—“The Ups and Downs of Wages,” an editorial from the February 6, 1926, issue of The Saturday Evening Post
Those who work with their hands are, on an average, 27 percent better off today than they were in the 1890s, [but] it appears that the rank and file of office workers are just about where they were in that year.
There is often real pathos in the lot of these office workers. Loyal, intelligent, and industrious, they have entered a race in which there are many competitors and few prizes. Had they gone into machine shop or factory, their superior education and broader outlook would have brought them to the front and won them the rewards to which they would have been entitled — but they would insist on a white collar.
Dread of contact with machine oil and overalls is blighting the careers of thousands of our over-nice young men. And the curious thing is that the less exalted their social origin is, the more strongly they feel they will lose caste if they soil their hands.
This article is featured in the January/February 2026 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Subscribe to the magazine for more art, inspiring stories, fiction, humor, and features from our archives.
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