This was the man’s conception. Of the condition of the workingmen in
the cities he had literally no notion. He knew they worked, and that
working made them tired, of course, just as it made farmers tired.
He saw no difference between the labor in the agricultural field and
that in the industrial field. That men who had been shut up in dusty
factories for six days, working intently at whirling machines, under
the bulb of an electric light, felt, when they came to the one day of
rest, that they should like to go outdoors and breathe the air, and
have some relaxation, some fun, had never occurred to him. That they
had to work so hard, too, that stimulants were perhaps a necessity,
never occurred to him, just as it had never occurred to him that
when one of these workers left home there was no place for him to go
unless he went to a saloon, where there were light and warmth and
companionship, and, above all, liberty; or to a cheap theatre or in the
summer to a baseball game. And he could not understand why these men
resented his suggestion that they give up all these things, and instead
do as farmers do on Sunday, or as they pretend to do, that is, stay
indoors, or, if they do go out, go out to attend church.
And what was most curious of all, he had not the slightest notion of
what we meant when we spoke of the street railway problem. He knew,
of course, that it was proposed to reduce the fare a cent or two
cents, but that was not important; what were two cents? That there
was anything immoral in watering stock, in seizing millions of the
communal value, had never occurred to him, and in the midst of all
the complexities of city life he remained utterly naïve, bound up in
his little code, with not the glimmer of a ray of light on social
conditions or problems, or of economics, or, in a word, of life. To
him there were no social problems that the Anti-Saloon League could
not solve in a week, if wicked officials would only give them enough
policemen and a free rein to do it.
And so he wondered why the workingmen would not come to hear him
preach, or at least would not listen to him at the door of their shop!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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