“So you had, undoubtedly, in 1880 a surplus of productive persons above the age that would place them in our industrial army, which amounted to over one percent of the population, and to over three percent of persons at the age where they, to-day, would have to be members of the industrial army, even if we deduct all the persons from the working force whom a man like Dr. Leete would classify as nonproductive. Now, deduct, furthermore, all our ladies occupied by their duties as mothers, before and after the birth of their children, deduct all the persons permanently sick, all the cripples and all the other people unable to do productive work, and you will have to admit that you had in your days a comparatively much larger force engaged in productive labor than we have. Consider, that these people were stimulated by competition, that they desired to establish themselves on an independent basis, that they put forth their best efforts, in order to secure a life free from care during their old age, and that, therefore, the years of productive labor of each individual were much longer than they are at present, and that the stimulus to succeed was a potent fact in obtaining more and better work than we can secure nowadays.
“That I will admit”, I answered.
“And the working hours to-day are much shorter than they were at the end of the nineteenth century”, proceeded Mr. Forest with an expression on his face like that of a victor in a gladiatorial fight. “The natural tendency of an organization of society like ours is in that direction. And there are many reasons to encourage such a tendency. I have mentioned already that the farmers are complaining of the small number of theaters and concert halls and other amusements and advantages for country people, which city people enjoy to the full. The consequence of this is, that the country people flock to the cities. The nation would have suffered from a want of agricultural products if all the people crowding into the large cities had been accepted. But they were not welcomed. They were appointed to farm work. That settled their desire to live in the cities, and at the same time destroyed their ambition. The country people are satisfied that they cannot improve their lot, that they have to do farm work and that the city people are imposing upon them. The consequence is that they are working as little as possible, and the farming products have decreased to such an extent that we have to appoint city workmen of class B of the third grade to farm work, in order to protect the city people from starvation”.
“Say your worst”, I remarked with a forced smile, for I saw Dr. Leete’s beautiful structure crumbling under the fire of Mr. Forest’s artillery of logic.
“You have seen”, Mr. Forest continued, “that the industrial army of 1880, engaged in productive labor, was, in proportion, much larger than ours, that the members were stimulated by competition to use their best mental and physical efforts to ‘get ahead’, and that they worked longer hours than we do. You must, furthermore, consider that we squander a greater amount of labor in overseeing and bookkeeping than you ever did. Most of your retail business was transacted on the cash basis, and the small tradespeople did their own bookkeeping after closing their stores and shops. We, on the other hand, have an account for every man, woman and child in the country in the books of the national administration[29]. We have a bureau which keeps an account of the visits of all the physicians[30]. We have another bureau where you can secure help for housework as well as for other purposes, where accounts are kept, both of the helpers and of the people who demand help.[31] We have bureaus for each industry and they are excellent examples of the most thorough manner in which a government can waste human labor. The entire field of productive and constructive industry is, as you know, divided into ten great departments, each representing a group of allied industries, each particular industry being in turn represented by a subordinate bureau, which has a complete record of the plant and force under its control, as well as of the present product and the means of increasing it. The estimates of consumption of the distribution department (an organization independent of the great productive departments) after adoption by the administration, are sent as mandates to the ten great departments which allot them to the subordinate bureaus representing the particular industries, and these set the men to work. Each bureau is responsible for the task given it, and the responsibility is enforced by departmental supervision and that of the administration; nor does the distribution department accept the products without its own inspection, while, even if in the hands of the consumer, an article turns out unfit, the system enables the fault to be traced back to the original workman”.[32]
[29] Page 87.
[30] Page 122.
[31] Page 120.
[32] Pages 182, 183.