quickly to the appeal for protective
legislation. It was soon seen that the industrial problem was not
simply how much an employee should receive for a given piece of work
or time, but how factory labor affected working people of different
sex or age, and how these effects reacted upon society. Those who
pressed legislation believed that the earnings of a child were not
worth while when the child lost all opportunity for education and
healthful physical exercise, and that woman's labor was not profitable
if it deprived her of physical health and nervous energy, and weakened
by so much the stamina of the next generation. The thought of social
welfare seconded the thought of individual welfare and buttressed the
claims of a particular class to economic consideration in such
questions as proper wages. Massachusetts was the first American State
to introduce labor legislation in 1836; in 1869 the same State
organized the first labor bureau, to be followed by a National bureau
in 1884, four years later converted into a government department.
Among the favorite topics of legislation have been the limitation of
woman and child labor, the regulation of wage payments, damages and
similar concerns, protection from dangerous machinery and adequate
factory inspection, and the appointment of boards of arbitration. The
doctrine of the liability of employers in case of accident to persons
in their employ has been increasingly accepted since Great Britain
adopted an employers' liability act in 1880, and since 1897 compulsory
insurance of employees has spread from the continent of Europe to
England and the United States.

198. =The Organization of Labor.=--These measures of protection and
relief have been due in part to the disinterested activity of
philanthropists, and in part to the efforts of organized labor, backed
up by public opinion; occasionally capitalists have voluntarily
improved conditions or increased wages. The greatest agitation and
pressure has come from the labor-unions. Unlike the mediaeval guilds,
these unions exist for the purpose of opposing the employer, and are
formed in recognition of the principle that a group can obtain
guarantees that an individual is helpless to secure. Like-mindedness
holds the group together, and consciousness of common interests and
mutual duties leads to sacrifice of individual benefit for the sake of
the group. The moral effect of this sense and practice of mutual
responsibility has been