Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 64400-h.htm or 64400-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/64400/64400-h/64400-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/64400/64400-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/workersexperimen00wyckiala THE WORKERS [Illustration: WE BREATHE THE HOT AIR, HEAVY WITH THE SMELL OF FRESH SOIL. AND THE SWEAT DRIPS FROM OUR FACES UPON THE DAMP CLAY.] THE WORKERS An Experiment in Reality by WALTER A. WYCKOFF Assistant Professor of Political Economy in Princeton University THE EAST New York Charles Scribner's Sons 1899 Copyright, 1897, by Charles Scribner's Sons Trow Directory Printing and Bookbinding Company New York TO CHANNING F. MEEK, ESQ. PREFACE The preface to a narrative like this must itself be of the nature of a story which will account for the expedition here described, and make clear the point of view from which the experiment was tried. Enough of the actual setting of the tale is implied in a passing reference to a charming country-seat on Long Island Sound, and the presence there of a fellow-guest, Mr. Channing F. Meek--a chance acquaintance to me then. His wide knowledge of the West, his intimate familiarity with practical affairs, and his catholic sympathy with human nature, made him a man wholly new and interesting to me. And in our talk, which drifted early into channels of social questions, I could but feel increasingly the difference between my slender, book-learned lore and his vital knowledge of men and the principles by which they live and work. One radiant Sunday morning in midsummer there came to me from his talk so strong a suggestion of the means of acquiring the practical knowledge that I lacked, and in a way that gave promise of an experiment so interesting, and of such high possibility of successful treatment, that in that hour I knew that I was pledged to its undertaking. No further disclosure of my _animus_ is needed than has already been hinted at in the fact of a new, unoccupied, inviting field and the fair prospect which its development offered to a student eager for a place among original investigators. I cannot, however, sufficiently acknowledge my indebtedness to the friends whose generous sympathy has followed me throughout the enterprise--especially that friend already mentioned. To him I owe the first idea of the plan and a large measure of what success has attended its execution. The narrative form into which I have cast the results of my investigation depends for its value solely upon careful adherence to the truth of actual experience. This account is strictly accurate even to details; apart from confessed changes in the names of the persons introduced, no element of fiction has intentionally been allowed to intrude.