“I am tired of doing my share, holding up my end of the game. We wage-earners are tired of this thing, we don’t like to carry our fair share of the burden, let us try to get all we can out of the company and put in just as little as we can. Let us do each day just as little work as we can and hold the job down.”
Now, you know there are men going over this country from one end to the other who are saying to the workmen of the country:
“Your game is to get the shortest possible working day you can, to do the least possible work that you can get away with and not lose your job, and to get just as much as you can for what little you do.”
Any man who preaches that doctrine, instead of being your friend, is your deadliest enemy, because see what happens. Here is the side of Labor; it says:
“We will get out from underneath, we won’t work so hard; we will do just as little as we can.”
And Labor’s corner begins to drop down (lowering the corner of the table), the earnings fall off (coins slip off) and there is nothing left for anyone (the table is bare).
Men, only when every man connected with that square corporation which is on the level, is interested, unselfishly, not in what he can get out of the corporation, but what he can put into it for the benefit of every man in the concern, will that man himself get the most out of it.
And I think there is no one thing that threatens greater harm to the interests of the workingmen of this country than that pernicious, that wicked, that false doctrine, that a man should do just as little work in a day as he possibly can, and just as poor work as he possibly can, and hold on to his job.
We see, then, what this company ought to be, what any corporation ought to be: a concern that is square, and always on the level, with every man doing his part. You do not need to take my word for it, you see from the illustration of the table that the interest of every man is sacrificed when any other principle governs.