"We might call her poor and lonely and bedridden, yet she is brimful of happiness. The Bible is constantly at her hand, and she is generally thanking God for all His mercies. She has lived in the light and love of the Saviour since she was eleven years old; and she has gone so long and so far in the good way, that now it is as if she were sitting just outside the golden gates, crowned with radiant beauty and clothed with white raiment, waiting until her Lord shall bid her enter.
"At dear old Rosie's bed we used to have a little service; first a chapter read from the Bible, then a hymn—'Rock of Ages' was her favorite, sung to 'Rousseau's Dream.' When the prayer was over, old Rosie would lay her thin hand on the little lad's curly head, and say as she turned her face upward, 'O Lord, bless the little lad! Bless him and make him a preacher.' I didn't like that prayer of hers, and I used to say to myself, 'I will never be a preacher; I will be a doctor, and gallop about the country visiting people.' But one Sunday, after the service and her little prayer, she said 'good-by' to us all. 'You won't see me any more; so it must be good-by for a long time now, until we meet at home.' We wondered what she meant. Two days after, she was carried home by God's angels from her lonely room. My little heart was like to break at the thought of never seeing her again; and I went out by myself to the garden and prayed, 'Please God, I don't care so much, after all, if I become a preacher, if it will make dear Rosie any happier.'"
It would be better for us that a millstone were hanged about our necks, and we were cast into the depths of the sea, than that we should be thoughtless or indifferent of one of God's poor, like old Rosie.
Well, you ask, how can it be made better? My answer is that there ought to be a radical change in the Board of Control of Public Institutions. I do not make any personal fight on the three men now in control. I make war on the whole system. As it is now, there are, in and about Boston, ten public institutions, occupied by thousands of men and women and children, carried on at an expense of nearly six hundred thousand dollars, entirely under the control of three commissioners. This is not wise. There ought to be a large advisory board made up of distinguished citizens. This should be composed of women as well as men. It is certainly a very short-sighted and thoughtless arrangement that, although there are in these institutions several hundred women and children, there is no woman who has any authorized interest in them. There is every reason why women should be on the Boards of Control of Public Institutions. The editor of the New YorkNationsays: "Whatever improvement there has been in the condition of Bellevue Hospital, for example, and of the hospitals of Blackwell's and Hart's Islands, during the past twenty years—and it is very great—has, as a rule, been due to women's initiative and labors."
The fact is, that everything that concerns health, education, and good morals occupies the minds of women more than it does the minds of most of their husbands and fathers; and in every department of municipal administration, where the conditions of the streets, of the sewers, of the hospitals and almshouses, and of the police, are in question, women have an equal interest with men, and in order to the public well-being and safety, ought to have an equal voice. I am sure that an advisory board of leading citizens, on which were three or four level-headed, humane women, would work the revolution that is needed in the treatment of Boston's paupers. Do not put this question aside. This is Boston's question, and you are a part of Boston. As some one sang in the BostonTranscriptnot long ago:—
"Lazarus lies at your gate!O proud and prosperous city,How long will you let him wait?Listen and look; have pity.
Dives, oh, cannot you hear,For the music and dance of your high land,The moaning of misery drearThat comes from the desolate island?
Finest of linen you wear;Comrades in luxury you cherish,Sumptuous daily you fare.What of your neighbors who perish?
When you would heighten your cheerBy a contrast that's very dramatic,Fancy what scenes may appearIn a certain dim hospital attic.
Swarming and sweltering, and scantOf air,—foul to soul as to senses,—Where he that is guilty of WantMeets a doom fit for graver offences.
Worn-out, the pauper nurse sleeps;The sufferer, forsaken, is cryingWith no one to moisten his lips,—No one to mark that he's dying.
Who should hear thecatchin his breath'Mid the coughs, curses, ravings, resoundingThrough the ward o'er the bed of his death,From the close-crowded pallets surrounding?
And picture the scenes, to comePerhaps, of another sorrowNearer your stately home,—That you will not have to borrow;
When hushed is all merry din,And your smiling guests have vanished;When your flowers come blooming in,To be glanced at once and banished;
When vain are all the craftsThat Mammon serve, and neverTour costliest, coolest draughtsCan quench the fire of your fever;
When your street is red with tan,And your oft-pulled door-bell muffled,That the peace of a dying manBy no faintest sound be ruffled;
When love, to give you rest,Doth toil with soothings fruitless;And skill has done its best,And the town's best skill is bootless;
When the chaises leave the place,And the helpless, poor patricianLies looking up in the faceOf only the Great Physician,—
God grant it with joy may beThat you hear, 'What you did toward othersYe have done it unto Me,In the least of those My brothers!'
Lazarus lies at your gate;Our kindly dear old city,Let him no longer wait;Open the doors of your pity!"
"There is no caste in blood,Which runneth of one hue, nor caste in tears,Which trickled salt with all."
Mrs. Alice N. Lincoln, who has given a large amount of time and painstaking interest to the treatment of the paupers, and who deserves more credit than any one else for the present hopeful campaign in their behalf, writes as follows in theBoston Transcriptof August 28:—
"Those of your readers who were kind enough to follow in your columns, last winter, the articles for which you courteously made space there concerning the poor of Boston, will, I think, be interested to know what has since been done for the islands, and why so much controversy is aroused by the sermon of Dr. Banks on the paupers.
"Early in the spring two new commissioners were appointed. It was hoped that this change in the board would bring about good results, but, in point of fact, matters remained much the same. The appropriation for a new hospital, though made months ago, was not acted upon until this week, when bids for the building were opened."
[Illustration: WOMEN'S HOSPITAL WARD AT LONG ISLAND.] [Footnote: This is the best hospital ward on the two islands. Screen shown on the right, behind which is a dying woman.]
"On August 5, I had the honor to lay before the commissioners eight requests on behalf of the inmates of the island, as follows:—
1. More occupation for the able-bodied.
2. More comfortable chairs for the aged women, who are obliged to rise at 5:30 A.M., and are not allowed to lie down without permission.
3. More benches out of doors for the benefit of the inmates.
4. A separate room for the dying (it having been urged by both the physician and superintendent that the cries of dying patients often disturbed a whole ward for several nights).
5. More privacy for women in bathing (and it will, perhaps, shock your readers, as it did the writer, that one of the commissioners affirmed and repeated that he did not consider this necessary).
6. Another nurse at Long Island, where Miss O'Brian has charge of fifty-two sick women and where there is no bath-room.
7. Another nurse at the Main Institution Building on Rainsford Island, where the laundry-matron has charge of forty-two sick women in addition to her other duties, and with no assistance except what is given her by inmates.
8. A new matron for the hospital. My reason for making this last request is that I believe the present matron to be inefficient. She has had no previous hospital training to fit her for her duties, and certainly the hospital and its patients, when I last saw them, bore evidences of neglect. The beds were not clean, and the patients showed a lack of personal cleanliness and care. When I first visited the hospital the floors were dirty and the closets were unwashed, but there has been an improvement in those respects. I was present when dinner was served to thirty patients in one ward—or, indeed, to seventy inmates of the hospital—and the matron took no charge of the food, which was put before the patients in a most uninviting manner—a great contrast to the neat wooden trays which are in use at Tewksbury. Moreover, I discerned a want of interest in the patients, to which the matron herself bore testimony when she said that she never washed a wound, and was engaged as a matron—not as a nurse.
"These, then, were the grounds upon which I asked for the appointment of another nurse or matron, and fortunately one has applied for the position entirely without my knowledge or solicitation. One of the commissioners doubted whether a trained hospital emergency nurse could be found to go to the islands; but this offer seems to set that question at rest, and it is to be hoped her application may be considered favorably.
"I also had the honor to lay before the commissioners the report of one of my former tenants, who was an inmate of Rainsford Island a little more than a year ago.
"She was a young woman who went down there because of a lump in her breast, taking her baby with her. But for the baby she would have been admitted to the City Hospital: but she did not like to leave her child, and her husband, who was absent, was unable to care for it. Consequently, she became for the time an inmate of the Rainsford Island Hospital.
"She complained first of the indignity of having to strip in the presence of others, no screen or curtain being provided as a shelter to the necessary bath, which is the first step on entrance to an institution.
"During her stay of three weeks she had no towel given to her, and only one clean sheet was furnished.
"She was expected to cook all the food for her baby, and to make and clean her own bed, although she was partly incapacitated by the lump in her breast, which affected one arm.
"The food was very poor and unsatisfactory; and when she complained that the porridge was sour, the matron told her if she did not like it she could leave it.
"Worse than all, her baby fell ill on a Wednesday; she could obtain no medicine for it until Sunday (though she asked for it repeatedly), and on Monday the baby died.
"The mother left the institution the next day. She speaks in the highest terms of the physician in charge and of the assistant, Miss McDonald, at Rainsford Island; but she says the matron never did anything for her and was not with her when the baby died; also, that the milk and other food ordered for the patients is often not received by them. And in this respect her statement is corroborated by the remarks of another woman, also my tenant, who was an inmate of Long Island when it was first opened for women several years ago. This woman told me, with bated breath, that the food was miserable—it was killing her; and, indeed, she died soon after, though I think grief hastened her end."
[Illustration: GETTING A BREATH OF FRESH AIR.]
"It is because I have seen these people in their own homes that I feel such sympathy for them as paupers. They have known the comfort and independence of their own surroundings, and if by reason of old age or sickness—through no fault of their own—they become paupers, they should at least be treated with clue consideration and nursed with all tenderness. I am entering no plea for the lazy and idle and intemperate class who seek the refuge of an almshouse, and for whom, as Dr. Banks says, the work-house is the proper place; but I do say that old or sick people, even if paupers, are entitled to the very best care. We do not begrudge it to them in our City Hospital or our State almshouse; therefore, why is it too much to require it of the city of Boston's pauper hospitals?
"No wonder that an attack such as has been made by Dr. Banks meets with violent opposition and denial. He is attacking institutions whose officials depend for their bread and butter on the positions which they fill. But Dr. Banks and I have no 'axe to grind,' and he is only stating the truth when he says that the pauper institutions at Rainsford Island are overcrowded (so overcrowded that nearly fifty old women sleep in a close and stifling attic, under the roof), and that the fare, especially for the old and sick, is not what it should be."
TheBoston Heraldof August 30 begins an exhaustive article, more than five columns long, by saying:—
"For some time there has been an earnest and vigorous agitation going on regarding the management and condition of Boston's pauper institutions at Long and Rainsford Islands. Heretofore this agitation has been out of the sight of the general public, with the exception of a few letters which have appeared from time to time in the papers; consequently, the sermon of Rev. Louis Albert Banks last Sunday on the subject came like a revelation to many.
"TheHeraldhad been making a thorough investigation of the charges brought, previous to Mr. Banks' utterances, and this has been continued up to the present time, in order that the people of Boston may know accurately and to the fullest the precise condition of its pauper institutions and their inmates. As a result of that investigation, it may be boldly said that the criticisms which have been made public do not give an adequate idea of the disgraceful condition in which the institutions are at present, nor the treatment which the paupers receive and under which they exist rather than live.
"This statement is a strong one, but it can be borne out by facts which are indisputable."
In the course of this long article, which fully sustains all statements set forth in my discourse, theHeraldreporter, commenting on the crowded condition of the buildings on Rainsford Island, says:—
"It is in the main building at Rainsford that the greatest lack of even decent surroundings prevails, and where the condition of the inmates is the worst. Here the fault seems to lie not only with the commissioners, but with the matrons in charge, for there is no system discernible in the housekeeping arrangements whatever. The infirmary is occupied by those women who are not able to get about; and the rooms composing that part of the building are pleasant and airy of themselves, but they are spoiled by their keeping. There is no classification of inmates, and old and young are all together, as well as the vicious and the unfortunate.
"Another classification which might be made was suggested by the presence of two women who were so unfortunate as to be afflicted in such a manner that the whole air of the room was contaminated on their account. This was through no fault of their own, and they should not be made to suffer for it; but it seems hardly fair that all the other women should be compelled to breathe the air made foul by their presence. Add to this detriment to health and decent living the bad sanitary arrangements, and the result is, indeed, open to criticism.
"This building is so old and antiquated that it originally had no place provided inside for water-closets and bath-rooms. In putting these in they were built directly in the corners of the rooms; and these corners were then partitioned off, but for some unknown reason the partitions were not continued up to the ceilings, the result being that the closets were practically left in the room and a screen put around. Owing to the fact that there is no water on the island, it all being brought in tanks by steamer, there is not that abundance used in flushing out the bowls which otherwise might be the case, and which would go so far toward removing the horrible odor which is so prevalent in every part of the building. Aside from the discomfort in being obliged to smell this odor continually, the danger to the health of the inmates is a serious thing.
"Throughout the wards in this building there is considerable overcrowding, although not to the extent that is to be seen in another part. The beds are all cared for by the women themselves, and conversation with the matron showed that there was a regular time for changing the bed linen, although that time was not the same in any two rooms, and the writer, after continued questioning and asking for explanation, failed to discover that there was any regularity whatever about it.
"A few beds were taken at random and stripped to see their condition. Invariably the sheets were dirty, very dirty; but this was explained by one of the inmates who was in charge of this ward by the statement that it was time they were changed, according to their usual practice, but for some reason, not given, it had not been done this week. On nearly all the sheets were plainly seen the marks of dead bed-bugs and other vermin, some of it dried on and looking as though it had been there for a long time."
[Illustration: ATTIC AT RAINSFORD ISLAND.]
[Footnote: Cut shows one wing. Another crosses it at right angles and is partly occupied. Thirty women occupy this room, allowing about 320 cubic feet of air-space per person. The only ventilation is through windows jutting out on the roof, each one being 2 feet 10 inches by 4 feet 8 inches in size.]
"It is in the attic of the main building, however, that one should go to realize some of Dickens' pictures of pauper life, for there is a picture here that needs no exaggeration to make it appear on a par with those in fiction. In this attic live the older women, and they pass their sleeping hours and many of their waking ones under the eaves of this old house.
"Throughout this attic the peak is so low that it can be touched by the hand of a man of ordinary height while standing, and the roof pitches until it comes to within two feet of the floor. Under the caves here are placed the beds of these old women, their heads close under the roof, and extending in a line down the length of the building.
"The width of this attic is eighteen feet, and its length is that of the building; but it is divided up into several apartments. In one of these apartments were thirty beds, all occupied at night. The total air-space of this room allowed about three hundred and twenty cubic feet to each person, where a thousand are considered necessary with good ventilation, according to Mr. Commissioner Newell. The only light and ventilation that this attic gets is through a few small windows let into the roof, not large enough to furnish ventilation for rooms which are not overcrowded, and certainly not large enough to purify rooms where the air is made foul by being breathed by at least three times too many persons.
"Moreover, these old women are required to rise every morning at 5:00 o'clock, and are compelled to remain up until 8 o'clock in the evening. They are not allowed to lie down during the day without a special permit from the doctor, as, they say, it would cause disorder. This permit lie says he is always willing to grant, but they seldom come for it. This seems perfectly natural, as one hardly can expect that the old women would take pains to hunt up the doctor every time they wanted to take a short nap.
"Not only are they not allowed to lie down for a nap without this special permit, but comfortable chairs are not furnished them. By each bed is a single ordinary wooden chair of the cheapest kind, and this is allotted to the one occupying the bed. Now and then a rocking-chair may be seen, but they are few and far between."
[Illustration: MARINERS' HOME.]
"Some time ago a benevolent and kind-hearted lady visiting the island was struck with this lack of comfort, and sent to the institution a number of rocking-chairs for use in the old women's ward. They arrived on July 16, but an active search for them failed to disclose their whereabouts. It was plain that the women for whom they were intended were not getting the benefit of them, and inquiry was made. Nobody seemed to know where they were. Several believed that something of the kind had been sent down, but knew nothing more. Finally, after an energetic search by Dr. Harkins, the chairs were discovered in a store-house, or paint-shop, where they had been put when they lauded on the wharf so long ago. Two days later these chairs had been taken out and placed in the wards, and there were two hundred women eager for the six comfortable rockers.
"Another criticism which might be made is that the paupers are provided with no regular religious service. At Deer Island there is a paid chaplain, and although his duties do not call him to the almshouse, he sometimes goes over. There is a large room called the chapel, and here religious services are held when there is any one to lead them. A Catholic priest goes down twice a week to minister to the wants of the Catholics, who are in the majority; something like ninety-five per cent being of that persuasion. The fact remains, however, that the city of Boston does not give its paupers the benefit of any religious service or guidance. As was said by one lady on hearing the facts: 'In the eyes of the city it is a greater crime to be a pauper than a criminal.'"
Rev. Dr. Frederick B. Allen, of the Episcopal City Mission of Boston, writing in the Herald of August 31, says:—
"In the management of human beings, especially the aged, the infirm, the insane, and the sick, there is needed a wise and tender consideration which sheer business management is apt to miss.
"The sociological problems of pauperism and crime, the study of successful methods in other cities and other lands, the deep sense of the sacredness of our humanity, even in its weakest and most unfortunate members,—these make their demand for the aid of men and women to whom these questions of human life and death are at least as controlling as the reduction of the city tax rate.
"Were there any such board of advisers to do in our city institutions what the State Charities Aid Society has done for New York State, we should not have been confronted, as we now are, with poorly planned, inadequate, and badly managed buildings, lack of discrimination in those permitted to occupy them, insufficient and untrained nurses for the sick, lack of proper ventilation and food, and everywhere the absence of devoted personal, human, moral oversight and control.
"I second most positively Dr. Banks' assertion that 'an advisory board of leading citizens, on which are three or four level-headed and humane women, would work the revolution that is needed in the treatment of" our brothers and sisters, the Boston paupers."'"
"When wealth no mere shall rest in mounded heaps.But smit with freer light shall slowly meltIn many streams to fatten lower lands,And light shall spread, and man be liker manThro' all the seasons of the golden year."
No one who is in touch with the throbbing life of this time can fail to perceive that this is an age peculiarly given up to the worship of Mammon. The literature of our day bears certain evidence of this fact.Scribner's Magazineof last year contained, under the title of "Jerry," a painfully realistic and comprehensive story, dealing with the debauch of a noble character by the fascination of gold. Jerry belonged to the "poor white trash" of the Cumberland Mountains, and on the death of his mother, being cruelly treated at home, he ran away to the West. After many wanderings, the little wayfarer, tired out and almost dead, fell into the hands of a quaint old miner who was digging and hoarding up gold in his cabin in the Northwestern Mountains. In the midst of this wild region, educated by a kind-hearted physician, Jerry grew up to be a young man of peculiarly noble and heroic character. He remembered with painful distinctness that he belonged to the poorest of the common people, and the ambition of his life was to uplift his own class.
The fearful tragedy of the story begins when the miserly old miner—who, all the time unknown to Jerry, is hoarding up gold for his young ward—discovers, to his great astonishment, that gold has no fascination for this strange young man, and fears that with his lofty ideals all his toil for him will be in vain and unappreciated. So the shrewd old man plans to send him to the East, where his eyes may be dazzled with the brilliancy of fashionable life, and where may be revealed to him the power gold gives to its possessor. Sitting in his old log cabin on the mountain side, the old miner would rub his hands back on his stubbly gray hair and reason with himself: "If Jerry only knew gold; if Jerry could only see what gold could get, could only spend gold; then he would be willing to take all he could get and never ask where it came from." So the old miner determined that "Jerry must learn to spend money, must learn to love it, and then all will go well." And then the story goes on to tell of the deterioration of this noble young soul—how that gradually he becomes dominated with the passion for gold, until he is not only willing to work for it, but murder for it, if only he may have gold and the power that it brings.
In another field Mr. Charles Dudley Warner gives us the same warning, in his story of "A Little Journey in the World." In this Mr. Warner tells us of one of the sweetest and purest of young women, who has the highest ideals, and whose standards of morality are of the noblest, who is married to an unprincipled young speculator on Wall Street, New York; and under the influence of her husband, and the society into which she is drawn by his business relations, in which he gathers millions of money, all her holy and lofty ideals are overthrown, and she becomes simply a material, worldly woman. This is the way he reasons about it: "But we, I say, who loved her, and knew so well the noble possibilities of her royal nature, under circumstances favorable to its development, felt more and more her departure from her own ideals. Her life in its spreading prosperity seemed more and more shallow. I do not say she was heartless; I do not say she was uncharitable; I do not say that in all the externals of worldly and religious observance she was wanting; I do not say that the more she was assimilated to the serenely worldly nature of her husband, she did not love him, or that she was unlovely in the worldliness that ingulfed her and bore her onward. I do not know that there is anything singular in her history. But the pain of it to us was in the certainty—and it seemed so near—that in the decay of her higher life, in the hardening process of a material existence, in the transfer of all her interest to the trivial and sensuous gratifications—time, mind, heart, ambition, all fixed on them—we should never regain our Margaret. What I saw in a vision of her future was adead soul—a beautiful woman in all the success of envied prosperity, with a dead soul."
[Illustration: CHILDREN PLAYING IN COPP'S HILL BURYING GROUND.]
If we turn away from these revelations of the worm at the heart of our social life, that are made fascinating by the art in which they are clothed, to the rude happenings of every-day observation, the same danger is everywhere apparent. The associated press despatches from San Jose, Cal., a few weeks since, bore this burden: "One of the best-known men in California died yesterday in a squalid hut on Colfax Street. He was Prof. Herman Kottinger, who at one time was the leading violinist on the Pacific Coast, and well known as a writer of prose and poetry, of 'A World's History,' and also of text-books on free thought. He was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, acquired by a lifetime of miserly frugality. At the time of his death sixteen hundred dollars in gold coin was found secreted in his bed. But one child, William Kottinger, a farmer, was present at the death. When the old man in his death-throes raised himself up in bed, the son rushed to his side. His father, mistaking the act, with a frenzied yell waved him back, and clutching at the bedclothes, pulled them back, disclosing to view the gold. He made a grab at it with both hands, and with the bright pieces in his fingers fell back with a gasp and expired.
"Prof. Kottinger was once a doctor in Heidelberg University, and was ninety years old. He was so wasted by hunger that his body weighed less than forty pounds, and was in a disgusting condition. His bed and clothes were reeking with filth. Over the head of the bed hung a violin of great value. So miserly was the old professor that fifteen years ago he drove his wife and all his children from home, saying that it cost too much to feed and clothe them. From that day until yesterday, when the end was approaching, not one of his relatives had come near him. Two big fierce Danish mastiffs, half starved, have for years been the old man's only companions, and they guarded the shanty so well that not even a tax-collector could approach. They had to be killed yesterday before the undertaker could get into the house. When it was learned that Kottinger was dead, a number of his relatives hastened to his hut. There has been a shameful neglect of the dead shown, and indecent haste in ransacking the place in search of the gold and other treasures known to be hidden."
All these show the destructive power of gold upon its worshippers. But these are by no means the only victims of this worship of the gold god. For every one who is hoarding up his millions, and who is dominated by the love of gold for its very shine and glitter, there are hundreds and thousands who are toiling for insufficient wages, and are suffering in poverty and want, that this lordly worshipper may pay his devotions to the money god.
[Illustration: DIGGING IN THE ASH-BARRELS IN WINTER.]
If some of these money kings who have made their millions by the oppression of the poor, in mines, and mills, and factories, were suddenly called to face the bones of the dead who have gone to their graves from weary, unrequited slavery, in order for their financial triumph, they would stand back aghast at the price of their own success.
It is this worship of the gold god which is at the bottom of all the wrongs which have been pointed out in this series of discourses. The wealthy merchant who pays the poor widow one cent apiece for making white aprons, and by his avarice and his lust induces the young women who sell them to eke out their scanty wages by the sale of their honor, is a worshipper of the gold god. The sweater who parcels out his work through the miserable tenement houses, grinding the face of the poor to the very last degree possible with physical existence,—indeed, many times beyond the possibility of existence, except when helped by charity,—is an obsequious devotee at the altar of Mammon. The chattel-mortgage shark, who watches all the necessities of the poor as anxiously as ever a hawk watched over a helpless or crippled bird, and the liquor-seller, who fills his coffers by a traffic which injures and destroys the health, the intelligence, and the morality of all the people whom he can draw into his net, investing all his cunning in methods to entrap the unwary, and gloating over the increasing appetite and the devilish passion for strong drink in his victims, are only brothers to the others who gather to pay their devotions to the god of gold.
[Illustration: FOUR SHINERS.]
If we do not approve these worshippers, what shall we say of ourselves for permitting this state of things to come to pass? It is inconsistent to condemn the liquor-seller and honor the city which licenses him to do his damnable work. It is impossible to condemn the sweater and retain your respect for the public which permits him to carry on his nefarious business. The spirit of avarice is in the very air, until society has been poisoned by its breath. Dr. Howard Crosby, writing in theForuma few years since, says: "The healthiest form of human society is where the many are equally independent in their management of their affairs, where professions and trades are represented by individual thinking minds, and where those engaged in any one branch of industry stand on a level with one another. This condition of things promotes invention, activity, interest, manliness, and good citizenship. Now the gold-hunt system is directly antagonistic to all this. It seeks to destroy the many independent tradesmen, and to make them servants in a gigantic monopoly. The happy homes of freemen become the pinched quarters of serfs. The lords of trade have their hundreds and thousands of humble subordinates over whom they rule, often with a rod of iron. They may be turned away from work and wages at any moment, by any whim of the selfish employer. Hence, through fear of this, they lose their manhood, and dare not assert even a decision of their conscience. There is no more melancholy sight to my eyes than that which I often see nowadays—the former happy possessor of a shop or store, who has lived comfortably and with the true nobility of a citizen, and whose family have felt the dignity of the home, now made a clerk and drudge in a huge establishment that, by its relentless use of millions, has undermined and overthrown all the independent stores of a large district, while his family are thrust into the unsavory communism of a tenement house, and lose all the delicate refinements of a quiet home. It is easy to say that this is but the natural law of trade. So to devour men is the natural law of tigers. But this truth will not reconcile us to the process. If we are to stop men from stealing directly, we can stop them from stealing indirectly. If natural law works evil to the community, we are to make statute law, which will act as supernatural law, and control the offensive principle. Unless we wish our social equality destroyed, and a system of practical serfdom to take its place, we must put a limit to the acts of greed, and so preserve the independence of our citizens."
[Illustration: SOUTH BOSTON RAG-PICKERS.]
Every thoughtful observer of the "signs of the times" knows that the deepest problem of our age is the amicable solution of the struggle between labor and capital. Some of the ablest work done in literature, in our time, has been produced out of an earnest desire to abolish the more recent types of this white slavery, which has, in one form or another, threatened the masses since the days of old John Ball of early England. Perhaps the strongest portrayal, yet, of many phases of the question, especially those relating to the city, maybe found in Mr. Howells' story, "A Hazard of New Fortunes." For the country, if one really wants to see what is behind the great upheaval in the West, which has its outward manifestation in the Farmers' Alliance, he only needs to read Mr. Hamlin Garland's "Main Travelled Roads."
In the meantime most of us are asking, "What is the way out?" As for myself, I confess to being only a student. I have no word of sneer or scoff for any mail's honest thinking, who is sincerely trying to uplift his brothers and sisters; and yet I must say that, as yet, I have not been able to become a disciple of any of the new systems that have been presented. I feel something like the man who says, "There are good things to be said in praise of Socialism or Nationalism, as compared with the crushing and wearing methods of competition; but what the world is waiting for is the thinker who shall either show us how to reconcile the new system with human liberty, or else convince us that we can do without liberty." In the mean-time I believe in God, in His wise purpose in the creation of the world, in His providential care over it, and that under His grace there shall come the triumph of righteousness in it. I believe in Jesus Christ. To my mind, Christianity stands to-day very much as it did nearly two thousand years ago, when Jesus hung upon the cross between two thieves. The anarchy which, atheistic and reckless, would destroy all law and all property, is one of the thieves, and the devotee of the gold god of our time, who clutches his money-bags and says, "I have a right to get all the money I can, and do with it what I please," is the other thief. Christianity stands between them; her mission is to change them both, and bring them with a regenerated purpose into brotherhood and fellowship.
George Macdonald says: "The world will change only as the heart of man changes. Growing intellect, growing civilization, will heal man's wounds only to cause the deeper ill to break out afresh in new forms, nor can they satisfy one longing of the human soul. Its desires are deeper than that soul itself, whence it groans with the groanings that cannot be uttered. As much in times of civilization as in those of barbarity, the soul needs an external presence to make its life good to it." The Christianity of to-day must set itself, as did Jesus, to make men brothers, by bringing them to a recognition of the fact that they are all alike the children of one God and Father over all. Such a Christianity will necessarily be at war with the gold god of our time. The clear-cut declaration of Jesus, "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon," is as true now as when He uttered it. I do not remember to have seen this issue put as clearly anywhere else as by Henry D. Lloyd in an article in theNorth American Reviewentitled, "The New Conscience." He says: Let us listen while a delegation from the Money-power remonstrates with the New Conscience for its unreasonable sentiments and ideas. Here they come, one by one, and range themselves about.
First speaks—
THE MERCHANT PRINCE: I have a right to buy where I can buy cheapest.
CONSCIENCE: See these little stunted, hollow-eyed girls coming out of that factory.
LAWYER: Wages are settled by contract.
CONSCIENCE: Where can I find white-haired workingmen?
CAPITALIST: Every man has a right to do what he will with his own.
CONSCIENCE: What is the price of a senatorship to-day?
STATISTICIAN: Never were food, fuel, and clothing so cheap.
CONSCIENCE: Little Mary Mitchell works in Waterbury's ropeworks five days a week from six in the evening till six in the morning.
RAILROAD KING: Every man makes his own career. I was a workingman myself twenty years ago, and now I keep a carriage, a butler, and several judges and legislators, in four States, and—
CONSCIENCE: That tired-looking man is a railway conductor of a company owned by half a dozen men worth three hundred millions of dollars, which is not enough for them, so they squeeze a few more dollars a month out of him by making him, on every alternate trip, do twenty-eight and a half hours' work without sleep.
BANKER: Our wealth is increasing one billion dollars a year. We have boards of trades, the best railroads in the world, and packing-houses that can kill ten thousand hogs.
CONSCIENCE: The sickening stench, the blistered air, the foul sights of the tenements, and the motherhood and the childhood choking there.
CONSERVATIVE: This is the best government in the world. America is good enough for me.
CONSCIENCE: Listen to that "tramp, tramp, tramp" of a million of men out of work.
MANUFACTURER: Without this system of industry the subjugation of North America to civilization would have been impossible; we could never have shown the world the magnificent spectacle of—
CONSCIENCE: There is a little boy standing ten hours a day up to his ankles in the water in a coal-mine.
COAL MONOPOLIST: I have a statistician who can prove—he can prove anything—that the workingman is a great deal better off than he ever was, that he makes more than I do, that small incomes are increasing and large ones decreasing, that there is no involuntary poverty, and that the workingmen could live on twenty-five cents each a day and buy up the United States with their savings, and—
CONSCIENCE: How long shall it be cheaper to run over workingmen and women at the railroad crossings in the cities than to put up gates?
CLERGYMAN: The poor we are to have with us always.
CONSCIENCE: That sewing-woman you see pawning her shawl has lived this winter with her two children in a room without fire. Are you wearing one of the shirts she finished?
STATESMAN: The workingman has the ballot and the newspapers. He is a free citizen.
CONSCIENCE: As the nights grow colder see how the number of girls on the street increases.
It is this new conscience, the conscience of Jesus Christ, that appraises a hungry child to be of more value than ten thousand palaces, that must animate and dominate the church that is called by His name, in its war against the gold god of modern society.
You may find this conscience throbbing in Ella Wheeler Wilcox's plea for "Justice, not Charity."
"All hail the dawn of a new day breaking,When a strong armed nation shall take awayThe weary burden from backs that are achingWith maximum work and minimum pay.
When no man is honored who hoards his millions,When no man feasts on another's toil,And God's poor, suffering, starving billionsShall share His riches of sun and soil.
There is gold for all in the world's broad bosom.There is food for all in the world's great store;Enough is provided if rightly divided,Let each man take what he needs—no more.
Shame on the miser with unused riches,Who robs the toiler to swell his hoard,Who beats down the wage of the digger of ditches,And steals the bread from the poor man's board!
Shame on the owner of mines whose cruelAnd selfish measures have brought him wealth!While the ragged wretches who dig his fuelAre robbed of comfort, and hope, and health.
Shame on the ruler who rides in his carriage,Bought by the labor of half-paid men—Men who are shut out of home and marriage,And are herded like sheep in a hovel pen."
There must be no doubt about the attitude of the church in a time like this. Against the gold god and all his oppressions the Christian Church must stand with an unflinching front. Our God is the same who spoke through the voice of Amos of old, saying, "Hear this, oh ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail, saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? And the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit? That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?" Ah! how much that sounds like the things that are going on at the present time! Yet listen to the oath of the Almighty as He looks on such things: "The Lord hath sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I will never forget any of their works. Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein?… And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in a clear day: and I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sack-cloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day."
It is the mission of our blessed Christianity to save the world from that bitter day by so changing and transforming it that it will no longer deserve bitterness, but peace, at the hand of God. Although I have felt compelled, in this series of discourses, to uncover many dark and loathsome places in our social system, yet I am no pessimist, and I do not despair. Jesus Christ, our Captain, saw "Satan fallen as lightning from heaven;" and when we are as devoted to God, and as thoroughly consecrated to our mission of curing the world's heartache as was He, we, too, shall live in sight of the same glorious triumph. When we are imbued with this faith, and exalted into fellowship with Him, we will not dare to say that the sweatshop, or the neglected tenement house, or the noisome liquor saloon, is a necessary contingent of human life. And we will know that whatever is good enough to be true, may be and shall be true to the sons and daughters of God. In that faith we shall be able to sing with the poet:—
"'Tis coming up the steeps of time,And this old world is growing brighter;We may not see its dawn sublime,Yet high hopes make the heart throb lighter!
We may be sleeping in the ground,When it awakes the peoples' wonder;But we have felt it gathering round,And heard its voice of living thunder;Christ's reign, ah, yes, 'tis coming!
Aye, itmustcome! the Tyrant's throneIs crumbling, with men's hot tears rusted;The sword earth's mighty have leant uponIs cankered, with men's hearts' blood crusted!
Room! for the man of love make way!Ye selfish great ones, pause no longer;Ye cannot stay the opening day,The world rolls on, the light grows stronger—The Master's advent's coming!"