(1) Free education for all increases taxation unduly. (2) Taxation for the purpose of maintaining free public schools is a violation of the rights of the individual. (3) A public school system of schools was opposed by certain religious elements because of possible injury to particular religious sects. (4) Certain non-English speaking people opposed the public schools because they feared that their own tongue would be supplanted by the English language. (5) Impractical legislation caused much opposition. (6) It was urged that education would not benefit the masses. (7) Injury to the private school was alleged. (8) Public education tends to break down social barriers.

As the movement progressed the arguments charged that free public education was a violation of the rights of the individual and an infringement upon his liberty. The following argument represented the point of view of those who believed free education revolutionary:

Among the strange notions which have been broached since I have been on the political theatre, there is one which has lately seized the minds of men, that all things must be done for them by the Government, and that they are to do nothing for themselves. . . . Look at that ragged fellow staggering from the whiskey shop, and see the slattern who has gone to reclaim him; where are their children? Running about ragged, idle, ignorant, fit candidates for the penitentiary. Why is all this so? Ask the man he will tell you, "Oh! the Government has undertaken to educate our children for us. It has given us a premium for idleness, and now I spend in liquor that which I should otherwise be obliged to save, to pay for their schooling."

Modern versions of these arguments have been raised against every proposal to widen educational opportunities.

Early in the nineteenth century the workday was from sunrise to sunset. The first shorter hour movement set ten hours as the maximum. To the journeymen carpenters of Boston, who made this demand in 1825, the master carpenters replied:

"We learn with surprise and regret that a large number of those who are employed as journeymen in this city, have entered into a combination for the purpose of altering the time of commencing and terminating their daily labor, from that which has been customary from time immemorial." They considered such a combination "fraught with numerous and pernicious evils," especially to the journeymen themselves, as they might expect soon to become masters and were entailing upon themselves "inconveniences" when they should have attained that situation. They furthermore considered that the measure proposed would have an "unhappy influence" on apprentices "by seducing them from that course of industry and economy of time" to which

they were anxious to "enure them" and would expose the journeymen themselves "to many temptations and improvident practices" from which they were "happily secure" when working from sunrise to sunset. . . . Finally, they declared that they could not believe "this project to have originated with any of the faithful and industrial Sons of New England, but are compelled to consider it an evil of foreign growth, and one which we hope and trust will not take root in the favored soil of Massachusetts." "And especially," they added, "that our city, the early rising and industry of whose inhabitants are universally proverbial, may not be infected with the unnatural production."

These arguments were supplemented by contentions that the prices and estimates upon which contracts were based made the proposal impossible at that time. It was not until 1840 that the ten hour day became general in mechanical trades.

The arguments against manhood suffrage were akin to those against universal education. The following is typical:

Our citizens who have not yet voted, have one day more in which they may exercise the privilege of determining whom they will have for their rulers. The old party lines are nearly obliterated, but there has sprung up a new interest which is formidable both for the number of its adherents and the disorganizing purposes by which they are actuated. By throwing open the polls to every man that walks, we have placed the power in the hands of those who have neither property, talents, nor influence in other circumstances; and who require in their public officers no higher qualifications than they possess themselves. . . We cannot believe that we are so soon reduced to the condition of the Romans, when the popular voice was raised against every honorable distinction; a voice which finally prevailed, to the utter extinction of the Republic.

The first adoption of the eight hour day was, according to John R. Commons, in the Navy Yard in Charleston, Massachusetts, in 1842, by the carpenters and ship caulkers. A national movement for the eight hour workday came after the Civil War and as a result of the tireless zeal of Ira Stewart of Boston. Stewart taught that wages do not depend upon the amount of capital or the supply of labor, but upon the habits, customs and wants of the wage earners. He held that inventions and machinery increased production and that out of increased production wage earners might raise their standard of living. He taught that a reduction in hours was an increase in wages.

The American Federation of Labor in 1884 adopted a programme of sustained endeavor to establish eight hours as the

standard workday. With the establishment of the shorter workday came proposals for the shorter work week. No more dynamic changes can come into the lives of the great majority of our citizenry than free educational opportunities for all and a work week that permits labor to be more than drudgery. Because of these opportunities for larger living, wage earners can make larger contributions to industry and community life and also make larger demands upon civilization.

The opposition to the shorter work week placed its main dependence in economic arguments. Output and production increasingly became the points of contention.

The United States Steel Corporation held out the longest of all important production concerns. It contended that it could not adjust production to a three shift system or afford the additional costs involved. Yet it has overcome the technical difficulties in going upon the eight hour basis, and the eight hour shift has not interfered with increases in net earnings. For the first three quarter periods of 1926, ending in September, net earnings were $52,626,826, which is greater than the net earnings for any previous period except the war years of 1916 and 1917. The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, which unexpectedly went on three shifts, found to its surprise that the system was a financial saving to the company as well as a satisfaction to its employees. The executives of the United States Steel Corporation still seem to have drawn no practical deductions from their struggle of two decades against a shorter workday. Judge Gary recently declared: “I know I can't do as much work in five days as I can in six, and I don't think any one else can." Surely wage earners have a right to demand a more discriminating consideration for their proposals. The National Association of Manufacturers, a group of employers organized among other purposes for militant opposition to unions, was in convention simultaneously with the American Federation of Labor. It then and there voiced opposition to the five day week. It has since issued a pocket manual against this proposal. It submits the following objections:

1. It would greatly increase the cost of living.

2. It would increase wages generally by more than 15 per cent and decrease production.

3. It would be impractical for all industries.

4. It would create a craving for additional luxuries to occupy the additional time.

5. It would mean a trend toward the Arena. Rome did that and Rome died. 6. It would be against the best interests of the men who want to work and. advance.

7. It would be all right to meet a sales emergency but would not work out as a permanent thing.

8. It would make us more vulnerable to the economic onslaughts of Europe, now working as hard as she can to overcome our lead.

These arguments are amazingly like those which were offered a century ago by employers against the ten hour day. Yet the innovations of the nineteenth century did not block the remarkable technical advance that has put us in the vanguard of industrial progress. On the contrary, they encouraged mechanical invention by placing the burden of production on the machine rather than the man, and made possible an American standard of living and a higher type of American citizenry. This stimulus was integrated in the dynamic force that carried things forward.

These arguments are all based upon the unwarranted assumption that the shorter work week entails reduced production. Quite the contrary is Labor's purpose. We realize that permanent progress must rest upon increased output-increased things at the service of human beings. We maintain, however, that we can devise still more efficient methods: Layout, machinery and mechanical power have been geared to a pace based upon human labor power for an eight hour day. If performance must mesh into a higher gear, the work period must obviously be shortened. Reasoning from past experience, the output will be increased. Individual wages should increase with productivity, but this does not necessarily result in higher production costs per unit. Efficient management will prevent that result.

Labor does not suggest an immediate change to the five day week in all industries. The remaining arguments submitted by the National Association of Manufacturers are of an oratorical nature which fail so completely to state any principle with precision that they do not justify serious reply. We all know that the luxuries of one generation are the necessaries of the next, and we know also that men who want to work and advance will get fur

ther if they assume that progress can be made and do their part in the necessary experimentation to find the means. The familiar straw man, the European competitor, comes at an inauspicious time now that Europe is sending commissions here to study our mechanical progress and to find the "secret of high wages". Methods that have led to progress in the past should not be denied another trial.

The American Federation of Labor resolved to work for the shorter work week, fully conscious that all industries are not equally prepared to introduce the forty hour week. Because we believe that the shorter work week is industrially practicable and expedient and socially wise, organized labor offers its coöperation in developing technical changes and conditions under which the shorter work week can go into effect and usher in a period in which the workers shall find new and greater opportunities for growth and service both as workers and as citizens. The joint efforts of management and those who use the tools and machinery to carry out work orders, will put all past experience to work to find the way to the next big change.

There are industries that should now consider plans for the five day week: these are mining, construction, automobiles, garmentmaking and textiles.

A part of this higher gearing of industry to maintain output can be expected to grow out of the five day week as its natural effect upon the human part of the industrial mechanism. Experience has proved that the effect of shortening hours is to increase output per hour, and this has not only been demonstrated once or twice but has been the general experience. Allowing a period of one or two months for adjustment, reductions from a twelve hour to an eight hour shift, and from a ten hour to an eight hour shift, in a shell manufacturing operation and glass manufacturing, respectively, have given a nineteen and a half per cent. and a ten per cent. increase in hours of production, and in the Minnegua steel plant of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company the change from the twelve hour to the eight hour day has resulted in a greater hourly production in every department, according to Mr. Weldon, president of the company. Even where the operation is machine controlled, shorter hours have produced a greater hourly