140 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES

industrial peace and cooperation, and would result in
enormous gains in the productive efficiency of both
capital and labor. From the experience along the
lines of similar innovations in the past, the conclusion
could be accepted, it was claimed, that if the livingwage
 principle should be applied with the accustomed
sagacity and common sense of industrial leaders, no
serious financial or other evil would result, but rather
great industrial advantages. It was emphasized that
no sudden application of the principle was planned,
which might cause an industrial collapse, but only a
gradual, sensible adoption of the idea, attended with
the minimum possibilities in the way of dislocation of
production and distribution.
Finally, it was pointed out that the living wage was
not merely a matter of economics. It involved a
fundamental moral principle. The boon to humanity
resulting from its application, and the improvement
to our social, political and religious life, could not, it
was declared, be overestimated. Without the living
wage our industrial achievements, on the other hand,
it was claimed, were entirely materialistic and were
built upon an indefensible foundation—upon the
social and economic degradation of a large part of our
citizenship. To say that the living wage was impossible
 or impracticable, therefore, it was concluded, was
to offend America’s fundamental sense of humanity,
morality, and religion.

A,

FormAL PrRECEDENTS ESTABLISHED

These arguments for and against the living-wage principle
 were, as has already been described, exhaustively
advanced and defended in connection with controversies
between capital and labor during the four years, 1919-