Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/214

 This was the man's conception. Of the condition of the working men in the cities he had literally no notion. He knew they worked, and that working made them tired, of course, just as it made farmers tired. He saw no difference between the labor in the agricultural field and that in the industrial field. That men who had been shut up in dusty factories for six days, working intently at whirling machines, under the bulb of an electric light, felt, when they came to the one day of rest, that they should like to go outdoors and breathe the air, and have some relaxation, some fun, had never occurred to him. That they had to work so hard, too, that stimulants were perhaps a necessity, never occurred to him, just as it had never occurred to him that when one of these workers left home there was no place for him to go unless he went to a saloon, where there were light and warmth and companionship, and, above all, liberty; or to a cheap theatre or in the summer to a baseball game. And he could not understand why these men resented his suggestion that they give up all these things, and instead do as farmers do on Sunday, or as they pretend to do, that is, stay indoors, or, if they do go out, go out to attend church.

And what was most curious of all, he had not the slightest notion of what we meant when we spoke of the street railway problem. He knew, of course, that it was proposed to reduce the fare a cent or two cents, but that was not important; what were two cents? That there was anything immoral in watering stock, in seizing millions of the communal value, had never occurred to him, and in the midst