Were it
otherwise, neither the workman nor ourselves would know whether or not
wages were being earned. There must be a fixed day's work before a real
wage can be paid. Watchmen are paid for presence. Workmen are paid for
work.
Having these facts in hand we announced and put into operation in
January, 1914, a kind of profit-sharing plan in which the minimum wage
for any class of work and under certain conditions was five dollars a
day. At the same time we reduced the working day to eight hours--it had
been nine--and the week to forty-eight hours. This was entirely a
voluntary act. All of our wage rates have been voluntary. It was to our
way of thinking an act of social justice, and in the last analysis we
did it for our own satisfaction of mind. There is a pleasure in feeling
that you have made others happy--that you have lessened in some degree
the burdens of your fellow-men--that you have provided a margin out of
which may be had pleasure and saving. Good-will is one of the few really
important assets of life. A determined man can win almost anything that
he goes after, but unless, in his getting, he gains good will he has not
profited much.
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