"S
MR. CHARLES STELZLE AND HIS JOB
("losing the gap between the church and
the alienated workingnian is one of the
stiff problems that has been facing or
ganized Christianity for many 'years
some say the stiffest. It has pressed on
Stelzle all his life, insisting on recogni
tion as his particular job. Seven years
ago the Presbyterian church saw that
something ought to be done, created a de
partment of church and labor under its
home mission board, and passed it up to
Stelzle.
Stelzle not only carried his heart over
into the job, but put plenty of sense in it
besides. lie knows the workingnian
pretty well. lie spent the first twenty -five
years of his life in the lower East
Side (he is now forty-two years old).
When he was eight years old he left off
school and went to work in a tobacco fac
tory in tlie basement of a tenement house.
Then he took to selling papers farther
downtown. From sixteen to twenty-four
he was a machinist with the Hoe Manu
facturing Co. a good machinist, too. His
diploma from the Hoe concern now hangs
over his desk in the Presbyterian Build
ing, attesting his degree of skilled labor
er. He is a union workman in good stand
ing and carries his card in his pocket.
Having learned what men were like in
the streets and shops, he became a minis
ter and learned what they were like in
church on Sundays. He had some trou
ble in qualifying for his theological
studies. One seminary, whose sense of
humor must have been a little rusty, re
jected his application because he did not
have enough book learning. His English
was poor. Stelzle declined to be discour
aged, squeezed into another school, and
very soon, perversely enough, began to
write. He published half a dozen books in
rapid succession and managed to get him
self accepted at once as an authority.
Every week he has syndicated an article
into three hundred and fifty labor papers
which eight or ten million people read.
Stelzle left his big institutional church
in the middle west to become superintend
ent of the new bureau, and from that time
on he has had to be about seven kinds of
a man at once. The bureau was brand
new and without precedent and the board
of home missions simply showed him the
splendid vista of all outdoors to work in.
bade him welcome to all the interest he
might be able to stir up, gave him $3,000
to cover all the first year's expenses and
told him to go ahead. Since then Stelzle
has stood as delegate to all kinds of meet
ings, been on every forum from pulpit to
soap box, written, traveled, and been a
kind of tireless human kaleidoscope. By
quick turns he has been inspirational, in
stitutional, devotional, educational, and
at all times sensible. The appropriations
have iwreasely annually until last year
the board jnvestefl fls. much, 9,0QQ jn
the work of the bureau. It got its money's
worth.
No doubt Stelzle has done a great da'J
for the workingman, but his great achieve
ment, after all, has been to educate the
rich and powerful Presbyterian church to
a sense of something more than a vague,
theoretical responsibility for standing on
terms of brotherhood with the un
privileged. He is getting it into the heart
of decorous Christians that the working
man is human and just like anybody else.
He is putting the Christian church under
conviction of sin in the matter of the un
christian conditions that surround labor
and exploit it. He sets us wondering
what we ought to do about a civilization
that puts infants eight years old strip
ping tobacco in a reeking basement ; he
sets us thinking of the workingman as a
creature who will bleed if he is pricked,
who has emotions, aspirations, affections,
and weaknesses like our own; who has
self-respect and hates patronage, and has
the same conteriipt for religious patron
age especially, that anyone else would
have.
Quite a number of self-revelations in
the same line this quiet German is plow-'
ing out of the Christian conscience of this
country; and so we of any creed or no
creed at all may do well to hold up both
hands for Stelzle.
Following is "An Every-Day Creed,"
written by Stelzle and widely circulated.
It gives an idea of the man's spirit and of
his style as a writer :
"I BELIEVE IN MY JOB. It may
not be a very important job, but it is
MINE. Furthermore, it is God's job for
me, if I am honestly trying to do His will.
He has a purpose in my life with refer
ence to His plan for the world's progress.
No other fellow can take my place. It1
isn't a big place, to be sure, but for years
I have been molded in a peculiar way to
fill a peculiar niche in the world's work.
I could take no other man's place. He has
the same claim as a specialist that I make
for myself. Yes, I believe in my job. May
I be kept true to the task which lies be
fore me true to myself and to God, who
intrusted me with it.
"I BELIEVE IN MY FELLOW MAN.
He may not always agree with me. I'd feel
sorry for him if he did, because I myself
do not believe some of the things that
were absolutely sure in my own mind a
dozen years ago. May he never lose faith
in himself, because if he does, he may lose
faith in me, and that would hurt him
more than the former, and it would really
hurt him more than it would hurt me.
"I BELIEVE IN MY COUNTRY. I
believe in it because it is made up of my
fellow men and myself. I can't go back
on either of us and be true to my creed. If
it isn't the best country m the world, it i
partly because I am not the kind of a man
that I should be.
"I BELIEVE IN MY HOME. It isn't
a rich home. It wouldn't satisfy some
folks, but it contains jewels which cannot
be purchased in the markets of the world.
When I enter its secret chambers and shut
out the world with its care, I am a lord.
Its motto is service, its reward is love.
There is no other place in all the world
which fills its place, and heaven can be
only a larger home, with a father who is
all-wise and patient and tender.
"I BELIEVE IN TODAY. It is all
that I possess. The past is of value only
as it can make the life of today fuller and
freer. There is no assurance of tomorrow.
I must make good today." From the
American Magazine for September.
OPPORTUNITY EVERYWHERE
One day this week a young man applied
for a marriage license at the Lancaster
court house, and in reply to one of the us
ual questions stated that he lived at Op
portunity, Nebraska. Courthouse at
taches expressed ignorance as to the
whereabouts of Opportunity. This merely
emphasizes the ignorance of some people.
Opportunity, Nebraska, is everywhere.
In fact, no state in the union has so many
Opportunities as Nebraska. They exist
in every village, town and city; in every
township and county. And all that is
necessary for a man to do is to seize it
wherever he finds it. There is Opportun
ity to get larger and better returns from
the soil of Nebraska than from the" soil
of any other state, because Nebraska soil
is the best in the world. There is Oppor
tunity to invest with more profit in in
dustrial enterprises, because Nebraska
raises the raw product that enters into
the manufactured articles that the world
must have. There is Opportunity to en
gage in dairying with the certainty of suc
cess if intelligence is used. There is Op
portunity to engage in profitable busi
ness, because the state is growing in pop
ulation and wealth. There is Opportun
ity for the young man, the middle-aged
man and the elderly man, for the climate
of Nebraska is conducive of longevity and
the very air is surcharged with energy.
Not know where Opportunity, Ne
braska, is? Such ignorance, in view of all
the self-evident facts, is truly appalling.
We suggest alright school for the court
house attaches.
Lincoln people are not so much inter
ested in the kind of a pump to be bought
for the water department, or where a new
well is to be bored, as they are in buying
some kind of a pump and adding to the
water supply.
It is a pleasure as well an a duty to con
tinually boost for etag.
