Editorial October 9, 1902 Issue

The Effectiveness of "the Religious Idea."

It is a somewhat unusual thing for a commission of inquiry into economic conditions to commend the practical application of religious teaching as the only remedy for prevailing disorders, and Mr. Carroll D. Wright's suggestion, in his report to the President upon the coal strike, has provoked very general comment.

In an extended editorial article on the subject one of our leading dailies has said:—

"Carroll D. Wright's thesis, that 'the application of the religious idea is the true solution of the labor problem and the whole question must be placed on an altruistic basis,' is a common theory, but it is doubtful if it will stand the test of modern conditions. While religion should be cultivated as a help to the harmonizing of the differences between conflicting forces in human activity, the effort to bring business affairs under the control of altruistic motives is quite possibly a misdirected form of effort. Altruism, in the sense in which Mr. Wright uses the word, is not a natural basis from which material interests may be cultivated. The sense of the brotherhood of man, and money getting, are not born of the same instincts. The teaching to depend upon in the present situation would seem to be rather that showing the expediency of justice — that fair play brings the best financial results in the end, in the relations of capital and labor.

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