lU.ACKiMAR: EXPERIMENTS IN SOLUTION OF LABOR PROI'.LEM. 21 



cannot be impressed with tlie advantages of the aesthetic, the 

 uniform and the symmetrical, nor. indeed, to a great extent, with 

 the conditions of health and comfort. 



The attempt of the company to make a better-living animal 

 possessed of full physical capacity and skill with a better mind 

 and a better life, and a better civilization, that the same creature 

 might yield a larger return in the manufacturing interests, was 

 indeed a noble conception. The fact that the system of social 

 improvement of the laborers was to rest upon an economic basis, 

 was in accordance with sound economic doctrine: for no attempted 

 improvement of any class or group of people can be considered of 

 any value except as it rests upon this basis. And the principle 

 that each individual should pay for everything received, and that 

 nothing should be granted gratis, is also to be considered funda- 

 mental in the doctrine of social improvement. Yet when the desire 

 for these things has been excited anji the means of attaining them 

 fails, the foundation of the plan is destroyed. . 



Another potent cause of the discontent arose from the fact that 

 the magnitude of this business seemed to remove the company far 

 awa}' from the laboring population; sympathy Avas soon lost 

 between laborers and employers, and discontent gradually devel- 

 oped. This the employers failed to recognize until the discontent 

 was fanned into open revolt. If the friendly feeling of the managers 

 continued to exist, there was at least the lack of the expression of 

 sympathy between employer and employee. It may be said that the 

 laborer is narrow and bigoted in his conception of affairs and 

 therefore unreasonable. To a certain extent this is true, not only 

 with the laborers at Pullman but with the laboring class at large. 

 While there has been an increase in skill and in general intelligence 

 of the laboring population, there has remained with them a sort of 

 illogical conception of the relation of things. The excessive 

 division of labor has brought about great skill, but in teaching each 

 individual to do one thing well and that alone, it has narrowed his 

 life to a minute operation requiring a single conception. The result 

 of the excessive division of labor is to make men illogical and 

 unreasonable concerning the exact condition of affairs. But those 

 who would solve the labor problem must take this into considera- 

 tion. If anyone doubts the truth of the assertion, let him mingle 

 with the laborers and he will see how the man who stands at the 

 machine cutting bolts all the day long, day after day. year after 

 year, becomes monotonous in life and provincial in thought, so 

 that when new conditions arise he is unable to grasp thoroughly 

 the situation. He is then open to conviction by the man who 



