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Show THECHURCHANDTHELABORER. Is not the organ of the Socialists published in Kansas City standing in its own light when it charges the Catholic Church with curtailing the rights of the wage-earner ? Are not her priests and bishops, as a body, the sons and grandsons of men who earned their living by the" sweat of their brows? Does not the church to which these priests and bishops bish-ops belong include among the sins which cry to heaven for vengeance the sin of "defrauding the laborer of his wages," and rank it in heinousness with murder ? Does not the same church teach that the laborer is worthy of his hire, that he is entitled in justice to a fair wage, a wage that shall enable him to maintain himself and his family; and that any attempt to defraud him of this, or a part of it, she stamps as a sin of special malice ? Can the Socialists So-cialists truthfully deny that these things are taught md insisted upon by the Catholic Church? This historic church also imposes on the laborer, the mechanic and the artisan moral duties, the fulfillment fulfill-ment of which necessarily implies a partial solution of the problems now agitating the industrial classes. More than that, the Church advises workmen not to heedlessly destroy his health by excessive toil or hazardous work; she bids him to nourish his wife and children with suitable food, to clothe and house them decently, to train and educate his children, to know them and to fulfill the duties of a father to them. "This," you may retort, "is all very well in theory, the-ory, but how can he perform these duties when he is away from them, toiling for starvation wages, and is only with them from sunset to dawn ? How can he care for his health, when foul air, long hours, scant food and heavy toil are sapping his manhood and his strength? How can he supply nourishing food, warm clothing, and decent shelter to his children out of a wage driven down to the lowest limit by competition and superabundance of men waiting for his job." The church, we. answer, in imposing duties on any man implies a capacity to fulfill them; she implies im-plies that the hours shall not be so protracted as to deprive him of companionship with his family: i-he implies that the labor itself shall not be so excessive ex-cessive as to undermine his health and unfit him for his religious -and moral duties; Ehe implies that his wages shall be sufficient to feed, clothe and house decently, his wife and little ones. These are the very social problems that are urgent, and on these points her mind and teaching are clear and definite. But however clear and definite the teaching teach-ing of the Church on social problems may be; however how-ever anxious she may be to repeat in the present day her action in the past, she hU not been able as yet to cope with the magnitude ot the evih Even iu so called Catholic countries, she has no means of influencing in-fluencing the great corporations, and ehe has little hope of directing individual capitalists, for the ramifications of commerce are intricate and beyond her control. But today she is brought face to face with combinations com-binations and societies for the protection of labor, and her attitude towards these societies claims the earnest attention of her Catholic subjects. Xo doubt can exist that she is anxious that the laborer should obtain his rights; the right to his OAvn support, the right to maintain his fumily suitably, suit-ably, the right to maintain his honor and his man hood. It is equally clear that she does not object to combinations to maintain these rights, since she sanctified and identified herself with the craft guilds of the middle ages. But the difficulty arises in the nature and practice of these combinations; she cannot sanction injustice, she cannot sanction lawlessness, she cannot sanction untenable and, very often, destructive theories of communism and radical Socialism. She condemns injustice alike in the employer and the employed. |