Publication information
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Source: Commonwealth
Source type: magazine
Document type: editorial
Document title: “A Warning to the Rich”
Author(s): anonymous
Date of publication: September 1901
Volume number: 8
Issue number: 9
Pagination: 6

 
Citation
“A Warning to the Rich.” Commonwealth Sept. 1901 v8n9: p. 6.
 
Transcription
full text
 
Keywords
Robert Morris Kemp (sermons); McKinley assassination (religious response); anarchism (religious response); McKinley assassination (lessons learned); society (criticism).
 
Named persons
Robert Morris Kemp; William McKinley.
 
Document

 

A Warning to the Rich

     REV. R. M. KEMP, in St. Paul’s Chapel, New York, preached a radical sermon on the assassination of President McKinley. He interpreted the murder as a divine warning to the nation of God’s dissatisfaction with the ways of the American people. We make the following striking extracts:
     “As thoroughly as one could well be, am I out of any kind of sympathy with the principles of anarchists; but I cannot be unmindful of the possibility that, wicked in their ways of attaining, but with foundation principles worthy of attention, they seek the equality of all mankind. May it not be that one of the lessons this great bereavement to this land of ours, dedicated as it is to the principle that all men are created free and equal, may be to stop us in the mad career we are in these latter days mapping out for ourselves, of forgetting our brother placed beside us in the mad rush for wealth, which our selfishness covets? There can be no doubt that wealth is the god of this land of ours to-day, and wealth, with its tyrannous grasp, holds its weaker brother. Strikes and labor disputes disrupt our social economics, and the under man has little chance in the race for justice.
     “The power and the might of the wealthy class bear down to-day too hard upon the poor. There is no reason why a man, because he has the power, should grind down his employe [sic] to work for starvation wages that he may raise his percentage of profit to an infamous degree. God’s gifts of plenty wondrously abound; there is enough for all, and a rich overabundance for many.”

 

 


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