The Forgotten Stakeholders of the Rails

In America we boast of the practical and executive ability of our business men. Yet as mines, factories, and railways are controlled, the nation has not produced ability or integrity enough to manage them. Trusted with vast interests, heralded to the world as men of marvelous ability, one-half of them have landed the stockholders in bankruptcy, and the other half has helped to plunder them to an enormous extent. Enormous salaries have been paid—from $5,000 to $50,000 to the higher class of officers—while the ground tier of employees have had their wages reduced to starvation point. Who wonders that labor frets under such an unfair and unequal arrangement? Corporations that employ a large number of workmen should from time to time appoint a committee to meet a committee of workmen. Before such joint committees should be laid open all the details of the business. Such a method has been occasionally resorted to in New England, and with good results. But to secure content and harmony, this should be the regular established and recognized method. In England, wherever it has been adopted, strikes have been for many years unknown.