Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 85.djvu/61

Rh of many of the manifest evils of the times, and is, on the whole, a good rather than a bad omen for society.

I am, of course, aware that the working classes have no monopoly of virtue. Their ranks have their full share of those whom Horace Greeley described as "the conceited, the crotchety, the selfish, the headstrong, the pugnacious, the unappreciated, the played-out, the idle and the good-for-nothing generally." The position of the employer, consequently, is not in a bed of roses. His best efforts are ofttimes misconstrued and rewarded with ingratitude. Harassed by walking delegates, it is not strange that he sometimes concludes that his employees ought to starve till they come to their senses. "Lay a silver dollar on the shelf," an employer of railway labor once remarked, "and it will be there when you come back. Lay a working man on the shelf and he will starve. This is the solution of the labor problem." These words well express the inability of labor to hold out in any contest with capital. None the less, the majority of employers in their calmer moments do not court a contest with their employees. In the first place, the contest may be a protracted one and employers are not unmindful of their own losses. In this age of organized sympathy, those on a strike are often supported for weeks by contributions from those at work. In the second place, there is a better solution of the labor problem. The more enlightened employers find it good business to manifest a disposition to do the square thing, and to talk over the facts with their men fully and frankly. Because a man is getting a living wage, or one well above what he once got, is no reason for smothering his ambition for one still higher. The suppression of ambition would be fatal to progress. There can be no enduring peace between capital and labor save on the basis of fair dealing by both parties.

Attention is sometimes called to the fact that the working class, by playing upon the fears of rival politicians, can extort legislation unduly favorable to itself. Instances of such legislation undoubtedly occur and they are a source of danger to the state. It is doubtful, however, whether they are as common as the control of the state in the interests of other classes, especially in the United States where social legislation lays so far behind many European countries. It is true that social legislation is piling heavy burdens upon the state. But it is a worthy object and it is far less expensive than modern military establishments which it helps to keep within bounds. Viewed simply as an investment, the cost of social legislation may more than justify itself. It is said that social insurance in Germany has made the working classes more contented and efficient and has contributed to the rapid industrial advance of the empire. The world has never been unfamiliar with class rule. But the spectacle of the working class using the state for the advancement of its own interests is so modern that it strikes many minds as especially dangerous.