Page:Robert W. Dunn - American Company Unions.djvu/40

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Also that "the spirit of Industrial Democracy kindles within the heart of man the inextinguishable flame that is to burn out the dross of his own selfishness and imperfections and transform him into a new creature." However, the miraculous workings of this "spirit" are reserved for the "white person." Negro workers are not eligible for election to the workers' body, the House of Representatives. This practice is, to be sure, common enough in the South and is shared, for example, by the American Cast Iron Pipe Company of Birmingham, Alabama, two-thirds of whose 1,500 workers are colored. The Negroes there can vote under the plan, but they must elect whites to the Board of Operatives! The management explains that the two races would never work together. Besides, a separate board has been set up for the colored men which, the personnel department manager tells us, "discusses matters pertaining to the moral and religious side of their lives." This spiritual note is sounded in connection with many of the plans, but it rises with particular fervor in the Fundamentalist belt of the South. This same cast iron pipe plant in its "Industrial Cooperation Manual," which in some respects resembles an Episcopalian prayer book, describes the service department of the works as follows:

"This third division of our Plan of Service is concerned with our employees. What is known as our 'service work' for employees was begun in 1911 with the building of a bath house. Since that time the plans to render service to employees have developed gradually, one step suggesting another, until the point was reached in December, 1921, when the Management announced that the Golden Rule and the teachings of Jesus Christ were to be made the controlling principles of the business."

Peace at the Pacific.

In the North the Pacific Mills of Lawrence which have persistently fought any attempt at

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