OPEN LETTER TO POPE LEO XTTT. 81
" expressly and at length in order that there may be no mistake as to the principles which truth and justice dic- tate for its settlement." But, blinded by one false assumption, you do not see even fundamentals.
You assume that the labor question is a question between wage- workers and their employers. But work- ing for wages is not the primary or exclusive occupation of labor. Primarily men work for themselves without the intervention of an employer. And the primary source of wages is in the earnings of labor, the man who works for himself and consumes his own products receiv- ing his wages in the fruits of his labor. Are not fisher- men, boatmen, cab-drivers, peddlers, working farmers all, in short, of the many workers who get their wages directly by the sale of their services or products without the medium of an employer, as much laborers as those who work for the specific wages of an employer? In your consideration of remedies you do not seem even to have thought of them. Yet in reality the laborers who work for themselves are the first to be considered, since what men will be willing to accept from employers depends manifestly on what they can get by working for themselves.
You assume that all employers are rich men, who might raise wages much higher were they not so grasp- ing. But is it not the fact that the great majority of employers are in reality as much pressed by competition as their workmen, many of them constantly on the verge of failure ? Such employers could not possibly raise the wages they pay, however they might wish to, unless all others were compelled to do so.
You assume that there are in the natural order two classes, the rich and the poor, and that laborers naturally belong to the poor.
It is true as you say that there are differences in capa- city, in diligence, in health and in strength, that may
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