PENDING PROBLEMS FOR WAGE-EARNERS., 65 



It has been proved by actual experiment on a large scale in 

 certain sections of this country that ignorant foreign pauper labor 

 in manufacturing industries is ultimately the most costly, and the 

 aim of enlightened employers to-day is not to obtain the cheapest 

 labor but the most intelligent service. The true policy of the 

 workingman is, therefore, not agitation but education.* 



The organization through the aid of capital of large industrial 

 operations, superseding former small independent industries, is a 

 frequent source of lamentation on the part of well-meaning philan- 

 thropists and others, on the theory that the small merchant has 

 been injured thereby. This is probably true in isolated instances, 

 but the evidence that the wage-earner (the subject of our discus- 

 sion) has been benefited by improved regulations, superior fac- 

 tory buildings, and amelioration of exhausting toil, under mod- 

 ern methods, is overwhelming. 



Moreover, the employment of large capital and improved ma- 

 chinery has enormously increased production and decreased cost 

 to the consumer. Wages are higher and cost of living is lower 

 than formerly. The average wage-earner in America lives to- 

 day in a manner quite superior to the small manufacturer of for- 

 mer days. The large factories employ armies of skilled opera- 

 tives many of whom would be incompetent to conduct even small 

 industries successfully. They are reasonably insured of a fixed 

 income, and are often enabled, by saving a portion of their wages, 

 to become small capitalists themselves. Capital is, after all, 

 nothing more than the aggregate savings of labor. The great 

 financial operations are conducted by the aid of these savings of 

 the masses, otherwise the thrifty workingman could receive no 

 interest on his deposit in the savings bank. The individual mil- 

 lionaire is a much less important factor in the world's work than 

 the socialistic agitator would have us believe. 



The " good old times " are hallowed in our recollections and in 

 our traditions, but when subjected to critical comparison with the 

 improved civilization of modern times, we find, I think, that the 



of the people, whereby their producing powers may be still further increased. Next to 

 America in the scale comes Great Britain, the producing power of which is 1,4*70 foot 

 tons to the inhabitant daily. Germany's forces amount to 902 foot tons for each person 

 daily, those of France to 910 foot tons, those of Spain to 590 foot tons, those of Austria to 

 560 foot tons, and those of Italy to 380 foot tons. 



* Thomas Carlyle, in his essay on Labor, said : " The latest gospel in the world is, Know 

 thy work and do it ; . . . for labor is life ; from the inmost heart of the worker rises this 

 God-given force. . . . Knowledge, that will hold good in working, cleave thou to that, for 

 Nature herself accredits that, says Yea ' to that. Properly thou hast no other knowledge 

 but what thou hast got by working ; the rest is all a hypothesis of knowledge a thing to 

 be argued of in schools, a thing floating in the clouds, in endless logic vortices, * till we try 

 it and fix it.' " 



