Fort Worth Bible Students

STUDY VII
THE NATIONS ASSEMBLED AND THE
PREPARATION OF THE ELEMENTS FOR
THE GREAT FIRE OF GOD'S
INDIGNATION

How and Why the Nations are Assembled--The Social Elements Preparing for the Fire--The Heaping of Treasures--The Increase of Poverty --Social Friction Nearing Combustion--A Word from the President of the American Federation of Labor--The Rich sometimes too Severely Condemned--Selfishness and Liberty in Combination--Independence as Viewed by the Rich and by the Poor--Why Present Conditions Cannot Continue--Machinery an Important Factor in Preparing for the Great Fire--Female Competition--Labor's View of the Situation, Reasonable and Unreasonable--The Law of Supply and Demand Inexorable upon all--The Outlook for Foreign Industrial Competition apalling--Mr. Justin McCarthy's Fears for England--Kier Hardie, M.P., on the Labor Outlook in England--Hon. Jos. Chamberlain's Prophetic Words to British Workmen--National Aggression as Related to Industrial Interests--Herr Liebknecht on the Social and Industrial War in Germany--Resolutions of the International Trades Union Congress--Giants in These Days--List of Trusts and Combines-- Barbaric Slavery vs. Civilized Bondage--The Masses Between the Upper and Nether Millstones--The Conditions Universal and Beyond Human Power to Regulate.

"WAIT ye upon me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey: for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger; for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy [wrath]. For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent." Zeph. 3:8,9 [D270]

The gathering of the nations in these last days, in fulfilment of the above prophecy, is very notable. Modern discovery and invention have indeed made the remotest ends of the earth neighbors to each other. Travel, mailing facilities, the telegraph, the telephone, commerce, the multiplication of books and newspapers, etc., have brought all the world to a considerable extent into a community of thought and action hitherto unknown. This condition of things has already made necessary international laws and regulations that each of the nations must respect. Their representatives meet in Councils, and each nation has in every other nation its ministers or representatives. International Exhibitions have also been called forth as results of this neighboring of nations. There can no more be that exclusiveness on the part of any nation which would bar every other nation from its ports. The gates of all are necessarily thrown open, and must remain so; and even the barriers of diverse languages are being easily surmounted.

The civilized peoples are no longer strangers in any part of the earth. Their splendid sea equipments carry their business representatives, their political envoys and their curious pleasure-seekers to the remotest quarters with ease and comfort. Magnificent railway coaches introduce them to the interior lands, and they return home laden with information, and with new ideas, and awakened to new projects and enterprises. Even the dull heathen nations are arousing themselves from the dreams of centuries and looking with wonder and amazement at their visitors from abroad and learning of their marvelous achievements. And they in turn are now sending their representatives abroad that they may profit by their new acquaintances.

In the days of Solomon it was thought a marvelous thing that the queen of Sheba should come about five hundred miles to hear the wisdom and behold the grandeur of Solomon; [D271] but now numbers even of the untitled travel over the whole world, a great portion of which was then unknown, to see its accumulated wealth and to learn of its progress; and the circuit of the world can now be made with comfort and even luxury in less than eighty days.

Truly, the nations are "assembled" in a manner not expected, yet in the only manner in which they could be assembled; viz., in common interest and activity; but alas! not in brotherly love, for selfishness marks every step of this progress. The spirit of enterprise, of which selfishness is the motive power, has prompted the construction of the railways, the steamships, the telegraphs, the cables, the telephones; selfishness regulates the commerce and the international comity, and every other energy and enterprise, except the preaching of the gospel and the establishment of benevolent institutions: and even in these it is to be feared that much that is done is inspired by motives other than pure love for God and humanity. Selfishness has gathered the nations and has been steadily preparing them for the predicted, and now fast approaching, retribution--anarchy --which is so graphically described as the "fire of God's jealousy" or anger, which is about to consume utterly the present social order--the world that now is. (2 Pet. 3:7) Yet this is speaking only from the human standpoint; for the Prophet ascribes this gathering of the nations to God. But both are true; for while man is permitted the exercise of his free agency, God, by his overruling providence, is shaping human affairs for the accomplishment of his own wise purposes. And therefore, while men and their works and ways are the agents and agencies, God is the great Commander who now gathers the nations and assembles the kingdoms from one end of the earth to the other, preparatory to the transfer of earth's dominion to him "whose right it is," Immanuel. [D272]

The Prophet tells us why the Lord thus gathers the nations, saying--"That I may pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger; for the whole earth [the entire social fabric] shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy." This message would bring us sorrow and anguish only, were it not for the assurance that the results shall work good to the world, overthrowing the reign of selfishness and establishing, through Christ's Millennial Kingdom, the reign of righteousness referred to in the words of the prophet--"Then will I turn unto the people a pure language [Their communications with each other shall no longer be selfish, but pure, truthful and loving, to the intent] that they may all call upon the name of the Lord to serve him with one consent."

The "gathering of the nations" will not only contribute to the severity of the judgment, but it will also make it impossible for any to escape it; and it will thus make the great tribulation a short, as well as a decisive, conflict, as it is written: "A short work will the Lord make upon the earth." Rom. 9:28; Isa. 28:22

The Social Elements Preparing for the Fire

Looking about us we see the "elements" preparing for the fire of this day--the fire of God's wrath. Selfishness, knowledge, wealth, ambition, hope, discontent, fear and despair are the ingredients whose friction will shortly set aflame the angry passions of the world and cause its various social "elements" to melt in the fervent heat. Looking out over the world, note what changes have taken place in respect to these passions during the past century, and especially during the past forty years. The satisfied contentment of the past is gone from all classes--rich and poor, male and female, educated and ignorant. All are dissatisfied. All are selfishly and increasingly grasping for "rights" or bemoaning [D273] "wrongs." True, there are wrongs, grievous wrongs, which should be righted, and rights that should be enjoyed and respected; but the tendency of our time, with its increase of knowledge and independence, is to look only at the side of questions closest to self-interest, and to fail to appreciate the opposite side. The effect foretold by the prophets will be ultimately to set every man's hand against his neighbor, which will be the immediate cause of the great final catastrophe. God's Word and providence and the lessons of the past are forgotten under the strong convictions of personal rights, etc., which hinder people of every class from choosing the wiser, moderate course, which they cannot even see because selfishness blinds them to everything out of accord with their own prejudices. Each class fails to consider with impartiality the welfare and rights of the other. The golden rule is generally ignored; and the lack of wisdom as well as the injustice of this course will soon be made manifest to all classes, for all classes will suffer terribly in this trouble. But the rich, the Scriptures inform us, will suffer most.

While the rich are diligently heaping up fabulous treasure for these last days, tearing down their storehouses and building greater, and saying to themselves and their posterity, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; eat, drink and be merry," God, through the prophets, is saying, "Thou fool! this night thy soul shall be required of thee. Then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?" Luke 12:15-20

Yes, the dark night predicted (Isa. 21:12; 28:12,13,21,22; John 9:4) is fast approaching; and, as a snare, it shall overtake the whole world. Then, indeed, whose shall these hoarded treasures be, when, in the distress of the hour, "they shall cast their silver in the streets and their gold shall be removed?" "Their silver and their gold shall not be able [D274] to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord:...because it is the stumbling block of their iniquity." Ezek. 7:19

The Heaping of Treasures

It is evident that we are in a time pre-eminent above all others for the accumulation of wealth, and for "wanton" or extravagant living on the part of the rich. (James 5:3,5) Let us hear some testimony from current literature. If the point is conclusively proved, it becomes another evidence that we are in the "last days" of the present dispensation and nearing the great trouble which shall eventually wreck the present order of the world and usher in the new order of things under the Kingdom of God.

The Hon. Wm. E. Gladstone, in a speech widely reported, after referring to the present as a "wealth-producing age," said:

"There are gentlemen before me who have witnessed a greater accumulation of wealth within the period of their lives than has been seen in all preceding times since the days of Julius Caesar."

Note this statement by one of the best informed men in the world. This fact, so difficult for us to comprehend--that more wealth has been produced and accumulated during the past fifty years than during the previous nineteen centuries --is nevertheless shown by statistics to be a very conservative estimate, and the new conditions thus produced are destined to play an important part in the readjustment of the social order of the world now impending.

The Boston Globe, some years ago, gave the following account of some of the wealthy men of the United States:

"The twenty-one railroad magnates who met in New York on Monday, to discuss the question of railroad competition, represented $3,000,000,000 of capital. Men now living can remember when there were not half a dozen millionaires [D275] in the land. There are now numbered 4,600 millionaires and several whose yearly income is said to be over a million.

"There are in New York City, at a conservative calculation, the surprising number of 1,157 individuals and estates that are each worth $1,000,000. There are in Brooklyn 162 individuals and estates each worth at least $1,000,000. In the two cities there are then 1,319 millionaires, but many of these are worth much more than $1,000,000--they are multi-millionaires, and the nature of these great fortunes is different, and they therefore yield different incomes. The rates of interest which some of the more conspicuous ones draw are reckoned in round numbers, thus: John D. Rockefeller's 6 per cent; William Waldorf Astor's, 7 per cent; Jay Gould's estate, which, being wrapped up in corporations, is still practically undivided, 4 per cent; Cornelius Vanderbilt's, 5 per cent and William K. Vanderbilt's, 5 per cent.

"Calculating at the foregoing rates and compounding interest semi-annually, to allow for reinvestment, the yearly and daily incomes of the four individuals and of the estates named are as follows:

Yearly Daily
William Waldorf Astor.................$8,900,000 $23,277
John D. Rockefeller................... 7,611,250 20,853
Jay Gould's Estate.................... 4,040,000 11,068
Cornelius Vanderbilt.................. 4,048,000 11,090
William K. Vanderbilt................. 3,795,000 10,397

The above is evidently a conservative estimate, for even sixteen years ago it was noted that Mr. Rockefeller's quarterly dividend on Standard Oil Company's stock, of which he is one of the principal holders, was represented by a check for four millions of dollars; and the same holdings today yield a far greater income.

The Niagara Falls Review even before the dawn of the present century sounded the following warning note: [D276]

"One of the greatest dangers which now menace the stability of American institutions is the increase of individual millionaires, and the consequent concentration of property and money in single hands. A recent article in a prominent paper of New York State gives figures which must serve to draw general attention to the evolution of this difficulty. The following are said to be the nine greatest fortunes in the United States:

William Waldorf Astor.............................$150,000,000
Jay Gould......................................... 100,000,000
John D. Rockefeller............................... 90,000,000
Cornelius Vanderbilt.............................. 90,000,000
William K. Vanderbilt............................. 80,000,000
Henry M. Flagler.................................. 60,000,000
John L. Blair..................................... 50,000,000
Russell Sage...................................... 50,000,000
Collis P. Huntington.............................. 50,000,000
------------
Total...............................$720,000,000

"Estimating the yield from these immense sums in accordance with the average interest obtained upon other similar investments, the following would be the proceeds:

Yearly Daily
Astor.....................................$9,135,000 $25,027
Rockefeller............................... 5,481,000 16,003
Gould..................................... 4,040,000 11,068
Vanderbilt, C. ........................... 4,554,000 12,477
Vanderbilt, W. K. ........................ 4,048,000 11,090
Flagler................................... 3,036,000 8,318
Blair..................................... 3,045,000 8,342
Sage...................................... 3,045,000 8,342
Huntington................................ 1,510,000 4,137

"Nearly all these men live in a comparatively simple style, and it is obviously impossible for them to spend more than a portion of their immense daily and yearly revenues. The surplus consequently becomes capital, and helps to build still higher the fortunes of these individuals. Now the Vanderbilt family possess the following immense sums:

(The past few years have increased some of these figures greatly.) [D277]

Cornelius Vanderbilt..........................$90,000,000
William K. Vanderbilt......................... 80,000,000
Frederick W. Vanderbilt....................... 17,000,000
George W. Vanderbilt.......................... 15,000,000
Mrs. Elliot F. Sheppard....................... 13,000,000
Mrs. William D. Sloane........................ 13,000,000
Mrs. Hamilton McK. Twombly.................... 13,000,000
Mrs. W. Seward Webb........................... 13,000,000
------------
Total..............$254,000,000

"Still more wonderful are the accumulations made through the great Standard Oil trust, which has just been dissolved--succeeded by the Standard Oil Company. The fortunes from it were as follows:

John D. Rockefeller...........................$90,000,000
Henry M. Flagler.............................. 60,000,000
William Rockefeller........................... 40,000,000
Benjamin Brewster............................. 25,000,000
Henry H. Rogers............................... 25,000,000
Oliver H. Payne (Cleveland)................... 25,000,000
Wm. G. Warden (Philadelphia).................. 25,000,000
Chas. Pratt estate (Brooklyn)................. 25,000,000
John D. Archbold.............................. 10,000,000
------------
Total...........................$325,000,000

"It took just twenty years to combine this wealth in the hands of eight or nine men. Here, then, is the danger. In the hands of Gould, the Vanderbilts and Huntington are the great railroads of the United States. In the possession of Sage, the Astors and others, rest great blocks of New York land, which are constantly increasing in value. United and by natural accumulation, the fortunes of these nine families would amount in twenty-five years to $2,754,000,000. William Waldorf Astor himself, by pure force of accumulation, will probably be worth a thousand millions before he dies; and this money, like that of the Vanderbilts, will descend in his family as in others, and create an aristocracy of wealth extremely dangerous to the commonwealth, and forming a curious commentary upon that aristocracy of birth or talent which Americans consider to be so injurious in Great Britain. [D278]

"Other great fortunes are in existence or rising, a few only of which may be given:

William Astor..................................$40,000,000
Leland Stanford................................ 30,000,000
Mrs. Hetty Green............................... 30,000,000
Philip D. Armour............................... 30,000,000
Edward F. Searles.............................. 25,000,000
J. Pierpont Morgan............................. 25,000,000
Charles Crocker estate......................... 25,000,000
Darius O. Mills................................ 25,000,000
Andrew Carnegie................................ 25,000,000
E. S. Higgins estate........................... 20,000,000
George M. Pullman.............................. 20,000,000
------------
Total............................$295,000,000

"Thus we see capital in almost inconceivable sums being vested in a few, and necessarily taken from [the opportunity of] the many. There is no power in man to peaceably settle this vexed question. It will go on from bad to worse."

Some American Millionaires
and How They Got Their Millions

The Editor of the Review of Reviews gives what he terms "a few excerpts from a most instructive and entertaining paper, the one fault of which is its optimistic view of the plutocratic octopus," in these words:

"An American who writes from intimate personal knowledge, but who prefers to remain anonymous, tells in Cornhill Magazine with much sympathy the story of several of the millionaires of the giant Republic. He claims that even if the four thousand millionaires own among them forty billion dollars out of the seventy-six billions which form the total national wealth, still the balance leaves every citizen $500 per head as against $330 per head forty-five years ago. He argues that millionaires have grown by making other classes not poorer but richer. [D279]

"'Commodore Vanderbilt, who made the first Vanderbilt millions, was born just a century ago. His capital was the traditional bare feet, empty pocket and belief in his luck--the foundation of so many American fortunes. Hard work, from six years of age to sixteen, furnished him with a second and more tangible capital, namely, one hundred dollars in cash. This money he invested in a small boat; and with that boat he opened a business of his own--the transportation of vegetables to New York. At twenty years of age he married, and man and wife both turned money-makers. He ran his boat. She kept a hotel. Three years later he was worth ten thousand dollars. After that his money came rapidly --so rapidly that when the civil war broke out, the boy, who had started with one boat, worth one hundred dollars, was able to present to the nation one of his boats, value eight hundred thousand dollars, and yet feel easy about his finances and his fleet. At seventy years of age he was credited with a fortune of seventy millions.

"'The Astor fortune owes its existence to the brains of one man and the natural growth of a great nation, John Jacob Astor being the only man in four generations who was a real money-maker. The money he made, as he made it, was invested in New York City property; the amount of such property is limited, as the city stands upon an island. Consequently the growth of New York City, which was due to the growth of the Republic, made this small fortune of the eighteenth century the largest American fortune of the nineteenth century. The first and last Astor worthy of study as a master of millions was therefore John Jacob Astor who, tiring of his work as helper in his father's butcher shop in Waldorf, went, about one hundred and ten years ago, to try his luck in the new world. On the ship he really, in one sense, made his whole fortune. He met an old fur-trader who posted him in the tricks of Indian fur-trading. This trade he took up and made money at. Then he married Sarah Todd, a shrewd, energetic young woman. Sarah and John Jacob dropped into the homely habit of passing all their evenings in their shop sorting pelts...In fifteen years John Jacob and Sarah his wife had accumulated twenty-five [D280] hundred thousand dollars...A lucky speculation in United States bonds, then very low in price, doubled John Jacob's fortune; and this wealth all went into real estate, where it has since remained.

"'Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins and Collis P. Huntington went to California in the gold fever of 1849. When the trans-continental railway was mooted these four 'saw millions in it,' and contracted to make the Union Pacific. The four men, penniless in 1850, are today credited with a combined fortune of $200,000,000.

"'One of them, Leland Stanford, had designed to found a family; but ten years ago his only son died, and he then decided to establish a university in memory of that son. And he did it in princely fashion, for while yet 'in the flesh' he 'deeded' to trustees three farms containing 86,000 acres, and, owing to their splendid vineyards, worth $6,000,000. To this he added $14,000,000 worth of securities, and at his death left the university a legacy of $2,500,000--a total gift by one man, to one institution of learning of $22,500,000, which is said to be a 'world's record.' His wife has announced her intention to leave her fortune, some $10,000,000, to the university.'

"The most remarkable instance of money-making shown in the history of American millions is that furnished by the Standard Oil Trust:

"'Thirty years ago five young men, most of them living in the small city of Cleveland (State of Ohio), and all comparatively poor (probably the whole party could not boast of $50,000), saw monetary possibilities in petroleum. In the emphatic language of the old river pilot, 'They went for it thar and then,' and they got it. Today that same party of five men is worth $600,000,000...John D. Rockefeller, the brain and 'nerve' of this great 'trust,' is a ruddy-faced man with eye so mild and manner so genial that it is very hard to call him a 'grasping monopolist.' His 'hobby' now is education, and he rides this hobby in robust, manly fashion. He has taken the University of Chicago under his wing, and already the sum of seven million dollars has passed [D281] from his pockets to the treasury of the new seat of learning in the second city of the Republic.'"

In an article in the Forum Mr. Thomas G. Shearman, a New York statistician, gave the names of seventy Americans whose aggregate wealth is $2,700,000,000, an average of $38,500,000 each; and declares that a list of ten persons could be made whose wealth would average $100,000,000 each; and another list of one hundred persons whose wealth would average $25,000,000 each; and that "the average annual income of the richest hundred Americans cannot be less [each] than $1,200,000, and probably exceeds $1,500,000."

Commenting on this last statement, an able writer (Rev. Josiah Strong) says:

"If one hundred workmen could earn each $1,000 a year, they would have to work twelve hundred or fifteen hundred years to earn as much as the annual income of these one hundred richest Americans. And if a workman could earn $100 a day he would have to work until he would be five hundred and forty-seven years old, and never take a day off, before he could earn as much as some Americans are worth."

The following table compares the wealth of the four richest nations of the world in 1830 and 1893; and shows how riches are being "heaped together" nationally in these "last days" of this age of almost fabulous accumulation.

1830 1893

Great Britain's total wealth $16,890,000,000 $50,000,000,000
France's total wealth 10,645,000,000 40,000,000,000
Germany's total wealth 10,700,000,000 35,000,000,000
United States' total wealth 5,000,000,000 72,000,000,000

That the reader may have an idea as to how statisticians arrive at their conclusions on so vast a subject, we give the following as an approximate classified estimate of the wealth of the United States: [D282]

Real estate in cities and towns.................$15,500,000,000
Real estate other than of cities and towns...... 12,500,000,000
Personal property (not hereafter specified)..... 8,200,000,000
Railroads and their equipments.................. 8,000,000,000
Capital invested in manufactures................ 5,300,000,000
Manufactured goods.............................. 5,000,000,000
Productions (including wool).................... 3,500,000,000

Property owned and money invested in

foreign countries............................. 3,100,000,000

Public buildings,

arsenals, warships, etc....................... 3,000,000,000
Domestic animals on farms....................... 2,480,000,000
Domestic animals in cities and towns............ 1,700,000,000

Money, foreign and domestic coin,

bank notes, etc. ............................... 2,130,000,000
Public lands (at $1.25 per acre)................ 1,000,000,000
Mineral products (all descriptions)............. 590,000,000
---------------
Total..............................$72,000,000,000

It was noted some years ago that the wealth of the United States was increasing at the rate of forty million dollars per week, or two billion dollars per year.

(The total indebtedness of the people of the United States, public and private, was then estimated to be twenty billion dollars.)

This heaping together of treasures for the last days, here noted, relates specially to these United States, but the same is true of the whole civilized world. Great Britain is per capita richer than the United States--the richest nation on earth. And even in China and Japan there are millionaires of recent development. The defeat of China in 1894 by the Japanese is charged as chiefly due to the avarice of the government officers, who are said to have supplied inferior and even imitation cannon and cannon-balls, although paid a large price for the genuine. [D283]

Of course only a minority of those who seek wealth find it. The rush and strife for wealth is not always rewarded. The bane of selfishness extends far beyond the successful, and, as the Apostle said, "They that will be rich [who are determined to be rich at all hazards] fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful desires which drown men in destruction and perdition; for the love of money [wealth] is a root of all evil." (1 Tim. 6:9,10) The majority, inexperienced, take the risks and find disappointment and loss: the few, worldly-wise and keen, take few risks and reap most of the gains. Thus, for instance, the "South-African gold fever" which once spread over Great Britain, France and Germany, actually transferred from the pockets and bank accounts of the middle class to those of the wealthy capitalists and bankers, who take little risk, hundreds of millions of dollars. The result was undoubtedly a great loss to said middle class so anxious for sudden riches that they risk their all. The tendency of this is to make many of this usually conservative class discontented and ready in a few years for any Socialistic scheme which promises to be to their advantage.

The Increase of Poverty

But is it true that there are poor and needy people in this land of plenty, in which so many are heaping together such fabulous wealth? Is it not his or her own fault if any healthy man or woman cannot get along comfortably? Would it not tend to cultivate pauperism and dependence if the "well-to-do" should undertake to paddle the canoes of the poorer classes? Thus the subject is regarded by many of the wealthy, who in many instances were poor themselves twenty-five years ago, and who remember that then all who were able and willing to work could find plenty to do. They do not realize what great changes have taken place since [D284] then, and that while their fortunes have improved wonderfully, the condition of the masses has retrograded, especially during the last seven years. True, wages, at the present moment, are generally fair, being maintained by Unions, etc.; but many cannot obtain work, while many of those who have situations have work only about half time, and often less, and are barely able by strict economy to live decently and honestly.

When special depressions come, as in 1893-6, many of these out of work are thrown upon the charity of their friends who are illy able to sustain this additional pressure; and those who have no friends are forced upon public charities, which at such times are wholly inadequate.

The depression of 1893 passed like a wave over the whole world, and its heavy pressure is still widely felt; though to some a breathing spell of recuperation has come. But, as the Scriptures point out, this trouble comes in waves or spasms--"as travail upon a woman" (1 Thess. 5:3)--and each succeeding spasm will probably be more severe--until the final one. The wealthy and comfortable often find it difficult to realize the destitution of the poorest class, which is rapidly becoming more numerous. The fact is that even among those of the middle and wealthy classes who do think and feel for the distresses of the very poor there is the realization of the utter impossibility of so changing the present social order as to bring any permanent relief to them; and so each does what little he thinks to be his ability and duty for those nearest to him, and tries to discredit or forget the reports of misery which reach his eyes and ears.

The following extracts from the daily press will call to mind the conditions which obtained in 1893, and which before very long will probably be duplicated with interest. The California Advocate said: [D285]

"The assembling of the unemployed masses in our great cities in multitudinous thousands is a most gruesome spectacle, and their piteous cry for work or bread is being heard all over the land. It is the old unsolved problem of poverty, intensified by the unprecedented depression of business. Involuntary idleness is a constantly growing evil coincident with civilization. It is the dark shadow that steadily creeps after civilization, increasing in dimensions and intensity as civilization advances. Things are certainly in an abnormal condition when men are willing to work, want to work, and yet cannot find work to do, while their very life depends upon work. There is no truth in the old saying that 'the world owes every man a living.' But it is true that the world owes every man a chance to earn his living. Many theories have been advanced and many efforts have been made to secure inalienable 'right to work' to every one willing to work; but all such attempts have hitherto ended in gloomy failure. He will indeed be a benefactor to mankind who shall successfully solve the problem how to secure to every willing worker some work to do, and thus rid mankind of the curse of involuntary idleness."

Another account describes how, in Chicago, a crowd of over four hundred unemployed men marched through the downtown streets, headed by one of their number carrying a pasteboard sign on which was scrawled the grim legend, "We Want Work." The next day they marched with many banners bearing the following inscriptions: "Live and Let Live," "We Want a Chance to Support Our Families." "Work or Bread," etc. An army of unemployed marched through San Francisco with banners on which were inscribed, "Thousands of Houses to Rent, and Thousands of People Homeless," "Hungry and Destitute," "Driven by the Lash of Hunger to Beg," "Get Off Our Backs and We Will Help Ourselves," etc.

Another clipping read: [D286]

"NEWARK, N.J., August 21--Unemployed workingmen held a large parade today. At the head of the line marched a man with a large black flag, upon which in white letters were the words: 'Signs of the Times--I Am Starving Because He is Fat.' Beneath was a picture of a large, well-fed man with a high hat, and beside him a starving workman."

Another journal, referring to the English coal-miners' strike, said:

"The stories of actual distress, and even of starvation, are multiplying painfully throughout England, and the cessation of industries and the derangement of railways are assuming proportions of grave national calamity...As might be expected, the real cause consists in the huge royalties that lessees have to pay for the ground to the landlords from whom they lease the mines. A considerable number of millionaires, whose coal royalties hang like millstones around the neck of the mining industries, are also prominent peers, and angry public consciousness puts the two things together with a snap...Radical papers are compiling portentous lists of lords not unlike the lists of trusts in America, showing in their figures their monstrous levies on the earnings of the property of the country.

"The cry for bread goes up from the city. It is deeper, hoarser, broader than it has ever been. It comes from gnawing stomachs and weakened frames. It comes from men who tramp the streets searching for work. It comes from women sitting hopeless in bare rooms. It comes from children.

"In the city of New York the poor have reached straits of destitution that have never before been known. Probably no living person understands how awful is the suffering, how terrible the poverty. No one person can see it all. No one's imagination can grasp it.

"Few persons who will read this can understand what it means to be without food. It is one of those things so frightful that it cannot be brought home to them. They say, 'Surely people can get something to eat somewhere, enough to support life; they can go to their friends.' For the stricken [D287] ones there is no 'somewhere.' Their friends are as destitute as themselves. There are men so weakened from lack of food that they cannot work if work is offered to them."

An editorial in the San Francisco Examiner said:

"How is this? We have so much to eat that the farmers are complaining that they can get nothing for it. We have so much to wear that cotton and woolen mills are closing down because there is nobody to buy their products. We have so much coal that the railroads that carry it are going into the hands of receivers. We have so many houses that the builders are out of work. All the necessities and comforts of life are as plentiful as ever they were in the most prosperous years of our history. When the country has enough food, clothing, fuel and shelter for everybody, why are times hard? Evidently nature is not to blame. Who or what, then, is?

"The problem of the unemployed is one of the most serious that face the United States. According to the statistics collected by Bradstreet's there were at the opening of the year something over 801,000 wage-earners out of employment in the first 119 cities of the United States, and the number of persons dependent upon these for support was over 2,000,000. If the 119 cities gave a fair average for the country the total of wage-earners wanting employment on the first of the year would run above 4,000,000 persons, representing a dependent population of 10,000,000. As the unemployed seek the cities it is safe to deduct one-fourth from these figures. But even with this deduction the number of wage-workers out of employment is an enormous, heart-rending total.

"The hard road of poverty whose end is pauperism has been traveled so long in Europe that the authorities of the Old World know better how to deal with it than the comparatively prosperous community on this side of the water. The wages of Europe are so low that in many States the end of life must be the poorhouse. No amount of industry and frugality can enable the laborer to lay by a competence for old age. The margin between income and expenses is so small that a few days' sickness or lack of employment reduces [D288] the laborer to destitution. Government there has been forced to deal with it more or less scientifically instead of in the happy-go-lucky method familiar to America, where tramps flourish without work and the self-respecting man who falls into need must suffer hunger."

The editor of The Arena says in his CIVILIZATION INFERNO:

"The Dead Sea of want is enlarging its borders in every populous centre. The mutterings of angry discontent grow more ominous with each succeeding year. Justice denied the weak through the power of avarice has brought us face to face with a formidable crisis which may yet be averted if we have the wisdom to be just and humane; but the problem cannot longer be sneered at as inconsequential. It is no longer local; it affects and threatens the entire body politic. A few years ago one of the most eminent divines in America declared that there was no poverty to speak of in this Republic. Today no thoughtful person denies that this problem is of great magnitude. A short time since I employed a gentleman in New York to personally investigate the court records of the city that he might ascertain the exact number of warrants for evictions issued in twelve months. What was the result? The records showed the appalling fact that during the twelve months ending September 1, 1892, twenty-nine thousand seven hundred and twenty warrants for eviction were issued in the city of New York.

"In a paper in the Forum of December, 1892, by Mr. Jacob Riis, on the special needs of the poor in New York, he says: 'For many years it has been true of New York that one-tenth of all who die in this great and wealthy city are buried in the pottersfield. Of the 382,530 interments recorded in the past decade, 37,966 were in the pottersfield,' and Mr. Riis proceeds to hint at the fact known to all students of social conditions who personally investigate poverty in the great cities, that this pottersfield gauge, terribly significant though it be, is no adequate measure by which to estimate the poverty problem of a great city. On this point he continues:

"'Those who have had any personal experience with the poor, and know with what agony of fear they struggle against this crowning misery, how they plan and plot and [D289] pinch for the poor privilege of being laid to rest in a grave that is theirs to keep, though in life they never owned a shed to call their own, will agree with me that it is putting it low to assume that where one falls, in spite of it all, into this dread trench, at least two or three must be hovering on the edge of it. And with this estimate of from twenty to thirty per cent of our population always struggling to keep the wolf from the door, with the issue in grievous doubt, all the known, if scattered, facts of charity management in New York agree well enough.'

"In 1890 there were two hundred and thirty-nine suicides officially reported in New York City. The court records are burdened as never before with cases of attempted self-slaughter. 'You,' said Recorder Smyth, addressing a poor creature who had sought death by leaping into the East River, 'are the second case of attempted suicide that has been up in this court this morning; and,' he continued, 'I have never known so many attempted suicides as during the past few months.'

"The night is slowly but surely settling around hundreds and thousands of our people, the night of poverty and despair. They are conscious of its approach but feel powerless to check its advance. 'Rents get higher and work cheaper every year, and what can we do about it?' said a laborer recently while talking about the outlook. 'I do not see any way out of it,' he added bitterly, and it must be confessed that the outlook is dark if no radical economic changes are at hand, for the supply is yearly increasing far more rapidly than the demand for labor. 'Ten women for every place no matter how poor,' is the dispassionate statement of an official who has recently made the question of female labor a special study. 'Hundreds of girls,' continues this writer, 'wreck their future every year and destroy their health in the stuffy, ill-ventilated stores and shops, and yet scores of recruits arrive from the country and small towns every week to fill the places vacated.' And let us not imagine that these conditions are peculiar to New York. What is true of the metropolis is to a certain extent true of every great city in America. Within cannon-shot of Beacon Hill, Boston, where proudly rises the golden dome of the Capitol, are [D290] hundreds of families slowly starving and stifling; families who are bravely battling for life's barest necessities, while year by year the conditions are becoming more hopeless, the struggle for bread fiercer, and the outlook more dismal. In conversation with one of these toilers, he said, with a certain pathos and dejection, which indicated hopelessness or perhaps a deadened perception which prevented his fully grasping the grim import of his words, 'I once heard of a man who was put in an iron cage by a tyrant, and every day he found the walls had come closer and closer to him. At last the walls came so close together that every day they squeezed out a part of his life, and somehow,' he said, 'it seems to me that we are just like that man, and when I see the little boxes carried out every day, I sometimes say to my wife, There's a little more life squeezed out; some day we will go, too.'

"I recently visited more than a score of tenement houses where life was battling with death; where, with a patient heroism far grander than deeds of daring won amid the exulting shouts of the battlefield, mothers and daughters were ceaselessly plying the needle. In several homes I noticed bedridden invalids whose sunken eyes and emaciated faces told plainly the story of months, and perhaps years, of slow starvation amid the squalor, the sickening odor, and the almost universal filth of the social cellar. Here one becomes painfully conscious of specters of hunger and fear ever present. A lifelong dread presses upon the hearts of these exiles with crushing weight. The landlord, standing with a writ of dispossession, is continually before their mind's eye. Dread of sickness haunts every waking moment, for to them sickness means inability to provide the scant nourishment which life demands. The despair of the probable future not infrequently torments their rest. Such is the common lot of the patient toiler in the slums of our great cities today. On most of their faces one notes an expression of gloomy sadness and dumb resignation.

"Sometimes a fitful light flashes from cavernous sockets, a baleful gleam suggesting smouldering fires fed by an ever-present consciousness of wrongs endured. They feel in a dumb way that the lot of the beast of the field is happier far than their fate. Even though they struggle from dawn far [D291] into the night for bread and a wretched room, they know that the window of hope is closing for them in the great throbbing centers of Christendom. Sad, indeed, is the thought that, at the present time, when our land is decked as never before with stately temples dedicated to the great Nazarene, who devoted his life to a ministry among the poor, degraded and outcast, we find the tide of misery rising; we find uninvited poverty becoming the inevitable fate of added thousands of lives every year. Never was the altruistic sentiment more generally upon the lips of man. Never has the human heart yearned as now for a true manifestation of human brotherhood. Never has the whole civilized world been so profoundly moved by the persistent dream of the ages--the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. And yet, strange anomaly! The cry of innocence, of outraged justice, the cry of the millions under the wheel, rises today from every civilized land as never before. The voice of Russia mingles with the cry of Ireland. Outcast London joins with the exiles of all great continental and American cities in one mighty, earth-thrilling demand for justice.

"In London alone there are more than three hundred thousand persons on the very brink of the abyss, whose every heart-beat thrills with fear, whose life-long nightmare is the dread that the little den they call home may be taken from them. Beneath them, at the door of starvation, are over two hundred thousand lives; still further down we find three hundred thousand in the stratum of the starving, in the realm where hunger gnaws night and day, where every second of every minute, of every hour of every day, is crowded with agony. Below the starving are the homeless-- they who have nothing with which to procure a lodging even in the worst quarters; they who sleep without shelter the year round, hundreds of whom may be found any night on the cold stone slabs along the Thames embankment. Some have a newspaper between themselves and the damp stones, but the majority do not even enjoy this luxury! This army of absolutely homeless in London numbers thirty-three thousand."

Does some one say, This is an overdrawn picture? Let him investigate. If it is but one-half true, it is deplorable! [D292]

Discontent, Hatred, Friction Preparing Rapidly
for Social Combustion

However it may be explained to the poor that the wealthy never were so charitable as now, that society has more ample provision now than ever before for the poor, the blind, the sick and the helpless, and that immense revenues are raised annually by taxation, for the maintenance of these benefactions, this will surely not satisfy the workingman. As a self-respecting, intelligent citizen it is not alms that he wants; he has no desire to avail himself of the privileges of the poorhouse or when sick to become a charity patient in a hospital; but he does want a chance honestly and decently to earn his bread by the sweat of his face and with the dignity of an honest toiler to maintain his family. But, while he sees himself and his neighbor workmen more dependent than ever upon favor and influence to get and keep a job of work, and the small storekeepers, small builders and small manufacturers struggling harder than ever for an honest living, he reads of the prosperity of the rich, the growing number of millionaires, the combines of capital to control the various industries--the copper business, the steel business, the glass business, the oil business, the match business, the paper business, the coal business, the paint business, the cutlery business, the telegraph business, and every other business. He sees also that these combinations control the machinery of the world, and that thus, while his labor is depreciating by reason of competition, goods and necessities may be advanced, or at least hindered from declining in proportion to the reduced cost of labor represented in improved machinery displacing human brain and muscle.

Under such circumstances can we wonder that at the thirteenth annual convention of the Federation of Labor at Chicago, the Vice President of the Trades Assembly welcomed [D293] the visitors in the following sarcastic language? He said:

"We would wish to bid you welcome to a prosperous city, but truth will not justify the assertion. Things are here as they are, but not as they should be. We bid you welcome in the name of a hundred monopolists, and of fifty thousand tramps, here where mammon holds high carnival in palaces, while mothers are heartbroken, children are starving, and men are looking in vain for work. We bid you welcome in the name of a hundred thousand idle men, in the name of those edifices dedicated to the glory of God, but whose doors are closed at night to the starving and poor; in the name of the ministers who fatten from the vineyards of God, forgetting that God's children are hungry and have no place to lay their heads; in the name of the pillars of the sweating system, of the millionaires and deacons, whose souls are endangered by their appetite for gold; in the name of the wage-workers who sweat blood which is coined into golden ducats; in the name of the insane asylums and poorhouses, packed by people crazed by care in this land of plenty.

"We will show you exhibits of Chicago that were not shown at the fair ground--of her greatness and her weakness. Tonight we will show you hundreds of men lying on the rough stones in the corridors of this very building--no home, no food--men able and willing to work, but for whom there is no work. It is a time for alarm--alarm for the continuation of a government whose sovereign rights are delivered to railway magnates, coal barons and speculators; alarm for the continuation of a federal government whose financial policies are manufactured in Wall Street at the dictation of money barons of Europe. We expect you to take measures to utilize the franchise and to hurl from power the unfaithful servants of the people who are responsible for existing conditions."

This speaker no doubt errs greatly in supposing that a change of office holders or of parties would cure existing evils; but it surely would be vain to tell him or any other sane man that there is nothing the matter with the social [D294] arrangement which makes possible such wide extremes of wealth and poverty. However much people may differ as to the cause and the cure, all are agreed that there is a malady. Some are fruitlessly seeking remedies in wrong directions, and many, alas! do not want that a remedy shall be found; not until they, at least, have had a chance to profit by present conditions.

In harmony with this thought, George E. McNeill, in an address before the World's Labor Congress, said:

"The labor movement is born of hunger--hunger for food, for shelter, warmth, clothing and pleasure. In the movement of humanity toward happiness each individual seeks his ideal, often with stoical disregard of others. The industrial system rests upon the devil's iron rule of every man for himself. Is it an unexplainable phenomenon that those who suffer most under this rule of selfishness and greed should organize for the overthrow of the devil's system of government?"

The newspapers abound with descriptions of fashionable weddings, balls and banquets at which the so-called "upper crust" of society appear in costly robes and rare jewels. One lady at a ball in Paris, recently, it is said, wore $1,600,000 worth of diamonds. The New York World in August 1896 gave a picture of an American lady arrayed in diamonds and other jewels valued at $1,000,000; and she does not belong to the very uppermost social strata either. The daily press tell of the lavish expenditure of thousands of dollars in providing these banquets--for choice wines, floral decorations, etc. They tell of the palaces erected for the rich, many of them costing $50,000, and some as much as $1,500,000. They tell of "Dog Socials" at which brutes are fed on dainties at great expense, tended by their "nurses." They tell of $10,000 paid for a dessert service, $6,000 for two artistic flower-jars, $50,000 for two rose-colored vases. They tell that an English duke paid $350,000 for a horse. They [D295] tell how a Boston woman buried her husband in a coffin costing $50,000. They tell that another "lady" expended $5,000 in burying a pet poodle dog. They tell that New York millionaires pay as high as $800,000 for a single yacht.

Can we wonder that many are envious, and some angry and embittered, when they contrast such wastefulness with their own family's penury, or at least enforced economy? Knowing that not many are "new creatures" who set their affections on things above and not on earthly things, and who have learned that "godliness with contentment is great gain" while they wait until the Lord shall vindicate their cause, we cannot wonder that such matters awaken in the hearts of the masses feelings of envy, hatred, malice, strife; and these feelings will ripen into open revolt which will ultimately work all the works of the flesh and the devil, during the great trouble-time impending.

"Behold, this was the iniquity of...Sodom--pride, fulness of bread and abundance of idleness was in her...neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy," etc. Ezek. 16:49,50

The California Christian Advocate, commenting upon one of the fashionable balls of New York City, says:

"The lavish luxury and dazzling extravagance displayed by the wealthy Greeks and Romans of 'ye olden times' is a matter of history. Such reckless display is beginning to make its appearance in what is called fashionable society in this country. One of our exchanges tells of a New York lady who spent $125,000 in a single season in entertaining. The character and value of the entertainments may be judged from the fact that she taught society how...to freeze Roman punch in the heart of crimson and yellow tulips, and how to eat terrapin with gold spoons out of silver canoes. Other entertainers decked their tables with costly roses, while one of 'the four hundred' is said to have spent $50,000 on a single entertainment. Such lavish expenditure to such [D296] poor purpose is sinful and shameful, no matter how large a fortune one may possess."

Messiah's Herald commented as follows:

"One hundred and forty-four social autocrats, headed by an aristocrat, held a great ball. Royalty never eclipsed it. It was intensely exclusive. Wine flowed like water. Beauty lent her charms. Neither Mark Antony nor Cleopatra ever rolled in such gorgeousness. It was a collection of millionaires. The wealth of the world was drained for pearls and diamonds. Necklaces of gems costing $200,000 and downward emblazoned scores of necks. The dance went on amid Aladdin splendors. Joy was unconfined. While it was going on, says a journal, 100,000 starving miners in Pennsylvania were scouring the roads like cattle in search of forage, some of them living on cats, and not a few committing suicide to avoid seeing their children starve. Yet one necklace from the Metropolitan ball would have rescued all these from hunger. It was one of the 'great social events' of a nation called Christian; but what a contrast! And there is no remedy for it. Thus it will be 'til he come.'"

"Till he come?" Nay, rather, "Thus shall it be in the days of the Son of Man," when he has come, while he is gathering his elect to himself, and thus setting up his Kingdom, whose inauguration will be followed by the "dashing" of the present social system to pieces in a great time of trouble and anarchy, preparatory to the establishment of the Kingdom of righteousness. (Rev. 2:26,27; 19:15) As it was in the days of Lot, so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man. As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the [parousia] presence of the Son of Man. Matt. 24:37; Luke 17:26,28

Are the Rich Too Severely Condemned?

We quote from an editorial in the San Francisco Examiner:

"Mr. W. K. Vanderbilt's huge British steam yacht Valiante has joined Mr. F. W. Vanderbilt's British steam yacht [D297] Conqueror in New York Harbor. The Valiante cost $800,000. This represents the profits on a crop of about 15,000,000 bushels of sixty-cent wheat, or the entire product of at least 8,000 160-acre farms. In other words, 8,000 farmers, representing 40,000 men, women and children, worked through sun and storm to enable Mr. Vanderbilt to have built in a foreign shipyard such a pleasure craft as no sovereign in Europe possesses. The construction of that vessel required the labor of at least 1,000 mechanics for a year. The money she cost, put in circulation among our workmen, would have had a perceptible influence upon the state of times in some quarters."

J. R. Buchanan in the Arena, speaking of the heartless extravagance of the wealthy, said:

"Its criminality is not so much in the heartless motive as in its wanton destruction of happiness and life to achieve a selfish purpose. That squandering wealth in ostentation and luxury is a crime becomes very apparent by a close examination of the act. There would be no harm in building a $700,000 stable for his horses, like a Syracuse millionaire, or in placing a $50,000 service on the dinner table, like a New York Astor, if money were as free as air and water; but every dollar represents an average day's labor. Hence the $700,000 stable represents the labor of 1,000 men for two years and four months. It also represents 700 lives; for $1,000 would meet the cost of the first ten years of a child, and the cost of the second ten years would be fully repaid by his labor. The fancy stable, therefore, represents the physical basis of 700 lives, and affirms that the owner values it more highly, or is willing that 700 should die that his vanity might be gratified."

The Literary Digest said editorially:

"Not long since a New England clergyman addressed a letter to Mr. Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, asking him to state why, in his opinion, so many intelligent workingmen do not attend church. In reply Mr. Gompers said that one reason is that the churches are no longer in touch with the hopes and aspirations of workingmen, and are out of sympathy with their [D298] miseries and burdens. The pastors either do not know, he said, or have not the courage to declare from their pulpits, the rights and wrongs of the toiling millions. The organizations found most effective in securing improved conditions have been frowned upon by the church. Laborers have had their attention directed to 'the sweet by and by,' to the utter neglect of the conditions arising from 'the bitter now and now.' The church and the ministry have been the 'apologists and defenders of the wrongs committed against the interests of the people, simply because the perpetrators are the possessors of wealth.' Asked as to the means he would suggest for a reconciliation of the church and the masses, Mr. Gompers recommends 'a complete reversal of the present attitude.' He closes with these words: 'He who fails to sympathize with the movement of labor, he who complacently or indifferently contemplates the awful results of present economic and social conditions, is not only the opponent of the best interests of the human family, but is particeps criminis to all wrongs inflicted upon the men and women of our time, the children of today, the manhood and womanhood of the future.'"

While we thus note public opinion in condemnation of the rich as a class, and while we note also the Lord's condemnation and foretold penalty of this class as a whole, it is but reasonable that God's people should exercise moderation in their judgment or opinions of the rich as individuals. The Lord, whose judgment against the class is so severe, will nevertheless be merciful to them as individuals; and when in his wisdom he has destroyed their idols of silver and gold, and brought down their high looks, and humbled their pride, he will then be gracious to comfort and to heal such as renounce their selfishness and pride. It will be noted also, that we have quoted only the reasonable and moderate expressions of sensible writers and not the extreme and often nonsensical diatribes of anarchists and visionaries.

As an aid to cool moderation in judgment it is well for us to remember (1) That the term "rich" is a very broad one, [D299] and includes not only the immensely wealthy, but in many minds those who, compared with these, might be considered poor; (2) That among those whom the very poor would term rich are very many of the best and most benevolent people, many of whom are, to a considerable extent, active in benevolent and philanthropic enterprises; and if they are not all so to the extent of self-sacrifice, it would certainly be with bad grace that any who have not made themselves living sacrifices for the blessing of others should condemn them for not doing so. And those who have done so know how to appreciate every approach to such a spirit that any, whether rich or poor, may manifest.

It is well to remember that many of the rich not only justly pay heavy taxes for public free schools, for the support of the government, for the support of public charities, etc., but also cheerfully contribute otherwise to the relief of the poor, and are heartily benevolent to asylums, colleges, hospitals, etc., and to the churches they esteem most worthy. And those who do these things out of good and honest hearts, and not (as we must admit is sometimes the case) for show and praise of men, will not lose their reward. And all such should be justly esteemed.

Everyone is able and willing to criticize the millionaires, but in some cases we fear the judgment is too severe. We therefore urge that our readers do not think too uncharitably of them. Remember that they as well as the poor are in some respects under the control of the present social system. Custom has fixed laws and barricades around their heads and hearts. False conceptions of Christianity, endorsed by the whole world--rich and poor--for centuries, have worn deeply the grooves of thought and reason in which their minds travel to and fro. They feel that they must do as other men do; that is, they must use their time and talents to their best ability and on "business principles." Doing this, the money rolls in on them, because [D300] money and machinery are today the creators of wealth, labor being at a discount.

Then they no doubt reason that having the wealth it is their duty not to hoard it all, but to spend some of it. They perhaps question whether it would be better to dispense it as charity or to let it circulate through the avenues of trade, and wages for labor. They properly conclude that the latter would be the better plan. Balls, banquets, weddings, yachts, etc., may strike them as being pleasures to themselves and their friends and an assistance to their less fortunate neighbors. And is there not some truth in that view? The ten thousand dollar banquet, for instance, starts probably fifteen thousand dollars into circulation--through butchers, bakers, florists, tailors, dressmakers, jewelers, etc., etc. The $800,000 yacht, while a great personal extravagance, caused a circulation of that amount of money amongst workingmen somewhere; and more, it will mean an annual expenditure of at the very least twenty and quite possibly one hundred thousand dollars for officers, engineers, sailors, victuals, etc., and other running expenses.

Under present wrong conditions, therefore, it is extremely fortunate for the middle and poorest classes that the wealthy are "foolishly extravagant," rather than miserly; spending lavishly a portion of the flood of wealth rolling into their coffers; for diamonds, for instance, which require "digging," polishing and mounting and thus give employment to thousands who would only add to the number out of work if the wealthy had no foibles or extravagances, but hoarded all they got possession of. Reasoning thus, the rich may actually consider their extravagances as "charities." And if they do, they but follow the same course of false reasoning taken by some of the middle class, when they get up "church sociables" and fairs and festivals "for sweet charity's sake." [D301]

We are not justifying their course: we are merely seeking to point out that the extravagances of the rich in times of financial distress do not of necessity imply that they are devoid of feeling for the poor. And when they think of doing charity on any other than "business principles," no doubt they reflect that it would require a small army of men and women to superintend the distribution of their daily increase and that they could not feel sure that it would reach the most needy anyway; because selfishness is so general that few could be trusted to dispense large quantities honestly. A millionairess remarked that she never looked from the windows of her carriage when passing through the poorer quarters, because it offended her eye. We wonder if it was not also because her conscience was pricked by the contrast between her condition and that of the poor. As for seeing to charities themselves--the men are too busy attending their investments and the women are too refined for such things: they would see unpleasant sights, hear unpleasant sounds and sense unpleasant odors. When poorer they may have coveted such opportunities for good as they now possess: but selfishness and pride and social engagements and ethics offset the nobler sentiments and prevent much fruit. As some one has said, It was because our Lord went about doing good that he was touched with a feeling of man's infirmities.

In making these suggestions for the measure of consolation they may afford to the poorer classes, we would not be understood as in any sense justifying the selfish extravagance of the rich, which is wrong; and which the Lord condemns as wrong. (Jas. 5:5) But in consideration of these various sides of these vexed questions the mind is kept balanced, the judgment more sound, and the sympathies more tender toward those whom "the god of this world" has blinded with his riches, until their judgments are perverted [D302] from justice, and who are about to receive so severe a reprimand and chastisement from the Lord. The "god of this world" also blinds the poor upon some questions, to justify a wrong course. He is thus leading both sides into the great "battle."

But although we may find pleas upon which to base some apologies for present augmentations of wealth in the hands of the few; although we may realize that some of the rich, especially of the moderately rich, are very benevolent; and although the contention may be true that they gain their wealth under the operation of the very same laws that govern all, and that some of the poor are less generous naturally, and less disposed to be just than some of the rich, and that if places were changed they would often prove more exacting and tyrannical than the rich, yet, nevertheless, the Lord declares that the possessors of wealth are about to be called into judgment on this score, because, when they discerned the tendency of affairs, they did not seek at their own cost a plan more equitable, more generous, than the usage of today; as, for instance, along the lines of Socialism.

As showing the views of increasingly large numbers of people in reference to the duty of society to either leave free to all the opportunities and riches of nature (earth, air and water) or else if these be monopolized to provide opportunity for daily labor for those who have no share in the monopolies, we quote the following from an exchange. It says:

"A more pathetic incident in real life is seldom told in print than the following, which is vouched for by a kindergarten teacher who resides in Brooklyn, N. Y.

"A little girl who attends a kindergarten on the east side, the poorest district in New York City, came to the school one morning recently, thinly clad and looking pinched and cold. After being in the warm kindergarten a while the child looked up into the teacher's face and said earnestly: [D303]

"'Miss C------, Do you love God?'

"'Why, yes,' said the teacher.

"'Well, I don't,' quickly responded the child with great earnestness and vehemence, 'I hate him.'

"The teacher, thinking this a strange expression to come from a child whom she had tried hard to teach that it was right to love God asked for an explanation.

"'Well,' said the child, 'he makes the wind blow, and I haven't any warm clothes; and he makes it snow, and my shoes have holes in them, and he makes it cold, and we haven't any fire at home, and he makes us hungry, and mamma hadn't any bread for our breakfast.'"

Commenting it says: "If we consider the perfection of God's material bounties to the children of earth, it is hard, after reading this story, to regard with patience the complacency of rich blasphemers who, like the innocent little girl, charge the miseries of poverty to God."

However, not much is to be expected of the worldly; for selfishness is the spirit of the world. We have more reason to look to great and wealthy men who profess to be Christians. Yet these lay neither their lives nor their wealth upon God's altar in the service of the gospel, nor yet give them in the service of humanity's temporal welfare. Of course, the gospel is first! It should have our all of time, talent, influence and means. But where it is hidden from view and does not have control of the heart by reason of false conceptions, from false teachings, the consecrated heart will surely find plenty to do for fallen fellow-creatures, along the lines of temperance work, social uplifting, municipal reform, etc. And indeed quite a few are so engaged, but generally of the poor or the middle class; few rich, few millionaires. If some of the world's millionaires possessed that much of the spirit of Christ and were to bend their mental and financial talents, their own time, and the time of capable helpers who [D304] would be glad to assist if the door of opportunity were opened to them, what a social reform the world would witness in one year! How the public franchises granted to corporations and trusts would be restricted or reclaimed in the public interest; vicious laws would be amended and in general the interests of the public be considered and guarded, and financial and political ringsters be rendered less powerful, as against the interests of the public.

But to expect such a use of wealth is unreasonable; because, although many rich men profess Christianity, they, like the remainder of the world, know nothing about true Christianity--faith in Christ as a personal Redeemer, and full consecration of every talent to his service. They wish to be classed as "Christians," because they do not wish to be classed as "heathen" or "Jews"; because the name of Christ is popular now, even if his real teachings are no more popular than when he was crucified.

Truly, God's Word testifies that not many great or rich or wise hath God chosen to be heirs of the Kingdom; but chiefly the poor and despised according to the course and wisdom and estimate of this world. How hardly (with what difficulty) shall they that have riches enter into the Kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of heaven.* Matt. 19:23,24

But why cannot conditions be so altered as gradually to bring the equalization of wealth and comfort? Because the world is governed not by the royal law of love but by the law of depravity--selfishness.

Selfishness in Combination with Liberty

Christian doctrines promote liberty, and liberty leads to and grasps knowledge and education. But liberty and knowledge are dangerous to human welfare, except under obedience to the letter and spirit of the royal law of love. Hence "Christendom," having accepted Christian liberty and gained knowledge, without having adopted Christ's law, but having instead grafted its knowledge and liberty upon the fallen, selfish disposition, has merely learned the better how to exercise its selfishness. As a result, Christendom is the most discontented portion of the earth today; and other nations share the discontent and its injury proportionately as they adopt the knowledge and liberty of [D306] Christianity without adopting the spirit of Christ, the spirit of love.

The Bible, the Old Testament as well as the New, has fostered the spirit of liberty--not directly, but indirectly. The Law indeed provided that servants be subject to their masters, but it also restricted the masters in the interests of the servants, assuring them that injustice would certainly be recompensed by the great Master of all--Jehovah. The Gospel, the New Testament, also does the same. (See Col. 3:22-25; 4:1.) But the Bible assures all that while men differ in mental, moral and physical powers, God has made provision for a full restitution--that, by faith in Christ, rich and poor, bond and free, male and female, wise and unwise, may all return to divine favor, on a common level--"accepted in the Beloved."

It is not surprising, then, that the Jews of old were a liberty-loving people, and had the name of a rebellious race-- not willing to stay conquered, so that their conquerors concluded that there was no other way to subjugate them than to utterly destroy them as a nation. Nor is it surprising that able statesmen (even those not Christian) have conceded that "the Bible is the corner-stone of our liberties," and that experience proves that, wherever the Bible has gone, liberty has gone; carrying with it education and generally loftier sentiments. It was so during the first two centuries of the Christian era: then error (priest-craft and superstition) obtained control, the Bible was ignored or suppressed, and instead of further progress, Papacy's policy brought on the "Dark Ages." With the revival of the Bible as a public instructor, in the English and German Reformations, liberty, knowledge and progress again appeared amongst the people. It is an incontrovertible fact that the lands which have the Bible have the most liberty and general enlightenment, [D307] and that in the lands in which the Bible is freest, the people are freest, most enlightened, most generally educated, and making the most rapid strides of progress in every direction.

But now notice what we observed above, that the enlightening and freeing influences of the Bible have been accepted by Christendom while its law of love (the law of perfect liberty--Jas. 1:25) has been generally ignored. Thinking people are just awaking to the fact that knowledge and liberty united constitute a mighty power which may be exerted for either good or evil; that if, as a lever, they move upon the fulcrum of love the results will be powerful for good; but that when they move upon the fulcrum of selfishness the results are evil--powerful and far reaching evil. This is the condition which confronts Christendom today, and which is now rapidly preparing the social elements for the "fire" of "the day of vengeance" and recompenses.

In chemistry it is frequently found that some useful and beneficial elements suddenly become rank poison by the change of proportions. So it is with the blessings of knowledge and liberty when compounded with selfishness. In certain proportions this combination has rendered valuable service to humanity, but the recent great increase of knowledge instead of exalting knowledge to the seat of power, has enthroned selfishness. Selfishness dominates, and uses knowledge and liberty as its servants. This combination is now ruling the world; and even its valuable elements are rendered enemies of righteousness and peace by reason of selfishness being in control. Under these conditions knowledge as the servant of selfishness is most active in serving selfish interests, and liberty controlled by selfishness threatens to become self-license, regardless of the rights and liberties of others. Under present conditions therefore, [D308] selfishness (controlling), knowledge and liberty constitute a Triumvirate of evil power which is now ruling and crushing Christendom--through its agents and representatives, the wealthy and influential class: and it will be none the less the same Evil Triumvirate when shortly it shall change its servants and representatives and accept as such the masses.

All in civilized lands--rich and poor, learned and unlearned, wise and foolish, male and female--(with rare exceptions) are moved to almost every act of life by this powerful combination. They beget in all their subjects a frenzy for place, power and advantage, for self-aggrandizement. The few saints, whose aims are for the present and future good of others, constitute so small a minority as to be scarcely worthy of consideration as a factor in the present time. They will be powerless to effect the good they long for until, glorified with their Lord and Master, they shall be both qualified and empowered to bless the world as God's Kingdom. And while they are in the flesh they will still have need to watch and pray lest even their higher knowledge and higher liberty become evils by coming under the domination of selfishness.

Independence As Viewed by the Rich and
by the Poor

The masses of the world have but recently stepped from slavery and serfdom into liberty and independence. Knowledge broke the shackles, personal and political, forcibly: political equality was not granted willingly, but inch by inch under compulsion. And the world of political equals is now dividing along lines of pride and selfishness, and a new battle has begun on the part of the rich and well-to-do for the maintenance and increase of their wealth and power, and on the part of the lower classes for the right to labor [D309] and enjoy the moderate comforts of life. (See Amos 8:4-8.) Many of the wealthy are disposed to think and feel toward the poorer classes thus: Well, finally the masses have got the ballot and independence. Much good may it do them! They will find, however, that brains are an important factor in all of life's affairs, and the brains are chiefly with the aristocracy. Our only concern is that they use their liberty moderately and lawfully; we are relieved thereby from much responsibility. Formerly, when the masses were serfs, every lord, noble and duke felt some responsibility for those under his care; but now we are free to look out merely for our own pleasures and fortunes. Their independence is all the better for us; every "gentleman" is benefited by the change, and hopes the same for the people, who of course will do the best they can do for their own welfare while we do for ours. In making themselves political equals and independents, they changed our relationship--they are now our equals legally, and hence our competitors instead of our proteges; but they will learn by and by that political equality does not make men physically or intellectually equal: the result will be aristocracy of brains and wealth instead of the former aristocracy of heredity.

Some of the so-called "under crust" of society thoughtlessly answer: We accept the situation; we are independent and abundantly able to take care of ourselves. Take heed lest we outwit you. Life is a war for wealth and we have numbers on our side; we will organize strikes and boycotts, and will have our way.

If the premise be accepted, that all men are independent of each other, and that each should selfishly do the best he can for his own interest, regardless of the interests and welfare of others, then the antagonistic wealth-war views above suggested could not be objected to. And surely it is [D310] upon this principle of selfishness and independence that all classes seem to be acting, more and more. Capitalists look out for their own interests, and usually (though there are noble exceptions) they pay as little as possible for labor. And mechanics and laborers also (with noble exceptions) look out for themselves merely, to get as much as possible for their services. How then can either class consistently find fault with the other, while both acknowledge the same principles of independence, selfishness and force?

This has become so largely the public view that the old custom for those of superior education, talents and other advantages to visit the poor and assist them with advice or substantials has died out; and now each attends to his own concerns and leaves the others, independent, to take care of themselves, or often to the generous public provisions--asylums, hospitals, "homes," etc. This may be favorable to some and in some respects, but it is apt to bring difficulties to others and in other respects--through inexperience, improvidence, wastefulness, indolence, imbecility and misfortune.

The fact is that neither the rich nor the poor can afford to be selfishly independent of one another; nor should they feel or act as though they were. Mankind is one family: God "hath made of one blood all nations of men." (Acts 17:26) Each member of the human family is a human brother to every other human being. All are children of the one father, Adam, a son of God (Luke 3:38), to whose joint-care the earth with its fulness was committed by God as a stewardship. All are therefore beneficiaries of the divine provision; for still "the earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof." The fall into sin, and its penalty, death, accomplished by a gradual decline--physical, mental and moral--has left all men more or less impaired, and each needs and should have the others' sympathy and aid in proportion to the degree of [D311] his impairment and consequent dependence, mental, moral and physical.

If love were the controlling motive in the hearts of all men each would delight to do his part for the common welfare, and all would be on an equality as respects the common necessities and some of the comforts of life. This would imply a measure of Socialism. But love is not the controlling motive amongst men, and consequently such a plan cannot operate now. Selfishness is the controlling principle, not only with the major part of, but with nearly all Christendom, and is bearing its own bitter fruit and ripening it now rapidly for the great vintage of Revelation 14:19,20.

Nothing short of (1) a conversion of the world en masse, or (2) the intervention of superhuman power, could now change the course of the world from the channel of selfishness to that of love. Such a conversion is not dreamed of even by the most sanguine; for while nominal Christianity has succeeded in outwardly converting comparatively few of earth's billions, true conversions--from the selfish spirit of the world to the loving, generous spirit of Christ--can be counted only in small numbers. Hence, hope from this quarter may as well be abandoned. The only hope is in the intervention of superhuman power, and just such a change is what God has promised in and through Christ's Millennial Kingdom. God foresaw that it would require a thousand years to banish selfishness and re-establish love in full control of even the willing; hence the provision for just such "times of restitution." (Act 3:21) Meantime, however, the few who really appreciate and long for the rule of love can generally see the impossibility of securing it by earthly means; because the rich will not give up their advantages willingly; nor would the masses produce sufficient for themselves were it not for the stimulus of either necessity or [D312] covetousness, so inherent is selfish ease in some, and selfish, wasteful luxury and improvidence in others.

Why Recent Favorable Conditions Cannot
Continue

It may be suggested that the rich and poor have lived together for six thousand years, and that there is no more danger of calamity resulting now than in the past; no more danger that the rich will crush the poor and let them starve, nor that the poor will destroy the rich through anarchy. But this is a mistake; there is greater danger than ever before from both sides.

Conditions have greatly changed with the masses since the days of serfdom; not only the physical, but also the mental conditions; and now, after a taste of civilization and education, it would require centuries of gradual oppression to make them again submit to the old order of things, in which they were the vassals of the landed nobility. It could not be done in one century--sooner would they die! The very suspicion of a tendency toward such a future for their children would lead to a revolution, and it is this fear which is helping to goad the poor to stronger protests than ever before attempted.

But it may be asked, Why should we contemplate such a tendency? Why not suppose a continuance, and even an increase, of the general prosperity of the past century, and particularly of the past fifty years?

We cannot so suppose, because observation and reflection show that such expectations would be unreasonable, indeed impossible, for several reasons. The prosperity of the present century has been--under divine supervision, Dan. 12:4 --directly the result of the mental awakening of the world, printing, steam, electricity and applied mechanics [D313] being the agencies. The awakening brought increased demands for necessities and luxuries from increasing numbers. Coming suddenly, the increase of demand exceeded the production; and hence wages in general advanced. And as the supply became equal to and beyond the demands of the home-markets, other nations, long dormant, also awakened and demanded supplies. For a time all classes benefited, and all civilized nations suddenly became much more wealthy as well as much more comfortable than ever before; because the manufacture of machinery required moulders, machinists and carpenters; and these required the assistance of woodsmen and brick-makers and furnace-builders and furnace-men; and when the machines were ready many of them required coal and gave increased demand for coal-diggers, engineers, firemen, etc. Steamships and railroads were demanded all over the world, and thousands of men were promptly employed in building, equipping and operating them. Thus the ranks of labor were suddenly called upon, and wages rose proportionately to the skill demanded. Indirectly still others were benefited as well as those directly employed; because, as men were better paid, they ate better food, wore better clothes and lived in better houses, more comfortably furnished. The farmer not only was obliged to pay more for the labor he hired, but he in turn received proportionately more for what he sold; and thus it was in every branch of industry. So the tanners and shoemakers, the hosierymakers, clockmakers, jewelers, etc., were benefited, because the better the masses were paid the more they could spend both for necessities and luxuries. Those who once went barefoot bought shoes; those who once went stockingless began to consider stockings a necessity; and thus all branches of trade prospered. All this demand coming suddenly, a general and quick prosperity was unavoidable. [D314]

Invention was stimulated by the demand, and it has pushed one labor-saving device upon another into the factory, the home, onto the farm, everywhere, until now it is difficult for any to earn a bare living independent of modern machinery. All of this, together with commerce with outside nations, waking up similarly, but later, has kept things going prosperously for the laboring classes, while making the merchants and manufacturers of Christendom fabulously rich.

But now we are nearing the end of the lane of prosperity. Already in many directions the world's supply exceeds the world's demands, or rather exceeds its financial ability to gratify its desires. China, India and Japan, after being excellent customers for the manufactures of Europe and the United States, are now generally utilizing their own labor (at six to twelve cents per day) in duplicating what they have already purchased; and therefore they will demand less and less proportionately hereafter. The countries of South America have been pushed faster than their intelligence warranted, and some of them are already bankrupt and must economize until they get into better financial condition.

Evidently, therefore, a crisis is approaching; a crisis which would have culminated sooner than this in Europe had it not been for the unprecedented prosperity of this Great Republic, under a protective tariff, which brought hither for investment millions of European capital, as well as drew millions of Europe's population to share the benefits of that prosperity, and which incidentally has produced giant corporations and trusts which now threaten the public weal.

General prosperity and higher wages came to Europe also. Not only were Europe's labor ranks relieved, but wars also relieved the pressure of labor-competition by killing a [D315] million of men in the prime of life, and by a destruction of goods and a general interruption of labor. And for the past twenty-five years the constantly increasing standing armies are relieving Europe of other millions of men for the ranks, who otherwise would be competitors; besides, consider the vast numbers employed in preparing military armaments, guns, warships, etc.

If, notwithstanding all these conditions so favorable to prosperity and demand for labor at good wages, we now find that the climax has been reached, and that wages are now rather tending downward, we are warranted in asserting, from a human standpoint, as well as from the standpoint of God's revelation, that a crisis is approaching--the crisis of this world's history.

It is worthy of note also that while wages have reached an unprecedented height in recent years, the rise in the prices of the necessaries of life has more than kept pace with the increase, thus exercising more than a counter-balancing influence. What will be the result? and how long must we wait for it?

The collapse will come with a rush. Just as the sailor who has toiled slowly to the top of the mast can fall suddenly, just as a great piece of machinery lifted slowly by cogs and pulleys, if it slips their hold, will come down again with crushing and damaging force, worse off by far than if it had never been lifted, so humanity, lifted high above any former level, by the cogs and levers of invention and improvement, and by the block and tackle of general education and enlightenment, has reached a place where (by reason of selfishness) these can lift no more--where something is giving way. It will catch and steady for a moment (a few years) on a lower level, before the cogs and levers which can go no farther will break under the strain, and utter wreck will result. [D316]

When machinery was first introduced the results in competition with human labor and skill were feared; but the contrary agencies, already referred to (general awakening, in Christendom and outside, the manufacture of machinery, wars, armies, etc.), have until now more than counteracted the natural tendency: so much so that many people have concluded that this matter acts contrary to reason, and that labor-saving machinery is not at war with human labor. But not so: the world still operates under the law of supply and demand; and the operation of that law is sure, and can be made plain to any reasonable mind. The demand for human labor and skill was only temporarily increased in preparing the yet more abundant supply of machinery to take labor's place, and, the climax once reached, the reaction cannot be otherwise than sudden, and crushing to those upon whom the displaced weight falls.

Suppose that civilization has increased the world's demands to five times what they were fifty years ago (and surely that should be considered a very liberal estimate), how is it with the supply? All will agree that invention and machinery have increased the supply to more than TEN times what it was fifty years ago. A mentally-blind man can see that as soon as enough machinery has been constructed to supply the demands, thereafter there must be a race, a competition between man and machinery; because there will not be enough work for all, even if no further additions were made of either men or machines. But more competition is being added; the world's population is increasing rapidly, and machinery guided by increased skill is creating more and better machinery daily. Who cannot see that, under the present selfish system, as soon as the supply exceeds the demand (as soon as we have over-production) the race between men and machinery must be a short one, and one very disadvantageous [D317] to men. Machines in general are slaves of iron, steel and wood, vitalized by steam, electricity, etc. They cannot only do more work, but better work, than men can do. And they have no minds to cultivate, no perverse dispositions to control, no wives and families to think of and provide for; they are not ambitious; they do not form unions and send delegates to interfere with the management of the business, nor do they strike; and they are ready to work extra hours without serious complaint or extra pay. As slaves, therefore, machines are far more desirable than either black or white human slaves, and human labor and skill are therefore being dispensed with as far as possible; and those who own the machine-slaves are glad that under present laws and usages their fellowmen are free and independent, because they are thereby relieved of the responsibility and care on their behalf which their enslavement would necessitate.

The workmen of the world are not blind. They see, dimly at least, to what the present system of selfishness, which they must admit they themselves have helped to foster, and under which they, as well as all others, are still operating, must lead. They do not yet see clearly its inevitableness, nor the abjectness of the servitude to which, unless turned aside, it will surely and speedily bring them. But they do see that competition amongst themselves to be the servants of the machine-slaves (as machinists, engineers, firemen, etc.) is becoming sharper every year.

Machinery as a Factor in Preparing for the "Fire."
The Past Few Years but a Foretaste of What Is to Come

We quote from some of the people who are getting awake, and who realize the possibilities of the future. An unknown writer says: [D318]

"The brilliancy of the ancient Greek city democracies, sparkling like points of light against the dark background of the surrounding barbarism, has been a source of contention among the modern advocates of different forms of government. The opponents of popular rule have maintained that the ancient cities were not true democracies at all, but aristocracies, since they rested on the labor of slaves, which alone gave the free citizens the leisure to apply themselves to politics. There must be a mudsill class, according to these thinkers, to do the drudgery of the community, and a polity which allows the common laborers a share in the government is one which cannot endure.

"This plausible reasoning was ingeniously met by Mr. Charles H. Loring in his Presidential address before the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1892, when he allowed that modern civilization had all the advantages of ancient slavery without its cruelty. 'The disgrace of the ancient civilization,' he said, 'was its utter want of humanity. Justice, benevolence and mercy held but little sway; force, fraud and cruelty supplanted them. Nor could anything better be expected of an organization based upon the worst system of slavery that ever shocked the sensibilities of man. As long as human slavery was the origin and support of civilization, the latter had to be brutal, for the stream could not rise higher than its source. Such a civilization, after a rapid culmination, had to decay, and history, though vague, shows its lapse into a barbarism as dark as that from which it had emerged.'

"'Modern civilization also has at its base a toiling slave, but one differing widely from his predecessor of the ancients. He is without nerves and he does not know fatigue. There is no intermission in his work, and he performs in a small compass more than the labor of nations of human slaves. He is not only vastly stronger, but vastly cheaper than they. He works interminably, and he works at everything; from the finest to the coarsest he is equally applicable. He produces all things in such abundance that man, relieved from the greater part of his servile toil, realizes for the first time his title of Lord of Creation. The products of [D319] all the great arts of our civilization, the use of cheap and rapid transportation on land and water, printing, the instruments of peace and war, the acquisition of knowledge of all kinds, are made the possibility and the possession of all by the labor of the obedient slave, which we call steam engine.'

"It is literally true that modern machinery is a slave with hundreds of times the productive power of the ancient human slaves, and hence that we have now the material basis for a civilization in which the entire population would constitute a leisure class, corresponding to the free citizens of Athens--a class not free, indeed, to spend its time in indolent dissipation, but relieved of the hardest drudgery, and able to support itself in comfort with no more manual labor than is consistent with good health, mental cultivation and reasonable amusement. In Great Britain alone it is estimated that steam does the work of 156,000,000 men, which is at least five times as many as there were in the entire civilized world in ancient times, counting slaves and freemen together. In the United States steam does the work of 230,000,000 men, representing almost the entire present population of the globe, and we are harnessing waterfalls to electric motors at a rate that seems likely to leave even that aggregation out of sight.

"But unfortunately, while we have a material basis for a civilization of universally diffused comfort, leisure and intelligence, we have not yet learned how to take advantage of it. We are improving, but we still have citizens who think themselves fortunate if they can find the opportunity to spend all their waking hours in exhaustive labor--citizens who by our political theory are the equals of any other men in deciding the policy of the government, but who have no opportunity to acquire ideas on any subject beyond that of the outlook for their next meals.

"Physical science has given us the means of building the greatest, the most brilliant, the happiest, and the most enduring civilization of which history has any knowledge. It remains for social science to teach us how to use these materials. Every experiment in that direction, whether it succeed [D320] or fail, is of value. In chemistry there are a thousand fruitless experiments for every discovery. If Kaveah and Altruria have failed, we still owe thanks to their projectors for helping to mark the sunken reefs on the course of progress."

A coal-trade journal, The Black Diamond, says:

"We have only to glance at the rapidity of transportation and communication which it has developed to appreciate the fact that it has indeed secured a position with the aid of which it is difficult to comprehend how modern business could now be conducted. One point about mechanical mining, and which is a matter of grave importance, is that the mechanic can be depended upon to render steady labor. The prospects of strikes are therefore greatly diminished, and it is a noticeable fact that wherever a strike occurs now it is often followed by an extension of the machine sway to new territory. The increased application of mechanical methods on all sides is gradually lining up the relations of cognate trade on a basis of adjustment that will continue to tend towards a point where strikes may become almost impossible.

"Electricity is yet in its infancy, but where it once takes possession of a field it appears to be permanent, and delvers of the dusky diamonds will soon have to face the stern fact that where they have not been driven out by the cheap labor of Europe they have a more invincible foe to meet, and that in a few years, where thousands are engaged in mining, hundreds will do an equal amount of work by the aid of electrical mining machinery."

The Olyphant Gazette says:

"The wonderful strides of science, and innumerable devices of this inventive age, are fast driving manual labor out of many industries, and thousands of workingmen who found remunerative employment a few years ago are vainly seeking for something to do. Where hundreds of men were engaged in a mill or factory, now a score will do a greater amount of work, aided by mechanical contrivance. The linotype has thrown thousands of printers idle, and so on throughout the various trades, machinery does the work more expeditiously, with less expense, and more satisfactorily than hand-work.

"The prospects are, that in a few years the mining of anthracite [D321] coal will be largely done by electric contrivance, and that man and the mule will be but the accessory of an electric device where labor entailing motive power is at issue."

Another writer notes the following as facts:

"One man and two boys can do the work which it required 1,100 spinners to do but a few years ago.

"One man now does the work of fifty weavers at the time of his grandfather.

"Cotton printing machines have displaced fifteen hundred laborers to each one retained.

"One machine with one man as attendant manufactures as many horse shoes in one day as it would take 500 men to make in the same time.

"Out of 500 men formerly employed at the log sawing business, 499 have lost their jobs through the introduction of modern machinery.

"One nail machine takes the place of 1,100 men.

"In the manufacture of paper 95 per cent of hand labor has been replaced.

"One man can now make as much pottery ware in the same time as 1,000 could do before machinery was applied.

"By the use of machinery in loading and unloading ships one man can perform the labor of 2,000 men.

"An expert watchmaker can turn out from 250 to 300 watches each year with the aid of machinery, 85 per cent of former hand labor being thus displaced."

The Pittsburgh Post, noting years ago the remarkable progress of crude iron manufacture during two decades by improved furnaces, said:

"Twenty years ago, in 1876, the production of pig iron in the United States was 2,093,236 tons. In the year 1895 the production of pig iron in the County of Allegheny was 2,054,585 tons. In 1885 the total production of the country was 4,144,000 tons of pig iron, while in 1895 we led the world with 9,446,000 tons."

Canadians notice the same conditions and the same effects. The Montreal Times says:

"With the best machinery of the present day one man [D322] can produce cotton cloth for 250 people. One man can produce woolens for 300 people. One man can produce boots and shoes for 1,000 people. One man can produce bread for 200 people. Yet thousands cannot get cottons, woolens, boots or shoes or bread. There must be some reason for this state of affairs. There must be some way to remedy this disgraceful state of anarchy that we are in. Then, what is the remedy?"

The Topeka State Journal said:

"Prof. Hertzka, an Austrian economist and statesman, has discovered that to run the various departments of industry to supply the 22,000,000 Austrians with all the necessaries of life, by modern methods and machinery, would take the labor of only 615,000 men, working the customary number of hours. To supply all with luxuries would take but 315,000 more workers. He further calculates that the present working population of Austria, including all females, and all males between the ages of 16 and 50, is 5,000,000 in round numbers. His calculations further led him to assert that this number of workers, all employed and provided with modern machinery and methods, could supply all the population with necessaries and luxuries by working thirty-seven days a year, with the present hours. If they chose to work 300 days a year, they would only have to do so during one hour and twenty minutes per day.

"Prof. Hertzka's figures regarding Austria, if correct, are applicable with little variation to every other country, not excepting the United States. There is a steam harvester at work in California that reaps and binds ninety acres a day, with the attention of three men. With gang-plows attached, the steam apparatus of this machine can plow eighty-eight acres a day. A baker in Brooklyn employs 350 men and turns out 70,000 loaves a day, or at the rate of 200 loaves for each man employed. In making shoes with the McKay machine, one man can handle 300 pairs in the same time it would take to handle five pairs by hand. In the agricultural implement factory 500 men now do the work of 2,500 men.

"Prior to 1879 it took seventeen skilled men to turn out 500 dozen brooms per week. Now nine men can turn out 1,200 dozen in the same time. One man can make and finish [D323] 2,500 2-pound tin cans a day. A New York watch factory can turn out over 1,400 watches a day, 511,000 a year, or at the rate of two or three watches a minute. In the tailoring business one man with electricity can cut 500 garments a day. In Carnegie's steel works, electricity helping, eight men do the work of 300. One match-making machine, fed by a boy, can cut 10,000,000 sticks a day. The newest weaving loom can be run without attention all through the dinner hour, and an hour and a half after the factory is closed, weaving cloth automatically.

"Here is presented the problem of the age that is awaiting solution: how to so connect our powers and our necessities that there shall be no waste of energy and no want. With this problem properly solved, it is plain that there need be no tired, overworked people; no poverty, no hunger, no deprivation, no tramps. Solutions innumerable have been proposed, but so far none seems applicable without doing somebody an injustice, real or apparent. The man who shall lead the people to the light in this matter will be the greatest hero and the greatest benefactor of his race the world has ever known."

Female Competition a Factor

Still another item for consideration is female competition. In 1880 according to the United States' Census reports, there were 2,477,157 females engaged in gainful occupations in the United States. In 1890 the returns showed the number to be 3,914,711, an increase of more than fifty per cent. The increase of female labor along the line of bookkeeping, copying and stenography shows specially large. The 1880 Census showed 11,756 females so employed; the 1890 Census showed 168,374. It is safe to say that the total number of females now (1912) engaged in gainful occupations is over ten millions. And now these also are being pushed out by machinery. For instance, a coffee-roasting establishment in Pittsburgh by installing in two newly invented coffee-packing machines which are operated [D324] by four women have caused the discharge of fifty-six women.

The competition daily grows more intense, and every valuable invention only adds to the difficulty. Men and women are relieved indeed from much drudgery, but who will maintain them and their families while idle?

Labor's Views and Methods,
Reasonable an