despair.

They are our brothers, and we cannot say with Cain, "Am I my brother's
keeper?" _We are_ our brothers' keepers, for they are partners in this
republic, and brothers in the family of God, and they help to make the
social atmosphere in which we live, and they help the republic to sink
or swim. We simply cannot afford to deny our brotherhood, and if we do
we are the devil's own fools.

Action on this matter is demanded now as it never was before, for we
are advancing blindly to a crisis which our political economists and
statesmen have not foreseen, and do not yet recognize. The genius that
increases by invention the productive power of labor ought to increase
the rewards of labor, but it does not. Labor is demanded only to
supply what is consumed; and if at present a million laborers are
employed to produce the food, clothing, fuel, furniture, and houses
required, but in a few years invention enables half a million to
produce the same, what is to become of the half million no longer
needed? Will wages advance so that the million may still be employed,
working for half a day instead of a day. That would be just, but
instead, it produces a glut in the labor market, which by competition
puts down wages, and starts a fierce contest between laborers and
employers, and among laborers themselves. The fall in prices produced
by competition in a crowded market makes the employer unwilling to
advance wages, and an angry contest is inevitable. The multitude
dislodged by invention is increased by the inevitable multitude
arising from irregular demand and supply in fluctuating markets, and
thus families by the hundred thousand are driven to the verge of
immediate starvation, and this becomes our chronic condition, which
must be rectified,--a chronic condition which bears most heavily on
woman, and through her debases future generations.

We are bound to see that every honest citizen, male or female, has a
fair chance in the battle of life, has a fair preparation at the
start, and a fair field. To insure this,--to insure that the
productive power of the nation is not wasted,--is a larger question
than our statesmen have ever yet considered. It requires that the
government shall have a DEPARTMENT OF PRODUCTIVE LABOR, in which
honest men and women, when jostled out of their industrial positions,
may enlist.[2] This department should be managed by the ablest and
most benevolent business men of the Peter Cooper class, who un