LABOR AND CAPITAL 459 



LABOKAND CAPITAL 



By Professor JOHN J. STEVENSON 



NEW YORK UNIVERSITY 



THE manual worker is not left in ignorance respecting his rights, 

 his wrongs and his importance. In season and out of season he 

 is taught that the world owes every man a living and that he should 

 receive wages enough to support his family according to the American 

 standard ; that his labor makes value and that his share of the profits 

 is withheld ; that capital, all-powerful, is consumed with passion to en- 

 slave helpless labor; that he can secure his rights only by compulsion, 

 since the interests of capital are antagonistic to those of labor. These 

 matters deserve consideration. 



The world, that is, the community, owes no man a living; it did not 

 bring any man into existence and it is under no obligation to support 

 the children of heedless parents. One must emphasize this truism, be- 

 cause there is a rapidly growing tendency to believe that poverty and 

 vice are due to the rapacity of employers and to insist on the responsi- 

 bility of the community, en masse, for continuance of the evil condi- 

 tions. During a so-called investigation by a commission of the Illinois 

 Senate, an official of the Illinois Steel Company was asked to tell what 

 he regarded as a fair living wage for a man with a wife and daughter. 

 At a hearing before a Massachusetts commission it was shown that the 

 wages paid are so small that one employee, in order to support himself, 

 his wife and their eight children, was compelled to do outside work — 

 and the heartless corporation was duly flayed in headlines. But it must 

 be evident to any thoughtful man that wife and children can not be con- 

 sidered in connection with the relations of wage-earner and wage-payer. 

 The only question concerns the worth of the man's services. Introduc- 

 tion of other matters would so increase the uncertainty of business af- 

 fairs as to make them little better than a lottery. If a man's services 

 are not worth enough to secure wages which would support a family, he 

 should not marry. He may not complain because the community is 

 unwilling to have him gratify his desires at its expense. 



The wage in shops and factories is said to be so small that women 

 are driven to prostitution ; one is told that, in each year, 200,000 women 

 in our land are compelled to sell their bodies to procure the necessaries 

 of life, and that each year sees 700,000 children perish because their 

 parents have insufficient nourishment. But the voices, which rise in 

 bitter outcry against this awful condition, do not rise in protest against 

 encouragement of unrestricted reproduction among the wretched or 

 against the wide open door which increases the population annually by 



