- stead of trying to act the good Samaritan, people to-day should set themselves to the task of clear- ing the road of robbers; instead of caring merely for the halt and maimed we should see that corpor- ations use proper safe-guards against industrial accidents, and that compensation for the injured and insurance for the slain be ordered by just legislation. "The number of rehef and charity panaceas," says an EngKsh labor agitator,^ "are ' Tillet, Ben, London Times, Jan. i, 1905. 105 Io6 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT of no more value than a poultice on a wooden leg. What we want is economic revolution and not pious and heroic resolutions." The fact seems rather strange also, and yet the conclusion can hardly be avoided, that the widespread alienation of the masses from the church is but one of the forms by which this new interest in social justice is seeking to express itself. To say that the people have left the church not on account of retrogression, but because they have experienced a new birth of moral feeling and conviction, may seem to many church- men like dangerous teaching, but such neverthe- less appears to be the case. "What the whole artisan class is discussing" as one writer says,^ "is not justification but justice." Thousands have lost all interest in organized Christianity and have withdrawn from the church because they feel that it is allied to, and is used to support an economic system that is based upon injustice. Whether this feeling is justified is quite aside from the mark. The fact is that it exists, and it is the fact that must be reckoned with. I The import of this new widespread interest in justice among the proletariat is made all the plainer ' Brierley, J., Problems of Living, p. 32. JUSTICE FOR THE WAGE-EARJSTERS 107 for discerning minds when we remember that it is precisely from movements of this kind in human thought and feeHng that all true social progress comes. If Emerson is correct in saying that every action has a thought for its ancestor we may feel confident that in due time all this passionate interest in justice that is germinating among the people will bring forth action. From the standpoint of those who look upon the multitude as their legitimate prey, representing merely so many sheep to be sheared, this awakening sense of justice cannot be viewed otherwise than as a dangerous tendency that needs to be curbed, but from the standpoint of a better humanity it is one of the most hopeful things of the hour. In- stead of being the mark of social decadence, it is a sign of social vitaUty and an expression of popular education, intellectual liberty, quickened senti- ments of sympathy and love. Wisely directed there can be nothing but good in the end to come from an agitation which fundamentally represents a renaissance of moral insight and understanding. That this new sense of justice is very much in Une with the best reUgious thinking and feehng of the centuries is a notable fact that ought not to be lost upon the Christian church. When re- lo8 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT ligious conviction has reached its loftiest utter- ance it has always voiced a stern and uncompro- mising demand for social justice. Turning to the great prophetic spirits of the Scriptures it seems almost as if their characteristic note was the de- mand for justice. It was they who made the dis- covery that God is a moral being, that justice and righteousness are of the essence of his nature, and that He can be truly worshipped only by the doing of justice and righteousness. With passionate earnestness they urged their respective generations to "Hate the evil and love the good, and to estabhsh justice in the gate"; ^ to "Do justly, love kindness and walk humbly with thy God"; ^ to "Let justice roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream"; ^ to "Make justice a line and righteous- ness a plummet." * The teaching of Jesus, also, no less than that of the prophets, voices the demand for justice. The founder of Christianity was in the succession of the prophets. The "do justice" stands first with him as with them. The really fundamental feature of every religion which deter- mines its message on every theme is its doctrine of God. When the gods are selfish, lustful, and in- ' Amos s: 15. ^jyijc. (,■ g. " Amos 5: 21-24. * Isa. 28: 16, 17. JUSTICE FOR THE WAGE-EARNERS 109 triguing, then men will hate, go to war, seek revenge and deceive. When the gods are concerned alone with ritual and sacrifice, religion has little meaning for morality. The God of Jesus, however, is su- premely a moral being. The gift at the altar means Httle and the brother who has been wronged means everything.^ There is no mere sentimentalism here, but the note of authority is in this word, the au- thority of right and truth. Jesus understood the moral nature of God and his passion was that all men should understand it. Religion in his day had become externalized, but he deepened, spiritualized and gave to it a moral content. He claimed for rehgion the whole domain of life, within and with- out. He made justice and righteousness a passion and an ideal. The great prophets of modern life also are at one in this respect with the founders of our faith. Thus Carlyle, Ruskin, and Tolstoi unite in making the redress of social injustice reHgion's first work, if not its reason for existence. Rothe declares that if Christ were to return to earth again his chief interest would be in social and economical rather than ecclesiastical developments, and Mae- terlinck deplores the fact that Christians "should be content to feel the cold a little less than the 'Mat. 5: 23, 24. no THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT laborer who passes by, that they should be satisfied to be better fed or clad than he, and that they should have allowed themselves, though uncon- sciously, to return through a thousand byways to the ruthless acts of primitive man despoiling his weaker brother." ^ II This modern shifting in the center of moral in- terest that is disclosed by the passionate cry for justice that comes from the masses of the people, is therefore clearly in harmony with religion's most supreme demand, and rightly understood it repre- sents an unsurpassed opportunity for the church to bring about the fulfillment of religion's proper ends. For the church, in other words, to lay hold of this awakening sense of justice, to bring it into the light of the overshadowing ideals, and the brotherhood spirit of the Christian faith, to rein- force it with the abiding convictions of the great prophetic souls, and to help to interpret it in ra- tional ways is to render an inestimable service both to the social movement and to the cause of religion itself. Though the assumption of this task may not signify that the church should commit itself ' Carlyle, Past and Present; Ruskin, Qtd Judicatis Terram; Maeterlinck, Social Justice; Tolstoi, The Resurrection. JUSTICE FOR THE WAGE-EARNERS ill to an economic program such as that which Chris- tian socialism has proposed, or that it should under- take to dictate the specific arrangements of indus- trial relationships, it certainly does imply that the church should see to it that no economic program is permitted to exist under which injustice and oppression find shelter,^ or that permits the few to prosper at the expense of the many, "building their homes by unrighteousness, and their chambers by injustice,"^ "crushing down the people and grinding the face of the destitute." ' The duty to reprove and to denounce all social arrangements that permit such standards to exist is central in the very idea of the church, and faihng to exercise this fimction the church is faithless to a primary charge. We may take, for example, the matter of shorter hours * and higher wages that is so fundamental in labor's demands. The business of the church is clearly not to prescribe the number of hours that men should work in the various crafts, or the amount of wage that they should receive, since ' The reference here is to the kind of witness the church shall bear. The church's power to correct abuses lies wholly in the education of public opinion. 2Jer. 22: 13. ' Isa. 3 : 14. ^ Taussig, F. W., loc. cit., pp. 13, 14. 112 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT both of these depend to a very considerable extent upon considerations which lie quite outside the province of the church. Nevertheless, as the in- stitute of prophecy, the church has something to say in respect to these issues which it is both its right and its duty to say. The church should drive home to the thought of each generation the truth that the workingman is not simply a producing agent, but also a man, that he has within him the highest possibihties of intellectual and social cul- ture, of intellectual and aesthetic pleasure, that he possesses all the elements of hfe. Each generation and each social group must be made to realize that "a man's Ufe consisteth not in the abundance of the things that he possesseth," ^ that the pro- duction of commodity is only incident to life, that the real and all important human production is character, good taste, domestic affections, social capacity, and all those higher interests which com- bine to make the man greater than the tool. Be- lieving that these interests are the serious part of life it is for the church to demand that men shall have time for their cultivation, and to bring home to the conscience of society the moral guilt in- volved when the time and opportunity for the ^Luke 12: 15. JUSTICE FOR THE WAGE-EARNERS 113 development of these higher things are thought- lessly and selfishly denied. To this of course it may be replied with no httle show of reason that many workmen do not care for what we are pleased to call the higher things, and that for such as these more leisure would simply mean more dissipation, and if means were available to procure it, more drink. The argument, however, proves too much. Its implication is that the higher nature is impossi- ble to the working class, and that the workman can be saved only by driving him to the Hmit of ex- haustion. There is no question that increase of leisure has often caused a temporary bad effect. Men released from grinding toil with neither guid- ance nor development may easily go wrong, but the fact remains that the first requisite of a higher life is more leisure, and it is the function of the church both to help to secure that leisure for the wage-earner and to help him use it rightly when it has been secured. Whether the eight hour day would be as successful in production as the ten hour day, is a present question of debate. Labor leaders affirm, and with good show of reason, that there is evidence that production will not suffer by the change, but that the eight hour day would be even more successful in this respect. The 114 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT truth probably is that the nature of the occupation should determine to a very great extent the length of the working day. It may in fact easily be shown that in certain occupations eight hours toil is not only enough, but more than enough, and it may Just as easily be shown that in other occupations ten hours of work is not excessive. However, it is not for the church to settle these details but to make men realize that human "life is more than meat," and when this is adequately done the ad- justment of such difficulties will readily follow. The right of the workingman to a living wage and the dire loss that is resulting from the failure of so many to receive such a wage is another aspect of the problem of social justice that may very properly interest the church. What a Kving wage should represent is, of course, a matter that af- fords scope for no Httle difference of opinion. Mr. Gompers defines it as "a wage, which expended in the most economical way, shall be sufficient to maintain an average sized family in a manner con- sistent with whatever the contemporary local civilization recognizes as indispensable to physical and mental health, or as required by the rational self-respect of human beings." ^ Professor Smart ' The American Federalionist, April, 1898. JUSTICE FOR THE WAGE-EARNERS 115 defines it as "such a sum as is necessary to bring up a family, providing for health, education, effi- ciency of work, and the conditions generally of a moral life." ^ Professor Munroe defines it as "a yearly sum sufficient to maintain the worker in the highest state of industrial efficiency, and to afford him adequate leisure to discharge the duties of citizenship." ^ These are all expert opinions and as far as the message of the church is concerned, the standard assumed by either one of them will suffice. The church can the more confidently in- sist upon some such standard for the workingman because there is ample evidence that the output of industry in every civilized land is ample to warrant it. The conception of Malthus ^ a generation ago that population by its law of increase is bound to overpass the means of subsistence and to reduce, consequently, the lowest class to the starvation point is now seen to be utterly false. The notion is about as reasonable as the argument that be- cause a child doubles its weight the first year it will go on doubhng its weight every year. The facts show that the human race does not increase • Studies in Economics, Smart, p. 302. ^Economic Journal, Jan. 1894, p. 365. ' Malthus, T. R., Principles of Population, Ch. 11. Ii6 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT in any such ratio as was alleged, and moreover it is never merely the size of a population that brings it into poverty. On the other hand, all things being equal, the increase of men brings the increase of food. Material wealth to-day is increasing to a degree that is unparalleled in his- tory. Reinforced with the new scientific knowledge modern society is demonstrating its abihty to develop food resources much faster than it can use them. The balance to our account in this respect is tending constantly to increase rather than to decrease. The real trouble is in the distribution. Apparently the bulk, of our production is going to those who in various ways are proving them- selves strong enough to take it, instead of to those who are justly entitled to it. Available wage statistics, it must be acknowl- edged, leave much to be desired, but such as we possess, if interpreted with an active imagina- tion, reveal a situation that can hardly fail to bring something of a shock to those who have been accus- tomed to view the situation of our wage-earning population with easy going optimism. According to the Census Report of 1900^ the average annual ' Census of igoo. Special Volume on Employer and Wages, pp. 616-638, 666-675, 740-755, 1145-1152, 1181-1186. JUSTICE FOR THE WAGE-EARNERS 117 wage in the textile trades of the country with ap- proximately 700,000 workers was only 315 dollars. In the case of men over sixteen it was 396 dollars, in the case of women it was 296 dollars, and in the case of children it was loi dollars. In the iron workers trades with approximately 223,000 workers, the average annual wage was 543 dollars; in the boot and shoe trades with 143,000 workers the average annual wage for men over sixteeen was 473 dollars. In the men's clothing trade with 121,000 workers, the average wage for men over sixteen was 666 dol- lars. That the situation revealed by the 1900 Census Report has not greatly altered is shown by a study of the more recent reports of the State bureaus of labor, and the reports of special indus- tries compiled by the Interstate Commerce Com- mission. Thus the Massachusetts report for 1908 shows that not more than one adult wage-earner in every twenty employed in the industries of that state receives an annual wage of over 1,000 dollars, and in the case of more than one-third of the adult males their aimual wage is under 500 dollars, in that of more than one-half it is under 600 dollars, and in that of nearly three-fourths it is less than 700 dollars. In the case of more than one- half of the adult female wage-earners, accord- Ii8 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT ing to the Massachusetts report, the annual wage is less than 400 dollars, while only a very small fraction receives a wage that amounts to 700 dollars.^ According to the New Jersey report for 1909, less than one- tenth of the adult male workers of that state receives an annual wage of over 936 dollars while two-fifths receive less than 500 dollars, three-fifths less than 600 dollars, and three-quarters less than 700 dollars. In the case of adult wage-working women of New Jersey, more than half receive less than 400 dollars, more than three-quarters re- ceive less than 500 dollars, and nineteen-twentieths receive less than 750 dollars.^ According to the Kansas report for 1909 there are at least a third of the adult male employes of that state whose annual wage is less than 500 dollars, one-half who receive less than 600 dollars, three-quarters less than 750 dollars, and less than one-tenth who received over 1000 dollars.' These states are particularly cited because they present statistical reports which for their completeness and accuracy are unsurpassed by any of the states of the Ameri- ^ Massachusetts State Report of Manufactures, Pub. Doc. No. 36, Boston, 1909. Table 5 gives the classified weekly wages. ^ New Jersey State Report of Statistics, 1910, pp. 82-119. ' Annual Report, Kansas Bureau of Labor, 1909, pp. 10-36. JUSTICE FOR THE WAGE-EARNERS 119 can union, and also, because the wage conditions that they represent may be regarded as fairly representative. Of great value also in helping to determine the approximate wage conditions of the country are the Federal reports of special industries. Thus the statistics of railways for igio by the Interstate Commerce Commission which are perhaps as accurate and reUable as any that exist show that of 1,500,000 raihoad employes in the United States fifty-one per cent receive an annual wage of less than 625 dollars, forty- two per cent between 625 and 1,000 dollars, and only seven per cent re- ceive over 1,000 dollars.^ Furthermore, the Federal report on the telephone service for 19 10 shows sixty-one per cent of aU the employes, male and female, and twenty-one per cent of all the males receive an annual wage of less than 600 dollars, and seventy-five per cent of the males and ninety- one per cent of the females receive less than 960 dollars, while only eleven per cent of all the employes receive more than 960 dollars.^ In reviewing these figures it should be kept ' Annual Report of Statistics oj Railways in the U. S., June 30, 1909, pp. 48-52- ^Federal Investigation of Telephone Companies. Senate Docu- ment, 380. Sixty-first Congress, pp. 94-242. 120 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT in mind that no statement of labor's compensation in terms of the average wage is sufi&cient to de- scribe fairly the actual conditions that prevail since it is always true in every craft that there are a number of more highly paid workers while the great majority perhaps are receiving a wage much less than that which the average would seem to indicate. Thus if one man receives a wage of two dollars a day, and another man a wage of four dollars, the average would be three dollars and both would seem from the average to be fairly well paid while in reality the three dollars represents the actual wage of neither. Nor does the state- ment of the average wage make allowance for the fact that in many cases there may be two or more members of the same household employed, thus considerably augmenting the family income. After all due allowance has been made, however, these figures indicate in a most impressive way the difficult problem that confronts the ordinary work- ingman's family that would maintain itself in decency and self-respect, especially in the modern city. Robert Hunter's calculation that there are not less than io,ooo,oco persons in the United States who are in a condition of poverty, that is who are not able to secure the necessities which JUSTICE FOR THE WAGE-EARNERS 121 will enable them to maintain a state of physical eflSciency,^ could hardly have been more than guess- work, but when the cost of living or the amount of goods which are necessary to maintain efficiency is considered in relation to the amount of wages that the average workingman's family receives, the statement seems not in the least incredible. That there is no necessity in this rich land with its marvelous productiveness of forests, mines, and fields for the life of millions of our wage-earning population to be reduced to such terms as these, and that it means an incalculable moral loss both to the individual and the nation for them to be thus reduced are facts which it is surely the business of the church to bring home to the public mind. There is, perhaps, hardly a crime in the whole catalogue but what may be shown to be related in some way to this unequal and unjust distribution of wealth. The great body of wage-earners are only a few weeks removed from destitution. The paralyzing dread of want is always hanging over them, and when a time of depression comes thousands are thrown out of their means of livelihood, and it is very easy for them to be crowded over the fine of self-respect into ways of living which mean their 1 Hunter, Robert, Poverty, pp. 1-64. 122 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT degradation or ruin. Many abandon their families, go insane, or commit suicide; others drift into vagrancy, others accept charity and henceforth help to swell the ranks of the dependents, and still others enter disreputable employments. Many women sell their honor to get a living. The terrible problem of prostitution is closely related to the unequal and the unfair distribution of wealth. All this and more the church as the institution of prophecy has to say to the pubhc at large, and especially to the employing class, in reference to labor's demands for shorter hours of employment and for a higher wage. Ill The church should have something to say, also, in the name of justice with reference to the demands of labor to the laborers themselves. It has been said that one of the most significant features of the social movement is the awakening sense of jus- tice among the people, but manifestly the first movings of the popular mind toward a theory of social justice are characterized by exaggerations and excesses even that need to be modified and corrected. This is not at all surprising when we remember that the sentiment of justice as we now JUSTICE FOR THE WAGE-EARNERS 123 understand it is one of the world's latest growths. In the great pagan civilizations, full as they were of intellect and varied power, the very idea was non-existent. Greek citizenship rested upon a basis of slavery in which the slave had no rights. In India the caste system that shut up each class in certain limits which it could never pass has been wrought not only into rehgion but into the very Ufe of the people. Among the western nations so slow has been the perception of rights that the EngHsh society for the propagation of the gospel was at the begiiming of the eighteenth century an owner of slaves, and in our own country until within fifty years slavery was defended from the Christian pulpit as a divine institution. Revolu- tion hitherto has meant simply a wider distribution of privilege, more top hats and togas, and that ten thousand instead of ten should mulct the multitude, but the revolution that is now coming into the world is of a different character. The old order based upon special privilege is passing and the proletariat is at last emerging from the subserviency of count- less generations. The movement is the greatest of history and is backed on the whole by a worthy impulse, but it can hardly be thought surprising that it is accompanied by exaggerations and by a 124 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT more or less distorted sense of justice. The eyes long accustomed to darkness coming into the sun- light are likely to behold "men as trees walking," and it is for the church to assist the weak and untrained eyes and to help them to a true vision. Thus the deUberate effort that is sometimes made by the wage-earners to restrict the output of in- dustry in order to insure steady work and to force up the rate of wages is a striking instance of this confused and imperfect vision. Undoubtedly the notion has prevailed among many workingmen that there exists a definite amount of work to be done and that it is good poHcy to Hmit the speed of their labor and thereby to prolong their "job." This idea coupled with the natural instinct and tendency of many men to seek first their own ease has led to the dehberate policy of "soldiering" as it is called in the United States, "hanging it out" as it is called in England, "ca canse" as it is called in Scotland,^ for the purpose of curtaihng the output of work and thereby escaping the reproach of "hogging it" and of "taking the bread out of another man's mouth." ^ To what extent labor ' Eleventh Special Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1904, Washington, pp. 725-736. * These are expressions that are in common use among working- JUSTICE FOR THE WAGE-EARNERS 125 union policy has been consciously or unconsciously shaped by this idea cannot be determined, but it is certain that many influential labor leaders have assiduously spread it among the people, and that in various industries, notably the building trades and certain manufacturies, the deliberate practice of imderwork has been almost universal.^ This idea that there is a definite amount of work to be done and that it is to the interests of the whole body of workingmen if through Umita- tion of output it is prolonged, explains also in part the opposition that has so frequently been made by wage-earners to the introduction of new machinery and improved methods into business enterprise. At the background of this opposition is the very natural, though groundless apprehension, that the increased production that machinery guar- antees, necessarily results in decreased opportunities of work. "What I ha' seen since ocean's stream began Leaves me no doubt for the machine, but what about the man?" The truth is, however, that within certain limits men in various parts of the country and that are employed in the interest of deliberate underwork. 1 Seligman, Principles of Economics, p. 421. 126 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT the more work done, the more remains to be done.^ In other words the greater the productivity, the greater the prosperity both of employers and em- ployes.^ The history of the development of each trade shows that every increase in productive capacity of men instead of making work less has in the end created more work. Multiplied output has brought lower prices, increased demand, higher standards of living, greater opportunities.^ Thus the increased production of shoes by reducing their selling price has made it possible for the majority of people to purchase several pairs of shoes for every pair that they once possessed. Whereas in other years when the labor was done by hand, the workingman could wear shoes only as a luxury, they have now become a necessity, the demand has become enormously increased, the output has multipHed and the opportunities for employment in the shoe industry have correspondingly enlarged. Decreased productivity, on the other hand, as ' Hadley, A. T., he. cit., p. 337. ^ It must, however, be recognized that very often the immediate effect of installing a new machine is to throw the workman out of his job and therefore to cause greater or less distress. This fact also must be taken account of in explaining the worker's opposition to the machine. ' Hadley, A. T., he. cit., p. 326. JUSTICE FOR THE WAGE-EARNERS 127 Marshall ^ so clearly shows, means ultimately higher prices, lessened demand, decreased opportunities of work. There is need, therefore, for the wage-earners to realize, and the church surely may be of service here, that dehberate underwork and limitation of output means injury to themselves and grave in- justice to society at large. By means of organiza- tion and the creation of a labor monopoly it is possible for wage-earners to raise wages at the ex- pense of profits, thereby securing a temporary ben- efit, but the result is certain in the end to react upon themselves by bringing less work, less demand for labor, more unemployment, lower wages. The principle is one which is recognized by all economic thinkers of the first rank ^ that the wages of work- ingmen sooner or later fall with any unreasonable restriction on the output. If the carpenter's union^ by securing a labor monopoly should succeed in materially increasing their wages while at the same time limiting the output of work, the result might easily be a grave injustice not only to their im- mediate employers but to their fellow workingmen ' Marshall, A. and M. P., Economics of Industry, Chap. VI. '^Marshall, loc. cit., p. 201. Seligman, Principles of Economics, P- 421. 128 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT in other occupations as well and to the whole public, since the immediate employers of the carpenters would not bear the entire loss through this enforced raising of wages, but would raise the price of build- ing, and this in turn would check the demand for building, thereby lessening the demand for work in all associated trades. What is of still more im- portance, the policy of deUberate underwork is one that tends to permanently injure the workman, to incapacitate him for intense and continued effort, and to decrease his social worth. In short the wage- earner's demand for justice must be accompanied by honest and efficient labor to be effective.^ The workingmen need to reahze more fully than at present that whatever tends to enhance their efficiency, education, the development of mental and moral vigor, energy and appKcation, in brief all those quahties which differentiate advanced from low grade communities help in the long run to increase wages. Other things being equal the more efficient the men, the more productive the labor, and the greater the labor output the greater the opportunity for work, the higher the wages, the 'This whole subject of the regulation and the restriction of output is covered exhaustively in the Eleventh Special Report oj the Commissioner of Labor, Washington, 1904. JUSTICE FOR THE WAGE-EARNERS 129 more prosperous the laborers themselves, their employers, and the community at large. The idea that is also cherished by so many of the wage-earners that the world's wealth is produced entirely by their efforts, that capital is largely a robbery of their proper share, and that justice de- mands the abolition of capital as a condition of the worker coming to his own is another striking in- stance of distorted vision. The truth here that needs to be instilled is that in the last analysis intelligence rather than muscle is the real wealth producer. What, for example, are we to make of the simple fact that three times as much wealth is produced now by the same working population, that is by the same muscular power, as in a pre- vious generation? What is it that has made the difference? Very clearly it was not the laborer but the thinking mind behind him. A man named Maudsley with a sliding valve made the steam chamber practicable; a man named Whitney by means of the cotton gin multiplied many fold the productive power of the average worker; and other men of ability, a McCormack, a Bessemer, an Edison have entered upon the scene supplying the means of utilizing for production the inexhaustible forces of nature. Evidently, therefore, the real I30 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT question that confronts us here is what are the proper wages of ability? Ability unquestionably deserves to be rewarded, and the kind of justice that would put the thinking brain upon the same level with muscle, giving it no greater reward than muscle would not only be a caricature of justice, but there is reason to believe that it would be a body blow at progress itself.^ In the minds of many of the proletariat it would seem that the idea still lingers that one man's work is as good as another's, that the service of all is equally valuable to society, and that justice means the reduction of social life to a dreary level. In reaHty there is no such equality either in heaven or on the earth. The universe most clearly was not built in that way, since if it had been the ant might shriek its wrong in not being an elephant, and the whole human family might revolt en masse at not being archangels. Were all things material divided equally among us to-day, and were all put upon the same footing so far as outward conditions are con- cerned it would not be a fortnight until the old inequahty would be rampant. Some would have • Mallock, W. H., Aristocracy and Evolution, Chap. VI, The Motives of the Exceptional Wealth Producer. Taussig, F. W., loc. cU., Vol. I, p. 8. JUSTICE FOR THE WAGE-EARNERS 131 spent all, and others would have saved. There would be the clever use of wealth and the stupid use of it with the result that the old cry of the "haves" and the "have nots" would again be heard. The truth evidently that needs to be enforced in this period of agitation for readjustment and with reference to the wage-earners no less than to other classes, is that social justice is not a prob- lem of wealth and wages merely, but of the right to do honest and efficient work, to do one's duty, the right to sacrifice, to be free and to Hve for the true ends of personaHty. Not what he can get but what he would cheerfully lose for it is the true measure of a man's love of justice. The myriad of justice seekers for the sake of the profits have not yet learned the alphabet of justice, and more- over if the opportunity were provided there is every hkeUhood that they in turn would be oppressors. The essence of social justice is not the reduction of Hfe to an artificial and dreary level but the deter- mination of men to have nothing that all others may not have upon the same terms. "The trans- formation of the medium in which he lives" says Mazzini, "only takes place in proportion as he merits it, and he can only merit it by struggle, by 132 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT devoting himself, and purifjdng himself by good works, and holy sorrow. He must not be taught to enjoy merely but rather to suffer for others, to combat for the salvation of the world. It must not be said to him, enjoy, life is the right to happiness, but rather work, life is a duty. Do good without thinking of the consequences to yourself. He must not be taught, to each man according to his wants, or to each man according to his passions, but rather to each according to his love." ^ Here is the real secret of social justice and there is no other. It is for the church to interpret to the people this splendid and self-evincing ideal. The people may at first be deaf to it but eventually they will receive it, and then they will be heroes and they will be invincible. The duty of the church, in short, is to enforce at this critical juncture the idea of society as a household, or a family. The justice of the house- hold is not that of a code, but of the spirit. It is not that of a uniform income, an equal distri- bution of property, or of a common level. The par- ents have a different position, a different income, and a different influence from that of the children, but the various differences contribute to, rather ' Cited by Herron, G. D., The Christian Society, p. g8. JUSTICE FOR THE WAGE-EARNERS 133 than take away from the family happiness. The strength of the stronger members is for every weaker one, and the love of each is for all, and of all for each. The whole question here is one of duty-doing. No child within the true family, while the others can help it will go without food, clothing, education, opportunity, or love, and this we recognize is jus- tice. The church's program if it can properly be designated as such, is to carry the same spirit be- yond the family, and to make it the working basis of society. In other words social justice means a rebuilding of society upon the mind of Christ and it is the business of the church to-day to teach the employer and the employe alike to think in the terms of the mind of Christ. CHAPTER VII OTHER CLAIMS OF JUSTICE There is need for the church to realize that be- hind the particular economic and political aspects of almost all the social and industrial questions of our time there is a human and a moral background concerning which it is both its right and its duty to speak. The feebleness of the church's testimony at this point as much as anything, perhaps, is responsible for the widespread feeling of the wage- earners that organized Christianity is the wilhng tool of the propertied and ruhng class. The church, all too often, has interpreted its mission in such a way that it has virtually lost its significance as a social force and rested contentedly in the presence of great pervasive wrongs with hardly a perceptible power of rebuke, with no purchase or leverage against them nourishing a type of piety that is virtually devoid of humanity. The most casual knowledge of the industrial situation makes it evident that many great issues, besides those which have been considered, that command the passionate 134 OTHER CLAIMS OF JUSTICE 135 interest of the wage-earners, have not only been treated with conspicuous silence by the church, but in many cases prominent church members have maintained an attitude toward them that appears to the workers to be subversive of justice and right. Conspicuous among these issues are the questions of industrial sanitation, protection against danger- ous machinery, compensation for accidents, provi- sion against social dependence through premature exhaustion, illness, and old age. Since the adequate treatment of these subjects is not possible within the limits of a single chapter, the effort is made here to touch merely upon their most important aspects and with the purpose of showing what can and should be done in reference to them by collec- tive action, and what the church should contribute to bring such action about. I In the various estabHshments of modern industry where large numbers of workers are massed to- gether the wage contract necessarily includes many other conditions besides the time to be spent in labor, and the wage that is to be received. The workman sells to his employer not merely so much muscular energy, or mechanical skill, but practi- 136 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT cally his safety and welfare during the entire work- ing day. A work-shop that is over-crowded or badly ventilated may do much to exhaust, or to perma- nently impair the workman's powers. Poisonous material of various kinds may undermine his health. Vile surroundings and coarse influences may go far toward brutalizing his Hfe and degrading his character. The workman, however, in accepting emplojTnent necessarily undertakes to use what- ever material, breathe whatever atmosphere, and endure whatever conditions he may find in his place of work, no matter how detrimental they may be to his health and character. Besides the un- hygienic conditions that result from ordinary ig- norance, selfishness, and careless disregard of hu- man hfe on the part of business concerns, such as we commonly think of at the mention of industrial hygiene, there are also the particular conditions of a more or less dangerous character which are incidental to various occupations and crafts. Thus the report ' of the Illinois commission on occupa- tional diseases reveals the fact that in the United States industrial poisoning of various kinds is a common thing, far more so than has been generally realized. In those trades, for example, where the ' 5Mmey, Volume 25, No. 21, February 18, 1911. OTHER CLAIMS OF JUSTICE 137 workingmen are exposed to a more or less extent to such poisons as arsenic, zinc, turpentine, carbon- monoxide, cyanide of potash, nitrate of silver, hydrofluoric acid, metol, platinum, the cromates, and cromic acid, it was found that the deleterious effects upon the health of the workingmen who handle them are very great. In one American white lead factory employing one hundred and forty men it was found that twenty-five per cent were afflicted more or less seriously with lead poi- soning, and in another factory employing ninety- four men, it was found that twenty-eight per cent had lead poisoning. That such fatality was due to improper management was evidenced to the commission by the fact that the white lead industry in England, which is required by law to make proper provision for the protection of workingmen causes no such evil effects. The reports of several Eng- lish factories doing the same kind of work as these American factories show that the danger from lead poisoning can be practically eliminated. Similarly in the painter's trade where there is also great risk from lead poisoning imless proper preventive measures are taken, in the brass founderies, where the workmen have to handle lead, arsenic, anti- mony, phosphorous, and the cyanides; and in the 138 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT great steel plants where the poisonous gas is pro- duced during the smelting of iron ore with coke and lime, the commission found that American workmen are suffering many evils that with proper foresight on the part of the management might easily be prevented. Among these evils are physical abnormality, the lowering of vitality and consequently resisting capacity, premature age and exhaustion, high mortality and shortness of Ufe.^ Under the in- fluence of long continued work in unsanitary con- ditions the height tends to diminish and to become in the course of a few generations much below the medimn, the body grows thin, weak and of a sickly paleness, what is known as lymphatic or anaemic. Female workers, especially, since a woman's body is unable to withstand abnormal strain, privations and fatigue as well as a man's, run great risk of physical degeneration from this cause. Incident to the various kinds of poisonous dust and gases that are breathed, taken into the body through the alimentary canal, or absorbed through the skin, are such difficulties as the disturbances of the nu- tritive and blood forming process and the so-called ' Doehring, C. F. W., Bulletin of U. S. Department of Labor, No. 44, p. 23. OTHER CLAIMS OF JUSTICE 139 inanition of many factory workers, and such dis- eases as scrofula, pulmonary consumption, dropsy, pleurisy, rheumatic trouble, gangrene, and skin diseases of many kinds. Account, also, must be taken of the increased susceptibility to various epidemics which neces- sarily follows such impairment of the general health and such a lowering of the vitaHty. The exhaustive studies of Oliver and Doehring have estabUshed beyond a doubt that epidemics like typhoid, smaU-pox, scarlet fever, cholera, and dysentery, draw their greatest number of victims from those who are engaged in unwholesome places of work. For every death that occurs among the prosperous classes, or among those even whose lot it is to toil in pure air and in the midst of con- ditions that are wholesome there are many that occur among those whose work conditions are the unsanitary factory, foundery or mill. According to the estimate of Doehring,^ while the average length of Hfe among the higher classes in England is forty-four years, among the laboring classes it is twenty-two years. He shows, furthermore, that while the death rate for each thousand of the pop- ulation in general is only twenty-two and for the ' Btdlelin of U. S. Department of Labor, he. eil., p. 19. I40 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT higher classes as low as seventeen, in the case of the laboring classes it is thirty-six.* That this high mortaHty among the wage-earning popula- tion is caused to a very considerable extent by the unwholesome conditions that are characteristic of certain occupations is shown by the fact that while the death rate per thousand in England among all males between twenty-five and forty-five is a trifle over ten per cent, in the case of file cutters, type setters, chimney sweeps, printers, book bind- ers, quarrymen, and similar occupations it ranges from twelve to eighteen per cent. Though available statistics of occupational mortahty in the United States are rather meager and not wholly reliable there is every reason to believe that the situation here is even worse than in England and in other European countries. Thus the report of the Inter- national Typographical Union of North America ' for the five years ending May 31st, 1903, showed that of 2,994 deaths which had occurred in that pe- riod 1,323 or about forty-five per cent, were from respiratory diseases such as pulmonary phthisis, asthma, bronchitis, pneumonia, pleurisy, pulmonary congestion and were without doubt more or less ' Bulletin of U. S. Department of Labor, loc. cil., p. 19. ' Typographical Journal, Vol. 38, 1903. OTHER CLAIMS OF JUSTICE 141 the result of occupational conditions. All this is but a suggestion of the peculiar perils to which the wage-earners in many industries are exposed, and from which, as experience shows, they might very largely, if not wholly be safe-guarded. The determined protest of workingmen ^ against the dangerous conditions of work did not begin until as late as 1840. Their action at first was rather confused and without unanimity, but to-day there is no subject upon which those of all shades of opinion and all varieties of occupation are so unanimous and so ready to take combined action, and though the fight for better conditions has not yet been won, it has made notable progress in every civiHzed land. Not only has public opinion been aroused, but a very considerable body of more or less useful legislation that looks toward the elimination of such abuses as over-crowding, insufficient ventilation, poisonous dusts, sewer gas ' It is perhaps only fair to the many high-minded reformers who have labored so earnestly for the improvement of work conditions to point out in this connection that the agitation for industrial sanitation has not come wholly, by any means, from the workingmen. It may indeed be fairly claimed that the philan- thropic spirit of men like Morris, Kingsley, Ludlow, Shaftesbury, Stocker, and Todt has not only contributed to awaken pubhc opinion but has been the most potent factor in awakening the wage-earners themselves. 142 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT and many similar conditions have been secured. The progress of the reform in this country is shown by the fact that legislation of such a character has in recent years been enacted by twenty-one different states, a certain indication that public opinion is being aroused and is expressing itself in appropriate ways. There has been, however, but httle authoritative and systematic study of the actual health conditions under which American in- dustry is carried on, and the result is that the legislation which has thus far been secured is characterized by a lack of definiteness and a reli- ance upon the discretionary powers of officials that often defeat the very purpose for which the laws were framed. Thus in only four states, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, and Wisconsin do the laws for the protection of workingmen against injurious dusts attempt to define the specific character of the appKance to be installed. In all the other states the laws require merely that injurious dusts be removed "as far as practicable" or "as far as the nature of the business permits." ^ In the matter of ventilation, IlHnois is really the only state that has an adequate law. In the case of ' Report of American Association for Labor Legislation, June, 1911, p. II. OTHER CLAIMS OF JUSTICE 143 nearly all the other states the wording of the laws is so general and so vague that they mean little, and in every state with the exception of Illinois the standard of enforcement is left entirely to the inspector.^ Until the pubhc is better informed in regard to the actual conditions which need im- provement it is evident that milHons of helpless wage-earners will continue to work under conditions seriously detrimental to both health, character and Hfe. What is the church doing to assist in these badly needed reforms? It would seem that both upon the ground of humanitarian feeling and social expedi- ency, as well as in the interests of justice for the wage-earners the church might be expected to take a leading part in calling pubHc attention to the ills that result from such conditions as have been de- scribed, and in urging such preventive measures as need to be applied. It would seem that even a small share of that practical sympathy that is so conspicuous in the New Testament and that we associate with Christianity would guarantee a commanding interest by the church in such benef- icent work. The facts, however, show that the ' Report of American Association for Labor Legislation, June, 1911. 144 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT church has failed not only to take a leading part in promoting such reforms, but it has appeared at times to be characterized by a positive indif- ference to reformatory measures on these lines.^ Attributing the sickness and the casualties of the workmen to the "visitation of God" to be warded off by prayer and fasting, the church for many years simply shrugged its shoulders, as it were, and went on discussing its creeds, formularies and other unimportant details. Only within very recent years has the church begun to betray any ^ particular interest in the problems of industrial sanitation which for nearly a century has com- manded the passionate interest of the wage-working class. The stipulation of particular regulations for the safety and comfort of workingmen is, of course, a matter for expert opinion rather than for the church to decide, but when the health, happi- ness, efficiency, and life of thousands are jeopard- ized by overcrowding, foul air, sewer gas, poisonous fumes and odors of many kinds, from the dangers of which with proper sanitary precautions they might be spared, and when conditions that are ' Webb, Industrial Democracy, Vol. I, p. 357. ' The causes that have operated in the past to detract from the church's interest in these social and economic problems have been fully set forth in Chapter III, The Industrial Issue a?id the Church. OTHER CLAIMS OF JUSTICE 145 directly provocative of moral downfall are allowed, it is clearly within the province of the church to speak out against the wrong, and to speak in such terms and in such ways that the essential wickedness of such neglect shall be brought home to the pubHc mind. Much also might be done by the church through systematic education of the people to guarantee sanity of reform. Owing to the present chaotic state of public opinion in respect to industrial hygiene there is necessarily more or less danger of ill considered legislation, pushed through the lawmaking body, not according to the extremity of the evil, but merely for poHtical purposes, or in response to the pressure of some ardent group of philanthropists. The great need is for thorough investigation of actual conditions, followed by legal requirements that are in reason- able conformity to qualified technical opinion as to the cause of the evils to be remedied, the methods by which remedial action can be brought about, and that reduce to a minimum the discretionary power of public officials.^ Manifestly nothing but the awakening of public opinion to the necessity 1 It is not possible to regulate every detail of industrial sanita- tion by statutory provision. Something must be left to the dis- cretion of officials. The idea is to fix certain norms by statute within which c^dais must act. 146 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT of such legislation will secure it, or make it effective after it is secured, and it is surely for the church as much as for any other institution to do this educational work. II Here also must be considered, since it is only a phase of the same subject, the problem of safe- guarding the wage-earners from dangerous ma- chinery and of securing for them a just compensa- tion in case of accident. Industrial accidents have always occurred even from the earhest times, but owing to the fact that machinery in all its branches has become so much more dangerous to the workers by the introduction of steam and electric power, and by the development of high speed machinery and rapid transit, the present industrial accident problem is a very recent one. Without doubt accidents to workingmen have increased and are increasing. "The number of accidents which re- sult in the death or the crippling of wage-earners," said Mr. Roosevelt in his presidential message of December, 1908, "is simply appalHng. In a very few years it runs up to a total far in excess of the aggregate of the dead and wounded in any modern war." From 17,000 to 20,000 fatal, and from OTHER CLAIMS OF JUSTICE 147 700,000 to 800,000 non-fatal industrial accidents occur in the United States every year.^ Further- more a majority of these victims, as has been proved by every statistical study, are supporting famihes, and hence the problem is greatly aggravated since it concerns so many more than the actual victims themselves. Thus of 11,328 coal miners who were killed at work in Pennsylvania and Ilhnois coal mines during the ten years ending with 1908, 6,183 widows were left, and 14,444 children. Esti- mating upon this basis the occupation of mining for the entire country during this period it is probably safe to say that the dependence of 10,000 widows and over 25,000 children may be charged to the account of industrial accidents in the single industry of coal production in the course of a decade. The public agitation for statutory provisions requiring the protection of the wage-earners against dangerous machinery, and guaranteeing com- pensation in case of accident covers practically the same period as that for industrial hygiene, and is indeed a contemporary phase of the movement. Thus far the outcome of the agitation is not only ^ Campbell, Industrial Accident Compensation, Chap. I. BlisSi Encyclopedia 0/ Social Reform. Industrial Accidents. 148 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT that public opinion in many sections has been deeply stirred, but in every civilized country various provisions through legislative enactments, philanthropic effort, mutual benefit association, fraternal organization, or private business agency that look to a larger measure of justice at these points have been brought about. In the United States according to the last census of manufac- turers ^ there are now twenty-two states which have enacted some kind of safety laws. Most of these are the leading manufacturing states containing approximately 165,767 industrial establishments with 4,359,135 wage-earners out of 216,262 es- tablishments with 5,470,320 employes in the entire country.^ In other words, for just about four-fifths of the industrial establishments and employes of the coimtry the various state govern- ments have set up some sort of safety requirements. All this most surely signifies that considerable substantial ground has been gained in the campaign to secure protection for the workers against the dangerous machine.^ A careful study of this legis- ^ Federal Census of Manufacturers, 1905. ' American Legislative Review, June, 1911, p. 103. ' One of the most significant signs of progress in this respect Is the systematic effort that is now being made by certain business concerns, notably railway companies, to secure intelligent co- OTHER CLAIMS OF JUSTICE 149 lation, however, makes it clear that for the most part it has not yet passed beyond the primitive stage, and that large advances must still be made before well developed safety codes for factory and other workers who have to handle the most danger- ous machinery shall be found in even our most ad- vanced states. Thus to a great extent our present safety laws, just as in the case of our sanitary laws, bear evidence of having been copied more or less blindly from one state to another without any careful discrimination between the different pro- visions of other states in order to secure the best and most effective ^ code available. In other words the tendency of American safety legislation has been toward the propagation of simple primi- tive forms rather than toward adequate progressive development. Here again it is not the business of the church to entrench upon the prerogative of the scientific expert by attempting to determine the means of safety that should be applied, or upon the office operation of employes by organization and careful instruction in regard to the avoidance of risks. See pamphlet by Richards, Ralph C, of The Chicago Northwestern Railroad, The Con- servation of Men. ' Comparison of State Safety Laws, American Legislative Review, June, 1911. ISO THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT of the legislative body by tr3ang to prescribe the specific legislation that should be enacted. The real contribution of the church in the matter will be the creation of that intelligent public sentiment which demands the service of the expert and the enactment of intelhgent and effective legislation. For the church to direct public attention to the wrongs which are necessarily inflicted upon wage- earners by inadequate safety provisions on the part of business concerns and to the consequent loss to society as well as to individuals, and for it to take its stand squarely on the side of scientific safety legislation could not fail to contribute power- fully to that discriminating thought in the com- munity which is such a necessary element in the solution of every social question. The problem, furthermore, of adequately safe- guarding the wage-earners from the risks of dan- gerous machinery is one that cannot be wholly met by legislation, because safety laws however thorough-going cannot obviate all the hazards of many occupations.^ Much will always depend upon enUghtened self-interest, mutual care, reason- able habits of caution, and especially upon a well developed sense of responsibility upon the part '■Accident Bulletin State of Minnesota, No. 3, 191 2. OTHER CLAIMS OF JUSTICE 151 of employers for the safety of their employes and upon the part of employes for the safety of one another. Here, too, the church may contribute much toward the solution of this great phase of the social question by extending the realm of con- science to include the new situations that have been created by modern industry. "Am I my brother's keeper" is an age old question of con- science that should be answered by the church in the terms of present day conditions and needs. Ill With the best safety provisions, however, ac- cidents will occur, and hence the question of ac- cident compensation still remains. Hitherto em- ployer's Uabihty for personal injuries to employes has been almost exclusively upon the idea of tort or wrong.^ The employer, in other words, has been held hable to an employe for full damages for any personal injury due to the employer's negligence or wrongful act. It has been deemed the employer's duty to exercise ordinary care in his operations, in his relations with his employes, in the selection of co-employ6s, and to provide working places, conditions, tools and machinery which are ordinarily ' Review of Labor Legislation, October, 1911, p. 89. 152 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT safe. The risks of employment, however, which are not avoidable by these means the employe has been deemed to have assumed, and for injuries resulting therefrom there has been no liability. Even when the employer has habitually failed in his duty, in case the employe with knowledge of such fault has continued in the employment he has been regarded as having assumed such risk, and in case of injury the employer has not been held Hable. When injuries have resulted in part from the employer's fault but the injured employe has been shown to have contributed thereto so that without this contribution the injury would not have occurred the employer has been relieved from liability. When injuries have resulted from the wrong or fault of a co-employe, unless the employer has failed to exercise due care in his selection of such co-employe, the employer, being without fault, has not been held liable. The burden of proof, finally, as to all points has been upon the injured, and in some states he has had the additional burden of proving absence of contributory negli- gence.^ 1 These generalizations are covered by such well known rules as "the assumption of ordinary risks," "the defense of fellow servant," and the "contributory negUgence" rules of the common law. OTHER CLAIMS OF JUSTICE 153 What has happened frequently under this legisla- tion is impressively shown by the following con- crete examples. A workman fell from a scaffold on a building while at work. It was admitted that defective boards caused the fall, but he had helped to construct the scaffold, so the claim for damages was not good. Fimeral expenses were offered by the contracting company, a large and wealthy concern, but the offer was refused and suit was brought. In this particular instance there was a widow and six small children, the oldest being eleven. The woman was of a courageous and independent spirit and she immediately went to work. She managed somehow to keep the family together, but the strain was too great, her health was undermined, and she died a little over a year from the time of her husband's death. The lawyers settled the family's claim against the contracting company for two hundred and fifty dollars. One half of this went to pay attorney's fees, and the other half was received in time to pay the mother's funeral expenses. Another workman, in this in- stance a machinist, was killed by being caught in a belt in an electric power house. Fellow workmen testified that the belt should have been better guarded. The company was sued, but on account 154 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT of the destitute condition of the family which consisted of a wife and four children, the case was settled speedily for a thousand dollars. Two hun- dred and fifty dollars from this sum went to pay the lawyer, five hundred dollars was set aside by the court's decree for the children when they came of age, and the remainder of the sum, barely sufficient to provide for immediate needs was speedily consumed, and the entire family, since the mother was a deHcate woman unable to do much work was thrown upon public charity.^ Such conditions manifestly represent not only a cruel injustice to individuals, but a great social loss, and the church can undertake no better work than to help correct them. The church, indeed, has done valiant work in helping to alleviate the destitution and the misery that arise from this source, but such relief work is only palliative, it does not strike at the root of the evil that needs to be corrected. The essential thing, perhaps, that needs to be recognised and enforced, and it is for the church as much as for any other institution to enforce it, is that the industry and through the industry society ^ Chute, Charles L., Industrial Accidents, Review of Reviews, March, igio. OTHER CLAIMS OF JUSTICE 155 itself should help to bear the burden and the loss which industrial fatalities cause. In the words of Mr. Roosevelt/ "It is neither just, expedient or hu- mane, but revolting to sentiment and justice alike, that the financial burden of accidents occurring because of the necessary exigencies of their daily occupation should be thrust upon those sufferers who are least able to bear it, and that such remedy as theirs should only be obtained by legislation which now burdens our courts." Certain European nations, notably Germany, England and Austria have led the way in conducting more careful and extended inquiries into the social and economic phases of the problem of industrial accidents, and in enacting laws that represent a departure from the idea of employer's Hability based upon fault, and the substitution therefor of what is now caUed the principle of compensation. Thus Germany grants a burial benefit that is equal to one-fifth of the yearly wage, and a pension for Hfe to the dependents varying from twenty to sixty per cent of the yearly earnings of the deceased work- man. The Enghsh scheme fixes the compensation at three years' wages with a maximum of three hundred pounds. Other European nations, also, ' Jamestown, Pa., Exposition Speech. IS6 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT have very liberal laws as compared to those which have prevailed hitherto in the United States.' A great movement, however, that looks toward a radical reformation of existing liabihty laws is now under way in this country.^ In the case of a few states at least, it has already issued in legisla- tion that is quite abreast of that which has been achieved by the more advanced European countries. In general the purpose of all the more recent laws is to give a compensation in amount based on pre- vious earnings, and at least in part proportioned to actual loss, but subject to maximum and min- imum amounts. Distinction is made between death, total disabiHty and partial disability. In case of death the rate of compensation is a multiple of the weekly or the annual earnings, with a pro- portionate reduction when the beneficiaries are not wholly dependent on the earnings of the deceased. For total disabilities the rate of compensation is from fifty to one hundred per cent of the earnings, with payments that extend, as a rule, through a cer- tain period of years, or until a certain sum is paid. In case of partial disabihty both the period of pay- ments and the amount received are reduced pro- '■ Dawson, W. H., The German Workman, p. 202. 2 Summary of Recent Legislation, Review oj Labor Legislation, 191 1, pp. 101-107. OTHER CLAIMS OF JUSTICE 157 portionately. Provision, also, is made by most of the laws for the payment of compensation in install- ments so as to avoid the risks of loss that inhere in the placing of relatively large sums in the hands of those not accustomed to handling them, for proper medical treatment of the injured so that if possible a speedy cure may be insured, for the safeguarding both of employers and employes against abusive and oppressive practices and for an automatic settlement of claims for personal injuries received in the course of employment, thus reheving the injured from the cost and uncertainties of legal proceedings.^ All this legislation indubitably shows that the pubhc mind is begirming to move in the right direction in reference to industrial accidents, and that the claim of justice for the wage-earners is being more and more recognized. For the church to give this movement its sanction, and by the education of pubhc opinion to aid in clearing away the obstacles which hinder it is both to take ad- ' Perhaps the best examples of the more recent workmen's compensation legislation in the United States are afforded by the states of Illinois, Wisconsin, New Jersey, California, and Washington. In some respects even more satisfactory than any of these state laws is the recently adopted Federal Employers' Liability Act which is along the lines of legislation which has al- ready proved its beneficence in Europe. Senate Doc. 5382, 62nd Congress. 158 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT vantage of a great opportunity and to render a great public service. IV Protection from social dependence through premature exhaustion, sickness and old age is still another aspect of the problem of justice that meets us here, and it is one, also, that is closely related to the other phases of the situation that have al- ready been reviewed. The feehng that through collective action at this point great social loss might be prevented has already made great head- way, and for the church to reinforce that feeling, and help to direct it in proper ways must surely be regarded as a concrete and practical fulfilling of its great mission to establish the kingdom of God. Although statistical data showing the connection between pauperism and premature exhaustion, occupational disease and old age are not available there can be no doubt that a very considerable proportion of it is closely related to these causes. As previously shown the conditions of modern industry are frequently such as to jeopardize the health, and consequently the earning ability of workingmen in many ways, for besides the deadly unsanitary influence to which so many are subject OTHER CLAIMS OF JUSTICE 159 in the various occupations there is also the strain of work under high pressure that means exhausted nerves, a lowered vitaHty, greater susceptibihty to sickness, and greater mortahty. Modern conditions of industry in particular do not favor the aged. Because work is driven faster, requires more nerv- ous energy, and its methods are continually changing, the tendency is constantly to displace the aged. Many wage-earners who have spent hves of the utmost social utiKty, in proportion as they grow old become poor and dependent. They have always lived on the full measure of what they have earned, and when their capacity to earn is diminished, their abiHty to provide for the needs of their livehhood is correspondingly weakened. If they cannot obtain assistance from friends and relatives their only recompense is to fall back upon public charity. In England careful investigation in recent years has shown that nearly sixty per cent of the adult paupers of the country are over sixty- five years of age,^ and in this country the pro- portion of aged paupers must be nearly as great. According to one authority ^ they so largely pre- 1 Sutherland, W., Old Age Pensions, Appendix B, p. 220. British Parliamentary Paper, No. 113, 1904, p. 71 seq. 2 Saeger, Henry R., Proceedings of First Annual Meeting Ameri- can Association for Labor Legislation, p. 96. l6o THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT dominate among the inmates of the almshouse on Blackwell's Island that recently the name of that institution was changed and is now known as a "Home for the Aged and Infirm." Several of the European states are also miles ahead of us in their mode of handling the problem of social dependence through sickness, early ex- haustion and old age. Thus Germany's plan of compulsory insurance which went into operation January ist, 1904,^ and England's more recent ex- tension of her system of workmen's compensation for industrial accidents to include compensation for well recognized trade diseases are examples of collective action on the Knes suggested that have no counterpart in the United States. Likewise, the systems of old age pensions adopted by such coim- tries as France, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, New Zealand, the Austrahan Colonies and England are examples of progressive social legislation that should not, and ultimately will not be lost upon us. Though our progress in the direction of collective action in the interest of the wage-earning class has been slower than that of many European states it is evident that America is also awakening to the ' Germany had a law on sickness insurance as far back as 1883. The present amended form of the law took effect Jan. i, 1904. OTHER CLAIMS OF JUSTICE l6l facts and the needs of the hour. Our conscience is being stirred and we are becoming aware that something is wrong. If the church will but do its part to educate public opinion in respect to needed lines of collective effort it is certain that much can be done in the near future to drain the terrible bog in which so many of our working people are welter- ing, and to plant them out on wholesome ground in full view of the sun. The church with its system of instruction from the pulpit and through the Sunday school is ad- mirably fitted to render the important service which has been suggested in this chapter, but will the church dare to undertake such teaching as the ful- fillment of these ideals require? The answer to the question will not come from the pulpit as much as from the pews, for it is a question whether the men who support the minister will permit him the free- dom of the true prophet of God. If they do not, the church will cease more and more to be of any vital worth to society, and what is more to the point, it will cease to be of any significance to the coming of that kingdom of truth, justice and right, the triumph of which was the declared object of Him who founded the church and whose name it bears. CHAPTER VIII THE PROTECTION OF THE WAGE-EARNING WOMAN AND CHILD The increasing entrance of women and children into industry constitutes a most serious and com- plex aspect of our social and industrial problem. Every statistical study during the last half century shows that in nearly every department of manu- factiire both in England and America the employ- ment of women has been on the gain.' The Na- tional census report of 1900 revealed the presence in the United States of 5,329,292 women in 303 different occupations, or about eighteen per cent of all females over ten years of age, as against 2,647,157 in 1880, or about fourteen per cent of females over ten. The same census report re- vealed the presence of 1,750,178 children, male and female, between the ages of ten and fifteen in the various gainful occupations, or about ^ Hobson, John A. The Evolution of Modern Capitalism, p. 290. Occupations where great muscular strength is the prime factor in success are about the only ones that do not show an increasing employment of women. 162 PROTECTION OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN 163 eighteen per cent of all the children of the country between those ages. This report also showed that while the population for the entire country had increased about fifty per cent from 1880 to 1900 the increase of child workers during that period had amounted to over fifty-six per cent. The invasion of the shop and factory by this great army of women and children represents a domestic and industrial change so tremendous that we have only begun to appreciate it, and it involves certain perils to the individual, the family and society so menacing that only by the most wise and vigorous action can they be circumvented. The wage-earning women and children are the helpless ones in the industrial struggle, and injury to them, even more than in the case of wage-earning men, is a vital hurt to society itself. I This increasing entrance of women and children into industry is explained in part by the fact that in many instances modern manufacture with ma- chinery favors the employment of women and chil- dren as compared with men.^ During the past half century considerable inventive skill has been ' Hobson, John A., loc. cit., p. 296. 1 64 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT utilized in adjusting machinery to the physical and mental capacity of women and children. Thus in the spinning shops, owing to the displacement of the spinning mule by the ring frame women and children workers have in many cases taken the place of men.^ Likewise in the weaving shops owing to the facility of women and girl workers and to the fact that machinery has been adjusted to them, they are often preferable to men, and therefore tend to displace men. "Had full and continued license been allowed to the purely economic tendencies of the factory system both in England and America," says Hobson, "there can be httle doubt but that almost the whole of the tex- tile industries and many other large departments of manfacture would be administered by the cheap labor of women and children." ^ A greater cause, however, at least for the in- creasing entrance of women into the shop and factory, is the increasing invasion of the home by the shop and factory, and the snatching there- from of almost every useful task that was once performed there.' Fully three-fourths of women's ' Contemporary Review, 1887, p. 392. 'Hobson, John A., loc. cit., p. 297. ^ Ross, Edward A., Changing America, p. 64. PROTECTION OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN 165 ancient and traditional work has shrunk away for- ever, and the remaining one-fourth still tends to shrink.^ Previous to the industrial revolution the spinning wheel and the loom had been a part of the household furniture, and weaving and spinning were family occupations, but the appHcation of steam, the invention of machinery, and the increase of production on a large scale inevitably brought the shop, the mill and the factory, and thither the home workers are following their work.^ A few genera- tions ago the women did their sewing at home, each using but one needle, while in the factory of to-day a machine is used that operates hundreds of needles and makes several thousand stitches a minute. Formerly also the women did the spinning and weaving in the home, while to-day the single spin- ning wheel and shuttle have been multiplied a hundred fold, and one girl of tender years is able to tend from one to half a dozen looms, and to manipulate a thousand bobbins. In less than a century and a half the traditional domestic in- dustries have been transferred bit by bit to the factory until women and children workers find ' Schreiner, Olive, Women and Labor, p. 64. ^Kelley, Florence, Some Ethical Gains Through Legislation, pp. 6-43. 1 66 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT themselves in a world which they have not made and where man's endurance and not the need of the work set the pace, a pace that is a menace both to the individual, the family and the nation.^ There still remains in the home the preparation ,of food and the rearing of children, but even these traditional occupations of women have been greatly limited by modern conditions. Factory prepared viands more and more take their place in the dietary of both poor and rich. Our bread is prepared by the bakery and the loaves delivered at our door. The army of rosy milkmaids has passed away for- ever, and their place has been taken by the cream separator, and the machinery manipulated butter pat. In every direction the time honored idea that it was exclusively the woman's sphere to prepare the viands of her household has become antiquated. Furthermore, the responsibilities and occupations of motherhood are increasingly denied to an ever increasing number of women in all modern societies. The advance of science, the ameHoration of physical conditions, the diminution of human mortality have greatly lessened the social need for child-bearing and hence millions of women are destined to pass through life childless, and many of these to escape 1 Ward, H. F., Social Ministry, p. 138. PROTECTION OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN 167 vitiating dependence must press their way into the shop and factory. Many others who have been widowed or divorced, many married women who feel obhged to share in the support of the family, and many young women who will later marry, but who are driven to seek temporary self-support, must necessarily find their way into the various gainful occupations.^ II The problem, therefore, that is presented by the increasing entrance of women into industry is not to find a means of excluding them from such em- ployment because women without other means of support must work, and the shop and factory afford them the only access to the flow of wealth which is the source of satisfaction to all members of the community. Moreover the opportunities of industry offer to a great host of women the only escape from that condition of dependence and parasitism which is ruinous aKke to the individual and to society. A vigorous and fit society depends even more upon the quality of its womanhood than upon that of its manhood. Wherever in the history ' The census of 1900 revealed the presence of 875,005 widows; 63,436 divorcees; and 769,477 married women in the various gainful occupations of the country. 1 68 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT of the past the dependent, parasitical, enervated woman has become the prevaiHng type it has heralded a speedy and disastrous social decay. The history of all such societies as ancient Egypt, Assyria, Greece and Rome reveals the disastrous effects of a supine and enervated womanhood that has no proportionate share in the duties, labors, and stern activities of its race.^ The real problem that is presented by the grow- ing employment of women in modern industry is to secure for them the conditions of toil that make for a normal and wholesome existence. In certain ways, perhaps, as one distinguished economist shows,^ the factory system has greatly improved the conditions of women's work. "If we wish to see labor in its most abject circumstances," he declares, "we must not go to the large factory, but to those survivals of the earlier domestic system of industry which are exemplified in the tenement house dis- tricts of New York, or the East End of London. The great evils which became apparent during the earlier days of the factory system were simply the results of bringing together the labor which had become pauperized under the domestic system, and ' Schreiner, Olive, loc. cit.. Chapter on Parasitism. 'Hadley, loc. cit., pp. 345, 349, 410, 411. PROTECTION OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN 169 in agricultural districts. The factory brought those evils to light and the employment of women and children became an offense in the eyes of the public, not because it was severer than under the old system but because under the new the evils of such em- ployment could be seen." ^ In one respect, however, the factory system has undeniably added to the hardships of all labor. The testimony is universal that the pace of in- dustry, and consequently the wear and strain, were never so great as now. The coming of machin- ery has made it possible to dictate the rate at which the workers must do their work. They must either keep up with the machine or drop out. Thus by speeding the machine a situation is produced in which the workers are keyed to the utmost and there is an abnormal strain not only upon the muscles but also upon the nerves. The results of this tension in the case of women and girl workers, unless they are extraordinarily strong, are par- ticularly disastrous.^ The long hours of standing in the confinement of the factory, with the nerves continually frayed by the noise, with the sickening smell of machine oU, often in too great heat, and ' Hadley, loc. cit., pp. 347, 348. 2 KeUey, Florence, loc. cit., p. 120 seq. I70 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT in impure dust laden air, soon works physical havoc. Such immediate troubles are produced as anaemia, displacements, varicose veins, and a general deterioration of the physical tone that leads to more serious troubles later on. In the case of young women a very few years in the factory is often sufficient to unfit them for the duties of wifehood and motherhood into which later they are likely to come. To how many of these the advent of motherhood means physical collapse, dragging years of misery, inabiHty to take a mother's proper place in the family, and to give birth to children endowed with a normal share of stamina and vitality.^ Among all the evils attendant upon the excessive strain to which women workers are subjected by the conditions of factory life, the worst perhaps is the birth of a progeny that does not start in life with a fair chance, a progeny that is born tired because the mother has been robbed of her vitahty before she bore them. Thus it is that society has to pay its dreadful toll for the serAdce that women render in our modern industrial life. Thus it is, also, that society may properly ' Ross, Edward A., I. c, pp. 72, 73. Webb, Sydney and Beatrice, loc. cit., Chapter, Higgling the Market. PROTECTION OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN 171 undertake to dictate the conditions under which its toilers shall work. Ill The menace to personal and pubhc health and morahty from the labor of children is, perhaps, even greater than from the labor of women. A moderate amount of work that is of a proper kind, and supplies the right conditions, is doubtless good for the normal child, a necessary factor to de- velop him physically, intellectually, and socially. The disastrous effects of idleness may fully equal those which come from over-work. It is possible, however, to be so misled by this fact as to wholly fail to recognize the perils that attend the work of children in the conditions which are supphed by modern industry. "Look at me," said an influential clergyman who fought the child labor legislation in the state of Indiana, "I worked when I was a boy and why is it not good for children to work now." ^ The difi&culty with this man, who was country bred, was his failure to reahze how different is the toil in the open air and sunshine where there is variety of work and chance for per- sonal initiative, and after toil an abundance of the ' McDowell, Mary E., Social Ministry, edited by Ward, p. 142. 172 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT joy of life, from the work of the city child bred in the midst of such conditions as are suppHed by the foul, sunless, grimy, and nerve racking factory. In other years when labor was done principally by hand and with the simplest tools the steps into artisanship were well adapted to child develop- ment.' Even if the work was hard it was also help- ful, if the hours were long the processes were not so monotonous and irksome as those which char- acterize present day industry. The coming of the power machine has provided a hundred new employments for children, because it has brought specialization, and has subdivided work into in- numerable operations which often tax the worker to the limit of endurance while at the same time they wholly lack educational worth. Frequently the only relief from the intolerable dulness of one occupation is change to another equally dull. In- stead of being educated by his employment the child worker is often trained in habits of instability and shiftlessness which are both a personal and a social loss. Thus while child labor adds a com- paratively small sum to the productive value of ' Noyes, William, Overwork, Idleness, or Industrial Education, Annals oj the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 27, No. 2. March, 1906. PROTECTION OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN 173 present industry, it is at the fearful risk of bank- rupting human life and industrial capacity in the next generation. Though statistical evidence is wanting there is good reason to believe that in many cases the derelicts upon the sea of life come from those who were overworked in childhood, and that the great army of tramps and criminals is recruited constantly and largely from the ranks of those whose life in childhood was embittered by grinding toil.^ The menace to morals as well as to efiSciency that certain conditions of child labor involve also require mention. The atmosphere of mines and factories, tainted with profanity, obscenity and vicious habits of many kinds means inevitable moral risk to the youth of tender years. In the so-called street trades in particular, embracing such occupations as the sale and distribution of papers and periodicals, the peddling of various articles, the poHshing of shoes, the messenger and delivery service, which employ a host of child workers, the moral risk is exceedingly great. Statistics kept by the Boston Juvenile Court, iMcKelway, A. J., The Child Labor Problem, Degeneracy. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Vol. 27, No. ^. March, 1906. 174 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT Hart's Island Reformatory, Randall's Island House of Refuge and similar institutions show that from forty to seventy per cent of the delinquents have been engaged in street trades. All this sort of thing is dreadful social as well as individual waste. For society to sit back inactive while this ravish- ment of childhood goes on is nothing short of social suicide.^ IV The inability of wage-earning women and chil- dren to protect themselves against the dehumaniz- ing and degrading conditions which in various in- dustries beset them makes it all the more imperative that society should intervene in their behalf. Through collective action wage-earning men have done much to improve their conditions, but thus far the wage-earning women have not shown them- selves able to use the labor organization so effec- tively as men. The chief reason, perhaps, is because they are women and their attitude by nature is less aggressive toward unpleasant features in their situation than that of men. They are always more patient, more willing to endure and less ' Clopper, E. N., Child Labor in Street Trades. Supplement to Annals oj the American Academy of Political and Social Science. March, loio. PROTECTION OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN 175 willing to enter upon a struggle than men. In the case of yoimg women and girls, who comprise in many occupations the great majority of the workers, inexperience is a factor that adds to their helplessness.^ They do not reahze what organiza- tion might do for them, hence they do not beheve in it, will not pay dues, and will not incur the risk of losing their positions by making a protest against unjust conditions. Then, too, there is always that door of exit that may be opened by marriage to the young woman worker, which makes it easier to endure since the necessity of endurance may be only temporary. Owing, therefore, to purely natural causes there is Httle UkeHhood that the abuses from which women and children wage-earners suffer will be rectified by them- selves. Nor is it likely that these abuses will be cor- rected by appealing to the humanity of the employers. If the particular employer is a monop- olist, or has some advantage over all his competi- tors there is much to be hoped for his employes by working upon his humanity. When the com- petition, however, is sharp the himiane employer must conform to the practice of his competitors. 1 Commons, Trade Unionism and Labor Problems, pp. 380-397. 176 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT The great law in business competition is that the plane of practice will be determined by what the least scrupulous man who succeeds in the business is wilHng to adopt. ^ It is useless, therefore, to expect that the problem of securing justice for the wage-earning woman and child will be obtained in this way. Though it were possible to get the majority of employers to agree that the conditions imposed upon women and children workers are too severe, the few unscrupulous and indifferent ones who should insist on maintaining the old standards would defeat the will of all the rest. The only recourse, then, that will effect the needed reforms is the will of organized society expressing itself in law. There is absolutely nothing else. The perils to individuals and to society that inhere in the labor of women and children under modern conditions must be pointed out. Society must be led to see and to feel the enormity of them, and the church as the institute of prophecy is most clearly commissioned with this great task. Hitherto, it must be confessed, the churches as organized bodies have done Uttle to help this reform, although it began over a century back. The chief reason for this failure probably is that ' Ross, Edward A., he. cit., p. 78. PROTECTION OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN 177 the church in common with society at large failed to realize the perils of women's and children's work under the new conditions that the power ma- chine has brought. Less than two hundred years ago DeFoe and many other Enghsh writers of the same rank were filled with enthusiams that the time had come when children of tender years could be profitably employed, and the advent of condi- tions that enabled a child five years old to earn a living was regarded as the foretoken of an ideal society.^ Constant employment in the factory was advocated as the wisest philanthropy on the naive supposition that being constantly employed for at least twelve hours a day the rising generation would be so habituated to such employment that work would prove agreeable and entertaining. The same strange delusion was carried to this country, so that with the coming of the factory the employ- ment of child workers seemed the natural course to pursue and even the public press rejoiced in the fact that manufacture does not depend upon able bodied men, but is better done by children from six to twelve years of age.^ Now, however, ' McKelway, A. J., Address before American Association for the Advancement of Science, New Orleans, Jan., 1906. ' McDowell, Mary E., loc. cit., p. 140. 178 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT that this illusion has been dispelled, at least from the minds of intelligent folk, and that the perils which threaten our wage-earning women and children have been so fully exposed the church would be remiss to a most obvious duty and would stultify itself did it not take a leading part in se- curing the legislation which the situation demands. The church is the conscience of society and as such it must by clear thinking and a positive message that touches specific needs awaken the community to the fact that its most precious asset is its women and children, and that to sacrifice these upon the altar of material gain means not improvement but inevitable and speedy decay. V The specific lines along which this protective legislation is now being sought, and in respect to which considerable advance has been made in recent years, are, a standard working day suited to the health and strength of the woman and child workers, a living wage, the prohibition of work to women before and after childbirth, wholesome moral as well as physical conditions of employ- ment, their prohibition from certain dangerous occupations, and in the case of children the pro- PROTECTION OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN 179 hibition of night work, and an age limit that con- ditions gainful employment of any kind. The movement for an eight hour day is ob- viously gaining ground as is evidenced by the fact that both Cahfornia and Washington enacted eight hour laws for women during 191 1, and in several other states similar legislation was proposed and defeated in the various legislatures only after the most strenuous effort. For children the eight hour day has now been secured in ten states with the prospect of speedy adoption in several more.^ In one state, at least, during 191 1, a law was enacted prohibiting the employment of women for a fixed period before and after childbirth, and in several states steps were taken that look towards the es- tablishment of minimum wage-boards authorized to study and report upon the subject of women's wages with a view to preparing the way for legisla- tion to rectify the injustice to women of an unfair and inadequate wage.^ Important legislation has also been secured in many states fixing an age ' Review of Labor Legislation, October, 1911, p. 169. 2 In Minnesota and Wisconsin a bill authorizing the establish- ment of minimum wage-boards was discussed by the respective legislatures but was finally defeated. In Massachusetts a com- mission was appointed to study the subject and to report later. The report of this commission was favorable and in 191 2 a wage- board was appointed which is now at work. l8o THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT limit conditioning the employment of children, making certain specifications governing street trades, prohibiting children under sixteen from night work, and from certain specified occupations. Of particular promise as affecting the nation wide movement for the betterment of the conditions of the men and women of to-morrow is the recent estabhshment by Congress of a Children's Bureau in connection with the Department of Commerce and Labor. The purpose of this Bureau is not to dictate legislation on any subject pertaining to the children of the country, but to carry on in- vestigation and to make report to states, munici- palities, and organizations that are interested in child welfare work. Just because the government is in a position to carry on such investigation most effectively and to secure the most impartial in- formation the Bureau cannot fail to be of incal- culable service. All this legislation is manifestly in the right direction but the absence of uniformity between the laws of the different states, and the almost utter lack of any adequate laws in some of the states are such as to place this country as a nation far below the rank of enHghtened European nations like England, France, Germany, Switzerland and PROTECTION OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN l8l Holland.' When rated according to its care for its working women and children it is with Russia rather than with the more advanced states of Europe that this country must be classed. Cer- tain occupations like the fruit, vegetable, and can- ning industries remain almost entirely exempt from all child labor restrictions. A large number of states ^ still permit the emplo3Tnent of young boys in coal mines and quarries. The regulation of street trades is at best still chaotic. For the vaudeville and motion picture interests thousands of yoimg children are being sacrificed. The reduc- tion of hours for children to eight a day,' a stand- ard that is commonly recognized as reasonable for men has been secured in only ten states, and it is significant that none of these are among the leading textile manufacturing states. In many of our cities children of tender years continue to bend over their tasks in unwholesome tenement rooms, at imseemly hours of the night without the viola- tion of any law by those who oppress them. ^Hand Book, Child Labor Legislation, National Consumers' League. Introduction. ^Pamphlet No. 167, National Child Labor Committee, for a review of existing legislation. 2 Colorado, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, Texas, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin. l82 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT VI The stock objection that legislation which fixes the working hours of women and children, and otherwise restricts the conditions under which they are permitted to work is an unwarranted infringe- ment of the freedom of contract is now seen to be wholly wide of the mark. There was a time when people had a legal right to sell themselves into slavery as security for money with which to buy food and clothing, just the same as they now have a legal right to work under conditions which are detrimental to life and health. This right, however, was found in time to be fatal to the best interests of society. Its consequences in ancient societies were such that modern nations have been led to abrogate it, so that to-day throughout the civilized world the right of men to pawn themselves has been removed. In certain Asiatic and half civihzed communities men still possess this ancient right to put themselves in pawn, but in all truly civilized and vigorous states it has been removed. At first, no doubt, the abrogation of this early right of man seemed to many an infringement of the sacred principle of freedom, but the removal of that right has unquestionably worked both the individual and the social good. In the same spirit and with the PROTECTION OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN 183 same ends in view society is now beginning to say in reference to its women and children workers, they must not be allowed to work so many hours that they will be exhausted, or to undertake the sort of work that is beyond their strength, and that unfits them to occupy their proper place as normal citizens of the state. Still another consideration is that in proportion as people become enervated and worn out by grind- ing toil the social burden becomes increased, in as much as every worthy society must necessarily feel an obligation to support its indigent members and see that no one actually starves.^ Whatever human wreckage, therefore, that is created by the needless wear of industry is helping to augment the heavy load that society must bear. Thus it is that protection of its members against personal and needless wastes is not only a duty that society owes to the individual, but one that she owes to herself. 1 Ross, Edward Ailsworth, loc. cit., p. 79. CHAPTER rX THE QUESTION OF THE OPEN OR CLOSED SHOP By the open shop is meant the policy of em- ploying workingmen without regard to their aflol- iation with a labor union, and the closed shop is the antithesis to this, or the union shop. It should be observed, however, that the term union shop is also appHed to places of labor where only union members are employed without the employer's agreeing to follow this course, but in the closed shop the employer expressly agrees to exclude non- unionists. The issue that is here presented is of long standing, but in recent years it has come to represent a most acute and difficult phase of the labor conflict. Although the efforts of organ- ized labor to unionize industry have been steadily resisted by employers new impetus has lately been given to resistance, and the open shop has become a kind of slogan, or declaration of independ- ence against union rule.^ If this pressing difference between capital and ' The decision of tht Anthracite Coal Commission appointed by Mr. Roosevelt in which the open shop prindplo was upheld, 184 THE OPEN OR CLOSED SHOP 185 labor concerned only the combatants themselves, and if it involved merely a technical adjustment of the machinery of industry it would have no valid place in this discussion, because it could hardly be regarded as coming within the proper sphere of the church's interest. In view of the fact, however, that this difference involves principles that vitally affect the social welfare, it becomes an issue that the church cannot afford to ignore. The church is here to make a better world, and as such it must take account of all the forces that are at work in the world, and seek to infuse them with the spirit of the Christian faith. The "Kingdom of Heaven" the furtherance of which is the church's chief concern, includes the whole of life, business, poHtics, the organization of trade and government, the relations of employers and employed, rulers and ruled, as well as the interests and relations of private life. When all these are pervaded and temp- ered by the Christian spirit the kingdom of heaven will have fully come. When considered from this larger view-point the question emerges whether the church in ignoring such an issue as that which and the action of Mr. Roosevelt in reinstating foreman Miller who had been discharged from the Government printing office upon complaint of the Book Binders' Union, mark the beginning of the new stage upon which this question has entered. 1 86 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT is represented by the policy of the open and the closed shop is not neglecting an important and far reaching part of its work. I That the conflict of principle that is represented by the open and closed shop is not merely of local or of secondary interest, but affects profoundly the entire social body is evidenced by the fact that it is the consequence of the new social status that the wage-working class has achieved, and it in- volves the difficult task of readjusting the economic relations of men in conformity with democratic ideals. The inevitableness of the conflict at the present stage of industrial development, the dis- appearing of the individual personal element in industry, the formation of great business combina- tions, the organization of workingmen in large groups becomes evident almost at a glance. In discussing this subject it is unnecessary to speculate as to whether such organizations are wise or best, since the fact is that they have come, and ap- parently as a result of the working of natural laws. The discovery has been made that production on a large scale means economy in many ways,^ ' Taussig, F. W., loc. cit., p. 52. THE OPEN OR CLOSED SHOP 187 and because of this it would be both foohsh and futile to attempt to prevent the tendency to big things in the industrial world. There is reason for the contention that the masters of finance have always made that they should be left un- hampered in their efforts to organize trade. How- ever, production on a large scale means large capital and that means the business group. It means also the passing of the individual personal element from business management, since the individual now acts through the group. To dispute either the wisdom or the right of this arrangement is aside from the mark. Hitherto raihng against trusts has furnished no little material for poKtical campaigns, but the people have been rapidly learning that the trust represents a legitimate consequence of the natural development of industrial society. There is not power enough in the government to stop such organization without arresting the normal progress of industrial hfe. The inevitable accompaniment of organized capital is organized labor and the development of a group spirit among the working class. The one produces the other as naturally as effect follows cause, and no solution of this question can be permanent that does not admit with perfect frankness the equal right of both 1 88 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT employers and employed to organize and to act through their respective groups. An attitude that admits the corporation and the collective manage- ment of business while opposing the labor union or denying its right to act as the bargain maker of labor is one that can hardly be defended on the ground of a "square deal." ^ This much granted, and without it all further discussion of this question must be futile, we begin to perceive the real merits of the issue concerning the open and the closed shop. The individual laborer is helpless. The union is the only power that stands between him and the gigantic power with which he has to deal. Seeking ever to econo- mize expenditure and to increase profits, the busi- ness concern very naturally tries to secure both its raw material and its labor in the open market and at the lowest possible rate. So far as the cor- poration is concerned labor is as much a commodity to be purchased in the open market as any other product, and the tendency is ever to buy the cheap- est labor that will fulfill the corporation's needs. Moreover, with the increasing use of machinery ^ Seligman, Principles of Economics, p. 435. The trades union is as inevitable a product of modern economic life as the corpora- tion. Both are attempts to attain individual prosperity through concerted efforts. THE OPEN OR CLOSED SHOP 189 the movement toward cheaper labor is greatly facilitated. The skilled workman can be replaced with the feeder of a machine, the intelligent la- borer with the ignorant, the American with the latest imported foreigner, the Caucasian with the Mongolian, the man with the woman, and the woman with the child. Barring certain periods of special industrial activity, and the interference of laws and trades-union regulations the move- ment toward cheap labor in the United States has been increasing with tremendous activity. Statistics ^ are available which show that wherever improved machinery makes the weaker class of labor available women rapidly supplant men, and child labor rapidly takes the place of woman labor in all industries. Furthermore the cheaper and more helpless the labor the easier it is for the em- ployer to demand the hardest conditions of toil. The foreign workman who has been brought up to a lower standard of Kfe, or the helpless woman and child will readily submit to the hardest terms, longest hours, and most dangerous tools that the employer seeks to impose. The reason, therefore, that the workman seeks to unionize industry and 1 See statistical table prepared by John A. Hobson for the years 1841 to 1891, The Evolution of Modern Capitalism, p. 291. I go THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT to secure the policy of the closed shop is not far to seek. He thereby secures control of the situation. If the employer can be brought to agree that no one shall be engaged to work in a given occupation who is not satisfactory to the union, it puts the laborers in a position to dictate better terms and to secure a measure of independence and authority in the management of the business that they could not otherwise possess.^ Furthermore, it can hardly be questioned that the desire of workingmen to share within certain limits in the management of the industry in which they are engaged is wholly proper and right.^ Notwithstanding the employer's insistence that his business is his own, and that he has a right to control it as he chooses, the think- ing portion of the community is coming more and more to the position that the rigid individuahsm which the employer claims as his right, should be, and untimately will be, dissolved. The fact is that the laborer is an indispensable part of the business and as such he is entitled to a voice in its affairs. The employer cannot get along with- out the laborer. He may have the best machinery, ' Seligman, loc. cit., p. 434. The individual workman is nowa- days helpless against the t3T3ical employer. 2 This statement is meant to be taken as explained on p. 209. THE OPEN OR CLOSED SHOP 191 the finest plant, abundant raw material, the wait- ing markets, but if there are no willing hands to help him, not a wheel will turn, the raw material will perish in the waiting, the pubKc will suffer from a sense of need. For the employer to assume, therefore, that he is the whole of the business, that his interests alone are to be considered, and that his voice may be absolute in its affairs is both an economic fallacy and a fundamental lack of moral insight. The workmen also need the employer. They may have good health, abundant skill, and a desire to toil, but if there are no tools, and no raw material, there can be no employment. Capital is but stored up labor, and there must somewhere be secured a supply of this to make business enter- prise possible. The assumption of the laborer that production is entirely by his efforts, that the capitalist is the natural enemy of the wage-earner, that the despotism of imion rule may be legiti- mately substituted for that of corporation rule, and that by destroying the power of capital some great advantage would accrue to the laboring class is equally wide of the mark. Experience shows that when the natural partnership of capital and labor are mutually recognized and the employers and the employes exert themselves to work in sympathy 192 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT and harmony the larger interests of both are sub- served. II Therefore, it would seem, that in neither of these extremes, represented on the one hand by the policy of the open shop and the unrestricted com- petition of laborers one with another, and on the other hand by the policy of the closed shop and an absolute labor monopoly, is real justice both to employer and employed most Ukely to be found, but rather in striking a proper balance between the two.^ Emerson long ago called attention to the fact that the system of nature is a balance of two antagonistic forces,^ and that very rarely is the whole truth of any proposition foimd in the partisan exposition of it. Social progress, likewise, proceeds largely under the law of antagonism. We behold the manifestation of this law in the contradictory platforms of pohtical parties, and the mutually destructive tenets of religious bodies. As human beings are constituted, society is necessarily rent with conflicting ideals and interests. Every ques- tion has two sides, and most people see but one ' The Issue of the Open and Closed Shop. N . American Review, 180-28. ' Essay — Compensation. THE OPEN OR CLOSED SHOP 193 of them, but happily for society these conflicting positions are ever acting as a foil to each other, and great injury and injustice are thus prevented. The issue under discussion is a striking illustra- tion in the economic sphere of this principle. The demand of the employer for an open shop in the sense of an unrestricted competition of laborers with one another on the ground of "principle" and "liberty" is very clearly as one-sided and preju- diced a view-point as could well be imagined. Principle and liberty are fascinating words, but in point of fact they frequently are used as a mantle of self-deception. The absolute monarch who exe- cutes hundreds of persons in a single day without trial and buries them by moonlight is accustomed to prate about "principle" and "Hberty" with as much zeal as the most ardent advocate of de- mocracy. The trouble is that men are prone to think through their particular social, political, or economic interests, and to affirm as principle what to the vision of everyone except themselves is nothing more than blind self-interest. An illustra- tion to the point is the well known declaration against the closed shop as an un-American institu- tion, by a group of manufacturers who have preeminently represented the sweat-shops of the 194 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT larger American cities, who for years have been the collectors of the ignorant, squalor-ridden out- casts from Europe, and who through a system of contractors, sub-contractors, and employment agents have taken the ignorant, poverty-stricken immigrants whom they have been the means of bringing to this country, and using them Hke slaves, converting their homes into pest houses and crowding from ten to twenty persons into a single room where they all eat, sleep, and work. When coming from employers of this character, it is evident that the talk about the open shop, and the right of every man to work at his trade without joining a union, and the right to hire men whether they belong to a union or not, must be taken by the public with considerable allowance.^ On the other hand, it is evident that the demand of the wage-earners for the closed shop in the sense of virtually taking the management of the business out of the hands of the owners and placing it in the hands of the laborers, is quite as arbitrary, extreme, and impossible as the other pohcy. The labor unionists cannot successfully deny that the closed shop is frequently used as a means of unjustifiable ' Seligman, loc. cit., 435. Freedom of contract is illusory be- cause of the self-evident inequality. THE OPEN OR CLOSED SHOP 195 desp)otism. Thus in the case of a certain strike ^ not many years ago the sole object was to enforce the discharge of an old employe because he would not consent to join the labor union. There is no evidence that this man had done anything out of the way, he had merely refused to join the union, and the strikers demanded that he be discharged. There are doubtless many cases where men are just- ified in refusing to work with an objectionable person. A workman who acts the part of spy and tattler in the interest of the employer easily makes himself objectionable to his fellow workmen, and it is not unreasonable that they should refuse to work with him, but to insist that no workman shall be permitted to work unless he joins the union is a poHcy that is not Ukely in the long run to be accepted by the thinking pubHc. There is un- questionably more or less reason to fear the possible misuse of the immense power that combination is placing in untrained hands. Laborers are but himian, and when the opportunity of power pre- sents itself they may easily misuse it. Given an equal chance and there is every likelihood that the laborers would prove as arbitrary and dicta- torial as capitalists. Thus the closed shop in the ^ The strike of the freight-handlers of the Fall River Line in igo4. 196 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT sense of handing over to the union the power of compelling every worker to become a member of it or lose his position is unthinkable as an industrial policy. There are many indications that the better Judgment of society is slowly tending toward the idea of democracy in industry, or a policy that gives to the employes as well as to the employers a voice in the management of business affairs, but there is Uttle likelihood that the social judgment will ultimately sustain a poHcy of despotic control either on the part of labor or capital. Ill The conclusion is inevitable that both the pohcy of the open shop as represented by capitalists and the pohcy of the closed shop as represented by labor unionists are extremes, and that it is only by striking a proper balance between the two that justice for all will be found. The church of course cannot properly arrogate to itself the office of imipire in the matter or assume any authority that it does not possess, but there are certain clear cut principles which in view of the present situation the church would do well to emphasize in the interests of the larger social good. THE OPEN OR CLOSED SHOP 197 For one thing, the church may render a great social service at this critical juncture by properly enforcing the idea that the fundamental principle of freedom is not that each one should do as he pleases with his own, but that he should so conduct himself and use his own as to subserve the interests and opportunities of others.^ The notion that an employer whose business depends as much upon the community and upon the laborers as it does upon himself is free to run a factory as he chooses, when he chooses, under such sanitary conditions as he chooses, and may treat his workmen as he chooses, should be stigmatized by the church as a false and mischievous conception of freedom.^ Such a policy stands opposed to every social prin- ciple that the church is here to represent, and for the church to maintain a discreet silence in the presence of such an arbitrary attitude from the fear of giving offense and losing financial support is to prove itself faithless to a fundamental obligation. The true conception of freedom is that which interprets it from the standpoint of society and not from that of any individual, group, or class. ^ Mat. 16: 24-26. Mark 8: 42-45. ^Hadley, A. T., loc. cit., p. 120. Wilson, President, Article, Literary Digest, Oct. 17, 1908, p. 543. 198 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT Any interpretation of freedom by the employer that means the direction of business without due regard to the interest of the wage-earners or the pubUc should be promptly and unequivocally con- demned by the church. Likewise any interpreta- tion of freedom by the labor unionists that fails to take account of the rights and interests of em- ployers should not be overlooked, or spared by the church. The principle involved here is simply that which underlies all free society. The em- ployer has the liberty only to organize and conduct his business consistently with the rights of other people, and the laborer in joining a union and seeking by collective action to dictate the scale of wages for which his services shall be sold, the personal treatment he shall receive, and the con- ditions generally under which he shall work, is equally obliged to be mindful of the rights of others. In either case the principle of freedom can only be interpreted properly from the standpoint of the social welfare.' The church, for another thing, may very prop- erly seek to enforce the duty of mutual forbearance in the case of an irreconcilable difference of judg- 1 Kant, Immanuel. Metaphysics of Ethics, Chapter on My Neighbour's Happiness as End and Duty. THE OPEN OR CLOSED SHOP 199 ment ^ such as is represented by the policy of the open and closed shop. Because employers and employed differ so fundamentally in their con- ception at this point it need not follow that they should fight it out until the one succumbs to the other. A difference settled in that way is not really settled. The question of right or wrong still remains. Wisdom, therefore, should dictate a spirit of mutual forbearance, and progress along the line of least resistance.- Thus the avowed purpose of some employers to push the open shop policy to the extent of excluding all union labor is manifestly a program that makes some kind of closed shop unavoidable. Such a program as that, if successful, creates a closed shop against union men as surely as the program of the union would create a closed shop against non-union men. "Until recently," said a certain employer a short time ago, "I had two hundred and ninety-seven union men in my employ, but now I have only six and I hope soon to get rid of these and to have only non-union workmen." Such is the avowed purpose of many employers and apparently they fail to realize that this is not an open shop poHcy, but ^ Ephesians 4: 2, 3. Colossians 3: 13. 'Gunton, Principles of the Open Shop, 27, 1-13. 200 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT a closed shop policy, a closed shop against union men which is just as unfair and untenable as a closed shop against non-unionists. Employers might as well reahze that labor unions are as in- evitable as corporations and as long as they use the open shop as an instrument for crushing the union they may expect to have a "battle royal" on their hands. They may expect, too, in the long run to have pubhc opinion against them. The largest interests of society demand that the wage- earners become as self-dependent as possible, that their personal resources be developed, and that they be lifted out of weak defenselessness. Since the labor organization is proving itself a most effective agent in producing such results, thus rendering an incalculable service to society,^ it is not likely that pubhc opinion in the long run will sustain any policy that looks toward the crip- pUng of labor organizations. On the other hand the declared purpose of labor unionists to push the closed shop policy to the extent of compelHng an unfair discrimination against non-unionists is a program that ought not to be sustained. There is a vital difference between '■ Gladden, Washington, Social Facts and Forces, Chapter on the Labor Union. THE OPEN OR CLOSED SHOP 201 being forced to give up a right and deciding to suspend its exercise for practical reasons. This distinction may seem to be finely drawn, but some of the largest disputes have taken place in conse- quence of neglecting it. Many an employer will readily accommodate himself to a situation and take a friendly attitude toward a labor union even to the extent of Kstening to its overtures, and bargaining through its representatives when he will not make a contract to discriminate against non-union men. The insistance of labor unionists at this point is certain to make trouble. The union may justly claim that there shall be no discrimination against its members, but when it claims the right to compel discrimination against non-unionists it is a very different matter. To the extent that labor unions persist in this poUcy they may expect determined resistance from employers, and to that extent also they may expect to aHenate pubhc sympathy. Furthermore, the example of many successful labor unions, notably the British unions, and the railroad brotherhoods in this country, which must deal with very powerful and well organized em- ployers and which yet never raise the question of the closed shop makes it evident that the closed shop in the sense of a specific agreement to it on 202 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT the part of the employer is not absolutely neces- sary to the union's efficiency.^ In the case of the unions referred to, agreements are made with both single and associated employers which omit all reference to the employment of either union or non-union men. The employers are left free to hire non-union men if they so desire, and the employes are left free to abstain from working with non-union men if that course be deemed advis- able. The aim of unionism in these instances is to make itself so comprehensive by unquestionable methods, and thus so indispensable that the labor- ers will be able to enjoy the essential advantages of the closed shop without seeking to force the recog- nition of a principle that is odious both to employers and to the general public. As the wage-earners become better organized the closed shop in effect will be observed correspondingly, and as labor organizations dwindle the open shop will prevail regardless of all opinion. The church, finally, in view of this contro- versy, may properly urge upon the attention of both capital and labor the mutual advantage of a spirit of fairness, good will and friendly coopera- tion.^ Successful production is not a thing of the ^Seligman,/oc. a7.,p. 441. *Romansi2. I Corinthians 1 2 : 1 2 ieg. THE OPEN OR CLOSED SHOP 203 hands or the mind alone. There are other elements which are highly essential. On the one hand, a harsh, unjust and oppressive corporation that is disposed to take every unfair advantage, and on the other hand a body of sullen and resentful workmen, is not a combination that is calculated to produce the best results. The employer that makes his workmen feel that the business is his alone, to direct as he may choose, and that their interest is limited to the wage that they receive cannot in the nature of things get from the men the same service as the employer who inspires his employes with a sense of comradeship and makes them feel that it is their business as well as his. The con- tribution of Ruskin at this point is a word that the church will do well to remember and insist upon. "Let us have a political economy" said the great seer, "whose roots are honor, and whose wealth is the purple veins of happy hearted human crea- tures." ^ There is a truth here that may wisely be appHed to the present problem. Integrity, mutual trust, happy-heartedness, and a sense of the joy of work are not merely essential elements of char- acter, but they are the essential elements of the highest production; they are not merely a thing 1 Ruskin, Essay, The Roots of Honour. 204 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT of books and creeds, but of houses, stores, shops and factories; they are written not alone in forms of worship, and in words of faith, but likewise in the political and industrial interests of man- kind. Under ordinary circumstances it is possible for the employer to inspire such a spirit in the workshop. Integrity and fairness on the part of employers tend to waken and develop similar qual- ities in employes. When the carpenter, mason and painter know that the employer would scorn to add to his profits by dishonest work, they will also be stimulated to a sense of honor and fairness in their individual part. A business policy, therefore, that awakens antagonism and distrust, that makes the workmen sullen, resentful, and dissatisfied is a great mistake of judgment. It is poor business since it means inferior and lessened production, and therefore a loss not only to those who are directly concerned, but to the community as well. Work- men are human and they want to be treated in a human way. They ask for neighborly treatment and it is not unreasonable to beheve that in many cases were such treatment accorded it would be an effective antidote to an extreme policy of a closed shop, and the better spirit that would pre- vail would in the long run mean an increased pro- THE OPEN OR CLOSED SHOP 205 duction that would enable the employer to grant the higher wage, the shorter hours, and the better conditions that the workers demand. Thus the problem of the open or closed shop when closely studied is seen more and more to be an essentially moral one. The right solution of it will depend quite as much upon keener conceptions of justice as upon economic enlightenment. Since, however, the day is still distant when equity alone will govern, and justice will everywhere receive its due, the right to some extent must still be rein- forced by might. In the present stage of develop- ment the situation that promises the largest meas- ure of equity is where both capital and labor are strong enough to compel respect for each other's claims. This, however, will not prevent great violence and injustice unless both capitalists and laborers are disposed to be fair, and the church without question can do much to create an at- mosphere that will help to develop such a spirit on the part of all concerned. CHAPTER X labor's appeal to violence No aspect of the labor situation is so deplorable or so prejudicial to the real interests of labor as the recurring appeals to violence that have so frequently characterized the struggle in recent years. The odium from which organized labor is now suffering in the public mind is due in large part to this cause. Workingmen taking the places vacated by strikers are insulted, beaten, and even killed. The employer's property is destroyed, his buildings burned, or blown up with dynamite, and his business assailed by criminal depredation. Such has been the record of violence in the last decade that even the most optimistic must feel at times a great apprehension as to the outcome. In the year 1908 the dynamiting of various properties, presumably by labor-union sympa- thizers amounted to a veritable reign of terror. There is for that year in the United States, accord- ing to one estimate,^ a record of twenty big ex- ' O'Higgins, Harve J., The Dynamiters, McClure's Magazine, Aug., 191 1. 2o5 LABOR'S APPEAL TO VIOLENCE 207 plosions on different works, besides four attempted explosions, and three very serious cases of tamper- ing with machinery. Several of these explosions were of an exceedingly destructive character, en- tailing great financial loss, and seriously interfer- ing with business enterprise. For 1909 and 1910 there is a record of thirty-five explosions of a more or less serious kind, three other unsuccessful at- tempts, and a number of savage assaults on work- ingmen. From England, France and Spain in recent months reports of similar occurrences have come. In France especially the appeal to violence by the wage-earners, what the French call sabotage, has been carried to an extent that has caused grave concern. Such violence is of the nature of real war, and it is evident that unless this spirit is brought under due restraint there is every prospect of even more serious trouble ahead. I The great menace to society from this quar- ter is in the emergence of a class morality that excuses lawlessness and violence when directed against an opposing class in the same way that a national morality, even in the case of the most highly organized states, excuses the most revolting 208 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT crimes against an enemy in times of war. Another and perhaps a better illustration is the race morality that under certain conditions sanctions a standard of conduct in dealing with one of another race that would not be tolerated in dealing with one of the same race. Thus the lynching of a negro is an act of violence as extreme as the most wanton murder, since it consists in taking human Hfe in defiance of law and authority. Yet the morality of lynching is often defended by many otherwise good citizens in the communities where such episodes occur. To such an extent does pubhc sentiment tolerate this outrage that the lynching of negroes for cer- tain crimes has become an established custom in various portions of the United States. That a dangerous class morality has already been developed by the two contending parties of the labor conflict is shown by the tendency of each side to minimize the moral precepts which especially interfere with its own operations, while placing all possible em- phasis upon those which the other side finds it to its interest to violate. Thus the capitalistic class has shown in recent years a marked disposition to consider itself persecuted if the laws against corporate abuses are enforced, while the same class and its newspaper organs will appeal most LABOR'S APPEAL TO VIOLENCE 209 fervently for law enforcement when the issue presented is of another character, as for example, the protection of non-union workingmen and strike- breakers from violence and intimidation. The labor unions on the other hand insistently demand the rigid and uncompromising enforcement of the conspiracy laws against the trusts, but not in the least against themselves. Just as diverse peoples living under different economic, social and rehgious conditions develop distinct and opposing ethical concepts, so the groups into which industrial society is now divided tend to develop diverse and opposing concepts, and thus originates the group morahty that is one of the most stubborn factors of the labor conflict.^ In this connection it is well to recall the centuries of struggle through which the wage-earners have passed, the strong prejudices they have necessarily inherited, and the primitive and undisciplined nature that they so often represent. In the present conflict of interests the position of the wage-earners is necessarily the inferior one, because they are the non-possessing class, and thus are handicapped by their hunger and lack of resource. They have ' Addams, Jane, Newer Ideals of Peace, Discussion of Group Morality, Chapter V. 2IO THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT to fight on their knees, as it were, with foemen who are on their feet. It therefore can hardly be thought surprising that class feeling among the wage- earners should often be extreme, that lawless tendencies should be developed, and that an ethic sanctioning certain forms of violence for class ends should appear. When the average moral senti- ment of great civilized nations can glory in the organized massacres of the battlefield, and when leading citizens of enlightened communities can publicly approve of lynching and murder for cer- tain crimes ^ it is not to be wondered at that whole battaUons of strikers should sincerely look upon violence as a necessary and legitimate means of gaining their ends. A distinguished mihtary critic has affirmed it as a self-evident principle that, "violence is a right for a people who fear for their existence." ^ Strikes by wage-earners were not of course the kind of violence that in this instance was under considera- 1 The most striking corroboration of this is furnished by the frequent appeals to the "unwritten law." On this ground homi- cides have been publicly indorsed and acquitted through judicial procedure in various parts of the United States. The pardon of Mrs. Birdseye by Governor Vardman of Mississippi in 1907 is a conspicuous instance. ' General Von der Goltz, cited International Journal oj Ethics, April, 1908, p. 336. LABOR'S APPEAL TO VIOLENCE 211 tion, but war between nations. Let us suppose, however, that labor philosophy should claim the same right in practice, and a class morality that sanctions the claim should be developed, and what would be the outcome? Since the right to resort to violence has ever been claimed by a people who fear for their existence, why should it be thought surprising, or be regarded as a mark of extraordinary depravity, that bands of strikers who fear for their jobs and for their bread and butter, which in a real sense are their existence, should also claim the same right? Here lies the great peril of the labor situation, and of the legalization of that open belligerency known as the strike, whereby the worst conditions of active antagonism and open violence are created. That the development of a morality sanctioning certain forms of violence in the interest of the labor cause has made great headway among the wage-earners there can be no doubt. Thus the dynamiter McNamara, a young man of at least a high average of intelHgence, pleasing address, strong and active sympathies, by no means a moral pervert, when arrested at Detroit with a satchel full of bombs, declared that he would "blow up the whole damn country if he thought it would give the laboring men their 212 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT rights." ^ This clearly is the feeling in its most acute and aggravated form that appeal to violence in behalf of labor instead of being a personal act is only a supreme manifestation of labor warfare, and that with the class interest in view explosives may be placed with as much ethical sanction as the batteries of opposing armies in times of international war. The growth of such a feeling among any con- siderable social group is clearly a certain prepara- tion for catastrophe. That the danger which we are now facing from this source may be more serious than is generally realized would seem to be shown by the growing intensity and savagery of labor conflicts. II The problem presented by the situation de- scribed and the growing peril that it represents, is exceedingly complex. The first great aspect of it is to awaken in both opposing groups of the labor conflict a proper realization of the claims of society as a whole whose interests are paramount. M. Jaures, the French socialist leader speaking in the Chamber of Deputies, once declared that "a strike is a state of war," and to this it was answered by another member of the Chamber that a strike ^O'Higgins, loc. cit., McClures' Magazine, August, 191 1. LABOR'S APPEAL TO VIOLENCE 213 is not simply a war between two adversaries but a 'war between two adversaries at the expense of the public." This without question is the proper view-point, and it is one, that in consideration of the growing tendency to violence in labor dif&cul- ties, both parties to the labor conflict must be brought to reaHze. From the standpoint of society as a whole labor's appeal to violence cannot be regarded other- wise than as a reversion to barbarism and as utterly and brutally wrong. All fair minded people will agree that the wage-earners have a right to unite in the effort to procure better industrial conditions for themselves,^ and a right to join in a refusal to work unless these conditions are supplied. They have also the right to dissuade other men from taking the places which they have left, and to use to this end all the influence at their command,^ but the resort to intimidation, coercion, and vio- lence, is clearly a subversion of the rights that any social class possesses since violence in its very nature is destructive of society itself. Labor, '■ Seligman, Principles of Economics, p. 439. * These rights of the wage-earners are in fact sustained by court decisions as, for example, the decision of Judge McPherson of the United States Circuit Court in the case of the Union Pacific Railroad Company »j. Reul, 120 Fed. 102 (1903). 214 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT furthermore, cannot hope to win by such high- handed methods because they inevitably tend to awaken the bitter and determined opposition of those classes in society without whose support labor cannot expect to establish its claim. The great unrest of the laboring classes throughout the world, says Mr. Carnegie, is a healthy sign. This unrest is the result of increased knowledge and not of ignorance, but the truth must somehow be impressed upon the workingmen that only by adherence to law will they attain their end. Their watchword must ever be "Improvement under the reign of law." ^ Happily for the cause of labor, the men who have the best right to speak for it clearly perceive this fact. No stronger, braver words have been spoken against labor's appeal to violence than by labor leaders themselves. "Above all and beyond all," says John Mitchell, "the leader entrusted with the conduct of a strike must be alert and vigi- lant in the prevention of violence. The strikers must be made constantly aware of the imperative necessity of remaining peaceable. Under no cir- cumstances should a strike be allowed to degener- ate into violence. A single act of violence while ' Signed Statement, London, September 24th, 191 1. LABOR'S APPEAL TO VIOLENCE 215 it may deter a strike breaker or a score of them, inflicts greater and more irreparable damage upon the party giving than upon the party receiving the blow. It is sometimes claimed that no strike can be won without the use of physical force. I do not believe that this is true, but if it is, it is better that the strike be lost than that it succeed through violence and the commission of outrage. The cause of unionism is not lost through any strike or any number of strikes, and if it were true that all strikes would fail if physical force could not be resorted to, it would be better to demonstrate that fact and seek remedy in other directions, than to permit strikes to degenerate into conflicts between armed men. The employers are perfectly justified in condemning as harshly as they desire the acts of any striker or strikers who are guilty of violence. I welcome the most sweeping denunciation of those acts, and the widest publicity that may be given to them by the press." ^ That the conduct of strikers has not measured up to this ideal is only too well attested, and the failure at this point has done much to bring organized labor into dis- repute.^ There is no room in a civihzed society 1 Mitchell John, Organized Labor, p. 318. ' It is only fair, however, to recognize that unionism has been, 2i6 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT for such violence as has characterized the labor troubles of recent years and the labor unions have no more urgent business to do than to purge them- selves of coercive measures of every kind, no matter at what cost to themselves. The labor unions in the very nature of the case are better qualified than any other agency to curb the spirit of violence among the workingmen and to keep their impulses law abiding, and society will not fail to hold them to a rigid account for any failure to accomplish this result. Ill Another aspect of the problem, and one that must be dealt with in particular by the church, relates more especially to the employing class. Since labor is held responsible for violence of out- break, it is only fair that it should be protected from undue incitement to such. In mechanics it is part of the engineer's responsibility to consider carefully the amount of physical weight and pressure that various substances will bear, how many pounds a given girder will sustain, how much an upright. Upon this science and its carefully considered on the whole, a conservative force. With the growth of unionism there has been a distinct amelioration in the conduct of strikes. Seligman, he. cit., p. 439. LABOR'S APPEAL TO VIOLENCE 217 mathematical details the safety and the well-being of the housed community very largely depend. At times the most carefully estimated plans will be spoiled by some unforeseen weakness in the struc- tural material and it will give way at a pressure, or strain apparently none too great. Such occur- rences, however, do not discourage the engineer, or make him abandon his interminable mathe- matics. In spite of unforeseen mishaps he con- tinues his calculations that he may better succeed eventually in properly gauging his materials and may not subject them to a strain that is forbidden by natural law. There is such a thing, also, as moral overstrain, a principle that appears never to have penetrated the minds of a great many of the employing class. A young man had just been tried for the theft of a lady's watch. The occurrence took place in New York at a period when times were hard and the streets and parks were filled with gaunt and hungry men. The owner of the watch had been shopping all day, moving here and there amidst this hungry throng, wearing the costly jewelry in full view attached by a Httle chain to her dress. The young man, haggard, half starved, had snatched the watch and tried to make away in the crowd. 2i8 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT At the close of the trial, when sentence had been pronounced upon the thief, the judge who had tried the case said to the plaintiff, "Madam, it is one of the great defects of the criminal law that it has no adequate punishment for those who tempt their fellows to crime. If it were in my power to do so, I can assure you that I would find it a more pleasant duty to impose an even severer sentence than the one I have just rendered on the vain woman who parades up and down the crowded streets of the city, filled as they are to-day with hungry people, wearing ostentatiously a glittering gew-gaw, tempting a thousand hungry men to do wrong. There are in my judgment two criminals involved in this case, and I regret that the law permits me to punish only one." ^ These rather caustic words have an application that is broader than to this particular case. The duty of not putting on the character of others a greater burden than it can safely bear, is as important as any in the realm of ethics, and the task of laying this duty upon the conscience of the employing class may well engage the energy of the church. Thus the refusal of many employers to arbitrate, or even to talk over a situation with the chosen ' Alger, G. W., Moral Overstrain, p. 14. LABOR'S APPEAL TO VIOLENCE 219 representatives of labor, and the common em- ployment of strike breakers for the coercion of labor before other and more peaceful methods have been tried are illustrations to the point. That the business concern has a legal right to employ others to take the place of strikers, without consulting the labor-union, has been fully decided by the courts, but in view of the present inflamed state of the proletariat, it is doubtful whether such a practice is ethically Justifiable or morally wise, except as a last resort. In speaking of the strike at Cripple Creek in 1903 one of the strikers declared that at first many of the men had not been in sympathy with it and had been inclined to take their stand on the side of the companies, but that as the non-union men began to be shipped in, and to be herded by the militia like cattle, the strikers had forgotten all about the real cause of the strike, and knew only that they hated the non-union men and the militia, and they wanted some way to "get back at them." Such has been the history of many strikes. When the strike breakers arrive upon the scene the angry passions of the strikers are inflamed and the lawlessness and violence begin. Employers need to realize and to take account of the fact that they are deaUng to a 2 20 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT great extent with rough and primitive men^ whose occupation often tends to make them put light value on Kfe and who are easily aroused by the sense of wrong to violence of act. Both good sense as well as good ethics suggest a greater con- sideration than is commonly shown for the human material which must be utilized in business and social enterprise that it may not be subjected to undue stress. IV There are also other appKcations of the principle of moral overstrain that need to be made, and it is for the church as much as for any other social institution to make them. The use that in recent years has been found for injunction proceedings with reference to labor disputes is a good example of what is meant. The system of injunction as a supplement to the common law dates back to very early times. When the king was supreme, and was looked upon as the fountain of justice and power, his subjects fell into the habit of coming to him with petitions of many kinds. The usurpa- tions of powerful nobles, Hke the closing of a right of way that belonged to a village, might leave but ' Ethical and Moral Aspects oj Trade Unionism — Typographical Tournal, Feb., 1909. LABOR'S APPEAL TO VIOLENCE 221 little chance of redress to the people from the common law. It therefore became the custom of subjects to petition the king, who in turn referred such petitions to his chancellor. The chancellor would issue a writ in the name of the king com- manding the offending party to appear and to answer the request of the petitioners, and to show reason for his action. Testimony having been taken on both sides the facts were reported to the king who might enjoin the wrong-doer from continuing his wrongful act under penalty of im- prisormient for contempt, if he disobeyed the in- junction. In time this practice became crystal- lized into a system of jurisprudence called equity, as distinguished from common law. The chancellor became a judge who decided petitions in the name of the king, but without troubling him, and the system was gradually expanded to include manda- mus commands requiring persons to do things as well as to refrain from doing them. Our forefathers brought the idea to this country, and from the very outset it has been a part of the American method of administering justice. The value to society of this method of jurisprudence, if properly safe-guarded, can hardly be questioned. Rightly used it is calculated to facilitate the peace and 222 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT harmony of the social order since thereby certain acts of individuals or groups of individuals may be restrained until other legal processes can be brought to bear. There is, however, a wrong use of equity jurisprudence that has done much to inflame the wage-earning class. In the case of the Sun Print- ing and Publishing Company, for example, against certain labor unionists in 1899, the supreme court of New York enjoined the defendants from giving the public their side of the controversy with the Sun with the view of dissuading advertisers from patron- izing a paper by which they claimed to have been treated unfairly. They were also enjoined from any attempt to persuade newsdealers from selling the paper and from attempting in any manner or by any means to interfere with the property, prosperity, rights or business of the plaintiffs. Likewise in the case against the Cigar Makers International Union in 1900, the defendants were enjoined from approaching their former employers even for the purpose of securing an amicable settlement; from making their case known to the public if the ten- dency of doing so was to vex the plaintiffs or make them uneasy; from trying, though in a peaceful way, in any part of the city, even in the privacy of their own home, to persuade a new employe that LABOR'S APPEAL TO VIOLENCE 223 Justice was on their side; and finally, the union was enjoined from paying money to the strikers to support their families during the strike. More flagrant, even, than such invasion of the consti- tutional rights of American citizens has been the actual imprisonment, as in the case of John Smith and others by the United States circuit court of West Virginia, for contempt of court on account of having violated the court's injunction restrain- ing them from cursing certain strike breakers.^ These of course are extreme illustrations of the misuse of the injunction, but it is possible to gather from the record of legal proceedings during the past decade a surprisingly large number of equity cases that clearly represent an invasion by the courts of the constitutional rights of wage-earners, and which from every point of view were calculated to stir up bitterness and to incite passionate re- sistance.^ The church should be slow to pass criticism on the courts, but when the courts, whose function is to promote justice, become the instruments of in- ' Leavett, J. B., Bliss, New Encyclopedia of Social Reform, Article Injunctions. Commons, Trade Unions and Labor Problems, Injunctions and Trial by Jury, Chap VIII. '^ Government by Injunction. Law Quarterly Review, Vol. XIII, p. 362. Stimpson, F. J., The Modern Use of Injunctions. 2 24 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT justice the church would be remiss to its duty did it not speak out fearlessly for the rights of the people. Thus the interference by injunction with the wage-earner's right of free speech should call forth the united protest of all Christian bodies. There is no right that the church prizes more, or upon which it depends more for its own efi&ciency than the right of free speech, and this right that the church insists upon for itself it should champion for every individual and social class. The inter- ference by equity proceedings with the wage- earner's right of trial by jury should also call forth the church's protest. Since the days of Magna Charta the right of trial by jury has been cherished by the people as one of the chief guarantees of their hberties, and it is surely within the province of the church to defend the people against any invasion of this sacred prerogative. The church, furthermore, may very properly urge upon the pubHc the danger to society of de- pending upon questionable mandamus proceedings in special emergencies instead of invoking the due processes of the common law. "Illegal injunc- tions in labor disputes," as one writer declares, "that are granted because the officers of the law will not do their duty, are for the public what LABOR'S APPEAL TO VIOLENCE 225 morphine is for the individual, an alleviation of present pain at the expense of future misery. Yet doctors prescribe morphine and their patients take it. Judges grant questionable injunctions and the pubKc approves them." ^ The public must some- how be brought to realize that the real remedy against any unlawful stretch of power by courts of equity is the creation of public opinion that will sustain the proper and duly appointed exec- utors of the common law in the lawful use of their powers to the fullest extent. V Once more it is for the church to do its part to make the public realize the strain that is necessarily imposed upon the wage-earners by the present legahzation of labor disputes with- out the estabHshment of an adequate or au- thoritative court of appeal for the settlement of such disputes. The need is urgent that in some way the pubHc shall be brought to see that behind both capital and labor is society as a whole whose interests are paramount, that the commimity as a whole may step in between in- dustrial belligerents, and require such restrictions ' Leavett, J. B., loc. cit., p. 627. 226 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT upon their respective rights as the interests of society in general shall dictate. In the words of the distinguished French statesman, M. Clemen- ceau in his reply to the Sociahst leader M. Jaures, "the right of the state to intervene between in- dustrial adversaries is the right that society has to live." ^ This aspect of the situation is very clearly one that the pubhc needs to grasp more fully, and what other institution is better qualified than the church to render such a service. The problem though in certain features an economic one has nevertheless its moral side, and the church owes it to society to lead the common thought at this important point. For the purposes of this chapter it is unnecessary to consider the extent to which this restrictive process should go. The fear so frequently ex- pressed that intervention by society between the opponents of the labor conflict looking toward a curtailment of the rights of belligerency would destroy labor's power of self-preservation is very probably misplaced. Undeniably the power of labor to protect itself must be conserved in order that it may be kept from falling back into its old ' Cited by W. L. Cook, Inlernaiional Journal oj Ethics, April, igoS, p. 338. , LABOR'S APPEAL TO VIOLENCE 227 time subserviency, but there is surely reason to ques- tion whether the power of labor to protect itself is really furthered by the legahzation of a situation that works injury to the whole of society, and in the end reacts upon labor itself. The real power of labor to protect itself is in the possession of a proper suffrage. Thus safe-guarded labor can have no reasonable ground of complaint if society intervenes in labor difficulties in order to compel restriction within limits that society can safely endure. If the church is primarily a social institution with a commission from its founder to establish the reign of truth, justice and right, is it not evi- dent that it has urgent and important work to do on the hnes suggested by this chapter? As a social institution the church must be mindful of the common Hfe, it must speak with impartiality for the common good of each social class, and it must be constructive and not merely destructive in its message. Society grappling with the problems that threaten to destroy it has a right to look to the church for moral leadership at these most puzzling and vital points. CHAPTER XI THE ESTABLISHMENT OF LABOR COURTS Attention was called in the previous chapter to the strain that is necessarily imposed upon the wage-earners by the present legaHzation of labor disputes and the absence of adequate or authorita- tive legal machinery for the settlement of such dis- putes. The obvious expedient suggested by this situation is the labor court, and the purpose of this chapter is to consider the movement that looks to the establishment of labor courts, and whether the church may wisely cast its influence on the side of that movement. For over a century the question of establishing special courts for the settlement of labor disputes has been more or less agitated, and as early as 1806 under the decree of Napoleon such a court was temporarily estab- hshed in France. Public sentiment, however, has developed slowly and it is only within very recent years that the suggestion has been treated seriously by any considerable number of people, and that law-making bodies have attempted to give it 22S LABOR COURTS 229 appropriate legal sanction. The experiment is so recent that the data for a thorough-going study of the practical workings of the system is not yet available. I The European countries which have adopted the labor court are France, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and even slow-moving Spain has decided lately to follow this lead of the more advanced states. In the year 1906 there were 164 such courts in France which handled in that year 45,834 cases of more or less serious labor difl&culties. In 1909 the labor courts of Paris alone settled 24,500 disputes. In 1908 there were 469 labor courts in Germany, which handled in that year 112,281 cases of dispute, the courts of Berlin having settled 14,000 of these cases. In other European countries Kke Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, and Holland the plan has not yet become so fully worked out as in France and Germany, but the little data available makes it clear that so far as it has been tried very gratifying results have been produced. Thus during 1903 in Austria no strikes and lockouts were settled by this method, and in the same year in Holland there were 230 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT seventy-three cases of amicable industrial nego- tiations conducted by means of the special courts, and thirteen strikes and lockouts settled.^ Besides the European countries that have es- tablished industrial courts special mention must be made of the British colonies of Australia. The system in operation there is the most thorough- going experiment of the kind that has yet been made. Prior to the establishment of the present system of compulsory courts there had been in all the Australasian colonies a system of conciUation councils somewhat similar to the "conseils de prud'hommes " of France, but these had not proven adequate to cope with the industrial situation. After the great maritime strike in 1890 a move- ment for compulsory arbitration arose. The agita- tion began in Australia but the colony of New Zealand was the first to secure the passage of an arbitration law and the enactment of this law in 1894 was followed by the passage of the Western Australian Law of 1900, and the New South Wales Law in 1904.^ Although all these legislative efforts were preceded by exhaustive investigation of ' Hatch, L. P., Art. Arbitration, Bliss, Encyclopedia Social Reform. Bulletin, Bureau of Labor, No. 56, pp. 261-296; No. 60, pp. 410-462. Washington. ^Bulletin, Bureau of Labor, No. 56., p. 57. Washington. LABOR COURTS 231 measures for strike prevention in other countries, and the results were embodied in a voluminous report, it was not until several unsuccessful ex- periments had been tried that the present laws were put into force. When the compulsory arbitration measures were first proposed in the various colonies of Australia the condition of pubhc opinion was one of indifference. Prior to the enactment of the present legislation a few labor leaders and theo- rists had suggested the possibility of a state tri- bunal to settle industrial disputes, but such pro- posals as a rule were more or less hesitating and indefinite. The present policy was thought out and urged upon the people by statesmen of broad popular sympathies, who were able only after the most strenuous efforts to awaken pubhc interest enough to bring about the adoption of their pro- posals. "Mildly interested, rather amused, very doubtful, the New Zealand parliament allowed the proposal to become a law, and then turned to more engrossing and less visionary measures." ^ Very significant, therefore, is the fact that the attitude both of statesmen and of the pubhc in a few years has changed from complete indiffer- ence to the most eager interest. There are no ' Clark, Victor S., The Labor Movement in Australasia, p. 159. 232 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT other measures discussed by the various legislative bodies of these colonies which awaken a more general interest, or have a greater influence in determining political groupings and cabinet crises. II As all the arbitration laws of the various coun- tries are related by rather close ties of derivation, the machinery, procedure, and jurisdiction that they create are somewhat similar. To indicate in a broad way some of the more important features of the arbitration method is all that is possible here, and it is that all is essential for the purpose of this chapter. In general it may be said that both by their composition and by their method the labor courts are peculiarly adapted to deal with disputes between employers and workingmen, and they are so constituted as to inspire confidence in both parties. Since perfect fairness is aimed at both employers and employes are given a voice in deter- mining the personnel of the courts. In France the number of judges who constitute the court is even and the individual members are chosen equally from employers and workingmen. In Germany the num- ber of judges who constitute the court is made odd by the addition of a president who is neither an em- LABOR COURTS 233 ployer nor a workingman to an equal number of judges chosen respectively from the two op- posing classes. Generally speaking there is no legal training ^ required by the European custom as a condition of becoming a member of the in- dustrial court. The judges, however, are furnished with a handbook which contains a description of the method of procedure, the laws and regulations under which the court is organized, and other laws which govern the labor contract.^ To a certain extent these labor courts, especially those of Europe are of a permissive character. The courts of Germany in partictdar may be formed either by the communes ^ or the communal unions, for the districts under their jurisdiction, and as a rule all the larger towns have their independent courts, with regulations duly approved by the president of the district. When the court, however, is not estabUshed on communal initiative either the employes or the employers may set the law in operation by requesting the proper authorities to estabhsh a court. Action failing after such re- quest has been made the higher administrative 1 In certain instances, notably in the German plan, the presi- dent of the court must be a trained jurist. 2 Dawson, William H., The German Workman, pp. 176-193. ^ Bulletin, Bureau oj Labor, Xo. 60. Washington. 234 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT authorities of the state may step in and compel the appHcation of the law. Worthy of note, also, is the fact that in the Eiuropean plan under certain restrictions there may be appeals from the judgments of the industrial courts to the ordinary courts. Thus in France if the value in dispute amounts to 300 francs the decision of the indus- trial court may be appealed. In Germany if the value is but 100 marks the judgment of the court may be appealed. In certain cases, moreover, notably among the Swiss cantons, the jurisdiction of the courts is limited to minor disputes, and in France all cases of disputes which involve 1,000 francs or more must be tried by the ordinary courts.^ In the case of the Australian courts, however, there is greater prerogative. The labor courts both of AustraHa and New Zealand have the usual power of civil courts, and are entirely in- dependent of appeal to other judicial powers ex- cept on questions that involve the interpretation of the act of parHament that created it. The presi- dent of an Australasian labor court is ordinarily a justice of the supreme court of the state, though in cases where a justice of the supreme court refused to serve, as has sometimes happened, • Gemeinden, Kommunaherhdnde. LABOR COURTS 235 provision is made for the appointment to this ofi&ce of a lower judge. ^ The emphasis that is laid upon conciHation is another feature of the labor court that is de- serving of particular mention. Indeed there are many friends of the system both in Europe and Australasia who measure its success not by the number of disputes settled but by the number of instances in which parties have been persuaded to come to an agreement without the necessity of formal judgment being pronounced by the court. The French courts, for example, are divided into a bureau of conciliation and a bureau of judgment. The bureau of conciliation is composed of one employer and one workingman, and its function is to bring about a voluntary agreement between the parties to a dispute. To this end it holds private sessions, and conducts preliminary hearings, and as the result of its efforts only about seventeen per cent of all the cases that are brought before the labor courts of France have to be passed on to the bureau of judgment. In Germany the functions of a bureau of conciliation are performed in effect by the non-partisan president of the labor court. This president is authorized to hold preliminary ' Bulletin, Bureau of Labor, No. 56. p. 78. 236 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT hearings whenever he deems such action advisable, and the result is that only nine or ten per cent of the complaints submitted to the courts have had to be formally tried. The record of the Swiss courts is almost as good. In some of the Swiss cantons the law does not specifically authorize preliminary hearings, but in various cases these hearings have been voluntarily undertaken. Thus in Zurich in 1909 it is said that a certain wise and eij&cient judge settled sixty-five per cent of the complaints entered, and conducted the proceedings of the court so skillfully that in only ten per cent of the cases was it necessary to pronounce formal judgment after hearing both parties.^ Ill However, it must be granted that the indus- trial courts have not yet passed the experimental stage and that in spite of the many good results they have brought, the point has not yet been reached where it can be affirmed unqualifiedly that they present a satisfactory remedy for the existing maladjustments of industrial fife. In Europe where the labor courts partake so largely of a permissive character they have not yet brought the relief ' Hatch, Leonard W., Article Arbitration. Bliss, Encyclopedia Social Reform. LABOR COURTS 237 from strikes and lockouts that many so confidently believed they would accomplish. That they have made some contribution in this respect, especially in Germany and Switzerland, the facts would seem to indicate, but they have not proven a panacea by any means. In Australasia, where the courts have far more authority than in Europe and where they are of a compulsory character, they have brought relief from such disturbances as the strike and the lockout but according to some observers they have brought other complications that are hardly less serious than the evils which they were designed to correct. It is claimed, for example, that the industrial court, by interfering with the freedom of contract, has proven an obstruction to business en- terprise, and has worked injury to both employers and employed as well as to the community at large. It is affirmed that while the original intent of the Australasian laws was that the labor courts should enforce collective bargains the practical outcome has been that the state makes collective bargains, that it directly interferes with the employers' free- dom in conducting their business, that in some cases it has discouraged the investment of capital, and in others has caused dealers to import commod- ities that they would have otherwise manufactured, 238 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT all of which means an economic loss that affects the whole community. Considerable effort has also been made to show that the awards of labor courts have tended to be rigid, inflexible, and unadapted to the indus- trial capacity of laborers, and that the result has been to work great injustice to many classes of wage-earners and ultimately to place a heavy burden upon the weaker members of society. The conten- tion is that since the average, or mediocre workers always predominate, it is their interests that are uppermost in the labor courts, that shape the policies of arbitration authorities, dictate the awards, and that the inevitable result is conditions of employ- ment that discount exceptional ability, and deaden the enterprise of more ambitious workers. The argument in other words, is that the awards of labor courts tend to bring about a level of wages for all employes, a condition that makes it difficult for the employer to place before his exceptional workers adequate incentives to induce them to apply their utmost abilities to their tasks, and that hence the value of their potential service is lost to society. It is maintained further that since the employer's interest is to secure the smallest possible payroll for a given output he not only LABOR COURTS 239 finds in the awards of the labor courts an oppor- tunity to cut the wages of the most efficient workers, but also to dispense with the slower and less effi- cient ones and that hence the difficulties of the latter who constitute a large proportion of the industrial army, instead of being alleviated are greatly increased.^ Were it clearly proven that the application of the arbitration idea necessarily works such an outcome it would be no doubt sufficient to discour- age any further agitation upon the part of serious and well informed people for the general estab- lishment of industrial courts. The evidence at hand, however, does not show that the practical workings of arbitration in the Australasian coun- tries have been followed by such drawbacks. While there is reason to believe that the investment of foreign capital has been discouraged somewhat by the novelty and uncertainty of arbitration legisla- tion, there has evidently been the local capital to make good the loss, and business has suffered no permanent check. " The impression that the coimtry makes upon a visitor," says a well qual- ' The chapter on Conciliation and Arbitration in Webb's Industrial Democracy presents strongly the argument against compulsory arbitration. 240 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT ified observer, "is not that of a land where in- dustry is paralyzed and business stagnated, but rather the reverse. Permanent and costly buildings are being erected in the larger cities, public im- provements are going forward, the wharves are crowded with shipping, and the railroad service is fully occupied." * In New Zealand, especially, which was the first of the Australasian states to establish labor courts, the evidence of continued prosperity is very marked. Thus the government statistics show that for the eight years following the enactment of the arbitration law the export trade of New Zealand increased fifty-nine per cent as against twenty-seven per cent during the eight preceding years. This of course does not establish the wisdom of labor courts, but it effectively an- swers the objection that compulsory arbitration tends to fetter business enterprise. Neither does the evidence at hand appear to support the objection that arbitration works in- justice to certain classes of laborers and tends to place a heavier burden on the weaker members of society. The growing interest of the Australasian wage-earners in the arbitration experiment, and the undoubted support which it receives from the ' Clark, Victor S., loc. cit., p. 219. LABOR COURTS 241 great body of them after a trial of ten years is sufficiently conclusive here. Untried laws, espe- cially in new fields of experience, almost always develop features that are not for the welfare of all. The arbitration laws of Australasia have been no exception to the rule. The benefits conferred have been quahfied by disadvantages, but the grow- ing interest of all classes in the arbitration plan, and the enthusiastic support of it by the great body of citizens after ten years of trial would seem to indicate that at least the total effect has been good. IV Although the experiment with labor courts, so far as it has been tried, has not provided a panacea for labor ills, and although in many instances the advantages bestowed have been qualified by dis- advantages, it represents a principle that can hardly fail eventually to win the consent of enHghtened minds, and to become more and more the guiding principle of all civilized communities. This prin- ciple is that the welfare both of the disputants themselves and of society at large is more hkely to be subserved by reasonable adjudication than by any appeal to force. In one very important 242 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT aspect social progress is but a record of the process by which successive classes of controversies have been withdrawn from the sphere of private settle- ment and made subject to pubhc control. All matters that are now brought into court were once decided by the club or by the sword. Property was first established and maintained by force, then settled by voluntary arbitration, and last of all determined by the judgment of a public tribunal. The history of civil law retains traces of all these stages of procedure. Whenever state interference has been extended to cover a new class of disputes, it has been in response to the same considerations that apply to strikes and lockouts. The justification for such extensions has been found in public policy, the need of maintaining peace in the community, and of protecting third parties from interference, and inconvenience, as well as in the ideal end of securing abstract justice for the disputants themselves. The strike, the lockout, the boycott, and the black list as means of settling labor difficulties, the same as war for the settlement of disputes between nations, are based upon the assumption that might makes right. The awakening moral sense of society, however, is refusing more and more LABOR COURTS 243 to admit this assumption. The highest minds everywhere have come to recognize that might does not always make right, but that on the con- trary it often means the perpetuation of cruel wrongs, oppression, spoliation, injury to the weak and defenseless, the aggravation rather than the solution of human ills. As a measure of coercion war is meant simply to hurt the adversary, but in reaHty it hurts every one within the circle of its influence, the victors at times not less than the vanquished. The Duke of Wellington is reported to have said that, "Nothing except a battle lost is half so melancholy as a battle won." With no less pertinence it may be said that nothing except a strike that is lost is half so melancholy as a strike that is won. Intended only to hurt the employer, the strike in facts hurts every one. Even when not accompanied by violence and destruction, the strike as a rule is responsible for a serious train of economic injuries both to the contestants and to the community as a whole. In the international peace court at the Hague, and in the labor courts of Europe and Australia we have the first feeble provisions for the submission to reasonable adjudi- cation of the more extensive and serious classes of social disputes which for centuries have been a 244 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT hindrance to progress and a social curse. If these first imperfect efforts to apply the principle of arbitration to the most serious social disturbances have not been wholly satisfactory, if the great results that were so confidently anticipated have not yet been achieved, it serves only to emphasize further the need of pressing home to men the ad- vantages of reasonable adjudication over the appeal to force until the social conscience shall assert it- self, and all kinds of disputes that jeopardize human welfare shall be brought under social control.^ From the standpoint of expediency, also, there is much to be said for the estabhshment of labor courts. A growing sense of injustice against which there is no legal remedy has often been the cause of the most revolutionary social upheaval. The belief of the American colonists that they were unjustly taxed and that they could not secure a fair hearing before the British government, led to the American Revolution. In the same way the belief of the EngKsh workingmen that they were un- fairly treated in the wage bargain, and that the legal remedy supposed to be obtained by the conciHation act of 1907 was so slow and ineffective in its action as to be worse than useless, led to the recent labor ' Seligman, Edwin R. A., Principles of Economics, pp. 445-447. LABOR COURTS 245 upheaval in Great Britain. Back of the present restlessness of the wage-earners there is a growing sense of injustice that is nurtured by a thousand small disputes, many of them personal and in- dividually petty, against which there is no effective means of redress. In the United States, as in England, it has generally been assumed that for the adjudication of all such grievances the ordinary courts are sufl&cient. In actual practice, however, such is not the case. Though the wage-earner who feels himself unfairly treated by an employer may appeal to the ordinary courts it means not only that he must submit to great inconvenience, and delay, but that he must have a legal adviser and incur the risk of a fee out of all proportion to his loss. As a rule the workman's wages are too meager and his supply of ready money is too hmited to justify recourse to expensive legal procedure. The bitterness of feeling that is such a conspicuous element of the labor movement is to some extent an outcome of this situation. The failure to bring the common law as administered by the courts within the reach of the poor but independent toilers has created in them a resentment which, unless some proper outlet is provided may easily become the breeding ground of revolt. 246 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT One of the chief points in favor of the labor court is that it affords the workingman a cheap and speedy means of redress especially in those minor disputes which are responsible for so much of the ill feeling in industrial life.^ As a rule the proceedings are much less formal than those of an ordinary court. In some instances, notably in the case of German courts, lawyers are entirely excluded, and the judges take a much more active part in questioning the witnesses than is custom- ary in other courts. Both plaintiff and defendant are permitted to tell their own story and plead their own case. In no instance is a disputant obKged to hire legal advice, and the court fees are reduced to a minimum. In some of the Swiss cantons the fees are wholly eHminated. In France none are paid if the amount in dispute is less than twenty francs, or about four dollars. In Germany no fees are demanded if the parties reach a volun- tary agreement, and in the case of disputes which do not exceed in value a hundred marks, or twenty- five dollars, where judgment has to be rendered the cost is from one to three marks, or twenty- five to seventy-five cents. As a result of this cheapness and rapidity of action no complaint ' Dawson, William H., loc. cit., p. 182. LABOR COURTS 247 is too insignificant to be brought before the in- dustrial court. In the German Empire in 1908 it is said that of all the complaints brought before the industrial court only seven per cent were for amounts over twenty-five dollars. If on first thought such cases seem trivial, further reflection makes it clear that adequate provision for the cheap and speedy settlement of minor grievances is one of the most fundamental elements of justice. By such means the average workingman will be safe- guarded against that feeling of injury that other- wise might easily convert him into an enemy of society. V In view of the manifest advantages of reason- able adjudication over the appeal to force, and of the need of providing for the wage-earners a more cheap and speedy means of redress than is afforded by the ordinary courts it would seem that the chirrch might render a valuable service to society and one that is entirely in line with its recognized mission, by putting its influence on the side of industrial conciliation and by actively seeking to prepare public opinion for a general adoption of arbitration courts. Said the founder of Chris- 248 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT tianity, "If thy brother sin against thee, go show him his fault between thee and him alone. If he hear thee thou hast gained thy brother. But if he hear thee not take with thee one or two more that at the mouth of two witnesses or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he refuse to hear them, tell it unto the church." ^ By this teaching the founder of Christianity clearly summoned men to submit their difficulties to the arbitrament of reason as against that of violence. As civiHzation has advanced we have learned in various ways to apply this principle, and the question that is now pressing upon us is whether it is not capable of further application, and whether it may not prop- erly be applied to all classes of social and industrial as well as individual disputes. The New Testa- ment came in a time that is much younger than ours. Many of the complex social problems that now vex the world were not then foreseen, and hence the modern man often looks up from his Bible to find himself confronted by questions con- cerning which it is silent. However, if there is in the literature of early Christianity no specific teach- ing in reference to present social difl&culties there is no paucity in the statement of principles, and 'Mat. i8: 15, 17. LABOR COURTS 249 it is for the church of each generation to apply these in ways that will subserve the social needs. Human nature on the whole is tremendously conservative and averse to change, even when the need of change is perfectly in evidence. In each generation the idea has obtained with the majority of people that the inherited order is a settled one, that can only be modified to the damage of human welfare, and hence they resist change as dangerous to property and damaging to persons. Because of this spirit great social abuses are allowed to perpetuate themselves, issuing at last in violent social revolt. Society cannot remain stationary. Progress there must be. New institutions must be created that will meet the needs of an expanding social life. Such changes, however, should come by evolution and not by revolution, and the church by a wise education of public opinion on the Hnes suggested by this chapter might do much to bring this about. In every change of the social order, and in every effort to create new social machinery like that of the labor court it is of course true that there are economic and political factors that must be taken into account. The church caimot reverse the laws of gravity and enable people to rise by their own boot straps to a higher social plane. Changes must 2 so THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT come in conformity to economic and political law, or be speedily rendered ineffective by contact with stubborn facts. On the other hand, it is cer- tain that the church cannot afford to withhold its sanction of needed social changes and reforms until the economic and political problems have been worked out. The practical certainty that is felt by the highest minds that reasonable adjudication is better than an appeal to violence may be given concrete expression by the church in the effort to prepare public opinion for a general adoption of conciliation and arbitration courts. CHAPTER XII THE NEW SOCIAL ORDER AND THE RISE OF A TRUE CATHOLIC CHURCH "The old order change th yielding place to new, And God fulfills himself in many ways Lest one good custom should corrupt the world." '■ The new social order will be Christian and fraternal. Given the arc of a circle and the whole can be determined. Similarly the present social development affords some prevision of the future. Reaction there may be, or upheaval that will obstruct temporarily the wheels of progress, but the moral height to which the world has now come is the guarantee that the Christian and Fraternal spirit will eventually triumph. The founder of Christianity foresaw the new social order and de- clared it when he said, "The Kingdom of God is at hand." ^ In attempting to restate the teachings of Jesus in the terms of to-day's thought, there is ' Cited by Shailer Matthews, The Church and the Changing Social Order, p. i. 2 Mark i: 14, 15. 251 2S2 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT always the danger that exposition may wait too subserviently upon desire. The impression, how- ever, is unavoidable, when unbiased by traditional usage we consider the words of Jesus, that the goal of his efforts was the estabhshment of an ideal society quite as much as the production of an ideal individual. His hearers also put this construction on his language. They hailed him as the successor of David, ^ and tried to make him the leader of a revolution.^ There were some, indeed, who carried this idea so far that they tried to preempt the offices of the future state.' That Jesus did not yield more completely to some of the efforts made by his hearers to hurry the realization of his hopes is less a testimony to their understanding than to his own sagacity. I To the mind of Jesus the fraternal social order is the natural consequence of the faith that God is the common father. Man has but to put him- self in filial relation to God and the "Kingdom of God," or the society of brothers inevitably follows. In the old legend of the Norse god the horn of the god could not be em.ptied because the lower end of it rested in the sea. Whoever 'Mat. 21 : g. ^joj^ g. jj^ ^ Mat. 20: 21. THE NEW SOCIAL ORDER 353 tried to empty the horn was trying to drain the inexhaustible sea. In the thought of Jesus, man's soul is like that horn. God stands related to man as an eternal flood tide of Ufe and love. Where man fails in the sense of God society is mechanical, pitiless, harsh. Detachment and isolation from the sense of Good means lovelessness, but where man knows himself in God, the collective consciousness develops, unity springs out of diversity, the feeling of soHdarity displaces that of isolation, there arises the conviction of brotherhood and the impulse to service. The true social order of the world, ac- cording to the teaching of Jesus, has its perfect symbol in the parable of the vine and the branches. '^ As the branches cannot bear fruit if they become fragments, no more can men be righteous and just in detachment and isolation. The true society, therefore, is the fellowship of men in filial obedience to God, and in the practice of the law of love. The society of brothers is the kingdom of God, and such manifestly is the society that is slowly but surely rising in the world. That an unknown, uninfluential Jew Kke Jesus should have visions of a universal empire of brothers is to say the least remarkable. Yet no one can read ijohn 15: i-ii. 254 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT the words he spoke, especially during the latter part of his career without being convinced that in the expectations of Jesus the new society was not to be limited by either geographical or political boundaries. Furthermore, if we are to regard the commission to his followers to "go and teach all nations " ^ as representing in any faintest way his thought, the conclusion is unavoidable that he was concerned with the whole world as much as with Judea and Gahlee. The fact that Jesus himself seems deliberately to have declined such wider labors is to be explained as a part of a well ordered plan in which his own work consisted fun- damentally in the gathering of a few devoted fol- lowers who should be so imbued with his own spirit as to become at once the instructors and the nucleus of a new society. Remarkable also is the conception that per- meates the teaching of Jesus that the process by which the Jewish and heathen worlds were to be transformed was not that of a new subjection to external law, but a growth from within. The symbol of the new society is the seed planted in the field and growing no one knowing how, "first the blade, then the ear, and after that the full 'John 12: 32; Luke 13: 29; John 17: 18-20; Mat. 28: 19. THE NEW SOCIAL ORDER 255 com in the ear." ^ To the mind of Jesus the capacity of men for brotherhood was as truly normal and human as any other capacity of human nature, and therefore as capable of development as any other capacity. He accordingly believed that the world, or the existing social environment, that was made up of men and women so largely xmder the control of evil purposes and unbrotherly ideals might be won to nobihty and fraternahsm, and the force that he trusted to work this trans- formation was the love that springs from the sense of kinship. If two men who are brothers in the physical sense love each other instinctively and spontaneously, thereby insuring the fraternahsm of the family, so the apprehension by men of their common nature in God must ultimately bring a fraternal society. Faith in a common fatherhood was therefore the leaven that was to leaven the whole lump, but it could do this only because the lump was leavenable. In the teaching of Jesus the process of the new fraternal society is by analogy organic. The growth of seed and the hfe of plants suppHed his most characteristic analogies.^ Such a habit of 'Mark 4: 28. 2 Mat. 13: 33, Mat. 13: 31, Mark 4: 3, Mat. 13: 24-30. 2S6 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT thought can hardly be regarded as the result of chance. These symbols were deliberately chosen, and were intended to emphasize the truth that back of any permanent social growth there must be a sympathy in purpose, and a similarity of capacity, that is akin to the apprehension and the assimilation of parts of its environment by the living organism. The social environment, in other words, is made up of convertible men, and from this environment the new society which at the outset consisted of but a handful of those who had come into the experience of a newly revealed son- ship of God and brotherhood with each other, was to select, convert and assimilate whom it could, and what institutions it could, and through these newly acquired elements it was to grow and to be ever more capable of further growth, Hke the seed in the ground nourished and made great by the surroundings within which it finds itself. II The impregnation of hvunanity with the fraternal ideal has been a slow and wearisome process, and not infrequently it has been the occasion of hap- penings that have made of brotherhood a caricature deserving only contempt. Thus the fraternalism THE NEW SOCIAL ORDER 257 of the French Revolutionists was only a mask that concealed a form of tyranny worse than that of the regimen that they tried to destroy. ^ Robespierre knew no more about real fraternity than did Louis XIV. Danton was as great a tyrant as Rich- eHeu. The rights of man were recognized in theory only. What was so loudly and blatantly declared to be the dawn of a fairer day was in reality the red glare of hallucination. Even the profession of brotherhood that is represented by American de- mocracy has thus far been more or less of a cari- cature. The treatment, for example, that has been accorded the colored population of the country is conclusive evidence that the real spirit and im- plications of brotherhood have by no means been appreciated. The majesty of brotherhood, how- ever, is now beginning to dawn upon us like the sun, and the craving for a social order that is brotherly is all the while becoming more insistent.^ The one subject which in various forms is everywhere i"3Iber ber ^imtnel triibte fic^ balb. Um ben SBorteil bet $ert= ©tritt ein DerberbteS unmurbig, bog ®ute ju f(iiaffcn. ©ie ermorbetcn fic^ unb untetbtUcEten bie neuen yiai^baxn unb SBrUber unb fanbten bie eiaennUijige aKenge." ' The new Progressive platform is tiie most recent and in some respects the most powerful political expression of this ideal that has yet been produced. 2S8 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT uppermost concerns human relations and duties. This is evidenced by the growth of democratic ideals, by the increasing power and prominence of the laboring classes, by the quickness with which those seeking pohtical preferment discern that they have to deal with the many rather than the few, by the increasing frequency and boldness of the revolts of employes, and perhaps most of all by the changing emphasis of religious teach- ing. In every modern community the religious teachers of widest influence, the real prophets of the age, are those who place in the forefront of their teaching the word brotherhood. To the common people of the world the phrase that stands for most to-day is the brotherhood of man. This belief is the inspiration of the new social con- sciousness that is slowly but surely rising, and that in recent years has become a force with which every civilized community has to reckon. In many cases the new fraternal impulse is still blind and frantic, and hence the selfish panaceas that are proposed. The evidence, however, is accumulating that the majesty of fraternalism gradually is being discerned and that its true content at last is being realized. It would be too much to claim that Christian THE NEW SOCIAL ORDER 259 teaching and influence is wholly responsible for the rising interest in fraternity, since the path on which society is impelled is ever the resultant of complex forces. The great elemental things in hfe have always been, and always must be the basis of united social action. Thus within the physical sphere there is the passion for food. A community rises or dies as one man if starvation be upon it. There is also the passion for war, a passion it is true that is inherited from a savage past, but which nevertheless within certain b'mits has done much to link men together and to give them the sense of sohdarity. A httle higher is the desire to acquire property. From the earliest times this desire has broken across geographical wastes and bound people of different races together. Commercial interests have ever proven a tremen- dously unifying influence. They have risen superior even to the passion of war, and have worked in the interest of peace and amity, where formerly men rushed headlong into battle. Higher still is the religious impulse. Faith in some power outside of ourselves, the instinct to pray, the belief that in some way the world is not the result of chance, is not merely something that has been added to life, it is elemental and instinctive. Wide as the 26o THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT gap may seem that separates the faith of the savage kneehng before his god of wood or stone, from that of the philosopher who constructs a system of theistic beUef there is unquestionably the same root in both. This it is that has made the Christian teaching of the divine paternity the greatest social dynamic in the history of the human race. Because, as an early Christian philosopher declares, the soul of man is naturally Christian,^ the message of Christ has been able to call men from business and daily routine, and to join them in the invisible kingdom of God. "By helping men to trust God better Christianity is helping them to trust each other better. By making men resemble God in universahty of interest it is making them more companionable, more eager to do good, less eager to succeed through oppression, less isolated and self-centered, more intent upon performing duties than demanding rights." ^ Recognition of the di- vine paternity makes brotherhood inevitable. Faith in God finds expression in love. Godlessness means selfishness, and where selfishness prevails ^ O testimonium anima; naturaliter Christinas. Apology of Ter- iullian, Bk. I, Ch. i. 2 Matthews, Shailer, The Church and the Changing Social Order, p. 97. THE NEW SOCIAL ORDER »6l the weak and frail are left to perish. Where brotherhood prevails weakness becomes the com- mon burden and its service the common privilege. Selfishness asks how small wages can be paid and get the work done. Brotherhood asks how large wages can be paid and keep the business in a healthy condition. Selfishness says, "It is my business to look out for myself." Brotherhood says, "It is my privilege to guard the interest and protect the welfare of others." Selfishness says, "It is my right to buy in the cheapest market." Brotherhood says, "We will wear no garment that has been moist with the tears and blood of the oppressed." Selfishness says, "I must guard my own interests." Brotherhood says, "We wiU bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ." Ill The growing spirit of brotherhood must inevi- tably find expression in the higher forms of cooper- ative institutions, and these in turn will make for brotherhood. A social order that is individuaHstic and competitive is incompatible with brotherhood. With the triumph of brotherhood unlimited laissez- faire as a social pohcy becomes antiquated and 262 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT doomed. The meaning of brotherhood makes it evi- dent that each part of the social organism is related to every other part, that the ill health of one organ means the ill health of all, and that the community is a family, every member of which for his own sake and the sake of the entire household is to be looked after. In point of fact the first steps toward a cooperative and fraternal society have already been taken, and the only question now pressing is how far the trend in this direction shall be allowed to proceed. The maintenance of public highways, for ex- ample, illustrates the application of the cooperative principle. Roads and bridges were once owned by private persons and were supported by tolls that were exacted from those who used them, but with rare exceptions they are now owned by the community. Our pubUc school system is another application of the same principle that has become thoroughly entrenched in the social habit. The community in its corporate capacity provides instruction for each child irrespective of station or rank. All classes of citizens are taxed in the interests of the schools, because pubHc education is held to be a duty of the whole community. Similar in character is the movement to secure THE NEW SOCIAL ORDER 263 public parks and playgrounds in all the great centers of population. Once the parks were owned by private individuals who sometimes admitted the public as a matter of favor, while now they are owned by the people who admit the rich and poor alike as a matter of right. Still other and not less significant appHcations of the principle are repre- sented by our publicly owned drinking fountains, bathing facilities, fire departments, water works and above all our splendid system of postal service. The past fifty years have witnessed great develop- ments in the direction of pubhc control, and all indications are that we are on the eve of greater developments that are yet to come, in which the poor, the ignorant, the unprotected will find them- selves backed by the united intelligence, conscience, and best resources of the community. The only question now is how much further this common concern and supervision will go. There may be such a thing as an over-socialization that would subject the individual to too much restraint, make him a cog in a machine, rob him of his proper in- dependence of thought, feeling, action, and hinder him from Hving out his natural fife. Hence it may confidently be predicted that the social order of the future will be a system in which both 264 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT individualism and communism meet, and which combines the separate advantages of the two. Individual liberty, precious though it be, has to be limited in certain directions in the interests of society generally. Thus an individual may be allowed the possession of a pistol but not to shoot at large. When a given personal Uberty is a proved menace to others, society should have, and ulti- mately will have, no hesitation in curtaihng or withdrawing that hberty. IV Turning to the sphere of industry we have in the cooperative movement, an appKcation of fraternalism that seems to strike at the very root of our most pressing economic problems. While theorists have been busily agitating the question whether fraternity in industry is possible, and the proposition has been met on the one hand by pas- sionate assertion and on the other with equally passionate denial, there has quietly sprung up in our midst, and rapidly extended itself a cooperative movement that has a range of potential activity that is as wide as the business of Hfe itself. Owing to the general prosperity in the United States that has resulted from the development of our great THE NEW SOCIAL ORDER 265 national resources, and the fact that our wage- earning class has not been subject to the same pressure that has been felt by the corresponding class in Europe this movement has not awakened the same interest or taken the same hold in this country as it has done elsewhere. The same eco- nomic conditions, however, are now being rapidly imposed on us that have long been experienced in the old world, and thus the way is being opened for a similar movement here. Like all great move- ments cooperation was born and fostered amidst jeers and suspicion, but now that it is justifying itself in deeds it is being taken up by many who had to see before they could believe. In Germany, France, Italy, England, Denmark, and Belgium, the movement during the past twenty years has made great strides. The cooperative undertakings which at the outset were confined almost wholly to stores are being rapidly extended to include many different phases of industrial Hfe, such as banks, manufacturing establishments of various kinds, coal depots, markets, breweries, bakeries, cheese factories, beet sugar factories, bacon factories, stock raising, packing and shipping associations, industrial enterprises of every sort. Furthermore the work of federation has now well begun and 266 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT all the groups of cooperative undertakings along given lines are being joined. The rapid spread of the movement is indicated to some extent by the fact that during the twenty years between 1886 and 1906 there were organized in Germany approximately five thousand coopera- tive societies with a membership of 421,833; in France 3553 societies with a membership of 677,150; in Italy 790 societies with a membership of 200,000; in England 672 societies with a membership of 71,222; and in Denmark 3091 societies with a membership of 432,480.^ In this latter country especially the cooperative principle appears to have become thoroughly established, and it is this perhaps more than anything else that accounts for the wonderful prosperity which in recent years has lifted Denmark out of the "slough of despond " burdened with debt and tax ridden to become one of the most prosperous and independent countries in Europe. Practical experience in industrial fratemalism is just now one of our greatest social needs. Be- cause theory at this point has far outrun expe- rience we have the exaggerated hopes that are cherished by so many of the wage-earners, and a ' Fay, C. R., Cooperation at Home and Abroad. THE NEW SOCIAL ORDER 267 confidence in panaceas that the facts of Ufe do not justify. Such experience is precisely the benefit that the present cooperative movement is supplying and the result often is that preconceived theories have to be greatly modified. Many questions such as the amount of wages that should be paid, or the length of the working day which are the oc- casion of bitter contention between employers and employed begin to assume a different com- plexion when viewed from the standpoint of a cooperative enterprise. The movement is Uke- wise a great training in self-government and in sacrifice. Whereas the present industrial system encourages men to strive for themselves only, cooperation encourages a social spirit. It makes loyalty to others and sacrifice for them one of the fundamental conditions of business success. While imder the present system men often profit by the ruin of others, cooperative production makes each man's wealth depend upon the growing wealth ofaU. Democratic absolutism through what De Tocque- ville once called "the omnipotence of the majority " is one of the greatest perils of modern society, and it is this peril that is represented by political social- ism. Socialistic writers hke Kautsky, Menger, 368 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT Deslurieres^ freely acknowledge that full freedom of the laborer to work where, when, and as he wills is incompatible with the sociahstic ideals. The platform of the Socialist party of the United States makes this equally clear by its demand for the immediate collective ownership of railways, telegraphs, telephones, steamship lines; of all in- dustries which are organized on a national scale, in which competition has virtually ceased to exist; of mines, quarries, forests, and water power; the abolition of the senate and the supreme court; the power of the majority to amend the constitu- tion; the election of all judges by the people for short terms; and all this as a preparation of the workers to seize the whole power of the govern- ment in order that they may thereby lay hold of the whole system of industry, and thus come to their rightful inheritance. " This it can hardly be doubted is the omnipotence of the majority and the despotism of the crowd. Cooperation, on the other hand, conserves the free action of individuals through self-regulated choice. It centers about a common and original impulse of man, which in- spires him, whatever be his environment, to make his weakness strength by the simple plan of joining * Stoddard, Jane T., The New Socialism, Chap. VIU. THE NEW SOCIAL ORDER 269 with others who are similarly conditioned in the pursuit of a goal which can be attained in propor- tion as he is prepared to coordinate his own in- terests with those of his fellow members.^ " This, furthermore, is in direct hne with the Christian ideal of a Kingdom of God, or a society of brothers. The kingdom, as Jesus said,^ is within. It is fundamentally a thing of the spirit, but in its application to the economic sphere it means ulti- mately the fraternal commonwealth. V Another expression of the new fraternalism, and one that has no less significance for the future than the movements aheady mentioned is the waning interest in sectarian religious organization and the slow but certain rise of a democratic cathohc church. Much has been said of late about the reaction against reUgious faith, but what has really happened is a loss of interest in the rehgious trusts that were formed on particularism, exclusion, and monopoly. What seems to many to be the loss of faith means only that the rehgious trusts are rapidly becoming bankrupt. 1 Fay, C. R., CoSperation at Home and Abroad, p. 356. 2 Luke 17: 21. 270 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT The idea of human solidarity, at least as far as the average person is concerned, is exceedingly- new. Hitherto the very greatest souls like Con- fucius, Gautama, and Jesus, really caught the idea and were swayed by it. In the case of the ordinary brain it was entirely absent. Even the most cultivated thinkers of antiquity simply could not conceive of a state of society in which there were no aliens or outcasts. With perfect complacency both the political and the religious writers of the ancient world based their ideal state upon slavery, and the principle that it is not contrary to nature or the laws of God to despoil him whom it is a virtue to despoil went unchallenged. Even Chris- tianity for centuries did not succeed in raising the thought of the average person much above this level. The exclusiveness of paganism was recast in the Christian doctrine of election, and was carried into social intercourse. Augustine's City of God is a virtual denial of human solidarity and brother- hood because it is based upon the idea that there are two kinds of men, the elect and the non-elect, the blessed and the cursed. The dismal story of Christian intolerance as manifested in the feroci- ties of the crusades, in the rancorous hate that was poured upon Moslems, in the bloody reprisals THE NEW SOCIAL ORDER 271 extorted by the Christian powers of Europe from the Jews and the barbarities of the inquisition, goes to show how the separatism of the ancient world was carried into Christian modes of thought and found recrudescence in the spirit and practices of Christian people.^ Separatism, also, created the sects. Creedal differences were the occasion of schism, but the absence of a sense of unity and brotherhood was the cause. The bitter hatred with which the sects have persecuted each other and regarded each other as reprobates, both in this life and the Ufe to come, could not have been due to doctrinal disparities alone. The real cause of the rancor was provinciahsm of spirit. To-day there is a manifest enlargement of the human outlook. The brain of mankind has arisen to the height of an entirely new view, and is con- scious of a fresh inner sense, the sense of human oneness. The result is that the organizations based upon particularism have begun to pass and with the passing of the sects there is rising a democratic catholic church. It has required nineteen centuries to make such a church possible, but at last it has begun to appear. Human experience shows that nothing ever comes out of nothing. All things grow '■ Hall, Charles Cuthbert, Christ and the Human Race, p. 13. 272 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT from the seed, and the seed is not quickened except it die. The sects that have hitherto stood for the church have subserved a use just as the seed sub- serves a use, but as in the case of the seed they must surrender their Hfe in the interest of a larger Hfe that is to be. Since the sense of human oneness is manifestly to dominate, the church of the future will be catholic, that is it will include the last man with the confi- dence that for him also as for the rest, life repre- sents an infinite worth. It will include every human interest of body and soul, in the confidence that even the base and servile can be subdued to Hberty, beauty, and joy, and it will include all the ages in the belief that no age stands alone, that they all have a mutual and dependent significance, and a constructive purpose. In short the church catholic that is to be will rise above particularism in whatever form. Its great note will be the father- hood of God and the brotherhood of man. Its level will be the high possibility of humanity, its progress will be measured by that of the race, and it will shut out none except those who shut them- selves out by the truth they cannot see and the love they cannot feel. Many of the Protestant bodies have already THE NEW SOCIAL ORDER 273 taken a long stride in this direction. They are in- viting into their membership all earnest believers in goodness and fraternity who find in the historic Jesus so perfect a manifestation of these prin- ciples that they are willing to confess him as their spiritual master. This is a long step from the theological inquisition that used to be the test of church membership but it is in absolute con- sonance with Christ's significant parable of the last judgment, and it seems not unlikely that we have reached a point where the movement in this direction will spread with great rapidity. In the Roman Catholic Church also there is a growing movement, the inspiring ideals of which are closely akin to those which are so rapidly transforming the Protestant sects. The pope may write en- cyclicals as he pleases, but nevertheless the Uberal- izing and democratizing process goes on. Modern- ism has already captured many of the best minds among the Roman Catholic clergy and the laity alike and given them an outlook that will perpetuate itself and be increasingly a factor in preparing the way for the church of the future. Life and time are on the side of fraternalism and we may con- fidently believe that eventually the currents of sympathy which are flowing so strongly in all re- 274 THE CHURCH AND THE LABOR CONFLICT ligious bodies restricted though they be by age- old usages and customs will eventually flow to- gether and mingle in a common life, attracting to itself many other currents that are now flowing outside of all church relations. For such a church Kfe many earnest people are waiting. Good men do not now stand aloof from reHgious organizations because they are too reHgious but because they are not religious enough. They see these organizations uncertain and hesitat- ing in their message concerning themselves with what seems unreal and unessential, weakened by divisions and rivalries, and they cannot fully respect them. Many who are now outside of all church relations will greet with ardor a church life that offers them a full and abiding fraternalism that dares to stand fairly and squarely upon the principle of Jesus that "He that loseth his Hfe shall find it," and that is without equivocation or pretense a fellowship of brotherliness and service. "What though there still need effort, strife? Though much be still unwon? Yet warm it mounts, the hour of life; Death's frozen hour is done. THE NEW SOCIAL ORDER 275 The world's great order dawns in sheen, After long darkness rude, Divinlier imaged, clearer seen, With happier zeal pursued. What still is left of strength, employ This end to help attain One common wave of thought and joy Lifting mankind again." ^ 1 Cited by Ward, Mrs. Humphrey. The Case of Richard MeyntU, p. 84. BIBLIOGRAPHY This bibliography includes only the literature consulted in the preparation of the foregoing work. For the sake of convenience it is arranged under the following groups: (i) books of a semi-religious and a semi-social or economic character, the aim of which is to discuss the problems of contemporary social and economic development in the interest of religion; (2) historical, economic, and philo- sophical works, which have a special value for this study; (3) reports, docimients, and pamphlets; (4) magazine articles. On special topics valuable references may be found in the BibUography on Modern Social Questions, edited by John Hayes Holmes, also in the various numbers of the Gospel of the Kingdom edited by Josiah Strong. Literature of which only a slight use was made is referred to in the footnotes, but is not included in the Bibliography. 277 278 BIBLIOGRAPHY SEMI-RELIGIOUS AND Abbott, Lyman: Brierley, J.: Brown, Charles R.: Behrends, A. 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"Social Aspects of Christianity" (18 BIBLIOGRAPHY 281 Ward, H. F. (editor): Warring, L. H.: Zeublin, Charles: "Social Ministry" (symposium). "The Law and the Gospel of Labor" (1906). "The Religion of Democracy" (1908). HISTORICAL, PHILOSOPHICAL, AND ECONOMIC BOOKS Addams, Jane: Bullock, Charles J. Brooks, Graham: Bvicher, Karl: Bax, E. Belford: Butler, Elizabeth B.: Cheney, Edward P. : Casson, Herbert N.: Codbury, Edward: Commons, John R. (editor) Chapin, Robert Coit: Clark, Victor S.: Dawson, William H.: Emerson, Harrington: " Philanthropy and Social Progress" (1911). " Introduction to Political Economy " (1897). "Social Unrest" (1903). "Industrial Evolution" (1901). "Essays on Socialism Old and New" (1906). "The Ethics of Socialism" (1893). "Outlooks from the New Stand- points" (1890). "Outspoken Essays" (1897). "The Reign of Socialism" (1886). "Women and the Trades" (1909). "Original Sources of European His- tory" (189s). "Organized Self Help" (1901). "Women's Work and Wages" (1906). "Trade Unionism and Labor Prob- lems" (collection of articles). "The Standard of Living Among Workingmen's Families in New York" (1909). " The Labor Movement in Australia " (1905)- "The German Workingman" (1906). "Efficiency. As a Basis for Opera- tion in Wages" (191 1). 282 Eastman, Crystal: Ely, Richard T.: Fay, C. R.: Frankel and Dawson: Fitch, John A.: Fisher, George P.: Ghent, W.J. : Green, John Richard: George, Jr., Henry: Gilman, C. P.: Goldmark, Josephine: Hobson, John A.; Hadley, Arthur T.: Henderson, Charles R. . Jevons, W. Stanley: Kirkup, Thomas: Kautsky, Karl: Kidd, Benjamin: Kelley, Florence: Lindsey, Thomas C: Loos, Isaac Althus: Le Rossignol, James E. : Loria, Achilla: BIBLIOGRAPHY "Work Accidents and the Law" (1910). "Sociahsm and Social Reform" (1894). "Monopolies and Trusts" (1900). " Cooperation at Home and Abroad " (1908). "Workingmen's Insm'ance in Eu- rope" (1910). "Large Outputs" (1910). "The Steel Workers" (1911). "The History of the Christian Church" (1892). "Mass and Class" (1904). "A History of the English People." "The Menace of Privilege" (1905). "Methods of Industrial Peace" (1904). "Fatigue and Efficiency" (1912). "The Evolution of Modern Capi- tahsm" (1898). "Economics" (1896). "The Logic of Social Insurance" (1909). "The State in Relation to Labour" (1887). "A History of Socialism" (1907). "Die Vorlaufer des Neuren Sozialis- mus." "Social Evolution" (1894). "Some Ethical Gains Through Legis- lation" (1910). "A History of the Reformation" (1900). "Studies in the Politics of Aristotle and the Republic of Plato." "Orthodox Socialism" (1907). "Economic Foundations of Society" (1899). BIBLIOGRAPHY 283 Mitchell, John: Marshall, A. and M. P.: MaUock, W. H.: Nearing, Scott: Nordhoff, Charles: Oliver, Thomas: Ryan, J. A.: Seligman, Edwin E. A.: Spargo, John: Stein, Ludwig: SchaeflBe, A. E. F.: Southerland, W.: Smart, William: Smith, S. 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REPORTS, DOCUMENTS, PAMPHLETS American Legislative Review: "Comfort, Health and Safety in Factories" Vol. I, No. 3. Publication 14. American Legislative Review: "Review of Labor Legislation for 1911" Vol. I, No. 3, Publication 14. American Legislative Review: "Prevention and Reporting of Industrial Injuries" Vol. I, No. 4. Publication 15. 284 BIBLIOGRAPHY Annual Report Kansas Bureau of Labor, 1909. Topeka. 1900. AnnualReportiBureauof Statistics of New Jersey. 1909. Cam- den. 1910. Bulletin of the Department of Labor: "Factory Sanitation and Labor Problems" No. 44, Jan. 1903. Bulletin of the Department of Labor: "Decisions of Courts Af- fecting Labor" No. 2, 1893. Washington. Bulletin of the Department of Labor: "Labor Conditions in Aus- tralia" No. 56. January, 1905. Bill to Provide an Exclusive Remedy and Compensation for Accidental Injuries. U. S. Senate Document, 5382, Con- gress. Bill to Create a National Arbitration TribunaL U. S. Senate Document, 3259, Congress. Census of Manufacturers. 1905. Washington. Fourteenth Report — Congregational National Council. Addresses on "Social Equities" "Industrial Obhgations." Fifteenth Annual Report on Institutional Church Work. June 30, 1899. Handbook, Child Labor Legislation. National Consumers' League, 1906. Investigation of Telephone Companies. U. S. Senate Document, 380. 1910. Washington. Massachusetts State Report of Manufacturers. Pub. Doc. No. 36. Boston, 1906. Publications of the National Child Labor Committee: (i) "Child Labor and the Night Messenger Service" Pamphlet No. 141. (2) " Both Sides of the Poverty Question in Child Labor Cases " Pamphlet No. 139. (3) "Symposium — Child Labor on the Stage" Pamphlet No. 165. (4) "Better Child Labor Laws in 1911 " Pamphlet No. 167. Brit. Parliamentary Papers: "Old Age Pensions" No. 36. House of Commons, 1890. No. 265. House of Commons, 1892. No. 113. House of Commons, 1904. Report on Strike at Bethlehem Steel Works, 1910. Washington. Report of Select Committee on Wages and Prices of Commodities. Senate Report No. 192. Washington. BIBLIOGRAPHY 285 Report of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, December, 1898. Report of the First National Conference on Industrial Diseases. Pub. No. 10. Chicago, 1910. Report of National Council of Evangelical Free Churches: "The Social Mission of the Church" London, 1906. Report of Negotiations by British Conciliation Committee. Manchester, igoi. MAGAZINE ARTICLES "A Union Preacher" Outlook, August 13, 1910. "The Coal Mines at Home" Outlook, December 24, 1910. "The Industrial Issue at the Bar of the Church" Charities and the Commons. November 2, 1907. "Social Work" Charities and the Commons. November 2, 1907. "The British Labor Party" Outlook, February 11, 1911. "Labor's Struggle for the Right to Organize " Outlook, February 4, 1911. "Organized Labor's Problem" Outlook, December 17, 1910. "The Passing of the Idle Rich" Everybody's Magazine, February, March, April, 1911. "The Open Shop" The Speaker. No. 8, 390-400. "The Open Shop" Government. No. 2, 7-16. "Principles of the Open Shop" Gunton, No. 27, 1-13. "The Law of the Closed Shop" Nation. No. 79, 46-47. "The Union and the Open Shop" The American Economic Asso- ciation, Vol. 4, 173-182. "The Open Shop" American Federationist. No. 2, 212-217. "The Issue of the Open and Closed Shop" North American Review. No. 180, 28. "Work Poisons" Survey. No. 25, 21. "Making Peace Do Justice" Survey. No. 22, 14. "The Official Findings as to Work Accidents" Survey. No. 25. Annals American Academy Political and Social Science. Vol. 33:- "Overworked Children on the Farm and in the School." "Handicaps in Later Years from Child Labor." 286 BIBLIOGRAPHY "Condition of Labor in Southern Cotton Mills." "Labor in the Steel Industry." "The Future of Labor.'' Annals American Academy Political and Social Science. Vol. 271: — "Overwork, Idleness or Industry." " Child Labor in the Coal Mines." "Organized Labor's Attitude Toward Child Labor." " Child Labor a National Problem." "The Child Labor Problem — A Study in Degeneracy." "Child Labor in the Glass Industry." "The Federal Government and the Working Children." "The Physical and Physiological Effects of Child Labor." "A Business Man's View of Child Labor." "The Operation of the Illinois Child Labor Law." "Special Courts for Labor Disputes" Review of Reviews. Octo- ber, 191 1. "Compulsory Arbitration in New Zealand" Quarterly Journal of Economics. August, 1910. "Our Mercerized Aristocracy" Hampdens. August, 1911. "The Dynamiters" McClure's, August, 1911. "The McNamara Case" American Federationist. June, 191 1. "Trial by Judge and Jvury" American Federationist. May, 1910. "Judicial Invasion of Guaranteed Rights" American Federa- tionist. April, 1910. American Federation of Labor Pamphlets: — "Organized Labor, Its Struggles, Its Enemies, and Its Fool Friends " American Federation of Labor Pamphlet. "Philosophy of Trade Unions." "An Open Letter to Ministers of the Gospel." "What Does Labor Want." "Trade Union Epigrams.'' "The Safety of the Futiu-e Lies in Organized Labor." INDEX Abolition of capital, 129 Accident Bulletin, State of Min- nesota, No. 3, 1912, 150 n. Accidents, statistics of, 147; compensation, 151 Actual conditions of labor com- pensation, 120 Addams, Jane, Philanthropy and Social Progress, 78 n.; 209 n. Africa, 99 Aged and public charity, 159 Age limit of children, 179 Alger, G. W., Moral Overstrain, 218 n. Amana, 86 American colonists, 244 American factories, 137 American Federation of Labor, 70; its obhgation, 16 American Institute of Social Service, Bible House, N. Y., founded 1892, 74 n. American Legislative Review, June, 1911, 148 n.; Compari- son of State Safety Laws, 149 n. American Revolution, 244 Anarchists, 9 Annual Report Kansas Bureau of Labor, 1909, 118 n. Annual Report of Statistics of Railways in the U. S., June 30, 1909, 119 n. Apology of Tertullian, Bk. I, Ch. I, 260 n. Apostolic Constitutions, Bk. IV, son.; S3n. Appeal to violence, 206, 213 Arbitration, by employers, 218; laws related, 232; method, broad view of, 232; judges of courts, 232 Aristotle, Politics, 21 n. Asia Minor, monastic move- ment, 85 Association and Exchange in- stead of Competition and Profit, 89 Assxunption of ordinary risks, 152 n. Augustine's City of God, 270 Australasian colonies, concilia- tion councik, 230 AustraUa, industrial courts, 230, 241 Austria labor court, 229 Automatic settlement of claims, 157 B Babylonians, 42 Baer, Mr., 103 Ball, John, Priest of Kent, Eng., universal rights of men, 56 287 288 INDEX Baptist Temple of Philadelphia, 75 Baptists, 71 Barnabas, 50 n. Barnett, Canon, 78 Baron von Kettler, 89; 90 n. Battle hymn, 17 Bax, The Religion of Socialism, 38 n. Belgium labor court, 229 Benvenuto Cellini, 99 Berkley Temple, 75 Bessemer, 129 Blackwell's Island, 160 Bliss, New. Encyc. Soc. Ref., Christianity and Social Re- form, 54 n.; Industrial Ac- cidents, 147 n. Bologne, freedom of serfs, 56 Book Binders' Union, 185 n. Booth, Charles, on institutional churches, 77 Boot and shoe trades, wages in, 117 Boston Juvenile Court Statis- tics, 173 Bouche de Fer, 88 Bourgeois movement, 31, 32 Bourgeoisie, or business class, 4; its power, 7 Boycott, I, 242 Brierly, J., Problems of Living, 106 n.; Our City of God, 98 n.; The Common Life, 100 n. British labor party, 33 British ParUamentary Paper, No. 113, 1904, 159 n. Brooks, John Graham, The Social Unrest, 26 n.; 33 n. Brotherhood, the Kingdom of God, 43; 255; growth of its spirit, 261 Brotherhood of man, 258, 272 Browning, Mrs., quoted from Aurora Leigh, 97 n. Bucher, Carl, Industrial Evolu- tion, Chap. V, s n. Bulletin, Bureau of Labor, Washington, 230 n.; 233 n., 235 n. Bulletin United States Depart- ment of Labor, 140 n. Bullfinch Place Church, 75 Bureau of conciliation, 235 Bureau of judgment, 23s Cabet, 88 Cady, G. L., Report of Four- teenth Trien. Con. Cong. Churches, 1910, 82 n. California eight hour laws, 191 1, 179 Campbell, Industrial Accident Compensation, Chap. I, 147 n. Canada, labor papers, 72 Capitalism, "benevolent feu- dalism," 15 Capital and labor, who con- cerned, 185; natural partner- ship, 191 Carlyle, 109; Past and Present, no n. Carnegie, 214 Casson, H. N., A History and Defense of the American Labor INDEX 389 Movement, 3011.; Organized Self-kelp, 10 n. Census Report of 1900, Special Vol. on Employer and Wages, 116 n.; 167 n. Change foreshadowed, 19, 29 Charles the Ninth, 99 Cheap labor movement in U. S., 189 Chesmey, Original Sources of European H i s t o r y — T h e King's Proclamation Con- cerning Labor — A. D. 1349, 8n. Child labor restrictions, 181 Child workers, 177 Children's Bureau Department of Commerte and Labor, 180 Church: Emphasis on sacred- ness of hfe, 52; constructive force lost, 63; of the future, 81; relation to industrial problems, 83; responsibility to Christianize, go; to pre- scribe forms, 91; service and religious duty, 98; assistance in needed reforms, 143; re- sponsibility in industrial fa- talities, 154, 155; part m collective effort, 161; as in- stitute of prophecy, 176; con- science of society, 178; pro- tection from undue incite- ment to violence, 216; right to free speech, 224; as social institution, 227; as witness, inn. Church of the Land and Sea, 75 Chute, Chas. L., Industrial Ac- I cidents, Review of Reviews, March, 1910, 154 n. Christian socialism, 87 Christianity, what it stands for, 93 Christian and fraternal spirit, 251 Christian teaching and influ- ence, 259 Cigar Makers International Union, in 1900, injunction against, 222, 223 Civil law, history of, 242 Clark, Victor S., The Labor Movement in Australasia, 231 n.; 240 n. Class consciousness appears, 10, II Clemenceau, M., reply to So- ciaUst leader M. Jaures, 226 Clement of Rome, first century, on Philanthropy, 50 Clopper, E. N., Child Labor in Street Trades, Supplement to Annals of the American Acad- emy of Political and Social Science, March, 1910, 174 n. Closed shop, policy of, 184, 192; un-American institution, 193; unjustifiable despotism, 194 Clothing trade, wages in, 117 Coercive measures, 216 Collectivism, 20 Collective action, 135; progress in, 160 CoUectivist creed, 92 Coloni, 5S Colorado, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, Texas, Ten- 290 INDEX nessee, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin, eight- hour day legislation, 181 n. Cook, W. L., International Joiimal of Ethics, April, 1908, 226 n. Cooperation of church in open and closed shop policy, 202 Co(3perative principle, applica- tion of, 262; fratemalism in, 264 Cooperative production, 267 Cooperative societies organized, 267 Cooperative undertakings in industrial life, 265 Combination, fear of immense power, 19s Commons, John R., Social Re- form and the Church, 23 n.; Trade Unionism and Labor Problems, 175 n. Communism of early church, 49 Communes, 233 Community of interest, 67 Comparison of State Safety Laws, Am. Legislative Re- view, June, 191 1, 149 Compensation, for accidents, I3S> i47> 148; legislation on in United States, 157 n. Compte de Valois, France, abo- lition of serfdom, 56 Compte de Mun, 89 Conditions of toil for women, 168 Conflict of principle in open and closed shop, 186 Confucius, 270 Congregationalists, meeting at Cleveland, Oct., 1897, 70 "Conseils de prud'hommes" of France, 230 Conspiracy laws against labor unions, 9, 10. Contemporary Review, 1887, 164 n. Contrasts between capitalist and wage-earner, 21 Contributory negligence, 152 n. Court fees, 246 Courts instruments of justice, 223 Creedal differences, 271 Crime, relation to unequal dis- tribution of wealth, 121 Cripple Creek strike, 1903, 219 Critical research upon past, 58 Cromatius, prefect of Rome, 54 Crusades, 270 D Dangerous conditions in occu- pation, 136 Danton, 257 David, Jesus successor of, 252 Dawson, W. H., The German Workman, 156 n.; 233 n.; 246 n. Decreased productivity, 126 Decree of Napoleon, 1806, 228 DeFoe, 177 Demands of labor by laborers, 122 Democratic absolutism, 267 Democratic administration, 67 INDEX 291 Democratic catholic chvirch, 269, 271, 272 Democratic ideals, growth of, 186, 258 Democratic movement, 19th century, s Democratic spirit, 17 Department of labor established by denominations, 71 Deslmieres, 268 Despotism of union rule, 191 De TocqueviUe, "The Omnipo- tence of the Majority," 267 Dickinson, Dr. A., of Berkely Temple, 75 n. Differences between employer and employed, 199 Disability, total, partial; rate of compensation, 156 Disrepute of organized labor, 215 Divine visitation, 46 Doctrinal revolt, 60 Doehring, C. F. W., Bulletin of U. S. Dept. of Labor, No. 44, 138 n.; 139 n.; 140 n. Dogma, 47 Domestic industries transferred to factories, 165 Duke of Wellington, 243 Dynamiting in 1908, 206, 207 Early church, failure to com- prehend ideals of Jesus, 44; reproduction of economic life of, 84 Ecclesiasticism established, 47 Economic subservience, 25 Economic program of socialism, 90, 91; church's task, no, iii Economic Journal, Jan., 1894, IIS n. Economics courses, 67 Economics, Christian doctrme of, 90; 169 n. Edison, 129 Egypt, monastic movement, 85 Eight hour day, 113; for women and children, 179 Elemental things in life, 259 Eleventh Special Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1904, Washington, 124 n., 128 n. EUiott, Ebenezer, The Pilgrim Hymnal, 17 n. Emancipation and servitude, 22 Emerson, 107 ; Essay — Compen- sation, 193 n. Emperor Justinian, sixth cen- tury, freedom of slaves, 54 England, white lead industry, 137; adult paupers of, 159; workmen's compensation sys- tem, 160 English society for propagation of gospel, i8th century, 123 EngUsh workmen in 1795, 9 Environment, 93 Ephrata, 86 Epidemics, 139 Episcopalians, 71 Epistle of Barnabas, Chap. 19, son- Equity cases, 223 Equity system of jurisprudence, 221; wrong use of, 222 292 INDEX Ethical, 220 n. Europe, monastic movement of, 8s; cooperative movement, 265 Exaggerations and excesses in demands of laborers, 122 Extent of restrictive process, 226 Extravagance, result of, 61 Faith, 252, 260 Fatherhood, 255; of God, 272 Fauchet, Claude, 87 Fay, C. R., CoSperation at Home and Abroad, 266 n.; 269 n. Federal Census of Manufac- turers, igos, 148 n. Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, 64 n.; 66 n. ; Report of, 69 n. Federal Investigation of Tele- phone Companies, 119 n. Federal reports of special in- dustries, 119 Federation work, 265 Feudalism, 5, 8; in British Isles, death knell, 57 First Congregational Church of Jersey City, 75 First Epistle of Clement, 50 n. Fifteenth Annual Report of Toynbee Hall, June 30, 1899, 79 n. Fisher, G. P., History of the Christian Church, 85 n. Forces of production, i France, in eighteenth century, 34. 35 ; violence by wage- earners, 207; labor court, 229 Fratemalism in church Ufe, 274; fraternal society, 255; ideal, 256 Free lands exhausted, 26 Freedom of contract infringe- ment, 182; 237 Freedom, interpretation of, 198 Future outlook under present industrial system, 27 Gautama, 270 Gemeinden, Kommunalverbande, 234 n. General Von der Goltz, 210 n. Genius of invention, 24 Germany, compulsory insur- ance, 160 n.; labor court, 229 Ghent, W. J., Mass and Class, Chap. VI, Class Ethics, 7 n. Gladden, Washington, The Church and Modem Life, 44 n.; 80 n.; 81 n.; 96 n.; loi n.; 130 n.; 200 n. Godlessness, meaning of, 260 Gompers, Mr., 37; on living wage. The American Federa- tionalist, April, 1898, 114 n. Good Samaritan Cathedral of San Francisco, 75 Government and politics, 33 Government by injunction, 223 Greed, 100 Greeks, 42; Greek citizenship, 122 INDEX 293 Green, John Richard, A Short History of the English People, Vol. n, 56 n. Gregory, Nazyanzen Orations, 122 Growth from within, 254 Grostete of Oxford, 55 Guilds, 5; downfall of, 60 Gunton, Principles of the Open Shop, 199 n. Hadley, A. T., Economics, 30 n.; 126 n.; 168 n.; 197 n. Hague, International Peace Court, 243 Hall, Charles Cuthbert, Christ and the Human Race, 271 n. Hand Book, Child Labor Legis- lation, National Consumers' League, Introduction, 181 n. Harmel, Leon, 89 Hamack and Hermann, The Social Gospel, 91 n. Hart's Island Reformatory, 174 Hatch, L. P., Article Arbitra- tion, Bliss Encyclopedia So- cial Reform. Bulletin, Bu- reau of Labor, No. 56, Wash., 230 n.; 236 n. Hawkins, Sir John, 99 Hermes, prefect of Rome, 54 Herron, G. D., The Christian Society, 132 n. Higher things, 113 Higher wages, in Hirmissey and Dooley, on strike question, 2 Hobson, John A., The Evolu- tion of Modern Capitalism, 163 n., 164 n., 16s; 189 n. Hodges, Geo., The Heresy of Cain, 100 n. Holy Communion Church, 75 "Home for the Aged and In- firm," 160 Homicides endorsed, 210 Huber, Victor, 89 Human at his best greatest in- dustrial asset, 30 Human and moral background, 134 Human solidarity, 270 Human outlook enlarged, 271 Hunter, Robert, Poverty, 121 n. I Ideal society, 252 Illinois commission on occupa- tional diseases, 136; laws for protection of workingmen, 142 Ill-considered legislation, 145 "Improvement under the reign of law," 214 India caste system, 122 Indigent members of society, support of, 183 Industrial accidents, European nations' inquiries into, 155 Industrial concihation aided by church, 247 Industrial courts experimental, 236 Industrial Issue and the Church, Chap. Ill, 144 n. 294 INDEX Industrial sanitation, 135 Industrial society as now con- stituted, 20; forms of, 83 Industrial warfare, i Industry capitalized, sixteenth century, 60 Influence of church in social reconstruction, 39 Ingram, J. K., Article Slavery, Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th Ed., Vol. 22, 31 n.; 54 n. Injunction proceedings in early times, 220 Institutional church, 75 Insurance compulsory, 160 Insurance societies (church), 91 International Journal of Ethics, April, igo8, 226 n. International Typographical Union of North America Re- port, 140 Interstate Commerce Commis- sion reports of special indus- tries, 117 Iron workers trades, wages in, 117 Italy, 229 Jamestown, Pa., Exposition Speech, 155 n. Jaures, M., on strikes, 212 Jesus' aim of redemption, 41 Jesus' idea of God, 41 Jesus, successor of David, 252; influential Jew, 253; Judea and Galilee, 254 Jewish conception of kingdom of God, 42 Jewish hterature, 42 Justice, cry for, 105; demand of church for, 108; an ideal, 109 Justice seekers for sake of prof- its, 131 K Kansas Bureau of Labor, An- nual Report, 1909, 118 n. Kant, Immanuel, Metaphysics of Ethics, Chap, on "My Neighbours' Happiness as End and Duty," 198 n. Kauffman, Christian Socialism, 38 n.; 90 n. Kautsky, 267 Kelley, Florence, Some Ethical Gains Through Legislation, 16s n. Kettler, Die Arbeiterfrage und das Christentum, go n. Kingdom of God, Jesus' con- ception of, 41-44; 8s; 158; 251, 252; 169; Christian ideal of, 269 Kingdom of truth, justice and right, 161 Kingsley, Chas., 88 Knute the Holy, freedom of serfs, 56 Koreshan, 86 Labor a commodity, 188 Labor court, 228; principle of, INDEX 295 241; awards, 238, 239; from standpoint of expediency, 244 Labor monopoly expense of profits, 127 Labor of children, 171 Labor organization of women, 174 Labor situation of modem world, 3 Labor Sunday, 70, 72 Labor temple, 79 Labor imion policy, 125 Labor war, i Lamanais, 87 Law of nature, 48 Law enforcement, appeal of newspaper organs; demand of labor unions, 209 Laws of European nations on employment of women and children, 180 Leavett, J. B., 223 n.; 225 n.; on illegal injunctions in labor disputes, 225 n. Legalization of labor disputes, 225, 227, 228 Legislation for better condi- tions, 141, 142, 146; on em- ployment of women and chil- dren, 178 Liability laws, reformation, 156 Liberty, God-given right, 63 Living wage, 114; for women and children, 178, 179 Limitation of output, 125, 127 Lindsay, T. M., A History of the Reformation, Vol. I, S n.; 61 n., 62 Literature of early Christianity, 248 Loria, Prof., Economic Founda- tions of Society, Introductory Chapter, 25 n. Louis XIV, 257 Ludlow, J. M., 88 Luther, teaching of, 62 Lynching of negroes, 208, 210 M Macaulay, Lord, on doctrine of gravitation, 103 Machinery, protection against dangerous, 135, 146, 150 Maeterlinck, 109; SocialJustice, no n. Magna Charta, 224 Magnus Erickson, King of Sweden, abolition of serfdom, S6 Majesty of brotherhood, 357 Mallock, W. H., Aristocracy and Evolution, Chap. VI, 130 n. Malthus, T. R., Principles of Population, Chap. II, 115 n. Maritime strike, in 1890, 230 Marshall, A. and M. P., Econ- omies of Industry, Chap. VI, 127 n. Martyn, Frederick Townsend, The Passing of the Idle Rich, in Everybody's, March, 1911, 18 n.; 36 n. Marx, Karl, Capital, 22 n. 296 INDEX Massachusetts State Report of Manufactures Pub. Soc, No. 36, Boston, igoQ, 118 n. Material wealth of to-day, n6 Matthews, Shailer; The Church and the Changing Social Order, 3711.; 92 n.; 9311.; 231 n.; 26011. Maudsley, 129 Maurice, Frederick Dennison, 88; 8911.; 77 n. Mazzini, 131; cited by Herron, G. D., The Christian Society, 13211. McCormack, 129 McDowell, Mary E., Social Ministry, cited by Ward, 171 n.; 177 n. McKelway, A. J., The Child Labor Problem, Degeneracy, Annals of the Am. Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 27, No. 2, March, 1906, 173 n.; Address before Amer- ican Association for the Ad- vancement of Science, New Orleans, January, 1906, 177 n. McNamara, dynamiter, 211 Medijeval barons, 28, 29 Menger, 267 Men's Class, 73 Methodists, 71 Michigan laws, for protection of workingmen, 142 Middle Ages, 4, 47 Mill, John Stuart, Principles of Economics, People's Edition, 20 n.; Laughlin's Edition, 23°- Minimum wage-boards, Min- nesota and Wisconsin bill; Massachusetts Commission, 179 n. Mitchell, John, Organized Labor, 21S n. Modernism, 273 Monastic movement of fourth century, 84 Moral blindness, 102 Moral force of church lacking, loi, 102 Moral overstrain, appUcations of principle, 220 Morality, class, national, race, 207, 208; group, 209 Morgan Memorial Church; sup- ported by Unitarians and Methodists, 75 n. Moslems, 270 Motherhood, 166 Multiphed output, 126 Municipal ownership un-Amer- ican, 103 N Napoleon, decree of, 228 National Association of Manu- facturers, 70 National Census Report of 1900, employment of women and children, 162, 163 National homestead system, automatic safety-valve, 26 Naumen, 89 Nazarene carpenter, 38 New birth of moral feeling and conviction, 106 INDEX 297 New Jersey laws for protection of workingmen, 142 New Jersey State Report of Statistics, 1910, 118 n. New machinery and improved methods, 125 New social order, 251 New South Wales Law, 230 New Testament, 143, 248 New Zealand, arbitration law, 230, 240 Nitti, Catholic Socialism, 90 n. Norse god legend, 252 North Adams, Mass., shoe man- ufacturer's experiment with Chinese help, 29, 30 North American Review, 192 n. Noyes, Wm. : Overwork, Idleness or Industrial Education, An- nals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 37, No. 2, March, 1906, 172 n. O O'Higgins, Harve J.: The Dyna- miters, McClure's Magazine, August, 1911, 206 n.; 212 n. Old age pensions, 160 Oliver and Doehring, 139 Oneida, 86 Open shop, policy of, 184, 190, 192; demand of employer for, 193; moral problem, 205 Opportunities for women, 167 Organized capital and organ- ized labor equal right, 187 Organized Christianity tool of ruling class, feeling of wage- earners, 132 Organized labor as a peril or safeguard, 13, 14 Over-sociaUzation, 263 Pagan civilization, 123 Paganism, 270 Pamphlet, No. 167, National Child Labor Committee for a review of existing legislation, 181 n. Pauperism and premature ex- haustion, 158 Peabody, Frances, Jesus Christ and the Social Question, i n.; 28; 87 n., 92 n., SI n.; Jesus Christ and the Christian Char- acter, Chapter on the Modern World, 28 n. ; taxes for reUef work in U. S., 52 n. Peasants' Revolt, 63 n. Personal act manifestation of labor warfare, 212 Pews and pulpit, 161 Pfliderer, Primitive Christianity, Vol. I, 49 n. Philanthropy, origin, 49; ex- pansion, si; effects, 51; in factory employment, 177 Physical abnormality, 138, 170 Pierson, History of England, 8s n. Plato, Republic, Discussion of Communism, 21 n. Pledge of the American Federa- tion of Labor, 16 n. 298 INDEX Political arbitrament, 32 Political socialism, a peril, 266 Political view-point, radicalism of, 34 Power machine, and production, 23; perils of, 177, 178 Practical experience in indus- trial fratemalism, 266 Prejudices of wage-earners, 2og, 210 Presbyterians, meeting at Kan- sas City in 1909, 71 Presbyterians, 75 n. Principle and liberty, 193 Principle of compensation, 155 Private settlement and public control, 242, 263 Production by bourgeoisie, its growth and results, 4, 5 Production of commodity in- cident to life, 112 Production means of economy, 186 Productivity and prosperity, 126 Progress of reform, 142 Progressive appropriation of soil, 25, 27 Prohibition of night work for children, 179 Proletariat, 11, 12, 15; interest in justice, 106; emerging from subserviency, 123; ideas of justice, 130 Proper wages of ability, 130 Property, desire to acquire, 259 Prophetic spirits of Scriptures, 108; of modem life, 109 Protestant church, membership, 272 Protestant Episcopal, 75 n. Protestant sects, communistic experiments, 86 Province of the church, r4S Provincialism of spirit, 271 Public discussion of problems, 67; gatherings for, 69, 70 Public officials, 145 Public sentiment demanding effective legislation, 150 R Railing against trusts, 187 Railroad brotherhoods, 2or Randall's Island House of Ref- uge, 174 Rate of wages in England, 1563, fixed by justices of the peace, 9 Reason vs. violence, 248 Reconcihation of economic needs with Christian ideals, 84 Redress, cheap and speedy means of, 246 Redemptive force, 27 Reformation, of sixteenth cen- tury, 60; anticipation of, 81 Regulations for safety and com- fort of workingman, 144 Relation of employer and em- ployed, how came to exist, 3-7, inc. ReUgious impulse, 259 Religious teaching, emphasis of, 2S8 INDEX 299 Renaissance, of moral insight, 107 Report of American Association for Labor Legislation, June, 1911, 142 n., 143 n. Responsibility of employers and employes, 150 Restlessness of wage-earners, 24s Review of Labor Legislation, October, 1911, 151 n., 179 n. Revolt of wage-earners against church, 37 Revolution now coming into world, 123 Revolution period in America, 9 Richards, Ralph C, The Con- servation of Men, 149 n. RicheUeu, 357 Right and truth, authority of, 109 Right of workingman to living wages, 114 Righteousness, 97 Ritual, 47, 109 Robespierre, 257 Roman CathoUc Church, in- spiring ideals, 273 Roman empire, industry based upon slavery, 45; slave popu- lation, 52, S3; abolition of slavery, 53 Roman hierarchy, 60 Romans, 42 Roosevelt, T. R., Jamestown, Pa., Exposition Speech, 155 n.; an open shop principle, 184 n. ; Presidential message, 1908, 146 Ross, Edward A., Changing America, 164 n., 170 n., 176 n., 183 n. Rothe, 109 Ruggles Street Baptist Church of Boston, 75 Ruskin, 6; Essay, Ad Valorem, 109 n.; Qui Jiidicatis Terram, no n.; Essay, The Roots of Honour, 203 n. Russian Meimonites, 86 Sabotage, 207 Sacksenspiegel and Schwahen- Spiegel, ss n. Saeger, Henry R., Proceedings of First Amiual Meeting of American Association for La- bor and Legislation, 156 n. Safety laws in the United States, T48, 149 Saint Simon, 87 Scherer, Edmond, La Demo- cratic et La France, 34 n. Schmidt, Karl, Social Result of Early Christianity, S4 n. Schreiner, Olive, Women and Labor, 165 n.; Chapter on Parasitism, 168 Scudder, Vida D., Religion and Socialism, Harvard Review, April, 1910, IS n.; Atlan- tic Monthly, March, 191 1, 16 n. Seagre, H. R., A Program of Social Legislation — Proceed- ings of the First Annual 300 INDEX Meeting of the American Association for Labor Legis- lation, Madison, Wis., 1907, 29 n., 159 n. Self-government, 267 Self-interest enlightened, 29 Selfishness and brotherhood, 261 Seligman, Principles 0} Econom- ics, 14 n., 12s n., 127 n., 188 n.; 190 n., 194; 202 n., 213 n., 244 n. Separatism, 271 Serfdom, 8, 54 Shaker, 86 Shaw, Albert, Icharia, 88 n. Sixteenth century, 60 Slavery, its rise, growth and re- sults, 7, 8; 103, 123; right to sell one's self into, 182; an- cient writers of, 270 Slaves freed on Sunday, 54 Smart, Prof., wealth producing machinery, 24; Lecture at University of Glasgow, 1903, 25 n. ; Studies in Economics, 25 n., 115 n. Smith, John, and others — im- prisonment of, 223 Social and economic campaign of exposure, 27, 28 Social consciousness created, 28 Social dependence, protection from, 158 Social ideal of Jesus, 39 Social justice, problem of wealth and wages, 131; real secret, 132; meaning of, 133 Social movement, 1; church's contribution to, 83, 96; real originators, 88 Social reconstruction: agencies, 31, 82; work on lines of Jesus, 48, 58; thwarted, 63 Social renewal, church's mes- sage, 48, 49; decadence, 107; vitality, 107 Social settlement, 77 Socialism a strong force, 15; stands for, 93; as curse or blessing, 34 Socialist creed contradiction to creed of Christianity, 93 Sociahst party, platform of, 268 Society as family, 133 Sociology, 67 Spain, labor court, 229 Spargo, Socialism, i n. Special privilege; beneficiaries, 34; passing of, 123 Spinning shops, 164, 165 Spirit of democracy, its up- ward movement, 17; fruitage, 18 Spirit of employer in workshop, 204 Spring Street Presbyterian Church of New York City, 75 Square deal, 188 Standard working day for women and children, 178 Statistics of occupational mor- tality, in U. S., 140 St. Bartholemew's Church o£ New York, 76 INDEX 301 St. Bartholomew's ParishHouse, 75 St. George's Church, 75 Stelzle, The Church and Labor, iSn. Stimpson, F. J., The Mod- ern Use of Injunctions, 223 n. Stoddard, Jane T., The New Socialism, Chap. VIII, 268 n. Street trades, 173, 174 Strike, freight handlers of the Fall River Line in 1^04, 19s n. Strike, legalization of, 211 Strikes and lockouts; in Austria, 229, 237, 242 Strong, Josiah, Institutional Churches, 76 n.; Social Prog- ress, 78 n. Studies of the Kingdom for 1910, 74 n.; Studies issued by American Institute of Social Service, 74 Suffrage, 227 Sun Printing and Publishing Co. against labor unionists in iSgg, 222 n. Summary of Recent Legislation, Review of Labor Legislation, 156 n. Survey, Vol. 25, No. 21, Feby. 18, 1911, 136 n. Sunday School, 161 Sutherland, W., Old Age Pen- sions, Appendix B, 159 Sweat shops of American cities, 193 Switzerland, labor court, 229 Synoptic gospels, 41 Systematic education, 145 Taussig, F. W., Principles of Economics, Vol. II, 14 n., 92 n.. Ill n., 130 n., 186 n. Tertullian: Apology of Tertul- lian, 53 n, 260 n. Textile trades, annual wage in, 117 The Christian Socialist, 89 Theodosius, sixth century, 54 Thompson, C. Bertrand, The Church and the Wage Earners, 77 n. Thorough investigation, 145 Tillet, Ben, London Times, January i, 1905, 105 n. Todt, 89 Tolstoi, 109; The Resurrection lion. Tools and labor, 22 Tort or wrong, 151 Trades Dispute Act of England, 8 Trades-unionism and socialism; demands, methods, spirit and enforcement of rules, 12, 13; 67 Trading companies, 60 Tramps and criminals, 173 Trial by jiuy, 224 Trial of man for theft of watch, 217 Typographical Journal, Vol. 38, 140 n., 220 n. 303 INDEX U Unbelievers, 46 Underwork, expressions used for, 124 n., 128 Undue stress, 220 Union Pacific R. R. Co. vs. Real, 120 Fed. (1903), 213 n. Unitarians, 71, 75 n. United States, Cooperative movement in, 264 Unorganized wage-earners, 32 United States Circuit Court of West Virginia, 223 Violence as a right, 210 Visitation of God, 144 Von der Goltz, General, 210 n. Voyage in Icaria, 88 W Wage contract, 135 Wage-earners: influences upon, 2, 3; struggle for freedom, 15; their religion, 16; compara- tive prosperity, 24 Wages, 267 Waning interest in sectarian religious organization, 269 War as measure of coercion, 243 Ward, H. F., Social Ministry, 166 n. Washington eight hour laws, 1911, 179 Weaving shops, 164, 166 Webb, Industrial Democracy, Vol. I, 144 n.; Higgling the Market, 1 70 n. ; Industrial Democracy on Conciliation and. Arbitration, 239 n. Welfare, social order a guaran- tee of, 94 Western Australian Law of 1900, 230 Whitney, 129 Wholesome moral and physical conditions of employment, 178 Will of organized society ex- pressing itself in law, 176 Wilson, President, Article, Lit- erary Digest, October 17, 1908, 197 n. Wisconsin, law for protection of workingmen, 142 Women and children in indus- try, 162, 163; perils of, 163; causes, 164, Women's sphere, 166 Workingmen: protest against dangerous conditions, 141; not simply producing agent, but man, 112; share in man- agement, 190, 209 Working day, 267 World commerce, beginnings of, 60 ■*HE following pages contain advertisements of a few of the Macmillan books on kindred subjects Social Idealism and the Changing Theology A Study of the Ethical Aspects of Christian Doctrine The Nathaniel William Taylor Lectures for 1912. Delivered be- fore the Yale Divinity School BY GERALD BIRNEY SMITH Associate Professor of Christian Theology in the Divinity School of the University of Chicago Cloth, i2mo, $1.25 net; postpaid, $1.37 "It has for some time seemed to me," says Gerald Birney Smith, in the preface to his new book, "that theological scholarship is in danger of pursuing a course which might end in a somewhat exclusive intellectuahsm. 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