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Then call in a writer and say, "Get on the train and go out and see what is rotten in Owosso."

Muckraking did some good: but we have come to realize now that it overplayed its hand.

In fact, I believe it could be shown that the greatest force for righteousness in the United States today is nothing more nor less than the once maligned BUSINESS.

Certainly Business is the greatest force in America working for temperance.

The young men of half a century ago were pretty heavy drinkers. The young men of today have given up drink.

Not because they were argued into it or scared into it: but because they know that it destroys their efficiency and cripples their progress in Business.

Business is the greatest ally and promoter of Honesty. And more and more I have come to feel that Honesty is, after all, the corner-stone of all the virtues.

I have seen a business man refuse to sign a document that contained the tiniest little misstatement-a misstatement that probably never would have been detected, and would have. meant thousands of dollars in profits to him.

I have seen a man whose time is worth a thousand dollars a day spend half an hour editing a single advertisement-so jealous was he of his firm's reputation for never making a false claim or an extravagant assertion.

Business has taught that honesty is the best policy; and millions of young men have been made better citizens by first being made better business men.

Nothing has impressed me more than this: Get to the top of a big business enterprise, and nine times out of ten you will find an idealist.

You will find a man who has long since ceased to be interested in mere money-making, who is staying in business because of what he wants his business to do for his employees, his community, and his country.

I do not say that Business is perfect. Far from it.

But I do say that the time is past when the young man who goes into business needs to feel that he is making a selfish choice -a choice that cuts him off from service to his fellow men.

"Be not slothful in business," said St. Paul, "fervent in spirit; serving the Lord."

Many a man, building a big business in America, has, as a by-product of his building, strengthened the characters and lifted the ideals of hundreds of his associates, and helped in the regeneration of a whole community.

And the number of such men-the idealists of BUSINESS in America is increasing very fast.

-Bruce Barton, Editor.

ENGLISH LECTURER CRITICIZES SOCIAL

INSURANCE

At a meeting of the Chicago Medical Society, which is considering the Health Insurance Act now being planned for Illinois, Francis Neilson, parliamentarian, author and lecturer of England, held social insurance in that country and Germany had not been successful.

Mr. Neilson said social insurance is a form of paternalism which is equivalent to pauperism, and up to the present the operation of the English system had been a marked failure.

"The beneficiaries, who were of the poorly paid working classes, for which classes the insurance was designed, began to take note of the fact that they were spending fourpence each week without anything coming back for the expenditure. As a result, whenever a pimple came out on their honest epidermis, instead of applying a bread poultice, as they had been doing, they would rush in droves to the doctors operating under the system. You can imagine what transpired."

OPEN SHOP IS BEST FOR WORKMAN

Wage Earners Should Not Forget that Their Labor is Their Property to Dispose of Advantageously

as They See Fit

In every industrial center throughout this country where there is a closed shop, a feeling of unrest exists among the wage earners to the effect that they are ready to quit the closed shop organization and declare for the open shop, which they say is the best for any mechanic to work in if he wants freedom and independence.

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Mill hands and shop hands of all trades complain that the closed shop leaders have threatened to force them out of the organization if they trade in stores which do not comply with the demands made upon the owners by the agitators.

Hundreds of working people who belong to the closed shop organizations say that it is only a matter of time when the agitators themselves will have to look for employment in some shop or mill because at the rate the agitators are going there will be no closed shops to speak of in this country within five years at the most. One machinist said that he was a strong believer in organization but the open shop was the only possible hope for American workmen to get a square deal and quick advancement to highly paid positions and when there are to be any good salaried jobs vacant in a closed shop they generally go to those who have a pull with the walking delegates and not to the workmen who are fitted to fill the vacancies.

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Take for instance the case of the Ideal Lunch Room of Brockton, Mass., where the manager wanted to connect a pipe from one room to another at the expense of about six dollars, which could be done by one man in a couple of hours. He hired a carpenter to do the job. After the carpenter had cut the hole into the woodwork he then told the manager that he could not touch the brickwork because it was against the rules of his

organization. The manager then had to get a mason.

After the mason had taken out the bricks he said that he couldn't touch the soil pipes because that was for a plumber to do. The manager sent for a plumber who told him he would have to get an electrician to take the wires out. It was two days before the job was finished by the carpenter, plumber, mason and electrician and cost the manager of the lunch room nearly thirty dollars, and this is one of the main reasons why the open shop is the best and the cheapest for the poor man to support as well as the rich man, because it is more economical in the end and no coercion exists in it.

The open shop teaches arbitration between employer and employee, with the result that higher wages, steady employment and good fellowship prevails in every industry where it is in vogue, while the misery of strikes, lockouts and other labor troubles, which cause families to suffer for the want of food, clothing, etc., is unknown to the household of every open shop mechanic.

Any one of common sense can readily see the benefit derived from the open shop policy, compared to the closed shop idea of a few agitators who thirst for power in all industrial communities and the nation at large. All banks, stores and other business houses give their efficient and deserving employes advancement without hindrance upon the part of any agitators. Employers of municipalities, state governments, and of the national government, work under the open shop policy and if you were to put the question to any of them as to which of the closed or open shop plan they would prefer you would be quickly told that the open shop is of course the best thing for promotion because the civil service does not recognize agitators in any form and if they did the civil service rules would be a huge joke upon the part of the government officials whose duty it is to give everybody a square deal whenever examinations for promotion are held.

It stands to reason that the open shop is far better for Americans to work under than the closed shop. A wage earner does not have to worry about carrying a card if he wants a job

in another shop. He has no fear of labor bosses hounding him from one shop to another. He is absolutely free and independent of all closed shop rules. He is beyond the yoke of any coercion of labor, which is his greatest asset to earn an honest living. An open shop workman is allowed to earn all the money possible, whether it be five or ten dollars a day, and be not limited to do a certain amount of work per day or lose his employment, which is the rule of the closed shop. Nor will he be subjected to the call of strike leaders any time they feel like causing trouble between employer and employee.

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Wage earners should promote the cause of the open shop because it is for their own personal benefit and welfare, and they should always remember that labor can be paid only what it is worth and that labor is property which belongs to them or anybody else who has it to sell and it is nobody's business what they sell it for but their own.

-The Voter and his Employer.

WHO OWNS THE RAILROADS ?

In the railroad controversy over the Adamson Bill, we hear only of the railway managers and the brotherhood leaders. The large army of small investors in railroad securities is ignored. John Muir, Chairman of the Railway Investors' League, estimates these investors at 600,000. In fifteen years, the stockholders of the Pennsylvania, for example, have increased from 27,000 to 94,000; the B. & O. from 3,200 to 27,000; the Southern Pacific from 1,500 to 33,000; and the Atchison from 1,300 to 45,000. These 600,000 investment owners of our $20,000,000000.00 national transportation system have a right to be considered in any adjustment of the dispute; if their interests are not protected, the railroads will find it impossible in the future to obtain money for new construction and development work.

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