For
instance, I read the other day an article by a benevolent old
gentleman who believed that the social problem could be solved by
teaching the poor to chew their food better, so that they would eat
less. You may laugh at that, but it's not a bit more absurd than the
idea of our men of affairs, that the thing to do is to increase the
efficiency of the workers, and so produce more goods."
"You mean the working-man doesn't get more, even when he produces
more?"
"Take the case of the glass factories. Men used to get eight dollars
a day there, but someone invented a machine that did the work of a
dozen men, and that machine is run by a boy for fifty cents a day."
A little pucker of thought came between her eyes. "Might there not
be a law forbidding the employer to reduce wages?"
"A minimum wage law. But that would raise the cost of the product,
and drive the trade to another state."
She suggested a national law, and when I pointed out that the trade
would go to other countries, she fell back on the tariff. I felt
like an embryologist--watching the individual repeating the history
of the race!
"Protection and prosperity!" I said, with a smile.
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