ncing that he was going
to run his business on the basis of the Golden Rule. He expected, as he
said, to go bankrupt in two or three months; but felt that it was better
to go out of business that way than to continue and prosper on an
un-Christian basis. But when the three months was up, he found that
instead of being bankrupt the firm had made larger profits than ever
before, for the people had responded in similar vein, and working with a
very different spirit, had produced a much larger output.
It wouldn't do, on the basis of his principle, to take the larger
profits that had come from the increased efforts of his workers, so he
arranged to divide the profits among them in accordance with what they
were receiving. Again the reaction came, this time in the form of a
petition from the highest-paid workers saying that it was not fair for
them to receive so large a proportion of the profits, in addition to
their wages, and asking that the profits be divided equally among all
who had worked the same length of time. They, too, reacted to the spirit
in which they were approached, and so the thing has gone on with many
subsequent developments and a complete change of spirit in the relations
inside the factory and with the public.
The task of creating the realities of the divine order which is
entrusted to men rests constantly upon the primary fact that this is
God's world, where possibilities of brotherhood and co-operation exist.
The recognition of that world is an act of faith from which the creative
process starts.
Another employer, instead of complaining about his shiftless workers who
do not know how to spend intelligently the wages they receive, carried
on a campaign of education for a period before a large division of
profits was to be made to them, and on checking up the disposition they
made of their share, accounted for practically one hundred per cent in
savings, stock investments, property and improvements.
You hear about the ignorant foreigners who are working at our trades.
Recently I tested out a large group in regard to their ability to speak
languages and found a great many who could speak three or four and a
considerable number who could speak five, six and seven. With my one
language and no productive trade I concluded that I was in no position
to use that contemptuous epithet.
There is also much loose talk about the subnormal brutes in our
penitentiaries. Thomas Mott Osborne, believing in the po
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