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Page 32
Indeed, unless the relation becomes a democratic one, the chances of
misunderstanding are increased, when to the relation of employer and
employees is added the relation of benefactor to beneficiaries, in so
far as there is still another opportunity for acting upon the individual
code of ethics.
There is no doubt that these efforts are to be commended, not only from
the standpoint of their social value but because they have a marked
industrial significance. Failing, as they do, however, to touch the
question of wages and hours, which are almost invariably the points of
trades-union effort, the employers confuse the mind of the public when
they urge the amelioration of conditions and the kindly relation
existing between them and their men as a reason for the discontinuance
of strikes and other trades-union tactics. The men have individually
accepted the kindness of the employers as it was individually offered,
but quite as the latter urges his inability to increase wages unless he
has the co�peration of his competitors, so the men state that they are
bound to the trades-union struggle for an increase in wages because it
can only be undertaken by combinations of labor.
Even the much more democratic effort to divide a proportion of the
profits at the end of the year among the employees, upon the basis of
their wages and efficiency, is also exposed to a weakness, from the fact
that the employing side has the power of determining to whom the benefit
shall accrue.
Both individual acts of self-defence on the part of the wage earner and
individual acts of benevolence on the part of the employer are most
useful as they establish standards to which the average worker and
employer may in time be legally compelled to conform. Progress must
always come through the individual who varies from the type and has
sufficient energy to express this variation. He first holds a higher
conception than that held by the mass of his fellows of what is
righteous under given conditions, and expresses this conviction in
conduct, in many instances formulating a certain scruple which the
others share, but have not yet defined even to themselves. Progress,
however, is not secure until the mass has conformed to this new
righteousness. This is equally true in regard to any advance made in the
standard of living on the part of the trades-unionists or in the
improved conditions of industry on the part of reforming employers. The
mistake lies, not in overpraising the advance thus inaugurated by
individual initiative, but in regarding the achievement as complete in a
social sense when it is still in the realm of individual action. No sane
manufacturer regards his factory as the centre of the industrial system.
He knows very well that the cost of material, wages, and selling prices
are determined by industrial conditions completely beyond his control.
Yet the same man may quite calmly regard himself and his own private
principles as merely self-regarding, and expect results from casual
philanthropy which can only be accomplished through those common rules
of life and labor established by the community for the common good.
Outside of and surrounding these smaller and most significant efforts
are the larger and irresistible movements operating toward combination.
This movement must tend to decide upon social matters from the social
standpoint. Until then it is difficult to keep our minds free from a
confusion of issues. Such a confusion occurs when the gift of a large
sum to the community for a public and philanthropic purpose, throws a
certain glamour over all the earlier acts of a man, and makes it
difficult for the community to see possible wrongs committed against it,
in the accumulation of wealth so beneficently used. It is possible also
that the resolve to be thus generous unconsciously influences the man
himself in his methods of accumulation. He keeps to a certain individual
rectitude, meaning to make an individual restitution by the old paths of
generosity and kindness, whereas if he had in view social restitution on
the newer lines of justice and opportunity, he would throughout his
course doubtless be watchful of his industrial relationships and his
social virtues.
The danger of professionally attaining to the power of the righteous
man, of yielding to the ambition "for doing good" on a large scale,
compared to which the ambition for politics, learning, or wealth, are
vulgar and commonplace, ramifies through our modern life; and those most
easily beset by this temptation are precisely the men best situated to
experiment on the larger social lines, because they so easily dramatize
their acts and lead public opinion. Very often, too, they have in their
hands the preservation and advancement of large vested interests, and
often see clearly and truly that they are better able to administer the
affairs of the community than the community itself: sometimes they see
that if they do not administer them sharply and quickly, as only an
individual can, certain interests of theirs dependent upon the community
will go to ruin.
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