September 13, 1895.] 



SGIENGE, 



331 



lution. Machinery has revohitionized the 

 mode of production, the manner of labor, 

 and the distribution of revenue and of 

 property. It has destroyed the workshop 

 and introduced the factory in its stead. 

 It has sterilized manual labor, and, by its 

 immense productivity, has internationalized 

 prices and markets. While, on the one 

 hand, it has created the despotism of cap- 

 ital, it has, on the other, called into exist- 

 ence the unorganized army of the prole- 

 tariate. It has ground humanity into a 

 powder, without cohesion and without 

 unity, and has placed the world of labor at 

 the mercy of a few soulless plutocrats . This 

 new order of things means the reign of the 

 few; it implies the permanence of expro- 

 priation and the resurrection of ancient 

 Rome, where millions of slaves were tram- 

 pled under foot by an insolent oligarchy of 

 wealth. And finally, by its fatal central- 

 ization machinery has engendered a double 

 International — the International of capital 

 and the International of socialism. Never 

 has a more complicated situation, or one 

 more pregnant with peril, weighed upon 

 men. What were the invasions of the bar- 

 barians from the north of Europe, or the 

 upheavals of the fifteenth and eighteenth 

 centuries, in comparison with the threat- 

 ened explosion of this vast world already 

 stirred to its profoundest depths and in a 

 state of violent ebullition ? " 



The remedy for this terrible state of af- 

 fairs, according to Mr. Zahm, is to be found 

 in following the advice given in the recent 

 encyclical letter of the Pope. I quote . 



" In the introduction to his epoch-making 

 document, Leo XIII. directs attention to 

 some of the evidences of the dominant evil, 

 extreme riches, extreme misery, and the in- 

 describable desolation which has entered the 

 world of the proletariate in consequence of 

 the atomization of society under the level- 

 ing reign of capital. 



"As in the politico-religious order, Leo 



XIII. has, through his encyclical ' Immor- 

 tale Dei,' preached the code of reconcilia- 

 tion, so has he, in the economic order, pro- 

 mulgated the character of social harmony. 

 For the first time economic science has pity 

 on the wage-earner, and discusses the new 

 issues raised without rancor or recrimina- 

 tion. At the same time it exhibits a re- 

 spect for the rights of all while insisting on 

 the duties of all, which will forever render 

 the encyclical, ' Rerum Novarum,' not only 

 the most glorious monument of the present 

 pontificate, but also the most beneficent 

 contribution yet made to the new order of 

 things." 



We must give all honor to Pope Leo XIII. 

 for his earnest efforts to bring about social 

 harmony, but Mr. Zahm is surely not right 

 in saying that this is the first time that 

 economic science has pity for the wage- 

 earner. Many writers in all schools — 

 Henry George, for example — have been ani- 

 mated by sincere sympathy for the wage- 

 earner, and have earnestly discussed means 

 of ameliorating his condition. I hope to 

 show in my conclusion that the whole ten- 

 dency of economic evolution is toward bet- 

 tering the condition of the wage-earner. 



Mr. Hewitt in his Presidential address 

 before the American Institute of Mining 

 Engineers in 1890, entitled ' Iron and 

 Labor,' ' Trans. A. I. M. E.' Vol. XIX., 

 pp. 496, 497, speaks of ' the new era,' when 

 every intelligent workman will insist on 

 being an owner, and every well-managed 

 corporation will see that its workmen are 

 directly interested in the results of the 

 business. He says : " The time is ap- 

 proaching when capitalists and laborers 

 wUl more and more be joint owners in the 

 instruments of production. While the 

 wages system will necessarily survive, the 

 workmen will, to a large extent, become 

 their own emploj^ers, and finallj^ may hire 

 capital as capital now hires labor. The 

 facilities offered for the division of prop- 



