MACHINERY IN PRODUCTION. 147 



machinery has been much more than doubled ; the 

 number of idlers has been increased in like proportion, 

 and again the cry for work comes up from millions of 

 our people and fills the whole land. Under present 

 tendencies the idleness must increase and the cry swell 

 in volume and force, for at no previous time has the 

 continued displacement of muscle by machinery been 

 so rapid as at the present. The whole movement, from 

 the beginning, has been marked by a constant accele- 

 ration, and at no time more distinctly than within the 

 last twenty years. 



To-day there is heard the wailing of great multi- 

 tudes for work for work that they may live. It 

 comes from the strong and from the weak ; from the 

 skilled and from the unskilled ; from the old and the 

 young ; from the cultured and from the uncultured ; 

 from mothers and from daughters ; from fathers and 

 from sons ; even from babes and infants of six and 

 eight years. The wail is everywhere on our streets, 

 at our doors, in our halls and houses ; in our churches, 

 and offices, and factories, and shops, and stores for 

 " work, work or we die." For want of it our people 

 are dying daily ; some by the slow process of starva- 

 tion, others by their own hands. The same want fills 

 our streets with prostitution and crime ; our insane 

 asylums to overflowing, and our reformatories and 

 penal institutions beyond their capacity. It is the 

 direct cause of the increase of all the evils of intem- 

 perance, and the great barrier to every reform. It is 

 heard in every country, but in none so loudly as in 

 our own. 



Manifestly the great increase in man's productive 



