The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-03-07

! personal contact with him as to make | it fairly safe to assume the relation
 ship was without the suspicion exist ing today between employer and en- rloye, whose contact is practically nil. National System.
 These systems were succeeded by what, for the use of a better term,
 we will call the national system" in which the government of the various countries undertook to regulate indus tries. The governments undertook to, i and did regulate the relations be- tween masters and journ eynen and apprentices with as much, or even greater, particularly than had the
 giIds. The governments made labor compulsory and even went so far as to impose upon justices Of the peace ! the obligation to fix wages in each industry. The governments esta'b- lished a working day of F hours in
 summer and for the daylight period in winter, and, in addition, enacted i that all engagements should be by , the yea. with 6 half years notice by either employer or empIoye. These regulations were so Tnultitudtnous and so exact that they left little room for competition between workmen to de- termine the worlInea's relations with other worknen or with employers and during this neriod, though the Gilds and thsir | wer had disap- peared, we have practically the same conditions with respect to the em- ployer and emplCye being upon the same social plane, working together in very smadG numbers, so that the eye-to-eye and hard-to- hand conract evisted, and this situation continued
 until we enter a, new era caused by the t1Fpro vement in the stc-tn engine
 and the invention of machinery witch the steam engine propelled, between 1760 and 1890.
 Large Plants.
 The mechanical use af such ma chinery involved the gathering to- gether under one roof e. hundreds or even thousands of employees. The~o plants were altogether too costly to i be owne'dl by artisans, and we are in l troduced for the first time to the capitalist employer, to whom some or
 all Of you gentlemen, and, I myself, are the logical successors. Under the
 naanoriaI gid, and national systems. 1 the farm hand had added to his or
 dinary work spinning and weaving at
 home, and the artisan by a garden i patch about his home had raised much of the food his family required | which lesSened the dependence of families upon single industries The l introduction of machinery aecentuat- 1 ed the dependence of families and To- calities upon single industries
 I hope you will understand that I
 am not oontending for the good ola 1 days They were not good old days
 at all The hours were long, the fare
 was meagre, the work was hard, and
 the opportunities for education were
 nothing. And, worse, perhaps, than
 all of these added together, was the
 insecurity of life to the individual. These were the days when the man | more powerful physically than his
 neighibor was at liberty to take ad-
 vantage of his superiority with i'm
 punity. It was the heyGay of the
 physical bully, whom now the world has learned to police and restrain.
 But the question that you and I have
 got to investigate, is as to whether our modern system of industry does not lend itself to mental suoeriority taking the same advantage of mental l Iinferority that physical superi2rit,
 took of physical inferfority in tie 1 eleventh century. If it be so, it's re-
 straint will be much more difficult problem than the weak man faced in the Middle Ages, because the q ~. of
 violence then and it's result were in simultaneously seeable; they were tan g1ble things upon which the eye rest ed and the ear heard, and which were, therefore, open to restraint or immediate punishment, while the
 mental superiority which enables you and me to be capitalistic employers does not work out it's ends by vio- fence it can only be restrained by the
 spiritual awakening of the individual