for the second half of the day. Weary at
night, the workers tramp home to the tenements, or hang to the trolley
strap that is the symbol of the five-cent commuter, and recuperate for
the next day's toil. They are cogs in the great wheel of industry,
units in the great sum of human energy, indispensable elements in the
progress of economic success. Sometimes they seem less prized than the
costly machines at which they work, sometimes they fall exhausted in
the ranks, as the soldier in the trenches drops under the attack, but
they are absolutely essential to wealth and they are learning that
they are indispensable to one another. In the development of social
organization the working people are gaining a larger part. The
factory is educating them to a consciousness of the solidarity of
their class interests. All class organizations have their faults, but
they teach their members group values and the dependence of the
individual on his fellows.

191. =The Benefits of the New Industry to the Workers.=--It must not
be supposed that the industrial revolution and the age of machinery
have been a social misfortune. The benefits that have come to the
laboring people, as well as to their employers, must be put into the
balance against the evils. There is first of all the great increase of
manufactured products that have been shared in by the workers and the
greatly reduced price of many necessaries of life, such as matches,
pins, and cooking utensils. Invention has eased many kinds of labor
and taken them away from the overburdened housewife, and new machinery
is constantly lightening the burden of the farm and the home.
Invention has broadened the scope of labor, opening continually new
avenues to the workers. It is difficult to see how the rapidly
increasing number of people in the United States could have found
employment without the typewriter, the automobile, and the numerous
varieties of electrical application. The great number of modern
conveniences that have come to be regarded as necessaries even in the
homes of the working people, and the local improvements in streets and
sidewalks, schools and playgrounds that are possible because of
increasing wealth, are all due to the new type of industry.

Conditions of labor are better. Where building laws are in force,
factories are lighter, cleaner, and better ventilated than were the
houses and shops of the pre-factory age, and the hours of labor that
are necessary to earn a