refinements and luxuries of life, demands which it was impossible
to see the way to granting unless the world were to become a
great deal richer than it then was. Though they knew something
of what they wanted, they knew nothing of how to accomplish
it, and the eager enthusiasm with which they thronged about
any one who seemed likely to give them any light on the subject
lent sudden reputation to many would-be leaders, some of whom
had little enough light to give. However chimerical the aspirations
of the laboring classes might be deemed, the devotion with
which they supported one another in the strikes, which were
their chief weapon, and the sacrifices which they underwent to
carry them out left no doubt of their dead earnestness.

As to the final outcome of the labor troubles, which was the
phrase by which the movement I have described was most
commonly referred to, the opinions of the people of my class
differed according to individual temperament. The sanguine
argued very forcibly that it was in the very nature of things
impossible that the new hopes of the workingmen could be
satisfied, simply because the world had not the wherewithal to
satisfy them. It was only because the masses worked very hard
and lived on short commons that the race did not starve
outright, and no considerable improvement in their condition
was possible while the world, as a whole, remained so poor. It
was not the capitalists whom the laboring men were contending
with, these maintained, but the iron-bound environment of
humanity, and it was merely a question of the thickness of their
skulls when they would discover the fact and make up their
minds to endure what they could not cure.