The Christian unity of capital and labor

Front matter

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Chapter I. Ancient Industrial Conditions

‘‘The Lorp will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people, and the princes thereof: for ye have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor 7s in your houses. What mean ye ¢hat ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord God of hosts.’’— Lsatah 3: 14, 15.

“Any given accumulation of commercial wealth may be indicative, on the one hand, of faithful industries, progressive energies, and productive ingenuities ; or, on the other, it may be indicative of mortal luxury, merciless tyranny, ruinous chicane. Some treasures are heavy with human tears, as an ill-stored harvest with untimely rain; and some gold is brighter in sunshine than it is in substance.’’— Fohn Ruskin.

EVERY generation has its peculiar unrest, sometimes no more noticeable than the heaving of the swell on a calm sea, but at others, bursting into the wild storm and fury of the raging ocean. And as the law of physical motion is necessary to preserve the purity of the great waters, and to build up the world, either by the imperceptible upheaval of the land, or the more violent disturbance of the earthquake, thus making it better fitted for the habitation of man, so the moral, mental, religious, and even military restlessness of mankind are the ceaseless cause and evidence of progress, fashioning slowly, painfully, but irresistibly, the more perfect body politic from the material of the family unit.

12 ANTIQUITY OF LABOR PROBLEMS.

To say that there has always been a labor problem, is but another way of declaring that from remotest antiquity, even before the Egyptians set taskmasters over the Hebrews ‘to afflict them with their burdens’’ and make ‘‘ their lives bitter with hard bondage,’’ there has been the inequality of master and slave, riches and poverty, health and sickness. ‘‘ The gigantic masses of the Pyramids tell us more emphatically. than living speech or written words of the tears and the pains, the sufferings and miseries of a whole population which was condemned to erect these everlasting monuments of Pharaonic vanity.’’? And the wailings in Egypt have been repeated by others in every clime, through all ages, in continuous and often vain protest against man’s inhumanity to his weaker brother. :

Equally unavailing have been the efforts of the deliverers, those who, stronger in consciousness of injustice than their fellows, would urge them to resist the wrong and strike the oppressor. As with Spartacus, Wat Tyler, and Thomas Munzer, the leader of the Peasants’ war in Germany, they only shared the inevitable fate of all who bear the seaeiiee torch far in advance of their age.

Nor in the nature of things could we have expected it to be otherwise with the Apostles of Labor. The social fabric had first to be built and its primitive conditions strengthened ; liberty had to broaden from apex to base; from despotism, through feudalism and commerce, until it reached the people ; political and religious freedom had to be won, many a marvel wrested from nature’s secrets, and the business of the. race measurably changed from fighting to manufacturing, before the masses of mankind could expect even the rudest justice from those above them. For centuries the sway of might was the only one known. Right was for those who could take; security for those who could defend. The reciprocal obligations of society did not extend beyond attack and defence against common enemies, and though the spirit of Christianity soon accomplished wonders, it took a long time to teach the wealthy and powerful that they were of the same blood as

BROTHERHOOD OF MAN. £35 the poor and the weak. ‘The man who worked was despised ; the stigma of slavery was attached to every useful occupation, but he who killed was a hero, and there could be no attention to the appeal of the worker while such ideas prevailed. He might cry out and occasionally strike; but it was a kicking against the pricks that availed nothing except to increase his burden and double his tale of labor.

Rain comes in the desert to those who can wait, and the time has at last arrived when the worker is heard. Liberty is now his birthright, and its strength is vested in those who once vainly pleaded. ‘The man in armor has gone. The increase of that humanity which springs from the Gospel has tuned all hearts to a responsive chord. ‘The highest and noblest endeavor of the leaders of thought is to-day bent on seeking the way for a closer brotherhood, a more perceptible blending between those whom social conditions and injustice have too long kept asunder; and a grander AOE than this was never undertaken by belted knight.

If they seek rightly they will find; for when those first words of ‘‘ uncontrollable authority and omnific power ’’ were spoken, ‘‘ Let there be light,’’ it requires no poetic imagination to clothe the divine command with its largest meaning. Every revelation of the prophets and the evangelists, every discovery in the material world, every invention, every application of science has been but the fulfilment of its behest. From the beginning light has been pouring down upon us, not only in solar rays, but in that divine knowledge which includes a comprehension of nature and of nature’s God. ‘Galileo and Newton were its apostles as truly as Paul, Luther and Wesley, and it is certain that the outpouring which illumined their darkness, that has long since made plain all moral difficulties and is ceaselessly throwing its effulgence upon the obscurities of physical law, can shine with equal clearness upon the darkness of our economic problems, making the way for their solution so simple that all can understand. Let us therefore look for guidance to him who was and is ‘the light of the world.”

14 ROMAN MAGNIFICENCE.

The historian who takes a survey of the condition of Europe about the commencement of the Christian era, finds himself confronted by a power whose eagles dominated from the Tiber to the Euphrates on the east, to the Thames on the west, and from the Elbe on the north, across the Mediterranean, to be stopped only by the impenetrable barriers of the ‘African deserts. This gigantic empire comprised within its boundaries most of the great nations of the modern world. Great Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Austria- Hungary, Switzerland, Italy, and Greece; Turkey, Asia Minor and Syria, the northern fringe of Africa, and the islands of the Mediterranean, were the provinces and dependencies of one city, from whose gates went forth armies of mighty conquest, from whose senate halls were issued laws and decrees that have ever since molded the world’s social and political institutions, whose literature and material civilization have made an impress on mankind for all time, whose language is a foundation of many modern tongues, and whose contempt for labor, commerce, and even the arts gave direction to opinions that only lost their strength at the close of the 18th century.

These ‘‘scourges and oppressors of the world,’’ as Buckle called its citizens, enriched their capital with a magnificence of architecture that has been and still is the wonder and — admiration of the earth. On every side were to be seen stately temples crowded with the statues of plundered Greece, palaces built of many-colored marble brought from the quarries of Numidia and Asia Minor; public buildings, baths, libraries, and theatres, decorated with all the costly material then known; columns crowned with heroic forms; fountains that in design were almost palaces; grottoes from which gushed cool water brought in great aqueducts from the mountains; beautifully kept gardens, woods and groves of trees, and above all, in boldness, vastness, and splendor, that majestic amphitheatre whose ruins yet awaken the awe of those who behold them. ‘‘ Rome was the centre of gravity that drew to itself the wealth of the whole world,’’ says the

ROMAN MAGNIFICENCE. 15

4 writer from whose work this description has been in part outlined.* ‘‘The metals of Britain and Spain, the silks of China, the gems of India, everything that was beautiful or precious of marvel or rarity was poured into its walls, so that he who had seen and tasted what Rome offered had seen and tasted the world.’’

Nor were the residences of the wealthy, inferior to the grandeur of their surroundings. ‘Though the externals were plain, the only indication of the owner’s position being the chained porter at the doorway, the artist and painter lavished on the interior all their richness of material and artistic wealth, encrusting the walls with precious stones or covering them with bright garlands of painted flowers, birds of rare plumage, or graceful fancies of children and young girls, in such exquisite designs that kings would now delight to honor the hand that could reproduce them. The floors were of inlaid mosaics and the doors of ivory or colored wood, from which depended costly draperies woven by slaves who showed an aptitude for such employment. The sleeping-rooms opened upon a large court, on each side of which was a colonnade supported by high marble columns, and between these were placed statues of marble and bronze, the work of human chattels, while in the centre a sunken basin, adorned by fountains and shrubbery, added the freshness of nature to the beauty of art. A living annunciator, whose office is better performed for us by a watch that can be purchased by a day’s labor, stood near a sun-dial at the extremity of the hall to repeat the hour, and other servitors waited behind the richly inlaid chairs and benches, or fanned the occupants of downy couches, whose silken cushions embroidered with feathers and gold invited repose. Tables of the highly prized citrus wood, or marble, covered with striking basreliefs, and resting on carved silver tripods, held candelabra of beautiful workmanship, designed and made by slaves, while Oriental tapestries and the skins of wild beasts spread

_® “Greece and Rome, their Life and Art” by Jakob von Falke.

_16 ROMAN MAGNIFICENCE.

on the floor, and the bright woven fabrics of sumptuous material, that served for shade and curtain, joined their richness to a decoration as perfect in harmony as the refinement of educated taste could devise.

But it was in the banqueting-room that. Roman luxury expended its greatest care. Here were to be found the most beautiful mosaics and paintings, the richest hangings and designs, the brightest colorings, the subtlest chiselings of marble, the most cherished productions of the craftsmen. To supply the dainties of a feast, the forest and ocean of every subject province paid its tribute. The oysters of Britain, the barbel of Corsica, the ham of Gaul and game of Germany, the fish of the Atlantic, the delicacies of India and the date of Egypt mingled at his table with the hares and venison of his own Italy, or with the ducks and geese, fed with figs, that were forwarded from his country villa; or with strangely compounded dishes of native device, quaint conceits in confections, and sometimes with lampreys, occasionally fattened on an offending slave to give a special flavor. Wines, whose country and date age had obliterated, quaffed from cups of amber or chased gold, and cooled with snow or sweetened with honey, quenched the thirst of the guests, and during the dinner beautiful damsels scattered roses over them, while Nubians plied their fans; and in the ante-room, waiting the signal to enter, toward the end of the meal, were the juggler with his tricks, the actor with his latest productions, or lithe dark-eyed Spanish girls, who would presently vie with each other in voluptuous dances to the accompaniment of music. And all these ministers of pleasure and ease: the hand that could juggle so deftly, the actor whose dialogues, — if preserved, might have been immortal, the musicians and the dancers, the muscles that procured, and the skill that prepared the dainties, the carver of the meat and the treasure ~ of art in which it was served, the wine bearer and the flower strewers, were property, to be bought and sold in the marketplace, scourged, given away, crucified, destroyed, without let or hindrance, at the will of the owner.

-ROMAN SLAVES. gies

The principal apartments of the house were on the ground floor, and in addition to those mentioned, comprised the sleeping chambers family rooms, and baths; the muniment rooms containing the family archives, wax portraits, relics, and images of the household gods; the libraries filled with manuscripts enclosed in beech-wood cases ; the master’s room where he received his clients, transacted affairs and went over accounts with his slave secretaries, and another of larger dimensions answering the purposes of a modern drawing-room, where the mistress entertained her friends, and issued her edicts for the household. The quarters for the human cattle were in the rear. A few crowded pens, and wretched fare were their share of the wealth around them; for slaves were plenty—the rougher sort could be bought in Asia for asixpence; and why should they have care when labor was so cheap? |

The city house of a wealthy Roman contained hundreds of these unfortunate beings who were kept in order by the scourge, and had to attend to their duties in silence. Every room was in charge of some particular attendant. The kitchen had its cooks, carvers, confectioners, table-waiters, and bakers. ‘Tailors, seamstresses, barbers, hair-dressers, perfumers, and porters, employed their special skill for: master and mistress ; and weavers, sandal-makers, jewelers, and scribes were always at work in their various departments, so that the cunning of a thousand hands and minds were constantly ministering from morning to night to the capricious wants of one or two. | |

We are apt to associate our ideas of Roman slavery solely. with that of a conquering race subjugating far-off barbarians in Britain, Spain, Gaul, and Africa, and while such captures enormously recruited the Roman market, ‘all races furnishing their contribution to the greatest population of slaves that ever existed under one domain,’’ * the servile classes were by no

* Gibbon estimates that the population of the Roman empire during the reign of Claudius contained 60,000,000 slaves, or as many people as now inhabit the United States. See “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,’ Chapter 2.

18 ROMAN SLAVERY.

means composed exclusively of captured enemies and their descendants. In addition to the natural increase, some were stolen from countries with which the empire was at peace; others were purchased from free parents in time of distress ; and poor debtors, alike with criminals, were often sold into perpetual servitude; so that during the long period slavery existed as a national institution, it is not surprising to find that many of the bondsmen were intellectually superior to their owners,* while others had a marvellous skill in those handicrafts which the Romans so much despised.f

Slaves nearly always filled the positions of librarians, amanuenses, private secretaries, physicians and surgeons, architects, builders, engravers, painters, and silversmiths. Good doctors, artists, learned men, such as poets, grammarians, and rhetoricians were regularly offered for sale in the market place, with a tablet fastened to the neck, indicating the particular intellectual achievements for which they were famous, and artisans of ability, as was the case with our own negro slaves in the Southern States, always commanded more than acommon laborer. ‘‘ They construct all the great public works. They build the splendid roads over which the Roman legions follow their generals in triumph home to Rome. They make the aqueducts, dig the canals, and construct the buildings, public and private, whose remains still attest their magnificence—the forum, the amphitheatre, and the golden house of the Ceesars. They build the villas overlooking the Bay of Naples, in which the nobles lived in riot and wantonness; they cook the dinners given in those villas; they make the clothes the nobles wear, and the jewels that adorn their persons. They cultivate the fields, follow the plow, train and

* Cicero’s manumitted servant invented short-hand, and the teachings of Epictetus, a slave of one of Nero’s courtiers, are still read with interest for their idealistic morality. Another celebrated literary slave was Terence, the comic poet; and it is probable that Plautus was also one. The preceptor of Brutus and Cassius, Straberius Eros, was bought in the market place.

7 ‘All mechanics are engaged in vulgar business, for a workshop can have nothing respectable about it.” Cicero, de Offciis.

ROMAN INHUMANITY. 19 trim the vine, and gather in the harvest.’?* Those who showed any aptitude for intellectual pursuits were often highly educated in order to increase their value to their owners, and the education of the young was entirely in their charge. They were in reality the pillars of the nation, the substructure on which the immense fabric of the empire was reared, and without whose aid, by liberation from labor, its military supremacy _ would have been impossible.

Over these men whom we now consider the pride and glory of a state, the master had an absolute possession. For 7oo years he could inflict every form of death, torture or ignominious punishment that passion or cruel caprice might suggest without any legal restraint to stay his despotism; and when after a life of service the bondsman’s powers began to fail, he could be abandoned to the lingering death of starvation, or sent into the arena to become the food of ravenous beasts, and afford by the agony of his dying moments an instant’s pleasure for the populace. Every page of classic literature is stained with such records of merciless inhumanities, related in a manner that proves them to have been mere common-places ; ordinary occurrences of the day, and only noted for their connection with some unusual incident.

Ovid has drawn for us in detail a Roman lady at her toilet, preparing for a festival, the games, a promenade, or a social visit, and Juvenal+ has added to it scatheful mention of the indifference with which she regarded the sufferings of her tirewomen who were compelled to stand half stripped during the elaborate process of embellishment, so that the torturer might better lash while they were brushing her hair, enamelling her face, or holding the silver mirror with which she watched the varied operations. A Roman lady’s garments were usually of silk, sometimes dyed with the precious Tyrian purple, or in one of the primal colors, and bordered with fringe of gold, or pearls and embroidery. They consisted of two tunics, the

* «Manual Training the Solution of Social and Industrial Problems.” Charles H. Han, p. 265. 7 Sixth Satire.

20 ROMAN FASHIONS.

under one short and reaching only to the knee, the upper one descending in long folds to the feet and fastened at the shoulders with a jeweled brooch. For street costume another garment was worn over these clasped with a belt of emeralds. Her sandals were of soft leather, held in place with golden buckles, and the hair was either crimped and permitted to flow in rippling waves, or else intentionally ruffled and confined with a golden band, or string of pearls. Pearls, set in wrought gold, were the favorite ear ornament, matching necklaces of similar material and design, though the emerald was still more highly prized, but too expensive except for those of great wealth. On the arms and wrists bracelets of incomparable workmanship were worn, and cameo rings of enormous cost encircled each finger. On occasions of display, the modern value of a Roman lady’s jewelry might exceed a million dollars. It is related that Ceesar paid about $232,000 for a single pearl, and the wife ef Caligula appeared at her betrothal decorated in jewelry vaiued at a million anda half of dollars. .

As in other portions of her service, the dye, the robes, the embroidery, the setting of the jewelry were the work of her unpaid servants, or if their labor was of such excellence as to warrant a trifling favor in commendation, it was the gift of a tyrant, to be followed by blows and thelash. Her maids were only her automata. In them her eyes could see neither the grace of youth, the sweetness of womanhood, nor the sacredness of maternity. Their wants, pains, pleasures, hopes, aspirations, friendships, loves; all the vibrations of the spirit within its temple, concerned her less than the moods of the changeful sky. They were only beings, fashioned indeed after the pattern of humanity, yet whose lives could have no other cause for existence than to do her will, to reflect her desires, to be instruments for her comfort, and the soulless ministers cf her caprice.

The toilet being completed, the hired torturer dismissed, and the shrinking girls despatched to other duties, their mistress will step into her waiting litter, borne by eight

ROMAN FASIIIONS. 21 stalwart blacks, preceded by other attendants to clear the way through the thronged streets. Perhaps her destination is the temple of Serapis, or to call on some female friend, or join with the beauty and fashion of Rome in one of the many delightful gardens and parks which brought the verdure of the country into the heart of the city; or she may prefer to loll with languid indifference on her silken cushions, listlessly watching the swarming throng pass by, of whom the greater part are, in her judgment, not men and women, but such creatures as she has left at home.

The well-known engraving of Boulanger’s somewhat mechanical painting of ‘‘ The Appian Way’”’ conveys a definite and suggestive impression of the Flamian Road, which ran the whole length of the Campus Martius, and was the most conspicuous thoroughfare of Rome. Rome was not merely a city, but the city of the world. On its streets were half a million of idlers, shopping, talking, loitering, drinking, discussing the political incidents of the day, or the latest news of victories in Britain and Gaul. ‘‘ The gray-bearded Greek philosopher jostled the sons of the North; the Dacian, with his wide dracc@, the fair-haired German clad in skins; the black Nubian met the tattooed Britain, and the Gaul, in short tartan cloak, brushed by the Arab of the desert, and the wild nomad of the Sarmatian steppe.”’

Here is a closely wedged crowd of litters, each one surrounded by quarrelling slaves endeavoring to force a path for their master through the mass; here a legionary is telling to a group the wonders he has seen upon the Nile, who anon tiring of his recital leave to look at some new thing, may-be a strange beast or bird sent by a distant consul from the confines of Asia, to swell the attractions of the approaching games. Now comes a funeral accompanied by flute players, wailing women with dishevelled hair, and a band of actors, reciting laudatory passages from the tragic poets in honor of the departed ; and this is succeeded by such a motley throng of slaves and freedmen, chair carriers, soldiers, and richly dressed youth; men of wealth, attended by their obsequious

22 ROMAN AMUSEMENTS.

clients, gymnasts, sword swallowers, languid idlers and itinerant vendors calling their wares, that it seems a never ending panorama; a microcosm of all costumes and all nations. ;

Many are sauntering towards the baths, to enjoy amid rarest marbles, paintings, and mosaics, the mild exercise of the gymnasium, or the refinement of song and music, to be © presently followed by sumptuous ablutions. Others are making for the forum,.to take part in the political meetings, some to the courts of justice, and numbers to the wine shops, where they will throw dice for a jar of Falerian wine and exchange the current scandal of the hour. If these amusements are too trivial there is the Circus Maximus, with seats for 180,000 spectators, and the wild excitement of the chariot races, - prefaced by a solemn procession of priests, as the statues of the gods are borne aloft. The charioteers of the Blue faction won last week, and if they can repeat the triumph, though some will be killed in doubling the Obelisks, the victors are to receive the honor of silver crowns.

It may be a grand day in the arena, and from early morn all Rome has been astir. A hundred slaves, nay, we can say a thousand and not exaggerate, with features, limbs and souls like any of us, ‘‘hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer,’’ have been carefully trained from childhood, until now, in the strength of their years, they shall slash, rip, break bones, transfix and strangle each other, with every device of hideous weapon, while those who have fed and nurtured them from tottering infancy, the old senator, the young soldier, the tender maiden, jest, woo, laugh, eat, make appointments for the night, and when the scene is over leave their servitors in their gaping wounds and dying agony, without another thought, to be the morrow’s food for the lions.

This is enough of the story. It is one of such barbarous cruelty, heartlessness, and selfishness, relieved only by a few martial virtues, and the splendor, pomp, and magnificence

LABOR PROBLEM IN FRANCE. 23 of wickedness, that it seems, more fitting for the tale of a dream than the daily drama of a people’s life. And were it not for the testimony of its actors, and the evidences that still survive, we might join our doubts to our wishes, and reject it as the fantasy of an Eastern imagination, conceived among the fumes of the hashish smoke. For the magnificence was the magnificence of the sword and the blood of labor. We touch it with Ithuriel’s spear, and the mighty buildings dissolve and show us the abodes of a million slaves and beggars; the costly marbles change to the groans of the wretched captives in the mines; the fabrics of luxury to the shrieks of the tortured hand-maidens, and the city itself into ‘‘ Babylon the Great, the mother of the harlots and of the abominations of the earth.’’—(Rev. Ver.)

With a change of costumes and actors, and modified by eighteen centuries, how like is this luxury and indifference to suffering, to that of another city on the banks of the Seine, where a Louis the Well-Beloved is king, and a Du Barry, the courtesan of a gambling-house, has just succeeded De Pompadour as queen.

The king has 4,000 horses in his stable, and 295 cooks are scarce sufficient to provide for his royal palate, while in Normandy the people are living, or dying, on bran.* His household alone costs 68,000,000 francs f each year, being nearly one-fourth of the entire public revenue, mainly taken from miserable peasants; and for every franc thus expended, ten men toil, sweat, and are robbed. The princes of the blood own one-seventh of the soil, and like the nobility pay no taxes. In Champagne, 55 per cent. of the soil-tillers’ income is seized for direct imposts; in some parishes as much as 71 per cent. Though marriage is declining in the country, because the women say it is not worth while to bring other -unfortunates into the world, the court at Paris is a wild saturnalia, and life with the nobility an orgy. They hunt, drink,

* Taine’s “Ancient Régime.” + This amount represented more than double the value of present money.

24 THE FRENCH PEASANTRY.

feast, and hold revelry, as if those things were the sum of existence, and justice on earth or after the earth, immortality, accountability, and God were only myths.

In the provinces day-laborers and mechanics are dying of cold, and so great is their stress that they cannot wait for the grain to ripen, but cut it green and dry it in the oven for food. Yet the Golden House of Nero scarcely equalled in splendor the daily glory of Versailles, or Nero’s slaves the number of its servitors, or Caligula’s courtiers the corruption and elegance of those who surround its sovereign.

It is true that the people, the peasants, the laborers, the artisans, if there can be a people in a land where the king declares that he is the state,* are beginning to show discontent with their part of mere contributors to this magnificence, and complain because their once Well-Beloved speculates in corn and occasionally creates artificial famine to make money out of their hunger, bitterly calling it a famine-pact. They are not unwilling to be treated as beasts of burden (for so long has the mark of the Roman impress survived), and harnessed with oxen to draw wagons, or live in dwellings whose walls consist of four posts, or clothe themselves in muslin rags with neither head covering nor foot covering, or see their little fields eaten up by the Seigneur’s game, to kill which would bring them dangerously near the hangman’s rope. All that matters not, for the taxes, dues, and tithes, each a third, wiil of necessity leave them nothing, and starvation seems to be their appointed lot, their only birthright. Against this devil-merchandising, however, they do protest, and ere long, too, against some other things, with a vigor that wrenches the world. So urgent, however, is the king’s nee for money, notwithstanding his famine gains, so liberal his bounty to his gentlemen in ordinary and extraordinary, his officers, grand officers, pages, governors, bed-keepers, © butlers, table-waiters, equerries, grooms, captains, and other leeches innumerable, and especially to his ladies of honor

* « Tetat c’est moi.’

UPHEAVAL IN FRANCE. ES and dishonor, that soon, despite of protest, the implacable tax gatherers begin to seize and sell everything, and Paris swarms with those from the country, who finding it useless to labor, resolve to beg. .