sort, and reduces wages merely to
increase his gains, he is guilty of an act as worthy of indictment as the
strike. I do not see why a conspiracy against labor is not as illegal as
a conspiracy against capital. The truth is, the possession of power by
men or associations makes them selfish and generally cruel. Few employers
consider anything but the arithmetic of supply and demand in fixing
wages, and workingmen who have the power, tend to act as selfishly as the
male printers used to act in striking in an establishment which dared to
give employment to women typesetters. It is of course sentimental to say
it, but I do not expect we shall ever get on with less friction than we
have now, until men recognize their duties as well as their rights in
their relations with each other.

In running over some of the reasons for the present discontent, and the
often illogical expression of it, I am far from saying anything against
legitimate associations for securing justice and fair play. Disassociated
labor has generally been powerless against accumulated capital. Of
course, organized labor, getting power will use its power (as power is
always used) unjustly and tyrannically. It will make mistakes, it will
often injure itself while inflicting general damage. But with all its
injustice, with all its surrender of personal liberty, it seeks to call
the attention of the world to certain hideous wrongs, to which the world
is likely to continue selfishly indifferent unless rudely shaken out of
its sense of security. Some of the objects proposed by these associations
are chimerical, but the agitation will doubtless go on until another
element is introduced into work and wages than mere supply and demand. I
believe that some time it will be impossible that a woman shall be forced
to make shirts at six cents apiece, with the gaunt figures of starvation
or a life of shame waiting at the door. I talked recently with the driver
of a street-car in a large city. He received a dollar and sixty cents a
day. He went on to his platform at eight in the morning, and left it at
twelve at night, sixteen hours of continuous labor every day in the week.
He had no rest for meals, only snatched what he could eat as he drove
along, or at intervals of five or eight minutes at the end of routes. He
had no Sunday, no holiday in the year.

Between twelve o'clock at night and eight the next morning he must wash
and clean his car. Thus his hours of sleep were a