﻿OOLITIC LIMESTONE INDUSTEY 



99 



to repay. One of these employer-merchants states that his losses 

 in this way have amounted to four thousand dollars in a period 

 of six years, and he has decided for that reason to put his em- 

 ployees on the same plane with the general public as regards the 

 giving of credit. 



These stores do not confine their credit to the employees of 

 their own quarries, although, owing to the supposed greater ease 

 of collection, they are likely to grant credit to their own men 

 rather more readily than to others. Merchants who have no 

 connection with the quarries also commonly give credit to the 

 quarrymen during the idle season, and the fact that they do 

 not seem to complain quite so bitterly as do the employer-mer- 

 chants of losses at the hands of their creditors may perhaps 

 indicate a somewhat natural tendency on the part of the quarry- 

 men to apply slightly different codes of morals to their dealings 

 with their employers and to those with other men. But the in- 

 dependent merchants are doubtless more careful in granting 

 credit than are the other merchants. 



The credit system is thus of great value to the quarrymen, 

 many of whom could scarcely live through the Avinter without its 

 aid, or the aid of charity. The prices charged the workmen do 

 not appear to be exorbitant, though they are doubtless some- 

 what higher than would be necessary if the business were on a 

 cash basis. From the ethical point of view^ the cash basis would 

 be better for many of the w^orkmen. As conditions actually are, 

 those who pay their bills are benefited b}^ the system, since, with- 

 out degrading them morally, it offers a means of subsistence 

 through the idle season by stretching their income over the en- 

 tire year, and in many such cases the credit system appears to in- 

 duce an economy which otherwise might not exist. 



Almost all the larger companies own houses near their quar- 

 ries which they rent to their employees. The other workmen live 

 for the most part in town, going to and from their work on the 

 morning and evening ''accommodation" trains. While the mo- 

 tives of the employers in building these houses were probably 

 not all altruistic, it does not appear that they have built them 

 as a distinct investment ; it was rather to get and keep the work- 

 men near the place of employment. Incidentally, the plan seems 

 in many cases to make for morality, since the temptation to loaf 

 about the saloons in town is to a large extent removed, and 

 many employers recognize in this building of homes a means of 

 benefiting both their employees and themselves. 



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