The Bishop and the Golden Calf
A fiery editorial critique of Bishop Newman’s defense of vast wealth accumulation and its impact on the laboring classes.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Bishop Newman of the Methodist Episcopal church has recently contributed an article to one of the press syndicates on the relations of laborers and capitalists in which he glorifies 'large accumulations' as the result of a 'divine gift.' The excellent bishop attempts the extraordinary feat of carrying the gospel lamb on one shoulder and the golden calf on the other. He claims that the financier has a genius for wealth, and that God gives the power to get wealth. In doing so, he ignores the suffering of those whose labor is exploited to create that wealth. The war of today is against the aristocracy of riches, where wealth is hoarded and appropriated for personal gratification and grandeur. The people demand equity, not charity. They want to execute justice and give the poor a chance to take care of themselves and improve their homes out of the wealth they themselves create. We propose to banish the system of greed but save the men, and to accomplish it not through bloody revolution, but peaceful evolution.
“It is the wild, irrational cry of labor against capital, between which, in the economy of nature and in political economy, there should be no common antagonism.”
This 1891 editorial on the moral conflict between religious leaders and the 'aristocracy of riches' echoes contemporary debates regarding income inequality, corporate power, and the ethical responsibilities of the ultra-wealthy. It highlights the recurring tension between the 'Gospel of Wealth' and the lived reality of the working class in Seattle.
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