anarchists," who are not
willing to let ill enough alone. If these reactionaries had lived at an
earlier time in our history, they would have advocated Sedition Laws,
opposed free speech and free assembly, and voted against free schools,
free access by settlers to the public lands, mechanics' lien laws, the
prohibition of truck stores and the abolition of imprisonment for debt;
and they are the men who to-day oppose minimum wage laws, insurance
of workmen against the ills of industrial life and the reform of
our legislators and our courts, which can alone render such measures
possible. Some of these reactionaries are not bad men, but merely
shortsighted and belated. It is these reactionaries, however, who, by
"standing pat" on industrial injustice, incite inevitably to industrial
revolt, and it is only we who advocate political and industrial
democracy who render possible the progress of our American industry
on large constructive lines with a minimum of friction because with a
maximum of justice.

Everything possible should be done to secure the wage-workers fair
treatment. There should be an increased wage for the worker of
increased productiveness. Everything possible should be done against the
capitalist who strives, not to reward special efficiency, but to use
it as an excuse for reducing the reward of moderate efficiency. The
capitalist is an unworthy citizen who pays the efficient man no more
than he has been content to pay the average man, and nevertheless
reduces the wage of the average man; and effort should be made by the
Government to check and punish him. When labor-saving machinery
is introduced, special care should be taken--by the Government if
necessary--to see that the wage-worker gets his share of the benefit,
and that it is not all absorbed by the employer or capitalist. The
following case, which has come to my knowledge, illustrates what I mean.
A number of new machines were installed in a certain shoe factory, and
as a result there was a heavy increase in production even though there
was no increase in the labor force. Some of the workmen were instructed
in the use of these machines by special demonstrators sent out by the
makers of the machines. These men, by reason of their special aptitudes
and the fact that they were not called upon to operate the machines
continuously nine hours every day, week in and week out, but only for an
hour or so at special times, were naturally able to run the machine