FOR CIVIC AND INDUSTRIAL PEACE

Frank W. Gale, Mary Baker G. Eddy

Concord (N. H.) Daily Patriot  

A letter in this article was later republished in The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany: My. 285:1-31

The following correspondence is self-explanatory:—

San Francisco, Cal., July 9, 1907.
Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy, Concord, N. H.

Dear Teacher and Leader:— As stated in the enclosed clippings, an invitation has been sent to you by the Civic League of this city, inviting you to attend an Industrial Peace Conference to be held in Christian Science Hall July 23-25 ; or, if you do not attend, requesting an expression of your views on the subject of industrial peace that may be read at the conference. Of course we do not expect you to be present personally, but would greatly appreciate a word from you that might be read at the meeting.

It may interest you to know the circumstances leading to this conference. The day after the riot in connection with the street-carmen's strike, when the city was in an uproar and it looked as though more strikes would be declared and possibly the troops called out to quell the disturbance, a conciliation committee was formed, composed of delegates from the Labor Council, Civic League, San Francisco Church Federation, and some other prominent citizens, for the purpose of bringing about a settlement of the strikes and restoring industrial peace. Mr. Isidor Jacobs, C.S., who was one of the organizers of the Civic League, and I, (Frank W. Gale, C.S.D.) as vice-president of the Church Federation, were members of this conciliation committee, which succeeded in bringing about a settlement of the ironworkers' and laundry-workers' strikes, but the street carmen's and telephone-operators' strikes have not yet been adjusted. It is significant that the strikes which were settled involved reputable business men, while the two remaining unsettled involved public service corporations whose officials have been indicted and are being tried for bribing the Board of Supervisor and Mayor, the latter having just been sentenced to five years in the penitentiary on a charge of extortion.

When it was found that nothing more could be accomplished by the conciliation committee in the present strikes, Mr. Jacobs proposed an industrial peace conference that would take up the subject in a broad way, with a view to providing a permanent body to deal with any future labor problems that might arise. As several of President Roosevelt's cabinet officers—Oscar S. Straus, Secretary of the Department of Commerce and Labor (a cousin of Mr. Jacobs, C.S.), J. R. Garfield, Secretary of the Interior, and Victor H. Metcalf, Secretary of the Navy—would be in San Francisco in July, it was thought to be a fitting occasion for a conference of this kind, when these gentlemen and others could give us the benefit of their experience and wisdom in dealing with the problems of labor and capital. The labor delegates to the conciliation committee being withdrawn at this time, the matter of the industrial peace conference was referred to the Civic League, which will make all the arrangements. The Directors of our church offered the use of Christian Science Hall in this effort to obtain better civic and industrial conditions.

In recognition of your unceasing labor for that which establishes peace on a sure foundation, and as a member Fondateur of the American Branch of the Association for International Conciliation, the invitation to express your views on the occasion of this industrial peace conference was extended, and we hope that you may favor us with such views.

Yours faithfully,
Frank W. Gale.

Mr. Frank W. Gale, C. S. D., San Francisco, Cal.

Dear Student:— Please accept my thanks for your kind invitation, on behalf of the Civic League of San Francisco, to attend the Industrial Peace Conference, and accept my hearty congratulations.

I cannot spare the time requisite to meet with you ; but I rejoice with you in all your wise endeavors for industrial, civic, and national peace. Whatever adorns Christianity crowns the great purposes of life and demonstrates the Science of being. Bloodshed, war, and oppression belong to the darker ages, and shall be relegated to oblivion.

It is a matter for rejoicing that the best, bravest, most cultured men and women of this period unite with us in the grand object embodied in the Association for International Conciliation.

In Rev. 2: 26, St. John says: "And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations." In the words of St. Paul, I repeat; "And they neither found me in the temple disputing with any man, neither raising up the people, neither in the synagogues, . . .

"Neither can they prove the things whereof they now accuse me.

"But this I confess unto thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets."

Most sincerely yours,
Mary Baker G. Eddy.

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