Profit-Sharing. 



A block of five shares more could be purchased at par whenever the 

 first block had been paid for. As the stock advanced in value all 

 availed themselves of the option. Eight years ago, when the capital 

 stock of this house was increased to $1,000,000, the oldest and most 

 faithful workmen were taken in as partners; that is, allowed to buy 

 stock to the aggregate amount of one thousand shares. Out of a total 

 force of six hundred men about fifty have already become partners. The 

 results to the firm are: Great prosperity, largely due to increased zeal 

 and activity among stockholding employees; greater permanency and a 

 more watchful care to prevent waste of material and of time on the 

 part of non-shareholders. The results to the employees are increased 

 thrift, economy and sobriety and a greatly increased self-respect; also 

 profits to the original ten-share stockholders amounting to sixty per 

 cent per annum, so that many of them have become property-owners, 

 worth from $20,000 to $50,000, and twelve per cent annual profit to 

 the later shareholders, so that many of them are now worth from 

 $10,000 to $20,000. Their co-operative stock is above par, but, of 

 course, after they had made the first thousand dollars, other profitable 

 investments helped to swell their fortunes. An enterprise, similar to 

 the old whaling system of profit-sharing, was entered into by the men- 

 haden fishermen of New Jersey in 1889. A firm of tinmakers in 

 Chicago has declared a dividend of seven and seven-tenths per cent 

 upon earnings, and a manufacturing company of St. Louis, five per 

 cent. The stockholders of the Toledo, Ann Arbor and Northern rail- 

 road have informed their men that in any dividend year each of them 

 (except the president) who has been five years employed shall receive 

 a dividend upon his wages just as though his total year's earnings 

 were so much stock. The workmen of Proctor & Gamble, soapmakers, 

 of Cincinnati, have accepted a proposal that profits above interest on 

 capital shall form a surplus fund to be divided between employers and 

 employed in the proportion of capital invested to wages earned. Pills- 

 bury & Co., of Minneapolis, the largest milling firm in the west, have 

 just finished a division of $40,000 among their employees. This has 

 been made in pursuance of a profit-sharing plan adopted four years 

 ago. For two years there was no money divided, but the third year 

 was a profitable one, and the firm kept its promises. Profit-sharing 

 in Minneapolis has also raised the cooper from a wanderiDg mechanic 

 to an important factor in that busy community. 



Of course failure has attended many experiments in profit-sharing. 

 The Co-operative Dress Association (Limited), established in New 



