120 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES 
obsolete. He will never willingly go back to it. To this fact 
we may well reconcile ourselves, and adjust our economic 
life to it. . . . 
[ am convinced that this wider conception of what consti- 
tutes a truly living wage is entertained not alone by the work- 
man himself, but the American people as a whole have 
willingly conceded it to him. . . . There is no turning back 
the clock of time or events. . .. 
This much is certain, that from now on our people in 
general will have to shape their way of life, their own ability 
to earn and to pay, so that henceforward a proper share of 
the simple good things that all of us have always enjoyed 
shall fall to the lot of the man who toils. One form in which 
this award must fall to him is in the form of a wage—call it 
what you will—in view of the loose meaning that has come 
to be attached to the old living wage. I prefer to call the 
new wage the buying and saving wage. 
. . . In other words, they look to the pay envelop for their 
income. These constitute the great buying public in our 
country. They are purchasers of goods “made in the United 
States.” It is for these that we should seek to provide not 
merely the living wage but the saving wage, for, if the 
American workman enjoys anything as much as spending, it 
is saving. To reward him a saving wage is no more than a 
just credit to the trait which has made him the greatest pro- 
ducer, the greatest buyer, the greatest market known to the 
world. 
Let there be no doubt as to the American workman’s ability 
and propensity to save. . . 
This is one more reason why I feel sure that the saving 
wage must now for good and all take the place of the old 
meaningless living wage. 
As a definition the saving wage is, I am aware, a very 
indefinite term. . . . The saver goes about his business with- 
out creating news. But I am convinced that he constitutes 
very largely the majority of our people. And that average 
saver, and a society awakened to his new and legitimate