us of 1870
estimated the average annual income of our wage-workers at a
little over $400 per capita, and that the census of 1880
estimates it at a little over $300 per capita, is the quite
sufficient evidence that there is a labor question coming
upon us in this country. The average wages of 1870
indicated, after due allowance for the inclusion of women
and children, a mass of miserably paid labor--that is, of
impoverished and degraded labor. The average wages of 1880
indicated that this mass of semi-pauperized labor is rapidly
increasing, and that its condition has become 25 per cent
worse in ten years. The shadow of the old-world
_proletariat_ is thus seen to be stealing upon our shores.
It is for specialists in political economy to study this
problem in the light of the large social forces that are
working such an alarming change in our American society. In
the consensus of their ripened judgment we must look for the
authoritative solution of this problem. I am not here to
assume that role. I have no pet hobby to propose, warranted
to solve the whole problem without failure. I do not believe
there is any such specific yet out. * * *

I

THE FAULTS OF LABOR

Plainly, labor's fault must be found with itself.

1. Leaving upon one side the class of skilled labor, a
large proportion of our wage-workers are notoriously
inefficient. In the most common tasks one has to watch the
average workingman in order to prevent his bungling a job.
Hands are worth little without some brains; as in the work
done, so in the pay won. Our labor is quite as largely
uninterested--having no more heart than brains back of the
hands. Work is done mechanically by most workingmen, with
little pride in doing it well, and little ambition to be
continually doing it better.

2. There is too commonly as little sense of identity with
the employer's interests, or of concern that any equivalent
in work should be rendered for the pay received. In forms
irritating beyond expression employers are made to feel that
their employees do not in the least mind wasting their
material, injuring their property, and blocking their
business in the most critical moments. Under what possible
system, save in a grie