Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1902-09-15


young man, took hold of the Philadel-
phia Ledger, it was a financial failure.
| All employees Of that concern were
placed upon the lowest possible wages.
The trusted men were deserving at ev-
! cry possible chance and finding other
places. What did George w. Childs
! DO? He gathered his new employees
about him and practically said: Men,
I cannot pay you much in the begin
ming, but l promise you one thing-as
/ prosper you shall prosper. Further
more, when any of you become dis
abled by advancing years from work
I will pension you for life, so that you
can live in ease and support your chill
dren. If you will be true to me, 1 will
be true to you. We shall go up to-
gether or go down together. l will
consider the Ledger staff a big family,
and as far as possible 1 shall find my
future head men from those who are
now working in the ranks
Did the Golden Rule mean a failure
in George w. Childs life? AS soon as
the new employees heard the ringing
words of their chief they went to work
with a will. The subscription list of
the Philadelphia Ledger doubled and
trebied and quadrupled. Why? Be
cause when George w. Childs pros
pered the employees knew that they
would prosper also. Because of their
own prosperity as well as of his they
worked as they never worked before.
Those employees made thousands of
dollars for themselves. They made
millions upon millions of dollars for
Mr. Childs. The magnificent results
from practicing the Golden Rule in
the Philadelphia Ledger can be dupli-
Gated in every other big business COR
poration in any part of the world.
But the trouble with most capitalists
of the present day is that they refuse
to do as Mr. Childs did They shirk
their individual responsibility. AS your
moneys are collected into great trust
or corporation and you only hold few
shares you say you are not RESPONSE
BILE for what the whole concern may
do. You are like the members of an
execution squad who have been de-
tailed to shoot spy caught within the
military lines You say no one individ-
ual is responsible for the execution, be-
cause twenty-five bullets instead of
one strike the doomed mans heart, but
every capitalist who has his money in
vested in a corporation where starva-
ton salaries are being paid to its en-
ployees is responsible for the damage
that his money helps to do. He is re-
sponsible if child labor be engaged in
his factory. He is responsible if men
and women, on account of his indiffer
ence, go to their mental and physical
and perhaps spiritual doom. He is his
brothers keeper in so far as that he is
bound to see that the man whose toll
adds to his wealth has fair wages.
Cause of Social UpheavaI.
But the laboring classes as well as
the capitalists have sinned and helped
to cause the present social upheaval
The employee is not any more saint
than his employer. They both at times
seem to be tarred with the same black
stick. Yet the average laboring man
pretends to think that all tire cause
FOR the present social upheayal is to
be laid at the rich mans door and not
at his own. In his own blind egotism
he seems to be almost as contented
with himself and his actions as was
the old Quaker, grumbling against the
peculiarities of the human race, when
he said to his wife, "All the world is
queer except me and thee. Mary. and
thou art little queer
Do the laboring classes always make
their employers interest their own in
terest? Oh, no. There are thousands
and hundreds of thousands of them
who show little, if any, sense of moral
! responsibility. When engaging their
services to a man, they do not for one
instant stop to consider the money
which that employer has invested in
: his plant. They do not stop to think of
!. the financial risk he is running, of the
seven years of financial depression
which may come to him when he may
have to run his works at a practical
dead loss, as when the seven years of
famine came to Joseph in the land of
, Egypt. They do not seem to realize
that when they shirk their work they
. are stealing their employers money,
: for time means money.
> The different labor associations, like
the Bricklayers' union, the Stone Cut
!. ters', the Carpenters and Builders, the
Steam Filters, Gas Filters and
> Plumbers unions, the Brotherhood of
Locomotive Engineers, of Firemen
;, Brakemen and Conductors, all have
= their benefcent mission. They ought
. to benefit capital as well as labor
= They ought to be the means of putting
: through the different state legislatures
laws to prevent the employment OF
> children, to limit the hours of labor
!; and to prevent fragrant injustices
against their members. But the work
of the modern labor union does mo-
: stop there. 1t often goes to the CAPT
- talist and tries to dictate what men ht
! shall or shall not employ. 1t goes tt
4 the capitalists and says: You mus
| look unnn every of Qllr member: