Belding banner. (Belding, Mich.) 1889-1918, 1901-04-18
MAKING SILK THREAD.
Greatest silk Thread Mills I'm the World
are I'm Belding-The Glass OF Girls
Employed Here.

The promised write-up OF the silk in
dustry OF Belding from the pen o
Karle Hartman appeared in the De
troit Journal Of last Saturday. On th'
whole it was an excellent production
although owing to the brief time IL
which he secured his data 1t necessaril.
contained a number OF inaccuracies
A portion was as follow:
The sentiment entering into the es
tablishment OF the Belding silk mills
in the town was explained by A. N
Belding himself. zone day my broth
er and came back here to Belding
just to see the town. That was about
l6 years ago-oh, yes, we're old mer
now, but there was something that
drew us back, remembrances OF our
boyhood, / suppose. Anyway, we
looked over what had once been the
homestead farm. 1t had grown into
quite village of market gardeners
and small farmers. Said | to my
brother: What say you to building a
mill here, just to help the old town
along? He thought it good idea.
There's where the sentiment came in.
OF course business can't be conduct
ed along sentimental lines alone. A
little hard headed commercial sense
must come in somewhere"-and Mr..
Belding laughed-''so we began to fig
ure. We learned that we could take
care of our help more cheaply here
than in the east. We didn't need to
think much more about 1T. Within
three months ground was broken for
the mill. We told the people here we
had come back to the old boyhood home
to help the town along; told them we'd
employ about 400 hands, and build a
hotel, and do few more things, to
show Belding folks we'd not deserted
them for good. We've done it sir.
And this master economist glanced
around the model hotel, really one Of
the most astonishing institutions in
Michigan; built of granite, splendidly
and managed with as much
reg lard for the convenience of the trav-
cling public as any hotel in Detroit or
any other city.
1--WE opened the mill about Is years
ago. 1t was success. And the Rich
ardson Silk Co., acting upon our idea
that our product could be produced
more cheaply here than in the east,
came along and expressed desire to
build another plant here. We sold
them ours on the spot. You see we'd
built it as a model mill and wanted
nothing but the best here in the old
town. After that sale we set to work
to build second mill BY and by it
was ready. That's the story OF the
Belding and Richardson silk business
in this quiet country town that you
have to back into on the railroad and
cant see from the main line. We have
here now, with the Richardson COM
pany's plant, two OF the finest silk
thread mills in the world. We are
proud OF the :. And the greatest
pleasure my brother and | experience
is when we come into Belding after
tours OF inspection OF the other mills
and settle down for few days of rest
and whist playing. You ought to play
whist with my brother. / tell him he
knows lot more about whist than he
does about making silk thread" And
Mr.. Belding laughed again behind his
white mustache.
"Mr. Belding, yours has been suc-
cessful firm. You started with COM
nothing. How do you ac-
count for your success?"
He did not reply for moment, and
when he did it was with these words:
Il think our success Is accounted for
in the fact that we have produced the
best product it was possible to produce
and that we have built the best mills
it is possible to build, and that we
have produced our product cheaply.
We run our own boarding house here
for the girls In our employ II they wish
to live in 1t. We have built such per-
feet mills that our insurance rate Is
the lowest obtainable, one-ffth OF one
per cent, aud we employ only intelli-
gent American labor. Indeed all the
girls in our employ, here in Belding,
are the daughters OF farmers, who
have come to town to work In our
mills preferring such work to the farm
Belding is a city OF labor, city in
which labor is honored, and respected,
and where morality is not at a pre-
MUM, as in so many mill towns. De-
spite the fact that there are 800 girls,
ranging in age from l6 to %, employed
in the two silk mills OF Belding: girls
who are away from home, and acting
on their own responsibility, only twice
in the last ten years has there been
anything approaching "mill scandal"
10 this model town. The young wom-
en- employed in the big establishments