26o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



to be servants no longer and were about to strike against the manipu- 

 lator who had put them all into comfortable circumstances. The story 

 is the same throughout. The plodding farm-hand can discover no 

 good reason why his employer should occupy a large bed downstairs 

 while he sleeps on a narrower, less ornate couch upstairs; the laborer, 

 who shovels cinders in a mill-yard, knows how necessary his work is to 

 the owner's success; he is convinced that an unfair share of the profits 

 falls to his employer as well as to the man at the rolls. The subordi- 

 nate everywhere, whatever his position may be, feels that his worth is 

 unrecognized and that his reward is insufficient; while the man out- 

 side of all, angry because he has no share whatever, eggs on the dis- 

 contented, anxious only to see some one injured and hoping that the 

 injury will be distributed in proportion to the reward received. 



It is absolutely certain that cooperation of all groups is essential 

 to completion of great projects. Without direction by a master-mind, 

 there could be no utilization of man's labor to the advantage of all. 

 It would be like the superfluous heat of the sun or the force of the 

 coastal tides, each sufficient to perform the whole mechanical work of the 

 world, yet unused and useless because no one has conceived a method 

 of control and application. To all intents and purposes, the energy 

 of the vast mass of mankind is merely so much mechanical force, in- 

 capable of self-direction and without utility, unless marshaled by the 

 constructive power of some master-mind. 



But without this force the master-mind would be equally helpless. 

 The man who conceived the transcontinental railway was fettered by 

 physical limitations; he could plan the whole undertaking, but, in 

 in order to complete the work within the compass of a single life, he 

 was compelled to make use of other men's powers, mental as well as 

 physical. Among engineers, contractors, operators, the chiefs were 

 men of his own group; but, in each department, there was gradation 

 in responsibility until at the bottom was the indiscriminate mass of 

 employees, handling tools mechanically. 



And remuneration, throughout, is graded to accord with the re- 

 sponsibility. The great reward is given to one whose physical output 

 seems to be nothing, who has few hours at the office and many hours, 

 apparently, for relaxation. The reward decreases as hours of physical 

 exertion increase and the minimum is given to the laborer, whose only 

 contribution comes from muscular expenditure. Mind, not muscle, re- 

 ceives the chief reward. Pliysical labor is a tangible thing, easily 

 comprehended by even a stupid man; whereas proper valuation of 

 mental labor is within the comprehension only of those competent to 

 perform it. The hewer of wood and drawer of water are not to be 

 blamed because they think the rewards of the higher groups dispropor- 

 tionately great; but their discontent is not against anything of human 



