The Higher Powers of Mind and SpiritTrine, Ralph Waldo
Religion
The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit
Trine, Ralph Waldo
Mind and body; New Thought
Though there are very large numbers of men of great wealth, employers
and heads of industrial enterprises, who have caught the spirit of the
new industrial age upon which we have already begun to enter, and who
are glad to see labour getting its fairer share of the profits of
industry and a larger recognition as partners in industry, there are
those who, lacking both imagination and vision, attempt to resist the
tide that, already turned, is running in volume. They are our American
Bourbons, our American Junkers. They are, considering the ominous
undercurrents of change, unrest and discontent that are so apparent in
the entire industrial and economic world today, our worst breeders and
feeders of Bolshevism and lawlessness.
If they had their way and their numbers were sufficiently large, the
flames of Bolshevism and anarchy would be so fed that even in America we
would have little hope of escaping a great conflagration. They are the
ones who are determined to see that their immense profits are
uncurtailled, whose homes must have ten bathrooms each; while great
numbers of their workers without whom they would have to close up the
industry--hence their essential partners in the industry though not in
name--haven't even a single bath-room and with families as large and in
many cases larger.
They are they who must have three or four homes each, aggregating in the
millions to build and to maintain. They are they who cannot see why
workmen should discuss such things among themselves, or even question
them, though in many cases they are scarcely able to make ends meet in
the face of continually advancing or even soaring prices, who never
enjoy a holiday, and are unable to lay up for the years to come, when
they will no longer be "required" in industry. They are they therefore
who have but little if any interest or care for even the physical
well-being of their workers, say nothing of their mental and spiritual
well-being and enjoyments--beyond the fact that they are well enough fed
and housed for the next day's work.
They are they who when it is suggested that, recognizing the change and
the run of the tide, they be keen-minded enough to anticipate changing
conditions and organize their business so that their workers have some
joint share in its conditions and conduct, and some share in its profits
beyond a mere living wage, reply--"I'll be damned if I do." It doesn't
require much of a prophetic sense now however, to be able to tell
them--they'll be damned if they don't.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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