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THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
inalienable rights of Catholics against the fanatical
onslaught.
An example of the methods adopted by the pro
ponents of the vicious amendment is furnished in
their attempt to introduce Gilbert O. Nations, one of
the proprietors of The Menace, to an audience in
Grand Rapids as a “former judge of the United States
Supreme Court.” Nations hails from a little town in
the Ozark Mountains of Missouri. He was once a
probate judge, but never was a federal judge.
POSITION OF THE CHURCH IN CONTRO
VERSIES BETWEEN CAPITAL AND
LABOR.
(Continued from Page Seven)
fullness thereof were made for him. Society and law,
commerce and trade, literature and art, capital and
labor, all were made for man, not man for them.
There is nothing in this world to compare with the
dignity of man, for the plain reason that everything
in this world was made for man’s benefit, and it all
only goes to enhance the dignity of his person.
This conception of the dignity of man is, of course,
essentially Christian. It attains its full proportions
only with belief in Christ, Son of God, Redeemer of
mankind,,Whose Incarnation, Passion, Death and Res
urrection are an incomprehensible tribute to human
ity. And it was He who gave us for our guidance
the formula that humanizes the world; when, speak
ing of the first institution in the world, the divine in
stitution of the Sabbath, He said: “The Sabbath was
made for man and not man for the Sabbath.” Busi
ness was made for man and not man for business.
All of the machinery of industry, all of the devices
of trade, all of the combinations and organizations
of men; society and all of its institutions, in short,
come within that formula; they were made for man
and not man for them. Man was made for God only.
What a crime, then, to use men as we use a chat
tel; to regard them as mere instruments to increase
wealth; to imagine that their lives and happiness can
with justice be sacrificed or marred in the “develop
ment of industry,” as if industry had some sort of
divine right that is more sacred than the very Sabbath
of God!
A third principle, therefore, which the Church rec
ognizes as governing the relations of labor and cap
ital, is that every contract for hire shall provide for
a wage sufficient at least to enable the worker to live
in a becoming manner. This is by no means the
measure of justice; it is the indispensable minimum.
A wage that is not sufficient for the worker to live
by in a becoming manner is inhuman. It can not be
defended without having recourse to the pagan idea
that man was made for the benefit of society; without
classing man among the creatures and things ordained
to serve him, which degrades his nature and strips it
naked of all human distinction.
Running parallel with this last principle above,
however, is another; which has its source also, in the
dignity of the human person, and may not be lost to
view. This is the principle of freedom of contract.
To deny to man the right freely to bind himself by
contract, is a form of enslavement imposed on the
one hand and a form of “divine right” assumed on
the other. Man is not free to degrade his humanity.
He is not free to accept a degrading wage for his
labor; that is, a wage insufficient to enable him to
live becomingly. If he accepts such a wage in any
case, it is because he is not free, but is forced by
brutal necessity. Though he may appear to be
physically free, he is not morally free, not humanly
free. Hence, to insure freedom of contract between
capital and labor, we must start with the minimum
of a living wage. From this point men are free to
bargain their labor, free to bind themselves by con
tract, which once made must be conscientiously and
fully performed.
We come now to a final principle. Where men
are free to bargain for a contract, both parties to
the bargain may avail themselves of all the lawful
assistance they can muster. Both capital and labor
may organize, co-ordinate, combine their forces, each
striving to get the best of the bargain. One side
may in the end secure much the best of it; but, once
the contract is closed, it is binding in conscience on
all the participants, and must be fulfilled, even though
it seems hard. If the bargain is hard for labor, none
may shirk, none may “soldier on the job”; it must
be kept as it was made; anything short of its com
plete fulfillment, is immoral. If the bargain is hard
for capital, it is likewise immoral to have recourse
to shifts in labor, part-time operation, or any such
devices, to even it up.” A free contract is binding
in conscience upon all.
These are the main principles tHat tHe Church rec
ognizes as governing the right relations of capital and
labor. They are set forth at great length, with a
depth of reach and clarity of expression that are in
imitable, in the Encyclical Letter on the Condition of
the Working Classes, issued by Leo XIII in 1891, and
later confirmed by Pius X, and still later by Benedict
XV an immortal document, that would extend over
forty of these pages, and the contents of which are
all too imperfectly outlined here. They are embodied
also in the Bishop’s Reconstruction pamphlet, issued
in 1919, and substantially incorporated in the Bish
op’s Pastoral Letter of 1920, all of which will be
more particularly set forth in later articles.
PROFITEERING IN THE LIGHT OF
CATHOLIC MORAL THEOLOGY.
The well-known Dominican moralist, Ft. Prum-
mer, contributes to the Cologne Pastoralblatt, a
paper in which he discusses the ethics of buying and
selling and shows that profiteering is forbidden.
“Many merchants think that both in buying and
celling any price is fair, and that the less one pays
and the more one gets, the better. This view is con
trary to the teaching of Catholic moral theology,
which condemns profiteering as sinful. A merchant
is not allowed to charge what he pleases. Some say
in extenuation of their conduct: ‘I do not force any
one to buy here; those who think my prices are ex
cessive need not buy from me.’ The fact of the