He is recognizing the fact that whatsoever is for the well-being of the one he employs, that whatever privileges he is enabled to enjoy that will tend to grow and develop his physical, his mental, and his moral life, that will give him an agreeable home and pleasant family relations, that whatever influences tend to elevate him and to make his life more happy, are a direct gain, even from a financial standpoint for himself, by its increasing for him the efficiency of the man’s labor.  It is already recognized as a fact that the employer who interests himself in these things, other things being equal, is the most successful.  Thus the old and the false are breaking away before the right and the true, as all inevitably must sooner or later; and the divinity and the power of the workingman is being ever more fully recognized.

In the very remote history of the race there was one who, violating a great law, having wronged a brother, asked, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Knowing that he was, he nevertheless deceitfully put the question in this way in his desire, if possible, to avoid the responsibility.  Many employers in their selfishness and greed for gain have asked this same question in this same way.  They have thought they could thus defeat the sure and eternal laws of a Just Ruler, but have thereby deceived themselves the more.  These more than any others have to a great degree brought about the present state of affairs in the industrial and social world.

Just as soon as the employer recognizes the falsity of these old teachings and practices, and the fact that he cannot buy his employee’s services the same as he buys his raw material, with no further responsibility, but that the two are on vastly different planes, that his employee is his fellow-man and his brother, and that he is his brother’s keeper, and will be held responsible as such, that it is to his own highest interests, as well as to the highest interests of those he employs and to society in general, to recognize this; and just as soon as he who is employed fully appreciates his opportunities and makes the highest use of all, and in turn takes an active, personal interest in all that pertains to his employer’s welfare,—­just that soon will a solution of this great question come forth, and no sooner.

It is not so much a question of legislation as of education and right doing, thus a dealing with the individual, and so a prevention and a cure, not merely a suppression and a regulation, which is always sure to fail; for, in a case of right or wrong no question is ever settled finally until it is settled rightly.