402 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ment of disputes should reflect that the same definition is not given 

 to the words " reasonable " and " equitable " by either the labor 

 unions or the employers. Each side has its own definition, and 

 until that is known everything is uncertain. Neither side would 

 consent to have a course dictated by any form of official authority, 

 because everybody knows his own business best. No rational man 

 can believe that any large business can be conducted upon lines 

 laid down by outsiders. Much less can he believe that workmen 

 can be forced to respect the decision of an official board when they 

 do not cordially accept that decision. 



The fatal defect in treating the labor problem thus far has 

 been the stress laid upon the change of method, when the needful 

 thing is a change of spirit in both parties to the controversy. The 

 friction has a moral cause that is common to both, and it will con- 

 tinue as long as mere gain is held to be the measure of success. 

 It can not be stopped by any mechanical contrivance of system or 

 method. But when success and use are made synonymous, the 

 friction will yield, because the moral and sympathetic forces have 

 begun to work upon a higher plane. This idea was well expressed 

 about fifty years ago in Boston, when the Rev. Dr. Channing de- 

 livered a course of lectures on The Elevation of the Working 

 Classes. In one of them he said : " There is but one elevation for 

 a laborer and for all other men. There are not different kinds of 

 dignity for different orders of men, but one and the same for all. 

 The only elevation of a human being consists in the exercise, 

 growth, and energy of the higher principles and powers of his 

 soul. A bird may be shot upward to the skies by a foreign power ; 

 but it rises, in the true sense of the word, only when it spreads its 

 own wings and soars by its own living power. So a man may be 

 thrust upward into a conspicuous place by outward accidents, but 

 he rises only in so far as he exerts himself and expands his best 

 faculties ; and he ascends by a free effort to a nobler region of 

 thought and action. Such is the elevation I desire for the laborer, 

 and I desire no other." 



There seems to be but one practicable method of reaching this 

 elevation, and even that method is practicable only within certain 

 limits. Profit-sharing or wage-sharing may be that method, if the 

 respective shares due to employer and employee can be adjusted 

 equitably. The method has been tried with success in several 

 branches of productive industry. 



In 1844 the Paris and Orleans Railway Company adopted the 

 principle. Between 1844 and 1882 about twelve million dollars 

 were distributed as profit dividends among the employees, while 

 the wages paid to them were equal to those paid by roads that gave 

 their employees no share in the profits; and, at the same time, 

 the dividends to the stockholders were as large as they would 



