Emancipation Of Mankind

The lecture given Friday night in Room C of the Law building, by Prof. H. C. Adams on "The Historic Background of the Labor Movement," was of large interest to those concerned in economics and the problem of the working man. At 8 o'clock the room was filled; at 8:15 it was crowded with an audience which enthusiastically greeted this lecturer, to whom, to quote from the '03 Michiganensian "questions concerning distinctions outside of the class show that Prof. Henry C. Adams is the favorite instructor."

After an introduction by Dr. Effinger, Prof. Adams apologized for his paper, which he said was not prepared for this occasion but was written as an introductory lecture to a course given in Fanueil Hall, Boston, under the auspices of the Century club.

But Prof. Adams' lecture needed no apology.

He dealt with the labor movement as existing in the United States, touching upon its form, its spirit, its record of the past five centuries and dwelt upon the three great changes in the life and conduct of men which were the characteristic revolutions. First, the revolution of philosophical thought; second, the revolution of political rights; third, the revolution of industrial [organization].

The first of these, said Prof. Adams. embraces all the movements and tendencies by which the individual could emerge from the organization or social order and stand as a person in the moral law. The political revolution, he said, resulted in all classes of people being embraced in the protection of fundamental law; the constitution guaranteeing the rights of all. Public office becomes a public trust, and liberty, equality and fraternity are an enduring part of the existing order.

The third, or industrial revolution, is that by which social relations based upon machinery have taken the place of domestic workmanship and tools. The industrial revolution, said Prof. Adams, is a by-product of the other two. It was not until the 19th century that this class of industry proclaimed claims of its own. The year 1760 was the beginning of the modern industrial order. The factory developed as a normal industrial organization; the railroad and steamship as the normal transportations; and corporations became the unit of industry. In 1830, said Prof. Adams, it is not true that tools had given way to machinery, but dreamers could see visions and men had grasped the significance of machinery, which was to displace the old domestic system. In this old system the workman owned his tools and the material upon which he worked; he was a responsible contracting agent with full control of the conditions which he worked. The factory system changed this. The introduction of machinery was the occasion of the separation of the industrial world into two classes, that of capital and labor. One of its first results was to reclassify society, and there became a class without property, without responsibility, without control of the conditions under which it worked.

The year 1830 characterizes the recognition of steam transportation. Goods made by steam must be distributed by steam power. In 1860 this was a proposition conceded by the business world.

But the complete triumph of machinery over tools was delayed until the railroads warranted transportation on a large scale, so that the factories might produce on a large scale. Then followed the rise, the growth, and the triumph of corporations as the unit of industrial establishments.

We must supplement the past by the present, said Prof. Adams, and enumerated what he considered the four pertinent results of the industrial revolution: First, the [crystallization] of the idea of a standard of living; second, forcing the recognition of the economic necessity of a higher standard of living; third, the disappearance of localism in industry; fourth, the need of a new code of industrial morals. The first stage gave rise to pessimism and despair, when as far back as Malthus it was recognized that the population increased much faster than the possible supplies to sustain it. There was the struggle for existence; there was the competition of wages which did not give way until machinery had doubled and tripled and quadrupled the product of labor.

Nature is not niggardly of her gifts, said Prof. Adams. The danger is that greed of man will destroy the motive of seeking out the forces of nature.

The second result, high wages an economic necessity, is more important, said Prof. Adams, for the employer than for the employee.

Higher wages and shorter hours are bound up in a peculiar manner with the wellfare of the laborer.

The third result is the disappearance of localism in industry, the invention of machinery which brought it about, is primarily responsible for the growth of conscious nationality which the humblest has. It is a direct outgrowth of the industrial movement. Centralizing the local industries into general markets must demand a uniform scale of wages; and this question of wages is a slough of despond, says Prof. Adams.

Recognize labor organization and hold them to a responsible execution of their contracts.

The fourth result is consciousness of the need of a new goal of industrial morals. And here Prof. Adams introduced a story by way of illustration. Your state of mind covering morals, he said, may be like that of the child, who was asked if she didn't want to be born again. No, thank you, she replied, I was born in Boston the first time. 

It is conditions and not principles which have changed, he continued. The principle of the division of labor has enlarged to an extent of which Adam Smith never dreamed. Human relations have become cosmopolitan. Altruism is now a personal necessity, government is imposed with ethical functions.

One of the most remarkable facts is the rapidity with which public opinion [crystallizes] about a movement where once the public was not concerned.

We are not better than our forefathers but it is a social and not an individual standpoint from which we look out upon things. We have made millions of people neighbors unto us who once would have been accounted foreigners; the world has become a part in our daily lives, and we recognize that justice in human evolution is essential to self preservation.

Summing up in a practical conclusion. Prof. Adams said: "The lesson of all this is not far to see. It comes self expressed to one who recognizes the conditions depending upon machinery. It promises an emancipation of the mass of mankind from excessive toil; it gives a realization of a social life that satisfies. Such is the ministry of machinery in the interests of industrial systems and the aspirations of the American worker.

The suggestion for dealing with the problem is this: It is essential if harmony is to be restored to our confused and disordered society, that the new moral laws evolved from these conditions, should find expression in the theory born of jurisprudence.