Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/466

462 mechanic has himself to blame for the untoward condition. Compared with 1858, a day's work means fewer hours and greatly increased wages. One illustration suffices. Building is much more expensive when bricklayers receive about 6 dollars for 8 hours of work than it was when they received 2 dollars for 10 hours' work. The increased cost of living in large cities is due very largely to increased wages for decreased hours of work. If one doubt this relation between wages and prices, he needs only comparison of the cost of pig iron and of ready made clothing in 1897 and 1901, the difference being due almost wholly to wage-increase.

The cost of living has increased out of proportion to the wages, but only because the mode of living has changed and the requirements are greater. The clothing of fifty years ago would not satisfy the people of our day. The clerk must ape the man who has twice his wage. The workingman demands luxuries for his table, which the well-to-do man of sixty years ago never thought of buying. One is asked indignantly, Has not the poor man a right to these things? Certainty, if he can afford to pay for them, just as every man has a right to an automobile and chauffeur, if he can afford to pay for them; but no man, rich or poor, has the right to expend so much of his income on things, not necessary, that, when times of depression come, he will have nothing left and must become a burden to the more provident members of the community. The complaint is the same throughout the scale; it is not confined to the "poor" but is common to all; the man with two dollars a day is embittered as he considers the luxury of the man with five dollars; the man with ten thousand dollars a year is unhappy because, in his limited condition, he can not make so grand a show as does the man with twice or five times as much. It is impossible ever to reach the "living wage," because desires increase with the income and poverty is always present. Men's minds dwell almost wholly on what they have not; too few are willing to recognize the abundant blessings which they possess.

Labor certainly creates value and it is entitled to a generous reward; but this doctrine, as defined by labor unions, is not exact, since they lay the chief emphasis on manual labor. Yet they do not ignore the superiority of mental labor. The plasterer, whose work requires much natural as well as acquired skill, would be indignant at a suggestion that a hod-carrier should receive wages equal to his own. Unskilled labor is merely animated machinery for rough work and adds very little value to the final product. It is utilized because abundant and low in price; as soon as it demands an excessive wage, it is displaced by machinery. Skilled labor, combining muscular and mental effort, increases the value in proportion to the mental expenditure; but mental labor, involving no muscular exertion, adds most of all, it is the coordinating, creating power without which the others would be helpless. One E. H. Harriman is of more lasting service to a nation than would be one million of unskilled laborers; without a Harriman they would be a menace. The