The Indianapolis journal., 1902-02-28
LECLAIRE OF AMERICA.
Hon. N. o. Nelson Tells of His Profit
Sharing Business.

II. Z. Armstrong, in Ainsiee's Magazine.
Proit-sharing was instituted by the Mel
son Company five years before the colony
at Leciaire was founded. and the scheme
includes the office and store forces at st.
Louis, as well as the operatives at Le-
claire Until 1895 the dividends ranged from
to 10 per cent. salaries and wages, at
first payable in cash, and after 1890 in the
form of stock bonuses. The majority of the
employees at st. Louis and Leclaire
stockholders. Since 1885 the bonuses have
been suspended, but only in the sense that
the cash value has been applied TO improv-
ing Leclare. I'VE have used the earnings"
says Mr.. Nelson, 'in enlarging the plant,
in building homes and in providing and
maintaining the public utilities. We, in eff
feet, pay 10 or 10 per cent. dividends by
working a nine-hour day in trades that are
ten hours throughout the country. in pay
ing full union wages, when many other
manufacturers In our lines pay 10 or 10 per
cent. less. The profit-sharing plan is in
force. and the cash dividends will be re-
sumed. AT the same time the people, as
we'll as myself, regard it of more impor-
tance at present to provide good living con-
ditions than TO get a cash dividend"
Like Leclaire, Mr.. Nelson is master In
his business, but when working hours is
over he becomes a social unit. Then"
says he, 81 am one of the people. and the
mechanic who lives next door-that is TO
say, the next LOTS as good a man as L
am" He visits his employees, they come in
to him; he shares their indoor and out
door social recreations; all are alike in
terested in the development of Leclaire. its
roads, its gardens, its lawns and the mem
bers of his family mingl4 with the plain
folk without condescension on one side or
failure of esteem and respect on the other.
Mr.. Nelson's employees have never presumed
to interfere with his management of the
business. One of their number used TO look
over the books at the end of the year by
invitation, but Mr.. Nelson's word was good
enough for them, and they declined TO del
egate any one for the purpose. This, in
spite of the fact that Mr.. Nelson says of
nls relations with his men at Leclaire:
I'VE get as far away from the cash Nexus
we can"
with all his success, Mr.. Nelson some
times talks in a way that would stampede
a Gradgrind who was coVertly medtating
a trial OF profit-sharing with a single eye
to his own bank account. Mr.. Nelson hap
pens to be one of those men who would
sooner give his employees an interest I'm his
business than squeeze them TO endow insti
tutions. He dares to say that business for
profit only IS immoral. He looks on profit
sharing as a step toward cooperation, and
believes that the cooperative common
wealth is something more than a day
dream. There is an economic value i'm
profit-sharing. he holds: but it's Justification
must be justice. This sounds like philan-
thropy until we remember that in many
businesses. whose probrietors would scout
the idea that they ever had philanthropic
motive in their lives, a contingent interest
in profits is paid TO heads of departments
and stock is sold to employees on easy terms.
Strikes are unknown at Leclaire. In 1893,
when sales were slow and depression gen
eral wages were reduced % per cent by the
company, but were salaries and interest.
There was no complaint on the part OF the
employees: everybody worked with the same
zeal; in three months full pay was resumed;
and at the end or the year the 25 per cent
deducted was made up. Is IL surprising
that Mr.. Nelson's industrial community Is
a success, and that his workmen are intel
igent Industrious cOntented loyal and
self-respecting? This is the place to insert
an opinion which Mr.. Nelson expressed in
1892 Had Carnegie, he said, adopted
profit sharing instead OF the sliding scale
the chances are there would have been no
Homestead massacre, and the stoppage OF
work throughout the country incidental TO
the strike would have been avoided IL is
important TO append TO this view that Mr.
Nelson is a believer i'm labor unions and
encourages his wOrkmen 70 join them.''