ProdigalFrog

A short and well written book (about 60 pages) that encapsulates the ideas of socialism quite well in a plain and easily understandable manner, with the issues of 1911 mirroring our current predicament well.

Excerpt:

When the worker gets his first job the world about him takes off its mask. He sees it as it is. Hours are long and most work is monotonous. Any child or young person naturally very much dislikes this first harsh experience of the world of the working class. His games and fun-making are given up. His physical growth is stunted and his mind dwarfed more or less. Long ago nearly all of the young men who went to work for wages began by learning a trade. This trade was very often extremely interesting to them. It educated their minds and developed their bodies. If they were apprenticed at eighteen, then, perhaps at twenty one, they were sure of steady work and good wages. Today very few of the working people learn a trade. They work in some factory, store or office at tasks which they perform as well in a month as they do in ten years. If the young wage earner is vigorous in mind and body he revolts at this labor and makes a desperate struggle to secure an education or otherwise make it possible for himself to rise out of the working class. The stronger and healthier his body and the keener his mind, the harder does he fight. But he finds, except in very rare instances, that the doors of opportunity are closed to the children of the >workers.

If the young worker learns one of the trades which still remain in modern industry, he finds after he has learned it that it also is being abolished by the invention of new machinery. He may go to night school and complete a course of study, or take a correspondence course in mechanics or some other form of applied science. If he does he will discover that his knowledge, gotten at such sacrifice of time, savings and effort, will not raise his wages. There are now so many educated poor people that their pay is on the average much less than that of skilled workers in the trades. Another hope of the young workers, men and women, is to save money and start in some small business. Others have risen and become wealthy. Why not they? So, by giving up all pleasures, by overwork and pitiful economies, does the young worker make his start in business. If he has been fortunate enough not to lose his money through some bank swindle, he at last, after years of effort, tries his luck. The best data we have show that more than nine-tenths of those who engage in small business fail utterly. The small portion who "succeed" do so by working night and day, Sundays and holidays. Even they make but meager livings, no better on the average than the wage-workers.