The Sun

ADVISING CO-OPERATION
TALMAGE'S REMEDY FOR THE ILLS OF
LABOR AND CAPITAL
Drawing a Lesson from a Supposed Quarrel
Between the Eyes and the Hands—Economy
and Religion Commended to the Laborer.
"Suppose the eye should say to the hands,
'It there is anything I am disgusted with it is
your able low-lived hands'; and suppose
the fist should say, 'I despise those eyes.
Can't under the dome of the forehead doing
nothing.' That would be the equivalent
of a quarrel between labor and capital," said
Rev. T. De Witt Talmage in his morning sermon yesterday.
In not live without Lazarus. There
will only when labor and capital find
that their interests are identical. Every speech
that makes against capital postpones the
dissolution. Every time capital maligns labor it is only the eye cursing the hand or the
hand cursing the eye.
It is that the vast majority of capitalists
are successful laborers. Look beneath the
glove of the capitalist and you will find the
broken, in-sewn nail, the scarred joint. The great
publishers have been type setters and book-
binders. The great carriage builders have
sanded wagon bodies. On the other
hand you will find men working for wages
who have employed hundreds of men.
"Between capital and labor there is a bridge.
It is not a long suspension bridge. It is only
a step. The capitalists and laborers are both
crossing that bridge. Pray God that they may
shake hands by the way. Every laborer has a
magnificent capital in his nerves, bones, mechanical skill, and physical health. A man who
has two eyes, two hands, two feet, and ten
fingers has a capital in machinery superior to
that of the steam engine. Why should not
laboring men cooperate? Why should they
not put in their surplus capital and become
capitalists instead of being at the beck of this
or that capitalist? I am not now speaking of
trade unions, but of cooperative labor. In
England and Ireland there are 313 cooperative
societies. They have 40,000 members.
They have a capital of $15,000,000. They have
a business of $63,000,000 annually.
"But why talk of investing the surplus capital
of laborers when they are struggling for the
necessaries of life? Suppose you could take
that hundred millions spent for tobacco, and
that other hundreds spent for rum, and put the
money in a cooperative association?" Then
take all the money that has been spent for over-
dress, for over style, for over living, for trying
to make poor people look as if they were not
poor: put those all those sums and what a grand
cooperative association you could make.
I am not saying anything against trade
unions. They are beneficial in some directions.
In these days, when there are a thousand
monopolies and concentrated wealth is in
few hands, the laboring men of this country
could not very well get along without trade
unions (Applause). The lawyers, the newspaper men, the clergymen have their organizations.
Trade unions for legitimate purposes
are advisable. But when they come with
drum and fife and flag and drive people from
the toll from the scaffold or the furnace, then trade
unions become Nihilistic: then they are barbaric: then they are a curse. If a man wants
to stop work let him stop, but don't let him
stop me. Suppose that some Sunday, just
as I began to preach, some clergymen
should come here and order me to stop: I
should say: 'This is my work, and I am going
to work.'
Look at the tyranny of the rule
adopted by the Manchester, England, brick-
layors. 'Any man that is running or working
beyond the required speed shall be fined two
and sixpence for the first offence, and three
shillings for the second offence, and ten shillings for the third, and if he persists he shall
be dealt with as the committee think proper.
Talk about tyranny, there is no tyranny on
earth like that of such a union: Look at the
rules of the Bricklayers' Association which forbid a man doing extra work to get the good will
of his employer!
"Suppose all this money now wasted on rum
and tobacco could be put into cooperative societies—how much better for the laborers. We
know that the laborers are better for temperance. They can do more work and keep better
health. Men can work better without rum;
soldiers can fight better without it. Before a
Russian army goes out to battle a corporal
goes along the line and smells the breath of
the men. He knows which to put in the rear.
At present there are too many who are uneasy
until they have spent their last dollar. I knew
a young man who was earning only $700 a year,
and that by hard work. He nearly ruined his
eyes by night work. What for? To buy life
insurance? To put by for a rainy day? No; it
was to buy his wife a sealskin sacque. Then the
woman's sister, not to be outshone, must also
work her fingers to the bone until she got a
sealskin sacque. There are lots of people who
say, practically, Though the heavens fall, I
must have a sealskin sacque.' "A Western
clergyman told me that members of his con-
gregation had mortgaged their farms to go to
the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. One
family after another went, until it got to be un-
fashionable not to go. It is not honest for men
to live in luxury and have no provision for the
future for their families. I am no advocate of
skinflint saving. It is mean or magnificent to
save according to your object. Mere hoarding
is despicable."But it is pardonable to save for
the purpose of educating your children or helping your family to independence. The majority of the homesteads in this country have
been the result of savings banks and life insurance companies.
Great relief is to come to the laboring classes
of this country by the appreciation on the part
of the employers of the fact that they would
better take the laborers into their confidence.
The employer should let his men know just
how he is standing. There is an enormous
amount of good sense in the world, and when
informed of the facts the laborers will not be
unreasonable. Another relief to the laboring
classes will be through the religious rectification
of it. The religion of Jesus Christ is a
democratic religion. It tells the employer that
he is the brother of the laborer.
Suppose an employer knocks at the gate of
heaven and the gatekeeper asks what his
claims for admission are, and he says, 'I employed somebody.' Then the gatekeeper will ask,
'How much divine grace did you employ?' The
employer will say, 'None.' Then the gate-
keeper will say, 'You can't come in.'
Another knock at the gate of heaven. It is
the laborer. 'He has done his duty.' Then you
hear the rattle of the bolts, the gates swing
open, and the laborer enters. It doesn't matter
how much money you have. You can't buy
your way into the kingdom of heaven. It
makes no difference how poor you are. If you
have the grace of God in your heart you will
enter heaven. It is a democratic religion. Be
your own executor of charity. There was a
man died recently in New York and left forty
millions of dollars. Did he leave a million for
God? No. Did he leave two cents for God?
No, not a cent: "Here is a letter I received this week of a man who died worth $8,000,000, and
died without leaving a cent to God.
Congratulate the working men in this
country on their brilliant prospects, upon the
prospects of their children, upon the cheapness
of education and of literature. I beg the laborers to turn for help to the carpenter of Nazareth, and I assure them that for Christian
working men and working women that will be
the beginning of an eternal holiday.