Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/248

234 and if mechanical labor is all that is required of him, he is degraded to be a mere beast of burden. But machinery has not proved as yet the savior, the liberator and the ally of the workman as was first hoped, but on the contrary, has made him its slave. Now as much as ever before, does his value in the industrial arts depend directly upon his muscular strength, and he has thus become the weak, imperfect and abject competitor of machinery. Deprived of his share of the soil, he is not able to supply his wants by raising the products of nature; submission to the inevitable is his only recourse. He only becomes aware of his fellowship with mankind by the duties laid upon him, for which he receives no privileges in return. When he is not able to exchange his labor for money, or when disease or old age put an end to his work temporarily or permanently, the community looks after him, indeed. It gives him alms if he takes to begging, it lays him on the cot in the hospital if he has a fever, it puts him—sometimes—in a poor-house, if he is too old and feeble for anything else; but how impatiently, how grudgingly, does it fulfill these duties! It offers its unwelcome guest more humiliations than mouthfuls. While it is satisfying his hunger and covering his nakedness, it is declaring that it is a disgrace to accept these benefits from its hands, and affects the most profound contempt for the unfortunates who are suing for its bounty. The laboring classes find it impossible to lay by anything for days of no work or of sickness and old age. How can they have a surplus when even the necessaries of life are lacking? They can not think of demanding wages above what they need to satisfy their most pressing wants, because the number of these disinherited beings is too large and is constantly increasing, there are sure to be plenty who would accept their situations at any wages that would keep them