72 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES 
revival and prosperity of industry. The rectifying of 
managerial inefficiencies, the elimination of wasteful 
methods and practises, and the securing of the cooperation 
and good-will of industrial workers, were pointed out as 
essential to the return of normal industrial conditions, and 
often more necessary than a cut in wage-rates. As rep- 
resentative of this form of enlightened and disinterested 
opinion, statements by a distinguished student and edu- 
cator, Doctor Charles W. Eliot, President Emeritus of 
Harvard University, and of a prominent banker and indus- 
trial executive, Mr. Sam A. Lewisohn, may be cited. Both 
citations are taken from a discussion before the Economic 
Club of Boston in April, 1921, on the question of a “Com- 
prehensive and Considerable Reduction of Wages as the 
Only Road to Normal Production and Reasonable Cost 
of Living,” 
Speaking to this question, Mr. Lewisohn, in part, said: 
On the other hand, aside from the matter of the political 
and social solidarity of this country, and approaching the 
question entirely from the viewpoint of materialistic eco- 
nomics, it is of primary importance that labor does not 
become resentful and suspicious. Low costs are obviously 
not merely a matter of low or even of reasonable wages. It 
is just as much a matter of efficiency as all you who are 
manufacturers here will recognize. Production standards— 
the amount of work performed by each unit each day—is a 
large factor in your costs. In view of the great deterioration 
in the capital goods of the country since the war, the neces- 
sity of increased efficiency is self-evident. Now, of course, the 
efficiency of labor depends to quite some extent on the state 
of the labor market,—whether labor is scarce or plentiful. 
The average man will naturally work harder when he realizes 
that if he loses his job he cannot get another. But, for- 
— 
1 The Consensus, Volume VI, No. 2, May, 1921. Published quarterly by 
the National Economic League, Boston, Mass.