“Well,” returned the manufacturer, with cosey enjoyment, “I asked him if the men would take the concern and run it themselves.” We laughed again; this seemed even better than the other joke. “But he said, ‘No’; they would not like to do that. And then I asked him just what they would like, if they could have their own way, and he said they would like to have me run the business, and all share alike. I asked him what was the sense of that, and why, if I could do something that all of them put together couldn’t do, I shouldn’t be paid more than all of them put together; and he said that if a man did his best he ought to be paid as much as the best man. I asked him if that was the principle their union was founded on, and he said, ‘Yes,’ that the very meaning of their union was the protection of the weak by the strong and the equalization of earnings among all who do their best.”
We waited for the manufacturer to go on, but he made a dramatic pause at this point, as if to let it sink into our minds; and he did not speak until the Altrurian prompted him with the question, “And what did you finally do?”
“I saw there was only one way out for me, and I told the fellow I did not think I could do business on that principle. We parted friends, but the next Saturday I locked them out and smashed their union. They came back, most of them—they had to—but I’ve treated with them ever since ‘as individuals.’”
“And they’re much better off in your hands than they were in the union,” said the professor.
“I don’t know about that,” said the manufacturer, “but I’m sure I am.”
We laughed with him, all but the minister, whose mind seemed to have caught upon some other point, and who sat absently by.
“And is it your opinion, from what you know of the working-man generally, that they all have this twist in their heads?” the professor asked.
“They have, until they begin to rise. Then they get rid of it mighty soon. Let a man save something—enough to get a house of his own, and take a boarder or two, and perhaps have a little money at interest—and he sees the matter in another light.”
“Do you think he sees it more clearly?” asked the minister.
“He sees it differently.”