| Show SE irah IN an M U A 11 MI by I 1 nna n ha aj I 1 M U la WN A 1 1 I 1 characteristic MESSAGE DE LIVERED IN UNITARIAN HALL what votes in coming election will voice the message of real religion I 1 speaking from tho the theme what votes in the coming reelection Ee lection will voice the message ot of real religion rev william thurston brown said in part 11 if there is any justification for tho the belief that jesus in his life alfo and ministry embodied religion or in other words any justification for the existence ot of the christian church then whatever message today may be called religion must also be good tidings and good tidings to those people of our time who correspond to the class of people to whom the message and ministry of jesus appealed 1900 years ago as good tidings religion is not a definition or a dogma or a theology lt it is a life a spirit a hope an expectation a joy a cheer it a thing which men will quarrel over it Is a present joy JoT producing hope begetting faith inspiring message and whatever er is doing that is begetting hope inspiring faith bringing cheer is good tidings to earths poor and despairing and struggling multitudes that is religion and we are just as much bound tb askwyth deepest earnestness and open minded candor in what way can the exercise of the political franchise by us be an expression of religion as we are to ask how our churches can become tho the servants of religion how can our votes be good tidings to the poor in what way may this election bring hope to the hopeless joy to the joyless freedom to the men and women in this land of ours who do not know the meaning of freedom before we can answer these questions we must know something about conditions which prevail in this country some years ago jacob alis a close friend of mr roosevelt wrote a book about certain classes of people in our large cities and because he knew he was writing of facts utterly unknown to most people to most of the people who belong to the chir chistian alan church too I 1 he named his book how i the other halt half lives instinctively mr ails saw that the ignorant halt half of the people in these united states ought to know how the other half lives he must have felt that such knowledge is a moral and religious necessity it is impossible to imagine tho ministry of jesus without knowing that he was familiar with the social conditions of jils his time and nation above all the abo other men of his hia time and country jesus did know how the other hilf half words and hi his life prove that beyond dispute when wo we vote on tuesday we WB discharge the most sacred duty butr our citizenship fn an a republic involves As on no other day in tho the year can we justify the rejection of monarchy and the establishment of a republic As on no other day of the year we are to show what kind of rulers we are we have declared that no hereditary monarch ch no hereditary nobility and no priesthood can be trusted to do justice to all the people that the only hope of af justice to all lies in the vesting of final authority in tho the hands of all on no othar day of the year do all of the people have the chance to express their will in government in social conditions in the policies which shall make our government what it Is on T buea day we are going to ove give an exhibition of just how hovi must the ethics the morr mor airty the honest honesty of this nation amounts to and we are going to make mak t I 1 the most effect effective ivo profession ot at our religious principles or lack of them that we have a chance to make that day will tell as no other day what the people of this country think of jesus of nazareth it will tell how much we believe in a god whose nature Is love and who will believe in its righteousness what would a man of spirit of jesus a man who nobly exemplified religion rell gion know about tho the people of this country and how would such a man b by the agency of his h vote bring good tidings to those who most need them well ho he would know tor for one tiling thing the facts concerning the indu industrial status of the great mass ot of wage earners of this country he would know that according to the investigations of such careful and impartial students of industrial matters as mr john graham i brooks of harvard and mr charles B I 1 for or some years on the editorial staff of the outlook there were in 1900 a period of so cabied called prosperity five I 1 million five hundred families or thirty tareo million persons in this country c I 1 whose total property amounted to not I 1 more than while at the i same time according to the authority I 1 of the chicago tribune one man mr I 1 john D rockefeller was estimated to I 1 be worth one billion dollars in other N words for some reason oi or another one 1 man in the united states owns 0 more than other people in the united states ile he would know too that while the wealth ot of 11 the one man is productive wealth all the while piling up more wea wealth ith so bal that he has ha given perhaps a hundred millions for education and other purposes it there has been no decrease in I 1 his property Dro perty on the other hand ban d the wealth of tho Is unproductive eo wealth consisting in things qa for personal use 1 0 such a man would know too that ot more than halt half the people in the unit ed states live in rented houses moro than one eighth in mortgaged homos hoedl af lie he would know that 96 per cent of 10 all the people in now new york city in do not own the houses they live in and only 22 per cent of the people of philadelphia own their own homes according to mr one per cent of the families I 1 ty of this country hold more than alti halt half of its aggred aggregate ate wealth moro more ea than all tho the rest put tog together ethor seven tv eighths of cfall all the families hold hald only one eighth of 0 the national wealth A ap man of the spirit of jesua would not only know these facts but ho would 0 discover what they mean why this thin 0 condition exists and what its offe effect ct lu 13 10 bound to bo be on 0 all the people concerned ov ro A man inspired by tho passion of 11 religion would surely know inow the ron con 11 tents of the annual labor report I 1 I 1 prepared by mr carroll D wright united states commissioner of labor and published in 1905 A report which president Roosevel ts administration suppressed as soon as its damaging facts became known in that report Is an accurate statement of the condition of labor as to employment and mp loy ment as well as of wages and cost of living it tells us that whereas in 1890 85 per cent of the wage earners were employed all tho the time and 15 per cent employed only part of the time lime in 1900 78 per cent were employed all the time and 22 per cent only part of tho the time while in 1903 a time of unparalleled prosperity according to mr air roosevelt and others only per cent of wage earners were employed all tho the time and per can cent were employed only part of the time tho the same report gives as the chief cause of unemployment the closing of manufacturing establishments that one thing accounts for the 57 per p a cent n t of unemployment sickness 23 p per er acee cent n t I 1 strikes only 2 per cent and drunkenness for just 2 26 6 of one per cent today it is estimated by men qualified to know that not less than four millions of men representing not loss less than twenty million persons are out of employment mr air yoakum of the rock island railroad says there are railroad men out of work and with no possibility of finding work for some time timeto TO come the charitable organizations of all our largo large cities are completely swamped swam in their efforts to deal with the situation and the bread line has become a fixture in these same big cities when you and I 1 go into tho the election booth next tuesday to perform tho the sacred function of our citizenship if wo have any kinship whatever to jesus or an any other man whom tho the world has judged religious it if we have anything of the essence of religion in our makeup wo we shall think what our vote Is going to mean tor for these millions of people who are and under the present system must continue to be out of employment tor for a a considerable part of the time unable to find a chance to earn a living forbidden by conditions tor for which they are in no way responsible to provide food and other necessaries of oolite life for those whom they love true we may adopt the creed of cain and say 1 I am not my brothers keeper 1 but it will not alter the facts hero are at least twenty millions of people right now a fourth of all the people of the country who are denied the first and fundamental right of every human being the right to work and receive the means of a decent living here are at least four million men who want work and who because of that condition of things are hopeless and helpless what are you going to say to them by your vote and what do you propose 1 so far as you are concerned I 1 to do for them it merely an emergency in the very times when I 1 most people with whom you and I 1 talk were saying that the country was enjoying unparalleled prosperity at the very time when mr roose roosevelt malt was saying that in 1905 his own commissioner of labor mr air carroll D wright an ex unitarian minister and an expert collector of industrial data was saying in an official document that per cent of all the working people of this country were forced to bo be idle part of the time that they did not receive sufficient in wages to maintain themselves indecent condition to labor and that 1 leven even those who worked hardly received I 1 more than enough to insure them the necessities of existence and prof charles booth whose investigations investigate in london and other parts of great britain are standard authority had also said that our modern system of industry will not work without some unemployed m margin some e reserve of laor labor and yet ye t with that knowledge 1 now ledge plainly before him mr roosevelt could say in 1905 and since that the people of these united states are enjoying unexampled prosperity Is not that exactly equivalent to saying that this mass of wage earners whose property totals less than that of one man and whose chance to live at all depends upon the will of the owners of the means of production do not belong in tho the category of 0 people of these united states I 1 only an ignorant person will say that any one who wants work can find it no matter of what period be makes that statement I 1 heard miss eva booth head of the salvation army in the united states say in a public address in tremont temple boston in 1905 that desiring the services Ber vicos ot of a man for an odd job she had put an advertisement verti in an evening paper in new york city a short time before and the next morning by actual count there were over 0 men at the door after that job wo are all going to say on tuesday what wo we think of that state of things wo we aro are going to vote either for its continuance or against its continuance our votes are either going to say to this vast army of unemployed men and wom aymen on these men and women whose statue in our modern society Is that of habitual and enforced unemployment we have no hope for you wo we dont know of any hope tor for you god only knows what yon are going to do you represent a problem on which we have nothing to say all we have to say to Is that we are in favor of continuing indefinitely a system altom of things wh which ich cannot be maintained without an army ot of unemployed men and women woman wo we care far more for what 0 we o consider our own interests than we caro care what becomes of some millions ot 01 human beings whom we have never seen or else also we are going to say by our votes wo we here and now by our votes give notice to all the world that this system which dooms you men and women to this condi condition tio D of industrial hopelessness and be helplessness py asness shall end wo cast our ballots bal lotfi for file cio ending once for all of an industrial tom which denies millions all chance to earn a living and then ajda adds insult to injury by branding them paupers haupers when rather than see their loved ones starve they apply for charity or brands them criminals when they preter prefer ito to meal or rob rather than submit tv tc the humiliation and disgrace of pauperism suppose faup pose a man who wanted to know tho the reason tor for this 0 of things fllch we are facing today should ask for the explanation from some man esq hase experience in public life entitles entities JAM him to a hearing what would he ie lenn well this is what mr air leslie M na shaw not long ago secretary of the treasury under mr air roosevelt sald said in an address to the students of chi uve university march 1 1907 1 the diw iio i io to Is coming when the r rk I 1 e r E will outgrow the country and men by file cie hundreds ot of thousands will avill be turned d out of the factories T the h 6 factories factor loi are arc multiplying faster trail our trade and wo we will shortly hiipfl ba vo a surplus with no one abroad to tn baity ani and with no one at home to absorb it because the laborer i has not nim ni m paid enough to buy back what he lias has created mr shaw S baw was speaking only a few months before tho the panic came and fulfilled nis his prediction in many respects respect what will happen then he asks why these men will bo be turned out of the factories thousands of thorn them hundreds agun of thousands they will find themselves without food then will acme groat great danger to tho the country for the ae men will be hard to deal with ibe last century was the worst in tho the worlds history lor wars I 1 look to see this century bring out the greatest conflict ever waged in tho the world it will be a war for markets and all the nations will be in the li ht for they are an all after the same earno ma makels Mak bets ets for tho surplus of their factories hero here is the testimony of a man whose opportunities tor for seeing things on oil a largo large scale in our present civilization I 1 liza tion have aavo been unusual what message of hope tor for this nation has he be this man who aspired to the offee of president none whatever looking into the future he can see only a vast and bloody war as the inevitable outcome of industrial conditions which he app approves and supports which tile tho existing administration with all its talk about A square deal also approves and defends which both the eld parties stand tor for the greatest war in history aud and why because those these nations cannot find a market fc for their surplus products without destroying ying each other and why cant they find a market for their products at home without this necessity of forcing their wares on foreign irn peoples at the cannons mouth Is it because is no need at homo ciomo for these pic ducts of land and machinery Is it because all tho the people at home havo been supplied and are going to suffer somehow unless we find markets abroad surely the existence of four million unemployed men with the women and children depending upon them utterly lacking many of the necessities of life the never ceasing ever increasing army of the w who 1 ho are im employed unemployed some same of the time no matter how prosperous the times are said to be the confessed inability of charity organizations to begin to cope with their problem tho tact fact that out of children in new york city according to the burlingham official report are physically defective largely from under feeding and the further fact that go to school in that city all the time underfed and suffering the pangs of hunger while cannot cannot go at all on account of lack of pibool room to say nothing of similar facts all over the country are sufficient refutation of tie the idea of an overproduction so long as poverty and pauperism and under |
