cities, because of the
lower cost of living in an agricultural region. Their scale of wages
would be determined in general by that of the lowest grade of industrial
labor, but their expenses would be materially smaller.

That the organization of labor herewith suggested would prove to be any
ultimate solution of the labor problem, is wholly improbable. It would
constitute, like the proposed system, of corporate regulation, at best a
transitional method of reaching some very different method of
labor-training, distribution, and compensation; and what that method
might be, is at present merely a matter of speculation. The proposed
reorganization of labor, like the proposed system of institutional
reform, and like the proposed constructive regulation of large
industrial corporations, simply takes advantage of those tendencies in
our current methods which look in a formative direction; and in so far
as these several tendencies prevail, they will severally supplement and
strengthen one another. The more independent, responsible, and vigorous
political authority will be the readier to seek some formative solution
of the problem of the distribution of wealth and that of the
organization of labor. Just in so far as the combination of capital
continues to be economically necessary, it is bound to be accompanied by
the completer unionizing of labor. Just in so far as capital continues
to combine, the state is bound to appropriate the fruits of its monopoly
for public purposes. Just in so far as the corporations become the
lessees of special franchises from the state, pressure can be brought to
bear in favor of the more systematic and more stimulating organization
of labor; and finally, just in so far as labor was systematically
organized, public opinion would demand a vigorous and responsible
concentration of political and economic power, in order to maintain a
proper balance. An organic unity binds the three aspects of the system
together; and in so far as a constructive tendency becomes powerful in
any one region, it will tend by its own force to introduce constructive
methods of organization into the other divisions of the economic,
political, and social body.

Such are the outlines of a national policy which seeks to do away with
existing political and economic abuses, not by "purification" or
purging, but by substituting for them a more positive mode of action and
a more edifying habit of thought. The policy seeks to make h