Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/717

Rh employés and directors of our company. It was also agreed that our employés should not belong to any organization which could control their action as workmen, and that our company should not belong to any association which could in any way control our action as employers, but that all questions arising between the company and employés should be referred to the committee mentioned above.

"When first presented, our proposition for profit sharing was received by most of our employés with favor, by many of them with enthusiasm, and for the first year or two many of them appeared to try to make their work of such value to the company as would fairly entitle them to a dividend in pursuance of our agreement and purpose. A comparatively small number maintained their interest to the last and witnessed the discontinuance of the scheme with much regret.

"Among the prominent causes of abandonment I will mention: The inadequate ideas of most of the employés in regard to the exacting demands of business, which led them to think that the profits of business were larger and more easily earned than they are; the failure on the part of most of them to realize that success of the business such as would assure them a dividend above fairly liberal wages must depend on the individual efforts of all; many of them could see it to be the duty of the others to be faithful and diligent but did not give it a personal application. But altogether the most important reason why we could not make our plan successful was the opposition, open or concealed, of the labor organizations under the control of professional agitators and leaders. Their purpose was to make workingmen believe that their interests were safer and would be better subserved under the control of their organizations than in cooperation with employers of labor; that wages could be increased or maintained more certainly and to a greater extent by the arbitrary demands of labor organizations than by any alliance with employers, with the hope of a fair share of the profits. It was difficult, and became almost impossible, to adjust prices for work with our employés which were satisfactory to them and possible for us to pay, the men being constantly told, and many of them made to believe that it was our purpose to make prices fully as much lower than other manufacturers as we would ever pay in dividends. The time consumed by the committee in adjusting prices and settling questions which were constantly coming up came to be quite an annoyance as well as an expense; the men in most instances being so jealous of their supposed rights that they resisted many necessary and