"We of the white-collared class make a tremendous and tragic mistake when we say that the only reason that a common laborer works is to earn money," declared Whiting Williams, business man who has lived for years as a laborer, at Phillips Brooks House last evening. "There is a spiritual factor: every worker maintains his standing as a man among men by the nature of his job, by his standing as a craftsman among craftsmen, irrespective of the money return "which the job brings him."

Leaders Have Pride In Work

Mr. Williams stated that this spiritual factor in the lives of the laborers, the knowledge that they were considered indispensable by somebody else, was a thing which must be realized if the labor problem was to be understood.

In explaining what he meant by the standard of the job as being more important than the amount of money earned, Mr. Williams described his first job as a laborer. He was shovelling bricks, and had been one of the shovelling, gang for three weeks when the boss asked him if he would like to join the mill-rake gang.

"I only got a raise of two cents an hour by the transfer; yet when my former companions saw me--with tools--a huge wrench and an oil can--my social standing was "elevated amazingly." Mr. Williams also told the story of a carpenter who went away from a humble job to a position where hours were shorter and pay higher. A fortnight later he returned. "Higher, pay?--yeah. But do you know what they wanted me to do? Bang together a bunch of boards into a ramshackle barn for a target, and one shot from a gun 14 miles way blows it away! Not for me!"

This pride in work, Mr. Williams asserted, is one of two vital factors in the labor problem. The other is the colossal importance, to the unskilled laborer, of obtaining a daily job. Mr. Williams described his experiences as one of the mass of unemployed whose life seemed worthless because there was no place for them to use their powers.