take $2,000 out of that $4,000 to increase the wage of each worker, giving him $2,500 a year instead of $500, and he will still be able to distribute 12,000 times two thousand dollars among the consumers in the form of cheaper coal oil, gasoline and axle grease.
The Dreadful Results.
Now, what do you suppose would happen? Understand, we have Socialism in the grease business. Imagine one of those poor workingmen coming home on pay-night, with $50.00 instead of the usual ten-spot, in his pay-envelope.
The first thing he would do, would be to give his wife a black eye, kick the children out of the house, smash the dishes, and break the furniture. You see, he is mad, mad all over. He is furious because they raised his wages. That's enough to make anybody mad. The next Sunday morning, he will go to church for the last time, and when the preacher comes around for a little contribution, he tells him to go to the devil. That man had his wages raised from $10 to $50. That's enough to cause anybody to lose his religion. And on Monday morning, he refuses point blank to go back to work, for what incentive has a man to work for $50 a week for the government, a long as he can get a $10 job on the outside?
Isn't that about the sum total of all the objections that they bring against Socialism? Don't they come around to you and say, "Socialism would break up the family, destroy religion, and rob men of all incentive to labor?" Well, I had my wages raised once or twice in my life, never from $10 to $50; that delicate constitution of mine wouldn’t have stood the shock; so they broke the news to me gradually by raising my
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