Report of the Committee Appointed to Investigate the Railroad Riots in July, 1877: Read in the Senate and House of Representatives May 23, 1878Pennsylvania. General Assembly. Committee Appointed to Investigate the Railroad Riots in July, 1877
History
Report of the Committee Appointed to Investigate the Railroad Riots in July, 1877: Read in the Senate and House of Representatives May 23, 1878
Pennsylvania. General Assembly. Committee Appointed to Investigate the Railroad Riots in July, 1877
Many instances of the favorable results following such action might be
given, but we will only refer to one instance, which occurred in
Yorkshire, England. Titus Salt, whose father was a woolen manufacturer
at Bradford, in Yorkshire, at the age of twenty-one years, started out
in business for himself, by hiring a small mill and one or two men,
who, with himself, did the work of the establishment, and so diligently
and wisely were his affairs managed that in a few years he found
himself doing a successful and rapidly increasing business, and by a
lucky discovery of the value of the wool of the Alpaca sheep, and its
manufacture in dress goods, he soon acquired a fortune. This
necessitated the enlargement of his mill, and to do this the more
conveniently, he moved some two miles from town and erected a large
manufactory, in which he gave employment to some four thousand
operatives. Having been a laboring man himself, he knew the needs and
wants of the laborer, and he accordingly erected neat and convenient
cottages for the use of his employés, which were rented to them at a
moderate rental, with the privilege of buying to those who were able,
thus assisting them to procure a home of their own, and giving them a
substantial interest in the success of the business they were employed
in. He also caused to be erected churches which all could attend, and
also school-houses, wherein every child could receive a good and
thorough education. A public park was laid out and completed,
bath-houses built, and clubs and lyceums established, Mr. Salt taking
the lead and encouraging his people to carry out and sustain these
institutions. In a short time a thriving town was built up which was
named Saltaire, in honor of its founder, and here the laborer has an
opportunity to enjoy himself like other human beings, with no thought
of occasion for strikes, the employer or capitalist and employés all
feeling a common interest in the fortunes of their place, and with none
of the jealousies or prejudices now commonly existing between these two
classes. Mr. Salt has been created a baronet, but this can add no
additional honor to the name of a man who has successfully solved the
problem of the true relations between labor and capital, and who has
taught the capitalist to what noble duties it is possible to devote
himself, and the laborer, that the barrier between the sympathies of
the master who employs and overlooks, and the man who works, may be
broken down in other and better ways than by hostile combination. Such
a town as Saltaire, with its neat cottages, pleasant parks, clean
streets, fine churches and schools, where labor is respected, and
intemperance banished, is a better monument than any made of marble or
stone, and will perpetuate the name of its founder more surely and
completely than if he had made a fortune by grinding down his human
help to the last farthing, and then on his death-bed bequeathing it to
some public institution.
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