Article September 13, 1919 Issue

Signs of the Times

[Rocky Mountain News, Denver, Colo.]

As hard-headed a business man as John D. Rockefeller, Jr., is reported to have said a day or two since that industrial peace will never arrive until both capital and labor put into operation the golden rule. "Bolshevism is not likely to spread in the United States when the wage earner knows that capital is treating him fairly," continued Mr. Rockefeller. "Therefore, the sanest industrial policy is that which has constantly in mind the welfare of the employees as well as profits, and which, when human considerations demand it, subordinates profits to welfare."

This is the prophecy. What are the signs of its fulfillment? A dispatch of the same day announced the transfer by the Eastman Kodak Company of six million dollars' worth of stock to its older employees and the setting aside of a like amount for the newer employees as soon as they became eligible through length of service—not as a gift, but to be paid for on easy terms at par value, about one sixth of its real value. On the same day the Endicott-Johnson corporation of New York announced that each year henceforth, after paying a certain fixed dividend on preferred stock, the remainder of the profits shall be divided fifty-fifty between the workers and the owners of the stock. These are not concessions with a string tied to them. If so, they would be worse than useless. And they are as complimentary to the employees as to the employers, for discontented, disloyal workmen would never inspire such expressions of good will.

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