New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-01-05
" 7HEN we speak, however, hguratively

I HEN we speak however, hguratlVely,
wv of wage slavery, we ought to think,
not only of low wages, but also of
the responsiveness of the work itself. The
great reason why an industry fascinates
the employer but bores the employee is, in
my opinion that human psychologist laws
are neglected.
l hope that psychologists may some day,
in cooperation with economists, help to
truer understanding of the nature of human
freedom What we liberty lovers are really
cropping for is, apparently, not to do as we
think we please but to do what will actually
please us after it is done-that is, to satisfy
fairly we'll all of the real fundamental
human instincts, Of which there are many
besides the instinct of self preservation or
of making a living. The workman not only
longs for more pay, but he 'hungers and
thirsts for other things which he cannot
formulate, because SO largely unconscious.
The problem Of making manual workers
contentcd, or as contented as the rest of
US, or as contented they can be- is not,
therefore, a problem simply of the distri-
button of wealth. 1t is one of introducing
or reintroducing, certain fundamental mo-
talist does not usually accumulate for his
children but for the love of accommodating,
and just as inventors Gas Professor Taus-
sig has shown do not usually invent
merely, chiefly, for money but for the
love of inventing, so the workman can be
motivated also by quite different motives
from the ordinary pay envelope motive.
refer to the creative and other impulses
emphasized by Mr.. Robert B. Wolfe and
others and by Miss Marot and Ordway
Tead in their books, we'll year ago
by the late Professor Carleton Parker
(whose important pioneer work will, hope,
never be forgotten).
The war affords US a great object les
son here. Men previously apathetic in the
shop, under the money motive, have en-
hibited a wonderful eagerness to fight for
their country, with no wages to speak OF
and with no money bonus whatever. Again,
wherA the armistice was signed, this Won
derful morale shrank appreciaby over
night Still again, we find that many of the
soldiers who return to work after the
elements Of military life actually
spoiled as workmen We must find ways of
putting real pep" into the worker for his
sake as we'll as others Perhaps a wiser
employment management can and will
spread over the country result Of the
war, and, in particular, of the studies of
the War Industries Board, with its thirteen
courses and 275 graduates fitted thereby to
become employment managers. Perhaps
the labor take the initiative.
Either or both might happen through sew
eral agencies, including the industrial de-
partment of the Young Mems Christian
Association. We economists ought to be
able to play an important part, in coopera-
ton with psychologists, employers and en-
ployes, by studying this new movement,
distiling out the essential truths it repre-
scnts, and contributing constructive sug-
restions of our own. The psychologist and
the religious workers helped vastly in
creating our soldiers morale. Cannot the
morale needed in industry be secured with
equal success? If we can and do secure it,
it will be by making industry really demo-
cratic. And if we do secure it, the pro-