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VIEWS FROM THE WATCH TOWER

THE BATTLE OF THE GREAT DAY

As illustrating the progress being made toward the condition described in the Bible as that of the immediate future, when “every man’s hand shall be against his neighbor” (Zech. 14:13; Ezek. 32:21), we give below without comment copies of two circulars being widely distributed among manufacturers—urging them to organize for mutual protection against the “unreasonable” demands of organized labor. These purport to go forth from The Press of the National Association of Manufacturers. The two circulars follow:—

WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING?

At the late meeting of the American Federation of Labor, held in New Orleans, the following resolution came within four hundred votes of being adopted:

Whereas, Capital being the product of all the toilers of the human race, and as wages can never be regarded as the full equivalent for labor performed, and since it is the mission of the trades-unions to protect the wage earner against oppression, and to fully secure the toilers’ disenthrallment from every species of injustice; therefore be it

Resolved, That this twenty-second annual convention of the American federation of Labor advise the working people to organize their economic and political power to secure for labor the full equivalent of its toil and the OVERTHROW OF THE WAGE SYSTEM, AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF AN INDUSTRIAL CO-OPERATIVE DEMOCRACY.

This resolution was introduced by delegate Max Hayes, one of the radical socialists from Cleveland, Ohio. In the final action on this resolution the socialistic element almost secured control of the convention. The struggle lasted a full day. The debate on the resolution was the most exciting of the meeting. John Mitchell’s United Mine Workers’ organization cast one thousand eight hundred and four votes solidly for this resolution. This is the organization which evoked so much maudlin sentiment and brought the whole country to its knees in the Anthracite strike. It is confidently prophesied that the socialists will be in full control of the Trades-Union movement in the United States by the time of the next A. F. of L. Convention.

Max Hayes’ resolution means that there is to be an attack upon the productive wealth of the country. Productive wealth, as interpreted by the socialists, means capital, factories, plants, machinery, railroads, etc. The socialists mean to take possession of all the money and private properties. Not content with getting their share of the consumable wealth of the nation, clothing, food, etc., which is being distributed more generously and cheaply to the people than ever before in the history of the world, the followers of Hayes are determined

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to seize upon all the productive wealth. It has been estimated that if all the productive wealth of the country were to be divided up equally among the inhabitants of the United States that there would be but Two Hundred dollars for each person. Yet Hayes and his followers are determined to seize this two hundred dollars if they can get the backing. The basis of this movement is human greed and envy. Unless this movement is checked, it will lead to enormous industrial damage to the United States, for nothing but chaos and anarchy can come from a proposition to seize the private property of individuals. These are the people who are demanding that the political and commercial destinies of the United States be intrusted into their hands!

Is it time to organize?

ANTI-INJUNCTION LAW OR REBELLION

The special committee which reported on President Gompers’ annual report at the recent American Federation of Labor meeting at New Orleans, said in connection with the anti-conspiracy bill now pending in Congress:

“The use of injunction in labor disputes is becoming more and more general; its value to the employer and its danger to the workmen is becoming better and better understood. It is an effort to retain through judicial decisions and orders, the power over the working people, which has long been legislatively surrendered, and seems to have as its governing cause the concept that the ownership of a mine, a factory or a means of transportation, carries with its ownership so much of the working power of the laboring class as will make such factory, mine or means of transportation profitable to its owner. This concept has in it an idea of peonage (the word “Peon” is of Spanish-American origin, meaning a debtor held by his creditor in a form of qualified servitude, to work out a debt), which, if permitted to grow, will re-establish peonage in its most objectionable form. If through the use of the equity power vested in the Courts, our rights as workers to quit work at will, and to induce others to quit with us, can be taken away, then the peaceable evolution toward industrial democracy is cut off, and the workers will be compelled to look to more REVOLUTIONARY measures for redress of existing grievances, and the obtaining of better conditions in the future. If we are permitted to withdraw our labor in unison from any establishment where we have grievances to be redressed, then the development may go on the lines of the development in England toward political democracy, through parliamentary control over taxation and appropriation. If it is to be taken away, then we might as well now realize that PEACEABLE DEVELOPMENT will stop, and the POLITICAL HISTORY

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OF FRANCE WILL BE THE INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. For these reasons your Committee recommends that NO EFFORTS BE SPARED TO INDUCE THE LEGISLATIVE POWER TO CURTAIL THE JUDICIARY BRANCH OF OUR GOVERNMENT BY THE ENACTMENT OF THE ANTI-INJUNCTION BILL.”

The report of this Committee was enthusiastically concurred in, and so well pleased were the delegates with the President’s attitude towards employers, that immediately thereafter, upon proper motion, Gompers’ salary was increased $500 a year.

Thus it will be seen that Organized Labor never intends to stop, until it can secure class legislation by which the BOYCOTT and the PICKET are to be LEGALIZED, and every employer in this country be placed at the mercy of agitators, who hold for the employing class nothing but envy and hatred. This program of terrorization and despoliation can only be met with an organization which will embrace every manufacturer in the United States.

Is it not time to organize?

RELIGIOUS BASEBALLISTS

Six Washington City Churches formed a Base Ball League, and during the past season contested every day, except Sunday, from May 18 to July 25. Let us hope that this liberal attention to “bodily exercise” did not trench too heavily upon the hours usually set apart for prayer and the study of the divine Word. The following Churches composed the Association:

Calvary Baptist Church,

Fourth Presbyterian Church,

Gunton-Temple Presbyterian Church,

Sixth Presbyterian Church,

Temple Baptist Church,

Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church.

MAKING HADES TOO HOT

A passion for accuracy seems to beset a revivalist in Texas. His idea of the best way to get people to heaven is to frighten them about hell, and he gives them exact facts. For instance he tells them that the temperature of hell is four hundred and fifty-three degrees Fahrenheit. On what he bases his calculations we do not know. But this we do know, and we wish to state it for the comfort of his hearers: If they fell into such a heat they would not know whether it was hot or cold, and there would be absolutely no feeling of any kind, but instantaneous annihilation.

It is a comfort to think that today the man who talks about the temperature of hell seems simply a humorous creature and is taken no more seriously than an old nurse with ghost stories. As to the man who tries to preach the hideous theory that in frightful torments of heat human beings are kept alive and constantly tortured by a “merciful Creator,” his statements are now considered blasphemous. No man would dare to make them, save to the most ignorant and degraded audience.—Exchange.

BISHOP FOWLER ON MONEY AND SALVATION

“Salvation is reduced to a question of dollars and cents.”
“Now, don’t misunderstand me. The goblins’ll get you if you do.”

These were the characteristic words of Bishop Charles H. Fowler in his address to the ministers and laymen of the Cincinnati Methodist Episcopal Church Conference Saturday morning. Bishop Fowler said further: “We have the doctrine, the Redeemer, the experience, the schools; we have the railroads, the steamships; we have masters of languages—all we need is money. We have everything else. A famous New York layman once said, ‘If you will give me enough money, I will make a Christian city of New York in thirty years.’ I say to you, ‘Give me money and I will make a Christian city of Cincinnati in thirty years.’ I would let the old sinners go anywhere they please, but I would save the young ones and the little ones. You can’t make a Christian city of Cincinnati on one-half a cent per person. The world must be conquered, and money is needed with which to do it. I want you laymen of the Cincinnati conference to be diligent in business. Get the money. The more you have the easier it will be to get still more. A soul set on fire for the Infinite God can’t get money enough. I want you to believe all I have said. Do as much as you can without utterly disrupting your moral natures.”—Daily News.

ANOTHER WAY OF “COUNTING THE COST”

Discussing the cost of “soul saving” as between the expenses of large and small churches the Brooklyn Standard Union says:

From 248 churches, evenly divided into large and small, it is shown that the cost of new converts is almost twice as much in the former as in the latter, ranging from $262.22 to $150.14, though the average annual expenditure of each member when safely in the fold is much more nearly equal—$14.09 against $13.05.

Of course the inevitable question, Does it pay? must be met by the churches, as well as by every other form of human organization and activity, and as with all other forms of the higher and better types, the attempt to answer it would be idle. One might as well ask, Does the family, the State, society at large, pay? There are fortunately some equations of life in which the factors are not convertible, and where to ask the question is to admit that its answer is impossible. A better form of the inquiry may be found in a book once read more than it is today, “What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” It may be just as well once in a while to admit that there are some things which cannot be expressed in the terms of daily business, that cannot be measured by dollars and cents, and that the institutions, no matter by what name called, which go to make the world better worth living in, even though they require money and a good deal of it, are worth all they cost. The little churches, particularly, and those who love them and work for them, may well take heart.

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— November 15, 1903 —