terested in dietetics would have a wide and important field opened to her. The cook would have added opportunities to develop her profession. The woman with a strong aptitude for child care would have a chance to mother more than two or three young ones. She could give herself to a larger group. Her talents would be trained and pointed rather than untrained and crude. The same thing would be true of every division of household labor. The positions would be open to men or women, whoever were interested in training for them. The rate of pay would not be large, but it would be sufficient to provide a good livelihood and would be graded according to the skill and training required.

The educated and trained woman would be freed from household labor to pursue her chosen calling. The woman who preferred housework would find many openings where she could work. Her position would not be that of a servant but rather that of a skilled or unskilled industrial worker or of a specialist in dietetics or child life. A large group of married women would become economically independent, with a definite life work beside their duties as parents. These would be shared equally with the husband. The family life would not be broken up but would be strengthened. Each partner would contribute to that life. Each would have his own salary and be independent to that extent of the other, but each would give to the family budget. The children would have better and more scientific care than they ordinarily receive to-day. The mother freed of housework would have her entire evening to devote to the children. The family would be together at breakfast and the evening meal. Some families might also meet at noon. Both mother and father would have holidays and vacations with their families, times which to-day usually mean more work rather than rest for the housewife. The working mother would actually have more free time with her children. Her working day might be shorter than at present, particularly if the movement for shorter hours in industry, already widely successful, continues. She would get out, meet people, and be a factor in the industrial, business, professional, or political world. Her experiences and broadening outlook on life would help her to shape her children's lives more wisely.

Expert Medical Care and Salary for Working Days Missed Supplied All Pregnant Women by the Government. Many of the women would have their economic life broken by child bearing. But civilization means smaller, healthier families and the bearing of children would occupy less time and be less strain on the mother, with the advance of mankind in science and education. As

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children are very necessary to the state, the government would recognize the woman's service. Possibly this would be done by regular money compensation and certainly by providing, without charge, expert medical care before, during, and after child-birth and paying the mother's salary at least in part during the period in which her presence was essential to the child.

All persons, men and women, lose time from their economic lives by sickness. Child bearing is to all intents and purposes an illness. It is peculiar to women, but men too have certain ailments which do not affect women. The sick employee does not ordinarily lose his position. The child-bearing woman, treated in this light, would be given leave of absence until she could be spared and was able to return to work. Moreover her special social contribution to the race would be acknowledged. Like the discharged soldier's, her contribution would entitle her to particular consideration. Public opinion would become an added force insuring her steady employment.

The plan outlined here is not detailed. It does not attempt to go into the coöperation and coördination which could exist between the various community institutions and the public hospitals, gymnasiums, day nurseries, etc. It does not show the value of government insurance for disabled employees, of pensions for widows and widowers. These would help the bread-winning mother or father to continue in the community arrangement on the death of the partner. It does not describe the part to be played by such institutions as the credit union whose loans would keep the families in the coöperative scheme even in time of distress. The institutions described would develop gradually through experience and time. They might grow along profit-making, cooperative, or even socialist lines. In the latter event the government would become the manager of one great system with many branches serving the people at a minimum cost. The actual road this plan might follow is impossible to prophesy. But it is feasible, and many of its features are in operation to-day.

XVII

EMPLOYERS AND WORKERS

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The unequal distribution of wealth lies back of the industrial problem as it affects workers and employers. Wealth and power tend to concentrate in the hands of the few because of natural and artificial inequality. Natural inequality is caused by inborn differences in ability and strength. Artificial inequality is the result of tradition, environment, and inheritance. As human beings have probably always differed in mental and physical powers, natural inequality has been present in every stage of human society. As human beings in every known social state have set up certain rules and customs favoring or discriminating against different classes of people, artificial inequality has likewise been present.

Great inequality is endured with little protest when the door of opportunity is open, and men have hope of bettering their conditions. It is likewise endured when they are uneducated, weak, and in subjection. When the door of opportunity closes, when men become alive to their situation, have efficient leadership, have hope of effecting a change, vast inequalities result in persistent agitation. This agitation sometimes reaches the dimensions of a revolution if peaceful means fail to bring results.

Natural inequality, society is powerless to control. It can regulate conditions resulting from it. It can also check artificial inequalities. By artificial inequalities, members of one sex or race are not permitted to attain their highest development. By artificial inequalities, persons born in certain classes are maintained in those classes. The children of the well-to-do are raised in a better environment, receive a higher degree of education, and are given a better start in life than the children of the poor. By inheritance, property is handed down through families. Many of the possessors of vast fortunes to-day did nothing in their making. Thus the rules of society tend to perpetuate inequalities. They give one man an advantage over another. Were the natural abilities of the two equal, the man

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born of a wealthy family, provided with a good education, social training, money to invest, and friends to give him an opportunity would go much farther than the man born of a working class family, without intellectual, business, or social training, without opportunity to secure a position offering a good chance of promotion, without funds. Such a man is forced to go to work in early youth. He has little choice of occupation. He will probably never advance far. He can give his children few advantages. He can leave them no property. They belong and tend to remain in the laboring class. The other man will have a large income from his inherited wealth and his own efforts. He can afford to give his offspring the advantages he enjoyed himself. He will leave them property which they in turn may increase and leave to their children. They belong and tend to remain in the capitalist class.

The doctrine of laissez faire or individualism has dominated the modern era of society. This doctrine represented a searching for greater liberty, a revulsion against the control of ruling powers. It was assumed that in a free society men competed on an equal basis. Therefore there should be no interference with competition. The government should keep hands off. The theory also maintained the right of every individual to freedom of contract. The adherents of laissez faire believed that under a democratic government, with a wide measure of liberty, artificial inequalities were practically wiped out. Actually they still existed in the right to inheritance, in environmental differences, in the limitations placed on the suffrage, in the traditions handed down, and the sex and race barriers established. These artificial inequalities tended to perpetuate the natural inequalities on which no regulations were imposed.

Artificial inequalities arising from property differences were however at a minimum in an agricultural nation such as the United States of the early nineteenth century. For this reason many of the evils of laissez faire were at first non-existent, and the nation appeared to prosper under the doctrine. But in the latter part of the century, with the growth of industry on a large scale, great inequalities developed. The laboring class did not bargain on equal terms with the capitalist class. The idea of free and equal competition presupposed by laissez faire completely broke down. As a result, the government was compelled to pass laws regulating industry and was forced to face the problems arising from natural and artificial inequalities.

The results of laissez faire are seen in the great property

inequalities existent in the United States to-day. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, 1 per cent of the income receivers in the United States in 1918 had incomes of over $8,000. This 1 per cent had 14 per cent of the national income. Eighty per cent of the income receivers had incomes below $1,750, receiving about 53 per cent of the total income. This means that the mass of people are poor. Many of them are barely making a livelihood, others are supported by charity. It means that the government has not been able to secure for large numbers of its citizens the "right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

In this country where the people have been trained to appreciate and uphold the ideals of self-government, liberty, and equality of opportunity, such a condition cannot fail to create dissatisfaction and disillusionment. The masses in the United States are not wholly ignorant and untrained. They have been given a certain amount of free education. They are therefore more capable of appreciating and resenting the growth of great class differences.

Organized labor is to-day content to seek a remedy for existing inequalities by attempting to reduce the degree of inequality. This it strives to do by securing a greater share of the product of industry and a reduction in the required hours of work with a subsequently increased chance for enjoyment. A small minority of the more radical groups are not content with so conservative a program. They wish to do away with all inequality as far as possible. They would abolish artificial inequalities and regulate the differences arising from innate abilities. This they think can only be done through a change in the present economic organization.

The agitation of these groups takes various forms. It is resisted by many members of the capitalist class who naturally are reluctant to cede any part of their favored position. The more far-sighted and liberal members have been willing to take measures to better conditions for their workers. Few of the capitalist class are in favor of any change in the economic organization. The increasing demands of labor and the resistance of employers cause industrial warfare by which the public is adversely affected.

EARLY HISTORY OF LABOR MOVEMENT

Inequalities in any system can be accepted with equanimity as long as man has hope that eventually he can lessen them. In