Page:The Case for Capitalism (1920).djvu/143

 Kings and nobles lived in a state of stench which would be thought unendurable to-day by any class, so greatly has the standard changed. . ..

"The same consideration of the prevailing standard applies to working conditions as well as to housing and sanitation under the new order. . ..

"The alliance of ignorance or stupidity with commercial greed runs through the whole story, and it is clear that the former was the greater obstacle of the two to improvement. Intelligent employers were the first to see what was wrong and to readjust their ideas. They introduced new standards, which gradually gained approval until public opinion sanctioned or demanded their compulsory application. In this process a powerful agent was combination among workmen, which was at once demanded and rendered possible by the conditions of work and the massing of large numbers together in the industrial towns. The same process has continued ever since, and is still going on with a progressively rising standard of living and working conditions, realized in a thousand ways, the mere enumeration of which would occupy pages. . ..