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Show TRADE GUILDS tt THE GOLDEN AGE OE LABOR The Labor Question the Most Important Issue of the Day The Church is Labor's Most Devoted friend Her Benefactions to Labor in the Middle Ages. BY .10 1 IX J. BEALIX. The special mi.-sion of thi article on the "Golden Ago of Labor" is to bring the truth home to a body of people who love' the truth the women and men who fill the ranks of organized labor. Tlioy will be told how the Catholic Church has been mis- . understood and deliberately lied about. Time "and again they have boon told that she has been ever I their enemy. How far from the truth this is. his-tory his-tory will tell. The organized workers of the conn- " . try themselves know what it is to be misunderstood . . and often be the victims of deliberate falsehood. In " their efforts to maintain a living wage they have suffered much: many of them have been martyrs to the cause they e-poiwd. It has bei'ii my high privilege to personally know many of these women and men who havt spent the best days of their lives laboring and suffering suf-fering much in order that the world might be better for their having lived in it. To some of -them the story here, told will bo news, and when they have read its pages I am sure they will- give due credit to the monks of old for the great service they have rendered the human family. .," ,- . If. because of limited time at their disposal, it is not possible for them to read the many authori- . ties quoted, they can at. least read the magnificent encyclical of Pope Loo XIII. on the Condition of Labor." He speaks for the Church. There can bo no doubt about the position he took. There is no i man in any age who stated the cause of. the poor -. . ' and down-trodden with more vigor and clearness than he. - There is no question on the proper solution of . which so much depends as that which is known as the labor question. The date Pope Loo XIII.. in his encyclical on the condition of labor, places the , . i matter before us in the following striking man- nor: , "It is uot surprising that the spirit of revolutionary revolu-tionary change, which has mi long been predominant predomi-nant in the nations of the world, should have passed beyond politics and made its influence felt, in the cognate field of practical economy. The elements of a conflict are unmistakable; the growth of industry, in-dustry, and the surprising discoveries of science; ' the changed relations of master and Avorkmen; the enormous fortunes of individual-.- and the poverty-of poverty-of the masse.-, ; the increased self-reliance and the closer mutual combination of the working population; popula-tion; and. finally a general deterioration. The mo- '" mentous seriousness of the present state of things just now fills every mind with painful apprehension; apprehen-sion; Avise men discuss it; practical men propose ' schemes; popular meetings, legislatures and sover-ign sover-ign princes, all are occupied with it and there is . ' nothing which has a deeper hold on public attention. atten-tion. Every minister of holy religion must throw Hito the conflict all the energy of his mind and all the strength of his endurance. ;:' x Every man must imt his hand to work which falls to his share, and that at once and immediately, immedi-ately, lest the evil which is already so great may by delay become absolutely beyond remedy." President. Roosevelt, in his message to the Fifty-seventh congress, in 1!01, presented the case as folloAvs: , "The- most vital problem Avith which this country, coun-try, and for that matter the whole civilized Avorld, has to deal, is the problem which has for one side the betterment of social conditions, moral and ' physical, in large cities, and for he other side the effort to deal with that tangle of far-reaching ques- . tions Avhich. avo group together Avhen'we cooak of 'labor.' The chief factor of success of each man ! Avagemaker. farmer and capitalist alike must ever ' I be the sum total of his own individual qualities . , and abilities. Second only to this comes the power 1 .of acting in combination or association 'with oth- ' '. I ers. Yfry great good has been and will be accom- I plished by associations or unions of wage-earners, .'-. j when they combine insistence upon their own rights s Avith law-abiding respect for the rights of others. :" . - The display of these qualities in such bodies is a .1 duty to the nation no less than to the associations f themselves. Finally, there must also be in many '.' "'; I cases actions by the government in order to safe- ' f '. , guard the rights and interests of all. Under our ( constitution there is much more scope for such ae- ( tion by the state and the municipality than by the f nation. But on points such as those touched on " " above the Xational government cannot act." ' ! It is evident that . the labor quesion is the great question of the day. and now, while the public mind is employed with the gravity of the situa- .1 tion, let us stop for awhile and look into the pages 1 f. of history and see if the Catholic Church, in the : f ages o faith, did not shape society so that many evils, Ave complain of were not then in existence. For a short Avhile let us revieAV the work that the monk did in the building up of society. The modern man, as a rule, knoAvs the monk only as he , sees him pictured, either sitting in a eellar.alongside the wine cask, so intoxicated that he doesn't see ' that the spigot is open and the wine is running into the cellar, or as a connossieur Avith the glasa filled to the brim with wine, while he holds it be-tAveen be-tAveen himself and the light to gaze upon it with admiration. , ': It is the intention of the Avriter to bring to the notice of the honest-minded man the kindly nature na-ture of the work performed by the monk in developing de-veloping the artistic faculty of man, and the establishing of mutual associations by which trades and handicraft were brought to thp highest state . '., of perfection all o;er Europe. After the breaking up of the Boaian Empire . Europe-was recast in a new-mould. The civiliza- : j : ; j tion of Christianity replaced that of 1 '. j Tapan Koine. All that was good in I maimers,- I'usloms and lav.- of that I great civilization were preserved and J transmitted to posterity througrh the ! instrumentality of the Catholic church. I j The fairest portion of the old Roman law became the' canon law of the Church, and was the foundation on which was built in turn the law called into existence in the new European males during the middle ages. "The middle ages were ages of the highest grace to men; age.s of faith; asres when all Europe wat Catholic; when vast temples were seen to rise in every place of human concourse to give glory to God ages of ' sanctity, which witnessed a Benedict, a Bede! an Alcuin, a Bernard, a Mala-'. Mala-'. chy. a Francis, an Aneelm, a Thomas of Anuin;. age.s of the highest civil virtue, which gave birth to the laws and institutions in-stitutions of an Edward, a Louis and a Puger; ages of the noblest art, whieh beheld a Giotto, a Michael Angelo, a Kaffaeio, a Dominichino: ages of poetry, po-etry, which heard an Avitus, a Caed: inon. a Dante, a Shakespeare, a Caed-mon; Caed-mon; ages of more than mortal heroism, hero-ism, which produced a Tancred. a Godfrey; God-frey; ages of majesty, which knew . a Charlemagne, an Alfred. "Deeds of eternal fame were done; deeds which tell of Charlemagne, Philip Augustus and St. Louis, Alfred Al-fred and Canute, Richard the lion-hearted, lion-hearted, and the Black Prince; Gilbert and Hildebrand, Alcuin and Roger Bacon. Ba-con. Who is not seized with astonishment astonish-ment at beholding the architectural monuments of these ages, such as the Gothic vaults of Cologne and Westminster, West-minster, of Amiens and Jumiege? It was In the eighth century that paper was invented; the tenth that monks invented clocks; in the eleventh that the Benedictines raised the first windmill, and that a citizen of Middle-hourg Middle-hourg invented the telescope. In the middle ages was disclosed the loadstone, load-stone, or the polarity of the needle. "Linnaeus shows the successful labors la-bors of the monks in the cultivation or useful plants and vegetables, many of which were now, for the first time, . , introduced in Europe." Digby's Ages of Faith. (Continued next week.) |
