088. Employers and Employees

Employers and Employees

Rth_2:4 : ’93Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, The Lord be with you. And they answered him, The Lord bless thee.’94

Different nations have different styles of salutation. A Moor rides at full run to meet a stranger, halts suddenly, and fires a pistol over his head. A Persian meets a Persian, and he says, ’93Is thine exalted highness good?’94 A Turk meets a Turk, and says, ’93May your shadow never be lifted from your head.’94 A Pole meets a Pole, and he says, ’93Art thou gay?’94 The ancient Roman met the ancient Roman, and said, ’93Be healthy, be strong.’94 The graceful Frenchman asks, ’93How do you carry yourself?’94 The practical Englishman, ’93How do you do?’94

In my text is the salutation of a wealthy employer to his hardworking employees. Boaz came from Bethlehem to the reapers. He might have said to them, ’93Why do you not set up that grain straight? Why do you allow this grain to lie around loose? Why do you swing that sickle in that awkward way? Hallo! you young men, lying under the trees, why are you not at work?’94 He said no such thing. There were courtesy and kindness and sympathy and prayerfulness in the salutation. ’93Boaz came to the reapers and he said, The Lord be with you; and the reapers answered, The Lord bless thee.’94 For kindness always evokes kindness, and politeness always begets politeness.

The whole tendency of our time, as you have noticed, is to make the chasm between employer and employee wider and wider. In olden time the head man of the factory, the master builder, the capitalist, the head man of the firm worked side by side with the employees, working sometimes at the same bench, dining at the same table; and there are those here who can remember the time when the clerks of large commercial establishments were accustomed to board with the head men of the firm. All that is changed, and the tendency is to make the distance between employer and employee more certain; the tendency is to make the employee feel he is wronged by the success of the capitalist, and to make the capitalist feel: ’93Now, my laborers are only beasts of burden; I must give so much money for so much drudgery, just so many pieces of silver for so many beads of sweat.’94 In other words, the bridge of sympathy is broken down at both ends. That feeling was well described by Thomas Carlyle when he said: ’93Plugson, of St. Dolly Undershot, buccaneer-like, says to his men. ’91Noble spinners, this is the hundredth thousand we have gained wherein I mean to dwell and plant my vineyards. The one hundred thousand pound is mine, the daily wage was yours. Adieu, noble spinners; drink my health with this groat each which I give you over and above.’92’93

Now, what we want is to rebuild that bridge of sympathy; and I put the trowel to one of the abutments today, and I preach more especially to employers as such, although what I have to say will be appropriate to all. I want to say to all those to whom these words may come, that all ship-owners, all capitalists, all commercial firms, all master builders, all housewives are bound to be interested in the entire welfare of their subordinates. Years ago some one gave three prescriptions for becoming a millionaire: First, spend your life in getting and keeping the earnings of other people. Secondly, have no anxiety about the worriments, the losses, the disappointments of others. Thirdly, do not mind the fact that your vast wealth implies the poverty of a great many people. Now, there is not a man of my acquaintance who would consent to go out into life with those three principles to earn a fortune. It is your desire to do your whole duty to the men and women in your service.

First of all, then, pay as large wages as are reasonable, and as your business will afford. ’93God bless yous’94 are well in their place, but they do not buy coal nor pay house rent, nor get shoes for the children. At the same time, you, the employer, ought to remember through what straits and strains you got the fortune by which you built the store or run the factory. You are to remember that you take all the risks, and the employee takes none, or scarcely any. You are to remember that there may be reverses in fortune, and that some new style of machinery may make your machinery valueless, or some new style of tariff set your business back hopelessly and forever. You must take all that into consideration, and then pay what is reasonable.

Do not be too ready to cut down wages. As far as possible pay all, and pay promptly. There is a great deal of Bible teaching on this subject. Malachi: ’93I will be a swift witness against all sorcerers, and against all adulterers, and against those who oppress the hireling in his wages.’94 Leviticus: ’93Thou shalt not keep the wages of the hireling all night unto the morning.’94 Colossians: ’93Masters, give to your servants that which is just and equal, knowing that ye also have a master in heaven.’94 So you see it is not a question between you and your employee so much as it is a question between you and God. Do not say to your employees, ’93Now, if you don’92t like this place, get another,’94 when you know they cannot get another. As far as possible, once a year visit at their homes your clerks and your workmen. That is the only way you can become acquainted with their wants. You will by such process find out that there is a blind parent or a sick sister being supported. You will find some of your young men in rooms without any fire in winter, and in summer sweltering in ill-ventilated apartments. You will find how much depends upon the wages you pay or withhold. On Saturday morning, when you come into your counting-room and draw the check which will bring the money for the wages or the salaries, you will have a thrill of satisfaction in knowing it is not only the money you give to the young man, but the relief to the dire necessities which stand back of him.

Moreover, it is your duty as employer, as far as possible, to mold the welfare of the young man. You ought to advise him about investments, about life insurance, about savings banks. You ought to give him the benefit of your experience. There are hundreds and thousands of employers in England, I am glad to say, who are settling in the very best possible way the destiny of their employees. Such men as Ashworth, of Turton; Marshall, of Leeds; Lister, of Bradford; Acroid, of Halifax, and in our own land grand men so near at home it might offend their modesty if I mentioned their names. These men have built reading-rooms, libraries, concert-halls, afforded croquet-lawns, cricket-grounds, gymnasiums, choral societies for their employees, and they have not merely paid the wages at night, or the wages on Saturday night, but through the contentment and the thrift and the good morals of their employees they are paying wages from generation to generation forever.

Again, I counsel all employers to look well after the physical health of their subordinates. You are expected to understand better than they all the questions of ventilation and sunshine, and all the laws of hygiene. There are stores and banking-houses and factories and newspaper establishments where the atmosphere is death. Your employees may not always appreciate your work, as that style of kindness was not appreciated in the instance mentioned by Charles Reade, where in a great factory a fan was provided for the blowing away of the dust of metal and stone, the dust rising from the machinery, and some of the workmen refused to put this great fan in motion. They seemed to prefer to inhale the filings, the poisonous filings, into their lungs. But in the vast majority of cases your employees will appreciate every kindness in that direction.

Do not put on them any unnecessary fatigue. I never could understand why the drivers on our city cars, when they were drawn by horses must stand all day when they might just as well sit down and drive. It seems to me most unrighteous that so many of the female clerks in our stores should be compelled to stand all day, and through those hours when there are but few or no customers. These people have aches and annoyances and weariness enough without putting upon them any additional fatigue. Unless those female clerks must go up and down on the business of the store, let them sit down. At the end of the year you will find that they have sold as many goods and made as fine bargains’97yea, better; for one clerk with clear brain and rested body and radiance will sell more goods than two clerks with health impaired.

Then I would have you carry out this sanitary idea, and put into as few hours as possible the work of the day. I have been informed by the secretary of a Young Men’92s Christian Association’97an institution which is doing a mighty work for all our cities, and a mightier work today than ever before’97I have been informed by the secretary of that association that there are ten thousand grocer clerks in his city who go to business at five o’92clock in the morning and continue until ten o’92clock at night. Now that is inhuman. It seems to me that all the merchants in all departments ought by simultaneous movement to come out in behalf of the early-closing practise. These young men ought to have an opportunity of going to the public libraries, to the reading rooms, to the concert-halls, to the gymnasiums, to the churches. They have nerves, they have brain, they have intellectual aspirations, they have immortal spirits. If they can do a good round day’92s work in nine or ten hours, you have no right to keep them harnessed for seventeen. I do not think that any intelligent employer can afford to be reckless of the physical and mental health of his subordinates.

But, above all, I charge you, O employers! that you look after the moral and spiritual welfare of your employees. First, know where they spend their evenings. That decides everything. You do not want around your money-drawer a young man who went last night to see ’93Jack Sheppard.’94 A man who comes into the store in the morning ghastly with midnight revelry is not the man for your business. The young man who spends his evenings in the society of refined women, or in a musical or artistic circles, or in literary improvement, is the young man for your store. Without any disgusting inquisitiveness, without any impertinence, you ought to have your young men understand that you are interested so much in their welfare that you want to know where they spend their leisure hours, and if they are the kind of men you want around you, they will frankly and gladly tell you. Do not say of these young men, ’93If they do their work in the business hours, that is all I have to ask.’94 God has made you that young man’92s guardian. I want you to understand that many of these young men are orphans, or worse than orphans, flung out into society to struggle for themselves. Treat that young man as you would like to have your son treated if you were dead. Be father to that clerk. There is nothing more beautiful than to hear an aged merchant addressing his clerk, and saying: ’93My son!’94

That young man in your employ has a history. His father was a drunkard. His first remembrance of his father was coming home late at night intoxicated, and the children hiding under the bed frightened. And that young man has stood many a time between father and mother, keeping her from the brutal blow. He is prematurely old in trying to provide for the house rent and clothing for his younger brothers and sisters. He may seem to you like all other young men, but God and his mother know he is a hero. At twenty years of age he has suffered as much as many have suffered at sixty. Do not tread on him. Do not swear at him. Do not send him on a useless errand. Say ’93Good-morning!’94 and ’93Good-night!’94 and ’93Good-by!’94 You are deciding that man’92s destiny for two worlds.

One of my earliest remembrances is of old Arthur Tappen. There were many differences of opinion about his politics, but no one who ever knew Arthur Tappen, and knew him well, doubted his being an earnest Christian. In his store in New York he had a room where every morning he called his employees together, and he prayed with them, read the Scriptures to them, sang with them, and then they entered upon the duties of the day. On Monday morning the exercises differed, and he gathered the young men together and asked them where they had attended church, what had been their Sabbath experiences, and what had been the sermon. Samuel Budgett had the largest business in the west of England. He had in a room of his warehouse a place pleasantly furnished with comfortable seats and Fletcher’92s Family Devotions and Wesleyan hymn-books, and he gathered his employees together every morning, and having sung, they knelt down and prayed side by side, employer and employee. Do you wonder at that man’92s success, and that, though thirty years before, he had been a partner in a small retail shop in a small village, at his death he bequeathed many millions? God can trust such a man as that with plenty of money.

Sir Titus Salt had wealth which was beyond computation, and at Saltaire, England, he had a church and a chapel built and supported by himself’97the church for those who preferred the Episcopal service, and the chapel for those who preferred the Methodist service. At the opening of one of his factories he gave a great dinner, and there were thirty-five hundred people present, and in his after-dinner speech he said to these people gathered: ’93I cannot look around me and see this vast assemblage of friends and work-people without being moved. I feel greatly honored by the presence of the nobleman at my side, and I am especially delighted at the presence of my work-people. I hope to draw around me a population that will enjoy the beauties of this neighborhood’97a population of well-paid, contented, happy operatives. I have given instructions to my architects that nothing is to be spared to render the dwelling of the operatives a pattern to the country, and if my life is spared by Divine Providence, I hope to see satisfaction, contentment, and happiness around me.’94 That is Gospel. That is Christian character demonstrated. There are others in this country and in other lands on a smaller scale doing their very best for their employees. They have not forgotten their own early struggles. They remember the first yard of cloth they measured, the first quarter of tea they weighed, the first banister they turned, the first roof they shingled. They remember how they were discouraged, and how hungry they were, and how cold and how tired they were, and though now they may be between sixty and seventy years of age, they know just how a boy feels between ten and twenty, and how a young man feels between twenty and thirty. They have not forgotten it. Those wealthy employers were not originally let down out of heaven with pulleys of silk in a wicker-basket satin-lined, fanned by cherubic wings. They started in roughest cradle, on whose rocker misfortune put her violent foot and tipped them into the cold world. Those old men are sympathetic with the boys.

But you are not only to be kind to those who are under you’97Christianly kind’97but you are also to see that your head clerks and your agents and your overseers in stores are kind to those under them. Sometimes men will get a little brief authority in a store or in a factory, and while they are very courteous to you, the capitalist, or to you, the head man of the firm, they are most brutal in their treatment of those under them. God only knows what some of the lads suffer in the cellars and in the lofts of some of our great establishments. They have no one to appeal to. The time will come when their arm will be strong, and they can defend themselves, but not now. Alas! for some of the cash boys and the messenger boys and the boys that sweep the store. Alas! for some of them. Now, you, the capitalist, you, the head man of the firm, must look, supervise, see those all around you, investigate all beneath you.

And then I charge you not to put unnecessary temptation in the way of your young men. Do not keep large sums of money lying around unguarded. Know how much money there is in the till. Do not have the account-books loosely kept. There are temptations inevitable to young men, and enough of them, without your putting any unnecessary temptation in their way. Men in Wall Street having thirty years of reputation for honesty have dropped into Sing Sing and perdition, and you must be careful how you try a lad of fifteen. And if he do wrong, do not pounce on him like a hyena. If he prove himself unworthy of your confidence, do not call in the police, but give him another chance, or take him home and tell why you dismissed him, to those who will give him another chance. Many a young man has done wrong once who will never do wrong again. Ah, my friends! I think we can afford to give everybody another chance, when God knows we should all have been in perdition if he had not given us ten thousand chances.

Then, if in moving around your store you are inexorable with young men, God will remember it. Some day the wheel of fortune will turn, and you will be a pauper, and your daughter will go to the workhouse and your son will die on the scaffold. If in moving among your young men you see one with an ominous pallor of the cheek, or you hear him coughing behind the counter, say to him, ’93Stay home a day or two and rest,’94 or, ’93Go out and breathe the breath of the hills.’94 If his mother die, do not demand that on the day after the funeral he be in the store. Give him at least one week to get over that which he will never get over.

O employers, urge upon your employees above all, a positively religious life. You can do it. You are in a position not to be laughed at, or jeered at, or scoffed at. You hold the keys of that establishment, and by your position you have a claim on their reverence. Now, urge all those employees into a religious life. So far from that, how is it, young men? Instead of being cheered on the road to heaven, some of you are caricatured, and it is a hard thing for you to keep your Christian integrity in that store or factory where there are so many hostile to religion.

Zethan, a brave general under Frederick the Great, was a Christian. Frederick the Great was an infidel. One day Zethan, the venerable, white haired general, asked to be excused from military duty that he might attend the holy sacrament. He was excused. A few days after Zethan was dining with the king and with many notables of Prussia, when Frederick the Great, in a jocose way, said, ’93Well, Zethan, how did the sacrament of last Friday digest?’94 Then the venerable old warrior arose and said: ’93For your majesty I have risked my life many a time on the battlefield, and for your majesty I would be willing any time to die; but you do wrong when you insult the Christian religion. You will forgive me if I, your old military servant, cannot bear in silence any insult to my Lord and Saviour.’94 Frederick the Great leaped to his feet, and he put out his hand, and he said, ’93Happy Zethan, forgive me, forgive me; you will never be bothered again.’94 Oh, there are many being scoffed at for their religion, and I thank God there are many young men as brave as Zethan. Go to heaven yourself, O employer! Take all your people with you. Soon you will be through buying and selling, and through with manufacturing and building, and God will ask you, ’93Where are all those people over whom you had so great influence? Are they here? Will they be here?’94 O ship-owners, into what harbor will your crew sail? After being tossed on so many seas, will they gain the port of heaven? O bankers, will those young men who are running up and down the long lines of figures, and handling the checks and the drafts, and handling the rolls of government securities, answer right that question of profit and loss: ’93What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?’94 Are they keeping their accounts right with God?’97the credit account of mercies received, and the debt account of sins forgiven. O you dry-goods merchants, are those young men under your care, who are providing fabrics of apparel for head and hand and foot and back, to go unclothed into eternity? O you merchant grocers, are those young men that under your care are providing food for the bodies and the families of men, to go starved forever? O you manufacturers of the United States, with so many wheels flying, and so many bands pulling, and so many new patterns turned out, and so many goods shipped’97are the spinners, are the carmen, are the draymen, are the salesmen, are the watchers of your establishment working out everything but their own salvation? Can it be that, having those people under your care five, ten, twenty years, you have made no everlasting impression for good on their immortal souls? God turn us all back from such selfishness, and teach us to live for others and not for ourselves. Christ sets us the example of sacrifice, and so do many of his disciples.

In California, a gentleman who had just returned from the Sandwich Islands told me this incident. He said that which you know, that one of the Sandwich Islands is devoted to lepers. People getting sick of the leprosy on the other islands are sent to that isle of lepers. They never come off. They are in different stages of the disease, but all that die on that island die of leprosy. On one of the healthy islands there was a physician who always wore his hand gloved, and it was often discussed why he always had a glove on that hand, under all circumstances. One day this physician came to the city authorities, and he withdrew his glove and he said to the officers of the law, ’93You see on that hand a spot of the leprosy, and that I am doomed to die. I might hide this for a little while, and keep away from the isle of lepers; but I am a physician, and I can go on that island and administer to the sufferings of those who are further gone in the disease, and I should like to go now. It would be selfish in me to stay amid these luxurious surroundings when I might be of so much help to the wretched. Send me to the isle of lepers.’94 They, seeing the spot of leprosy, of course took the man into custody. He bade farewell to his family and to his friends. It was an agonizing parting. He could never see them again. He was taken to the isle of lepers, and there wrought among the sick until prostrated by his own death, which at last came. Oh, that was magnificent self-denial, magnificent sacrifice, only surpassed by that of him who exiled himself from the health of heaven to this leprous island of a world that he might physician our wounds and weep our griefs and die our deaths, turning this isle of a leprous world into a great blooming paradisiacal garden. Whether employer or employee, let us catch that spirit. I can do no better thing for you than to give you both the salutation of Boaz to the reapers and of the reapers to Boaz: ’93The Lord be with thee. The Lord bless thee.’94

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage