I hope every fairminded reader of these lines will agree that the different trades should receive the same compensation, because all are useful and necessary or indispensable. But whose labor is more useful and more indispensable than that of the farmer, the tiller of the soil? It is he upon whom all depend for food, at least for the raw material, both of food and of clothing. He is the peer of any in point of usefulness; to him really belongs the place of honor as the most indispensable of all workers. He furnishes much food ready for consumption, and the raw materials for most of the staple food products, as well as the raw material for textiles and a variety of minor items in the list of raw materials. This man's work certainly is entitled to the same value estimate, and therefore to the same compensation as any of the skilled trades. The same reasoning applies to the coal miner, the man whose work probably is the most burdensome, as well as the most dangerous. Civilization as it is known today would be impossible without a plentiful supply of fuel; and of fuels, coal is the principal source, and for many purposes the most suitable kind. The value of the coal miner's work cannot in reason and fairness be estimated at any lower rate than that of other industrial workers. Clearly, this miner must be accorded a place in the equal compensation scheme. So also the miner of zinc, lead, copper, and iron ore. What would the world be without iron and steel? Civilization could simply not exist without iron. All tools and all machinery of production, as well as of transportation, de

pend upon iron. Hence we find the work of the iron miner and smelter as indispensable, as useful, and as worthy of esteem as any other of the skilled trades, and fully entitled to equal compensation with the rest.

But the products of the farm and the mines as well as the multitudinous manufactured goods must be transported in order to reach the place of consumption, the place of realized utility. And this calls for the work of a large number of men laboring in transportation by land and by water: teamsters, wagoners, sailors, railroaders, etc. Any person of but ordinary intelligence will realize at once that the transport worker is as needful for the existence of organized society as is the more direct producer of the goods transported; and it should not be necessary to dwell upon this at any length. Division of labor is a fact, based upon this other fact, that division and subdivision of labor increases the productive power of labor manifold; and also based upon this further fact, that the various raw materials which enter into one article of manufacture often have to be brought together from widely separated localities. The staple food materials, raised almost wholly in the country, must be transported to cities and manufacturing centres; and much of it is carried back again to the country, after it has passed through the various processes of manufacture. All this, or at least a great amount of transportation, is unavoidable and indispensable, and this of course implies that the labor of the transport worker is indispensable, or, to say the least, is useful and necessary, and therefore of equal

value and worth with other useful and necessary work, and hence is entitled to a place in the equal compensation scheme. What has here been said about the worker in transportation, applies with equal force to all those who work in stores and warehouses, in wholesale and retail mercantile work, the merchant class, and all their help, in office, storeroom, and salesroom; everyone whose labor in any way serves the process of distribution, the connecting of producer with the consumer. All this work is likewise indispensable, necessary, useful, and therefore entitled to the same value estimate as other work; and the persons engaged therein have an undeniable right to a place in the equal compensation scheme with the rest of useful workers.

That the immense army of workers, in their multifarious variety of work, on field and farm, in mine, mill, and workshop, on railroad, ship, or wagon, in store and office, the producers and distributors of material wealth, of all the necessaries and comforts of life, that these are all alike needed, all alike useful and important, that seems to me so clear, that even a child might understand it; and that therefore, in reason and conscience, they should be esteemed equally worthy and valuable, and entitled to equal compensation, hour for hour, when arrived at standard efficiency, that seems to me equally clear. Moreover, let it be remembered that this multitude of workers, the producers of wealth, that these also constitute the bulk of consumers, and as such furnish employment for each other; and since the purchase of products is really an exchange of prod

ucts, and in the final analysis an exchange of labor, therefore equal pay hour for hour really means an exchange of labor with your brother man on the basis of hour for hour, on the basis of giving one hour of your work for one hour of his. Let it furthermore be remembered that this equal compensation, hour for hour, for all usefull productive work, gives us a rational and equitable basis of value, a means of determining the value of all material products according to the hours of standard labor embodied therein; and that this will settle, at once and for good, all disputes about rates of pay, eliminate strikes and lockouts, and stifle in men generally the desire to exploit their fellowmen; will bring industrial peace, and will do more than aught else to establish lasting peace between the nations of this earth. Who is there so narrowly selfish, and so shortsighted, as to refuse welcome to such a gospel of industrial peace, of harmony, and brotherhood, of salvation from economic chaos?

The demand for equality of pay for equal work regardless of sex is already quite common, and is generally accepted as reasonable and just. Why not also equality of pay regardless of trade or line of work? If it is right to place men and women upon equality in the matter of compensation, why not men and men? When it becomes clear, that rightly understood, men's work, in point of value, is equal when of standard efficiency, no matter in what particular line of productive activity, who then can any longer oppose this idea of equal compensation?

EQUAL VALUE OF SKILLED AND UNSKILLED

LABOR.

I have not yet discussed the status of so-called unskilled labor; and I know full well that the attempt to include this class of labor in the scheme of equal compensation will meet the most emphatic objection from the great majority of skilled workers, those immediately above the unskilled in economic standing and income. This exemplifies a universal human weakness and defect of character. Men are quite anxious to see justice done as long as it imposes no sacrifice upon themselves, takes from themselves no cherished prerogative or accustomed advantage. When that is threatened, then the whole matter assumes a different aspect; men become totally blind to justice, or it becomes so vague and remote a thing as to be lost to sight and to consciousness, while the threatened privilege assumes large proportions, and seems so sacred and important, that to touch it appears to them as the grossest injustice, and calls for bitter resentment. But such is this poor humanity, and so backward is it still, in its agelong struggle to evolve from a status like unto a predatory animal toward that of a really human being, brotherly and helpful, that, as yet, man is not quite willing to grant to those he looks upon as standing below him the same consideration, and the same rights, that he so vociferously claims for himself. The middle class, having gained

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