OPEN LETTER TO POPE LEO XIH. 91
Why should buyers of labor, any more than buyers of commodities, be called on to pay higher prices than in a free market they are compelled to pay ? Why should the sellers of labor be content with anything less than in a free market they can obtain ? Why should working-men be content with frugal fare when the world is so rich? Why should they be satisfied with a lifetime of toil and stinting, when the world is so beautiful? Why should not they also desire to gratify the higher instincts, the finer tastes? Why should they be forever content to travel in the steerage when others find the cabin more enjoyable ?
Nor will they. The ferment of our time does not arise merely from the fact that working-men find it harder to live on the same scale of comfort. It is also and perhaps still more largely due to the increase of their desires with an improved scale of comfort. This increase of desire must continue. For working-men are men. And man is the unsatisfied animal.
He is not an ox, of whom it may be said, so much grass, so much grain, so much water, and a little salt, and he will be content. On the contrary, the more he gets the more he craves. When he has enough food then he wants better food. When he gets a shelter then he wants a more commodious and tasty one. When his animal needs are satisfied then mental and spiritual desires arise.
This restless discontent is of the nature of man of that nobler nature that raises him above the animals by so immeasurable a gulf, and shows him to be indeed created in the likeness of God. It is not to be quarreled with, for it is the motor of all progress. It is this that has raised St. Peter's dome and on dull, dead canvas made the angelic face of ' the Madonna to glow; it is this that has weighed suns and analyzed stars, and opened
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