Читать книгу The Essential Works of Robert G. Ingersoll - Robert Green Ingersoll - Страница 252

Table of Contents

HERE has been for many years ceaseless discussion upon what is called the labor question; the conflict between the workingman and the capitalist. Many ways have been devised, some experiments have been tried for the purpose of solving this question. Profit-sharing would not work, because it is impossible to share profits with those who are incapable of sharing losses. Communities have been formed, the object being to pay the expenses and share the profits among all the persons belonging to the society. For the most part these have failed.

Others have advocated arbitration. And, while it may be that the employers could be bound by the decision of the arbitrators, there has been no way discovered by which the employees could be held by such decision. In other words, the question has not been solved.

For my own part, I see no final and satisfactory solution except through the civilization of employers and employed. The question is so complicated, the ramifications are so countless, that a solution by law, or by force, seems at least improbable. Employers are supposed to pay according to their profits. They may or may not. Profits may be destroyed by competition. The employer is at the mercy of other employers, and as much so as his employees are at his mercy. The employers cannot govern prices; they cannot fix demand; they cannot control supply; and at present, in the world of trade, the laws of supply and demand, except when interfered with by conspiracy, are in absolute control.

Will the time arrive, and can it arrive, except by developing the brain, except by the aid of intellectual light, when the purchaser will wish to give what a thing is worth, when the employer will be satisfied with a reasonable profit, when the employer will be anxious to give the real value for raw material; when he will be really anxious to pay the laborer the full value of his labor? Will the employer ever become civilized enough to know that the law of supply and demand should not absolutely apply in the labor market of the world? Will he ever become civilized enough not to take advantage of the necessities of the poor, of the hunger and rags and want of poverty? Will he ever become civilized enough to say: "I will pay the man who labors for me enough to give him a reasonable support, enough for him to assist in taking care of wife and children, enough for him to do this, and lay aside something to feed and clothe him when old age comes; to lay aside something, enough to give him house and hearth during the December of his life, so that he can warm his worn and shriveled hands at the fire of home"?

Of course, capital can do nothing without the assistance of labor. All there is of value in the world is the product of labor. The laboring man pays all the expenses. No matter whether taxes are laid on luxuries or on the necessaries of life, labor pays every cent.

So we must remember that, day by day, labor is becoming intelligent. So, I believe the employer is gradually becoming civilized, gradually becoming kinder; and many men who have made large fortunes from the labor of their fellows have given of their millions to what they regarded as objects of charity, or for the interests of education. This is a kind of penance, because the men that have made this money from the brain and muscle of their fellow-men have ever felt that it was not quite their own. Many of these employers have sought to balance their accounts by leaving something for universities, for the establishment of libraries, drinking fountains, or to build monuments to departed greatness. It would have been, I think, far better had they used this money to better the condition of the men who really earned it.

So, I think that when we become civilized, great corporations will make provision for men who have given their lives to their service. I think the great railroads should pay pensions to their worn out employees. They should take care of them in old age. They should not maim and wear out their servants and then discharge them, and allow them to be supported in poorhouses. These great companies should take care of the men they maim; they should look out for the ones whose lives they have used and whose labor has been the foundation of their prosperity. Upon this question, public sentiment should be aroused to such a degree that these corporations would be ashamed to use a human life and then throw away the broken old man as they would cast aside a rotten tie.

It may be that the mechanics, the workingmen, will finally become intelligent enough to really unite, to act in absolute concert. Could this be accomplished, then a reasonable rate of compensation could be fixed and enforced. Now such efforts are local, and the result up to this time has been failure. But, if all could unite, they could obtain what is reasonable, what is just, and they would have the sympathy of a very large majority of their fellow-men, provided they were reasonable.

But, before they can act in this way, they must become really intelligent, intelligent enough to know what is reasonable and honest enough to ask for no more.

So much has already been accomplished for the workingman that I have hope, and great hope, of the future. The hours of labor have been shortened, and materially shortened, in many countries. There was a time when men worked fifteen and sixteen hours a day. Now, generally, a day's work is not longer than ten hours, and the tendency is to still further decrease the hours.

By comparing long periods of time, we more clearly perceive the advance that has been made. In 1860, the average amount earned by the laboring men, workmen, mechanics, per year, was about two hundred and eighty-five dollars. It is now about five hundred dollars, and a dollar to-day will purchase more of the necessaries of life, more food, clothing and fuel, than it would in 1860. These facts are full of hope for the future.

All our sympathies should be with the men who work, who toil; for the women who labor for themselves and children; because we know that labor is the foundation of all, and that those who labor are the Caryatides that support the structure and glittering dome of civilization and progress.