The workman has a natural and laudable desire to share more fully in the
good things of life. And it is coming to be recognized that material
prosperity, up to a certain point, is the foundation of mental and
spiritual welfare: clean and comfortable surroundings, beauty, rational
amusements, opportunity for a rational satisfaction of, the human.
instincts are essential to contentment and progress. The individual, of
course, must be enlightened; and local labour unions, recognizing this,
are spending considerable sums all over the country on schools to educate
their members. If a workman is a profiteer, he is more to be excused
than the business profiteer, against whom his anger is directed; if he is
a spendthrift, prodigality is a natural consequence of rapid acquisition.
We have been a nation of spendthrifts.
A failure to grasp the psychology of the worker involves disastrous
consequences. A discussion as to whether or not his attitude is
unpatriotic and selfish is futile. No more profound mistake could be
made than to attribute to any element of the population motives wholly
base. Human nature is neither all black nor all white, yet is capable of
supreme sacrifices when adequately appealed to. What we must get into
our minds is the fact that a social order that insured a large measure of
democracy in the early days of the Republic is inadequate to meet modern
industrial conditions. Higher wages, material prosperity alone will not
suffice to satisfy aspirations for a fuller self-realization, once the
method by which these aspirations can be gained is glimpsed.
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