The three questions asked in regard to each worker are: 1. What work can he do? 2. Of what quality? 3. In what time? The difference between industry and idleness is that work is one thing which no one may honorably escape. Since it must be done, the problem of life is not how to escape work, but how to find the right work, and how best to do it, and most swiftly, when the choice is made.
“Forth they come from grief and torment;
on they wend
toward health and mirth,
All the wide world is their dwelling, every corner of the
Buy them, sell them for thy service! Try the bargain what
For the days are marching on.
“These are they who build thy houses, weave
win thy wheat,
Smooth the rugged, fill the barren, turn the bitter into
All for thee this day—and ever. What reward for them
Till the host comes marching on._”
The trade of toil for money has led to many problems and discussions. To-day the trenchant question: “What More than Wages?” is a matter of eager talk. Is this a living-wage?—Just enough warmth, not to freeze. Just enough clothing to be decent. Just enough food to go through the day without actual hunger. Just enough shelter to keep out the wind and rain and snow. Just enough education to learn to read and write and count.
No. As the theory of bodily freedom demands for each man life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, so the highest theory of to-day lays down demands of economic freedom beyond the mere fad of possible existence. Dr. Patten has formulated certain “economic rights” of man. Each employer must say: Before I settle back with a serene belief that I have given my men a living-wage, let me ask: Have they sun? air? sanitary surroundings and conditions? medical care? leisure? education? a chance to grow? Have they enough money for ordinary occasions, and a little to give away? No man or woman has a living-wage, who has no money to give away.
Education and comfort add to the value of the employed. The cook who has a rocking-chair, a cook-book, and a housekeeping magazine in her kitchen will do more work, and better work, other things being equal, than the cook who has none. The workman who lives in a clean, sunny, well-aired place, where he can found a home, and bring up healthy children, will do more work, and better work, than the workman who lives in a damp, dark, ill-ventilated tenement, and who goes to his day’s work with a heart sullen and broken because of avoidable illness and sorrow in his poor little home. Five thousand employees who have a night-school, luncheon-rooms, little houses and gardens, a savings-bank, and a library of books and pictures are worth more than those who are given no such advantages of happiness, growth, and content. The Railroad Young Men’s Christian Associations are said to be a good economic investment, as well as an uplifting moral influence.