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 living- 
wage 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 impos- 
sible 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 prin- 
ciple were, as has already been described, exhaustively 
advanced and defended in connection with controversies 
between capital and labor during the four years, 1919-