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It seems to me that the accompanying little sketches are timely. A deal of thinking must be done by all classes of people before any solution is attempted of the problems in economics that are pressing upon us, and any factor that will help turn the general mind to this unwonted exercise may be termed a useful one.

There is one sketch for which I wish to make a special plea. “The Discontented Machine” has been criticised as teaching a false principle in economics.

We are told that never before in the history of the world did labor absorb so great a proportion of the gains that would otherwise accrue to capital. It is claimed that fully ninety per cent. of the entire income of the United States is paid for wages and salaries.

On the other hand, it must be stated that the individual laborer is worse off to-day, in this free country, than he was twenty, or even ten years ago. The census returns of 1880 showed the average wage among laborers in the United States to be less than $7 per week. The returns of 1890 show that wage to be less than $5 per week.

And yet we are told that labor absorbs ninety per cent. of the income of the United States. This is an enormous percentage to flow in one direction, and seems ample refutation of the laborer’s claim that even at this rate he does not get enough.

This leads to the question whether the laborer really does get his share of return from the results of his labor, and in “The Discontented Machine” I have tried to show a very curious phase of this question, and one which I do not remember to have seen touched upon elsewhere.

Wages are supposed to be adjusted, in the long run, to that which among a people is customarily requisite for the perpetuation of life, and the propagation of the species, according to the standard of living among that people. This is called “The Law of Wages.” It means, put very plainly, and according to La Salle, that the income of labor must always dance around the outside rim of that which, according to the standard of each age, belongs to the necessary maintenance of life.

Now the point raised is this: That under the so-called law of wages, the wage laborer is not really paid anything for himself. Judged from a purely commercial standpoint, labor gets its wage; but what does the laborer get?

In every manufacturing business the wear and tear, original cost and cost of repair, of machinery, etc., are taken out of the gross receipts of the business. Now labor, in the eyes of the employer, is simply an adjunct, as the machines are adjuncts, to the business. As these require, for their successful operation, certain expenditures for coal, oil, gearing, and the like, so labor requires for its successful operation, certain expenditures for food, shelter, clothing, which are, so to speak, labor’s coal, oil, and gearing. These expenditures, for which a wage is paid to labor, “in order that it may live,” are regulated by the law of wages as stated above. They represent exactly what will enable labor to perform its function, and the amount required for them is charged to labor out of the gross receipts of the business, just as the items of machinery expense are deducted from those receipts. For himself, over and above his labor’s bill of expense, the laborer gets nothing.

It may be that he is entitled to nothing. This condition of affairs may be only his misfortune. It certainly cannot be said to be his employer’s fault that in delivering the commodity in which he deals—labor—the laborer must deliver himself as well. This is the tragic phase of the whole situation. Labor, the power to perform, is the man himself; so that in offering his commodity, the working man must offer, as well, himself, with all his human rights and endowments. He does this literally, but in reality it is only his commodity that is wanted, only this that is paid for. The human being himself is a superfluous consideration, and an inconvenient one.

And as for him? He waits, asking his question, now softly, now with clamoring insistence; but he, too, along with the others, must do a deal of thinking before any tangible solution to his problem is presented.

Adeline Knapp.

San Francisco, Cal., 1894.