The OHIO HISTORICAL Quarterly
VOLUME 68 * NUMBER 4 * OCTOBER 1959
Washington Gladden and
The Labor Question
By JOHN L. SHOVER*
WHEN THE REV. WASHINGTON GLADDEN of
Springfield,
Massachusetts, published a book called Working
People and
Their Employers in 1876, he was invading a controversial
field considered the domain only of
opportunists like Ben
Butler or radicals like Wendell
Phillips. In a day when
influential religious periodicals could
label organized laborers
"ignoramuses" or
"demons,"1 Gladden courageously declared
his sympathy with the workers, found merit in unions,
and
believed that industrial questions
touched "the very marrow of
that religion of goodwill of which
Christ was the founder."2
Although he dismissed his pioneer
effort thirty years later as
"not an important book,"3
it remains a milepost in the litera-
ture of social reform-it was the first
suggestion of clerical
concern with the plight of the
industrial wage-earner since
the eighteen forties.
For Gladden this marked the beginning
of a lifelong inter-
est, stretching over a forty-two year
period from the days
* John L. Shover is assistant professor
of history at San Francisco State Col-
lege. He has recently completed a
doctoral dissertation on "Labor and the Intel-
lectuals, 1890-1900" at Ohio State
University.
1 See Henry F. May, Protestant
Churches and Industrial America (New York,
1949), 105.
2 Washington
Gladden, Working People and Their Employers (New York,
1885), 3.
3 Washington Gladden, Recollections (Boston,
1909), 257.
336
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
before Henry George's Progress and
Poverty to the last
months of the First World War. It
spanned the turbulent
early years of the modern American
labor movement. In
1876 the Knights of Labor was a
struggling secret organiza-
tion; the formation of the A.F. of L.
and the violence of
Haymarket, Homestead, and Pullman were
a decade or more
away. At the time of his death this
embryonic labor move-
ment had grown to powerful size,
exerting pressure in the
highest councils of the nation.
Gladden combined the roles of
truth-seeker, teacher, and
interpreter. First of all, he was a
student of his problem-
reading, observing, participating. Then
he sought patiently
to educate an apathetic middle class to
the issues and opposing
arguments. Most important was his
insistence that industrial
problems were moral problems to which
an enlightened Chris-
tian conscience had to be applied.
Washington Gladden was already
recognized as an influen-
tial leader of "social
gospel" theology when he accepted the
pastorate of the First Congregational
Church of Columbus,
Ohio, in 1883. Over the years until his
retirement in 1914
he made this pulpit into a national
forum. Religious and
popular journals of the day alike
testify to his prominence
in that special field. His own
denominational journal called
him "perhaps the most eminent and
influential exponent we
now have on this view of the relation
of ethics to economics,"4
and the Outlook described him as
"foremost today among the
increasing number of American pastors .
. . who are striving
to bring economic theories and
industrial relations and social
institutions under law to Christ."5
On his seventieth birthday,
the Century summed up his career
to that point by saying that
"he has kept his eyes open to the
new knowledge of scientists,
Biblical scholars, and sociologists and
has interpreted this
new truth for the spiritual, ethical,
and political guidance of
his fellowmen, not only in this
country, but to some degree
4 The Congregationalist, LXXVIII (1893), 767.
5 LII (1895), 745.
GLADDEN AND THE LABOR QUESTION 337
throughout the English-speaking
world." It concluded that
he was a "noble successor of a
royal line" stretching from
Jonathan Edwards to Henry Ward
Beecher."6 To a Collier's
reporter in 1912 his was the "most
influential voice in the
United States on modern ethical
issues."7 He was granted an
honorary degree from a leading Catholic
university, Notre
Dame, and one of the nation's prominent
Jewish leaders,
Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, once wrote after
a visit to Columbus:
"I rejoice to think that your
great work in your own city and
in the nation is not unrecognized by
your people. How
genuine and glad was their assent to my
reference to you."8
A present-day church leader, Harry
Emerson Fosdick, credits
Gladden with being one of the major
pioneers of social
Christianity.9
Gladden's association with industrial
problems was not
entirely academic. During the bitter
strike in the Hocking
Valley coal fields in 1884 he attempted
to persuade some of
the employers who were members of his
congregation to
adopt a more conciliatory policy toward
the union. Gladden
personally believed his advice was
little heeded,10 but a re-
spected student of economics, John
Bates Clark, thought
differently. Writing three years after
the settlement of the
strike and the employers' recognition
of the union, Clark
believed that Gladden's "wise
efforts" had hastened the peace-
ful outcome.1l
The major task Gladden set for himself
was to persuade
Protestant churchgoers to look upon the
labor question with
more sympathy and understanding. While
the real test of
his success lay in the unfathomable
convictions of his hearers,
the fact that the ideas he advanced
were by 1912 accepted by
6 LXXI
(1906), 816.
7 June 29, 1912, pp. 20-21.
8 Stephen S. Wise to Washington Gladden,
November 3, 1911. Gladden Col-
lection, Ohio Historical Society.
9 The Living of These Days (New York, 1956), 26.
l0 Gladden, Recollections, 293.
11 "Christianity and Modern
Economics," New Englander and Yale Review,
XLVII (1887), 59.
338 THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
most Protestant denominations
demonstrates that he was in
a main current of thought. His success
in establishing in the
Congregational Church a committee on
labor and capital in
1892 and his election as moderator of
that denomination in
1904 evidence recognition of his ideas
there.12
Students of the social gospel identify
Gladden as "middle of
the road" within the movement, a
classification which does
not quite do him justice. More
appropriately, he was a trail
blazer of the middle road. Although
most of the socially
oriented clergy eventually accepted
Gladden's position, they
were usually a decade or more behind
him and many of more
conservative bent fell by the
wayside.13
Always a moralist, Gladden was seldom a
dogmatist. His
intellectual course reveals an ever
increasing sympathy with
labor and a growing conviction that
industrial morality would
have to be achieved not merely by
voluntary Christian good-
will but through forceful means. While
others among his
social gospel contemporaries of the
eighties and nineties, such
as Richard T. Ely and Lyman Abbott,
seemed always to hold
to paternalistic and "natural
harmony" industrial schemes,
Gladden gradually shifted his position.
He was not afraid
to repudiate his earlier ideas.
Nonetheless, a remarkable
consistency ties together his many
sermons and printed essays
on the labor question. The end he was
seeking remained
essentially the same, but the means
Gladden would employ
evolved from vague moral preachments to
practical trade
union economics.
Anything Gladden had to say about the
labor question
sprang from his deep-rooted Christian
conviction that society
could be perfected by moral means. He
clung tenaciously to
12 The
Rev. Worth M. Tippy, a social gospel contemporary of Gladden and a
founder of the Methodist Federation for
Social Service in 1907, wrote me
November 22, 1958: "I doubt if
Gladden had great direct influence on labor and
the labor movement. Nor had he directly
much influence on social work as com-
pared, for example, with Graham Taylor,
but he exerted great influence on the
social thinking of the churches."
13 Aaron Abell, The Urban Impact on
American Protestantism (Cambridge,
Mass., 1943), 74.
GLADDEN AND THE LABOR QUESTION 339
an ideal outlined early in his career
of a perfect industrial
society, but it is difficult to
reconcile this ideal with the
realpolitik solutions he professed as he turned gradually to
the practical side of the problem.14
The ideal Gladden en-
visioned was a harmonious industrial
community where labor
and capital, united as brothers, would
be mindful of each
other's welfare. "Is it peace or
war?" he asked in an oft-
repeated address written originally in
1886. The laborer and
the capitalist were dependent upon each
other--they battled
over a wealth produced by their mutual
exertions. Competi-
tive warfare between them was evil,
sapping both the moral
and material strength of the nation. Gladden
took sharp
issue with the prevailing school of
political economy. "The
doctrine which bases all the relations
of employer and em-
ployed upon self interest," he
declared, "has been bringing
hell to earth in large installments for
a good many years."
The guide to peace was the Golden Rule,
"Thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself!"
Businessmen had to accept the
men who labored as partners in the
enterprise; the workers
had to unlearn bitter and violent
habits and recognize that
the employing class was not their
enemy.15
Gladden changed his means from time to
time but his devo-
tion to the ideal of the harmonious
industrial community was
constant. Looking back in his Recollections
in 1909, he re-
affirmed his central conviction that
"the sufficient remedy for
the disorders of the industrial world
is the application to
them of the Christian rule of
life."16
The problem of industrial harmony
required a remedial,
not a revolutionary solution. Gladden
frequently criticized
14 Later-day critics of the social
gospel have seized upon this optimistic hope
for social perfectibility to indict the
whole movement, arguing that Gladden and
all the social clergy fostered false
hopes and worked their way into contradictions
because they were asking the impossible.
In his book cogently titled Moral Man
and Immoral Society (New York, 1932) Reinhold Niebuhr argued that all that
could be hoped for was a
"relatively better" society, not a perfect one. See Paul A.
Carter, The Decline and Revival of
the Social Gospel (Ithaca, N.Y., 1956), 154-155.
15 Washington Gladden, Applied
Christianity (New York, 1914), 102-145. This
??ook was first published in 1886.
16 Gladden, Recollections, 298.
340 THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
the wage system, where only a
"cash-nexus" linked employee
to employer, but in no sense did he
consider the industrial
brotherhood he advocated as an
alternative inconsistent with
capitalism. He made clear that
"private property and private
enterprise must be maintained and some
means must be found
of infusing into them a larger measure of good
will."17
Latent in his vision of industrial
harmony were assumptions
common to most liberal reformers of the
day. The evils in
the industrial system were not basic;
minor modifications
alone were required. Most of all, the
system needed to be
administered by "good" men,
whose social interests rose above
self-motivation.
For Gladden as for other missionaries
of social religion the
harmonious industrial society was a
segment of a greater
ideal. All society ought to be a unity:
It is the solidarity of society which
furnishes the true principle of our
conduct. We are all members one of
another-laborers, employers,
merchants, customers, professional
people, artists, traders, all sorts and
conditions of men; and this is the body
to which we rightly apply the
motto: "An injury to one is the
concern of all."18
Gladden described the achieving of this
social integration as
the "great work of the hour."
It was the task of the church
to provide the "moral motive
power." 19
The chief function of the church was
not to guide men to
some other-worldly Kingdom but to
inspire them to perfect
present society into an earthly Kingdom
where Christ's "law
of love" would become the
"law of life." In appealing to the
reason and conscience of employers and
laborers, of church-
goers and politicians, Gladden
expressed a sublime faith in
the perfectibility of men. The
transformation of society would
17 Gladden,
Applied Christianity, 96.
18 Washington Gladden, Social Facts
and Forces (New York, 1897), 107. This
volume consists of a series of lectures
delivered at Steinway Hall, Chicago, in
1895 and 1896.
19 Ibid., 199.
GLADDEN AND THE LABOR QUESTION 341
come not by "any kind of
coercion" but by "purely moral and
spiritual agencies."20 In
1886 Gladden was optimistic that
the application of Christian conscience
was having its effect in
the industrial sphere. "I cannot
help hoping and believing that
the worst of the warfare between labor
and capital is now past
in this country, and that the day of
peace is even now
dawning."21
The social moralist of any age or
persuasion judges his
earthly city in terms of some vision of
the heavenly city. If
Gladden's vision of the unitary society
and the harmonious
industrial community seems too little
aware of practical
factors of economic and political
power, it is because of his
lack of concern for social blueprints
and his emphasis upon the
moral society which he believed men
could attain. Gladden
compromises and drifts from these
ideals, but in theory he
remains anchored to the Christian
conviction that brother-
hood must replace conflict and social
interest must prevail
over self-interest, so that a Kingdom
of unity and harmony
can be achieved.
Ethical ideals of this type were the
departure points in
Gladden's first discussions of the
labor question as he at-
tempted to achieve an harmonious
industrial community in
the practical world of labor-management
relations. Both
worker-owned factories and
profit-sharing by employers and
employees appealed to him as useful
techniques to transfer
ideal to reality. Gladden's enthusiasm
for these plans was
shared by a distinguished group of
social reformers. Richard
T. Ely edited A History of
Cooperation in America that in-
cluded contributions by such
distinguished writers on eco-
nomic subjects as Albert Shaw, Edward
W. Bemis, and
Amos Warner. Nicholas Paine Gilman, a
prominent Uni-
tarian minister, published in the
nineties three books advocat-
ing profit-sharing. The editor of the Outlook,
Lyman Abbott,
20 Washington
Gladden, The Church and Modern Life (Boston, 1908), 149.
21 Gladden, Applied Christianity, 178.
342
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
proposed an "industrial
democracy" where laborers would
share ownership.22
Like Ely and Abbott, Gladden was not
hostile to the
organization of unions despite his
sympathy for cooperation
or profit-sharing. If war we must have,
"labor has the same
right that capital has to prosecute the
warfare in the most
effective way," he made clear in
"Is It Peace or War?"23
The individual worker was helpless in
attempting to bargain
with a huge industrial combine. Gladden
was, however, more
critical than sympathetic with unions
and tended to accept
them only as the unfortunate
concomitant of industrial war-
fare.
Gladden's reluctant acceptance of labor
organizations in the
1870's is clearly revealed in his Working
People and Their
Employers. "I have no doubt," he said, "that such
combina-
tions of laborers are often unwise and
unprofitable, that, as
a general thing, they result in more
loss than gain to the
laboring classes." He thought that
they were "liable to become
instruments of evil as well as of
good," and he feared that
the "mob spirit" seized
unions and that the leaders were often
"noisy, crazy, crack-brained
creatures."24
By 1895 Gladden was more willing to
cast his lot with
labor:
So long as the present organization of
industry continues, the right
of working men to combine must be
frankly and fully conceded. In view
of the stupendous combinations of
capital, the refusal to permit the com-
bination of laborers is a grotesque
injustice. . . . In this country their
right to exist is still sometimes
challenged. . . . In every such conflict
my sympathies are wholly with the
working men. The attempt to
deprive them of the right to stand
together for their own defense is
22 Richard T. Ely, ed., History of
Cooperation in America (Baltimore, 1888);
Nicholas Paine Gilman, Profiit
Sharing Between Employer and Employee (Boston,
1889), Socialism and the American
Spirit (Boston, 1893), A Dividend to Labor:
A Study of Employers' Welfare
Institutions (Boston, 1899); Lyman
Abbott,
Reminiscences (Boston, 1915), 411.
23 Gladden, Applied Christianity, 125.
24 Gladden, Working People and Their Employers, 42, 140, 138.
GLADDEN AND THE LABOR QUESTION 343
one that they ought to resist by all
lawful means, and they ought to
know that all men who hate oppression
are on their side.25
Coupled with this support were words of
challenge: "The
one lesson that the people of the
trades unions need to learn
is the solidarity of human interests. .
. . They are organized
to look sharply after the interests of
their own class and
they have been quite too much inclined
to be oblivious of
others."26 Unions were often "unjust and
tyrannical" in
seeking to prevent non-union men from
procuring employ-
ment. No working man should be
compelled to join a union;
violence towards non-joiners by the
unions only gained them
public sympathy.27
For Gladden as for most middle-class
reformers, the mili-
tant organization of an unpropertied
class was anathema.
"That ugly word, the
proletariat," he warned, "threatens
to be incorporated into our common
speech" unless the part-
nership of worker and employer was fast
recognized.28 There
might be a right to strike, but it was
a "costly luxury" to be
indulged in sparingly--a successful
strike was only a bit less
expensive than an unsuccessful one.29
Rather than unite
with his fellows to attack the property
of others, the working-
man should do something for himself:
"If the working people
of this country would save, for the
next five years, the money
they spend on beer and baseball, they
could control a pretty
large share of the capital employed in
the industries by which
they get their living; and they could
turn the dividends of
this capital from the pockets of the
money lenders into their
own."30
The Homestead strike of 1892 was to
Gladden a needless
conflict. The greed of the owners had
been fairly matched
25 Gladden,
Social Facts and Forces, 66.
26 Ibid., 76.
27 Ibid., 70-72; Washington
Gladden, Tools and the Man (Boston, 1893), 161.
28 Gladden, Tools and the Man, 188.
29 Gladden, Social Facts and Forces, 64.
30 Washington Gladden, "Can Our
Social Ills Be Remedied?" The Forum,
VIII (1889), 26.
344 THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
by the unreason of the workmen. He said
candidly, "I con-
fess myself unable to take sides with
either." However, had
a gentleman been at the head of the
business the trouble
might not have occurred.31
As an alternative to industrial
conflict Gladden spoke hope-
fully of worker-owned cooperative
plants--a scheme favored
by the National Labor Union of the
sixties and by Terence
V. Powderly of the Knights of Labor.
Gladden was aware
of the many obstacles to cooperative
industry such as the lack
of skilled managers, the difficulty in
accumulating capital,
and threats from outside competition.
Perhaps this is why
his discussion of cooperation had by
1886 shaded into a profit-
sharing system which would preserve the
identity of owner
and worker and keep the business under
the control of trained
managers.
Profit-sharing dovetailed neatly with
his vision of the
harmonious industrial community.
"Let no one fail to see,"
he emphasized late in his career,
"cooperation is nothing
more than the arrangement of the
essential factors of pro-
duction according to the Christian
rule--'we being many are
one body in Christ, and every one
members one of an-
other.'"32 Profit-sharing made
real the mutual moral obli-
gation of worker and owner. Since the
system had to be in-
augurated voluntarily by the employer, it invested him
with
the greatest opportunity of the
generation for Christian
leadership and statesmanship. The old
maxim of noblesse
oblige was binding: "Every employer must consider his
employees. . . as the flock over which
he is the shepherd; and
must feel that a very large part of his
business is the mainte-
nance between himself and them of
sympathetic relations."33
On the other hand, profit-sharing would
directly reward the
conscientious and industrious laborer.
There was a further advantage--not only
was profit-shar-
ing within the capitalist framework; it
would extend private
31 New
Year's Sermon (1893). Gladden Collection.
32 Gladden, Recollections,
257.
33 Gladden, Tools and the Man, 237-238; Social Facts
and Forces, 37.
GLADDEN AND THE LABOR QUESTION 345
ownership by broadening its base. It
would make real the
traditional American dream of
"every man a capitalist."34
Gladden both advanced and retreated
before the labor
problem; he was willing to recognize
organization but hesi-
tant to endorse organized action. In
counseling the opposing
forces to lay down their arms and
accept profit-sharing as a
solution, he crystallized a
middle-class moral feeling that was
alarmed at violence, shocked at
class-conscious worker move-
ments, and dismayed that appeals to the
goodness of men
seemed to be of no avail.
With the passing of the nineteenth
century and the steady
growth of the American Federation of
Labor as the nation's
strongest labor organization, Gladden's
interest in systems of
industrial harmony such as
profit-sharing waned. He did
not share the optimism of the
Progressive period. With the
appearance of militant organizations
like the National Asso-
ciation of Manufacturers on the one
hand and the Industrial
Workers of the World on the other, he
believed the breach
between labor and capital was widening.
The responsibility for the
deterioration in labor relations
rested primarily upon the employers, he
said. They had
failed their paternalistic obligation:
Organizations of employers have arisen
in late years whose attitude
toward organized labor is more hostile
than anything which has been
known in our history. . . . There are
thousands of employers in all parts
of the country who, a few years ago,
were disposed to be reasonable in
their treatment of labor unions, but
who, today, are maintaining toward
them an attitude of almost vindictive
opposition.35
With increased vigor Gladden emphasized
a point he had
often made before. All across the land
independent businesses
were being consolidated into giant
industrial combines. "The
largest portion of the business of the
country," he asserted,
"is now done by immense
aggregations of capital, ranging
34 Gladden,
Applied Christianity. 96-98.
35 Gladden, Recollections, 305.
346
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
from small combines which represent
five or ten millions,
up to the Steel Corporation with its
capital of twelve hundred
millions."36 A
theoretical "freedom of contract" for the labor-
ing man in such a context was absurd.
His freedom depended
upon his position in some union strong
enough to counter
the power of capital. To insist on the
individual rights of
workers was to undermine the collective
unit which alone
placed him in a position to enforce his
rights.37 Gladden no
longer had the same sympathy for the
worker who refused
to join a union. "If it is true
that the liberty and welfare
of the workingmen in any trade can only
be secured by union,
then all the men of any trade ought to
belong to the union."
Employers who in resisting unions
insisted upon their obliga-
tion to protect the rights of the
non-union man overlooked
the fact that in an industrial age
economic privileges did not
automatically accrue to an independent
workingman--they
came only through his participation in
some organization
which would effectively seek and
enforce these privileges.38
In voicing a new sympathy for the labor
union, Gladden
abandoned many of his earlier
criticisms. He did not deny
that unions often misused the
tremendous power they held,
but abuse of power was no proof that an
institution was evil.
Their indiscretions should be judged by
the same standards
applied to the practices of the
capitalist. It was perfectly
consistent to condemn abuses and at the
same time "clearly
and strongly" affirm the rights of
labor.39
Neither could he condemn the laboring
man for failing
to save pennies in anticipation of a
day when he might share
in ownership. Find out what the annual
wages of workers
are in good times, he told a Columbus
evening audience, and
"we have less heart to censure
them for failing to lay up
money."40
36 Washington Gladden, Christianity
and Socialism (New York, 1905), 64.
37 Ibid., 70.
38 Ibid., 94-95.
39 Ibid., 91.
40 "Industrially Where Are
We?" (1908?). Gladden Collection.
GLADDEN AND THE LABOR QUESTION 347
Intellectually, Gladden was shifting
from an idealistic to an
empirical position. No longer was he so
concerned with what
ought to be. His principal interest had
become the realities
of the industrial world; his question,
how labor could protect
and strengthen its position and perhaps
move step by step
towards a more remote yet not forgotten
world of harmony.
Rather than cooperation, his new stress
was upon collective
bargaining--an industrial balance of
power systems, where
two organized groups could counter each
other and thresh
out problems of wages, hours, and
working conditions.
Regardless of his endorsement of
collective bargaining,
Gladden did not abandon his hope of an
eventual harmonious
industrial community. There was some
modification, how-
ever. The units in the industrial
community should not be a
paternal employer and a subservient
individual worker; they
ought to be a powerful employer and a
strong worker group.
Gladden was more than a spectator of
conflicts of labor
and capital. In 1910 his home city of
Columbus was the scene
of a violent dispute between the local
streetcar company and
its employees. The crux of the dispute
was the recognition
of the new A.F. of L. union, although
the immediate issue
was the failure of the company to
reinstate several workers
dismissed because of union activity.
When General Manager
E. K. Stewart refused to consider union
demands or even
to negotiate with representatives, the
transit employees
walked out.41
There was considerable property damage
and rioting as the
company attempted in vain to keep the
streetcars running. On
May 3, 1910, Gladden at the head of a
committee of four
influential Columbus citizens,
including President William
Oxley Thompson of Ohio State
University, brought union
and company leaders together in his
study. The union was
willing to submit the dispute to the
committee for arbitration;
the company was less enthusiastic and
even refused to supply
41 Columbus Citizen, April 29, 1910.
348
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
desired data to the committee.
Nevertheless, a compromise
was reached, more satisfactory to the
company than to the
new union, placing the four discharged
workers in new jobs
provided by the city of Columbus. The
company agreed not
to interfere with future union
activities but did not promise
to recognize the organization.42
His intimate association with this
labor-management con-
flict was reflected in a series of
vigorous and militant articles
Gladden published in the Outlook during
the spring of 1911
and then collected into a book, The
Labor Question, the same
year.
Once again he reviewed the old issues.
In a society of
large industrial organizations the
oppression of labor could
not be prevented by "the
sentiments of justice and humanity
in the hearts of capitalists." The
pace in a competitive econ-
omy was not set by men of good will,
but by the employer
seeking the cheapest production.43
The humane, personal
relations that had existed between an
employer and an em-
ployee when shops and factories were
small and markets local
were no longer possible. Social ideas
lagged behind social
change. Gladden cogently criticized his own attitude of
twenty years before when he observed,
"Most of our indus-
trial maxims are drawn out of that old
regime, and have
no application to the present
order."44
Why the strife of labor and capital?
The fact that em-
ployers failed to recognize unions was
at the root of the
trouble. Some "tolerated"
unions, but even the majority of
so-called tolerant employers would
abolish them if they could.
"Tolerant" employers
frequently insisted upon an open shop,
or pleaded there was "nothing to
arbitrate" with union repre-
sentatives.45 In contrast to
his optimism of the eighties Glad-
den lamented, "The relations
between the men who work for
42 Ibid., May 5, 1910.
43 Washington Gladden, The Labor
Question (Boston, 1911), 64.
44 Gladden, The Labor Question, 49.
45 Ibid., 195-196.
GLADDEN AND THE LABOR QUESTION 349
wages and the men who pay wages are
distinctly less friendly
than they were twenty years ago."46
What of abuses of union power? Gladden
remained firmly
opposed to violence, but he recognized
that in the "superheated
social atmosphere" of a strike,
labor was too readily blamed
for all disorder. During the streetcar
strike, for example, a
thousand arrests had been made for
disorderly conduct, yet
only six of the group were strikers.
Five of these were dis-
charged when it was found they were
peaceful pickets. Yet
nine out of ten editors and preachers
seemed to hold without
question that the union had caused all
of the trouble. Gladden
personally had urged the striking
carmen to patrol the lines
to prevent stone-throwing and property
damage--had they
done so, he believed they might have
won the strike. He noted,
however, that "in calling on them
for conduct so altruistic
and magnanimous, I was setting before
them an ideal which
few groups even of the classes supposed
to be superior could
be induced to consider."47
Gladden was not uncritical of unions.
Petty restrictions
upon work, lessening of output, the
sympathetic strike, and
the secondary boycott could not be
countenanced, but these
were unfortunate by-products, not
necessary features of
unionism.48
What of the future of labor-management
relations? Profit-
sharing was a noble experiment that had
failed. Gladden
regretfully commented: "I used to
get letters from employers
very frequently asking about the
working of such plans.
These methods are not much talked about
in these days. The
impulse to associate the men with the
masters seems to have
spent its force."49 In
his important lecture "Trade Union-
ism" a few years later in 1914 he
was more emphatic. Profit-
sharing was a gratuity, leaving the
employee in the position
of a recipient of charity. In no sense
was this a satisfactory
46 Ibid., 8.
47 Ibid., 33.
48 Ibid., 39.
49 Ibid., 8.
350
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
situation for the worker: "Who
would be free themselves
must strike the blow. Freedom which is wholly a
gratuity
is not worth much."50
The issue for the future was one of
democracy. The com-
mon man had been granted a stake in
choosing his leaders
and administering laws but denied a
voice in determining his
own wages and hours. The question was
simply "whether
we are ready to see our democracy
complete itself." In de-
manding from capital collective
bargaining rights, unions
were "standing up for the
liberties of all of us": "I do not
expect to see, I do not wish to see any
permanent settlement
of the labor controversy until this
right is ungrudgingly
conceded by all employers of
labor." Gladden looked favor-
ably upon some type of industrial
council where union repre-
sentatives might share in management
decisions.51
But what of the ethical ideal of unity
which had been the
first concern of Gladden the Christian?
The labor union, he
frankly confessed in 1914, "rests
upon a basis which I do
not approve. . . . It assumes that
society is made up of
opposing and conflicting
interests." His qualifying statement
is the key: "We shall never be
able to make peace until we
have learned to fight fair."
Industrial conflict had to be
conducted by civilized means first.52
The church could not
preach salvation to souls embittered by
exploitation and
poverty.53
If the ideal had to be compromised did
it cease to exist?
The question was whether it was still
possible to envision a
moral society on earth. In the twilight
of his life, crippled
by paralysis and alienated from friends
by his opposition to
the war, Gladden returned to this
question with a profound-
ness that transcended the simplicity of
his earlier social-gospel
theology. The law of love was always
the law of life. God's
law was never in abeyance--and society
paid a heavy penalty
50 "Trade Unionism" (1914). Gladden Collection.
51 Ibid.
52 Ibid.
53 Gladden, The Labor Question, 165.
GLADDEN AND THE LABOR QUESTION 351
for its defiance. Judgment came in this
world as well as in
another. International warfare and
industrial conflicts were
the judgments men had wrought for
themselves by their sins
of selfishness and avarice.54
Gladden's bold espousal of the cause of
the labor union had
carried him beyond colleagues of
earlier days. Richard T.
Ely after the turn of the century
became increasingly con-
servative in economic matters.55 Lyman
Abbott in his recol-
lections (1915) was critical of the
increased powers of unions
and remained a supporter of
profit-sharing.56 The point at
which Gladden stood in the spectrum of
social-gospel thought
can be judged by the fact that the
Federal Council of Churches
in its social creed of 1912 committed
itself to a policy Gladden
long had advocated: laboring men should
have the right to
organize. It was not until 1932 that
the words "for collective
bargaining and social action" were
added.57
In one of the last sermons of his life,
Gladden was again
struggling to project his ethical
ideals into an unknown future.
Social change had become so
catastrophic, he believed, as to
demand "wide and radical
reconstruction of the whole social
and economic life of the nation."
He endorsed enthusiastic-
ally the assertion of the English
economist J. A. Hobson that
war had produced a wholly new
conception of the capacity
of the community to do things in its
own behalf. Americans
might well look to the day when
organized labor would be
"practically incorporated into the
body politic; be made part
of the economic structure of the
state." The inequities of
the past could not be restored. Church
leaders, attuned to
the habits of older individualism must
discern the significance
of what was happening about them. The
future promised
54 Washington Gladden, The Forks of
the Road (New York, 1916), 26; "The
Inescapable Law," The
Independent, LXXXVIII (1916), 279.
55 Merle Curti and Vernon Carstensen, The
University of Wisconsin: A History
(Madison, Wis., 1941), II, 341.
56 Abbott, Reminiscences, 411.
57 Carter, Decline and Revival of the
Social Gospel, 150.
352
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
"the mobilization of humanity for
common action on a scale
and with an effectiveness never before
possible."58
Radicalism? Perhaps. The evolution of
Gladden's thought
since Working People and Their
Employers forty-two years
before had been a pilgrim's progress. Gladden always
re-
mained a crusader for a moral society,
but as his study of
the labor question led him from the
realm of ethics to the
world of experience he realized the
portentous difficulties the
task involved. Like two distinguished
contemporaries of his,
Henry Demarest Lloyd and Lincoln
Steffens, he abandoned
vague moralistic reforms and finally
came to believe that
far-reaching institutional changes were
necessary to keep
pace with the swift rate of social
change.
58 "Industry
and Fraternity" (1918?). Gladden Collection.
The OHIO HISTORICAL Quarterly
VOLUME 68 * NUMBER 4 * OCTOBER 1959
Washington Gladden and
The Labor Question
By JOHN L. SHOVER*
WHEN THE REV. WASHINGTON GLADDEN of
Springfield,
Massachusetts, published a book called Working
People and
Their Employers in 1876, he was invading a controversial
field considered the domain only of
opportunists like Ben
Butler or radicals like Wendell
Phillips. In a day when
influential religious periodicals could
label organized laborers
"ignoramuses" or
"demons,"1 Gladden courageously declared
his sympathy with the workers, found merit in unions,
and
believed that industrial questions
touched "the very marrow of
that religion of goodwill of which
Christ was the founder."2
Although he dismissed his pioneer
effort thirty years later as
"not an important book,"3
it remains a milepost in the litera-
ture of social reform-it was the first
suggestion of clerical
concern with the plight of the
industrial wage-earner since
the eighteen forties.
For Gladden this marked the beginning
of a lifelong inter-
est, stretching over a forty-two year
period from the days
* John L. Shover is assistant professor
of history at San Francisco State Col-
lege. He has recently completed a
doctoral dissertation on "Labor and the Intel-
lectuals, 1890-1900" at Ohio State
University.
1 See Henry F. May, Protestant
Churches and Industrial America (New York,
1949), 105.
2 Washington
Gladden, Working People and Their Employers (New York,
1885), 3.
3 Washington Gladden, Recollections (Boston,
1909), 257.