AUGUST 1, 1912 



493 



®W\P KlcDDODd 



A. I. Root 



CHARACTER BUILDING; SOME SUGGESTIONS 

 TO EMPLOYES OF THE A. I. ROOT CO. 

 Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and liis right- 

 eousness, and all these things shall be added unto 

 you.— Matt. 6:33. 



My good friends, I suppose every one of 

 you would be glad to get better imy; and 

 I want to tell you that the A. I. Root Co. 

 would also be glad to see you get better 

 pay, and this is why I offer some sugges- 

 tions. First, I want you to read the follow- 

 ing, which I clip from the Chicago Ad- 

 vance : 



A few years ago a prosperous business corpora- 

 tion applied to a bank president whom we knew, 

 asking him to recommend to the house a young 

 man "who could be trusted." The reply was, "Eve- 

 ry Wednesday evening at the hour when the church 

 bells are ringing a young man passes my house on 

 his way to the prayer-meeting of his church. I like 

 that, if I were you I would look him up." And 

 the business man did look him up, and made him 

 an offer of double the salary he had been receiving 

 — and he is now getting more than he had ever 

 dreamed of. We know the parties, and knew of the 

 incident at the time. The prayer-meeting habit is a 

 valuable business asset — better in some respects 

 than a college diploma. Another incident came to 

 our knowledge in regard to the week-night service. 

 One of our city pastors recently went into the whole- 

 sale section of the city and asked to see one of his 

 "boys." "Have we any of your church members 

 here?" said the manager. "Yes, six." "Are any of 

 them Christian Endeavorers ?" "Four." "How many 

 go to the Wednesday night prayer-meeting?" "One." 

 The next morning that "one" was sent to a distant 

 State upon an errand calculated to test his honesty, 

 ability, and zeal. On his return, having successfully 

 performed his duty, his opportunities were enlarged 

 and his salary quadrupled. The prayer-meeting 

 habit is a good asset ; but the Sunday-baseball pas- 

 sion will cost any young employe dear. We know a 

 bank president in the West who dismissed a clerk 

 for attending the races upon a track in which the 

 president was himself a stockholder. The business 

 man is made or marred usually before he is twenty- 

 five. 



The above is a fair illustration of the 

 way in which clean straight young men 

 often get an advance in wages. I do not 

 by any means recommend that you should 

 go to prayer-meeting or Sunday-school, 

 nor even to church, solely with the idea of 

 getting better pay; but a consideration of 

 the matter may jirove to be at least one in- 

 centive. The habit of these young men 

 had built up character; and this world 

 needs clean men and boys more just now 

 than ever before. 



NoAv, in order to get back to what I have 

 had in mind for some time past, will you 

 excuse me if I mention that, when the whis- 

 tle blows at quilting time, quite a number 

 of our emplo3^es get out their pipes and 

 tobacco just as soon as they are off our 

 premises? There is a very good reason, 

 that I need not mention, why it would be 

 unwise to have smoking of any sort around 

 the combustible material that most of you 



Avork with. From the clipping I have giv- 

 en you, you will see how a small matter 

 fi.Ked the wage value of a man or boy. Real- 

 ly, do you think any institution would pay 

 more for the boy who lights a pipe every 

 day when he starts home for dinner? Would 

 not almost any employer of men decide 

 against the boy who smokes a pipe? 



Our State of Ohio has passed stringent 

 laws, as you may know, against selling or 

 furnishing tobacco to boys; and it is now 

 pretty well known that boys who are ambi- 

 tious to excel in physical strength have cut 

 off their tobacco, or else never used it. Our 

 schools and colleges not only give us abun- 

 dant evidence of the effect that tobacco has 

 on the intellect, but I believe it is generally 

 conceded that tobacco in any form is a 

 stepping-stone to stronger stimulants. • 



What has particularly called my atten- 

 tion to this matter just now, is the state- 

 ment that a boy in our employ recently 

 took his pipe out of his mouth and went 

 around to other boys, big and little, and 

 urged them to "take a pull" at his pipe — 

 (he pipe he had just taken out of his tobac- 

 co-stained and dirty mouth! Now, most of 

 you know (better than I do) how much 

 truth there is in it, and it prompts me to 

 appeal to your best and most manly senti- 

 ments in regard to the matter. I think, if 

 you will look about you, you will find that 

 as a rule our leading men who occupy high 

 fHud important ]ilaces are not tobacco-nsers. 

 Abraham Lincoln never used tobacco. 

 Roosevelt does not use it in any shape or 

 manner; neither does Bryan, and it is very 

 unlikelv that either of them ever will use 

 it. 



When we recently installed convenient 

 and pleasant closets for men in our differ- 

 ent iDuildings, a kind request was posted 

 up, not to spit tobacco juice on the floor 

 nor in the corners of the room. Notwith- 

 standing this, it has pained me to see the 

 disagreeable accumulation, little by little, 

 more or less, in every one of our men's 

 closets. 



Let me ask in closing, dear friends (for 

 T hope you are all my friends), will you 

 not consider the matter, and help your em- 

 ployers in their efforts to keep up the rep- 

 utation onr establishment has long enjoy- 

 ed, for not only being up to date in every 

 sense of the word, but for setting an ex- 

 ample of cleanliness and decency? 



I have given you in the above a word- 

 picture of two boys — one on his way to 



