Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/355

 SANITY IN SOCIAL AGITATION 337

labor; (5) all these hardships together prevent the laborer from giving his children a start in the world that will enable them to escape their father's lot.

Let us suppose that nobody questions the truth of these statements in the abstract. The labor problem then is : How may we change this state of things ? How may all the unem- ployed have a paying job ? How may the mischiefs of political meddling be stopped ? How may an equal start in life be assured to all the children in each generation ? How may workers secure altogether satisfactory conditions under which to work ? How may the advantage of the capitalist over the laborer be removed ? This is the labor problem. I repeat, then, my first statement : Progress in solving such a problem involves four elements, at least : (i) discovery, (2) persuasion, (3) individual adjustment, (4) social adaptation. I will try to show clearly what this means.

First, as to the primary necessity of discovery. We have assumed that everybody pleads guilty to the charges, or, at least, " guilty with extenuating circumstances," or "guilty on some of the counts." If we try to find out what any particular man means when he admits, for example, that capital tyrannizes over labor, we shall discover that, although he may be sincere in saying it, yet, if he is a capitalist himself, he means it some- what as many good people mean the confessions they make in prayer meeting that they are " miserable sinners." If anyone should take them at their word, and point out any particular instance in which they had sinned, confession would very likely turn into denial, and even to counter-charges against the accuser. Everybody that stops to think about it has some sort of an idea that things are not right in the labor world. They are not as they are going to stay. They are not settled. The question is: Just where is the spot at which things begin to get out of gear, and how shall we go to work to put them to rights ?

This shows what I mean when I say that progress in solving the labor problem involves, first, discovery. It may be that every voter in Chicago has an opinion of his own on this matter; but, at all events, there may be as many different shades of