Both individual acts of self-defence on the part of the wage earner and
individual acts of benevolence on the part of the employer are most
useful as they establish standards to which the average worker and
employer may in time be legally compelled to conform. Progress must
always come through the individual who varies from the type and has
sufficient energy to express this variation. He first holds a higher
conception than that held by the mass of his fellows of what is
righteous under given conditions, and expresses this conviction in
conduct, in many instances formulating a certain scruple which the
others share, but have not yet defined even to themselves. Progress,
however, is not secure until the mass has conformed to this new
righteousness. This is equally true in regard to any advance made in the
standard of living on the part of the trades-unionists or in the
improved conditions of industry on the part of reforming employers. The
mistake lies, not in overpraising the advance thus inaugurated by
individual initiative, but in regarding the achievement as complete in a
social sense when it is still in the realm of individual action. No sane
manufacturer regards his factory as the centre of the industrial system.
He knows very well that the cost of material, wages, and selling prices
are determined by industrial conditions completely beyond his control.
Yet the same man may quite calmly regard himself and his own private
principles as merely self-regarding, and expect results from casual
philanthropy which can only be accomplished through those common rules
of life and labor established by the community for the common good.

Outside of and surrounding these smaller and most significant efforts
are the larger and irresistible movements operating toward combination.
This movement must tend to decide upon social matters from the social
standpoint. Until then it is difficult to keep our minds free from a
confusion of issues. Such a confusion occurs when the gift of a large