Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/37

Rh who, to secure as much, have heretofore been compelled to toil as long as strength and years would permit? The answer is, the certain prospect of emancipation from such unfavorable conditions. Thus, if eight-hours' labor will now give to an individual the subsistence or living, for the attainment of which ten, twelve, fourteen, or even more hours of labor were formerly (but not remotely) necessary, intelligent self-interest would seem to dictate to him to work eight hours on account of subsistence, and then as many more hours as opportunity or strength will permit; and out of the gain for all such work not required by necessity, purchase his emancipation from toil before age has crippled his energies; or, if he prefers, let him surround himself as he lives, in a continually increasing proportion, with all those additional elements—material and intellectual—that make life better worth living. And, through the rapid withdrawals from the ranks of competitive labor, or the increased demand for the products of labor that would be thus occasioned, the number of the unemployed, by reason of lack of opportunity to labor, would be reduced to a minimum. And that these possibilities are already recognized and accepted by not a few of the great body of workers, is proved by the fact that the greater the opportunity to work by the piece, and the greater the latitude afforded to workmen to control their own time in connection with earnings, the greater the disinclination to diminish the hours of labor. "No man," says a distinguished American, who from small beginnings has risen to high position, "ever achieved eminence who commenced by reducing his hours of labor to the smallest number per day, and no man ever worked very hard and attained fortune who did not look back on his working days as the happiest of his life."