The advocate., 1892-05-25

per cent. regular and per cent. special
dividend. Every employe who has worked
the entire six years has received about half
years extra salary in dividends on his
earnings, and if he invested his dividends
in stock, he has received nearly as much
more in dividends on that stock. If his
salary has been, for example, $500 year,
he now has stock to the amount of about
$500, and has been paid nearly $500 in cash
on that stock.
The business has grown and prOspered,
but, more than that, the new system has
improved the material and financial condi-
tiOn of nearly three hundred persons di-
rectly, and many more still, indirectly, and
improved them socially, morally and in
telleCtually as we'll. It has given many of
them spirit of independence, feeling of
manhood which they did not have before.
It has disproved statement sometimes
heard that labor and capital are inherently
antagonistic and never can operate har-
moniously together.
The relief fund is in the hands of a COM
mittee selected by the workmen. A disabled
employe is paid S5 q week on his own ac-
count, 50 for his wife if he is a married man,
and 81 per week for each child dependent
ON him for support. In case of death, his
funeral expenses are paid and the widow
is allowed $5 a week for herself and So for
each of her children, as long as the COM
mittee deems advisable. Dependent parents
are allowed SO week. The annual sppro-
priation for the relief, or provident fund, as
they call it, ranges from to 10 per cent of
the profits subject to dividend.
FIRST PROFIT. SHARING ESTABLISHMENT.
A town has been established by the N. o.
Nelson Manufacturing company on the out
skirts of EdwardSville, Ill. ALI of their
buildings have electric lights, bathrooms
and complete water appliances, drainage,
steam heaters and about everything that
well arranged house in St. Louis has. In
one Of the buildings of the little village the
employees have q billiard room, bowling
alley and reading room. This town was
given the name Of Leclaire, in honor of
LeClaire, the founder of the
first profit sharing concern ever estab-
lished. Leolsire was boss house painter
and decorator in Paris. He gave the system
a trial in 1842 and he liked it so we'll that he
followed it for thirty years, or as long as he
lived, and his successor in business has con-
tinued it ever since. He now has 716 en-
ployes. Paris has many proft-sharing es-
tablishntnts, the largest of which is the
Bon Marche, which has 5000 employees.
They have been sharing in the profits of the
business since 1876. France is ahead of all
other countries in this matter, the system
being in use in great many manufactures,
banking houses, newspaper offices, ltho-
graph houses, insurance offices, tsnneries
and gas fitting, carpentering, painting, roof
ing and other establishments.
Nicholas P. Gilman, in his book en-
titled "ProAt Sharing Between Employer
and Employee" which was published a
couple Of years ago, gives q list of the prin-
ciple proft-shsring establishments of the
world, which comprises forty in France,
twenty-four in the United States, fourteen |
in Germany and Austria, thirteen in Great
Britain and Fix in Switzerland. These are
the principle concerns. The little ones are |
not given.
Since 1880 the New York Stats Zeitung, |
the leading German daily of the country,
has been paying its employees 10 per cent.
dividend on their wages, the outlay costing |
the paper about $4,000 year. The Boston |
Herald gave the proAt-sharing system a
trial, which was a success as long as it lasted,
but at the end of two years a new manager |
took charge and returned to the old way Of |