The extravagance of wealth makes it possible for the poor to save.
The rich man who lives according to his means, who is extravagant in the best and highest sense, is not the enemy of labor. The miser, who lives in a hovel, wears rags, and hoards his gold, is a perpetual curse. He is like one who dams a river at its source.
The moment hard times come the cry of economy is raised. The press, the platform, and the pulpit unite in recommending economy to the rich. In consequence of this cry, the man of wealth discharges servants, sells horses, allows his carriage to become a hen-roost, and after taking employment and food from as many as he can, congratulates himself that he has done his part toward restoring prosperity to the country.
In that country where the poor are extravagant and the rich economical will be found pauperism and crime; but where the poor are economical and the rich are extravagant, that country is filled with prosperity.
The man who wants others to work to such an extent that their lives are burdens, is utterly heartless. The toil of the world should continually decrease. Of what use are your inventions if no burdens are lifted from industry—if no additional comforts find their way to the home of labor; why should labor fill the world with wealth and live in want?
Every labor-saving machine should help the whole world. Every one should tend to shorten the hours of labor.
Reasonable labor is a source of joy. To work for wife and child, to toil for those you love, is happiness; provided you can make them happy. But to work like a slave, to see your wife and children in rags, to sit at a table where food is coarse and scarce, to rise at four in the morning, to work all day and throw your tired bones upon a miserable bed at night, to live without leisure, without rest, without making those you love comfortable and happy—this is not living—it is dying—a slow, lingering crucifixion.
The hours of labor should be shortened. With the vast and wonderful improvements of the nineteenth century there should be not only the necessaries of life for those who toil, but comforts and luxuries as well.
What is a reasonable price for labor? I answer: Such a price as will enable the man to live; to have the comforts of life; to lay by a little something for his declining years, so that he can have his own home, his own fireside; so that he can preserve the feelings of a man.
Every man ought to be willing to pay for what he gets. He ought to desire to give full value received. The man who wants two dollars' worth of work for one is not an honest man.