good crops with fair
prices, while the other has yielded him a half crop when the prices of his
product in the world are low. Possibly the improved machinery in wheat
raising, applicable to the great farms of Minnesota, Dakota and
California, has caused him to bring a costly product into close
competition with a cheap one. Possibly, too, he has been tempted to
excessive use of labor-saving machinery himself at too great cost for the
transition, and it is more than probable that, stimulated by the high
price of oats last year, he, with thousands of his neighbors, has made an
extra crop of oats this year, to the actual destruction of the market. In
all these cases the farmer himself suffers directly, while his hired hand
is affected only indirectly by the unwillingness of farmers in some
seasons to employ as much labor.

_Profits offset by losses._--The actual profits in any enterprise are often
overestimated by our failing to notice that all the waste of unthrifty
undertakings comes practically out of the profits of the more thrifty.
Wage-earners as a class are protected against losses by frequent
settlements and by public sentiment. The losses of the unthrifty managers
come out of the accumulations of previous thrift, or else are borne by the
thrifty men who have trusted them. The bulk of bad debts in failure of any
enterprise is for materials, machinery, etc., furnished by other
producers. In great financial depression, the profit-makers bear the evil
directly, while the wage-earners feel the effects in the lessened
competition for their service.

Chapter XIX. Conflict Between Wage-Earners And Profit-Makers.

_The nature of the conflict._--The mutual interest of all whose energies
are used in production, that the total product of wealth should be as
great as possible, is often disturbed by doubt as to the fair division of
what is produced. Under the modern factory system, the multitude sustain
the relation of employes to a comparatively few employers. Antipathies are
liable at any time to arise between these two classes of workers. Those
who officially control wealth in great enterprises are subject to
suspicion of unfair treatment of their less independent employes.
Ignorance among the mass of laborers of the intricacies of business life
contributes to such suspicion. In fact, the so-called conflict of capital
and labor is a struggle for and against profits. Interest and rent are
only indirectly involved in