LABOR, INTELLIGENCE AND MONEY 95 



agreed to, in which case the body of wage earners reaps the 

 advantage. And, inasmuch as the body of wage earners is 

 the great body of the community, it necessarily reaps the 

 advantage in any case. Employees know almost as promptly 

 as do the employers whether a mill is earning an extravagant 

 profit. If it be, they at once demand their share, and the 

 employer must, and inevitably does, succumb. It is thus that 

 wages always tend to a maximum, and profits to a minimum. 



The maintenance of the high standard of wages now paid 

 in the United States is absolutely dependent upon our realiz- 

 ing the advantages which come through superior organization. 

 We are to-day shipping manufactured goods to countries 

 where the rates of wages average 40 per cent less than our 

 wage earners are receiving. Of our exports of manufactured 

 goods, 80 per cent are produced by large industrial corpora- 

 tions. Articles of manufacture which we do not produce 

 through consolidations are being almost entirely supplied to 

 the neutral markets by the cheap labor countries, — Germany, 

 Belgium, and Great Britain. The centralization of manu- 

 facture and consequent use of special machinery have eman- 

 cipated the slave, — have raised the American workman to 

 the position of overseer, not of pauper labor, but of its pro- 

 ductive equivalent, machinery. And he is receiving, and is 

 entitled to, the wages of superintendence. 



Now, the intelligent labor leaders understand this per- 

 fectly. It was my pleasure to entertain at my home some 

 of the best known of these. Speaking of labor conditions, I 

 asked one of them to define the difference between his organi- 

 zation and that of the professional agitators. He replied: 

 "We hope to bring^ about by evolution what they claim 

 should be accomplished by revolution." They said that they 

 "welcomed new machinery, because it did the work which 

 had heretofore degraded labor." 



The wage earners of the United States are to-day enjoy- 

 ing a higher standard of living and a larger measure of well 

 being than wage earners have ever enjoyed in the history of 

 the world. They are the real money power. The railroad 

 managers have rails and rolling stock; the miner has mines; 

 the manufacturer has bricks, mortar, and machinery, and 



