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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW.
IO
the tariff laws. The importers would have raised
the price of felt in 1890, and would maintain it
now under the free trade tariff, if it were not for
the strong competition which we have constantly
forced upon them.
We are prepared to meet them in this fight also.
But you must familiarize yourselves with the fact
that your wages cannot be brought back to the
standard of 1891 and 1892 till we again have a
tariff act which protects American wage-earners
and manufacturers, and that is not possible before
1897.
THE AUTOHARP.
The New York store has pushed that new Amer-
ican musical instrument, the autoharp, to such an
extent that the clerical force had to be largely in-
creased, and ten typewriters are busy from morn-
ing till night attending to the correspondence.
The autoharp seems to have become a formida-
ble rival to our felt department, as regards volume
and profit, and you felt makers may well look to
your laurels now that the lumber department and
the autoharp business are trying hard to pass your
standard.
Although temptation was great during these
hard times to try for an extra dollar by shading
the quality of our goods, we have strictly adhered
to the maxim to produce nothing but the very best
in our line, and we can point to great improve-
ments in the quality of our goods. We can proudly
say that our customers never received better value
in quality and quantity from us than during 1894.
NKW MACHINERY AND KRAINS.
Our inventors have given us new machines, and
are working hard on new devices which shall en-
able us to win the right of high wages against low
wages; of the higher standard of living which we
enjoy, and which we must maintain, against the
lower standard of the European wage-earner.
Brains are the only weapon which we have in
this fight; we must, therefore, use them to the
best of our ability.
We are, fortunately, in an enviable position in
this respect, for all our competitors admit that we
have the best talent known in our trades, here in
our factories, and in our New York stores.
TWO KAITHKUL MEN DIED.
Death took from us Ernst Charles Voss and
Gustav Horn.
Ernst Voss came to Dolgeville in February, 1894,
to take charge of the hammer department. He
hardly found a home for his family and assumed
his duties when he succumbed to the disease from
which he had suffered for several years. He died
on April 2d, in his 43d year of age.
Ernst Voss would have made his mark in our
growing village, had he been spared. He came to
this country a poor young man about twenty years
ago. He was a worker of extraordinary ambition.
From his humble position as employee of a small
firm in New York, he was called to assume charge
of the hammer department ot the great firm of
William Knabe & Co., at Baltimore, and from
there he advanced to the higher position as part-
ner in the firm of Quitman & Co., of London, Eng-
land.
During all the years that he lived in England he
had a longing for America, and especially for
Dolgeville, so strong that he finally gave up his
lucrative and independent position there to come
here. We have lost in Ernst Voss a man who
not only has assisted us greatly in our business,
but who would certainly have been just as useful
and worthy a citizen and neighbor as he was an
ideal husband and father.
Gustav Horn, who died December 23d, in his
58th year, came to Dolgeville in 1881, and had
worked in our factories ever since. He held a life
insurance policy for $1,000. This will enable his
widow to keep the homestead free from debt. He
had also $57.86 to his credit on endowment ac-
count, which has been paid to his widow.
Mr. Horn was one of those silent workers whose
every action was controlled by a sense of duty and
righteousness which wins the respect and good
will ot all.
Always willing to fulfill his duties as neighbor
and citizen, he was happiest when working in his
garden, or in any way improving the pleasant
home which he had provided for his family.
He was one of those true-hearted, honest men
whom nature has endowed with the enviable dis-
position to go through life without making ene-
mies. Like Friend Voss. so could he be called an
ideal husband and father, worthy to be imitated
by his sons who survive him.
Let us rise in honor of the dead.
The report of the working of my system of labor,
insurance and pensions for the year 1894 show the
following figures:
THE FINANCIAL SHOWING.
Statement January 1, 1894:
PENSION ACCOUNT.
To
To
To
To
L. Englehardt . . . .$
A. S. Foster
A. Getman
Gustav Horn
Previously paid to pen-
sioners
$
507
312
280
100
00
00
00
80
1,199 80
7ii72 56
Total amount paid to
pensioners. . . . .
$ 8,372 36
Contributions to pension ac-
count to January 1, 1894. .$ 30,131 07
One year's interest
1,236 68
Contribution for 1894 . . . .
None.
— - 31,367 75
Paid to pensioners
$
8,372 36
Transferred to Daniel
Green & Co
1,849 9°
Transferred to the C. F.
Zimmerman Co
223 09
10,445 35
On hand January 1, 1S95
$ 20,922 40
From January 1, 1895. three employees are en-
titled to pensions, namely:
L. Englehardt
$
507 00
A. S. Foster
312 00
Alfred Getman
280 00 -
$ 1,019 °o
LIFE INSURANCE ACCOUNT.
For life insurance we paid
on existing policies dur-
ing 1894
$
Previously paid
2,198 46
32,396 81
Total to date
$ 34,595 27
Five new life insurance pol-
icies issued by the Man-
hattan Life Insurance
Company, of New York,
will be distributed to-
night, increasing the face
value of policies held now
by employees on which
the firm pays the premi-
ums to
$ 172,000 00
Deposits made January 1,
1895, for those rejected
by Life Insurance Co . .
549 05
Previously paid
3,147 25
$
3,696 30
ENDOWMENT ACCOUNT.
On hand due employees at
maturity
$
8,169 65
Nothing could be credited to endowment ac-
count this year.
SUMMARY OF EARNING SHARING ACCOUNT.
Year 1894 for Pensions . . .
None
"
" li " Insurance. . .$
2,198 46
"
"
Endowments.
None
" " Deposits. . .
549 05
"
" " School Pur-
poses . . .
4,326 75
"
" " Parks
468 52
Previously paid
211,635 31
Grand total
$219,178 o
THE AID SOCIETY.
Your Aid Society paid out for relief money
and expenses during 1894
$ 969 14
Since its existence it paid out a total of . 8,756 91
And has'a reserve fund of
2,495 05
BRIGHTER PROSPECTS AHEAD.
Again, it was impossible to credit anything to
endowment account, because no' one couid earn
any more than his wages. Since any further dis-
astrous tariff legislation has been forestalled by
the last election, we may look forward to better
business in 1895, and I hope to report at our next
reunion a goodly contribution to that account.
We transferred from pension and endowment
accounts $3,528.23 to Daniel Green & Co., and
$439.02 to the C. F. Zimmermann Co.; also seven
life insurance policies for $1,000 each to employees
of Daniel Green & Co. These sums represent the
amounts contributed for employees who have left
us and are now working for those firms, both of
whom have adopted our system of pension, insur-
ance and endowment, and have agreed with us to
transfer any benefits accruing under this system
to any employee of good standing, so that a change
from one firm to another will not impair a work-
man's rights to these benefits.
You will observe that no contribution has been
made to the pension fund for the year 1894. The
reason for this is that the interest on our present
fund is more than sufficient to pay our pensioners,
and unless the number of our employees should
largely increase, there will be no need of any fur-
ther contributions. This proves we have allowed
too high a rate for contribution.
Our statistics, based on a twenty years' period,
shows that a rate of $4.00 per annum contributed
for each employee is ample to assure the security
of the fund.
This is equal to about three-quarters of one per
cent, of the amount of wages paid, end demon-
strates that this pension system can be adopted by
all employers. If a business does not permit of
setting aside annually an amount equal to three-
quarters of one per cent, of the wages paid,I claim
that such a business is too close to the verge of
bankruptcy to be useful to society. The only ques-
tion which arises is as to whether or not it is wise
to adopt this system.
RIDICULED AS A DREAMER.
You are aware of the various criticisms to which
I have been subjected during these- twenty years.
It required that stubbornness with which nature
endowed me, to keep up a scheme which was ridi-
culed by many, looked upon by the business world
as an impractical hobby of a dreamer, and which
was scorned by you, for whose benefit it was de-
vised. I understood you, because in my younger
days when earning my living at the bench, I had
the same thoughts which control you now. I was
a socialist then, more enthusiastic, stronger and
firmer in my belief, and better grounded in the
doctrines of socialism than are any of you, having
been the pupil of one of the founders of the social-
istic movement. I therefore knew that anything
which I, as your employer, would offer you, out-
side of your wages, would be received with dis-
trust, or at best with indifference.
AN IMMENSE I'KOHI.KM.
I have never claimed that my system would
solve the social problem. This question, which is
daily pushing itself to the front, imperatively de-
manding solution, is altogether too immense to be
solved by a single man or a single institution, or
by a theory. But while I knew that something
was wrong in our wage system, that the relation of
capital to labor needed great improvement, I also
knew that socialism, as preached by Karl Marx,
could not furnish the remedy.
The founder of the American School of Eco-
nomics, George Gunton, was the first to point out
the economic error of Marx's theory of surplus
value, upon which he rests his whole doctrine.
Knowing and feeling the defects in the present
system, and knowing also that the most advocated
remedy, socialism, was based on a wrong assump-
tion, I studied carefully all the writers on econom-
ics, from Adam Smith to Cary, only to become
more confused without getting any light on the
subject. George Gunton, who has been truly
called the Darwin of the "dismal science," had
not then written his great work, and I did not
enjoy, as in later years, his teaching.
Not getting any satisfaction from economic
writers, I turned my attention to the experiments
made with profit-sharing. I found that nearly all
profit-sharing schemes lacked an economic basis.
Isolated individual efforts can have but little influ-
ence upon the entire social system as we know it,
since the advent of the wage and factory system,