"There never has been a time in our history when work was so abundant or when wages were as high, whether measured by the currency in which they are paid or by their power to supply the necessaries and comforts of life"
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Triumphalism with a ledger’s precision: Harrison’s line is built to sound like a fact, but it functions like a verdict. By stacking superlatives ("never", "so abundant", "as high") and then double-accounting wages both in nominal dollars and in purchasing power, he’s doing more than praising prosperity. He’s preempting skepticism. If you doubt the numbers, he offers a second yardstick; if you doubt the yardstick, he invokes lived experience: "necessaries and comforts of life". The rhetoric is managerial, not mystical, and that’s the point. It frames the economy as measurable progress under competent stewardship.
The subtext is political insulation. In the late 19th century, labor conflict was not a sidebar; it was a headline. Strikes, union battles, and the brutal volatility of industrial capitalism made "high wages" an argument against reform, an answer to agitation, and a quiet warning: don’t rock the boat. The phrase "our history" also does work, smoothing over who counts as "our" and whose wages get averaged away. A factory owner and a tenement laborer can both be folded into the same national boast, even when their realities diverge sharply.
Context matters: this is the Gilded Age’s favorite story about itself, told from the podium. Harrison’s optimism sells stability, legitimizes existing policy, and recasts economic growth as moral proof. It’s a reassurance pitched as arithmetic: if people are working and buying "comforts", the system must be just enough. That’s the quiet sleight of hand.
The subtext is political insulation. In the late 19th century, labor conflict was not a sidebar; it was a headline. Strikes, union battles, and the brutal volatility of industrial capitalism made "high wages" an argument against reform, an answer to agitation, and a quiet warning: don’t rock the boat. The phrase "our history" also does work, smoothing over who counts as "our" and whose wages get averaged away. A factory owner and a tenement laborer can both be folded into the same national boast, even when their realities diverge sharply.
Context matters: this is the Gilded Age’s favorite story about itself, told from the podium. Harrison’s optimism sells stability, legitimizes existing policy, and recasts economic growth as moral proof. It’s a reassurance pitched as arithmetic: if people are working and buying "comforts", the system must be just enough. That’s the quiet sleight of hand.
Quote Details
| Topic | Work |
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