partners in the social order, not partners merely in the political life
of the nation, but, what is of more importance, in its economic life?
If we build our civilization without integrating labor into its economic
structure, it will wreck that civilization, and it will do that more
swiftly today than two thousand years ago, because there is no longer
the disparity of culture between high and low which existed in past
centuries. The son of the artisan, if he cares to read, may become
almost as fully master of the wisdom of Plato or Aristotle as if he had
been at a university. Emerson will speak to him of his divinity;
Whitman, drunken with the sun, will chant to him of his inheritance of
the earth. He is elevated by the poets and instructed by the
economists. But there are not thrones enough for all who are made wise
in our social order, and failing even to serve in the social heaven
these men will spread revolt and reign in the social hell. They are
becoming too many for higher places to be found for them in the national
economy. They are increasing to a multitude which must be considered,
and the framers of a national polity must devise a life for them where
their new-found dignity of spirit will not be abased. Men no more will
be content under rulers of industry they do not elect themselves than
they were under political rulers claiming their obedience in the name of
God. They will not for long labor in industries where they have no
power to fix the conditions of their employment, as they were not
content with a political system which allowed them no power to control
legislation. Ireland must begin its imaginative reconstruction of a
civilization by first considering that type which, in the earlier
civilizations of the world, has been slave, serf, or servile, working
either on land or at industry, and must construct with reference to it.
These workers must be the central figures, and how their material,
intellectual, and spiritual needs are met must be the test of value of
the social order we evolve.