and more important subject of "soldiering," which directly and
powerfully affects the wages, the prosperity, and the life of almost
every working-man, and also quite as much the prosperity of every
industrial, establishment in the nation.

The elimination of "soldiering" and of the several causes of slow
working would so lower the cost of production that both our home and
foreign markets would be greatly enlarged, and we could compete on more
than even terms with our rivals. It would remove one of the fundamental
causes for dull times, for lack of employment, and for poverty, and
therefore would have a more permanent and far-reaching effect upon these
misfortunes than any of the curative remedies that are now being used to
soften their consequences. It would insure higher wages and make shorter
working hours and better working and home conditions possible.

Why is it, then, in the face of the self-evident fact that maximum
prosperity can exist only as the result of the determined effort of each
workman to turn out each day his largest possible day's work, that the
great majority of our men are deliberately doing just the opposite, and
that even when the men have the best of intentions their work is in most
cases far from efficient?

There are three causes for this condition, which may be briefly
summarized as:

First. The fallacy, which has from time immemorial been almost universal
among workmen, that a material increase in the output of each man or
each machine in the trade would result in the end in throwing a large
number of men out of work.