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,