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 THE SALARIED 
 
 MAN 
 
 IE STORY IN TWO EPISODES 
 OF AN EVERY-DAY PERSON
 
 Copyright 1920 
 
 RAND SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE 
 
 7 East I5th Street 
 
 NEW YORK CITY N. Y.
 
 TD 
 
 \ ^ 
 
 THE SALARIED 
 MAN 
 
 g THE STORY, IN TWO EPISODES, OF 
 
 ^ AN EVERY-DAY PERSON. 
 
 ■^ EPISODE I 
 
 When I sat down in the street car besides him, he did 
 
 > not even lift his head, although I purposely jostled him. 
 
 tj He was absorbed in a book whose title read, "Motion 
 
 ^ Study in the Factory," and he was drinking it in with 
 
 -^ the eagerness of a young girl in the clutches of a novel. 
 
 ^ Before I addressed George Cox, whom I had not seen 
 V for nine years, I scrutinized him out of the corner of my 
 ^ eye, and I was a little startled. 
 
 >' Cox was a man who had set a new high record for 
 scholarship at his college. With his leaning towards 
 business, we more humble classmates expected him in 
 
 o time to bestride the commercial world like a Colossus. 
 
 h- Professors deplored the fact that he would not teach, but 
 
 j5 admitted that there was no money in it. Was there 
 money in what Cox had done? 
 
 For as I studied him, I became aware that he did not 
 have the "clothesmarks" of success. The careful press- 
 ing of his suit could not conceal the fact that it was dis- 
 tinctly of a cotton mixture. His collar was somewhat 
 frayed. The tie had nothing of that texture which goes 
 with a generous expenditure. And his hat was one of the 
 cheap, vulgar brood which is turned out by a manufac- 
 turer in hundred thousand lots for all comers. 
 
 1
 
 Despite the prophecies, then, Cox had not succeeded 
 in a big way. He who was to travel in seven-league 
 boots to the Land of Success was shod in the rather 
 flimsy leather of the cheap shoestore. What had hap- 
 pened? 
 
 My curiosity was now too much for me. I spoke up. 
 
 "Well, Cox, it's been a long time since we put it over 
 the professors !" 
 
 He was warm in his greeting, and immediately wanted 
 to know how I had fared. I was pleased to find him the 
 same unselfish individual whom we had liked even in 
 our hours of most intense student rivalry. 
 
 I quickly swung the talk in his direction. "In business 
 for yourself?" I asked. 
 
 "Not just now," he said. But it appeared that at one 
 time or another he had ventured out on his own hook. 
 He had tried publishing books, because that seemed a 
 dignified pursuit, and because he loved the association 
 of books. But the cheap, shoddy, illegitimate offsprings 
 of whirling presses soon lost interest for him. 
 
 "When I found there wasn't enough money in it, there 
 was no use keeping it up," he explained. "There was 
 nothing to compensate me for my loss of self-respect." 
 
 The book business, however, showed him the possi- 
 bilities of mail-order selling. In this he embarked with 
 another man who put a whole life's savings into it. They 
 tried to market numberless things. 
 
 "We worked day and night," he said. "In fact, we 
 almost worked ourselves to death. We consumed enough 
 brains and enough muscle to have kept a business five 
 hundred times that size on the go if we'd only had the 
 capital. But we couldn't compete with the fellows who 
 had twenty years' start of us." 
 
 After that, not at all discouraged, he concentrated on 
 salesmanship : "The scientific kind. None of this half- 
 baked conversation by which nine-tenths of the solicitors 
 prod some business out of a harrassed man." 
 
 2
 
 He went after the jobbing trade up and down the 
 country with an important office specialty. He had come 
 across this particular article in his mail-order work. 
 
 "Curious," he commented, "how almost all the things 
 I have done dovetail into each other!" And he laughed 
 pleasantly, as if the past sat lightly on him. 
 
 He made some money this time — at least enough on 
 which to marry; and, to use his own words, he "settled 
 down." 
 
 "Lost nothing in getting around the country," he re- 
 marked with enthusiasm. "I got to believing more than 
 ever in our little U. S. A. Its vastness spelt OPPOR- 
 TUNITY with capital letters. It seemed to have the 
 sort of message I needed. I tell you, it made me proud 
 to be an American ! The inspiration I derived helped me 
 get rid of the critical feeling I was beginning to have 
 about business conditions. I kicked out that pessimistic 
 stuff once for all 1" 
 
 In his settling down period he made a bid for a sales- 
 managership. His experience, personality and confidence 
 counted — and he was put in charge of a big office. 
 
 A new brand of silverware for the table was being 
 marketed, backed by a big advertising campaign in the 
 women's magazines. Salesmen were to go after the deal- 
 ers, and to see that they were properly stocked up. Cox 
 was to take the salesmen in hand, haggle with them 
 about their commissions, teach them the tricks of the 
 trade, inspire them, route them, send them off, study 
 their reports, and get rid of those who fell down in their 
 volume of business. 
 
 "The best salary I got up to that time !" he said, in 
 his straight-forward manner. 
 
 "The business went like a house afire at first," he nar- 
 rated, "but pretty soon there was a fly in the ointment — 
 or rather, too much basemetal under the silver and not 
 enough silver plating. They had been over-watering the 
 stock to allow some insider to clean up. The financial 
 strain on top of the bad name which the ware was get- 
 ting in the trade busted things up.
 
 "I tried to save some of the pieces by suggesting that 
 they reorganize on a more honest basis ; but they prac- 
 tically told me that I was butting in. It wasn't long, 
 therefore, before I 'butted out.' " 
 
 He mused silently for a minute as if reliving that par- 
 ticular business experience. Then he apologized for talk- 
 ing about himself, but I insisted that he go on. 
 
 "Oh, there is very little more to tell," he said. "That 
 was the year when I felt my best. I saw the magic pos- 
 sibilities of commercial enterprise. I realized that all 
 one needed for a proper leverage on things was intelli- 
 gence. Given that, )^ou were master of the situation ! 
 
 "The raw materials are here aplenty; the machinery is 
 waiting for guidance ; investors have but to be told. It is 
 merely up to you to so organize yourself and your abilities 
 as to dominate these essentials. 
 
 "That sales-managership was a liberal education. I was 
 ready for the next step. There's romance in machinery, 
 and I w^as tickled to death to get hold of the manage- 
 ment of an office selling gasoline engines for various pur- 
 poses. Of course, I've only got a strip of territory to 
 supervise, but I am making it productive. 
 
 "Machinery is the sort of merchandise you can have 
 a lot of respect for. You do your work with real interest 
 because you're really helping production. Sounds en- 
 thusiastic, I know. 
 
 "I'm studying mechanics, too. And learning how to 
 improve my office organization. Ultimately I shall take 
 that particular engine and other machinery to the four 
 corners of the world. There's the bigger job I'm dream- 
 ing about ! — to carry the American flag over the seven 
 seas in behalf of American products !" 
 
 Then he was a little quiet, as if somewhat shy after 
 this frank bit of personal history. I talked about college 
 days, and we chuckled reminiscently about the failings 
 of the solemn professors who had taken themselves so 
 seriously. 
 
 When we parted, Cox insisted that I look him up, and 
 
 4
 
 gave me his card. He walked out of the front door of 
 the car with head erect, shoulders thrown back, jaunty 
 step, and altogether conveying a sense of youth and vigor 
 which brought back vividly the undergraduate of twelve 
 years before. 
 
 I wondered. Thirty-three, and still fighting for a vant- 
 age point in the business world ! What had been the 
 trouble with this undoubtedly able man? Had he been 
 following wrong leads? Or was it lack of money? Or 
 both? 
 
 Here was intelligence, dogged ambition and devotion 
 to the one ideal of business. Yet he was far from the 
 leadership which we had prophecied for him. 
 
 Still, he did not in the least convey the impression that 
 he was a defeated man. According to his own estimate 
 he was making progress, with victory just around the 
 corner. And he was not going to be satisfied with a 
 mediocre prize — that was indicated by the way in which 
 he regarded the preliminary steps. 
 
 When finally he would enter the throne room of Big 
 Business, would it be as a heroic figure, or would he be 
 apologetic, beaten, humbled and a nonentity? 
 
 I was not to know the answer for four years. 
 
 EPISODE II 
 
 IN WHICH OUR HERO DOES THE 
 UNEXPECTED. 
 
 This time George Cox was sitting in a corner of a 
 "tea-room" where the height of refinement is reached by 
 multiplying the number of dishes so as to overcome the 
 difficulty of not putting enough food on any one dish. 
 It was one of the many typical eating places to which 
 small salaried men went to escape the uproar of large 
 food-shops.
 
 If I was surprised to find Cox there, I gave no sign 
 of it, and took him very much for granted. He, on his 
 part, upbraided me for not having hunted him up in the 
 long interval. 
 
 He looked distinctly older, yet his air betokened no 
 abatement of his old-time confidence, even though his 
 appearance did not indicate any floodtide of prosperity. 
 I could not help expecting that he would speedily offer 
 some explanation of why he had not climbed up into the 
 tower of Success and rung the bell of "I." 
 
 He made neither explanation nor apology. Instead, in 
 reply to my question as to how he was getting on, he 
 said: "Oh, very much like a few million other people, I 
 guess." 
 
 I was so aghast to see him come tumbling down from 
 the heights where I had always placed him, that I almost 
 stammered as I gave my order to the aenemic waitress 
 hanging over the table. 
 
 Finally I managed to ask casually, "Still in the ma- 
 chinery business?" 
 
 He was ; and he went on to say that he expected to be 
 in it for a long time to come. 
 
 "I had some big plans when I saw you last, didn't I? 
 Let's see : that was about four years ago. If I remember, 
 I was talking very much like a hero in the Saturday Eve- 
 ning Post. Well, just after I saw you I tried one more 
 adventure in business. 
 
 "That time I came near landing the big prize. I got 
 a fellow with some real, honest-to-goodness capital to 
 join me in an export venture. We were to- be sole sell- 
 ing agents for several machinery concerns. Everything 
 looked rosy. But the fellows at the other end in Europe 
 and South America were long on promises and short on 
 performance. Their orders came through quickly enough 
 but the banks were inclined to shy at them. 
 
 "My partner decided to make a trip of investigation. 
 He finished by staying abroad and telling me to wind 
 things up — the partnership seemed no longer to be es-
 
 sential to his plans. I tried to tell him in a letter what I 
 thought of him, but the letter got too long, so I decided 
 not to send it." 
 
 Cox laughed, not at all ill-humoredly. 
 
 "That's not the way the Saturday Evening Post hero 
 winds up. Nor does he go back to his old job and eat 
 humble-pie, as I did. They took me back because they 
 knew that I was a reliable salesman." 
 
 He ate microscopic sections out of his sparse portion 
 of dessert, like a child that wishes its favorite dish to 
 last. Suddenly, as if conscious of the questions I was 
 leaving unasked, he laid down his spoon, and said with 
 extended linger : 
 
 "Don't think that I don't realize that according to cer- 
 tain standards I'm only a 'near-success.' The class proph- 
 ecy which foretold how I was going to keep a billion 
 dollar corporation on the tracks and give orders to Wash- 
 ington, sounds like a schoolboy's joke, doesn't it? I'm 
 not so sure now that I couldn't go it big yet if I drained 
 all the decency out of my soul and the blood out of my 
 body ; and the ghost that would be left of me would get 
 a fine obituary notice in the Journal of Commerce." 
 
 After a pause he went on quietly : 
 
 *T am through chasing the great god Success. While 
 I'm on the lookout for more salary, I've reached a point 
 where I begin to see that there's no use trying to break 
 out of the corral. I am willing to call it a day's work. 
 
 "Everytime I tried to become a Napoleon of Business, 
 I ate up my little reserve stock of cash. And when you've 
 been through the experience of wondering whether there 
 is going to be food for the wife and the children next 
 week, the game of trying to pull yourself up by your 
 bootstraps ceases to be fascinating." 
 
 I asked whether this didn't imply a philosophy of 
 despair, and whether it wouldn't make an unhappy man 
 of him. He shook his head vigorously. 
 
 "Don't you believe it for a moment !" he said. "A man 
 is never so good a fighter as when he knows just what
 
 he's up against. Once you stop nursing dreams and 
 come down to earth, you're in a position to be of greater 
 use to yourself and the next fellow. 
 
 "For the fact is, I've discovered that I'm one of the 
 vast army of salaried men who are the victims of a care- 
 fully worked up lie. That sounds pretty strong; but I 
 happened to have stepped behind the scenes. I know 
 how the fake scenic effects are obtained, and what the 
 deceiving footlights do, and how the sentimental lines are 
 written to sugar-coat the real thing." 
 
 When I suggested that he had gone pretty far since I 
 saw him last, he said : 
 
 "A man who has been through hell has a right to a 
 change of viewpoint. When you've seen the wolf sniff- 
 ing around the door of your home, you are going to stop 
 believing nonsense. There's no glamor then in being a 
 private in the army of General Bunk, in the hope of be- 
 ing a captain sometime." 
 
 His jaw fairly snapped as he exclaimed, "I'm not apolo- 
 gizing for anything ! That's not my way ! You're seeing 
 a man v/ho is one hundred percent alive. I simply no 
 longer believe that every member of the salaried class has 
 a chance to become a captain of industry. On the con- 
 trary, I believe that the salaried class is one of the most 
 tragically helpless sections of society, and I believe that 
 its suffering is due to the fact that it thinks itself part 
 of the middle class !" 
 
 He shook his head angrily because of the thoughts this 
 evoked, tie tried to keep down his indignation as he 
 said: 
 
 "Just look about you ! Study us as we crow'd into of- 
 fices and stores, and hurry to work, and to lunch, and 
 to work again, and finally crawl back home. Some of 
 us think we are important to the progress of civilization, 
 but most of us buried our hopes long ago. 
 
 "Only brutal irony could lead one to preach the Sim- 
 ple Life to salaried workers — offsprings of a hope and 
 a wish ! 
 
 "On the dyspeptic pay envelope which the salaried 
 
 8
 
 class gets, it has to see first of all that it dresses decently, 
 with the result that many a pinched, hungry stomach 
 makes insulting remarks under a respectable garb. 
 
 "Decent looking clothes are essential, for the employer 
 who may not pay us enough to live decently would feel 
 insulted if we exhibited shabby clothes. If we dressed 
 like workmen, we would lose caste at once. 
 
 "And because ours are the wives of salaried men and 
 not of workmen, the cruel joke is carried still further. 
 They must wear clothes in keeping with their 'station.' 
 And, of course, the children must help to carry on the 
 cruel fiction of a comfortable salary, even though many 
 a little body suffers from malnutrition. 
 
 "Don't forget, too, that the salaried class is the con- 
 sumer of cheap products — cotton in clothing where there 
 should be warm, cold-resisting wool, foods devoid of real 
 nutriment, household furnishings which go to pieces 
 rapidly." 
 
 Cox was bitter as he proceeded with the indictment. 
 
 "Unfortunately the salaried have come in contact with 
 'nice' things — like books, and pictures, and music. Hav- 
 ing acquired a 'hankering' for the better things of life, 
 they dream of little Anna and Jack going through high 
 school and perhaps through college. Devoted lives are 
 sacrificed that some fraction of the next generation may 
 get advanced schooling. The soldier in battle sometimes 
 sees the victory Avon before he dies ; but many are the 
 homes where the father and mother fight a losing fight, 
 and with seared souls finally watch the growing children 
 drift off to jobs to help supplement the family income. 
 
 "To make matters worse, most of these children are 
 thrown into businesses for which they have absolutely no 
 aptitude. In consequence, they either move lifelessly in 
 the groove in which they find themselves, or drift from 
 position to position. The accident which flings the aver- 
 age human being into a business or profession is one of 
 the tragedies of an age which lays claim to ef^ciency. 
 But why should society care? The salaried man and 
 woman are cheap, and with all their defects, get through
 
 their five and a half day stunt with a definite balance of 
 profit to the firm. So what does the human wasteage 
 matter? 
 
 "And when the 'salaried' working children become 
 'salaried' adults, what do you find? Many of them post- 
 pone marriage as long as possible, fearful lest their 
 meagre earnings will result in positive want. Heaven 
 alone knows what sort of sex life the men live. And the 
 young women grow into listless types that surrender al- 
 most without a struggle the instinct of home-making." 
 
 The little restaurant was fast emptying, and George 
 Cox could sit back and speak without being overheard 
 by those who represented the class he was discussing. 
 He spoke quietly, and with a fixed look ahead as if watch- 
 ing a line of people filing past. 
 
 "Some don't give in without a struggle. In fact, so 
 many fight against the innumerable obstacles to belter 
 their position, that it explains the self-delusion of the 
 salaried class about their opportunities. Prodded on by 
 hope, they burn the candle at both ends — tiring work 
 during the day, more frightfully tiring study at night. If 
 it were not futile, it would challenge admiration. 
 
 "At best, some of these climb up a bit to a few more 
 dollars, or to a higher sounding occupational name. But 
 the success of the night student is not universal, despite 
 the alluring claims of the correspondence school adver- 
 tisement. There are too many competitors for the same 
 job, and most of the big jobs up top are held by the 
 favored friends of stockholders, or by their sons, or by 
 other relatives. 
 
 "But the time comes in the life of the salaried man, 
 graduate of night study or not, when he comes to grips 
 with actuality — the day he asks once too often for a 
 'raise.' That is the dramatic point! 
 
 "If you watch what occurs then, you've got the key- 
 note of the whole situation. The earlier requests have 
 been more or less grudgingly allowed — our applicant 
 most likely has been much underpaid. But now we've 
 reached a point when the employer refuses to grant a 
 
 10
 
 raise, for he knows that he can go into the open market 
 and buy ability at a 'better' price than is asked. 
 
 "He expresses astonishment that the man before him 
 cannot see that he is getting as much as the firm can 
 afford to pay anyone in his position. Or he takes time 
 to point out a number of deficiencies in the employe's 
 work. Or he pleads business stagnation, or bewails his 
 large overhead expenses. If he has grown to like the 
 dogged loyalty of the petitioner, he promises that per- 
 haps at some future time he will do something. But why 
 rehearse any further the ancient tale? 
 
 "That's about the last interview for a better salary. 
 By this time the employe has in all likelihood made up 
 his mind that he can improve his lot and his income 
 by going elsewhere. So he secretly begins to answer 
 'Want' advertisements, and risks a few dollars to break 
 into the 'Situation Wanted' column, where he rehearses 
 his long experience in a few lines. The results are a 
 revelation to him ! The proffers of salary are well within 
 the limits of that which he is drawing. Of course, prom- 
 ises are held out that 'Hard work will be rewarded by 
 advancement,' whatever that can mean to a man to whom 
 his position has been a treadmill. 
 
 "Another thing that the seeker after opportunity finds 
 is that employers have a mania for the services of young 
 people. In fields where experience should be at a pre- 
 mium, the bait of 'advancement' is dangled before im- 
 mature minds. It would seem that there are countless 
 employers with the ready gift of pouring wisdom and 
 information into the mental bungholes of youth. 
 
 "It is impossible for older salaried men to warn the 
 youthful applicant who snaps at this bait, or to make 
 him stand out for a higher salary. That's where the 
 organized wage worker has the advantage. The unions 
 long ago discovered that younger blood is brought in by 
 the employer primarily to keep down wages ; and the 
 wage worker has successfully fought this. There is no 
 doubt that one of the big factors in keeping salaries at a 
 low figure is the reserve army of youth. 
 
 11
 
 "Taking- everything- into consideration, do you v\ oiuicr, 
 as you study the faces of the salaried men and Avomcn 
 going to work, that there isn't the 'snap' one would ex- 
 pect in such an important element in industry and busi- 
 ness? They look as if they w^ere driven by an invisible 
 lash. Or if fear and worry are not apparent, you are met 
 instead by listless, dull countenances, the aspect of men 
 who are defeated before they have made a start. 
 
 "They are heartily sick of their positions, except at mo- 
 ments when they compare their lot with that of someone 
 a degree lower in the scale. The}'- detest their fellow- 
 workers. The office frequently becomes a place where 
 one employe tyrannizes over another ; and there is sharp 
 criticism, and snarling, and back biting, and rampant un- 
 happiness. 
 
 "It is into this atmosphere that *Tom' and 'Dick' and 
 'Mary' come out of the public school to start a career — 
 children who could have stood at least four or five years 
 more of education — immature minds indiscriminately 
 gulped down by big business and small business, to float 
 along in undigested fashion in the sorry stream of life. 
 
 "In view of all this, while wage-workers are winning 
 fight after fight for shorter hours and more pa}'-, is the 
 salaried man to continue to live on the pay scale of yes- 
 terday, and to shrink from any form of protest? And if 
 the climbing wage represents organized power, and the 
 dwindling salary the helplessness of timid, loose atoms 
 competing for jobs, is the answer organization?" 
 
 Cox shook his head even as he asked this. "It can't 
 be done, except in isolated instances. The salaried do not 
 as a rule work in large groups. In addition, there are 
 hundreds of demarcations because of the different types 
 of business involved. There can be no real coherence. 
 There- would only be fear. No ; real solidarity is out of 
 the question. 
 
 "But if this helpless section of human society can't 
 organize, what in God's name can it do to make it de- 
 cently assertive? How can it fight to force action, to 
 bring about a loosening of the awful pressure that is 
 
 crushing it?" 
 
 12
 
 George Cox looked sharply at ine to see if I would be 
 willing to go farther with him, now that he had gone so 
 far. Then he glanced about as if the thing of which he 
 wished to speak might be too much for the sensibilities 
 of the pale waitresses and the solitary hangovers of the 
 noon-meal crowd. 
 
 He leaned forward, and spoke with the precision and 
 force of the practiced orator. He spoke with the ease of 
 one who has long rounded into form the thoughts which 
 he had been secretly nursing.. His conviction had the 
 earnestness of religious fervour. 
 
 "I got an answer to my question," he declared. "But not 
 the sort of answer the salaried man gets from the press 
 controlled by the employing class. For let me tell you, 
 that press is a source of -misinformation it behooves every 
 lover of personal liberty to be on his guard against ! It is 
 being used to keep the salaried men divided, and right 
 nov,' i3 fomenting discord between them and the wage- 
 workers. 
 
 "I got my answer from an occupant of a Pullman 
 smoker going West. We were alone except for a cattle- 
 man who v/as dozing in a corner, having gotten tired of 
 the landscape. 
 
 "My companion told me that he was on his way into 
 the Northwest to help organize the farmers into an in- 
 dependent political body which would seek to wrest con- 
 trol from the two old political parties. The farmers had 
 borne shameless betrayal by these parties year after 
 year, but at last they were going to take their destinies 
 into their own hands. 
 
 "I was rather startled by the picture he drew of what 
 the farmer had to contend with, of the conspiracies engin- 
 eered against him by the interests which controlled the 
 banks and the grain elevators and the shipments to dis- 
 tant markets and the prices paid for farm products. 1 
 had always believed that my country stood for fair play 
 to the men who till the soil. But I saw that a species of 
 pawnbroking was keeping tens of thousands of them 
 virtually in a state of slavery. 
 
 13
 
 "As he described the helplessness of these people and 
 the way they had been divided into various political 
 camps to keep them from thinking and acting as a group, 
 it came to me like a flash that to all intents and pur- 
 poses he was talking about the salaried class. 
 
 "But he was talking organization! How could the 
 countless occupants of offices and stores organize po- 
 litically? How could they find the courage to come out 
 into the open and through formidable protest better their 
 conditions ? It would be individual suicide, pure and simple ! 
 
 "As I continued to listen, a way out did present itself. 
 But I had first to realize that the governing of our great 
 democratic nation of which I had so long boasted was being 
 done by hand-picked agents of Big Business — that Big 
 Business was concerned with the running of it, because 
 politics is an expression of what is going on industrially. 
 
 "As long as the industrial heads dictated political 
 policies, they could dictate working conditions, and so 
 protect their own economic interests in every detail. And 
 therefore only when the control of the nation was wrested 
 from them politically by the salaried and working classes 
 would the latter come out of the industrial jungle of want 
 and frustration. 
 
 "A state democratically so controlled would help shape 
 the life of every human being in it, would ensure to every 
 child brought into this world the maximum of education, 
 and of training in productive citizenship ; it would pro- 
 vide in return for work a good home, nourishing food, 
 good clothes and proper recreation. It would, in other 
 words, be an efficient expression of the aspirations and 
 hopes of the brain and hand workers of the nation. 
 
 "Of course I shied violently at the word Socialism. I 
 opposed it because it was a working-class movement; 
 and my fellow traveller rejoined that the sooner the sal- 
 aried man took his stand with the manual worker, the 
 better for both, because there were enough benefits to 
 go around, whereas lack of unity might in the end de- 
 stroy the freedom and opportunities of both. 
 
 "I objected that Socialism aroused class antagonisms; 
 
 14
 
 to which the reply was that Socialism could not create 
 that which had always existed. The owning class and 
 working class were already lined up for the fray, and 
 the salaried man in mistaking the class to which he be- 
 longed was suffering in the collision of interests. 
 
 "I said that if the brain and manual workers took over 
 industry and business, they would make a mess of it; and 
 I was asked whether a dreadful mess hadn't already been 
 made by the powers that be, and whether there weren't 
 enough intelligent men among our hundred million who 
 if working in behalf of their fellows could not do better 
 than the several thousand industrial over-lords who 
 through their brutal indifference made life a nightmare 
 for the greater portion of humanity. 
 
 "I argued that radicalism stood for revolution. My 
 companion told me that a silent industrial revolution was 
 already in progress, if only I could understand what was 
 going on about me; and that all that the radical did was to 
 educate the masses to the possibilities of the change, 
 just as our revolutionary forefathers educated the Ameri- 
 can colonists in the principles of self-government. A 
 revolution did not necessarily mean violence, except 
 when those who stood for the old order used violence 
 to prevent change. And as a rule they did use it, cun- 
 ningly, under the guise of patriotism, and even of re- 
 ligion. Only when the masses could properly interpret 
 and intelligently help shape the silent revolution in busi- 
 ness and industry, would they arrive at their purpose 
 efficiently. 
 
 "This organizer made considerable use of that word 
 'efficiency.' He believed the American people needed a 
 great deal of education in organized, collective effort, 
 and thought it would fall to the technically and profes- 
 sionally trained men among the radicals to rear an effic- 
 ient society in the place of the one that was going to pieces, 
 
 "I fought my train companion bitterly, bringing to 
 bear every anti-Socialist argument I had ever heard. He 
 finally asked, 'Do you realize that all that you have said 
 has really been put into your mouth by those who con- 
 trol public opinion? Have you ever stopped to think 
 
 15
 
 what you would lose by a change in the ownership of in- 
 dustry in this country? Do these powerful business- 
 controlling factors really care about the happiness of the 
 nation? Would they voluntarily surrender a tithe of 
 their incomes? No! They want dividends! dividends! 
 and still more dividends ! And at the other end of the 
 scale are millions of human beings who more or less 
 abjectly ask : *0, give us this day our daily bread !' " 
 
 "I demanded to know how Socialism would help the 
 salaried man. He explained that only when these sal- 
 aried men would have a share in the control of this 
 country's business would their lot be bettered, for such 
 a share would give them the opportunity to dictate earn- 
 ings, working conditions and living conditions. This 
 would arise from the fact that industry would be op- 
 erated for the benefit of those actually engaged in it. 
 
 "I had never before conceived of business and indus- 
 try being run for the general good rather than for per- 
 sonal profit. Heretofore, the world had been to me a 
 mixture of all sorts of classes whose interests could not 
 really conflict. Now I saw two antagonistic groups — 
 those who owned industry and allowed it to operate only 
 as long as it was profitable, and those who were literally the 
 serfs of this holding-group. The fact that the salaried 
 man did not wear overalls and carry a dinner-pail no 
 longer created confusion in my mind. He, too, was one 
 of those who did not own his job, but whose job owned 
 him! 
 
 "And because the owning groups, or holding groups, 
 ran business and industry for profit only, I began to see 
 why in a nation rich in machinery and natural resources, 
 and plentifully supplied with unskilled labor and w^ith 
 those technically trained to direct labor, there could be 
 panics and depressions, slums and underfed human 
 beings, suicides and prostitution, strikes, lockouts, boy- 
 cotts, crowded prisons and the Potters' Field. And there 
 stood out the damning count that this irresponsible sys- 
 tem of ownership carried tyranny with it, for the man 
 who owns my job owns me, body and soul, if only I have 
 the intelligence to know it !" 
 
 16
 
 Cox stopped. His face was almost ecstatic. He leaned 
 forward, and put his hand on my shoulder as he said : 
 
 "Old man, there are times when we are lifted out of 
 our narrow view of things to bigger and broader con- 
 ceptions. Sorrow will do this for us, as when someone 
 we deeply love goes out to that Great Unknown we call 
 Death. Or when we are stirred by the great joy of look- 
 ing at our first born. So when I listened to this man who 
 was going on his great errand of education, human lives 
 became grand, and selfish business did not loont quite to 
 advantage. 
 
 "Heretofore I had been prone to blame the individual 
 for his failure. Having worshipped at the shrine of Com- 
 mercial Success, I had no pity for those who fell by the 
 wayside. Now I saw that the path worn by the pilgrims 
 to the shrine of this brutal god was strewn with the 
 bones of the best manhood of the race. And I also saw 
 that those who finally reached the shrine alive were so 
 blinded and worn by the long journey, that they could 
 no longer sympathize with the dead and dying along the 
 road. 
 
 "Of course I repeated to the organizer that Socialism 
 would not work — that it was a delightful theory at best, 
 and nothing more. And he retorted that universal suf- 
 frage had been considered just that by supposedly wise 
 men. Who would have dreamt five hundred years ago 
 that a nation of a hundred million could on one day se- 
 lect its representatives, and that these would gather in 
 one place to enact laws for those whose wishes they were 
 supposed to voice? As my friend pointed out, about the 
 only hard thing in an age which talks without wires, and 
 sails under the sea, and sends its ships into the clouds, 
 and weighs the stars — the only hard thing for that kind 
 of a civilization is to solve the problem of escaping the 
 uncertainities of a tribal existence. 
 
 "In the midst of grain elevators bulging with food, 
 man dies of hunger; and supplied with whirring looms, 
 he goes without adequate covering against the icy blasts 
 of winter; and surrounded by the products of the best 
 minds of three thousand years, he is so poorly educated 
 that he cannot explain the simplest natural phenomena. 
 
 17
 
 "But if the salaried man cannot organize, what part can 
 he play in social reconstruction? If he is to demand that 
 the state, or society, or the nation, is to do something for 
 him, how is he to make that demand effective? If there is 
 any group, or class, whose ownership of the means of life 
 keeps him under its heel, how is he to escape the frightful 
 pressure ? 
 
 "As I said before, to openly join some organization for 
 this end may mean starvation for the salaried man. He 
 hasn't the advantages of a trades unionist with fellow- 
 workmen to back him. The moment his employer knew 
 that he believed in a thoroughgoing democratization of 
 industry, there would be an advertisement in the 'Help 
 Wanted' column of the newspaper, and minus the neces- 
 sary references he would virtually be blacklisted. 
 
 "Yet he can register his protest, and a mighty protest ! — 
 and do it so secretly, so quietly, that the fall of a snow- 
 flake alone can be compared with it. He can escape his 
 servility and strive for free citizenship hy the right use of 
 the ballot. That is a way out of the wilderness into which 
 he has been thrust. 
 
 "While he is dropping into the ballot box that bit of paper 
 which so eloquently expresses his demands and his class 
 consciousness, tens of thousands of others are at the voting 
 booths for the same sacred purpose. The combined, massed 
 power of those ballots, backed by the already organized 
 strength of the nation's wage-workers, will break through 
 the chains forged by industrial despotism ! 
 
 "The remedy is so simple that it sounds almost impos- 
 sible. Yet let us understand what has preceded that act at 
 the voting booth. All over the country there are men and 
 women who openly champion the taking over of industry 
 by the people. They have their programme — a Socialist 
 programme. They defend the issue openly despite the per- 
 sonal sacrifices it entails and the villification to which they 
 are subjected. They state clearly the undesirability of ex- 
 isting conditions. They demand a scientific, orderly organ- 
 ization of business and industry from the standpoint of the 
 people and not of a small privileged class with unlimited 
 
 18
 
 power. They are the educators — and their number is grow- 
 ing daily. 
 
 "They are of the same heroic mould as the men who won 
 for us the right of suffrage. It is through the efforts of 
 agitators like these that the ballot has managed to survive. 
 And in the period of the American revolution, equally brave 
 men wrote that wonderful and illuminating rallying cry 
 into the Declaration of Independence which we must not 
 forget : 'Whenever any form of government becomes de- 
 structive to these ends (life, liberty and the pursuit of hap- 
 piness) it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, 
 and to institute a new government, laying its foundations on 
 such principles and organizing its powers in such form as 
 to them shall seem most likely to eft'ect their safety and 
 happiness.' 
 
 "That is good Socialist doctrine. And the polling booth 
 is the logical place to endeavor to put into effect the vital 
 principles of the Declaration of Independence. 
 
 "Of course, our employers want none of this. They raise 
 the cry that if affairs were run solely in the interests of 
 the community, civilization would be wrecked. If they 
 honestly believed that, we might respect their opinion. But 
 as a matter of fact, they are fearful that the people will 
 successfully manage the nation's business ; and they see to it 
 that their subsidized press sneers and belittles and con- 
 spires against every effort and experiment at Socialism 
 elsewhere in the world. 
 
 "Why shouldn't the industrial overlords be worried? 
 Right down in their hearts they know business would be 
 able to get along without them. They don't really run busi- 
 ness themselves. They hire brains to run it for them. When 
 the mental and manual workers really take over the man- 
 agement of industry, the experts now in charge will be 
 there just the same, just as ready to work for the common 
 weal as for the profit-hunting private owner. And all the 
 raw material will be there. And the machinery. And the 
 labor. 
 
 "No, we can't take seriously those employers who keep 
 talking about the inefficiency of collective effort. They are 
 
 19
 
 in reality concerned with their pocketbooks, not with the 
 well-being of their fellow-men. You will hear some of them 
 talk about spiritual welfare. They lay emphasis on this 
 rather than on physical welfare, because the risk is less. 
 And their ministers preach sermons from the pulpit to 
 the salaried class on contentment, lest discontent hit divi- 
 dends. A witty economist said that an Englishman would 
 rather give up the whole Thirty-nine Articles of his creed 
 than one-thirty-ninth of his income. 
 
 "Of course, that day when you look out on the world 
 with eyes opened to the facts, when you contemplate with 
 hope a social order that will be a real expression of your 
 needs, your rejoicing may have to be in secret, lest your 
 employer mark you out for destruction. But you are not 
 alone. Hundreds of employers of salaried men and women 
 have not the faintest suspicion that those in their oflkes 
 who w^ork with such docility, with such a suppression of 
 individuality, are already embued with the new hope and 
 vision, and are giving their secret aid to the consummation 
 of the greatest ideal ever held out to the world ! 
 
 "No, you are not fighting an isolated man's fight ! On 
 your side are hundreds of thousands of men and women 
 who have awakened to the delusion of 'Government by Big 
 Business.' They are becoming more and more conscious that 
 their protest must be expressed politically. They include 
 tenant farmers who have been veritable serfs, slaving for 
 absentee landlords — and their number is legion ! They in- 
 clude wage-workers who are not fooled by increasing wages 
 which never catch up with increasing costs. They number 
 architects and engineers and chemists and teachers and min- 
 isters and office drudges and physicians and dentists and law 
 clerks and new^spaper men. Every vocation is represented 
 in this army of protest, for every line of activity has been 
 kept on the bare edge of subsistence. 
 
 "There they stand, refusing any longer to be 'bluffed,' 
 quick to see through the fake issues which divided them 
 in the past. 
 
 "They know that in a period of billion dollar corpora- 
 tions and interlocking directorates, their own ambitions are 
 but chaff in the wind. Land? Farming? The terrible dis- 
 
 20
 
 content of the bulk of our farmers is the answer. And good 
 land has never been so high in the history of this country. 
 The professions? Graduates of law schools are clerking for 
 fifteen dollars a week in law offices. Store-keeping? Be- 
 tween the jobbers or the commission merchants on the one 
 hand, and the manufacturers on the other, little is left for 
 the man with limited capital who wishes to try retailing, 
 
 "So the disillusioned millions have begun to group them- 
 selves for the great political contest of the Have-nots against 
 the Haves, of democracy against autocracy. Just because 
 the salaried man wears clothes which bear a resemblance 
 to those of his employer rather than to the overalls of the 
 wage-worker, he must not lose his sense of direction. The 
 employer is not worrying as to what his employee is going 
 to face in old age. The moment the salaried worker can- 
 not give what is called '100% Service,' into the discard 
 he will go, like a wornout shoe ! 
 
 "It therefore behooves the salaried man, as he faces from 
 week to week the drudgery, the fear and the insufficiency 
 of his existence, to think fearlessly, to think hard, and to 
 ask hard questions. He must shake off the sentimental no- 
 tions and the illusions on which he has been fed to keep 
 him from asking those questions. Let him analyze with an 
 eye to the facts all the loose talk about 'chances to make 
 money.' 
 
 "And since at the ballot box his vote is equal to that of 
 his employer, he must be as jealous of the opportunities 
 it presents as of his very life. He should pay no attention 
 to all the talk of putting 'good' men into office. There are 
 great numbers of 'good' men in political office who are serv- 
 ing the interests of the industrial masters without being 
 kept awake at night by their conscience. 
 
 "At first when these politicians and their overlords see 
 the evidence at the polls of revolting citizenship, of a rising 
 tide of intelligent protest, they will try to frown it down, 
 then to beat it down. State legislatures and the Federal 
 government will pass laws to curb freedom of public expres- 
 sion. The newspapers of the industrial barons will resort 
 to the most contemptible distortion of all facts. We will 
 see attempts to undermine personal liberty and even to null- 
 
 21
 
 ify representative government. Police power will be in- 
 voked. No weapon will be overlooked by the ruling class. 
 
 "But this desperation can avail nothing. Already there 
 are signs that the overlords feel that the old order is un- 
 stable. You can see it in the clumsy way in which they are 
 trying to soothe the discontented while still insisting on 
 their 'pound of flesh' — on their everlasting dividends and 
 profits. There is further proof in the fact that the issues 
 presented by the old political parties are becoming more 
 and more confused and meaningless. No real, construc- 
 tive programme is offered. The pretense in this direction is 
 pretty nearly played out. 
 
 "It is little wonder, then, that the masses are putting for- 
 ward leaders of their own, and are beginning to under- 
 stand the importance of a clear-cut political and industrial 
 programme. With enough men in Congress and in the vari- 
 ous legislatures, part of that programme can be worked out 
 at once. The first attack will be to put taxation where it 
 belongs — on those whose stupendous incomes are derived 
 from the control of prices on necessities. And Big Busi- 
 ness will not be allowed to shift the taxation back on the 
 people through higher prices. 
 
 "They may offer compromises in the hope of staving off 
 the next step. That next step in Socialist legislation will 
 be a hard and fast control of prices. This virtually also 
 means that the community will decide what the earnings 
 on stocks and bonds and rentals and other sources of income 
 shall be. Once you have gone that far, once the industrial 
 overlords find that they can no longer gouge huge pi-ofits 
 out of the masses, they will begin to talk about government 
 ownership, hoping in this way to get guaranteed returns for 
 all time to come — while everybody else does the work, 
 
 "That flag of surrender will mark the beginning of the 
 end. We will be very close to the permanent, undivided 
 possession of all the means of life by those who make up 
 the salaried and wage-workers. 
 
 "Mark you, only when we have clearly decided where we 
 stand and what we want, will these things begin to be. If 
 
 22
 
 ■t 
 
 we grow excited about minor issues, then we will indeed 
 swap the shadow for the substance! Think how often the 
 people of this country have been thrown off the main track 
 by talk about the tariff, and about free silver, and about 
 unworkable anti-trust laws, and about the virtues and 
 scholarships of this candidate and the unblemished Ameri- 
 canism of that. Meanwhile we have been candidates for 
 perpetual worry, and have not failed of constant reelection 
 as we deposited into the ballot box the ballot prepared by 
 those who were riding on our backs. 
 
 "There was a wise student of social conditions who wrote 
 the slogan, 'Workers of the world, unite ! You have but 
 your chains to lose ! You have a world to gain !' That 
 should certainly be rephrased to read, "Salaried men of the 
 world, protest ! You have but your chains to lose ! You have 
 a world to gain !' — for their chains bite deeper, and they get 
 but little of the rich bounty of the world, a world mag- 
 nificently designed, but malignantly ruled. 
 
 "The Salaried Man, the twentieth century's worst serf, 
 is the big balance of power which will help turn the tide 
 for human freedom. He must strive for self-respect by 
 refusing to be deluded and hoodwinked. He must force 
 the world of employers to awaken to the fact that he is no 
 longer a mere pawn on the economic chessboard, pushed 
 helplessly hither and thither, without a will of his own. He 
 must demand recognition in an unmistakeable way. In that 
 direction lies mental and physical emancipation. And his 
 self-assertion will help give us the much needed democracy 
 we have long been seeking. If government was not meant 
 to secure the utmost happiness to every individual, what 
 earthly purpose can it serve?" 
 
 Cox had finished. There was not the slightest indication 
 in the way he looked at me that he felt that he had over- 
 stated his case. On the contrary, his was the air of a 
 pleader who had inexhaustible data upon which he had as 
 yet but scantily drawn. 
 
 When I left him that noon, I had a new picture of my 
 old classmate — a man whom I might yet see as a leader of 
 
 23 
 
 263Ji91
 
 men, who might be a lawmaker and find joy in it, who 
 might be a commercial Colossus in an altogether different 
 sense than his classliiates had prophecied. 
 
 As we shook hands, with a more genuine promise on both 
 sides of looking one another up, he said : 
 
 "Last time I was so engrossed in myself, that my con- 
 stant stunt of trying to pull myself up by my bootstraps 
 didn't look foolish to me. That stunt is over. I've got my 
 bearings now. I know what we want ; but what is more 
 important I know how we're going to get it. If Sociali-m 
 hasn't the message the salaried man has been straining hi.- 
 ears to catch, to what else can he turn? In God's name^ 
 for whom can it have more significance?" 
 
 24
 
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