CHAPTER XIIIALL DEPENDENT UPON THE PAYROLL
The importance of the American payroll upon which all rely is emphasized, and the necessity of safeguarding this payroll is shown together with a lesson in domestic economy.
While the government has kept as few as possible in its employ we are dependent, directly or indirectly, upon the payroll. Not only the merchant and the farmer, but the professional man and banker, have suffered when, for any cause, labor has stood in the bread line. This is well illustrated by the fact that the American people consumed 5.94 bushels of wheat per capita during 1892, only 3.44 bushels in 1894 and over 7 bushels in 1906. He who had eaten at the back door as a tramp fed himself like a prince when every wheel was turning and everyone working.
These figures are also illuminating: We imported for consumption $12.50 per capita in 1892, only $10.81 in 1896 and $16.49 in 1907. This may cause surprise when you remember that the minimum per capita importation of 1896 waswhen the average tariff duty collected thereon was only 20.67 percent, while in 1907 the average rate was 23.28 percent. Notwithstanding the higher rate, we actually imported for consumption sixty percent more merchandise per capita than under the lower tariff rate. No more indubitable proof can be found that when labor is employed, and the payroll large, all classes and conditions prosper.
ECONOMIC PHILOSOPHY
Suppose I build a factory costing, say, one hundred thousand dollars, and enter an untried field of manufacture. I pay out two hundred thousand dollars in wages and make a net profit of fifty thousand dollars. These figures are unimportant except as an illustration. I have made fifty per cent on my investment and the world says it is too much. It is too much, notwithstanding the fact that I take all the risk, make the experiment and demonstrate the possibilities of a new industry. I also pay a wage at which my employees are glad to work. Not one of them risks a day’s toil. But, because my profits are large, if for no other reason, I am certain to have competition next year.
What shall I do with my fifty thousand dollars net profit? I can eat no more than I haveeaten, and I cannot wear more than one suit of clothes at a time.
I challenge anyone to tell me how I can keep my profit away from labor except by converting it into cash and locking it in a safe deposit box. Suppose I give my daughter a big wedding and spend much money for cut flowers. Cut flowers are nature’s sunshine plus management and labor. So management and labor get that. But management is compelled to spend its share as I spend mine, and thus it all goes directly or indirectly to labor. I build for my daughter a home and fill it with furniture, china, glass and silver. Both the house and its furnishings consist of lumber in the forest, ore in the ground, clay in the pit, white sand in the bank, and other raw materials, plus management, labor and transportation—and transportation is labor. Thus labor gets all except the portion which goes to management and capital, and management and capital are compelled to turn their respective shares into labor.
Here the theoretical socialist and the scientist—I mean the man who recognizes that nothing is scientific except what stands the test of experience—part company. The socialist admits that cut flowers are sunshine plus labor and as sunshine receives no portion he demandsthat labor shall have it all. He forgets or refuses to recognize that without directing energy there would be no greenhouse, water system, heating plant or other essential of production. Labor and sunshine never produced anything better than a wild flower. Of course labor may and frequently does furnish the management. All the necessary equipment for the production of the various articles I have mentioned is the result of a directing genius which we call management.
Let no one accuse me of trying to deceive or cajole labor. I not only admit, but I assert, that there is far more satisfaction, though not necessarily greater happiness, in drawing dividends than wages. I have had both experiences. I am an expert, for I have either touched or seen life at every angle. I have worked to the limit, day after day, from five in the morning until nine at night for hire, with not to exceed one hour for the three meals, and have gone to bed happy. For fifteen years I was at my law office, as a rule, from seven in the morning until ten at night, and for more than thirty years of my mature life I never took a day for recreation. My wife and I are now living quite comfortably from dividends, but we look back upon those strenuous years, in which this best woman in theworld joyfully and even joyously bore her share, as the happiest period of our lives. Still I repeat, dividends are better than pay envelopes or checks from clients. And I am glad they are. The All-Wise must have designed they should be, for otherwise life would be one dreary humdrum of drudgery, with little incentive to great effort and greater sacrifice, the universalquid pro quoin the great one-price store of republics.
In this connection permit me to urge every man whose wakeful hours are spent in toil, to make it exceedingly clear to his children that there is more satisfaction in drawing dividends than wages. Let the youth also know that nearly every one who now draws dividends began by drawing wages. I can recall very few men whose names are or have been known beyond the confines of local communities, whether bankers, lawyers, manufacturers, merchants or railroad presidents, whose hands have not been calloused with humble toil. This is conspicuously so of Rockefeller, Carnegie, Wanamaker and Schwab, and was equally true of E. H. Harriman, C. P. Huntington, J. J. Hill, George M. Pullman, the McCormicks and practically all others who in days past rendered conspicuous service in making America.