The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1886-06-04

30 you see is IL not question between
you and your employee % much as il is q
question between you and Your God. Do
not say to your employees. "Now, il you
don't like this place get another" when
you know they can not get another. As
far as possible once year visit at their
homes. your clerks and your workmen.
That is the only way you can become &C.
uuainted with their wants. You will by
such process find out that there is a blind
parent or a sick sister being supported.
You will find some of your young men in
rooms without any fire in winter, and in
summer sweltering in ill-ventilated apart
ments. You will find how much depends
on the wages you pay or withhold. On
Saturday morning, when you come into
your counting room end draw the check
which will bring the money for the wages
on the salaries, you will have a thrill of
satisfaction in knowing it is not only the
money you give to the young man, but the
relief to the dire necessities which stand
hack of him.
Moreover. it is your duty as employer,
as far as possible, to mold the welfare Of
the employee. You ought to advise him
about Investments, about life insur.
ance. about savings banks. You ought
to give him the benefit of your ex.
perience. There are hundreds and thou.
sands of employers in this country
and England. I am glad to say, who are
settling in the very best possible way
the destiny of their employees. Such men
as Marshall, of Leeds; Fister, of Brad
ford; Akroyd, of Halifax, and men so
near at home it might offend their mod
esty if mentioned their names. These
men have built reading .rooms, libraries,
concert halls, afforded croquet lawns,
cricket grounds, gymnasiums, choral So
cieties for their employees, and they have
not merely paid the wages on Saturday
night, but through the contentment and
the thrift and the good morals of their
employees, they are paying wages from
generation to generation forever.
Again, counsel all employers to look
well after the physical health CT their
subordinates. You are expected to un-
derstand better than they all these ques-
tions of ventilation and sunshine, and all
the laws of hygiene.
There are stores and banking houses
and factories and newspaper establish
ments where the atmosphere is death.
Your employees may not always appreci.
ate your work, as that style of kind.
ness was not appreciated in the instance
mentioned by Charles Reade, where in a
great factory a fan was provided
for the blowing away of the dust of metal
and stone, the dust arising from the ma
chinery, and some of the workmen refused
to put this great fan in motion. They
seemed to prefer to inhale the filings, the
poisonous filings, into their lungs. Blu.
in the vast majority of cases your EN-
ployes will appreciate every kindness in
that direction.
Then would have you carry out this
sanitary idea. and put into as few hours
as possible the work of the day. Some
time ago-whether it has heen changed
know not-there were one thousand gro-
Ger clerks in Brooklyn who went to busi-
ness ut five o'clock in the morning and
continued until ten o'clock at night. Now,
that is inhuman.
1t seems to me all the merchants in all
departments ought. by simultaneous move
ment, to come out in behalf of the earlo
closing theory. These young men ought
to have an opportunity of going to the
Mercantile library, to the reading rooms,
to the concert hall, to the gymnasium, to
the church. They have nerves. they have
brains, they have intellectual aspirations,
they have immortal spirits. II they can
do good round days work in the ten or
eleven hours. You have no right to keep
I, ca1 for DO ne
think that any intelligent employer can
afford to he reckless of the physical and
mental health Of his subordinates.
But above all. charge you, o employ.
ers, that you look after the moral and spir
itual welfare of your employees. First.
know where they spend their evenings.
That decides every thing. You do not
want around your money drawer young
man who went last night TO &c Jack Shep-
pard. A man that comes info the store in
the morning ghas.ly with midnight revel-
ry is not the man for your store. The
young man who spends his evenings in the
society of refined women, or in musical or
artistic circles, Or in literary improve
ment. is the young man for your store.
Without any disgusting inquisitiveness,
have your Young men understand that you
are interested so much in their welfare
that you want to know where they spend
their leisure bours, and they will frankly
and gladly tell you.
One of my earliest rememhrancsS is of
old Arthur Tappau. There were many
differences of opinion about his politics,
but no one who ever knew Arthur Tappan,
and knew him we'll. doubted his being sn
earnest Christian. In his store in New
York he had q room where every morning
he called his employees together. and he
prayed with them. read the Scriptures to
them, sang with them. and then they en-
tered on the duties of the day. On Mon
day morning the exercises differed. and
he gathered the young men together and
asked them where they had attended
church, what had been their Sabbath ex-
periences and what had been the sermon.
Samuel Budget had the largest bust.
ness in the west of England. He had in a
room of his warehouse place pleasantly
furnished with comfortable seats and
"Fletcher's Family Dsvotions" ami Wes-
leyan hymn books, and he gathered his
employees together every morning, and,
having sung, they knelt down and prayed
side by side-:he employer and the EN-.
ployes.
Do you wonder at tina. mans success,
and that though thirty years before he
had been partner in a small retail shop
in small village, at mis- death he be-
queathed many millions. God can trust
such a man as that with plenty Of money.
Sir Titus Salt had wealth which was be-
yond computation. and at Saltaire. En-
gland, he had a church and chapel built