CHAPTER XIV. 



SIX HOUR LAW AND REASONS FOR ITS ENACTMENT. 



"TV /TANIFESTLY a measure must be devised and 

 aV-L adopted by which all shall share in the em- 

 ployments which give to society its sustenance and 

 comfort. All having an equal and inalienable right 

 to the labor by which the individual and society is 

 sustained, the exercise of that right must be guaran- 

 teed and protected. This can be effectively done only 

 by the organized action of society, in its national ca- 

 pacity by law. Centuries, ages of individual ac- 

 tion, uncontrolled by any action or rule of society that 

 protected the weak from the natural aggressions of 

 the strong, have resulted in the conditions that are 

 now sweeping us so rapidly to destruction. Is it not 

 time that a change should be made ? 



Without law, the concurrent action of ninety-nine 

 in every hundred for relief, would amount to nothing 

 against the " competition " of the one hundredth who 

 should determine to follow his own selfish instincts in 

 the way of what is called, in the slang of the period, 

 " business." It is only in the passage, by Congress, of 

 an Act, in character similar to the following, that real 

 relief and improvement can be found. 



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