8 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES 
strained competition, such as prevailed in the coal-mining 
industry before 1900; price-wars in iron and steel manu- 
facturing, and other basic industries, or the creation of a 
constant over-supply of unskilled and semi-skilled workers 
by an unrestricted immigration policy, as well as recurrent 
industrial depressions or collapses from whatsoever causes, 
up to the time of the World War, were imposed upon the 
wage-earner by invoking the so-called immutable and inex- 
rable “laws of economics.” 
It is no cause for wonderment that industrial workers, 
under the influence of these conditions and pronounce- 
ments, came to look upon theoretical and practical eco- 
nomics, especially in relation to wage-fixing, as “the dismal 
science of despair.” According to its principles, as prac- 
tised prior to the war, they were without hope, or without 
any rational basis of procedure. Theoretically, their only 
opportunities for advancing their well-being lay (1) in 
reducing competition so as to permit the accumulation of 
a greater volume of profits and capital for future indus- 
trial expansion, (2) in producing goods faster than the 
labor supply increased, (3) in reducing the birth-rate, or 
(4) in the fortuitous advent of some pestilence, earth- 
quake, or other natural catastrophe, or even war itself, 
any of which chance happenings would decimate the labor 
supply and thus give to wage-earners afterward a greater 
advantage in fixing the price for their labor. 
Free Pray oF SupPLY AND DEMAND OFFSET 
BY ORGANIZATION 
Altho these theoretical contingencies as well as vigorous 
adherence to prevailing theories of wages might have been 
of great benefit ultimately to the wage-earning classes, 
they were too remote to be of any practical significance 
in the work-a-day world. Quite naturally, therefore, they