The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-05-15

performance of social duty has rem dered it possible for those who la Dor in mechanical lines to live on food raised far outside their home town. Then as the link of all these apparently unrelated activities comes our transp portation system. How can 1t be possible for us to blind our eyes to the fact that every finished product is the result of an interplay of social functions, touching every phase of society? Thus arises the complicated ques- tioH sS to what is the full social equivalent of what a man produces.
 The modern industrial method is too complicated for any man or set of men to decide that a solution of all trouble has been found. Therefore, I look forward for the future of the Department of Labor as a means of helping to bring nearer year by year the goal of complete social justice. This sure- 1y must be the ideal of those who regard humanity as ~sonething too sacred for selfish exploitation.
 Labor Not Alone by Muscle.
 What have said relative to the locomotive as a type illustrative of the activities necessary to produce one result, leads me to state most emphatica1ly that labor is the pro ducer of all wealth. but to add with equal emphasis that muscular labor is not the only form of labor. The influence of the mental concept must not be lost to sight; the pro- ductivity of labor as affected by management; the foreseeing of a machine in the mind of the invent or all these things 1t seems to me represent labor.
 One of the greatest services that can be rendered by the Nation to labor of the muscular kind is in the direction of efficiency and that is why during my Congressional life I gave whatever support I could to the subject of vocational efuca- ton. I am glad to see that the Page Bill has been re-intr oduced and to know that the friends of vo- cationaI education are striving to bring into 1t some changes that may produce prompter action on the part of Congress. But whatever Congress in it's wisdom may do, the fact remains that the greatest strength to come to our nation is iI1 the direction of efficient life on the part of the majority. Our high schools are producing stu dents for colleges and for profes- siona1 life. They are only a small proportion of the student force of America. Those who do not reach high school are the vast majority. It is of that vast majority that so- ciety must think in order that the lives of the many may become eff fioient. strongly favor federal funds being placed at the disposal of those states that will contribute similar funds to produce an educa- tional change which is essential, now that our nation has taken on a. distinctly manufacturing type of development.
 Hopeful of the Future.
 As one who came to America in childhood, led by parents who saw in America a. land of hope, I share in common with others some ap- prehension at the apparent loss of simplicity in our national life. Yet I must hold to the hopeful belief that ultimately there will be re- stored to this country some of. the simplicity that once c11ara oterized it and which preceded our artificial lines of social cleavage. We gain nothing by the separation of class es. We lose the common touch I an confident that simple democ- r1oy will increasingly commend 1t self to American thought as a means of holding us together as a Nation, strong in our respect for mutual rights and for individual hopes.