“I propose putting in the best drainage system we can find. I propose bath-rooms, wash-rooms and elevators.”
“Good!” said both her superintendents.
“As for machinery, you will know what is needed there. We want the latest improved methods of doing our work. It will not do for us to be behind the times, or the world will laugh at our philanthropic efforts. The standard of the mills must be as high now as it was in my grandfather’s day. Nothing but the best of goods, made after the most approved modern methods, must go out from us. Otherwise the world will say we are visionary and lack good business sense.”
“That is true,” assented Burnham. “The business must not suffer.”
“At the same time, I want the mills made so pleasant and comfortable that our operatives will prefer them to any other, knowing that we propose to consult their interests and happiness in little things, as we desire that they shall consult ours in great. Then their homes. Those old rickety tenement houses must be abolished from the face of the earth.”
“Hear, hear,” cried Villard, “they have long been an eyesore to me.”
“They are a disgrace to us,” was Salome’s emphatic answer.
“But you can’t do that all at once,” said Burnham. “That is something that will take time.”
“It is April now,” said Salome. “I propose to begin at once on new houses for the operatives. They will have to stay where they are for the summer, but by cold weather I mean that every one of them shall be in new quarters.”
“Whew!” said Burnham; “you are a woman of business, Miss Shepard. But you will have your hands full this year to build new houses for two thousand people.”