36 ECONOMIC ESSAYS IN HONOR OF JOHN BATES CLARK
a previous page, induce earlier marriages and larger families,
(even assuming that immigration is restricted so that it cannot
merely induce a larger immigration); and in the course of time
the labor supply will be so great as to make it increasingly diffi-
cult to maintain the high wage level.
The difference between these two methods is really the differ-
ence between applying the remedy at the source and applying it
to the symptom. One method proceeds by removing, first, one
of the causes of low wages, and then leaving economic forces to
effect a cure. The other method proceeds directly, leaving the
causes out of account and trying to correct the resulting low
wages by artificial means.
This does not mean that it is never desirable to treat symptoms.
It is sometimes necessary, but only as a temporary expedient to
meet an acute situation. It is, for example, sometimes necessary
to reduce the temperature of a sick person by ice packs and other
devices, though no physician would be content with this as a
method of curing, much less of preventing a fever. It is necessary
to remove, or prevent the occurrence of the factors which cause
the temperature to rise. In the economic field, it is also necessary
sometimes, to resort to unemployment doles, employment of the
“out of work” on unprofitable public works, or even wholesale
deportations, and other drastic measures to meet an acute state
of unemployment, but no economist would be content with such
measures as a permanent cure for low wages or unemployment.
On the subject of the standard of living and postponement of
marriage and the limitation on the size of families, it seems that
the employing classes have generally been able to out-maneuver
the laboring classes. While carefully limiting the size of their
own families by late marriages and other prudential policies,
many of them, either themselves or through their spokesmen,
deliberately advise working men to do the opposite. Small
families among the employing classes mean small numbers of
employers, or would mean that if it were not for a system of
popular education which tends to recruit the employing classes
from below. Small numbers of employers give each employer
a great advantage. At the same time, large families among wage
workers tend to increase their number, which is bad for them and
cood for the employers. If wage workers were as clear in their
thinking as are these representatives of the employing classes,