WORK IS WORSHIP---TO LABOR IS TO PRAY
Furuseth, Andrew
Work is Worship---To Labor is to Pray To Create and Upon Its Free Use Depends Life of Individuals; Address to The Students of California University, Labor Day, 1927. By ANDREW FURUSETH N GENESIS...
...As the King punished or rewarded, so does the industrial master...
...The bondman can feel no responsibility...
...The idea of equality and freedom having been officially recognized on the political field, it entered upon the industrial field for the purpose of transforming it into its own image...
...It was a case of trying to turn the tub upside down in order that the slaves might be the masters...
...The resistance on the part of the Third Estate will, however, be fierce and long...
...Again men and women had to die that others might live and live in harmony with the fundamental truth, which they felt as part of their being...
...Coming of the Nazarrean INTO this world dedicated to slavery and rule...
...The discontent i.^ natural and comes as a consequence of the condition of the worker in modern life...
...In this declaration issued in decent respect to the opinions of mankind we adopted a covenant with ourselves under which and by which we are to live and to be judged...
...The road t» freedom and equality on the industrial field is the same as was the road on the political field...
...The thing seemed monstrous...
...Work is Worship—to labor is to pray, because that is to exercise the highest, the divine faculties implanted in us as the sons of God...
...Deprive Workers of Freedom THEY are seeking through the use of the equity power and direct or indirect legislation to deprive the workers of the freedom to quit work and the right to practice mutual aid...
...Thus we are told that man is the child of God, that men were created equal, with equal right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness...
...He hates hi...
...They either control or endeavor to control the churches through the pew, the Pi-ess through advertising patronage or ownership, the colleges and universities through endowments, the legal professions through employments, the schools through the school boards, and they use the great publishing houses to suppress or rewrite the poets of the past...
...The slave was to the free men—the masters—what the cattle is to us...
...The industrial master controls him at his work, blanketing his creative powers, he watches over him at his home, he follows him to his church and to his benevolent society and finally forbids him to join with his fellows in any trade union to consult about his grievances with the view of having them redressed...
...Whether such bondage or slavery was imposed on a group or on the individual the results have been the same, as we find from the history of India and the history of the nations that have passed away...
...The struggle was carried on by religious organizations based upon religious discontent...
...Kingly power touches man in spots at times...
...It took 1,600 years of struggle, suffering and death, before it could be officially recognized, that men were equal before God or on the religious field...
...here the real status of labor should be appreciated, here the "laborare est orare" of the old monks should be realized as true, here the Declaration of Independence should find its defenders, here is the temple for the keeping of the covenant, and yet from these places come young men who think it their duty to assist the employers—the just or the unjust—to beat their workers into submission, when they have gone on strike to obtain some redress of grievances...
...Death no matter how it came was a release and thus began that spiritual rebirth and independence, which kept growing until Constantine poured the new vine into the old bottles, destroying the bottles and spoiling the vine...
...It ended at last and then the divine idea promptly moved onward to the political field...
...They have seized upon and are using the State...
...They are seeking to compel political obedience -through the use of their industrial power, and finally they appeal to the young to join in suppressing strikes by a temporary use of even the students at colleges and universities...
...They have passed away because they encumbered the earth...
...Some thinking of course made me understand that there was no such fight here, that while in Europe as now here the vast majority of students were from families connected with the Third Estate, and that while in Europe they felt themselves part of a struggle to obtain power, the same class of young men here felt themselves on the defensive to preserve the power which was being attacked...
...That these could be used seemed to me to be impossible...
...by force came the Teacher, who said that lie had come to fulfil...
...There would still be master and slave...
...The organizations of monster corporations— supermen—capable of acting at once over an indeterminate area, of being present in many cities and states at the same time, and endowed with practical immortality, are grinding the faces of the workers...
...Men Are Born Equal OUR OWN AMERICA was the first nation to recognize and place in a political document the fundamental truth that men are born equal and are by their creator endowed with certain inalienable rights, among which is the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness...
...Industrial Master THE worker feels himself controlled at his work and often fears to straighten his back...
...As the struggle had on the religious field been conducted by organizations based upon religiou-i discontent and the struggle on the political field had been conducted by organizations based upon political discontent, so we find the struggle on the industrial field carried on by unions based upon industrial discontent—that is by trade unions...
...we were untrue and then delayed the correction through sordid considerations, it became ill, and we had to pay penalties which are not fully paid as >et...
...Pity for Strike-breaker 1-M1EN I read the report of a- distinguished professor describing the strike-breaker as a hero and I began to understand better...
...He is dominated by fear—the mother of hate and treachery...
...They believed...
...Some of them control the lives of more men, women and children than did many a monarch in earlier times...
...Again'the struggle was long and fierce...
...here we find through study of the past some guide for the future, here are stored the traditions of the people, here the evolution of man and institutions as found in history and in religion should be understood...
...But after ail, those who fought did so for power, not for freedom...
...Their power is immense...
...They control the hours of labor, which means that thev determine when the lather shall be permitted to be with his family...
...He, the slave, is alone...
...When God made men in his own image—like himself, it must mean that he gave creative powers to man and that henceforth man was to continue creation, and in freely working, creating, he is obeying the fundamental law of his being...
...From such sources as I have been able to consult it seems that at the coming of the Nazarrean the free men were about ten per cent of the population, and slavery being based upon the religious belief there could be no real change until men again should be made to believe, that the power which gave them life also gave them the right to equality and freedom...
...When we realized that...
...To resist it is the highest duty though the result may be prison or death...
...Let us try to profit by this lesson and so live that labor Bhall be free, that it shall come into its own...
...Such historical and archeological information as we have been able to gather proves first, that from the earliest times man has been occupied in creating tools, weapons, foods, shelters, customs, laws, religions and states...
...the law...
...but ¦with this pity will, if he comes from a college or a university, be a mixture of contempt...
...It was not an effort to abolish slavery, and of course it could not change conditions even if successful...
...second, that while opportunities were equal and man was free to use his creative powers there was improvement in physical and mental qualities, and that where the free use of the creative powers has been hindered by bondage or prevented by slavery, there has been decay and death...
...The creative powers in the individuals which make up the people would riot be released and made active so even in success there would be no regeneration...
...Here the inheritance of past ages is studied, classified and digested...
...W(jll had the Master said: "I bring not peace but a sword...
...In having impulses that he cannot follow he is less...
...And God rested and saw that all was well...
...He insisted that men were created in the image of God the Father of all, who treated all His children alike, to Whom there were no slaves, before Whom al...
...men were equal, and this Teacher taught men to pray "Thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven...
...Work is Worship WHEN in our hour of trial and communing with "the laws of nature and of nature's god," we agreed that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, we entered into a covenant with "nature and nature's god" by which as a people we are to live and be judged, and we should realize that if there is a sin against the Holy Ghost, then the failure to keep this covenant sacred is such sin, and the last place out of which descration might 1*> expected to come ought to be a college or a university—the cultural centers of our people...
...By ANDREW FURUSETH N GENESIS we are told that "God created man in his image, in the image of God created he him...
...There wers strong efforts to get away from the deadening influence of the bondage—in India through the teachings of Buddha and in the Mediterranean basin through the Collegias, the organization of which seems to have begun in Egypt...
...It is for the man who scabs, because of necessity, that there may be unmixed pity...
...Men reasoned that since men are equal before God why not in the Stats and before the law...
...Universities are cultured centers...
...It was now carried on by political organizations based upon political discontent...
...as the King sent unyielding men to prison or drove them into exile, so the industrial master by the use of the blacklist, drives men from their homes and compels them to become wanderers, often under assumed names...
...His imagination is corrupted, his thoughts darkened...
...Those that have been untrue have shared the fate of the tree without fruit...
...I was born in Europe where the fight was between the old governing class and the Third Estate, and I had never heard of students participating in such struggles except on the side of the workers and the thing hurt...
...In his lack of mobility he is like a tree, in his inability to obey the laws of his being he is less...
...Their religion, their ethical concept, call it what we like, gave full sanction to slavery in some form, either in groups or individually, but whether it was group-slavery as in India or individual slavery as in the Mediterranean world the consciousness of it destroyed or so deadened the creative power in the bondman and in society generally, that the people as a whole became more and more mere slavish imitators in place of being creators of such new forms of life as was essential to continuous national or racial life...
...The best that we can do for the strike-breaker is to pity his ignorance or his lack of character...
...Fear removed, his passions become like a rush of mighty waters with barriers destroyed...
...We are further told that man was to take dominion over the earth and that its products were to be to him for meat...
...What else could he bring into such a world, a world that had to be transformed in order that it might live...
...The period which we call the French revolution brought the question of equality and freedom to the physical battlefields—domestic and foreign, and while the question was not definitely settled it had to be acknowledged that men are and of right ought to be equal in the State and before the law...
...Discontent over the lie under which they were living and which crippled their creative power even though they did but faintly realize it and they were willing to give their all to see :t ended...
...The man who knows, as students at a college or university .must know, and who out of sport or class consciousness goes as a strike-breaker, is a traitor to himself and of course to fundamental Ami -icanism...
...Bondage has been the Nemesis of nations and of necessity it could not be otherwise, because bondage results in direct negation of the purpose of man's being and is the violation of the fundamental law of life...
...he can have no sense of morality, of self-respect or of honor...
...he can have no individual will and for these reasons he cannot exercise his creative power...
...Deprived of human estate he is degraded below the animal or vegetable kingdoms...
...again they had hope...
...The free men's belief was that the slave had no soul to be saved or damned...
...male and female created he them...
...Association for mutual aid is unthinkable...
...Any man compelled to labor against his will, be it by an individual or by society, is a bondman...
...Sanction of Slavery HISTORICALLY we know the fate of India, Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, Greece and Rome...
...These Nations, if such they may be called, had at- least one excuse...
...The Third Estate has come into power, it has overcome the opposition of the old governing class, and it feels itself to be "the heir of the castle and guild...
...The feeling of his bondage expresses itself in hatred of his master or masters and in a selfishness that knows naught of moderation or restraint, except as it arises from fear...
...That tk^i ur-n-nudtions of freed men working co operatively, each one giving of his best to the work and the common life, were responsible for the health and the growing greatness of Rome cannot be seriously doubted, but the Collegias were destroyed and their membership became slaves, who doubly felt .their bondage...
...Toleration of it by workers in any field of endeavor is as we shall see treason to American ideals...
...Those that have been true lived, and according to history and to religious belief they are to live...
...Whatever we may think of the narrative in the Bible, we cannot doubt that man has creative powers and that creation has continued...
...Let the American people beware of bondage being imposed upon any class...
...but not to excuse the student strike-breaker...
...While we were reasonably true to it it was well with us...
...They control wages and this means the control of the clothing that the wife and children shall wear, of the food they shall eat, of the shelter they shall enjoy and of the education the children shall be able to obtain...
...It was mostly on the mental plane with sputterings of insurrections or incipient revolutions resulting in imprisonment, confiscations and death...
...It matters not if the labor be the writing of a thesis or the digging of a ditch, it is the use of the same divine faculty to labor—to create— and upon its proper and free use depends the life of individuals, nations and races...
...To the thousands of slaves that had been born in freedom and to the former members of the collegias, the tiding that all men are created equal was like the round of running water in the burning desert...
...And yet those laborers will organize and like Parliament submit petitions for redress of grievances and when that fails they like the people'* representatives in Parliament will endeavor to compel favorable consideration by withholding the supply of labor which the industrial master needs to continue his business...
...Insurrections and very serious civil wars shook the very foundation of the Roman state...
...because it is compelled from without, not an impulse from within...
...Creation was, so some teachers have told us, finished...
...work...
...again they felt their divine origin and they could bear all things, suffer all things and yet be glad...
...And so the struggle began again...
Vol. 19 • October 1927 • No. 10
