Article May 13, 1922 Issue

Signs of the Times

with contributions from Arthur Currie

[From the Literary Digest]

Christianity in business is to be the motto of the American Cast-Iron Pipe Company, which recently elected John J. Eagan, one of Atlanta's wealthiest citizens and a leader in reform movements, as president. The directors, said Mr. Eagan, according to newspaper reports, are all church members, and "they have elected another professing Christian as president on a basis that the teachings of Christ are to be the ruling principles of the business." Mr. Eagan's platform is brief. It stands, we are told, for a reasonable living wage to the lowest paid worker, constant employment to every member of the organization, and an actual application of the Golden Rule to all relations between employee and employer. The company has already carried some of its theories into action.

Those who have lost their faith in the justice of Christ's teachings may scoff at such a program as that adopted by the Atlanta company, remarks the Providence Bulletin, "but it will not suffer from the jeers and scoffing if it is founded on eternal principles." There are many "old-timers, reactionaries, and backsliders who may succeed a while longer with antiquated methods, but the optimist is confident that the Eagan school of business conduct will some time be the popular one, because it will be the most successful." Corporations have no soul, the Pittsburg Post reminds us, but it believes that even if this company lacks a soul "it has at least been given by the directors' action, a heart." And some of these times, The Christian Science Monitor is optimistic enough to believe, "it will be generally recognized among business men and institutions that the most practical, profitable way of conducting their business is on a genuinely Christian basis. It will be learned that the Golden Rule, so long looked upon by them as merely a beautiful theory, is also a workable, valuable guide in all transactions with their fellowmen." In order, then, "to bring about a lasting peace between Capital and Labor, the question of wages and hours of work must be approached in a true Christianly manner by both sides. Suspicion and greed must give way to a desire to do the right thing, regardless of the immediate outcome. A few more examples such as that of the American Cast Iron Pipe Company, and that of the A. Nash Company of Cincinnati, clothing manufacturers, who have achieved notable success by the adoption of the Golden Rule methods in their business, may lead to an awakening throughout the commercial world that will result in early peace between Capital and Labor. An industrial armistice should be signed at once."

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