306 Presidential Addresses 



qualities which we like to think of as distinctly 

 American in considering our early history. The 

 man who tills his own farm, whether on the prairie 

 or in the woodland, the man who grows what we eat 

 and the raw material which is worked up into what 

 we wear, still exists more nearly under the condi 

 tions which obtained when the "embattled farmers" 

 of '76 made this country a nation than is true of any 

 others of our people. 



But the wage-workers in our cities, like the cap 

 italists in our cities, face totally changed conditions. 

 The development of machinery and the extraordi 

 nary change in business conditions have rendered 

 the employment of capital and of persons in large 

 aggregations not merely profitable but -often neces 

 sary for success, and have specialized the labor of the 

 wage- worker at the same time that they have brought 

 great aggregations of wage-workers together. More 

 and more in our great industrial centres men have 

 come to realize that they can not live as indepen 

 dently of one another as in the old days was the case 

 everywhere, and as is now the case in the country 

 districts. 



Of course, fundamentally each man will yet find 

 that the chief factor in determining his success or 

 failure in life is the sum of his own individual 

 qualities. He can not afford to lose his individual 

 initiative, his individual will and power ; but he can 

 best use that power if for certain objects he unites 

 with his fellows. Much can be done by organiza 

 tion, combination, union among the wage-workers ; 



