The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-03-02
ANALYZE GROWTH
 OF I.ABOR'S POWER
By HOLLAND

Nav York. March 3.-(Special)-f1 nta,tnor,erv Easlev. who has been for nearly 20 years chairman of the e~ee1 tive council of the National CIVIC leeei alton. and who has gained hign repu- tatfon as an authority upon laoor anu economic questions takes serious ana Eh- n,ediate issue with Col. William D. Thompson and Charles M. Schwap upon assertions recently attributed lo
 onel Thompson and Mir. sch"aD 10 'ne effect that the day is near at mana "HeA' the working men will rule the worlo'
 MT Paisley is apprehensive lest these +u,o men. who have gained distlnctloh as industrial leaders, should nave oA late adopted the socialistic views
 snecting the relation of labor to capi.ai which have been attributed to the poi- sbeviki and also are ready to support tba nrinciples advocated by the 1nuus- +r,a, workers of the World. Not yet has any authoritative report been maue VI MT. schwab's remarks. although IL IS undoubtedly true that he did say tnas in his view the workingmen are to par ticinate more and more in government tal affairs and are gradually but sureiy to gain influential relation to our gFeae industries and those of Europe.
 Colonel Thompson certainly did not aa- vocate the alleged views of the Russian socialists and bolsheviki with respect to the abolition of capital and the aooptlon tn its place of absolute socialism. 1o rar+ no farther than to assert that the principle upon which the bolsheVlkl IS based represents more equitable rsia tons between the great body or "oi m ingmen and peasants of Russia, and what is called the autocrauc or aristo- cratic class. He does believe that eiio workingmen of the world are 10 naHe larger and larger part in governmental affairs and in the direction of industry, Int nrohably not as distinctive labor party. -
 Twenty years before Colonel Thomp- son a Yfd MT. Schwab spoke of the relation in the near future of men who worh with their hands to industry and gos- ernment, as able a statesman, as pro- found political economist and as sue cessful leader in industry upon iaise lines as ever lived in these modern times predicted the speedy coming of the day when the wage earners, certainty III American Industries, would have so di tered their relation to their employers that they would become in consluei- able measure their own employers stnco they would be in possession, throusn
 
 blocks of the stocks of industrlai coiA panies.
 A. s. HEWITT'S PREDICTION
 Abram s. Hewitt, at one time mayoi of New York, and for many years d member of Congress, chairman or the national committee which carried on the presidential campaign for the electloh of Samuel J. Tilden, and in addition leader in very great iron industrial ac- tivities as well as a master Of economic and industrial statistics, spoke inform ally in 1901 of the inevitable coming or the day, in his opinion, when men Who work for wages would share responsl- bility and opportunity with men who as managers of industry employs them. MT. Hewitt was convinced that grad ually but surely wage earners would Ilno 1t expedient and even to their best inter- ests to invest their savings in the stocks of the industrial companies by wnlcn they were employed. They would do this to such an extent that at last IL would be found that the majority Of the stockholders in these industries were V fage earners and the aggregate of tnelr Holdings would be very large Thls; would entail a spirit of cooperation, ex- Etending from the executive managers or the industries down through the great body of the wage earners. It would also < inevitably influence wage earners in po- iitical campaigns to support candidates for office who were known to be good citizens, not antagonistic to labor nor, on the other hand, demagogic baiters or capital. MT. Hewitt furthermore said that the pre-eminent forces which would influence American growth of prosperity were first the utilization of capital; sec ond, the employment of ability. espe- cially in industrial leadership, and, third, the growth of 8 great body Of skilled artisans, men of intelligence, or patriotism, not cankered by jealousy or by envy of those whose possessions were large, but infused with the spirit of CO., operation whereby their own yearly gains would be increased and their per ecnal influence as citizens felt
 What MT. Hewitt said nearly 20 years ago has in part already been justified by events The United Sates Steel cor poration has some 5000 stockholders who are also skilled artisans and wage earners. The International Harvester company numbers many wage earners among it's stockholders. The principle which underlies Cooperation of this kind was first successfully worked out by George w, Perkins. when he drafted the measure now known "The Profit Sharing System of the United States Steel corporation. It is not profit shar- Ing in the old meaning of that term.
 
 enables the skilled artisan to subscribe from year to year some part of his saw ings to the stock of the Steel corpora tion. That is not profit sharing in MT. Perkins view but it is a return in ad- dition to their wages to the skilled ar tisans of some part of the earnings of the corporation which were made pos sible by reason of their efficiency and their cooperation. Something of this kind MT. Schwab and Colonel Thompson undoubtedly had in mind when speak ing of new relations soon to be establish ed between the men who work for wages and those who employ these skilled arr tisans. They did not mean that labor represented by an organization would be the base of new political party. but they did mean that those who work for The Perfect Baby