 Section 43. The Salvation Army Social Reform Wing. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Tom Hirsch. The Plan for Creation of the Libra Bureau. Temporary Headquarters, 36 Upper Thames Street, London, E.C. Objects. They're bringing together of employers and workers for their mutual advantage, making known the wants of each to each by providing a ready method of communication. Plan of Operation. The opening of a central registry office, which for the present will be located at the above address, and where registers will be kept, free of charge, wherein the wants of both employers and workers will be recorded, the registers being open for consultation by all interested. Public waiting rooms for male and female, to which the unemployed may come for the purpose of scanning the newspapers, the insertion of advertisements for employment in all newspapers at lowest rates, writing tables, etc., provided for their use to enable them to write applications for situations on work. The receiving of letters replies to applications for employment for unemployed workers. The waiting rooms will also act as houses of call, where employers can meet and enter into engagements with workers of all kinds, by appointment or otherwise, thus doing away with the snare that awaits many of the unemployed, who have no place to wait other than the public house, which at present is almost the only house of call for out-of-work men. By making known to the public generally the wants of the unemployed by means of advertisements, by circulars, and direct application to employers, the issue of labor statistics with information as to the number of unemployed who are anxious for work, the various trades and occupations they represent, etc., etc. The opening of branches of the Labor Bureau as fast as funds and opportunities permit in all the large towns and centres of industry throughout Great Britain. In connection with the Labor Bureau we propose to deal with both skilled and unskilled workers amongst the letter forming such agencies as Sandwich Boardmen's Society, Shoe Black, Carpet Beading, White Washing, Window Cleaning, Wood Shopping, and other brigades, all of which will, with many others, be put into operation as far as the assistance of the public in the shape of applying for workers of all kinds, will afford us the opportunity. A domestic servants agency will also be a branch of the Bureau, and a home for domestic servants out of situation is also in contemplation. In this and other matters funds alone are required to commence operations. All communications, donations, etc., should be addressed as above, marked Labor Bureau, etc. Central Labor Bureau, Local Agents and Correspondents Department, letter to proposed local correspondent. Dear Comrade, the enclosed letter which has been sent to our officers throughout the field will explain the object we have in view. Your name has been suggested to us as one whose heart is thoroughly in sympathy with any effort on behalf of poor, suffering humanity. We are anxious to have in connection with each of our corps, and in every locality throughout the kingdom, some sympathetic, level-headed comrade acting as our agent or local correspondent, to whom we could refer at all times for reliable information, and who would take it as work of love, to regularly communicate useful information respecting the social condition of things generally in their neighborhood. Kindly reply giving us your views and feelings on the subject as soon as possible as we are anxious to organize at once. The first business on hand is for us to get information of those out of work and employers requiring workers, so that we can place them upon our registers and make known the wants both of employers and employees. We shall be glad of a communication from you, giving us some facts as to the condition of things in your locality, or any ideas or suggestions you would like to give, calculated to help us in connection with this good work. I may say that the social wing not only comprehends the labor question, but also prison, rescue, and other branches of salvation work, dealing with broken-down humanity generally, so that you can see what a great blessing you may be to the work of God by cooperating with us. Believe me to be yours affectionately for the suffering and the lost, et cetera. Local Agents and Correspondents Department Proposition for a local agent, correspondent, et cetera, requesting name, address, occupation, if a soldier, what core, if not a soldier, what denomination, if spoken to on the subject, what reply they have made, signed, or dated. Kindly return this as soon as possible, and we will then place ourselves in communication with the comrade you propose for this position. To Employers of Labor, Notice of Labor Bureau Local Office of Registration Opening We beg to bring to your notice the fact that the Salvation Army has opened at the above address, in connection with the Social Reform Wing, a labor bureau for the registration of the wants of all classes of labor, for both employer and employee in London and throughout the kingdom, our object being to place in communication with each other, for mutual advantage, those who want workers and those who want work. Arrangements have been made at the above address for waiting rooms, where employers can see unemployed men and women, and where the latter may have accommodation to write letters, see the advertisements in the papers, et cetera, et cetera. If you are in want of workers of any kind, will you kindly fill up the enclosed form and return it to us? We will then have the particulars entered up, and endeavour to have your wants supplied. All applications, I need hardly assure you, will have our best attention, whether they refer to work of a permanent or temporary character. We shall also be glad, through the Information Office of Labor Department, to give you any further information as to our plans, et cetera, or an officer will wait upon you to receive instructions for the supply of workers, if requested. As no charge will be made for registration of either the wants of employers or the wants of the unemployed, it will be obvious that a considerable outlay will be necessary to sustain these operations in active usefulness, and that therefore financial help will be greatly needed. We shall gratefully receive donations from the smallest coin-up to help to cover the cost of working this department. We think it right to say that only in special cases shall we feel at liberty to give personal recommendations. This, however, will no doubt be understood, seeing that we shall have to deal with very large numbers who are total strangers to us. Please address all communications or donations as above, marked Central Labor Bureau, et cetera. We propose to enter upon a crusade against sweating. Will you help us? Dear sir, in connection with the Social Reform Wing, a Central Labor Bureau has been opened, one department of which we'll deal especially with that class of labor termed unskilled, from amongst whom are drawn boardmen, messengers, bill distributors, circular addresses, window cleaners, whitewashers, carpet beaters, et cetera, et cetera. It is very important that work given to these workers and others not enumerated should be taxed as little as possible by the contractor, or those who act between the employer and the worker. In all our operations in this capacity, we do not propose to make profit out of those we benefit. Paying over the whole amount received, lest say one half penny in the shilling, or some such small sum which will go towards the expense of providing boards for sandwich boardmen, the hire of burrows, purchase of necessary tools, et cetera, et cetera. We are very anxious to help that most needy class, the boardmen, many of whom are sweated out of their miserable earnings, receiving often as low as one shilling for a day's toil. We appeal to all who sympathize with suffering humanity, especially religious and philanthropic individuals and societies, to assist us in their efforts by placing orders for the supply of boardmen, messengers, bill distributors, window cleaners, and other kinds of labor in our hands. Our charge for boardmen will be two shillings, toppings, including boards, the placing and proper supervision of the men, et cetera. Two shillings, at least, will go directly to the men. Most of the hireers of boardmen pay this, and some even more, but often not more than one half reaches the men. We shall be glad to forward you further information of our plans, or we'll send a representative to further explain or to take orders on receiving notice from you to that effect. Believe me to be yours faithfully, et cetera. Central Labor Bureau, notice to the unemployed male and female. A free registry for all kinds of unemployed labor has been opened at the above address. If you want work, call and make yourself and your wants known. Enter your name and address and wants on the registers, or fill up a form below and hand it in at above address. Look over the advertising pages of the papers provided. Tables with pens and ink are provided for you to write for situations. If you live at a distance, fill up this form giving all particulars or references and forward to Commissioner Smith, care of the Labor Bureau. Requesting your name, address, kind of work wanted, wages you ask, age. During the past ten years have you had regular employment? For how long? What kind of work? What work can you do? What have you worked at odd times? How much did you earn when regularly employed? How much did you earn when irregularly employed? Are you married? Is wife living? How many children and their ages? If you were put on a farm to work at anything you could do, and were supplied with food, lodging and clothes, with a view to getting you on your feet, would you do all you could? End of Section 43. Recording by Tom Hirsch Section 44. How Bigary was abolished in Bavaria by Count Rumpford. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Tom Hirsch. Count Rumpford was an American officer who served with considerable distinction in the Revolutionary War in that country, and afterwards settled in England. From thence he went to Bavaria, where he was promoted to the Chief Command of its army, and also was energetically employed in the Civil Government. Bavaria at this time literally swarmed with beggars who were not only an eyesore and discredit to the nation, but a positive injury to the state. The Count resolved upon the extinction of this miserable profession, and the following extracts from his writings describe the method by which he accomplished it. Bavaria, by the neglect of the government and the abuse of the kindness and charity of its amiable people, had become infested with beggars, with whom mingled vagabonds and thieves. They were to the body politic what parasites and vermin are to people and dwellings, breeding by the same lazy neglect, Page 14. In Bavaria there were laws which made provisions for the poor, but they suffered them to fall into neglect. Begary had become general, Page 15. In short, says Count Rumpford, these detestable vermin swarmed everywhere, and not only their impudence and clamorous importunity were boundless, but they had recourse to the most diabolical arts and the most horrid crimes in the prosecution of their infamous trade. They exposed and tortured their own children, and those they stole for the purpose, to extort contributions from the charitable, Page 15. In the large towns, Begary was an organized imposter, with a sort of government and police of his own. Each beggar had his beat, with orderly successions and promotions, as with other governments. There were battles to decide conflicting claims, and a good beat was not infrequently a marriage portion or a thumping legacy, Page 16. He saw that it was not enough to forbid Begary by law, or to punish it by imprisonment. The beggars cared for neither. The energetic Yankee statesman attacked the question as he did problems in physical science. He studied beggary and beggars. How would he deal with one individual beggar? Sent him for a month to prison to beg again as soon as he came out? That is no remedy. The evident course was to forbid him to beg, but at the same time to give him the opportunity to labor, to teach him to work, to encourage him to honest industry, and the wise ruler sets himself to provide food, comfort, and work for every beggar and vagabond in Bavaria, and did it, Page 17. Count Rumpfort, wise and just, sets himself to reform the whole class of beggars and vagabonds, and convert them into useful citizens, even those who had sunk into vice and crime. What, he asked himself, is, after the necessities of life, the first condition of comfort. Cleanliness, which animals and insects prize, which in man affects his moral character, and which is akin to godliness. The idea that the soul is defiled and depraved by what is unclean has long prevailed in all ages. Virtue never dwelt long with filth. Our bodies are at war with everything that defiles them. His first step, after a thorough study and consideration of the subject, was to provide in Munich, and at all necessary points, large, airy, and even elegant houses of industry, and store them with the tools and materials of such manufactures as were most needed and would be most useful. Each house was provided with a large dining room and a cooking apparatus sufficient to furnish an economical dinner to every worker. Teachers were engaged for each kind of labor. Warmth, light, comfort, neatness and order in and around these houses made them attractive. The dinner every day was gratis, provided at first by the government, later by the contributions of the citizens. Bakers brought stale bread. Butchers refused meat. Citizens, they're broken victuals, all rejoicing in being freed from the nuisance of beggary. The teachers of handicrafts were provided by the government, and while all this was free, everyone was paid the full value for his labor. You shall not beg, but there is comfort, food, work, and pay. There was no ill-usage, no harsh language. In five years not a blow was given even to a child by his instructor. When the preparations for this great experiment had been silently completed, the army, the right arm of the governing power, which had been prepared for the work by its own thorough reformation, was called into action in aid of the police and the civil magistrates. Regiments of cavalry were so disposed as to furnish every town with a detachment, with patrols on every highway, and squads in the villages, keeping the strictest order and discipline, paying the utmost deference to the civil authorities, and avoiding all offense to the people, instructed when the order was given to arrest every beggar, vagrant, and deserter, and bring them before the magistrates. This military police cost nothing extra to the country beyond a few cantonments, and this expense to the whole country was less than three thousand pounds a year. The first of January 1790, New Year's Day, from time immemorial the beggar's holiday, when they swarmed in the streets expecting everyone to give. The commissioned and the non-commissioned officers of three regiments of infantry were distributed early in the morning at different points of Munich to wait for orders. Lieutenant General Count Rumford assembled at his residence the chief officers of the army and principal magistrates of the city, and communicated to them his plans for the campaign. Then, dressed in the uniform of his rank, with his orders and decorations glittering on his breast, setting an example to the humblest soldier, he led them into the street, and had scarcely reached it before a beggar approached, wishing him a happy New Year, and waited for the expected aims. I went up to him, says Count Rumford, and laying my hand gently on his shoulder told him that henceforth begging would not be permitted in Munich, that if he was in need, assistance would be given him, and if detected begging again, he would be severely punished. He was then sent to the town hall, his name and residence inscribed upon the register, and he was directed to repair to the military house of industry next morning, where he would find dinner, work, and wages. Every officer, every magistrate, every soldier followed the same example set them. Every beggar was arrested, and in one day a stop was put to beggary in Bavaria. It was vanished out of the kingdom. And now let us see what was the progress and success of this experiment. It seemed a risk to trust the raw materials of industry – wool, flax, hemp, etc. – to the hands of common beggars. To render debauched and depraved class orderly and useful was an arduous enterprise. Of course, the greater number made bad work at the beginning. For months they cost more than they came to. They spoiled more horns than they made spones. Employed first in the coarser and ruder manufacturers. They were advanced as they improved and were for some time paid more than they earned. Paid to encourage goodwill, effort, and perseverance. These were worth any sum. The poor people saw that they were treated with more than justice – with kindness. It was very evident that it was all for their good. At first there was confusion, but no in subordination. They were awkward but not insensible to kindness. The aged, the weak, and the children were put to the easiest tasks. The younger children were paid simply to look on until they begged to join in the work, which seemed to them like play. Everything around them was made clean, quiet, orderly, and pleasant. Living at their own homes they came at a fixed hour in the morning. They had at noon a hot, nourishing dinner of soup and bread. Provisions were either contributed or bought wholesale. And the economies of cookery were carried to the last point of perfection. Calt Rumpford had so planned the cooking apparatus that three women cooked a dinner for 1,000 persons at a cost though wood was used of four-and-one-half pennies for fuel. And the entire cost of the dinner for 1,200 was only one-pound, seven-shilling six-and-a-half pence, or about one-third of a penny for each person. Perfect order was kept at work, at meals, and everywhere. As soon as a company took its place at table, the food having been previously all repeated a short prayer. Perhaps, says Count Rumpford, I ought to ask pardon for mentioning so old fashioned a custom, but I own I am old fashioned enough myself to like such things. These poor people were generously paid for their labor, but something more than cash payment was necessary. There was needed a feeling of emulation, the desire to excel, the sense of honor, the love of glory. Not only pay, but rewards, prizes, distinctions were given to the more deserving. Peculiar care was taken with the children. They were first paid simply for being present, idle lookers on, until they begged with tears to be allowed to work. How sweet those tears were to me, says Count Rumpford, can easily be imagined. Certain hours were spent by them in a school for which teachers were provided. The effect of these measures was very remarkable. Awkward as the people were they were not stupid and learned to work with unexpected rapidity. More wonderful was the change in their lives and the very expression of their countenances. Cheerfulness and gratitude replaced the gloom of misery and the sullenness of despair. Their hearts were softened. They were most grateful to their benefactor for themselves, still more for their children. These worked with their parents forming little industrial groups whose affection excited the interest of every visitor. Parents were happy in the industry and growing intelligence of their children and the children were proud of their own achievements. The great experiment was a complete and triumphant success. When Count Rumpford wrote his account of it, it had been five years in operation. It was financially a paying speculation and had not only banished the beggary but had wrought an entire change in the manners, habits and very appearance of the most abandoned and degraded people in the kingdom. Count Rumpford pages 18-24. Are the poor ungrateful? Count Rumpford did not find them so. When from the exhaustion of his great labors he fell dangerously ill, these poor people whom he had rescued from lives of shame and misery spontaneously assembled, formed a procession and went in a body to the cathedral to offer their united prayers for his recovery. When he was absent in Italy and supposed to be dangerously ill in Naples they set apart a certain time every day after work hours to pray for their benefactor. After an absence of fifteen months Count Rumpford returned with renewed health to Munich, a city where there was work for everyone and not one person whose wants were not provided for. When he visited the military workhouse the reception given him by these poor people drew tears from the eyes of all present. A few days after he entertained eighteen hundred of them in the English garden, a festival at which thirty thousand of the citizens of Munich assisted. Count Rumpford pages twenty-four and twenty-five. End of section forty-four Recording by Tom Hirsch Section forty-five The Cooperative Experiment at Rallahein. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Tom Hirsch. The outrages of the weight feet, Lady Clear Boys, and Terry Alts, laborers, fire exceeded those of recent occurrence. Yet no remedy but force was attempted except by one Irish landlord, Mr. John Scott Bendeleur of Rallahein, County Clire, late high sheriff of his county. Early in eighteen-thirty-one his family had been obliged to take flight in charge of an armed police force, and his steward had been murdered by one of the laborers having been chosen by lot at a meeting held to decide who should perpetrate the deed. Mr. Bendeleur came to England to seek someone who would aid him in organizing the laborers into an agricultural and manufacturing association to be conducted on cooperative principles, and he was recommended to Mr. Craig who at great sacrifice of his position and prospects consented to give his services. No one but a man of rare zeal and courage would have attempted so apparently hopeless a task as that which Mr. Craig undertook. Both the men whom he had to manage, the Terry Alts who had murdered their master's steward, and their surroundings were as little calculated to give confidence in the success of the scheme as they well could be. The men spoke generally the Irish language which Mr. Craig did not understand, and they looked upon him with suspicion as one sent to worm out of them the secret of the murder recently committed. He was consequently treated with coldness and worse than that. On one occasion the outline of his grave was cut out of the pasture near his dwelling and he carried his life in his hand. After a time however he won the confidence of these men, rendered savage as they had been by ill treatment. The farm was led by Mr. Vandalor at a fixed rent to be paid in fixed quantities of farm produce which at the prices ruling in 1830-31 would bring in 900 pounds which included interest on buildings, machinery, and livestock provided by Mr. Vandalor. The rent alone was 700 pounds. As the farm consisted of 618 acres, only 268 of which were under tillage, this rent was a very high one, a fact which was acknowledged by the landlord. All profits after payment of rent and interest belonged to the members, divisible at the end of the year if desired. They started a cooperative store to supply themselves with food and clothing and the estate was managed by a committee of the members who paid every male and female member wages for their labor in labor notes which were exchangeable at the store for goods or cash. Intoxicating drink or tobacco were prohibited. The committee each day allotted each man his duties. The members worked the land partly as kitchen garden and fruit orchards and partly as dairy farm, stall feeding being encouraged and root crops grown for the cattle. Pigs, poultry, etc. were reared. Wages at the time were only 8 pence per day for men and 5 pence for women and the members were paid at these rates. Yet as they lived chiefly on potatoes and milk produced on the farm, which as well as mutton and pork were sold to them at extremely low prices, they saved money or rather notes. Their health and appearance quickly improved so much so that with disease raging around them there was no case of death or serious illness among them while the experiment lasted. The single men lived together in a large building and families in cottages. Assisted by Mrs. Craig the secretary carried out the most enlightened system of education for the young, those old enough being alternately employed on the farm and in the school. Sanitary arrangements were in a high state of perfection and physical and moral training were most carefully attended to. In respect of these and other social arrangements Mr. Craig was a man much before his time and he has since made himself a name in connection with their application in various parts of the country. The new system as the Rallahein experiment was called though at first regarded with suspicion and derision quickly gained favor in the district so that before long outsiders were extremely anxious to become members of the association. In January 1832 the community consisted of 50 adults and 17 children. The total number afterwards increased to 81. Everything was increased and the members of the association were not only benefited themselves but their improvement exercised a beneficent influence upon the people in their neighborhood. It was hoped that other landlords would imitate the excellent example of Mr. Vandalor especially as his experiment was one profitable to himself as well as calculated to produce peace and contentment in disturbed Ireland. Just when these hopes were raised to their highest degree of expectancy the happy community at Rallahein was broken up through the ruin and flight of Mr. Vandalor who had lost his property by gambling. Everything was sold off and the labor notes saved by the members would have been worthless had not Mr. Craig with noble self-sacrifice redeemed them out of his own pocket. We have given but a very scarce anti-description of the system pursued at Rallahein. The arrangements were in most respects admirable and reflected the greatest credit upon Mr. Craig as an organizer and administrator. To his wisdom, energy, tact and forbearance the success of his experiment was in great measure due and it is greatly to be regretted that he was not in a position to repeat the attempt under more favorable circumstances. History of a Cooperative Farm. Carlisle on the Social Obligations of the Nation. Forty-five years ago inserted at the earnest request of a friend who was struck by the coincidence of some ideas similar to those of this volume set forth so long ago but as yet remaining unrealized in which I read. Extracts from past and present by Thomas Carlisle 1843. A prime minister even here in England who shall dare believe the heavenly omens and address himself like a man and a hero to the great dumb struggling heart of England and speak out for it and act out for it. The God's justice it is writhing to get uttered perishing for want of yes, he too will see awaken round him a passionate, burning, all defiant loyalty, the heart of England, and such a support as no division list or parliamentary majority has ever yet known to yield a man. Here is there, now as then, he who can and dare trust the heavenly immensities all earthly localities are subject to him. We will pray for such a man and first Lord. Yes, and far better we will strive and incessantly make ready each of us to be worthy to serve and second such a first Lord. We shall then be as good as sure of his arriving sure of many things let him arrive or not who can despair of governments that passes a soldier's house or meets a red-coated man in the streets that a body of men could be got together to kill other men when you bade them. This a priori does it not seem one of the impossible list things yet look behold it in the stolidest of do nothing governments that impossibility is a thing done. Carlisle passed in present page 223 Strange, interesting and yet most mournful to reflect on. Was this then of all the things mankind had some talent for the one thing important to learn well and bring to perfection this of successfully killing one another? Truly you have learned it well and carried the business to a high perfection. It is incalculable what by arranging, commanding and regimenting you can make of men. These thousand straight-standing firm-set individuals whose shoulder arms who march, wheel, advance, retreat and hire for your behoof a magazine charged with fiery death in the most perfect condition of potential activity. Few months ago till the persuasive sergeant came, what were they? Multiform ragged lozzles, runaway apprentices, starved weavers, thieves, valets an entirely broken population, fast tending towards the treadmill. But the persuasive sergeant came by tap of drum enlisted or formed lists of them took heartily to drilling them and he and you have made them this most potent, effectual effectual for all work whatsoever is wise planning, firm, combining and commanding among men. Let no man despair of governments who looks on these two centuries at the horse-guards and our united service clubs. I could conceive an emigration service, a teaching service, considerable varieties of united and separate services of the do-thousands strong, all effective as this fighting service is, all doing their work like it, which work, much more than fighting, is henceforth the necessity of these new ages we are got into. Much lies among us, convulsively, nigh desperately struggling to be born, past and present page 224. It was well all this we know, and yet it was not well. Forty soldiers, I am told, will disperse the largest Spittlefield's mob. Forty to ten thousand, that is the proportion between drilled and undrilled. Much there is which cannot yet be organized in this world, but somewhat also which can, somewhat also which must. When one thinks, for example, become and becoming for us, what operative lackashires are become, what a fourth estate and innumerable virtualities, not yet got to be actualities are become and becoming. One sees organisms enough in the dim, huge future, and united services quite other than the red coat one, and much, even in these years, struggling to be born, past and present page 226. An effective teaching service I do consider that there must be. Some education secretary, captain general of teachers, who will actually contrive to get us taught. Then again why should there not be an immigration service, and secretary with adjuncts, with funds, forces, idle navy ships, and ever increasing apparatus an effective system of immigration, so that at length before our twenty years of respite ended every honest willing workman who found England too straight and the organizational labor not yet sufficiently advanced might find likewise a bridge built to carry him into new western lands, there to organize with more elbow room some labor for himself, there to be a real blessing, raising new for us, purchasing new webs and hatchets from us, leaving us at least in peace, instead of staying here to be physical forced, charted, unblessed, and no blessing. Is it not scandalous to consider that a prime minister could raise within the year as I have seen it done a hundred twenty million sterling to shoot the French and we are stop short for want of the hundredth part of that the English living? The bodies of the English living and the souls of the English living, these two services, an education service and an immigration service these with others will have actually to be organized. A free bridge for immigrants, why we should then be on a par with America itself, the most favorite of all lands that have no government, and we should have besides so many traditions and mementos of priceless things which America has cast away. We could proceed deliberately to organize labor not doomed to perish unless we affected it within year and day every willing worker that proved superfluous, finding a bridge ready for him. This verily will have to be done, the time is big with this. Our little isle is grown too narrow for us, but the world is wide enough yet for another six thousand years. England's sure markets will be among new colonies of Englishmen in all quarters of the globe. All men trade with all men when mutually convenient, and are even bound to do it by the maker of men. Our friends of China, who guiltily refuse to trade in these circumstances, had we not to argue with them in canon shot at last and convince them that they ought to trade. Hostile terrorists will arise to shut us out, and then again will fall to let us in. But the sons of England, speakers of the English language were at nothing more, will in all times have the ineradicable predisposition to trade with England. Mickley was the Pan-Ionian rendezvous of all the tribes of iron for old Greece. Why should not London long continue the all Saxon home, rendezvous of all the children of the Harzrock, arriving in select samples from the antipodes and elsewhere by steam and otherwise to the season here? What a future! Is the world if we have the heart and heroism for it which by heaven's blessing we shall? Keep not standing fixed and rooted briskly venture briskly roam, head and hand wherever thou foot it and stout heart are still at home. In what land the sun does visit brisk are we what air be tied? To give space for wandering that the world was made so wide? Fourteen hundred years ago it was a considerable emigration service, never doubted by much enlistment, discussion and apparatus that we ourselves arrived in this remarkable island and got into our present difficulties among others, past and present pages 228 through 230. The main substance of this problem of organizing labor and first of all of managing the working classes will it is very clear have to be solved by those who stand practically in the middle of it, by those who themselves work and preside over work. Of all that can be enacted by any parliament in regard to it the germs must already lie potentially extant in those two classes who are to obey such enactment. A human chaos in which there is no light you vainly attempt to irradiate by light shed on it, order never can arise there, past and present pages 231 through 232. Look around you, your world hosts are all in mutiny in confusion, destitution, on the eve of fiery reckoned madness. They will not march farther for you, on the six pence a day and supply and demand principle. They will not nor ought they, nor can they, ye shall reduce them to order, begin reducing them to order, to just subordination, noble loyalty in return for noble guidance, their souls are driven nigh mad. Let yours be sane and ever saner, not as a bewildered bewildering mob, but as a firm regimented mass, with real captains over them, will these men march any more. All human interests, combined human endeavours, and social growth in this world have at a certain stage of their development, required organizing and work. The grandest of human interests does not require it. God knows the task will be hard, but no noble task was ever easy. This task will wear away your lives and the lives of your sons and grandsons, but for what purpose, if not for tasks like this, were lives given to men? Ye shall cease to count your thousand-pound scalps, the noble of you shall cease. Nay, the very scalps, as I say, will not long be left, if you count only these. Ye shall cease wholly to be barbarous, vulturous cactos, and become noble European nineteenth-century men. Ye shall know that Mammon in never such gigs and flunky respectabilities in not the alone God, that of himself he is but a devil and even a brute God. Difficult? Yes, it will be difficult. The short fiber cotton, that too was difficult. The waist-cotton shrub, long useless, disobedient as the thistle by the wayside. Have ye not conquered it, mated into beautiful bandanna webs, white woven shirts for men, bright tinted air garments wherein flit goddesses? You have shivered mountains as under, made the hard iron pliant to you as soft putty. The forest giants, marsh jatoons, bear sheaves of golden grain. Ager, the sea-demon himself, stretches his back for a sleek highway to you, and on fire-horses and wind-horses ye career, ye are most strong. Thor, red-bearded with his blue sun-eyes, with his cheery heart and strong thunder-hammer, he and you have prevailed. Ye are most strong, ye sons of the icy north, of the far east, far marching from your rugged eastern wilderness. Hitherward, from the great dawn of time, ye are sons of the jatun land, the land of difficulties conquered. Difficult? You must try this thing. Once try it with the understanding that it will and shall have to be done. Try it as ye try the paltier thing, making of me. I will bet on you once more, against all-jatuns, tailor-gods, double-barreled lawwards and denizens of chaos whatsoever, past and present pages 236 and 237. A question arises here. Whether in some ulterior perhaps not far-distant stage of this chivalry of labor, your master-worker may not find it possible to grant his workers permanent interest in his enterprise and theirs, so that it become in practical result what an essential fact in justice it ever is. A joint enterprise. All men from the chief master down to the lowest overseer and operative economically as well as loyally concerned for it? Which question I do not answer? The answer, near or else far, is perhaps yes. And yet one knows the difficulties. Despotism is essential in most enterprises. I am told they do not tolerate freedom of debate on board a 74. Republican Senate and plebiscite would not answer well in cotton mills, and yet observe there too freedom. Not nomads or apes freedom, but man's freedom. This is indispensable. We must have it, and will have it. To reconcile despotism with freedom, well, is that such a mystery? Do you not already know the way? It is to make your despotism just, rigorous as destiny, but just too as destiny and its laws, the laws of God. All men obey these and have no freedom at all in obeying them. The way is already known, part of the way, and courage and some qualities are needed for walking on it. Past and present pages 241 and 242. Not a may game is this man's life, but a battle in a march, a warfare with principalities and powers. No idle promenade through fragrant orange groves and green flowery spaces created on by the coral muses and the rosy hours. It is a stern pilgrimage through burning sandy salitudes, through regions of thick-ribbed ice. He walks among men, loves men, with inexpressible soft pity, as they cannot love him, but his soul dwells in solitude in the uttermost parts of creation. In green oases by the palm-tree wells he rests a space. But a none he has to journey forward, escorted by the terrors and the splendors, the archdemons and archangels, all heaven and all pandemonium are his escort. The stars, keen glancing from the immensities, send tidings to him. The graves, silent with their dead from the eternities, deep calls for him unto deep. Page 249 End of Section 45 Recording by Tom Hirsch Section 46 The Catholic Church and the Social Question This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Tom Hirsch The Reverend Dr. Barry read a paper at the Catholic Conference on June 30th, 1890, from which I take the following extracts as illustrative of the rising feeling of this subject in the Catholic Church. The Reverend Dr. Barry began by defining the proletariat as those who have only one possession, their labor, those who have no land and no stake in the land, no house and no home except the few sticks of furniture they significantly call by the name, no right to employment but at the most a right to poor relief and who until the last twenty years had not even a right to be educated, unless by the charity of their betters. The class which without figure of speech or flights of rhetoric is homeless, landless, propertyless in our chief cities that I call the proletariat. Of the proletariat he declared there were hundreds of thousands growing up outside the pale of all churches. He continued, for it is frightfully evident that Christianity has not kept pace with the population, that it has lagged terribly behind, that in plain words we have in our midst a nation of heathens to whom the ideals, the practices and the sense of religion are things unknown, as little realized in the miles on miles of tenement houses and the factories which have produced them as though Christ had never lived or never died. How could it be otherwise? The great massive men and women have never had time for religion. You cannot expect them to work double tides, with hard physical labor from morning to night in the surroundings we know and see how much mind and leisure is left for higher things on six days of the week. We must look this matter in the face. I do not pretend to establish the proportion between different sections in which these things happen. Still less am I willing to lay the blame on those who are houseless, landless and propertyless. What I say if the government of a country allows millions of human beings to be thrown into such conditions of living and working as we have seen, these are the consequences that must be looked for. A child, said the Anglican Bishop South, has a right to be born and not to be damned into the world. Here have been millions of children literally damned into the world. Neither their heads nor their hands trained for anything useful. Their miserable subsistence of thing to be fought and scrambled for. Their homes wreaking dens under the law of leaseholding which has produced outcast London and horrible Glasgow. Their right to a playground and amusement curtailed to the running gutter and their great object lesson in life, the drunken parents who end so often in the prison, hospital and the workhouse. We need not be astonished if these not only are not Christians but have never understood why they should be. The social condition has created this domestic heathenism than the social condition must be changed. We stand in need of a public creed, of a social and if you will understand the word of a lay Christianity. This work cannot be done by the clergy nor within the four walls of a church. The field of battle lies in the school, the home, the street, the tavern, the market and wherever men come together. To make the people Christian they must be restored to their homes and their homes to them. End of section 46 End of In Darkest England and the Way Out by William Booth Recording by Tom Hirsch