The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1900-12-27
A NOTABLE MOVEMENT.

A NOTABLE MOVEMENT.
Newspaper readers are from time to
time made aware of experiments set on
| foot in different places by individuals
aiming at humanizing the conditions
which attend the effort to make liv-
ing on the part of those whose incomes
| from their labor are necessarily limited
But until recently there has been no
record of such an undertaking being
engaged in in any American community
| to any general extent. OF course there
! are the various experimental communi-
ties started here and there which have
like impulse behind their existence,
but they are not, either in number or
| importance, of sufficient moment to en-
ter into the matter at ALL
The city of Cleveland is the first i'm
portant American community engaging
| itself in that kind of undertaking. It
has appointed an official known as $50,
| cid engineer The appointment was
made by a committee of the local Cham
/ Der of Commerce His duties are to act
| as adviser social betterment. and
under his direction thirty factories or
stores are now carrying out various
plans for social bettermeut for the wells
being OF their employees. One concern.
| Tor instance, has equipped it's factory
] with lunch room where we are told
wholesome food is provided for less THAI
fhn
restaurant pays for itself hut makes no
profit. A branch of the city library has
| been established at this factory, and
! the number Of books read average about
400 month-more than book month
Tor each man. In the rolling mill
| change has been made in the time sched-
ule, substituting for two shifts of twelve
hours each three shifts of eight hours
| furnaces, adj prostrations are now avoid
ed. A benefit society has been organized
for assistance in cases of accident or
| sickness; the company contributed s100
to start the fund and donated the sery-
ices of clerk to keep the society's
books
Another concern in the same city has
provided separate lunch rooms for the
factory hands, the Office force and the
foremen. Meals are served at cost: the
usual expense of lunch being about six
or eight cents, while by ordering every
thing on the bill of fare the cost is made
not to exceed seventeen cents. Rest rooms
are provided for the women employees
fitted With comfortable cots and chairs,
while bath rooms are established at Diff
ferent points throughout the factory fur
nlshed with showerbaths and tubs. The
example Of these concerns is being fol-
lowed by others, and the principle has
found Introduction Of Offering opportuni-
ties to the workingmen to fit themselves
for the higher branches of the work be-
ing done.
All this is in great measure the result
of the active co-opera ton of the commun-
ity through its social engineer" APP
! pointed, as mentioned, by the Cleveland
Chamber of Commerce. 1t is trite as
well true saying, paradox as 1T is, that
what is everybedys business is nobodys
business. Whatever the humane instinct
of individual employers has suggested
in these directions In the past there has
| been no influence found willing to pro-
mote the tendency represented by such
acts. When an entire community in .er-
ests itself in such undertakings the
action of the Cleveland Chamber cf
Commerce is In its nature representative
of the community as an entirety-the sub
ject begins to assume a public aspect,
and general attention is at once arrested.
Nor is Cleveland alone in the respect
that such particular movement finds
more general expression in its Industrial
life Pittsburg employers have shown the
same disposition; and in every case the
| results have more than justified the trou-
bic and expense that may be involved
With such tendency thus showing it.
| self at the opening Of the new century
it will not be surprising if the early
| years of the century finds a, serious de-
parture made in the purely impersonaI
relationship which has prevailed in re-
cent times between employer and en-
| ploye.