nto
twenty, forty, a hundred or more portions, and a workingman is given just
one to work on, day by day, year after year, for a working generation.

"After the time has come when the workman can find no distinct esthetic
pleasure in his work, his loyalty to his employers suffers a shock.

"Then, when this indifference or disloyalty is full grown, the employer
has full on him acute and formidable labor diseases. The man who should
stand at his shoulder faces him, instead, with a hostile poise. The mill
full of people over whom he holds power, upon whom he depends for his
success, and who, in turn, depend upon his initiative and capital for
their bread and butter, is turned into an armed camp of plotting enemies,
who, while they work, grumble, and who, while they receive their wages,
scheme for the overthrow of the entire concern! His mills, instead of
being shelters for his brothers and sisters, are nests of scratching
eagles--ready to rend and claw!

"It is further given out that the machine robs man of his industrial
initiative; that the complicated and specialized machine decreases his
mental alertness. In addition to his skill and his appreciation of his
product, the workman has ever prized the appeal his labor has made to his
individual intelligence. His work has brought thinking power with it. His
day's task has included the excitement of invention and adventure. In the
heat and burden of the week has come that thrilling moment when his mind
has discovered the fact that a variation in method means a simplification
of his task. Or, in the monotonous on-going of his labor, he has suddenly
realized that by sheer brain power he has accomplished a third more work
than his neighbor. He has counted such results compliments to his
initiative, to his thinking power. They have brought a reward three times
more satisfying than a mere increase in wage, for, in his eyes, they have
been substantial testimonies to the freedom of his mind, something which
every reasonable person puts higher than any king's ransom. But the coming
of the machine deadens the workman's inclination toward inventive
adventure.

"So the multitude of men and women stand before the cunning machinery of
industry, in the pose of helplessness before a mechanical finality. They
cannot help feeling that in so far as their special task is involved, the
machine has said the last word. The challenge dies out of their work. The
brain that has ever been on the q