The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-04-06
Peoples Forum
On Breaking Recorda
To the Editor of Ire Ape-Hera,

To the Editor of Ire Age Herald:
 On picking up my morning paper today the first thing that caught my eye was the statement, "Seventeen Records Broken" May l be pardon ed if I say the number was one short?
 Possibly you or some of your readers will question my right to speak, for I confess I know but lit tie about the great iron and steel industries which center here. But perhaps as one of the workers in the largest and oldest manufacthr- ing establishments in the world, that of making men, l may be privileged. to say few words. Let me be clearly understood, for I speak not in the spirit of criticism of the com pany mentioned nor of any company in particular. What I refer to is the spirit of the age, in which the church as everything else is included. Let me say for the particular company mentioned in your article, 1 know of no other doing more for the welfare of their men and their families, hence I should be exceeding slow to single out that company for any criticism.
 The question l desire to ask Is this: Will there be any other re- suits from these high pressure methods? Are we not breaking other records? If efficiency in out put is the only result then society might well applaud, but humanity has yet to learn that life's great equation will take care of the diff ferences. Society as a whole is breaking records at a tremendous rate, but let us not forget that at the same time we are breaking men. Recently l was called home from a distant city by wire to say the last words over man stricken down by the enormous strain before he had reached his prime. He was the manager in great plant, beloved by his men and honored by all the con- munity, but the enormous strain during the hours of the day and telephone by his pillow at night meant doubtless records broken, but it also meant another sacrifice to the great god Moloch, and a young wife and little daughter are wearing black.
 Do you say "An individual easel" Alas, wish it were. You can find altogether too many such in lief ferson county. Yes, we are break ing records. I think of two man. agers,j one, twice recently in the hospital and the other will never go back to the office, and score of engineers and foremen and in the lines of their faces the story you can rarely get from their lips, and it reads thus: "I have no time for my family at home, no time for my church, and no time for my duties as a citizen in society,"" Yesterday morning called a lady over phone asking when I could get her hus- band. There are two splendid boys in that home and a girl that gives promise of being a woman of ex- ceptional ability. "1 don't see him from a. m. till p. m. Sometimes it is much later. and then he is 80 worn out he cares only to eat his supper and retire." was her answer. Is this the price of Breaking Rec ords?" Oh, no. Slavery is not abolished; we have only changed it's form.
 As boy I used to visit the ruins of an old Druidical temple where centuries agone the fairest and best were brought annually to be cast into the arms of a huge god and burned to death as sacrifice. To- day we look upon that atrocity with horror-but really have we ad- vanced very much?
 Oh, yes, I have been damned" again and again by these modern priests of the temple because l dared to speak in behalf of justice and right-society if the term means more. No thinking man will dis courage legitimate efficiency in our grsat plants or advocate any thing but justice for capital as well ss tabor and urge pride n our work. These are to be upheld. But tell
 L l. l.