basis; whereas, had we limited the dividend shares to those who had been in our service a term of years, the plan would have worked better all round."
19. The Ara Cushman Company, of Auburn, Maine, manufacturers of boots and shoes, was one of the best known profit sharing enterprises. Their experience may be taken as typical of many others. The account given by the president of the company, who rose from the workman's bench, is so expressive of the employer's attitude towards this and other phases of the labor question, and gives at the same time the attitude of the labor organizations, and the laborers themselves, that the following extended extract is given:
"Our company inaugurated a plan of profit sharing in March 1886, and continued it with some modifications and with varying success until April 1892, when we discontinued it.
"We have a capacity for something over 1000 employés (25 to 30 per cent, being females), and much of the time have had nearly or quite that number. Our pay roll has amounted to from $300,000 to $450,000 per year, which in a small city of 12,000 or 14,000 has been quite an item in business and industrial interests.
"When we started our profit sharing plan much the largest part of our employés, nine-tenths or more, were Americans, natives of the town and state, and were as a class, intelligent and enterprising, and for these reasons we were led to suppose our efforts to make the plan succeed would be better appreciated and could be more easily and more beneficially carried out. When we started on this plan the Knights of Labor were attracting much attention and were becoming strongly organized in many parts of the state and country. They were loud and often arrogant in their claims and unreasonable in their avowed aims and purposes. They had the enthusiasm as well as the inexperience of youth and worked in season and out for recognition and power, and regarded with disfavor, if not with jealousy, any plan for the alleged purpose of benefiting the working men and women, which was not under their control. They usually acted upon the assumption that employers of labor were entirely selfish in dealing with employés, and would not coöperate in nor sanction any arrangement with them except for their own benefit.
"When we started our plan it was agreed that our prices for work should be the same as the other manufacturers in the place paid for similar work, to be fixed and adjusted by a joint committee of our
