The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1872-12-05
Interests that are Common Property.

On the 14th day of the past month the
Cambria Iron Works, the largest ofany in
the United States, or probably in the
world, at Johnstown, in this State, were
leveled to the ground in a few hours by
fire. They were so extensive and busy
that they employed, when in full opera
ton, pearly three thousand hands, and
the wages received by the workingmen
fed, probably, fifteen thousand people.
The machinery used was of such an ex-
peusive character and the building had
cost so much money that it was extremely
doubtful that either would be replaced
The prospect for the fifteen thousand men,
women and children dependent for bread
upon the continued operation of the work
was peculiarly gloomy F; they were at the
very beginning OF the winter season with
out chance of work or food. These
were the wOrkiDgmeD ; as for the capl
talists who owned the wreat mills, they
were practically uninsured, and financial
ly were ruined.
There were but two things for en-
ployees to do-eitber to accept the ruin,
or, by instantaneous unauimity of action to
overcome it. For there was recognized
the fact that capitalists and workingmen
have interests that are identical. Before
the mills were cold, before the smoke had
cleared away from the works, the EN-
ployees gathered tagether and offered to
rebuild the destroyed shops without the
offer of one cent of reward. Inspired
with hope and energy by conduct so
generous, and sympathy SO sincere, the
owners horried East, and being supplied
at once with cars by the Peunsy ylvania
Railroad Company, aud with machinery
and engines by Messrs. Sellers & Co., and
Matthew Baird & Co, they announced
that within one week from the day of fire
they would resume operations at the works
The men, working for nothing, worked
with a will. The employers, anxious to
reward such devotion to a common IN
terest, left nothing undone to set the vast
concern in motion. In one week, that
is on the 21st ult., the great buildings.
with the ground still warm under them,
were rebuilt and restocked with the neces.
sary machinery Last Saturday the EN-
ployees received their FIRST week wages,
aud their families, representing a whole
city full of people, will not dread the wolf
at their doors, or hunger and cold upon
their hearths as they face the winter Of
the Alegbenies.
If these three thousand workingmen,
instead Of doing as they did do when they
saw their employers property a mere
wreck, had folded their hands in idleness,
and said, ave will not work unless the
last cent of the schedule prices are paid
u.s." the mills would possibly never have
been rebuilt, and the men and their
families would have suffered more hard
ships than would be pleasant for them to
think about. The capitalists were com
PEELED to accept the service rendered them
by their men by reason of their great
losses, but there was nothing to compel
the men to render it. 1t was wise thing,
as we'll as genrous Que, for them to re
solve to do, but it was not bit aceorIng
to schedule rules.
We think it just possible that this case
of good will between capital and labor,
NAV. in its admirable results, suggest that
the existence OF such a feeling and per-
sistent cultivation of it, may ba even bet
ter than schedule rules; that there may
be DECISIONS when such rules are singularly
inoperative and fail altogether to work for
The best good of those who make them.
No man, nor set of uen can make arbitrary
laws against another man or another set
of men which under all circumstances, II
vigorously executed, viii rot plague their
! inyeator. There are common interests
between all men aud they are nowhere
so common as between the capitalist and
the workiugman. If the Cambria IRE ana
its results show nothing else they show
this. Inqnirer.