"Of  course,  the  average  employer  or  citizen  is  not  so  far
off  when  he  says  that  the  average  docker  or  longshoreman
does  not  want  a  steady  job.  It  is  true  that  in  many  cases
the  men  can  hardly  stand  the  strain  of,  say,  three  weeks  of
steady  work.  But  this  is  because  the  man  has  been  phys-
ically and  morally  demoralized  by  years  and  years  of  never
knowing  from  one  day's  end  to  another  whether  to-morrow's
sun  will  find  him  at  work."

Then  he  added  a  phrase  which  I  am  inclined  to  think
must  somehow  get  itself  written  upon  the  heart  of  every
citizen  in  Christendom  who  would  wish  genuinely  to  help
solve  the  problem  of  unhappy  workers:

''Irregular  work  always  makes  an  irregular  worker.  And
an  irregular  worker  is  always  bound  to  be  an  irregular  citizen."


248  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP

That  strikes  me  as  one  of  the  most  vital  and  deep-going
generaUzations  yet  heard  in  all  my  travels  and  adventures.
It  goes  right  to  the  heart  of  the  matter  because  it  goes
right  to  the  heart  of  the  worker,  and  the  heart  of  the  worker
is — because  it  must  be  in  an  industrial  era — the  heart  of
the  man  and  the  citizen.
