790 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



would not be possible for one "unfamiliar with tbeir history to 

 imagine that any labor could ever have been in a more despicable 

 condition. " I have served a sufficient time/' said an official es- 

 sayist * at the Detroit convention of master plumbers, " when the 

 plumber was regarded as somewhat of a scavenger." f How shock- 

 ingly degraded was the condition of these honest toilers is made 

 still more vivid by the powerful picture of another essayist. " At 

 that time," he said, alluding to the same distressing period, " the 

 term * master plumber ' was a misnomer ; he was a slave slave 

 to the tyranny of established business customs, slave to the reck- 

 less, demoralizing practices of dealers, slave to an embittered and 

 hostile public sentiment, slave to the meanest drudgery and sacri- 

 fices of the trade, slave to his own weakness and submission." J 

 After speaking of the convention as composed of men " gathered 

 together with no thought of pecuniary reward, to enhance the 

 common welfare of man, to present and discuss the best means of 

 preventing the ravages of disease with its resulting misery and 

 woe," he declared, with rhythmic eloquence on another occasion, 

 that " their profession has made them philanthropists, and their 

 love of mankind has made them benefactors." * The jjower that 

 wrought this miracle is the organization and legislation that 

 have weeded out "the so-called master plumbers who do not 

 understand their business," who, in consequence "jeopardize the 

 health of the public," and who, through ignorance as to how 

 plumbing should be done, " figure and take work at prices which 

 can not be met by those who are skilled and desire to do good 

 work." II 



Here we come in contact with the true spirit that animates 

 every modern trade and professional corporation. Without ex- 

 ception, they are struggling, like the old feudal corporations, to 

 limit competition and to secure a monopoly of labor and trade. 

 The plumbers may find much pleasure in calling themselves 

 "philanthropists" and "benefactors"; they may strive labori- 

 ously to lift themselves to the plane of "professional sanitarians," 

 ranking, to use the fine phrases of an official essayist, with " God's 

 nobleman, the honest physician "; "^ but their real object, however 

 concealed under the alluring garb of rhetoric and sentiment, is 

 to get the largest amount of money for the smallest amount of 



* The National Convention of the Master Plumbers has a Committee on Essays, which 

 makes up a list of subjects and selects the best essays on them to be read before the con- 

 vention. The views set forth in these essays, which are published in the regular reports of 

 the proceedings, may therefore be regarded as " official." 



I Proceedings, Detroit, 1894, p. 167. 



X Proceedings, Cincinnati, 1891, p. 129. 



* Proceedings, Denver, 1890, p. 86. 



II Proceedings, Cleveland, 1896, p. 38. ^ Ibid., p. 95. 



