y and effectiveness of the body of workmen; yet any
reader who has formed a habit of observing men on day work and public
work will recognize my account. Day men usually work in gangs,
frequently too many of them to allow any one to labor effectively, and
the whole process is likely to be mechanical, impersonal, often
shiftless and pervaded with the highly developed skill of putting in the
time and reducing the time to the minimum and of beginning to quit well
in advance of the quitting time. The process of securing labor has
become involved, tied up, and the labor is not rendered in a sufficient
spirit of service. About the only free labor yet remaining to us is the
month labor on the farm, even though it may be difficult to secure and
be comprised largely of ineffective remainders.

Over against all this is the importance of setting men at work singly
and for themselves; this can be accomplished only when they own their
property or have some real personal share in the production. The
gang-spirit of labor runs into the politics of the group and constitutes
the norm. If we are to have self-acting men they must be removed from
close control, in labor as well as elsewhere. If it is necessary that
any great proportion of the laboring men shall be controlled, then is it
equally important that other men in sufficient numbers shall constitute
the requisite counterbalance and corrective. It is doubtful whether any
kind of profit-sharing in closely controlled industries can ever be as
effective in training responsible men for a democracy, other things
being equal, as an occupation or series of occupations in which the
worker is responsible for his own results rather than to an overseer,
although the profit-sharing may for the time being develop the greater
technical efficiency.

The influence of ownership on the performance of the man is often well
illustrated when the farm laborer or tenant becomes the proprietor. Some
of my readers will have had experience in the difficult and doubtful
process of trying to "run a farm" at long range by means of ordinary
hired help: the residence is uninhabitable; the tools are old and out of
date, and some of them cannot be found; the well water is not good; the
poultry is of the wrong breed, and the hens will not sit; the horses are
not adapted to the work; the wagons must be painted and the harnesses
replaced; the absolutely essential supplies are interminable; there must
be more day labor