Article November 2, 1918 Issue

From the Press

with contributions from Franklin H. Giddings

[New York (N. Y.) Mail]

Have you ever stopped to think that this war is demonstrating that the average American workingman is not the materialistic being that we thought him, after all, but a rabid idealist who does his best work not under the stimulus of gain, but under the stimulus of the ideal, intangible things of life?

It is easy to demonstrate. For a daily wage of four or five dollars he spent a grudging eight or nine hours in the factory or mill. He stayed outside the doors until the morning whistle blew, and when it blew at the close of day he dropped his tools and let them lie. To-day, for one dollar a day, he gets up at five o'clock in the morning and works until the sun goes down at night. If extra night work is required of him, even long marches, he cheerfully performs the work. Complaints never pass his lips. There is a rivalry among men to do the most and the best work; there used to be a rivalry to do the least.

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