648 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and proclaim that the sacred right of freedom of contract or of 

 personal liberty was thereby impaired. But, as soon as there is a 

 chance of the wage-earners being able to control legislation and 

 they indicate their desire to increase wages, it is immediately dis- 

 covered by many would-be teachers and philosophers of the indi- 

 vidualist school that this sacred right is imperiled, and that it 

 would be sacrilegious to touch it with the vulgar hand of the 

 State. This school overlooks the actual condition of affairs and 

 bases its conclusions on an ideal state of facts which does not exist 

 except in the imagination of its members. If employer and em- 

 ployed stood upon an equal footing ; if the necessities of one were 

 equal to the necessities of the other ; if the abilities of both were 

 equal then freedom of contract would produce not only good but 

 also just results. But no one with any knowledge of the world 

 can affirm that these conditions exist. The condition of labor 

 more nearly corresponds to that of a man who falls into a well, 

 far removed from human habitation. After he has been there 

 for a day without food and sees starvation staring him in the 

 face, he attracts the attention of a stray passer-by by his cries 

 for help. The latter comes up, but refuses to lower his rope and 

 pull him out unless he receives five hundred dollars. The next 

 day another man says he will help him out for one thousand dol- 

 lars, but this offer is also declined. The third day, being nearly 

 starved, he contracts to pay a third man fifteen hundred dollars 

 for assisting him out of the well, and so regains his freedom. 

 Labor has fallen into the well of poverty, and Capital stands on 

 the brink and says in effect : " I did not put you there, and there- 

 fore I am justified in making the best bargain I can with you. 

 In fact, I am forced to do so by the competition of some of my 

 rivals who sell the same commodities. They screw wages down 

 to the lowest point, and I can't compete with them unless I do 

 likewise. I must either pay the same low wages, or retire from 

 business, or become bankrupt." 



It is precisely at this point that the pinch comes, which exerts 

 a controlling influence upon the average employer. He cares 

 nothing for fine-spun theories respecting the freedom of contract 

 or personal liberty, but he knows from every-day experience that 

 he can not pay high wages so long as there are even a few un- 

 scrupulous and avaricious employers in the same line of business 

 who succeed in obtaining labor at low rates. He is forced to com- 

 pete with them in the sale of his commodities, and the price of 

 labor is a large item in the cost of their manufacture. Higher 

 wages would eat up his profits, and drive him out of business or 

 into bankruptcy. " If," he says, " some plan can be invented by 

 which all my competitors will be obliged to pay high wages, then 

 I have no objection to paying the same wages, for then we shall 



