Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-10-01
A BAD SYSTEM.

An effort is being made to revive and ey-
tend the system of insuring employers
against loss by reason of the dishonesty of
employees. Under it the employee pays the
cost of the guayapty-that is, he takes out
the policy and pays the premium INSTALL
ments.
1T is a bad system, and worthy of unlim-
lied condemnation. 1t is promoted in the
interest of a low class of insurance compa-
MES. So able paper as the Chicago Jour
nal favors il, because, according to its phi
losophy, it creates q sense of responsibility
among employees; promotes economy and
cseeful personal habits weakens the dis
position to use the employers money
makes all the employed check upon each
other restraints wild speculation, and adds
TO the safety on institutions holding the
money or property of others.
These are plausible arguments, but they
will not stand the test of reason. The
whole system is based on the base assump-
tien that every employee is dishonest 1t
is, therefore, utterly destructive of every
element of human trust. 1t cuts the en-
Itsyer free from responsibility for the en-
ploye, or of care concerning his habits and
methods and thus takes away from the
honest clerk that to which he is entitled,
the trust, regard and sympathy of his en-
ployer.
But it does more, it tends to make en-
ployes dishonest, since they must realize
that their defalcation will not injure the
employer, but operate only to reduce the
profits Of the insurance company. Hence,
instead of making employees proyident and
careful it will tend to make them careless
and reckless.
Some Of these points have been clab-
GRATED by ths Chicago Current which enters
manly protest against the falacies of the
reasoning in support of the system. But
the gravest, and to our mind the best in
trenched objection, is that we have already
stated-the system is utterly destructive of
human trust. On this character is build
ed up; on this the ambition of the en-
ploye feeds; it is oftener than the world
credits greater incentive to the cmploye
than the wages for which he tolls; the
appreciation of his employer is to him
generous stimulant with no reactionary
effects. But how can he value that ap-
prevail, or deem it sincere, when he realizes
that his principal is fortified and secured
in it BY the cold policy of guarantee locked
in his safe?
The system is simply infamous, for it is
a new rendering of that old proverb of the
devil, honesty is the best policy" 1t is a
system, as the Current well says, that CON
tributes to the further enslavement of the
souls of employees. "These guarantee COM
panies are for the benefit of incompetent
and indolent directors who fail in that
supervision which the statutes of the law
and the dictates Of morality urge upon
them" True, and hence their influence is
all directed to the lowering of the business
standard of integrity.
To insure the honesty of an employe by
putting policy in the place of conscience,
and premium of insurance in the place of
soul, seems TO us no more reasonable or
defensiblc than to demand policy to
insure the virtue of the betrothed, or the
chastity of the wife. We need to cultivate
honesty for honesty's sake, virtue for
honor's sake, and each must indeed be its
own reward" When for integrity we sub
stitute the slayish chains of insurance, we
add one more temptation to improbity and
knock from beneath the employee the last
prop of selfrespect that the hard business
world has LEFT him.