Our friend, the clergyman, and many others say that it is dishonest to limit the day's output. But is it dishonest? What is the difference between limiting the DAY'S output and limiting a YEAR'S output?
In the middle of the Summer the clergyman says, "I have worked enough; I ought to go to Europe," and he goes.
The bricklayer does not criticise the clergyman for limiting his YEAR'S output to forty sermons. He does not say to him, "You are ABLE to preach fifty-two sermons a year. If you preach only forty, you are dishonest and rob your parishioners."
What business is it of the clergyman's if the bricklayers, among themselves, decide that it is better for them in the long run to set only a given number of brick per day?
The trouble with some clergymen and many others is that they forget one important thing—namely, THAT THE WORKINGMEN NOW HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY.
When it comes to a question of laying brick, it is no longer the squire or the local clergyman who decides what shall be done. The BRICKLAYER DECIDES WHAT SHALL BE DONE.
And when it comes to carpenter work, the CARPENTER decides what shall constitute a day's work.
In olden times the clergymen, the lawyers, the rich, the lucky class in general, decided for THEMSELVES what THEY should do, and then they decided for their so-called inferiors what those INFERIORS should do.
Our prosperous class are having a very painful time indeed getting into their minds the fact that such a thing as the right of the majority REALLY EXISTS. And they find it very hard indeed to believe that the doctrine of human equality is to be taken seriously in matters of business.
Labor unions are performing an important educational function when they drive into the heads of these would-be superiors the fact that this nation is becoming actually a republic in which the workingmen shall decide for themselves questions affecting themselves, and in which they shall no longer be guided by the whims or financial interests of would-be "superiors."