Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 76, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 March 1920 — HE CALLED THE PRESIDENT “CHARLEY” [ARTICLE]

HE CALLED THE PRESIDENT “CHARLEY”

.( 1 (A Common-sense Editorial by Brace Barton). Some weeks ago I left New York, where the talk was all of labor troubles and industrial unreal Employers were locking the doors against their workmen; and labor leaders were calling out their followers on strike. I went up into the middle of the State- to an industrial city of twen-ty-two thousand people. The vice-president of one of the large plants there took me around in his automobile. “Any labor trouble?” I asked. “Not a bit/’ . "Ever had a strike?” “Not in seventy-five years. Why, if we didn’t read the newspapers, we wt>uld hardly know what the word means.” Later in the afternoon I sat in the office of the president of another. factory in the same city. It is no small plant; the owners are just breaking ground for an addition that will cost more than a million dollars. Only one other company in its line does a larger annual business. As I sat talking with the president, die door opened and the shipping clerk came in. “Shall we prepay that shipment to Louisville, Charley?’'’ the shipping clerk asked. “We will this time, AJ,” the president replied. I gasped.’ A concern whose goods- are sold from coast to coast, a concern whose owners can build a million-dollar addition without asking any outside help! And the shipping clerk calls -the president “Charley!” In that instand a big light dawned for me. I got a picture of a social organization far different from anything we residents of the big cities know. Charley, -the president, owns hie so does Al, the shipping 'clerk. Charley raises vegetables in the back-yard, to cut down his cost of living. So also does Al. Charley’s children go to the same school with Al’s. Al’s wife rides out occasionally with Charley’s in the automobile. And Charley’s wife calls on Al’s when there is a jiew baby, or one of the older children is sick. No jealousy, no suspicion. No profiteering on one side, no holding back on the other. Tlie company is OUR company, not THE company, to every man and woman in it. From oljr present social troubles we are bound to reap some very large rewards. The troubles look black enough at times. It seems to have been decreed by Providence that the process of birth should never take place without the accompaniment of suffering and pain and tears. And it is a process of birth, not of death that we are passing through in this reconstruction 7 period. Out of it is going to come a new world—a world in which things will be better for the average man than they ever were before. One of the developments, in my judgment, will be the removal of a good many industries from the smoke-laden, air of the cities to the pure air of the country— Where every family can have a home and a garden, and a man is a personality to his employer, not a number— ——— _ Where it is harder to forget that the business of industry is to create human happiness as well as to multiply wealth— A Where men stand side by side in mutual appreciation and respect— And even a shipping clerk named “Al” can call the president “Charley.” ,