552 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



dustry has relieved one class of workers, " of the cares of business " ; 

 and they " have with increasing specialization given their attention to 

 the mechanical processes involved in the production for the market." 

 The remarkable increase of the indirect method of labor is a factor in 

 the modern industrial problem. The workers no longer produce 

 directly to satisfy their own wants; each produces for others, while all 

 furnish something for each individual. It is a round-about process; 

 the connection between effort and satisfaction is hidden. The direct 

 reaction between effort and satisfaction has been superseded by a very 

 complex social and industrial chain of actions and reactions. The 

 worker often becomes a drudge, a drone, an unthinking piece of 

 mechanism, partially because he does not recognize or feel that his 

 work has any social significance, because there is little apparent causal 

 relation between effort and wages. Industry has been " depersonalized." 

 Modern specialization of industry, diversification of demands, and 

 increase in the variety of consumption have tended to divide the popu- 

 lation into a large number of classes and interests. Progress has always 

 resulted from .class struggles, the clash of interests ; but to-day the 

 form of this contest has become complex. There are the familiar 

 traditional classes — land-owners, manufacturers, merchants, profes- 

 sional men and laborers; but each one of these classes is now split into 

 subgroups, on the one hand, while, on the other, many individuals may 

 be classed under two or more classes or sub-classes. Nevertheless, many 

 difficulties and obstructions now face the workman who aspires to 

 become an employer, who struggles to rise out of his class. John 

 Mitchell believes that the workers are, as a rule, acting on the principle 

 that they can not rise out of that class. For the vast majority it is 

 once a wage-earner, always a wage-earner. The amount of capital now 

 required to set up in nearly every business is large. Even the farmer 

 who runs in debt for his farm, finds it almost impossible to pay off the 

 mortgage from the profits of the farm in many sections of this country. 

 The amount of money required to enter the iron and steel business is 

 measured by hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. Consolida- 

 tion of business interests reduces the numbers of managers and super- 

 intendents. The great industrial concerns and the railroads are be- 

 coming large civil-service systems. A man must enter their employ 

 in his youth, at the bottom, remain with the company year after year, 

 gradually working into better-paid and more responsible positions. But 

 he always remains an employee. The young man can no longer work 

 hard for a few years, save a few hundreds or thousands of dollars, and 

 then set up in business as an employer of others, many of whom will 

 follow in his footsteps within a few years. The person who now 

 accumulates a small amount of property is obliged to turn the manage- 

 ment of it over to others. Investments in stocks and bonds, deposits- 



