Part 13

Before speaking of the plan of industrial representation to which our president has referred, I want to say just a few words outlining my views as to what different interests constitute a company or corporation.

Every corporation is made up of four parties: Stockholders, directors, officers and employees.

This little table (exhibiting a square table with four legs) illustrates my conception of a corporation; and there are several points in regard to the table to which I want to call your attention.

First, you see that it would not be complete unless it had all four sides. Each side is necessary; each side has its own part to play.

Now, if you imagine this table cut into quarters, and each quarter separated from the others, what would happen? All of them would fall down, for no one could stand alone, and you would have no table. But when you put the four sides together, you have a useful piece of furniture; you have a table.

Then, secondly, I call your attention to the fact that these four sides are all perfectly joined together; that is why we have a perfect table. Likewise, if the parties interested in a corporation are not perfectly joined together, harmoniously working together, you have a discordant and unsuccessful corporation.

Again, you will notice that this table is square. And every corporation to be successful must be on the square--absolutely a square deal for every one of the four parties, and for every man in each of the four parties.

I call your attention to one more thing--the table is level. Each part supported by its leg is holding up its own side, hence you have a level table. So, equal responsibility rests on each one of the four parties united in a corporation.

When you have a level table, or a corporation that is on the level, you can pile up earnings on it (piling coins on the table). Now, who gets the first crack at the earnings? You know that we in New York don’t.

Here come along the employees, and first of all they get their wages (removing some of the coins), every two weeks like clockwork, just what has been agreed on; they get the first chance at the pile.

You men come ahead of the president, the officers, the stockholders and directors. You are the first to put a hand into the pile and take out what is agreed shall belong to you.

You don’t have to wait for your share; you don’t have to take any chances about getting it. You know that there has never been a two-weeks’ period that you have worked when you have not been able to get your pay from this company; whatever happens, so long as the company is running, you get your pay.

And then the officers and superintendents come along, and they get theirs; they don’t get it until after you have gotten yours (removing more coins).

Then come the directors, and they get their directors’ fees (removing the balance of the coins) for doing their work in the company.

And, hello! There is nothing left! This must be the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company! For never, men, since my father and I became interested in this company as stockholders, some fourteen years ago--never has there been one cent for the common stock.

For fourteen years the common stockholder has seen your wages paid to you workers; has seen your salaries paid to you officers; has seen the directors draw their fees, and has not had one cent of return for the money that he has put into this company in order that you men might work and get your wages and salaries.

How many men in this room ever heard that fact stated before? Is there a man among you? Well, there are mighty few among the workers who have heard it.

What you have been told, what has been heralded from the Atlantic to the Pacific, is that those Rockefeller men in New York, the biggest scoundrels that ever lived, have taken millions of dollars out of this company on account of their stock ownership, have oppressed you men, have cheated you out of your wages, and “done” you in every way they could.

That is the kind of “dope” you have been getting, and that is what has been spread all over the country. And when that kind of talk was going on, there were disturbances in this part of the country because the four sides of this table were not square and the table was not level, there were those who in the streets of New York and in public gatherings, were inciting the crowd to “shoot John D. Rockefeller, Jr., down like a dog.” That is the way they talked.

The common stockholders have put $34,000,000 into this company in order to make it go, so that you men will get your wages, you officers have your salaries, and the directors get their fees, while not one cent has ever come back to them in these fourteen years.

If there is anyone who questions that statement, let him speak. Now, let me put it to you men, is it fair, in this corporation where we are all partners, that three of the partners should get all of the earnings, be they large or small--all of them--and the fourth nothing?

Is there a man of you who would put his money in the savings bank and leave it there for one year even, unless he was sure to get at least four per cent. interest? Otherwise you would say that the savings bank was trying to cheat you out of a proper return on your money.

But for fourteen years, to my knowledge--how much longer I do not know--the common stockholders have gotten not one cent out of this company. I just want you to put that in your pipes and smoke it, and see if it tallies with what you have heard about the stockholders oppressing you and trying to get the better of you. That does not sound like oppression, like trying to get the best of the bargain!

And you cannot expect that any one of the partners will remain indefinitely in this or any other corporation if he does not get a fair share of the earnings, with the others. Capital is entitled to a fair return, just the same as labor is.

Would you continue working in some mining camp for even a week, much less a month, a year, or fourteen years, without pay? Of course you would not. You would go to Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio--anywhere else on God’s earth where you could get a fair return for your work.

Now, the stockholders have been pretty patient all this time; they have taken a lot of abuse because people have not told the truth.

I think if we had all gotten together, as we have to-day, months and years ago, and discussed these questions, and the facts had been fairly presented, that there is not a man in this room but who would have said:

“That is not a square deal, and in so far as I have anything to do with this company, whether I am digging coal, driving mules, or sitting in an office directing operations--whatever my position, I will do what I can to see to it that every last man in this big family here gets a square deal.”