White Slaves; or, the Oppression of the Worthy Poor Part 11

It is this wors.h.i.+p of the gold G.o.d which is at the bottom of all the wrongs which have been pointed out in this series of discourses. The wealthy merchant who pays the poor widow one cent apiece for making white ap.r.o.ns, and by his avarice and his l.u.s.t induces the young women who sell them to eke out their scanty wages by the sale of their honor, is a wors.h.i.+pper of the gold G.o.d. The sweater who parcels out his work through the miserable tenement houses, grinding the face of the poor to the very last degree possible with physical existence,--indeed, many times beyond the possibility of existence, except when helped by charity,--is an obsequious devotee at the altar of Mammon. The chattel-mortgage shark, who watches all the necessities of the poor as anxiously as ever a hawk watched over a helpless or crippled bird, and the liquor-seller, who fills his coffers by a traffic which injures and destroys the health, the intelligence, and the morality of all the people whom he can draw into his net, investing all his cunning in methods to entrap the unwary, and gloating over the increasing appet.i.te and the devilish pa.s.sion for strong drink in his victims, are only brothers to the others who gather to pay their devotions to the G.o.d of gold.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FOUR s.h.i.+NERS.]

If we do not approve these wors.h.i.+ppers, what shall we say of ourselves for permitting this state of things to come to pa.s.s? It is inconsistent to condemn the liquor-seller and honor the city which licenses him to do his d.a.m.nable work. It is impossible to condemn the sweater and retain your respect for the public which permits him to carry on his nefarious business. The spirit of avarice is in the very air, until society has been poisoned by its breath. Dr. Howard Crosby, writing in the _Forum_ a few years since, says: "The healthiest form of human society is where the many are equally independent in their management of their affairs, where professions and trades are represented by individual thinking minds, and where those engaged in any one branch of industry stand on a level with one another. This condition of things promotes invention, activity, interest, manliness, and good citizens.h.i.+p. Now the gold-hunt system is directly antagonistic to all this. It seeks to destroy the many independent tradesmen, and to make them servants in a gigantic monopoly. The happy homes of freemen become the pinched quarters of serfs. The lords of trade have their hundreds and thousands of humble subordinates over whom they rule, often with a rod of iron. They may be turned away from work and wages at any moment, by any whim of the selfish employer. Hence, through fear of this, they lose their manhood, and dare not a.s.sert even a decision of their conscience. There is no more melancholy sight to my eyes than that which I often see nowadays--the former happy possessor of a shop or store, who has lived comfortably and with the true n.o.bility of a citizen, and whose family have felt the dignity of the home, now made a clerk and drudge in a huge establishment that, by its relentless use of millions, has undermined and overthrown all the independent stores of a large district, while his family are thrust into the unsavory communism of a tenement house, and lose all the delicate refinements of a quiet home. It is easy to say that this is but the natural law of trade. So to devour men is the natural law of tigers. But this truth will not reconcile us to the process. If we are to stop men from stealing directly, we can stop them from stealing indirectly. If natural law works evil to the community, we are to make statute law, which will act as supernatural law, and control the offensive principle. Unless we wish our social equality destroyed, and a system of practical serfdom to take its place, we must put a limit to the acts of greed, and so preserve the independence of our citizens."

[Ill.u.s.tration: SOUTH BOSTON RAG-PICKERS.]

Every thoughtful observer of the "signs of the times" knows that the deepest problem of our age is the amicable solution of the struggle between labor and capital. Some of the ablest work done in literature, in our time, has been produced out of an earnest desire to abolish the more recent types of this white slavery, which has, in one form or another, threatened the ma.s.ses since the days of old John Ball of early England. Perhaps the strongest portrayal, yet, of many phases of the question, especially those relating to the city, maybe found in Mr.

Howells' story, "A Hazard of New Fortunes." For the country, if one really wants to see what is behind the great upheaval in the West, which has its outward manifestation in the Farmers' Alliance, he only needs to read Mr. Hamlin Garland's "Main Travelled Roads."

In the meantime most of us are asking, "What is the way out?" As for myself, I confess to being only a student. I have no word of sneer or scoff for any mail's honest thinking, who is sincerely trying to uplift his brothers and sisters; and yet I must say that, as yet, I have not been able to become a disciple of any of the new systems that have been presented. I feel something like the man who says, "There are good things to be said in praise of Socialism or Nationalism, as compared with the crus.h.i.+ng and wearing methods of compet.i.tion; but what the world is waiting for is the thinker who shall either show us how to reconcile the new system with human liberty, or else convince us that we can do without liberty." In the mean-time I believe in G.o.d, in His wise purpose in the creation of the world, in His providential care over it, and that under His grace there shall come the triumph of righteousness in it. I believe in Jesus Christ. To my mind, Christianity stands to-day very much as it did nearly two thousand years ago, when Jesus hung upon the cross between two thieves. The anarchy which, atheistic and reckless, would destroy all law and all property, is one of the thieves, and the devotee of the gold G.o.d of our time, who clutches his money-bags and says, "I have a right to get all the money I can, and do with it what I please," is the other thief.

Christianity stands between them; her mission is to change them both, and bring them with a regenerated purpose into brotherhood and fellows.h.i.+p.

George Macdonald says: "The world will change only as the heart of man changes. Growing intellect, growing civilization, will heal man's wounds only to cause the deeper ill to break out afresh in new forms, nor can they satisfy one longing of the human soul. Its desires are deeper than that soul itself, whence it groans with the groanings that cannot be uttered. As much in times of civilization as in those of barbarity, the soul needs an external presence to make its life good to it." The Christianity of to-day must set itself, as did Jesus, to make men brothers, by bringing them to a recognition of the fact that they are all alike the children of one G.o.d and Father over all. Such a Christianity will necessarily be at war with the gold G.o.d of our time.

The clear-cut declaration of Jesus, "Ye cannot serve G.o.d and Mammon,"

is as true now as when He uttered it. I do not remember to have seen this issue put as clearly anywhere else as by Henry D. Lloyd in an article in the _North American Review_ ent.i.tled, "The New Conscience."

He says: Let us listen while a delegation from the Money-power remonstrates with the New Conscience for its unreasonable sentiments and ideas. Here they come, one by one, and range themselves about.

First speaks--

THE MERCHANT PRINCE: I have a right to buy where I can buy cheapest.

CONSCIENCE: See these little stunted, hollow-eyed girls coming out of that factory.

LAWYER: Wages are settled by contract.

CONSCIENCE: Where can I find white-haired workingmen?

CAPITALIST: Every man has a right to do what he will with his own.

CONSCIENCE: What is the price of a senators.h.i.+p to-day?

STATISTICIAN: Never were food, fuel, and clothing so cheap.

CONSCIENCE: Little Mary Mitch.e.l.l works in Waterbury's ropeworks five days a week from six in the evening till six in the morning.

RAILROAD KING: Every man makes his own career. I was a workingman myself twenty years ago, and now I keep a carriage, a butler, and several judges and legislators, in four States, and--

CONSCIENCE: That tired-looking man is a railway conductor of a company owned by half a dozen men worth three hundred millions of dollars, which is not enough for them, so they squeeze a few more dollars a month out of him by making him, on every alternate trip, do twenty-eight and a half hours' work without sleep.

BANKER: Our wealth is increasing one billion dollars a year. We have boards of trades, the best railroads in the world, and packing-houses that can kill ten thousand hogs.

CONSCIENCE: The sickening stench, the blistered air, the foul sights of the tenements, and the motherhood and the childhood choking there.

CONSERVATIVE: This is the best government in the world. America is good enough for me.

CONSCIENCE: Listen to that "tramp, tramp, tramp" of a million of men out of work.

MANUFACTURER: Without this system of industry the subjugation of North America to civilization would have been impossible; we could never have shown the world the magnificent spectacle of--

CONSCIENCE: There is a little boy standing ten hours a day up to his ankles in the water in a coal-mine.

COAL MONOPOLIST: I have a statistician who can prove--he can prove anything--that the workingman is a great deal better off than he ever was, that he makes more than I do, that small incomes are increasing and large ones decreasing, that there is no involuntary poverty, and that the workingmen could live on twenty-five cents each a day and buy up the United States with their savings, and--

CONSCIENCE: How long shall it be cheaper to run over workingmen and women at the railroad crossings in the cities than to put up gates?

CLERGYMAN: The poor we are to have with us always.

CONSCIENCE: That sewing-woman you see p.a.w.ning her shawl has lived this winter with her two children in a room without fire. Are you wearing one of the s.h.i.+rts she finished?

STATESMAN: The workingman has the ballot and the newspapers. He is a free citizen.

CONSCIENCE: As the nights grow colder see how the number of girls on the street increases.

It is this new conscience, the conscience of Jesus Christ, that appraises a hungry child to be of more value than ten thousand palaces, that must animate and dominate the church that is called by His name, in its war against the gold G.o.d of modern society.

You may find this conscience throbbing in Ella Wheeler Wilc.o.x's plea for "Justice, not Charity."

"All hail the dawn of a new day breaking, When a strong armed nation shall take away The weary burden from backs that are aching With maximum work and minimum pay.

When no man is honored who h.o.a.rds his millions, When no man feasts on another's toil, And G.o.d's poor, suffering, starving billions Shall share His riches of sun and soil.

There is gold for all in the world's broad bosom.

There is food for all in the world's great store; Enough is provided if rightly divided, Let each man take what he needs--no more.

Shame on the miser with unused riches, Who robs the toiler to swell his h.o.a.rd, Who beats down the wage of the digger of ditches, And steals the bread from the poor man's board!

Shame on the owner of mines whose cruel And selfish measures have brought him wealth!

While the ragged wretches who dig his fuel Are robbed of comfort, and hope, and health.

Shame on the ruler who rides in his carriage, Bought by the labor of half-paid men-- Men who are shut out of home and marriage, And are herded like sheep in a hovel pen."

There must be no doubt about the att.i.tude of the church in a time like this. Against the gold G.o.d and all his oppressions the Christian Church must stand with an unflinching front. Our G.o.d is the same who spoke through the voice of Amos of old, saying, "Hear this, oh ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail, saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? And the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit? That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?" Ah! how much that sounds like the things that are going on at the present time! Yet listen to the oath of the Almighty as He looks on such things: "The Lord hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works.

Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein?... And it shall come to pa.s.s in that day, saith the Lord G.o.d, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in a clear day: and I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sack-cloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day."

It is the mission of our blessed Christianity to save the world from that bitter day by so changing and transforming it that it will no longer deserve bitterness, but peace, at the hand of G.o.d. Although I have felt compelled, in this series of discourses, to uncover many dark and loathsome places in our social system, yet I am no pessimist, and I do not despair. Jesus Christ, our Captain, saw "Satan fallen as lightning from heaven;" and when we are as devoted to G.o.d, and as thoroughly consecrated to our mission of curing the world's heartache as was He, we, too, shall live in sight of the same glorious triumph.

When we are imbued with this faith, and exalted into fellows.h.i.+p with Him, we will not dare to say that the sweatshop, or the neglected tenement house, or the noisome liquor saloon, is a necessary contingent of human life. And we will know that whatever is good enough to be true, may be and shall be true to the sons and daughters of G.o.d. In that faith we shall be able to sing with the poet:--

"'Tis coming up the steeps of time, And this old world is growing brighter; We may not see its dawn sublime, Yet high hopes make the heart throb lighter!

We may be sleeping in the ground, When it awakes the peoples' wonder; But we have felt it gathering round, And heard its voice of living thunder; Christ's reign, ah, yes, 'tis coming!

Aye, it _must_ come! the Tyrant's throne Is crumbling, with men's hot tears rusted; The sword earth's mighty have leant upon Is cankered, with men's hearts' blood crusted!

Room! for the man of love make way!

Ye selfish great ones, pause no longer; Ye cannot stay the opening day, The world rolls on, the light grows stronger-- The Master's advent's coming!"