Slip-shod assistance，foolish inattention，dowdy indifference，and half-hearted work seem the rule; and no man succeeds，unless by hook or crook，or threat the forces or bribes other men to assist him; or mayhap，God in His goodness performs a miracle，and sends him an Angel of Light for an assistant.You，reader，put this matter to a test: You are sitting now in your office——six clerks are within call.Summon any one and make this request:“Please look in the encyclopedia and make a brief memorandum for me concerning the life of Correggio”.
Will the clerk quietly say，“Yes，sir.” and go do the task?
On your life he will not.He will look at you out of a fishy eye and ask one or more of the following questions:
Who was he?
Which encyclopedia?
Where is the encyclopedia?
Was I hired for that?
Don’t you mean Bismarck?
What’s the matter with Charlie doing it? Is he dead? Is there any hurry? Shall I bring you the book and let you look it up yourself? What do you want to know for?
And I will lay you ten to one that after you have answered the questions，and explained how to find the information，and why you want it，the clerk will go off and get one of the other clerks to help him try to find Garcia——and then come back and tell you there is no such man.Of course I may lose my bet，but according to the Law of Average，I will not.
Now if you are wise you will not bother to explain to your “assistant” that Correggio is indexed under the C’s，not in the K’s，but you will smile very sweetly and say，“Never mind，” and go look it up yourself.
And this incapacity for independent action，this moral stupidity，this infirmity of the will，this unwillingness to cheerfully catch hold and lift——these are the things that put pure Socialism so far into the future.If men will not act for themselves，what will they do when the benefit of their effort is for all? A first mate with knotted club seems necessary; and the dread of getting“the bounce”Saturday night holds many a worker to his place.