rights. We
all agree that every man has a right to work for whom he pleases, and to
quit the work if it does not or the wages do not suit him. On the other
hand, a man has a right to hire whom he pleases, pay such wages as he
thinks he can afford, and discharge men who do not suit him. But when men
come together in the relation of employer and employed, other
considerations arise. A man has capital which, instead of loaning at
interest or locking up in real estate or bonds, he puts into a factory.
In other words, he unlocks it for the benefit partly of men who want
wages. He has the expectation of making money, of making more than he
could by lending his money. Perhaps he will be disappointed, for a common
experience is the loss of capital thus invested. He hires workmen at
certain wages. On the strength of this arrangement, he accepts orders and
makes contracts for the delivery of goods. He may make money one year and
lose the next. It is better for the workman that he should prosper, for
the fund of capital accumulated is that upon which they depend to give
them wages in a dull time. But some day when he is in a corner with
orders, and his rivals are competing for the market, and labor is scarce,
his men strike on him.

Conversely, take the workman settled down to work in the mill, at the
best wages attainable at the time. He has a house and family. He has
given pledges to society. His employer has incurred certain duties in
regard to him by the very nature of their relations. Suppose the workman
and his family cannot live in any comfort on the wages he receives. The
employer is morally bound to increase the wages if he can. But if,
instead of sympathizing with the situation of his workman, he forms a
combination with all the mills of his 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 n