Summer And 
 
 School Library. 
 
 siliil 
 
 by Rev. M o roIS-'M . S H E E t>Y - 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2015 
 
 https://archive.org/details/socialproblemsOOshee 
 
Catholic Summer and Winter School Library 
 
 NOW READY: 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS, by Rev. Morgan M. Sheedy. 
 CHRISTIAN ETHICS, by Rev. Jas. Joseph Conway, S.J. 
 SCIENCE AND DOCTRINE, by the Rev. J. A. Zahm, C.S.C. 
 PREHISTORIC AMERICANS, by the Marquis deNadaillac. 
 I. “ The Mound Builders.” II. " The Cliff Dwellers.” 
 
 SUMMER SCHOOL ESSAYS. Vol. I. 
 
 "Buddhism and Christianity,” by Mgr. De Harlez; 
 "Christian Science and Faith Cure,” by Dr. T. P. 
 Hart ; " Growth of Reading Circles,” by Rev. T. Mc- 
 Millan, C.S.P. ; "Reading Circle Work,” by Rev. 
 W. J. Dalton; "Church Music,” by Rev. R. Fuhr, 
 O.S.F. ; "Catholic Literary Societies,” by Miss 
 K. E. Conway; "Historical Criticism,” by Rev. C. 
 De Smedt, S.J. 
 
 SUMMER SCHOOL ESSAYS. Vol. II. 
 
 "The Spanish Inquisition,” by Rev. J. F. Nugent; 
 "Savonarola,” by Conde B. Pallen, Ph.D. ; "Joan 
 of Arc,” by J. W. Wilstach; "Magna Charta,” by 
 Prof. J. G. Ewing; "Missionary Explorers of the 
 Northwest,” by Judge W. L. Kelly. 
 
 IN PREPARA TION: 
 
 Church and State, by Rt. Rev. S. G. Messmer, D.D. 
 The Sacred Scriptures, by Rev. P. J. Danehy, D.D. 
 Literature and Faith, by Prof. M. F. Egan, LL.D. 
 
 The Eastern Schism, by Rev. Jos. La Boule. 
 Economics, by Hon. R. Graham Frost. 
 
 Catholic Educational Development, 
 
 by Rev. E. Magevney, S.J. 
 
 Cloth, Price Per Volume, Fifty Cents. 
 
Catholic Summer and Winter School Library 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 REVEREND MORGAN M. SHEEDY 
 
 First President of the Catholic Summer 
 School of America; author of 
 " Christian Unity," etc. 
 
 The great mistake that is made in the matter now under con* 
 sideration is to possess one’s self of the idea that class is naturally 
 hostile to class ; that rich and poor are intended by nature to live 
 at war with one another. So irrational and so false is this view, 
 that the exact contrary is the truth. Just as the symmetry of the 
 human body is the result of the disposition of the members of the 
 body, so in a state it is ordained by nature that these two classes 
 should exist in harmony and agreement, and should, as it were, fit 
 into one another, so as to maintain the equilibrium of the body 
 politic. Each requires the other * capital cannot do without labor, 
 nor labor without capital. Mutual agreement results in pleasant- 
 ness and good order ; perpetual conflict necessarily produces con- 
 fusion and outrage. 
 
 Now, in preventing such strife as this, and in making it impos- 
 sible, the efficacy of Christianity is marvelous and manifold. First 
 of all, there is nothing more powerful than religion (of which the 
 Church is the interpreter and guardian) in drawing rich and poor 
 together, by reminding each class of its duties to the other, and 
 especially of the duties of justice. . POPE LEO XIII. 
 
 BOSTON COLLEGE USSRASft 
 CHESTNUT s jJUL awusfc, 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 D. H. McBRIDE & CO. 
 
 i 8 9 6 
 
Copyright, 1896 
 
 BY 
 
 D. H. McBRIDB & CO. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 B VERY student of Social Science is 
 deeply interested in the subjects 
 discussed in the following pages. The 
 matter treated of is of profound impor- 
 tance since it deals with practical issues 
 of vital interest to the peace and sta- 
 bility of society. All who are honestly 
 striving to solve the labor problem, 
 those who have given some thought to 
 the broader question of Socialism, will 
 gladly welcome any aid, no matter 
 whence it comes or how slight it may 
 be, that will make their task less diffi- 
 cult. 
 
 More especially is it hoped that the 
 great body of our American workmen 
 and the members of our Reading Cir- 
 cles may derive some benefit from this 
 publication. Every one understands 
 that the influence and teaching of the 
 
 5 
 
6 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 Catholic Church must have great 
 weight in the final adjustment of the 
 bitter conflict that goes on to-day in 
 the industrial world. The practical 
 outcome of the teaching of the Church 
 is felt and constantly reflected in the 
 close relations that necessarily exist 
 between labor and capital. It be- 
 comes, then, a matter of great moment 
 to know exactly where the Church 
 stands ; what principles she upholds 
 and approves ; what principles she re- 
 jects and condemns. 
 
 Following the guidance of Leo XIII. 
 in his Encyclical “ On Labor,” which is 
 appended to the book, the writer has 
 endeavored to set forth the doctrine 
 and position of the Catholic Church. 
 The form in which the subject-matter 
 is given to the public is substantially 
 the same as that in which it was pre- 
 sented to the students of the Summer 
 School at Champlain, New York, and 
 to those of the Winter School at New 
 Orleans, this year. 
 
 In the preparation of the work, a 
 large number of authorities were con- 
 sulted. To the Reverend Father Fin- 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 7 
 
 lay, S. J., the writer begs to acknowl- 
 edge his indebtedness for the assistance 
 received through his excellent paper on 
 Socialism. 
 
 Morgan M. Sheedy. 
 
 Altoona, Pa. 
 

CONTENTS 
 
 PART I. 
 
 THE CHURCH AND THE WAGE- 
 EARNER. 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 I. Basis of Discussion — The Origin 
 
 of the Labor Problem 13 
 
 II. Honest Differences of Opinion.. 19 
 
 III. Leo XIII. on the Condition of 
 
 Labor 23 
 
 IV. The Rights of Private Property 28 
 
 V. Where the True Remedy May Be 
 
 Found 32 
 
 VI. Wages, How Computed 34 
 
 VII. Theory of Supply and Demand. .. 40 
 
 VIII. Starvation Rates of Wages — A 
 
 Practical Illustration 45 
 
 IX. Workingmen’s Societies Recog- 
 nized by the Church 50 
 
 X. Condition of Workingwomen and 
 
 Girls 55 
 
 XI. Industrial Slavery 59 
 
 XII. The Writer’s Experience 62 
 
 ( 9 ) 
 
10 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 SOCIALISM AND SOCIALISTS. 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 XIII. Socialism an Important Sub- 
 
 ject — Its Definition 69 
 
 XIV. Individualism and Capitalism.. 76 
 
 XV. Growth of Capitalism 81 
 
 XVI. The Condition of the Work- 
 man 84 
 
 XVII. Revolt Against Capitalism 89 
 
 XVIII. Anarchy and Its Lurid Gospel 93 
 XIX. Karl Marx and His Theories. 97 
 XX. La Salle and His Career — 
 
 French Socialists 101 
 
 XXL Socialism in England and the 
 
 United States 104 
 
 XXII. Christian Socialism 114 
 
 XXIII. Christian Socialism Outside 
 
 the Church 120 
 
 REFERENCES 123 
 
 APPENDIX. — Encyclical Letter of 
 Pope Leo XIII. on the Condition of 
 Labor 127 
 
PART I 
 
 The Church and the Wage-Earner 
 
 (U> 
 
PART I. 
 
 THE CHURCH AND THE 
 WAGE-EARNER 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 BASIS OF DISCUSSION — THE ORIGIN OF 
 THE LABOR PROBLEM. 
 
 /TTHE term “ labor question ” is a mod- 
 ern, concrete expression, used to 
 represent the demands which the em- 
 ployed may make of employers. It 
 belongs entirely to the present system 
 of industry, and is to be understood 
 only from a full consideration of indus- 
 trial conditions. In the middle of this 
 century it simply stood for the demand 
 for less hours or more pay. As intelli- 
 gence has increased, as machinery has 
 been developed, as labor has been more 
 and more subdivided, as hygienic and 
 physical conditions have improved, the 
 phases and ramifications of the labor 
 
 13 
 
14 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 question have increased proportionately, 
 until to-day it stands for all the elements 
 involved in the industrial system. 
 
 It is a short term for the evolution of 
 industrial forces, and includes a wide 
 range of sociological studies. It em- 
 braces the wants of the wage-earner, 
 and such wants comprehend the discus- 
 sion of the just and equitable distribu- 
 tion of profits or the products of labor 
 and capital. It is in this latter sense 
 that the vital elements of the labor 
 problem, whether from an economical 
 or moral point of view, may be found ; 
 for the just distribution of profits can 
 best be discussed on grounds covering 
 both economics and ethics ; since it is 
 now recognized that justice and equity 
 are involved in the consideration of 
 such distribution. 
 
 It is true that a just distribution of 
 profits, by which support and provision 
 for old age may be secured, as well as 
 passing support, depends much more 
 upon the cost of living, habits of fru- 
 gality, temperance, good morals, sani- 
 tary conditions, educational privileges, 
 and various forces of a moral nature, 
 
THE LABOR PROBLEM . 
 
 15 
 
 than upon purely economical condi- 
 tions. The labor question must, there- 
 fore, be discussed on a broad and com- 
 prehensive basis, not merely on econ- 
 omic grounds. 
 
 The age has been one of material 
 progress, and economics have ruled 
 almost at the expense of ethics. The 
 strides civilization has made command 
 our admiration, and its onward steps 
 are marked by numerous and con- 
 vincing evidences, but such evidences 
 are outside of economics and are only 
 considered by the economist as the 
 cost may enter into the distribution of 
 the wealth it seeks to create, and not 
 as a means for a better and happier 
 condition, wherein wealth could be 
 more successfully produced. 
 
 It is, therefore, legitimate to con- 
 sider the labor question at least one of 
 paramount importance to any question 
 which commands public attention. The 
 welfare of the wage-earner is enhanced 
 by all those efforts which seek to 
 ameliorate miserable conditions sur- 
 rounding any portion of the human 
 race ; which seek to allay discontent, 
 
16 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 to prevent violence and crime, to in- 
 crease temperate habits, to foster 
 moral and religious growth, to procure 
 the best social environment, to increase 
 the opportunities for mental culture, to 
 preserve the integrity of the family, to 
 raise the standard of citizenship, to 
 strengthen the political structure, to 
 elevate individual character — in fact, 
 to secure the highest conditions, in all 
 respects, of the human race. 
 
 The labor question, to-day, and social 
 science are nearly, if not fully, synony- 
 mous terms. It is the broadened intelli- 
 gence of the wage-earners which has 
 enlarged their demands to such pro- 
 portions that their demands are made 
 not only upon their employers, but 
 upon legislation and the whole body 
 politic. Under the feudal system the 
 laborer was cared for in all his physical 
 wants by the feudal lord. 
 
 Under the succeeding, or wage sys- 
 tem, he has been left to care for him- 
 self. Theoretically, his wages are paid 
 according to his capacity and not his 
 wants. Practically, under competition, 
 his wages are paid too much in accord- 
 
THE LABOR PROBLEM. 
 
 17 
 
 ance with his necessitous wants and not 
 sufficiently in accordance with his 
 capacity. In this last respect, we find 
 the origin of the labor question. 
 
 What has been said applies to the 
 wage-earners of all countries in which 
 the modern industrial system has made 
 any considerable progress, and it is 
 substantially the same in all its phases 
 in all such countries. The labor ques- 
 tion, as such, has nothing to do with 
 Anarchy, with Communism, or with 
 Socialism, although all three of these 
 philosophies take on many of the phases 
 of the labor question, and in the minds 
 of many persons there is, consequently, 
 a confusion of ideas connecting the one 
 with the others, and all forming the 
 general question. The workingmen of 
 America have no occasion to be Anar- 
 chists, nor Communists, nor Socialists, 
 although were all their demands con- 
 ceded to them, our American govern- 
 ments would find themselves more 
 thoroughly on a socialistic basis than 
 that upon which they now rest. 
 
 The wage-earners in the United States, 
 that is, those who work for fixed wages or 
 s. P .-2 
 
18 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 small salaries, constitute in round num- 
 bers about 20,000,000, or three -tenths 
 of the whole population; the average 
 income of the wage-worker does not 
 exceed $400.00 per annum. This body 
 is represented in sex as about five males 
 to one female. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 HONEST DIFFERENCES OF OPINION. 
 
 “ /^7HE conflict between those who have 
 and those who wish to have is said 
 to be irrepressible, and yet it is agreed 
 that if they could work in harmony, the 
 result would vastly increase the general 
 welfare. Whether the present depres- 
 sion is drawing the rich and the poor, 
 the employer and the workingman, 
 closer together, is a question worthy of 
 consideration.” 
 
 The interests of labor and capital are 
 identical; to obtain the highest results 
 both should work in perfect harmony. 
 To bring about a satisfactory adjust- 
 ment of the differences that exist — that 
 is one of the problems of the age. It 
 has taxed the best minds in two hemis- 
 pheres and the highest statesmanship to 
 find an adequate solution. 
 
 After years of close and careful study 
 of the industrial question in its various 
 
 19 
 
20 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 phases, honest men are still widely apart, 
 both in theory and the practical results 
 of their investigation. And this applies 
 to those who have been actual partici- 
 pants, whether on the side of labor or 
 capital, in some of the most important 
 labor contests of our day, just as much 
 as it does to the looker-on or specula- 
 tive thinker. 
 
 Writers on political economy are 
 no more agreed in their views and 
 
 O 
 
 the application of their remedies than 
 are the representatives of labor and 
 capital. From the rankest Socialism to 
 ultra-Conservatism we discover every 
 grade of opinion and doctrine. So 
 much disturbance has been created in 
 society by the growth of false teaching 
 on this subject and the frequent out- 
 break of strikes and lockouts that there 
 is scarcely a nation that has not found 
 it necessary to fully examine the ques- 
 tion. 
 
 To-day a labor conference is held 
 by direction of the young Emperor of 
 Germany in Berlin to stay the rising 
 tide of democracy; to-morrow, a royal 
 commission on labor sits in London to 
 
DIFFERENCES OF OPINION. 
 
 21 
 
 discuss the questions which English 
 trades-unionism has brought to public 
 attention. Here in the United States 
 there is no end to the conferences and 
 conventions of labor, all looking to the 
 betterment of the conditions of the 
 wage -earner. Among the many con- 
 gresses held during the Columbian Ex- 
 position at Chicago, not the least im- 
 portant was that of Labor. 
 
 There is, then, both among students 
 and practical men of affairs a deep search- 
 ing for sound principles which underlie 
 this whole problem in the hope that a 
 way can be found by which equal and ex- 
 act justice may be finally rendered to em- 
 ployer and employed; a means by which 
 the suicidal war which has so long 
 threatened the world of industry may 
 be ended.; a peaceable and satisfactory 
 solution of the grave questions in con- 
 troversy may be reached; and a higher 
 and better industrial system, resting on 
 the solid basis of justice, may be per- 
 manently established. 
 
 It is, indeed, a hopeful sign that we are 
 nearing a solution when we find so much 
 serious thought given to the subject. 
 
22 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 The true friend of the wage-earner 
 and the capitalist, the students and 
 specialists in industrial topics, the rep- 
 resentatives of the various organizations 
 of labor and capital, have come to a 
 clearer understanding of the issues in- 
 volved. 
 
 Here in the United States, where there 
 is a growing state of social unrest, because 
 of the conflict between labor and capital, 
 much reliance is placed on the practical 
 good sense of the people and our capacity 
 for self-government to solve this ques- 
 tion. 
 
CHAPTER HI. 
 
 LEO XIII. ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 
 
 HUT the clearest and fullest light 
 comes to us on this vast and im- 
 portant subject, the industrial question, 
 from that quarter towards which the 
 world has invariably turned for light. 
 
 In the Encyclical of Leo XIII., “ On 
 the Condition of Labor, ” the highest ex- 
 pectations of all who looked with interest 
 for its promulgation were fulfilled. It 
 is indeed the most important utterance, 
 most opportunely given, of the states- 
 man Pope. And that is much to say 
 with the remembrance of his preceding 
 Encyclicals on the Christian Constitu- 
 tion of States and Human Liberty. 
 
 Presented to the world in the midst of 
 the religious feast of Pentecost, may we 
 not hope that it shall be understood in 
 all languages as the inspired discourses 
 of the apostles ; and may it regenerate 
 the worn out and unbalanced order of a 
 world that is suffering from a crisis and 
 
 23 
 
24 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 the pains of a new birth. It has been 
 remarked that a century ago, in 1791, 
 the French Revolution, by a definitive 
 decree, abolished the corporations which 
 formed the base of the ancient social 
 order. In 1891 Leo XIII. promulgates 
 a new economical character at the very 
 moment when industrial society, founded 
 on the Manchester doctrines, tends 
 towards ruin. And for this act of his, 
 the Pope receives a special message of 
 congratulation from the (present) repub- 
 lican government of France. Leo has 
 well chosen this fateful hour to teach 
 the world the true social gospel. ' 
 
 After all, men must be brought to see 
 that the papacy alone remains the great 
 international power to-day, as it was in 
 past ages ; that it is possessed of suffi- 
 cient authority and strength ; that it is 
 sufficiently sure of itself and rich in light 
 and energy to attempt the supreme 
 task of reconciling the contending 
 forces of society and establishing social 
 harmony. 
 
 Across the “tottering thrones and 
 drooping sceptres,” Leo XIII. notes 
 the rising tide of democracy ; he sees 
 
LEO XIII. ON LABOR. 
 
 25 
 
 that the old order must give way to the 
 new ; that the twentieth century, which 
 we are rapidly approaching, will be, 
 what the late Cardinal Manning prophe- 
 sied, “ the people’s century.” It is the 
 effort to harmonize the eternal teachings 
 of the gospel with the actual necessities 
 of the modern world that bestows on 
 this Encyclical the character of a mes- 
 sage of arbitration and makes it a spe- 
 cies of “Truce of God.” And all this 
 is accomplished with a perfect knowl- 
 edge of the whole question, fdled 
 though it is with intrinsic and technical 
 difficulties, with varying and constantly 
 changing conditions. 
 
 The composition of the Encyclical 
 presupposes an acquaintance with the 
 whole range of the vast literature of 
 the subject of which it treats. This 
 he has reduced to a clear and accu- 
 rate series of important statements. 
 It is only a master mind who could 
 bear this Atlas-burden and make this 
 synthesis. Herein we have summed 
 up the teaching of the Church on the 
 labor question. All Christian tradition 
 is embodied in its utterances. 
 
26 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 In reading the Encyclical the mind 
 almost unconsciously reflects on the 
 transforming action of the Church 
 in the world. It recalls the days 
 of those celebrated monasteries where 
 the religious became shoemakers, ma- 
 sons, carpenters, laborers, mingling 
 manual labor with meditation and 
 the chanting of the praises of God. 
 It takes us back to the apostles who 
 taught the rich to make due pro- 
 vision for the wants of the poor, so 
 that “neither was there any one needy 
 among them ; ” it revives the memories 
 of the guilds of former ages ; it sug- 
 gests a picture of the artisan monk who, 
 in the austere silence of the trappist’s 
 life, realizes the dignity of labor. Nay, 
 more, it carries the mind and heart of 
 the reader back to Him who taught that 
 “ the laborer is worthy of his hire,” and 
 whose example, as the Carpenter of 
 Nazareth, has merited for the working- 
 man in every land that Christian nobility 
 which constitutes his greatness before 
 man and God. 
 
 What specially strikes one in study- 
 ing this Encyclical is the fatherly 
 
LEO XIII. ON LABOR . 
 
 27 
 
 tenderness and sympathy that is dis- 
 played by the Pope. He deals with 
 the problems nearest the hearts of the 
 common people. Let us consider a 
 few. The right of private property in 
 land ; the relations of capital and labor ; 
 the sacred rights of the wage- earner ; 
 differences between employers and em- 
 ployees ; strikes ; the proper regulation 
 of the hours of labor ; and lastly, work- 
 ingmen^ guilds, insurance and benefi- 
 cial societies. 
 
 What is the teaching of the Su- 
 preme Pastor on these subjects which 
 are of such tremendous importance 
 in our day ? Let us summarize the 
 principles and proportions of the Encyc- 
 lical. The scope of this paper does not 
 require that we follow too closely the 
 line of argument or the many proofs so 
 luminously set forth. 
 
CHAPTER IV.^ 
 
 THE RIGHTS OF PRIVATE PROPERTY. 
 
 IN the first place, the Pope clearly de- 
 * fines the inviolability of private 
 property, especially in land. For ob- 
 vious reasons this teaching is of special 
 interest, since it sets aside as false and 
 contrary to sound morals the doctrines 
 of Henry George and the Anti-Poverty 
 Society. He shows how it is for the 
 best interest of the wage-earner to 
 maintain and stand by the true Catholic 
 doctrine. 
 
 He considers the methods of cure 
 proposed by the Socialists as ut- 
 terly futile or as infinitely worse 
 than the present evils of competition. 
 By abolishing private property and 
 transferring individual possessions to 
 the community, this would simply 
 create the most cruel tyranny ever 
 established in civilization, and “strike 
 at the interest of every wage-worker,” 
 28 
 
RIGHTS OF PRIVATE PROPERTY. 29 
 
 for it “ would deprive him of the liberty 
 of disposing of his wages, and thus, of 
 all hope and possibility of increasing 
 his stock and bettering his condition 
 in life.” 
 
 Under this system, the individual 
 would have no rights, the commu- 
 nity all rights and all power. It 
 would be a frightful despotism, under 
 which society would sink into apathy 
 and eventually into barbarism. The 
 individual would be a slave, and the 
 freedom with which he had parted 
 would never come back to him, unless 
 after a conflict longer and fiercer than 
 any mankind has waged in the whole 
 course of its fights to throw off the 
 shackles of tyranny. 
 
 Society, too, would be unfitted for 
 such a conflict, because of the supineness 
 produced by its complete enslavement, 
 and, therefore, the contest would be long 
 and savage, marked by the terrible atroci- 
 ties inseparable from an insurrection of 
 slaves. The result would be the 
 destruction of the fabric of our present 
 civilization and all the material and 
 spiritual treasures contained within it. 
 
30 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 The conflict would be between a mass 
 of helpless serfs, stripped of every 
 material possession, made desperate 
 and ferocious by their condition and 
 surroundings, and a few masters who 
 would have succeeded in securing all 
 power and every resource of the com- 
 munity. That would be the outcome 
 of this false theory, if there were found 
 any community guilty of the great 
 folly of experimenting with it. 
 
 Again, Leo XIII. proves to the work- 
 ingman that his highest interests are 
 involved in the Catholic doctrine on the 
 right of private property. The aim 
 and object of the wage-worker in hiring 
 his services to another is to obtain a 
 recompense which he may dispose of 
 according to his necessities or his con- 
 venience. 
 
 Now, if by economy and self-sacri- 
 fice he is able to set aside a portion 
 of his earnings, he certainly has a 
 full and perfect right to make use of 
 this as he thinks proper. If, for the 
 sake of greater security, he invests his 
 earnings in real estate, he simply puts 
 them into another shape, reconvertible, 
 
RIGHTS OF PRIVATE PROPERTY. 31 
 
 when he so desires, into money. The 
 land which he purchased with his savings 
 is undoubtedly as much his as the 
 wages were with which he bought it. He 
 can dispose of the one as he did of the 
 other. But this is neither more nor 
 less than the right of private property. 
 As the Holy Father puts it : 
 
 ‘‘Nature, which is never wanting in 
 things necessary, must have furnished 
 mankind with some stable and reasonable 
 method of providing for his wants. Now, 
 where do we find such provision, ex- 
 cept in the unfailing and teeming fer- 
 tility of mother earth, so that he may 
 secure for his existence not only the 
 fruits of this year’s crops, but also have 
 a guarantee of similar fruits in future. 
 Consequently, the right of private prop- 
 erty in land comes under this head by 
 the very law of nature, and to deprive 
 man of it is to do him a grave injus- 
 tice.” 
 
 This argument is drawn out at some 
 length, and to it are added the sanction 
 of Scripture, of sound reason in every 
 age, and the answer of our Divine Lord 
 to the young man who had large posses- 
 sions. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 WHERE THE TRUE REMEDY MAY BE 
 FOUND. 
 
 AVING dealt with the fundamental 
 
 principle of private property, which 
 is an essential element in the remedy 
 proposed to better the condition of the 
 wage-earner, the Pope proceeds to point 
 out where the true remedy can be found 
 and how it is to be applied. 
 
 No practical solution of the labor ques- 
 tion, he reminds the world, will ever be 
 arrived at without the assistance of reli- 
 gion and the Church. The rulers of states, 
 the wealthy, the employers of labor, and 
 the great army of workers in every land 
 are earnestly reminded that all the striv- 
 ing of men will be in vain if they leave 
 out the Church. 
 
 “ It is the Church,” says the Pope, 
 “ that proclaims from the Gospel those 
 teachings by which the conflict can be 
 put an end to or at the least be made 
 far less bitter; the Church uses its efforts 
 
 32 
 
THE TRUE REMEDY. 
 
 33 
 
 not only to enlighten the mind, but to 
 direct by its precepts the life and conduct 
 of men; the Church improves and amelio- 
 rates the condition of the workingman 
 
 o 
 
 by numerous useful organizations; does 
 its best to enlist the services of all ranks 
 in discussing and endeavoring to meet, 
 in the most practical way, the claims of 
 the working classes; and acts on the 
 decided view that for these purposes 
 recourse should be had, in due measure 
 and degree, to the help of the law and 
 of state authority.” 
 
 With this object in sight, after de- 
 nouncing speculators in human labor, he 
 urges the state to safeguard those boards 
 of arbitration, wherever they exist, that 
 help the wage-earner to secure fair 
 wages, 
 s. P. — 3 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WAGES, HOW COMPUTED. 
 
 ®ET us examine closely the words of 
 ^ the Encyclical on this subject of 
 wages. Because ever since labor be- 
 came free, all the great disturbances in 
 the industrial world have been chiefly 
 caused by a difference between labor 
 and capital on the rate of wages. It is 
 here that the interests of employer and 
 employed begin to diverge, and it is on 
 the question of wages that strikes and 
 lockouts mostly originate. In an in- 
 quiry into the origin of strikes and lock- 
 outs, out of a total of 813 labor contests 
 investigated, 582 or 71.59 per cent, were 
 caused by differences as to rate of wages. 
 Of these 582 contests, 86 per cent, were 
 for advances in wages, and 14 per cent, 
 against reductions. 
 
 While these exact proportions will 
 
 34 
 
WAGES HOW COMPUTED. 
 
 35 
 
 not hold in all cases, nor in all sections 
 and industries, it is safe to say that by 
 far the most prolific sources of labor dis- 
 putes are differences as to wages. 
 
 It will also be found that many dis- 
 putes that are not primarily disputes 
 about wages, have a direct bearing on 
 rates of wages, and are important only 
 because of such bearing. Apart from 
 rates of wages, the causes of these dif- 
 ferences are legion. 
 
 Trouble may arise concerning the 
 basis of computing wages ; the method, 
 time or frequency of payment ; the store 
 system ; hours of labor ; the holidays 
 and weekly half holiday ; apprentice- 
 ship ; administration and methods of 
 work, such as shop rules, labor-saving 
 machinery, piecework, objectionable 
 workmen ; trades unions and their 
 rules, and a thousand and one causes 
 that we daily hear of. Noth withstand- 
 ing their number, however, it will be 
 found that all causes of differences 
 readily group themselves into three 
 general classes : 
 
 1st. — Differences as to future con- 
 tracts. 
 
36 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 2nd. — Disagreements as to existing 
 contracts. 
 
 3rd. — Disputes on some matter of 
 sentiment. 
 
 In the first division would be classified 
 differences as to future rates of wages, 
 and those arising from attempts to change 
 or abrogate existing agreements, cus- 
 toms, or methods or to introduce new 
 ones. 
 
 Disagreements under the second class 
 arise either upon matters of fact or 
 construction, having in view existing 
 agreements, customs, or methods, and 
 not necessarily involving the validity of 
 the contracts themselves, nor any change 
 in their terms. 
 
 Under the third head are included 
 those quarrels that grow out of the 
 offended amour propre either of the 
 individual or the organization. 
 
 It is in the first of these classes, i. e., 
 “ Differences as to future contracts,” 
 which, as stated, includes questions as 
 to future rates of wages, that disputes 
 most frequently occur and in which the 
 gravest difficulties arise in harmonizing 
 conflicting interests and hostile views. 
 
WAGES, HOW COMPUTED. 37 
 
 What is “ a fair day’s wage for a fair 
 day’s work,” is a difficult and complex 
 problem to solve. Concerning its solu- 
 tion there are honest differences of 
 opinion even upon the basis or princi- 
 ple on which it shall be decided. With 
 the ebb and flow of the tides of busi- 
 ness, of prices and demand — so frequent 
 in these days of the increased effective- 
 ness of labor and rapid transportation — 
 with the constant changes in methods of 
 production or conditions of work, and 
 the introduction of improved machinery 
 so common in this age of invention, 
 comes an ever-recurring necessity for a 
 revision of the contracts or agreements 
 governing the relation of employer and 
 employed, and with it the possibility of 
 differences as to what changes the new 
 conditions demand. 
 
 Let us take, for instance, the iron and 
 steel business, the glass trade, or the 
 coke industry of western Pennsylvania, 
 and we shall see at once how easy it is 
 for difficulties to arise, unless there be 
 found some means of forestalling them. 
 The competition of trade, high or low 
 tariff, the facilities and cheapness of 
 
38 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 transportation, the methods of produc- 
 tion and other conditions imply the ne- 
 cessity for frequent revision of agree- 
 ments as to the rates of wages. 
 
 In Pittsburg, which is the heart and 
 center of the iron and steel interests of 
 the country, the Amalgamated Associa- 
 tion of Iron and Steel Workers holds an 
 annual convention to determine the 
 “ scale ” or rate of wages for the ensu- 
 ing year. When the “scale ” is agreed 
 upon by the workers, it is then submit- 
 ted to the employers and where dif- 
 ferences are found they are eventu- 
 ally adjusted by conferences of both 
 parties. 
 
 This arrangement has worked success- 
 fully for years, there being only one or 
 two notable instances when it failed, 
 and the result was a bitter and deplor- 
 able fight. The miners, coke and glass 
 workers have much more trouble in set- 
 tling the question of wages. With 
 them strikes and lockouts are much 
 more frequent and are attended — as in 
 the case of the frequent strikes in the 
 Pennsylvania coke region, where many 
 lives were sacrificed and valuable prop- 
 
WAGES, HOW COMPUTED. 
 
 39 
 
 erty destroyed — with painful and dis- 
 astrous results. 
 
 It is, right here, on this important 
 matter of wa^es and the usefulness and 
 benefits of labor associations that 
 Americans especially will find in the 
 Encyclical of Leo XIII. sound and prac- 
 tical principles of guidance. Let us 
 analyze what he has laid down. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THEORY OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND. 
 
 IN the first place, it is to be observed 
 that there is a wide divergence 
 between the Pope’s teaching and the 
 views of most of modern political econo- 
 mists -who proclaim that supply and de- 
 mand is the great law that always and 
 everywhere determines the rates of 
 wages. 
 
 And they insist that this law is 
 inflexible. Hence it is held by the 
 advocates of this cruel law that the 
 wage-earner should be satisfied with the 
 market price of his labor, whether that 
 be high or low. Profits or the selling 
 price of the manufactured article, they 
 tell us, has no direct bearing on the rate 
 of compensation that the workingman 
 receives. His wages are fixed by the 
 inexorable law of supply and demand 
 in the labor market. 
 
 40 
 
SUPPLY AND DEMAND. 
 
 41 
 
 In combating this heartless doctrine 
 of the modern school of political econ- 
 omists, Leo XIII. lays down certain 
 principles that ought to be accepted by 
 all just and right-thinking persons. 
 Here is what he says: 
 
 “Wages, we are told, are fixed by free 
 consent; and, therefore, the employer, 
 when he pays what was agreed upon, 
 has done his part and is not called upon 
 to do anything further.” 
 
 In proving how false and unjust 
 is this view of the relationship ex- 
 isting between the employer and the 
 employed, the Pope calls attention 
 to the fact that man’s labor has two 
 notes or characteristics. It is, in the 
 first instance, personal, inasmuch as the 
 muscular power or exertion put forth by 
 the laborer is individual or personal to 
 him, and he employs it for his personal 
 benefit. The second characteristic of 
 labor is that it is necessary, as without 
 the results of labor man cannot sustain 
 life. “ Self-preservation is a law of 
 nature which it is wrong to disobey.” 
 After directing attention to these two 
 
42 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 characteristics of labor, the Encyclical 
 says: 
 
 “Now, if we were to consider labor 
 merely so far as it is personal, doubt- 
 less it would be within the -workman’s 
 right to accept any rate of wages 
 whatever; for in the same way as he is 
 free to work or not, so he is free to 
 accept a small remuneration or none at 
 all. But this is a mere abstract sitypo- 
 sition. The labor of the workingman 
 is not only his personal attribute, but it 
 is necessary; and this makes all the 
 difference. The preservation of life is 
 the bounden duty of each and all, and 
 to fail therein is a crime. It follows, 
 then, that each one has a right to pro- 
 cure what is required to live, and the 
 poor can procure it in no other way than 
 by work and wages.” 
 
 Wages should not, therefore, be 
 measured by what is required to keep 
 the workingman and his family alive. 
 The Pope has no faith in the bread-and- 
 water theory, or in the scaling-down 
 process to the lowest minimum wages 
 that is often practiced by wealthy cor- 
 porations and grasping employers. No; 
 he does not believe in this, and he says 
 so in unmistakable language. 
 
SUPPLY AND DEMAND. 
 
 43 
 
 After stating that it is usual for work- 
 men and employers to agree or make a 
 contract as to wages, and under all 
 ordinary circumstances this contract is 
 binding, though the case may arise 
 when the wage -earner is not morally 
 bound to stick to the agreement, the 
 Pope adds : 
 
 “ There is a dictate of nature more 
 imperious and more ancient than any 
 bargain between man and man, that the 
 remuneration must be enough to sup- 
 port the wage-earner in reasonable and 
 frugal comfort 
 
 And equally important is the state- 
 ment that immediately follows this : 
 
 “ If,” he writes, “ through necessity 
 or fear of a worse evil, the workman 
 accepts harder conditions because an 
 employer or contractor w T ill give him 
 no better, he is the victim of force and 
 injustice.” 
 
 This extract from the Encyclical 
 sets before us the true basis — and 
 the lowest at that — upon which the 
 rate of wages is to be computed. 
 And it also furnishes an answer to 
 those who cry out against the work- 
 
44 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 ingmen who sometimes break agree- 
 ments into which they had been forced 
 by fear or necessity to enter. 
 
 The laborer is not a piece of ma- 
 chinery to be purchased at the -least pos- 
 sible cost, or thrown aside as worthless 
 when it is of no further use. Nor is 
 he a mere animal needing provision for 
 bodily wants only. No, he is infinitely 
 higher than that monstrous conception 
 which the materialistic philosophy of 
 these times furnishes. 
 
 He is a man, with God-given facul- 
 ties of high and noble dignity, having 
 the most sacred relations and owing 
 the most solemn duties to his Maker, 
 and having spiritual and mental aspira- 
 tions that require to be satisfied just 
 as much, nay, more, than the wants of 
 the body. 
 
 He should, therefore, have the means 
 of reasonably meeting these wants. 
 And it is only when capitalists and 
 economists get this true idea of the 
 workingman that the wage question, 
 the eight-hour day question, Sunday 
 work, and other questions can be fully 
 settled. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 STARVATION RATES OF WAGES A PRAC- 
 
 TICAL ILLUSTRATION. 
 
 OW, let us take a practical example 
 
 that will fully illustrate these prin- 
 ciples. 
 
 In Pennsylvania there are thou- 
 sands of men employed in the coal 
 mining and coke region. The labor of 
 these workers is hard, unhealthy, and, 
 in the case of the miners, attended with 
 more or less danger to life. The labor, 
 especially of the miner, might be 
 classed as skilled. Taking account, 
 therefore, of these circumstances, the 
 wages of this class ought to be such 
 as to enable the miner and his fam- 
 ily to live in “ reasonable and frugal 
 comfort.” 
 
 What are the average wages paid 
 in the bituminous coal districts of 
 Pennsylvania? Perhaps the figures 
 will furnish an explanation of the fre- 
 
 45 
 
46 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 quent strikes in the mining and coking 
 regions which have been attended with 
 much loss of life and property. 
 
 A bulletin issued by the Census Su- 
 perintendent shows that in ,1889 the 
 average number of persons in the 
 mines of Fayette County, Pennsyl- 
 vania, was 6,567. The total amount of 
 wages paid was $2,644,425. This is an 
 average of about $420 a year to each 
 person, or head of family, or about 
 $1.35 a day. And from this is to 
 be deducted the tolls levied in the 
 “Pluck-me” stores which still flourish 
 in the coal regions. In Westmore- 
 land County, the same State, the miners 
 averaged 9,109 in number, and were 
 paid in wages $4,064,950, or an aver- 
 age to each person of about $445. In 
 Allegheny County the sum of $3,497,- 
 893 was paid to 9,386 miners, or an an- 
 nual average to each miner of about 
 
 $373. 
 
 Anyone examining these figures must 
 see at a glance the difficulties the head 
 of a family has to meet in housing, 
 feeding and clothing himself, wife and 
 four or five children on a dollar and 
 
STARVATION WAGES. 
 
 47 
 
 thirty-five cents a day. The payment 
 of $373 a year, which is the rate re- 
 ceived by the average miner in Alle- 
 gheny County, divided in a family 
 where there are five persons to be sup- 
 ported, means about $75 to each person, 
 or a dollar and a half a week. Of course, 
 “reasonable and frugal comfort,” of 
 which Pope Leo XIII. speaks as due the 
 laborer, is out of the question on such 
 compensation as this. 
 
 It may be said that the census calcu- 
 lation was based on the average wages 
 paid the miner within the year and not 
 on the average wages received while the 
 miner was actually at work. If the 
 calculation were made on the latter basis, 
 the rate would be much higher. 
 
 The answer is that the miner has to 
 support himself and his family the year 
 round on what he earns in a year, and 
 this is, therefore, the proper basis on 
 which to figure. If he works six days 
 and earns $15, and then is idle six days, 
 his average daily pay for the twelve 
 days is $1.25. 
 
 Again, it is said that the miners are 
 themselves largely to blame for their 
 
48 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 condition. They inaugurate a strike on 
 little or no cause ; if work is suspended 
 in the mines because^ of excess of pro- 
 duction or dullness in the coal trade, 
 the miners, as a class, will ^remain in 
 idleness for months rather than work at 
 anything else ; and, lastly, that they 
 are improvident and generally intem- 
 perate in their habits. Consequently, 
 it is held, they themselves are in a 
 large measure responsible for their hard 
 lot. 
 
 Whilst it must be admitted that there 
 is some ground for these charges, the 
 experience of the writer for four or 
 five years as resident pastor in a mining 
 district proves them to be in the main 
 unfounded. I witnessed a number of 
 strikes and I often thought that the 
 miners lent too ready an ear to the agi- 
 tator or the advocate of violent meas- 
 ures ; I also felt that thrift, foresight 
 and a little domestic economy would do 
 much to improve their surroundings and 
 make their homelife more enjoyable ; I 
 saw that intemperance worked its dread- 
 ful havoc here as elsewhere. But making 
 the most ample allowance for these 
 
STARVATION WAGES. 
 
 49 
 
 things, what the Holy Father aptly 
 calls “ the cruelty of grasping specu- 
 lators ” in human labor, supplies the true 
 explanation of the miners’ situation to- 
 day. And it is useless to look for any 
 improvement as long as the ordinary 
 operator or capitalist sets no higher 
 estimate on human beings than mere 
 instruments for making money. 
 
 Under the store system to which ref- 
 erence has already been made, any 
 coal operator cannot fail to get. rich in 
 a few years, if he employs a large 
 number of men — and this largely at 
 the expense of the miner. I knew a 
 gentleman who having failed in business 
 in one of our large towns was made 
 superintendent of a coal mine by the 
 owners, to whom he was related by 
 marriage. He opened a company’s 
 store on his own account and, with the 
 profits from this store and an ordinary 
 salary, he was able to retire from the 
 mining village within a few years a 
 rich man. And this is not by any means 
 an isolated instance. The history of the 
 coal region will furnish many similar 
 cases. 
 
 s. P. — 4 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 workingmen’s societies recognized 
 
 BY THE CHURCH. 
 
 protect themselves against in- 
 justice of this sort ; to maintain 
 and secure the highest standard of 
 wages that the worker in the various 
 departments of labor is entitled to ; to 
 guard their sacred rights and interests, 
 the Church recognizes and encourages 
 the formation of workingmen’s associ- 
 ations or societies. 
 
 These societies the Pope would wish 
 to see fashioned after the Catholic 
 guilds of a former day, but subject to 
 such changes as the requirements of this 
 age, custom or circumstances, may de- 
 mand. 
 
 What those who have the real interests 
 of labor at heart must do is to place at the 
 head of these organizations the right per- 
 sons. Leaders are needed of the highest 
 and strongest character, of great firmness, 
 tact and superior executive ability ; in 
 50 
 
WORKINGMEN'S SOCIETIES. 
 
 51 
 
 a word, those whose aim will be to safe- 
 guard the interests and promote the 
 welfare of the society without infringing 
 on the rights of employers or others. 
 
 Societies, no matter what the avowed 
 objects may be, that are managed by 
 “invisible leaders and on principles far 
 from compatible with Christianity and 
 the public well-being,” must be avoided. 
 And the rank and file of labor organ- 
 izations should see to it that persons of 
 this stamp should never control the 
 society. 
 
 We all know how much suffering and 
 misery have been brought to numberless 
 workingmen’s homes through the false, 
 and, I do not hesitate to say, wicked 
 counsel of selfish and designing leaders. 
 It is the influence of such men that forces 
 labor organizations to adopt and try to 
 enforce measures that are unjust and 
 tyrannical. By the enactment of these 
 unjust and objectionable methods, 
 strife and ill feeling are engendered, and 
 the good will and sympathy of the 
 public are lost at times when the cause 
 of labor needs the strong support of 
 public sentiment. 
 
52 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 To sum up the teaching of our Holy 
 Father the Pope on this subject of 
 labor associations, he believes in the 
 fullest freedom of industrial workers to 
 organize for mutual self-help, and pro- 
 tection ; he would have all labor unions 
 based on Christian principles and kept 
 under the restraint of religious motives ; 
 and he would have the most devoted, 
 disinterested and earnest religious men 
 placed at the head of these unions. 
 
 Industrial organizations of which both 
 the wage -earners and employers shall 
 be members, and in which they shall 
 cooperate for the promotion of friendly 
 relations with each other, would be a 
 step in the right direction. Leo XIII. 
 has given expression to a strong desire 
 for the formation of such bodies, be- 
 cause he sees what has been confirmed 
 by experience, that where conferences 
 are held in the proper spirit between 
 employers and employed, the best re- 
 sults follow. Strikes are oftentimes 
 prevented, differences and disputes are 
 amicably settled, confidence is restored, 
 and a better and more kindly feeling 
 established all around. 
 
WORKINGMEN'S SOCIETIES. 
 
 53 
 
 This method of conference was suc- 
 cessfully followed for years until the 
 Homestead troubles by the Amalga- 
 mated Association of Iron and Steel 
 Workers of Pennsylvania in arranging 
 the rate of wages, the hours of work, 
 and all matters of importance to the 
 men or the mill owners. By this means 
 strikes are averted, and it would be 
 well if this plan for adjusting labor 
 differences were more generally adopted 
 in all kinds of industry all over the 
 United States. 
 
 As long as the present wage system 
 exists, it is the simplest and most effec- 
 tive mode of settling labor disputes. 
 And should conciliation and conference 
 fail, recourse ought to be had to arbi- 
 tration. Better, too, to arbitrate in the 
 beginning than at a late stage of a pro- 
 longed strike or lockout. Strikes are 
 no remedy for a labor grievance. They 
 are rather a means, and oftentimes, if 
 not in all instances, a drastic means of 
 directing attention to a grievance. In 
 the great majority of strikes the strikers 
 lose. They are either starved into sub- 
 mission, or provoked by the capitalist 
 
54 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 into deeds of violence and unlawful con- 
 duct, then the state steps in and helps 
 to end the strike. 
 
 “ Everybody can see that strikers are 
 wrong, not only when they resort to 
 arson and murder, but when they resort 
 to any form of trespass or violence or 
 compulsion, whether physical or moral. 
 But preaching to strikers against a 
 resort to extreme measures is about as 
 silly as it is futile. A strike is essen- 
 tially a war ; and war, as General Sher- 
 man was wont to say, is hell. Wars and 
 strikes will never be brought under rules 
 and regulations that will transform them 
 into Sunday school picnics.” 
 
 But let it not be thought that all the 
 worst enemies of law and order are in 
 the tents of the strikers. 
 
 “ The high-handed outrages that have 
 been perpetrated by some of the men 
 who find shelter in the entrenched camp 
 of corporate monopoly are more detri- 
 mental to the public peace and welfare 
 than all the threats of the extreme social- 
 ists and all the crazy performances in 
 the name of Anarchy. It is the business 
 of the state to assert its dignity and to 
 bring both sets of disturbers into sub- 
 ordination.” 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 CONDITION OF WORKING WOMEN AND 
 GIRLS. 
 
 OR KING women and girls com- 
 
 prise a large and growing class of 
 wage-earners whose condition and 
 claims have until quite recently been 
 almost entirely ignored. 
 
 Two circumstances have contributed 
 very largely to the opening avenues of 
 employment for women which were not 
 dreamed of a quarter of a century ago; 
 first, the greed of men, and secondly, 
 the intelligent cooperative efforts of 
 women to force the doors open. 
 
 In the first place, in the increase of ma- 
 chinery in manufactures and the multi- 
 plication of new forms of employment, 
 men have found women and girls to be 
 cheaper and more profitable and more 
 conscientious in certain branches of 
 work. 
 
 Hundreds of manufactures are em- 
 ploying women and girls; saleswomen 
 
 55 
 
56 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 and children are employed in great 
 numbers in the large retail stores of our 
 cities; whilst the professional and semi- 
 professional callings have a constantly 
 increasing representation of women. 
 Until very recently little thought was 
 given to this most deserving body. 
 Working women were helpless, unpro- 
 tected and without organized union for 
 their defense. 
 
 From a report of the Commission of 
 Labor, published at Washington in 
 1888, on the subject of “Working Wo- 
 men in Large Cities,” it is known that 
 the average earnings of 13,822 women 
 and girls are $5.24 per week. Of this 
 number 373 earn less than $100 a year, 
 while the majority of the above number 
 earn a little over $200 per annum. 
 
 The New York Sun some time ago 
 
 o 
 
 carefully investigated the condition of 
 New York, and says that there were 
 then 40,000 working women of that 
 city receiving wages so low that they 
 are compelled to accept charity or 
 starve. 
 
 The shopgirl is an important factor in 
 business life, an essential part of the 
 
WORKING WOMEN. 
 
 57 
 
 running gear of every large establish- 
 ment. She has many grievances, but 
 how few are interested in righting her 
 wrongs! Her cheerful endurance is a 
 most pathetic protest against the injus- 
 tice of her lot; her triumph over the 
 many temptations daily besetting her, 
 commands our highest admiration. In 
 every great city of America, thousands 
 of weak, young girls are working long 
 hours, oftentimes under unwholesome 
 sanitary conditions, for the merest pit- 
 tance. What hideous possibilities are 
 suggested as a means of supplementing 
 so meagre an income. 
 
 o 
 
 There are numbers of children under 
 age employed for excessive hours, and 
 at work far beyond their strength. The 
 wages which are low, are made still lower 
 by excessive fines. The salaries of sales- 
 women range from $2.00 to $18.00 a 
 week, but the latter sum is only paid in 
 very rare instances. The average salary 
 is from $4.00 to $5.00 per week. Cash- 
 iers receive from $6.00 to $15.00, the 
 average being about $9.00. Cash girls 
 receive from $1.50 to $2.50, and the 
 latter figure is rare. The fines imposed 
 
58 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 for a few minutes’ tardiness run from 
 five to thirty cents. 
 
 From a careful examination of the 
 condition of saleswomen in New York 
 City, this conclusion was reached, that 
 through low wages, long hours, un- 
 wholesome sanitary conditions and the 
 discouraging result of excessive fines, 
 not only the physical condition is 
 injured, but — the result most to be 
 deplored — the tendency is to injure the 
 moral well-being. 
 
 It is simply impossible for any woman 
 to live without assistance on the small 
 salary a saleswoman earns, without de- 
 priving herself of the real necessities of 
 life. 
 
 The Holy Father pleads for this class. 
 
 “ Whenever,” he writes, “ the general 
 interest of any particular class suffers 
 or is threatened with evils which can in 
 no other way be met, the public au- 
 thority must step in to meet them.” 
 
 The social doctrine of “ laissez faire ” 
 finds scant favor with the Pope. He 
 does not believe in it, nor does he de- 
 sire that anyone else should accept it 
 either in theory or practice. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 INDUSTRIAL SLAVERY. 
 
 E now come to treat of the “ sweat- 
 
 ing system,” as it is called, the 
 extent and horrors of which few people 
 outside of those unfortunates who are 
 forced to live under it can realize. It is 
 a system of industrial slavery whose 
 cruelties and oppressions make those of 
 chattel slavery seem merciful in com- 
 parison. It furnishes a striking instance 
 of the workings of the competitive sys- 
 tem of industry before which its stout- 
 est advocates may well stand appalled. 
 
 Only when we look closely at the dark 
 side of the picture do we perceive that 
 our modern civilization, wonderful 
 though it be, has some terrible defects. 
 We see that the raising of the average 
 standard of comfort has not yet availed 
 to banish the direst poverty and dis- 
 tress ; that the cleavage of classes is as 
 wide as ever ; that the progress in edu- 
 cation has served to make more vivid 
 
 59 
 
60 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 the realization of the defects of our 
 social system ; and that the condition 
 of large masses of the industrial classes 
 threatens the moral and physical well- 
 being of society. 
 
 When examination is made into 
 the kinds and conditions of labor 
 carried on more privately in homes, we 
 get many revelations, and here and 
 there we come across a fearful record 
 such as that of the sweating dens to 
 be found to-day in all our cities of 
 America. We blush for Christian civ- 
 ilization when we are brought face to 
 face with the horrors of this monstrous 
 system. 
 
 The late James Russell Lowell, in one 
 of his poems, “ The Parable, ” describes 
 Christ, our Savior coming to earth 
 again and what He saw when He 
 came. After telling how the chief 
 priests and rulers and kings pointed out 
 to Him that His images stood sovereign 
 to all throughout the land, it ends as 
 follows : 
 
 “ Our Lord sought out an artisan, 
 
 A low-browed, stunted, haggard man ; 
 
 And a motherless girl whose fingers thin 
 Pushed from her faintly want and sin. 
 
INI) US TK1A L SLA I r ER Y. 
 
 61 
 
 “ These He sat in the midst of them, 
 
 And as they drew hack their garments’ hem 
 For fear of defilement, ‘ Lo here,’ said He, 
 
 ‘ Are the images which ye have made of me.’ ” 
 
 The work that is done in the sweat- 
 ing dens is, for the most part, performed 
 by women and children. It is the 
 cheaper grade of needle work. In 
 these “ sweating ” shops the hours of 
 labor are from 7 a. m. to 7 P. M., which 
 means that in the winter time the opera- 
 tives never see daylight outside of the 
 wretched dens where they work. 
 
 And the work is carried on under the 
 very worst sanitary conditions. The 
 seeds of disease and death are sown broad- 
 cast ; there is a slow, grinding, horrible 
 wasting away of moral and physical 
 strength ; even life itself becomes a 
 burden almost too heavy to be endured; 
 and many of those poor creatures look 
 forward to death as a boon that will 
 release them from suffering. It is a ter- 
 rible comment on our civilization that 
 such a condition of things can exist. 
 
CHAPTER XII. „ 
 
 THE WRITER’S EXPERIENCE. 
 
 6)71 SHORT time ago, accompanied by 
 ] a physician, the writer visited one 
 of those “sweating” dens. We there 
 found a young girl at work on men’s 
 clothing. Her eyes were in a most ad- 
 vanced state of disease caused by the 
 half light in which she had been 
 working for the last year and a 
 half. The physician examined her 
 eyes and declared that within a month 
 or two she would become totally blind. 
 Both the girl and her employer received 
 this information with a careless shrug of 
 the shoulders, the stoicism of utter 
 misery and the heartlessness engendered 
 by an industrial system that puts a 
 lower estimate on human beings than 
 on beasts of burden. 
 
 The writer has seen six girls with 
 sewing machines at work in a small hall 
 bedroom of a tenement house with only 
 62 
 
THE WRITER'S EXPERIENCE. 
 
 63 
 
 one window opening within a few feet 
 of a high brick wall. Nor is it a small 
 number who are working under such 
 conditions. 
 
 There are tens of thousands of such 
 workers in all our larger cities. In 
 New York and Brooklyn there are 
 seventy-five thousand sewing women. In 
 Chicago there are over one hundred 
 thousand women who are supporting 
 themselves and others by labor. The 
 majority of these belong* to the class 
 that we are considering — the poor sew- 
 ing women. Their lot is sad, indeed. 
 The wages they receive is a miserable 
 pittance. The work is taken by con- 
 tract, and in order to make enough 
 to keep body and soul together they are 
 forced to work as many as sixteen or 
 eighteen hours out of the twenty- 
 four. 
 
 Think of it, it is almost incredible, the 
 mother of three or four fatherless chil- 
 dren compelled to sew sixteen hours a 
 day for forty cents, getting eighty 
 cents for a lady’s cloak, which the em- 
 ployer sells for $ 18 . 00 , or fifty cents for 
 making a dozen pairs of trousers, or 
 
64 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 seventy-five cents for making fifteen 
 shirts. 
 
 Surely it is the right and duty of the 
 state to step in between these helpless 
 women and their greedy employers. 
 
 “ If,” writes Leo XIII., “ employers 
 impose burdens upon those who work for 
 them which are unjust, or degrade them 
 with conditions that are repugnant to 
 their dignity as human beings, or if 
 health be endangered by excessive 
 labor, or by work unsuited to age or 
 sex, in these cases there can be no ques- 
 tion that it would be right to call in the 
 help and authority of the law.” 
 
 Another point to which attention 
 ought to be called in this matter is the 
 illiteracy fostered by this pernicious 
 system. The laws regulating the age 
 of children at work in mines and facto- 
 ries are utterly disregarded in the sweat- 
 ing establishments. 
 
 Thousands of children are growing 
 up in those sections of our cities where 
 this system prevails, who, not only can- 
 not read or write English, but are unable 
 to read or write in any language. And 
 these children physically deteriorated, 
 neglected in their morals, degraded by 
 
THE WRITER'S EXPERIENCE. 
 
 65 
 
 their surroundings and deadly sanitary 
 conditions, will be the American citi- 
 zens of the future. 
 
 It is difficult, indeed, to keep up 
 one’s faith in a millenium within sight 
 of our modern civilization as long as 
 that civilization is marred by such de- 
 fects and evils as we have been con- 
 sidering. It is well to remember that 
 the highest type of civilization is not 
 that which produces the greatest men or 
 the most wonderful inventions or the 
 greatest wealth, but that which secures 
 the true elevation of the greatest num- 
 ber; that which lifts up and protects the 
 weak and lowly; that which provides 
 for the well-being and comfort of the 
 nation as a whole. 
 
 The Encyclical of Leo XIII. casts a 
 strong, white light on all these points 
 that are raised in the industrial world. 
 It is a message of peace and good will 
 to all men. It lays down the eternal 
 principles of right and justice for the 
 guidance of rich and poor, wage-earner, 
 and capitalist. It does not array class 
 against class. It rather points out the 
 line of duty for each to follow, while it 
 s. P -5 
 
66 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 aims to establish and strengthen right 
 relations between labor and capital. It 
 is a reassurance, if there be need of it, 
 that the Church is the friend of the 
 wage-earner, the world over; and that 
 it is part of her divine mission to teach 
 justice and charity to all men. 
 
PART II 
 
 Socialism and Socialists 
 
 ( 67 ) 
 

 
 
PART II. 
 
 Socialism and Socialists 
 
 HHH 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SOCIALISM AN IMPORTANT SUBJECT ITS 
 
 DEFINITION. 
 
 /^TO-DAY, whether we look to the Old 
 World, or the New, the face of 
 society is sadly troubled. Everywhere is 
 manifest a deep-seated feeling of dissatis- 
 faction with the existing order of things. 
 There is in the very air a wave of 
 social unrest. Men’s minds are disturbed 
 by the agitations and conflicts arising 
 out of our social conditions. In some 
 quarters are plainly visible well-defined 
 symptoms of approaching convulsions. 
 Outbreaks and deeds of violence are of 
 almost daily occurrence in the very 
 heart of our civilization. 
 
 The atmosphere is rent with the 
 cries of Social Democracy, State Social- 
 ism, Christian Socialism, and every man- 
 
 69 
 
70 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 ner of social sentimentality and mysti- 
 cism. Socialist societies are establishing 
 themselves in the cities and in our col- 
 leges ; Socialist lectures are delivered ; 
 Socialist discussions promoted; and there 
 are already in every civilized country 
 of Europe and America several Socialist 
 organs in the weekly and monthly 
 press, conducted with a somewhat bitter 
 zeal, and counting among their contrib- 
 utors writers of acknowledged ability. 
 
 It is too soon to say what may come 
 of this movement, or what weight ought 
 to be assigned to it. It would be folly, 
 however, to ignore it. Some years ago 
 it was thought that Russia was pro- 
 tected from Socialism by her rural com- 
 mune, and Germany by her lack of 
 manufacturing industries. Events have 
 shown how erroneous was this view. 
 We, too, may possibly cherish a like 
 error if we fancy ourselves to possess a 
 sure protection against Socialism in the 
 practical character of our people, and 
 our habits of free and open discussion. 
 
 The subject of Socialism becomes, 
 then, one of living interest, and we run 
 little risk of over-rating its importance. 
 
SOCIA LISM AN IMPORTANT SUBJECT. 71 
 
 Leo XIII. has said, “ It is the great 
 question of our times ;” and in truth it 
 is, for the social aspect of our modern 
 thought lends color to the poetry, the 
 romance, the art, the literature, the 
 philosophy, the politics and the religion 
 of the age. 
 
 Socialism in one form or another is 
 the chief factor in the forces that are 
 silently transforming the old order, and 
 no student of contemporary events can 
 fail to be interested in its origin and 
 developments. It had its genesis 
 amidst the war and fire of revolutionary 
 struggle, and its advance has been met 
 at every stage by the fiercest opposition. 
 
 To present a comprehensive view of 
 that movement which is designated by 
 the general term “ Socialism ” is by no 
 means an easy task ; it is rather diffi- 
 cult to define the subject-matter which 
 we propose to discuss, since the words 
 “Socialism” and “Socialists” have 
 been so variously applied, with mean- 
 ings apparently so incompatible that it 
 has become extremely difficult to deter- 
 mine for them a sense which would be 
 common to them in all their applica- 
 
72 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 tions. There is the political or revo- 
 lutionary form of Socialism, of which 
 there are several forms or varieties ; 
 there is the experimental and philan- 
 thropic form, which spread for a time 
 on both sides of the Atlantic, but is 
 now practically extinct ; there is State 
 Socialism, which proposes to deal with 
 social questions in the interests of the 
 working classes. And, as there is a 
 violent and irreligious, so there is a 
 conservative and Christian form of So- 
 cialism, which aims at removing the in- 
 justice and inequalities that exist in our 
 modern society, and looks forward with 
 hope to the establishment of a last- 
 ing peace and harmony between the 
 contending elements of our civiliza- 
 tion. 
 
 But, in the prevailing use of the words 
 there is generally the idea that the social- 
 istic movement, no matter what form it 
 takes, is undertaken to better the con- 
 ditions of the less fortunate classes of 
 society. The end aimed at is to make 
 this earth that for so many is a “step- 
 mother, a true mother for all who bear 
 the human form.” 
 
SOCIALISM AN IMPORTANT SUBJECT. 73 
 
 And, since there are various forms of 
 Socialism, so there are different kinds of 
 Socialists. Bakunin, the most violent 
 of revolutionists, is sometimes described 
 as a Socialist ; Count Albert de Mun, 
 the most conservative and scrupulous 
 advocate of social duties as interpreted 
 by Christian law, has been given the 
 same name ; Vaillant and Ravachol, to 
 whom, doubtless, the highest achieve- 
 ment of social reform would be the 
 abolition of all religion, are called 
 Socialists ; whilst the late Cardinal 
 Manning and our own Cardinal Gib- 
 bons, who would reform society by in- 
 culcating obedience to the Gospel, have 
 been sometimes described by the same 
 term. We have heard the term applied 
 to the chiefs of the International Labor 
 Association, as well as to some of our 
 clergymen and philanthropists who are 
 striving in various ways to improve the 
 condition of the poor in our large 
 cities. 
 
 When the Holy Father issued his 
 Encyclical on Labor he was called by 
 capitalists a “ Socialist,” but a type, of 
 course, far removed from the author of 
 
74 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 “ Progress and Poverty,” whose teach- 
 ing that document refuted. 
 
 It would seem, at first sight, then, 
 that there is absolutely no warrant for 
 the use of a common appellation in ref- 
 erence to men and movements so widely 
 different and apart in motive and pur- 
 pose. But, when the subject is ex- 
 amined a little more closely, it shall be 
 found that a certain common ground is 
 occupied by these social reformers, 
 otherwise so much opposed; and we may 
 well suppose, also, that those who place 
 them all in the same category, and 
 condemn them by the same epithet, are 
 thinking of the points only on which 
 they agree, more or less, and not at all 
 of the more numerous and important 
 points upon which they differ. 
 
 In this, all who style themselves “ So- 
 cialists,” or are reproachfully so styled 
 by others, are agreed that the present 
 industrial order is not what it ought to 
 be, and that social changes must be 
 effected if we are to reach an improved 
 state of society. This may be regarded 
 as the negative side of every program 
 which can be described as Socialistic; 
 
SOCIALISM AN IMPORTANT SUBJECT. 75 
 
 and it is this aspect of the subject that 
 has led the advocates of the existing 
 order to confound names and terms. 
 When we look to the positive side of 
 the movement and inquire into the 
 nature of the remedies proposed for the 
 evils complained of in the present in- 
 dustrial system; when we ask Socialists 
 what they would substitute for the 
 existing system, or that part of it that 
 they condemn; how they would bring 
 about the new and better order of which 
 they speak, we find that they are at 
 once separated into distinct, and for the 
 most part, antagonistic groups. 
 
 In examining, however briefly and 
 imperfectly, the elements and phases of 
 the Socialistic movement, including in 
 that term everything to which the name 
 is currently applied, it is necessary to 
 notice: First, what is called the “ nega- 
 tive aspect of Socialism;” and then to 
 give some account of the more impor- 
 tant of the forms it takes as a positive or 
 reconstructive movement; with what new 
 forms of society it seeks to replace the 
 old, and by what means it proposes to 
 effect this reconstruction. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 INDIVIDUALISM AND CAPITALISM. 
 
 E begin with the defects of our ex- 
 
 isting industrial system, against 
 which Socialism is a protest, and which 
 it strives to remove. These evils may 
 be summed up under two heads, Indi- 
 vidualism and Capitalism. The evils 
 which these terms signify shall be best 
 explained by referring to the circum- 
 stances in which the words had their 
 origin. 
 
 About the middle of the last cen- 
 tury an infidel school of philosophers 
 in France began to assail the funda- 
 mental principles of government; they 
 taught this doctrine: That society is 
 
 based upon a contract freely entered 
 into by men for the purpose of safe- 
 guarding their rights; that in society 
 man voluntarily limits his freedom in 
 order to enjoy it the more securely; that 
 society is the creation of the individual, 
 
 76 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AND CAPITALISM. 77 
 
 and, therefore, serves its purpose only 
 in so far as it protects the individual in 
 the exercise of his rights and faculties. 
 It was held by this infidel school that, 
 apart from his own purposes and his 
 own profit, man owed no obligation to 
 social order, nor to any higher power 
 than himself, by whom that order may 
 be prescribed. His own interests were 
 to be the standard and measure of his 
 duty to others. The expression of this 
 doctrine of selfishness as the basis of 
 social life, when carried into the polit- 
 ical world found vent in the terrible 
 revolution with which the last century 
 closed. 
 
 The proclamation of the rights of 
 man was the logical outcome of the 
 theory of the social contract and its 
 principles, which the economists of 
 France, as well as her philosophers, 
 had been preaching for fifty years. 
 The doctrine appealed with telling 
 force to popular prejudice. The masses 
 hailed with joy the new freedom con- 
 ferred upon them. The workman shared 
 in largest measure of the new-born 
 liberty; he was suddenly liberated from 
 
78 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 the restrictions under which he had been 
 placed in the industrial order of the old 
 regime; the guilds and associations of 
 handicraftsmen were suppressed; labor 
 became a commodity of free traffic, 
 which the laborer could offer in any 
 market to the highest bidder. 
 
 But, this radical change introduced 
 by the revolution was not wholly for 
 good; the liberty conferred upon the 
 workman was not an unqualified bles- 
 sing. For, while he was declared free 
 to dispose of his labor as he saw fit, this 
 freedom did not give any guarantee 
 that he would find someone to accept at 
 its value the labor he was ready to offer. 
 The market was open to many compet- 
 itors, where each man stood alone, and 
 where all transactions were conducted 
 in accordance with the laws of supply 
 and demand. 
 
 Under the old order, the guilds, fos- 
 tered and encouraged by the Church, 
 had regulated the labor of their 
 members; they were closely united by 
 a community of interests and a fixed 
 code of discipline; they had corporate 
 rights in the industrial system, and their 
 
INDIVIDUALISM AND CAPITALISM. 79 
 
 influence and protection reached the 
 weakest member of the association. 
 Moreover, the workman had to deal im- 
 mediately and directly with the master 
 craftsman, with a member of his own 
 trade, to whom he was bound by the 
 fellowship of his own craft, and by the 
 laws of the craft; he was, therefore, 
 bound by ties which were to a large ex- 
 tent an extension of the family bond. 
 
 What was his condition under the new 
 order? It was entirely changed. The 
 workman had to deal directly with the 
 employer, with a man who bought his 
 labor at the lowest figure ; who took 
 the workman into his employ and dis- 
 missed him pretty much as he would 
 adopt and discard a machine ; and who, 
 when he had paid him the wages agreed 
 upon, acknowledged no further duty 
 towards him, and took no further inter- 
 est in his lot. 
 
 The workman soon discovered that 
 the employer was in the fullest en- 
 joyment of that same liberty which 
 he himself prized so much. If there 
 was liberty to sell, there must be 
 liberty also to buy ; and, in a contest 
 
80 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 between the freedom of the workman 
 and that of his employer, the issue was 
 certain that disaster must overtake the 
 party who was forced to sell on pain of 
 starvation, while there was no over- 
 powering penalty or pressure on the 
 purchaser, forcing him to buy. Thus 
 the principle of unrestricted individual 
 liberty has operated in the industrial 
 world. And this is the meaning of the 
 Individualism of which we hear so 
 much. 
 
 The doctrine was at first preached 
 with an unbounded faith in its saving 
 effects, and the enthusiasm with which 
 it was hailed blinded men to its obvious 
 defects. It was not seen that Individu- 
 alism means isolation ; and that to iso- 
 late the laborer is to reduce him to 
 helplessness ; that he is the weakest, 
 though by no means the least important, 
 member of the social body ; and that 
 if he is left to himself he is sure to be 
 crushed by the stronger forces with 
 which he will be brought into conflict. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 GROWTH OF CAPITALISM. 
 
 LMOST coincident with the prac- 
 
 tical application of the principles of 
 
 Individualism was the growth of Capi- 
 talism. The inherent evils of the indi- 
 vidualistic economy were intensified and 
 developed by the evils of Capitalism. 
 Thus, the social problem became still 
 more complicated, and so continues to 
 the present time. 
 
 About the middle of the last century 
 began to rise in gigantic proportions 
 that system of production which the 
 French call la grande Industrie , and 
 which we, for want of a better name, 
 call Capitalism. 
 
 In the older industrial order, pro- 
 duction was in the hands of a vast 
 number of manufacturers. The guilds 
 and corporations were local institu- 
 tions; each master craftsman was a 
 director of industry, and his workshop 
 S. P— 6 81 
 
82 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 an independent center of production. 
 But a great change now took place. 
 The needs of the growing foreign trade 
 with the New World, and the establish- 
 ment of commercial relations with the 
 distant countries of southern Asia, re- 
 quired that both the production of com- 
 modities and their distribution should be 
 undertaken on a large scale; that great 
 enterprises should be promoted; that 
 the means of carrying on these enter- 
 prises, that is capital, should be concen- 
 trated, placed under the control of fewer 
 hands, and its application directed by a 
 smaller number of highly skilled experts. 
 
 Again, to these new conditions others 
 were added. There came the discovery 
 and invention of improved machinery, 
 and the consequent displacement of 
 thousands of busy hands and brains. 
 The capital which had heretofore been 
 dispensed in wages to workmen could 
 be now more profitably invested in ma- 
 chinery and the output of manufacture 
 be wonderfully increased. 
 
 It was also pointed out by writers 
 like Adam Smith, that great advantages 
 would result to capitalists from massing 
 
GROWTH OF CAPITALISM. 
 
 83 
 
 their capital and carrying on their pro- 
 ductive operations on the largest scale 
 possible; the savings in buildings, in 
 taxes, in wages of superintendence, and 
 numerous other gains which would fol- 
 low the policy of concentration. 
 
 The owners of capital were at once alive 
 to their interests. W e have witnessed the 
 vast accumulation of capital in almost 
 every department of industry. Millions 
 of dollars are invested, and a large army 
 of men are controlled by a single cor- 
 poration. The Carnegie interests of 
 Pittsburg employ 23,000 hands, which 
 means that over a hundred thousand 
 souls are more or less dependent upon a 
 single individual. No mediaeval baron 
 was in his palmiest days more powerful 
 than our modern coal or iron “ king.” 
 
 The business of manufacture to-day is 
 mostly conducted by powerful corpora- 
 tions and managed by a small number 
 of skilled men. The owners of the 
 capital, if they do not choose to take 
 part in the industry, can sit at home or 
 enjoy themselves abroad, with the assur- 
 ance that their dividends will be revu- 
 larly and promptly paid them. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE CONDITION OF THE WORKMAN. 
 
 EANWHILE, how does the work- 
 
 man fare ? He was now more 
 
 completely a chattel, the victim of de- 
 mand and supply, than ever before. 
 He had no longer to deal with an em- 
 ployer who was himself a craftsman, 
 and with whom, apart from any kind 
 of trade fellowship or organization, he 
 could treat as with a creature endowed 
 with human sympathies, and amenable 
 to the instincts of human compassion. 
 He had now to do with a trading or 
 manufacturing company, with an im- 
 personal entity which dealt with him 
 according to the laws of the market in 
 all their rigor ; from which he could 
 expect no sympathy ; which bought 
 from him the supply of muscular or 
 mental labor that he could furnish, but 
 which took no thought for his needs, 
 and had no concern for his misfortunes. 
 
 84 
 
CONDITION OF THE WORKMAN . 
 
 85 
 
 Soon the great corporations became 
 not merely the purchasers of the work- 
 man’s labor, but the arbiters of his 
 existence as well. 
 
 Capital had taken such an important 
 place in the economy of production that 
 it possessed the power of setting the 
 processes of production in motion, or 
 bringing them to a standstill, at pleas- 
 ure. The artisan could not work unless 
 the wheels of the great machines re- 
 volved, and it depended upon the 
 owners whether they should revolve or 
 not. If there was a prospect of gain for 
 the owner they turned, and the work- 
 man was paid what his labor was 
 worth ; if the prospect of gain ceased, 
 the wheels became stationary and the 
 workman starved. 
 
 Again, the constant inventions which 
 improved and multiplied the mechanisms 
 of manufacture, increased the instability 
 of the workman’s position, and not un- 
 frequently added to his hardships. The 
 introduction of a new machine enabled 
 the capitalist to dispense at a stroke with 
 hundreds or thousands of his “ hands,” 
 and as the “ hands” were to him noth- 
 
86 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 ing more than machines which had 
 been superseded by the new invention, 
 he dismissed them without scruple, and 
 without regret. There might not be any 
 other employment for them, any other 
 resource than starvation or public 
 charity ; but that, after all, was a mat- 
 ter that did not specially concern him. 
 The principle of “ natural liberty” left 
 every man to do for himself as he found 
 it best for his interests ; the capitalist 
 had to take the course most profitable 
 to himself ; if he did not, he would soon 
 be left behind in the race by his less 
 scrupulous competitors. 
 
 Furthermore, the capitalist was in a 
 position to make his own terms. The 
 competition for work enabled him to 
 force down the price at which he 
 bought his labor supply ; and, as the 
 law of demand and supply was the only 
 law that he felt called upon to acknowl- 
 edge, he forced it down as low as the 
 competition would permit him. It was 
 not a question to him of the intrinsic 
 value of the work of the laborer ; the 
 question was, what were the lowest 
 terms which the applicant for work 
 
CONDITION OF THE WORKMAN. 
 
 87 
 
 would be forced to accept under the 
 prevailing conditions of the labor 
 market. 
 
 It is needless to point out that in this 
 condition of things the advantage in the 
 labor contract was, for the most part, on 
 the side of capital. It could not be 
 otherwise. The gains of the capitalists 
 from the processes of industry grew ex- 
 travagantly, without any proportionate 
 improvement in the condition of the 
 workers ; huge fortunes were accumu- 
 lated by the investors of capital, and, 
 side by side with the luxury and mag- 
 nificence which these fortunes main- 
 tained, the destitution and demoraliza- 
 tion of the poor reached vast and appall- 
 ing proportions. 
 
 From a “ Report on the Condition of 
 Working Women in New York Retail 
 Stores,” facts are set forth from which 
 this conclusion is arrived at : that “ it is 
 simply impossible for any woman to 
 live, without assistance, on the low 
 salary a saleswoman earns, without de- 
 priving herself of the real necessaries of 
 life ; ” and cases might be cited “ where 
 frail, delicate, refined women, unable to 
 
88 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 live on the salaries that they earn, are 
 forced to crime or suicide.” The pa- 
 thetic story of the saleswoman who 
 threw herself from an attic window of a 
 New York lodging house, is the story of 
 many another in our large cities. It is 
 thus that our great merchant princes are 
 created. 
 
 How strikingly apt to our times are 
 the words of Goldsmith : 
 
 “ 111 fares the land to hastening ills a prey ; 
 
 Where wealth accumulates and men decay.” 
 
 To this consummation the twin prin- 
 ciples of Individualism and Capitalism 
 had led in due time ; this was the result 
 which the political doctrine of unstinted 
 liberty and that economic policy of un- 
 qualified industrial freedom brought 
 forth for the laborer whom the states- 
 men and economists had undertaken to 
 emancipate. It is against the evils thus 
 produced that Socialism, in all its forms, 
 salutary or dangerous, Christian or irre- 
 ligious, protests, and it is these evils 
 that it seeks to redress. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 REVOLT AGAINST CAPITALISM. 
 
 p7] S it was in France the new doctrine 
 / of absolute industrial liberty was 
 first proclaimed, so there, too, the first 
 voice of rebellion was raised against it. 
 At the time when liberty was declared 
 the inalienable right of every man, 
 Baboeuf came forward to announce the 
 claim of the poor on the riches of the 
 wealthy, the equal rights of all men to 
 the earth and its products. The French 
 Directory was not prepared to accept 
 this extension of the rights of man, and 
 imposed silence rather summarily on its 
 author by means of the guillotine. 
 
 Fourier, St. Simon and Cabet 
 preached the doctrine of the equal 
 rights of man in the matter of temporal 
 possessions; they founded committees to 
 illustrate the working of their plans for 
 the regeneration of society. We have 
 had, and still may have, a few of these 
 
 89 
 
90 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 societies in the United States. The 
 Brook Farm Association was established 
 on this idea. But the teachings of 
 this group of Socialists never had a very- 
 strong hold on the popular mind. The 
 plan of giving every man, whatever be 
 his deserts, an equal claim with his fel- 
 lows on the products of the general la- 
 bor, is so absurd, so utterly destructive 
 of all industrial effort that the good sense 
 of the masses may be relied upon to 
 scout it. The formula, “from each 
 man according to his capacity, to 
 each man according to his needs” 
 can find favor only with the idle and 
 dissolute who would prey on the labor 
 of others. 
 
 It may be said that this group of So- 
 cialists aimed at nothing less than the 
 completion of the work of Voltaire, 
 Rousseau and Adam Smith. 
 
 Thus Socialism may be well regarded 
 as the legitimate offspring of two great 
 revolutions ; of the industrial revolution, 
 which began to establish itself in Eng- 
 land towards the end of the eighteenth 
 century, and of the parallel revolution 
 in thought, which, at about the same 
 
REVOLT AGAINST CAPITALISM. 
 
 91 
 
 time, found its most prominent expres- 
 sion in France. 
 
 It is, indeed, a matter of surprise to 
 find in England in the early part of this 
 century, a thoughtful, practical man of 
 business, such as Robert Owen was, ad- 
 vocating and putting into practice 
 theories cognate to those of St. Simon. 
 Owen’s Communism, it may be said, 
 was the outcome of human sympathy 
 for the distress and miseries of the poor 
 which the new Industrialism had en- 
 tailed. 
 
 Robert Owen was the son of a work- 
 ingman, born in Montgomeryshire in 
 1771. By his industry and commercial 
 capacity, he rose to be the chief owner 
 of large mills in which fifteen hundred 
 hands were employed. The sufferings 
 of the workers moved his compassion, 
 and in his zeal for their well-being, he 
 made them partners with himself in the 
 ownership of the mills. The success of 
 this scheme of cooperation led him to 
 the study of the labor question as a 
 whole. Unfortunately for his theories, 
 he imitated St. Simon in his rejection of 
 religion, and, unfortunately for his 
 
92 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 good sense, he imitated Cabet in his 
 attempt to found Communistic societies. 
 His schemes came to naught, as all such 
 schemes must do, and he died in obscu- 
 rity and poverty, after a long life of 
 struggle against that industrial system 
 which he held to be iniquitous and op- 
 pressive to the poor. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 ANARCHY AND ITS LURID GOSPEL. 
 
 NEW and more violent form of 
 
 Socialism was put forward in the 
 
 schemes of Bakunin and Proudhon; by 
 these extremists Anarchy, pure and 
 simple, was advocated as the only means 
 by which to redress the evils of society. 
 
 Bakunin was a Russian, whose ad- 
 vanced opinions brought about his early 
 exile from Russia, and who spent his life 
 exciting the labor masses of Europe to 
 a war against the existing social order. 
 His “ Catechism of Revolution ” lays 
 down the principles on which the An- 
 archists of the Old World and the New 
 have since been acting: 
 
 “The revolutionist,” he says, “is a 
 consecrated man; he has no personal 
 interests, no feelings, no business, no 
 preferences, no possessions, not even a 
 name. All within him is absorbed by 
 one exclusive purpose, by one thought 
 and passion — revolution. Not in his 
 
 93 
 
94 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 works and acts merely, but in the very 
 depth of his being he has separated him- 
 self forever from public order, from the 
 entire civilized world, from the laws, 
 customs, morals and manners recog- 
 nized by the world. ... A revolu- 
 tionist does not find his place in any 
 class of society; he lives in society only 
 in the expectation of its prompt and 
 complete destruction. If any object in 
 the world has value in his eyes, he is no 
 revolutionist. He must not shrink from 
 the destruction of any institution, of any 
 bond of friendship, or of any man who 
 inhabits this earth.” 
 
 And so on through many pages of a 
 lurid gospel of destruction. 
 
 Proudhon is not quite so sanguinary 
 in his teachings, but the scope of his 
 social doctrine is the same: Anarchy, 
 freedom from all order, from everything 
 that bears the name of law. 
 
 These, it will be understood, are not 
 theories which can captivate the minds 
 of the people, or which have any chance 
 of general acceptance; they are noticed 
 merely as protests against the existing 
 industrial order. 
 
 It was not, however, from England, 
 nor Russia, nor France that the Socialism 
 
ANARCHY AND ITS LURID GOSPEL . 95 
 
 came that was destined to establish it- 
 self in Europe and America as a power 
 which baffles princes and statesmen, and 
 which, being unable to conquer, they 
 are now seeking to conciliate. Scien- 
 tific Socialism in all its forms, is of 
 German growth, the creation of the 
 German mind, and has spread, as a power 
 to be reckoned with, mainly through 
 German influence. In no country has 
 the social problem been more deeply 
 studied than in Germany. There, 
 thoughtful minds from the beginning of 
 the new industrial order have made a 
 systematic study of the question. 
 
 Thunen, Weitling, and Karl Mario 
 are known for their bold specula- 
 tions on the conditions of modern 
 industry, and for the drastic remedies 
 which they proposed for existing 
 economic evils. Robertus, son of a 
 Pomeranian gentlemen, began fifty years 
 ago the study of the condition of the 
 working classes, and did much to direct 
 attention to this question which now 
 ranks amongst the most important sub- 
 jects of the day. But Robertus was 
 merely a student and he never attempted 
 
96 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 to put his theories into practice. His 
 teaching, too, was desultory and defec- 
 tive, presenting no comprehensive scheme 
 for the cure of the evils that he con 
 demned. It was reserved for another 
 German, a man of quite a different cast 
 and temper, to devise and establish a 
 system of Socialism which has had a 
 powerful influence on the social and 
 political life of Germany, reaching far 
 beyond the limits of the German Empire. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 KARL MARX AND HIS THEORIES. 
 
 iRL MARX was born at Treves, in 
 
 the Rhine Province, in the year 
 
 1818. He was a Jew by descent, al- 
 though his parents had renounced the 
 synagogue in order to secure certain 
 temporal advantages not then accessi- 
 ble to persons of Jewish birth. A bril- 
 liant career at the bar, or in the public 
 service was open to him, but he gave 
 himself to literature. His public criti- 
 cism of the Prussian government drew 
 upon him its hostility, and he was 
 obliged to seek refuge aboard. His 
 teachings and machinations made him a 
 danger to almost every government 
 under which he settled; and at last 
 London was the only place in Europe 
 in which he could carry on securely the 
 propaganda of the system which he 
 founded. 
 
 Marx was a man of singular ability, 
 an acute reasoner, with a cogent power 
 s. P.-7 97 
 
98 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 of stating arguments and enforcing his 
 conclusions. His great work, the store- 
 house of the literature of Socialism, is 
 his book on 44 Capitalism.” 
 
 The key to the whole system, developed 
 in this remarkable work, is to be found 
 in the author's notion of “surplus value.” 
 A few words will explain the importance 
 of this much employed term. Competi- 
 tion among laborers forces them to ac- 
 cept from the capitalist the lowest rate 
 of remuneration compatible with mere 
 subsistence. In other words, the market 
 value of the laborer’s day of toil is rep- 
 resented by the sum which will suffice 
 to maintain himself and his family. 
 Thus, if a laborer work twelve hours 
 a day, the market value of his toil is 
 represented by the commodities which 
 are necessary to maintain himself and 
 his family for the day, that, in fact, is 
 all that he receives for his labor. But 
 the value of these commodities is 
 created by much less than twelve hours’ 
 toil; let us say by six or by three. In six 
 hours the laborer has done work equiv- 
 alent in value to all the commodities he 
 consumes, that is, equivalent to the 
 
KARL MARX AND HIS THEORIES. 99 
 
 wages paid him; the remaining six hours, 
 create surplus value, that is, go to his 
 employer, without remuneration to him. 
 
 The aim of Marx was to devise a system 
 under which the surplus value should 
 be secured to the toiler; and he could 
 find no other plan adequate to this pur- 
 pose than to transfer to the democratic 
 state, that is, to the representative of the 
 laborers themselves, the whole mechan- 
 ism of production, the land from which 
 all products are derived, and the capital 
 which enables labor to utilize the re- 
 sources of the land. State ownership of 
 land and capital was, accordingly, the 
 remedy which he prescribed for the 
 evils which oppressed the laboring 
 masses — state ownership, be it noted, 
 in a state strictly democratic, in which 
 the public authorities would be, in the 
 true sense, representatives of the 
 people. 
 
 To compass the social revolution 
 which should permit the introduction of 
 his system, Marx availed himself of the 
 International Workmen’s Association. 
 It was founded in 1862, and for ten 
 years was controlled and guided in its 
 
100 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 operations by Karl Marx. In 1872 it 
 broke up into sections, and henceforth 
 the several nationalities represented in 
 it carried on their operations independ- 
 ently. But the doctrines of Karl Marx 
 still remained the doctrines of the 
 divided sections and the scope of the 
 International remained the scope of the 
 divided parts. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 LA SALLE AND HIS CAREER FRENCH 
 
 SOCIALISTS. 
 
 ARL MARX had a diligent and en- 
 
 thusiastic disciple in La Salle, who 
 preached the doctrines of the Socialistic 
 gospel with extraordinary ardor and 
 extraordinary ability. He became the 
 oracle and idol of the working classes 
 in Germany. 
 
 Ferdinand La Salle was also a Jew. 
 He was born in Breslau in 1825 and 
 killed in a duel at Geneva in 1864. Of 
 his short life he gave no more than the 
 last three years to the preaching of the 
 gospel of Socialism. The remainder of 
 his career was devoted to studies of va- 
 rious kinds, or consumed in adventures, 
 at times surprising, and at times scan- 
 dalous in character. He came before 
 the public as counsel for the Countess 
 Von Hatzfeldt in a divorce suit against 
 her husband. 
 
 101 
 
102 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 His eloquence, his enthusiasm, his 
 reckless defiance of all that was respect- 
 able and conservative in German society, 
 attracted the attention of the people; 
 and when he took up their case they 
 listened to his fervid periods as to the 
 words of a savior of society. 
 
 In July, 1864, he met the daughter 
 of a Bavarian diplomatist at the Hotel 
 du Rigi, offered her his hand, and was 
 accepted. But the parents of the lady 
 objected to an alliance with the arch- 
 agitator; and the young lady, disap- 
 pointed with La Salle’s refusal to 
 elope with her, accepted a husband 
 agreeable to her parents’ wishes. La 
 Salle challenged his successful rival, 
 and fell in the duel which ensued. 
 
 His death was mourned by the work- 
 ing masses of Germany as a national disas- 
 ter; the homage paid to his remains fell 
 but little short of worship, and some- 
 thing like a cult to his memory was 
 created and maintained by his followers. 
 
 At his death the practical policy of 
 democratic Socialism had been initiated 
 in Germany. The plan had been 
 - adopted of educating the voting masses 
 
LA SALLE AND IIIS CAREER. 
 
 103 
 
 in the principles of the new economy; of 
 securing by the votes of the masses thus 
 educated a position of power in the leg- 
 islature, and ultimately, if it might be, 
 the control of the government. This 
 policy has been adhered to, and worked 
 out with marvelous persistence. In 
 spite of persecution without, and divi- 
 sion and dissension within, the Socialist 
 propaganda has gone steadily forward; 
 newspapers have been founded, clubs 
 and societies set up, and great masses of 
 the people won over to democratic So- 
 cialism. It has steadily added to its 
 strength in the German Parliament, and 
 at every succeeding election has in- 
 creased the number of its representatives, 
 until to-day the Socialists are a powerful, 
 well-knit party in the Reichstag. 
 
 The French Socialists have borrowed 
 the methods as well as the theories of 
 La Salle. They, too, have been able to 
 return their candidates to the Chamber, 
 defeating ministers and ex-ministers at 
 the polls. To-day the extreme doc- 
 trines of social reform have between 
 140 and 150 representatives in the 
 French Chamber of Deputies. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 , SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND AND THE UNITED 
 STATES. 
 
 IN England more so than in any other 
 country, the growth of democratic So- 
 cialism has been within the last few years 
 rapid, and is constantly increasing. It 
 has absorbed Trades-Unionism. It also 
 has its representatives in the House of 
 Commons, and its purpose is to increase 
 and control its Parliamentary support- 
 ers. At the Belfast Trades Congress, 
 held September, 1893, by a vote of 137 
 to 92 it was resolved that “ candidates 
 receiving financial assistance must 
 pledge themselves to support the prin- 
 ciples of collective ownership and 
 control of all the means of production 
 and distribution, and the labor program 
 as agreed upon from time to time by 
 the Congress.” 
 
 This resolution clearly indicates the 
 Socialistic and political trend of the 
 Trades-Unionism in Great Britain. It 
 
 104 
 
IN ENGLAND AND UNITED ST A TES. 105 
 
 is true some of the labor leaders would 
 prefer to call the system here adopted 
 “ Collectivism ” rather than Socialism ; 
 but this is merely a matter of names. 
 Collective ownership of the sources and 
 means of production implies ownership 
 by the state ; and when the state is 
 democratic, the system resolves itself 
 into democratic Socialism. 
 
 Hitherto America has in the main 
 repelled Socialism. There has been 
 here comparatively little distress or 
 complaint. Every man with a sound 
 pair of hands and willing to work has 
 had property, or the hope of it, and has 
 been on the property owner’s side. 
 Men have been satisfied with a fair start 
 under equal law, and thought that a 
 man in doing the best for himself did 
 the best for all. The inequalities of 
 wealth, as a general rule, have not been 
 too shocking, while great fortunes made 
 by men who have risen from the ranks 
 have rather flattered the hopes of those 
 still in the ranks than excited their envy 
 or hatred. 
 
 Industrial promotion has been far 
 easier than it is in the old countries, nor 
 
106 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS . 
 
 lias the social line between employer 
 and employed been so sharply drawn. 
 Owenism was imported, and it expired 
 like a match dipped into the river. But 
 with the influx of foreign wage-earners 
 have now come the angry organizations, 
 the incendiarism, the strikes, the labor 
 wars of Europe ; and Pittsburg and 
 Chicago have witnessed scenes as alarm- 
 ing as the worst industrial conflicts of 
 the Old World. The masses of wage- 
 earning mechanics in which labor wars 
 are bred have increased, and the gulf 
 has been widened between employer 
 and employed. 
 
 Still, this continent is comparatively 
 unsocialistic. An envoy of English dis- 
 content having come on a mission of 
 disturbance, goes away disappointed, 
 saying that the American workman is a 
 wretch whom no sense of wrongs can 
 rouse to vengeance. Anarchism no 
 sooner kindles its torch than it finds 
 itself in jail with the cordial approba- 
 tion of honest labor. The fabulous 
 circulation of “ Looking Backward ” 
 means, as Mr. Gillman truly says, 
 very little. In fact it means little 
 
IN ENGLAND AND UNITED STATES. 107 
 
 more than the fabulous circulation of 
 “ Trilby.” 
 
 It is true that in the mining and mill- 
 ing districts of Pennsylvania, in the fac- 
 tory towns of New Jersey and Massa- 
 chusetts, circulars like the following 
 have been distributed by promoters of 
 disorder: 
 
 “We wage war against private prop- 
 erty, against the state, against the 
 Church — a war having for its object 
 their utter annihilation. We repudiate 
 the institution of private property be- 
 cause its history is the history of all 
 human suffering. So long as private 
 property prevails, there will be rich and 
 poor, but the latter will be dependent 
 on the former. Whoever, therefore, is 
 truly striving for the happiness of man- 
 kind at large, must join us in the cry, 
 ‘Down with private property.’” 
 
 And the demands of a less advanced 
 section are formulated in the following : 
 
 “ That all laws for the good of labor 
 be strictly enforced ; that eight hours 
 be considered a working day ; that no 
 children under fourteen years be permit- 
 ted to work; that the contract system for 
 public works be abolished ; that the 
 convict labor system be done away 
 
108 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS . 
 
 with ; weekly payment of wages, and 
 no more truck stores ; enforcement of 
 the lien law for the enforcement of 
 unpaid wages ; the payment of equal 
 wages to men and women for the same 
 work ; a government bureau for labor 
 statistics ; sanitary inspection of mines, 
 factories and dwellings ; abolition of the 
 conspiracy and tramp laws, and all class 
 privileges ; the government should issue 
 all money without the intervention of 
 banks ; the sweating system should be 
 stopped, as well as the tenement house 
 work.” 
 
 Some of those demands are quite 
 reasonable and should be enforced. 
 They are noticed here merely to show 
 the Socialistic trend of the American 
 working classes. There is not a labor 
 lodge or assembly in the United States 
 where workingmen are not taught the 
 doctrine of Socialism in one form or 
 other ; they are reminded that a crisis is 
 at hand ; that, owing to the constantly 
 decreasing power of labor, production is 
 being blocked ; that maohines have sup- 
 planted men who are idle, while women 
 and children work. An appeal is made, 
 through labor agitators, to workmen to 
 emancipate themselves by national and 
 
IN ENGLAND AND UNITED STATES. 109 
 
 international organization, and thus op- 
 pose organized capital by organized 
 labor. The only movement akin to So- 
 cialism of which America can be said to 
 be the birthplace, is nationalization of 
 land. Even this may be said to be 
 rather European than American in its 
 source, inasmuch as the notions respect- 
 ing the origin of land ownership on 
 which the demand for confiscation is 
 based, have clearly reference to the his- 
 tory of European, not of American, 
 land. In the United States there has 
 been no Norman Conquest, there have 
 been no feudal tenures. The land has 
 been acquired in the fairest way by 
 owners who have made the best use of 
 it, and has been purchased not only with 
 the full sanction of the community and 
 under the most sacred guarantee of its 
 laws, but in large measure from the 
 community itself. The vast scheme of 
 agrarian confiscation at first designated 
 as nationalization of land, now veils it- 
 self under the designation of single tax, 
 which is perhaps less likely to make the 
 American freeholder take down his rifle. 
 Under the new name, it seems to have 
 
110 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 many adherents. There are people, it 
 appears not a few, able to persuade 
 themselves that by laying all the taxes 
 on land without the improvements, they 
 can not only extinguish poverty and 
 diffuse universal opulence, but bring 
 about a most blessed change in the 
 whole structure of society. Improve- 
 ments that are the product of labor they 
 do not propose to tax. What they pro- 
 pose to tax is only the value of the land 
 unimproved or apart from the improve- 
 ments. They appear to be the victims 
 of a fallacy arising from a confusion of 
 the terms value and price. 
 
 This teaching must end in Commun- 
 ism and Anarchy. As Herbert Spencer 
 has recently pointed out : 
 
 “ If society in its corporate capacity 
 undertakes beneficence as a function; if 
 now in this direction and now in that, the 
 inferior learns by precept enforced by 
 example, that it is a state duty not sim- 
 ply to secure them the unhindered pursuit 
 of happiness, but to furnish them the 
 means of happiness, there is eventually 
 formed amongst the poorer, and espe- 
 cially the least deserving, a fixed belief 
 that if they are not comfortable, the 
 
IN ENGLAND AND UNITED STATES, m 
 
 government is to blame. Not to their 
 own idleness and misdeeds is their mis- 
 ery ascribed, but to the badness of so- 
 ciety in not doing its duty to them. 
 What follows? First, there grows up 
 among numbers the theory that social 
 arrangements must be fundamentally 
 changed imsuch ways that all shall have 
 equal shares of the products of labor — 
 that differences of reward, due to dif- 
 ferences of merit, shall be abolished; 
 there comes Communism. And, then, 
 among the very poorest, angered that 
 their vile lives have not brought them 
 all the good things that they desire, 
 there grows up the doctrine that society 
 should be destroyed, and that each man 
 should seize what he likes, and suppress, 
 as Ravachol said, everyone who stands 
 in his way; there comes Anarchism, and 
 a return to the unrestrained struggle 
 for life, as among brutes.” 
 
 No attempt has been made in this 
 paper to refute the doctrines which 
 have been reviewed. It was not my 
 purpose to do so. But, without enter- 
 ing into a critical examination of Social- 
 ism as a theory or practical policy, we 
 may be permitted to ask ourselves the 
 question, “ Where is this movement 
 going to end ? ” “ What is likely to 
 
112 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 be its ultimate achievement ? ” One 
 thing is certain, that the movement can- 
 not result in the permanent establish- 
 ment of Socialism. 
 
 State ownership of land and capital 
 would result in a tyranny far worse than 
 the evils it would replace, and would 
 inevitably provoke a revolution. At 
 the same time, there can be little doubt 
 that the growth of Socialistic ideas will 
 introduce profound and far-reaching 
 modifications in our industrial system. 
 A large development of state inter- 
 ference in the processes of industry ; 
 an increase of factory legislation ; a legal 
 eight hours’ day ; an increase of state 
 monopolies in various branches of in- 
 dustry ; the control by the state, not 
 only of the post office, the telegraphs, 
 the railways, but of much of the mechan- 
 ism of production and distribution 
 besides ; all this is possible and, in view 
 of the current tendencies in the indus- 
 trial world, even probable. Equally 
 probable, and perhaps not wholly to be 
 deprecated, is the change which the 
 progress of the movement must intro- 
 duce into politics. 
 
IN ENGLAND AND UNITED STATES. H3 
 
 It will give social questions prece- 
 dence over those that are merely 
 political ; it will, in all likelihood, 
 abolish mere party distinctions and di- 
 vide politicians rather according to the 
 social interests which they represent than 
 according to the principles which have 
 hitherto divided them in the scramble 
 for office. This change will not be 
 wholly for evil ; if it does not make 
 politics more picturesque, at least it will 
 render them more rational. 
 
 S. P. — 8 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM. 
 
 HAT part, it may be asked, is the 
 
 Church going to bear in these 
 movements which are in progress? How 
 can she exert her influence for good in 
 the vicissitudes of these changing times? 
 The answer is: She can guide the move- 
 ments which are taking place to ends of 
 holiness and peace, as she has done in 
 great crises in the past. She can make 
 herself the light upon the mountain top, 
 illuminating the dark and forbidden 
 paths into which many have been led by 
 the plausible but false teachers of 
 modern social economy. 
 
 The great Pontiff, Leo XIII, who is 
 so familiar with the pressing questions 
 of the present day, and so solicitous for 
 the temporal, as well as the spiritual, 
 well-being of mankind, on a recent 
 occasion, in reply to an address of the 
 Colleges of Cardinals, used these touch- 
 ing and memorable words: 
 
 114 
 
CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM. 
 
 115 
 
 “We are in the decline of life; but 
 shall continue to the end to devote our- 
 selves to making the beneficent action 
 of the Church universally felt. The 
 need of this,” the Holy Father goes on 
 to say, “ is great, for all the conceptions 
 of honesty, justice, authority, liberty, 
 social rights, and social duties have been 
 overthrown. The Church must seek to 
 recall the nations by the principles of 
 moral faith; point out the true causes 
 of existing evils; imbue the different 
 classes of society with a feeling of equity 
 and charity, and instill in all an ardor 
 for peace.” 
 
 It is evidently, then, the wish of the 
 Holy Father, as made known in his fre- 
 quent utterances on this subject that the 
 Church, that is, bishops, priests and 
 students of social science, should set 
 herself to educate and direct the masses 
 towards better social conditions, and thus 
 aid in bringing about a peaceful solution 
 of the social problem. Much has been 
 done already through the efforts of in- 
 dividuals. As in Germany, as we have 
 seen, that form of Socialism that is 
 irreligious and destructive was first 
 formulated into a system, so there, also, 
 a conservative and Christian form of 
 
116 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 Socialism had its origin, and reached a 
 high degree of success mainly through 
 the efforts of a Catholic bishop. 
 
 In 1863, Bishop Ketteler of May- 
 ence took up the social question, which 
 was then engaging the attention of 
 Germany; it was just a year before the 
 death of La Salle. In that year he 
 published his work, “ The Labor Ques- 
 tion and Christianity.” In this book he 
 depicted the evils of the existing indus- 
 trial system as strongly as Marx and 
 La Salle. He ridiculed as scornfully as 
 they the pretense of liberty which was 
 offered to the workingman as a pallia- 
 tion af his distress. 
 
 “ Liberty to migrate,” he writes with 
 scorn, “ when he has not bread where 
 he is born; liberty of contract, when 
 the bargain has to be made between a 
 rich man and a starveling; liberty of 
 trades, which draws the products of the 
 country where the workman is badly 
 paid to those where he is better off, and 
 which thus tends to reduce all to the 
 same level of wretchedness. You talk 
 to the workman of self-help, advise him 
 to improve his condition by his own 
 efforts; it is mockery of a man who can 
 hardly make out his daily bread. And 
 
CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM . 
 
 117 
 
 now,” concludes Monsignor Ketteler, 
 after a scathing denunciation of modern 
 industrialism, “ we have our slave mar- 
 ket in every country of Europe, modeled 
 upon a plan sketched by an enlightened 
 anti-Christian liberalism and our hu- 
 manitarian Free-masonry.” 
 
 Bishop - Ketteler called upon the 
 Catholics of Germany to unite for the 
 salvation of society and the rescue of 
 the poor. His book became the gospel 
 of a great movement, and his summons 
 called into existence a system of indus- 
 trial associations which changed the 
 face of Catholic Germany, socially and 
 politically. In 1864 the representatives 
 of the Catholics of Germany met at 
 Mayence, under the presidency of the 
 bishop, and formulated their program 
 of social reform. By the year 1870 the 
 organization was complete. When the 
 Kulturkampf began, M. Bismarck had to 
 attack not merely the priests of the 
 Church, but great social organizations, 
 with which they were thoroughly iden- 
 tified. The associations were all con- 
 nected with the Church; they had their 
 religious festivals and their patron 
 saints; they were presided over, not by 
 
118 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 
 
 priests, but by laymen of practical abil- 
 ity, and of known fidelity to religion; 
 they included the wealthy inhabitants 
 of each commune as well as the poor; 
 they were open to the members of every 
 Christian church, but they rigidly ex- 
 cluded all democratic Socialists. 
 
 In 1870, at the general assembly held 
 at Essen, it was announced that the as- 
 sociations formed under the inspiration 
 of the Church numbered 100,000 mas- 
 ter workmen, 80,000 journeymen, 30,000 
 priests, and 15,000 small farmers, and it 
 was prophesied that within a few years 
 the associates would be reckoned by the 
 hundred thousand; the prediction was 
 more than fulfilled. In 1874 there were 
 258 Catholic newspapers in Germany, 
 most of them organs of the associations; 
 150 in Prussia, 77 in Bavaria, and 41 in 
 the rest of Germany. 
 
 These Catholic associations reach to 
 every form of industry. There is the 
 Catholic Miners’ Association, the Ar- 
 tisans’ Association, societies for women 
 workers and domestic servants; but, 
 above all, the Farmers’ Union, with its 
 newspapers, its banks, its cooperative 
 
CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM. 
 
 119 
 
 purchase system, and its vast network 
 of affiliated societies all over the em- 
 pire. All this has been due to the in- 
 spiration and guidance of the Church; 
 and with this movement, during its 
 progress, the representatives of the 
 Church have been prominently and 
 effectively identified. 
 
 From the undoubted success of this 
 Catholic movement in Germany we, in 
 dealing with the social problem in this 
 country, may learn a profitable lesson. 
 Its solution must rest ultimately with 
 the acceptance of those Christian prin- 
 ciples which it is the mission of the 
 Church to inculcate. The care and 
 protection of the poor is the special con- 
 cern of the Church of God. 
 
 It is not surprising that in a country 
 where the representatives of the Church 
 have displayed, as in Germany, such 
 beneficent public activity on behalf of 
 the working classes and the poor, her 
 hold upon the allegiance of the people 
 has been strong enough to defy the 
 attacks of the most powerful, as well as 
 the most astute, statesman of the age. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM OUTSIDE THE 
 CHURCH. 
 
 rvUTSIDE the Catholic Church, Chris- 
 ^ tian Socialism has already a history. 
 In that history the teachings of Kingsley, 
 Maurice and Hughes in England, of 
 Todt and Stocker in Germany, and of 
 De Laveleye in France and Belgium 
 have a large place. 
 
 There are Christian Socialists in the 
 United States ; but the movement here 
 is only beginning to take shape. Our 
 periodical press is filled with articles on 
 the question, and from the very general 
 attention bestowed on the subject, this 
 phase of Socialism is certain to be 
 deeply felt in the transforming process 
 that is going on all around us. 
 
 Carlyle said some years ago, what 
 every Christian fully understands, that 
 “ the beginning and the end of what is 
 the matter with society, is that we have 
 120 
 
CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM. 
 
 121 
 
 forgotten God.” Hence, to set society 
 right it must be restored to a knowledge 
 of God and His laws. 
 
 It would be folly to deny that the 
 increasing trend of the age is towards 
 Socialism. It is so, not only on the con- 
 tinent of Europe, but also in England 
 and in this country. No one can be 
 blind to the signs of the times, nor deaf 
 to the audible mutterings of defiance 
 and despair to be heard in many quar- 
 ters. 
 
 “ Every ear in court and market 
 Hears the low, foreboding cry 
 Of those crises, God’s stern winnowers, 
 
 From whose feet earth’s chaff must fly.” 
 
 A different, and let us hope, a more 
 peaceful, crisis than that of which Lowell 
 sang, is upon us. It is the part of wis- 
 dom, and our duty, if it is proper to 
 say it, of the students of this Catholic 
 School of America, to prepare for it by 
 seeking to know the real facts and 
 forces at work in our existing industrial 
 system ; the nature and aims of contem- 
 porary Socialism ; and, above all, for 
 each one to contribute his share in mak- 
 ing the transition from the old order to 
 the new, tranquil and beneficent. 
 
122 
 
 SOCIAL PROBLEMS . 
 
 This, let us not forget: that the Church 
 of God which redressed the evils of 
 society in the past has the power to 
 redress the evils that afflict society in 
 the present, in so far as they can be 
 redressed in this life ; and let Social- 
 ists remember, that the “ great mother 
 of Christendom has a big and generous 
 heart,” and that there is no misery, in 
 whatever form it appears, she will not 
 move heaven and earth- to take away. 
 
REFERENCES 
 
 Encyclical of Leo XIII., on the Con- 
 dition of Labor; Thorold Rogers’ His- 
 tory of Wages and Prices; Prof. Ely’s 
 Problems of To-Day; The Duke of Ar- 
 gyll’s Reign of Law; Taylor, On Profit- 
 Sharing; Walker, On Wages; Atkin- 
 son’s Distribution of Products; Various 
 Reports of the State Department at 
 Washington; Wright’s Report on Fac- 
 tory System; Reports of the United 
 States and State Bureaus of Statistics 
 of Labor; Labor Publications; Bren- 
 tano, On Guilds and Trade-Unions, 
 London, 1870; Contemporary Social- 
 ism, John Rae, New York, Scribner’s 
 Sons, 1884; Industrial Liberty, Bon- 
 ham, New York and London, Putnam’s 
 Sons, 1888; Laveleye, Le Socialisme 
 Contemporain, Paris, 1883; Paul Janet, 
 Les Origines du Socialisme Contem- 
 porain, Paris, 1883; Stepniak, Under- 
 ground Russia, London, 1883; Father 
 Finlay, S. J., Paper on Socialism; Hynd- 
 man, Historical Basis of Socialism in 
 England, London, 1884. See also the 
 contributions on this question to the 
 periodical literature of the day. 
 
 123 
 

APPENDIX 
 
 Encyclical Letter 
 
 of 
 
 POPE LEO XIII. 
 
 ON THB 
 
 CONDITION OF LABOR 
 
 ( 125 ) 
 

 
 
To Our Venerable Brethren, 
 
 All Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, and 
 Bishops of the Catholic World, 
 
 In Grace and Communion with the Apostolic 
 See, 
 
 POPE LEO XIII. 
 
 Venerable Brethren, 
 
 Health and Apostolic Benediction. 
 
 |T is not surprising that the spirit of 
 revolutionary change, which has so 
 long been predominant in the nations 
 of the world, should have passed beyond 
 politics and made its influence felt in 
 the cognate field of practical economy. 
 The elements of a conflict are unmis- 
 takable : the growth of industry, and 
 the surprising discoveries of science ; 
 the changed relations of masters and 
 workmen ; the enormous fortunes of 
 individuals, and the poverty of the 
 masses ; the increased self-reliance and 
 the closer mutual combination of the 
 working population; and, finally, a gen- 
 eral moral deterioration. The momen- 
 
 127 
 
128 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 tous seriousness of the present state of 
 things just now fills every mind with 
 painful apprehension ; wise men discuss 
 it ; practical men propose schemes ; 
 popular meetings, legislatures, and 
 sovereign princes, all are occupied with 
 it — and there is nothing which has a 
 deeper hold on public attention. 
 
 Therefore, Venerable Brethren, as on 
 former occasions, when it seemed oppor- 
 tune to refute false teaching, We have 
 addressed you in the interests of the 
 Church and of the common weal, and 
 have issued letters on Political Power, 
 on Human Liberty, on the Christian 
 Constitution of the State, and on similar 
 subjects, so now We have thought it 
 useful to speak on the Condition of 
 Labor. It is a matter on which We 
 have touched once or twice already. 
 But in this letter the responsibility of 
 the Apostolic office urges Us to treat 
 the question expressly and at length, in 
 order that there may be no mistake as 
 to the principles which truth and justice 
 dictate for its settlement. The dis- 
 cussion is not easy, nor is it free from 
 danger. It is not easy to define the 
 
ON TIIE CONDITION OF LABOR. 129 
 
 relative rights and the mutual duties of 
 the wealthy and of the poor, of capital 
 and of labor. And the danger lies in 
 this, that crafty agitators constantly 
 make use of these disputes to pervert 
 men’s judgments and to stir up the 
 people to "sedition. 
 
 But all agree, and there can be no 
 question whatever, that some remedy 
 must be found, and quickly found, for 
 the misery and wretchedness which 
 press so heavily at this moment on the 
 large majority of the very poor. The 
 ancient workmen’s guilds were destroyed 
 in the last century, and no other organ- 
 ization took their place. Public insti- 
 tutions and the laws have repudiated 
 the ancient religion. Hence, by degrees 
 it has come to pass that workingmen 
 have been given over, isolated and de- 
 fenseless, to the callousness of employ- 
 ers and the greed of unrestrained 
 competition. The evil has been increased 
 by rapacious usury, which, although 
 more than once condemned by the 
 Church, is nevertheless under a differ- 
 ent form, but with the same guilt, still 
 practiced by avaricious and grasping 
 S. P.— 9 
 
130 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 men. And to this must be added the 
 custom of working by contract, and the 
 concentration of so many branches of 
 trade in the hands of a few individuals, 
 so that a small number of very rich 
 men have been able to lay upon the 
 masses of the poor, a yoke little better 
 than slavery itself. 
 
 To remedy these evils the Socialists, 
 working on the poor man’s envy of the 
 rich, endeavor to destroy private prop- 
 erty, and maintain that individual 
 possessions should become the common 
 property of all, to be administered by 
 the state or by municipal bodies. They 
 hold that, by thus transferring property 
 from private persons to the community, 
 the present evil state of things will 
 be set to rights, because each citi- 
 zen will then have his equal share 
 of whatever there is to enjoy. But 
 their proposals are so clearly futile for 
 all practical purposes, that if they were 
 carried out the workingman himself 
 would be among the first to suffer. 
 Moreover they are emphatically unjust, 
 because they would rob the lawful pos- 
 sessor; bring the state into a sphere that 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 131 
 
 is not its own, and cause complete con- 
 fusion in the community. 
 
 It is surely undeniable that, when a 
 man engages in remunerative labor, the 
 very reason and motive of his work is 
 to obtain property, and to hold it as his 
 own private possession. If one man 
 hires out to another his strength or his 
 industry, he does this for the purpose of 
 receiving in return what is necessary 
 for food and living; he thereby expressly 
 proposes to acquire a full and real right, 
 not only to the remuneration, but also to 
 the disposal of that remuneration, as he 
 pleases. Thus, if he lives sparingly, 
 saves money, and invests his savings 
 for greater security in land, the land in 
 such a case is only his wages in another 
 form ; and, consequently, a workingman’s 
 little estate thus purchased should be 
 as completely at his own disposal as the 
 wages he receives for his labor. But it 
 is precisely in this power of disposal 
 that ownership consists, whether the 
 property be land or movable goods. 
 The Socialists, therefore, in endeavor- 
 ing to transfer the possessions of indi- 
 viduals to the community, strike at the 
 
132 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 interests of every wage-earner, for they 
 deprive him of the liberty of disposing 
 of his wages, and thus of all hope and 
 possibility of increasing his stock and of 
 bettering his condition in life. 
 
 What is of still greater importance, 
 however, is that the remedy they pro- 
 pose is manifestly against justice. For 
 every man has by nature the right to 
 possess property as his own. This is one 
 of the chief points of distinction be- 
 tween man and the animal creation. 
 For the brute has no power of self- 
 direction, but is governed by two 
 chief instincts, which keep his pow- 
 ers alert, move him to use his strength, 
 and determine him to action with- 
 out the power of choice. These instincts 
 are self-preservation and the propaga- 
 tion of the species. Both can attain 
 their purpose by means of things which 
 are close at hand; beyond their surround- 
 ings the brute creation cannot go, for 
 they are moved to action by sensibility 
 alone, and by the things which sense 
 perceives. But with man it is different 
 indeed. He possesses, on the one hand, 
 the full perfection of animal nature, and 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 133 
 
 therefore lie enjoys, at least as much as 
 the rest of the animal race, the fruition 
 of the things of the body. But animal- 
 ity, however perfect, is far from be- 
 ing the whole of humanity, and is 
 indeed humanity’s humble handmaid, 
 made to -serve and obey. It is the 
 mind, or the reason, which is the chief 
 thing in us who are human beings; 
 it is this which makes a human being 
 human, and distinguishes him essentially 
 and completely from the brute. And 
 on this account, viz., that man alone 
 among animals possesses reason, it must 
 be within his right to have things not 
 merely for temporary and momentary 
 use, as other living beings have them, 
 but in stable and permanent possession; 
 he must have not only things which 
 perish in the using, but also those which, 
 though used, remain for use in the 
 future. 
 
 This becomes still more clearly evi- 
 dent if we consider man’s nature a little 
 more deeply. For man, comprehending 
 by the power of his reason things in- 
 numerable. and joining the future with 
 the present — being, moreover, the 
 
134 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 master of his own acts — governs himself 
 by the foresight of his counsel, under 
 the eternal law and the power of God, 
 Whose Providence governs all things; 
 wherefore it is in his power to exercise 
 his choice not only on things which re- 
 gard his present welfare, but also on 
 those which will be for his advantage 
 in time to come. Hence, man not only 
 can possess the fruits of the earth, but 
 also the earth itself; for of the products 
 of the earth he can make provision for 
 the future. Man’s needs do not die out, 
 but recur; satisfied to-day, they demand 
 new supplies to-morrow. Nature, there- 
 fore, owes to man a storehouse that 
 shall never fail the daily supply of his 
 daily wants — and this he finds only in 
 the inexhaustible fertility of the earth. 
 
 Nor must we, at this stage, have re- 
 course to the state. Man is older than 
 the state; and he holds the right of 
 providing for the life of his body prior 
 to the formation of any state. And to 
 say that God has given the earth to the 
 use and enjoyment of the universal 
 human race is not to deny that there 
 can be private property. For God has 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR . 1 35 
 
 granted the earth to mankind in general; 
 not in the sense that all without distinc- 
 tion can deal with it as they please, but 
 rather that no part of it has been 
 assigned to any one in particular, and 
 that the limits of private possession 
 have beeip left to be fixed by man’s own 
 industry and the laws of individual 
 peoples. Moreover, the earth, though 
 divided among private owners, ceases 
 not thereby to minister to the needs of 
 all ; for there is no one who does not 
 live on what the land brings forth. 
 Those who do not possess the soil, con- 
 tribute their labor ; so that it may bt 
 truly said that all human subsistence is 
 derived either from labor on one’s own 
 land, or from some laborious industry 
 which is paid for either in the produce 
 of the land itself or in that which is 
 exchanged for what the land brings 
 forth. 
 
 Here, again, we have another proof 
 that private ownership is according to 
 nature’s law. For that which is required 
 for the preservation of life, and for life’s 
 well-being, is produced in great abun- 
 dance by the earth, but not until man 
 
136 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 lias brought it into cultivation and 
 lavished upon it his care and skill. Now, 
 when man thus spends the industry of 
 his mind and the strength of his body 
 in procuring the fruits of nature, by that 
 act he makes his own that portion of 
 nature’s field which he cultivates — 
 that portion on which he leaves, as it 
 were, the impress of his own personality; 
 and it cannot but be just that he 
 should possess that portion as his own, 
 and should have a right to keep it with- 
 out molestation. 
 
 These arguments are so strong and 
 convincing that it seems surprising that 
 certain obsolete opinions should now be 
 revived in opposition to what is here 
 laid down. We are told that it is right 
 for private persons to have the use of 
 the soil and the fruits of their land, but 
 that it is unjust for anyone to possess 
 as owner either the land on which he 
 has built or the estate which he has cul- 
 tivated. But those who assert this do 
 not perceive that they are robbing man 
 of what his own labor has produced. 
 For the soil which is tilled and culti- 
 vated with toil and skill utterly changes 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 137 
 
 its condition ; it was wild before, it is 
 now fruitful ; it was barren, and now it 
 brings forth in abundance. That which 
 has thus altered and improved it be- 
 comes so truly part of itself as to be in 
 great measure indistinguishable and 
 inseparable from it. Is it just that the 
 fruit of a man’s sweat and labor should 
 be enjoyed by another ? As effects 
 follow their cause, so it is just and 
 right that the results of labor should be- 
 long to him who has labored. 
 
 With reason, therefore, the common 
 opinion of mankind, little affected by 
 the few dissentients who have maintained 
 the opposite view, has found in the 
 study of nature, and in the law of 
 nature herself, the foundation of the 
 division of property, and has consecrated 
 by the practice of all ages the principle 
 of private ownership, as being pre- 
 eminently in conformity with human 
 nature and as conducing, in the most 
 unmistakable manner, to the peace and 
 tranquility of human life. The same 
 principle is confirmed and enforced by 
 the civil laws — laws which, as long as 
 they are just, derive their binding force 
 
138 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 from the law of nature. The authority 
 of the Divine Law adds its sanction, for- 
 bidding us in the gravest terms even to 
 covet that which is another’s : — “ Thou 
 shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife ; nor 
 his house, nor his field, nor his man- 
 servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, 
 nor his ass, nor anything which is his.” 1 
 
 The rights here spoken of, belonging 
 to each individual man, are seen in a 
 much stronger light if they are consid- 
 ered in relation to man’s social and 
 domestic obligations. 
 
 In choosing a state of life, it is indis- 
 putable that all are at full liberty either 
 to follow the counsel of Jesus Christ as 
 to virginity, or to enter into the bonds 
 of marriage. No human law can abolish 
 the natural and primitive right of 
 marriage, or in any way limit the chief 
 and principal purpose of marriage, 
 ordained by God’s authority from the 
 beginning: “Increase and multiply .” 2 
 Thus we have the family ; the “ so- 
 ciety” of a man’s own household ; a 
 society limited indeed in numbers, but 
 
 1 Deuteronomy, v, 21. 
 
 2 Genesis i, 28. 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 139 
 
 a true “ society,” anterior to every kind 
 of state or nation, with rights and du- 
 ties of its own, totally independent of 
 the commonwealth. 
 
 That right of property, therefore, 
 which has been proved to belong nat- 
 urally to ^individual persons, must also 
 belong to a man in his capacity of head 
 of a family; nay, such a person must 
 possess this right so much the more 
 clearly in proportion as his position mul- 
 tiplies his duties. For it is a most sa- 
 cred law of nature that a father must 
 provide food and all necessaries for those 
 whom he has begotten; and, similarly, 
 nature dictates that a man’s children, 
 who carry on, as it were, and continue 
 his own personality, should be provided 
 by him with all that is needful to ena- 
 ble them honorably to keep themselves 
 from want and misery in the uncertain- 
 ties of this mortal life. Now, in no 
 other way can a father effect this except 
 by the ownership of profitable property, 
 which he can transmit to his children 
 by inheritance. A family, no less than 
 a state, is, as We have said, a true 
 society, governed by a power within 
 
140 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 itself, that is to say, by the father. 
 Wherefore, provided the limits be not 
 transgressed which are prescribed by 
 the very purposes for which it exists, 
 the family has at least equal rights with 
 the state in the choice and pursuit of 
 those things which are needful to its 
 preservation and its just liberty. 
 
 We say, at least equal rights; for 
 since the domestic household is anterior 
 both in idea and in fact to the gather- 
 ing of men into a commonwealth, the 
 former must necessarily have rights and 
 duties which are prior to those of the 
 latter, and which rest more immediately 
 on nature. If the citizens of a state 
 — that is to say, the families — on enter- 
 ing into association and fellowship, 
 experienced, at the hands of the state, 
 hindrance instead of help, and found 
 their rights attacked instead of being 
 protected, such association were rather 
 to be repudiated than sought after. 
 
 The idea then, that the civil government 
 should, at its own discretion, penetrate 
 and pervade the family and the house- 
 hold, is a great and pernicious mistake. 
 True, if a family finds itself in great 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 141 
 
 difficulty, utterly friendless, and with- 
 out prospect of help, it is right that ex- 
 treme necessity be met by public aid; 
 for each family is a part of the common- 
 wealth. In like manner, if within the 
 walls of the household there occur 
 grave disturbance of mutual rights, the 
 public power must interfere to force 
 each party to give the other what is due; 
 for this is not to rob citizens of their 
 rights, but justly and properly to safe- 
 guard and strengthen them. But the 
 rulers of the state must go no further; 
 nature bids them stop here. Paternal 
 authority can neither be abolished by 
 the state, nor absorbed; for it has the 
 same source as human life itself. “ The 
 child belongs to the father,” and is, as 
 it were, the continuation of the father’s 
 personality; and, to speak with strict- 
 ness, the child takes its place in civil 
 society not in its own right, but in its 
 quality as a member of the family in 
 which it is begotten. And it is for the 
 very reason that “ the child belongs to 
 the father” that, as St. Thomas of Aquin 
 says, “ before it attains the use of free 
 will, it is in the power and care of its 
 
142 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 parents .” 1 The Socialists, therefore, in 
 setting aside the parent and introducing 
 the providence of the state, act against 
 natural justice, and threaten the very 
 existence of family life. 
 
 And such interference is not only un- 
 just, but it is quite certain to harass and 
 disturb all classes of citizens and to 
 subject them to odious and intolerable 
 slavery. It would open the door to 
 envy, to evil speaking, and to quarrel- 
 ing; the sources of wealth would them- 
 selves run dry, for no one would have 
 any interest in exerting his talents or 
 his industry; and that ideal equality of 
 which so much is said would in reality 
 be the leveling down of all to the same 
 condition of misery and dishonor. 
 
 Thus it is clear that the main tenet of 
 Socialism, the community of goods, must 
 be utterly rejected; for it would injure 
 those whom it is intended to benefit, it 
 would be contrary to the natural rights 
 of mankind, and it would introduce confu- 
 sion and disorder into the commonwealth. 
 Our first and most fundamental princi- 
 
 i St. Thomas, “ Summa Theologica,” 2a 2se Q. x. 
 Art. 12. 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR . 143 
 
 pie, therefore, when we undertake to 
 alleviate the condition of the masses, 
 must be the inviolability of private 
 property. This laid down, We ^o on to 
 show where we must find the remedy 
 that we seek. 
 
 We approach the subject with confi- 
 dence and in the exercise of the rights 
 which belong to Us. For no practical 
 solution of this question will ever be 
 found without the assistance of Religion 
 and of the Church. It is We who are 
 the chief guardian of Religion and the 
 chief dispenser of what belongs to the 
 Church, and We must not by silence 
 neglect the duty which lies upon Us. 
 Doubtless this most serious question 
 demands the attention and the efforts of 
 others besides Ourselves — of the rulers 
 of states, of employers of labor, of the 
 wealthy, and of the working population 
 themselves for whom We plead. But 
 We affirm without hesitation that all the 
 striving of men will be vain if they 
 leave out the Church. It is the Church 
 that proclaims from the Gospel those 
 teachings by which the conflict can be 
 put an end to, or at the least made far 
 
144 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 less bitter ; the Church uses its efforts 
 not only to enlighten the mind, but to 
 direct by its precepts the life and con- 
 duct of men ; the Church improves and 
 ameliorates the condition of the work- 
 ingman by numerous useful organiza- 
 tions ; does its best to enlist the services 
 of all ranks in discussing and endeavor- 
 ing to meet, in the most practical way, 
 the claims of the working classes ; and 
 acts on the decided view that for these 
 purposes recourse should be had, in due 
 measure and degree, to the help of the 
 law and of state authority. 
 
 Let it be laid down, in the first place, 
 that humanity must remain as it is. It 
 is impossible to reduce "human society 
 to a level. The Socialists may do their 
 utmost, but all striving against nature 
 is vain. There naturally exist among 
 mankind innumerable differences of the 
 most important kind ; people differ in 
 capability, in diligence, in health, and 
 in strength ; and unequal fortune is a 
 necessary result of inequality in con- 
 dition. Such inequality is far from 
 being disadvantageous either to indi- 
 viduals or to the community ; social 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 145 
 
 and public life can only go on by the 
 help of various kinds of capacity and 
 the playing of many parts ; and each 
 man, as a rule, chooses the part which 
 peculiarly suits his case. As regards 
 bodily labor, even had man never fallen 
 from the state of innocence, he would 
 not have been wholly unoccupied ; but 
 that which would then have been his 
 free choice and his delight, became 
 afterwards compulsory, and the painful 
 expiation of his sin. “ Cursed be the 
 earth in thy work ; in thy labor thou 
 shalt eat of it all the days of thy life .” 1 
 
 In like manner, the other pains and 
 hardships of life will have no end or 
 cessation on this earth ; for the conse- 
 quences of sin are bitter and hard to 
 bear, and they must be with man as 
 long as life lasts. To suffer and to 
 endure, therefore, is the lot of humanity; 
 let men try as they may, no strength 
 and no artifice will ever succeed in 
 banishing from human life the ills and 
 troubles which beset it. If any there 
 are who pretend differently — who hold 
 out to a hard-pressed people, freedom 
 
 1 Genesis iii, 17. 
 
 S. P.— 10 
 
146 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 from pain and trouble, undisturbed 
 repose, and constant enjoyment — they 
 cheat the people and impose upon them, 
 and their lying promises will only make 
 the evil worse than before. There is 
 nothing more useful than to look at the 
 world as it really is, and at the same 
 time to look elsewhere for a remedy to 
 its troubles. 
 
 The great mistake that is made in 
 the matter now under consideration, 
 is to possess one’s self of the idea 
 that class is naturally hostile to class ; 
 that rich and poor are intended by 
 nature to live at war with one another. 
 So irrational and so false is this view, 
 that the exact contrary is the truth. 
 Just as the symmetry of the human 
 body is the result of the disposition 
 of the members of the body, so in a 
 state it is ordained by nature that these 
 two classes should exist in harmony and 
 agreement, and should, as it were, fit 
 into one another, so as to maintain the 
 equilibrium of the body politic. Each 
 requires the other ; capital cannot do 
 without labor, nor labor without capital. 
 Mutual agreement results in pleasant- 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 147 
 
 ness and good order; perpetual conflict 
 necessarily produces confusion and out- 
 rage. 
 
 Now, in preventing such strife as 
 this, and in making it impossible, the 
 efficacy of Christianity is marvelous and 
 manifold. First of all, there is nothing 
 more powerful than Religion (of which 
 the Church is the interpreter and guard- 
 ian) in drawing rich and poor together, 
 by reminding each class of its duties to 
 the other, and especially of the duties of 
 justice. Thus Religion teaches the 
 laboring man and the workman to carry 
 out honestly and well all equitable 
 agreements freely made; never to injure 
 capital, or to outrage the person of an 
 employer; never to employ violence in 
 representing his own cause, or to engage 
 in riot or disorder; and to have nothing 
 to do with men of evil principles, who 
 work upon the people with artful 
 promises, and raise foolish hopes which 
 usually end in disaster and in repentance 
 when too late. 
 
 Religion teaches the rich man and 
 the employer that their work people 
 are not their slaves; that they must 
 
148 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 respect in every man his dignity as 
 a man and as a Christian; that labor 
 is nothing to be ashamed of, if we listen 
 to right reason and Christian philoso- 
 phy, but is an honorable employment, 
 enabling a man to sustain his life in an 
 upright and creditable way; and that it 
 is shameful and inhuman to treat men 
 like chattels to make money by, or to 
 look upon them merely as so much 
 muscle or physical power. Thus, again, 
 Religion teaches that, as among the 
 workman's concerns are Religion herself 
 and things spiritual and mental, the em- 
 ployer is bound to see that he has time 
 for the duties of piety; that he be not 
 exposed to corrupting influences and 
 dangerous occasions; and that he be not 
 led away to neglect his home and family 
 or to squander his wages. 
 
 Then, again, the employer must 
 never tax his work people beyond 
 their strength, nor employ them in 
 work unsuited to their sex or age. His 
 great and principal obligation is to give 
 to everyone that which is just. Doubt- 
 less before we can decide whether 
 wages are adequate, many things 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 149 
 
 have to be considered; but rich men 
 and masters should remember this: that 
 to exercise pressure for the sake of gain 
 upon the indigent and the destitute, and 
 to make one’s profit out of the need of 
 another, is condemned by all laws, 
 human and divine. To defraud anyone 
 of wages that are his due, is a crime 
 which cries to the avenging anger of 
 Heaven. 64 Behold, the hire of the laborers 
 . . . which by fraud hath been kept 
 back by you, crieth; and the cry of them 
 hath entered into the ears of the Lord 
 of Sabaoth.” 1 Finally, the rich must 
 religiously refrain from cutting down 
 the workman’s earnings, either by force, 
 by fraud, or by usurious dealing; and 
 with the more reason because the poor 
 man is weak and unprotected, and 
 because his slender means should be 
 sacred in proportion to their scanti- 
 ness. 
 
 Were these precepts carefully obeyed 
 and followed, would not strife die out 
 and cease? 
 
 But the Church, with Jesus Christ for 
 its Master and Guide, aims higher still. 
 
 1 St. James v, 4. 
 
150 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 It lays down precepts yet more perfect, 
 and tries to bind class to class in friend- 
 liness and good understanding. The 
 things of this earth cannot be under- 
 stood or valued rightly without taking 
 into consideration the life to come, the 
 life that will last forever. Exclude the 
 idea of futurity, and the very notion of 
 what is good and right would perish; 
 nay, the whole system of the universe 
 would become a dark and unfathomable 
 mystery. 
 
 The great truth which we learn 
 from nature herself, is also the grand 
 Christian dogma on which Religion 
 rests as on its base: that when we 
 
 have done with this present life then we 
 shall really begin to live. God has not 
 created us for the perishable and transi- 
 tory things of earth, but for things 
 heavenly and everlasting; He has given 
 us this world as a place of exile, and 
 not as our true country. Money and 
 the other things which men call good 
 and desirable — we may have them in 
 abundance, or we may want them alto- 
 gether; as far as eternal happiness is 
 concerned, it is no matter; the only 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 151 
 
 thing that is important is to use 
 them aright. 
 
 Jesus Christ, when He redeemed us 
 with plentiful redemption, took not away 
 the pains and sorrows which in such 
 large proportion make up the texture of 
 our mortal life ; He transformed them 
 into motives of virtue and occasions of 
 merit : and no man can hope for eternal 
 reward unless he follow in the blood- 
 stained footprints of his Savior. “ If 
 we suffer with Him, we shall also reign 
 with Him.” 1 His labors and his suffer- 
 ings, accepted by His own freewill, 
 have marvelously sweetened all suffer- 
 ing and all labor. And not only by His 
 example, but by His grace and by the 
 hope of everlasting recompense, He has 
 made pain and grief more easy to en- 
 dure : “For that which is at present 
 
 momentary and light of our tribu- 
 lation, worketh for us above measure 
 exceedingly an eternal weight of 
 glory .” 2 
 
 Therefore, those whom fortune favors 
 are warned that freedom from sorrow 
 
 1 II. Timothy ii, 12. 
 
 2 II. Corinthians iv, 17. 
 
152 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 and abundance of earthly riches are no 
 guarantee of the beatitude that shall 
 never end, but rather the contrary ; 1 
 that the rich should tremble at the 
 threatenings of Jesus Christ — threaten- 
 ings so strange in the mouth of Our 
 Lord ; 2 and that a most strict account 
 must be given to the Supreme Judge 
 for all that we possess. The chiefest 
 and most excellent rule for the right 
 use of money is one which the heathen 
 philosophers indicated, but which the 
 Church has traced out clearly, and has 
 not only made known to men’s minds, 
 but has impressed upon their lives. It 
 rests on the principle that it is one 
 thing to have a right to the possession 
 of money, and another to have a right 
 to use money as one pleases. 
 
 Private ownership, as we have seen, is 
 the natural right of man; and to exercise 
 that right, especially as members of 
 society, is not only lawful, but abso- 
 lutely necessary. “It is lawful,” says 
 St. Thomas of Aquin, “for a man to 
 hold private property ; and it is also 
 
 1 St. Matthew xix, 23, 24. 
 
 2 St. Luke vi, 24, 25. 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 153 
 
 necessary for the carrying on of human 
 life.” 1 But if the question be asked, 
 How must one’s possessions be used ? 
 the Church replies without hesitation in 
 the words of the same holy Doctor : 
 44 Man should not consider his outward 
 possessions as his own, but as common 
 to all, so as to share them without diffi- 
 culty when others are in need. Whence 
 the Apostle saith, 4 Command the rich 
 of this world ... to give with ease, 
 to communicate .’” 2 True no one is 
 commanded to distribute to others that 
 which is required for his own necessities 
 and those of his household ; nor even 
 to give away what is reasonably re- 
 quired to keep up becomingly his con- 
 dition in life ; 44 for no one ought to 
 live unbecomingly .” 3 
 
 But when necessity has been sup- 
 plied, and one’s position fairly con- 
 sidered, it is a duty to give to the 
 indigent out of that which is over. 
 44 That which remaineth, give alms.” 4 
 It is a duty, not of justice (except 
 
 1 2a 2se Q. lxvi. Art. 2. 
 
 2 2a 2se Q. lxv. Art. 2. 
 
 3 Ibid. Q. xxxii. Art. 6. 
 
 4 St, Luke xi, 41. 
 
154 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 in extreme cases), but of Christian 
 charity — a duty which is not en- 
 forced by human law. But the laws 
 and judgments of men must give place 
 to the laws and judgments of Christ, 
 the true God, Who in many ways urges 
 on His followers the practice of alms- 
 giving — “It is more blessed to give 
 than to receive ;” 1 and Who will count 
 a kindness done or refused to the poor 
 as done or refused to Himself — “as 
 long as you did it to one of My least 
 brethren, you did it to Me.” 2 
 
 Thus, to sum up what has been said : 
 Whoever has received from the Di- 
 vine bounty a large share of blessings, 
 w T hether they be external and corporeal 
 or gifts of the mind, has received them 
 for the purpose of using them for the 
 perfecting Df his own nature, and, at 
 the same time, that he may employ 
 them, as the minister of God’s Provi- 
 dence, for the benefit of others. “ He 
 that hath a talent,” says St. Gregory 
 the Great, “ let him see that he hide it 
 not ; he that hath abundance, let him 
 
 1 Acts xx, 35. 
 
 2 St. Matthew xxv, 40. 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 155 
 
 arouse himself to mercy and generosity; 
 he that hath art and skill, let him do 
 his best to share the use and utility 
 thereof with his neighbor.” 1 
 
 As for those who do not possess the 
 gifts of fortune, they are taught by the 
 Church that, in God’s sight poverty is 
 no disgrace, and that there is nothing 
 to be ashamed of in seeking’ one’s 
 
 O 
 
 bread by labor. This is strengthened 
 by what we see in Christ Him- 
 self, “ Who whereas He was rich, for 
 our sakes became poor; ” 2 and Who, 
 being the Son of God, and God Him- 
 self, chose to seem and to be considered 
 the son of a carpenter — nay, did not 
 disdain to spend a great part of his life 
 as a carpenter Himself. “ Is not this 
 the carpenter, the son of Mary ? ” 3 From 
 the contemplation of this Divine ex- 
 ample it is easy to understand that the 
 true dignity and excellence of man lies 
 in his moral qualities, that is, in virtue; 
 that virtue is the common inheritance of 
 all, equally within the reach of high and 
 
 1 St. Gregory the Great, Horn, ix, in “ Evangel,” 
 n. 7 . 
 
 2 II. Corinthians viii, 9 . 
 
 * St. Mark vi, 3 . 
 
156 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 low, rich and poor; and that virtue, and 
 virtue alone, wherever found, will be 
 followed by the rewards of everlasting 
 happiness. Nay, God Himself seems to 
 incline more to those who suffer evil; 
 for Jesus Christ calls the poor blessed; 1 
 He lovingly invites those in labor and 
 grief to come to Him for solace ; 2 and 
 he displays the tenclerest charity to the 
 lowly and the oppressed. These re- 
 flections cannot fail to keep down the 
 pride of those who are well off, and to 
 cheer the spirit of the afflicted; to in- 
 cline the former to generosity and the 
 latter to tranquil resignation. Thus the 
 separation which pride would make 
 tends to disappear, nor will it be diffi- 
 cult to make rich and poor join hands 
 in friendly concord. 
 
 But, if Christian precepts prevail, the 
 two classes will not only be united in 
 the bonds of friendship, but also in those 
 of brotherly love. For they will under- 
 stand and feel that all men are the chil- 
 dren of the common Father, that is, of 
 
 1 St. Matthew v, 3: “Blessed are the poor in 
 spirit.” 
 
 2 Ibid, xi, 28: “ Come to Me all you that labor 
 and are burdened, and I will refresh you.” 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 157 
 
 God; that all have the same last end, 
 which is God Himself, Who alone can 
 make either men or angels absolutely 
 and perfectly happy; that all and each are 
 redeemed by Jesus Christ and raised to 
 the dignity of children of God, and are 
 thus united dn brotherly ties both with 
 each other and with Jesus Christ, “ the 
 firstborn among many brethren;” that 
 the blessings of nature and the gifts of 
 grace belong in common to the whole 
 human race, and that to all, except to 
 those that are unworthy, is promised the 
 inheritance of the Kingdom of Heaven. 
 “ If sons, heirs also; heirs indeed of 
 God, and co-heirs of Christ.” 1 
 
 Such is the scheme of duties and of 
 rights which is put forth to the world by 
 the Gospel. Would it not seem that 
 strife must quickly cease were society 
 penetrated with ideas like these. 
 
 But the Church, not content with 
 pointing out the remedy, also applies it. 
 For the Church does its utmost to teach 
 and to train men, and to educate them; 
 and by means of its bishops and clergy 
 it diffuses its salutary teachings far and 
 
 1 Romans viii, 17 . 
 
158 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 wide. It strives to influence the mind 
 and heart so that all may willingly 
 yield themselves to be formed and 
 guided by the commandments of God. 
 It is precisely in this fundamental and 
 principal matter, on which everything 
 depends, that the Church has a power 
 peculiar to itself. The agencies which 
 it employs are given it for the very pur- 
 pose of reaching the hearts of men by 
 Jesus Christ Himself and derive their 
 efficiency from God. They alone can 
 touch the innermost heart and con- 
 science, and bring men to act from a 
 motive of duty, to resist their passions 
 and appetites, to love God and their 
 fellowmen with a love that is unique 
 and supreme, and courageously to break 
 down every barrier which stands in the 
 way of a virtuous life. 
 
 On this subject We need only recall 
 for one moment the examples written 
 down in history. Of these things there 
 cannot be the shadow of doubt; for in- 
 stance, that civil society was renovated 
 in every part by the teachings of Chris- 
 tianity; that in the strength of that re- 
 newal the human race was lifted up to 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 159 
 
 better things — nay, that it was brought 
 back from death to life, and to so excel- 
 lent a life that nothing more perfect had 
 been known before, or will come to 
 pass in the ages that have yet to 
 be. Of this beneficent transformation 
 Jesus Christ was at once the first cause 
 and the final purpose; as from Him all 
 came, so to Him all was to be referred. 
 For when, by the light of the Gospel 
 message, the human race came to know 
 the grand mystery of the Incarnation 
 of the Word and the redemption of 
 man, the life of Jesus Christ, God and 
 Man penetrated every race and nation, 
 and impregnated them with His faith, 
 His precepts, and His laws. 
 
 And if society is to be cured now, 
 in no other way can it be cured but 
 by a return to the Christian life and 
 Christian institutions. When a society 
 is perishing, the true advice to give 
 to those who would restore it is, 
 to recall it to the principles from 
 which it sprang; for the purpose 
 and perfection of an association is to 
 aim at and to attain that for which it 
 was formed; and its operation should 
 
160 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 be put in motion and inspired by the 
 end and object which originally gave it 
 its being. So that to fall away from its 
 primal constitution is disease; to go 
 back to it is recovery. And this may 
 be asserted with the utmost truth both 
 of the state in general and of that 
 body of its citizens, by far the greater 
 number, who sustain life by labor. 
 
 Neither must it be supposed that the 
 solicitude of the Church is so occupied 
 with the spiritual concerns of its chil- 
 dren as to neglect their interests tem- 
 poral and earthly. Its desire is that the 
 poor, for example, should rise above 
 poverty and wretchedness, and should 
 better their condition in life; and for 
 this it strives. By the very fact that it 
 calls men to virtue and forms them to 
 its practice, it promotes this in no slight 
 degree. Christian morality, when it 
 is adequately and completely practiced, 
 conduces of itself to temporal prosper- 
 ity, for it merits the blessing of that 
 God Who is the source of all blessings; 
 it powerfully restrains the lust of posses- 
 sion and the lust of pleasure — twin 
 plagues, which too often make a man 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR . 
 
 161 
 
 without self-restraint miserable in the 
 midst of abundance ; 1 it makes men 
 supply by economy for the want of 
 means, teaching them to be content with 
 frugal living, and keeping them out of 
 the reach of those vices which eat up 
 not merely small incomes, but large for- 
 tunes, and dissipate many a goodly in- 
 heritance. 
 
 Moreover, the Church intervenes di- 
 rectly in the interest of the poor, by 
 setting on foot and keeping up many 
 things which it sees to be efficacious in 
 the relief of poverty. Here again it 
 has always succeeded so well that it has 
 even extorted the praise of its enemies. 
 Such was the ardor of brotherly love 
 among the earliest Christians, that num- 
 bers of those who were better off de- 
 prived themselves of their possessions 
 in order to relieve their brethren; 
 whence “ neither was there anyone 
 needy among them.” 2 To the order of 
 Deacons, instituted for that very pur- 
 pose, was committed by the apostles 
 the charge of the daily distributions; 
 
 1 “ The root of all evils is cupidity.” I. Tim. 
 vi, 10. 
 
 2 Acts iv,34. 
 
 S. P.-ll 
 
162 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 and the Apostle Paul, though burdened 
 with the solicitude of all the churches, 
 hesitated not to undertake laborious 
 journeys in order to carry the alms of 
 the faithful to the poorer Christians. 
 Tertullian calls these contributions, 
 given voluntarily by Christians in their 
 assemblies, “ deposits of piety be- 
 cause, to cite his words, they were 
 employed “in feeding the needy, in 
 burying them, in the support of boys 
 and girls destitute of means and de- 
 prived of their parents, in the care of 
 the aged, and in the relief of the ship- 
 wrecked.” 1 
 
 Thus by degrees came into existence 
 the patrimony which the Church has 
 guarded with religious care as the in- 
 heritance of the poor. Nay, to spare 
 them the shame of begging, the com- 
 mon Mother of rich and poor has ex- 
 erted herself to gather together funds 
 for the support of the needy. The 
 Church has stirred up everywhere the 
 heroism of charity, and has established 
 congregations of religious and many 
 other useful institutions for help and 
 
 i “Apologia Secunda," xxxix. 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR . 163 
 
 mercy, so that there might be hardly 
 any kind of suffering which was not vis- 
 ited and relieved. At the present day 
 there are many who, like the heathen of 
 old, blame and condemn the Church for 
 this beautiful charity. They would 
 substitute in its place a system of state 
 organized relief. But no human meth- 
 ods will ever supply for the devotion and 
 self-sacrifice of Christian charity. Char- 
 ity, as a virtue, belongs to the Church; 
 for it is no virtue unless it is drawn 
 from the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ; 
 and he who turns his back on the 
 Church cannot be near to Christ. 
 
 It cannot, however, be doubted that 
 to attain the purpose of which We 
 treat, not only the Church, but all hu- 
 man means, must conspire. All who 
 are concerned in the matter must 
 be of one mind and must act together. 
 It is in this as in the Providence 
 which governs the world, results do 
 not happen save where all the causes 
 cooperate. 
 
 Let us now, therefore, inquire what 
 part the state should play in the work 
 of remedy and relief. 
 
164 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 By the state We here understand, 
 not the particular form of government 
 which prevails in this or that nation, but 
 the state as rightly understood; that is 
 to say, any government conformable in 
 its institutions to right reason and nat- 
 ural law, and to those dictates of the 
 Divine Wisdom which We have ex- 
 pounded in the Encyclical on the Chris- 
 tian Constitution of the State. The 
 first duty, therefore, of the rulers of the 
 state, should be to make sure that the 
 laws and institutions, the general char- 
 acter and administration of the com- 
 monwealth, shall be such as to produce 
 of themselves public well-being and 
 private prosperity. This is the proper 
 office of wise statesmanship and the 
 work of the heads of the state. 
 
 Now, a state chiefly prospers and flour- 
 ishes by morality, by well-regulated 
 family life, by respect for religion and 
 justice, by the moderation and equal dis- 
 tribution of public burdens, by the pro- 
 gress of the arts and of trade, by the 
 abundant yield of the land; by every- 
 thing which makes the citizens better and 
 happier. Here, then, it is in the power 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 165 
 
 of a ruler to benefit every order of the 
 state, and amongst the rest to promote 
 in the highest degree the interests of 
 the poor; and this by virtue of his of- 
 fice, and without being exposed to any 
 suspicion of undue interference — for it 
 is the province of the commonwealth to 
 consult for the common good. And the 
 more that is done for the working pop- 
 ulation by the general laws of the 
 country, the less need will there be to 
 seek for particular means to relieve 
 them. 
 
 There is another and a deeper con- 
 sideration which must not be lost sight 
 of. To the state the interests of all are 
 equal, whether high or low. The poor 
 are members of the national community 
 equally with the rich; they are real com- 
 ponent parts, living parts, which make 
 up, through the family, the living body; 
 and it need hardly be said that they are 
 by far the majority. It would be irra- 
 tional to neglect one portion of the cit- 
 izens and to favor another; and there- 
 fore the public administration must duly 
 and solicitously provide for the welfare 
 and the comfort of the working people, 
 
166 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 or else that law of justice will be vio- 
 lated which ordains that each shall have 
 his due. To cite the wise words of St. 
 Thomas of Aquin: 44 As the part and 
 
 the whole are in a certain sense identi- 
 cal, the part may in some sense claim 
 what belongs to the whole .” 1 Among 
 the many and grave duties of rulers who 
 would do their best for the people, the 
 first and chief is to act with strict jus- 
 tice — with that justice which is called, 
 in the Schools, 44 distributive ” — towards 
 each and every class. 
 
 But although all citizens, without ex- 
 ception, can, and ought to, contribute to 
 that common good in which individuals 
 share so profitably to themselves, yet it 
 is not to be supposed that all can con- 
 tribute in the same way and to the same 
 extent. No matter what changes may be 
 made in forms of government, there will* 
 always be differences and inequalities 
 of condition in the state: Society can- 
 not exist or be conceived without them. 
 Some there must be who dedicate them- 
 selves to the work of the commonwealth, 
 who make the laws, who administer jus- 
 
 i 2a 2se Q. lxi. Art 1 and 2. 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 167 
 
 tice, whose advice and authority govern 
 the nation in times of peace, and defend 
 it in war. Such men clearly occupy the 
 foremost place in the state, and should 
 be held in the foremost estimation, for 
 their work touches most nearly and ef- 
 fectively the general interests of the 
 community. Those who labor at a trade 
 or calling do not promote the general 
 welfare in such a fashion as this; but 
 they do in the most important way 
 benefit the nation, though less directly. 
 
 We have insisted that, since it is the 
 end of society to make men better, the 
 chief good that society can be possessed 
 of is virtue. Nevertheless, in all well- 
 constituted states it is a by no means 
 unimportant matter to provide those 
 bodily and external commodities, “ the 
 use of which is necessary to virtuous 
 action.” 1 And in the provision of ma- 
 terial well-being, the labor of the 
 poor, the exercise of their skill and 
 the employment of their strength in 
 the culture of the land and in the work- 
 shops of trade, is most efficacious and 
 
 i St. Thomas of Aquin. “ De Regimine Prin- 
 cipiurn.” I. cap. 15. 
 
168 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 altogether indispensable. Indeed, their 
 cooperation in this respect is so im- 
 portant that it may be truly said 
 that it is only by the labor of the 
 workingman that states grow rich. 
 
 Justice, therefore, demands that the 
 interests of the poorer population be 
 carefully watched over by the adminis- 
 tration, so that they w r lio contribute so 
 largely to the advantage of the com- 
 munity may themselves share in the 
 benefits they create — that being housed, 
 clothed, and enabled to support life, 
 they may find their existence less hard 
 and more endurable. It follows that 
 whatever shall appear to be conducive 
 to the well-being of those who work, 
 should receive favorable consideration. 
 Let it not be feared that solicitude of 
 this kind will injure any interest ; on 
 the contrary, it will be to the advan- 
 tage of all ; for it cannot but be good 
 for the commonwealth to secure from 
 misery those on whom it so largely 
 depends. 
 
 We have said that the state must 
 not absorb the individual or the family ; 
 both should be allowed free and un- 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 169 
 
 trammeled action as far as is consistent 
 with the common good and the interest 
 of others. Nevertheless, rulers should 
 anxiously safeguard the community and 
 all its parts — the community, because 
 the conservation of the community is so 
 emphatically the business of the su- 
 preme power, that the safety of the 
 commonwealth is not only the first law, 
 but it is a government’s whole reason 
 of existence ; and the parts, because 
 both philosophy and the Gospel agree 
 in laying down that the object of the 
 administration of the state should be, 
 not the advantage of the ruler, but the 
 benefit of those over whom he rules. 
 The gift of authority is from God, and 
 is, as it were, a participation of the 
 highest of all sovereignties ; and it 
 should be exercised as the power of 
 God is exercised — with a fatherly so- 
 licitude which not only. guides the whole, 
 but reaches to details as well. 
 
 Whenever the general interest of any 
 particular class suffers, or is threatened 
 with evils which can in no other way 
 be met, the public authority must step 
 in to meet them. Now, among the in- 
 
170 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 terests of the public, as of private indi- 
 viduals, are these : That peace and good 
 order should be maintained ; that 
 family life should be carried on in ac- 
 cordance with God’s laws and those of 
 nature ; that Religion should be rever- 
 enced and obeyed ; that a high standard 
 of morality should prevail in public and 
 private life ; that the sanctity of justice 
 should be respected, and that no one 
 should injure another with impunity ; 
 that the members of the commonwealth 
 should grow up to man’s estate strong 
 and robust, and capable, if need be, of 
 guarding and defending their country. 
 If by a strike, or other combination of 
 workmen, there should be imminent 
 danger of disturbance to the public 
 peace ; or if circumstances were such 
 that among the laboring population the 
 ties of family life were relaxed ; if 
 Religion were found to suffer through 
 the workmen not having time and op- 
 portunity to practice it ; if in work- 
 shops and factories there were danger to 
 morals through the mixing of the sexes 
 or from any occasion of evil ; or if em- 
 ployers laid burdens upon the w T ork- 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LA EOF. J71 
 
 men which were unjust, or degraded 
 them with conditions that were repug- 
 nant to their dignity as human beings ; 
 finally, if health were endangered by 
 excessive labor, or by work unsuited to 
 sex or age — in these cases, there can 
 be no question that, within certain lim- 
 its, it would be right to call in the help 
 and authority of the law. The limits 
 must be determined by the nature of 
 the occasion which calls for the law’s 
 interference — the principle being this, 
 that the law must not undertake more, 
 or go further, than is required for the 
 remedy of the evil or the removal of 
 the danger. 
 
 Rights must be religiously respected 
 wherever they are found ; and it is the 
 duty of the public authority to prevent 
 and punish injury, and to protect each 
 one in the possession of his own. Still, 
 when there is question of protecting the 
 rights of individuals, the poor and help- 
 less have a claim to special considera- 
 tion. The richer population have many 
 ways of protecting themselves, and 
 stand less in need of help from the 
 state ; those who are badly off have no 
 
172 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 resources of their own to fall back upon, 
 and must chiefly rely upon the assist- 
 ance of the state. And it is for this 
 reason that wage-earners, who are un- 
 doubtedly among the weak and neces- 
 sitous, should be specially cared for and 
 protected by the commonwealth. 
 
 Here, however, it will be advisable to 
 advert expressly to one or two of the 
 more important details. It must be 
 borne in mind that the chief thing to be 
 secured is the safeguarding, by legal 
 enactment and policy, of private prop- 
 erty. Most of all is it essential in these 
 times of covetous greed, to keep the 
 multitude within the line of duty ; for 
 if all may justly strive to better their 
 condition, yet neither justice nor the 
 common good allows anyone to seize 
 that which belongs to another, or, under 
 the pretext of futile and ridiculous 
 equality, to lay hands on other people’s 
 fortunes. 
 
 It is most true that by far the 
 larger part of the people who work 
 prefer to improve themselves by honest 
 labor rather than by doing wrong to 
 others. But there are not a few who 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 173 
 
 are imbued with bad principles and are 
 anxious for revolutionary change, and 
 whose great purpose it is to stir up 
 tumult and bring about a policy of 
 violence. The authority of the state 
 should intervene to put restraint upon 
 these disturbers, to save the workmen 
 from their seditious arts, and to protect 
 lawful owners from spoliation. 
 
 When work people have recourse to 
 a strike, it is frequently because the 
 hours of labor are too long, or the work 
 too hard, or because they consider their 
 wages insufficient. The grave incon- 
 venience of this not uncommon occur- 
 rence should be obviated by public 
 remedial measures ; for such paralysis 
 of labor not only affects the masters 
 and their work people, but is extremely 
 injurious to trade, and to the general 
 interests of the public ; moreover, on 
 such occasions violence and disorder 
 are generally not far off, and thus it 
 frequently happens that the public 
 peace is threatened. The laws should be 
 beforehand, and prevent these troubles 
 from arising: they should lend their in- 
 fluence and authority to the removal in 
 
174 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 good time of the causes which lead to 
 conflicts between masters and those 
 whom they employ. 
 
 But if the owners of property must be 
 made secure, the workman, too, has 
 property and possessions in which he 
 must be protected ; and, first of all, 
 there are his spiritual and mental inter- 
 ests. Life, on earth, however good and 
 desirable in itself, is not the -final pur- 
 pose for which man is created ; it is 
 only the way and the means to that 
 attainment of truth, and that practice of 
 goodness, in which the full life of the 
 soul consists. It is the soul which is 
 made after the image and likeness of 
 God ; it is in the soul that sovereignty 
 resides, in virtue of which man is com- 
 manded to rule the creatures below him, 
 and to uso all the earth and^ the ocean 
 for his profit and advantage. 66 Fill the 
 earth and subdue it ; and rule over the 
 fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the 
 air, and all living creatures which move 
 upon the earth .” 1 In this respect all 
 men are equal ; there is no difference 
 between rich and poor, master and 
 
 i Genesis i, 28. 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR, 175 
 
 servant, ruler and ruled, “ for the same 
 is lord over all.” 1 No man may out- 
 rage with impunity that human dignity 
 which God Himself treats with rever- 
 ence, nor stand in the way of that higher 
 life which is the preparation for the 
 eternal life of Heaven. 
 
 Nay, more ; a man has here no power 
 over himself. To consent to any treat- 
 ment which is calculated to defeat the 
 end and purpose of his being is beyond 
 his right ; he cannot give up his soul to 
 servitude; for it is not man’s own rights 
 which are here in question, but the 
 rights of God, most sacred and in- 
 violable. 
 
 From this follows the obligation of 
 the cessation of work and labor on 
 Sundays and certain festivals. This 
 rest from labor is not to be understood 
 as mere idleness; much less must it be 
 an occasion of spending money and of 
 vicious excess, as many would desire it 
 to be; but it should be rest from labor 
 consecrated by Religion. Repose united 
 with religious observance disposes man 
 to forget for a while the business of this 
 
 i Romans x, 12. 
 
176 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 daily life, and to turn his thoughts to 
 heavenly things and to the worship 
 which he so strictly owes to the Eternal 
 Deity. It is this, above all, which is 
 the reason and motive of the Sunday 
 rest; a rest sanctioned by God’s great 
 law of the ancient covenant, “ Remem- 
 ber thou keep holy the Sabbath Day,” 1 
 and taught to the world by His own 
 mysterious “ rest ” after the creation of 
 man; “ He rested on the seventh day 
 from all His work which He had 
 done.” 2 
 
 If we turn now to things exterior and 
 corporeal, the first concern of all is to 
 save the poor workers from the cruelty 
 of grasping speculators, who use human 
 beings as mere instruments for making 
 money. It is neither justice nor hu- 
 manity so to grind men down with ex- 
 cessive labor as to stupefy their minds 
 and wear out their bodies. Man’s 
 powers, like his general nature, are 
 limited, and beyond these limits he can- 
 not go. His strength is developed and 
 increased by use and exercise, but only 
 
 1 Exod. xx, 8. 
 
 2 Genesis ii, 2. 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 177 
 
 on condition of due intermission and 
 proper rest. Daily labor, therefore, 
 must be so regulated that it may not be 
 protracted during longer hours than 
 strength admits. How many and how 
 long the intervals of rest should be, 
 will depend on the nature of the work, 
 on circumstances of time and place, and 
 on the health and strength of the work- 
 man. Those who labor in mines and 
 quarries, and in work within the bowels 
 of the earth, should have shorter hours 
 in proportion as their labor is more se- 
 vere and more trying to health. Then, 
 again, the season of the year must be 
 taken into account; for not unfrequently 
 a kind of labor is easy at one time which 
 at another is intolerable or very difficult. 
 
 Finally, work which is suitable for a 
 strong man cannot reasonably be re- 
 quired from a woman or a child. And, 
 in regard to children, great care should 
 be taken not to place them in work- 
 shops and factories until their bodies 
 and minds are sufficiently mature. For 
 just as rough weather destroys the buds 
 of spring, so too early an experience of 
 life’s hard work blights the young 
 s. P— 12 
 
178 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 promise of a child’s powers, and makes 
 any real education impossible. Women, 
 again, are not suited to certain trades; 
 for a woman is by nature fitted for 
 home work, and it is that which is best 
 adapted at once to preserve her mod- 
 esty and to promote the good bringing 
 up of children and the well-being of 
 the family. As a general principle it 
 may be laid down that a workman 
 ought to have leisure and rest in pro- 
 portion to the wear and tear of his 
 strength; for the waste of strength must 
 be repaired by the cessation of work. 
 
 In all agreements between masters 
 and work people there is always the 
 condition, expressed or understood, that 
 there be allowed proper rest for soul 
 and body. To agree in any other sense 
 would be against what is right and 
 just; for it can never be right or just 
 to require on the one side, or to prom- 
 ise on the other, the giving up of those 
 duties which a man owes to his God and 
 to himself. 
 
 We now approach a subject of very 
 great importance, and one on which, if 
 extremes are to be avoided, right ideas 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 179 
 
 are absolutely necessary. Wages, we 
 are told, are fixed by free consent; and 
 therefore the employer, when he pays 
 what was agreed upon, has done his 
 part and is not called upon for anything 
 further. The only way, it is said, in 
 which injustice could happen would be 
 if the master refused to pay the whole 
 of the wages, or the workman would 
 not complete the work undertaken; 
 when this happens the state should in- 
 tervene, to see that each obtains his 
 own, but not under any other circum- 
 stances. 
 
 This mode of reasoning is by no 
 means convincing to a fair-minded man, 
 for there are important considerations 
 which it leaves out of view altogether. 
 To labor is to exert one’s self for the 
 sake of procuring what is necessary 
 for the purposes of life, and most of 
 all for self-preservation. “ In the 
 sweat of thy brow thou shall eat 
 bread .” 1 Therefore, a man’s labor has 
 two notes or characters. 
 
 First of all, it is personal ; for the 
 exertion of individual power belongs to 
 
 i Genesis iii, 19. 
 
180 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 the individual who puts it forth, employ- 
 ing this power for that personal profit 
 for w r hich it was given. 
 
 Secondly, man’s labor is necessary ; 
 for without the results of labor a man 
 cannot live ; and self-conservation is 
 a law of Nature, which it is wrong to 
 disobey. Now if we were to consider 
 labor merely so far as it is personal, 
 doubtless it would be within the work- 
 man’s right to accept any rate of wages 
 whatever ; for in the same way as he is 
 free to work or not, so he is free to 
 accept a small remuneration or even 
 none at all. But this is a mere abstract 
 supposition ; the labor of the working- 
 man is not only his personal attribute, 
 but it is necessary ; and this makes all 
 the difference. The preservation of 
 life is the bounden duty of each and all, 
 and to fail therein is a crime. It follows 
 that each one has a right to procure 
 what is required in order to live ; and 
 the poor can procure it in no other way 
 than by work and wages. 
 
 Let it be granted, then, that as a rule, 
 workman and employer should make 
 free agreements, and in particular 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 181 
 
 should freely agree as to wages ; never- 
 theless, there is a dictate of nature more 
 imperious and more ancient than any 
 bargain between man and man, that the 
 remuneration must be enough to support 
 the wage-earner in reasonable and 
 frugal comfort. If through necessity or 
 fear of a worse evil, the workman 
 accepts harder conditions because an 
 employer or a contractor will give him 
 no better, he is the victim of force and 
 injustice. In these and similar ques- 
 tions, however — such as, for example, 
 the hours of labor in different trades, 
 the sanitary precautions to be observed 
 in factories and workshops, etc. — in 
 order to supersede undue interference 
 on the part of the state, especially as 
 circumstances, times, and localities 
 differ so widely, it is advisable that re- 
 course be had to societies or boards 
 such as We shall mention presently, or 
 to some other method of safeguarding 
 the interests of wage -earners ; the state 
 to be asked for approval and protec- 
 tion. 
 
 If a workman’s wages be sufficient to 
 enable him to maintain himself, his wife, 
 
182 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 and his children in reasonable comfort, 
 he will not find it difficult, if he is a 
 sensible man, to study economy ; and 
 he will not fail, by cutting down ex- 
 penses, to put by a little property : 
 nature and reason would urge him to 
 this. We have seen that this great 
 labor question cannot be solved except 
 by assuming as a principle that private 
 ownership must be held sacred and in- 
 violable. The law, therefore, should 
 favor ownership, and its policy should 
 be to induce as many of the people as 
 possible to become owners. 
 
 Many excellent results will follow 
 from this ; and first of all, property will 
 certainly become more equitably divided. 
 For the effect of civil change and revo- 
 lution has been to divide society into 
 two widely differing castes. On the 
 one side there is the party which holds 
 the power because it holds the wealth ; 
 which has in its grasp all labor and all 
 trade, which manipulates for its own 
 benefit and its own purposes all the 
 sources of supply, and which is power- 
 fully represented in the councils of the 
 state itself. On the other side there is 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR . 183 
 
 the needy and powerless multitude, 
 sore and suffering, and always ready 
 for disturbance. If working people can 
 be encouraged to look forward to ob- 
 
 o 
 
 taining a share in the land, the result 
 will be that the gulf between vast 
 wealth and deep poverty will be bridged 
 over, and the two orders will be brought 
 nearer together. Another consequence 
 will be the greater abundance of the 
 fruits of the earth. Men always work 
 harder and more readily when they work 
 on that which is their own ; nay, they 
 learn to love the very soil which yields 
 in response to the labor of their hands, 
 not only food to eat, but an abundance 
 of good things for themselves and 
 those that are dear to them. It is 
 evident how such a spirit of willing 
 labor would add to the produce of 
 the earth and to the wealth of the com- 
 munity. And a third advantage 
 would arise from this : Men would 
 
 cling to the country in which they 
 were born ; for no one would exchange 
 his country for a foreign land if 
 his own afforded him the means of 
 living a tolerable and happy life. 
 
184 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 These three important benefits, how- 
 ever, can only be expected on the condi- 
 tion that a man’s means be not drained 
 and exhausted by excessive taxation. 
 The right to possess private property is 
 from nature, not from man; and the state 
 has only the right to regulate its use in 
 the interests of the public good, but 
 by no means to abolish it altogether. 
 The state is, therefore, unjust and 
 cruel if, in the name of taxation, it 
 deprives the private owner of more 
 than is just. 
 
 In the last place, employers and 
 workmen may themselves effect much in 
 the matter of which We treat, by means 
 of those institutions and organizations 
 which afford opportune assistance to 
 those in need, and which draw the two 
 orders more closely together. Among 
 these may be enumerated: societies for 
 mutual help; various foundations estab- 
 lished by private persons for providing 
 for the workman, and for his widow or 
 his orphans, in sudden calamity, in sick- 
 ness, and in the event of death; and 
 what are called “ patronages ” or institu- 
 tions for the care of boys and girls, for 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 185 
 
 young people, and also for those of more 
 mature age. 
 
 The most important of all are work- 
 men’s associations; for these virtually 
 include all the rest. History attests 
 what excellent results were effected by 
 the artificers’ guilds of a former day. 
 They were the means not only of many 
 advantages to the workmen, but in no 
 small degree of the advancement of art, 
 as numerous monuments remain to prove. 
 Such associations should be adapted to 
 the requirements of the age in which 
 we live — an age of greater instruction 
 of different customs, and of more nu- 
 merous requirements in daily life. It is 
 gratifying to know that there are actually 
 in existence not a few societies of this 
 nature, consisting either of workmen 
 alone or of workmen and employers to- 
 gether; but it were greatly to be desired 
 that they should multiply and become 
 more effective. We have spoken of them 
 more than once; but it will be well to ex- 
 plain here how much they are needed, 
 to show that they exist by their own 
 right, and to enter into their organiza- 
 tion and their work. 
 
186 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 The experience of his own weakness 
 urges man to call in help from without. 
 We read in the pages of Holy Writ: 
 “ It is better that two should be to- 
 gether than one; for they have the 
 advantage of their society. If one fall 
 he shall be supported by the other. Woe 
 to him that is alone, for when he falleth 
 he hath none to lift him up .” 1 And 
 further: “ A brother that is helped by 
 his brother is like a strong city.” 2 It is 
 this natural impulse which unites men in 
 civil society; and it is this also which 
 makes them band themselves together in 
 associations of citizen with citizen; asso- 
 ciations which, it is true, cannot be called 
 societies in the complete sense of the 
 word, but which are societies neverthe- 
 less. 
 
 These lesser societies and the so- 
 ciety which constitutes the state, differ 
 in many things, because their immediate 
 purpose and end is different. Civil 
 society exists for the common good, and 
 therefore is concerned with the interests 
 of all in general, and with individual 
 
 1 Ecclesiastes iv, 9-10. 
 
 2 Proverbs xviii, 19. 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 187 
 
 interests in their due place and propor- 
 tion. Hence it is called public society, 
 because by its means, as St. Thomas of 
 Aquin says, “ Men communicate with 
 one another in the setting up of a com- 
 monwealth.” 1 But the societies which 
 are found in the bosom of the state are 
 called private, and justly so, because 
 their immediate purpose is the private 
 advantage of the associates. “ Now a 
 private society,” says St. Thomas again, 
 “ is one w T hich is formed for the purpose 
 of carrying out private business; as 
 when two or three enter into a partner- 
 ship with the view of trading in con- 
 junction.” 2 
 
 Particular societies, then, although 
 they exist within the state, and are 
 each a part of the state, neverthe- 
 less cannot be prohibited by the state 
 absolutely and as such. For to enter 
 into “society” of this kind is the 
 natural right of man; and the state 
 must protect natural rights, not destroy 
 them; and if it forbids its citizens to 
 form associations, it contradicts the 
 
 1 “ Contra impugnantes Dei cultum et Relig- 
 ionem.” Cap. II. 
 
 2 Ibid. 
 
188 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 very principle of its own existence; 
 for both they and it exist in virtue of 
 the same principle, viz., the natural pro- 
 pensity of man to live in society. 
 
 There are times, no doubt, when it is 
 right that the law should interfere to 
 prevent association; as when men join 
 together for purposes which are evi- 
 dently bad, unjust, or dangerous to the 
 state. In such cases the public author- 
 ity may justly forbid the formation of 
 associations, and may dissolve them 
 when they already exist. But every pre- 
 caution should be taken not to violate 
 the rights of individuals and not to 
 make unreasonable regulations under 
 the pretense of public benefit. For 
 laws only bind when they are in accord- 
 ance with right reason, and therefore 
 with the eternal law of God . 1 
 
 And here we are reminded of the con- 
 fraternities, societies, and religious 
 orders, which have arisen by the 
 Church’s authority and the piety of the 
 
 i “ Human law is law only in virtue of its accord- 
 ance with right reason : and thus it is manifest 
 that it flows from the eternal law. And in so far 
 as it deviates from right reason it is called an un- 
 just law; in such case it is not law at all, hut 
 rather a species of violence.” — St. Thomas of 
 Aquin, “ Summa Theoligica,” la 2se Q. xcii. Art. 3.” 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 189 
 
 Christian people. The annals of every 
 nation down to our own times testify to 
 what they have done for the human 
 race. It is indisputable on grounds of 
 reason alone, that such associations, 
 being perfectly blameless in their 
 objects, have the sanction of the law of 
 nature. On their religious side they 
 rightly claim to be responsible to the 
 Church alone. The administrators of 
 the state, therefore, have no rights over 
 them, nor can they claim any share in 
 their management; on the contrary, it 
 is the state’s duty to respect and cherish 
 them, and, if necessary, to defend them 
 from attack. It is notorious that a very 
 different course has been followed, more 
 especially in our own times. In many 
 places the state has laid violent hands 
 on these communities, and committed 
 manifold injustice against them; it has 
 placed them under the civil law, taken 
 away their rights as corporate bodies, 
 and robbed them of their property. In 
 such property the Church had her rights, 
 each member of the body had his or her 
 rights, and there were also the rights of 
 those who had founded or endowed 
 
190 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 them for a definite purpose, and of 
 those for whose benefit and assistance 
 they existed. Wherefore We cannot 
 refrain from complaining of such spolia- 
 tion as unjust and fraught with evil re- 
 sults; and with the more reason because, 
 at the very time when the law proclaims 
 that association is free to all, We see 
 that Catholic societies, however peace- 
 able and useful, are hindered in every 
 way, whilst the utmost freedom is given 
 to men whose objects are at once hurt- 
 ful to religion and dangerous to the 
 state. 
 
 Associations of every kind, and 
 especially those of workingmen, are now 
 far more common than formerly. In re- 
 gard to many of these there is no need 
 at present to inquire whence they spring, 
 what are their objects, or what means 
 they use. But there is a good deal of 
 evidence which goes to prove that many 
 of these societies are in the hands of 
 invisible leaders, and are managed on 
 principles far from compatible with 
 Christianity and the public well-being; 
 and that they do their best to get into 
 their hands the whole field of labor and 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 191 
 
 to force workmen either to join them or 
 to starve. Under these circumstances 
 Christian workmen must do one of two 
 things; either join associations in which 
 their religion will be exposed to peril, 
 or form associations among themselves — 
 unite their forces and courageously 
 shake off the yoke of an unjust and 
 intolerable oppression. No one who 
 does not wish to expose man’s chief 
 good to extreme danger will hesitate to 
 say that the second alternative must by 
 all means be adopted. 
 
 Those Catholics are worthy of all 
 praise — and there are not a few — who, 
 understanding what the times require, 
 have, by various enterprises and experi- 
 ments, endeavored to better the condi- 
 tion of the working people without any 
 sacrifice of principle. They have taken 
 up the cause of the workingman, and 
 have striven to make both families and 
 individuals better off; to infuse the 
 spirit of justice into the mutual rela- 
 tions of employer and employed; to keep 
 before the eyes of both classes the pre- 
 cepts of duty and the laws of the 
 Gospel — that Gospel which, by incul- 
 
192 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 eating self-restraint, keeps men within 
 the bounds of moderation, and tends 
 to establish harmony among the di- 
 vergent interests and various classes 
 which compose the state. It is with 
 such ends in view that We see men of 
 eminence meeting together for discus- 
 sion, for the promotion of united action, 
 and for practical work. Others, again, 
 strive to unite working people of va- 
 rious kinds into associations, help them 
 with their advice and their means, and 
 enable them to obtain honest and profit- 
 able work. The bishops, on their part, 
 bestow their ready good will and sup- 
 port: and with their approval and guid- 
 ance many members of the clergy, both 
 secular and regular, labor assiduously 
 on behalf of the spiritual and mental 
 interests of the members of associa- 
 tions. 
 
 And there are not wanting Catholics 
 possessed of affluence who have, as 
 it were, cast in their lot with the 
 wage-earners, and who have spent 
 large sums in founding and widely 
 spreading Benefit and Insurance So- 
 cieties, by means of which the work- 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 193 
 
 ingman may without difficulty acquire 
 by his labor not only many present ad- 
 vantages, but also the certainty of hon- 
 orable support in time to come. How 
 much this multiplied and earnest activ- 
 ity has benefited the community at 
 large, is too well known to require Us 
 to dwell upon it. We find in it the 
 grounds of the most cheering hope for 
 the future; provided that the associa- 
 tions We have described continue to 
 grow and spread, and are well and 
 wisely administered. Let the state 
 watch over these societies of citizens 
 united together in the exercise of their 
 right; but let it not thrust itself into 
 their peculiar concerns and their organ- 
 ization; for things move and live by the 
 soul within them, and they may be 
 killed by the grasp of a hand from 
 without. 
 
 In order that an association may be 
 carried on with unity of purpose and 
 harmony of action, its organization and 
 government must be firm and wise. All 
 such societies being free to exist, have 
 the further right to adopt such rules and 
 organization as may best conduce to the 
 s. P.-13 
 
194 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 attainment of their objects. We do 
 not deem it possible to enter into defi- 
 nite details on the subject of organiza- 
 tion; this must depend on national char- 
 acter, on practice and experience, on 
 the nature and scope of the work to be 
 done, on the magnitude of the various 
 trades and employments, and on other 
 circumstances of fact and of time 
 — all of which must be carefully 
 weighed. 
 
 Speaking summarily, we may lay 
 it down as a general and perpetual law, 
 that workmen’s associations should be 
 so organized and governed as to furnish 
 the best and most suitable means for 
 attaining what is aimed at, that is to say, 
 for helping each individual member to 
 better his condition to the utmost in 
 body, mind, and property. It is clear 
 that they must pay special and princi- 
 pal attention to piety and morality, and 
 that their internal discipline must be 
 directed precisely by these considera- 
 tions; otherwise they entirely lose their 
 special character, and come to be very 
 little better than those societies which 
 take no account of Religion at all. What 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 195 
 
 advantage can it be to a workman to ob- 
 tain by means of a society all that lie 
 requires, and to endanger his soul for 
 want of spiritual food? “ What doth 
 it profit a man if he gain the whole 
 world and suffer the loss of his own 
 soul ?” 1 This, as our Lord teaches, is 
 the note or character that distinguishes 
 the Christian from the heathen. “ After 
 all these things do the heathens seek. 
 
 . Seek ye first the Kingdom of 
 God and His justice, and all these 
 things shall be added unto you .” 2 Let 
 our associations, then, look first and 
 before all to God; let religious in- 
 struction have therein a foremost place, 
 each one being carefully taught what is 
 his duty to God, what to believe, what 
 to hope for, and how to work out his 
 salvation; and let all be warned and 
 fortified with especial solicitude against 
 wrong opinions and false teaching. 
 Let the workingman be urged and 
 led to the worship of God, to the earnest 
 practice of religion, and, among other 
 things, to the sanctification of Sundays 
 
 1 St. Matthew xvi, 26. 
 
 2 St. Matthew vi, 32-33. 
 
196 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 and festivals. Let him learn to rever- 
 ence and love Holy Church, the common 
 mother of us all ; and so to obey the 
 precepts and to frequent the Sacraments 
 of the Church, those Sacraments being 
 the means ordained by God for obtain- 
 ing forgiveness of sin and for leading a 
 holy life. 
 
 The foundations of the organization 
 being laid in Religion, We next go on 
 to determine the relations of the mem- 
 bers one to another, in order that they 
 may live together in concord and go on 
 prosperously and successfully. The 
 offices and charges of the society should 
 be distributed for the good of the so- 
 ciety itself, and in such manner that 
 difference in degree or position should 
 not interfere with unanimity and good 
 will. Office-bearers should be ap- 
 pointed with prudence and discretion, 
 and each one’s charge should be care- 
 fully marked out ; thus no member will 
 suffer wrong. Let the common funds 
 be administered with the strictest hon- 
 esty, in such way that a member receive 
 assistance in proportion to his neces- 
 sities. The rights and duties of em- 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 197 
 
 plojers should be the subject of careful 
 consideration as compared with the 
 rights and duties of the employed. If 
 it should happen that either a master or 
 a workman deemed himself injured, 
 nothing would be more desirable than 
 that there should be a committee com- 
 posed of honest and capable men of the 
 association itself, whose duty it should 
 be, by the laws of the association, to 
 decide the dispute. Among the pur- 
 poses of a society should be to try to 
 arrange for a continuous supply of 
 work at all times and seasons ; and to 
 create a fund from which the members 
 may be helped in their necessities, not 
 only in cases of accident, but also in 
 sickness, old age and misfortune. 
 
 Such rules and regulations, if obeyed 
 willingly by all, will sufficiently insure 
 the well-being of poor people ; whilst 
 such mutual associations among Cath- 
 olics are certain to be productive, in no 
 small degree, of prosperity to the state. 
 It is not rash to conjecture the future 
 from the past. Age gives way to age, 
 but the events of one century are won- 
 derfully like those of another ; for they 
 
198 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 are directed by the Providence of God, 
 Who overrules the course of history in 
 accordance with His purposes in creating 
 the race of man. We are told that it 
 was cast as a reproach on the Christians 
 of the early ages of the Church, that 
 the greater number of them had to live 
 by begging or by labor. Yet, destitute 
 as they were of wealth and influence, 
 they ended by winning over to their 
 side the favor of the rich and the good- 
 will of the powerful. They showed 
 themselves industrious, laborious, and 
 peaceful, men of justice, and, above 
 all, men of brotherly love. In the 
 presence of such a life and such an 
 example prejudice disappeared, the 
 tongue of malevolence was silenced, 
 and the lying traditions of ancient 
 superstition yielded little by little to 
 Christian truth. 
 
 At this moment the condition of the 
 working population is the question of 
 the hour ; and nothing can be of higher 
 interest to all classes of the state than 
 that it should be rightly and reason- 
 ably decided. But it will be easy for 
 Christian workingmen to decide it 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 199 
 
 right if they form associations, choose 
 wise guides, and follow the same path 
 which with so much advantage to them- 
 selves and the commonwealth was trod 
 by their fathers before them. Prejudice, 
 it is true, is mighty, and so is the love 
 of money ; but if the sense of what is 
 just and right be not destroyed by de- 
 pravity of heart, their fellow-citizens 
 are sure to be won over to a kindly 
 feeling towards men whom they see to 
 be so industrious and so modest, who so 
 unmistakably prefer honesty to lucre, 
 and the sacredness of duty to all other 
 considerations. 
 
 And another great advantage would 
 result from the state of things We are 
 describing ; there would be so much 
 more hope and possibility of recalling 
 to a sense of their duty those working- 
 men who have either given up their 
 faith altogether, or whose lives are at 
 variance with its precepts. These men, 
 in most cases, feel that they have been 
 fooled by empty promises and deceived 
 by false appearances. They cannot but 
 perceive that their grasping employers 
 too often treat them with the greatest 
 
200 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 inhumanity and hardly care for them 
 beyond the profit their labor brings ; 
 and if they belong to an association 
 it is probably one in which there 
 exists, in place of charity and love, 
 that intestine strife which always 
 accompanies unresigned and irreligious 
 poverty. Broken in spirit and worn 
 down in body, how many of them would 
 gladly free themselves from this galling 
 slavery ! But human respect, or the 
 dread of starvation, makes them afraid 
 to take the step. To such as these 
 Catholic associations are of incalculable 
 service, helping them out of their diffi- 
 culties, inviting them to companion- 
 ship, and receiving the repentant to 
 a shelter in which they may securely 
 trust. 
 
 We have now laid before you, Vener- 
 able Brethren, who are the persons, and 
 what are the means, by which this most 
 difficult question must be solved. 
 Every one must put his hand to the 
 work which falls to his share, and that 
 at once and immediately, lest the evil 
 which is already so great may by delay 
 become absolutely beyond remedy. 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 201 
 
 Those who rule the state must use 
 the law and the institutions of the 
 country ; masters and rich men must 
 remember their duty ; the poor, whose 
 interests are at stake, must make every 
 lawful and proper effort ; and since 
 Religion alone, as We said at the be- 
 ginning, can destroy the evil at its 
 root, all men must be persuaded 
 that the primary thing needful is 
 to return to real Christianity, in 
 the absence of which all the plans 
 and devices of the wisest will be of 
 little avail. 
 
 As far as regards the Church, its 
 assistance will never be wanting, be the 
 time or the occasion what it may ; and 
 it will intervene with the greater effect 
 in proportion as its liberty of action is 
 the more unfettered : let this be care- 
 fully noted by those whose office it is to 
 provide for the public welfare. Every 
 minister of holy Religion must throw 
 into the conflict all the energy of his 
 mind and all the strength of his endur- 
 ance ; with your authority, Venerable 
 Brethren, and by your example, they 
 must never cease to urge upon all men 
 
202 
 
 ENCYCLICAL 
 
 of every class, upon the high as well as 
 the lowly, the Gospel doctrines of 
 Christian life ; by every means in their 
 power they must strive for the good of 
 the people ; and, above all, they must 
 earnestly cherish in themselves, and try 
 to arouse in others, charity, the mistress 
 and queen of virtues. For the happy 
 results we all long for must be chiefly 
 brought about by the plenteous out- 
 pouring of charity ; of that true Chris- 
 tian charity which is the fulfilling of the 
 whole Gospel law, which is always ready 
 to sacrifice itself for others’ sake, and 
 which is man’s surest antidote against 
 worldly pride and immoderate love of 
 self ; that charity whose office is 
 described and whose Godlike features 
 are drawn by the Apostle St. Paul 
 in these words : “ Charity is patient, 
 is kind . . . seeketh not her own 
 
 . . . suffereth all things . 
 
 endureth all things.” 1 
 
 On each one of you, Venerable 
 Brethren, and on your clergy and 
 people,- as an earnest of God’s mercy 
 and a mark of our affection, We lovingly 
 
 i I. Corinthians xiii, 4-7. 
 
ON THE CONDITION OF LABOR. 203 
 
 in the Lord bestow the Apostolic bene- 
 diction. 
 
 Given at St. Peter’s, in Rome, the 
 fifteenth day of May, 1891, the four- 
 teenth year of Our Pontificate. 
 
 LEO XIII., Pope. 
 

BOSTON COLLEGE 
 
 3 903 - 
 
 01654365 4 
 
 L 1 ^.- 10412:3 
 
 BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS 
 CHESTNUT HILL, MASS. 
 
 Books may be kept for two weeks and may be 
 renewed for the same period, unless reserved. 
 
 Two cents a day is charged for each book kept 
 overtime. 
 
 If you cannot find what you want, ask the 
 Librarian who will be glad to help you. 
 
 The borrower is responsible for books drawn on 
 his card and for all fines accruing on the same.