I've finished with the initial conversion of the OCR'd pages into markdown for Christianity and the Social Crisis, by Walter Rauschenbusch. Still a fair amount of work to do to get it into good shape for an ebook, but I'm happy with the progress.
As has become my habit, I noted down some quotes from this chapter to share.
1/
"Moreover, it is only when society arrives at wealth and power that "grafting" comes to pay. In a poor and savage community the individual has so little that the only way to get wealth without work is by downright robbery of the weak. As the average of wealth rises, and the aggregate of wealth becomes more enormous, a mere "rake-off" is enough to enrich the grafter. Hence in a savage community we have robbers and bandit chiefs; in a civilized community we have a parasitic class who live in idleness and splendor by converting to their own use some kind of intrusted wealth or delegated power. "Grafting" is a highly perfected modern sin. Its essence is not stealing, but the corruption of a steward by one party and the betrayal of trust by a second party, who together profit at the expense of a third party, most frequently the public. "
2/
I loved this one:
"Our political parties, at least in their local administration, are largely held together by the cohesive necessities of common plunder."
3/
On the idea that mines (for example) are stewards of resources, not owners:
"It is preposterous to think that an individual or a corporation can ever have absolute ownership in a vein of coal or copper. A mining company owns the holes in the ground, for it made the holes; it does not own the coal, for it did not make the coal. The coal is the gift of God and belongs to the people. "
4/
He allows that unions can be as violent as owners. But adds:
"Few will care to assert that in the bitter conflicts waged between labor and capital the wrong has always been on one side. Yet when the law bares its sword, it is somehow always against one side. The militia does not seem to be ordered out against capital."
5/
On the call to preachers:
"The ministry, in particular, must apply the teaching functions of the pulpit to the pressing questions of public morality. It must collectively learn not to speak without adequate information; not to charge individuals with guilt in which all society shares; not to be partial, and yet to be on the side of the lost; not to yield to political partisanship, but to deal with moral questions before they become political issues and with those questions of public welfare which never do become political issues. They must lift the social questions to a religious level by faith and spiritual insight."
6/
"The force of the religious spirit should be bent toward assetting the supremacy of life over property. Property exists to maintain and develop life. It is unchristian to regard human life as a mere instrument for the production of wealth. "
7/
I think I enjoy this book so much because of the humor that randomly appears:
"
The championship of social justice is almost the only way left open to a Christian nowadays to gain the crown of martyrdom. Theological heretics are rarely persecuted now. The only rival of God is mammon, and it is only when his sacred name is blasphemed that men throw the Christians to the lions. "
8/8
Bryan L. Fordham