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THE TREATMENT OF THE PROBLEM OF
CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-
STUDY COURSES IN THE CHURCHES
A DISSERTATION
SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY
OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE
IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY
IBY
CLARENCE DAN BLACHLY
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
I92o
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY
NEW YORK
THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON
THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA
TOKYO, OSAKA, KYOTO, FUKUOKA, SENDAI
THE MISSION BOOK COMPANY
SHANGHAI
Cbe Ulniversity of Chicago
THE TREATMENT OF THE PROBLEM OF
CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-
STUDY COURSES IN THE CHURCHES
A DISSERTATION
SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY
OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE
IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY
BY
CLARENCE DAN BLACHLY
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
I920
CopyRIGHT 1920. By
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
All Rights Reserved
Published January 1920
PREFACE
It is proposed in this thesis to discuss one phase of a rather
remarkable development among many of the Protestant Churches in
America today. This development is related in part to the general
progress of educational method and in part to the modern rise of
social science; it is partially due to the insistent demands made by
the laboring classes in recent years for social readjustment. Modern
educational method including in its sphere the churches, has effected
the present great interest and activity in religious education. Social
science has attempted to infuse into the teaching of the Sunday school
some of the results of modern sociological investigation. Changed
industrial conditions have made it necessary in many cases for the
churches to readjust their methods and programs in an attempt to
bring guidance, peace and religious healing to a new society. These
three movements, more or less unconsciously combining, have resulted
in many of the church denominations in the introduction of “social
study” courses dealing with problems of civics, industry and soci-
ology. -
The following analysis deals with one phase of the social study
movement: its treatment in these courses of the problem of capital
and labor.” This single aspect has been chosen in order to make
the task as definite as possible. It is believed, however, that the prin-
ciples underlying the detailed subject are applicable, in many cases,
to the whole problem of sociological study in the churches.
The material for the discussion has been secured chiefly from
the following sources:
I. Correspondence with national Social Service Commissions, de-
nominational and inter-denominational.
2. Correspondence with many state and district social service
committees and commissions.
3. Several hundred pertinent pamphlets, folders, reports, etc.,
issued by various church denominations and religious bodies.
1The term “problem of capital and labor” is used in the following pages
to denote the various most common problems of relationship between capital
and labor, as understood in common parlance.
V
37.1592
vi sº PREFACE
4. Replies to letters and questionnaires sent to 60 churches having
“social study” classes.
5. Texts of all social study courses used in the leading Protestant
denominations (in so far as extended correspondence and investiga-
tion revealed). ºr
6. Principal denominational periodicals covering the period from
I9I3-17.
7. Recent works available in the Congressional Library, at Wash-
ington, D.C., on the subject of the Sunday school and Sunday school
classes.”
8. Numerous volumes on religion and religious education. (The
most important of these appear in the bibliography.)
9. Extended discussions of the problem with church leaders dur-
ing one year spent by the writer as Executive Secretary of the Social
Service Commission of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Dio-
cese of Chicago.
An expression of gratitude is due many persons for friendly coun-
sel and cheerful response to numerous inquiries. The author's wife
and constant co-laborer, Margaret Bacon Blachly, unselfishly per-
formed much of the necessary work in the preparation of this thesis
and largely inspired the incentive to its completion. There is also
acknowledged particular indebtedness for encouragement and assis-
tance to the members of the Social Service Commission of the
Protestant Episcopal Church of the Diocese of Chicago during the
year 1915-16, especially to the chairman, Mr. William C. Graves, and
the secretary, Mr. Carl B. Roden.
1There was, however, little material bearing directly upon the special phase
under investigation. See appended bibliography for list.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I.
II.
III.
IV.
INTRODUCTION
OFFICIAL ATTITUDE OF CHURCHES TOWARD THE PROBLEM OF CAPI-
TAL AND LABOR .
A. Seriousness of Present Industrial and Social Conditions as Viewed
by the Churches . ©
I. Capital . . . . .
2. Social Classes and Laborers .
3. The Economic Order
B. The Challenge to the Churches .
1. General tº tº
2. The Challenge tº ſº.
C. The Churches’ Need for Study of Social and Industrial Conditions
1. General Need of Study . e tº gº tº * * *
2. Who Shall Study? .
3. Direct Recommendations to Churches to Introduce Social Study
D. Summary
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF SOCIAL STUDY COURSES
A. Gospel of the Kingdom . . . . . . .
. Social Studies for Adult Classes and Brotherhoods .
. Friends' First-Day School Graded Lessons . . . . . .
. Social Service Pamphlets Issued by the Social Service Commission
of the Northern Baptist Convention
. Unitarian Social Service Series . . . . .
. Poverty and Wealth, by Harry F. Ward . . .
. Christianizing Community Life, by Harry F. Ward
H. International Sunday School Series . tº
METHODS OF TREATING THE PROBLEM OF CAPITAL AND LABOR IN
SocIAL STUDY COURSES
A. Introduction
B. Religious or Evangelical Treatment .
I. Introductory . . . . . . . .
2. Description of Present Conditions Given in Texts
a) Poverty
b) Wealth *
c) Social Classes
PAGE
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I2
I4.
I4
I6
I7
I9
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2O
22
22
22
23
23
24
27
27
28
28
28
29
3I
32
viii CONTENTS
CHAPTER *. PAGE
3. Teaching in Evangelical Group of Social Study Texts, in
regard to Conditions Presented . . . . . . . 32
a) Economic Treatment . . . . . . . . .32
b) Moral and Spiritual Issues . . . . . . . 34
C. Treatment from the Standpoint of Applied Sociology and Social
Legislation . . . . . . . . . . 45
I. Social Duties from a Christian Point of View, Charles Richmond
Henderson . . . . . . . . . . . 45
2. The Social Creed of the Churches, Harry F. Ward . . . 46
3. Social Service Pamphlets, issued by the American Baptist
Publication Society. . . . . . . . . 47
4. Unitarian Social Service Bulletins . . . . . . 48
D.Use of Foregoing Series (Religious and Sociological Treatments)
in Social Study Classes . . . . . . . . . 48
E. Attempts at Combining Religious and Sociological Treatments
of Problem of Capital and Labor . . . . . . . 49
I. Gospel of the Kingdom Series . . . . . . . . 5o
a) Description . . . . . . . . . . 50
b) Use and Results . . . . . . . . . 57
2. The Bible and Social Living (Methodist) . . . . . 65
a) Description and Use . . . . . . . . . 65
3. The Bible and Social Living (Baptist) . . . . . . 72
a) Description and Use . . . . . . . . . 72
F. SUMMARY . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
V. GENERAL SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . 78
BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
APPENDIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The church, being an organization for the teaching and inculcation
of religion, there are those who would deduce, according to their
own idea of religion, just what should be its function in educational
as well as other spheres. Extended study and research have shown,
however, that the term religion may include quite properly a very
large number of meanings. In the words of a recent writer:
We must at the outset realize the impossibility of framing a definition
of religion that shall cover all of its historic aspects. There lies here
before our eyes a confused and ever-changing mass of emotions, beliefs,
rites and acts, there is no common factor that runs through them all,
no one thing that all phases of religion have had in common that is not
also to be found in other spheres of human activity."
If we grant the impossibility of basing our conclusions concerning
church or Sunday school methods on any deductive reasoning from
any universally accepted definition of the religious function, it will
be necessary to treat the problem from the standpoint of actual
thought and action in this field by existing churches and schools or by
recognized leaders.
The interest in the study of present civic, industrial and social
problems in the church schools has arisen in conjunction with the
more comprehensive, so-called “social service” movement in the
churches. This movement, though a logical development of the
social spirit of Christian teaching, arose out of the peculiar economic
relations of the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century.
The industrial revolution with the modern wage system, the con-
centration of great numbers of working people in urban centers, and
the resulting class differentiations may be deemed its background.
One of the foremost causes of the Social Service Movement was,
and is, Socialism.
The alienation of modern socialists from the Church has done probably
more than anything else to turn the attention of the Church to social
questions and to enlist its support for social reform. . . . . the Church
1Durant Drake, Problems of Religion (Houghton Mifflin Co., 1916), p. 12.
I
2 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
as an organization has been awakened to the situation chiefly by the
hostility of which it has become conscious. It must meet the new condi-
tions or lose its place as the religion of the people. As a result many
organizations have been formed, such as the Guild of St. Matthew and
the Christian Social Union in England, the Freunde der Christlichen Welt
and the Christlichsozialer Congress in Germany, and the Christian Social
Union and the Brotherhood of the Kingdom in America, with the par-
ticular purpose of showing the laboring classes that the Church is con-
cerned for their welfare and thus winning back their support. Some
of their members are avowedly and radically socialistic, others are quite
the reverse, believing that the reign of the spirit of brotherhood within
the framework of the existing economic system is the great end to be
aimed at.”
Furthermore, the fact that socialism seemed to be establishing
itself almost as a rival religion to the Christian church was no small
factor in leading the church to attempt some solution of social prob-
lems.
Finally it should not be overlooked that socialism itself, the cause not
of an individual, but of a whole class of society, and that the most desti-
tute class, meets those needs of reverence, devotion, self-forgetfulness,
enthusiasm, and hope to which religion commonly ministers, and thus
constitutes for multitudes an adequate substitute for religion, or perhaps
it might fairly be said a new religion in place of the old.”
There are fifteen socialist Sunday schools in operation in New York
City: in Rochester and Buffalo there are single schools: in Hartford,
Connecticut, there is a school: in the vicinity of Boston, Malden, and
Lynn, Massachusetts, there are about five schools. In Baltimore there
is á large school, and also in Washington, D. C. . . . . (New York
City attendance about 4,000. As to the attendance in other cities it can
only be estimated. Three thousand would probably be a conservative
figure).”
Pittsburgh has a socialist church, the United People's Church of
Pittsburgh. The original membership was 85 and the increase during
the year 1914-15 was 228. Their creed follows:
We declare our object to be the establishment of the Kingdom of
God and His justice on earth by destroying the profit system, educating
2McGiffert, The Rise of Modern Religious Ideas, p. 270.
8Ibid., p. 269.
4Article on Socialist Sunday Schools, Encyc. of Sunday Schools and
Religious Education, III, 973–74.
INTRODUCTION 3
and organizing the people, preaching true catholicity and righteousness
and practising charity to all.”
Closely connected with the alienation of the Socialists was the
failure of large groups of laboring people to affiliate themselves
with the Protestant churches. During the twenty years from 1890 to
1910, there was a great influx of foreign workingmen into the cities of
the United States. These immigrants gradually crowded into the
neighborhoods about the city center, while the original “better class”
inhabitants of the one-time well-to-do residence districts moved into
the suburbs. The large Protestant churches that had been estab-
lished by the earlier residents were deserted by their wealthy mem-
bers, and the neighborhoods were rapidly filled by immigrants, who
besides being laboring people were generally Catholics. Obviously,
the newcomers did not take the places of those who had left. In
New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and other centers large churches
were left almost desolate in the midst of a great population which
did not attend their services. Churches die hard; and naturally their
leaders began to make efforts to win these working people. But the
formerly wealthy institutions found their task difficult, since many
of the laboring group had imbibed ideas of enmity against the well-
to-do. Other causes also led to a visible separation of the churches
and the working classes.
The most startling truth that can be told is lately being told so often
that it is ceasing to startle us. It is this: That the modern church and the
wage-earning class are mutually estranged.6
Our city churches are not proportionately constituted of manual labor-
ers and still less of trades-unionists. The seriousness of the matter lies not
only in the great numbers alienated, but in the further facts, first, that
the evil is characteristic of our cities where all the social problems have
appeared in their most difficult forms; second, that the classes concerned
are partially inclusive of organized labor.”
Thus it became evident that if Protestantism were going to thrive
in certain large regions of the cities it would be necessary to win
organized labor. This naturally led to a study of the economic diffi.
culties in the way. Many of these semi-deserted churches became
5The Christian Century, June, 1915, p. Io.
* Balch, Christianity and the Labor Movement, p. 7.
"Ibid., p. 14.
4 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
institutional in character,” thus attempting directly to attack various
social problems connected with the laboring population; and from
such agencies has arisen to a considerable extent, the interest in prob-
lems pertaining to the proletariat.
At the same time various non-religious agencies were rendering
a great uplift service among the laboring people. There were the
settlements, nurseries, welfare agencies, constituting vast propa-
ganda of social service which without any religious creed attracted
large numbers of the working-class group.
It has been said that the church having failed, outside agencies have
arisen and today they are taking the place of the church; and reference
is made to the Young Men's Christian Association, the Rescue Missions,
the Salvation Army, and other philanthropic and relief agencies. There
is a measure of truth in this statement.”
One of the chief phases of this modern peril (to the church) is our
failure to make the church attractive to the multitudes.”
The church, then, because of competition was compelled to enter
the field of social service. This involved an effort to orient itself
in the problems of capital and labor that so largely affected the field.
A number of men who had either been laboring people themselves
or who had had large experience with laborers entered the ministry.
Such were Edward A. Steiner, Charles Rauschenbusch, Charles
Stelzle. These men were fired with sympathy for the laboring popu-
lation and, at the same time, filled with zeal for the teachings and
ideals of the Church. Therefore, they endeavored to apply, and
largely influenced others to apply, these teachings to industrial prob-
lems. -
The foregoing were some of the conditions from which developed
the “social service movement.” Probably the first organization for
8Berkley Temple (Congregational), Morgan Memorial Church (Unitarian
and Methodist), Ruggles Street Baptist Church and Bulfinch Place Church
(Unitarian), of Boston; St. Bartholomew's Parish House (Protestant Epis-
copal), St. George's Church (Protestant Episcopal), Holy Communion Church
(Protestant Episcopal), Church of the Land and Sea (Presbyterian), Spring
Street Presbyterian Church, of New York City; First Congregational Church,
of Jersey City; Baptist Temple, in Philadelphia; Good Samaritan Cathedral,
in San Francisco. See Womer, The Church and the Labor Conflict, p. 75.
*Stelzle, American Social and Religious Conditions, p. 199.
19F. L. Earp, The Social Engineer (New York, Eaton & Plains), 1911.
INTRODUCTION 5
“Social Christianity” in this country was that composed of a few
clergymen of the Protestant Episcopal Church, who in 1887 or-
ganized the “Church Association for the Advancement of the In-
terests of Labor”; the second apparently being “The Brotherhood
of the Kingdom,” formed by the Baptists in 1893 and later broadly
inter-denominationalized. The Presbyterians established a Depart-
ment of Church and Labor in 1903.
The honor of making the first ringing declaration in a national con-
vention belongs to the M.E. Church. Every General Conference since
1892 had been memorialized by some minor body pleading for action.
In 1908 no less than thirteen annual conferences beside various preachers'
meetings presented memorials. The bishops in a cautious way devoted
a large part of their episcopal address to the subject. The Committee
on the State of the Church presented a brave and outspoken report,
culminating in a kind of Bill of Rights for labor, and ending in a splendid
summons to all the militant forces of this church to do their part in the
pressing duty of the hour.
Immediately after the M.E. General Conference, in December, 1908,
the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America was organized
at Philadelphia, representing and uniting thirty-three Protestant denom-
inations. . . . . The Bill of Rights adopted by the Methodist Confer-
ence was presented with some changes and adopted without the slightest
disposition to halt it at any point.
Nearly every great denominational convention since that time has
felt the obligation to make a serious pronouncement on the social ques-
tion.
One of the first results of the formation of the Federal Council of the
Churches of Christ in America was the organization of a Commission on
the Church and Social Service. This has co-ordinated the work of the
various denominations in this field.”
Since 1908 nearly all the leading denominations have organized
national social service commissions and a number of state, diocese or
district commissions, the work of all these groups being the co-ordi-
nation of effort and the furtherance of the general program of social
service in their several fields of jurisdiction. It may not be amiss
at this point to state as briefly as possible just what the program
and method of the Social Service movement really are. Perhaps
this can be done best by a direct quotation—taken from one denom-
inational leaflet, but representative of all.
11 The Church and Social Service, pp. 19 and 20.
6 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
I. What is social service?
That form of effort for man's redemption which seeks to uplift and
transform his community life. As such it is the social application of
Christian principles, and a new name for that spirit of philanthropy and
Service which is as old as Christianity.
2. Why do you call it social service?
Because it deals with man as a social being in his social relations and
with social causes and conditions: because it demands social and collective
action, and seeks not only to save men but to embody their Christian life
in social institutions.
4. What is the fundamental idea of social service?
The idea of the Kingdom of God, which in the Christian conception
of things may mean much more than a human society on earth, but can
never mean anything less.
__ ſº º tº tº tº e { } © te e º º © º e © te ©
7. What are the chief items in the social service program P
The relief of need and distress, the prevention of poverty and crime,
the provision for all of the conditions of a clean, healthy, moral, and
spiritual life, the creation of a social atmosphere which shall induce a
right course of conduct, the adjustment of men's relations in justice and
brotherhood.
9. What are the methods of social service?
It seeks to relieve distress and need in such ways as to help men most
effectually; it also seeks to discover the causes and conditions of poverty,
sickness, crime and misery, and then to remove bad causes and conditions
and create good causes and conditions; it believes that the church, the
family, the school, the state are all means and agencies through which
these ends may be sought.
13. What can a church do in behalf of social betterment?
It can have one or more classes engaged in social-service study: it can
have committees studying the various agencies of social uplift in the com-
munity: it can have a positive and constructive program and can organize
their efforts for effective work.
14. Name several immediate and practical things that can be done.
Secure for every worker one day's rest in seven; have a censorship
committee of all moving-picture and other shows; equip a playground
within half a mile of every home in the city; make efficient the agencies
INTRODUCTION 7
seeking to suppress gambling, the social evil, alcohol, and all habit-forming
drugs; see that there is a good child-labor law and that it is enforced.
16. What is the ultimate purpose of social service?
It seeks to create such a social order in the world as shall realize the
Christian ideal of human society, to give each soul a true inheritance in
life to develop a perfect life in a perfect society, and to make Jesus Christ
a fact in the universal life of the world.”
It may be observed from the foregoing catechism that one of
the elements of the program of this social service movement is study
of the field and problems of social service. It is this aspect of the
movement that shall engage our attention in general, and in particu-
lar it is the treatment of the problem of capital and labor in such
social study that shall receive our special interest.
12American Baptist Publication Society, A Social Service Catechism.
Published for Social Service Commission of the Northern Baptist Convention,
Bull. No. 1.
CHAPTER II
OFFICIAL ATTITUDE OF CHURCHES TowARD THE PROB-
LEM OF CAPITAL AND LABOR
Introduction.—As has been pointed out in the general introduc-
tion the churches have recognized in recent years that it is necessary
for them, if they are to maintain any true leadership in the field of
social morality, to take an active part in momentous moral and social
problems that confront modern society. Especially have the ques-
tions of capital and labor seemed to demand the deepest considera-
tion of “the church.” First it was incumbent upon her to define an
attitude in regard to these problems. With this done, she could
formulate and attempt to promulgate, in sermons and in courses of
instruction, a body of teachings concerning them.
Beginning with 1908, therefore, church councils and conventions
frequently gave expression to their attitude toward those industrial
problems that to a certain extent had caused division in society.
Before we undertake to study the teachings regarding capital and
labor in church study classes, it will be well to examine the official
expressions of the churches with reference to this matter, for the
type and method of instruction will certainly be largely determined
by the attitude of the teaching body. Such examination will be
attempted in the following section.
A. SERIOUSINESS OF PRESENT INDUSTRIAL AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS
AS VIEWED BY THE CHURCHES
I. CAPITAL
The expressed official attitude of “the church” toward “capital”
will be seen as somewhat critical. We shall find this reaction rather
characteristic throughout the discussion of the church's treatment
of the industrial problem.
The Methodist Episcopal Board of Bishops in 1912 registered a
protest against organized capital in the following language:
1The term, “the church,” is used to denote the principal branches of the
Protestant church, thirty-one of which are affiliated under “The Federal Coun-
cil of the Churches of Christ in America.”
8
A TTITUDE OF CHURCHES TOWARD THE PROBLEM 9
& 4
. . . . Organized capital stands indicted at the bar of public judg-
ment for the gravest crimes against the common welfare. . . . . 232
The Federal Council of Churches, representing 31 Protestant
denominations, in the same year also issued a strong statement
against the capitalistic interests as follows:
That powerful interests have not ceased to take toll of our labor, to
levy tribute on the people, to exercise a taxing power without authority,
and that they are thereby continuing to amass the wealth of the nation in
dangerous aggregations, there is common consent.”
The Commission on Social Service of the American Christian
Convention says:
When the great merchant princes of our time become millionaires, and
a pitifully small wage is paid to the girls that work in their emporiums,
do you think religion should have anything to say to the princes of
finance 24
The Social Service Message of the Men and Religion Forward
Movement says:
The most fundamental form of social service is to put a stop to
unearned profits.”
The Northern Baptist Social Service Commission protests against
monopoly, saying:
The resources of the earth, being the heritage of the people, should
not be monopolized by the few to the disadvantage of the many; . . . .
benefit enjoyed should hold direct relation to service rendered."
The statement already quoted by the Federal Council of Churches
of Christ in America is a fairly good representation of the attitude
of the particular denominations towards capital.
2, SOCIAL CLASSES AND LABORERS
a) Social Classes.—There is general recognition that conflicting
social classes exist. “Of course it is class-conscious labor which is
joining the issue with capital,” says Home Mission Methods of the
2H. F. Ward, Social Service Year Book (New York American Mission-
ary Movement, 1916), p. 221.
*Ibid., 223.
4Commission on Social Service, American Christian Convention, Year
Book, 1914, p. 210. ©
"Ward, op. cit., p. 215. °Ward, op. cit., p. 216. :
:
sº
tº º e
& O
©
:
IO CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
Presbyterian Church North, “and precipitating the present acute in-
dustrial conditions.” And again the same official organ says: “It is
manifestly impossible for the church or any other official organ to
overlook the fact that classes exist.”
The Indiana Baptist Convention, 1910, issued the following state-
ment:
Between the working classes and the predatory classes there is a con-
stant conflict of interest and effort. . . . . Between the workers and the
exploiters, as economic classes into which society as a whole is divided,
the conflict of interest and effort is fundamental, world-wide, and
constant."
The Federal Council of Churches sees it as a part of the natural
order that working men should organize for social and industrial
betterment.
b) Demands of Workingmen for Rights-There is general sym-
pathy expressed with the workingmen in their demand for more
rights. The “Social Service Message” of the “Men and Religion
Forward Movement” emphasizes the fact that in a righteous eco-
nomic order all who work with hand and brain should have the full
reward of their work.” The Northern Baptist Convention, 1914,
finds that “The hunger for social justice lies at the bottom of the
unrest of our time,” and the Congregational National Council, 1915,
declares the “industrial unrest throughout the world is an expression
of the demand of the workers for a voice in determining the condi-
tions that so largely affect their lives.” The Protestant-Episcopal
Church in 1915 declared that business must be conducted for the
common good, “if need be, under the effective direction of the rank
and file,” and the Congregational National Council, 1915, also voices
this sentiment.”
3. THE ECONOMIC ORDER
a) General.—It is generally recognized in official church utter-
ances that a fundamental change in the economic order is imminent.
As it now is, the economic order is thoroughly unsatisfactory. So
the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America in 1908 recog-
nizes that “there are many phases of present industrial conditions
7Ward, op. cit., p. 234. 191bid., p. 203.
*Ibid., p. 215. **Ibid., p. 225.
*Jää., p. 231. 1°Ibid., p. 203.
A TTITUDE OF CHURCHES TOWARD THE PROBLEM II
that cry aloud for immediate remedy.” And adds that “multitudes
are deprived by what are called economic laws of that opportunity to
which every man has a right.” An official organ of the Episcopal
Church, Social Service and the Episcopal Church, believes that “the
fundamental issue is not social amelioration, but social reconstruc-
tion.” The Northern Baptist Convention, 1913, views with alarm
the condition of affairs in the industrial world,” and the General
Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church, 1913, states that “the
problems of capital and labor have become in a certain sense the
paramount concern of the nations of the world.” The Five Years'
Meeting of Friends, 1911, finds the warfare of capital and labor
back of all the problems of the modern world,” and the Report of the
Social Service Commission, Protestant Episcopal Diocese of Chicago,
1909, claims that “Our modern competitive industrial system results
in conditions which are essentially un-Christian and unjust to the
men that produce the wealth,” while the Presbyterian Church, in an
official publication, What the Presbyterian Church Believes about
Social Problems,” gives the problem of capital and labor as one of
the four great secular questions of the day.
b) Urgent Need of Change.—In the face of such conditions as
have been recognized, it is natural that there should be expression of
an urgent need for change. So the Protestant Episcopal General
Convention, 1913, declares that “A growing number of Christian
men and women see that conditions, social and industrial, which
obtain today, are not compatible with the realization of the Kingdom
Of God.”29
The General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church, 1913,
believes that “complacency can exist only in the hearts of those who
are ignorant of the inequalities and injustice of our present social
order.” The Five Year Meeting of Friends, 1911, says:
In order to preserve the Christian civilization which our fathers built
by their sacrifice, and in order to carry it forward to fuller perfection, we
18The Church and Modern Industry (Federal Council of Churches of
Christ in America, 1908), p. 10.
14Ward, op. cit., p. 215.
15Ibid., p. 207. 17Ibid., p. 21 I.
161bid., p. 209. 181bid., p. 237.
19F. 4 (Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1911.)
20Ward, op. cit., p. 213. 2.11bid., p. 213.
I 2 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
must work out an order of industry and commerce which shall be at least
an approximate expression of the fact that all men are a great family with
one Father, 22
The Federal Council of Churches, 1908, with the following drastic
description of present conditions, calls for a radical change:
There are many phases of the present industrial conditions in the
United States which cry aloud for immediate remedy . . . . multitudes
are deprived by what are called economic laws of that opportunity to
which every man has a right. When automatic movements cause injustice
and disaster, the autonomy should be destroyed. That to these impersonal
causes were added the cruelties of greed, the heartlessness of ambition and
the cold indifference of corporate selfishness, every friend of his fellow
men must with grief and shame admit. The unemployed are an “army.”
The “accidents” of factories and railroads crowd our institutions and tene-
ments with widows and orphans. The stress of reckless competition
which loads manhood with oppressive burdens, bears upon the frail
strength of womanhood, and turns sunny childhood into drudgery, dwarfs
our stature, saps our vitality, crowds our prisons, vitiates our virtue and
darkens our old age. The “homes” of the wage-earners in our great cen-
ters are an indictment of our civilization. The meagre income which is
easily reckoned sufficient by the fortunate who are not forced to live upon
it is without warrant or reason.”
The foregoing citations indicate that the expressed official atti-
tude of the churches toward the problem of capital and labor is
dynamic and sympathetic with labor. There is general recognition
that society is far away from the goal of a Christian civilization,
and that there is needed a great cultural work by and for both
individuals and groups. Truly a rich field for any agency like the
church to scatter the civilizing influence of knowledge, social sym-
pathy, and comprehension The call to the churches to perform
this work is given attention in the following section.
B. THE CHALLENGE TO THE CHURCHES
I. General.—In the semi-civilization so darkly depicted by the
official utterances of the church, her official representative bodies rec-
ognize a great opportunity for service.
2. The Challenge.
a) Opportunity of the Churches.—The Federal Council of
Churches, 1912, sees “the masses of the people divided among them-
22Op. cit., p. 211. 231 bid., p. 206.
ATTITUDE OF CHURCHES TOWARD THE PROBLEM I3
selves, and the movement of social crisis giving the church the sov-
ereign opportunity of all her history to establish peace with the
administering hand of justice.* The same council reminds the church
that it has an unrealized power which, if rightly used, could solve
the problems of Society; and again it urges faith that the gospel pro-
fessed by the churches of Christ in America may be equal to the task.
b) Duty of the Churches.—The Protestant Episcopal General
Council, 1913, believes that “it is patent that the time has come when
the church must face this issue; if she is to stand as a church of
humanity she can no longer afford to ignore the demand or the chal-
lenge of the wage-earners.”
The United Presbyterian Brotherhood, 1912, declares that if the
church has the spirit of Christ it cannot rest content so long as
oppression and injustice reign in the economic world.” The Re-
formed Church in the United States believes that the church has a
vital interest in the social relations of men and owes a duty in the
solution of every social problem.” The Men and Religion Forward
Movement finds that “the duty of creating a righteous economic order
is upon us all.” The Federal Council of Churches, 1912, believes
the time has come when the church must earnestly and sympathet-
ically make the problems of the workers and the people its problems.”
The Joint Commission on Social Service for the Protestant Episcopal
Church, 1913, resolves that the “Convention should go on record as
favoring a general recognition of the church's duty with reference to
the cause of injustice.”
It is thus plainly shown that the churches recognize the serious
problems of industry, and recognize that they, as Society’s organiza-
tion for maintaining and furthering high and sincere social morality
and justice, are in duty bound to attack this problem with all the
power they can employ. The next question, however, that presents
itself is: how, and in what manner, is the church to attack these
great industrial problems?
c) General Function of Churches in the Situation.—The church
must “inspire the consciousness of individuals,” the Congregational
National Council affirms. It must “concern itself more and more in
24Ward, op. cit., p. 223.
*Ibid., p. 213. 27Ibid., p. 21 I. 29Ibid., p. 224.
261bid., p. 213. 28Ibid., p. 224. 30Ibid., p. 208.
I4 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
setting forth the facts in regard to social wrongs.” (General Assem-
bly, United Presbyterian Church, 1913.) It must make the social
order the outward and material expression of a moral and spiritual
principle. (Federal Council of Churches, 1912.)
In other words, the method of the church in seeking to remove
the social wrongs described and to bring in a better civilization is
educating the intelligence and sympathy of men to form a co-opera-
tive instead of the more or less predatory society as it now exists.
Therefore the church recognizes as pre-eminent the need for study
of social conditions, relationships, and principles. The recognition
of this need is discussed in the following section.
C. THE CHURCH's NEED FOR STUDY OF SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL
CONDITIONS
I. GENERAL NEED OF STUDY
a) General.-The consciousness has come over the church that
vague ideas of the old-fashioned—and still valid—principles of indi-
vidual morality, such as thrift, patience, temperance, love of one’s
“next” are not a sufficient equipment for the citizen of the modern
industrial and commercial capitalistic society. The Commission on
the Church and Social Service, Federal Council of Churches, in one
of its publications, a pamphlet on social studies, says:
The churches have long confessed their obligation to instruct the
people in individual needs and duties. They have also given much atten-
tion to the instruction of men in their relations and obligations to God.
But the churches have thus far not given a proportionate amount of atten-
tion to the relations and obligations of men to one another. . . . . The
church that would fulfil its whole mission must therefore interpret the
meaning of social relations, instruct the people in their social duties, and
give the young an adequate ethical equipment for social living.
The church should teach men how to apply religion to all life—per.
sonal, social, and industrial.
Also:
The Commission on the Church and Social Service further states:
“The most important work of the immediate future is the education
of the people of our churches” (in social problems and needs).” The
Methodist Brotherhood says: “We cannot emphasize education too
31The Report of the Commission of the Church and Social Service to the
Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, I912, p. Io.
A TTITUDE OF CHURCHES TOWARD THE PROBLEM I5
much.” The Social Service Year Book (1916) of the Churches
says: “Without the more fundamental work of education, no lasting
result can be achieved” (p. 145); and another pamphlet published
by the Federal Council, Training in Citizenship for the Kingdom,
says, “Men must be organized for study.” •.
b) Social Intelligence Necessary.—In a pamphlet published by
the American Baptist Publishing Society, entitled A Social Program
for a Social Church, p. 4, it is said, “All permanent interest and
effective work in social service must be based upon clear knowledge
of the facts.” The American Unitarian Association affirms that
“enthusiasm does not go far in solving Social problems. . . . .
leaders, both ministers and laymen, must be trained in principles
and methods.” The same body admits the churches’ efforts to im-
prove the social and industrial situation have so far had little effect
because there was an insufficiency of accurate information and
knowledge of social principles (p. 56). The Methodist Federation
of Social Service says, “The great task of the social service move-
ment is still the work of education.”* The Methodist Church, in a
pamphlet entitled Social Service for Young People, says, “Service
to be successful must be intelligent. To be intelligent it must be
based upon knowledge of accepted principles.” Study classes and
reading courses are urged. A Northern Baptist Convention an-
nouncement says: “We have learned that things have causes, and
we do not know anything till we know its causes and results. Social
evils have social causes and require social remedies.” It is thus seen
that the church recognizes the need of social study to form social
intelligence. There is also a need of study to fulfil Christian and
moral obligations. -
c) Need of Study to Fulfil Christian and Moral Duties.—“The
primal duty of the church in social service is to awaken the con-
sciences of the members to the present situation.” (Studying for
Service, pamphlet issued by the Methodist Book Concern.) “We
must teach men what to do in order to get their family life, their
32The Brotherhood and Social Service, pamphlet issued by Methodist
Brotherhood.
33Nineteenth Anniversary of the American Unitarian Association, p. 54.
84 Pamphlet, Suggestions for Individual Service, Methodist Federation of
Social Service.
35Ward, Op. cit, p. I43.
I6 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
community, their business, their politics, their industry on a Christian
basis.” (Batten, Training in Citizenship for the Kingdom, p. 7.)
d) Special Need for the Study of Industrial Questions.—The
Federal Council recommends especially that “the study of existing
conditions in the industrial world . . . . be more definitely enforced
as an immediate Christian duty.” The Unitarian Commission rec-
ommends that the church pay particular attention in study classes to
different phases of the industrial situation.” The Northern Baptists
emphasize the need to prepare people for life in the industrial order.
The Secretary of the Social Service Commission, Northern Baptist
Convention, says that the church must teach men how to be in right
relations with each other in the mill, the factory, the city, etc.” The
Report of the Brotherhood Council of the Baptist Church, 1915,
emphasizes need of social study courses on the industrial order.”
The same is recommended by the Commission on Social Service of
the Congregational Church, 1913.”
It is thus apparent that one of the most important methods recog-
nized by these agencies of the church for performing its duties rela-
tive to the betterment of industrial conditions and social relations is
the study of the problems of capital, labor and industry in classes
and other church bodies. The practical result of the recognition of
serious social ills and problems and the acceptance of its duty by the
Church is the inauguration and maintenance of social study courses
where a high social intelligence and keen and comprehensive moral
sense may be inculcated. Upon such high social intelligence, such
quickened and widened moral and social consciousness depends, in
the view of at least the social service bodies of the church, an efficient
society, Christ-like in its spirit.
2. WHO SHALL STUDYP
There remains to be settled, however, the question as to what
groups shall study these matters. The Protestant Episcopal Gen-
eral Convention calls upon “every communicant, clerical and lay,
seriously to take part and to study the complex conditions under
86The Church and Modern Industry, pamphlet, p. 19.
37 The Report of the Unitarian Commission, pamphlet, p. 6.
38Batten, Training in Citizenship, p. 9.
39 Report of Brotherhood Council, 1915.
40Report of Commission on Social Service, Congregational Church, 1913.
A TTITUDE OF CHURCHES TOWARD THE PROBLEM I7
which we are called upon to live.” The report of the Unitarian Com-
mission advises adapted study classes for “children and older mem.
bers of the congregation.”
The Methodist Episcopal Church regards the Sunday school as
the most important agency for social study.” The Joint Commission
on Social Service of the Protestant Episcopal Church” has a similar
view. The Congregational Church recommends social study for all
young people,” and the Northern Baptist Convention recommends
one or more classes in social study in every church.”
3. DIRECT RECOMMENDATIONS TO CHURCH TO INTRODUCE SocIAL STUDY
The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church urges “all the
members of our church to give serious study to social problems.”
The Northern Baptist Convention recommends that every church
have a comprehensive program of social education,” and the Social
Service, Commission of the same body makes a similar recommenda-
tion. 49
D. SUMMARY
The foregoing, it is believed, has served to show, (I) the realiza-
tion by many leaders in the churches that there exist critical and
important social problems; (2) that one of the most important of
these problems is that of capital and labor; (3) that in the task of
raising and advancing our society in civilization the church must, if
she continue to live, perform an important part; (4) that the ad-
vancement of civilization and the solution of social problems depend
41Ward, op. cit., 2I4.
42The Report of the Unitarian Commission (Boston American Unitarian
Association), p. 5.
48Ward, op. cit., 150.
44Social Service in the Episcopal Church, I9I4.
45A Program of Religious Instruction in the Social Church, Commission
on Moral and Religious Education, National Council of Congregational
Churches, 1915, p. 16.
46A. Five Years' Program, adopted by the Northern Baptist Convention,
Los Angeles, Cal., May 24, 1915.
47 What the Church Believes About Social Problems, issued by Presbyterian
General Assembly, p. 13.
48Ward, op. cit., p. 142.
49Report of the Social Service Commission, Northern Baptist Convention,
I915, p. 6.
I8 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
in large measure upon the social intelligence and consciousness of
the mass of the people; (5) that the church has a very large task of
social education which she should perform by conducting suit-
able social study classes in the Sunday schools and in other church
bodies and societies adapted to such study; (6) that serious attention
should be devoted in these study classes to the problem of capital
and labor. ^
To be sure, it may be objected that the utterances quoted repre-
sent but a small element of the church. The larger part of the rank
and file may never have heard of these resolutions adopted in con-
ventions. The fact, however, that they are the official, deliberative
utterances of the most important organs and representatives of the
church gives them weight. They are presented, not as an indication
of a movement of the rank and file, but as deliberate expression on
the part of the church leaders of a movement in which they have
announced themselves ready to engage actively.
CHAPTER III
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF EXISTING SOCIAL STUDY
COURSES
Most denominations have made beginnings in social study, but
as the work is new and of a nature considerably different from any
attempted previously, the progress has not been very rapid (although
perhaps as marked as it is reasonable to expect). There follows a
brief description of such courses as are already in use. The treat-
ment of the problem of capital and labor in these courses will be
considered in a detailed way in a later section.
A. “THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM” (Now CALLED “STUDIES IN social
PROGREss”)*
This is a monthly publication issued by the American Institute
of Social Service, New York. It contains for each Sunday a lesson
on some social subject, including Bible references, and a discussion of
a social problem involved; also numerous contributions from various
authorities on different phases of social phenomena. The publica-
tion was begun in 1908 and has continued until the present time
(under the new name since 1917). The following subjects, directly
or indirectly bearing upon capital and labor, are some of those
treated: Child labor, women in industry, the organization of labor,
socialism, immigration, labor conditions, the humble and the king-
dom, reduction of the hours of labor, a release from employment one
day in seven, a living wage, poverty, wealth, eugenics, etc. In addi-
tion, practically all other social problems have been given more or
less attention in this series. Housing, the race problem, crime, in-
temperance, marriage, politics, social evil, tuberculosis, defectives,
unemployment, marriage and divorce, peace, all have been discussed.
The former editor of this series, the late Dr. Josiah Strong, was a
man of recognized standing in the sociological world (as is also the
present editor, Rudolph M. Binder, Ph.D.).
*See also Appendix.
2Publication discontinued.
I9
2O CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
These studies are used quite extensively by churches and Sunday
schools, reaching in round numbers about 5,000 subscribers. (Letter
received from the publishers by author of this thesis.) In addition
many back numbers are distributed to classes. &
B. “SOCIAL STUDIES FOR ADULT CLASSES AND BROTHERHooDs”
This folder, issued by the Commission on Religious and Moral
Education of the Northern Baptist Convention, gives lists of texts
for use in social study, the outlines of courses to be developed from
these texts, and suggestions for the conduct of the courses. The
courses outlined are as follows:
I. The Social Ethics of the Old Testament. (For Brotherhoods,
Adult Classes, and Social Study Groups.)
2. The Social Ideals of Christ. (For Adult Classes, Young
People, and Brotherhoods.) Subjects: “The Kingdom of God;”
origin of the idea; its meaning; Jesus' social and ethical teaching on
the kingdom, sin, righteousness, goodness, service, wealth, brother-
hood, wages, family, the church and state reform, progress, etc.
3. The Social Awakening. (For Adult Classes, Social Study
Classes, etc.) A careful study of the new social awakening.
4. The Principles of Social Service. (For Adult Classes, Broth-
erhoods, and Social Study Groups.)
5. Social Institutions. (For Adult Classes, Men's Classes, Social
Study Classes, etc.) Institutions studied: the family, eugenics, the
church, the state, duties of citizens, the city, the school, successses
and failure, character-training, moral instruction, the labor union,
the fraternal society, social and voluntary organizations.
6. Social Duties. (For Young People, Social Study Classes,
Men's Classes, etc.) -
Method: Explanation of social duties, awakening of moral judg-
ments, consideration of right and adjustment of social relations.
7. Social Problems. (For Adult Classes, Men's Classes, Social
Study Classes, etc.). Problems to be studied at first hand include spe-
cifically impurity, intemperance, child labor, immigration, the city,
concentration of wealth, etc.
8. Social Activity. (For Young People, Men's Classes, Social
Study Classes.) “The aim in this course is to awaken an interest in
3Can be obtained from Baptist Department, Social Service and Brother-
hood. American Baptist Publishing Society, 1701–1703 Chestnut Street, Phila-
delphia.
DESCRIPTION OF SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES 2I
objects and causes beyond self; to direct activity, study community
needs, etc.”
Topics relating to the problems of capital and labor are included
in the outlines of several of the courses. “Social Ideals of Christ”
mentions wealth, brotherhood and wages; the texts suggested are:
Mathews, The Social Gospel and The Social Teaching of Jesus;
Stead, The Kingdom of God, Part III, and Henderson, Social Duties
from a Christian Point of View.
“The Principles of Social Service” discusses among other themes
“Social Service and Industry.” No published reference texts are
given.
“Social Institutions” includes a study of the labor union, meaning
of labor and the history of labor organizations, giving the following
references: certain volumes of the “Social Service Series;” Thomp-
son, The Divine Order of Human Society; Westcott, Social Aspects
of Christianity; Batten, The Christian State; Devine, The Family and
Social Work; Sears, The Redemption of the City; Earp, Social
Aspects of Religious Institutions.
The course on Social Duties considers, among other topics, “just
and unjust relations between workers and employers,” recommending
as a further discussion of the topic Henderson's Social Duties from
the Christian Point of View. -
Course 7 on “Social Problems” includes “Women's Labor,”
“Monopoly,” “Concentration of Wealth,” “Poverty,” “The Rest
Day,” “Socialism,” and “Industrial Peace.” References given are:
Volumes of “Social Service Series,” Strong's Gospel of the King-
dom, Ellwood's Sociology and Modern Social Problems, and Stelzle,
American Moral and Social Conditions.
The manner in which industrial problems are presented in the
aforementioned texts will be described in the following section on
“Methods of Treatment.” Most of them being written from the
evangelical point of view are considered under “Religious or Evan-
gelical Treatment”; but Henderson's Social Duties from a Christian
Point of View, together with the volumes from the “Social Service
Series” are discussed in the section entitled “Treatment from the
Standpoint of Applied Sociology and Social Legislation.”
*See page 47 for discussion of these pamphlets issued by the Northern
Baptist Convention. * - * * * * **- ~s ar.
22 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
295
C. “FRIENDS' FIRST-DAY SCHOOL GRADED LESSONS
These are a series of brief booklets treating current social prob-
lems, such as the family, aspects of law and morality, the labor prob-
lem, immigration, wages, race problem, marriage and divorce, taxa-
tion, the care of the poor, public education, public health and safety,
the drink question, etc. Somewhat like the “Gospel of the Kingdom
Series,” they give references to the scripture and a brief discussion
of the subject.
D. SOCIAL SERVICE PAMPHILETS ISSUED BY THE SOCIAL SERVICE
COMMISSION OF THE NORTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION”
This is a series of neatly bound pamphlets varying from 20 to IOO
pages, each dealing with some social problem. The general groups
treated are: I. The church and the family; 2. The church and
wealth and industry. Under the latter subject the following pam-
phlets have been issued: C. R. Henderson, A Reasonable Social
Policy for Christian People; C. R. Henderson, Workingmen's Insur-
ance; Charles Stelzle, The Church and the Labor Movement; Mary
Lathrop Goss, Welfare Work by Corporations; Owen R. Lovejoy,
Child Labor; O. C. Horseman, One Day Rest in Seven; Scott Near-
ing, Women in American Industry; Prof. C. S. Gardner, The Accu-
mulation of Wealth.
Other main groups are: 3. The community and the church;
4. The church and politics, and 5. The church and social waste. The
series is used in social study classes, but more extensively as small
reference books for church workers.
E. UNITARIAN SOCIAL SERVICE SERIES"
This group is a series of pamphlets similar to those issued by the
Social Service Commission of the Northern Baptist Convention. Up
to 1917 there had been published about 35 neatly bound pamphlets,
averaging from 50 to I25 pages each, and written by authors of
recognized standing. A communication from the American Unita-
rian Association states that they are used in churches quite consider-
5Published by Friends' General Conference, Central Bureau, 150 North
15th St., Philadelphia, Pa.
6Published by American Baptist Publication Society, 1701-1703 Chestnut
St., Philadelphia, Pa. -
7Published by American Unitarian Association, 25 Beacon St., Boston,
Mass.
DESCRIPTION OF SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES 23
ably, although the exact number of classes is not known. The indus-
trial problems dealt with are: A Remedy for Industrial Warfare, by
Charles W. Eliot; Some Unsettled Questions about Child Labor,
Owen R. Lovejoy; The Democracy of the Kingdom, Rt. Rev. Charles
D. Williams, D.D.; A Practical Platform for Social Progress, Charles
F. Dole.
F. POVERTY AND WEALTH, BY HARRY F. waRD. (1916)
Poverty and Wealth is a popular text, treating in a clear sane
way the following subjects: Destitution and its relief, disease, desti-
tution and poverty, moral causes of poverty, the question of low in-
comes, luxury, unjust wealth, the effects of poverty, lessening poverty
by increasing efficiency, the attack on poverty by remedial measures.
the question of distribution, the control of natural resources. There
is given a good bibliography. The book is small and compact (I 32
pages), but is full of information. Each topic is taken up as a
lesson, with scripture references and questions. This text has been
endorsed by conferences of the Methodist church and its use is being
rapidly extended, although it is not known how many classes are
using it.
G. CHRISTIANIZING COMMUNITY LIFE, H. F. WARD AND R. H. EDWARDS
A recent social study text, successful particularly in Y. M. C. A.
classes, is that of H. F. Ward and R. H. Edwards, entitled Christian-
iging Community Life (Association Press, 1917). It follows an out-
line prepared by a sub-committee on college courses of the Sunday
School Council of Evangelical Denominations, and Committee on
Voluntary Study of the Council of North American Student Move-
ments. The contents are as follows:
i. The World-Wide Community Task
ii. The Family at the Center
iii. The Child in the Midst
iv. Training for Full Efficiency
v. Restoring the Weak
vi. Protecting the Worker
vii. Industrial Democracy.
viii. Establishing Equal Justice
ix. Good Government
x. Overthrowing the Common Enemy
xi. Making the Church Christian
xii. The Commonwealth of God
24 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
Chapter vi, “Protecting the Worker,” has these sub-divisions:
Getting a Right Attitude toward the Worker, The Value of Life, The
Workers Want a Chance at Life, A Rest Day Helps, Who Gets Too
Much? (The latter question is left unanswered.) As the topics
suggest, ethical considerations rather than the economics of the .
Schools are emphasized. They are all treated in Dr. Ward's char-
acteristic, sympathetic manner, and from the same point of view as
other texts of his to be examined later in this paper (see pages 65 ff).
Chapter vii, “Industrial Democracy,” includes the following
topics: Wanted: More than a Full Dinner-pail, and Recognition of
Human Values. It suggests the extension of industrial control to all
the workers; the strong should be the ministers, and the workers the
owners. On the basis of the text Isaiah 65:17, “They shall not build
and another inhabit,” the question is asked, Can such a social order
involve anything less than that the workers shall also be owners?
Obviously, labor organizations are favored.
H. THE INTERNATIONAL SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSONS. GRADED SERIES.
SENIOR COURSE
These are outlines of courses issued for the Sunday school by the
International Lesson Committee. The series was first published
August 4, 1915. Each denomination generally supplies its own text
on the outlines, since the latter give only the subjects to be treated
and the scripture references. The following subjects are included in
the series (1) The Family (5 lessons); (2) The Community (6 les-
sons); (3) The State (6 lessons); (4) The Church (6 lessons);
(5) The Industrial Order (12 lessons); (6) Bible Spokesmen of the
Kingdom of God (121essons).
The fifth group comprises certain sub-divisions: Work a Law of
Life; Work as a Social Service; The Specialization of Work; Social-
ized Industry; The Return for Labor; The Right Use of Money;
Ownership, Partnership in Industry; A Worthy Task; Relating
One's Self to the Industrial Order, Improving Industrial Conditions;
Christ and the Industrial Order.
Following the outline of this series two texts have lately been
written, both entitled The Bible and Social Living, one being pub-
lished by the Methodist Book Concern, the other by the Baptist Pub-
lication Society. These will be more fully described on later pages.
A similar outline is now (1918) about ready for adult classes.
DESCRIPTION OF SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES 25
As has probably been observed in the preceding descriptions,
other social subjects have considerably more treatment than the prob-
lem of Capital and Labor. There seems to have been some tendency
to avoid as far as possible this knotty problem, and to devote more
attention to matters that might arouse less difference of opinion. In
view of the importance given to it in the official utterances of the
churches, however, it has inevitably received some attention in the
studies just described, in fact sufficient to reveal a method of
treatment.
All of the studies and texts therein used have been carefully
examined by the writer, wherever the subject of capital and labor, or
subjects closely related, were treated.
NOTE
The Joint Commission on Social Service of the Protestant Episcopal
Church has projected the following series, although as yet only part of
the list has been published: -
What is Social Service?
I. SOCIAL STUDY OF THE BIBLE
The Social Teaching of the Prophets
Social Legislation in the Old Testament
The Relation of Church and State in the Old Testament
The Social Significance of the Gospels
The Social Significance of the Other New Testament Writings
II. SOCIAL STUDY OF CHURCH HISTORY
Social Aspects of Church History: The Early Period
Social Aspects of Church History: The Medieval Period
Social Aspects of Church History: Since the Reformation
III. THE MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEM
The Twofold Nature of the Modern Social Problem: A Problem of
Ultimate Reconstruction and a Problem of Immediate Amelioration
The Industrial or Urban Community: Concentration of Population;
Housing
The Problem of Labor: Wages
The Problem of Labor: Hours and Conditions
The Problem of Labor: Unemployment
Industrial Solutions: Trade Unionism
Industrial Solutions: Socialism
Industrial Solutions: Syndicalism
26 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
Industrial Solutions: The Co-operative Movement; Co-partnership and
Profit Sharing; Scientific Management
Industrial Disputes: Strikes, Lockouts, etc.
The Problem of the Agricultural or Rural Community: Segregation of
Population
The Church's Relation to Better Farming: “No flourishing Church on
impoverished soil.”
The Church's Relation to the Improvement of Rural Living Conditions,
Recreation, and Education
The Problem of the Suburban Community
The Problem of Immigration
The Problem of Recreation
The Problem of Social Waste
Social Legislation
IV. METHODS OF SERVICE
Social Agencies
How the Episcopal Church Works in the Social Field
The Three Principles of Social Action by the Parish
Education for Service
CHAPTER IV
METHODS OF TREATING THE PROBLEM OF CAPITAL AND
LABOR
A. INTRODUCTION
The method of treating the problem of capital and labor in the
foregoing courses will be provisionally classified in three groups, as
follows:"
I. Religious or Evangelical Treatment. This stresses the relig-
ious point of view, and is found to a considerable extent in the texts
recommended for adult classes in Folder No. 3 of the Committee on
Religious and Moral Education of the Northern Baptist Convention,
including the following:
Mathews, The Social Gospel
Mathews, The Social Teaching of Jesus
Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis
Batten, The Social Task of Christianity
Batten, The Christian State
Peabody, Jesus Christ and the Social Question
Strong, The Newt Great Awakening
Gladden, The Church and Modern Society
Thompson, The Divine Order of Human Society
Williams, Democracy and the Kingdom
2. Treatment from the Standpoint of Applied Sociology or of
Social Legislation. This does not stress the religious point of view,
but rather presents the problem as a plain statement of conditions
and a discussion of sociological and legislative programs for im-
provement. The following texts are representative:
Henderson, Social Duties from a Christian Point of View
Ward, Social Creed of the Churches
Ellwood, Sociology and Modern Social Problems
(In Social Studies recommended by the Northern Baptist Convention.)
Social Service Pamphlets issued by the Social Service Commission of
the Northern Baptist Convention.
1It is not claimed that the texts put into one group do not employ more or
less the methods of texts classified in another group. The classification is
based on predominating tendencies of treatment.
27
28 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
Unitarian Social Service Series
Friends' First Day School Graded Lessons
3. Treatment Essaying a Combination of the First Two Methods.
Here we find scriptural lessons used as a basis, and, although the
religious point of view is emphasized, there is a distinct attempt to
fuse with it present day sociological data and programs. This method
is illustrated by:
Ward, H. F.: Poverty and Wealth.
“The Gospel of the Kingdom and Studies in Social Progress.”
“The Bible and Social Living” texts (both Methodist and Baptist).
In the pages to follow, each of these groups will be more fully
described, an attempt will be made to justify the grouping used, and
the treatment given the problem of capital and labor in each group
will be outlined and discussed.
B. RELIGIOUS OR EVANGELICAL TREATMENT
I. INTRODUCTION
The books illustrative of this treatment are all written from the
standpoint of the church, and assume that Christianity is the one
saving power of society. It is the application of Christian principles
to present conditions and problems that is seen as the adequate
method of meeting the same. The problem of Capital and Labor is
not given special, extended, and systematic treatment, but wherever
considered it appears as a problem of moral and spiritual issues.
Our discussion of this treatment is divided into two parts—“Descrip-
tion in Social Study Texts of Present Conditions” and “Teaching in
Social Study Courses regarding these Conditions.” Of course the
subject is taken up in various orders in the different texts, but the
data have been gathered from all and arranged in the above order
for the purpose of analysis.
2. DESCRIPTION OF PRESENT CONDITIONS IN TEXTS
Considerable attention is given to the presentation of the facts
of social loss and distress in present society. These descriptions
awaken the lively sympathy and oftentimes the indignation of the
student because such conditions exist. Since a careful review is
manifestly impossible in this thesis, there will be noted in the follow-
ing sections representative statements concerning some of the more
important conditions.
METHODS OF TREATING THE PROBLEM 29
a) Poverty
There is abundance for all in this country (Christianity and the
Social Crisis, p. 214; Church and Modern Life, p. 141 ; Our World,
p. I52), but in spite of this fact there exist appalling poverty and
suffering among large classes of the population. In London the class
in poverty is 30 per cent of the total (Social Task of the Churches,
p. 4I); 4,000,000 persons are dependent on public relief in the United
States (Christianity and Social Crisis).
(I) Frequent references to low wages and long hours of work-
ingmen and to child labor occur in these studies.
(2) Subjection of the Poor—“If you are poor and rendering
service, you must be modest, polite, humble, and even subservient in
your demeanor. But if you are rich, perhaps idle and useless to
society, you are above the rule of manners.” (Democracy of the
Kingdom, p. 9.) The entire industrial life is a reign of fear. (Chris-
tianity and Social Crisis, p. 295.)
(3) Contrasts between Wealth and Poverty.—The assertions
that the poor are poor through their own fault are lies dressed up in
truth. (Christianity and Social Crisis, p. 350.) Popular discontent
is created because, with unprecedented increase of wealth, the poor
are ground down to bare existence. (Our World, p. 152.) Division
of classes causes dissatisfaction. (Social Gospel, p. 99.)
(4) Distress among Wage-earners.-Much attention is given to
showing continued distress among wage-earners, but the three fol-
lowing extracts are typical:
Men are discovering that society is poor and miserable and naked and
destitute; they are discovering that many members of the race are grow-
ing up in conditions which practically make impossible a full and worthy
and human life. They are finding that many persons are really disin-
herited by society, and have no real heritage in life; they are finding that,
through the toils and sacrifices of the generation past, society has come
into a vast heritage of achievement and resources; and yet, through neg-
lect on the part of many or through fraud on the part of Some, this great
heritage has fallen into few hands and the great mass of people have no
fair share of it.”
The cries of millions of overworked, underfed, pale-faced men and
women and children have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.
2S. Z. Batten, The Social Task of Christianity (F. H. Revell Co., 1911),
p. 35.
3O CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
There ought not to be any poor people in this country. If it were a
thoroughly Christian country, there would not be.”
You remember William Dean Howells' dream of the fête champêtre,
wherein society, arrayed in its best, was dancing upon the greensward
spotted with red daisies. But upon closer scrutiny the greensward proved
to be compacted of livid human faces, men and women and little children,
and the red daisies were spots and gouts of human blood where the sharp
heels of the careless dancers struck into the living flesh. That picture is
not untrue to much of our fashionable society life.*
(5) Bitterness among the Poor.—There is space for but one
extract, but several of these texts recognize the bitterness among the
poor. -
I have gone much among the people of the alleys and the slums, even
the so-called anarchists and socialists; and I have found that frequently
to them the men of the offices and the women of the mansions were not
real human beings with the same red blood in their veins that flowed in
their own, people who loved and hated and had children, but artificial
beings, frankensteins, creatures of iron and steel, taskmasters, the instru-
ments of their exploitation, or the idle appropriators and enjoyers of the
fruits of their toil."
(6) Evil Effects of Poverty.—Unemployment drives to drink,
pauperism, lack of self-respect. (Christianity and the Social Crisis,
p. 238.)
(7) Lack of Opportunity of Poor—The texts recognize more or
less the lack of opportunity among the poor. Some are socialistic,
as the following:
A large proportion of the population in the prevailing state of society
take part in the rivalry of life only under conditions which absolutely pre-
clude them, whatever their natural merit or ability, from any real chance
therein. They come into the world and find the best positions not only
already filled, but practically occupied in perpetuity. For, under the great
body of rights which wealth has inherited from feudalism, we, to all
intents and purposes, allow the wealthy classes to retain control of these
positions generation after generation, to the permanent exclusion of the
rest of the people.”
3Church and Modern Life, p. 14I.
*Williams, The Democracy of the Kingdom.
*Ibid., p. 9.
6*Social Task of Christianity.” Quoted from Kidd, Social Evolution,
p. 35.
METHODS OF TREATING THE PROBLEM 3I
Discussion.—The foregoing brings out vividly one element in
the religious method of treatment in the social study courses—the
strong appeal to sympathy and a sense of justice, a statement of con-
ditions so made as to arouse in any normal man the vivid sympathy
and moral indignation that such conditions are allowed to exist.
Instinctively one asks, “Whose fault is it?” realizing that, stronger
than any nice reasoning and logic of the “classicists,” is the insistent
deep sense that something is wrong and ought to be righted.
b) Wealth
General inequality and dangers of too great concentration of
wealth are the subject of the greater part of the description under
this heading. Striking facts are presented in proof of the existing
inequality. -
(1) Distribution of Wealth.--Two per cent of the people in the
United States own 60 per cent of the wealth, 33 per cent own 95 per
cent of the wealth, and 65 per cent own 5 per cent of the wealth.
(The Living Wage a Religious Necessity, p. 18.) Other similar facts
are given.
(2) Complacency of Wealth.-One citation follows:
I have gone much among the men and women of the offices and the
avenues, and I have found that to them often the people of the slums and
alleys were not real, human beings at all, made of the same human clay,
with the same human feelings and passions in their hearts, the same
motives and aspirations, to be measured and judged by the same stand-
ards; but they were only the hands that did the work, the tools of their
industries and service, or the recipients of their charities, the mud-sills,
sunk out of sight and out of mind, which supported the fabric of society
in which they disported themselves pleasantly and carelessly."
(3) Autocracy of Wealth.-The following passage will suffice to
indicate the opinion concerning the autocracy of wealth expressed in
one of the representative texts of the study courses:
The simple facts of the case are that a few men, by the use of great
skill and large capital, are getting control of the means of production
and distribution and are fastening upon the necks of the people an indus-
trial autocracy more irresponsible and tyrannical than the world has ever
known.8
7The Democracy of the Kingdom, p. 7.
8The Christian State, p. 7. A similar view is expressed in “Our World”
(p. 141), “Christianity and the Social Crisis” (p. 400.)
32 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
c) Social Classes
The existence of social classes is generally recognized.
(I) Recognition of Classes.—“We have our proprietary and ex-
propriated classes, the owners and the owned.” (Democracy of the
Kingdom, p. 3.) “The existence of at least two distinct classes is
inherent in the nature of capitalistic organization of industry.”
(Christianity and the Social Crisis, p. 219.) “In time we shall have
three layers of population on the land.” (Christianity and the Social
Crisis, p. 225.) “More and more the industrial world finds itself
occupied by two armed camps.” (Jesus Christ and the Social Ques-
tion, p. 269.)
(2) Description of Conditions.—Between capital and labor is a
war (Our World, p. 124); the range of opportunity in industrial and
Social life is steadily narrowing for the great majority of men (Chris-
tian State, p. 230). The capitalistic system as it now is will lead to
increasing estrangement between classes (Our World, p. 124).
Summary.—The social study courses of this group contend that
t the present time, though there is a natural abundance for every-
one, nevertheless a large proportion of the population is in constant
misery, want, and suffering because of low wages, that the greater
part of the wealth of the country is in the hands of a comparatively
Small class, and that there is much dissatisfaction and bitterness
because of this unequal distribution of wealth. The conditions pre-
sented are so serious as to call for the most careful and sincere
thought. No one dare remain indifferent in the face of facts such
as have been presented. We might expect that with the description
of such serious conditions there would be given the most careful
artalysis of the causes and reasons for this distress and economic
inequality. We might expect that these problems which are at least
in part economic would receive a treatment that would include what-
ever insight the science of economics is able to give. We shall there-
fore next consider the teachings in these texts in regard to the condi-
tions so vividly presented, examining first their economic treatment.
3. TEACHINGS IN EVANGELICAL GROUP OF SOCIAL STUDY IN REGARD TO
CONDITIONS PRESENTED
a) Economic Treatment
(I) Although we might have expected, after the description of
appalling industrial conditions contained in this group of social Serv-
ice texts, a careful economic treatment of the causes of these condi-
METHODS OF TREATING THE PROBLEM 33
tions, we find scarcely any reference to economic knowledge or
economic principles. This may be due to several causes. The cler-
ical scholars who have written the majority of the texts may be
unfamiliar with economics, or there may be general distrust of a
science that, after decades of activity, is apparently unable to offer
means whereby the present distress can be prevented. It may be
the feeling that economics, with its principle of self-interest, has
nothing in common with the altruism of Christianity. At any rate,
there is a remarkable lack of economic method in these courses which
are dealing with subjects supposed to be at least partially economic.
We may examine the courses, however, to see if they have any
material regarding some of the more important economic categories.
(2) and (3) Capital and Interest.—There is no treatment of the
nature of capital, the necessity for its existence in an advanced
society, or the manner in which it arises. Neither is there any sug-
gestion given as to how it is maintained nor how it might be main-
tained in other ways.
Although the capitalistic classes undoubtedly derive their incomes
largely from interest, and although interest is one of the chief char-
acteristics of modern social organization, the student of these texts
derives practically no information regarding its nature and operation.
If the leisure class is able to live in luxury because of interest, and
the laboring class apparently is reduced to small wages largely be-
cause of the necessity for paying large dividends (interest), it would
seem that in any consideration of the problem of capital and labor
attention might be given to this nexus of the problem. The foregoing
texts, however, do not treat this subject which occupies so large an
amount of space in economic literature.
Nevertheless, there are reasons why the nature of capital and
interest should not be discussed in these texts. The greatest dis-
agreement exists among economists concerning their true nature.
They are still the subject of inquiry. They occupy the same position
in the world of social science, perhaps, as does cancer in the world
of medicine. None of the several theories advanced has been estab-
lished to the general satisfaction of all students. Furthermore, it is
a serious problem to know what acceptable explanations of capital
and interest may be given in courses whose students include both
classes affected. Perhaps the wisest plan is to state the simple truth,
that here is a matter of the utmost importance whose nature is still
not adequately known by those who have long investigated it. This
34 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
-.
method, it seems, would be better than practically ignoring it, or
adopting some radical theory simply for the sake of having one. It
is far better to admit ignorance than to ignore that about which we
have inadequate knowledge, better also to admit ignorance than to
formulate a “snap” theory. As will be indicated later, the teaching
of the known facts relating to these problems may be of decisive
significance, and point the way to an eventual definition and descrip-
tion of capital and interest. -
(4) Wages.—The economic consideration of wages receives only
slight attention. Professor Rauschenbusch, in Christianity and the
Social Crisis, derives a law of wages which he expresses as follows:
If a man is poor or if he has a large family he can be induced to take
less. If he is devoted to his family and if they are sick he may take still
less. The less he needs the more he can get; the more he needs the less
he will get.”
(5) Rent—This subject receives scarcely any economic treat-
ment and the student remains uninformed concerning the reasons for
rent. The topic of land reform appears in different texts, but there
is no agreement of opinion regarding it. In one of the older texts,
The Divine Order of Human Society, p. 140, it is stated that the
“land reformers would cut the tap-root of the family,” while A
Practical Program for Social Reform, p. 39, suggests “it may be
necessary to alter our land system to cure unemployment”; to give all
the people more natural access to the land is regarded as a possibly
necessary step in this direction.
b) Moral and Spiritual Issues
(1) General.—If the economic treatment of the factors involved
in the problem of capital and labor is, perhaps, deficient, the moral
and spiritual factors are given elaborate attention. In the exami-
nation of these factors two main considerations are to be kept in
mind: (a) Are the moral principles stated in a manner intelligible
to the modern man, and (b) Are they made applicable to definite
situations, or is such applicability indicated? For example, if such
a principle as justice is recommended to solve the present industrial
difficulties, is the student shown exactly how this principle may be
applied in particular and general complex social situations of the
9Christianity and the Social Crisis, p. 231.
METHODS OF TREATING THE PROBLEM 35
present day? With these queries in mind we may examine the moral
and spiritual treatment of the problem of capital and labor in the
social study courses which emphasize the religious point of view.
(2) Moral and Spiritual Nature of Problem.—The problem of
capital and labor is regarded as essentially moral rather than eco-
nomic. (The Social Gospel, p. 85; The Next Great Awakening, p.
199.) It cannot be settled until men emphasize duties rather than
rights (Ibid., p. 199.) “The chief difficulty with modern social life
tº . is not a mechanical difficulty, but a social fault.” (Jesus
Christ and the Social Question.)
The studies take the position that the whole question needs to be
lifted above the economic plane. The Christian aim is not “to make
the poor rich,” but “to make the bad good.” (Jesus Christ and the
Social Question, p. 294.) “Industrial life must be lifted to the level
of moral opportunity and taken in hand as a trust from God.” (Ibid.)
“Jesus counts on character to bring about economic transformation.”
(Ibid., p. 295.) “The teaching of Jesus begins with a sense of spir-
itual need and ends with the idea of a spiritual kingdom.” (Ibid., p.
294.) “The Christian principle of love must become increasingly
supreme in our economic world.” (The Social Gospel, p. 85.)
These statements combine a social impulse with a bit of mysti-
cism. The first impulse which recognizes so-called economic
problems as fundamentally social problems is in line with recent
developments in economic thought which are expressed by Dr.
Amonn who finds the content of the economic problem not in ma-
terial versus psychic nature (goods versus wants), but in its social
nature.”
The inference to be drawn from the above citations from the
study courses is seemingly that the economic problem must be re-
garded primarily as social rather than as a problem of the individual
versus material goods, and as this is in agreement with the most
10°Eine theoretische Einheit bilden diese Probleme nicht wegen ihres
irgendwie bestimmten wirtschaftlichen Characters, sondern wegen ihrer all-
gemeinen wesentlichen sozialen Natur. Nicht die Besonderheiten ihrer em-
pirischen Erscheinungsform bei Sachgüterproduktion und Verkehr interes-
sieren in erster Linie die National-Okonomie, sondern ihre soziale Erschei-
nungsform in allgemein und unabhängig von jener.” (Amonn : Objekt u.
Grundbegriffe der theoretischen National-Ükonomie, 1911, p. 168.) “Damit
halten wires für begründet, die National-Ükonomie im methodolischen Sinn—
nicht als Wirtschaftswissenschaft—sondern als Sozialwissenschaft aufzu-
fassen.” (Ibid., p. 158.)
36 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
recent economic thought, it must be considered as an important and
valid sociological aspect.
Agreeing, then, with the teaching of the “social studies” that the
problem of capital and labor is essentially social, in “the sense that
all economic problems are social problems,” we may examine the
method in which these studies seek the moral solution of this prob-
lem. It will be found that characteristically they invoke a few great
principles upon which special stress is laid for solving the problem
of capital and labor. They are as follows: (1) Personality, rather
than property. (2) Justice. (3) Brotherhood. (4) Service. Our
next task is to examine the treatment of each of these principles and
their application to the problem in question. In the consideration of
each principle a brief criticism, not necessarily destructive, will be
offered, and at the end a general discussion of this method of attack-
ing the industrial problem.
(3) Personality versus Property.—The studies of this group see
as one of the causes of distress the fact that property is put above
personality. “Our industrial establishments are institutions for the
creation of dividends, and not for the fostering of human life.”
(Christianity and the Social Crisis, p. 370.) There will be no solu-
tion “until our industrial world is organized on the basis of the
supremacy of the human element in life” (The Social Gospel, p. 109);
“the social order is not a product of mechanism, but of personality.”
(Jesus Christ and the Social Question, p. IO2.) “Use to persons
. and not the gain of things is the only end.” (Divine Order of
Human Society, p. 147.) “Questions of property should always be
subordinate to the interests of persons.” (Divine Order of Human
Society, p. 137.) “The force of religious spirit should be bent toward
asserting the supremacy of life over property.” (Christianity and
the Social Crisis, p. 413.) The estimate of the worth of personality
must be increased. (Church and Labor, p. IO7.) “Economic schemes
are to be estimated by their contribution to personality.” (Jesus
Christ and the Social Question, p. 282.)
These citations are intended to teach that an exaltation of per-
sonality over property would help largely toward a solution of indus-
trial problems, but from the point of view of psychology it must be
confessed that this principle is vague. Again it is not clearly pointed
out in these studies how the principle may be applied in specific in-
stances. Psychologically, the distinction between personality and
property is not thoroughly justified. As William James clearly
METHODS OF TREATING THE PROBLEM 37
shows, property is a part of personality. A man's natural posses-
sions are very much an element of his personality. The same man
with fine clothes, a big bank account and an automobile is a very
different personality from what he would be if jobless and hungry.
We cannot divide ourselves so completely from our material posses-
sions. We seek property because with property we have power and
mastery and thus enlargement of personality. The man who can
command railroads and ships, factories and mines, whose influence
extends into a hundred branches of industry, has the personality of
a small god. No one (except the miser) cares for property in itself,
but principally because property becomes part of one's personality,
capable of expanding it and making it free. -
The idea of putting personality against property probably goes
back to the conception of the soul as an independent unit, existing
exclusive of visible things. The personality or soul, according to
this thought, is an independent unity and it stands off and may or
may not use property.
According to the other conception, personality is the total
experience.
At any rate if one has the time or the energy to give such formulae
as personality versus property careful consideration, he is led into
insoluble metaphysical questions which do not cast much light upon
practical problems, or else he is forced to seek simpler and more
practical explanations.
Undoubtedly there are deep truths underlying the exaltation of
persons and personality over property, but do they not require much
more definite statement in order to be applied by the practical man
to the problems of capital and labor?
If the truths underlying the rather vague citations from the texts
were put in simpler and more definite form, would they not perhaps
resolve themselves into teachings similar to the following?
“Plenty of physical exercise is better for health and happiness
than the possession of a big motor car!”
“A big house is of no value to one unless he can use it,” etc.
If some general statement were desired, would it not be clearer
to say that a man's experience is the relation between his mind and
body and his environment (social and physical) and it is just as im-
portant to improve and complete the former as the latter?
It is the belief of the writer that further perusal of this essay
will tend to indicate that the substitution of plain, scientific, definite
38 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
facts for somewhat general and theological formulae is practically
advantageous, especially in so difficult a field as that of industrial
questions.
(4) Justice.—This is a principle that all admit would materially
aid in the solution of all social problems if men could only agree
upon exactly what justice isl The social studies consider the prin-
ciple of justice as one of the surest means of solving the industrial
problem. The industrial conflict, on the part of the handworking
class, is a “passionate demand for industrial justice. (Jesus Christ
and the Social Question, p. 272.) “The rise of class consciousness
is due to a sense of injustice.” (The Social Gospel, p. 75.) “It is the
sense of inequity which gives the present social situation its specific
character.” (Jesus Christ and the Social Question, p. 185.) “The
time has come . . . . to attune the conditions of industrial life to
justice.” (Social Order in Religion, p. 9.) “Our blessings have
failed to bless us because they were not based on justice.” (Christi-
anity and the Social Crisis, p. 233.) The churches “must arouse and
inspire men to go forth and make justice prevail in the earth.”
(Social Task of Christianity, p. 126.) “The crucial point of attack
on poverty is therefore the campaign for social justice.” (Poverty
and Wealth, p. II.7.)
A just distribution is called for: “In a free and just society
every man is entitled to the product of his own industry.” (The
Christian State, p. 224.) “It has become necessary to adopt some
standard of justice for the distribution of wealth” (Social Creed of
the Churches, p. 165). “They must see that gains received and privi-
leges enjoyed bear some proportion to service rendered and obliga-
tions fulfilled.” (Social Task of Christianity, p. 126.)
The last two citations certainly approach definiteness more than
the others, but it is one of the biggest problems of economics to deter-
mine just what is the product of any man's industry. That is re-
garded as being at the heart of the economic problem.
But the principle of justice that is to be applied to the industrial
problem needs now to be considered.
F. Rank in Etudes de morale shows that it is impossible to con-
sider justice as an absolute principle. Efforts have been made to
formulate the principles of justice from metaphysical grounds, phys-
ical, chemical, or biological laws. These have all failed. The hedonis-
tic theory has also been used to establish a principle of justice and
has failed.
METHODS OF TREATING THE PROBLEM 39
The hedonistic theory of individual happiness is an a priori theory
which has no justification in itself. Happiness is not a criterion of our
ideal of justice.” “We have shown that conceptions (of justice) which
rest upon metaphysical, psychological, or biological grounds have no
value, and we are forced to the conclusion to consider justice as a social
belief of our time in a given movement and a given society.”
Dr. Sarlo” likewise finds that “justice presents such a complica-
tion in its psychological elements and in its historical evolution that
it is very difficult to determine its contents except as exactly the moral
valuation occurring in various evolutionary stages (of society),” and
further “justice is closely connected with economic, social, and polit-
ical conditions, with the total complex of phenomena . . . . of a
given people, and consequently to write the history of justice it is
necessary to write the history of property, of the family, of the State,
of Law in all their forms.”
In other words, abstract justice is no definite and permanent
principle by which things may be ordered. Justice as understood at
a given time is nothing other than the prevailing belief about human
zelations, and it accordingly changes with every change in the social
order. To attempt to clarify the present social problem by an appeal
to justice is practically to seek to solve the prevailing social perplexity
in regard to social problems by an appeal to the prevailing social
understanding of, or belief concerning, these problems.
That is the very difficulty. There are so many ideas of what
justice is. The employer, smarting under repeated losses caused by
undeveloped labor leadership, has a very different conception of
industrial justice from that of the enthusiastic uplifter who is too
often ignorant of economics. If public opinion in a Democracy
could only be made to agree on some standard of justice, it might
not be long before systematic attempts were made to adjust the situ-
ation. But there is the trouble. Each group has a different idea of
justice. The very greatest danger lies in having any man assume that
his concrete idea of what justice is, coincides with that of all others,
calling others unjust if their actions do not conform to his standards.
What is necessary is not an abstract appeal to justice but a con-
vincing demonstration to all classes of what is just.
11F. Rank, Etudes de morale, p. 286.
1°F. Rank, “Etudes de Morale.”
18Principii di scienga etica, 1907, p. 216.
40 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL STUDY COURSES
Of course an appeal to act in accordance with generally accepted
standards is useful. But in the field of capital and labor there are
few generally accepted standards. It is these standards that have to
be created. The appeal to justice sounds good. It is liable to make
people feel that a solution has been reached. But in the problem of
capital and labor it is largely misleading, and prevents effort and
study towards finding an actual and practical method of attacking the
problem. .
Therefore we must conclude that the appeal to abstract justice
in this particular instance is not a sufficiently practical way of meet-
ing the problem, although we would not minimize the need of empha-
sizing justice so far as public opinion has made the principle of justice
:applicable to this problem.
... (5) Brotherhood.—In the first group of social study texts the
third great principle proposed for the solution of the differences of
capital and labor is that of brotherhood, and it is the idea of brother-
hood that seems to have been in the mind of Jesus. To understand
this concept we must look for a moment at the history and thought of
Israel to see how it developed. The early clans that settled in Palestine
were organized on the patriarchal order. Israel was a federation of
families. The unit of organization was the family; the type and
pattern of the social organization was that of the family. Abraham,
the common father, was the center of the tribal life. But as the
nation grew and absorbed other thoughts the state concept, the indi-
vidualistic idea of human relations, became more and more prominent.
There was a continual contest then between these two lines of
thought. Jesus represented the clan idea, the family principle applied
to human relations, and he generalized this idea to apply to all men.
Brotherhood means the family principle.
We find the social studies emphasizing this principle:
“The Kingdom of God, according to Jesus, is to be found in the
gradually realized and finally perfected brotherhood of man.” (Jesus
Christ and the Social Question, p. 286.) “In Christ all men are
brethren.” (Social Aspect of Christianity, p. 9.) “Jesus Christ
looked at the laborer as a brother.” (Gospel of the Kingdom, p.
135.) “It is rather with developing . . . . a sense of fraternity”
... that solution will be reached. (The Social Gospel, p. IOO.)
“The first point to be settled is as to whether an existing economic
institution . . . . tends to the establishment of fraternity” (Social
Teaching of Jesus, p. 156). “The equality of fraternity does not
METHODS OF TREATING THE PROBLEM 4I
consist in duplication of powers, but in the enjoyment and the exer-
cise of love” (Social Teaching of Jesus, p. 172). “We are our
brothers' keepers . . . . (Social Aspect of Christianity, p. Ioo).
“To sum up, then, these . . . . thoughts . . . . men are brethren,”
. . etc. (Social Aspect of Christianity, p. 15). “The love that
springs from a sense of brotherhood will never be satisfied until it
has established a social order in which fraternity will characterize all
phases of social life” (Social Teaching of Jesus, p. 195). “The
question is whether the ideal of . . . . economic fraternity can today
depend on any great and conquering class” (Christianity and the
Social Crisis, p. 403). “The church must open the way for the free
circulation of the red blood of a common humanity” (The Democracy
of the Kingdom, p. 23). “Men could not go on for generations
saying Father to God without the inevitable sequence, the brother-
hood of man . . . . (Gospel of the Kingdom, v. 6, 1914, p. 16).
“It believes in Jesus’ teaching of the children of men as one great
family, with one Father” (Poverty and Wealth, p. 122). The work
of the Department of Agriculture shows “what may be done when
we abandon the policeman theory of government and adopt the family
theory” (Christianity and the Social Crisis, p. 399). -
Now, in applying the family or the clan idea to present society,
two aspects of this relation must be kept distinct. First, the family
organization of Society was an organic or biological organization; it
was more or less unconscious, and depended upon the biological rela-
tions of the members. The overcoming of the family organization
of society and the substitution therefor of the individualistic organi-
zation was a great step in advance, inasmuch as it replaced the bio-
logical with the partially psychological organization of society. Far
from having the ancient idea of society in which each person biolog-
ically or by birth was assigned his or her particular place, the modern
democratic struggle is toward organic indifference and social organi-
zation on a psychological basis. That is the heart of the democratic
ideal, the “Ueberwindung” of the patriarchal organic organization,
and the establishment of a psychological organization, based upon
the intelligence and free wills of free individuals not bound by
organic restrictions. The suffrage agitation is part of this move-
ment. In this sense we must regard the family ideal given in the
church studies as not expressing adequately the democratic spirit of
organization.
42 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
On the other hand, a fundamental psychological truth is brought
forth in the “brotherhood” or family idea. The family by its con-
stant association tends to become a psychological unity. The minds
of all tend to react in the same way; the sympathies of all are one.
So close is the family association; so often do the sympathies, the
pains, sorrows, and fears of all the members act together, that
eventually the pain or sorrow of one becomes the pain or sorrow of
all. It is this close psychological union, or identity that is necessary
for efficient social organization. This is the great truth in the prin-
ciple of brotherhood. Only as the members of society think, feel,
and sympathize together can there be any solution of social difficul-
ties. The development of this coordinated psychosis is one of the
great tasks of the church and cannot be omitted in the solution of
social problems. Such united psychosis, social sympathy, and co-
operation can be achieved by bringing people together, and inducing
them to think and feel together. Only in this way can there be devel-
oped mutual understanding and the possibility of psychological or-
ganization. Herein lies the great task and opportunity of the church.
Only as the capitalist and working class can be brought together in
simultaneous sympathy and feeling and thought can there be reached
the common social understanding without which the problem of
capital and labor remains insoluble. The principle of brotherhood
is a wonderfully potent influence for the solution of social problems,
but for availability in modern conditions it needs a modern socio-
psychological interpretation. This is not developed in the social
study courses, and so the principle remains abstract and difficult of
application.
(6) Service versus Self-Interest.—The remaining great principle
invoked in the studies is the principle of service versus self-interest.
“The only other way really to attack combination is to attack selfish-
ness, its cause” (Gospel of the Kingdom, v. 1912, p. 21). “When
employers and employed are all filled with the spirit of Christ, the
wage system will not be a means of exploitation” (Church and
Modern Life, p. 150). “Suppose capital and labor were brought
under the law of service; there could be no more conflict between
them” (The Newt Great Awakening, p. 202). “The day must come
when going into business for merely personal reasons will be deemed
as disgraceful as entering politics with such a notion is now seen to
be” (Gospel of the Kingdom, p. 161). “What is it that can restore
the sense of unity to such divided lines? It is the spirit of service.”
METHODS OF TREATING THE PROBLEM 43
(Jesus Christ and the Social Question). “Man is stronger and more
blessed through sacrifice than through self-assertion” (Social Aspects
of Christianity, p. 43). “The spirit of sacrifice . . . . gives all of
self and all of substance” (The Newt Great Awakening, p. 129).
“All individual activity must be subject to the Christian law of serv-
ice (The Accumulation of Wealth, p. 20). “Holy love, realizing
itself in service and sacrifice, is the only effective principle governing
property” (Social Teachings of Christ, p. 37).
The studies find a striking difference between Christian and eco-
nomic laws. “The great words of the old political economy and the
present day business world are not need and service, but supply and
demand” (The Neart Great Awakening, p. 164). “Selfishness as the
inspiring motive of industry has had the sanction of orthodox eco-
nomic science” (Our World, p. 103). “Competitive industry and
commerce are based on selfishness . . . . just as Christianity is
based on love” (Christianity and the Social Crisis, p. 310). “The
ideal of gain as the end of labor must give way to the ideal of use or
service in both classes.” Business ought to be organized on the law of
love (The Newt Great Awakening, p. 139). “The law of Christ, when-
ever it finds expression, reverses the law of trade” (Christianity and
the Social Crisis, p. 311). “The law of profit is, take all you can and
give as little as you can. The law of service is, give all you can and
take only what you need” (Poverty and Wealth, p. 122).
It would seem that there is no more pressing matter for modern
psychology to seek to clarify than the confusion between egotistic
and altruistic motives. On the one hand a representative economist
like Seligman builds up a science of human conduct on the economic
motive which, according to him, is “that which [leads] man to secure
the most pleasure for the least pain,” and on the other hand, the
following representative sentiments are expressed in the studies:
“The central truth of morals” (the norm of social relationship) is
“that man . . . . is more blessed through sacrifice than through
self-assertion” (Social Aspects of Christianity, p. 43), and “the spirit
of sacrifice” (which is the Christian spirit) “gives all and longs for
more to fill the measure of the world’s great need” (The Neart
Great Awakening, p. 129). There is certainly a great deal of differ-
ence between sacrifice and pleasure as a motive, or even between
service and pleasure as a motive. The studies would build up a
society on the former, the economic sciences on the latter motives.
**Seligman, Principles of Economics, p. 4.
44 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
It is certain that the question of motives of social action needs much
pragmatic investigation before any valuable conclusions can be drawn
therefrom. The studies assume that the motive of service is so
strong a force, actually and potentially, that the whole social order
may be built upon it as fundamental. The economists, in a legitimate
process of abstraction, would eliminate this as a pure motive. If
group and social sympathies frequently contradict and are stronger
than individual interests, the basis of present economics falls. If it
be true (and psychologically it is possible) that a large part of the
motives of the average man are those occasioned by social norms
irrespective of his own well-being or individual feelings in the matter,
in other words if a large part of human motives are occasioned by
customs and social imperatives that do not add to pleasure (as com-
monly understood), much economic philosophy breaks down. This
principle should be treated in the light of social psychology.
But the social studies are not definite enough in making intelli-
gible the motive of “service.” It would seem that a principle upon
which so much importance is placed should be worthy of analysis
sufficient for the reasonably intelligent person to understand its prin-
cipal implications. This explanation is not given in the studies, and
one is left with a vague, mystic idea which, because of its vagueness,
is weak, and without further elaboration and interpretation must be
held inadequate as a means of solution for the problem in hand.
(7) General Criticism of Spiritual and Moral Issues.—The first
criticism that applies to the moral and spiritual solutions given in
the social studies for the problem of capital and labor is that the
principles given are not connected in a definite way with the actual
factors of the problem. An employer may desire to be just, broth-
erly, serviceable, but that does not make it possible to pay more than
a competitive wage, or to retain his employees during a business
depression. The studies fail to point out precisely how these prin-
ciples may be applied.
The second criticism is that the principles are vague, and, as this
paper has endeavored to indicate, not subjected to a sufficient socio-
psychological analysis.
It may be objected to the foregoing criticism that the churches are
not endeavoring to teach specific programs, but merely to inculcate
right attitudes, and in emphasizing brotherhood, service, personality,
they are fulfilling this adequately.
METHODS OF TREATING THE PROBLEM 45
In reply it may be said that one of the most dangerous situations
exists when people feel that they have the right attitude toward a
problem, but do not know how to act toward it. Having the emotion
of brotherly love and willingness to serve aroused is too often a sub-
stitute for the deed that really corrects a bad situation. This em-
phasis upon attitude, rather than upon the knowledge of how to act,
seems a palpable fault in the social study courses. It is vain to incul-
cate a proper attitude unless provision is assured that there will be
forthcoming information and knowledge thru which the attitude
may be converted into action. We maintain that the churches should
help to supply this knowledge.
In general, the treatment of the problem of capital and labor in
this group of texts is too abstract and metaphysical. The problem is
attacked from a theological point of view, and, although many good
thoughts are suggested, the treatment is not definite and scientific
enough to satisfy an inquirer anxious to find real means of meeting
industrial problems.
C. TREATMENT FROM THE STANDPOINT OF APPLIED SOCIOLOGY AND
SOCIAL LEGISLATION
As has been said, these texts discuss the social problems involved
largely from a sociological standpoint with relatively slight appeal to
the religious emotions.
I. Social Duties from a Christian Point of View, by Charles R.
Henderson, is in essence a summary of the principles of social wel-
fare as embodied in the progressive program of social legislation. It
really consists of the elements of practical social science. It discusses
duties relating to the family, material conditions of family life, neg-
lected children, workingmen, social duties in rural communities,
civics, charities and corrections, corporations, business and leisure
classes, government and international relations. Chapter v-Social
Duty to Workingmen—is typical. In this chapter, Professor Hen-
derson discusses the need for a social policy which shall look toward
improvement of the conditions of the hand-working classes, and out-
lines the elements of such a policy as follows: (a) Protection
against accidents and disease, including the extent and evils of acci-
dents; (b) The labor contract, regulating the means of securing em-
ployment and enacting laws clarifying the various relations between
employer and employee; (c) Careful regulation of wage payment;
46 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
(d) Public supervision of the education and employment of children;
(e) Protection of the women workers by the state; (f) Progressive
state control of factory and workshop regulations, legal rights, indus-
trial insurance, and provisions for the higher life of the working
people. In Chapter xiii the rights and responsibilities of the great
corporations are discussed, and there is advocated the development
of law and state commissions for their control. Socialism and busi-
ness management receive brief, conservative treatment in Chapter
xiv, in which there are indicated the dangers and disadvantages of
luxurious idleness. Primarily a treatise on practical sociology, this
book shows little attempt to assume a religious coloring.
2. The Social Creed of the Churches, by Dr. Harry F. Ward, is
of similar nature. It is an extended discussion of the various articles
of the so-called “social creed of the churches” adopted by the Federal
Council of the Churches of Christ in America in 1908. The articles
of this creed follow :
The churches should cooperate with all men in every legitimate way
in improving the conditions of working people. The churches through
the Federal Council have adopted a declaration of Social Standards
containing the following:
a) For equal rights and complete justice for all men in all stations
of life.
b) For the protection of the family, by the single standard of purity,
uniform divorce laws, proper relations of marriage, and proper housing.
c) For the fullest possible development for every child, especially by
the provision of proper education and recreation.
d) For the abolition of child labor.
2 e) For such regulation of the conditions of toil for women as shall
safeguard the physical and moral health of the community.
f) For the abatement and prevention of poverty.
g) For the protection of the individual and society from the social,
economic, and moral waste of the liquor traffic.
h) For the conservation of health.
i) For the protection of the worker from dangerous machinery, occu-
pational diseases, and mortality.
f) For the right of all men for the opportunity of self-maintenance,
for safeguarding this right against encroachments of every kind, and for
the protection of workers from the hardships of enforced employment.
k) For the suitable provision for the old age of the workers, and for
those incapacitated by injury.
METHODS OF TREATING THE PROBLEM 47
l) For the right of employers and employees alike to organize; and
for adequate means of conciliation and arbitration of industrial disputes.
m) For a release from employment one day in seven.
n) For the gradual and reasonable reduction of the hours of labor to
the lowest practicable point, and for that degree of leisure for all which
is a condition of the highest human life.
o) For a living wage as a minimum in every industry, and for the
highest wage that each industry can afford.
p) For a new emphasis upon the application of Christian principles to
the acquisition and use of property, and for the most equitable division
of the product of industry that can ultimately be devised.
Each of these articles is discussed on the basis of statistical and
other data from government reports and sociological literature; pres–
ent legal conditions are described and progressive legislation recom-
mended. On the whole the book takes the position that reform is to
be accomplished to a great extent through legislation. In the words
of the author the book -
endeavors to define each of these standards (adopted in the Social Creed
of the Churches), describe the conditions that demand its realization,
state what has been done or is proposed to realize it by legislation, by
State or voluntary activity, and suggest broadly how the churches may
cooperate with these endeavors or act upon their own initiative.
3. The “Social Service Pamphlets” issued by the American Bap-
tist Publication Society employ the same general method. The sub-
ject, “The Church and Wealth and Industry,” includes several
pamphlets briefly characterized below.
A Reasonable Policy for Christian People, by Charles R. Hen-
derson, summarizes the discussions of the larger book—Social Duties
(see page 85). The Church and the Labor Movement, by Charles
Stelzle, is an historical treatment of the relations of the churches and
labor in recent years in the United States. Welfare Work by Cor-
porations, by Mrs. Mary Lathrop Goss, as the title suggests, describes
the welfare work done by such corporations as the United States
Steel Corporation, the International Harvester Company, etc. Child
Labor, by Owen R. Lovejoy, discusses the question from the view-
point of the social worker. Workingmen's Insurance, by Charles R.
Henderson, and One Rest-day in Seven, by C. C. Horsman, are purely
sociological in character. Women in American Industry, by Scott
Nearing, is a statistical work.
48 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
4. The “Social Service Bulletins,” covering a wide variety of
subjects, as announced by the American Unitarian Association on the
cover of the bulletins, are “to offer suggestions for the conduct of
work for the common good in our churches, and also to give circula-
tion to articles of value on different phases of the social question”—
written indeed from the sociological rather than from the religious
viewpoint.
Of a similar sociological nature are the studies published by the
Society of Friends, and a series of pamphlets projected by the Joint
Commission on Social Service of the Protestant Episcopal Church
(see page 25).
The criticism that appears applicable to the texts described in this
section is that they do not sufficiently emphasize religious values,
methods and sentiments, to be well-adapted to church use. Practical
sociology and legislative reform are important and valuable subjects
of knowledge, but in religious schools the heart apparently hungers
for emotional quickening, direct spiritual union with the good, and
pines under very extended discussion of exclusively economic and
sociological problems.
D. USE OF THE FOREGOING SERIES IN SOCIAL STUDY CLASSES
Most of the series described in the foregoing sections have been
in use for several years, and their adoption in social study classes
recommended. Consequently, it will be of interest to inquire as to
the extent and results of their use. Up to the year 1916 these were,
with the exception of the “Gospel of the Kingdom,” practically the
only social service study texts in the field, so that the success of social
service study in churches up to that time may be regarded as some-
what indicative of the success of these studies. From all the evidence
the writer has been able to gather, this appears to be comparatively
little. Of over 100 Episcopal churches in the diocese of Chicago,
known to the writer in 1916, not more than one (so far as investi-
gation revealed) had church classes engaged in the study of social
problems. Letters were written to the secretaries of all the National
denominational social service commissions, and not one could give
arly approximation of the number of churches in his denomination
where social service study was being done. They could merely point
to a very few more or less prominent city churches here and there
which had attempted some type of this work. Of 40 Social Service
METHODS OF TREATING THE PROBLEM 49
**
Commissions of the Protestant Episcopal Church, reporting the social
service activities in their territories for the year I915, not more than
one or two referred to social service study in their respective dio-
ceses.” In a canvass concerning social service activities made by
the writer in some 3o Protestant churches in the city of Baltimore in
1916, not any claimed to have social study classes. The General Sec-
retary of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends wrote to the
author (December II, 1917), “They [social service pamphlets] were
not particularly unpopular as lesson series go, but did not meet with
so cordial a response as Bible lessons of the same grade would have
done.” -
The American Unitarian Association writes that “a considerable
number of our social service bulletins are sent to churches, Sunday
schools, colleges, and social service agencies. We cannot tell you,
however, the exact use to which they are put.”
The writer examined many numbers of religious periodicals be-
tween the years 1914 and 1917,” and found no mention of the use of
the above named courses. This seems to be another indication that
the studies received little attention.
Since the majority of church formations are so loosely organized,
it is practically impossible to obtain statistics relating to the number
of social study classes. The relative failure to report this type of
work and the known facts just cited would tend to indicate that the
two types of series just described have never been put to very ex-
tended use in social study classes in the Churches and Sunday schools.
E. ATTEMPT AT COMBINING RELIGIOUS AND SOCIOLOGICAL TREATMENTS
OF PROBLEM OF CAPITAL AND LABOR
The principal examples of this method are found in the “Gospel of
the Kingdom” Series (see the general description of this on page 19),
and in the texts based upon the outline prepared by the International
Sunday School Committee. -
15What the Episcopal Church Is Doing in the Field of Social Service,
The Joint Commission on Social Service, Protestant Episcopal Church, New
York.
1°Numbers examined: Advocate (M. E. Church, South), 1914-15; Sun-
day School Times, 1915-16; Christian Century (Disciples), 1914-15; The Ad-
vance (Congregational), 1915–16; Christian Herald, July to December, 1916;
Churchman, January to June, 1916; Congregationalist and Christian World,
July to December, 1916; Continent, July to December, 1915.
50 CAPITAL
AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
:
I. “Gospel of THE KINGDoM,” or “STUDIES IN SOCIAL PROGRESS”
a) Description.—(Also see general description, page 19).
This series, extending over a number of years, treats the problems
of capital and labor directly and indirectly in several different yearly
series.
The following list of lessons gives the principal subjects under
which capital and labor and related problems are discussed:
1908
October 4–Io.
II–17.
18–24.
25–31.
November
8-14.
I5-2I.
22–28.
29-Dec. 5.
December 6–12.
I3−19.
20–26.
27-Jan. 2, 1909.
1–7.
CHILD LABOR
The Ethics of Work
The Facts as to Child Labor
Child Labor and Legislation
What the Church Can Do
WOMEN IN INDUSTRY
Working Women
Women's Wages
Effects on Home Life
Sweating and Consumers’ League
What the Church Can Do
WEALTH AND CAPITAL
Use of Wealth
Distribution of Wealth
Corporate Capital
Labor and Capital
THE ORGANIZATION OF LABOR
I909
January 3–9.
IO-I6.
I7—23.
24–30.
31-Feb. 6.
May 2–8.
9-I5.
I6–22.
23-29.
30–June 5.
Trade Unions
Strikes and Their Lessons
Industrial Peace; Open or Closed Shop
Number and Character of the Unemployed
Causes of Unemployment and Methods of Relief.
SOCIALISM
What is Socialism P
Growth of Socialism
The Individual and Socialism
Objections to Socialism
Christian Socialism
METHODS OF TREATING THE PROBLEM 5T
IMMIGRATION
June 6–12. Facts of Immigration
13–19. The Immigrant and the City
20–26. Exclusion Laws
27—July 3. The Church and the Foreigner
LABOR CONDITIONS
September 5-II. Hours of Labor
12–18. Industrial Accidents
19–25. Industrial Betterment
26–Oct. 2. The Church and the Workingman
JULY, 1911. THE GRADUAL AND REASONABLE REDUCTION OF THE Hours
of LABOR to THE Lowest PRACTICABLE PoſNT, AND THAT DEGREE
of LEISURE FOR ALL WHICH Is A ConDITION OF THE HIGHEST
HUMAN LIFE
. Existing Hours of Labor
. Evils of Long Hours
. Advantages of Short Hours
. Effect Upon Employers' Interests
5. What Can the Church and Organized Labor Do about It?
:
AUGUST. A RELEASE FROM EMPLOYMENT ONE DAY IN SEVEN
1. The Workers’ Need of Rest One Day in Seven
2. The Domestic and Social Need
3. What Sunday Work Is Necessary?
4. What Can We Do about It?
SEPTEMBER, 1911. A LIVING WAGE As A MINIMUM IN EveRY INDUSTRY,
AND THE HIGHEST WAGE THAT EACH INDUSTRY CAN AFFORD
I. Existing Wages
2. The Rising Cost of Living
3. Organized Labor and Wages
4. Christian Principles as to Wages
OCTOBER, 1911. ACCIDENTS
. Christ's Valuation of Life
. Our Increasing Number of Accidents
. The Reduction of Accidents in Foreign Countries
. What We Should Do
. Employers' Liability
:
52 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
NovEMBER, 1911. SANITATION AND HYGIENE
I. Health a Christian Duty
2. Unsanitary Occupations
3. Sanitary Legislation
4. Housing and Sanitation
MAY, 1912. STRIKES
7. The Causes
14. The Employee's Side
21. The Employer's Side
28. The Public
SEPTEMBER, 1912. PROFIT SHARING
3. Its Possibilities and Impossibilities
Io. Forms of Profit Sharing
I7. Co-operation
24. The Workingman's Share
The above topics show the many different phases of one branch
of social problems included in the “Gospel of the Kingdom” publi-
cation.
In the 1908-09 series the lessons are generally divided into three
or four parts. Part one is entitled “Scriptural Basis.” In it are
given a number of texts bearing upon the subject of the lesson, and
these references are explained.
Thus there are presented the attitude and ideas of the Bible
writers upon the problem as it existed in their day, usually bringing
the matter into a strongly ethical and religious light.
The second part of the lesson entitled “Facts” gives as far as
are available the facts and statistics covering the subject in question
and the amount of information is often surprising. There usually
follows a discussion including impartial arguments pro and con.
The third part, “Subjects for Study,” suggests various sub-topics
for further investigation with references therefor in standard works
of economics and sociology.
The lesson is completed by a fourth part, “Subjects for Discus-
sion,” in which are enumerated four or five pertinent questions.
No attempt is made to present the theoretical economic doctrines
of capital, rent, interest, wages, etc., but there are given facts and
various sociological views. The material presented is such as may
be found in standard texts on labor problems or about what an im-
partial college professor would give without the abstract theory.
METHODS OF TREATING THE PROBLEM 53
There exists an abundance of authoritative statistics on matters such
as child labor, hours of labor, wages, and conditions of work, trade
unions, immigration, accidents, sanitation and hygiene, strikes, profit
sharing, etc. All the data and facts presented in the lessons are given
a religious and ethical setting.
The following extracts from the lesson for December 6–12, 1918,
show the scriptural references, and the ethical treatment of the
subject:
NATURE AND USE OF WEALTH
Scriptural Basis.--All things belong to God. Deut. Io: I4; Ps. 24: I ;
Hag. 2:8–Wealth a peril. Luke 6: 24; 16:19-31; Matt. I3:22; 6: 19, 24;
19:23-26; Luke 14:33–Wealth a trust. Matt. 25: I4-30; Luke 19: I3-27;
16:11. We have some dozens of words to express the various aspects or
characteristics of our possessions, indicating how large a place is occupied
in our life by property. Of these many words we shall employ wealth as
perhaps most nearly comprehending all.
Modern Christians generally, with these parables in mind, would
acknowledge that wealth is a trust, however inadequate their appreciation
of it, but they never seem to deem it a peril. If they do, they are all will-
ing and anxious to brave it. Rare indeed is the man who does not dare
to be rich; and almost as rare is the rich man who has not suffered from
braving this peril.
Thus one conception of wealth ignores one class of Christ's teachings
on the subject, while the other conception ignores the other class. They
are, therefore, both mistaken.
The following interpretation finds a perfect harmony between the two
classes of Jesus’ sayings, and lays the same emphasis on both :
Jesus requires of every disciple the absolute and literal surrender of
his substance—every farthing of it—for the uses of the kingdom of God.
All possessions are to be regarded henceforth not as the holder's property
but as a trust from God to be administered according to the will of the
ozºner.17
Extracts from the lesson for December 20, 1908, and April 14,
1918, show the discussion of the “scripture basis” and the citation
of facts:
CORPORATE CAPITAL–December 20–26
I. Scripture Basis.-Gen. 41:46-49 and 53-57, 47: 13-26; Gal. 6: Io;
Luke 12:48 (loc. cit.), 6: 24. The story of Joseph contains a most inter-
esting account of the first “corner” in grain and of the consequent eco-
nomic and social changes in Egypt. (I) Joseph, the wise statesman and
**Gospel of the Kingdom, December, 1918, pp. 18 and 19.
54 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
capitalist, who buys up the cereals of Egypt and becomes the savior of
that and neighboring countries. (2) Joseph, the shrewd politician, uses
that advantage to enslave the people, and make them in every respect
dependent on Pharaoh. (3) This incident shows clearly both the benefi-
cent and the baneful power of capital. (4) The spirit of Christianity
requires that men should use whatever power they may possess for the
service of their fellow-men as they “have opportunity.” (5) If that
power is misused, it is a betrayal of a sacred trust, and incurs the denun-
ciation “Wo unto you that are rich.”
II. Facts.-(1) Definition. By corporate capital we mean wealth
that is pooled.” *
Another citation shows the method of treating facts.
SPECIFIC ENDEMIC DISEASES
It would be impossible to discuss, even briefly, the various endemic
diseases. Three will, consequently, be selected—tuberculosis, malaria,
and hookworm—because they affect, singly and collectively, a larger
number of people than perhaps all others combined. Fortunately, each
of them is now under control, at least in those parts of the civilized world
where people are willing to observe the laws of hygiene and of sanitation.
Tuberculosis is the most familiar of the three, since there is scarcely a
person in our country who has not had a friend or acquaintance afflicted
with it. Consumption, in its various forms, is caused by a rod-shaped
parasite or fungus, discovered by Dr. Robert Koch, of Berlin, in 1882.
It kills on an average 160,000 persons per year in the United States. This
means from one-tenth to one-seventh of all our people, or about one-third
of all those who die between the ages of 18 and 45. Those suffering from
this disease number not less than 1,000,000 persons in our country.
Owing to the greater exposure to cold and other conditions of work, more
men die from tuberculosis than women—63 per cent of deaths from this
disease in New York city occurring among men. Dusty trades produce
an unusually high mortality from consumption. The negroes have a mor-
tality rate more than 300 per cent greater than the white—450 as against
148 per Ioo,000 of the population in 1910. Owing to the various measures
taken, tuberculosis is rapidly decreasing. In cities where anti-tuberculosis
campaigns have been waged the death-rate has declined in a decade (1904
to 1914) from 200.7 to 146.8 per Ioo,000 of the population. And the day
will soon come when consumption will be as rare in a civilized commu-
nity as smallpox is at present. We know the cause of the disease and
will be able to eliminate it.
18|P. 22.
METHODS OF TREATING THE PROBLEM 55
Regarding labor and capital the position is taken that the present
aims of both are wrong. *
Generally speaking, capital and labor are each organized to secure the
largest returns to itself. Their object ought to be to render the largest
service to society in general and to each other in particular. In one
word, industry needs to be Christianized.”
On the basis of former criticisms it is maintained that this state-
ment might be more definite. Thorough-going discussion of details,
however, and the presentation of numerous facts bearing on many
phases of industrial problems (as suggested by the list of subjects
treated), give a good deal of light for the application of the above
principle.
The question of socialism is treated from many angles, under
the following topics: “What is Socialism?” “Growth of Socialism,”
“The Individual and Socialism,” “Objections to Socialism,” and
“Christian Socialism.” (Gospel of the Kingdom, May, 1909.) No
new theories are advanced, and no sides are taken. A plain account
of the history of socialism and the most common arguments for and
against are given. In the discussion, however, there are woven
many ethical and religious observations, such as the following:
WHAT IS SOCIALISM P
I. Scripture Basis.-Prov. 22: 2. According to this passage the rich
and poor shall meet together on the basis of the common fatherhood of
God. This fatherhood means the brotherhood of man; and the socialists
claim that the rich and poor shall meet as brothers, with equal opportuni-
ties as far as external conditions are concerned. A fraternal organiza-
tion of society will thus become possible, it is claimed, where there will be
neither rich nor poor, but brothers in comfortable circumstances.”
In some of the later numbers (1916) the scripture references
were omitted, but in the 1917–18 series appear again. Two letters
received by the writer from users of these studies said that the
classes complained unless considerable attention was given to the
Scriptures.
19Cospel of the Kingdom, December, 1918, p. 24.
*9Gospel of the Kingdom, May, 1909, p. 59.
56 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
An extract taken from the December number (1917) in its dis-
cussion of the problem of wealth and poverty shows a rather rich
use of scriptural material:
The writings of the prophets are full of denunciations of the plutocrats
of their day. They dwelt in palaces of ivory and of hewn stone, and had
both summer and winter houses (Amos 3: I2, I5; 5: II). They reposed
on couches of ivory, and ate selected lambs and fatted calves. They
drank beakers of rare wines, and sang improvised songs to the accom-
paniment of their musical instruments (Amos 6: 4 ff.; 8: Io). Hosea
speaks of their palaces, their mirth, their feasts, and the treasure or their
goodly vessels (Hos. 2: II; 8: I4; 13:15). Isaiah speaks of their great
and fair houses, the harp, the lute, the tabret, and the pipe in their feasts,
their glory, their pomp, and their costly chariots (Isa. 5: 9, II, I4; 22: 18).
The wives of these aristocrats were as voluptuous as their husbands.
Amos calls them “Fat cows of Bashan that are in the mountains of
Samaria” (Amos 4: I). Isaiah calls them “women that are at ease, care-
less daughters” (Isa. 32:9), and in 3: I6-24 he gives in derision a long
list of the articles that are necessary to complete their toilets. The con-
stant round of feasts made drunkenness habitual in the upper classes (cf.
Amos 6:6ff.; 4: I). Sexual license also was frightfully prevalent among
the wealthy (Amos 2:7; Hos. 4: 14; 7:4).
This is a perfect description of the life of the modern idle rich. Their
time is spent in devising new forms of wasteful extravagance. They
have their different houses for every season of the year. They have
their horses, their automobiles, and their yachts. Life is a constant
round of costly and often vicious pleasures. In such hands wealth is a
constant menace to the moral welfare of society.
The later numbers have not followed the strict lesson divisions of
earlier years, but the general method of treatment is the same.
The above citations show how a conservative kind of modern
sociology is combined with moral and religious teaching. In its
treatment of the problem of capital and labor, this series does not
endeavor to expound the economic theories concerning wages, rent,
interest, etc., but adopts, as do the studies in Group 2, the position of
“meliorism,” advocating all the generally accepted types of pro-
gressive social legislation and organization.
The principles underlying the treatment of social problems by
the American Institute of Social Service are stated by their general
secretary, Nathaniel P. Pratt, in a letter to the writer (December Io,
1917), as follows:
METHODS OF TREATING THE PROBLEM 57
The American Institute is not a propagandist organization. In the
preparation of these Studies our purpose is not to take sides in disputed
problems but simply to present the facts—giving these facts a spiritual
interpretation in their application to modern problems.
Regarding the success of the studies, Dr. Pratt writes in the
same letter:
Approximately 400 classes in connection with churches, Y. M. C. A.'s,
colleges, etc., are using our “Studies in Social Progress in the Gospel of
the Kingdom” as texts. For the most part those subscribing for single
copies, either ministers or laymen, are using these Studies in their own
preparation as teachers of classes or in connection with addresses.
b) Use and Results-The writer addressed letters of inquiry to
sixty churches, church schools, and class leaders, using these studies,
and all answers were favorable in their comments. The inquiries
did not include a questionnaire, but requested the informant to give
some data concerning the size, age, groups, and general character of
the class reported, the methods of teaching, and the results obtained.
There were received in response to the inquiry twenty-four replies,
representing Congregational, Presbyterian, Methodist Episcopal,
Unitarian, Christian, and Universalist churches. The average length
of time during which the Social Service Institute series had been in
use among the Io church Schools answering on the point, was 2.8
years. Nearly all the classes were composed of men, although one
included women “as keenly interested as the men.” One class con-
sisted of youths from 18 to 25 years of age; three comprised men
over 30 years old; the others were from 20 up or were termed
“adults.” One correspondent stated that he thought this course
fitted only for “grown ups.”
The class members included some from almost every occupation
and profession; one class consisted of “mill and factory men,” an-
other was a combination of tradesmen, one lawyer, one merchant,
and one dentist; still another represented shop-men, clerks, and col-
lege men; a class of 25 was composed of “lawyers, doctors, bankers,
farmers, newspaper men, clerks, real estate men, and a Sunday
School superintendent”; another, “business and professional men,
employers, and employees”; and finally there was a combination of
“business men, college professors, farmers, and working people.”
One correspondent writes: “Among our membership we have Single
Taxers, Prohibitionists, Socialists, who, with doctors of both the old
58 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
and new schools, professional men of various shades, make up a
rather motley congregation. They are heterodox on all lines but
united on the necessity of interpreting the Bible from the social point
of view. Most of them believe that the social factor is the only one
that can make religion worth while.” Certainly it would seem that
to get together for friendly study and discussion men with view
points so diverse on many questions ought to be conducive to greater
understanding and charity.
In size the classes ranged from 20 to IOO, the majority containing
from 25 to 30 members; three numbered 40 and one IOO. Presuma-
bly the group whose number was adaptable to discussion proved
superior to the large lecture class, especially since practically all the
classes used discussion the greater part of the time, as the “method
of teaching.”
In one class the “men take turns in presenting the thought of the
lesson and then there is general discussion.” One very successful
class was addressed once a month by some social worker or member
of the city administration, and also made, from time to time, visits
to the various “city and social institutions.” The methods used in
four apparently successful classes are thus described in the words
of the informants:
(I) We use the Social Service course as a text. The leader devotes
20 to 30 minutes to a presentation of the lesson, after which there is a
half-hour's discussion by the class. These discussions have been so inter-
esting that the allowed hour is always too short. Much of the success
depends upon the ability of the leader to keep the members confined to
the text. The average mortal will wander all around town if he is not
lassoed and brought up with a jerk. This requires tact on the part of
the leader.
(2) We appoint leaders for each evening several weeks ahead. Some
do some research work and gather material from various sources, while
others confine themselves to the outline as given in the regular study.
Last summer when we closed for three months we asked several to read
helpful books along the line of our study and give a review of what they
read at our class meetings.
(3) First of all I lay close emphasis upon the principles of the lesson
as found in various sections of the Bible. I select a capable reader of
the class to read these scripture references. I request the Bible to be
present as our textbook and for reference purposes. Secondly—I use the
blackboard as an outline medium for the lesson assigned. Also, include
a bibliography and excerpts of authority upon the same. I sectionalize
METHODS OF TREATING THE PROBLEM 59
the lesson and call for questions upon each section, which at times be-
comes very interesting and reveals the measure of lay reading and think-
ing upon the question. A difference of opinion naturally arises but in
good will and gives the teacher a large opportunity to clinch the truth.
Select a group of questions beforehand for a select group of students as a
means of inspiration to study and larger interest in the groups of the
study itself. The lessons are never burdensome, but much regret is often
expressed because of lack of time.
(4) Our method is to get at the lesson taught by the scriptural refer-
ence, then the historical reference contained in the lesson, and then go to
the present day for investigation to see what society is now doing in con-
trast with the ancient system. Oftentimes we discover the same old thing
going on with only a difference in the form of control. If there has been
advancement, we point it out; while we always seek to learn the cause of
the progress or failure. Of course these lessons require breadth of
reading and learning, but their tendency is in the direction of improvement
in every event.
If any good thought occurs to me during the week, I keep it in mind
for use. I try to keep before the class constantly the thought that the old
form of teaching Christianity must go. That pious sermons on Sunday
morning and long-faced prayer meetings on Wednesday evening have
been fostered for years with a view of getting ready to go to Heaven when
we die, while this world was intended for a happy people to live in. That
there is no substantial Christianity in a people who love a system which
fosters poverty, filth, and ignorance and admires the successful fellow
because he has the means of happiness. The masses must move on phys-
ically, materially, and intellectually in order to grow morally. Christianity
has failed to get the right hold on the people so long as they are unprepared
to welcome changes which mean the happiness of the masses. While we
steer clear of socialism and the great majority of the class have no use for
it, we do not hesitate to attack laws which enrich the few.
Practically all the correspondents agree that the interest in their
classes has been good. We insert some replies relative to this point:
“Since we took up the pamphlet, “Studies in Social Progress,’ interest
has just about doubled.”
“Much more interest than any plan in the past.”
“The interest has been well-maintained throughout the entire time
and I believe that through the agency of these lessons I can secure the
interest and attendance of a type of men who would not ordinarily attend
Sunday School.”
“Men feel that lessons of this sort fill a long-felt want.”
“Interest has been good.”
6o CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
“The class holds the men as I have never seen them held.”
“The lessons are stimulating to one who is interested in Social Service
95
work.
“Excellent. Never ready to go home when study hour is up.”
“Interest in this line of study seems considerable.”
“The men were more regular in attendance than any other class I
ever taught.”
The results of the use of the above studies may be partly ascer-
tained from the following quotations, all taken from replies to our
inquiries, each number representing a different letter:
I. “Altogether, I think we have profited a great deal by using the
Social Studies and can recommend them to any body of men.”
2. “These studies have done much to give the men the social view of
the Gospel as well as to attract men who would not otherwise attend
church.”
3. “Personally, I believe that there never has been a religious move-
ment in history that has been worth while, that has not been based mainly
on the social and economic factors. There seems to be a general recogni-
tion of this fact, and that it is revolutionizing the study of the Bible. It
is due to this that we have taken up the course. That it will be of great
value to the class, and attract others to the church, is generally admitted
by our church officials.”
4. “On the whole, I believe we have accomplished some good—at any
rate, I feel it is a step in the right direction to get the church linked with
the social, civil, and industrial problems of our day; and I do not know of
any better way than by getting the men of the church to study these prob-
lems from a Christian point of view.”
5. “Brought about wider understanding as well as a deeper sympathy
in the attitude of the men toward social and industrial problems.”
6. “attracts mill and factory men.”
7. “stimulates interest in local problems.”
9. “They are all thoughtful, studious men and dig deep into meta-
physical, philosophical, psychological subjects, and they seem to enjoy it.”
Io. “I find the men heartily in sympathy with everything looking for
community betterment. They have decided to take up the Uniform Les-
sons for the coming year, principally because they did not get enough
Bible in these. After a year they will be willing to come back to these
again.”
12. “confident their lives have been influenced by the studies.”
METHODS OF TREATING THE PROBLEM 6I
I3. The class “developed a community thought, had learned to get O11
together. . . . . The most decided benefit was to get several men inter-
ested in the work of the church that never were interested before.”
I5. “can recommend it very highly . . . . leads to discussion along
advanced lines.”
I6. . . . te
17. “The Results.-You have a crystallized sentiment for social right-
eousness as an expression of a real religious experience. A demand for
better things in the community life in all its departments. It gives pres-
tige to the effectiveness of the church and shows that the church stands
for the things of value to life. I wish the ministry could catch the vision
of the value of these studies.”
18. “(1) A better appreciation of the bearing of Christianity upon
social life and the problems of modern society.
“(2) An awakening of the social conscience.
“(3) . . . . a keener interest in civic life, as it relates to the commu-
nity and the state and the nation. *
“(4) A deeper sense of responsibility for a wholesome community
life especially in matters of recreation and amusement.”
19. “They entered more fully into the class discussion than any men
I ever had in a class before.”
20. “We have just formed a federation, not of churches but of indi-
vidual Christians—an enthusiastic group of over a hundred are doing
good work.”
21. “The best general result I see is in a growing interest and the
acceptance of the teaching that Christianity is intended to improve the
condition of people on this earth.”
22. “draw a number of men who could not be gotten to study a lesson
from the Bible.” * . *
In addition to the general results, certain direct ones in definite
action are recorded as follows:
5. “men of the class have taken the initiative in the way of local
movements which have looked toward social betterment.”
13. “They developed a small system of co-operative buying and mutual
aid.”
18. “As a more particular result I think one of our men who is man-
ager of a plant where from Ioo to 200 people are employed has been more
disposed to consider the interests of the employees.”
20. “Had committees working along various lines in which we were
interested.”
62 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
The following extracts indicate some of the difficulties and com-
pensations of social study classes:
(I) The difficulty which I have found, however, in this course, as in
all other Sunday school classes, is that men do not find time or take time
to study the subjects during the week. They come to the class willing to
give their own ideas about the subject under consideration, but their ideas
are not illuminated by general reading or previous study or investigation.
I did succeed in 1915 in getting some study by the class. The studies
that year were on War and Peace. I ordered many pamphlets, leaflets
and reports issued by the three peace societies or foundations in this
country and assigned this literature to men for special reports, supple-
menting the lesson matter for the day. In some cases I got good results;
in some they were not at all satisfactory. Many men in trades and busi-
ness are not trained to make a thorough study and report on a subject.
After three years’ experience I am convinced that about the best one
can do with such a class is to make a thorough study of the lesson himself
and then, by carefully prepared questions, lead the discussion of the sub-
jects given for study.
In the nature of the case, it can not be thorough work as could a college
class. But I still believe that it is more satisfactory than the old Inter-
national Sunday School Lessons, and more satisfactory than any other
studies I have used—and I have tried several.
It is better to have the men of the church together than not get them
at all. And it is better to get them to discuss subjects of personal and com-
munity welfare even if they have not had time to prepare for it than not
have them consider such subjects at all. They will disagree, but the tact-
ful leader can direct the discussion so that they will agree to disagree.
(2) Of course opinions vary. Some of the men think the lessons
Smack a little too much of socialism, or rather give rise to too much dis-
cussion along socialistic lines, so that we have been called “a bunch of
socialists;” others think that at times the lessons have not had enough
Bible references in them for a Sunday School class such as ours is, and to
this last I also agree.
(3) I presume you require as an intelligent setting my experience in
using “Studies in Social Progress” for the past nine years, as I have used
them in three different churches.
First, I have found in each instance a stagnation of progress and
interest in the large things of the Kingdom as a result of a too much
emphasis on traditional theology and interpretation of religious truth.
Second, people are not opposed to progressive thinking along religious
lines any more than they are along scientific or governmental.
METHODS OF TREATING THE PROBLEM 63
Third, they hunger for an interpretation of the principles of Christi-
anity in the terms of social relations. They want a gospel of life. Some-
thing that will affect the conditions of every day living. A remedy for
life’s ills, a solvent for life's problems. It is life, full, rich, and free, ever
flowing fresh from the streams of God’s thought is what the people
demand.
Fourth, the introduction of the social studies brings a more lasting
revival of real value to social life and religious duties than any other
means I know of. It reveals religion in action. Religion as a product
of social relations with God and the Christ, to be expressed in social rela-
tionship one to another. The principles of God’s revelation are of more
value to life than all of men's interpretations of them in past ages. We
need a religion for this age and the social studies reveal it. My churches
have all prospered and I owe it to this fact of interest.
In one of the numbers of the Gospel of the Kingdom, the follow-
ing letter is reproduced under the heading: “What One of Our
Classes Has Done and What More Should Do.”
CENTRE CongregATIONAL CHURCH,
BRATTLEBORO, VT., July 29, 1911.
Mr. M. J. Whitty, Sec. Bible House,
Astor Place, New York City
MY DEAR MR. WHITTY:
Yours of the 24th inquiring about our use of Gospel of the Kingdom
Lessons to hand. In October we organized a brotherhood in our church.
One branch of the work we took up was the study of social problems based
on your lessons. We were fortunate in having as teacher a trained
worker, Mr. John R. Howard, Jr. Our purpose was to make the lessons
as practical as possible; so we took in order the subjects of special interest
to the community.
We soon are to have a large cotton mill in our town. That raised
the question of Child Labor, so our first topic was “Child Labor.” We
spent three Sunday mornings considering various phases of the subject.
In the meantime we made a careful investigation of conditions in our
own town. This report was of special interest to members of the class
who formerly had believed there was no child labor in our community.
We also learned that the state laws regulating child labor were very lax.
A legal member of the class drafted a new child-labor bill regulating child
labor in the state and saw that it passed the legislature which was then
in session. A stereopticon lecture on a Sunday evening, by Owen R.
Lovejoy, emphasized the seriousness of the question in other parts of the
country.
64 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
is:
The new cotton mill would bring a great many families to the town
and it was necessary to have houses provided for them; so our second
topic was Housing. We considered this question in the same way and had
W. E. C. Nazro of the Plymouth Cordage Co. give a stereopticon lecture
showing what could be done by a factory community in caring for its
employees. As a result, the new tenement-houses will be much more
sanitary and satisfactory than they otherwise would have been.
In March the town was to vote upon the license question; so our
third topic was Temperance. We considered the different phases of
this subject, endeavoring to learn the actual facts of the problem. The
result of this study was doubtless responsible in a large measure for the
overwhelming majority in favor of no license. *
We are covering the whole field of social problems in this practical
manner, members of the class doing most of the work of investigation
under the direction of our efficient leader. This study paved the way for
the better Brattleboro campaign of which you have heard and which
resulted in a tremendous uplift to the community. A copy of The Brother-
hood Era covers this campaign. There also were articles in The Congre-
gationalist, The Continent, and Western New England, a magazine
published by the Springfield Board of Trade, Springfield, Mass. The
Literary Digest copied one column from The Continent.
Very sincerely yours,
R. M. HouGHTON
It would appear from the foregoing testimony that the social
study classes, as conceived by the American Institute of Social Serv-
ice, have been successful among adult classes and have come to remain
permanently, and that their treatment of industrial problems is one
which does not disrupt the church nor cause bitterness therein. Of
course, the foregoing comments and criticisms from users of this
text apply to the Gospel of the Kingdom or “Studies in Social Prog-
ress” as a whole, and not alone to their treatment of the problem of
capital and labor. Since the problems of capital and labor occupy so
much space in the series, and are so intermingled with other subjects,
all being treated by the same general methods, it was felt wiser to ask
of the correspondents questions on the series as a whole and take the
answers as representatively applicable to the capital and labor treat-
ment. To attempt to separate these subjects from the others, it
was felt, would create confusion calculated to lessen the value of
the inquiry.
METHODS OF TREATING THE PROBLEM 65
2. “THE BIBLE AND SOCIAL LIVING”!
(METHODIST)
Description and Use.—These are texts issued quarterly, including
a small book for students and a manual for the teacher. They follow
rather closely, though not exactly, the outline prepared for this grade
by the International Sunday School Committee, and are designed for
young people from seventeen to twenty years of age.
Neither the Methodist nor the Baptist texts on “The Bible and
Social Living” discuss the problems of capital and labor in a sys-
tematic or comprehensive manner. They merely follow the outline
prepared by the International Sunday School Committee, which
gives substantially the topics below. Certain more or less discon-
nected phases of the subject are presented in an empirical way with-
out any attempt at connected theory. Our description of these
courses will therefore be confined to the treatment of various more
cr less disconnected subjects. So far as we can speak of “method”
In these texts, it consists of selecting various pertinent subjects and
treating them in a common sense, factual manner, giving plenty of
concrete material, calculated to influence the ethical and religious
feelings; there are also included many scientific facts bearing upon
health and welfare, a liberal use being made of Bible texts and stories.
The part dealing with “The Industrial Order,” fairly typical of
the other sections, treats the following subjects: Young People at
Work, The Work of Women, Protecting the Worker, The Living
Wage, Making a Better Industrial World, The Meaning of Work,
Choosing One's Life Work, The Rewards for Toil, The Right Use
of Money, Ownership, Brotherhood in Industry, Working Together,
Jesus and the World of Work.
Each lesson begins with a number of biblical references, and is
divided into three or four parts. For example, the first lesson in
this quarter, “Young People at Work,” is treated as follows:
YOUNG PEOPLE AT WORK
Biblical References: Zechariah 8: I-8; Matthew 18: 1-6.
I. THE CALL FOR HELP
I. A Contrast. In a small town near an Eastern city there is a cele-
brated private Boys' School. It possesses all possible equipment and
21Senior Graded Series, Fourth Year. (Prepared by Harry F. Ward.)
The Methodist Book Concern, N. Y., 1916.
66 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
uses all possible methods for the development of manhood, physically,
mentally, and morally. It is so renowned that when a boy is born, in
certain wealthy families, his name is registered on the waiting list of
that school in order that he may be sure of getting its advantages.
In the same town there is also a steel mill. Walking along the streets
of that town one Sunday morning at church time, the writer met two
boys of sixteen or seventeen, the same age as the boys just finishing their
work in the school. But these boys were not like those in the school.
Their slouching, shambling walk showed the lack of physical strength.
Their mental development was indicated by the remark with which one
of them greeted the lurid poster of the cheap picture show, “Gee! I wish
I had a dime to see that l” Their faces were black and they carried dinner
pails in their hands. They were not going to church that Sunday morning.
They were going home from their night's work in the steel mill.
Our studies of the previous quarter have shown us that, according to
the teachings of Jesus, every life has the right to the full development of
all its powers. These boys have been denied the opportunity for develop-
ment that has been given to the sons of the rich who attend the private
school. What obligation does this place upon Christians in their attitude
toward such conditions of work for young people?
2. Some More Facts. The National Child Labor Committee says:
Over a million children are at work in the United States in factories,
fields, stores, mines, and streets. They should be in school and at play.
Child labor lessens their chance of a successful life. It weakens their
bodies and stunts their minds. It fails to train them for citizenship; it
makes them inefficient. It cheats them of childhood and reacts upon
us all.
Contrast this with that vision which the ancient prophet gives us of
the Holy City, whose streets are full of playing children (Zechariah 8:5).
Remember that this means not simply that childhood is denied its rights
to joyous play, but that it is deprived of its proper opportunity for
development.
In most of our States children under fourteen have been taken out of
the mills and mines and factories, because such work destroys childhood.
But many of the occupations into which young people go between fourteen
and sixteen, or even over sixteen, add nothing to their development.
Many of these young people will never have as good health or as capable
minds as those who have been protected by good homes and permitted
to finish their education.
a) Blind Alley Trades. Many of these occupations are known as
blind alley trades. They offer no opportunity for advancement. There
is no way out and up for the young workers. An investigation in Massa-
METHODS OF TREATING THE PROBLEM 67
chusetts to discover the effect of the first few years of factory life upon
boys and girls showed that at the end of the second year of employment,
many of them were less capable than when they left school and were
receiving less wages. . . . .
A young Swedish boy left one place of factory work after another,
saying he “could not stand it.” After he had lost his ninth place, he
declared he would leave the city and allow his mother and young sisters
to shift for themselves. At this crisis a friend found him a place as
lineman in a telephone company. The outdoor work held his interest .
and he became the steady support of his family. . . . .
A common ground for opposition to the law prohibiting the employ-
ment of young people between fourteen and sixteen for more than eight
hours a day is that it drives them upon the streets. How would you
answer this argument?
Another reason is that it works hardship to needy mothers who need
the wages of these young people. Answer this.
b) Street Trades. One form of work for young people which has
received little attention, and which exists even in small towns, is the street
Are there any boys working at street trades in your community? Is
their work necessary for the community? For them? What is the effect
of their work upon them? What should be done for them?
c) Work in the Fields. In the State of Colorado there are 5,000 boys
and girls who do not “chase butterflies or splash around in the old swim-
ming hole.” They are working in the sugar beet fields. Some of them
are as young as seven and eight years, and the average workday in the
rush season is twelve hours. One fourteen-year-old girl cut the tops off
five tons of beets in a day. . . . . As a result, only 45 per cent of the beet
working children were found to be in their normal grades. One little
first-grader hurried into school one morning, panting for breath, and said
to the teacher, “I tried not to be late, 'cause I want to get a good report,
but I had to do five rows of beets before I came, and I’ve been up since
four o’clock workin’ on 'em l’’
Is the education of young people hindered or helped by their work on
the farms in your locality ?
Is their work so pleasant and congenial that it tends to keep them on
the farm P Could it be made so?
A preacher refused to support a child labor law because he had worked
on the farm as a boy and said it was good for him. What do you think
of his argument?
68 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
Do farmers in your section generally regard youth above sixteen as
a time for educational development or a time for work? If the latter,
how could their attitude be changed?
II. WIFIAT CAN BE DONE
I. Improve the Laws. . . . .
2. A New Value for Childhood. Before the necessary steps can be
taken to emancipate young life from improper conditions of work, Jesus’
teaching concerning the value of child life must prevail. . . . .
How does Matthew 18: 6 apply to parents or employers who are
responsible for child labor?
There are many parents who rebel bitterly against having to send their
children to work when they ought to be in school, but they are compelled
by poverty to do it. Who is to blame in such cases? Where is the
remedy?
Certain Southern cotton manufacturers, in opposing the Federal child
labor bill, argued that a piece of cotton made by child labor was just as
wide, just as long, and just as good as that made by adults. What do you
think of this argument?
How can Jesus' teaching concerning childhood come to prevail—by
preaching or by legislation ?
TO THINK ABOUT DURING THE WEEK
I. List all the different kinds of work which young women are doing
in the industrial world that come directly or indirectly under your
observation. p
2. Observe closely the conditions under which young women are
working locally, particularly the hours, and whether or not there is any
night work. Can you determine the effect of their work upon health and
strength 2
3. Whom do you honor most and whom does your community honor
most, the society woman or the woman who is helping to do the work of
the world P
Other subjects are given somewhat similar treatment. “The
Work of Women,” after beginning with a number of biblical texts,
describes the occupations in which women labor, under the sub-
heading, “Where They Work.” “Work and Motherhood” discusses
this problem from the point of view of (I) modern physiological
and social science, and (2) the adverse modern conditions under
which women work in factories, laundries, hotels, and stores. These
are all illustrated with concrete cases as follows:
METHODS OF TREATING THE PROBLEM 69
In Factories.—As typical of bad conditions of factory work, take the
following account of a bag and hemp factory:
Workers have to fill a shuttle every minute and a half or two minutes.
This necessitates the strain of constant vigilance, as the breaking of the
thread causes unevenness, and for this operators are laid off for two or
three days. The operators are at such a tension that they not only stand
all day, but many cannot even bend their knees. The air is thick with
lint, which the workers inhale. The throat and eyes are terribly affected,
and it is necessary to work with the head bound up, and to comb the lint
from the eyebrows.
Here is an account of the living accommodations for some hotel
workers: *
The girl employees ate in a room just under the kitchen, which looked
more like a storeroom than a dining-room. It was directly opposite the
boilers and the heat was intense. The room was dark and uninviting.
The food was cold and poor. The tables were covered with old, greasy,
blue oilcloth. The noise of the machinery, the dark entrance, and the
lack of fresh air were enough to take away appetite.
A young girl of twenty-four who had been for three years in a large
department store earned $6 a week. She “doesn’t mind the work so much,
although selling notions is very trying, because people are so fussy.”
She said her feet were giving out, however, and it was all she could do
to get home at night; she found that the draughts from the doors blow-
ing constantly on her gave her repeated colds, and the dust caused by so
many people passing hurt her throat; she was tired, and “wished she was
dead.”
These facts are considered as a “challenge to action,” and sugges-
tions are made as to what young people may do to help change the
existing conditions.
The section on “Protecting the Worker” gives concrete stories
illustrating the loss and suffering caused by accidents; it describes
the “Safety First” movements and progress toward elimination of
occupational disease.
“The Living Wage” is treated in somewhat the same way, actual
accounts of suffering caused by insufficient wages being given and
results to the community of under-pay. The Bible is quoted in sup-
port of a living wage. -
The chapter on “Making a Better Industrial World” describes
instances where employers have sought the welfare of their em-
ployees by adequate wages and welfare work, discusses briefly the
7o CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
faults and accomplishments of trade unions and improvements
through labor legislation.
In this way there are presented very forcibly the hardships suf-
fered by the poor and more lowly workers, and a strong appeal is
made to the emotions of pity and sympathy.
For general industrial betterment, regulation and supervision of
safety conditions by the state are recommended, also accident and
disability insurance.
To promote industrial peace there should be a public opinion
that would compel arbitration. The state should know the conditions
that exist in industries and make the facts known.
Two lessons are devoted to the subjects, “Work as a Law of
Life,” and “Work as a Social Service.” In these lessons the dignity,
sacrediess, and duty of labor are dwelt upon and the social aspects
of modern work, its far-reaching relations and meaning for society
are developed.
Chapters entitled “The Meaning of Work” and “Choosing One's
Life Work” are ethical discussions of the problem of industry. “The
Rewards of Toil” lift the subject from the mere consideration of
money wages to the plane of joy in service.
“Ownership” receives a highly ethical treatment, being presented
as the following description indicates:
I. THE RIGHTS OF PROPERTY
a) What are they? b) The question of title.
The Question of Title. (I) Is a legal title sufficient? Most people
think that their right to do as they please with property depends on the
fact that the law gives them a title to it. But this was not sufficient for
the prophets or for Jesus. Possession is nine points of the law, and the
beginning of title is often possession by force. Ahab had such a title to
Naboth's vineyard, but the prophet declared the judgment of God upon
him for his act (I Kings 21). The scribes and the Pharisees had clear
title to the widows’ houses they had taken by foreclosure of mortgage,
but Jesus gave them his bitterest condemnation for this practice. Many
of the greatest estates in England were acquired in the beginning by the
nobles fencing in the common lands of the people, or by their taking, or
being given, lands that belonged to the church. Most of the farming
lands of this country were taken away from the Indians without com-
pensation. Title to real estate of great value in the cities often rests on
the accident of some ancestor happening to settle on that spot. A list of
four, thousand millionaires shows that over thirty-five hundred of them
METHODS OF TREATING THE PROBLEM 7I
had made their fortunes by getting hold first of some natural resource
that all the people needed to use, or by the aid of some monopoly in
business which gave them superior advantage over others.
Do you think that the children of men who have made great fortunes,
who are doing nothing to support themselves or for the public good,
should be protected absolutely in their inheritance?
The abolition of slavery abolished the legal title in one kind of prop-
erty. If title to other kinds of property, for example, natural resources,
should prove equally dangerous to life and liberty, would the nation also
be justified in abolishing that title?
(2) Ownership and Use. Should the title to property depend upon
the use which is made of it? Will the world of tomorrow insist that
those who have possessions shall justify their ownership by using them
for the common good? The argument is made that the white race is
justified in taking the land formerly owned by the North American Indians
or by the Africans, because they were not using it either for their own
best good or for the benefit of the world. This places a heavy obligation
upon the white race.
2. LIMITING THE RIGHTS OF PROPERTY
This section discusses the way in which arbitrary property powers
may be limited by social legislation.
The next two lessons are a strong plea for brotherhood in indus-
try, the subject being presented in a concrete way that appeals to the
imagination as well as to the sympathetic and social emotions. The
last lesson in the same way describes Jesus’ attitude of sympathy and
service in the world of work, regarding the principles of his teaching
as the law of love and the use of material things for the development
of the spirit.
The preceding citations show how, in a limited way, scientific
truths concerning health (fatigue, nourishment, dusty trades, etc.),
education, and morality are combined with religious and ethical teach-
ings. To a certain extent it is a combination of the religious and
ethical teaching of the Bible with the facts of modern science.
The success of this series is indicated by the fact that 60,000
texts (including four Students' Books) were sold in less than two
years after their first publication. (Letter from Editor “The Bible
and Social Living,” Methodist Book Concern, December, 1917.)
(The editors, on account of pressure of work, were unable to give
names and addresses of users.)
72 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
3. “THE BIBLE AND social LIVING”
(BAPTIST)
I. Description and Use.—This course treats many of the same
subjects as the preceding course, in much the same general way but
without so many concrete illustrations.”
The method of treating the “Industrial Order” is thus stated in
the Introduction of the Teachers’ Text Book, Part III:
In all of these lessons we are seeking to know and measure values,
and we are preparing ourselves for definite and practical action. It is
desirable that the freest possible discussion of the lessons should be
secured. In this way the members of the class may be encouraged to think
and make valuations for themselves. But just here is a danger. Some of
these lessons deal with live issues and moot questions; most of them are
subjects on which all have some ideas. There is a danger lest the dis-
cussion be prolonged and obscure the chief point. Do not allow the class
to miss the main truth in the discussion of some incidental matter. The
class should try to visualize a situation and see the subject as a whole.
The teacher should do everything possible to induce the pupils to make
themselves familiar with the text of their handbook. The teacher should
avoid, as far as possible, the lecture method and should encourage ques-
tions. Keep in mind this principle: that our primary purpose is not to
pour information into the mind, but to enable the pupil to realize a situa-
tion and to make right social adjustments.
This method is not co concrete as that of the Methodist Course
of the same name; it deals more with general principles, at the same
time, however, advocating a progressive policy of social legislation,
organization, and education. The primary thoughts as to capital and
labor are that life must always be the ultimate criterion of value in
economic transactions, and that social and economic processes must
2?Keystone International Graded Sunday School Lessons, Senior Course.
American Baptist Educational Society, 1917.
28Topics treated in “The Bible and Social Living,” Fourth Year, Part III:
The Industrial Order, published by American Baptist Publication Society are:
1. Work a Law of Life; 2. Work as a Social Service; 3. The Specialization
of Work; 4. Socialized Industry; 5. The Return for Labor; 6. The Right Use
of Money; 7. Ownership; 8. Partnership in Industry; 9. A Worthy Task;
10. Relating Oneself to the Industrial Order; II. Improving Industrial Con-
ditions; 12. Christ and the Industrial Order; 13. Review: The Proving
Ground of Love.
METHODS OF TREATING THE PROBLEM 73
consist in a socialization of interests.” (“The Bible and Social Liv-
ing.” Fourth Year, Part III, Teachers’ Manual, p. 156. American
Baptist Publication Society.)
No general panacea for economic ills is offered but certain
remedies are suggested:
More and more it is becoming evident that the rate of wages is con-
trolled by human action—that is, by factors that can be known and
reached. It may not be possible to effect any sudden changes, but some-
thing can be done by studying causes, by conscious effort, and wise social
action. The nation must adopt a constructive and comprehensive program
of wage increase. *
We realize fully that economic laws cannot be suspended by act of
legislature and wages cannot be permanently increased by governmental
decree. But many things can be done to lift the pressure and change
industrial conditions. Society can forbid the overcapitalization of an
industry. Something can be done by the judicious supervision of immi-
gration. Something can be done by a minimum wage law, as in Wiscon-
sin, which provides that every wage paid or agreed to be paid by an
employer to any female or minor employee shall not be less than a living
wage. Something can be done by the creation of a wage commission to
pass upon questions, take cost of living into account, and determine what
is a living wage. Such laws are in successful operation in New Zealand
and Australia, and a notable beginning has been made in many of the
American states. Much can be done by the state determining the plane
of industrial action and providing that all industries shall be conducted
with regard for the human factors involved.
Collective bargaining, the bonus system, and profit sharing are
also advocated.”
The question of the ownership of property receives the following
treatment:
We have stated two principles which may guide us here: Every man
is entitled to all that he makes; and everyone should earn all that he
receives. Here we add a third principle, that it should be possible for
everyone to earn and possess something. This means that society must
create such a system as shall make it possible for every man to work and
earn what he needs. This is not the case today, as we all know. There
*As Professor Small has maintained, interests are the prime social and
economic factors. Individual and economic interests, however, can be made to
harmonize with, or be subordinated to, the greater social interest.
*Ibid., pp. 163-4.
74 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
is much poverty for which the individuals themselves are not directly
responsible. In the present system a large proportion of workers do not
receive a living wage and can accumulate nothing beyond the day. In
this system there is much unemployment for a part of the time, and this
makes it impossible for many to get ahead. The strain of industry is so
severe that many persons are old at forty and are cast aside as so much
junk.
In saying, therefore, that society must create such a system as shall
make it possible for every person to possess sufficient property for a com-
plete life, we imply that society shall guarantee such means as lead to the
end. That is, society must deal with the question and must make it pos-
sible for every person to find work. This question of employment can
never be settled by the individual alone. We know today that much un-
employment is due to social conditions and grows out of social maladjust-
ment. Society must therefore deal with these cases and conditions and
devise a system in which unemployment is reduced to the lowest minimum.
It must provide all citizens with such an education and training as shall
make them efficient workers and enable them to maintain their footing.
It must seek to equalize advantages and provide fit opportunity for men
in infinite variety. It must control the common heritage and provide that
a few shall not monopolize the earth's resources to the disadvantage of
many.
Second, society must create such a social system as shall establish a
direct relation between service and reward.”
Industrial partnership and cooperative management of industry
by its workers are presented as reasonable ideals.
The present industrial system is not working well today. Everywhere
we have friction, unrest, strife, even open warfare. It is not too much
to say that the wage system, with corporate and autocratic control and
depersonalized relations between men, has broken down on our hands and
must give place to a better, more human, more brotherly system. “Capital
and labor,” says Prof. A. W. Small, “in their present status are impossible
in perpetuity as the ancient social division into freemen and slaves.”
The whole drift of our time is toward industrial partnership.
These partners should have a voice in determining the policies of the
enterprise. Everything that concerns the enterprise should be known by
all the members of the council, and its policies should be determined by
the partners. The wages paid and dividends made should be based upon
a full knowledge of the enterprise. No group of partners should feel
26Teacher’s Text Book.
*7American Journal of Sociology, March, 1916.
METHODS OF TREATING THE PROBLEM 75
free to take all that they can; the claim of each should be balanced by
the claims of all. The profits of the enterprise should be divided pro rata
among the partners. The whole conduct of the enterprise should repre-
sent the judgment and cooperation of all.
Industrial Partnership. Several things are implied in industrial part-
nership which must be noted carefully. (I) We must recognize the fact
that all the parties in industry are partners in the enterprise. Each party
must learn to respect the other, and must think of him not as a rival to be
suspected, but as a partner to be trusted. We grant freely that the suc-
cessful working of the enterprise depends in large measure upon the skill
and foresight of certain directors and managers. But the working of the
enterprise depends no less upon the skill and fidelity of the common
workers. The men who unite their lives in this way thereby become
partners and should always recognize one another as such. . . . .
The course is based definitely on Bible lessons—those recom-
mended in the International Outlines—and references are given to a
number of standard books for further study. The following for
Lesson 27, “Work a Law of Life,” may be cited as typical.
Biblical Material. (1) Work a part of God’s plan: Genesis I : 26-31;
2 : I5.
(2) Work necessary to life: Proverbs 6:6-II; 24:30-34.
(3) Work a moral duty: Exodus 20: 9; II Thessalonians 3: I2.
(4) Christ the worker: Mark 6: I-6.
(5) God at work: John 5: 17.
References for Further Study. Boardman, The Creative Week, pp.
2OI-07; Dale, Laws of Christ for Common Life, Chap i ; Carlyle, Past and
Present, Book iii, Chap. iv.; Ruskin, Fors Clavigera, Letter lxiv.
Religious and moral values are continually emphasized. Note
the following extracts, selected from different lessons.
In these lessons we seek to analyze some of the complex situations of
life and to discover the religious significance of each concrete act. We
seek also to form firm convictions as to relative values, in life, and then
to relate life to life's tasks and to God's will. These lessons having to do
with the Industrial Order offer a splendid opportunity for this work of
religious interpretation and moral valuation. The teacher will find it
worth while to give special attention to these lessons; in part because they
deal with subjects not fully discussed in the classroom, and in part because
of the growing importance of such questions in our modern world (p. 139).
In all of these lessons we seek to interpret religion in terms of life,
and to view life in the light of religion. In this lesson the teacher has an
76 CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
opportunity for showing the breadth of Christ's sympathies and illustrat-
ing his interest in working people. More than that, it offers an oppor-
tunity for relating Christ to social life and interpreting his teaching and
example on some social questions (p. 204).
To the spiritual man all things are spiritual. It is important that this
truth be recognized; then teacher and class will approach these lessons in
a reverent spirit and will realize that they are finding the will of God in
their industrial life (p. 148).
One purpose of these lessons is to interpret the religious meaning of
man's social nature and give man a scale of social values.
. . . . This lesson has two aspects; one deals with the nature, quality,
and value of the task itself. The other considers the spirit and attitude of
the worker himself toward his life-task. Both aspects should be carefully
noted and should be considered together as parts of one truth (p. 187).
These citations, all taken from that part of the text dealing with
the industrial order, indicate the emphasis placed throughout the
course on those phases of the industrial problem which are not purely
economic or scientific. Furthermore, the importance given religious
and moral phases suggests a feeling on the part of the authors, that
in church schools this can not be omitted even in the treatment of
problems appearing to some as purely economic and sociological.
Naturally, such a situation presents certain difficulties when dealing
with a subject like that of capital and labor.
Finally, it may be said, careful examination shows that this course,
as compared with the Methodist plan of the same name, is somewhat
broad and abstract, apparently adapted to older students; written,
nevertheless, in a very human way, strongly emphasizing religious
and moral values, and right personal relations. In the treatment of
capital and labor problems, this course does not consider the economic
doctrines of rent, wages, interest, etc., being in no sense an effort to
teach economics as such.
The success of the series has been considerable, although no
exact statistics are available. * A personal letter from the editor
under date of March 1, 1918, states:
We have not collected any data as to the detailed value put upon the
course by those who have been using it. However, we are hearing from
numerous sources many commendations of the course itself.
28 The publishers were unable to give the writer the names and addresses of
a number of church schools using this series.
METHODS OF TREATING THE PROBLEM 77
SUMIMARY
The outstanding characteristic of the courses described in this
section is that they are based upon and constantly refer to scriptural,
ethical, and religious teachings, including the stories and “value”
lessons from the Bible, concrete facts and conditions of the present
day being described in such a way as to appeal to the sympathy and
sense of solidarity. Scientific truths regarding fatigue, nutrition,
hygiene, recreation, education, and social conditions are, to a certain
extent, fused with the religious values, but no attempt is made from
the point of view of economic science to give a general theoretical
explanation of the problems of capital and labor. The descriptions
of these courses may appear somewhat disconnected, with a lack of
systematic organization. This is partly owing to the way in which
the subjects have been treated in the courses. No systematized
method or sequence of subjects has been adopted in the texts under
consideration. Various subjects of interest have been included and
treated in an empirical and somewhat “experimental” manner.
COINCLUSION
It is hoped that this thesis will help to point out some of the
principles of treatment in the process of demonstration through these
attempts to handle a difficult subject, and that the experience so ex-
hibited may be advantageously used later in developing a standard-
ized method for the treatment of such problems in social study classes.
It is believed, however, that development of these principles must be
largely incidental to the inevitable process of reconstruction in the
more inclusive sense. For that reason it would be untimely to
attempt formulation of further conclusions from the evidence here
organized.
PARTIAL LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED
I. GENERAL WORKS ON RELIGION
Edward Scribner Ames, Ph.D., The Psychology of Religious Experience,
Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin Co., 1910.
Samuel A. Barnett, Religion and Politics, London: Wells, Gardner, Day-
ton & Co., Ltd., 1911.
Wilhelm Bousset, What Is Religion? London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1908.
Durant Drake, Problems of Religion, New York: Houghton, Mifflin Co.,
* 1916.
William Wilson Elwang, The Social Function of Religious Belief. Uni-
versity of Missouri. Studies II, No. 1, 1908.
. G. T. Ladd, The Philosophy of Religion, New York: Charles Scribners’
Sons, 1905.
Arthur Cushman McGiffert, The Rise of Modern Religious Ideals.
Emil Carl Wilm, The Problem of Religion, Boston and New York: The
Pilgrim Press, 1912.
II. WORKS DEALING WITH RELIGIOUS EDUCATION AND THE SUNDAY
SCHOOL
Wm. G. Ballantine, Religious Education and the Coming Social Order,
Boston: Pilgrim Press, 1917.
F. Beard, Graded Missionary Education in the Church School.
W. S. Bovard, Adults in the Sunday School.
P. F. Burroughs, The Present Day Sunday School.
G. A. Coe, A Social Theory of Religious Education, New York: Scrib-
ners’, IQI7.
R. E. Diffendorfer, Missionary Education, New York: Abingdon Press,
I917.
E. J. Dennen, The Sunday School under Scientific Management.
J. T. Faris, The Sunday School at Work.
C. W. Heath, The Essentials of Religious Education, Boston: Sherman,
French & Co., 1916.
Official Report of the 14th International Sunday School Convention, Or-
ganized Sunday School Work in America, 1911–14, Chicago, 1914.
M. Lawrance, The Sunday School Organized for Service.
E. A. Miller, Making the Old Sunday School New.
W. C. Pearce, The Adult Bible Class.
78
BIBLIOGRAPHY 79
Edwin Wilbur Rice, The Sunday School Movement.
C. L. White, The Church at Work.
Volumes of “Religious Education” published by Religious Education
Association, Chicago.
III. PARTIAL LIST OF TEXTS REFERRED TO, INCLUDING THOSE USED IN
SOCIAL SERVICE STUDIES
Alfred Amonn, Objekt und Grundbegriffe der theoretischen National-
Okonomie, Wien und Leipzig.: F. Deuticke, 1911.
S. Z. Batten, The Social Task of Christianity, F. H. Revell & Co., 1911.
The Christian State, Philadelphia: Griffith & Rowland Press, 1909.
Training for Citizenship in the Kingdom of God, American Bapt.
Publ. Soc. Bull. 19.
Chas. F. Dole, The Ethics of Progress, New York: T. Y. Crowell & Co.,
I909.
A Practical Platform for Social Progress, Boston: Amer. Unit.
Assn., Eaton & Mains.
Edwin L. Earp, Social Aspects of Religious Institutions, New York.
Chas. A. Ellwood, Sociology and Modern Social Problems, New York:
American Book Company, 1913.
J. E. Franklin, The Relation of Christianity and Socialism, Amer. Bapt.
Publ. Soc., 1914.
C. T. Gardner, The Accumulation of Wealth, Amer. Bapt. Publ. Soc., 1916.
Washington Gladden, The Church and Modern Life, Houghton, Mifflin
Co., 1908.
“Gospel of the Kingdom,” Dr. Josiah Strong, Editor, New York American
Institute for Social Service.
M. L. Goss, Welfare Work by Corporations, Amer. Bapt. Publ. Soc.
Newton Marshall Hall, Civic Righteousness and Civic Pride, Boston:
Sherman French & Co., 1914.
C. R. Henderson, Social Duties from a Christian Point of View.
F. A. Hinckley, The Individual and the Social Order in Religion, Ameri-
can Unitarian Association.
Chas. S. Macfarland, Christian Service in the Modern World, F. H.
Revell & Co., 1915.
Shailer Mathews, The Social Teachings of Jesus, New York: Macmillan
Co., 1902.
The Social Gospel, Griffith Howland Press, 1910.
Scott Nearing, Women in American Industry, Amer. Bapt. Publ. Soc.,
I915.
Francis Greenwood Peabody, Jesus Christ and the Social Question.
F. Rank, Etudes de Morales. º
©
Ç
º
{y
;
:
:
8o CAPITAL AND LABOR IN SOCIAL-STUDY COURSES
W. Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis, New York: Mac-
millan Co., 1907.
Francesco de Sarlo, Principii di scienza etica, Milano: R. Sandron, 1907.
F. Herbert Stead, The Kingdom of God, Edinburg: T. & T. Clark.
Chas. Stelzle, American Social & Religious Conditions, F. H. Revell Co.,
I912.
The Church and the Labor Movement, Philadelphia: Amer. Bapt.
Publ. Soc.
Josiah Strong, Our World, Doubleday, Page & Co., 1913.
The Newt Great Awakening, New York: Baker, Taylor & Co., 1902.
Thompson, Divine Order of Human Society, Phila.: J. D. Watters, 1891.
H. F. Ward, Poverty and Wealth, New York: Methodist Book Concern,
I916.
The Living Wage a Religious Necessity, Amer. Bapt. Publ. Soc.,
1916.
Social Creed of the Churches, New York: Eaton & Mains Co., 1912.
Social Service Year Book, New York: Am. Missionary Movement,
1916.
Christianizing Community Life.
B. T. Westcott, Social Aspects of Christianity, London: Macmillan & Co.,
1888.
Rt. Rev. Chas. D. Williams, The Democracy of the Kingdom, American
Unitarian Association.
M. Williams, The Administration of Justice, Amer. Bapt. Publ. Soc., 1914.
Year Book, Social Service of the Churches, New York American Mis-
sionary Movement, 1916.
Also numerous pamphlets and reports published by church denomina-
tional bodies and social service commissions.
KEY FOR CHURCH STUDY-COURSE REFERENCES
NAME OF REFERENCE AS GIVEN IN FOOTNOTE
Accumulation of Wealth
Christianity and the Social Crisis
Christian State
Church and Labor
Church and Modern Life
Creed of the Churches
Democracy of the Kingdom
Divine Order of Human Society
Gospel of the Kingdom . . .
Jesus Christ and the Social Question
Living Wage a Religious Necessity
Next Great Awakening
Our World
Poverty and Wealth tº e
Practical Program for Social Reform
Social Aspect of Christianity
Social Gospel
Social Order in Religion
Social Task of Christianity
Social Teaching of Jesus
81
AUTHOR
S. C. Gardner
W. Rauschenbusch
S. Z. Batten
Chas. Stelzle
Washington Gladden
H. F. Ward
C. D. Williams
Thompson
Josiah Strong
F. G. Peabody
H. F. Ward
Josiah Strong
Josiah Strong
H. F. Ward
C. F. Dole
B. F. Westcott
S. Mathews
F. A. Hinckley
S. Z. Batten
S. Mathews
! 3
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