26 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES 
This public declaration brought to the forefront the social 
and human side of the wage problem and repudiated the 
theory that the price of labor, as in the case of ordinary 
commodities, could be determined solely by the law of 
supply and demand. The obvious conclusion was that 
questions of humanity, as well as social and civic effects, 
must be taken into consideration in fixing the compensation 
of industrial workers. The embodiment of this funda- 
mental principle in a Federal statute, aside from its bearing 
upon the legal status of labor organizations, had a stimulat- 
ing effect upon public opinion and upon the public attitude 
toward the wage problem, and really signalized the break- 
ing away from the old view-points in determining the com- 
pensation of labor. 
Tuk STANDARD OF “HEALTH AND MODEST 
CoMFORT”’ 
Under these conditions, it was but a step to the develop- 
ment of further principles in connection with the theory 
of what a basic wage should be. This was brought for- 
ward in the form of a declaration that a bare physical level 
for the lowest-paid workers was not sufficient ; that the 
subsistence standard had been advanced merely to show 
the danger-line below which earnings should not be per- 
mitted to fall; that the unskilled laborer and his family 
as human beings were entitled to something more than a 
bare animal existence; and that there should, therefore, 
be made possible to them a standard of living of “modest 
comfort and health,” with some opportunity for the ordi- 
nary decencies of life and for recreation. 
This new conception or higher standard of protest 
against the old law of supply and demand, which was 
destined to have a tremendous influence in the future, 
originated on the Pacific Coast in the Departments of