and whose control over the political boss and the money-controlled machine is practically complete; whose control over the press is far greater than is imagined; and whose influence over multitudinous other agencies for reaching and misleading the people is only second to its grip on the press.

To American Patroits.

The above facts merely hint at the gravity of the situation that confronts our people, and the situation is rendered doubly serious from the fact that the friends of freedom are but poorly organized, and they have not at their command the finances to meet the enemy with a proper campaign of education. All to-day that is needed is a sufficient amount of money to properly sow every state with literature and in certain quarters to place efficient organizers in the field to bring together patriotic citizens and awaken the masses to the peril of the present. We

believe that only by prompt action will it be possible to avert the complete mastership of the machine by the law-defying and oppressive corporations. But by prompt action on the part of patriots the government may early be rescued from this deadliest of perils and the cause of democracy be given an impregnable position. A great national league should be formed, and men of means who possess a particle of the spirit that made heroes of the men of Valley Forge should contribute to a propaganda fund and to the expense of placing one or two efficient organizers in the field.

Friends of justice and human rights and lovers of freedom with peace, or a steady and peacefully-evolving democracy, we appeal to you to awake, unite, organize, and inaugurate an educational propaganda for rousing the people to the true situation and showing them how peacefully to emancipate themselves from corruption and oppression.

The Clergy and The Battle for Civic

R

Righteousness.

EFORMERS frequently and with just cause regard the clergy, especially of the great churches in our cities, as either allies of privileged wealth or as too timid to be a positive factor in the mighty battle of popular government and social justice against entrenched privilege and incorporated greed. The position of the minister, especially in the great metropolitan churches, is particularly trying if he is a man of God with the instincts of a prophet of righteousness, instead of a self-seeking opportunist; for the bribes given to the churches, missionary societies and religious colleges by the law-breakers have long since produced a deadly effect on the conscience of the churches, and in the cities almost every wealthy congregation has among its pew-holders liberal contributors who are the beneficiaries of acquired but unearned wealth or are master spirits in corporations whose methods are immoral and frequently frankly lawless. For the minister of such a church to stand for social justice and equality of opportunities and of rights, is to place his bread and butter in jeopardy,

for there is no class of persons so intolerant of the truth as those who wish to pose as highly respectable pilars of church and society while continuing to be the beneficiaries of wealth gained by indirection, by immoral acts, injustice and often by evasion or defiance of law. The minister who will prophecy smooth things and berate the Pharisees of two thousand years ago becomes very popular, but the fearless and incorruptible prophet of God who insists on following in the footsteps of the Great Nazarene soon finds himself non persona grata with the men whose wealth is depended on to pay the clergyman's salary. Under these conditions the position of the minister is exceedingly trying, and perhaps, considering the frailty of human nature, it is not especially astonishing that there are so many men who in the presence of social wrongs and moral corruption which are eating out the life of free institutions, are afraid to cry aloud and spare not.

There are to-day, however, as there have ever been, here and there strong, brave and splendid souls who are holding aloft the torch of justice and human rights and who display the same superb moral courage that lifted the

Great Nazarene so high above the religious leaders of his day.

Nothing affords us more pleasure than to be able to note the ranging of great divines on the side of morality, justice, law and human rights. We have felt it our unpleasant duty on several occasions to strongly criticize clergymen who are so lost to the teachings and spirit of the Great Nazarene and so beholden to political bosses and corrupt corporation interests that they affront the public with shameful defences of men and practices that have justly aroused the righteous indignation of lovers of civic morality and justice from ocean to ocean. We believe that the Christian church has suffered far less from all the attacks of those who have openly assailed her during recent years than she has from the public addresses and printed utterances during the past twelve months of such men as the Rev. Henry A. Buchtel, who is the present governor of Colorado by grace of the malodorous Boss Evans and the associated villainies or corporate interests of that state, and Chancellor Day of the Syracuse University, who has been aptly termed the Standard Oil's Man Friday. Mr. Buchtel as a eulogist of Guggenheim and Evans, and Chancellor Day as a defender of the lawless Standard Oil Company, are, in our judgment, not only master influences in discrediting Christianity with friends of pure government, of law and order, but in so far as they influence other minds, they necessarily foster low political, civic and business ideals by being the champions of men and interests they defend.

Happily for the church and for public morality, there are evidences of a general awakening on the part of leading clergymen to the importance of boldly imitating the great Founder of Christianity, who in the presence of the gamblers and money-changers in the Temple, denounced the corrupt order and drove those who sought to make the Temple a source of gain, from its sacred precincts. In America and in the Old World there are unmistakable signs of a spiritual awakening on the part of the clergy, and it is especially hopeful to note that even in such cities as New York and London, the prophet voices are ringing clear and strong. A notable case in point is that of the Rev. John Haynes Holmes, minister of the Church of the Messiah, the strongest Unitarian church in New York City.

A Leading Metropolitan Clergyman's Brave Stand for Pure Government. Late in January Mr. Holmes delivered a plain talk before the Unitarian Club of New York City. The Sun, one of the most efficient watch-dogs of Wall-Street interests, made his remarks the subject of a satirical editorial, to which Mr. Holmes replied in a letter marked by superb moral courage and revealing the possession of a clear mental concept of fundamental economic and political problems and practical remedies for the same rarely found in the pulpit. So fine and true are his words that we quote a large part of his letter, not only because of the truths it contains, but to show that to-day in the great money-mad metropolis at least one pastor of a rich and powerful church dares to speak living truths in a manner worthy of the great prophets of olden times.

"You say: 'He stated there were two or three men who owned the street railways of New York and were robbing the people of the right to adequate and decent transportation.' (You omitted the two adjectives ‘adequate' and 'decent,' but never mind!) 'He did not mention the names of these gentlemen,' you continue in your report, 'although he declared that their doings ought to be denounced in the pulpit.' That is exactly what I said. I regard the history of the street railways of New York as one of the foulest scandals that ever polluted the record of a city's life. A gang of thoroughly unscrupulous men, under the shelter of a public franchise, has swooped down upon this city and plundered it, just as a band of pirates, under such freebooters as Morgan and Blackbeard, used in the old days to descend upon a helpless merchantman and strip her from stem to stern. These men, when all euphemistic terms have been cast aside, are thieves; and their deeds constitute, from the moral point of view, nothing but open robbery! And yet you ridicule me for asserting that the men guilty of these misdeeds should be denounced in Christian pulpits! Where, I may ask in the name of that God whom I have been taught to worship as a God of justice, should these men be denounced if not in Christian pulpits? I am so misguided as to think that that is just the place; and I have therefore denounced them freely in my pulpit at the Church of the Messiah in the past, and I shall continue to denounce them and all men like them in

the future. I should consider myself recreant to my trust as a Christian minister did I keep silence in the face of such iniquity. You say that I did not give the names of these gentlemen in my address. You are again right-I did not! It was hardly necessary, since my audience consisted of men and women of average intelligence, who occasionally read the newspapers!

"Again you say: 'He informed his hearers that there was a small group of persons in complete control of the coal mines. He called these mines "our mines," although he did not disclose the basis of the public claim to ownership in which he evidently thought he had a share. Our impression was that the coal lands had been actually purchased and paid for by private and corporate owners, who had the same right to sell the products thereof as the farmer has to sell his milk.' Here again you are entirely accurate in your report of my remarks. I am of course perfectly well aware of the fact, to which you think it necessary to call my attention, that 'these coal mines had been actually purchased and paid for by private and corporate owners,' and hence, in the strictly legal sense, are the property of these private and corporate owners and not 'our' property. But I believe, sir, in all humility, although this will undoubtedly sound strange to your ears, that there is one standpoint, which at all times, and under all conditions, transcends the merely legal standpoint, and that is the moral standpoint! And it was strictly from this moral standpoint that I was speaking on Wednesday night. I am one of those possibly misguided-persons who believe that there are certain things which society has no moral right to hand over to the tender mercies of private individuals, and that among these things are coal mines, oil lands, forest tracts, public franchises of all kinds, whether railroad, telegraph or gas franchises, and so on. I regard it as an unspeakable iniquity that the supply of coal for our Eastern States should be in the hands of 'divine right' Baer and his associates and that the public should be held up every winter by these moneycrazed men and forced to pay the price.' There are certain things which belong of right not to any individual, however rich or powerful he may be, but to society at large; and no statute law of any kind can annul this inalienable social right. It was in this sense of course that I spoke of the mines as 'ours.'

My attitude toward the private ownership of all public necessities and utilities is exactly that of the old anti-slavery leaders toward the private ownership of slaves. The slaves had been actually purchased and paid for by private owners,' as you say the mines

have been. But this did not alter the fact that from the moral point of view no white man had any right to own a black man. And just as that fact is universally admitted to-day and all property rights in black men are permanently abolished, so is the time surely coming when the moral wrong of having public necessities and public utilities in private hands for the exploitation of the many by the few will be recognized and all property rights in mines, forests, railroads, etc., be abolished. This is the great problem of our day, just as the obolition of slavery was the great problem of half a century and more ago. And just as it remains an everlasting blot upon the record of the Christian churches of America that they assumed an attitude of indifference and oftentimes hostility toward this great crusade for the liberties of a race, so is it to-day a burning shame that the churches as a whole are standing indifferent and oftentimes hostile to the present crusade for the emancipation of an entire people. You were never wiser than when you said in your editorial, "The right way is to act-act in the living present.' That is exactly what some of us are trying to do in our humble way as regards the social and industrial iniquities of our time, even though we offend now and then those men and newspapers who would prefer to have everybody remain inert and quiescent, that existing conditions may know no alteration.

"In closing may I thank you for including me among 'some dissatisfied clergymen'? I am dissatisfied-dissatisfied at the hideous social conditions of our day and generation and dissatisfied at the spectacle of the Church of Christ standing deaf, dumb and blind before it all. A few more dissatisfied clergymen and we might be a bit nearer the realization of that Kingdom of God which Jesus of Nazareth endeavored to establish upon the earth, if I remember rightly something like two thousand years ago!

JOHN HAYNES HOLMES.

Church of the Messiah, Park Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street.

New York, January 27.

Mr. Holmes' Plea for The Child Slaves of America.

Mr. Holmes' aggressive stand for Christian morality suggests the splendid spirit of the old prophets of Israel, whose outspoken words are an inspiration to-day, even as they were when uttered thousands of years ago. His is the same spirit as that of Martin Luther when the corruption and opportunism of the church led him to brave the greatest organized power of Western civilization; the spirit of Wesley when he fired the imagination of the people of England at a time when the church was slumbering and materialism had paralyzed the moral energies of society; the spirit of Channing and Parker in the presence of African slavery.

On February 9th Mr. Holmes raised his voice against child labor in a powerful sermon on "The Bitter Cry of the Children." For this service also the clergyman composed the following hymn embodying the prayer of the workers for the deliverance of the children from the Moloch of present-day sordid greed:

"O God, whose justice is a rod

That smites our human greed,
Whose mercy is a healing balm

For hearts that break and bleed;
We cry to thee, O Lord, for strength
To right the wrongs of earth,
To lift the yokes, to break the bonds,
That make a curse of birth.

"We

pray for all thy little ones, Who toil in mine and mill, Whose bitter cries of agony

No clanking wheels can still;
Whose eyes peer blind in rooms of night,
By sunlight rays unlit;

Who choke and sob in poisoned dust
Of factory and pit.

"O Father, are these children thine

All bent and scarred and maimed, With little hands all gnarled and torn, With feet all bruised and lamed; With lips that never frame a smile,

With cheeks seared deep with pain, With eyes bedimmed and swollen red By tears that fall like rain?

"These little ones, our Father, thine-
Who never play and sing,

Who ne'er with shouts of gladsome mirth
Make woods and pastures ring;
Who know all manhood's toil and grief,
E'er manhood's strength is won,
Who taste the bitterness of life,
When life is scarce begun?

"O Lord, lay bare thy mighty arm,
Unloose thy vengeance' flood,
Smite with thy wrath the lustful greed
That feeds on children's blood;

And in thy mercy, from their bonds
These little ones release,

And give them air and sun and play,
And love and joy and peace.

The Bishop of London on Dives and
Lazarus.

From this impressive example of a true follower of the Great Nazarene, battling for civic morality and justice for the weak, we turn to a different picture the spectacle of a distinguished English churchman viewing the misery of the victims of social injustice from a very comfortable vantage ground.

The Bishop of London has recently visited the United States as the guest of J. Pierpont Morgan of secret-bond deal and ship-trust fame. Mr. Morgan, as is his wont when entertaining notables, treated the good bishop right royally and gave him the opportunity of studying American life and problems from the vantage-ground of the great financier's touring car. He was also given the use of a Roman Catholic millionaire railroad president's palatial private car, that he might travel luxuriously and be enabled to see what royal good hosts are the great chiefs of the industrial autocracy and high finance of America.

That the man of God was duly impressed is indicated by a recent article which appeared in the Cosmopolitan Magazine. Naturally enough, in the presence of so much great wealth and being treated with the consideration of a prince of the church by the great predatory chiefs of Wall-Street finance, the bishop could not escape instituting some comparisons between these exploiters and the millions of exploited, and especially the seething masses who are struggling in the slough of extreme poverty. But the reverend gentleman does not believe in imitating the Great Nazarene in the presence of the Pharisees of our day. It would certainly be in bad form to say anything that would hurt the feelings of the high financier and the multi-millionaire railway magnate; so instead of turning to the great prophets and seers of the ages who have been the pioneers of righteousness and way-showers of social justice, the bishop, good soul, elects to be a prophet of smooth things. Doubtless he regards as in bad taste his Lord and Master's treatment of those who compassed land and sea for proselytes, who made long prayers and enlarged their phylacteries, who builded synagogues and were great sticklers for the

forms and rites of a theology from which the soul had fled, while all the time they were devouring widows' houses and for a pretense making long prayers. Far different from the spirit and tenor of the Master's "woes" are the words uttered by the Bishop of London. They will in no wise hurt the sensitive feelings of the financiers and corporation magnates to whom the bishop is beholden for the courtesies bestowed. In the presence of the vast wealth of the exploiting Wall-Street financiers and beneficiaries of special privileges, the pious divine says:

"Have you ever thought why there are rich and poor at all? That is a question you often muse on in your crowded American cities, one I often have to face in London. I reconcile my belief in God and his love for the wretched millions on the East Side of New York, in East London and other great cities, teeming millions of the unfortunate seemingly abandoned by both God and men, with this: The rich minority have in trust for all others."

After reading the above, does any sane man wonder that the churches are being emptied of the thoughtful wealth-creators. Think for a moment of the kind of men who are to-day the custodians, largely through devious methods and indirection, of the great wealth of this country. Think of the long train of crime and lawlessness following in the wake of many of their careers. Think of their merciless oppression of the masses, their corruption of legislators, their exploitation of the people, their gambling with loaded dice. Think of John D. Rockefeller, Henry H. Rogers, John D. Archbold; the McCalls, the McCurdys. Think of Thomas F. Ryan, who presumably is the millionaire Catholic railroad magnate of whom the bishop speaks; and lastly, think of J. Pierpont Morgan and the secret bond deal and ship-trust scandals. Think of the recent exposures of the multimillionaire custodians of the great wealth of the nation as brought out under sworn testimony in the various investigations of insurance companies, railways and other publicservice corporations, oil, beef and other merciless trusts. Think of these men and their works, and then revert to the bishop's words and try to imagine them as the Almighty's trustees for the dispensing of charity for the poor. Could it be possible to conceive of anything more blasphemous than is necessarily implied by the good

bishop's words? And our virtuous prelate next comes forward with a remedial suggestion. He says:

"I would propose an international competition between New York and London in the matter of looking after the poor."

The editor of the New York Journal very ably suggests that it is not the soup-house and the free distribution of woolen jackets that will solve the problem, but that if the pious man "could arrange a way to make the 'rich minority,' with its special privileges, get off the backs of the poor people, it would be quite simple to attend to the rest."

And here is the heart of the whole matter. It is justice, simple justice, and not charity that the world's workers demand. The intelligence of the age is too great to be longer misled by such absurd twaddle as the bishop indulges in; for the people know that the abnormal fortunes with us are, as a rule, largely, when not chiefly due to indirection, to special privileges, to gambling with stacked cards, to law-evasion, law-breaking and corrupt practices. The revelations of the last ten years have awakened the American people to a realization of the real situation and have made perfectly clear the character of the great predatory chiefs and high financiers of America-so clear, indeed, that the people are in no danger of laying any stress on the bishop's pleasing theory of our rich men being the representatives of the AlmightyHis favored trustees..

The Rev. R. J. Campbell on Christ's Attitude in Regard to Social Righteonsness.

Happily for the cause of true religion, as we have before observed, there are great divines who are bravely treading in the pathway of the Founder of Christianity and holding aloft the torch of social righteousness. In striking contrast to the pitiful twaddle of the Bishop of London, we have just noticed the splendid stand of the gifted minister of the Church of the Messiah of New York. Equally strong and clear are the words of the Rev. R. J. Campbell, the distinguished and eloquent minister of the City Temple of London, which have recently been given to the public in a new volume of Christianity and the Social Order. In this work the author in speaking of Jesus' attitude toward great material riches or gain and the rich and powerful Pharisees, says: