4. Liberty of the worker in his choice of work and outside of working hours makes for happiness, character, and progress. Opinion is almost a unit as to the truth of this statement. The present wage system is the freest condition for the mass of men that ever has existed. Their religious, political, and personal convictions, are for the most part inviolate. There is a true but much misused maxim that liberty has its dangers. Freedom means freedom to make mistakes. Intelligence and strong industrial virtues are required to exercise properly a freedom newly acquired. Thus it is the lowest class of labor that reaps the smallest advantage from free conditions, and that suffers most from their misuse.
Limits to the worker's liberty
The main evil in the wage system is certainly not that the liberty of the worker is too great, but that it is too small. The sale of labor involves the obeying of orders during certain hours specified in the contract. Here again the evil is greatest in the lowest grades of work, while the great majority of wage-earners are left a large measure of choice in the time and manner of their work. Where labor is severe and without joy to the worker, it appears to be little better than a form of slavery. Contrast the condition of the section hand, cursed and beaten by a brutal foreman, with that of the wage-earner in the locomotive-cab, self-respecting, self-directing, and trusted with the safety of property and lives. The wage system is manifold, it is adaptable. If it holds a portion of the laborers with a harsh hand, it gives to all a wide measure of opportunity, and to most a great degree of independence in their lives. A hasty resort to indiscriminating analogy, as in calling wage-work "slavery," does not further truth or social justice.
§ III. PROGRESS OF THE MASSES UNDER THE WAGE SYSTEM
The rise of money wages
1. The nineteenth century was a period of great progress for the masses in America, England, and throughout Europe. There are differences of opinion as to the extent of this progress, the way in which it is to be measured, and the degree to which it is an occasion for congratulation. There is no longer any dispute as to the actual fact that it has taken place. Many lines of evidence converge to confirm this one conclusion. The average money wages in the United States may be represented in 1840 by 87.7, in 1860 by 100, and in 1891 by 161.2. This was the high mark for a time and a decline followed. Again wages rose from 1897 on, and in 1899 had reached 163.2. They have continued to rise since and in 1903 attained the highest point in the history of our country and therefore in the history of the world. Another temporary decline undoubtedly will occur when industrial conditions become less prosperous.
Changes in real wages
Real wages, also, the power to purchase goods with labor, are greater than ever before so far as this can be measured in the price of leading commodities. The offsetting loss of the free health-giving pleasures of country life cannot easily be expressed. In England likewise the rise in money wages has been great. In 1860 it is represented by 100, in 1870 by 113, in 1880 by 125, in 1891 by 140, in the intervals some decline occurring. For a century in all civilized lands wages have moved in an ever-rising series of waves. The purchasing power of wages in England increased ninety per cent, in the thirty years between 1860 and 1891. Throughout Europe the same general change is seen, going always hand in hand with new industrial methods and the displacing of the old agricultural system by the wage system. As the hours of labor have at the same time been shortened, the workers have gained doubly.
Need of a broad explanation of rising wages