III
Most of the misunderstanding between men is due to a lack of knowledge of each other. When men get together and talk over their differences candidly, much of the ground for dispute vanishes.
In the days when industry was on a small scale, the employer came into direct contact with his employees, and the personal sympathy and understanding which grew out of that contact made the rough places smooth.
However, the use of steam and electricity, resulting in the development of large-scale industry with its attendant economies and benefits, has of necessity erected barriers to personal contact between employers and men, thus making it more difficult for them to understand each other.
In spite of the modern development of Big Business, human nature has remained the same, with all its cravings, and all its tendencies toward sympathy when it has knowledge and toward prejudice when it does not understand. The fact is that the growth of the organization of industry has proceeded faster than the adjustment of the interrelations of men engaged in industry.
Must it not be, then, that an age which can bridge the Atlantic with the wireless telephone, can devise some sort of social X-ray which shall enable the vision of men to penetrate the barriers which have grown up between men in our machine-burdened civilization?