THE NEW LABOR PARTY OF AMERICA.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1852, 28 May 1888, Page 3

THE NEW LABOR PARTY OF AMERICA.

♦ : (By Frances Willard ) I went to Tremoat Tomplo to hoor ! Father M'Glynn, tho Catholic priest of* New Yoik, lecture on ' The Abolition o* Poverty.' I am free to. say I like to know what's going on, and to hear for myflelf what a great man hag to offer, especially when his positions are popularly controverted. We found an immense audience, chiefly of men, though enough women were among them to make us glad that they, too, had" '•' iuquifihg I miuds." The majority were Catholics, | judging from the race-and-creed marks that one learns to read. There were great flat bouquets on the two tables of the great auditorium, and here onr eloquent friend, Rev Dr Emory Haynes, <of the Baptist Ghuroh, discourses every Sabbath. Professor Hamlin Garland, one ; of the vice-presidents of the Boston AntiPoverty Society, opened the meeting. He said " the reason why Henry George has been denounced, and why Dr M'Glynn has been punished by his church, ia that we are innovators. We belong to a reforming mnority, and we are oppoßed by all the rest of the world. Those who are opposed to ua may be divided into fonr classes : Firat, those who are ignorant of oar parpoaea and are careless of the future; Beoond, .those- who are satisfied with things as they are, the comfortable fellows who thiak any change wonld ba dangerous to tham • third, all great institutions with histories behind them, and with well-paid officers ; fourth, those who are advancing, Ilka ourselves, bat so slowly that the effaot la really an opposition for the time. I want to make a diieofc plea this afternoon to the young men and women who are here. We look to you with tho greatest hope. Our doctrine is the doctrine of progress ; it Bounds the trumpet for advance ; it has a Bupsrb confidence In the future." Somshow that sounded ever so natural, and added to our interest m the chief speaker, who now came forward, being Introduced aa the : " Soggatth. Aroon" ('•Beloved Priest"). The applause, cheering, waving of hats and handkerchiefs waa tumultuous. We Prohibitionists never did better m greeting Ne*l Dow or ex-Governor St John, flow much it meant. 1 Here wan a man againat whom* the Arohblahop of Sew York had set himself, and whom the Pope had exoommuuioated outright because he would advance his advanced views, and yet Oitholioa who would have hissed the Arohbiahop were applauding him ! He stood there quietly with great reserve power evident m the fine, harmonious figure, large well-set head, full brow, and Braooth, kind face He spoke m that clear, sweet, mellow voice, impossible to any Bave a well-poised oharaoter. He moved about bat little, with almost no . geatures at firat, bat with graceful deaorlptiveneßS as he warmed with hia therr.e. He spoke for .two hoars, and none were weary. The first third of the Urns was taken np by one of the broadeot, nobleßt sarmonß on real Christianity that one oould listen to. I had never before heard a Gospel sermon punctuated by applause, least of all from an audienoe of wage -workers, and it gave me sincerest pleasure. " Ah, but he's a grand man chat one !" said a brawny son of Erin just behind me ; and with expletives not to be here, tha verdict.; eoaued on all. sideß, Dr M'GJyan, a man of great gifts aud rare culture, educated at' Rome, the favorite pariah priest of New York Olty uttering suoh words as these, emphasised by working men with '.'That's a good un! ' 11 God biesa f im !" '* Faith, and ye never said a truer word, Soggarth Aroon !"— thiuk what it all means : " I stand upon this platform not m spite of my priesthood, but because lam a prleßt. I have ever believed that is the teat, the touchstone of the true preaching of Christ's Gospel, that It shall be preached to the poor, and I oanuot forget that the Gospel means that the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, waloh Qhriat oaras to establish, ia a kingdom of perfect juatioe under the oue loving Fatherhood of God. ... I deplore the growing estrangement between the masßes and the Church, and I deplore the apparent Indifferenoe of men m b,lgh places to the things that aye crashing God's poor. . . So here I am, and I must follow my solitary path, refusing to take one backward step " He criticised Mayor Hewitt, of Near , York, for saying "I belong to an antipovortyi society of one," and declared that for him to be concerned only for himself wrs like a nameless animal who, not content with swallowing all it. wanted, trampled onder foot more, than it consumed, and that the Mayor should have for a motto : "Every one for himaelf, and the devil take the hindmost."" He said: "How shall men always have work, and always be able to avail themselves of its results? That is the whole labor question m a word, We believe with holy writ that if a man will not work neither shall he eat, but that if he will work ho ought never to laoic either labor or food, and that ia a really Christian commonwealth he never will. Anything produced by homan labor belongs to the one who produces it, No one believes In private property more thoroughly than we do ; everything belongs to him who. makes it—' Thou Bhalt not steal, 1 1b a sacred la*. But wo believe that, to the bounties of Nat ere— eaith, w.ater and sky^-men all have equal right, and that, by absorbing the' rental value of land into the oomtnon fund of the common wealth by means of a tax upon this' land, the problem of tfork foe all, and the oomforta that come aa the result of work, .woqld be aolvad. We woald take away no one's land, bat would declare it all t (n general terms the property. of tha State, and then place euoh a tax upon it that no man would ever again find it- profitable to keep mare land than he needed for hia own uae. For we hold that for a man to buy a pleca of land and let it He, waiting for the improvements that others make around him to give a value to hia land, la not honest. Labor alone glve.3 value to land, and thoaa whose labor has made It valuable, ought to reap the juat advantage of their toil. The land for the people, and tho people for the land,: la oa? battle pry. God has spread a table long enough for all His children ; He is a stepfather to none ; but we have not yet learued the meaning of the eapred word ;' Brotherhood.' Men. are on .the mad ohasß after wealth, and it has made the teat of social standlng-~-a test purely artificial and wholly evil m the eyes of God. This taxing of the land woujd break up speculation, deatroy monopoly, level down the rich, and lift up the poor, All would have the comforts of life ; values would be placed on oharaoter. talent, and achievement, which Ia where they belong ; aud we should begin to Bae the Christian state taking form, and coming down to us from God out of Heaven." I do not profeaa to nave given the I speaker's words, bat Blmply the gfat of his j argument, bsreft of the illuatratioua that brightened- and the wit that seasoned It. Nor do I think myself qualified to determine the vftlue of his utteranoaa, not having hegrd tb.e rebutting testimony. I only try to tell what I heard, and am sure that m one thing we may all rejoloe ; here was a good and gifted minister of the New Testament who defied dogma and aspersed authority after a fashion that can bat pfove to be a wholesome corrective of abases, and whose mild words, however unorthodox m tho estimation of political eoonomiefca, will set people thinking along unacoustomed lines, which will at least reat their weary bralna aa they did mine