EMPLOYMENT PSYCHOLOGY, LABOR, AND INDUSTRY 383
and larger wages, and sometimes even the desire for a bit
of violence and excitement to make up for the otherwise
undisturbed monotony of his days. The operation which
is so simple that it requires no particular training or education
commands a dignity and respect which is correspondingly
meager. The good wages which piece-workers
usually receive partly compensate for this lack. However,
piece-work wages have had the effect of increasing
rather than diminishing the restlessness of the workers.
The unexpectedly high wages which one class was able
to earn upset the entire labor market and added enormously
to the labor turnover. This unforeseen increase
in the earnings of piece-workers, and consequent unrest
among all other workers, made it necessary for industries
to readjust wages from the very bottom to the very top
of the scale. Laborers, clerks, journeymen, and even
salaried officers had to be included in this general readjustment.
No one realizes better than the leaders of industry who
have lived through the rapid progress in the division of
labor, how much painful truth the above assertions contain,
and probably no group of men is more anxious to
meet this problem in a fundamental way. The condition
is present. Labor has been divided into minute and
highly volatile parts. No amount of coercion, either upon
the part of industrial leaders as a group or laborers as a
union, can bring about the cure. No amount of preaching
or doctrine as to the relative duties of capital toward
labor and labor toward capital can make employment
conditions healthy. Among the many lessons which the
war has brought home is the fact that labor is capital
and capital is labor. The practical solution of this problem
can not be attained by steering a nice middle course
