Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1883-09-19

Physical vigor and mental activity
are necessary in all kinds of employ
ment and all sorts of business. Lack
ing either, the man is, in some degree
incompetent. The cases are exception
alwhore profitable employment is fitted
to the infrm, whether physically weak
or mentally slow. And yet there are
cases where employment and occupa-
ton should be given to such persons,
not alone as q matter of policy-to pre-
vent mental and bodily injury-but as
q duty. An employe who has spent
the vigor of his best years in the serv-
ice of an employer deserves something
more in his last years than cold neglect.
Even the turning out of an old horse
to die is a subject for attention by the
officers of humane societies.
If any employe is of any value what
ever, he ought to earn for his employer
something above his stipend; in fact,
the labor of employees, combined with
the judicious use of capital, should ac-
cumulate for the employer O compe-
tency, If not actual wealth. The wealth
thus gathered represents, in part, the
excess of the value of the labor per-
formed above the amount that has been
paid to the laborers. Although the
employe has no right to demand more
than the agreed sum as wages, or sal
ary, which he receives, the fact remains
that the wages, or salary, may not rep
resent the proceeds of his work in full.
This fact may not constitute even
moral claim by the employe for any
thing beyond his regular compensation
under any circumstances. 1t may be
that the compensation was sufficient to
have placed the employe, in his old age
Or feebleness, in condition of compar-
ative independence, but he may have
neglected to provide for the inevitable
rainy day. Employers have no special
supererogatory duties toward employees
Of this class. Nor is it, perhaps, incum-
bent on them to pension off old en-
ployes, as Governments sometimes do
public servants. The circumstances
will alter the cases. 1t is not to be ex-
pected that employing establishments
or individuals are to become insurers
against the decrepitude of old age and
its attendant incompetency. But the
dictates of humanity and the demands
OF business policy may so far 60 har-
moniously together as to prevent the
too common spectacle of an old, faithS
full employe deprived not only of a
position of profit because of inability,
but of occupation adapted to his failing
powers. There are few sadder sights
than this, and pity for the unfortunate
man and detestation for his thoughtless
or perhaps avaricious employer is felt
by every spectator.
= As men grow old in any particular
service their business ways and work
habits become fixed, and all the sur
roundings of their secular days en-
ployments become more familiar to them
than their home life. 1t is like casting
them adrift without rudder, oars, or
chart to turn out old employees under
such circumstances. Who has not felt
a pity for some superannuated employe
thus set adrift, as he has noticed him
returned occasionally to his old haunts,
ana looking about wistfully on scenes
OF which he once formed necessary
part, but in which he is now only an
incumbrance and disturbing element.
Too old to start anew in another line.
and possessing none of the hopefulness
of youth and the ambition of mid-age,
he becomes disheartened, melancholy
and perhaps imbecile, until death steps
in to his relief.
There is large manufactory in a
New England State that for more than
thirty years has been running with PEI
cuniary success, employing young and
old, male and female, in its various de-
partments. When business has been
dull and the markets unstable, work
has been reduced and wages shortened,
as was necessary to prevent financial
disaster. But good employees were
kept, if possible, even in the dullest
times. There never was strike, nor
threat of one, in this establishment.
Among other humane practices and
considerate measures for the comfort
and well-being of their employees, the
company keep their hands even when
old and Improbable. There is one ole
man, now more than eighty, who has
worked faithfully for the best part OF
his vigorous manhood, for the compa-
ny. He still works-not, however, full
hours-and his employment is of SO
trifing a character that but for the cir
cumstances it would be ludicrous. But
the old man is proud of his employers
and that he is still able to work, and is
living a happy, contented life, believing
that he is Independent of charity and
that he is still useful, if not necessary,
to his employers. This is an example
that might properly be followed by