THE LABOR PROBLEM AND THE CHURCHES.

[Read before the American Institute of Christian Philosophy, August 21st, 1886.]

BY WM. GODWIN MOODY, BROOKLYN, N. Y.

THERE are times and occasions in the life of every nation

and people when all their moral forces must be aroused

and set in action to preserve and protect their institutions and prolong their existence. Such an occasion was met by our nation and people at the time and during the events that led up to and the prosecution of the war of the rebellion. The matter that was then at issue-that caused our terrific struggle of four years and the flow of rivers of blood-was the settlement of a single phase of the Labor Problem.

And now, in these closing years of the first century in which machinery and improved processes have become the main factors in general production, and trade the universal vehicle of distribution, we are again confronted with the Labor Problem-not by a single phase only, but in its most concrete form, viz.: where and how can the great masses of mankind find the occupations that will guarantee to all the necessaries and comforts of life? To-day this question has taken on a form that may well blanche the cheek of the most fearless, for it is filled with threatenings of the greatest peril and demands instant solution.

Is it not a great mistake to treat this problem as an issue between labor and capital-capital as employed in production and distribution being understood in this relation? Surely capital is the natural fruit of labor, at least in its normal condition, and nowhere in nature can we find antagonisms existing between any plant and the fruit it bears.

But it is obvious to everyone that there are the most deadly antagonisms existing and conflicts raging in the ranks of labor, especially between those who are employed and the unemployed. Labor instead of seeking to derive an increase of comfort an!

reduction of toil that would affect its whole body, as the just compensation and adjustment for every advance in productive power, has made war upon itself and thrown a constantly increasing portion of its force out of employment and into fierce competition with those who may be found employed.

The immediate effect of this conflict in the ranks of labor is the creation of a body of idle workmen, both skilled and unskilled, who, to obtain the means of life, are compelled to enter into competition with their fellows, in a field where cheapness has become the deciding factor, and sell their labor upon the best terms they can obtain, however long may be the hours or small the wages. Under these conditions capital is also forced into the competition, unemployed labor at all times offering itself as the ready weapon to fight capital's battles and intensify labor's conflicts. In this way labor is continually forcing itself to greater privations in every direction.

The first development of these antagonisms and conflicts in the ranks of labor, in our country, was some forty to fifty years ago, when the first effort was made to limit the number of boys who should be permitted to learn trades. Under the operation of this limitation great numbers became unfit to fill any position requiring skill, and were forced either into idleness or to the most degraded and uncertain employments. In the years immediately preceding our great civil war the country was filled with idle and partially employed men and women.

But soon after the close of the war the proscription against unrestricted apprenticeships was greatly intensified and rigorously enforced, and bodies of workingmen were organized who also denied the right of any to work who were not members of special labor organizations, and subject to such rules and conditions as the organizations might see fit to enforce, under the most fearful pains and penalties, written and unwritten.

In evidence of this it is only necessary to point to the horrible atrocities practised upon "scabs" and "rats" by these labor organizations (that represent but a small fraction of the great body of labor) from the time of the Molly McGuire assassinations and arsons, in the coal regions of Pennsylvania, more than ten years ago, to the vastly extended and common resort to personal vio

lence and intimidation of every nature, in all parts of our country, at the present moment.

[The spectacle presented by twenty-five thousand men who, since the first reading of this paper, simultaneously abandoned their exceptionally well-paid work in Chicago, and made war upon the thousands of unemployed and needy men anxious to do the work that they had left, is as significant as it is amazing. And the accompanying picture shown in this land of liberty and equal rights by the hundreds of regular and special police armed with Winchester rifles, and two regiments of State troops, summoned to protect those who would work from the intimidation and murderous assaults of those who would not labor, may well cause us to revise some of our methods of discussion.

So, also, the strike of some twenty thousand employés engaged in the production of knit goods, in the State of New York, and their proscriptive demands against the "scab " force employed, and for their punishment, is in the same line of outrage against the natural and civil rights of mankind.]

Here is an unwritten chapter of horrors, perpetrated by workingmen upon their fellows, that cannot be paralleled outside of the warfare of savages.

The occasional increase of wages and shortening of hours of labor, that are forced by strikes, are rarely or never permanent, being quickly followed by reaction, or complications, that make the case of labor worse than ever, and are sure to increase the uncertainties of employment and the amount of idleness.

Practically the only conflict existing between labor and capital, employed in productive industries, is the war made upon capital by organized labor to compel it to refuse employment to all labor that is not affiliated with special labor organizations. It is out of these general conditions that have grown all the industrial and social evils now so prevalent; and the evidence appears to be conclusive that the real source of the evils and dangers by which we are surrounded is to be found in the fearful amount of idleness-by no means necessary-that has been developed by our present industrial methods.

Had the efforts of labor organizations, from the first, been directed to the very desirable objects of improving the condition

and reducing the toil of all who labor, through the increased and increasing productive power of machinery, in place of making war upon their fellows and driving them out of employment, the present wretched conditions would never have been reached. And even now, if they would adopt the policy of equal rights and the general welfare, they would challenge the hearty approval and support of universal humanity, and quickly reach the objects desired. But the continued pursuit of their present aims, by the means they have thus far used, will be, as heretofore, the greatest possible obstacle to improvement, and humanity will be fortunate if it escapes fearful disaster..

It is my purpose to use the few minutes I am permitted to occupy in this discussion, in calling your attention to a very small number of the abundant facts by which we are surrounded in proof of the correctness of these views.

In the first years of the present century machinery in general production was unknown. At that time substantially the whole amount of our domestic manufactures was the product of the industries of the families of the nation. Our agriculture was confined to the cultivation of the soil of the homestead, which rarely exceeded two hundred acres in extent, with generally less than one hundred acres under the plow. The primary object then was to produce upon the farm all that was required for the sustenance and comfort of the family, the surplus only being destined for market, to obtain those things that the farm could not be made to produce.

Upon the homestead the wool and the flax were grown, spun, and woven; then made into garments and worn by the family. When not holding the plow or using the sickle, the farmer was often his own and his neighbors' shoemaker and carpenter, besides making his own tools, and doing various other things that the farmer of to-day does not think of attempting.

In the dwellings of the towns, also, the loom was set up and the spinning wheel was heard. All our industries were eminently family employments, and the muscle of the family, with the domestic ox and horse, were the only forces then used.

Under these conditions every one, old and young, male and female, found ample employment, and plenty and contentment

in our land was the common lot. Idleness was hardly known, and the tramping beggar was never seen. As a rule every family had its separate roof; and the poor, requiring eleemosynary aid and support, were confined to the sick and feeble, the aged, and to orphaned childhood.

Now all these things are changed. The homesteads of our fathers are fast becoming traditions only, being replaced by the mammoth farms of to-day of hundreds of thousands and millions of acres in extent, where everything is produced for the market, and nothing for special family use; where women and children and family relations form no part of the fixed social economies; where machinery, steam, and other forces of nature are the main factors in production, in place of the muscle and ox of our fathers. The family spinning wheel and loom are no longer to be found; they are simple remembrances, and our manufactures of every kind are the products of huge mills, factories, and work-shops, with vast machinery continually becoming more and more self-operative, and requiring less and less of oversight and use of muscle.

Yet we still have millions of small farms-not homesteads, but an evil vestige from the middle ages-being a revival upon our soil, within the past twenty-five years, of the feudal servitude of tenant farming, without the domestic manufactures that centuries ago served to make that condition at that time endurable.

To-day the machine harvester takes the place of a hundred and fifty of our fathers' sickles; one man with machine spinners does the work of six thousand of our mothers' spinning wheels; one girl with power looms weaves as much as could one hundred girls with old hand looms; one machine printing press does more work than could be done on ten thousand old hand presses. So with carding machines, and machinery for all the work done and requiring force, excepting only, to the best of my knowledge and belief, the labor of type setting, which practically remains the same as it was when Guttenberg and Faust left it, four hundred years ago. Yet it seems probable that machinery will soon monopolize that work also.

The Hon. Carroll D. Wright, Commissioner of Labor for the United States Labor Bureau, says that "By careful computation