Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1902-05-16
THE WAY TOGETR RICH
"THE EMPIRE OF BUSINESS" BY THE
LITTLE EMPEROR HIMSELF.

Mr. Andrew Carnegies new book,
The Empire of Business" is out, and
his publishers are sending to all news
papers Il large sheet of extracts with
full permission to reprint. Here is
selection from the sample sheet:
The trouble is that men are not paid at
any time the compensation proper to that
time. All large concerns necessarily keep
filed with orders, say, for six months in
advance, and these orders are taken, of
course. at prices prevailing when they are
booked. This years operations furnish
perhaps the best illustration of the diff
Guilty Steel rails at the end of last year
for delivery this year were S29 a ton at the
works. OF course the mills entered orders
freely at this price and kept on entering
them until the demand, growing uneXpect-
edly great, carried prices up to $50 a ton
Now the various mills in America are
compelled for the next six months or more
to run upon orders which do not average
$31 per ton at the seaboard and Pittsburg
and, say, $34 at Chicago Transportation,
iron stone and prices of all kinds have ad-
vanced upon them in the meantime, and
they must therefore run for the bulk of
the year upon very small margins of prof
it. But the men, noticing in the papers
the great boom in steel rails very nat
urally demand their share of the advance
and under our existing faulty arrange
ments between capital and labor they
have secured it. The employers therefore
have grudgingly given what they know
under proper arrangements they should
not have been required to give. and there
has been friction and still Is dssatisfac-
ton upon the part of the employers. Re
verse this picture. The steel rail market
falls again. The mills have stlll six
months work at prices above the prevail
ing market and can afford to pay men
biob 10 then pNistiDn
of the market would apparently justify;
but, having just been amerced in extra
payments for labor which they should not
have paid, they naturally attempt to re-
duce wages as the market price of rails
goes down, and there arises discomfort
among the men, and we have Il repetition
of the negotiations and strikes which
have characterized the beginning of this
year. In other words when the employer
is going down the employee insists on
going up and vice versa. What we must
seek is a plan by which men will receive
high wages when their employers are re-
ceiVing high prices for the product and
hence are making large profits, and per
contra when the employers are receiving
low prices for product and therefore small
If any, profits, the men will receive low
wages. If this plan can be found en-
ployers and employed will be "m the same
boat" rejoicing together in their pros
perity and calling into play their fortitude
together in adversely. There will be no
room for quarrels, and instead of feel
ing of antagonism there will be a feeling
of partnership between employers and en-
ployed. There is a simple means of pro-
ducing this result, and to its general in
PRODUCTION both employers and employed
should steadily bend their energies
Wages should be based upon a sliding
scale in proportion TO the net prices re-
ceived for product month by month. 1t is
impossible for capital to defraud labor un-
| der a sliding scale.
The foregoing is not reproduced for
the purpose of controversy. but be-
cause of the bits of information it con-
tains. Yet it may not be out of place
to offer few comments. In the first
place, it is agreed that the sliding
scale, which Mr.. Carnegie supports is
fair way of arranging the wage
scale, but the admission in the closing
sentence of the extract quoted is some
what of surprise, and very likely the
author didn't intend that it should be
so read. The natural inference is that
it is not impossible for capital to de-
fraud labor" in the absence of the
sliding scale.
Mr.. Carnegie didn't intend that his
book should be plea for labor. On
the contrary, a careful reading of the
| foregoing extract will show distinctly
his bias the other way. Under condi-
tons most unfavorable to the capital
lists, as shown by Mr.. Carnegie in the
example used, the employers are still
able to run their mills at a margin Of
profit, though the profit is not large
in the millionaire authors eyes. But
that there is plenty of money for the
employer in the steel business, not
| withStandng the avarice of the work
ingmen, is shown by the fact that An
drew Carnegie is today rich enough to
write Il book that is praised by the
press, and we have the testimony of
his publishers that every dollar of his
stupendous fortune is composed of his
| pickings from the fund representing
the value added to raw material by
labor. 1t must have been possible in
/ the days of Mr.. Carnegie's business
| activity for capital to defraud labor"
Read what the prospectus of THE
Empire of Business" says about the
authors requirement of great riches:
The importance of Mr.. Andrew Car
negie's book The Empire of Business
| is perhaps best realized when we con
slider his long experience as the most
successful purely business man this
country has ever known. Mr.. Carnegie
created business out of nothing. He
/ did not make his fortune by commits
sion, as a banker, or by handling mer-
chandise as a trader, but by manufac-
| turing material taken out of the sur
| face of the earth. He never speculat-
/ ed in share of railroad stock He
owned complete railroad, but built
expressly for the purpose of his own
manufacturing industry. He built
mills, but never sold them. He Gre
ated his own line of lake steamships.
He bought land and mined his own
ore and built up from nothing a bust
! ness which was eventually sold to the
steel trust for several hundred mil
lions. What a man of his experience
/ has to say upon the principles and