LIBRARY 
 
 OF THF. 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Received JAN 12 1893 , iSq 
 ^Accessions No. ^-Oa^T . Clc^s No. 
 
WOEKINa PEOPLE 
 
 AND THEIR EMPLOYERS. 
 
 BY 
 
 WASHINGTON GLADDEN. 
 
 ^TJHIVBESITT] 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 
 FUNK & WAGNALLS, Publishers, 
 
 iS AND 20 AsTOR Place. 
 
 1888. 
 
y 
 
 ^^ & V 
 
 q^ 
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in tlie year 1885, by 
 
 FUNK & WAGNALLS, 
 
 In tlie Office of tlie Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The reader of these chapters will soon discover that they 
 were written with an audience in view, and will infer that they 
 were spoken from the pulpit. 
 
 It is not unlikely that some readers may pronounce discus- 
 sions such as these quite too secular for Sunday and the Church ; 
 but the lawfulness of doing good on the Lord's day is not an 
 open question ; and the Christian who does not feel the need of 
 trying to do good in this wa}', who does not see the importance 
 of bringing the truth of the New Testament to bear directly 
 upon the matters now in dispute between labor and capital, is 
 one with whom I do not care to argue. Now that slavery is out 
 of the wa}', the questions that concern the welfare of our free 
 laborers are coming forward ; and no intelligent man needs to 
 be admonished of their urgencj^ They are not onl}' questions 
 of cconomj", the}' are in a large sense moral questions ; nay, 
 the}' touch the very marrow of that religion of good-will of 
 which Christ was the founder. It is plain that the pulpit must 
 iiave something to saj- about them. 
 
 If these lectures had been intended for students of political 
 economy, some of the things here said might have been taken 
 
 5 
 
4 Preface, 
 
 for granted ; but man}" of those to whom they were spoken Avere 
 mechanics and operatives, who could not be familiar with all 
 the current treatises on social science, and who therefore were 
 not offended by instruction of a somewhat elementarj^ character. 
 I think I know my audience pretty well. The greater part of 
 mj^ life has been spent among working people, in working with 
 them, or in working for them. I count among them some of ni}' 
 most valued friends ; I know their ways of living and of think- 
 ing ; and I have tried to make these discussions intelligible and 
 helpful to them. 
 
 That any of the questions raised get their final answer in this 
 book, I am not vain enough to imagine ; but I hope that it may 
 help a little towards the understanding of some of them. 
 
 North Church Study, 
 Springfield, Mass. 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 -♦- 
 
 I. 
 
 PAGR. 
 
 Duty and Discipline of Work ...... 9 
 
 II. 
 Labor and Capital . . . * 30 
 
 III. 
 Hard Times, and How to Ease Them 52 
 
 IV. 
 Rising in the "World 74 
 
 V. 
 The Household and the Home 94 
 
 YL 
 Society and Societies 121 
 
 VII. 
 Strong Drink . 145 
 
 vm. 
 
 The Duties of Employers ..««... 166 
 
 IX. 
 The Future of Labor 187 
 
 Appendix • . 213 
 
 5 
 
WORKING PEOPLE 
 
 AND THEIR EMPLOYERS. 
 

 [TUriVBESIT 
 
 DUTY AND DISCIPLINE OF WORK. 
 
 To WORKING people and their employers these lec- 
 tures are addressed ; not to slaves and their masters ; 
 not to toilers and pleasure-seekers ; not to workers 
 and shirkers. It is not assumed that employers, or 
 capitalists, or any other class of able-bodied adult 
 persons in the community, are absolved from the 
 duty of labor. The law which Paul laid down to 
 the Corinthians, " If any man will not work, neither 
 shall he eat," is morally binding upon Americans as 
 well as Greeks. The fourth commandment is gener- 
 ally quoted as if it had exclusive reference to the 
 observance of one day in seven as a day of rest ; but 
 it must not be forgotten that work is commanded by 
 it just as explicitly. "Pemember the sabbath day 
 to keep it holy. Six days slialt thou labor and do all 
 
lO Working People and their Employers, 
 
 thy work J but the seventh is the sabbath of the Lord 
 thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work." Resting 
 on the seventh day is no more distinctly required 
 than working on the other six days. It is not '^ Six 
 days thou may est labor," but '' Six days thou sJialt 
 labor." 
 
 Thus in this compendious statement of moral prin- 
 ciples given to the Hebrews at the beginning of their 
 national existence, and intended to serve not only for 
 the Hebrews, but for all races as a practical and suffi- 
 cient rule of life, we find work enjoined as a duty ; 
 and no hint is given of any classes who are exempted 
 from the command. The Ten Commandments are 
 sometimes said to be the summary statement of the 
 moral law : that which is required by them is moral ; 
 that which is forbidden by them is, in the most exact 
 sense of the word, immoral. Idleness is therefore 
 immoral ; and whoever, man or woman, is living 
 without occupation, is leading a life of immorality. 
 A lazy man is not a moral man. 
 
 Not enough has been made of this clause *n the 
 commandment. We have often proved that idleness 
 is inexpedient, that it is wasteful, that it relaxes the 
 vigor of the body and the mind, that it is a devia- 
 tion from the path in which He walked who said, 
 *' My Father worketh hitherto, and I work; " but we 
 have not sufficiently emphasized the fact that it is 
 
The Duty and Discipline of Work, 1 1 
 
 an express transgression of the moral law, — in other 
 words a sin, put by the divine Lawgiver into the 
 same category with image-worship and blasphemy, 
 and theft and murder and impurity, and sharing 
 with these sins in the displeasure of God. 
 
 It hardly needs to be said that this rule of life, like 
 every other, has its exceptions. Some persons are 
 lawfully exempted from labor. The sick, the aged 
 and infirm, infants, and the imbecile are not required 
 to work. Ability always limits obligation. What- 
 ever theories the theologians may have about it, 
 God never expects of any one impossibilities. 
 Young persons pursuing courses of education are 
 also partial exceptions to this rule. They are 
 preparing for work. It is not, however, well for 
 them to be entirely relieved of labor. It is vastly 
 better for their minds and for their bodies, that they 
 should have some regular duties to perform outside 
 the routine of school life. 
 
 I can think of no other limitations to the positive 
 command, '* Six days shalt thou labor." And it is 
 high time that not only the dignity but the duty of 
 work were enforced upon the men and women of 
 our day. We had a battle to fight with the false 
 philosophy of a former generation, in order to main- 
 tain the dignity of work. There were those who 
 insisted that labor was dishonorable and degrading ; 
 
12 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 that the laboring classes ought to be servile classes. 
 That fallacy we have pretty effectually exploded, 
 though it took not a little gunpowder to do it. It 
 is now generally admitted in all parts of the land 
 that labor is honorable ; that men, at any rate, are 
 not disgraced by it, however it may be with women; 
 that if any one chooses to work, rather than live on 
 the earnings of others, rather than beg or swindle 
 or steal, it is nothing against him. So far, so good. 
 But there is another step to take. Now we must 
 make it equally clear that labor is not optional but 
 imperative; that it is imperative, too, upon all men 
 and all women alike that have sound minds and 
 sound bodies; that it is not only respectable to 
 work, but that it is not respectable to be idle. 
 
 From the sentence pronounced upon Adam after 
 his transgression in Eden, " In the sweat of thy face 
 thou shalt eat thy bread," it has sometimes been 
 inferred that labor was the penalty of sin ; that if it 
 had not been for the fall we should have subsisted 
 somehow without work. A most mischievous and 
 unwarrantable inference ! Doubtless the tendency 
 of moral evil is to make work more difficult, hazard- 
 ous, and painful ; doubtless the " whole creation 
 groaneth and travaileth " under its burdens of toil 
 as it would not have done if man had never sinned : 
 but if there were not, and never had been, moral 
 
The Ditty and Discipline of Work, 13 
 
 evil in the world, there would still be need of labor. 
 For sinless as well as for sinful beings, work is the 
 indispensable condition of development. Why, if you 
 go back to the story of Genesis for your theories on 
 this subject, please to remember that, before the fall, 
 " The Lord God took the man, and put him into the 
 Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep ^^." No, 
 work is no part of the curse. It is part of the 
 original divine constitution. Laziness, — that is the 
 curse. The terrible inertia of body and soul, the 
 unwillingness to labor, which makes some men pau- 
 pers, and some panders, and some swindlers, and 
 some thieves, — that is the result of the fall, one of 
 its worst and bitterest results. 
 
 By work, of course, I do not mean manual work 
 exclusively. Hand work is just as honorable as 
 brain work, and no more honorable. There is an 
 infinite variety of work to be done, some of which 
 requires almost no muscular exertion, some of which 
 requires almost no thought, some of which calls for 
 a combination of the powers of the mind with the 
 powers of the body. And it cannot be denied that 
 the tendency is to substitute mind for muscle in 
 the various industrial operations of the period. In 
 nearly every trade and calling, many things are now 
 done by machinery that were once done by hand ; 
 and machinery is mind power substituted fur muscle 
 
14 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 power. A machine is a contrivance of the human 
 intellect by which some natural force or other — 
 steam, or falling water, or wind, or compressed air, 
 or electricity, or chemical re- action — is so directed 
 that it does the work once done by muscular strength 
 and skill. Yast numbers of our laboring people of 
 both sexes now find their occupation in watching 
 and tending these machines. Some manual labor ^s 
 required, but the task is lighter. Doubtless these 
 labor-saving machines will be constantly increasing 
 in number and improving in efficiency, and much of 
 the work that is now done by hand will be done 
 twenty years hence by machinery. 
 
 In this tendency we see the working out of a 
 principle which is fundamental in the plan of the 
 Creator, — namely, that the natural comes first, and 
 afterward the spiritual. There is a constant move- 
 ment toward the substitution of intelligence for brute 
 force. The cruder and coarser methods and pro- 
 cesses are gradually supplanted by those more intel- 
 lectual. Mind steadily gains on muscle, and will 
 continue to gain until the spiritual or immaterial part 
 of man shall obtain a complete ascendency over the 
 natural forces of the world in which he lives. 
 
 This is certainly part of the divine plan ; and work- 
 ing-men should understand it, and cease to quarrel 
 \Nith it. The steam-engine, the spinning-jenny, the 
 
The Duty and Disciplme of Work, 15 
 
 power-loom, the power-press, the sewing-machine, 
 all these mechanical devices by which labor is saved 
 and production increased, are provided for in God's 
 design. They are part of his great work of develop- 
 ment by which he is carrying the race forward to its 
 pei'fect destiny. They are not, as some working-men 
 seem inclined to think, inventions of the Devil : they 
 are the handiwork of God, just as really as the 
 flowers and the grains that grow on the face of the 
 earth, or the coal measures that are hidden beneath 
 its surface. 
 
 I have sometimes seen the Scripture text, '' These 
 are parts of His ways," inscribed upon the walls of a 
 cabinet of minerals or a museum of natural history; 
 but it might just as reverently be written over the 
 entrance to the machine-room of the American Insti- 
 tute, where the thoughts of God unfold themselves 
 in the contrivances of men. 
 
 The men of the Bible were not all specially in- 
 spired men. There is no reason to suppose that 
 Abraham or Jacob was inspired in any other sense 
 than you or I may be. But there were a few men 
 to whom (the record tells us) God did give a special 
 inspiration. Among them was Bezaleel, the son of 
 Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. " See, I 
 have called him byname," says Jehovah; "and I 
 have filled him with the spirit of God in wisdom and 
 
1 6 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 ill understandiDg and in knowledge." And what 
 was Bezaleel to do with this divine gift ? Was he 
 to utter prophecies, to sing psalms, to write laws? 
 Not at all. He was " to devise cunning works, to 
 work in gold and in silver and in brass, and in cutting 
 of stones to set them, and in carving of timber ; to 
 work in all manner of workmanship." It is possible, 
 then, that God's thought may express itself in cun- 
 ning works in wood or iron. It did so express itself 
 in the olden time, and why not now ? True, the 
 building on which this man Bezaleel was thus divinely 
 qualified to work was the tabernacle ; but do you not 
 think that God needs inspired workmen in building 
 the grander temple of modern civilization? and do 
 you not suppose that now, as in the olden time, those 
 who fashion this grand structure are working under 
 his guidance ? 
 
 It is not then, working-men, a careless Providence, 
 or a malevolent Providence, that fills your work- 
 shops with these facile instruments of labor. The 
 selfishness of men may have had much to do with 
 producing them ; but the selfishness of men is made 
 in this matter as in others to praise God, and to fur- 
 ther the designs of an infinite benevolence. And I 
 should like to show you, if I can, how these machines, 
 which seem on a naiTow view to be your enemies, 
 
The Duty ajid Discipline of Work, 17 
 
 are really working not only for the good of the 
 world as a whole, but for your good. 
 
 It was no wonder, at the outset, that men who had 
 had no wide range of observation, and who were 
 unfamiliar with the laws of political economy, should 
 fail to understand that labor-saving machines help the 
 laborer. The obvious fact was that there was a ma- 
 chine that did the work of two or perhaps of ten 
 men: was it not certain, that, if the machine were 
 allowed to work, it would throw the one or the nine, 
 not required to operate it, out of employment ? That 
 was the apparent consequence ; but it must at length 
 begin to appear, even to ignorant men, that a great 
 many elements have to be taken into the account in 
 solving such a problem as this. Other results arise 
 from the employment of such machinery, which are 
 not so apparent, at first sight, and which are yet very 
 important to the working-man. 
 
 In the first place, machinery tends to cheapen the 
 commodities that working-men must buy. The prices 
 of nearly all the articles consumed by the laborer 
 are greatly reduced by the use of machinery. 
 
 Moreover, the machines, by lowering the price of 
 the commodities they produce, tend powerfully to 
 increase the demand for these commodities, and 
 greatly to stimulate production. 
 
 Take, for example, the trade with which I am most 
 
1 8 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 familiar, — printing. When the machine-press was 
 introduced, it naturally appeared to the printers that 
 some of them would lose their employment by reason 
 of it ; but what has been the result ? The improved 
 facilities for printing have so increased the demand 
 for printed matter, by cheapening it, and putting it 
 within the reach of a larger number of readers, that 
 now, with the machines in use, many more persons 
 are employed at printing than formerly, — a great er 
 number, I think, in proportion to the whole popula- 
 tion. The worlk is lighter, and the wages are better. 
 
 The same thing is true of every other mechanical 
 trade. I do not think it is possible to mention any 
 branch of production in which the use of labor-saving 
 machinery has not increased instead of diminishing 
 the number of laborers, and raised instead of redu- 
 cing the wages of labor. Since I was a farmer's boy, 
 twenty years ago, a great deal of farm machinery 
 has come into general use : farm-work is much lighter 
 than it used to be, and the wages paid to laborers are 
 much higher than they used to be ; not only posi- 
 tively but relatively higher. The average price of 
 a day's labor on the farm will buy more of the neces- 
 saries of life to-day than it would twenty years ago. 
 
 It is true that the gains which have come to work- 
 men through the introduction of machinery have 
 been slow. They have not kept pace with the in- 
 
The Dtcty and Discipline of Work, 19 
 
 crease of wealth ; nor will they, until the machines are 
 owned, as well as operated, by the workmen. Nev- 
 ertheless machinery has already brought a positiv^e 
 pecuniary advantage to the laboring classes; and, 
 under a better organization of labor, it is destined to 
 secure to them far greater benefits. 
 
 There is one other result of the introduction of 
 machinery to which I wish to allude ; that is the intel- 
 lectual improvement of workmen. It takes more 
 intelligence to operate a machine than it does to 
 handle a tool. There are principled involved in the 
 construction of the machine which the operator must 
 understand more or less clearly or he cannot manage 
 it. It is true that some men work all their lives with 
 machinery without acquiring any very satisfactory 
 knowledge of the principles on which it is con- 
 structed: nevertheless some ideas are picked up by 
 the dullest ; and the general result is a considerable 
 increase of the knowledge, and a corresponding de- 
 velopment of the mental powers, of the workmen. 
 
 For this reason machinery was introduced into the 
 South to a very limited extent before the destruction 
 of slavery. It would have been difficult, no doubt, 
 to teach the slaves- to use machinery ; but i 1, was not 
 so much the difficulty as the danger of the undertak 
 ing that kept the masters from it. It would not have 
 been easy to initiate Sambo into the mysteries of the 
 
20 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 mowing-machine or the power-loom; but he would 
 have comprehended them at length, and along with 
 them several other things that it was not safe for him 
 to know. You cannot keep men in servitude who 
 work with machinery. The intelligence that suf&ces 
 for such work is an intelligence that will forge its 
 own weapons of deliverance from bondage. As Prof. 
 Cairnes of London clearly pointed out in his masterly 
 work on the causes of the late war in this country, 
 the only hope of keeping the blacks in subjection 
 lay in the policy of the masters, — a policy in most 
 cases instinctively rather than deliberately chosen, — 
 of keeping them employed with the rudest kind of 
 tools, in doing the roughest sort of work. 
 
 While it is true that any kind of work is better for 
 the mind than idleness, it is also true that the work 
 which demands the most skill and thought is the 
 work which most rapidly develops the mind; and 
 hence the improvement of implements and machinery 
 is one powerful means not only of ameliorating the 
 physical condition of the laboring man, but also of 
 cultivating his intellect. It is thought '.kat educates, 
 — the contact with quick and fertile mind; and it 
 matters not whether this contact be produced by a 
 voice or a book or a machine: the result is the 
 same. 
 
 I am looking for the time, - - though doubtless I 
 
The Duty and Discipline of Work, 21 
 
 shall never see it, — when the forces of nature shall be 
 so broken to the will of man that the necessaries of 
 life will be easily gained, and along with them such 
 abundant instruction in the true methods of living, 
 such ample light in the ways in which workmen now 
 walk darkly, that want and strife will be almost 
 unknown. By and by the world will be not only 
 the storehouse of an unfailing bounty, and the temple 
 of a pure religion, but the school of a divine wisdom 
 to all mankind. While, therefore, I do not despise 
 manual labor, I look to see its burdens lightened 
 every year, and hope for the time when the benumb- 
 ing toils that now dull the faculties of so many 
 millions shall give place to a freer life, to labors less 
 painful, to activities that shall be full of zest for the 
 workman. 
 
 This state of things, when it comes, will be in no 
 small measure the direct result of the introduction of 
 those machines for the increase of production and 
 the relief of labor of which I have sometimes heard 
 my friends among the working-men bitterly com- 
 plain. These complaints were not unnatural ; but 
 perhaps a careful examination of the whole subject 
 will enable us to see that they are most unwise. 
 That Divine Providence under whose eye all these 
 industrial revolutions are going on,' cares for the 
 working-man as much as for- the capitalist Christ 
 
22 Working People and their Employers. 
 
 himself was a carpenter's son, was he not ? Dc 
 jcu think that God forgets you? Do you believe 
 that that "increasing purpose" of his which "runs 
 through all the ages," widening the thoughts of men 
 and lifting up their lives, leaves you out altogether ? 
 No, my friends, that cannot be. The forces of the 
 world, in their full scope, are working to your good. 
 And if you will quietly sit down and count not only 
 the hardships of your lot, but your advantages and 
 your gains, I believe that you will find it so. 
 
 But leaving aside these larger results for which 
 we look in the future, and these hopeful assurances 
 which we draw from the Christian religion itself 
 concerning the lot of the working-man, is there con- 
 veyed in that religion any truth that touches the 
 present life and the daily labor of our working 
 people? Has Christianity any thing to say about 
 work and how to do it ? 
 
 It would be strange if it had not. Christ was not 
 only known to men as the carpenter's son ; he was 
 himself a carpenter. Doubtless he learned the trade 
 of his reputed father, and worked at it till he was 
 thirty years old. Of his chosen apostles, several 
 were fishermen ; nearly all of them, probably, were 
 workmen in some humble calling. There is a little 
 doubt about Judas. Of his antecedents we know 
 absolutely nothing ; it would seem, however, that his 
 
The Dtity and Discipline of Work, 23 
 
 training must have been that of a financier, rather 
 than that of a laborer. But since the Founder of 
 Christianity, and most of its first teachers, belonged 
 without doubt to the working classes, we should 
 naturally expect that it would have something to say 
 about the duties of working people. We are not 
 disappointed in this expectation. The utterances of 
 the New Testament on this subject are not, it is true, 
 very radical when compared with the modern type 
 of radicalism; no attempt is made to disturb the 
 rights of property, or to array the different classes in 
 society against each other. In all such conflicts as 
 these Christ declined to have any part. Once, when 
 a man came to him and said, *' Master, speak to my 
 brother that he divide the inheritance with me," he 
 answered sternly, '' Man, who made rne a judge or a 
 divider over you ? " And then, turning to those 
 round about him, he said, " Take heed and beware 
 of covetousness, for a man's life consisteth not in the 
 abundance of the things which he possesseth." When 
 any quarrel was going on about positions or posses- 
 sions, Christ took part with neither side ; he wculd 
 not give his countenance to any scheme for settling 
 by force or by law the relations between hostile 
 classes : what he struck at was that spirit of covet- 
 ousness which is the root of every such disagreement, 
 which makes the employer extortionate and rapa 
 
24 Workmg People a7zd their Employers, 
 
 cious, and the workman indolent and greedy. When 
 that is once exterminated from the hearts of men 
 there will be no more strife between capital and 
 labor; and to exterminate it was the work that 
 Christ came to do. 
 
 Nevertheless the duties of working-men are re- 
 ferred to incidentally more than once in the New Tes- 
 tament. I shall mention but one such passage. The 
 words are from the pen of St. Paul, who, though a 
 man of fine education and large experience of the 
 world, was a practical mechanic. His home was in 
 Cilicia, a province of Asia Minor, which was famous 
 in those days for its manufactures of hair-cloth, the 
 substance of which tents are made. He was a tent- 
 maker by trade ; and the New Testament tells us that, 
 when he was on his missionary tours, he sometimes 
 supported himself by working at his trade rather 
 than "be chargeable to any " of those to whom he 
 was preaching. Paul knew, therefore, something of 
 the questions in which working-men are interested ; 
 and he has something to say to them in nearly all of 
 his epistles. In his letter to the Christians at Colosse, 
 he addresses various classes of persons, and gives 
 them counsel about their daily lives, "Whatsoever 
 ye do, do it heartily, as unto the Lord and not unto 
 men." These words are addressed to servants, and 
 the servants to whom they are addressed were slaves. 
 
The Duty and DLicipline of Work, 25 
 
 And Paul counsels them to do their ";vork heartily. 
 If such counsel is good for a slave, how much better 
 is it for a freeman ! If a slave ought to put his soul 
 into his work, — for this is what Paul's expression 
 means, — how much more should a freeman ! 
 
 '^ Whatsoever ye do, do it from the soul," says the 
 great apostle to the Colossian slaves. This means a 
 little more than that it should be done willingly. 
 The soul is the man : it is the intelligence and the 
 conscience, as well as the affections. And Paul 
 seems to mean that men who are called to any work 
 ought to do it intelligently and conscientiously as 
 well as cheerfully. 
 
 IntelHgently, I say. There is room for the exer- 
 cise of intelligence in every avocation. 
 
 '' Pray, how do you mix your colors ? " queried the 
 young painter of the old artist. " With brains, sir," 
 was the short but sufficient answer. There is no 
 product of our hands with which brains may not be 
 profitably mixed. Give your mind to your calling. 
 
 All work is art. There are artists in dirt, at whose 
 feet I would fain sit in these days of garden-making ; 
 rude men, who with shovel and rake will slope a 
 bank or trace a winding walk in a manner wholly 
 beyond my power of imitation. There are artists in 
 dry goods: look at the pictures they make for you in 
 the show windows ! There are artists in wood. 
 
26 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 whom men commonly call carpenters ; and artists in 
 iron, generally known as blacksmiths, — men whose 
 handiwork is always shapely, symmetrical, beautiful. 
 There are artists in household work; indeed, the 
 very finest and most delicate art is. all the while dis- 
 playing itself in the arrangement and adornment of 
 our houses. In short, there is an ideal perfection 
 which ought to be striven after in our mechanical 
 and domestic labor as really as in what are called the 
 fine arts. God has made every thing beautiful in its 
 time. I suppose that he takes pleasure in his handi- 
 work, not only because of its fitness, but because of 
 its beauty. Is there any reason why you should not 
 take pleasure in your handiwork for the same 
 reason ? 
 
 Conscience, too, ought to be put into work. This 
 world would be a great deal better world to live in 
 than it is, if a little more conscience were put into 
 our carpentry and our mason-work and our plumb- 
 ing and our cabinet-making and our upholstering 
 and our tailoring and our shoe-making ; if some of 
 our painters that do not call themselves artists mixed 
 their paints with conscience as well as with brains. 
 A vast amount of bad work is done in these days, — 
 slovenly work, dishonest work. That is one way in 
 which the moral sense of the people is blunted and 
 depraved. Lies and shams are all around us ; and 
 
The Dtcty and Discipline of Work, 27 
 
 we become so accustomed to them that truth and 
 integrity sometimes seem to be quite out of place in 
 this world. ^' Things are not what they seem," says 
 the poet. No, I shouldn't think they were. Almost 
 nothing that man has made is what it seems. Under 
 a fair outside, beneath a thick coat of varnish, all 
 sorts of falsehoods are hiding. 
 
 Now, I wish you could be made to see that work 
 of this sort is morally wrong. A lie that is expressed 
 in wood is no-better than a lie that is expressed in 
 words. Dishonest work is just as bad as dishonest 
 talk. You ought not to be guilty of it. It may be 
 that you are in the employ of those who require you 
 to work in this way. If they do, I suppose the fault 
 is theirs and not yours. But do keep it before your 
 thought that all such work is really immoral, and 
 that the millennium will never come till the world is 
 rid of it. 
 
 Sometimes you are eager to discover ways of doing 
 good. Begin right here, then. Do your work well. 
 You can add very greatly to the sum of the world's 
 happiness by doing honest work. Of how much dis- 
 comfort, and bad temper, and other sin your bad 
 work is the cause, none of you are perhaps fully 
 aware. 
 
 But what reason does this apostle urge why these 
 servants should put their souls into their work ; why 
 
28 Workmg People and their Employers, 
 
 they should do it mtelligently, conscientiously, heart- 
 ily ? It is that all their work is done in the sight of 
 God. "As unto the Lord and not unto men, you 
 laboi'," says Paul. "It is not for your earthly mas- 
 ter's sake, it is not for your own sake, that I urge it : 
 it is for the Lord's sake." To the Ephesian servants 
 he gives like counsel : " With good- will doing ser- 
 vice, as to the Lord and not to men ; knowing that, 
 whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall 
 he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free." 
 Paul is not talking here about religious or charita- 
 ble work at all. He is talking about the kind of 
 work at which these slaves were kept by their mas- 
 ters. "Whatsoever good thing any man doeth," 
 then, — whatsoever good carpentry, whatsoever good 
 tent-making, whatsoever good gardening, whatsoever 
 good house-serving, — the Lord will watch and reward. 
 If he be a bondsman, and get for his pains nothing 
 but kicks and buffetings from his master, let him be 
 patient, and remember that the great Artificer on 
 high, all whose work is good, and who delights in all 
 good work, is noting his faithfulness and thorough- 
 cesf"), and will recompense him for it in due season. 
 If he be working for wages, and all the credit of his 
 good work go to the master-workman, no matter: 
 there is one reckoning in which no man will be 
 cheated of any credit that belongs to him. 
 
The Duty a/td Discipline of Work. 29 
 
 In short, my friends, never forget that there are 
 right ways and wrong ways of doing your work; 
 that the right way is God's way ; that you may honor 
 and please him, not only by a faithful discharge of 
 the duties you have engaged to perform for men, but 
 also by a careful and painstalsing performance of the 
 work itself. 
 
n 
 
 LABOR AND CAPITAL. 
 
 History shows us three different systems by which 
 capital and labor have been brought together, — the 
 system of slavery, the wages system, and the system 
 of co-operation. 
 
 In the first of these there is no conflict between 
 capital and labor, because the capitalist owns the 
 laborer. On the one side is force, on the other side 
 submission. Labor and capital are indeed identified, 
 because the laborer is part of the property of the 
 capitalist which is engaged in production. There is 
 no dispute about wages ; the word is never heard. 
 
 This system of slavery is recognized and regulated 
 
 in the legislation of the Bible, just as polygamy and 
 
 blood vengeance are recognized and regulated. The 
 
 laws of Moses do not sanction either of these evils: 
 
 30 
 
Labor and Capital. 31 
 
 they only set bounds to them, and secure their admin- 
 istration on certain principles of justice and humanity 
 ■vs'hich will in due time put an end to them. And 
 when these principles begin to root themselves in the 
 convictions of the people, prophets arise announcing 
 the higher law of perfect righteousness, of which 
 the Levitical legislation was only the precursor ; and 
 bidding the people, in the name of the Lord, to 
 undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed 
 go free. 
 
 Under such a moral regimen, slavery could not 
 thrive. And when Christ appeared, declaring that 
 the law and the prophets were all summed up in the 
 rule which bids us do to others as we vrould have 
 others do to us, the doom of the system was sealed. 
 There is no express legislation against it in the New 
 Testament ; but there is no great need of express 
 legislation against wearing fur overcoats in July. 
 What Christianity did was to create a moral atmos- 
 phere in which slavery could not exist. 
 
 Men have always been quoting the Bible on the 
 side of slavery; but, while pettifogging theologians 
 have been searching its pages for texts with which 
 to prop their system, the spirit of the book has been 
 steadily undermining the system. 
 
 There are those who still choose to represent Chris- 
 tianity as the ally of despotism. A newspaper pub- 
 
32 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 lislied in this Conimonwealtli made, not lono' a2:o, the 
 sweeping assertion, that " freedom and Christianity 
 are fundamentally and irreconcilably antagonistic; 
 and that whoever strikes a blow for the one strikes a 
 blow against the other." In contradiction to this 
 statement, we may quote the whole of history. Go 
 back to the dark ages, to the period when the 
 Church was most corrupt and faithless, and you 
 v/ill find that even then it always was the champion 
 of the oppressed. Mr. Fitzjames Stephen, one of 
 the most brilliant of living English writers, — him- 
 self a barrister and a student of ancient law, though 
 a sceptic as regards revealed religion, — bears 
 this testimony to what Christianity has done for lib- 
 erty : — 
 
 " The glory of the mediseval Church is the resistance which it 
 offered to tyranny of every kind. The typical bishojD of those times 
 is always upholding a righteous cause against kings and emperors, or 
 exhorting masters to let their slaves go free, or giving sanctuary to 
 harassed fugitives. . . . What is true of the bishops is true in a still 
 
 ore eminent degree of the religious orders." 
 
 Eead Guizot's History of Civilization in Europe 
 for abundant confirmation of these statements. The 
 power of the keys which the Church put into the 
 hands of the priest was used in behalf of the enslaved, 
 in unlocking their shackles and in lightening their 
 
Labor and Capital, 33 
 
 burdens. The destruction of the feudal system in 
 Europe, and the abolition of serfdom, Avas, in con- 
 siderable part, the work of the Christian Church. 
 
 I have dwelt upon this fact of history, because I 
 wish to make it plain to working-men that the reli- 
 gion of Christ is not hostile to their interests ; that 
 it has indeed done more for the mitigation of their 
 hardships, and the enlargement of their privileges, 
 than any other power on earth. The suspicion with 
 which the laboring classes, especially in Europe, have 
 been taught by some of their leaders to regard Chris- 
 tianity, may be excusable in view of the corrupt and 
 perverted nature of the Christianity by which they 
 are surrounded ; but it would surely be impossible, 
 if they had any clear notion of what the religion of 
 Christ is, and of what it has done for them. 
 
 If, then, this first system in which history brings 
 together the capitalist and the laborer, the system of 
 bondage, be largely a thing of the past ; if the work- 
 man has now, in many lands, been emancipated, — 
 this result is due, in great part, to the prevalence 
 of the Christian religion. 
 
 The second of these systems is that in which, 
 throughout the civilized world, we now find capital 
 and labor, in which they freely exchange services. 
 The workman gives his work in exchange for the 
 employer's money. There is a contract between 
 
54 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 tli'em, by which the rate of remuneration is fixed. 
 The fundamental principle of this wages system is 
 competition, that is, conflict. If all men were benev- 
 olent, if the Golden Eule were the rule of all 
 exchanges, of course this need not be ; but unfor 
 tunately, the business of the world is for the mos: 
 part organized on a basis of self-interest ; ai.d thus, 
 by the wages system, the interest of the employer 
 and the interest of the laborer come directly into 
 collision. The laborer wants to get all he can for his 
 labor, the employer wants to give for it no more 
 than he must ; and between the two there is an 
 unceasing struggle for advantage and mastery. 
 How sharp and fierce this struggle is, let the history 
 of England and America for the last twenty-five 
 years bear record. 
 
 Thus the second stage in the progress of labor is 
 a stage of conflict. Slavery first, then war. All the 
 kingdoms of the world's industry are now in a state 
 of war. Sometimes the strife is suppressed, and 
 there is apparent peace ; sometimes the warfare is 
 only one of words or of unfriendly combinations : but 
 very often, as lately in the Pennsylvania coal-fields, 
 the parties come to blows. Violence is constantly 
 resorted to when the contest waxes hot. Either 
 between the employers and the laborers there is a 
 direct isiue of force, or else part of the laborers 
 
Labor and Capital, 35 
 
 take the side of the employers, and are attacked 
 as traitors to the army of labor. But even when 
 the arbitrament of brickbats and bludgeons is not 
 appealed to, there is none the less a state of war. 
 Capital will assert and maintain its claims, so wiJl 
 labor ; and neither will yield to the other more than 
 it is compelled to do. Labor and capital v/ork 
 together in production. They must work together. 
 Capital is worth nothing without labor ; labor can- 
 not subsist without capital. The contest arises in 
 dividing the profits of this joint production. Over 
 these profits there is a perpetual quarrel. It is 
 generally believed, among working-men, that the 
 capitalist gets the lion's share of them; it is com- 
 monly asserted nowadays by capitalists, that busi- 
 ness cannot be done without a loss on account of 
 the high rate of wages. I do not pretend to know 
 which side is right : I only see the quarrel going on, 
 and wish that it might in some way be stopped. 
 Ca,n it be stopped ? That is the question. 
 
 I have read what the political economists have to 
 say about this matter, and I confess that it does not 
 help me very much. There is much learned talk 
 about the wages fund ; and no little dispute among 
 the professors as to what this wages fund is, and 
 whether the laborers are paid out of it or out of the 
 product. Indeed, it would seem that th(i warfare of 
 
36 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 which the wages system is the occasion is not con- 
 fined to the factories, but extends to the universities 
 as well. They tell us that a certain part of the 
 profits of production is set aside by the capitalists to 
 pay future laborers, and that the price of wages 
 depends upon the relation of this wages fund to the 
 number of laborers, and can depend on nothing else ; 
 that when the wages fund is large, and the laborers 
 are few, the wages will be high because each man's 
 share will be larger; that, on the other hand, when 
 the wages fund is small and the laborers are many, 
 the wages must be low because each man's share 
 will be small. Accordingly, they tell us, the whole 
 question is one of supply and demand : the rate of 
 wages is determined by fixed economical laws ; the 
 will of the employer cannot alter it; no combina- 
 tions of workmen can affect it ; it is just as vain to 
 undertake to control it by legislation or by organi- 
 zation as it would be to control the winds or the 
 tides in that way. 
 
 Well, that may be true, and probably is true if 
 men are not moral beings; if the doctrines of mate- 
 rialism or of high Calvinism are true, and if the 
 actions of men are determined by forces outside of 
 themselves. But we shall venture to assume for a 
 little while longer that the wills of men are free; 
 that their choices have something to do with their 
 
Labor and Capital. 37 
 
 destinies; and that by the presentation to them of 
 truth, by an appeal to their reason and their moral 
 sense, their conduct may be influenced. The ques- 
 tions of social science or of political economy are 
 in part moral questions; and my business is to find 
 out what are the moral considerations that enter into 
 this problem, by which the strife between labor and 
 capital may be tempered, and the good of both 
 parties may be promoted. 
 
 In the first place, then, it would appear that what 
 the economists call the wages fund — that portion 
 of the capital which is devoted to the remuneration 
 of labor — does depend somewhat on the will of 
 the capitalist. It depends partly on his habits of 
 livino; whether it shall be increased or diminished. 
 l^f he is lavish in his personal expenditures, he will 
 not of course have so large a wages fund as if he is 
 economical. Here is an employer who during the 
 year spends ten thousand dollars in the merest 
 luxuries of life, — in feasting and in dressing, — in 
 that which is consumed and cast aside with the 
 using: must not his power to remunerate his work- 
 men be reduced by that amount? Might he not, if 
 he had chosen, have used this money in increasing 
 the wages of his laborers ? 
 
 ''But that is all nonsense," answers the capitalist. 
 ** Business is business. Supply and demand, ray dear 
 
38 Working People and their Employers. 
 
 parson! Supply and demand! Every man must 
 pay the market price for labor, and any man is a 
 fool wlio pays more." No, my friend : you do your- 
 self wrong. You are not wholly the victim of these 
 economical laws : you resist them and rule them 
 sometimes, in the interest of humanity. There is a 
 poor man in your employ who has been partly 
 disabled. In the market, he could get almost noth- 
 ing for his labor. But you take pity on him and his 
 household, and continue his wages at the rate you 
 paid him when he was in health. That is not 
 " supply and demand " at all. Another law comes 
 in here, a better law, — the law of love. You do 
 bring it in, now and then, to alleviate the hardships 
 that would result from the inflexible enforcement of 
 those economical laws of which you speak. The 
 question is, whether you might not bring it in a little 
 oftener ; whether, indeed, you might not incorporate 
 it into all your dealings with your working-men ; and 
 instead of saying, "Business is business," say, "Busi- 
 ness is stewardship : business is the high calling. 
 of God, into which I am bound to put conscience 
 and benevolence, as well as sagacity and enterprise." 
 This is just what Christian principle ought to effect 
 on the side of capital, in the relation between 
 capital and labor ; just what it does effect in some 
 degree : but if, on the present basis of production, 
 
Labor and CapitaL 39 
 
 there is to be any enduring peace between these 
 now warring parties, there must be on the part of 
 capitalists a good deal more of this intervention of 
 Clnistian principle, to hold in check the cruel ten- 
 dencies of the economic forces. 
 
 Not only on the side of the capitalist must this 
 spirit of sweet reasonableness find expression: the 
 workman must govern himself by the same law. If 
 employers are sometimes heartless and extortionate, 
 laborers are sometimes greedy and headstrong. I 
 have known of more than one case in which work- 
 men have demanded an increase of wages when the 
 business was yielding no profits ; when the balance 
 every month was on the wrong side of the employ- 
 er's books ; when with the strictest economy in his 
 personal expenditures, aijd the most careful attention 
 to his affairs, he was growing poorer instead of richer 
 every day. I have known other cases, in which 
 workmen have resisted a reduction of wages, Avhon 
 that was the only condition on which the business 
 could be carried on without disaster. As a mere 
 matter of policy, this is suicidal. For workmen to 
 exact a rate of pay that shall destroy the business by 
 which they get their living, is simply to kill the 
 goose that lays the golden ^gg every day, because 
 she does not lay two every day. It is not, however, 
 with the policy of the transaction that I am chiefly 
 
40 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 concerned, but with the rightfulness of it. Grave 
 wrongs are often in this way inflicted upon em- 
 ployers: their business is paralyzed, their credit is 
 impaired, their property is swept away ; and, in the 
 destruction of the enterprises which they are carry- 
 ing on, their power to help and serve their fellow- 
 men is crippled. For nothing is plainer than that a 
 man who organizes and carries on any honest busi- 
 ness, in which he gives employment and fair remun- 
 eration to laborers, ought to be considered a public 
 benefactor. All depends, of course, upon the 
 manner in which he manages his business. If it is 
 managed in the spirit of Shylock, it may be an injury 
 to the community ; but if it is based upon principles 
 of justice and fair play, it is a benefit to the com- 
 munity, and the destruction. of it is a calamity and a 
 wrong, not only to him, but also to the public. 
 Any combination of laborers that undertakes to 
 cripple or to kill an enterprise of this kind is en- 
 gaged in a bad business. 
 
 " Is this meant, then, for a condemnation of 
 strikes ? " asks somebody. Not necessarily. I have 
 no doubt that such combinations of laborers are 
 often unwise and unprofitable ; that, as a general 
 thing, they result in more loss than gain to the 
 laboring classes; but it does not appear to me that 
 they are always morally wrong. This is a free eoun- 
 
Labor and Capital. 41 
 
 try : if you do not choose to work for a man unless 
 he will pay you a certain rate of wages, no one can 
 compel you to do so ; and if ten or twenty or two 
 hundred of your fellow-workmen are of the same 
 mind, and prefer to be idle for a season rather thau 
 to take less than the price demanded for their ser- 
 vices, they have a right to do it. But it seems to 
 me that you ought to consider whether by your 
 combination you may not be inflicting serious dam- 
 age upon the whole community, and that you ought 
 to have some regard to the public good in what you 
 do. If the Christian law governs your conduct, you 
 will think of this. But if you can satisfy yourself 
 that the public welfare will take no serious detriment 
 from your action, I do not know that it can be 
 shown to be morally wrong. You and your fellows 
 may find it for your advantage to take this course ; 
 and it is a lawful means of securing your own 
 advantage. On the other hand, it may be for your 
 disadvantage ; you may be worse off in the end : but 
 that is your concern and the concern of those depen* 
 dent on you. So long as you pay your honest debts, 
 and support your families, no one else has a right to 
 complain if you do take a course which results in 
 loss and damage to yourself 
 
 Certain measures are, however, frequentlj^ re- 
 sorted to at such times that are morally wrong. 
 
42 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 You have a right to refuse to work for less than a 
 certain rate, and you have a right to influence others 
 to join with you in this refusal ; but you have no 
 right to use force or intimidation to keep any man 
 from working for less. Nobody has any right to 
 force you to work: you have no right to compel 
 anybody to be idle who is satisfied with less wages 
 than you demand. He may be a poor workman; but 
 that is his employer's concern, not yours. If you 
 can persuade him to join you, very good ; but you 
 have no right to lay a straw in his way if he refuses 
 to join you. We believe in free labor in this coun- 
 try, do we not? And that belief implies that no 
 laborer ought to be enslaved or coerced by his em- 
 ployer or by his fellow-laborers. 
 
 If, now, workmen will endeavor to deal with their 
 employers and with one another without threatening 
 or violence, in a spirit of good- will and fair play; 
 recognizing the important service that is rendered- 
 them by the men who organize the various industries 
 by which they get a living, and trying to render a 
 fair equivalent in work for the wages they receive ; 
 they will do tlieir part toward terminating this un- 
 happy strife which has so long prevailed between 
 labor and capital. It is a most melancholy quarrel : 
 society is disturbed and unsettled by it, and the 
 human brotherhood is rent into discordant and hos 
 
Labor and Capital, 43 
 
 tile factions. If the capitalist would measure his 
 profits, and the working-man his wages, by the Gold- 
 en Rule, there would be instant peace. And that is 
 the only way to secure peace on the basis of the 
 wages system. Political economy cannot secure it : 
 its maxims breed more strife than they allay. Polit- 
 ical economy only deals with natural forces ; and the 
 natural forces, even those which manifest themselves 
 in society, often seem to be heartless and cruel. The 
 law of nature would appear to be the survival of the 
 strongest ; and it is the workings of this law with 
 which political economy has to do. Legislation 
 cannot stop this strife. What, indeed, is law but an 
 edict of force ? Behind every law is the policeman's 
 billy or the soldier's bayonet. It has no meaning, 
 no efficacy, unless there is force behind it. And you 
 cannot make peace with a sword between these con- 
 tending interests. A gentler influence, a subtler 
 but a mightier force, must take possession of the 
 minds and hearts of the combatants on either side 
 before the warfare will cease. If the spirit that 
 dwelt in Christ be in you, — if you will learn to 
 "look not every man on his own things, but also on 
 the things of others ; " to love your neighbors as 
 yourselves ; to put yourselves in their places now 
 and then, and judge their conduct and yours too 
 from their point of view, — you will speedily come 
 
44 Working People mid their Employees, 
 
 to terms in all your quarrels. And is it not about 
 time for all of you, capitalists and laborers, in view 
 of the wasting warfare that you have so long been 
 waging, to lay to heart the injunction of Paul, " If 
 ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye 
 be not consumed one of another " ? 
 
 I must own that I have not much hope, however^ 
 that the war to which the wages system gives 
 occasion will ever cease until the system is abolished 
 or greatly modified. Christian principle can do 
 much to mitigate the strife, so far as it gains control 
 of the lives of men; but it will be a good while 
 before the masses of men, whether capitalists or 
 laborers, are so fully governed by the Christian 
 law that they will cease to struggle for the advan- 
 tage and mastery. The wages system is better than 
 slavery, because conflict is better than apathy; but 
 there is something better than the wages system, and 
 I hope that we some time shall reach it. 
 
 The subjugation of labor by capital is the first 
 stage in the progress of industry ; the second stago 
 is the warfare between labor and capital ; the third 
 is the identification of labor and capital by some 
 application of the principle of co-operation. This is 
 what we are coming to by and by. The long strug- 
 gle between these two conflicting interests promises 
 
Labor and Capital, 45 
 
 to end by uniting them, and making the laborer 
 his own capitalist. 
 
 I need not stop to describe this system to you : 
 you are all familiar with the principles on which it 
 rests. By combining their savings, the workmen 
 employ themselves, and divide the profits of the 
 business among themselves. 
 
 Not only will peace be promoted by such an 
 organization of labor, but thrift and morality also. 
 None but those who have a mind to save their earn- 
 insrs can become members of such an association. 
 Business requires capital, and the capital must be 
 provided from the savings of the workmen them- 
 selves. In furnishing a strong motive to economy, 
 co-operation will do good. The miseries of the 
 working people in this country are often duo to 
 extravagance and improvidence, rather than to insuf- 
 ficient incomes. Besides, it is always necessary in 
 these associations to enforce rigid rules of moral 
 conduct. Drunkards or idlers are immediately 
 turned out. Sober and steady workers are not at all 
 disposed to divide their profits with the lazy and 
 dissolute. 
 
 We may hope, too, that co-operation will secure 
 greater economy of material, and better work. The 
 workmen working for themselves, and having a 
 direct interest in the profits of their work, are likely 
 
46 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 to be careful about waste. This carefulness will b^ 
 of advantage not only to them, but to everybody 
 else. The world is enriched not only by the discov- 
 ery of new wealth, but by the frugal use of that 
 which is already in men's hands. All waste makes 
 tlie world poorer. 
 
 For the same reason, because each man is working 
 for himself, it is directly for his interest to make all 
 his work as nearly perfect as he can ; and that is a 
 result at which the whole world ought to rejoice. 
 
 Such are some of the results which may be ex- 
 pected from the success of industrial co-operation. 
 The expectation is not based upon theory, but upon 
 accomplished facts. Already in France and in Eng- 
 land the experiment has been tried with remarkable 
 success. A year ago, Mr. Thomas Brassey, M.P., in 
 an address before the Co-operative Congress, stated 
 that there were in England and Wales 746 co-opera- 
 tive societies, with more than 300,000 members, the 
 share capital amounting to nearly $14,000,000; and 
 that during the previous year they had transacted a 
 business amounting to nearly $57,000,000. ' The 
 larger part of this business, however, was in the 
 mercantile rather than in the manufacturing line. In 
 England the system has worked better in distribution 
 than in production ; but there has been considerable 
 success in bc^h directions. 
 
Labor and Capital. 47 
 
 But some of you may ask why a system so excel- 
 lent lias not been universally adopted. There are 
 two or three reasons. So far as this country is con- 
 cerned, the wages of labor have hitherto been so 
 large that working-men have been pretty well satis- 
 fied with their condition, and have not been driven 
 to devise new ways of gaining a livelihood. 
 
 In the second place, working-men everywhere lack 
 confidence in the honesty and fidelity of one another. 
 They hesitate to risk their savings in such enter- 
 prises, for fear some faithless treasurer will default 
 and run away with them. Very many of the 
 co-operative stores in this country have come to grief 
 in this way. 
 
 In the third place, in the members of such an 
 organization, a certain trait is essential which I may 
 find it dif&cult to describe in one w^ord, and which 
 is not so fully developed as it might be among our 
 working-people, or among our people who do not 
 work, for that matter. It is the trait that makes a 
 man work well in harness. It is the spirit of con- 
 cession, the spirit of subordination, the spirit that 
 thinks less of personal power or gain or glory than 
 of the common good. It is the spirit that we ought 
 to find as the bond of union in all our churches, and 
 do find sometimes, thank God ! It is the virtue Paul 
 inculcates wl en he bids the Romans, "Be kindly 
 
48 Working People aiid their Employers. 
 
 affeetioned one toward another with brotherly love, 
 in honor preferring one another." Where this spirit 
 abounds, there is always unity and fruitfulness ; 
 where this spirit is not, there is confusion and all 
 kinds of evil. And it is the absence of this spirit 
 that hinders the success of many of our co-operative 
 societies. 
 
 There is or was an Iron- Workers' Co-operative 
 Association in Troy, N.Y., whose success at the 
 beginning was quite remarkable. Last summer I 
 wrote to a gentleman living there, to inquire how 
 it was flourishing; and he replied that it seemed 
 to be losing ground. Dissensions among the mem- 
 bers were killing it. There had been frequent 
 changes of managers, and it appeared that every 
 man wanted to be boss. 
 
 More than one association of the kind has met i^s 
 fate in this way. (You cannot have co-operation till 
 you can find men who can co-operate. How can 
 you? 
 
 Add to these considerations, the fact that compara- 
 tively few among our working-men have the intelli- 
 gence and sagacity requisite to organize and manage 
 a large business, and you have a pretty clear expla- 
 nation of the reasons why co-operation has not been 
 more generally introduced. Before the production 
 of the country can be carried on in this way, there 
 
Labor and Capital, 49 
 
 must be a great improvement in the mental and moral 
 qualities of working-people. But this improvement 
 is steadily going on ; our free schools and our open 
 churches are offering to the children of our mechan- 
 ics and operatives a culture in morality and intelli- 
 gence that we may hope will qualify them after a 
 while, to take their destinies into their own hands. 
 The hour is not yet come, but it is sure to come; 
 and the bell that strikes it will 
 
 " Ring out the feud of rich and poor." 
 
 The transition from the wages system to the sys- 
 tem of co-operation is likely to be made through the 
 introduction of what are called industrial partner- 
 ships : by which the work-people in a manufacturing 
 establishment are given an interest in the business ; 
 and, in addition to their wages, a stipulated portion 
 of the piofits is divided among them at the close of 
 every year, in proportion to the amount of their 
 earnings. It would seem that the times are fully 
 ripe for the adoption of this principle. I have no 
 doubt that many of our manufacturers would find it 
 greatly to their advantage to introduce it ; that it 
 would result in securing steadier workmen and 
 better work, and that it would put an end to strikes 
 and all other forms of strife. 
 
 But, if I am right, working-men, as to the obsta- 
 
 4 
 
50 Working People and their Employers. 
 
 cles that hinder your entrance upon the better sys- 
 tem: they are mamly such as arise out of your own 
 defective conduct toward each other ; they are such, 
 too, as the Christian religion is calculated to remove. 
 Indeed, is it not just because the Christian principle 
 does not govern your lives, that you cannot co-oper- 
 ate ? If the law of love ruled your treatment of 
 each other, you would have no difficulty whatever in 
 working together ; in taking into your own hands all 
 the grand industrial enterprises of the age, and carry- 
 ing them forward with a vigor and a success that the 
 world has never seen under the principle of competi- 
 tion. 
 
 For, let no one fail to see that co-operation is noth- 
 ing more than the arrangement of the essential 
 factors of industry according to the Christian rule, 
 " We being many are one body in Christ, and every 
 one members one of another." It is capital and 
 labor adjusting themselves to the form of Christian- 
 ity ; and, like every other outward symbol, is a false 
 deceitful show, a dead form, unless filled with the 
 living spirit of Christianity itself 
 
 Working-men, I ask you to ponder these things. 
 There are those who seek to make you think that the 
 Church of Christ is an enemy, or at best but a heart- 
 less stepmother, greedy to get your service, but 
 careless of 70 ur welfare. . I know that there are 
 
Labor and Capital. 51 
 
 elements in the Church — corrupted fragments of the 
 Church — against which such a charge as this might 
 be truly brought ; but it is not true of the Christian 
 doctrine or the Christian system. The power that 
 has stricken the shackles from the laborer, that has 
 lightened his burdens, that has lifted him up to a 
 happier and a nobler hfe, and that has put into his 
 hands the key of a great future, is the power that 
 came into the world when Christ was bom. 
 
m. 
 
 HARD TIMES AND HOW TO EASE THEM. 
 
 If wliat everybody says be true, it must be that the 
 times are hard upon which we have fallen. The 
 merchants, the capitalists, the employing classes, the 
 professional people, are all complaining about them ; 
 everywhere they are the staple of conversation. 
 There is no famine, nor any thing like it. The ne- 
 cessaries of life are abundant, and not very dear. 
 Absolute want is scarcely known among us : most of 
 our people get enough to eat, and something to 
 wear, and something to warm themselves withal; 
 but a great many of them fail to get as much as 
 they would like of the comforts of life, if not of its 
 absolute necessaries. 
 
 As for the capitalists, no doubt they have encoun- 
 tered, during the last two or three years, a great 
 52 
 
 I 
 
Hard Times and How to Ease Them, 53 
 
 shrinkage of values, — of estimated values, at any 
 rate. Many have suffered real losses; but many 
 more have suffered speculative losses. Some are not 
 so rich as they were ; hardly anybody is so rich as 
 he thought he was. Many who supposed that they 
 had accumulated enough to live upon without labor 
 find their funds or their real estate depreciated, so 
 that they must set themselves to eke out their 
 income by their earnings. Business that was very 
 profitable a few years ago is much less profitable 
 now ; some enterprises are carried on at a steady 
 loss, in hope of the better times which seem to 
 come but tardily. 
 
 As for the working-people, not many of them had 
 any thing to lose ; but their work is not so steady 
 as they could wish, and their wages have been 
 reduced, so that their annual earnings are percepti- 
 bly smaller than they were two or three years ago. 
 
 Of all this stagnation of trade, this paralysis of in- 
 dustry, there must be causes. Is it not worth while 
 to look for them? Would it be amiss if some prophet 
 of the Lord should bid us, as Haggai once bade the 
 people of Judaea when harder times were prevail- 
 ing among them, to consider our ways, — the ways 
 by which we have come into this distress ; the ways 
 in which we are stumbling along now, in a discour- 
 aged endeavor to get out of it? 
 
54 Working People and their Employers. 
 
 The real losses that this country has suffered, and 
 that have had their part in producing these hard 
 times, are not far to seek. Within the past fifteen 
 years, an enormous amount of property has been 
 destroyed in this country. The waste of the war 
 was simply prodigious. Hundreds of millions of 
 wealth were obliterated utterly ; burnt up, demol- 
 ished, shot away in iron and lead and gunpowder. 
 Of course, such a destruction of property must im- 
 poverish the land. A nation may tide over the 
 shoal of debt, heaped up in such a time, on a flood 
 of paper money ; but the due-bills of the govern- 
 ment must be settled by and by, and when that time 
 comes it will be seen that paper is poor stuff with 
 which to patch up the breaches that war has made 
 in the national capital. Yast regions of the South 
 were devastated by the war ; and since that war the 
 people of those regions have been unable to make 
 any large contribution to the national wealth. They 
 cannot buy of us the fabrics with which we were 
 wont to supply them, because they have nothing 
 wherewith to pay for them. That stops our mill- 
 wheels, while the taxes that have followed in the 
 wake of the war reduce our incomes and burden 
 our industries. 
 
 This is the inevitable result of a severe and de- 
 structive war. If a nation chooses to dance to the 
 
Hard Times and How to Ease Them. 55 
 
 music of the musket, it must be ready, when the 
 piping times of peace come, to pay the piper 
 Whatsoever a nation soweth, that shall it also reap. 
 If it sows destruction, it will reap poverty. There 
 is no discharge in any war from the burdens that thb 
 war brings after it. 
 
 I do not mean to say that the nation was not justi- 
 fied, when the issue was raised, in meeting it just as 
 it did ; the nation is worth all that it has cost to 
 save it, and more : but it may be well for us to re- 
 member that the whole land was to blame for the 
 state of things that resulted in the war, and that we 
 are only reaping now what we have sown. Such a 
 moral enormity, such an economical folly as slavery 
 was, must bring calamity in due season upon the 
 nation that suffered it. Yet we at the North did 
 suffer it ; we were not at all in earnest about putting 
 an end to it ; we resisted for years all efforts to set 
 bounds to it, and secure its peaceful extinction. We 
 wanted Southern trade more than we ^fanted justice 
 and righteousness. Our subservience to the slave- 
 power emboldened it to push its exacticms more and 
 more imperiously, till at length we were forced to 
 face the bitter alternative of disunion or war. 
 Twenty-five years of truckling was what did it. 
 And we are paying the penalty of that to-day. We 
 paid its first instalments in five years of carnage; 
 
56 Working People and their Einp layers, 
 
 but there was gold as well as blood in the bond, and 
 the bond is not yet quite discharged. 
 
 The two classes at the North that were most un- 
 willing to have the demands of slavery challenged 
 were the commercial class and the laboring class. 
 The first did not want to lose their customers ; the 
 others were afraid that, if the slaves were emanci- 
 pated, there would be an irruption of negro labor 
 into the industries of the North. These two classes 
 are suffering most to-day from the results of the war. 
 It may be well for us all to read in this chapter of 
 history the lesson that the way of righteousness is 
 always the safest road in the end. 
 
 Since the waste of the war came to an end, we 
 have suffered several severe losses by fire. Two of 
 our most flourishing cities and several smaller towns 
 have been almost wiped out in this way. And the 
 fact must not be overlooked, that property destroyed 
 by fire is totally destroyed. The insurance brings 
 some relief to the individual sufferer, but it makes 
 the community no richer. The two or three hundred 
 millions of weaith that were consumed by the great 
 fires in Boston and Chicago made the whole nation 
 so much the poorer. All over the country the 
 incomes of men were reduced by this destruction ; 
 and the final effect has been to depress trade and 
 cripple industry. This too is a penalty which we 
 
Hard Times and How to Ease Them. 57 
 
 are paying for our carelessness and flimsiness in build- 
 ing. If you sow tinder-boxes in your city streets, 
 you shall reap conflagrations. 
 
 Another cause of the hard times is the waste of 
 which the whole people are guilty. The materials 
 of living are used by Ameri'^^nc with a most lavish 
 prodigality. Mr. McCulloch, writing from Europe 
 only a short time since about the unthriftiness of our 
 countrymen, expressed the opinion that the people of 
 France would live sumptuously every day on what is 
 wasted every day by the people of America. How 
 to make the most of what he has, is a lesson that 
 hardly anybody in this country has learned. If the 
 scien*^^ of domestic economy were as fully understood 
 by Americans as it is by Frenchmen, there would be 
 much less talk here of hard times. 
 
 ISIot only by a careless use of the necessaries of life, 
 but also by a reckless consumption of that which is at 
 once unnecessary and pernicious, the land is impov- 
 erished. From the National Bureau of Statistics we 
 learn that six hundred millions of dollars are annually 
 expended in America for intoxicating liquors. This 
 sum exceeds by more than one hundred millions of 
 dollars the combined gross earnings of all the rail- 
 roads in the United States. The rum bills of the 
 nation are as large as its meat bills. Even were we 
 to say nothing about the moral mischiefs that result 
 
58 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 from the use of intoxicants, this waste of wealth to 
 which they lead is something appalling. And any 
 analysis of the causes of , our hard times, that left this 
 out of the account, would be altogether incomplete. 
 
 Close akin to waste is extravagance. The one is a 
 positive, the other a relative term. He is extravagant 
 whose rate of living is in excess of his income. No 
 matter how small his income is, if it is sufficient to 
 support life, he is extravagant if he lives beyond it, 
 if he suffers his great expectations of future gains to 
 influence his present expenditures. And that is what 
 many of us have been doing. The sudden gains that 
 came through the inflation of our currency com- 
 pletely turned the heads of hundreds of thousands of 
 our people, and led them to adopt a scale of living 
 which it- was quite beyond their power to maintain. 
 This general fact has been well illustrated in our 
 own neighborhood. Sober Connecticut Valley farm- 
 ers, living prudently and well on their yearly pro- 
 ductions, suddenly found themselves in possession of 
 greatly increased incomes, derived from the cultiva- 
 tion of tobacco. The effect of this was to raise their 
 ideas of life enormously. Their wants multiplied 
 much faster than their wealth. So intoxicated were 
 they with the prospects before them, that they began 
 to spend not only all they got for their crops, but to 
 mortgage future crops for luxuries. Fine houses, 
 
Hard Times and How to Ease Them. 59 
 
 palatial barns, splendid carriages, pianos and pictures, 
 silks and laces, summer tours, — all the accompani- 
 ments of opulence, thej must have; and when the 
 money was not on hand it was borrowed. Going at 
 this gait, what wonder that, by the sudden halt of 
 an unprosperous year or two, many of them have 
 been throAvn into bankruptcy ? 
 
 What has happened to these neighbors of ours is 
 what is happening on a larger scale to the whole 
 people. Encouraged by the unsubstantial prosperity 
 created by the increase of paper money, many of us 
 have been living at too rapid a rate ; and we find our- 
 selves either badly in debt, or else in sore straits be- 
 cause we cannot keep our incomes up to the scale of 
 expenditure we have established. 
 
 For the same reason, many extravagant business 
 ventures have been taken. There seemed for a while 
 to be no end to the money with which to build mills 
 and factories and railroads : so we have rushed ahead, 
 multiplying our manufacturing facilities beyond all 
 reasonable demand for them, building railroads that 
 go nowhere in particular, and sinking our easily 
 gotten gains in bottomless enterprises. 
 
 Well, here we are, at the end of our tether. Busi- 
 ness- is dull, salaries are cut down, workmen are out 
 of work; and that revival of trade, prophesied and 
 
6o Working People and their E7nployers. 
 
 waited for so eagerly for now tliese five years, dees 
 not come. What are we going to do about it ? 
 
 Many remedies have been suggested. "Inflate 
 the currency," say some. "Give us more money: 
 money is all we need." That is all very well; but 
 please remember that notes of hand, promises to pay, 
 are not money. We shall not get out of our straits 
 by giving or taking, irredeemable paper. Our pres- 
 ent troubles have arisen in great measure from the 
 delusion that money -values can be manufactured with 
 printing-presses. More of the same delusion will not 
 cure us. When the toper gets up in the morning, 
 dizzy and dejected, he thinks that what he wants is 
 another glass of grog, and he generally goes and gets 
 it ; but it does not cure him. 
 
 Others advise the stoppage of production. It is 
 not poverty, but the embarrassment of riches, that 
 troubles us, they say. And if we could all make up 
 our minds to wait a little while, till we have used up 
 the stock on hand, things would go on again briskly. 
 But if waiting a little while would do us a little good^ 
 I cannot see why waiting a long while would not do 
 us more good ; and on this principle, if all the people 
 in the world should sit down and suck their thumbs 
 for ten years, they would all, at the end of that time, 
 be on the high road to fortune. Perhaps, however, 
 it is not a general but a partial stoppage of business 
 
Hard Times and How to Ease Them, 6i 
 
 that is recommended. But who shall stop ? More- 
 over, those who cease from then' labor must live, ot 
 course, while they are waiting. Who will support 
 them ? 
 
 No : the notion that the idleness of all or of anj 
 would give us easier times, is one of the flimsiest of 
 delusions. It may be that some branches of produc- 
 tion are overworked. If so, part of those who find 
 employment in them had better turn their hands to 
 something else; but we shall not mend matters by 
 sitting down and waiting. Why, suppose that in 
 every branch of industry the over-production was so 
 great that the supply of every thing was enormously 
 in excess of the demand for it, — so much in excess 
 that all the ordinary and extraordinary objects of 
 desire could be obtained as air and water and light 
 are obtained, without money and without price; so 
 that houses and furniture, and pictures and books, and 
 food and clothing, and horses and carriages were to 
 be had for the asking. Would the times be hard 
 then ? Morally they would, no doubt ; for the whole 
 people, liberated for a time from the need of work, 
 would betake themselves to all sorts of mischief: but 
 economically nobody would be likely to esteem such 
 times as those hard times. The nearer we can 
 approximate to that condition of things, the easier 
 will be our finances. And we approximate to this 
 
62 Working People and their E^nployers. 
 
 condition, not by sitting still and waiting, but by 
 working diligently to increase tlie world's store of 
 wealth ; by working, of course, so far as we are able, 
 to supply those things of which there is the greatest 
 deficiency, and for which there is the greatest 
 demand. 
 
 The remedies we have mentioned are pure quack- 
 ery. By no such superficial method shall we ever 
 cure our complaint. The process of recovery will 
 be slow, and it cannot be greatly hastened. The 
 analysis we have made of the causes of the hard 
 times shows this very clearly. You don't recover 
 from a typhoid fever in twenty-four hours ; not even 
 with the aid of quack-doctors and travelling medi- 
 cine-men. What, then, are the only effectual reme- 
 dies? 
 
 In the first place, in direct contradiction to that 
 counsel we were considering a moment ago, let 
 everybody keep at work if he is now employed ; or, 
 if not, find something to do, and go at it. If too 
 many are working at your particular trade or calling, 
 so that you cannot get a living by it, find if you can 
 some other occupation, even though it may be less 
 congenial, that will give you a livelihood, and go to 
 work in that. Don't sit round, whoever you are, 
 waiting for something to turn up. Take hold of 
 something, and turn it up. Shovel dirt, sr,w wood, 
 
Hard Times and How to Ease The77t. 63 
 
 do any kind of reputable work, rather than abide in 
 idleness. Your work, if it be honest work, will not 
 only replenish your own revenues, but it will help to 
 make the whole community richer, and thus to hasten 
 the return of better times. 
 
 Perhaps you feel yourself incapable of any othe: 
 kind of work than that you have followed hitherto. 
 It is one of the drawbacks of our present system of 
 dividing and subdividing labor, that the industrial 
 training of our workmen is kept within very narrow 
 limits, and men are incapacitated for any variety of 
 pursuits. One who has spent all his days in filing 
 the point of a screw, or in making the head of a pin, 
 hardly knows what to do when there are no more 
 screws to file, or pins to head. Fertility of resource 
 is a trait of American character that is decaying, I 
 fear. The number of those who are Yankees by 
 trade, and work at it, is not so large as once it was. 
 We must try to keep out of this bondage to a single 
 branch of work. We must not forget how to " turn 
 ourselvDS,'' — a good old Yankee phrase. We must 
 keep our eyes and ears open, and our hands practised 
 too, if we can, in more than one kind of work. 
 " Some things can be done, as well as rthers." 
 
 You will not all relish the suggestion, but the truth 
 is that a good many of you must go back to the work 
 of farming. The mills and the shops and the stores 
 
64 Working People and their Employers. 
 
 are not now, and will not soon be, able to furnish 
 with employment all of those who have hitherto 
 been supported by them ; and there are hundreds of 
 thousands of work-people and trades-people in our 
 towns who must find employment on the farms. The 
 prospect may not be a pleasant one, but the alterna- 
 tive is starvation. 
 
 One hundred years ago the cities of the United 
 States contained only one-thirtieth of the population : 
 now one-fifth of all our people are in the cities. The 
 growth of our city population has been quite too 
 rapid for the national health. 
 
 Toward the large commercial and manufacturing 
 towns, the tide of population has been steadily pour- 
 ing now these many years. Farm-life is dull and 
 solitary, farm-work is irksome and fatiguing, the 
 gains of farming are slow : therefore the young men 
 and the young women have deserted the farms, and 
 have sought employment in the shops and the stores 
 and the factories. All over New England, the rural 
 districts have been depopulated ; in hundreds of out- 
 lying towns there are fewer inhabitants to-day thaa 
 there were twenty years ago. The old houses where 
 the fathers of the present generation lived and throve 
 are falling down in ruins ; thousands of acres that 
 once were under tillage are covered now with brush- 
 wood Of those who be^fan life on these New 
 
Hard Times and How io Ease Them, 65 
 
 England farms, a part have emigrated to the West, 
 but a large number are in the Eastern cities and 
 villages. City life has for the mercurial Yankee a 
 strong attraction. He likes to mix with the crowd ; 
 he wants to be within reach of the telegraph-office 
 and the daily journal ; he greatly prefers his sensa- 
 tions fresh and at first hand. What is more, possi- 
 bilities of rapid accumulation are not found upon the 
 farms : it is only in the combinations of commercial 
 life that they are revealed ; and though the statistics 
 show that the prizes in this lottery are few compared 
 with the blanks, every true-born American cherishes 
 a lively faith that a prize will come to him. At any 
 rate, he wants to be on hand when the wheel goes 
 round. 
 
 For all these reasons the agricultural districts of 
 the East have been steadily losing their population, 
 and the towns have been growing at their expense. 
 Even during the period of inflation, many of these 
 ambitious fortune-seekers have gained but a pre- 
 carious livelihood ; and now multitudes of them are 
 out of work and out of funds, and their credit is 
 growing poorer every day. The fact they must 
 look in the face is just this : that trade is going to 
 recover very slowly ; that a great many factories and 
 stores are closing, and will not open again for many 
 a day ; and that the clerks and operatives, male ai d 
 
66 Working People and their Employers. 
 
 female, wlio have been supported bj tliem, must get 
 their livmg in some other way, or starve. 
 
 By the great majority of these the thought of seek- 
 ing employment in the country is never entertained. 
 I lately heard a young man, who had long baen look- 
 ing in vain for a clerkship, say that if he did not soon 
 succeed he should try to get a situation as conductor 
 on a horse-car. He did not seem to be aware that 
 thousands of other young men in the same condition 
 are piteously begghig for the same kind of work, and 
 that there would scarcely be room in the horse-cars 
 for all the idle clerks and operatives to ride. 
 
 The thought of turning away from the excitements 
 of town-life to the coarse fare, the hard work, and the 
 plodding life of the farm, may be unwelcome ; but 
 would not this be infinitely better than the anxious 
 and aimless life which many of you are leading ? If 
 you are compelled to work for wages, the money 
 that you will receive for a month's labor on the farm 
 will not be much ; but you will have your board, 
 your clothing will cost you but little, your other per- 
 sonal expenses will be next to nothing, and you can 
 save nearly all of the money that you receive. The 
 work of the farm is much less severe than it used to 
 be when some of us were boys ; and the conditions 
 of the farmer's life are in many ways less narrow and 
 bard than once they were ; but even if this were not 
 
Hard Times ana How to Ease Them. 67 
 
 the case, the young man who would not work on a 
 farm for ten dollars a month and his keeping, rather 
 than hang about the city waiting for work, begging 
 or borrowing the means of subsistence, or running 
 up a board-bill that he has no visible means of pay- 
 ing, is a poor specimen of manhood. 
 
 If you have a little money left, or can get a little 
 credit, there are plenty of farms that can be bought 
 at extremely low figures. With hard work and 
 prudent management you can obtain a living upon 
 such a place, and lay by something every year. The 
 prices of produce, especially of dairy produce, and 
 of fruits and vegetables as well, are high enough in 
 all our markets to afford any farmer who raises them 
 a good living. 
 
 But you say that the farmers talk about hard times 
 quite as loudly as the people in the towns, and that 
 many of them are heard complaining that they cannot 
 get a living. That may be true ; but the farmers, 
 like all the rest of us, have been living extrava- 
 gantly ; they have mortgaged their farms for largo 
 sums to obtain luxuries they could not afford ; and 
 now they find it hard to pay the interest on these 
 mortgages, and keep up the scale of expenditure to 
 which they have accustomed themselves. If they 
 would be content to live as plainly as the farmers 
 
68 Working People and thett' Employers, 
 
 used to live thirty years ago, they could meet their 
 expenses and pay their debts. 
 
 The opportunity that is offered to the idle people 
 of the cities, of becoming proprietors and cultivators 
 of the soil, is one they cannot afford to overlook. 
 They ought to understand that the gains of agricul- 
 ture are slow ; that it is only by hard labor and 
 great prudence that any savings are made ; but 
 industry and economy, united with good judgment, 
 will insure any household a comfortable and sure 
 support. And no remedy for the hard times would 
 be more radical than a transfer of the unemployed 
 multitudes of our town population to productive 
 labor upon the farms. 
 
 In the second place, whether you live in the city 
 or in the country, you must reverse the bad tenden- 
 cies of the past years, and practise economy. Learn 
 the wickedness of waste, and avoid it ; learn the duty 
 of living within your means, and do it. The scale of 
 expenditure needs revising in many quarters among 
 poor folks, and among poor rich folks too. Thei'u 
 are carriages, fineries, all sorts of luxurious accompa- 
 niments of life, that must be heroically discontinued. 
 
 Perhaps some of you working-people may be 
 inclined to say that you never indulge in any super- 
 fluities. I don't know about that. The bare neces- 
 baries of life cost very little. Henry Thoreau, the 
 
Hard Twies and Ho^v ic Ease Them, 69 
 
 Concord hermit, has shown us just how expensive 
 they are. His living for eight months, in the house 
 built with his own hands in Walden woods, cost him 
 $33. 87 J, — a little more than four dollars a month! 
 He gives us all the figures ; and we can take his word 
 for their accuracy, for he was an honest man. Those 
 were not starved and barren months by any means : 
 when he was not working in his bean-field, he was 
 busy with his books, or studying with quick and 
 sympathetic appreciation the wonderful things in the 
 world around him ; and the result is a book that wnll 
 rank very high among the products of American 
 literature. 
 
 Still I would not counsel you to try living in a 
 fashion quite so primitive as his. You do not want 
 to deny yourselves all the comforts of life ; and you 
 have a perfect right to take pleasure in some things 
 that most men regard as luxuries. You ought not to 
 starve your minds, for one thing. If you are ever to 
 be emancipated utterly from bondage to toil it will 
 be through mental training. Your tastes that arc 
 intellectual or spiritual you ought to develop ; and 
 I counsel you to do so, even if you are obliged to 
 wear plainer clothes, to deny yourselves several 
 circuses and nigger-minstrel shows in the course of 
 the year, and to put yourselves on very short allow- 
 ance of tobacco and rum. 
 
70 Working People aiid tJieir Etnployers, 
 
 • — ' Ma 
 
 In the third place, it is good counsel to forbear 
 comparing your lot with that of your more fortunate 
 neighbors. Many of our discomforts are relative, not 
 positive. It is not always because you are in abso- 
 lute want that you are troubled : it is often because 
 others about you have many things that you have 
 not. If you could be put, with your present strait- 
 ened income, into a neighborhood where all the people 
 were poorer than yourself, you would be much less 
 distressed on account of its straitness. Times would 
 be easier with you right away. 
 
 In the fourth place, it may be that, without much 
 tliinking of your neighbors, you are very much in 
 tlie habit of looking upon objects that are beyond 
 your reach, and worrying because you cannot hare 
 tliem. It is the things you have not and cannot get 
 that you think about most. How would it do to 
 think a little more of what you have, or may have, 
 and a little less of what you cannot have ? Wouldn't 
 it make times easier with you if you gave more 
 study to what you can get out of your income, and 
 less to what you can't get out of it ? I want to take 
 this counsel to myself while I commend it to you. 
 Suppose we all say to ourselves, ' This year, or this 
 month, we shall have to spend on our living so much; 
 that is all we can count on. Now, let us see how far 
 we can make it go ; how much good we can .get out 
 
Hard Times and How to Ease Them, 71 
 
 of ii^, — how many comforts for the home, how much 
 culture, how much stimulus for what is best in our 
 natures, how much bounty wherewith to make other 
 hearts glad who are in worse straits than we are." 
 There is an immense amount of happiness, and profit 
 too, to be derived from very small revenues, if one 
 sets to work in that way to utilize them. This phi- 
 losophy is as old as the days of Diogenes, but it 
 needs to be enforced upon every generation. 
 
 Doubtless you think that my prescription for your 
 financial ills is a very simple one, and indeed it is ; 
 but if you will try it faithfully, I know it will do you 
 good ; and I haven't much faith in any other mode of 
 treatment. The whole country has been waiting for 
 a sensational revival of business, but it will not come. 
 The only relief for our present distresses will come 
 through industry and frugality ; through a chastening 
 of our ambitious notions of life, and the cultivation 
 of simpler tastes and a more contented spirit. 
 
 And, if to contentment wo can add godliness, that, 
 T have authority for saying, w411 be a great gain. 
 What I mean by this is the bearing of our burdens, 
 whether they be of wealth or of want, as in the 
 sight of God. The maxims of a sound philosophy 
 are not to be despised : they serve us often for guid- 
 ance in this world. But there is something better 
 than philosophy; and that is the knowledge that, over 
 
72 Working People atid their Employers. 
 
 all tliese affairs of ours, One is watching whose wis- 
 dom is perfect to direct, whose strength is infinite to 
 keep and to deliver. If we can only come into that 
 assurance ; if we can only believe with all our hearts, 
 that our heavenly Father loves us and cares for us ; 
 that, so long as we place our confidence in him and 
 try to do his will, nothing can go amiss with us, — we 
 shall not have any more hard times. " Trust in the 
 Lord, and do good : so shalt thou dwell in the land, 
 and verily thou shalt be fed." If you will only 
 believe that, and make that faith the central principle 
 of your life, all these hard questions about the where- 
 withal of life will cease to vex your soul. You may 
 not be rich ; but you will know, as Paul knew, how to 
 be in want as well as how to abound ; and one kind 
 of knowledge is worth just as much as the other, 
 has just the same sweet comfort in it. 
 
 I do not mean that this trust will ever release you 
 from diligence or prudence : I mean that when you 
 have done your best, and chosen the path that seems 
 to you safest, it will deliver you from anxiety and 
 despondency, and fill your soul with a perfect peace. 
 If you can find this sure support, and rest upon it, 
 the sting will be taken from your troubles. When 
 the work stops, and the supplies are cut off, and the 
 little hoard is shrinking, it is good to think that there 
 is One who knows all about our needs, and who has 
 
Hard Times and How to Ease Them. 73 
 
 promised to take care of us if we will commit our 
 lives to him. To saj that there is rest and comfort 
 by and by for those who trust in him, is to tell but 
 part of the truth : there is rest and comfort for them 
 here and now. 
 
IV. 
 
 RISING IN THE WORLD. 
 
 For tlie virtue of thrift, the duty of rising in the 
 world, we may find good warrant in high places. 
 There is not only a command to work in the Deca- 
 logue, but there are many other commands scattered 
 •through the Bible, which set before us our duty to 
 live and thrive by our work. The first word spoken 
 to man by his Maker was a command to replenish 
 the earth, and subdue it, — to fill it not only with 
 inhabitants, but with wealth for the use of its inhabit- 
 ants. Along with all the warnings against setting 
 our hearts on riches, and putting our trust in them, 
 there are many other commands, which either ex- 
 pressly or by implication recognize it as a duty that 
 every man owes to himself, to his household, and to 
 his neighbors, to strive after temporal prosperity. 
 74 
 
Rising in the World, 75 
 
 Not to mention the exhortations found in the New- 
 Testament epistles and in the Psalms of David, we 
 ha\^e one whole book, the Book of Proverbs, whose 
 inspiration is not generally questioned, in which the 
 duty to be diligent and prosper is set forth with a 
 boundless wealth of illustration. 
 
 It is a duty that many of you do not need to be 
 instructed in. The fault of the great majority of 
 those who hear me is not that they do not value 
 prosperity enough, but that they value it far too 
 highly ; not that they have no ambition to rise in the 
 world, but that this ambition absorbs their energies 
 and consumes their lives. The lazy races of the 
 Orient are in far greater need of Solomon's pungent 
 proverbs about slothfulness and thriftlessness than the 
 eager, pushing people of New England can possibly 
 be. The motives to accumulation are always present 
 in our society, and need to be supplied by sugges- 
 tions to very few minds. 
 
 There are several errors, however, concerning this 
 matter, into which men are led by their eagerness 
 and their indolence, and which it may be well to 
 notice. The working people before me — most if 
 not all of them — are anxious enough to prosper ; 
 but it is not at all improbable that the ideas of many 
 of them, as to what prosperity is, are somewhat incor- 
 rect ; and that some, if called on to tell what rising 
 
76 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 in the world implies, would give loose and crude 
 definitions. 
 
 In the minds of some persons, this notion may l)e 
 lurking, that rising in the world involves the cessa- 
 tion of labor. They are hoping, in time, to rise so 
 high that they shall be above work. In the happy 
 elevation to which they hope to climb, the noises of 
 tools and the clatter of machinery are no more heard. 
 Now, this, as we saw in the first chapter, is a false 
 view of life. It is not by going up the ladder of 
 true progress and prosperity, but by going down, 
 that one gets away from work. In the scale of 
 advancement that God has marked for the race, there 
 is no place where work is omitted. Money may 
 deliver one over to idleness, and sometimes does; 
 but let him remember, when he gets there, that, since 
 he left the point where he stood when he worked 
 every day for his living, he has been going the down- 
 ward road. 
 
 You do not rise in the world by ceasing to be a 
 producer, or a helper of your fellows. Your powers 
 of body and of mind were given you to be used with 
 steady and beneficent purpose ; and you do not rise 
 by suffering them to rust in indolence, or to run to 
 waste in constant pleasuring. Whoever lives without 
 work is living a dependent life, — a pauper life, in- 
 deed, whether he lives in a poorhouse or in a palace. 
 
Rising in the World, "jy 
 
 There is essental degradation in such a life as that; 
 and they are to be pitied who have gone down to it, 
 whether they went down by the road of penury or 
 the road of plenty. 
 
 All the material comforts and values that are en- 
 joyed by persons who consider themselves able to 
 live without labor must be procured for them by 
 labor; cannot be produced in any other way. The 
 food, the apparel, the dwelling, the furniture, all that 
 supports and adorns life, is the product of labor. 
 The labor of the farmer, the miner, the fisherman, 
 the lumberman, produces the raw materials of wealth ; 
 the labor of the artisan turns them into useful forms ; 
 the labor of the merchant and the common carrier 
 transports and distributes and exchanges them; the 
 labor of the banker provides for the transfer and re- 
 distribution of the money that constitutes the medium 
 of exchange ; and so on, in a thousand ways not 
 mentioned, men are working together to increase the 
 store of the world's possessions. 
 
 So also, as regards the immaterial wealth of the 
 world, the stock of knowledge and truth that the 
 world contains : it is all the product of labor. True, 
 there is knowledge that comes by inspiration ; but not 
 even this, as men now are, can be turned to account 
 for the purposes of life, without hard work. The 
 greater part of the knowledge the world colUuis 
 
78 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 is acquired and disseminated by labor. To some is 
 given the work of original investigation in science or 
 in philosophy; to others, the work of research into 
 the lore of past ages ; to others, the work of criti- 
 cism ; to others, the work of teaching : to all, the 
 duty of standing up for the truth so far as it is 
 known, of waging warfare upon ignorance and iniqui 
 ty, of publishing salvation from the lust of the flesh 
 and the lust of the eye and the pride of life. And 
 this is work certainly not less honorable or produc- 
 tive than that of the farmer or the artisan. Its prod- 
 ucts are not seen and temporal : they are unseen 
 and eternal ; but they are not therefore valueless. 
 
 In one or the other of these two great classes of 
 workers, — those who are adding to the material 
 wealth of the world, or those who are enhancing its 
 immaterial treasures, — every able-bodied and sound- 
 minded adult human being ought to be found. We 
 are all bound together in society by a bond so close, 
 a relation so intimate, that each is affected by the 
 unfaithfulness of every other. If any man commits 
 a crime, he injures not only himself and the person 
 against whom the crime was committed and the 
 immediate circle of kinsfolk or acquaintance, but he 
 injures every other person in the land ; for he does 
 what he can to make society less secure and life less 
 desirable. So, if a person lives in indolence, it 
 
Rising in the World, 79 
 
 matters not how large his accumulations may be, the 
 whole community is the loser by his course. He is 
 adding nothing to the stock of the world's posses- 
 sions : he is doing what he can, and that is some- 
 times a vast deal, to diminish their quantity; he is 
 a destroyer, instead of being a producer. From the 
 great commonwealth of workers, w^hich ought to in- 
 clude all men, he is an alien. In the best state of 
 society no such person will be found. 
 
 Just here one mistake must be pointed out. 
 There are many, who to a superficial view might 
 seem to be idle, that are really industrious and useful 
 workers. The proprietor of a large manufacturing 
 establishment may be regarded by the girl that 
 works at the loom as a very lazy man. He sits in his 
 office, and talks ; he rides round in his carriage ; he 
 goes down to the city now and then; -he seems, to 
 some of the hands in the mill, to have a very easy 
 time : whereas the fact may be that no person in hi.^ 
 employ works so hard as he does. One of the most 
 useful as well as one of the most difiicult and weari- 
 some kinds of work is to organize work for others. 
 Those who are actively and successfully carrying on 
 ousiness are not idle, though they may perform but 
 little manual labor. The woman who or^ranizes and 
 manages prudently the work of a large household 
 may be a diligent and useful worker, even though 
 
8o Working People and their Employers, 
 
 she may not do any large share of the housework 
 with her own hands. 
 
 It is not therefore of such as these that I am 
 speaking ; but rather of those who by inheritance or 
 by previous acquisition have gained property which 
 gives them an income, and who are doing nothing 
 but amusing themselves. This is a kind of life that 
 some are leading, and for which many are longing. 
 It is not the right kind of life to live, and it is a 
 foolish thing to long for it. 
 
 Others think to rise in the world by exchanging 
 the calling in which they have been trained for some 
 other which to them seems more honorable. An 
 ambitious young mechanic says to himself, "As a 
 mere skilled laborer I never can amount to any 
 thing : if I am to rise in the world, I must get into 
 something else, — into mercantile life, or into one of 
 the learned professions." But such a change as this 
 is by no means certain to be a change for the better. 
 The mechanic may be well fitted to excel in his 
 calling, and totally unfit for the calling to which he 
 aspires ; and, if this be the case, he is not elevated, 
 but rather degraded by the change. A good tin- 
 smith is not rising in the world when he becomes a 
 poor lawyer. A good bricklayer is going down, not 
 up, when he makes of himself an indifierent journalist. 
 When a first-rate shoemaker turns into a fourth-rate 
 
Rising in the World, 8i 
 
 preacher, he throws himself away. No calling can 
 be so sacred or so honorable as to confer distinction 
 upon a man not qualified to discharge its duties. 
 All good work is honorable and sacred ; all poor, 
 slipshod work is despicable and profane : and in the 
 callings that are most responsible and influential, it is 
 even more to be detested than in those that are less 
 conspicuous. 
 
 It is therefore not clear that if you abandon one 
 calling, and choose another which to you seems high- 
 er, you will be going upward. Your elevation is 
 determined not so much by the . 'kind of work you 
 are doing (provided always it is honest work) as 
 by the icay you are doing it. The highest calling in 
 which you can engage is the one whose work you 
 can do best. 
 
 It ought not to be necessary to add that no man 
 can truly be said to rise who by dishonorable means 
 gains for himself wealth, or notoriety, or power. 
 To none but fools does such a career ever seem to 
 be any thing but a swift decline and a fatal fall. The 
 theatric height to which the bad man thus attains is 
 not only to all right vision the means for displaying 
 his own disgrace, but it is certain in the end to ap- 
 pear so even to the fools that once applauded him. 
 
 N/^t many years ago, there lived in the city of New 
 York a chairmaker — a fairly decent man, no doubt — 
 
82 Working People and their Employers. 
 
 by the name of Tweed. Dissatisfied with his calling, 
 and ambitious to rise in the world, he took to poli- 
 tics. By all the black arts known to the politician 
 of the period, he rose rapidly to power. The me- 
 tropolis of the continent was subject to his will : he 
 dictated its laws, he appointed its magistrates and 
 judges, he filled his lap with wealth plundered from 
 its treasury. Not only within the metropolis, but 
 throughout the State and the nation, his power was 
 felt and feared ; he was thought able — this cabinet- 
 maker — not only to make municipal and guberna- 
 torial and even presidential chairs, but to fill them 
 with the creatures of his choice. They began to 
 talk of erecting a brazen image of him down in New 
 York ; and there were plenty that were making 
 ready to fall down and worship it. "Behold the 
 eminence," many fools were crying, " to which this 
 man has climbed ! " And everywhere base men 
 began to do likewise. The same bad arts every- 
 where began to creep into our politics. To use the 
 rumshops and the ruffians in corruptiug the voters 
 and packing the caucuses ; to manipulate all the vile 
 elements of society in such a manner that the ballot- 
 box should paralyze the intelligent will of the people, 
 instead of expressing it, — this began to be only toe 
 common ; and good men either spoke lightly of it, 
 as one of the inseparable accompaniments of politics, 
 
Rising in the World. 83 
 
 or else shook their heads gravely, and said, "It's all 
 wrong, but what can you do ? You can't help your- 
 selves. Look at Tweed and his Ring ! " 
 
 But how long did they stand on that bad eminence 
 to be looked at, the wonder-stock of fools, the scorn 
 of wise men? Only a very little space. The cup 
 of their iniquities, how soon it was full ! And then 
 the breath of God's avenging wrath blew upon them ; 
 and now where are they ? The once proud impera- 
 tor, stripped of his honors, driven from his offices, 
 hides, a condemned convict, from the sight of men ; 
 he who once had his choice of palaces now counts it 
 a great mercy that he may choose among prisons ; 
 his property is scattered ; his house is desolate ; his 
 fellow-conspirators are fugitives and vagabonds in the 
 earth. 
 
 Ay, look at Tweed and his Ring ! Look, all you 
 base politicians, who have striven to copy in your 
 small way his bad example ! Look, all you cowardly 
 citizens, who think such things are inseparable from 
 politics and cannot be helped ! Look, all you lowly 
 mechanics and laborers, who are discontented some- 
 times with your condition, and burn to rise, no matter 
 how, to higher places! Look, and learn that the 
 stars in their courses fight against the man that 
 makes war upon righteousness ; and that there is no 
 pit so deep as that into which the creature falls, who, 
 
84 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 like Lucifer, would climb to place and power by 
 defying the immutable laws of God. 
 
 If, then, one may not wish to rise above labor, nor 
 to exchang-e a calling in which he excels for one in 
 which he must fail, nor to attain wealth or station by 
 dishonorable means, what is meant by rising in the 
 world ? What is included in the just ambition of 
 thrifty working-people ? 
 
 1. To be out of debt, for one thing. It is some- 
 times necessary to incur debts ; when this has been 
 done, the first business is to pa^y them. You do not 
 rise in the world by getting finery and furniture 
 wherewith to make a brave show, while unpaid bills 
 are hanging like millstones around your neck. Noth- 
 ing holds a man down like debt. You will not rise 
 very high till you are rid of it. 
 
 2. If you are in discomfort, or absolute wretched- 
 ness, your endeavor ought to be to rise out of it into 
 A condition of comfort. It is hard to draw the line 
 here, for one would be satisfied with a manner of life 
 in which another would be wretched. Still we all 
 know that some measure of decency and seemliness is 
 possible to all in this land. It is not necessary for 
 human beings to live like dogs in a kennel, neither is 
 it neo^ssary for them to live like princes in a palace ; 
 between these two extremes there is a golden mean 
 of respectability within which we may all abide. 
 
Rising in the World, 85 
 
 Though 'elegance maybe beyond our reach, cleanli- 
 ness is not; and that is a grace that m^ist not be 
 lightly esteemed. If our attire is neat, and our 
 apartments are orderly and tidy, this will go a long 
 way toward making up for any lack of stylishness or 
 costliness in our raiment and our furniture. I have 
 found the kitchens of some working-people very 
 pleasant places to sit and talk in. All of us may 
 hope to rise in the world high enough to get out of 
 the dirt. 
 
 Beyond this, it appears to me that working-people 
 ought always to try to lay by something ; not with 
 the thought that they may be rich enough in the 
 future to live in idleness, but that they may have a 
 provision made against sickness or infirmity or old 
 age. For one thing, they should keep it before 
 them, as a chief purpose of life, that they will at 
 some time have homes of their own. A little spot of 
 this earth's surface in which he may feel the honest 
 pride of ownership, a roof that may shelter him in 
 his declining days, — these are not, I trust, bej Dnd 
 the attainment, as they ought not to be beyond the 
 expectation, of the thrifty laboring-man. Having 
 procured for himself a home, it will be well if in 
 6ome safe place he shall lay up for himself a good 
 foundation against the time to come ; so that if disas- 
 
86 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 ter overtake him, and his supplies are cut off, he may 
 not be left in absolute penury. 
 
 But some of you will tell me that even this mod- 
 erate measure of prosperity is not easy of attainment. 
 It is as much as you can do, you say, to live decently 
 on your earnings : the prospect, of accumulating any 
 thing is. ver}^ slight indeed. And you think that if 
 you are ever to achieve any degree of independence, 
 you must rise from the ranks of the wage-laborers 
 into the ranks of the employers of labor. But it is 
 by no means certain that you would improve your 
 condition by such an attempt. Some journeymen 
 doubtless have the qualities that would fit them to 
 succeed as employers. They have organizing ability : 
 they could plan work judiciously, could make close 
 estimates and wise investments, could judge of men 
 and materials and times and tendencies and work 
 and results, and therefore could do well as masters 
 and contractors. But there are others, and these are 
 greatly in the majority, who, though skilful work- 
 men, are lacking in this power to organize work. 
 While they are employed as workmen, they do 
 admirably : when they attempt to take the direction 
 i)f work, they are sure to fail. It is not the easiest 
 thing in the world, even if one has some capital ta 
 begin with, to carry on successfully an industrial ol 
 a n^crcantile business. 
 
Rising in the World, 87 
 
 I shall be asked if this admission does not take 
 the ground from under the system of co-operation. 
 If it be true that only a few workmen have the ability 
 to manage business, would not a business that was 
 managed by a body of workmen be badly managed ? 
 The same query applies to a town government. 
 Only a few of all the voters of a town have the 
 executive ability necessary to manage the town 
 affairs. Yet the business of the towns of this Com- 
 monwealth has, as a rule, been very well conducted. 
 The voters generally have sense enough to select 
 capable men, and intrust the business to them. I 
 don't know why co-operation in the business of mak- 
 ing shoes, for example, should be deemed quixotic, 
 when co-operation in the business of government — 
 a business infinitely more complex and delicate — 
 has been demonstrated by an experience of two hun- 
 dred and fifty years in Massachusetts to be wholly 
 practicable. 
 
 Of course successful co-operation, whether in the 
 state or the shop, requires intelligence in the co- 
 operators ; sense enough to know when they are 
 well served, to choose wise representatives, to give 
 them some discretion, and to trust them in the exer- 
 cise of it. The fact that the experiment has broken 
 down so often proves just this and nothing more: 
 that the working-men who have tried it have lacked 
 
88 Working People and their Employers. 
 
 this modicum of sense. And while I have no doubt 
 that there will be many more such failures, before 
 there will be any general prevalence of the system, 
 yet it seems only natural to hope for a degree of 
 intelligence and self-control among our workmen 
 that shall render them capable of combining their 
 savings as capital, and becoming proprietors as well 
 as laborers. 
 
 In the mean time let those who have the will to 
 better their condition try what virtue there is in in- 
 dustry, and thoroughness, and fidelity, and economy. 
 Work patiently ; perfect yourselves as workmen ; 
 learn to do your work in the very best manner. 
 Stand at the top of your calling. There is always 
 room higher up. You can become so skilful, so 
 competent, so trustworthy, that your services shall 
 always be in demand at the highest rate of wages. 
 If you will then husband you;? resources, deny your- 
 selves fooleries and fineries that you would be better 
 off without, and take good care of your savings, you 
 may greatly improve your condition, even though 
 the prospect of a competence may not be very clear. 
 
 It may be well to face the fact that, for the great 
 majority of you, there is nothing better than this in 
 store. Some of you, doubtless, are hoping for some- 
 thing that seems to you a great deal better. You 
 are in perpetual discomfort and discontent, burdened 
 
Rising in the World. 89 
 
 perhaps with debts that do r ot diminish, or living at 
 best from hand to mouth, no better off at the end of 
 the year than you were at the beginning ; and you 
 are hoping to rise out of this condition into an easier 
 and better one, but how or when you do not exactly 
 know. Some of you have great expectations, that 
 some good fortune will come to you ; that somebody 
 will die, and remember you in his will ; that you will 
 discover a gold-mine or an oil-well somewhere ; that 
 you will run across some streak of good luck ; that 
 in some exceptional and fortuitous way you will 
 rise in the world. The sooner you rid yourselves of 
 this delusion, the better. The chances are a hundred 
 thousand to one that nothing of the sort will ever 
 happen to you. If you and I are ever to be better 
 off than we are, if prosperity is ever to come to us, 
 it will not come by luck, but by industry and econo- 
 my. Standing right where we are, taking the means 
 within our reach, we are to achieve all the prosperity 
 that will ever be ours. 
 
 To some of you, it may seem that the prospect I 
 have held up before you is not a very brilliant one. 
 To be able by hard work and close economy to get 
 out of debt and want, to make yourself possessor of 
 a comfortable hoijie, and to have a little hoard laid 
 by in the savings bank, and yet to toil on from year 
 to year at the same vocation: if this is rising in the 
 
90 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 world, you say, it is not rising very high, assuredly. 
 Possibly your Dwn ambition has taken much loftier 
 flights. Possibly you thought that I would hold up 
 before you the examples of the men of our time, or 
 of former times, who have risen out of poverty into 
 groat wealth or high station, and would pique your 
 ambition by the story of their rapid advancement, 
 reminding you that the paths they trod to these 
 eminences invite your feet. But I must own to you 
 that the heights to which I long to see you rise are 
 not these at all. God knows I wish you well, every 
 one of you ; and if by wishing it I could secure your 
 highest welfare, none of you would wait for it long. 
 But looking at the world from my point of view, I 
 am not sure that, if I had the lamp of Aladdin, I 
 would put you in the place of Stewart or of Yander- 
 bilt. There are advantages for the attainment of the 
 highest end of life to men who stand where they do ; 
 but the drawbacks more than balance the advantages. 
 It is an awful trial to which any man's soul is ex- 
 posed, when he is given vast wealth, — wealth that 
 enables him to gild or to conceal vice ; wealth that 
 absorbs his affections, and dulls, if it does not 
 destroy, his sense of responsibility. And while all 
 our millionaires show that they Ijave power of a 
 cv^rtain kind, — shrewdness, organizing ability, force 
 of will. — I fejir we must say of the most of them that 
 
Rising in the World. 91 
 
 outside of the world of finance and exchanges they 
 are very small indeed. They know one thing 
 thoroughly, — that is, how to accumulate property ; 
 and they know very little else. When thought turns 
 toward them, on what does it fasten ? Is it not the 
 merchandise or the gold that they have heaped up ? 
 Is there any thing in the personality of such men 
 that fascinates us? Do they not rather chill and 
 repel our affection? When we measure them by 
 ethical or by spiritual standards, the only ones we 
 shall think of applying to ourselves when we come 
 to sum up life and see what it has amounted to, we 
 find their stature is not great. 
 
 I look over the towns where my homes have been, 
 and see here and there a plain working-man who goes 
 to his work in the winter mornings before the sun is 
 up, and sups with his family by candlelight after his 
 day's work is done ; who has a snug little home of 
 his own, and a small hoard in n safe place ; who 
 has a wife to whom in heart and life he has always 
 been loyal, and a little brood of children that he 
 loves and watches tenderly ; a man who, though not 
 college-bred, has large information gained through 
 reading, and ready wit and quick perceptions and 
 wide sympathies, and who lives a pure and happy 
 life every day before God and man ; and I say to 
 myself, " I wonder, now, if that fellow would chango 
 
92 Working People and their Employers. 
 
 places and souls with such a man as — well, never 
 mhid his name; would take the old millionaire's 
 millions, and along with them his shrivelled con- 
 Bcience, and his sordid desires, and his narrow views 
 of life and destiny, and his haunting memories of 
 treachery and foul play. I wonder if this honest 
 sound-hearted working-man would, if he could, make 
 such an exchange as this. If he could and should, 
 he would prove himself to be a miserable fool. 0, 
 who is so blind as not to see that the portion of such 
 a working-man is infinitely more to be coveted than 
 that of such a millionaire ? 
 
 Prosperity, my friends, prosperity in a very mod- 
 erate measure, but not affluence, I covet for myself 
 and for you. There is a better life than that to which 
 abundance is wont to lead ; and to that every one 
 of you may attain. To stand in your lot with stead 
 fastness ; to take the good of life with thankfulness, 
 and its evil with patience ; to do your daily work 
 cheerfully and well ; to cherish those whom God has 
 given you with a pure affection ; to receive with 
 open and vigilant mind all the truth that is brought 
 you; to love and help your neighbors as you havo 
 opportunity ; and to hold communion every day with 
 Him whose grace will make you strong to endure 
 and overcome, — is there any higher life than this 
 possible to any of us ? 
 
Rising in the World, 93 
 
 Good friends, I wish I could make you all believe 
 that a man's life does not consist in the abundance of 
 the things he possesses. I wish I could make you 
 all see that it is possible for you, standing right 
 w^here you are, to realize the very highest ideal of 
 true living. I wish you all knew that by your 
 fidelity, your contentment, your manliness, your 
 steadfast choice of spiritual rather than temporal 
 good, you might clothe this work-day life of yours 
 with a glory such as seldom shines in courts and 
 palaces. The multitudes about you are racing after 
 pelf and place, — scheming and striving and rioting. 
 God help you to see that there are higher ends than 
 these they aim at ! God save you from the leanness 
 of soul that is their sure portion, and show you that 
 you need not wnsh for any better sphere in which to 
 achieve true greatness than that in which he has 
 placed you ! 
 
V. 
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD AND THE HOME. 
 
 The family is the oldest of the iustitutions of 
 society, and the most sacred ; it is before and above 
 the Church and the State. If there is any thing 
 absolutely fundamental and essential in social order, 
 it is the family. 
 
 Yet any one who carefully watches the drift of 
 public movements must be aware of a wade-spread 
 conspiracy against this venerable and divine institu- 
 tion. The workings of this conspiracy appear partly 
 in certain startling social experiments now being 
 tried in various parts of our land, and partly in cer- 
 tain tendencies that show themselves everywhere in 
 society, moving sometimes upon and sometimes 
 beneath the surface. 
 
 The extreme measure of religiou?j liberty enjoyed 
 94 
 
The Household and the Home, 95 
 
 in America has resulted in a variety of social mon- 
 strosities. Shakerism, Oneida Communism, Mormon- 
 isrn, are ostensibly and fundamentally religions, and 
 are tolerated here only as religions. There is need 
 that this whole subject of the toleration of religious 
 systems should be re-examined. When such a social 
 abomination as the Oneida or the Wallingford Com- 
 munity springs up in the midst of civilized society, 
 and claims to be protected on the ground that it is a 
 form of relis-ion, it is hi2:h time that we were con- 
 sidering just how much immorality and corruption 
 can be covered by a creed. Otherwise we may by 
 and by witness the rising-up of sects divinely com- 
 missioned to commit arson and murder and highway 
 robbery. 
 
 It is the peculiarity of the societies referred to, 
 that they repudiate the family relation, and substitute 
 for it a phalanx or a community or a harem. This is 
 the error on which they are built, the crime against 
 society that they are organized to perpetrate. No 
 substitute for the family has been or can be provided 
 without turning earth into hell; and whoever 
 attempts to put such theories into organic form 
 ought to be restrained by law as an evil-doer. 
 
 Concerning the Shakers, this judgment ought 
 perhaps to be tempered somewhat. All that needs 
 to be said about them is, that their social theories are 
 
96 Working Peiple and their Employers, 
 
 unnatural and absurd ; that if they live up to them 
 they will get but few followers, and do but little 
 harm ; and that, until it becomes plain that they are 
 making their theories the cover of debaucheries, the 
 State had better let them alone. 
 
 But it is not only among the Communists and the 
 Mormons that the enemies of the family are found. 
 The agitation now in progress in behalf of suffrage 
 for woman is carried on in part by persons who have 
 no respect for the family. Of those who are active 
 in this movement, very many are wholly innocent of 
 any design upon the stability of the household; they 
 think, and so do I, that the enfranchisement of 
 women may be consistent with the maintenance of 
 the family. But there are some that make no secret 
 of their contempt for the present order of things; 
 they speak of marriage and maternity as if they 
 thought them bondage and degradation, and openly 
 counsel young women never to marry. 
 
 The conspiracy against the family counts still other 
 conspirators, of a very different class. The whole 
 tendency of social life in some circles is such as to 
 discourage wedlock. The extravagant and luxurious 
 habits of life that have become so prevalent lead 
 many to shrink from assuming the expense of a 
 family. Knowing that it would not be possible for 
 them, with the incomes at their disposal, to maintain 
 
The Hottsehold and the Home. 97 
 
 a certain elaborate style of life, which to them seems 
 the very minimum of respectability, many young 
 persons deliberately resolve on single life. The 
 young man makes up his mind that a wife is a luxury 
 too expensive for him to afford; and the young 
 woman resolves that she will not marry unless there 
 is money enough in the proffered hand to support 
 her in good style. Thus the young woman grows 
 mercenary and frivolous, and the young man disso- 
 lute and rakish. Every year that passes makes it 
 less probable that they will ever enter into the family 
 relations, and still less probable that, if they do, this 
 relation will be a happy one. 
 
 This state of things, which we witness everywhere 
 in the middle classes, is greatly to be deplored. It 
 is the source of a large part of the vice and wretch- 
 edness with which these classes are infested. Multi- 
 tudes of people have high notions and limited means ; 
 and they are always indefinitely postponing the 
 beginning of the family life, simply because they are 
 such arrant cowards that they dare not live in smaller 
 and less richly furnished apartments, dare not wear 
 plainer clothes, than some of their neighbors. I do 
 not think that working-people are so apt as people 
 of other classes to be governed by these mercenary 
 considerations. They are generally content to begin 
 life as they can afford to begin ; humbly and in the 
 
98 WorJcmg People and their Employers, 
 
 faith that they can improve their circumstances as 
 time goes on. I hope this will always remain true 
 of them. There are doubtless exceptions, as in the 
 case of persons of infirm health, in which such 
 responsibilities should not be assumed ; but marriage, 
 and early marriage, ought to be the expectation and 
 the purpose. There ought to be manhood and 
 womanhood enough in the married pair to enable 
 them to begin their family life in a very humble way, 
 to live within their means, if their means are very 
 limited. The practice of putting off the day till the 
 life can begin in elegance and splendor, is a most 
 heartless and abominable practice. 
 
 " It is not good for man that he should be alone," 
 was the word of the Creator in Eden. It may be 
 the duty of some and the misfortune of others to 
 live singly ; but that is not the divine rule for man- 
 kind. "/(5 is not good for man that he should be 
 alone." Outside of the family, he is exposed to a 
 thousand temptations from which the family would 
 ghield him. 
 
 I know that the safeguards of the home, the 
 motives furnished by the household, are not sufficient 
 to restrain some men from iniquity. But, with the 
 great majority of decent people, domestic life is a 
 powerful check upon the baser passions. There are 
 husbands and fathers among my readers living sober 
 
The Household and the Home, 99 
 
 and reputable lives to-day, who would, if it wcc-e not 
 for their families, be walking in the path of indul- 
 gence. The thought of the wife and the children at 
 home, the unwillin":ness to brins; shame or dishonor 
 
 "DO 
 
 upon their families, is always present in their minds 
 to lead them in the ways of virtue. And since this 
 motive does operate so powerfully upon every man 
 of honor, it is wise for every man who desires to pre- 
 serve his purity of heart and of life to put himself 
 under its influence. 
 
 But not only is it not good for man that he should 
 be alone : it is good for him that he should dwell in 
 the family relation. The flimily serves not only as a 
 restraint : it serves also as a stimulus ; it furnishes a 
 powerful reinforcement to all that is good in human 
 nature. Certain of the virtues, and they are the 
 most beautiful of all the virtues, can hardly be 
 acquired except in the family. The education that 
 comes to both men and women in the school of the 
 family is perhaps the most valuable education they 
 ever receive. The husband and wife who are united 
 by a true affection are brought into a relation that 
 has no type or parallel in this world. The higher 
 spiritual nature is enriched by wedlock with gifts 
 that can be obtained in no other way. The perfect 
 sympathy, the true accord, the entire identiiication 
 of interests and hopes, that characterizes the happy 
 
lOO Working People and their Employers, 
 
 married life, is the source of infinite blessing to both 
 husband and wife. By their affection for each other 
 they become assimilated in character and nature. 
 Sometimes this likeness of spirit reveals itself even 
 in the countenance, and as they grow older there 
 comes to be in many cases a striking resemblance 
 between them. But when this does not take place, 
 there is often a wonderful interfusion of mental traits 
 and characteristics. The husband learns, after a time, 
 to see not only with his own eyes, but with those of 
 his wife ; and the wife knows by a perfect intuition, 
 what impression every circumstance or sentiment will 
 make upon the mind of her husband. Now, this per- 
 fect blending of the two lives gives to each greater 
 value, greater breadth, greater beauty. The manly 
 character, in its noblest manifestation, is one-sided 
 and incomplete ; so is the womanly : a full and sym- 
 metrical development is not possible to either except 
 as the two are brought together in a genuine and 
 life-long union. 
 
 But the benefits of domestic life come not only 
 from wedlock, but from parentage. No philosophy 
 can measure, no language can tell, the good that 
 children bring to their parents. When the pure 
 fountains of parental love are opened in the heart, a 
 new life is begun. New feelings, sober and tender 
 and full of purifying grace, spring up in the soul ; 
 
The Household and the Home, loi 
 
 new visions are opened, new motives are supplied 
 He must be a cold-blooded miscreant indeed, avIio 
 can receive from the great Father the gift of a little 
 child, helpless, innocent, yet immortal, and not feel 
 his heart stirred to its profoundest depths with joy 
 and hope and solemn thankfulness. He must be 
 hardened and imbruted beyond all hope of reforma- 
 tion, who can watch the growth of a little child, — 
 the unfolding of its beauty, the dawnings of its intel- 
 ligence, the venturings of its artless thought into the 
 dark regions of human speculation, the pluming of 
 the soul's pinions for heavenly flights, — with no new 
 aspirations for a better life. 
 
 Such are some of the blessings that come to us 
 through the family. The wholesome restraints it 
 throws around us, the new and holy experiences to 
 which it introduces us, the enlargement that it brings 
 to the best part of our nature, all help to demonstrate 
 that it is what Christians claim, — an institution of 
 divine appointment. It may be to some the savor of 
 death unto death ; but so is the gospel of grace : 
 rightly used, it can only be the savor of life unto 
 life. 
 
 It may be, however, that these fundamental truths 
 concerning family life are all accepted by yc>u. If 
 so, suffer a few words concerning the forming of the 
 family, — the building of the home. 
 
I02 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 Some of you are looking forward to the time when 
 you shall have families and homes of your own. It 
 is by marriage that the household is constituted ; and, 
 as the initial organic rite, its sacredness can hardly 
 be exaggerated. Your material prosperity and yo ir 
 moral and spiritual welfare depend upon your mar- 
 riage more than upon any other event of your life. 
 I hope, young people, that you always treat this great 
 subject seriously ; that you have resolved to govern 
 all your conduct in relation to it, not by romantic 
 actions, nor by mercenary purposes, nor by passion- 
 ate impulses, but by the higher reason and the purer 
 affections. Foolish choices have always been made, 
 and doubtless always will be. It is not likely that I 
 could give you any rules that would enable you to 
 make an infallible selection ; and it is still less likely 
 that you would follow any rules that I could give 
 you, if they were ever so good. It is a business that 
 is rarely done by rule ; nevertheless it is a business 
 that should not be done recklessly. As a safe guide 
 in the premises, let me suggest one simple maxim. 
 Friendship as well as love, friendship even more than 
 love, is the indispensable condition of true marriage. 
 Friendship is the harmony of the higher elements of 
 the nature, — of sentiments, tastes, pursuits ; while 
 by love is commonly meant only the attraction of 
 passion. Remember, then, young man, that you want 
 
The Household a7id the Ho.ne, ^03 
 
 ifl p. wife a friend ; remember that she is to be your 
 nearest and most intimate friend; and ask youiself 
 whether it is likely that the one of whom you are 
 thinking will answer all the conditions of a near and 
 perpetual friendship. In short, supposing this per- 
 son were of your own sex, would the expectation or* 
 a close and life-long intimacy between you be full 
 of joy and promise? If you can soberly answer 
 this question in the affirmative, you need ask no 
 further questions; if you cannot, you had better 
 pause. 
 
 When the important choice has been made, and 
 consummated by marriage, then the family life 
 begins. If the choice be a wise and happy one, the 
 future is secure. But what if there was an error 
 here ? What if two are brought together in this 
 relation who are imperfectly fitted, or wholly unfit- 
 ted, by nature and by education, for each other ^ 
 Such mistakes are made in all circles of society. 
 What shall be done in such a case? There is one 
 thing, and only one, that can be done, and that is to 
 make the best of it. If the parties both discover 
 after marriage that there is more discord than 
 harmony in their union, that is certainly a great 
 misfortune ; but retreat is not possible. Tolerance, 
 forbearance, are needed then. To dwell upon the 
 liard fact, constantly to deplore it, is to fill life with 
 
I04 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 wretchedness. The wise course is for each one 
 heartily and hopefully to resolve that these discords 
 shall be harmonized. When two pianos are brought 
 together for the playing of a duet, one is almost 
 always tuned a little higher than the other. If they 
 were played together, the discord would be horrible ; 
 but the tuner, with a quick ear and a skilful hand, 
 can soon bring them into harmony. When two lives 
 are joined together in wedlock, it is very seldom that 
 they are in perfect accord at the beginning ; more or 
 less tuning of both is commonly needed to make the 
 harmony perfect. Sometimes it is a long and diffi- 
 cult task ; but it is never impossible if only there be 
 a steady purpose on both sides to accomplish it. 
 This, then, is what must be done. Each must study 
 the tastes and peculiarities of the other, must be 
 patient with the infirmities of the other, must seek 
 to increase the other's happiness in every possible 
 way ; and, above all, each must resolve to become 
 better and more amiable every day ; for the better 
 these two persons are, the more certain they will be 
 to agree. 
 
 Such an endeavor as this, quietly and cheerfully 
 persisted in on both sides, will quickly substitute 
 harmony for discord. There is abundant happiness 
 in store for every unhappy couple that will heartily 
 make this endeavor. Brooding over the mistakes 
 
The HoicscJwld and the Home. 105 
 
 of the past is poor business. The poet iclls us 
 that — 
 
 "Of all sad words of tongue or pen, 
 The saddest are these, 'It might have been I * " 
 
 They are often the silliest, too, as well as the 
 saddest. If the time that is spent in lamenting past 
 mistakes were turned to the improvement of present 
 opportunities, many marred lives might be made 
 beautiful. 
 
 There is a movement now in certain quarters (or 
 was^ for I think it has partly lost its head) to relax 
 the stringency of the marriage bond, and to allow 
 separation for slight causes, — for mere incompati- 
 bility of temper and taste. This would be a terrible 
 mistake. The probable results of such a course, 
 obvious enough to any sort of vision, should make 
 us pause. Who could doubt that it would lead to 
 greater recklessness in the forming of this relation ? 
 What might be so easily ended would oftener than 
 now be lightly begun. Moreover, it would encour- 
 age and magnify disagreements. Many slight infeli- 
 cities that now are patiently borne would, under such 
 a state of things, be magnified into great grievances ; 
 and there would soon be little permanency in the 
 family life. No, my friends ; it is not by removing 
 obstacles to separation, that we are to improve 
 
1(36 Working People and their E^nployers, 
 
 domestic life. Easy divorce is not the way to 
 *'liome, sweet home :" it leads in exactly the oppo- 
 site direction; it is the stiaight road to pande- 
 monium. 
 
 The household having been formed, and fortified 
 against the assaults of bad philosophy and fickle 
 passion, the question of its rule next arises. What 
 form of government shall prevail ? Is the family a 
 monarchy — or man - archy ? Is the husband and 
 flither the lord and master, and are the wife and 
 children his subjects and servants ? You know how 
 it is yourselves ; what I want to know is, how it 
 ought to be. The question is, of course, respecting 
 the condition of the wife in the household. Ought 
 she to be in a subject condition ? 
 
 If we appeal to history, we shall find an easy 
 answer. In the primitive barbarism, the woman is 
 ranked with the lower animals, or but little above 
 them. She is the property of the man. The fathor 
 sells his daughters just as he does his domestic 
 animals ; and the husband buys his wife or wives as 
 he buys his oxen or sheep. The Zulu fathers count 
 each marriageable daughter as so many cattle. There 
 is a regular price-current for wives, which rises and 
 falls with the cattle-market. When cattle are scarce, 
 wives are cheap ; when cattle are plenty, wives are 
 deal'. That is what a Zulu husband means when ho 
 
Tlie Ho7ischold and the Home, io7 
 
 speaks of his dear wife. Among these and other 
 barbarians, women have no soeial or civil riglits at 
 all. A man may not kill a female belonging to the 
 family of his neighbor, because she is his neighbor's 
 property ; but he may kill his own wife or daughter, 
 if he choose : has he not a right to do what he will 
 with his own ? 
 
 Coming out of barbarism into the conditions of 
 civilization, we find the condition of the woman but 
 little altered for the better. "Until a later period in 
 European history," s^iys Mr. Mill, " the father had 
 the right to dispose of his daughter in marriage at 
 his own will and pleasure, without any regard to 
 hers. The church, indeed, was so far faithful to a 
 better morality as to require a formal ' yes ' from the 
 woman at the marriage ceremony; but there was 
 nothing to show that the consent was other than 
 compulsory. . . . After marriage, the man had an- 
 ciently (but this was anterior to Christianity) the 
 power of life and death over his wife. She could 
 invoke no law against him : he was her sole tribunal 
 and law. For a long time he could repudiate her, 
 but she had no corresponding power in regard to 
 him. By the old laws of England, the husband was 
 called the lord of the wife. He was literally 
 regarded as her sovereign, insomuch that the murder 
 of a man by his wife was called "^^-eason (^pdiy^ as 
 
fo8 Workmg People and their Employers, 
 
 distinguished from Mgli treason), and was more 
 cruelly avenged than was usually the case with high 
 treason; for the penalty was burning to death." 
 
 Such are some of the answers that history gives, 
 when we inquire what has been the relation of 
 woman to the family. With the advent of Christian- 
 ity came a great mitigation in the hardships of her 
 condition. The power of life and death was with- 
 drawn from the husband, his right to discard and 
 abandon his wife at pleasure was denied, and he was 
 greatly restrained in the infliction upon her of 
 physical injury. Yet it is not long since it was 
 considered every husband's inalienable right to flog 
 his wife, if she showed herself insubordinate. If, 
 therefore, the thing that has been is the thing that 
 shall be, we must certainly admit that the position 
 of the wife in the household is that of subjection. 
 
 Turning to the Bible, and repeating our inquiry, 
 we find what seems to be a confirmation of the ver- 
 dict of history. Of course the Scripture gives no 
 countenance to the barbaric notion that the wife is 
 the property of her husband, that he may wreak his 
 passion upon her, or repudiate her at his pleasure ; 
 but the doctrine seems to be taught, that woman is 
 in a subordinate if not in a subject condition; that 
 the authority and power belong to the husband. 
 
 The record of the creation gives no hint of any 
 
The Household and the Home, 109 
 
 superiority of one above the other, save as the man 
 was created first. But this proves nothing at all, or 
 else too much for advocates of masculine supremacy, 
 since the other animals were created before man ; 
 and if priority of creation be the ground of emi- 
 nence, they are higher in the scale than he. The 
 curse that followed the fall seems to have rested upon 
 woman more heavily than upon man ; and it is men- 
 tioned as one of the evil incidents of her fallen state, 
 that her desire shall be unto the man, and he shall rule 
 over her. But it would seem that the condition into 
 which the fall brought human beings is precisely the 
 condition in which they ought not to remain. This 
 sentence in the curse is the prophecy of a fact, not 
 the announcement of a law. The prophecy has been 
 fulfilled, but the fact is not therefore justified. It is 
 of course the lav\^, that, when man is alienated from 
 God, physical force instead of moral influence be- 
 comes the arbiter of his affairs. Woman is physi- 
 cally weaker than man, and therefore must be, while 
 the race is in this condition, subject to him. 
 
 So far, then, as Genesis is concerned, I do not 
 know that there is any indication that the normal 
 condition of woman in the household is subject or 
 even subordinate. The fact is foretold, that tliis 
 should be her condition; the fulfilment of this pre- 
 diction we have found in history. But it is also dis- 
 
iio Working People aizd their Employers, 
 
 tinctly declared that the subjection is part of the 
 misery of the fall, and this it is the aim of Christianity 
 to remove. 
 
 I do not remember that this question of the re- 
 la (ion of the sexes is definitely touched again until 
 we come to the epistles. There is no word of Christ 
 himself that favors the subjection of woman ; but in 
 the epistles of Paul and Peter there are certain advices 
 that seem to bear this interpretation. The position 
 of woman, both in the church and in the family, 
 seems by their teachings to be that of subordination. 
 
 For instance, Paul says that woman must keep 
 silence in the churches, that it is a shame for them 
 to speak in the church. Many persons regard this as 
 a rule to be universally observed ; but a little study 
 of the subject makes it probable that it refers to cir- 
 cumstances then existing at the East. The ciistoms 
 of society were such, that for a woman to take public 
 part in any religious service would have been abso- 
 lutely shocking. No Christian woman could have 
 done such a thing without injuring her good name, 
 and Paul's counsel is grounded on this fact. He 
 does not want them to bring scandal upon them- 
 selves and the gospel they profess, by disregarding 
 social customs and proprieties in this way. 
 
 For the same reason, Paul forbids women to appe ir 
 in public assemblies without being closely veiled. It 
 
The Household and Ihe Honed. 1 1 1 
 
 was then, and still is in tlie East, considered im- 
 modest for a woman to let her face be seen in pub- 
 lic ; and Paul exhorted Christian women to conform 
 to that custom. If one command is binding on 
 the women of to-day, the other is. If it is a shame 
 for American women to speak in church, because 
 Paul says so, it is equally a shame to permit their 
 faces to be seen in church, or in the street, because 
 Paul says so. If the one command has reference to 
 the peculiar customs of society in the East, so does 
 the other. 
 
 Now, it is, to say the least, quite possible that 
 those passages in these epistles in which woman's 
 position in the family is represented as subordinate 
 may be interpreted in the same Avay. When Paul 
 and Peter tell wives to be subject to their husbands, 
 their advice may be founded upon the peculiarities 
 of Oriental society rather than upon any unalterable 
 law of the divine administration. Things being as 
 they were, it might have been better that women 
 should patiently endure the limitations of their lot 
 than that they should attempt any sudden and violent 
 revolution in society. The expectation may be, with 
 regard to the condition of women in the fai:iilys as 
 with regard ^to the condition of slaves in the state, 
 that Christianity will gradually loosen their bonds, 
 and make their social subjection impossi]:)le. Indeed, 
 
112 Workmg People a7id their Employers. 
 
 the time is prophesied when there shall be neither 
 Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, neither male 
 nor female^ but all shall be one in Christ. Of 
 course, this can only mean the abolition of the social 
 disparity between the sexes. In patient waiting for 
 the coming of that time, wives as well as slaves may 
 be admonished to abide in that calling wherein they 
 are called. 
 
 Such would seem to be the Scriptural teaching 
 upon this subject. The whole tendency of Christian- 
 ity is to relieve woman of the curse and misery of 
 our fallen state. And if this supremacy of man and 
 this subjection of woman are, as they are said to be 
 in Genesis, part of the curse, then we ought to 
 expect that they will gradually disappear; and that, 
 as in the beginning, they twain shall be one flesh, 
 with no hint of authority or precedence on the part 
 of either. 
 
 The ideally perfect marriage then, is, that in which 
 the whole mind and heart and Avill of husband and 
 wife are perfectly united; in which their purposes, 
 sympathies, desires, activities, perfectly blend. Per- 
 fect marriage requires the entire agreement of two 
 equal and consenting wills ; not the merging of one 
 will in the other ; not authority on one side and sub- 
 mission on the other : but the perfect union of two 
 who, though different, are in all respects equal. 
 
The Household and the Home, 113 
 
 I am quite aware that there are but few ideal 
 marriages, as there are few ideal schools or churclies 
 or governments ; and yet it is of the highest impor- 
 tance that we recognize the ideal, and come as near 
 to the realization of it as we can. 
 
 But the old question comes up again in another 
 shape : Suppose this perfect harmony does not exist 
 between husband and wife, what then ? Must not 
 one or the other have power to decide in cases of 
 disagreement, and must it not be understood which 
 one ? By no means. Two equal partners in busi- 
 ness may disagree, will certainly disagree, from time 
 to time, about their transactions : is power there- 
 fore given to one of them to decide in all cases of 
 disagreement? Of course, no man would ever enter 
 into partnership with the understanding that in all 
 such cases he was to submit. Yet men contrive to 
 live together in this relation for many years, each 
 possessing equal powers with the other, and the two 
 composing their differences, as they arise, in a spirit 
 of harmony ; sometimes one yielding, and sometimes 
 the other. Usually in such a case there is a division 
 of labor and responsibility ; the one taking one 
 department of the business, and the other another 
 department, and each in his own department having 
 the controlling^ voice. Something: like this mi^rht be 
 done in the family. At all events, I am convinced 
 
1 14 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 that the less we have of authority on one side, and 
 submission on the other, in the marriage relation, the 
 happier we shall all be in that relation ; that the 
 agreement of equals is much better for both than 
 mastership for the one and servantship for the other, 
 even though the rule of the master may be just acd 
 kind, and the obedience of the servant free and 
 willing. 
 
 Of course, absolutism is better than anarchy in the 
 family as in the state ; but the perfect law of liberty 
 is far better than either. 
 
 Therefore I trust that in your family life this may 
 be the idea recognized and striven after. I hope 
 you will remember that in the Christian family the 
 rights of the husband and the wife are exactly equal ; 
 that the one has no more right to dictate and de- 
 nounce than the other. Authority and subjection 
 are terms of the curse, which ought, after nineteen 
 centuries of Christianity, to disappear from the 
 vocabulary of wedlock. 
 
 I have reasons for believing that the tyrants do 
 not all sit upon thrones. There are husbands and 
 fathers who rule their households with a rod of iron : 
 enforcing their mandates upon wives and children, if 
 not with violence, at least with imperious sternness, 
 keeping the whole family in awe of their despotic 
 authority. There are men who seem to think that 
 
The Household and the Home. 1 1 5 
 
 their wives have no opinions, no tastes, no wshes, no 
 rights, that they are bound to respect ; that it is only 
 for their royal selves, — to serve their needs, to 
 gratify their desires, to minister to their pleasure, — 
 that the family was ordained. This sacred relation is 
 outrageously profaned and abused when such a spirit 
 dwells in the one who calls himself the master of the 
 house. 
 
 I do not wish to be understood as suggesting, how- 
 ever, that there are no faults on the other side of the 
 house. If there are tyrants among men, there are 
 scolds among women. The unhappiness of the family 
 relation is not due to the one sex more than to the 
 other. The wrongs that women suffer at the hands 
 of men have been pretty fully set forth of late, and 
 I have no disposition to overlook them ; but if thd 
 men were to get up a series of conventions setting 
 forth the evils under which they are suffering, — the 
 extravagance, the frivolity, the indolence, the ex- 
 asperating pettishness, that afflict them and try their 
 souls, — they might make a pretty strong representa- 
 tion. But that such a course of action would be 
 very foolish and injurious to themselves, as well as to 
 the other sex, appears to me very plain. The effect 
 of setting the two sexes against each other in battle 
 array, of hurling reproaches and recriminatioas from 
 the one side to the other, of reciting and magnifying 
 
ii6 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 the wrongs done by one to the other, is and must be 
 evil and only evil. You cannot mend matters of this 
 sort by public meetings. They will not make hus- 
 bands any less tyrannical, I am sure ; and I doubt 
 whether they will make wives any more amiable. 
 You cannot reform and elevate the family by blowing 
 a breeze of political agitation over the land, any more 
 than you can cure disease by statute and proclama- 
 tion. The remedy for the disorders of the household 
 must come from other sources. By the recognition 
 of a higher ideal, by the growth of a purer Christian- 
 ity, by the faithful and patient effort of both husbands 
 and wives to help and serve each other in this rela- 
 tion, by ceasing to quarrel about rights, and think- 
 ing more of the privileges, the opportunities, the 
 blessings of the family, — by such means as these, the 
 mischiefs of the home will be most surely mended, 
 and the best welfare secured. 
 
 But I must make haste to add one word concern- 
 ing the ruling of the household, as it affects the 
 children. In their earliest years, they are utterly 
 helpless and dependent; and this fact gives to their 
 parents authority over them. The relation between 
 the parents, which is that of equals, is wholly differ- 
 ent from that of the parent to the child, which is that 
 of luler and subject. The parents have not only a 
 right, but it is their duty, to govern their childi*eii. 
 
The Household and the Home, 1 1 7 
 
 The ignorance and inexperience of the children 
 makes it their duty. It is my duty to restrain my 
 child from thrusting his hand into the hre, or from 
 throwing himself down the staircase, in his infancy ; 
 and it is equally my duty, when he grows a little 
 older, to keep him from evil society and bad books 
 and hurtful habits. It is my duty to train him up in 
 ways of industry and prudence and honesty. He will 
 not of his own accord enter these ways; and for 
 the sake of his future, I must lead him into them. 
 Knowing better than he does what is good for him, 
 what course he ought to take in childhood to reach a 
 virtuous and prosperous manhood, it is my duty to 
 guide him in that course, even though he may be 
 strongly inclined to walk in another direction. 
 
 But, while the exercise of a firm and just authority 
 by parents over their children is always necessary, 
 yet the fact must always be kept in mind, that these 
 children are by and by to pass out from under the 
 authority of their parents into freedom. The busi- 
 ness of the parents is therefore to train them for the 
 liberty with which they are soon to be intrusted. It 
 is our duty to care for our children in such a way 
 that they shall be enabled shortly to care for them- 
 selves ; to govern them in such a way that they shall 
 be able, on coming to their majority^ to govern 
 themselves. This involves the steady enlargement 
 
1 1 8 Working People and theif Employers, 
 
 of tlie liberty of the child, from the moment when 
 he begins to use his reason. Children learn to walk 
 by walking, to talk by talking, to sing by sing- 
 ing; and they can learn in no other way. Many 
 tumbles on the floor, many blunders in orthoepy and 
 syntax, many false notes in music, are certain inci- 
 dents of their progress. If they are allowed to make 
 no mistakes they will make no progress. So with 
 their moral training. There must be government, 
 but there must not be despotism. Some liberty of 
 choice must be allowed to them, and they must be 
 taught to use their liberty. They must be counselled, 
 warned, guided; if need be, restrained; but no more 
 authority should be used than is absolutely necessary. 
 ''Because I say so," is the very last reason to give for 
 a command or a prohibition. "Because it is right" 
 or "wise," these are the reasons which ought to be 
 most used in directing the child's action. Eeason 
 and love are commonly more potent than autocratic 
 will, in securing a cheerful obedience. 
 
 I can sum up all that has been said about the rul- 
 ing of the household, by saying that the rights of the 
 husband and the wife are exactly equal ; each has a 
 right to claim from the other respect, sympathy, and 
 affection ; that the rights of parents and children 
 are reciprocal, the children having a right to the 
 care of their parents, and to just such a measure 
 
The Ho2LseJiold and the Home. 119 
 
 of liberty for themselves at every stage of their 
 development as they can safely and profitably use ; 
 and the parents having the right, within these limits, 
 to the deference and obedience of their children. If 
 the husband treats his wife as thou^-h she were his 
 
 o 
 
 inferior, as though her opinion were not just as much 
 to be regarded, her will just as much to be respected 
 as his own in family affairs, the wife is wronged. If 
 the wife by her extravagance, her inefficiency, her 
 petulance, embarrasses and annoys her husband, he 
 is wronged. If the parents neglect their children, 
 or indulge them too freely, or tyrannize over them 
 too sternly, the children are wronged. If the chil- 
 dren refuse to their parents the honor and obedience 
 that are their due, the parents are wronged. But 
 too much talk of rights and wrongs is pernicious. 
 This is the letter that killeth, but there is a spirit 
 that giveth life. In the family, as under the divine 
 government, love is the fulfilling of the law. A 
 true and deep affection solves all these questions 
 of obligation. Wherever it exists, there is no more 
 dispute about rights, no more complaint of wrongs. 
 The deference of the husband, the homage of the 
 wife, the authority of the parents, the obedience of 
 the children, are no more cold, severe, mechanical, 
 but luminous and beautiful with heavenly light and 
 grace. 
 
I20 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 The sacredness of the family relation, the ends it 
 is designed to accomplish in restraining from sin and 
 in leading to virtue, the conditions upon which it is 
 happily founded and wisely ruled, have thus passed 
 before our minds in rapid review. I do not know 
 that what has been said has any more application to 
 one class of persons than to another ; but I have 
 addressed these words to the working people, be- 
 cause I know that when the home is happy the labor 
 is always light. The thought of the love and cheer 
 awaiting him when his day's work is done takes 
 the sting from the workman's toil. And I could 
 think of no better service that I could hope to ren- 
 der him, than to show him, as well as I could, the 
 foundations upon which the happiness of his home 
 could be most securely built. 
 
VI. 
 
 SOCIETY AND SOCIETIES. 
 
 In civilized communities, men associate themselves 
 for various purposes. The greater part of the world's 
 work is done by associated effort. Not only does 
 combination result in greater efficiency of labor, but 
 it is pleasanter for the workmen to labor in company 
 than to labor alone. A great part of the bitterness 
 and burden of toil is removed by the fellowship of 
 labor. When I was a farmer's boy I found it hard to 
 work alone. The farm-work was not particularly 
 distasteful to me if there was anybody to work 
 with; even the company of a team of horses was 
 better than none : but to go away by myself in a 
 lonely field, and work all day, cutting down sprouts 
 or picking up stones, with nobody to talk with, — • 
 that was tedious business. And I suspect that tlie 
 
 121 
 
122 Working People and tJieir Employers, 
 
 thing whicli draws so many boj^s from the flirms to 
 the towns is, more than any thing else, the love of 
 society. Men work together, therefore, not only 
 because it is more profitable, but because it is, as 
 a rule, more agreeable. 
 
 For purposes of education they are also associated. 
 To this result we find the same double motive of 
 interest and pleasure contributing. Economy of 
 labor is not the only reason for gathering students 
 into schools : they generally learn more rapidly in 
 school than at home ; they inspire and stimulate one 
 another ; and they enjoy the association. The sports 
 and the friendships of the schools afford most of them 
 an enjoyment that greatly lightens the labor required 
 of them. 
 
 Benevolence, too, brings men together. There 
 are societies for the promotion of temperance, and 
 societies for the relief of suffering ; and societies, 
 commonly secret, for mutual assistance and protec- 
 tion. Doubtless desire to do good leads many to 
 urite with such societies; doubtless others join them 
 in the hope of getting some selfish advantage from 
 them : but the social opportunity they offer is one 
 strong attraction by which they recruit their ranks. 
 
 For purposes of entertainment, society is sought. 
 The lecture, the concert, the oratorio, the opera, the 
 drama, are offered always to assemblages of people. 
 
Society and Societies, 123 
 
 This is not only because the expense of such enter- 
 tainments is lightened by dividing it among a largo 
 number of people, but because the pleasure derived 
 from them is greatly enhanced by enjoying them in 
 company. Not only is it generally impossible for an 
 orator or a singer to speak or sing well without the 
 inspiration of numbers ; it is equally impossible for 
 an auditor to hear well without the same inspiration. 
 If the performance in the presence of a single person 
 were in every respect as good as in the crowded hall, 
 his enjoyment of it would be greatly lessened by the 
 want of company. 
 
 The same principle holds good in our religious life. 
 The churches as well as the workshops, the schools, 
 and the secret lodges, are organized under this law. 
 Three objects are sought in the churches, — worship, 
 instruction, and benevolent activity. It is true that 
 one may worship alone acceptably ; but it is also true 
 that this highest act of the soul is sometimes made 
 more delightful and more profitable by companion- 
 ship. Praise is one chief element of worship ; and, 
 though one may sing praises to -God alone, hoAv much 
 is added to the fervor and enthusiasm of our sin2:in2: 
 when we join with the great congregation ! Prayer 
 is the other act of worship ; and while secret prayer 
 is indispensable to the maintenance of the spiritual 
 life, the helps of social prayer are also indispensable. 
 
124 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 So far as instruction is provided by our churches, 
 might not that be gained without association? 
 Might we not read our Bibles and our religious 
 books at home ? and would not the instruction thus 
 obtained be, on the whole, more complete and more 
 valuable than that which we get from the pulpit ? 
 Throughout Christendom, every Sunday, much good 
 preaching is heard, along with some that would be 
 called indifferent, and not a little that must be pro- 
 nounced very poor ; but the members of these con- 
 gregations could, at a trifling expense, have provided 
 themselves with printed sermons of a high order. 
 Why would it not be better, so far as religious 
 instruction is concerned, if the people of our congre- 
 gations should stay at home on Sundays and read good 
 sermons, instead of going to church to hear in many 
 cases indifferent or poor ones ? The common answer 
 to this question is, that the truth uttered by the living 
 voice is more impressive than that read out of a 
 book ; that a poor sermon spoken is more effective 
 upon the average man than a good sermon read. 
 There is truth in this answer, but it is not the whole 
 truth. The reason why it is better for people to 
 receive instruction in the congregation than to study 
 privately is, that the congregation is itself a stimulus 
 not only to the preacher, but to every auditor.* The 
 mind of every hearer is quickened, his emol^ions are 
 
Society and Societies, . 125 
 
 aroused, his better nature is warmed into life, by 
 the influence of the assembly. It is not the living 
 voice, so much as the living audience, that makes a 
 tolerable sermon heard from the pulpit more impres- 
 sive than a better sermon read from the book in the 
 closet. 
 
 In the great work of benevolent activity, as in 
 every other work, the same principle applies. It is 
 easier and pleasanter to do good in company than 
 alone. Not only by combination and division of 
 labor is the work lightened and facilitated, but the 
 enthusiasm and esprit de corps that spring up in the 
 body of workers are a great help in the work. 
 
 We have seen that the social principle enters into 
 nearly every department of human life, infusing 
 itself through our work, our study, our play, our 
 charity, our religion. And not only does this ele- 
 ment control every phase of life : it creates a depart- 
 ment of its own. Everywhere we find people 
 associating, not for such purposes as we have named, 
 but for the sake of society. There are assemblages 
 called together simply for social purposes. In the 
 rural districts, we see the housewives gathering with 
 their knitting-work at one of the neighbors' houses 
 for an afternoon chat and a social cup of tea, and the 
 young rustics assembling from time to time in the 
 evening, to engage in merry games. In the villages 
 
126 V/orking People a^td their Employers, 
 
 and the cities, the social life finds expression in many 
 ways that I need not describe ; some of which are 
 good, and others of which are mingled with much 
 evil. 
 
 So constant and universal are the social forces in 
 the life of human beings, that the race as a whole 
 is often spoken of as society. The attraction that 
 binds men together in society is apparently stronger 
 than any other principle of human nature. It be- 
 comes, then, an important question, what our rela- 
 tions to society should be ; how these all-pervading 
 influences shall affect our lives. 
 
 The design of the Creator was, that every one of 
 his creatures should have a character of his own. 
 One of the ends most plainly sought by him is the 
 individuality of each distinct existence. No two 
 faces are alike, we often say ; and it is equally true 
 that no two minds are alike : tastes and preferences 
 vary indefinitely. Now, it is of the utmost impor- 
 tance that this individuality be preserved and 
 cherished. A landscape is not beautiful because the 
 objects it shows us are all alike, but because they 
 are all different, yet are harmoniously grouped and 
 blended in the view. An art-gallery interests us, and 
 is of value to its owner, not because the paintings or 
 the statues are all alike, but because each is a different 
 representation of beauty. Five hundred copies of the 
 
 I 
 
Society and Societies, 127 
 
 Sistiue Madonna arranged in rows upon'tlic wall of 
 the academy would offend us. Iteration is wearisome, 
 no matter how beautiful the expression may be. 
 Would you like to read a book that consisted of 
 an endless repetition of a single sentence ? What 
 nature would be if all its objects were cast in one 
 mould, what art would be if it were only the mo- 
 notonous repetition of the same forms and colors, 
 what literature would be if it were the ceaseless 
 recurrence of the same words in the same order, — 
 that would society be if all men were alike. When 
 each man is permitted to develop his own individu- 
 tlity, the intellectual wealth of society is increased ; 
 but when this individuality is repressed, when men 
 are made to conform to certain fixed standards of 
 thought and custom, society is impoverished. Yet 
 the tendency is very strong, in all states of society, 
 to repress individuality. 
 
 Of course it is a necessary condition of society, 
 that individuals shall conform in some respects to the 
 wishes of their fellows. Men cannot associate in 
 business without self-denial, without subordinatins: 
 their views and preferences in certain particulars to 
 those of others. An utter wilfulness, an obstinate, 
 perverse disposition, is destructive of society. It 
 becomes, therefore, an important question for every 
 one of us, just how far we ought to govern our- 
 
128 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 selves by social laws and oust ^ms, and hoAV far we 
 ought to manifest tlie life tliat is in us in our own 
 way. 
 
 Society, in all circles, is quite peremptory in its 
 demands. It lays down certain laws of behavior; 
 it prescribes certain styles of dress ; it has fashions 
 in every thing. There are books that it is fashion- 
 able to read, and dishes that it is fashionable to eat, 
 and churches that it is fashionable to attend, and 
 stores that it is fashionable to patronize, and opinions 
 that it is fashionable to hold ; and society is rather 
 inclined to be intolerant of those who will not follow 
 all its fashions. There are social customs that we may 
 safely and profitably follow. To disregard them all, 
 to place ourselves outside of society, and make war 
 upon it, is almost as bad as to be its bond-servant. 
 One may err in setting his will against society in tri- 
 fling matters. There are requirements of custom that 
 in themselves are neither right nor wrong: they 
 involve no moral principle whatever : it is as easy to 
 conform to them as not ; and to stand out about such 
 small things belittles the mind. 
 
 It is clear, however, that society has no right to 
 interfere with our opinions of truth, with our convic- 
 tions of duty. Every one of us must give account 
 for himself to God. Every one of us ought to be 
 fully persuaded in his own mind of the rightfulness 
 
Society and Soc idles, ii^ 
 
 of any practice in which moral principle is involved. 
 The attempt to enforce upon individuals conventional 
 notions of truth and duty, right and wrong, is both 
 absurd and wicked. Of course, there is one limit to 
 the liberty of individuals, even in this direction. No 
 man may be permitted to injure his fellow-men for 
 conscience' sake. But in cases where his conduct 
 affects nobody but himself, each man must be allowed 
 to decide for himself; and any attempt on the part 
 of society to prescribe his opinions, or rule his prac- 
 tices, is mischievous in the extreme. 
 
 The problem we are considering is not easily 
 solved, but it is very easily stated. In society, as in 
 every other organized existence, beauty and perfec- 
 tion are secured by unity in variety, the harmoni- 
 ous combination of parts that differ. To secure the 
 unity that is necessary, it is needful that there should 
 be some conformity to social standards and usages. 
 To secure the variety that is desirable, it is well that 
 the individuality of every man and woman be per- 
 fectly developed. It is necessary, therefore, to learn 
 how to reconcile these two contending obligations; 
 how to be in society, and not of it; how to respect 
 yourself, your own judgment and cons* ience, and yet 
 to love your neighbor as yourself; when to with- 
 stand the social influences, and when to yield to 
 them. It is not always easy to tell in sucli a case 
 
130 Working People and their Employers. 
 
 what we ought to clo ; but it is useful to know what 
 the elements are that enter into the problem. 
 
 The law of social intercourse is, of course, the 
 law of love. The charity that envieth not, that 
 seeketh not her own, that is not easily provoked, that 
 thinketh no evil, is the only trait that can qualify 
 any one to make the right use of society. No profit- 
 able social intercourse can ever take place between 
 persons that are more eager to receive than to confer 
 favor and honor. A true self-forge tfuln ess, a sincere 
 desire to make others happy, is the essential quali- 
 fication for social life. The best gifts avail nothing 
 to one who is lacking in this. In the various social 
 organizations, there are those who want the offices 
 and the conspicuous places, and are sour and cross if 
 they cannot get them. Among associations of mu- 
 sicians, I have heard it alleged that some are always 
 taking offence if leading parts are not assigned them. 
 In the churches, people have been known to^com- 
 plain because not enough notice was taken of them. 
 Those who never in their lives were suspected of 
 making the slightest effort to increase the welfare 
 or the happiness of their neighbors, often grumble 
 because their neighbors are not more diligent in 
 vseeking them out and showing them kindness. Such 
 a spirit as this makes society impossible. 
 
 Individuahty, trictableness, charity, — these are 
 
Society and Societies, 131 
 
 the three elements of the best social life. l\\ our 
 intercourse with our fellows, it is of the utmost 
 importance that we stand firmly by our own con- 
 victions of truth and duty, that we be easily en- 
 created in things indifferent, and that we govern all 
 our conduct by the law of Christian love. 
 
 The family life of working-people, of which I wrote 
 in the preceding chapter, does not greatly differ 
 in its obligations or its privileges from that of other 
 people ; but the social life of mechanics and laborers 
 is, in certain important respects, unlike that of the 
 wealthier classes ; and I desire to speak now, briefly, 
 of society as it offers itself to working-men and 
 working- women. 
 
 1. The social relations of working-people in their 
 work may be of great advantage to them. Among 
 shopmates, a deep and lasting friendship oft^^ 
 springs up. You cannot always pick your com- 
 pany in your work, but you can hardly be so unfortu- 
 nate as not to find much that is pleasant and helpful. 
 Because your opportunities of society outside of 
 your labor are by the necessities of the case some- 
 what limited, you ought to make the most of these 
 friendships with your workfellow^s, and to derive 
 all the benefit you can from your association with 
 them. 
 
 2. It will be wise, however, for you to seek for 
 
12)2 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 opportunities of social intercourse in your leisure 
 hours. For your own good, and for the good of 
 the community, you ought to bear your part in the 
 development of social life. It does a man good, 
 who works hard all day at some disagreeable em- 
 ployment, to put on clean raiment of an evening, 
 and go out into good company. The refining influ- 
 ence thus exerted upon him he cannot safely forego. 
 It is not only for the sake of his manners that 
 he needs this social culture, but for the sake of his 
 morals as well. Workday life is full of rivalries and 
 competitions, of cheating and over-reaching, of an 
 endless suppressed warfare among men. " Every 
 man for himself," is the maxim of traffic; and every 
 man is obliged to look out for himself, or he will be 
 fleeced and ruined. This is done for the most part 
 in lawful and polite and even obsequious ways, but 
 it is done. No matter what station of life you are 
 in, there is need of constant vigilance to secure your 
 rights. Of course when you go home, if you have a 
 home, you pass out of this arena of strife and compe- 
 tition into a different atmosphere, where nobody is 
 trying to get the advantage of you; where the law of 
 love rules instead of the law of competition. And 
 it is one of the greatest blessings a home gives us, 
 that it afibrds us such a refuge from the angry con- 
 trasts of the world. But it is good for us also to foci 
 
Society and Societies, 133 
 
 that this spirit of good-will and mutual kindness ])re- 
 vails outside of our homes. And the supposition is, 
 that our social life is controlled by this spirit. It is 
 true that jealousies and envyings and rivalries do 
 find their way into society ; but the theory is, and to 
 a great extent it is the practice too, that good-will 
 and kindness prevail in social circles. Therefore it 
 is good for us all to escape from the clash and clamor 
 of business now and then, and meet our fellows, not 
 on a footing of rivalry, but on a footing of friendli- 
 ness : to exercise ourselves, not in getting the advan- 
 tage of them, nor in guarding ourselves against their 
 attempts to get the advantage of us, but in showing 
 them respect and polite attention. If Scrooge meets 
 his neighbor in a friendly way at a sociable, he will 
 be a little less likely to gouge him the next day in 
 a bargain. The enmities that spring up between 
 neighbors are often prevented or healed by bring- 
 ing them together socially. It seems to me, that if 
 it were not for these occasional opportunities of 
 friendly intercourse, — these assemblies that have no 
 other purpose than to foster the social sentiments, 
 — we should ere long relapse into barbarism. It is 
 impossible to exaggerate the humanizing and amelior- 
 ating influence exerted by them upon the rough and 
 bitter life through which we are daily passing. 
 
 3. The methods of diversion with which you shall 
 
134 Workzng People and their Etnployers, 
 
 fill up your social hours, you must choose for your- 
 selves. You are often invited to evening parties 
 more or less public, some of which are conducted in 
 such a way as to be entirely unobjectionable, and 
 some of which are not. The mischief of such assem- 
 blies is in the excesses to which they lead, and the 
 late hours to which they are frequently protracted. 
 Many of your parties are dancing parties. I have 
 never been able to believe that it is a sin to dance ; 
 but it is true that it is a pastime more liable to abuse 
 than many others, and that you can hardly guard too 
 carefully against the evils that grow out of it. As it 
 is wholly a muscular exercise, I should doubt its use- 
 fulness as a frequent recreation for persons whose 
 work is nearly all muscular. Some lighter and 
 quieter enjoyment would be preferable, — something 
 that would divert the mind without further fatiguing 
 the body. Diversions that bring you into the 
 society of corrupt companions, or that overtax your 
 strength, are always pernicious. 
 
 Public shows and performances often invite you, 
 promising to gratify at once the love of recreation 
 and the love of society, — two passions of human 
 nature that are distinct, but hardly ever separate I 
 should be far from condemning these exhibitions by 
 wholesale. It is necessary, I suppose, that the people 
 should have diversions provided for them ; and some 
 
Society and Societies, 135 
 
 of these travelling sliows are probably innocent and 
 good enough. In general it may be said, first, that 
 performances in whicli either immorality or indeli- 
 cacy is even so much as suggested, ought to bo 
 shunned. Never attend any place of amusement 
 in which you would not be glad to have your mother 
 or your sister sitting by your side. In the second 
 place, only a limited amount of this sort of diversion 
 is wholesome. The habit that some working-people 
 have of runnino; to all the shows that come to town 
 is a very bad habit. It costs a good deal, for one 
 thing. The money that is spent in this way by some 
 families would, if saved and invested, provide them 
 with homes in a few years. I knew one family that 
 actually stripped their beds of the clothing that made 
 them comfortable, and sold it, to get money to at 
 tend a circus. By far the largest part of the money 
 that is carried out of this city every year by the 
 travelling exhibitions (and that is no small sum) 
 comes from the pockets of the working-people. I 
 heard one carpenter tell another, a few days ago, that 
 he had attended every circus that had been in the 
 city this year. He did not speak of it as if his case 
 was an exceptional one, and I do not suppose that it 
 was. Surely a better use could have been found for 
 part of the money thus expended. 
 
 But the effect upon the mind, of such a constant 
 
136 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 attendance upon these extravagant performances, is 
 worse than the effect upon the purse. I knew a 
 young mechanic in New York who attended the 
 negro-minstrel entertainments so constantly that he 
 came to live and move and have his being in the 
 atmosphere of burnt cork. You could not talk with 
 him ten minutes without finding out his penchant. 
 The grotesque manners, the absurd expressions, the 
 exaggerated notions, that characterize their per- 
 formances, were continually appearing in his conduct 
 and conversation. He seemed to be saturated with 
 negro-minstrelsy, and it oozed out at every pore. 
 What a condition of mind that must be, I leave you 
 to imagine. Individuals outside of New York have 
 been seen in a similar state. The dissipating, enfee- 
 bling effect upon the mind and the moral nature of 
 frequent attendance upon these farcical and sensa- 
 tional performances is pitiful indeed. Working- 
 people need diversion, and I would not be too 
 fastidious in my criticism of their methods of seeking 
 it; but it seems to me that many of them would 
 find more solid enjoyment by cultivating their tastes 
 for a higher order of amusements, such as good 
 literary or scientific lectures, fine concerts, and poetic 
 readings. The taste for these more elevated recrea- 
 tions can be acquired ; and instead of debilitating the 
 mind, they give it refreshment and wholesome stimulus. 
 
Society xnd Societies. 137 
 
 I come now to speak briefly of those organizations 
 formed by working-men, partly for social purposes, 
 and partly for the improvement of their circum- 
 stances. In almost all trades such societies are 
 found. They have grown out of the conflict be- 
 tween labor and capital, and are intended mainly 
 for offensive and defensive warfare. The attempt 
 has also been made to unite the guilds that represent 
 the various trades in one great national labor organ- 
 ization, so that a concerted movement may be made 
 at any time, by the whole body of workmen, to 
 secure higher rates of wages. 
 
 So far as the work of these societies is of a social 
 character, no fault can be found with it. Working- 
 men may promote, by association, their own knowl- 
 edge and enjoyment. They may also assist one 
 another to find employment, care for one another 
 in sickness, shield one another from temptation. 
 Such efforts are worthy of all commendation. 
 
 Besides this, they may wish to consult about their 
 own interests ; and if they do this soberly and 
 peaceably, no fault can be found. They have a 
 perfect right to deliberate together concerning the 
 wages they are receiving, and to unite in refusing 
 to work unless their washes are increased. The law 
 gives to capital an immense advantage in permitting 
 its consolidation in great centralized corporations; 
 
138 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 and neither law nor justice can forbid laborers to 
 combine, in order to protect themselves against the 
 encroachments of capital, so long as they abstain 
 from the use of violence, and rely upon reason and 
 moial influence. 
 
 But it needs no prophet to tell that these societies 
 are liable to become instruments of evil as well as 
 of good. It happens that a large proportion of 
 the members of most of them are ignorant men, 
 whose passions are easily excited, and who may be 
 led to take very flmatical and absurd views of tho 
 labor question. And whenever any large number of 
 such men are brought into company, the devil, in the 
 form of the demagogue or the charlatan, comes also 
 among them. It makes one sick and sad to see the 
 kind of leaders to whom the workmen in these 
 societies often intrust the management of their 
 affairs, — noisy, crazy, crack-brained creatures, whose 
 capital stock of political philosophy consists of one 
 or two half-truths, and a full assortment of lies. To 
 hear these blatherskites talk, to read the dreadful 
 stuff that they write, and then to think that they are 
 tha chosen representatives of the working-people, is 
 very discouraging. We have in this Commonwealth 
 a few such persons, who have been prominent in the 
 councils of the labor leagues, and whose nostrums 
 have been freely vended in the shape of tracts 
 
Society and Societies, 139 
 
 among the working-men. They are always opposed 
 to any peaceful solution of the labor question: they 
 want to win by revolution, or not at all. Their creed 
 is simply a dilution of the doctrines of Proudhon, 
 whose works they are printing and distributing, and 
 whose fundamental maxim is, that property is rob- 
 bery. Of course intelligent American mechanics, 
 who have been educated in our common schools, 
 know too much to be imposed upon by such nonsense ; 
 and quickly refuse to follow such a lead. A large 
 number of those who constitute these associations, 
 however, are not intelligent American mechanics; and 
 therefore the fanatics often get control of them, and 
 contrive to shape their policy. 
 
 Men in masses often do very strange things. This 
 is true not only of working-men, but of all sorts of 
 men. When I was in college, I know that we used 
 to do some things as a class, or as a college, that few 
 of the students would have done if they had been 
 alone. It is sometimes said, that in a multitude of 
 counsellors there is wisdom ; but that depends on tlie 
 kind of counsellors. A thousand wise men may be 
 wiser than one wise man ; but it by no means follows 
 that a thousand fools are wiser than one fool : on the 
 contrary, they may be a thousand times as foolish. 
 Those Roman bishops that formed the Vatican 
 council egged one another on to the almost unani- 
 
140 Working People a7id their Employers, 
 
 mous promulgation of a dogma which, if they had 
 been questioned about it singly beforehand, the 
 majority of them would have pronounced doubtful 
 if not false. A crowd that contains many sensible 
 men will sometimes do surprisingly silly things. 
 
 This is the danger against which these working- 
 men's societies must always be on their guard. The 
 mob spirit sometimes takes possession of the body^ 
 and no privilege of differing with the crowd is will- 
 ingly allowed to any workman. If violence is not 
 resorted to in the quieting of dissenters, there is a 
 sort of social persecution not much better than 
 violence. The person that refuses his assent to the 
 measures resolved upon is denounced as a traitor ; 
 and a disposition is shown to make the place too hot 
 for him. In such persecution no fair-minded man 
 will join ; to this intimidation no brave man will 
 submit. Never sell out your manhood to any man, 
 or set of men. Do not be bribed or coaxed or bul- 
 lied into doing what you think is not right. Let 
 nobody decide for you what is right. Make up 3'our 
 own mind, and stand by it, no matter what it costs. 
 
 These labor- unions have certain rules that cannot 
 be defended on any principle of justice. They often 
 forbid their members to work in company with non- 
 union men, and force employers to discharge all such 
 persons. They will not suffer a boy to learn their 
 
Society and Societies, 141 
 
 trade, unless his father belongs to their society. This 
 is nothing but despotism, despotism of the most 
 brutal sort : working-men ought to be ashamed to 
 resort to it. 
 
 The leaders of these societies tell us it is 
 necessary that they should combine, to resist the 
 extortions of capitalists ; and that their combinations 
 will amount to nothing, unless there is firm discipline 
 in their ranks. Yes, " discipline : " that was pre- 
 cisely what the lords of the lash on the Southern 
 plantations used to call it ; that is just what all the 
 despots that have ever trampled on the liberties of 
 men have always called it. The word sounds well ; 
 but sometimes, when most sweetly spoken, it means 
 tyranny. And I say that any man of proper spirit 
 will be careful how he puts his neck into the yoke of 
 this " discipline ; " and will resist unto blood, rather 
 than suffer it to be bound upon him by any power 
 whatsoever. 
 
 Heaven forbid that I should lay a straw in the 
 way of working-men engaged in any just attempt to 
 improve their condition ! I know something of their 
 lot : as farmer's boy and as mechanic's apprentice, I 
 have entered pretty fully into their life, and tasted 
 something of its severities, and something, also, of 
 the independence and manly dignity with which it 
 may always be clothed; and it is just because all 
 
142 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 my sympathies are with "working-men, that I want 
 to see them abstain from questionable and suicidal 
 methods. They will never prosper by violence or 
 injustice : light and liberty are their only true allies. 
 
 I have left myself but little time to speak of one 
 other social organization in which working-people 
 ought to take a deep interest : I mean the Christian 
 Church. Already I have more than once expressed 
 to you my sense of the relation between the religion 
 of Christ and your welfare. I think you have seen 
 pretty clearly that this religion has done more for 
 you than any other instrumentality on earth, and 
 that the light which touches your future with hope 
 and promise is the light that breaks from the gospel 
 of Christ. 
 
 Almost all the legitimate objects that you seek in 
 your various social organizations, the Church, if 
 rightly viewed by you, would aid you in securing. 
 If companionship is what you want, the Church is 
 the fraternity whose bond is closer and more sacred 
 than any other ; if you desire culture, you will find 
 that most churches in these days recognize the fact 
 that knowledge is one of the Christian graces, and 
 strive to enrich the minds, as well as to purify the 
 hearts, of their members ; if you crave diversion, 
 that too is provided for to a sufficient degree. For 
 the Church must have it for its aim, to build up the 
 
Society and Societies. 143 
 
 whole man symmetrically, — to give every human 
 faculty its appropriate nutriment, that '' the man of 
 God may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." 
 If you seek opportunity for benevolent work, I am 
 safe in saying that more of this is done by the 
 churches of the land than by all other organizations 
 put together ; if you wish to better your condition in 
 a worldly point of view, your safest course is to study 
 and practise those principles of Christian prudence 
 and morality which it is the office of the Church to 
 teach. I admit that the Church has its faults ; that 
 the principles on which it is founded are often but 
 imperfectly apprehended by those who administer its 
 afiairs; that there is no little human nature within 
 as well as without its communion : yet so long as the 
 New Testament is its charter, so long as faith in the 
 man of Nazareth and loyalty to him is its foundation, 
 it must be a mighty power for good in the world. 
 And I am sure that, if you have not already done so, 
 you cannot find any thing better to do than to con- 
 nect yourself with some Christian congregation, and 
 take part in its work. 
 
 You may think that I am talking professionally 
 now, but I am not. I go right back in my thought 
 to the day when I was a mechanic's apprentice, 
 alone and almost friendless in a large town; and I 
 speak solely from my memory of the help, the solace, 
 
144 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 the stimulus, that a Christian church then gave me. 
 I never think of that church, of the dear friendships 
 to which it introduced me, of the quickening that 
 it gave me mentally as well as spiritually, of the 
 better purposes of living into which it led me, 
 without the deepest thankfulness. It furnished just 
 the kind of influence that I needed, at a critical 
 time in my life ; and I owe to its sacred associations 
 more than I shall ever be able to tell. 
 
VIL 
 
 STRONG DRINK. 
 
 The evils that result from the drinking of intoxi- 
 cating liquors are not hidden from working-men. 
 The statement that a large proportion of the pau- 
 perism and crime of the land is directly traceable 
 to strong drink, is one that their observation will 
 verify. Rum builds and fills our prisons and our 
 almshouses ; rum greatly increases the burden of our 
 taxation. 
 
 The secretary of the Massachusetts Board of State 
 Charities lately reported that " from three-fourths to 
 four-fifths .of the crime for which persons are in 
 mates of the House of Correction and the prison 
 may be traced to intemperance. In the almshouse 
 perhaps four-fifths of the inmates are brought thero 
 by intemperance. Some persons have estimated the 
 
 145 
 
146 Working People and their E^nplnyert, 
 
 proportion as larger than that. Between five and 
 six hundred persons are supported by the State 
 in the insane asylum; and a large proportion of 
 ' the cases of insanity may be traced to intemper- 
 ance." 
 
 The testimony of the chaplain of the Charlestowi; 
 prison is still stronger: "Since I have been there, 
 I have conversed with over fourteen hundred differ- 
 ent men ; and I have spoken with them particularly 
 with regard to the matter of intoxicating drinks; 
 and, out of that number, fifteen-sixteenths have 
 stated that liquor had something to do with their 
 coming there." 
 
 Judge Sanger of Boston, a prosecuting attorney 
 of Massachusetts, gives it as his opinion, that "a large 
 portion of the criminal costs of the Commonwealth 
 are from this cause. There are very few cases into 
 which the use of intoxicating liquors does not more 
 or less enter." 
 
 Thes3. witnesses being true, the testimony which 
 ihey utter deserves our careful attention. For those 
 who are not themselves addicted to the use of strong 
 drink must suffer greatly in their pecuniary interests, 
 and may suffer in their families, from the evils that 
 intemperance brings into society. If any thing can 
 be done to check its ravages, working-men are inter- 
 OiJtrd in ha^ ing it done without delay. 
 
Strong Drink, 147 
 
 The first thing to do is to reform the drinking cus- 
 toms of society. We cannot stop the sale of liquor 
 by law till we get the great majority of the people 
 to believe that it injures them to drink liquor. If 
 we could induce all the people who drink to stop 
 drinking, the people who sell would be obliged to 
 stop selling. And if, by showing them its evil 
 effects, we can persuade a large number of those 
 who use strong drink to give it up, we can prepare 
 a moral basis broad and firm enough for a stringent 
 law. 
 
 To begin with, then, it is safe to say that the 
 drinking of intoxicating liquors does no healthy 
 person any good. Nearly all the doctors admit that 
 they are valuable medicines in some diseases, and 
 that they may be used with advantage in certain 
 feeble and morbid states of the system ; but the best 
 authorities are pretty clear in their affirmation that, 
 if a man is well, strong drink will not make him any 
 better. 
 
 One of the effects of alcohol upon the system is 
 to retard the waste of tissue. Those of you who 
 have studied physiology a little, know that two pro- 
 cesses are constantly going on in the healthy human 
 body. The food we eat and the air we breathe are 
 all the while adding to its substance ; and other agen- 
 cies are all the while eliminating the portions that 
 
148 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 are worn out. One set of forces is at work building 
 up the tissues, and another set is at work pulling 
 them down and carrying them off. It is necessary to 
 health that both of these processes shoulH go on at 
 the same time : if one goes on without the otlier, 
 disorder and disease are the result. Sometimes the 
 body is in such a condition that the digestive and 
 assimilative forces do not work well, and the others 
 keep on wasting the tissues and diminishing the 
 strength. The destroyers are at work, but the 
 builders have stopped working. In such cases alco- 
 holic liquors are sometimes useful because they pre- 
 vent the waste of tissues; they simply make the 
 destroyers stop working till the builders are ready to 
 go on. 
 
 In cases of great weakness, the use of these liquors 
 as medicines is undoubtedly beneficial. Dr. Bellows 
 of Boston, testifying before a committee of the 
 Legislature, uses these words: "Keeping in mind 
 that tho synonyme of stimulant is goad, I have 
 no difficulty in coming to a conclusion when it is 
 needful as a medicine. I have stood by the bedside 
 of a sinking patient when the pulse was sinking rap- 
 idly, and when I have feared that nature would not 
 be able to rally, and I have given a stimulant, — • 
 a goad to whip up poor sinking nature ; and in a 
 few moments the pulse would rise, but would fall 
 
Strong Drink, 149 
 
 again very soon. It might be carcfally renewed till 
 nature was able to reeeive some nourishment. I 
 believe that patients have been saved by the use of 
 stimulants in such a manner." 
 
 For purposes of this nature alcoholic liquors may, 
 undoubtedly, be wisely used ; and it is only in such 
 cases that they are beneficial. The physician is the 
 only person who can properly determine when they 
 ought to be resorted to. 
 
 Concerning the habitual use of them as beverages 
 by persons in health, I do not ask you to take my 
 opinions, but quote for you the highest medical au- 
 thority. Dr. Carpenter of England, who is perhaps 
 the most distinguished physiologist in the world, 
 makes this statement: ''The physiological objection 
 to the habitual use of even small quantities of alco- 
 holic drinks rests upon the following grounds : They 
 are universally admitted to possess a poisonous char- 
 acter ; they tend to produce a morbid condition of 
 the body at large; the capacity for enduring the 
 ex trcmes of heat and cold, or mental and bodily labor, 
 is diminished rather than increased by their habitual 
 employment. . . . Alcoholic liquids cannot supply any 
 thing that is essential to ^the due nutrition of the 
 system. The action of alcohol upon the living body 
 is essentially that of stimulus, increasing for a time 
 the vital activity of the V ody, but being followed by 
 
150 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 a corresponding depression of power, wliich is the 
 more prolonged and severe as the previous excite- 
 ment has been greater." 
 
 Sii Henry Thompson, one of the most eminent 
 medical practitioners of England, who is best known 
 in this country as Prof Tyndall's friend, and the 
 author of the "Prayer Gauge," testifies as follows: 
 " I have long had the conviction that there is no 
 greater cause of evil, moral and physical, in this 
 country, than the use of alcoholic beverages. I do 
 not mean by this that extreme indulgence which 
 produces drunkenness. The lubitual use of fer- 
 mented liquors, to an extent far short of what is 
 necessary to produce that condition, and such as is 
 quite common in all ranks of society, injures the 
 body, and diminishes the medical power, to an 
 extent which I think few people are aware of Such, 
 at all events, is the result of observation during more 
 than twenty years of professional life, devoted to 
 hospital practice, and to private practice in every 
 rank above it. Thus I have no hesitation in attrib- 
 uting a very large proportion of some of the nioL^t 
 painful and dangerous maladies wliich come under 
 my notice, as well as those which every medical man 
 has to treat, to the ordinary and daily use o^ fer- 
 mented drinh^ taken in the qiiantity ivliicli is conven- 
 tionalhj denned wnderate. Whatever may be said 
 
Strong Drink. 151 
 
 \\\ regard to its evil influence on tlie menUl and 
 moral faculties, as to the fact above stated I feel lliat 
 I have a right to speak with authority ; and I do so 
 solely because it appears to me a duty, especially at 
 this moment, not to be silent on a matter of such 
 extreme importance. . . . My main object is to ex- 
 press my opinion, as a professional man, in relation 
 to the habitual employment of fermented liquor as a 
 beverage. But if I ventured one step further, it 
 would be to express a belief that there is no single 
 habit in this country which so much tends to deteri- 
 orate the qualities of the race, and so much disquali- 
 fies it for endurance in that competition which, in the 
 nature of things, must exist, and in which ' struggle 
 the prize of superiority must fall to the best and the 
 strongest." 
 
 Sir Henry Thompson is not a fanatic: he looks at 
 this question from a scientific rather than a senti- 
 mental point of view ; and his words will have 
 weight with you for this reason. You will notice 
 that his judgment includes fermented liquors. The 
 theory of Gov. Andrew, that the habitual use of 
 wine and beer is not only harmless but beneficial, is 
 expressly contradicted by this high authority. 
 
 In England, as is well known, total abstinence is 
 not practised among the higher classes of society so 
 generally as it is in this country. Wine is commonly 
 
152 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 found at tlie ministers' meetings : Mr. Spurgeon uses 
 it freely, and justifies this use of it. There has been, 
 till recently, no public sentiment averse to moderate 
 drinking. But of late our English cousins, who 
 are slow in changing their views of such subjects, 
 have beeii investigating the physiological effects of 
 alcoholic liquors much more thoroughly than we 
 have ever done. During the last few years, " The 
 British Medical Journal" has invited contributions 
 from those best qaalified to speak upon the subject; 
 and Dr. Markham, the distinguished editor of this 
 journal, thus sums up the results of the discussion 
 which has appeared upon its pages : — 
 
 " We have no wish hastily to speak on this important matter; but 
 we are bound in conscience boldly to declare the logical and inevitable 
 conclusions, as they seem to us, to which a scientific view of the sub- 
 ject forces us. 
 
 *' 1. That alcohol is not food, and that, being simply a stimulant of 
 the nervous system, its use is hurtful to the body of a healthy man. 
 
 " 2. That if its imbibition be of service, it is only so to man in an 
 abnormal condition, and that our duty as men of medicine is to 
 endeavor to define what those particular abnormal states are in whicl 
 alcohol is serviceable. 
 
 " 3. That ordinary social indulgence in alcoholic drinks for 
 society's sake is, medically speaking, a very unphysiological and 
 prejudicial proceeding." 
 
 American authorities of equal eminence might be 
 quoted to the same effect. A statement of Dr. Wil- 
 
Strong Drink. 15 
 
 lard Parker, is every whit as strong as that (jf Sir 
 Henry Thompson. 
 
 Such are some of the opinions of scientific men 
 upon this subject. The doctors do not agree about 
 it, of course : there are very few subjects on which 
 they do agree ; but the men to whom I have referred 
 you stand very high in their profession, and their 
 testimony fully sustains the statement with which we 
 started, that the use of strong drink does no healthy 
 person any good. As scientific men, their opinions 
 are based upon facts which they have observed and 
 collated ; and I now desire to call your attention to 
 some of these facts, that you may judge for your- 
 selves whether the opinions that I have quoted have 
 a sufiicient foundation. 
 
 It is maintained by drinkers, that their strength 
 and their endurance are increased by the moderate 
 use of alcoholic beverages. Facts prove, however, 
 that the strength and endurance of human beings are 
 greatly diminished by the use of such beverages. 
 
 In forming our judgment on this point, it is ne- 
 cessary, of course, to make a wide induction of facts. 
 You can quote to me instances of individual drinkers 
 who have lived to a great age, and who have per- 
 formed much labor, and endured many hardships , 
 but concerning all such cases I should ask you two 
 questions: First, are you sure that they are not 
 
154 Working People and their Employers. 
 
 exceptions to a general rule? Second, how do you 
 know they would not have lived longer, done more 
 work, and endured more hardships, if they had 
 abstained from strong drink ? A single fact is not 
 enough to establish a scientific law. You must have 
 a wide knowledge of facts bearing upon the case, 
 and your verdict must be in accordance with the 
 weight of evidence. Attempts have been made to 
 reach certainty in this matter, by a careful collation 
 of facts. 
 
 A gentleman in Uxbridge, Eng., kept account for 
 a whole year of the work done by two gangs of 
 brickmakers, one of which was composed of beer- 
 drinkers, the other of total abstainers. Here is the 
 result: "Out of upwards of 23,000,000 of bricks 
 made in 1841 by the largest maker in the neighbor- 
 hood, the average per man made by the beer-drinkers 
 was 760,269; while the average for the teetotallers 
 was 795,400, which is 35,131 in favor of the latter. 
 The highest number made by a beer-drinker was 
 880,000; the highest number made by a teetotaller 
 was 890,000, leaving ten thousand in favor of the 
 teetotaller. The lowest number made by a beer- 
 drinker was 659,000; the lowest number made by 
 a teetotaller was 746,000, leaving 87,000 in favor of 
 the teetotaller." 
 
 Fi'om another group of workers in a very different 
 
Strong Drink. 1 5 5 
 
 field, we get the same testimony. The hate Richard 
 Cobden, speaking on one occasion of the severe 
 labors of the parliament that debated the corn-laws, 
 mentions that, out of G5 8 members, two gentlemen, 
 Col. Thompson and Mr. Brotherton, endured the long 
 sittings and wearisome debates of that body with 
 greater ease than any other members, and they were 
 both total abstainers. 
 
 I have no statistics to present with reference to 
 the soldiers in the late war ; but considerable observa- 
 tion of their habits, and inquiry among them, satisfied 
 me that the fatigues of the hard marches were best 
 borne by men who never tasted intoxicating liquors. 
 A single witness will not prove the case, as I have 
 admitted ; but a witness whose testimony contradicts 
 his inclinations has some special claims upon our 
 credit. One of the best and bravest of the young 
 officers of the Army of the Potomac, who was not 
 during the war, and is not now, a total abstainer, was 
 justifying, in a conversation with me, his use of 
 strong drink. He drank it, he said, because he liked 
 it; and that was reason enough. " But did you us*.* 
 it in the army?" I asked. ' I did," he answered, 
 " except on the heavy marches. Then I never touched 
 a drop of whiskey. I found that it would not do. 
 The men who stimulated always played out sooner 
 than the men who al^stained " 
 
156 Working People and thtir Employers. 
 
 In another quarter we find an accumulation of 
 weighty evidence. That is the testimony of the 
 athletes, the oarsmen, the pugilists, the ball-players, 
 the pedestrians, all the men who have made it the 
 study and the business of their lives to secure the 
 most perfect muscular development, from the days of 
 the Olympic races down to the present time. Their 
 testimony is very nearly uniform, that the highest 
 degree of physical strength is impossible to one 
 who drinks even moderately. The trainers of these 
 athletes have always insisted that their men shall 
 abstain from even the mildest forms of alcoholic 
 liquors. 
 
 The literature of the ancients is full of references 
 to the abstemious practices of the athletes. Thus 
 Epictetus says, " Do you wish to gain the prize at 
 the Olympic games ? Consider the requisite prepara- 
 tions and the consequence. You must observe a 
 strict regimen; . . . you must take no luine as usual '^ 
 you must put yourself under a pugilist as under 
 a physician, and afterward enter the lists." Th is 
 Horace, as translated by Francis, bears witness in lus 
 essay on " The Art of Poetry : " — 
 
 *' A youth who hopes the Olympic prize to gain 
 All arts must try, and every toil sustain; 
 The extremes of heat and cold must often prove, 
 And shun the weakening Joys of v>'ine and lov« " 
 
Strong Drink, 157 
 
 A few of the trainers have lately attempted to 
 introduce beer into the regimen of the oarsmen; but 
 if I am rightly informed, the innovation has not been 
 successful. The experience of so many generations 
 in such a matter is not likely to lead us astray ; and 
 it all helps to confirm the truth of the confession of 
 Tom Sayers: "I'm no teetotaller; but when I've any 
 business to do, there's nothing like water and tlie 
 dumb-bells." 
 
 One of the delusions most widely prevalent with 
 regard to alcoholic liquors is that they help to keep 
 the body warm. Liebig classes them among " respir- 
 atory foods," and maintains that they act, like fat and 
 similar substances, as fuel to increase the heat of the 
 body. Every habitual drinker will tell you that they 
 keep him warm on a cold day ; and if you . ask him 
 how he knows, he will tell you that he knows by his 
 feelings. So far as Liebig is concerned, his theory is 
 not now accepted by the highest authorities. Dr. 
 James C. White and Dr. Edward H. Clarke both 
 declared before the Massachusetts Legislative Com- 
 mittee, that it was "undemonstrated." And so far 
 as the drinker is concerned, it is sufficient to say that 
 the feelings are not always trustworthy guides. You 
 are not always warmest when you feel warmest. The 
 only safe guide is the thermometer. And if any man 
 'rYill place the bulb of a thermometer in the current 
 
158 Workmg People and their Employers. 
 
 of his breath or under his tongue, and note the tem- 
 perature of his breath and of his blood before drink- 
 ing a glass of brandy, and again a short time after 
 drinking it, he will find that the temperature of 
 his body is perceptibly lowered by the stimulant. 
 Travellers in the Arctic regions report that the use 
 of strong drink greatly lessens a man's power to 
 endure hunger and cold and fatigue. Mr. Parton, in 
 his essay entitled, " Will the Coming Man Drink 
 Wine ? " — an essay which has been of service to me 
 in the preparation of this chapter, — relates the follow- 
 ing on the authority of a traveller : '' When Russian 
 troops are about to start on a march in a very cold 
 region, no grog is allowed, to be served to them ; and 
 when the men are drawn up ready to move, the 
 corporals smell the breath of every man, and send 
 back to quarters all who have been drinking. The 
 reason is that men who start under the influence 
 of liquor are the first to succumb to the cold, and 
 the likeliest to be frost-bitten. It is the uniform ex- 
 perience of the hunters and trappers of the northern 
 provinces of North America and of the Rocky Moun- 
 tains, that alcohol diminishes their power to resist 
 cold." 
 
 Upon such facts as I have recited, scientific men 
 rest their theory that strong drink is man's foe. The 
 brick-maker, the law-maker, the soldier, the prize- 
 
Strong Drink, 159 
 
 fighter, the pedestrian, the oarsman, the ball-player, 
 the trapper, the arctic explorer, all unite in the testi- 
 mony, that the man who wants to do his best must 
 let alcoholic liquors entirely alone. Taken in ever so 
 moderate quantities, they impair the strength of the 
 body, and diminish its power of endurance. 
 
 Not only are they not friends to the health of 
 man : they are also powerful allies of the diseases 
 that prey upon him. When the dark shadow of 
 pestilence falls upon any community, by far the 
 largest proportion of its victims is found among 
 those who make habitual use of stimulatinoc bev- 
 
 o 
 
 erages. 
 
 Dr. Cartwright, one of the best physicians of New 
 Orleans, wrote thus to ''The Boston Medical Journal" 
 in 1853 : " The yellow fever came down like a storm 
 upon this devoted city, with 1,127 dramshops in one 
 out of four divisions of the city. It is not the 
 citizens proper, but the foreigners, with their mis- 
 taken notions about the climate and the country, 
 who are the chief supports of these haunts of intem- 
 peranc e. About five thousand of them died before 
 the epidemic touched a single citizen or sober man, 
 so far as I can get at the facts." 
 
 Dr. Bronson of Albany, who spent some time in 
 Montreal during the prevalence of the cholera in 
 1852, wrote as follows: "Cholera has stood up here, 
 
i6o Working People and their Employers. 
 
 as it has everywhere, the advocate of temperance. 
 It has pleaded most eloquently, and with tremendous 
 effect. The disease has searched the haunts of the 
 drunkard, and has seldom left it without bearing 
 away its victims. Even moderate drinkers have 
 been but a little better off." Out of twelve hundred 
 persons attacked by the cholera in Montreal during 
 the summer of 1852, less than one hundred re- 
 covered ; and one of the journals of the city stated 
 that '' almost all the victims were at least moderate 
 drinkers." 
 
 The cholera and yellow fever proclaim with only 
 a little louder voices the same truth that a hundred 
 other sicknesses are telling us every day, — that 
 strong drink is the forerunner, the armor-bearer, and 
 the ally of all disease. More than once I have heard 
 the physician tell his patient, on his recovery from a 
 severe attack of pneumonia or typhoid fever, '' If 
 you had been a drinking man, you would never have 
 come out of this." Even the moderate use of alco- 
 holic beverages so impairs the vital energy of the 
 system that it does not quickly rally from the shock 
 of disease. 
 
 In the mortuary records we find a comparatively 
 small number of deaths attributed to intemperance ; 
 but everybody knows that it is the efficient cause 
 of thousands of deaths to which, to spare the feelings 
 
Strong Drhik. i6i 
 
 of sorrowing friends, the physicians assign other 
 causes. Typhus fever and paralysis and peritonitis 
 and heart disease, and numberless other ailments, are 
 made the scapegoats of the mischief done by strong 
 drink. 
 
 Thus we complete the circuit of our evidence. 
 Life from every station and every calling, disease 
 by every destroyer in its ghostly army, and death 
 itself from every graveyard in the land, unite in the 
 testimony that alcoholic liquors are the deadly foes 
 of the human race, despoiling men of their strength, 
 and joining hands with the dark slayer to do his 
 terrible w^ork. 
 
 Their effects upon the mental and moral nature are 
 not less injurious. It is sometimes thought that the 
 alertness and vigor of the mind are increased by the 
 use of these stimulants ; but it is not the fact. Dr. 
 Brinton, a famous English physician, much quoted 
 by Gov. Andrew in his speech against prohibition, 
 says in his work on dietetics, '^ Mental acuteness, accu- 
 racy of perception, and delicacy of the senses, are all 
 so far opposed by alcohol that the maximim efforts 
 of each are incompatible with the ingestion of any 
 moderate quantity of fermented liquid. A single 
 glass will often serve to take the edge off both mind 
 and body, and to reduce their capacity to something 
 less than the perfection of work." This follows, asi 
 
102 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 an inevitable inference, from wliat has already been 
 proven. For though the mind and the body are 
 not identical, yet they are so closely related that 
 whatever affects the one affects the other. The mind 
 requires for its best working the best health of the 
 body. But we have seen that even the moderate 
 use of intoxicating liquors impairs the best health 
 of the body, and therefore it must affect the mind 
 injuriously. 
 
 The moral nature is part of the mind, aud must 
 therefore share in the injury. The effect of strong 
 drink seems to be almost uniformly to stimulate the 
 lower appetites and propensities, to aggravate the 
 animalism of the nature, and to paralyze the nobler 
 sentiments. It is well known that sensuality of the 
 foulest type is nourished by ardent spirits. Go into 
 any bar-room where a company of men are drinking 
 together, and you will not stay long without hearing 
 the vile jest or the indecent allusion. Lips that are 
 clean in soberness are defiled when the intoxicating 
 bowl touches them. The angel of purity flies from 
 the place where drunken mirth holds wassail. And 
 not only vile thoughts and vile words, but viler 
 deeds, are the offspring of this demon. Intemperance 
 is always the prime minister of lust. The saloon of 
 the rumseller is next door to the house that is " the 
 way of hell, going down to the chambers of death." 
 
Strong Drink, 163 
 
 To every variety of crime, strong drink is the 
 instigator. To the crime of arson, it very often 
 prompts men. There is abundant evidence to show 
 that the insane passion for burning — pjromania^ qz 
 it is called — is often excited by it. Men who are 
 perfectly free from such inclinations when sober are 
 seized, when intoxicated, with an overpowering de- 
 sire to burn something. A large proportion of our 
 incendiary fires originate in this way. Others are 
 instigated by strong drink to theft. Kleptomania^ 
 the insane desire to steal, is often awakened by 
 alcohol. "I have known," says Prof Monroe, "la- 
 dies of good position in society, who after a dinner 
 or supper party, and after having taken sundry 
 glasses of wine, could not resist the temptation of 
 taking home any little article not their own; and 
 who, in their sober moments, have returned them as 
 if taken by mistake." 
 
 But the most common effect of alcohol is to 
 prompt those who have taken it to deeds of vio- 
 lence. Very many, perhaps the majority of those 
 who are addicted to the excessive use of ardent 
 spirits, are excited by them to injure human beings, 
 or to destroy human life. Men who, when sober, are 
 not disposed to harm anybody, are roused by strong 
 drink to a homicidal fury. The first person that 
 crosses their path may be the victim of their rage, 
 
164 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 though it is more likely to be wreaked upon the 
 helpless wife and babes at home. Nine-tenths, per- 
 haps a larger proportion, of the assaults and the 
 liomicides that take place in our land, are the effect 
 of hitoxicating liquor. I do not mean to say simply 
 that these offenders committed these offences wMle 
 they were drunk : I mean that they committed these 
 offences simply and solely because they were drunk. 
 The laconic and often-repeated verdict of the re- 
 porter is, in most of these cases, literally true : 
 "Rum did it." Of course many crimes are com- 
 mitted with malice "aforethought," as the legal 
 phrase is; but even in these cases strong drink is 
 often made accessory before the fact. For the doing 
 of a deed of violence, like that of Wilkes Booth, a 
 glass of fiery spirit is found to be a good prepara- 
 tion. 
 
 Such, working-men, are some of the facts concern- 
 ing the effects of strong drink upon the body and 
 the mind of the man that uses it. The facts are not 
 new, but I think that they are true. At any rate, 
 I have not meant to overstate any thing. And it 
 seems to me that I have given you some strong rea- 
 sons for letting the vile stuff entirely alone. It will 
 do you no good unless you are sick; and if you 
 are, you had better let the doctor be the judge 
 whether you need it or not. It costs some of you 
 
Strong Drink. 165 
 
 a good deal in the course of the year ; times would 
 be easier with you right away, if you would abstain 
 from the use of it. It reduces the strength of your 
 bodies, it weakens your power of endurance, it pre- 
 disposes you to disease, it dulls your wits, and blunts 
 your moral sense ; it awakens and reinforces all that 
 is coarsest and most devilish in your natures, and 
 beats down every sentiment of purity and honor. Of 
 all the enemies of the working-men, the worst is 
 strong drink. If that were conquered and banished, 
 the rest of their wrongs could be easily righted. 
 
VIII 
 
 THE DUTIES OF EMPLOTEES. 
 
 " Masters, give unto your servants that wliicli is just 
 and equal." So wrote a good man of the olden 
 time to certain slaveholders whom he knew. If this 
 was good counsel for the owners of slaves, it is cer- 
 tainly quite as good for the employers of free work- 
 ing-men. Freemen have at least as much right as 
 bondmen to justice and equity. The abolition of 
 slavery does not cancel the moral obligation of the 
 man that organizes and directs labor, to deal fairly 
 and mercifully with those in his employ. 
 
 Of this moral obligation, law and political economy 
 take very little notice. Our laws are scimetimes 
 said to be founded on justice, but it is justice of a 
 negative sort. They undertake to protect individ- 
 uals in their rights ; to defend them, that is, against 
 
 1G6 7 
 
The D 21 ties of Employers. 167 
 
 wrongs ; to prevent injustice, not to secure justice 
 in any affirmative way : that is beyond the scope 
 of human government. "The proper business of 
 legislation," says Dr. Hopkins, "is to secure to all 
 their rights, and not to oblige any to do right. If 
 there are courts of equity, their object is not to com- 
 pel the doing of right, but to prevent the doing of 
 wrong through the imperfections and under the forma 
 of law. That legislation should seek to pass from the 
 guardianship of right to an attempt to compel the 
 doing of right, is natural ; but this has seldom been 
 done without confusion and mischief" 
 
 In the matter of wages, the law leaves me free to 
 dispose of my services for such a reward as suits me, 
 and only stands by to guarantee the fulfilment of the 
 contract thus freely made. My employer, taking 
 advantage of my necessities, may agree to pay me 
 less than a fair price for my work ; but the law will 
 not compel him to pay me any more than he agrees 
 to pay me. 
 
 So with political economy. The fundamental prin- 
 ciple in all its speculations is self-interest, not benevo- 
 lence nor justice. It is assumed by the political 
 economists, that men will always do what is for their 
 interest ; the idea is distinctly repudiated, that tliey 
 will, as a rule, govern themselves by considerations 
 of charity or of abstract morality. Wliat are called 
 
1 68 Working People and their Employers. 
 
 the laws of political economy are therefore state- 
 ments, not of what men ought to do, but of what 
 experience shows that they will do. They are nat- 
 ural laws, — laws of a nature that is fallen from its 
 normal condition, and only in part restored ; laws to 
 be studied, then, as one studies the law of gravitation 
 or the law of chemical affinity, but by no means 
 always to be obeyed. The facts this science gives us 
 are to be respected, as the facts that medical science 
 gives us concerning epidemics are to be respected; 
 but they are not to be acquiesced in as representing 
 the best conceivable conditions of human society. 
 
 The New Testament morality gives us not merely 
 the hard facts of human life, but the principles by 
 which life in this world is to be regenerated, and 
 made to conform to the divine ideal. Political econ- 
 omy tells us what the laws of exchange are : the 
 New Testament shows what the relations of men 
 ought to be. The one talks of market value and 
 normal value, of the tendency of profits, and of 
 supply and demand : the other speaks of justice and 
 equity, of love and self-sacrifice. And the gospel 
 encourages the hope, that, as the principles of Christ's 
 teachings get more and more firmly fixed in the 
 lives of men, these maxims of a higher morality will 
 come to be recognized as settmg forth the only true 
 relations between man and man. 
 
The Duties of Employers, 169 
 
 It is to these principles, then, as they affect the 
 relations of employer and laborer, that I wish to 
 call your attention now. "We pray that Christ's king- 
 dom may come : ought we not to know what it will 
 bring with it when it comes ? Ought we not to be 
 preparing the way for its coming ? 
 
 If "that which is just and equal" is to be the 
 standard by which dealings between employers and 
 workmen are to be measured, then it is plain that 
 the employer and the workman are to deal with one 
 another not as classes, but as individuals. Justice 
 and equity, in the New Testament sense, are not col- 
 lective or impersonal virtues : they are strictly per- 
 sonal. The class of employers and the class of 
 laborers cannot adjust their relations on moral 
 grounds, because it is not possible to hold a class of 
 persons to moral responsibility. If masters are to 
 give to their servants that which is just and equitable, 
 then masters must put themselves into personal rela- 
 tions with their servants, and must treat them not as 
 chattels, not as counters in the great game of com- 
 merce, not as stock or machinery, not as classes, but 
 as persons, with a conscientious regard for their 
 physical and moral welfare. 
 
 The tendency of modern industry is to separate 
 the employer from the workman by a constantly 
 widening interval. When all the work of the world 
 
170 Working People and their Employers. 
 
 was done by hand or with rude machinery, in small 
 shops or factories, master and man were brought into 
 close relations. The mill - owner or the master- 
 mechanic not only knew the men in his employ, but 
 often wrought by their side. Moreover, there was 
 no such disparity of social conditions as we now see 
 between employers and laborers. The princely for- 
 tunes, now so common, were then as rare; the capi- 
 talist was not, as a rule, raised very high above the 
 social rank of the laborer. The effect of the improve- 
 ment of machinery, and of the combination and 
 subdivision of labor, has been twofold. On the one 
 hand, vast numbers of laborers are now brought 
 together by a single man, who deals with them 
 largely through hired superintendents or overseers, 
 and scarcely ever knows even the names of the people 
 on his pay-roll. On the other hand, under this large 
 system of manufactures, it is possible for men of 
 organizing ability and energy to amass enormous 
 wealth ; so that they are separated socially, from the 
 people they employ, by a distance almost as great 
 as that which divides an English duke from the 
 peasantry on his estates. Many of them, too, have 
 their homes in cities far distant from their mills or 
 their furnaces ; and thus the opportunity for acquamt- 
 ance with their employes is greatly diminished. 
 Not only so, but a large pa:'t of the production of 
 
The Duties of Employers. i/i 
 
 the country is now clone by corporations ; and most 
 of the capitalists that organize and control the busi- 
 ness have in this case nothing whatever to do with 
 the work-people. The agent that manages the work 
 for them sometimes has a limited interest in the 
 profits of production ; but he is usually a sahuied 
 man, and he understands that what is wanted of him 
 is, to make the annual dividends on the stock as 
 large as possible. The operatives know him only as 
 the representative of the corporation : they hear him 
 say that he is limited in his actions by the authority 
 of the corporation ; if he deals hardly with them, 
 they are given to understand that it is by order of 
 the board of directors, and that he has no alternative 
 in the matter. Who or what this corporation is, 
 they do not know at all. Perhaps they have never 
 heard the names of the capitalists that constitute and 
 control it. It is a great impersonal force, a mighty 
 commercial machine ; and to expect of it a just 
 consideration, or a nice regard for the equities of 
 contracts, would be of course preposterous. "Ccr- 
 porations have no souls: " how, then, can they govern 
 themselves, in their relations with the persons in their 
 employ, by high moral considerations ? 
 
 This tendency to separate the capitalist and the 
 laborer, either through the intervention of corpo- 
 rations, or through the building up of immense 
 
172 Workmg People mid their Efnployers, 
 
 industrial concerns by individuals or firms, is one 
 of the things to be deplored and resisted by all 
 employers that mean to govern themselves by the 
 Christian law. I do not condemn the large system 
 of industry. It is doubtless better that much of the 
 work of manufacturing should be done on a grand 
 scale. Division of labor greatly reduces the cost of 
 production ; and the cheaper the products of industry 
 can be made, the better it is for all classes. But it 
 is not well, and it is not necessary, that the proprietor 
 of a large establishment should withdraw himself 
 from all personal relations with his work-people. It 
 is quite possible for him to know them well, and to 
 study how he may fulfil the injunction of the apostle, 
 and give unto them that which is just and equal. 
 He is in some degree responsible for their weliare, 
 and he ought not to ignore them. 
 
 Neither is it necessary that the persons who consti- 
 tute our great corporations should be wholly ignorant 
 of the condition of the people in their employ. If 
 the corporation has no soul, each individual member 
 of it has one ; and he is bound to think, not only of 
 the dividends upon his stock, and how they may be 
 enlarged, but also of the well-being of the men and 
 women and children through whose labor his capital 
 is utilized and increased. The bond of moi'al obli- 
 gation that unites him to them is a strong one, and 
 
The Duties of Employers. 173 
 
 he must not try to release hmself from it, lie ought 
 to insist, for one thing, that the agent to whom the 
 management of the business is intrusted shall be a 
 man not only of executive ability, but of large and 
 wise humanity, who will deal with working-people ai 
 though they w^ere human beings, and will study their 
 interests, as well as the interests of the stockholders. 
 
 I know that there are capitalists among us, mem- 
 bers of corporations, who do think of these thingsi, 
 and whose power is steadily exerted in behalf of 
 the working-people. The men that own our mills 
 and our mines are not all greedy, hard-hearted, un- 
 scrupulous beings : very many of them are honestly 
 trying to temper the hard facts of business life with 
 Christian love. Agents, too, there are, that are 
 always thoughtful of the welfare of the workmen ; 
 that would not hold their places for one hour unless 
 they were permitted to deal fairly and mercifully 
 with their hired laborers. A very large proportion of 
 the employers of labor are men of this character ; and 
 their humane regard for the people in their employ 
 is manifested sometimes in a very practical way. 
 For though the profits of business aj-e sometimes 
 large, and t*he capitalist's gains are rapid then, at 
 other times, as at present, the losses are constant; 
 and but for the accumulations of more prosperous 
 seasons, the business must stop altogetlier, and the 
 
174 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 laborers must suffer for the lack of employment. 
 Long periods frequently occur in which the workmen 
 are paid literally out of the pockets of the employ- 
 ers ; in which, for the sake of keeping the mills run- 
 ning, and the work-people from want, the employers 
 grow poorer instead of richer, month after month. 
 Everybody knows that such cases occur, and they 
 show that capitalists in New England do take thought 
 for their laborers as well as themselves. 
 
 But, unfortunately, we are all familiar with in- 
 stances of a different character, in which the greed 
 of the capitalist has led to heartless and extortionate 
 treatment of working-people. I knew of one cor- 
 poration, in a distant city, that discharged a most 
 competent and faithful agent, because he devoted a 
 large part of his Sundays and of his evenings to the 
 promotion of the welfare and happiness of the opera- 
 tives under his care. The directors seemed to think 
 that he was not sufficiently hard-fisted and stony- 
 hearted for their purposes, and they turned him out. 
 I am happy to learn that their business has never 
 prospered since it left his hands. 
 
 Though such cases as these a/e, I hope, excep- 
 tional, yet they illustrate the point I am trying to 
 make, — that the tendency of the large system of 
 industry is to render capital impersonal, and thus 
 unmoral, if not immoral, in its rebtions to labor. 
 
The Duties of Employers, 173 
 
 It is a tendency that may be, and often is, success- 
 fully resisted ; but it is only resisted by a resolute 
 determination on the part of individual capitalists to 
 rule their business by the Christian law. So long as 
 the wages system prevails (and it will not be super- 
 seded for many years), the employers of labor will 
 be, to some degree, responsible for the well-being 
 of the mechanics and operatives. The power that 
 wealth gives them, especially when it is centralized 
 and consolidated in great stock-companies, is a power 
 that carries with it heavy obligations. Let me men- 
 tion, a little more specifically, a few of these. 
 
 First among them is the obligation of the capitalist 
 to care for the physical health and comfort of his 
 work-people. Some kinds of labor are almost ne- 
 cessarily injurious to health ; but any kind of work 
 will kill if carried on in badly lighted and imper- 
 fectly ventilated rooms. The employer is bound to 
 make this a subject of study, and to have his rooms 
 so arranged and fitted up as to secure in them light 
 and warmth, and fresh wholesome air. Whatever aid 
 science can give him in the solution of this problem, 
 he ought to avail himself of There are health- 
 saving as well as labor-saving contrivances in these 
 better days of ours ; and the humane employer will, 
 if he is able, provide the one kind as promptly as the 
 other. He knows, or ought to know, more about 
 
176 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 tlie conditions of health than his work-people do; 
 and his knowledge, as fast as he acquires it, ought 
 to be used for their benefit. 
 
 It is for his interest to do this. If the work- 
 place is bright, airy, comfortable, and the workers 
 feel well at their work, they will accomplish more, 
 will do their work better, and will be much less 
 likely to become discontented and disorderly. Money 
 invested in improvements intended to add to the 
 cheerfulness and healthfulness of the work is always 
 well invested. But even if it were not, the obliga- 
 tion would rest with equal weight upon the em- 
 ployer. If he provides the place in which his work 
 is done, he ought to provide a good place, and to 
 see to it that those in his employ do not suffer any 
 bodily damage that he can prevent. 
 
 It sometimes happens that workmen resent and 
 hinder the efforts that are made for this object. Mr. 
 Charles Eeade gives us what I take to be well- 
 accredited facts in his story, " Put Yourself in His 
 Place," by which the perversity of workmen in this 
 matter is illustrated. When a master- workman pro- 
 vided fans to remove the metal dust and stone grit 
 arising from the grinding of saws, his hands refused 
 to put them in gear, preferring to go on inhaling dis- 
 ease with every breath. Not until he had discharged 
 several of them for neglecting to avail themselves 
 
The Duties of Employers, 177 
 
 of the health-saving apparatus provided for them, 
 could he succeed in bringing it into use. But even 
 if the laborers are indifferent or hostile to such 
 measures, that is no reason for neglecting them. 
 The opportunity and the power given to every 
 employer ought to be beneficently used. Much has 
 been done of late in this direction. In most work- 
 places, the conditions are now more favorable to 
 health than they formerly were. Ventilation is gen- 
 erally attempted, ceilings are higher, rooms are kept 
 at a more uniform temperature, and in many ways 
 work is rendered pleasanter and more healthful. 
 Doubtless there is more that can be done, and good 
 employers will not forget to do it. 
 
 Again : it appears to be the dictate at once of 
 sound policy and of good principles, that employers 
 should always treat their help with polite considera- 
 tion. A true gentleman will remember that he is a 
 gentleman, in his dealings with those in his employ, 
 and will conduct himself so that they too will have 
 no difficulty in finding it out. He will neither swear 
 nor storm nor scold at them ; he will not carry him- 
 self in their presence as though he thought them an 
 inferior race of beings: he will bestow on them a 
 civility exactly equal to that with which he treats the 
 head of his commission-house in the city. If it is 
 necessary for him to give an order, he will give it 
 
178 Workmg People and their Employers, 
 
 in tones that suggest no arrogance; if it is neces- 
 sary for him to administer a reproof, he will do it 
 without pitching his voice in the key of exaspera- 
 tion. It may be perfectly understood among his 
 work-people, that his orders are on no account to be 
 disobeyed, and yet his whole bearing toward them 
 may be that of the most perfect courtesy. 
 
 One of the truest gentlemen I ever knew was the 
 superintendent of a large gang of navvies. His 
 treatment of them was always affable and kind: he 
 never raised his voice, or roughened his tones, in 
 addressing them ; he had a way of being obeyed, 
 but he made no noise about it ; and the consequence 
 was, that he never had the slightest trouble from 
 insubordination, and his men came to have un- 
 bounded regard for him. 
 
 The dictatorial, domineering ways of some em- 
 ployers are exceedingly exasperating to working- 
 people. They feel that they are wronged by such 
 treatjuent, and they are. Every man, poor or rich, 
 hod-carrier or capitalist, has a right to respectful 
 treatment. "Be courteous" is the gospel rule of 
 good manners, and the injunction is not limited. The 
 people whom you employ are not excepted. Your 
 obligation to treat them politely is just as binding as 
 your obligation to deal with them honestly. 
 
 This rule ought to be understood as applying to 
 
The Duties of Employers. 1 79 
 
 the kitchens, as well as to the shops and tl'e mills. 
 The duty of the parlor to treat the kitchen courte- 
 ously is not often recognized. Indeed, I should not 
 wonder if the bare suggestion would provoke the mer- 
 riment of some who read these words. But, ladies, 
 it is an obli2:ation that cannot be set aside. Your 
 servant-girls have just as good a right to be politely 
 treated by you as your afternoon callers have. True 
 Christian courtesy is not reserved for people who 
 wear line raiment : it falls like the dew, without par- 
 tiality, on weed and flower. You may be as positive 
 in the laws of your household, and as thorough in 
 their enforcement, as you please ; but there is no need 
 of scolding. A servant that you cannot control by 
 gentle measures, you cannot control at all. And it 
 is entirely possible, without abrogating the authority 
 that belongs to you as mistress of the house, and 
 without taking your domestics into your confidence, 
 to treat them always with a gentle and gracious con- 
 sideration which shall be as grateful to them as it is 
 honora])le to you. 
 
 For the intellectual improvement of their working- 
 people, employers ought to have a care. Wherever 
 large numbers of operatives are gatheired, they ought 
 to be encouraged and assisted in forming lyceums, 
 and collecting libraries. In all such efforts to 
 improve themselves, laborers should feel that they 
 
i8o Working People ajid their Employers. 
 
 have tlie hearty co-operatioa of capitalists. In 
 Lonsdale, R. L, I found, on a recent visit, a large 
 and beautiful building erected by the proprietors of 
 the mill, and devoted almost wholly to the instruction 
 and diversion of the working-people. It contained 
 a well-selected library, rooms for debating-clubs and 
 social meetings, and a fine hall, capable of seating 
 more than a thousand people, in which every winter 
 a course of entertainments, consisting of literary and 
 scientific lectures, with a few more popular amuse- 
 ments, is given at very low cost to the operatives 
 and their families. The hall is free ; and a thousand 
 season - tickets, at a dollar each, easily pays for 
 procuring ten or a dozen good entertainments. It 
 was pleasant to see the efiect of this provision upon 
 the characters of the work-people. I found in that 
 hall the largest and one of the most intelligent 
 lecture - audiences that I ever addressed in New 
 England ; and the next day in the great mill, and 
 throughout the village, the signs of refinement and 
 contentment were everywhere visible. It was good 
 to Ivuow that one of the most powerful manufactur- 
 ing companies in New England was using its power 
 in a manner so beneficent. 
 
 I shall not be disputed, either, if I affirm that 
 employers ought to be interested in the moral and 
 religious welfare of the persons in their employ. It 
 
The Duties of Employers. 1 8 1 
 
 is true that the relation of employer and laborer is a 
 business relation ; and it may be said, that if the 
 employer goes outside of the contract, and interests 
 himself in the moral and religious condition of his 
 work people, he is meddling with what is none of 
 his business. Doubtless he may do this officiously 
 and offensively ; but it is possible also, I think, that, 
 without appearing in any way to overstep the pro- 
 prieties of the relation, he may take a deep interest 
 in the higher welfare of the people who work for 
 him. The Christian law is, that we are to do good 
 to all men as we have opportunity ; and certainly 
 the employer's opportunity is among his employes. 
 If his treatment of them is what I have suggested 
 it should be, and if in his business relations with 
 them he is always prompt and upright, he will 
 certainly have their respect, and, if he chooses, may 
 exert a stronor influence over them. Without 
 
 o 
 
 seeming in any way to dictate with regard to their 
 conduct, he may, by a kind word spoken now and 
 then, by advice not too obtrusively offered, by an 
 expression of solicitude, by a hearty approval of 
 efforts to do right, confer upon them incalculable 
 benefits. It seems to me that every employer ought 
 to regard the . people in his employ as his parish ; 
 that he ought to be always on the alert to find 
 opportunities and ways of doing them good. If any 
 
1 82 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 of them are addicted to vice, he will know it ; and he 
 ought to study hov/ he may reclaim them. If any 
 of them are sick or in want, he may, by a little 
 attention and sympathy, not only minister to their 
 comfort, but also increase his power over them for 
 their good. Among those in his employ there may 
 be young people away from home : in their welfare 
 he ought to take a special interest. His relation to 
 them should be as nearly as possible a paternal 
 relation : as far as he is able, he should supply to 
 them the restraint and the counsel with which they 
 parted when they left their homes. There are those, 
 it is true, who do not care for such counsel ; and 
 upon them it would be unwise to press kind 
 of&ces that they do not appreciate. But there are 
 many others of a different spirit ; and without any 
 formal proffer of friendship the employer may easily 
 enough convey to the young men and women at 
 work for him the impression that he is willing to act 
 the part of a friend, if they need one. Such a 
 personal interest in them, made manifest in some 
 respectful and unobtrusive way, would be of great 
 service to many of them. 
 
 When persons come from abroad into your 
 employ, it may not be amiss for you to inquire of 
 them what church they have been in the habit of 
 attending, and to put them in communication with 
 
The Duties of Employers, 183 
 
 some pastor of that denomination in your town. If 
 it turns out that they have not been in the habit 
 of going to church, you might properly enough men- 
 tion to them the names of those churches in which 
 you know that they would be welcome. One or two 
 employers hire seats in my church for their employes. 
 I am so old-fashioned as to believe that going to 
 church is a good habit, and that people addicted to 
 it are, as a general rule, steadier, more industrious, 
 and more virtuous, than those who are not. 
 
 I have been writing on the supposition that you 
 are living for some higher object than simply to 
 make money. If that is your chief end, I am aware 
 that these suggestions will seem to you very imprac- 
 ticable. Doubtless it is not well, if that is all that a 
 man is after, that he should have much care for 
 other people's interests. 
 
 A keen article about our millionaires, in a recent 
 magazine, closed by giving some of the indispensable 
 conditions of attaining to millionism; and these are 
 three of them : — 
 
 ''You must devote your life to the getting and 
 keeping of other men's earnings." 
 
 '' You must care little or nothing about other 
 men's wants or sufferings or disappointments." 
 
 " You must not mind it, that great wealth involves 
 many others' poverty." 
 
184 Working People mid their Employers. 
 
 I can easily see that this may be true. And 
 therefore, if any of you care more to be millionaires 
 than for any thing else in the world, I am sure you 
 will pay no heed whatever to that I have said. You 
 can't afford to get your sympathies involved in the 
 welfare of the people you employ, if this is your 
 object in life. You had better keep at a distance 
 from them, deal with them wholly through subor- 
 dinates, shut your ears and your hearts to their 
 needs and their troubles. 
 
 But I should be sorry to believe that any of the 
 employers that read this are living for such an object. 
 I have no doubt that it is the honest purpose of all of 
 them, to do some good in the world as they go along ; 
 and, this being their purpose, I cannot think of any 
 field of usefulness nearer or more promising than 
 that which is open to them among the persons in 
 their employ. 
 
 I believe heartily in colleges, and missionary socie- 
 ties, and Bible societies, and all such enterprises of 
 benevolence, and want to do what I can to help 
 them; but if the impossible should come to pass, 
 and some rich relative should die, and leave me a 
 million of dollars, I am not at all certain that I should 
 distribute it among the benevolent societies, or use it 
 in founding a college. If I had a sufficient knowl- 
 edge of business to warrant me in organizing some 
 
The Duties of Employers, 185 
 
 productive industiy by which a large 11 amber of 
 pox-sons might find employment and livelihood, by 
 which a number of families might be gathered int(» 
 a community, and aided by such counsel and over- 
 sight as I could give in living comfortably and 
 healthily and intelligently and purely, I do not know 
 but I should think that a better thing to do than to 
 found a college, or endow a publication society. To 
 use such a business relation as that benevolently ; to 
 help some of my poorer neighbors in helping them- 
 selves, to find my pleasure and my reward in making 
 the way of life a little plainer and a little smoother 
 and a little brighter for them ; to make them sharers 
 with me in the joint rewards of their labor and my 
 capital, and to aid them in getting on their own feet 
 and standing in their lot in some manly and indepen- 
 dent fashion, — such a work as this, if I only knew 
 enough to do it, would give me greater satisfaction 
 than any thing else I could do ; and I doubt whether 
 any way of using money could be devised more 
 truly benevolent or Christian than this. 
 
 Are not such opportunities on a larger or a smaller 
 scale open to all of you, gentlemen capitalists ? and 
 is there any better way for you to serve Christ and 
 your country than to put yourselves thus into kindly 
 and helpful relations with the people you employ ? 
 
 Many of those who have amassed wealth find 
 
1 86 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 tlieir pleasure in improving tlie soil, or the domestic 
 animals: perhaps the time may come when the im- 
 provement of the condition and the character of 
 human beings will afford to some good men an equal 
 pleasure. It is not by alms or largesses that we 
 wisely aid our fellow-men, but by encouraging them 
 in their efforts to take care of themselves. There is 
 a great field here for philanthropic labor; and the 
 time will come, I doubt not, when good men will 
 be ready to occupy it. 
 
IX. 
 
 THE FUTURE OF LABOR. 
 
 "The country clergyman is the poor man's only 
 friend," wrote an English rector's wife to John 
 Ruskin. "Alas, I know it," was the reply, "and 
 too weU. What can be said of more deadly and 
 ghastly blame against the clergy of England, or any 
 other country, than that they are the poor man's 
 only friends? Have they, then, so betrayed their 
 Master's charge and mind in their preaching to the 
 rich, so smoothed their words and so sold their 
 authority, that, after twelve hundred years intrusting 
 of the gospel to them, there is no man in England 
 who will have mercy on the poor but they ? " 
 
 To this condemnation, ministers of the gospel, even 
 here in New England, are continually exposed. 
 There is imminent danger that our churches, instead 
 
 187 
 
1 88 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 of shaping society, will be shaped by society ; that 
 the laws of nature, working themselves out in the 
 world of finance and exchanges, will domineer the 
 Christian law ; that the fissure now running through 
 the social world, and threatening to become a great 
 gulf fixed between the employing and the laboring 
 classes, will divide the religious world as well : so 
 that there shall be a system of caste recognized and 
 established in our churches; so that the rich shall 
 meet by themselves in the grand churches, and the 
 poor in the mission- chap els ; and there shall be no 
 sympathy nor communion between the two classes, 
 but only alms, with a certain haughty condescension 
 on the one side, and a qualified mendicancy, with 
 envious resentment, on the other. This is the danger, 
 I say, to which our Christianity is exposed here in 
 New England, and especially in our manufacturing 
 cities and villages. It is nothing occult, mystical, 
 visible only to the eye of the seer : it is right before 
 our faces ; the wayfaring man, though ever so heed- 
 less, cannot help seeing it. And when you speak 
 of it to faithful and self-denying ministers and lay- 
 men, the common answer is confession. " I know it : 
 it is a great pity ; but what can you do about it ? 
 You must take society as it is, and make your work 
 conform to its usages. There is no use in running a 
 muck against the social tendencies of the day." All 
 
The Future of Labor, 
 
 the while the breach grows wider. There is no lack 
 of organized charities, hospitals, h:)mes, relief agen- 
 cies, city missions, and all that; but I sometimes 
 think these very agencies aggravate the evil. A man 
 wants sympathy, and we give him a soup-ticket ; ho 
 needs friendly counsel, and we commend him to the 
 soft side of a charitable board. Thus our very char- 
 ity becomes impersonal and indiscriminate, serves 
 only to separate still more widely those whom 
 Christ died to bring together. Of 
 
 " Almsgiving through a door that is 
 Xot open enough for two friends to kiss," 
 
 there is plenty : of the Christian practice of bearing 
 one another's burdens there is less and less as our 
 civilization increases in complexity. This fact is 
 what adds such pungency to that terrible satire, 
 published a few months ago, entitled, "Modern 
 Christianity a Civilized Heathenism." This is the 
 sad result to which Mr. Ruskin points in the woids 
 of upbraiding which I quoted above. Quite willing, 
 far too willing, are most of our good Christians to 
 let the clergyman be the poor man's only friend ; to 
 turn over to him the duty of caring for the lowlier 
 classes of society; to make him a sort of charitable 
 middle-man whose fuiction it is to keep the poor 
 
IQO Working People and their Employers, 
 
 from troubling the ricli, and the rich from taking 
 thought for the poor. 
 
 For my own part, I quite decline to stand in any- 
 such position as this. It is the business of the 
 people, as well as of the minister, to know the poor 
 lliat are always with us, and to study the hard 
 problems of their present and their future. It is the 
 minister's duty to protest, in the name of Jesus of 
 Nazareth, against the division of the Church and of 
 society into jealous and unsympathizing classes. It 
 is the duty of the minister to tell the poor and the 
 ignorant that they are often wickedly envious and 
 suspicious of the rich ; that they incase themselves, 
 not seldom, in such an armor of distrustfulness and 
 surliness that nobody can get near them in any 
 friendly way ; that the prosperity of their neighbors, 
 at which they are often angry, is not always owing 
 to the fact that their neighbors are more dishonest or 
 more unscrupulous than they are, but often to the 
 fact that their neighbors are more industrious and 
 more prudent than they are. It is my duty thus to 
 warn the poor against bitterness and injustice in their 
 judgments of the rich. I have been poor myself, 
 and know, by the teachings of my own heart, just 
 how wickedly poor people often feel toward those 
 who are better off for this world. 
 
 On the other hand, it is the minister's duty to warn 
 
The Future of Labor, 191 
 
 the rich against the indifference and contempt with 
 which they often treat their poorer neighbors, and to 
 admonish them that the gosjDcl of Christ requires of 
 tliose who possess wealth or culture or power a 
 benevolent use of it, as good stewards of God's mani- 
 fold grace ; to declare to them, in season and out of 
 season, that part of the counsel of God which makes 
 it plain that the careless or selfish handling of prop- 
 erty or knowledge will bring a curse to its possessor ; 
 and to bid them, again and again, " to look not every 
 man on his own things, but also on the things of 
 others." 
 
 Moreover, it is the preacher's duty to show to both 
 classes, and to all classes in society, that they are 
 bound together in a community of interests, so that 
 one class cannot suffer without bringing suffering 
 upon all the rest ; so that no class can rise to any 
 sure eminence, or any permanent power, by the deg- 
 radation of the rest. 
 
 I do not believe that the descendants of the Pil- 
 grim Fathers are unwilling to recognize the practical 
 bearings of Christian principles. Therefore I ask you 
 now to study for a little while the question of the 
 working-man's future, — a question in which, if our 
 religion is true, the manufacturer and the merchant 
 and the professional man are interested not much 
 less deeply than the working-man himself. I ask you 
 
192 Working People and their Employers. 
 
 to consider it, not as capitalists, nor as traders, nor 
 as politicians, nor as tlie disciples of economic schools, 
 nor as trades-unionists, nor as Sovereigns of Industry ; 
 but as citizens, as philanthropists, as disciples of Jesus 
 Christ. What is to become of the working-man ? 
 
 1. Of those who would remand him to the bond- 
 age from wliich, after centuries of degradation, he 
 has escaped, and make him the chattel of his em- 
 ployer, there are almost none among us ; so that we 
 may dismiss that contingency, as among things so 
 unlikely as to be morally impossible. 
 
 2. In certain states of society different from ours, 
 we should expect to find a considerable number of 
 those who, like Mr. Ruskin, would be glad to see a 
 modified type of feudalism restored. In his " Fors 
 Clavigera," this eminent author urges, with all that 
 passionate eloquence of which he is a master, the 
 re-establishment of this relation between the em- 
 ployer and the employed ; so that on the one hand 
 there shall be a gentle and gracious guardianship, 
 and on the other a loving dependence ; so that the 
 two races of masters and of servants, of which we 
 read in the Waverley Novels, shall again return to 
 earth. The spirit in which Mr. Huskin writes is of 
 the highest ; and his demand for a nearer personal 
 relation between the two classes is the one to which, 
 following him a long way off, I have tried to give 
 
The Future of Labor. 193 
 
 expression. The fact that he has devoted a large 
 portion of his wealth to the purchase of a tract of 
 land upon which he proposes to carry out his theory 
 by employing men and women to work for him, in 
 whose welfare and that of their children he will take 
 a kh:idly care, convinces the average British economist 
 that he has gone mad. Well, be it so : that was 
 what they said about Christ when he began to unfold 
 his simple laws of ministry and sacrifice. Only I 
 cannot help wishing that some tens of thousands 
 more of the rich and cultivated people of both conti- 
 nents might be bitten with the same madness th'*^ 
 now afflicts John Ruskin. 
 
 Still, though the spirit in which he writes and 
 works is the very spirit of the Nazarene ; and 
 though, while the present system of industry contin- 
 ues, no better result can be hoped for than that the 
 hearts of the masters should be turned to the sei • 
 vants, and the hearts of the servants to the mastoi^y 
 — nothing is plainer than that Mr. Euskin's Utopia 
 will not stand, in the latter day, upon the earth. 
 While the wealth of the world belongs, as now, to 
 the few, it is of course devoutly to be desired, that, 
 between the opulent few and the dependent many, 
 there should be a relation of gracious care on the 
 one side, and of thankful loyalty on the ether. Such 
 a relation is infinitely better than the present conflict 
 
194 Working People a>id their Employers, 
 
 of haughty greed with resentful suspicion; but be 
 the dependence of ever so happy and contented a 
 type, we hope there is something far better in store 
 for the many ; and, in our present inquiry, we are 
 looking to see what that shall be. 
 
 3. The policy of the trades-unions is exactly the 
 opposite of that urged by Mr. Euskin ; namely, the 
 arraying of the laboring-classes in a warfare against 
 their employers. By such an organized conflict w^ith 
 the class of capitalists, the trades-unionists seem to 
 suppose that they may permanently improve the 
 condition of the laboring class ; that they may 
 conquer in war some advantages that would not 
 accrue to them under the reign of peaceful industry 
 and free competition. 
 
 Three principal methods are resorted to by the 
 unions. First, they demand increased wages, and 
 refuse to work if the demand is not conceded. 
 Second, they endeavor to prevent an increase in the 
 number of laborers. Third, they try to enforce rules 
 for increasing the amount of work. As to the 
 first of these methods, I have said already that it is 
 perfectly lawful, provided that violence is let alone, 
 and no attempt is made to force unwilling workmen 
 to join the strike. It may often be foolish, and 
 morally unjustifiable, to demand higher wages, 
 because it may be that the wages refused are a? 
 
The Ftiture of Labor, 195 
 
 large as can be paid without ruining the business : 
 but freedom to work involves the freedom to refrain 
 from working ; and it would be neither politic nor 
 just to deny to workmen the right of combining to 
 S(^cure their own interests. 
 
 As to the other methods, which attempt the 
 reduction of the number of laborers by forbidding 
 apprentices, and preventing non-union men from 
 working, and which seek to increase the number of 
 day's-works to be done, by making rules that men 
 shall work slowly, and do their work poorly, so that 
 it shall quickly wear out and need to be replaced, 
 they are at once barbarous and absurd. " You are 
 strictly cautioned," says a by-law of the Bradford 
 (England) Bricklayers' Laborers, "not to overstep 
 good rules by doing double work, and causing 
 others to do the same, in order to gain a smile from 
 the master. Such foolhardy and deceitful actions 
 leave a great portion of good members out of 
 employment. Certain individuals have been guilty, 
 wlio will be expelled if they do not refrain." . . . 
 The Manchester Bricklayers' Association have a rule 
 providing that " any man found running or w^orking 
 beyond a regular speed shall be fined 25. 6J. for the 
 first offence, 55. for the second, IO5. for the third, 
 and, if still persisting, shall be dealt with as the 
 committee think proper. . . . During the building 
 
196 Working People a7td their Empkyers, 
 
 of the Manchester Law Courts, the bricklayers' 
 laborers struck, because they were desired to wheel 
 bricks, instead of carrying them on their shoulders." * 
 
 By such regulations as these, everywhere en- 
 forced, the trades-unions seem to suppose that they 
 can improve the condition of their members. 
 
 But such regulations, intended as they are to 
 hinder and cripple production, to keep men out of 
 work who need to work, and to restrict the gains of 
 labor to a small class, are not only contrary to all 
 true economy, but to every just principle of human 
 rights and human progress. It is for the interest of 
 the whole world, that every man in it shall have a 
 chance to work when he wants to work, and shall be 
 encouraged to do good work ; in no other way can 
 the aggregate wealth of the world be increased ; 
 and the larger the aggregate wealth of the world, 
 the larger, if exchanges are unrestricted, will each 
 man's portion be. All methods that are intended to 
 diminish the total result of human industry arc 
 essentially vicious ; and it would seem as if even a 
 dullard might see that they must be. Moreover, 
 these regulations to which I have referred are meant 
 to secure the aggrandizement of one class by tho 
 injury of other classes. You will never prosper in 
 that way, my friends. You cannot rise by tram- 
 
 1 Thornton on Labor, quoted by Prof. Cairnes. 
 
The Fit hire of Labor, 197 
 
 pling your neighbors under your feet. No man's 
 rights can be established by doing wrong to his 
 fellow-man. 
 
 Mr. Thornton, a distinguished advocate of the 
 Labor Leagues in England, bears this testimony: 
 '' Whether a country be stationary or progressive, an 
 exceptionally high rate of wages cannot be main- 
 tained in any particular trade, unless the workmen 
 of all other trades are prevented from entering that 
 particular trade, and endeavoring to get the same 
 rate. Unionism cannot keep up the rate in one 
 trade without keeping it down in others." ^ 
 
 That is just as plain as the daylight ; and therefore 
 one is quite justified in saying with Prof Cairnes 
 that trades-unionism, so far as it operates by th^se 
 restrictive rules of labor, *4s, in its essential charac- 
 ter, a monopoly of the narrowest kind; capable, 
 indeed, of accomplishing some small results in favor 
 of a privileged few, but wholly destitute of efficacy 
 as an expedient for helping social improvement; a 
 monopoly, moreover, founded on no principle oiier 
 
 ^ Mr. Thornton undertakes to show that this method, though its 
 advantages are secured to but few workmen at a time and to these at 
 the expense of the rest, may be gradually extended, until its benefits 
 shall be shared by the whole laboring-class; but, as Prof. Cairnes 
 clearly points out, the eflBcacy of the plan depends wholly on the fact 
 that it creates a monopoly ; and "the extension of its privibges to the 
 whole population would L3 equivalent to their entire abrogation." ' See 
 his Political Economy, p. 246, et seq. 
 
198 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 of moral desert or of industrial efficiency, but simply 
 on chance or arbitrary selection ; which, therefore, 
 cannot but exert a demoralizing influence on all \yho 
 come within its scope ; in all its aspects presenting 
 an ungracious contrast to all that is best and most 
 generous in the spirit of modern democracy." It is 
 not by such methods that the future welfare of the 
 working-man will be promoted. Every resort to 
 these exclusive and despotic practices postpones the 
 day of his full enfranchisement. 
 
 4. It would seem as if some sense of the inef- 
 ficacy, if not of the immorality, of these methods, is 
 beginning to dawn upon the men that have been at 
 the head of the trades-unions in this country ; for I 
 notice that some of them are beginning openly to 
 discuss another project, namely, the forcible seizure 
 of the mills and the factories. Either this, or a 
 political revolution placing in power a government 
 that shall proceed to take possession of the property 
 of the country, and administer it for the equal bene- 
 fit of all individuals, would seem to be the present 
 ambition of some of these astute philosophers. Be- 
 tween these two methods, I do not know that there 
 is much to choose. If the policy of pillage is to 
 prevail, we may as well be pillaged by a mob armed 
 with bludgeons, as by another mob armed with the 
 forms of law. For of these schemes, as of all social- 
 
The Future of Labor. 199 
 
 istic schemes that involve the abolition of private 
 property, and the re-distribution of wealth according 
 to some a 'priori theory of justice, the essence is sim- 
 ply pillage. The liindamental maxim of the radical 
 socialists is, that property is robbery ; and fortified 
 by this maxim, they propose to take by force the 
 wealth of the world from those who now possess it, 
 and who have no right to it, as they say, and give it 
 to somebody else, who certainly has no better right 
 to it. This is a queer method of restitution. This 
 whole socialistic movement is philosophically absurd. 
 The doctrine that property is robbery, is a good doc- 
 trine for robbers, and also for paupers, but not for 
 men to whom manhood means something more than 
 subsistence. Mr. Herbert Spencer has an answer to 
 this doctrine, which can hardly be improved : — 
 
 "If all property is robbery, then, among other 
 consequences, it follows that a man can have no right 
 to the things he consumes for food. And if these 
 are not his before eating them, how can they become 
 his at all ? As Locke asks. When do they begin to 
 be his ? when he digests, or when he eats, or when 
 be boils, or when he brings them home ? If no pre- 
 vious act can make them his property, neither can 
 the power of assimilation do it, nor even their 
 absorption into the tissues. Wherefore, pursuing the 
 idea, we arrive at the conclusion, that as the whole 
 
 OF J 
 
200 Working People and their Employers^ 
 
 of his bones, muscles, skin, &c., have been built up 
 from nutriment not belonging to him, a man has no 
 property in his own flesh and blood, can have no 
 valid title to himself, has no more claim to his own 
 limbs than he has to the limbs of another, and has as 
 good a right to his neighbor's body as to his own." 
 
 That is the fundamental principle of socialism, 
 reduced to its lowest terms. A neater example of 
 redudio ad absurdum it would be hard to find. 
 
 This proposition to abolish private property, and 
 establish the commune instead, is not at all likely to 
 find favor among American working-men. They 
 have sense enough to know that such a system must 
 rest its foundations on organized rapine, and that, 
 even if it could once be founded, the practical dif- 
 ficulties in the way of the distribution of wealth by 
 means of it would be insuperable.^ But apart from 
 these enormities, they know full well that the com- 
 mune is not the school in which to train men. Any 
 organization that takes away from individuals the 
 opportunity and the need of self-reliance is fatal to 
 all high character. We have seen the communistic 
 principle at work among us on a small scale, and 
 what have been the results ? Look at such commu- 
 nities as the Shakers, the Mormons, the Oneida Com- 
 munity. What chance is there in them for a man 
 
 1 See Appendix A. 
 
The Future of Labor, 201 
 
 to develop his own individuality ? What oppor- 
 tunity for the cultivation of self-reliance ? 
 
 It is claimed by the advocates of these systems, 
 that the competitions of society are too fierce, that 
 they breed disorders, that they sour and spoil the 
 characters of men ; and they base an argument for 
 their societies upon the fact that they exclude these 
 competitions. Doubtless it is true that the contests 
 in which men must take part, if they would make 
 their way through life, are often heated and severe ; 
 doubtless there is need that the principle of good- 
 will should come in to temper their severities : yet 
 there can be no manhood that is not wrought out 
 through conflict. Take a child that has been coddled 
 and petted at home, that has had no experience of 
 the buffetings of the play-ground or the street : what 
 does he amount to ? Yet it is just such characters 
 as these that the socialistic communities must inevi- 
 tably produce, if they are what they pretend to be. 
 In these societies, no man depends upon himself for 
 maintenance : he depends upon the community. He 
 does not choose his own courses of life : they are 
 chosen for him by the community. He does not 
 forge for himself the weapons with which to wage 
 the warfare of life : they are furnished him out of 
 the armory of the community. Consequently there 
 can be no such thing as high and strong individual 
 
202 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 character in such a society. That can only be devel- 
 oped by standing alone, and working out the ques- 
 tions of existence in manly independence. In such 
 a society, where people dress alike, work a'/ike, live 
 alike in all particulars, they finally come to look 
 alike and to think alike and to talk alike. The uni- 
 formity becomes hateful and distressing to see. It is 
 utter stagnation. The soul loses sight of the grand 
 possibilities of life ; it sinks down upon the dead 
 level of conventions, and the man becomes only a 
 part of a great social machine. 
 
 Is not this true ? You have long been hearing of 
 these societies and their doings : have you heard of 
 their developing any high grade of character ? The 
 Shakers make excellent hats and brooms ; they sell 
 us the best of garden seeds and healing herbs ; they 
 raise very large beets and squashes ; they produce a 
 very fair article of apple-sauce. But what sort of 
 men do they produce? Do tliey amount to any 
 thing ? The same question may be asked, with the 
 same result, in regard to all the other communistic 
 societies. The great body of the members are all 
 on one level, and that a very low level, of attainment 
 and character. I do not speak of their moral quali- 
 ties, but of their mental proportions. The theory of 
 these communities is, that all the members are equal 
 in rank and influence ; the fact is, I suspect, that one 
 
The FiLture of Labor. 203 
 
 individual in each of them is the practical dictator^ 
 and the rest are only his subjects. There is but one 
 man in Mormondom, and that is Brigham Young ; 
 there is but one man in the Oneida Community, — 
 Mr. John Humphrey Noyes; Shakerdom has but one 
 prophet, and his name is Frederick Evans. Each 
 of these is a man of considerable force ; but these 
 are the whole product of their respective communi- 
 ties. The rest are nobodies. 
 
 This is the only true test of a social system, — tell 
 us what kind of men it produces. It may be able to 
 show better agriculture, more successful manufac- 
 tures, a more economical adaptation of the physical 
 forces, a better provision of creature comforts ; but 
 if, with all this, the men and women are a small- 
 souled, dull-witted, inferior type of humanity, the 
 system is a bad one. I do not think I am slandering 
 anybody when I say that, tried by this test, these 
 social communities are failures. 
 
 I would not have you think that this is the only 
 or the worst evil connected with these societies, — 
 that they destroy self-reliance, and thus depreciate 
 individuality. Their repudiation of the family is a 
 much greater offence. But the result to which I have 
 pointed is enough to seal the condemnation of all 
 communistii'. systems, and to show that it is not by 
 
204 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 any such methods that the workmg-men of the future 
 will gain the greatest good of life. 
 
 If, then, it is not through bondage, nor through 
 feudalism, nor through trades-unionism, nor through 
 Communism, that the problem of the working 
 man's welfare is to find its solution, by what 
 process shall he work it out ? Is the present system 
 of industry, with such mitigations of its hardships as 
 Christian principle may be trusted to secure, the 
 final answer to this question ? If it is, then I fear 
 we must say that the working-man's future is not 
 very bright. 
 
 I have said, in my first chapter, that the effect of 
 the introduction of machinery has been to raise, 
 rather than to depress, the real wages of labor ; to 
 increase, that is, the amount of the necessaries of life 
 a day's wages will buy. That statement has been 
 confirmed by careful study. Still the improvement 
 has been very slow, and there is no promise that it 
 will be more rapid in the future. Those who earn 
 their living by labor are a little better off, positively, 
 than they were twenty-five or fifty years ago : rela- 
 tively, they are not so well off as they were then. 
 There has been an enormous increase of wealth ; 
 but the proportion of that wealth that has fallen to 
 the laboring-classes is very small, and it is constantly 
 growing smaller. And I believe that most of the 
 
The Ftcture of Labor. 205 
 
 political economists are agreed ill saying that this 
 state of things is sure to continue, under the present 
 system ; that the tendency is toward an increasing 
 inequality of conditions ; that, while the rich are 
 likely to grow richer, the poor will grow relatively 
 if not positively poorer. There is, as Prof Cairnes 
 tells us, "a constant growth of the national capital, 
 accompanied with a nearly equally constant decline 
 in the proportioji of capital which goes to support 
 productive labor." And this, as he says, can only 
 issue in one result; namely, "a harsh separation of 
 classes, combined with those glaring inequalities in 
 the distribution of wealth which most people will 
 agree are among the chief elements of our social 
 instability." 
 
 That is what the economists prophesy; and the 
 statistics, so far as I have been able to collate them, 
 confirm the prophecy. The prospect is not a 
 pleasant one to contemplate. It is not much comfort 
 to be told by an eminent professor that " a few, more 
 energetic or more fortunate than the rest, will from 
 time to time escape, as they do now, from the ranks 
 of their fellows to the higher walks of industrial life," 
 when we are at the same time assured that " the 
 great majority will remain substantially where they 
 are," and that " the remuneration of labor, skilled or 
 unskilled, can never rise much above its present level," 
 
2o6 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 There is one way out of this condition of helpless 
 dependence ; and that is by an organization of indus- 
 try which shall encourage and assist the laborer in 
 passing over to the ranks of the capitalists. It is 
 not by the abolition, but by the preservation in all 
 its sacredness, of private property, and by bringing 
 to bear upon the laborer all the motives to prudence, 
 self-restraint, economy, and industry, that now actu- 
 ate the capitalist in his accumulation of private 
 property, that his. condition will be improved. 
 
 It is not your interest nor mine, that the class of 
 mere wage-laborers should remain as large as it is. 
 We want to see it growing smaller year by year ; to 
 see large numbers forsaking its ranks for the ranks 
 of the capitalists ; rising up from a condition of abso- 
 lute dependence to one of comparative independence. 
 If we are philanthropists, if we are patriots, nay, if 
 we are good and humane citizens, we are deeply 
 interested in every movement that tends to give an 
 increasing number of the people a proprietary in- 
 terest in the wealth of the country. The centrali- 
 zation of capital is just what we do not want : its 
 widest possible diffusion is what we all desire, if we 
 are wise. 
 
 We have always been saying that it is vastly 
 better for the country that the land should belong to 
 a large number of small farmers than that it should 
 
The Future of Labor. 207 
 
 be in the hands of a few great proprietors, leaving 
 the great body of the agriculturists to be either 
 leaseholders or laborers. Why does not the same 
 principle hold good in our mechanical industries? 
 Why is it not to be desired, for the same reason, that 
 as many as possible of the people that live by them 
 should have a proprietary interest in them ? Every 
 man that owns a share in the business at which he 
 works is by that fact made a better workman and a 
 better citizen. 
 
 To be sure, the only way in which working-men 
 can procure capital is to deny themselves, and save 
 it. Sometimes they dream of getting it from the 
 government ; of having a great loan-agency estab- 
 lished by law to provide laborers with the means for 
 engaging in business either singly or in co-operative 
 companies. But this is a wild notion. How can the 
 government get the money? Only by taking it 
 away from other citizens. Working-men cannot 
 reasonably look for such subvention in their enter- 
 prises. They must stand on their own feet, and 
 work out their own fortunes. If they can save their 
 earnings, and combine them as capital, ar.d thus 
 become directly interested in the profits of their 
 labor, they will in due time rise into a position of 
 independence. This is what I believe they will 
 learn to do in the future. 
 
2o8 Working People a7zd their Employers, 
 
 I have expressed this opinion pretty confidently in 
 my second chapter; and the conclusion to which my 
 own thinking has led me is one that the writers in 
 Great Britain who have been brought to close quar- 
 ters with this problem are almost unanimous in 
 affirming. What John Stuart Mill has written, and 
 what Thomas Hughes has said about it, I know ; but 
 tht^.se men might be suspected of a little sentimental 
 aberration, and therefore I might not have dared to 
 strengthen myself by their utterances. But when 1 
 find a Tory peer like Lord Derby declaring that the 
 experiment of co-operation promises well, and ought 
 to be fairly tried, and arguing that the principle is 
 not discredited by the failures hitherto encountered 
 in its practical working, inasmuch as almost every 
 other great principle has been brought into opera- 
 tion through just such repeated failures ; when I 
 hear a rich contractor and employer of labor, like 
 Mr. Thomas Brassey, saying, "We earnestly wish 
 success to the experiment of adapting the co-opera- 
 tive principle to productive industry ; " and when I 
 find Prof Cairnes of London (in whose decease, re- 
 cently, all the leading English journals lament the 
 loss of the ablest living political economist) writing 
 that " Co-operation constitutes the one and only solu- 
 tion of our present problem, the sole path by which 
 the laboring-classes as a whole, or even in any large 
 
The Futtcre of Labor, 209 
 
 number, can emerge from their condition of hand- 
 to-mouth living, to share in the gains and honors 
 of advancing civiKzation," — I think I may endure, 
 with considerable equanimity, to hear it said (as in 
 some quarters doubtless I shall) that the views I 
 have here expressed show just how much a minister 
 knows about business.^ 
 
 And now my last word is, that every honest and 
 well-considered effort on the part of working-men to 
 put this principle into practice ought to have the 
 encouragement of every one of us. We must not 
 look upon these experiments from the standpoint of 
 self-interest merely; we must not think to measure 
 them with our yardsticks and our half-bushels ; we 
 must not weigh them solely with our steelyards : we 
 must think of them as affecting the condition, and 
 especially the character, of our neighbors; and if 
 they are likely to result in good to human beings, 
 then we ought to rejoice in them. We cannot afford 
 to be angry with any thing that opens an ampler 
 life, and supplies a higher motive, to any of our 
 fellow-men. 
 
 It is only gradually, and by very slow degrees, 
 that this principle of co-operation will be brought 
 into use. But few of our working-men possess the 
 requisite intelli-gence and self-control to qualify them 
 
 1 See Appendix B. 
 14 
 
2IO Working People and their Employers, 
 
 for united action in this field. Here and there, in 
 a small way, with many accompanying failures, the 
 experiment will succeed. It is not going to revolu- 
 tionize our trade or our industry in a year, or in ten 
 years ; but learning wisdom by defeat, and rising, as 
 a class, steadily in the scale of intelligence, group 
 after group of our best workmen may be expected 
 to lift themselves out of dependence into a posi- 
 tion in which they shall own the tools and the, 
 machinery and the stock with which they work, and 
 enjoy the profits of the capital invested, as well as 
 the wages of the work done. And every time that 
 this is accomplished, every time that any company of 
 workmen prove themselves capable of the foresight 
 and the self-denial necessary to success in such a ven- 
 ture, all who love their fellow-men will thank God, 
 and take courage ; for every such success but opens 
 and clears the path over which the millions in depen- 
 dence and penury must pass into the competence 
 and the peace of the better days to come. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
A. 
 
 The question of the feasibility of socialism is beginning 
 to be argued in certain quarters ; and it is not unlikely to 
 be pushed into considerable prominence during the next 
 ten years. " The nationalization of .capital " is what is 
 demanded by the advocates of this system ; and by capital 
 they mean (I quote from one of them) " the machinery 
 of locomotion, the machinery of communication, the ma- 
 chinery of production, the machinery of distribution, and 
 the products of industry during the process of distribu- 
 tion." Whether legs are to be considered as part of the 
 " machinery of locomotion," and tongues as part of " the 
 machinery of communication," and whether these with 
 the railroads and the telegraph are to be " nationalized," 
 our advocate does not tell us. It would seem, however, 
 to a casual visitor at Washington, that a sufficient number 
 of these unruly members are already " nationalized," and 
 that a project for the domestication of a few of them 
 should find favor with the working-classes. Indeed, the 
 vice of depending on the nation, instead of depending on 
 
 213 
 
214 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 themselves, is one to which far too many of our citizens 
 have been addicted ; and the proposition to make it the 
 corner-stone of the social fabric should be carefully con- 
 sidered before it is adopted. The occupation of hanging 
 upon the skirts of the government has not, as a general 
 rule, proved a very efficient method of developing high 
 character. Place-hunters are not, as a class, conspicuous 
 for virtue or for usefulness. And it may well be ques- 
 tioned whether the plan of employing the whole population 
 in pursuits of this nature would be found to promote 
 either prosperity or morality. 
 
 The process of " nationalization," to which the advocate 
 above quoted points us, is tolerably comprehensive. 
 When " the machinery of locomotion, the machinerj^ of 
 communication, the machinery of production, the machin- 
 ery of distribution, and the products of industry during 
 the process of distribution," shall have been " nation- 
 alized," very little will be left for the individual. In 
 what respect this project falls short of " the abolition of 
 private property," with which our advocate professes to 
 "have no sympathy," it would be hard to say. Possibly, 
 under this scheme, a man might be permitted to own the 
 house in which he lived ; but his farm, his garden, his 
 tools, his stock in trade, must all be " nationalized," for 
 they are all included in one or another of the categories 
 mentioned. The letting of a house in which he did not 
 live would not be allowed to him : all houses not occupied 
 by their owners would become the property of the nation. 
 Of course, no man would be permitted to receive any 
 mterest on the money that he had saved. Money saved 
 
Appendix. 
 
 is capital in its simplest form, and all capital must be 
 " nationalized." There is a theory that rent is robbery, 
 and interest iniquity, and tliat no man ought to be 
 permitted to reap any benefit whatever from his own 
 prudence and self-denial. This theory is getting a hearing 
 among the working-men of this country, through various 
 pamphlets and other publications ; and it would seem that 
 the writer from whom I have quoted must have adopted 
 it for substance. It is only fair to him to quote at lengtli 
 from a courteous letter addressed by him to one of the 
 daily journals, in answer to the positions taken in the last 
 chapter of this volume : ^ 
 
 " The new socialism claims that the great inventions of 
 the present century, which have multiplied so many 
 times man's power of production and locomotion, have 
 made it necessary for the most economical production and 
 distribution that large amounts of accumulated wealth — 
 or capital — should be employed in the methods of in- 
 dustry ; thus putting it in the power of those possessing 
 such wealth to obtain the ownership and control of more 
 and more of the national industry. That the aggregation 
 of wealth and power into the hands of fewer and fewer 
 of the people increases like a sum in compound interest. 
 That it makes the actual producers of the national wealth 
 more and more dependent upon the managers of their 
 industry. That it has formed a privileged class, rising to 
 be more powerful than the most powerful aristocracy the 
 world has ever been cursed with. That even in England, 
 that stronghold of aristocracy, lords and dukes have to 
 
2i6 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 succumb to the merchants and manufacturers, and their 
 grand ancestral estates are changing hands. 
 
 " They, the nobles themselves, are, in order to retain 
 their political and social influence, submitting themselves 
 to what, a few years ago, they considered the degradation 
 of trade. 
 
 " In short, that steam has revolutionized the industiy 
 of the civilized world. 
 
 " How could we expect that any machinery of govern- 
 ment could adapt itself without changes, almost, if not 
 quite, revolutionary in character, to the new order of 
 things? 
 
 " The new socialism demands that the changes in gov- 
 ernment made necessary by the progress of industry shall 
 be put into operation with the least possible delay. . . . 
 If ours is ' a government of the people, hy the people and 
 for the people,' and if the most important function of 
 government is the protection of its individual citizens, 
 they have a right to ask that this enormous power of 
 owning and controlling the capital of the nation, which is 
 the accumulated labor of the nation, and which directs 
 and controls the industry of the nation, should be in the 
 hands of the nation in its collective capacity, and not in 
 the hands of private individuals and corporations to be 
 used for their own profit and gain." 
 
 Why this should be called " the new socialism," I 
 do not know. It does not appear to differ in any material 
 respect from the socialism of Louis Blanc. All the 
 theories here promulgated are urged with great vigor in 
 
Appendix, 2 1 
 
 "The Organization of Labor;" and they were put into 
 partial operation in the French Revolution of 1848. 
 They did not work very well in Paris at that day ; and 
 we may be permitted to doubt whether they would be 
 found any more jn-acticable in Boston at this day. 
 
 Two important difficulties are encountered upon the 
 threshold of this project. How, to begin with, would the 
 government get possession of the capital of the nation? 
 " The new socialism " demands that the '' revolutionary '' 
 changes in government, *' made necessary by the progress 
 in industry, shall be put into operation with the least 
 possible delay." Exactly; but how? Not to speak of 
 the railroads and the telegraph-lines, how is the nation to 
 get possession of my rented house, of my neighbor's paper- 
 mill, of the bank-stock and the mortgage-deeds upon 
 the proceeds of which another neighbor — a widow with 
 several children — is subsisting ? The expectation that 
 individual owners will voluntarily give up to the gov- 
 ernment the property they have saved or inherited, will 
 scared}^ be entertained. This property must be taken 
 from them by force ; and it will not be yielded up without 
 a bloody struggle. Very few of those who have private 
 possessions of any value will be in favor of these 
 '' revolutionary changes." Are the destitute classes of this 
 country numerous enough and strong enough to take the 
 property of the country, by force, from those who now 
 hold it? That is the practical question which confronts 
 the advocates of " the new socialism." Before entering 
 upon the civil war to which their theories instantly con- 
 duct them, it would be well for them to count the cost. 
 
2i8 Working People and their Employers, 
 
 But admitting that all the capital in the land could be 
 acquired by "the nation in its collective capacit}'," tlie 
 difficulties in the way of managing it would still be some- 
 vwhat formidable. The government now undertakes to do 
 a few things, and succeeds in doing them very ill. 
 Suppose that it should assume the control of all the 
 industries of the nation : is it reasonable to suppose that 
 all this vast and complicated work would be well done ? 
 Let me quote at some length, on this point, from Mr. 
 Herbert Spencer's essay on " Over Legislation," the whole 
 of which may be strongly commended to advocates of 
 " the new socialism : " — 
 
 " Did the state fulfil efficiently its unquestionable 
 duties, there would be some excuse for this eagerness to 
 assign it further ones. Were there no complaints of its 
 faulty administration of justice, of its endless delays and 
 untold expenses, of its bringing ruin in place of restitu- 
 tion, of its playing the tyrant where it should have been 
 the protector; did we never hear of its complicated 
 stupidities ; its twenty thousand statutes which it assumes 
 all Englishmen to know, and which not one Englishman 
 does know; its multiplied forms which, in the effort to 
 meet every contingency, open far more loopholes than 
 they provide against ; had it not shown its folly in 
 the system of making every alteration by a new act, vari- 
 ously affecting innumerable preceding acts ; or in its 
 scores of successive sets of chancery rules, which so 
 modify and limit and extend and abolish and alter one 
 another, that not even vihancery lawyers know what the 
 
Appendix, 219 
 
 rules are ; were we never astounded by such a fact as 
 that, under the system of land-registration in Ireland, 
 six thousand pounds have been spent in a 'negative 
 search' to establish the title of an estate; did we find in 
 its doings no such terrible incongruity as the imprison- 
 ment of a hungry vagrant for stealing a turnip, while for 
 the gigantic embezzlements of a railway-director it inflicts 
 no punishment; had we, in short, proved its efficiency as 
 judge and defender, instead of having found it treach- 
 erous, cruel, and anxiously to be shunned, — there would 
 be some encouragement to hope other benefits at its hands. 
 " Or if, while failing in its judicial functions, the state 
 had proved itself a capable agent in some other depart- 
 ment, — the military, for example, — there would have been 
 some show of reason for extending its sphere of action. 
 Suppose that it had rational^ equipped its troops, instead 
 of giving them cumbrous and ineffective muskets, bar- 
 barous grenadier caps, absurdly heavy knapsacks and 
 cartouche-boxes, and clothing colored so as admirably to 
 help the enemy's workmen ; suppose that it organized 
 welf and economically, instead of salarying an immense 
 superfluity of officers, creating sinecure colonelcies of four 
 thousand pounds a year, neglecting the meritorious, and 
 promoting incapables ; suppose that its soldiers were 
 always well housed, instead of being thrust into barracks 
 that invalid hundreds, as at Aden, or that fall on their 
 occupants, as at Loodianah, where ninety-five were thus 
 killed ; suppose that in actual war it had shown due 
 administrative ability, instead of occasionall}^ leaving its 
 regiments to march barefoot, to dress in patches, to cap- 
 
2 20 Wo7^kmg People and their Employers, 
 
 ture tlieir own engineering tools, and to figlit on empty 
 stomachs, as during the peninsular campaign, — suppose 
 all this, and the wish for more state control might still 
 have had some warrant. 
 
 *' Even though it had bungled in every thing else, yet 
 had it in one case done well, had its naval management 
 alone been efficient, the sanguine would have had a color- 
 able excuse for expecting success in a new field. Grant 
 that the reports about bad ships, ships that will not sail, 
 ships that have to be lengthened, ships with umit engines, 
 ships that will not carry their guns, ships without stowage, 
 and ships that have to be broken up, are all untrue, . . . 
 and there would remain for the advocates of much govern- 
 ment some basis for their political air-castles, spite of mili- 
 tary and judicial mismanagement. 
 
 " As it is, however, they seem to have read backward 
 the parable of the talents. Not to the agent of proved 
 efficiency do they consign further duties, but to the negli- 
 gent and blundering agent. Private enterprise has done 
 much, and done it well. Private enterprise has cleared, 
 drained, and fertilized the country, and built the towns ; 
 has excavated mines, laid out roads, dug canals, and 
 embanked railways ; has invented and brought to perfec- 
 tion ploughs, looms, steam-engines, printing-presses, and 
 machines innumerable ; has built our ships, our vast man- 
 ufactoiies, our docks ; has established banks, insurance 
 societies, and the newspaper press; has covered the sea 
 with lines of steam vessels, and the land with electric 
 telegraphs. Private enterprise has brought agriculture, 
 manufactures, and commerce 'o their present height, and 
 
Appendix, 221 
 
 is now developing them with increasing rapidity. There- 
 fore do not trust private enterprise. On the other hand, 
 the state so fulfils its protective function as to ruin many, 
 delude others, and frighten away those who most need 
 succor ; its national defences are so extravagantly and yet 
 inefficiently administered as to call forth almost daily 
 complaint, expostulation, or ridicule ; and as the nation's 
 steward it obtains from some of our vast public estates a 
 ruinous revenue. Therefore trust the state. Slight the 
 good and faithful ■ servant, and promote the unprofitable 
 one from one talent to ten. 
 
 " Seriously, the case, while it may not in some respects 
 warrant this parallel, is in one respect even stronger ; 
 for the new w^ork is not of the same order as the old, but 
 of a more difficult order. Badly as government dis- 
 3harges its true duties, any other duties committed to it 
 are likely to be still worse discharged. To guard its sub- 
 jects against aggression, either individual or national, is a 
 straightforward and tolerably simple matter : to regulate, 
 directly or indirectly, the personal actions of those subjects, 
 is an infinitely complicated matter. It is one thing to 
 secure to each man the unbounded power to pursue his 
 own good : it is a widely different thing to pursue the 
 good for him. To do the first efficientl}^ the state has 
 merely to look on while its citizens act, to forbid unfair- 
 ness, to adjudicate when called on, and to enforce resti- 
 tution for injuries. To do the last efficiently, it must 
 become an ubiquitous worker, must know each man's 
 needs better than he knows them himself ; must, in short, 
 possess superhuman power and intelligence. Even, there- 
 
222 Workiug People ami their Employers, 
 
 fore, had the state done well in its proper sphere, no 
 sufficient warrant would have e listed for extending that 
 sphere ; but seeing how ill it has discharged those simple 
 offices which we cannot help consigning to it, small indeed 
 is the probability of its discharging well offices of a more 
 complicated nature." ^ 
 
 The charges of inefficiency and wastefulness that Mr. 
 Spencer brings against the government of his own coun- 
 try lie equally against the government of the United 
 States. Neither the monarchy nor the aristocracy of 
 Great Britain is to be blamed for this state of affairs ; for 
 in republican America things are managed just as badly. 
 Indeed, there is good reason to believe that the public 
 service of the mother country is more efficient and less 
 corrupt than that of our own country. " The nation in 
 its collective capacity," or incapacity, has proved itself 
 miserably incompetent to deal with the few interests 
 intrusted to it: the result of putting all " the machinery'* 
 of communication, production, and distribution into its 
 hands, and of charging it with the care of all the wealth 
 of the country, may therefore be easily inferred. 
 
 Consider what this involves. All the houses not occu- 
 pied by their owners must pass into the control of the 
 government. The government could not rent them, for 
 rent is robbery : they must therefore be distributed among 
 those who own no houses. On what principle should this 
 allotment be made ? All the railroads and telegraph-lines 
 in the country would belong to the government ; all the 
 1 "Essays, Moral, Political, and jEs:hBtic," pp. 51-55. 
 
Appendix, 223 
 
 mills and factories and ships would be owned and operated 
 by the government ; and if I rightly understand " the 
 new socialism," all the mercantile business of the country 
 would be transacted by the government. Saying nothing 
 about the difficulty of managing all these vast affairs by a 
 political agency, and admitting that they could be thus 
 managed in such a way as to pay expenses and leave some 
 surplus for distribution, on what principle should this 
 distribution be made ? " On principles of justice," our 
 socialistic friends promptly reply. " The present distribu- 
 tion of the proceeds of industry is glaringly unequal : we 
 insist that they shall be divided equitably." But here 
 they are not agreed. Three principal methods are formu- 
 lated by Prof. Cairnes, as finding favor with socialistic 
 reformers : ''To each according to his wants," " To 
 each according to his works," and, " To each according to 
 his sacrifices." Let us hear his analysis of these 
 methods : — 
 
 " As regards the first of the formulas to which I have 
 referred, which proposes to distribute the wealth of a 
 community among its members in proportion to their 
 wants, I must frankly acknowledge that I am wholly 
 unable even to conjecture the method of its application. 
 How are the wants of individuals to be ascertained ? I3 
 it to be left to each to describe his own wants ? And if 
 the funds are not enough to meet the requirements of all, 
 who is to decide which is the most urgent ? A man with 
 a large family has greater wants than a man with a small 
 one. Does this constitute a title to a proportionately 
 
2 24 Working People and tJwir Efnployers, 
 
 larger share of the proceeds of industry? And, if so, what 
 is to keep the population of a country within the necessary 
 limit of the means of subsistence ? Such are some of the 
 questions which meet us on the threshold in seeking to 
 apply this formula, every one of wliich leads us straight 
 into a cut de sac. I must therefore put aside this par- 
 ticular form of the law of distribution, as for me utterly 
 unmanageable. The two latter principles, however, of 
 which one would assign wealth to each person in propor- 
 tion to the work he has accomplished, and another in 
 proportion to the sacrifice he has undergone, are not at 
 once and obviously impracticable ; and in point of fact, 
 both one and the other do exert, under our existing system 
 of industry, a certain influence in determining the distri- 
 bution of wealth. For example : wherever the results of 
 industry admit of being measured and compared, as in all 
 work of the same kind, the remuneration of the workman, 
 if any competition is effective, naturally adjusts itself to 
 the results of his work. A workman who in a given time 
 can produce twice as much work as another will in an 
 open market command twice as much wages. But where 
 the results of industry are different in kind, how is the 
 ule of distribution in proportion to the results to be 
 applied? One man in a day produces a coat, another a 
 table, a third superintends a body of woikmen : by what 
 re??ult shall we measure these several results, and say that 
 ciny of them is greater or less than any other ? It is plain 
 that the rule of distribution in proportion to results fails 
 us utterly here. Similarly, tlie principle of distribution 
 in proportion to sacrifice has also, under our present regime^ 
 
Appendix, 2.1 
 
 a certain operation in dctermiiilng the d-t^tribution of 
 wealth. But the field of competition, though large, is far 
 from being co-extensive with the industry of any country; 
 and in the absence of competition it is not easy to see how 
 relative sacrifice is to be determined." ^ 
 
 If, therefore, the industry of the country thus " nation- 
 alized " resulted in any increase of the national wealth, the 
 problem of its distribution would be an extremely diflici:lt 
 one. Our friends the revolutionists ought to have this 
 part of their programme well thought out before they 
 organize their forces for the seizure of the property of 
 their neighbors. 
 
 It " is only fair to admit, however, that there woidd be 
 no surplus to divide. Putting the management of all 
 industries into the hands of a national bureaucracy, and 
 excluding from the minds of those who organize labor, as 
 well as of those who perform it, the motive of self-interest, 
 the work would be so poorly managed and so badly done 
 that no gains would be reported at the end of the year. 
 Under the lead of M. Louis Blanc and other socialists, the 
 French republican government, in the days of '48, organ- 
 ized several government workshops, in which a large 
 number of men were employed. These workmen must 
 have a certain daily stipend on which to subsist ; and with 
 great prudence the government determined to give them 
 the same wages that they had received under the mon 
 archy, promising to divide the surplus among them. But 
 when the reckoning day came, these shops were found to 
 1 "Political Economy," pp. 206, 267. 
 
226 Working People and their E7nployers, 
 
 have made losses rather than profits. This failure ^vas 
 owing quite as much to the indolence and irregularity of 
 the workmen as to the inefficiency of the management. 
 The same result must follow under any system that un- 
 dertnkes to release the workman from the consequences 
 of his own idleness and improvidence, and to put him by 
 force of law into a position which he has failed to gain by 
 his own exertions. 
 
 Nothing is surer, therefore, than that the capital of the 
 country thus " nationalized " would rapidly disappear. 
 This capital would never have been accumulated had it 
 not been for the hope entertained by those who now pos- 
 sess it, of keeping it, and enjoying the fruits of it. It 
 cannot be preserved, much less increased, by the operation 
 of any feebler motive. On this subject, hear Prof. Cairnes 
 again ; — 
 
 " I take it to be a fundamental and indispensable condi- 
 tion of all progressive human society, that by some means 
 or other a large aggregate capital available for its require- 
 ments should be provided. Without such a fund, accu- 
 mulated from the products of past toil, division of labor 
 and continuous industry are impossible ; population can- 
 not attain the degree of density indispensable to civilized 
 existence; nor can that amount of leisure from physical 
 toil be secured for any considerable portion of the peoj^le, 
 which is required for the cultivation of science and litera- 
 ture. The maintenance, therefore, of an aggregate capital 
 capable of providing for these requirements, must be 
 regarded as an indispensable condition to be fullilled by 
 
Appendix. 227 
 
 every industrial system which undertakes to promote tlie 
 well-being and progress of mankind. Now, our economic 
 investigations have shown us that this end — the storing- 
 up of the products of past industry for the purpose of 
 sustaining and assisting present industry — can only be 
 attained at the cost of certain sacrifices ; those sacrifices, 
 namely, implied in foregoing the immediate use of what 
 people have the power of using, and in incurring the 
 risk which attaches in a greater or less degree to all in- 
 dustrial investment. These sacrifices may be regarded as 
 trivial or severe ; but as a matter of fact, they will not 
 be undergone without an adequate motive in the form of 
 a compensating reward. Such a motive our present sys- 
 tem of industry provides in the maintenance of private 
 propert}' and industrial freedom. The prospect of profit 
 is the prospect of enjoying as property the results of 
 industrial investment ; and this prospect, under a system 
 of industrial freedom, is thrown open to all who are 
 in the possession of wealth. The inducement thus offered 
 to the acquisitive propensity in man constitutes, under 
 the actual system of things, the ultimate security for all 
 the results v/hich go to form our industrial civilization. 
 The feeling appealed to may, if you like, be a coarse 
 ono ; but it is at any rate efficacious ; it does lead to 
 habitual and systematic saving, and furnishes society 
 with the necessary material basis for civilized progress. 
 But this motive, every system which annuls private 
 property and freedom of individual industry takes away ; 
 and the question is, What do such systems sui)ply in its 
 place ? Two possible substitutes, so far as I know, and 
 
228 Workhtg People and iheir Employers, 
 
 t.wo onl}^ have been or can be suggested, — benevolence 
 and public spirit. I should be very unwilling to dis- 
 parage such principles of action, or to deny that they 
 are at present extremely influential in public affairs; but 
 I cannot affect to believe that either or that both together 
 — taking human beings not as in the progress of human 
 improvement they may possibly become, but as we now 
 actually find them — could be trusted to supply the place 
 of that desire for individual advancement and well-being 
 to which the institutions of private property and industrial 
 freedom make appeal. I am therefore unable to see how 
 any system which relies upon no stronger or more univer- 
 sal elements of human character than these for its support 
 can fulfil that primary and indispensable condition of all 
 human society, — the providing of a material basis for 
 civilization in the form of an accumulated capital." ^ 
 
 This capital which our friends propose to " nationalize " 
 exists, in fact, by virtue of a principle in human nature 
 which they propose to exterminate or re^Dress. I admit, 
 with Mr. Cairnes, that the principle is not the highest 
 upon which human beings can act ; but it is the motive 
 pov/er of our material civilization, and any system that 
 undertakes to dispense with it will make small headway. 
 In the millennium, no doubt, disinterested benevolence will 
 lead all the people to labor hard, and live sparingly, in 
 order that their neighbors may be enriched ; but in these 
 days vers few men have reached this height of virtue, 
 and the great majority will neither be diligent nor prudent 
 
 1 ''Political Economy," pp. 2'"(l-3, 
 
Appendix, 229 
 
 unless you show them plainly that they can have wliat 
 they earn, and keep wliat they save ; that they are at 
 lil)erty to use their accumulated wealth productively in 
 any legitimate industry ; that they may exchange it with 
 their neighbors for services, as well as for products ; that 
 they may lend it for a lawful or a stipulated remunera- 
 tion ; and that they may give it, when they want it no 
 longer, to whom they will. 
 
 Doubtless the possession of capital by their neighbors 
 does seem to some persons a grievous inequality. But 
 this capital represents somebody's savings ; and if persons 
 choose to save their money, instead of spending it, they are 
 entitled to some reward for their abstinence. Here are 
 two workmen, each of whom earns eight hundred dollars 
 a year. One of them spends every cent of his earnings : 
 the other denies himself many luxuries, and lays by three 
 hundred dollars every year. Is it not right that the man 
 who has saved the money should be permitted to use it 
 productively ; to purchase, for example, a little plot of 
 ground on which he may raise vegetables for the use of 
 his family ? Would it not be right even for him to loan 
 his three hundred dollars to another neighbor at a fair 
 rate of interest? He not only foregoes the use of the 
 money himself, but he incurs a certain risk in letting it 
 pass into the hands of another. Is it not fair that he 
 should receive some reward for both these sacrifices ? 
 
 Yet " the new socialism " in demanding " the nationali- 
 zation of capital" forbids this thrifty working-man to 
 reap any advantage from his own prudence and self-denial, 
 and insists that he shall either hand over his three hun« 
 
230 Wo7^ktng People and their Employers. 
 
 drecl dollars every year to the government, or else that he 
 shall tie it up in a napkin or an old stocking, as the case 
 may be, and hide it from the sight of men. A system 
 which thus proscribes individual thrift, and ordains that 
 the man who saves a part of his earnings shall be no 
 better off than the man who consumes them all, will not, 
 I think, commend itself to the favor of intelligent Ameri- 
 can workmen. 
 
B. 
 
 To prove that socialism is not feasible, is not to con- 
 clude that the condition of the laboring-classes under the 
 present regime is what it ought to be. The wages-system 
 may be better, as men now are, than " the nationalization 
 of capital ; " but under the wages-system, the hardships 
 of the working-man are many, and his outlook is by no 
 means cheering. "When, therefore, the advocate of " the 
 new socialism," to whom I have referred in the preced- 
 ing pages, rephes to my criticism of the socialistic methods 
 by asking " how far the present method of administration 
 redounds to the equal benefit of the people, or to an 
 equitable distribution " of the wealth of the country, I 
 answer frankly, Not to any very satisfactory extent. 
 That the working-people would, very shortly, be worse 
 off under a socialistic order than they are at present, I 
 have no doubt ; but this is not to say that theylare well 
 enough off at present. That i'jjustice and inequality bear 
 heavy rule in their affairs, is altogether too plain. As 
 Prof. Cairnes has written, " When I look into the 
 
 nature of those economic forces, on the play of which the 
 
 231 
 
232 Working People and their E^nployers 
 
 actual distribution of wealth in this and other countries 
 depends, what do I find ? Certain physical, ph3^siological, 
 and mental conditions: on the one hand, a productive 
 capacity in the soil, and other natural agents ; on the 
 other, certain elements in the character of the people, 
 such as the desire to accumulate wealth and provide for 
 the future, and, constantly counteracting this, a love of 
 present ease and indulgence ; lastly, the animal propensi- 
 ties, which continue and multiply the race. These are 
 the forces which, coming into play under a regime of 
 private property and freedom of industrial enterprise, 
 determine the proportions in which wealth is divided 
 among a people. But what is there in such circumstances, 
 to make it necessary that the distribution which results 
 shall be in conformity with what our ideas of justice 
 would require ? What is there in the case, to secure that 
 the action shall always be in the lines of moral right? 
 The agencies in operation are essentially out of the moral 
 sphere ; and if it should, in fact, happen that the results 
 arising from their free action in any given case prove to 
 be in strict accordance with the claims of moral justice, 
 and with so-called ' natural rights,' I do not see that we 
 should be justified in regarding the coincidence as other 
 tl^an a fortunate accident. In point of fact, the practical 
 consequences arismg from the conditions of industry in 
 this aud other civilized countries are not such as, for my 
 part, I should find it easy to reconcile with any standard 
 of right generally accepted among men." 
 
 It must be owned that equity does not rule to any great 
 extent in any of the relations of human beings. How 
 
Appendix, 233 
 
 many households are there, in which the memhers all (h al 
 with one another justly? How many social organizations 
 are there, in which impartial justice governs all the 
 members in their treatment of one another? C>f what 
 men sometimes call benevolence, there is rather mo) c in 
 the world than of Avliat is rightly called justice. An easy 
 good-nature, a sentimental tenderness, are not so rare as 
 a willingness to respect the rights of others, — their rights 
 of liberty, of property, and of reputation. More people are 
 willing to do me favors than are willing to recognize my 
 rights. Not only in the distribution of wealth, but in all 
 the other affairs of human life, great injustice prevails. 
 Men are not just : the great majority of them are 
 governed in their conduct, not by the principles of equity, 
 but by their selfish interests and passions ; and hence 
 these inequalities and hardships which we all deplore. 
 But these traits of human nature will not be eradicated 
 by a new social organization. Give " the nation in its 
 collective capacity" all "the machinery" in the w^orld, 
 and it will not be able to make a single citizen any less 
 extortionate, or any more honorable. 
 
 Under no system of industry, therefore, is it reasonable 
 to expect that the wealth of the nation will be equitably 
 distributed, until a vast improvement shall have been 
 wrought in the moral condition of the people; and im- 
 provements of this nature are wrought slowly, and not 
 by political agencies. 
 
 The evils to which the system of private property and 
 industrial freedom give rise are great; but greater 
 evils would result from its destruction. As human 
 
2 34 Workmg People and their Employers, 
 
 nature now is, the motives to which this system makes 
 appeal are the only adequate motives to industry and 
 prudence. No form of industrial organization will deliver 
 the working-man from all the evils of his condition : but 
 some forms are better than others ; and every wise scheme 
 for the improvement of his lot will secure him in the un- 
 disturbed possession of his own gains, and in the free use 
 of lliem. To be a mere laborer, is to live in a dependent 
 condition. He ought to have the opportunity to save his 
 earnings, and to combine the profits realized, from the 
 capital thus saved, with the wages of his labor. A system 
 of industr}^ which identifies the laborer and the capitalist, 
 which gives the workman an immediate interest in the 
 success of the work in which he is engaged, and which 
 secures to him not only the results of his own labor, but 
 also the returns of the capital invested, would seem to 
 enhst all those principles of human nature that have 
 given vigor to our industrial enterprises, while it removes, 
 at least in part, those occasions of conflict by which the 
 progress of industry is so often impeded. 
 
 I desire now to give, a little more fully than I was able 
 to do in the foregoing chapters, the arguments and con- 
 clusions of some of the most eminent writers of recent 
 times, in support of the system of co-operation. The 
 authorities that I shall cite are within the reach of most 
 working-men ; but some of those who read these pages 
 may find my quotations serviceable. First, let me refer 
 again to Prof. Cairnes, whose clear and comprehensive 
 exposition of the whole subject deserves the most careful 
 attention of both working-people and their employers: — • 
 
Appendix. 235 
 
 "It appears to me, that the condition of any substan- 
 ial improvement of a permanent kind in the laborer's lot 
 is, that the separation of industrial classes into laborers 
 and capitalists shall not be maintained ; and the laborer 
 shall cease to be a mere laborer, — in a word, that profits 
 shall be broug^ht to re-enforce the wacres-fund. . . . Un- 
 equal as is the distribution of wealth already in this 
 country, the tendency of industrial progress — on the 
 supposition that the present separation between industrial 
 classes is maintained — is towards an inequality greater 
 still. The rich will be growing richer, and the poor at 
 least relatively poorer. It seems to me, apart altogether 
 from the question of the laborer's interest, that these are 
 not conditions which furnish a solid basis for a progress- 
 ive social state ; but, having regard to that interest, I 
 think the considerations adduced show that the first and 
 indispensable step toward any serious amendment of the 
 laborer's lot is, that he should be, in one way or other, 
 lifted out of the groove in which he at present works, and 
 placed in a position compatible with his becoming a sharer, 
 in equal proportion with others, in the general advantages 
 arising from industrial progress" (pp. 284, 285). 
 
 " The all-important point, as it seems to me, is to rec- 
 ognize the direction in which the emancipation of labor 
 from wliat is called (absurdly enough) the tyranny of 
 capital lies. This, I repeat, is, and, so far as I can tsee, only 
 can be, that of co-operative industry. It is, of coui'se, 
 open to an}^ one to question the feasibility of the plan ; to 
 such doubts, the only effective answer, and it has already 
 to some extent been given, will be actual performance j 
 
236 Working People and tlieir Employers, 
 
 but what I think the foregoing argument establishes is, 
 that the alternative lies between this plan and none. If 
 workmen do not rise from dependence upon capital, by 
 the path of co-ojDeration, then they must remain in depen- 
 dence upon capital. The margin for the possible improve- 
 raeiit of their lot is confined within narrow barriers, which 
 cannot be passed; and the problem of their elevation is 
 hopeless. As a body, they will not rise at all. A few, 
 more energetic or more fortunate than the rest, will from 
 time to time escape, as they do now, from the ranks of 
 their fellows, to the higher ranks of industrial life ; but 
 the great majority will remain substantially where they 
 are. The remuneration of labor, skilled or unskilled, can 
 never rise much above its present level" (p. 291). 
 
 " Co-operation, while it appeals in the strongest way to 
 those attributes of character which are concerned in the 
 control of population, makes comparatively definite and 
 clear the limits of the laborer's resources. He is now a 
 payer as well as a receiver of wages, and, seeing the wages- 
 problem from both sides, is likely to acquire juster views , 
 but even though wages should still remain a mystery, at 
 least it will be tolerably clear that profits will grow witJi 
 the growth of capital, and that each man may court on 
 receiving them precisely in proportion to the amount of 
 capital he can command. Supposing a workman to have 
 achieved comfortable independence, it will be clear to Iiim, 
 that, to maintain it, he must maintain his capital unim- 
 paired ; and that to incur responsibilities which should 
 compel him to encroach upon his capital to meet current 
 expenses, would be tantamount to a dehberate descent in 
 
Appendix. 237 
 
 the scale of well-being. The position of the co-opei-ator 
 would in this respect be aniilogoiis to that of the present 
 proprietor, who, like him, draws his subsistence from a 
 tolerably definite fund, and generall}' contrives to keep the 
 expenses of his household within the limits which that 
 fund will support. In these circumstances, it seems to 
 nic, there is good ground for hopefulness. Co-operation 
 at once renders less formidable the obstacles to human 
 improvement inevitably incident to our animal propen- 
 sities, and tends to develop, in those who take part in it, 
 a t3^pe of character fitted in a high degree for encounter- 
 ing them with success" (pp. 293, 294). 
 
 Prof. Fawcett, in his " ^lanual of Political Economy," 
 p. 279', says of this method of industry, " Any one who 
 considers what it has already effected, and what it is 
 capable of doing in the future, must, we think, come to 
 the conclusion that we may look with more confidence to 
 co-operation than to any other economic agency to improve 
 the industrial condition of the country." 
 
 Lord Derby's opinions are cited on p. 208. Let me 
 quote a little more fully, from Mr. Thomas Brassey's 
 " Work and Wages," p. 259, the words of the noble lord : 
 "It is human nature that a man should like to feel that 
 he is to be the gainer by an}^ extra industry that he may 
 put forth ; that he would like to have some sense of pro- 
 prietorship in a shop or a mill, or whatever it may be, in 
 which he spends his days ; and it is because the system, 
 introduced of late years, of co-operative industry, meets 
 this natural wish, that I look forward to its extension 
 with so much hopefulness. I believe it is the best and 
 
238 Working People a7id their Employers. 
 
 surest remedy for that antagonism of labor and capital 
 which we hear so much talk of, and which to a certain 
 extent no doubt exists. ... I am well aware that such a 
 state of things as I have pointed out cannot be brought 
 abou": in a da}-. It is quite probable that there are some 
 trades and some kinds of business in which it cannot be 
 brought about at all ; but it seems to me that it is in this 
 direction that the efforts of the best workers and the 
 ideas of the best thinkers are tending : and we are not to 
 be disappointed because we do not hit at once upon the 
 best way of doing what has never been done before." 
 
 Mr. John Stuart Mill, in his chapter on " The Probable 
 Future of the Laboring-Classes," gives an excellent ac- 
 count of what had been accomplished in this direction at 
 the time of his writing, reaching this conclusion : "If 
 the improvement which even triumphant niilitary despot- 
 ism has only retarded, not stopped, shall continue its 
 course, there can be little doubt that the status of hired 
 laborers will gradually tend to confine itself to the de- 
 scription of work-people whose low moral qualities ren- 
 der them unfit for any thing more independent ; and that 
 the relation of masters and work-people will be gradually 
 superseded by partnership in one of two forms, — in some 
 cases, association of the laborers with the capitalist ; in 
 others, and perhaps finally in all, association of laborers 
 among themselves."^ 
 
 The fact adverted to by Mr. Mill, that co-operation 
 demands of those who enter upon it some degree of intel- 
 
 1 ''Principles of Political Econoiny," People's Edition, p. 461. 
 
Appe7idix, 239 
 
 ligence and moral development, is insisted upon by Prof. 
 Cairnes and by all the writers who favor the method. 
 
 Mr. Brassey, an experienced contractor and a careful 
 student of the labor question, in an article in " The 
 Contemporary Review " of Jul}^ 1874, makes one or two 
 practical suggestions to which intending co-operators will 
 do well to take heed : " It is because there has been in 
 co-operative establishments a reluctance to pay what is 
 necessary to enlist first-rate ability in the management of 
 the business, that their operations have been attended 
 hitherto with very partial success. Only personal experi- 
 ence of the difficulties of the task would induce a body 
 of workmen to reserve from their earnings a sum sufficient 
 to secure the services of competent leaders. We Avould 
 therefore earnestly advise those interested in co-operative 
 production to discourage attempts to commence on a large 
 scale a business difficult to manage. A moderate capital 
 is easily obtained. Large funds are not rapidly procured. 
 When only a few hands are engaged, the government 
 may be conducted on a purely democratic basis. Where 
 the energies of a multitude are combined, there must be 
 
 an enlightened despotism Wlien the business is of 
 
 a kind that cannot be carried out advantageously on a 
 moderate footing, the co-operative principle should be 
 applied to the execution of sub-contracts for portions of 
 the work, to the supply of a part of a large order, or to 
 the execution of a single process in a complicated manu- 
 facture." 
 
 The question of procuring the capital for these indus- 
 trial operations is referred to by iMr. Brassey; and it is 
 
240 Working People and their E^nployers 
 
 just here that the socialistic theorists demand help from 
 the government. The newspaper critic to whose obser- 
 vations attention has been given in this Appendix declares 
 that the author of this volume " makes a terrible mistake 
 in supposing that any material improvement will take 
 place in the condition of the working-classes through 
 their becoming capitalists by means of their own savings." 
 I can only turn the point of this sentence, and say that a 
 terrible mistake is made by any man who supposes that 
 their physical condition can be improved in any other 
 way. Practically, capital can be obtained by those who 
 do not inherit it, in only two ways : by saving their earn- 
 ings, and by robbery. That it is a terrible mistake to 
 steal, even when it is done under the forms of law, I am 
 very sure. But the difficulty of honestly acquiring capi- 
 tal, on the part of working-men, is by no means so great as 
 some of their counsellors would make them believe. Let 
 us hear one more wise word on this point from Prof. 
 Cairnes : " If, then, the laborer is to emerge from his 
 present position, and become a sharer in the gains of 
 capital, he must in the first instance learn to save. To 
 make saving practicable, it is true, there must be a margin 
 of income beyond what is required for providing the 
 necessaries of life ; and I shall perhaps be told that this 
 margin the laborer does not possess. But this is an asser- 
 tion which cannot for a moment be maintained in the face 
 of the evidence furnished by the excise returns. From 
 these returns it has been calculated that a sum of no less 
 than one hundred and twenty million pounds sterling is 
 now spent annually on alcoholic drinks. [It will be 
 
Appendix, 241 
 
 remembered that the report of the Bureau of Statistics, 
 as quoted on one of the foregoing pages, gives about the 
 same amount, six hundred million dollars, as the sum ex- 
 pended for the same purpose in the United States.] In 
 what proportion the working-classes take part in this 
 expenditure, we have no means of accurately determining ; 
 but I imagine it will not be disputed, that by much tho 
 larger proportion must be set down to their account ; and 
 I am certainly within the mark in assuming, that of the 
 money so spent, I am sure I might say three-fourths of 
 the whole, so far from conducing in any way to the well- 
 being of those who spend it, is both physically and morally 
 injurious to them. Here, then, is a sum of, let us say, 
 sixty million pounds sterling, which might annually be 
 saved without trenching upon any expenditure which 
 really contributes to the laborer's well-being. The obsta- 
 cles to this saving are not physical but moral obstacles , 
 and supposing laborers had the virtue to overcome them, 
 the first step toward what might be called their industrial 
 emancipation would already have been accomplished '* 
 
 (pp. 287, 288). 
 
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 into the hands of young people ; but while its lessons are useful to both sexes, they ara 
 especially so to young men. Its teachings will greatly tend to give them confidence, 
 and consequently to make them feel at ease and to appear to advantage In society. '— 
 Literary News, New York. 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
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 (P2001sl0)476 — A-32 
 
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 University of California 
 
 Berkeley 
 
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