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14 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