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,'W* ► CaSmagc Sermon By Rev. Frank DeWitt Talmage, D. D. Los Antreles, Cal., S«>i)L 4.--In thll; eennon. wliich is specially nppruprintt to the Sunday before Labor day, th« preacher e.\i*resses his sympathy with the hard lot of the workingman ant! points out s >nie of the conditions which Increase his dilliciiltios. The text h liKodus i, 12. “The more they aillictetl them the more they multiplied and grew.’’ “Some rirtues,” wrote Joseph Addi son. “are seen only in nlHiction.” Bui from the Egyptian standpoint it would take a very long and a very useless Investigation to find any virtue in the national catastrophe which, as the text would indicate, was about to over whelm the Egyptian kingdom. The mightiest foreign foe ever assembled upon the borderland drained by the arteries of the gigantic Nile was not to be feared as much as was the host of enslaved Hebrews wllb were living among them. It was only a few hun dred years before that a little handful of Hebrews, with their flocks and; herds, had migrated to and settled in j the land of Goshen during the pre miership of J >seph, the famous states man. But since that time the de scendants of old Jacob had multiplied! so greatly that now they could bo counted literally by the hundreds ol thousands. Not only in numbers went they to be feared, but in mental powei also. With the proverbial acquisitive ness of the Hebrew, these people were, absorbing much of the wealth of th.o kingdom. Moreover, the “signs of the times” declared they would soon be come rulers of the nation. By a silent revolution they threatened to take possession of the Egyptian govern ment, as long afterward the descend ants of the o’.d Aztecs, whose fathers had been conquered by Cortes, bided their time and finally worked out their own governmental rnlvation by elect ing practically a full blooded Indian to the throne of the Montezumns—I’or- tirio IHaz, president of the Mexican republic. “What shall we do? What shall we <Jo?” was the one question that was upon almost every Egyptian lip. “Shall we allow the Hebrew people to become the dominant factors upon the banks of the Nile and to sit upon the throne of the pharaohs?” This ques tion was not only asked in the street, but it was anxiously discussed in the king's palace. Tonight we set- the; lights blazing in the privy council room. As we enter the council chain-! ber we see the king sitting at the end of the long room, surrounded by bis best, and strongest ministers. After j the question has been talked over long and earnestly I see the king rise. lie i looks straight at bis councilors of state ; as be says: “Gentlemen, we are facing , a condition, not a theory. We dare not and cannot deport the Hebrews 1 from our realm. They are now essen- j tial to our national welfare and pros- j perity as labo’ ors, clerks and servants. | But we can debar them from holding | property. We can forbid them study-: Ing in our schools. We can enslave > them and make them the chattels of our people. We can degrade them by ignorance and overwork. Thus saith the king. I here and now deci e the Hebrew men and women and children from henceforth to be in perpetual bondage. They shall be compelled to make bricks without straw. My min isters will see that my decree is car ried out. When the king speaks the king’s will becomes the law. Gentle men of the privy chamber, the council Is dismissed.” DtafrnnchiKPinpiit of Hebrew*. This royal behest was carried out to the letter. The Hebrew people living in Egypt were disfranchised. Not only were they deprived of the rights of citizenship, but they were degraded to the most abject and humiliating servi tude. Their property was taken away from them, and they could not even claim their wives and children as their own. Yet, strange to say, and yet not strange after all, the more the Hebrews were cursed and struck and ill used and murdered by the ‘Egyp tians the more their numbers grew, and the more of a menace they became to the Egyptian government. The la bor question, on account of the bru talities practiced under the shadow of Pharaoh’s throne in 1573 B. C., be came as imminent and dangerous as is the labor question in the United States of America in UM)4, A. I)., under the shadow of the statue of the Goddess of Liberty which stands in New York harbor, and with uplifted arm declares that all men in this land are free and equal. This is the first Sunday in Septem ber. Tomorrow is Labor Jay. Many preachers this Sabbath morning will he talking to the mechanics, the clerks and the farm hands, to the masons, the errpenters and plumbers, and to all those who work with their hands. It is not inappropriate that this morning I should present some of the conditions that are afflicting American labor. If in this talk I should speak frankly con cerning capital, I shall speak with equal candor concerning labor, for I firmly believe, as a dear friend of mine said to me a few days ago, that "the greatest curse labor has to bear today j- does not come from capital, but from labor Itself.” One sided or biased treatment of the labor question will never help to solve the labor problem « “The more the Egyptian master af- l.ic-ted the Hebrew slaves.” says our text, "the more they multiplied and grew, and the Egyptians grieved be- cuuse of the children of Israel." La bor's afflictions! We first find them in the American la borer being com pelled to compete for work in a home market that Is glutted with foreign immigrants. We tin 1 them in the gfeat army of Inv aders which each year bis embarks at Ellis island. New Yo:' .'s (’. siic Garden of the present day We find them in the impoverished Italians -uni the Bohemians and the Portuguese tind in the Unman offscourings of Europe who each year come to our manufacturers and foundry men and contractors and say: “Let me handle your pick.” “Let me lay your asphalt pavement.” “Let me dig your mines.” “Let me chop your wood.” “Let me wal k in your foundries.” "We are for eigners. We do not intend to become citrons of the United States. As soon as we can save up a little money we inteirl to return to our native land and live there. But meantime we will work cheaper than any American man can w >rk. Why? Because our living ex penses are practically nothing. We will live .in dugouts. We will eat food that no Amerh m family would eat. We will buy n » books and will wear the cheap est clothing. As a result of these con ditions of living we can crowd your American workman to the wall.” Protect American Laborer*. The American laborer, from this for eign competition, must have help, and help right soon, to save him from this condition of allairs. Our national leg islature must give it. Shall we lift high our tariff walls to protect capital and not at the same time lift high our walls of immigration laws to protect )ur native workers? Is not the Amer ican laborer's sturdy arm as valuable m the sight of our government as the capitalist’s poekethook? “What do you me an by such a statement as that?” some one asks. “Would you start an other Know Nothing party? Would your ballot box slogan be ‘American w nk only for the American born— American political oflioes only to be held by those cradled under the shad- >v s of Mount Washington and Pike’s peak?”’ Oh. no. I am not preaching any such political nonsense. 1 do not be.ieve there ev er was n political party wrapped In t' e swaddling clothes of so many errors as that horn in lS5:i. and which, with ex-President Millard Fillmore as its presidential candidate, swept many of our northern states in 1S5i> with tin- politk-al cry, “America only for the American born.” Ameri can liberties and American prowess both on land and sea, militarily and in dustrially, have been won and built up by America’s adopted sons as well as by her native horn children. Were there not foreigners among George Washington’s mightiest companions in | arms? Baron Johann He Kalb, who was shot at Camden In 1780, and Kosciusko and Lafayette and many others—they were all foreign born. Who was the most valued si desman during Wash ington's administration next to the president himself? Alexander Ilamil-: ton, who was foreign born. Who was John Ericsson, the inventor of the Monitor, that revolutionized naval war fare and saved the American navy off Newport News? lie was a Swedish-1 American; he was foreign bom. Some of our greatest merchants, like A. T. Stewart of New York; our greatest foundrymen, like Andrew Carnegie of Pittsburg; our greatest scientists, like Agassiz of Harvard; our social reform ers, like Jacob A. Blis of New York, and the most eminent political leaders of our day, like Carl Scliurz, once sen ator from Missouri and member of President Hayes’ cabinet—they were all foreign born. If you blot out from our nation's history all the deeds which ; America’s foster sons and daughters j have accomplished for the land of theif adoption you blot out some of its brightest pages. Where to Dra-w the Line. rtut while we, as American citizens, would welcome gladly into our midst the German or Englishman or Scotch- * man or Swede and the men of any ! foreign nationality who with intelli gence would come among us and say,! “Brother, give me thy hand, for today ^ 1 would he one with you and become an American citizen,” yet today we would not welcome the ignorant, the idle, the filthy, the pauper, the lazza- coni or the criminal offscourings of Europe or Asia, who would come to this land, not to become American citi zens, but to stay here just long enough to scrape together a few thou sand dollars and then go back to the land of their birth. We would not welcome the ignorant and depraved of foreign lauds, who would underbid our American workmen and compel our American boys and girls to live in dugouts or as rats In a cellar as they live. These classes have neither part nor parcel in the glorious inheritance of freedom and equality for which our forefathers fought and bled. While we would gladly open our gates to the oppressed of other lands, we would shut them against a horde that can have no appreciation for the precious privilege of American citizenship and no sympathy with our national aims and ambitious, and whose coming is as much of a menace to our people as the cloud of locusts Is to a harvest field. Nations, like individuals, should be wise as well as generous in their hos pitality. We must protect ourselves against the industrial locusts of the old world by wise and discriminating laws which shall do Injustice to none, and which, while vindicating our an cient hospitality as a worldwide asy lum for the lovers of liberty and in dependence, shall shut out the swarms of mere mercenaries and the “Inde scribable elements” which other lands seek to thrust upon us. from whatever quarter they may come. Labor’s next great affliction Is to be found In the absurd and tyrannical de mands made by some labor unions. t .•.Hi seem t > have the suicidal policy ni :.ill ig.inizinu' capital at all times and ..ii i r all pretexts and of widening the ! r ■ < ' ! , CD r. ; it: 1 and labor, with t' e result 111; i Li or Itself is the heav ier sri'.erer through their insane fob lii ;. The most bntiel tyrant the south ern i.-erro knew in antebellum days was n i. .he white man, hut the negro hir eit who was uirde the overseer e; - the plantation. In the same way in in,.ay eases the most brutal tyrant the 1 boring man has today is not the capi talist. but the “walking delegate” or the mercenary political trickster who, as a iab . ing man. manipulates the ex ecutive committees which govern the labor unions for their own ruin. Of course this indictment is not universal in its application. There are many honest and upright and beneficent labor organizations, like that of which the late Mr. Arthur was president— namely, the Brotherhood of Locomo tive Engineers. Mr. Arthur brought that organization up to such perfec tion that it not only looked after the Interests of the owners of the different railroads, but after the interests of the engineers themselves. There are many clear brained, sagacious and no ble minded labor leaders whose object is not to disorganize the labor market, but to steady it, so that employers as well as the employed may have their due. "I do not believe in strikes for the laboring man,” said Terence V. Powderly a few months ago. “It is true we bad some when 1 was at the head of the Knights of Labor, bvit we settled 1,100 labor disputes without strikes. Indeed, I might say we pre vented over 1,000 strikes.” Yet, strange to say, where there has been one able and sagacious leader whose chief ob- joet seemed to have been to make every man do bis honest quota of work and get bis just pay there have been many whose chief object lias been to find out how little they can permit a laborer to do and how much they can make an employer pay without literal ly breaking his back. Such men are an incubus on labor. Like theOld Man of the Sea, who sat on the neck of Sind- bad, they sit heavily upon the work ingman's shoulders. Impeding his prog ress and involving him in endless dis putes and troul !e. The sooner he rids himself of such incumbrance the better. Like Mni-ie Antoinette. Now. my laboring friends, mark you this. I am not claiming that capital is j all right and labor is all wrong. I think some of the most merciless men 1 in the world are to be found in the | ranks of capitalists. Borne of them w.ll squeeze out of a worker his last drop of blood. Some of them have no more sympathy with the hunger and pover ty of the worker than Marie An toinette had with the sufferings of poor Baris when she heard the cry of the mobs: “Give us bread! We must have bread!” "Why,” said the shallow brained French queen to one of her attendants, "do they ask for bread? If they have no bread, why don't they eat cake?” But. while capital In some instances may be merciless, it is quite certain that if the labor unions will stop their petty bickerings and tlnsr unjustifiable tyrannies and unitedly de mand what is right capital will be com pelled to yield to all of labor's just de mands. So long as labor persists in making absurd claims just so long will labor not only be refused such de mands. but labor will lose much of what she justly and rightfully ought to have. When a labor union comes and says, “Capitalist, you must hire the men I send to you and no others,” then the capitalist, stung by such tyr anny, replies: “Bather than have you dictate to me what I shall do I will fight your organization to the last dol lar. My forefathers died on Bunker Hill and at Valley Forge for liberty. Free 1 was born, free 1 shall live, and free I shall die." It is flint against steel and Is the inevitable result of such a course of action. This is the spirit with which capital Is today light ing labor when labor makes absurd and unjust demands. But I would speak also in reference to another great affliction from which labor today is suffering. I allude not to the competition of American labor with the foreign hordes, but to that unnatural and ever Increasing com petition between our American boys and their American sisters in the la bor market. Brothers struggle for bread in competition with sisters; fa thers compete with their own daugh ters. Now, I know the few words that I am going to speak will not be popu lar with some, but what I have to say I hope may be heard patiently and with profit. T.ie world, by every law of justice, owes every fnnn, woman and child a living. If they are ready to work for It. But God never intended some peo ple to work for a living In certain ways any more than he intended a colt six months old to do the work of u well developed draft horse. He never intended young boys and girls to leave school before their time, or wives and daughters to labor ns farm hands in the fields, when there are sturdy fa thers and brothers physically able to bear the brunt of the work under the noontide sun. Yet everywhere we see strong men, ablebodied men who want to work and yet who are unable to find employment because the work that they should do is being done by women who ought to be at borne caring for the household. This condition Is a men ace not only to the American labor market, but to the American home and family. Both must suffer by the sub stitution of women and girls for men and boys in the factories and stores of our land. The natural place for wo man Is the home. It is there that the qualities with which God has endowed her find their proper exercise. To he the wife and mother, to make the house a home by her sweet and refin ing influence, to train the children to ho good and wise men and virtuous women by a mother’s love and care-- those are the services she alone can render, and if she deserts that duty it will go undone, and this country will lose its moral tme. There is no com pensation known to man for the hick of a mother’s beneficent Influence on nor children. TIi«* 'Working Woninn. I yield to no man in my admiration for the girl who. being left fatherless and having no brothers callable of earning a livelihood for the bereaved family, g >e« forth to toil for the sup port of her widowed mother and her fatherless brothers ; nd sisters. Many a noble girl is doing that and deserves to be honored for her conduct. Many a girl unsought in marriage, seeing her father gradually losing by age his capacity for work, takes up the bur den of helping to provide for the family which ho is no longer able to bear alone. All honor to her the assistance she is rendering, and for the sympathy and reverence for her parents which she displays in reliev ing them of care and anxiety. Many a widow, clinging to her children and shrinking from the pain of having them scattered in the charitable homes of relatives or friends, finds employ ment by which she can support and educate them and lit them for their duty in life. God bless and help all such and give them tiie strength they need for their arduous lot! They should have our hearty sympathy and our cordial help in their self sacrificing labor. But tbe spectacle of what such wom en are doing has stirred the ambition of another class of women. These are they who voluntarily and by choice elect to do a man’s work in the world, in oruer that they may escape the drudgery of domestic service or the weariness of school teaching or in or der to obtain money for extravagant dress and ornament or for luxuries which their fathers cannot provide, they thrust themselves into business pursuits, displacing some man who was earning a higher salary, aiul they help to depress the market rate of wages. I protest against a system which makes it impossible for a strong, able- bodied man to find work, forcing him to stay at home and live upon his young daughters’ earnings when they themselves should be at school or lielp- hig their mothers at home. ^ ere are only two ways to rectify this evil. Em ployers should hire their employees in two ways. First, when an applicant comes for a place give the preference to men who are husbands and fathers and the heads of families; second, ab solutely refuse to employ any young girl in a store or factory unless that young girl is fatherless, brotberless and has others dependent upon her for support, it is high time that some of our female clerks who are working in stores for a little extra spending money should go back to their homes and domestically help to care for their mothers and fathers and younger sis ter and brothers, where they belong. Lr.Iior Problem* of Today. The afflictions of the Industrial work ers of America are very great. Indeed, 1 sometimes think they are about as badly off in America today as were the Israelities in the Egyptian capital over three thousand years ago. In a blunt way 1 have tried to present three or four of the difficult labor problems which confront the laboring classes of America at the present time. Do not. however, even for a moment suppose that I consider these problems and oth ers like them impossible of solution. The same God who led the children of Israel out of their enslavement will yet lead his American children to free’o’.n from their industrial troubles. In 181)3. from the top of the great pyramid of Gizeli, 1 had two visions. In the first vision 1 looked toward the ruins of the capital of Memphis, in the midst of which I saw Pharaoh's palace, where lived the cruel tyrant. I saw the mighty river Nile changed literally into a river of blood. I heard the cries of anguish as the poor Hebrew slaves groaned and moaned in torture. But theu T turned and looked to tbe far north. In my second vision I saw another s ; ght, for there I saw the promised land of Canaan. I saw Moses and Joshua. I saw Jerusalem gleaming in the glowing sun. I saw the rich grajies of Eschol. I saw David and Solomon in all their glory. As Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt and through the Bed sea, I see some other man, heaven sent, as was Moses, raised up to lead the American laborers and American capitalists out of their self ishnesses and meannesses. I see Amer ica in my second vision as the land of true freedom. I see all men, both la borers and capitalists, living together in harmony and love —all living as Christ would have them live. May all of us. whether we work in broadcloth or in overalls, try to speed that millen nial day by doing to our brothers us we would have our brothers do to us. Then ail labor troubles will not be solved by the “black rule of selfish- ness,” but by the “Golden Buie of Christian love.” [Copyright. 1904, by Louis Klopsch.] AH The Details necessary to the safety of our customers, stockholders and directors are carefully followed at this bank. If you are seeking courteous attention, liberal treat ment and absolute security, let us have your business. We will be glad to confer with those who wish to open an account, let the amount be large or small, NATIONAL BANK OF GAFFNET, GAFFNEY, S. C. STATE, COUNTY AND CITY DEPOSITORY. Ca P ital > $50,000.00 Surplus and Undivided Profits, 33 000.00 Stockholders’ Liabilities, 50,000 00 Protection to Depositors, $133,000.00 D. C. ROSS. President. MAYNARD SMYTH, Cashier. J. G. WARD LAW, V.-Pres’t. CHAS. W. HAM IS, Asst. Cashier. C/3 aj X o CQ <3 Vh Rural Mail Boxes. Go to R. M. 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