REVERSIONS IN MODERN INDUSTRIAL LIFE. 793 



" be wise, therefore, for a master plumbers' association, now free, 

 to commit itself to sucli a dogma, or become a party to practices 

 that would deprive any fellow-workingman of bis natural means 

 of obtaining a living." * Neither Adam Smith nor Turgot could 

 have said anything better. 



But poor human nature, even of the variety vouchsafed to 

 master plumbers after they have been transformed by organiza- 

 tion and legislation into " philanthropists " and " benefactors," is 

 not able to live up to these vigorous assertions of the principle of 

 personal liberty. The yearning it feels for "the fleshpots of 

 Egypt " is too strong to be overcome by unselfish thoughts and 

 sentiments. Blinded morally as well as industrially by its 

 anxious pursuit of " betterment in dollars and cents," it denies to 

 others the rights that it arrogates to itself. Like the old feudal 

 corporations, it would make membership of its benevolent organ- 

 izations as difficult as possible. " The St. Louis association," said 

 the president of the Milwaukee convention, " has adopted a new 

 constitution, making it a necessary requisite for membership that 

 a candidate must have served five years' apprenticeship and three 

 years a journeyman plumber. This qualification for member- 

 ship," he added apologetically, "may be a little advanced for 

 some localities, but I believe that the line ought to be drawn be- 

 tween practical and impractical men." f Indeed, it ought ; but 

 that is not the object of this restriction ; otherwise the work of 

 drawing lines between practical and impractical men would be 

 left entirely to the person that employs them. The object is to 

 make the plumber's business as exclusive as possible, and thus to 

 restrict competition. " It is an undoubted fact," says a report on 

 apprenticeship to the Cleveland convention, which discloses this 

 ignoble purpose, " that many of the evils arising from the present 

 ruinous competition in the plumbing business are due almost 

 entirely to the great number of young men who have partially 

 served an apprenticeship at the trade." X But when an organiza- 

 tion is once started upon the path of proscription, the steps to the 

 most shameless exhibitions of the spirit of greed and intolerance 

 are soon and easily taken. The Master Plumbers' Association of 

 the United States is no exception. At the Cleveland convention, 

 the Wisconsin delegation proposed that the number of appren- 

 tices should be restricted to one for every three journeymen and 

 fraction thereof, and that the plumbers of the United States with- 

 draw their "' moral and financial support from all plumbing trade 

 schools, as we think they tend to increase the ranks of the master 

 plumbers." * Reflect upon the significance of such extraordinary 



* Proceedings, Milwaukee, 1893, p. 162. f Ibid., p. 71. 



X Proceedings, Cleveland, 1896, p. 130. * Ibid., p. 77. 



VOL. L. 60 



