I told Schmitz I was going on the afternoon of the evening I was to leave. Of course he knew it from Kelly and the others. “Be sure you don't forget to leave your paring knife,” was Schmitz's one comment.
Farewells were said—I did surely feel like the belle of the ball that last half hour. On the way out I decided to let bygones be bygones and sought out Schmitz to say good-by.
“You sure you left that paring knife?” said Schmitz.
CONCLUSION
Here I sit in all the peace and stillness of the Cape Cod coast, days filled with only such work as I love, and play aplenty, healthy youngsters frolicky about me, the warmest of friends close by. The larder is stocked with good food, good books are on the shelves, each day starts and ends with a joyous feeling about the heart.
And I, this sunburnt, carefree person, pretend to have been as a worker among workers. Again some one says, “The artificiality of it!”
Back in that hot New York the girls I labored among are still packing chocolates, cutting wick holes for brass lamp cones, ironing “family,” beading in the crowded dress factory. Up at the Falls they are hemming sheets and ticketing pillow cases. In the basement of the hotel some pantry girl, sweltering between the toaster and the egg boiler, is watching the clock to see if rush time isn't almost by.
Granted at the start, if you remember, and granted through each individual job, it was artificial—my part in it all. But what in the world was there to do about that? I was determined that not forever would I take the say-so of others on every phase of the labor problem. Some things I would experience for myself. Certain it is I cannot know any less than before I started. Could I help knowing at least a bit more? I do know more—I know that I know more!
And yet again I feel constrained to call attention to the fact that six jobs, even if the results of each experience were the very richest possible, are but an infinitesimal drop in what must be a full bucket of industrial education before a person should feel qualified to speak with authority on the subject of labor. Certain lessons were learned, certain tentative conclusions arrived at. They are given here for what they may be worth and in a very humble spirit. Indeed, I am much more humble in the matter of my ideas concerning labor than before I took my first job.
Perhaps the most valuable lesson learned was that a deep distrust of generalizations has been acquired, to last, I hope, the rest of life. It is so easy, so comfortable, to make a statement of fact to cover thousands of cases. Nowhere does the temptation seem to be greater than in a discussion of labor. “Labor wants this and that!” “Labor thinks thus and so!” “Labor does this and the other thing!” Thus speaks the labor propagandist, feeling the thrill of solid millions behind him; thus speaks the “capitalist,” feeling the antagonism of solid millions against him.