And Mr. Samuel Insull, supercapitalist, addresses his "worker representatives" occasionally in order to stimulate the family spirit. On one occasion he harangued his company unionites as follows:
"My advice is to be conservative in your action. It is easy to get applause by radical propositions. … The real success of this effort depends on how few of your propositions have to come up to me finally for decision. If I don't hear from the employees' representation plan for a whole year, I shall know that it has functioned properly and has been highly successful."
In other words, if no cases are appealed to the Grand High Justice of the Klan, Mr. Insull himself, he will know that "democracy" is working properly among his people. A wage appeal carried to the Chief by some wilful subject would indicate clearly that the plan was not successful! For wage appeals must be smothered in committee. Plan committees are devised with a view to this end.
A Standard Oil Device.
In all its fields—producing, refining, and marketing—the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey has introduced a plan. John D. Jr. had seen a similar arrangement controlling his workers in coal mine and steel mill in Colorado. He decided, in 1918. to permit the oil workers to come under the yoke. In the Bayonne district alone some 12,000 refinery workers are affected.
Investigators who have studied the Rockefeller plan in oil find it similar to other schemes described above. It has not affected wages except to assist the company over certain ticklish places where a strike, like those of 1915 and 1916 in Bayonne, might have resulted. Wages have been determined by the company statisticians. The representatives have merely O. K.'d the items. The plan is admittedly advisory and is merely to bring out "opinions" of the workers so that the company may have a more accurate guide in determining its differential
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