"Every man here," he said, "is an employee of mine. I have tried to make you feel that your interests are my interests, but I seem to have failed—or you would not be here. I have tried to prove that I want to be something more than merely your employer, but you would not believe me."
"Your record's bad," shouted a man, and there was another laugh.
"My record is bad," said Bonbright. "I could discuss that, but it wouldn't change things. Since I have owned the mills my record has not been bad. There are men here who could testify for me. All of you can testify that conditions have been improved…. But I am not here to discuss that. I am here to lay before you a plan I have been working on. It is not perfect, but as it stands it is complete enough, so that you can see what I am aiming at. This plan goes into effect the day the new plant starts to operate."
"Does it recognize the unions?" came from the floor.
"No," said Bonbright. "Please listen carefully…. First it establishes a minimum wage of five dollars a day. No man or woman in the plant, in any capacity, shall be paid less than five dollars a day. Labor helps to earn our profits and labor should share in them. That is fair. I have set an arbitrary minimum of five dollars because there must be some basis to work from…."
The meeting was silent. It was nonplused. It was listening to the impossible. Every man, every employee, should be paid five dollars a day!
"Does that mean common labor?"
"It means everyone," said Bonbright. "It means the man who sweeps out the office, the man who runs the elevator, the man who digs a ditch. Every man does his share and every man shall have his share.
"I want every man to live in decent comfort, and I want his wife and babies to live in comfort. With these wages no man's wife need take in washing nor work out by the day to help support the family. No man will need to ask his wife to keep a boarder to add to the family's earnings…."
The men listened now. Bonbright's voice carried to every corner and cranny of the hall. Even the men on the platform listened breathlessly as he went on detailing the plan and its workings. Nothing like this had ever happened before in the world's history. No such offer had ever been made to workingmen by an employer capable of carrying out his promises…. He told them what he wanted to do, and how he wanted to do it. He told them what he wanted them to do to co-operate with him—of an advisory board to be elected by the men, sharing in deliberations that affected the employees, of means to be instituted to help the men to save and to take care of their savings, of a strict eight-hour day…. No union had ever dreamed of asking such terms of an employer.