American wage-workers work with their heads as well as their hands.
Moreover, they take a keen pride in what they are doing; so that,
independent of the reward, they wish to turn out a perfect job. This is
the great secret of our success in competition with the labor of foreign
countries.

The most vital problem with which this country, and for that matter the
whole civilized world, has to deal, is the problem which has for one
side the betterment of social conditions, moral and physical, in large
cities, and for another side the effort to deal with that tangle of
far-reaching questions which we group together when we speak of "labor."
The chief factor in the success of each man--wage-worker, farmer, and
capitalist alike--must ever be the sum total of his own individual
qualities and abilities. Second only to this comes the power of acting
in combination or association with others. Very great good has been and
will be accomplished by associations or unions of wage-workers, when
managed with forethought, and when they combine insistence upon their
own rights with law-abiding respect for the rights of others. The
display of these qualities in such bodies is a duty to the nation no
less than to the associations themselves. Finally, there must also in
many cases be action by the Government in order to safeguard the rights
and interests of all. Under our Constitution there is much more scope
for such action by the State and the municipality than by the nation.
But on points such as those touched on above the National Government
can act.

When all is said and done, the rule of brotherhood remains as the
indispensable prerequisite to success in the kind of national life for
which we strive. Each man must work for himself, and unless he so works
no outside help can avail him; but each man must remember also that he