The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-11-20
THE "NEW SOCIALISM,"
EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYED WORK
IN UNISON IN MANY INSTANCES.

pIOyed Are Really "A Partnership.
some Extraordinary Instances of
Successful Cooperation.
Copyright, 1889. the 5. s Mcclure Co.
New York Nov. l7-The facts presented
below aud many others of like nature
were submitted TO Hon w Bourke Cock
ran. He said:
The new socialism, as you call it, is
the right socialism. When employers and
employed realize their true relative posi-
tions there Will be no more strikes-no
more friction between them. 1t is as hard
10 get good employees as il is TO get good
employers. The employer who furnishes
the best working places and the best
home surroundings to the employed is the
best employer, and 10 him the best en-
ployes will gravitate as iron filings seek
a magnet. The employer who has the best
empoyes. will turn out the best finished
product and will as certainly get the besl
business This is merely a logical state
nent of the fact that the relations be-
tween employer and employed are not thu
relations between master and man, but are
a partnership, pure and simple.
THE word service should he removed
from the language. 1t has no meaning now
and no mission except 30 make misunder-
stood the relations existing between en-
ployer and employe. Ii came down from
the old Roman Empire and should be
abolished as the slavery which it then
represented has been.
THE relations between employer and
employe are the relations between part
ners. An employer may discharge his en-
pIoye and take another in his stead, but
he has merely changed partners. An en-
ploye may leave his employer and seek
another. And there he has merely changed
partners AS l said in Chicago, trades
Unions never have and never can in any
sense of the word regulate wages. The
proportion of the profits which the work
ingman shall get from any productive
form of labor is fixed by an immutaole
Taw-the law of production and demand.
Trades unions have been most useful and
Will continue to be most useful as time
savers in helping employers and employ
ed, the two parties to the partnership, to
understand their relationships.
Take a chair. The man who owns the
factory in which the chair is made can
not decide for himself how much he will
pay the men who work in that factory
The profits on that chair must be divided
among many people. The employer must
be paid for his labor in establishing the
factory, in selling the finished product
and in managing the business. The wood
cutter in the forest must be paid for his
labor in cutting down the trees. The men
who plane the lumber in the saWmills
must have their share; the Dolisher the
wood-carver-eVery human being connect
ed with the manufacture of that chair
must have his share, and his share will
be absolutely regulated by the number of
chairs that is manufactured. The moment
the employer tries to reduces wages be-
hxrf inn, afat,1 10 M
of supply and demand, competition for
good labor will step in, and he will lose
his best working men, They will be en-
ployed by other manufacturers of chairs
These other manufacturers of chairs Will
then make better chairs than the man we
have been first considering, who must now
employ inferior labor, and he must become
bankrupt. On the other hand, If the en-
ployer first mentioned increases wages be-
yond the point fixed by this immutable
law, he will not find his business suffl-
cient payment for his labor, and again he
must become bankrupt. The situation of
the other partner to the partnership-the
employees exactly the same. If he de-
mands higher wages than the man who
owns the factory can pay, he must lose
his job or bankrupt his employer. This is
beginning to be understood. Employers
cannot give men profits, or shares of prof
its, which they have not made them
selves. What the employer gets on his
capital is really just as much a return
from energy as is what the workingmen
gets from his labor. The more provision
that is made for the workers comfort the
better his surroundings, the pleasanter
the home provided, the better work and
the more work we can do and the greater
will be the reward of the employer
In the last two years." said Senator
Cullom, recently, 1.-THE attitude of the en-
tire country toward the social problem has
changed. There IS new note in religion,
politics and press. But the Transformation
in he Industrial world 5 more marked and
important Business men and practical
men Of affairs everywhere are to-day Civ
ing more thought to the social side OF their
Establishments than to almost any other
feature of their business. The largest and
hest organized factories in the United
States are busy with far-reaching plans
for the benefit of heir employees. Ii is
becoming a recognized fact that no great
producing concern can ignore the progress
of the age and survive. If an establish
ment employing labor hopes to live in The
future, Il must devise system by which
every man who is connected with ii W n
receive not only his days wages. but the
opportunity for a happy, comfortable ana
progressive social life"
Hundreds Of the largest employers have
been striving with more or less success TO
bring about a more sympathetic and har-
monlous relation between themselves and
their employees The first efforts We're bas-
"a on proht sharing plan by which at the
end If a successful year "A certain per cent
Of each mans wages was given him as his
share in the profits Of The business This
was thought a few years ago to be a great
step IN the direction Of social sm it was
because IL marked the first general con-
cepuon among employers chat they were
in any way connected with the men they
empi yed except in posses icg the right 10
force upon them the greatest rossible SER
far ogt h