Soon after the Committee of Steel Manufacturers had reported that an abandonment of the 12-hour shift would be impracticable, they felt themselves constrained to bow to outside popular desire, and the substitution was ordered to come into effect as soon as possible. The abolition of the 12-hour day incontinuous operations in the steel industry that is thus soon to be consummated sprang solely from the sentimental and sociological thought that men should not be detained so long from their homes or be so long deprived of their freedom to live their own lives. It is well to be clear in the mind about this and strip away the buncombe respecting men being able to do as much in eight hours as in 12, respecting shortening shifts and ipso facto reducing costs, respecting the incentive to management to improve its practices, etc. There was no such thing as a general demand from the 12-hour workers themselves to have their time reduced. Their work was not of the nature to strain their energy any more than eight hours of intensive work, probably not so much, and they liked the opportunity to earn the wages commensurate with their hours.
The labor union aspiration for the eight-hour day has in mind the fixing of a limit beyond which overtime renumeration may be exacted. The philanthropological demand for it is founded on the thought that work is a dreadful thing, imposed by capitalistic task masters, that ought to be escaped whenever and however possible. The labor union principle is parasitic. The philanthropological is covertly socialistic.
Let philanthropologists and sociologists take note, however, that the will to work has not yet been extinguished in human nature. The American people
