KevUw or Reviews, SOji/06. 



A TWENTIETH CENTURY LESSON IN ETHICS. 



A MAN WHO WANTS NO MORE— HE HAS ENOUGH. 



Of the capital stock of this company he owns four- 

 fifths. Besides this, he has resources which would 

 make him much more than a millionaire. 



In the prime of life, in the midst of a successful 

 career, with the brightest of financial prospects be- 

 fore him, this exponent of righteousness, handling 

 an output of millions, and with plants employing 

 nearly a thousand hands, gives away his fortune. 

 Not a deathbed gift this, when a man has exhausted 

 the sordid joys of accumulating, but a healthy, 

 sound recognition of the claims of brotherhood. 



In 1886 Mr. Nelson introduced profit-sharing into 

 his business. Fur 19 years "the amounts received 

 by the employes as their share of the profits have 

 ranged from four per cent, to ten per cent, of their 

 wages or salaries, or from two to five weeks' extra 

 pay." 



In 1890 he moved the plants from St. Louis to Le- 

 Claire, Illinois, so that the employes might have 

 more healthful conditions of life. He had a beauti- 

 ful home in St. Louis. In Le-Claire, he, with his 

 wife and daughter, both in hearty sympathy with 

 him, " live in the same style as his men, never with 

 more than one servant, and oftener with none. He 

 is friend and counsellor, not boss and driver." 



There is no policeman needed in Le-Claire. That 

 might be expected. 



But in January, 1905, Mr. Nelson conferred with 

 his employes, and proposed a wider application of 

 his altruism. He proposed a plan embodied in a 

 " Circular to Customers," of which the following is 

 an extract : — 



This company adopted a profit-sharing system with 

 its employes in 1886, and has paid, for the entire 

 nineteen years, dividends from four to ten per cent, 

 per year on each one's salary or wages. It has now- 

 decided to take customers also into partnership. 



For the year 1905 we shalT divide our profits of one 

 per cent, on capital, one and one-half per cent, on 

 wages and salaries, and two per cent, to customers on 

 the gross profits on their purchases. A ledger account 

 will be kept with each customer, showing the amount 

 of his gross profits, and at the end of the year, footed 

 and figured on in the same manner as the wages. 



In addition to this, the entire profit, without deduc- 

 tion for interest, on my stock, which is about four- 

 fifths of the whole (excluding a small amount of pre- 

 ferred stock which draws interest and nothing more), 

 will be divided at the rate of four-tenths to the cus- 

 tomer, three-tenths to employes, and three-tenths for 

 benevolent and public purposes to be administered by 

 me. Each customer will receive the proportion that 

 his gross profit bears to the total gross profit. Gross 

 profit is made the basis instead of purchase, because 

 some goods bear much lower profit than others. These 

 dividends will be paid in the stock of the company at 

 a price on which the average net earnings of the next 

 preceding three years would yield six per cent, net, or 

 in six per cent, preferred stock. 



Mr. Nelson O. Nelson. 



In these days of hasting to be rich, with all the 

 elaborate machinery that the brain of man has 

 devised for heaping together the world's goods, it is 

 rare to come across those who are more bent on 

 distributing than gathering. Beyond the philan- 

 thropists w r ho surrender their comfort and goods for 

 others, and who suffer much physical discomfort 

 that thev may win men. one does not look for the 

 spirit that says it needs no more, and will distribute 

 instead of accumulate. Moreover, the theory of 

 perfect benevolence is often enough lauded when a 

 man's income is low, but it rarely finds expression 

 when the tide turns and he controls, if not un- 

 limited, at any rate great, wealth. 



But there is in America a man who says he has 

 enough. The December The World To-day tells 

 of him. His name is Nelson O. Nelson. He is not 

 a struggling tradesman, nor a soured misanthrope. 

 He is a man of clear, sane mind and wide sympa- 

 thies. He says : — " I have improved on Carnegie's 

 saying that it is a disgrace for a man to die rich ; 

 I sav it is a disgrace for a man to be rich." 



Who and what is he? The head of a great com- 

 mercial concern — the Nelson O. Nelson Company 

 — rated in mercantile agencies at the highest rating. 



