Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1919-09-16
WORK AND WAGES
By H. Addington Bruce

IVY HIGH do you think most about, the
wv work you do or the wages you get
for it? And are you the more in
tent on doing good work or on getting high
wages?
I ask these questions because it seems to
me evident that many people-very many
people-are nowadays so obsessed with the
pursuit of wages that they give next to no
thought to the work they are expected to
do for the wages they receive.
And this unfortunate condition obtains
among workers of every degree. True of
workers really hard pressed by the high cost
of living, it is no less true of many workers
whose pay amounts to thousands of dollars,
perhaps hundreds of thousands, every year.
While the small wage Garner goes to the
desperate extreme of ,efusing to work at
all unless his persistent demands for in
creases are met, the big wage Garner strives
equality vigorously to get his own wages
raised by cunning manipu!a non of the ma.
terials and products he happens to control
1t is, indeed an arduous contest, this pay
pyramiding struggle. And the pathos Of it
is that the more man succeeds in it the less
contented he becomes.
AS, indeed, is inevitable in view of the
nature Of man and the purposes of life.
For no man can be contented unless he is
conscious of contributing to the best of
his ability to the common good. Man is es-
sentially a gregarious being, and the gre
garIous instinct requires for it's satisfaction
Jealous devoting of the individual to &C
tivities that will serve to strengthen and
perpetuate the race.
Let this instinct be denied adequate ex-
preston, and unhappiness and dissatisfac-
ton are sure to come. Every man who for
gets his work in his wages is in some de-
gree thwarting the basic gregarous instinct.
and discomfort is the penalty he needs must
pay.
Nor is it the only penalty
Restlessness, nervousness, irritability grow
apace with the blocking of the gregarious
instinct. We are, in fact, witnessing today
restlessness, nervousness and irritabiIity on
a colossal scale.
Crime is rampant our hospitals for the
insane are becoming ever more crowded, the
services of specialists in nervous diseases are
increasingly in demand. 1t is an age of
stress and conflict
Many remedies are proposed. Actually
here can be only one effective remedy. Men
must be brought to see that self-forgetful-
ness in service is essential to true prosperity
and peace of mind.
So long as they do not see this, so long
as they fix their gaze on the reward and
not on the deed, social dissension and in
dividual misery will prevail. The wage-rais-
ing process may be continued to the end of
time without mending matters one whit.
There is too much quarrelling about ways
and means and too little recognition Of the
goal Too much self and too little SYM
pathy. This is equally true of all classes of
society. Materialism mas been rank in the
tenement and in the cottage, as in palace and
counting room"
The road to happiness is not paved with
dollars. Contentment can come only with
abundant, fervent effort for the race That
is truth which needs indeed to be i'm
pressed upon the mind of this, our gen
Grafton.
copyright, 1919, by the Associated News
papers.)