Part 10

Too often Capital regards Labor merely as a commodity to be bought and sold, while Labor not infrequently regards Capital as money personified in the soulless corporation.

It might seem that technically speaking both of these definitions could be justified, but they are far from being comprehensive and adequate. For both Labor and Capital are men--men with muscle and men with money. Both are human beings and the industrial problem is a great human problem.

This is one of the first things we need to recognize, and it is just because human nature is involved in this problem that it is so intricate and difficult to solve.

The popular impression that from the very nature of the case Labor and Capital are two great contending forces arrayed against each other, each striving to gain the upper hand through force, each feeling that it must arm itself in order to secure from the other its rights and its just dues, is even more unfortunate than it is untrue.

I cannot believe that Labor and Capital are necessarily enemies. I cannot believe that the success of one must depend upon the failure or lack of success of the other. Far from being enemies, these two factors must necessarily be partners.

Surely, their interests are common interests, the permanent well being of neither can be secured unless the other also is considered, nor can either attain the fullest possibilities of development which lie before both unless they go hand in hand.

Only when the industrial problem is approached from the point of view of a firm belief in this doctrine is there any hope of bringing about closer, more healthful and mutually advantageous relations between these two forces.

If, therefore, my first statement is true, namely that Labor and Capital are partners, then certain things must follow. They must have contact. This standing aloof one from the other must end.

Respect grows in the heart of each for the other, confidence is developed, and they come to realize that they are working with a common interest for a common result.

But this attitude, this relationship, is the personal relation in industry. Nothing else will take its place, nothing else will bridge the chasm of distrust and hatred.

It is the recognition of the brotherhood of man, of the principle of trying to put yourself in the other man’s place, of endeavoring to see things from his point of view. The old saying that honesty is the best policy is often scoffed at and pronounced unpractical, but there never was a truer saying. Honesty is the best policy.

You may be able to deceive a man once or twice, or, if he is exceptionally gullible, half a dozen times, but you cannot deceive him indefinitely. You may be able to deceive a number of people sometimes, but you cannot deceive all of the people with whom you have business dealings all of the time. You may be able to make a contract which gives you an unfair advantage of the other man, but the chances are that you cannot do it twice.

From a purely cold-blooded business point of view, honesty is the best policy. Likewise do I say that to treat the other man as you would have him treat you is an equally fundamental business principle.

This does not mean that you should surrender your rights or neglect to avail of your opportunities. It simply means that in the game of business, the same rules of sportsmanship should prevail as in a boxing bout, in a match of golf, or a football game.

Play fair and observe the rules. Let the contest be clean, gentlemanly, sportsmanlike, a contest always having regard for the rights of the other man.

Assuming, then, that the personal relation is a vital factor in successful industrial life, but recognizing the impossibility in this day of big business of reproducing it as it existed between employer and employee in the early days of industrial development, how can a like result be brought about, how can personal contact be established?

Granting that it is impossible for the stockholders of a great corporation, because of their number, because of their geographic relations, to come into frequent or even semi-occasional contact with their partners, the employees of a company; and that the situation is much the same with the directors--at least it is possible, and must be made increasingly so, for the leading representatives of the stockholders and directors, namely the officers of a corporation, to have such contact with the employees, special officers being appointed for that purpose alone if necessary. Because of the vast numbers of employees in many a company, even this is difficult and altogether too infrequent to-day.

As the officers of our great corporations come to see more and more that the problem of understanding their employees and being understood by them is a vital problem, one of the most important with which the management is confronted, they will be convinced not only of the wisdom of devoting far more time to such contact, but of the desirability and the advantage to themselves, and to the employees as well as to the company, of such closer relation and intimate conference in regard to matters of common interest and concern.

If we look into our own experience, we find that the misunderstandings which we have had with other men have been largely the result of lack of contact. We have not seen eye to eye.

Men cannot sit around a table together for a few hours or several days perhaps and talk about matters of common interest, with points of view however diverse, with whatever of misunderstanding and distrust, without coming to see that after all there is much of good in the worst of us and not so much of bad in most of us as the rest of us have sometimes assumed.

But someone says, “We grant the desirability of the personal relation in industry. Theoretically we accept your suggestion as to how this theory can be put into practice in the industrial life of to-day, but practically, will it work?”

I can best answer this question by saying that such a program has been put into operation in a certain coal company in Colorado, in which my father and I are interested and of which I am a director.

If you will pardon a personal reference, may I say that when I visited Colorado some eighteen months ago, I had the opportunity of talking personally with hundreds, if not thousands, of the employees of that company. These men and many of the people of Colorado had formed their opinion of anyone bearing the name of Rockefeller from what they had read and heard. Because of certain industrial disturbances which had developed in the State, bitterness and hatred had existed to a high degree.

As I went from camp to camp I talked with the representatives of the men individually and privately, I went into the men’s homes, talked with their wives and children, visited their schools, their places of amusement, their bathhouses, and had just such friendly relations with them as any man going among them would have had.

Frequently I found points of difference between the men and the officers, but in no single instance were the men as I met them other than friendly, frank and perfectly willing to discuss with me, as I was glad to discuss with them, any matters they chose to bring up.

It often occurred that there was justice in the points which they raised and their requests were acted upon favorably by the officers. Also frequently situations were presented in which it was impossible for the company to meet the views of the employees. But never was a subject dismissed until, if unable myself to make the situation clear, the highest officials of the company were called in to explain to the employee with the utmost fulness and detail the reasons why the thing suggested was impossible.

No matter presented was left without having been settled in accordance with the request of the employee, or, in the event of that being impossible, without his having been fully convinced that the position of the company was just and right and in the common interest.

This personal contact with the employees of the company led to the establishment of mutual confidence and trust and to the acceptance on their part of the premise that they and we were partners.