New-York tribune., 1919-05-29
Men 10 Become Men

The Standard OIL Company Of New
Jersey is happy in having as president
gentleman as intelligent as ". C.
Teagle; the company is further happy
that it is manned by employees as inteIi.
gent as the lilo on its payroll.
For a year the company has been
working under a Joint conference in
dusti'ial relationship plan Under it
$5,o0oo00 has been added to wages, and
this without diminishing the efficiency
Of the company. The men. shaking off
the dominion of ideas which have been
loo prevalent in labor circles, see the SIM
pie truth that there is but one way per-
manently to raise wage scale, and
that this way is to add to the product
per man.
Employers and employees alike are
victims of false economic education.
The pestilent doctrine is accepted that
wages are paid out of accumulated
capital. Deluded by this, the employer
has thought the more he withheld from
labor the better for him, and, equally
deluded, the employe has thought the
more he could screw out of capital the
better for him.
Belief in economic antagonism has
thus been created. and millions OF books
and pamphlets have been written TO
spread the dogma that labor is exploited.
Exploitation has occurred in individual
instances, bat in highly organized, mod
erl industry it is a survival from old and
bad days. The true relation is one of
partnership and mutual interest.
Employees quite as much hire the boss
as the boss hires the men, One side gets
It's compensation in wages and the other
III profits, which ave wages under an
other name. If profits are too high
they are to be reduced, just as other
wages when too high
'Fhe law Of supply and demand is
n7isread. II has been assumed that be-
cause commodities are high when in
small supply and low when in large sup
ply the less work man does the
more valuable labor becomes. This is
net true so far as labor is concerned,
fer only in a partial way or meta
phGrical sense is labor a commodity.
Labor is measured in time and oper-
ates in time, and a diminution OF the
anlpunt of product in time inevitably di-
mihishes the distributed dividend. A re-
duction in the supply of labor-that is,
The creation achieved by labor in any
particular period-does not increase but
lowers wages.
No good reason exists for thinking
10000 or 100000 men cannot be edu-
Gated to concurrent perception of
primary economic truths in whose cor
rect understanding they are vitality in
terested. The experiment has been
little tried. 1t is worth while to trv it.
If it succeeds, and the average worker
realizes he hits himself when he slacks,
and that he and the boss are on the
same JOB, then he viii be Boshevism
proof, and at the same time be alert
enough and get fair share in the
division
Once root the idea in mems minds
that they are paid out Of current pro-
duction, not out of accumulated capital.
and it will not he necessary to worry
over industrial troubles The workman,
according to the sound instinct Of the
old Americanism, viii DO with the
utmost skill and energy the work be
fore his hand and brain. And not only
F.ill there be material reward in this,
but intellectual and spiritual enhance
ment and an escape from moods born Of
the thought that a man is not a man,
but a mere cog in a machine.