{
  "schema": "tga.work.v1",
  "identifier": "dresden:vol-11:eight-hours-must-come",
  "slug": "eight-hours-must-come",
  "title": "Eight Hours Must Come",
  "subtitle": "On the eight-hour working day.",
  "excerpt": "Ingersoll's public case for the eight-hour working day — not as a concession from the employer but as a condition of civilization itself.",
  "year": 1890,
  "volume": 11,
  "category": "Essay",
  "author": {
    "name": "Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "wikidata": "Q360326",
    "viaf": "44331023"
  },
  "isPartOf": {
    "title": "The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll",
    "edition": "Dresden Edition",
    "publisher": "C. P. Farrell",
    "year": 1900
  },
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/",
  "url": "https://thegreatagnostic.com/works/eight-hours-must-come/",
  "wordCount": 872,
  "body": "I HARDLY know enough on the subject to give an opinion as to the\ntime when eight hours are to become a day's work, but I am perfectly\nsatisfied that eight hours will become a labor day.\n\nThe working people should be protected by law; if they are not, the\ncapitalists will require just as many hours as human nature can bear.\nWe have seen here in America street-car drivers working sixteen and\nseventeen hours a day. It was necessary to have a strike in order to\nget to fourteen, another strike to get to twelve, and nobody could blame\nthem for keeping on striking till they get to eight hours.\n\nFor a man to get up before daylight and work till after dark, life is\nof no particular importance. He simply earns enough one day to prepare\nhimself to work another. His whole life is spent in want and toil, and\nsuch a life is without value.\n\nOf course, I cannot say that the present effort is going to succeed—all\nI can say is that I hope it will. I cannot see how any man who does\nnothing—who lives in idleness—can insist that others should work ten\nor twelve hours a day. Neither can I see how a man who lives on the\nluxuries of life can find it in his heart, or in his stomach, to say\nthat the poor ought to be satisfied with the crusts and crumbs they get.\n\nI believe there is to be a revolution in the relations between labor\nand capital. The laboring people a few generations ago were not very\nintellectual. There were no schoolhouses, no teachers except the church,\nand the church taught obedience and faith—told the poor people that\nalthough they had a hard time here, working for nothing, they would be\npaid in Paradise with a large interest. Now the working people are more\nintelligent—they are better educated—they read and write. In order to\ncarry on the works of the present, many of them are machinists of the\nhighest order. They must be reasoners. Every kind of mechanism insists\nupon logic. The working people are reasoners—their hands and heads are\nin partnership. They know a great deal more than the capitalists. It\ntakes a thousand times the brain to make a locomotive that it does to\nrun a store or a bank. Think of the intelligence in a steamship and\nin all the thousand machines and devices that are now working for the\nworld. These working people read. They meet together—they discuss. They\nare becoming more and more independent in thought. They do not believe\nall they hear. They may take their hats off their heads to the priests,\nbut they keep their brains in their heads for themselves.\n\nThe free school in this country has tended to put men on an equality,\nand the mechanic understands his side of the case, and is able to\nexpress his views. Under these circumstances there must be a revolution.\nThat is to say, the relations between capital and labor must be changed,\nand the time must come when they who do the work—they who make the\nmoney—will insist on having some of the profits.\n\nI do not expect this remedy to come entirely from the Government, or\nfrom Government interference. I think the Government can aid in passing\ngood and wholesome laws—laws fixing the length of a labor day; laws\npreventing the employment of children; laws for the safety and security\nof workingmen in mines and other dangerous places. But the laboring\npeople must rely upon themselves; on their intelligence, and especially\non their political power. They are in the majority in this country.\nThey can if they wish—if they will stand together—elect Congresses\nand Senates, Presidents and Judges. They have it in their power to\nadminister the Government of the United States.\n\nThe laboring man, however, ought to remember that all who labor are\ntheir brothers, and that all women who labor are their sisters, and\nwhenever one class of workingmen or working women is oppressed all other\nlaborers ought to stand by the oppressed class. Probably the worst paid\npeople in the world are the working-women. Think of the sewing women in\nthis city—and yet we call ourselves civilized! I would like to see all\nworking people unite for the purpose of demanding justice, not only for\nmen, but for women.\n\nAll my sympathies are on the side of those who toil—of those who\nproduce the real wealth of the world—of those who carry the burdens of\nmankind.\n\nAny man who wishes to force his brother to work—to toil—more than\neight hours a day is not a civilized man.\n\nMy hope for the workingman has its foundation in the fact that he is\ngrowing more and more intelligent. I have also the same hope for the\ncapitalist. The time must come when the capitalist will clearly and\nplainly see that his interests are identical with those of the laboring\nman. He will finally become intelligent enough to know that his\nprosperity depends on the prosperity of those who labor. When both\nbecome intelligent the matter will be settled.\n\nNeither labor nor capital should resort to force.—The Morning Journal,\nApril 27, 1890.\n"
}