ke us look back on
the rule of rings and bosses as on a nightmare of the past. When the
Government is thus really controlled by the people we can count on
having its full power exerted for them.

What are a few of the things that we shall then try to get?

The working day is too long. In some occupations it covers far too many
hours, and in most occupations it covers more than it ideally should.
There are doubtless some industries in which hours might be reduced
with no lessening of wages, because profits are large enough to bear
some reduction. In these cases a strong union might get either more pay
for a day of the present length or the present rate for a shorter day.
A universal reduction of the period of labor would have to mean a
reduction of the product of industry, and without immediate
improvements in method of production it would entail smaller wages.
Improvements, however, might soon obviate that necessity. With
machinery growing more and more efficient, the day may be shortened
with no diminution of wages; and the natural effect of increasing power
to produce has always been some shortening of labor-time coupled with
some enlargement of pay. Within the last one hundred years the period
of daily labor in some types of manufacturing has come to cover only a
little over one third of the twenty-four hours, instead of more nearly
two thirds; while the earnings have become much larger than they were
at the beginning of the period. Normally this progress should continue,
and long before the dawn of the twenty-first century we should see work
still less severe, less prolonged, and better paid. Where, as in some
departments of steel-making, labor in two shifts continues through the
twenty-four hours, there is a chance to make this gain without
appreciable waiting; and elsewhere it should be possible to make it
without waiting for the twenty-first century to come much nearer than
it is.

Dangerous and injurious occupations still continue; and our country is
slower than others in remedying this trouble. Many safeguards that are
easily obtainable are neglected. Protection for the workers and
indemnities for injuries when they occur can be insured by well-made
laws, properly enforced. Sanitary regulations and pure-food laws need
to be strengthened and more fully enforced.

Our protective tariff bears heavily on the poor man. His wardrobe
contains little or nothing that is made of wool, and he may well sigh
for the mi