As long as a person is able to provide the necessities of life and to keep himself and his family in a fair degree of efficiency through the use of an adequate amount of food, shelter, and clothing, the chances are that he will develop a new and stronger interest in the things that have to do with the moral and social side of his life. On the other hand, when the means of livelihood are taken away, and a man finds himself denied the opportunity of work--which means that the things that are necessary to satisfy the most fundamental needs of himself and his family cannot be secured--the moral effect on this man, his family, and society can hardly be exaggerated. The whole structure of our life is dependent upon and presupposes regularity of employment. Not only does the fact of being out of a job cut off a man’s means of livelihood, but the psychological effect of being forced to live without working, taken together with the breaking of habits acquired by years of industry, puts a severe strain on the standards of morality which have been built up by long and painful processes. The unemployed man may react in one of two ways: he will become an anarchist and spend himself in fighting the system under whose injustice he suffers, or he will give up the struggle and become a drifter upon the tides of life, a social outcast. =The Jungle.= The best thing in Upton Sinclair’s story of the conditions in the stock-yards in Chicago is the little picture he gives of the man who finally in despair gave up the struggle for a living, got on a train, and went out as far west as the train would carry him. When he left the railroad track he wandered into a field and lay down beside a stream. Feeling hungry after a while he arose and went to a near-by house and asked for something to eat. This was the first time he had ever begged but the woman at the door was considerate of him and he got his food. Then he returned and lay down again in the rich grass and went to sleep. When he awoke he took off his clothes and had a bath in the creek, then getting out of the water he dressed himself and again lay down; put his hands behind his head and looked up into the blue sky. All of a sudden it occurred to him that he was now getting more out of life than he ever had before. He had worked and worried and all he ever got was just barely enough to eat. Now he had all he wanted to eat, a good place to lie and dream, the pure air of heaven fanning his face, the blue sky over his head, and no work to do. “Why should a man work, anyway? What’s the use?” he said. This philosophy made him a tramp.