Page:Proletarian and Petit-Bourgeois (1912?).pdf/49

Rh While the spirit of protest grows in intensity, the form remains a matter which future years alone may determine. An appeal to the available facts leads to the conclusion that the most effective protest the producers can make will be based on a clear recognition of the distinction between service income and property income. Shall the economic world decide that only those who expend effort shall share in the wealth which is the result of that effort? Shall the economic world decide that each person expending effort is entitled to all the value for which his effort is responsible—no more and no less? Shall the economic world set its stamp of approval on effort, and its stamp of disapproval on parasitism, by turning the income from activity into the hands of workers, and denying income to all others? Has the time arrived when a few may no longer live in idleness upon the products created by those who give their lives to labor? Shall not the social blessing be bestowed upon those who labor and the social curse be hurled upon the idler and the wastrel? Lo! these many years has mankind looked forward to a day when economic justice could prevail. Is not this the day and this new century the seed-ground for this new idea?

Who shall say? Who but those who carry the burden of production, and are bound by the bonds of economic necessity to the tread-mill of toil?

The hope of America lies in its workers. To them the nation owes its existence. Upon them rests the possibility of continued growth. The worker must be encouraged and the idler penalized.

Pay should be a reward for work; not for ownership which leads to idleness.