The Benefits of the Factory System
George S. White
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OVERVIEW
In the 1830s the factory system was becoming widespread, and its benefits were highly
debated. An argument in its favor was written by George S. White in a book about Samuel
Slater, who had opened the first cotton mill in the United States. Brief excerpts from the
book appear here.
GUIDED READING As you read, consider the following questions:
• Why does White call the United States “the poor man’s country”? Is this opinion
justified?
• What does White think are the complex moral issues facing factory employers?
W
that manufacturing establishments exert a
powerful and permanent influence in their immediate neighborhoods,
and time, if not already, will teach the lesson that they will stamp indelible
traits upon our moral and national character. Evidences abound, wherever
man exists, that his character is modified by localities, by a diversity of
pursuits, by a facility of acquiring a living, by the quality and fashion of the
living itself, by a restrained or free exercise of his rational powers, and by
restraint on the enjoyment of liberty. Different climates and different
countries produce indelible peculiarities. In the same climate and in the same
country similar changes appear from the effects of immoral habits, and from
what may be termed artificial or mechanical causes. The effects of immoral
habits are well known to all observers of human nature. . . .
Manufacturing establishments become a blessing or a curse according to
the facilities which they create for acquiring a living, to the necessary articles
which they provide, and the general character which they produce. To set up
and encourage the manufacturing of such articles, the use and demand of
which produces no immoral tendency, is one of the best and most moral uses
which can be made of capital. The moral manufacturer, without the power or
disposition to overreach, is in reality a benefactor. The acquisition of wealth in
this way is the most laudable. . . .
The manufacturing interest in a flourishing state naturally creates power
and wealth. The value of labor and the value of money are then at his disposal;
but, in this free country, there is a sufficient counteracting influence to keep
up the price of labor and to equalize the prices of their commodities with the
value of the products of the earth. Without such a resisting power, a few
would abound in wealth and influence, while the multitude would be in
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The Benefits of the Factory System
1
poverty and reduced to servitude. But there always exists a counteracting
influence in the rival establishments and the general spirit of enterprise. On
the supposition that the manufacturing interest was strictly benevolent and
moral, dispensing its favors according to merit and precisely as they are
needed, the community might not be losers by such a state of things. This
must be always the case where a people are left free to use and purchase
according to their free choice. . . .
. . . It is said, on the presumption that the capitalists are aiming at their
personal wealth, the facility for acquiring a fair compensation becomes less and
less at every pressure. A rise of wages is then adapted to convenience or
pleasure. But it must be remembered that the pressure bears as heavy on the
employer as the employed, and renders him liable to lose all the earnings of
many years of labor and the savings of much self-denial, and renders him poor
and dependent.
There are two sides to this question, and the operatives in good times
ought to lay up for time of need. Then they would not be obliged to bring
their labor into market the best way they can to obtain their daily bread. To
take advantage of such a position is one of the greatest immoralities. The
liabilities of its consequences are as bad in creating discord and producing civil
commotions. But the owners of factories are not known to stop their mills till
obliged by dire necessity; they generally run them till they become bankrupt.
The real power belongs to the laboring class; no one ought to expect to
employ this without paying for it and no one does expect it. It is power when
rightly used and most often ceases to be so when abused. . . .
It is well known that vice grows worse by contact with its kind. If it can be
proved that manufacturing establishments tend to accumulate, consolidate,
and perpetuate vicious propensities, and their consequences on the
community, this will serve as no inconsiderable drawback upon the apparent
prosperity which is indicated in their immediate vicinity. If found so, the
condition must be charged directly to the establishments or to their
consequences and abuses. It is evidently an abuse to collect a mass of vicious
population and keep them in a state of ignorance and irreligion. When this is
done, the whole community has a right to complain. If it can be shown that
such things are frequently done, it is contended that they are not necessary
consequences of manufacturing establishments. The owners of such
establishments have it in their power to change the current of vice from its
filthy and offensive channel, and make peace, order and comfort among those
they employ. . . .
On the score of employment, manufacturing establishments have done
much to support the best interests of society. It appears also, at the present
time, that they have done so by their improvements. On the supposition that
one or a few individuals, by the invention of labor-saving machinery, succeed,
so as to furnish any particular article much cheaper than it could be done in
the ordinary way, in this country where it deprives no one of a living and goes
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The Benefits of the Factory System
2
to forward and hasten the general improvement, it cannot fail to be a benefit
to the community. The diminution of price in the articles has been such that
the people have been doubly paid for all the protection granted; and
commerce has been benefited by the opening of a foreign market. . . .
Shrewdness and overreaching are common events. Morality, however
much respected in principle, is extremely liable to be set aside in practice.
These are some of the bad tendencies of seeking out many useless inventions,
and too eager a grasp after traffic and exchange of property, or what is
technically called speculation. The acquisition and possession of property are
made the main objects of existence, whether it be needed or not. On the other
hand, it will be granted that every objection vanishes when mechanical
inventions acquire permanency, and can be subjected to the regularity of
calculations. It may dignify and exalt man to triumph over the known laws of
nature, and bring out the hidden treasures of air, earth, and water, in tame
submission to his use. For aught we can discern, it would have no injurious
effect upon his character, could he extend his journeys and researches further
than this globe. One thing is certain: the more he studies and understands the
works of nature and Providence, the greater will be his admiration of the
display and application of wisdom and goodness. If applied as intended, the
more of the resources which have been provided he brings into action, the
more he adds to his true dignity and happiness. . . .
In the present happy condition of the manufacturing districts there are no
advantages enjoyed by the rich that are not reciprocated with the poor. Labor
was never better paid and the laborer more respected, at any period or in any
part of the world, than it is at present among us. And that man is not a friend
to the poor who endeavors to make those dissatisfied with their present
condition, who cannot hope, by any possibility of circumstances, to be
bettered by a change. This is emphatically the poor man’s country.
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The Benefits of the Factory System
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