Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-09-27
Mutually of Interest.

A logical development in the rela-
tons between employees of large corpora
lions and their employers is furnished by
the action of the executive officers of the
various railroad unions, who in New
York the other evening adopted pro-
gram whereby the railroad workers will
henceforward align themselves with the
corporations to secure the privilege to
charge whatever rates they desire, In
order that the railroads may be in a
position TO grant wage increase demands.
1t is automatic. though not always ac-
cepted, that the interests of the employer
and the employed are Identical, that the
welfare of the capitalist who gives work
to other men is the foundation of the
welfare of those whom he engages. This
truth has not always been recognized by
the working classes, and the failure to
see it and put it into practice has led
to many costly struggles between EN-
ployers and employed. Under an ideal
state of society, regarded by some as
possibility, the two classes will be identi-
cal in personnel, that is to say in Utopia,
wherever that may be. and whenever
found, the men who toll are their own
employers, take their own profits from the
products of their labor. Until that state
is reached through the evolution of human
nature to a refinement hardly to be con-
templated as practical achievement, So
ciety will remain divided into two classes
those who buy labor and those who sell
it. and it will be to the great advantage
of both sides II the truth which under
lies the action taken in New York the
other night is recognized and applied to
the actual conditions of life
The wise employer of men fully UNDER
stands that 1t is to his interest that they
should be prosperous and contented and
progressive. He gets better results from
ambitious men than from hopeless ones,
from intelligent, aspiring men than from
mere machines Of toll. In practically
every line of industry, down to the man
who works with his hands without any
brain requirement whatsoever, the well
fare of the employed is 10 be desired by
the employer. unless he is utterly be-
nighted and unable to see his own inter-
est as an individual.
This action in New York is an acute
instance of the fundamental truth 1t is
at the same time q peculiar illustration
of the fact that in social economics the
ultimate consumer is hard to find The
railroad workers. like every other user
OF commodities carried by railroads, must
pay their part of the toll imposed in the
form of freight charges. II they were
workers in some other line of industry,
some manufacturing enterprise, they
would not get back any part of that
which they themselves pay into their
roads treasures. But they would, on
the other hand, perhaps, suffer somewha
from the exactions from their employers
in terms of increased freight charges.
Thus. while 1t is to the interest Of the
railroad workers that freight rates be
Increased, 1t may not be to the interest
of steel workers or miners or artisans
In a long line of industrial enterprises
that the cost of production should be in
creased. and these latter might with rea-
son join their employers in demand for
the reduction of rates, with as much in
telliSence and as good reason as the rail-
way men are now uniting with their
corporations to raise them.