FARM MACHINERY 97 



in cases of employment for long periods employers will, not in- 

 frequently, discount the future at too high a rate and overwork 

 their employees. The temptation to do this way is especially 

 strong when free laborers are employed, because the services of 

 a freeman are not ordinarily paid for in advance and for the 

 whole period of possible employment, as in the purchase of a 

 slave, but day by day, or month by month, and the death or 

 total disability of the freeman relieves the employer from paying 

 for the latter portion of the stipulated term, that is, for that por- 

 tion of the term when the overworked laborer is least efficient. 

 Moreover, except as provided for by the employer's liability acts, 

 the employer of free labor has no financial interest in the wel- 

 fare of a workman after the stipulated period of service is in 

 any way terminated. Ambitious men will even overwork them- 

 selves. It is too much to expect that they should, voluntarily, 

 be. more solicitous for the welfare of their employees. 



We have now to inquire concerning the effect of yoking to- 

 gether the machine and labor factors the one yielding the 

 highest net return when worked almost incessantly, either for 

 short or for long terms of employment ; the other yielding the 

 highest net return when worked for longer or shorter periods, 

 according to the length of the term of employment, but always, 

 unless in the case of employment for a single day, when con- 

 siderable portions of each day are allowed for rest and recuper- 

 ation. It is like harnessing together a racer and a plow horse. 

 From the standpoint of the employer, the machine and labor 

 factors do not work in harmony. Under any conditions the em- 

 ployer is interested in getting as much service as possible from 

 his employee and, when using machinery, is constantly impelled, 

 according to the amount of his investment in the machine factor,^ 

 to spur on the labor factor to a longer working-day. 



from some source ; but even if not, he thinks, Before the supply dries up I will 

 reap my harvest ; I will make my fortune. Ely, " Monopolies and Trusts," p. 132 

 ^ As machinery became more and more costly, the length of the working-day 

 was lengthened until it became, even for women and children, sixteen and eighteen 

 hours in cases not rare. Indeed, it has been generally longer where women and 

 children have been the predominating labor force, because they are less powerful 

 to resist oppression. Ely, " Labor Movement in America," p. 109 



