The Church and Labor Author:John Augustine Ryan Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 2. FREDERIC OZANAM ON THE LABOR QUESTION a. Liberalism And Socialism " The question which agitates the world to-day," Ozanam had written long before the f... more »ateful events of the year 1848, " is not a question of persons, nor of politics, but a social questions." Carefully and accurately he had read the signs of the time. When the great industrial system of our age was far from its present development and when many of the clearest minds in Europe were but little dreaming of the coming issues, be had already sounded the problem of the future. In a letter to Foisset occur the following memorable lines: The questions which will occupy the minds of men are the questions of labor, of wages, of industry, of economics.1 When the Revolution broke out Ozanam beheld the realization of what he had long foreseen: that it is impossible for any modern government to endure, no matter what may be its form, if it does not give to social questions a first place in its considerations. In a letter addressed to his brother, the Abbe Ozanam, dated March 6, 1848, and published for the first time by Duthoit, in Livre du Centenaire, he contrasted the revolutions of 1830 and 1848. The former, he held, was political; the latter, social. The one was of interest to the educated classes, but the other of intense moment for the common people. It was all a question of labor organization, of boars of work and of wages. We most not imagine that we can escape these problems. If men think that they can satisfy the people by giving them primary as- emblies, legislative councils, now magistrates, consuls or a president, they are sadly mistaken. Within a decade of years, and perhaps sooner, the old difficulties will return. i Eugene Duthoit in Ozanam, Livre du Centenaire, p. 354. On the other hand, he...« less