Over  half  of  the  men  killed  in  work- accidents  in  Allegheny  County
in  the  year  studied  by  the  Pittsburgh  Survey,  were  earning  less
than  1 1 5  a  week.  Moreover,  an  unskilled  man  who  starts  to  work
in  a  steel  mill  begins  at  the  wages  of  common  labor,  although  he
may  be  put  in  a  dangerous  place.  But  it  is  the  latter  part  of  the
theory  that  is  most  false  and  most  pernicious, — the  idea  that  high
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THE    STEEL  WORKERS

wages  can  properly  be  balanced  against  injustice,  and  that  if
wages  only  be  high  enough,  any  sort  of  labor  conditions  may  be
justified.
It  was  shown  in  the  chapter  on  Wages  and  the  Cost  of
Living  that  steel  workers  are  not  highly  paid.  But  even  if  their
earnings  were  very  high,  it  would  be  folly  to  claim  that  they  are
compensated  for  their  lack  of  opportunity  to  live  the  lives  of
normal  men  who  work  a  normal  day  and  rest  at  night,  or  for  their
lost  privileges  of  free  speech,  or  for  their  stolen  political  rights.
These  are  things  for  which  you  cannot  pay  a  man.
