H I L L N I S UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN PRODUCTION NOTE University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library Brittle Books Project, 2010. f" O n . 16 & AS AN ASSOCIATION WITH AN "OBJECTIVE "'Where there is no vision the people perish.' Any association if it would survive, must have some objective ... founded upon righteous- ness, justice, equity and humanity. An organization lacking in these fundamentals is doomed to failure." 'F 3THE ".]a li y TTHE MAH A AAT "If we care what men think, we must care what men do. Our economic system must be justified to the many who have little, and not to the few who have much."-LAW AND LABOR. COPYRIGHT NOTIFICATION In Public Domain. Published 1923-1977 in the U.S. without printed copyright notice. This digital copy was made from the printed version held by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It was made in compliance with copyright law. Prepared for the Brittle Books Project, Main Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign by Northern Micrographics Brookhaven Bindery La Crosse, Wisconsin 2010 ANNUAL ADDRESS AND JOINT REPORT OF J. EDWARD STILZ, Retiring President ANDREW J. ALLEN, Executive Secretary ASSOCIATED EMPLOYERS OF INDIANAPOLIS, INC. Twentieth Annual Meeting, Feb. 8, 1924 To THE MEMBERS OF THE ASSOCIATED EMPLOYERS OF INDIANAPOLIS, INC. Your President, now retiring, desires, jointly with the Secretary, to express a few pertinent thoughts on this occasion, the 20th Annual Meeting of the Associated Employers of Indianapolis. It is not necessary to discuss the various phases of Association activity since members, and non-member friends, have been kept informed on industrial matters through the Associated Employers' Digest and other printed literature. You will profit also, by reading the Secretary's "Story of Industrial Indian- apolis" for 1923-a narrative depicting the city's steady and substantial development in every line of industrial, commercial and financial enterprise. It will run as a serial in the Association's monthly Digest beginning in March. The subjects we desire particularly to touch upon now .concern, (a) the need and value of employe education in the economics of management and employment relations; (b) the responsibility that will rest upon every voter this spring in helping to nominate capable men for public office at the primaries and, (c) to emphasize that every organization must have as its "objective" a platform of sound American ideals and principles. PAUSE TO REFLECT "Where there is no vision, the people perish." During the centuries that have elapsed since the utterance of this proverb by the wisest man of his day, it has lost none of its force and effectiveness, but is quite as applicable at this moment as it was at the time of its utterance; and it applies with equal appropriateness to a nation, a race, or an organization. Any association, if it would survive, must have some objective toward which and for which, it will strive. And if it would permanently endure, such objective must be founded upon righteousness, justice, equity and humanity. An organization lacking in these fundamental principles is doomed to failure. We are observing the twentieth anniversary of the Sestablishment of the Associated Employers of Indian- apolis and as we stand upon the threshold of a new year, it is fitting that we should pause to reflect upon the .purposes of our organization, its accomplishments and its future aims, that we may determine whether or not we have justified the Association's existence, and whether the future holds out for it a sufficient promise of the attainment of those objects which its continued existence must impel us to seek. Among the foremost ideals of the Associated Employers of Indianapolis has always been the endeavor to bring its members to a realization of their individual and collective responsibility in helping the organization measure up to r- the highest standards of citizenship in support of the advanced position it has always taken in civic and industrial affairs. These purposes are recognized by this Association as necessary factors in the creation of a wholesome public sentiment on industrial matters, be- lieving that an intelligent public understanding of the economics of labor relations is just as necessary to the welfare and progress of the community and to its sta- bility and tranquillity, as the maintenance of the national interest was to the winning of the war. OUR "OBJECTIVE" The aims and "objective" of the Associated Employers of Indianapolis are stated in its Declaration of Principles, to-wit: "1. We believe in harmonious industrial re- lations between employer and employe and that the latter shall receive adequate com- pensation and timely advancement for his services measured by his individual efforts. We shall not countenance any employer who does not pay a fair day's wage for a fair day's work, nor any employe who shirks a fair day's work for a fair day's pay. "2. We are unalterably opposed to the principle of the closed shop. It is un-American, illegal and unfair to the independent workman who does not desire to join a union, to the employer who prefers to operate an open shop and to the public. Therefore, we shall defend the right of every workman to be free to dispose of his time and skill advantageously, and we shall maintain the right of every employer to conduct an open shop. "3. We are strenuously opposed to lockouts, strikes, sympathetic strikes, boycotts and kindred evils. We will resist those selfish interests which through coercion, false state- ments and violence, disrupt the relations of peace and unity existing between the just employer and his employes. "4. Law and order are essential to the com- mercial progress and development of any city. We pledge our support to the properly con- stituted authorities for the impartial enforce- ment of law and the strict maintenance of order at all times and in all places, so that our community may enjoy its constitutional and inalienable right to peace, liberty and security for life and property." "CAPITAL" AND "LABOR" It is perhaps unfortunate that we have come to sepa- rate men into two groups, one designated as "capital" and one as "labor," and that it has seemed necessary to distinguish between these two groups, for in a very large sense all are "capitalists" and all are "laborers." He who employs money, wealth, or property in the conduct of industry, must also exercise mind and body, and use his physical attributes to a very considerable extent, if he would succeed in any venture, and thus "capital" and "labor" are combined in the individual. In like manner, he who employs his hands and feet, his physical senses, as well as his mind, "capitalizes" his physical resources, the talents with which nature has endowed him and thus, combining "labor and capital," becomes a "capitalist." And just as a man's house is his castle, though it consists of but one room, so do his faculties constitute his "capital" of which none can deprive him. The glory of the American workingman, is that he can exalt and dignify his labor through his inalienable right to work when and where he will, free from the restraint of those who, through misguided ambition, seek to divest him of that right. Inasmuch as all men must derive their subsistence through their own efforts, and as the common good is affected by that which influences any portion of the whole, so industrial peace is a thing greatly to be desired as bestowing the greatest good upon the greatest number. The laborer is worthy of his hire, and in like manner he should be ambitious to make the labor worthy of the recompense, So too, should he that is served recognize the merit of the service, and compensate accordingly, so that through a mutual recognition of responsibilities, a full day's work may receive a full day's pay, and a full day's paywill produce a full day's work. MUTUALITY OF INTEREST The employer and employe have much interest in common, 'and a better understanding by each of the problems confronting the other will not only increase their mutual respect and forbearance, but will serve to solve those problems to the greater advantage of all. This can be brought about by a closer relationship be- tween these two groups, not through the instrumentality of any outside influence, which would have its own selfish interests to serve, but by a more direct contact within each organization of management. Education is the great channel through which the forces of co-operation may flow toward the fullest appre- ciation of that mutuality of interest which should exist between employer and employe, and if pursued along proper lines, must result in greater tolerance on the part of the former, and a greater breadth of vision and an enlarged perspective on the part of the latter. The Associated Employers has no quarrel with organized labor, per se; it recognizes and concedes to groups of employes their unquestioned right to perfect an organization for their mutual benefit and helpfulness, just as employers have that right for their own benefit. In order, however, that peace and unity may prevail, and the orderly processes of production and distribution shall not be interrupted, but may be continued unabated to the benefit of the common good, it is necessary that each group obey,, not only all statutory laws that govern society, but that each must in like manner, observe those moral obligations which exist as a matter of right and not of legal enactment; and each must respect the rights and interests of the other, in order that the good of all may best be preserved. Generally speaking, an individual, acting separately and independently, has the undoubted right to work or cease to work at will, just as an individual, under like conditions may use or dispose of his property according to his own pleasure. But just as, for the benefit of society, the law restrains any group of individuals, acting collectively, from controlling its property to the detriment of the public, so a group of individuals should feel that it has no moral right, acting in unison, to cease its activities or leave its employment, in such manner as to stop the wheels of production activity, and thereby sub- ject any other group and the public, to serious loss and inconvenience. Experience has proven that such action is not necessary to the accomplishment of any righteous end, but that with the passing away of the old order, full justice will be accorded employes if they will approach employers with that same spirit of fairness and con- sideration which they themselves expect and desire. RADICALISM DESTROYS The great majority of American employes are loyal, patriotic and peace loving, abundantly willing to plead their cause and compose their differences in the natural and orderly course of affairs, but the thorn that infests the flesh of the industrial body, is the agitator, the radical so-called leader, who thrives upon the strife and turmoil he can succeed in stirring up; who has his own selfish interests to serve, and who is not interested in the welfare of those whom he professes to serve but who, under the guise of protecting their welfare, feathers his own nest. To the end that employes generally may appreciate the extent to which they sacrifice their own independence by following these misguided leaders, and the ultimate benefits which flow to them by direct and unprejudiced negotiation, there devolves upon employers a sacred duty in the matter of education along those lines which will promote the welfare of their employes and tend to pre- serve the proper industrial equilibrium. "I want the wage-earners to understand the problems, the anxieties, the obligations of management and capital," said former President Warren G. Harding, "and I want the employers in industry to understand the aspirations, the convictions, the yearnings of the millions of American wage earners. Out of this understanding will come the unanimous committal to economic justice, and in economic justice lies that social justice which is the highest essential to human happiness." EMPLOYE EDUCATION Plans to make "employe education" in the economics of industrial relations one of the foremost activities of the Associated Employers during this year, have been tentatively worked out by the Association's Directors, who recognize that national necessity today demands that every employer and every organization concerned with production, and with the retention of efficient working forces, should institute as a permanent business policy, some plan of educational program among em- ployes in the economics of management, business and industrial relations. A moral obligation rests not only on the workmen, but of the President and general officers as well, that the department heads and foremen should learn from each and impart to the employes under them, the viewpoint of others and the economic facts upon which industry is conducted. If your employes are not informed in these respects, "Why should you have their good will?" it has been asked, "and if they are so informed how can you fail to have their good will?" The question confronting employers today is whether they are taking full advantage of the potential good will of the average employe, to educate him in the principles of business and the problems of industry. In the under- taking to educate your employes along these lines, "there is no escape from the problems but there is great hope," says Law and Labor. "If we care what men think, we must care what men do. Our economic system must be justified to the many who have little, and not to the few who have much." RESPONSIBILITIES OF CITIZENSHIP There is ahead of us a year of great political importance and each tax-payer and citizen has a personal responsi- bility in seeing to it at the primaries this spring, that all men nominated and elected to public office, whether Federal, State or Municipal, are truly representative of the majority will of the whole people. The United States is today undergoing the "acid test" and this country needs in public and private affairs, the guidance of courageous and outspoken men who appreciate that upon their shoulders rests the responsibility of preserving for the country's sake and for posterity, the ideals, principles and guaranties upon which this illustrious Republic is founded. The danger to this country today is two-fold; there is danger in the destructive doctrines being preached on every hand because of the license enjoyed by radicals under the privilege of free speech, and there is danger in the increasing number of their deluded followers. Men are needed in public office who will uphold our established and cherished institutions; who will defend the rights of person, property and individual initiative; who will guard the sacredness of the law and the inviolableness of the courts; men who will resolutely and militantly oppose any man, or "bloc" and any organization of men that attempts to deny or abridge these American safeguards of citizenship. It is time for the teacher and the preacher, business men and' the newspapers, employers, employes, and for everyone who loves not only America, but who loves human liberty and civilization, to awaken to the serious- ness of the struggle now engulfing the world in the effort of radicalism to rule or ruin. UNDERWRITING PEACE AND PROGRESS The Associated Employers of Indianapolis has dedi- cated its activities to underwriting the industrial peace and progress of the city's factories, stores, banks and mercantile establishments, as well as that of their em- ployes. Its mission is to enlighten public opinion on labor relations, to promote understanding, harmony, loyalty, production and co-operation between employers and employes; to discourage costly and needless strikes, to curb abusive and uneconomic employment practices; to expose destructive movements; to uphold freedom of contract and rights of employment; to encourage law enforcement; to insist upon public order, and to in every way, promote and sustain the national reputation of Indianapolis as a safe place for management and labor in which to live, invest and work. Although our Association is industrial in character and largely confines its activities to matters relating to labor conditions and employment relations, it has con- sistently and earnestly co-operated over a long period of years with the Chamber of Commerce, Board of Trade, Merchants Association and other civic, trade and business organizations in all undertakings that tend toward a bigger, better and more prosperous Indianapolis. In legislative matters, during sessions of Congress and the General Assembly, the Associated Employers of Indianapolis has been active in keeping its members informed on pernicious proposals affecting the interest of employers and employes, and in urging them to support worthy legislation. At times also the Association has had occasion to inquire into city ordinances, and has helped its members defeat some such proposals, while assisting them also to secure the enactment of needed ordinances such as the "anti-picketing and "anti- banner carrying" ordinances. The Association has at all times encouraged and supported public officials in the impartial and fearless enforcement of law and order. It has given its aid in the apprehension and prosecution of law-breakers, and insists upon the protection of the person, property and rights of both employers and employes. As a result of our Association's "objectives," Indianapolis has acquired national recognition as a city of industrial peace. The community rests upon a solid foundation of confidence, mutual understanding, indus- trial growth and business prosperity, largely because its employers have high ideals in the employment relation. The "objectives" of the Associated Employers of Indianapolis have, therefore, helped to produce a healthy community.sentiment and a condition of desirability for labor, for the merchant, for the jobber, the banker and the manufacturer, and those employers and employes who experience the least amount of labor troubles are the greatest beneficiaries of this situation. "OBJECTIVES" BRING RECOGNITION Our condition of civic growth and prosperity benefits all businesses, because industry and commerce are neces- sarily affected in the highest degree with a vital public interest in their economic relation to enterprise, banking and social welfare. Indianapolis is known throughout the country today, as a safe place for business investment and as one of the best cities for laboring people in which to live and work. "The Union," a local labor paper sums up the situation in these words: " Indianapolis is in many respects, one of the most desirable places of residence and em- ployment in the country. There is a general freedom here from industrial strife, wages are good and the living conditions for families of workers are not better anywhere. Strikes are fewer than in any other manufacturing center and its large industrial population is more than passing prosperous. Indianapolis holds a distinguished place among the cities of the United States for a record of industrial peace, which condition is produced as a result of a real desire on the part of the employers to do their share to better the conditions of the working people." Newspapers and publications throughout the country have frequently told the story to the Nation with the result that Indianapolis has received much favorable advertising to which is attributable in some degree, its steady and permanent progress. Here is one example: Sixty-five leading merchants and manufacturers of Peoria, Illinois, published a full page advertisement in their local newspapers some time ago in which this compliment was paid to the city: "Indianapolis recognizes that an American has the right to work, and is entitled to the fullest protection while he works. The city is careful in protecting the interests of its people, and offers every resource to protect employes while at work and on the way to and from work. It pledges the police powers of the city to guard workers against any verbal abuse and physical threats. There is no radicalism in this Indian- apolis attitude; rather is it conservatism. It injures no just man and no just cause." CONCLUSION In conclusion, your Officers and Directors are impressed with a sincere realization of their and your responsibility in measuring up to the high standard of citizenship the Association has attained at home and abroad, in sustain- ing and promoting righteous civic and industrial affairs. It has been a pleasure and a high honor for your President and Secretary to be associated in this work with these twenty-four Directors who are all representative men of large business responsibility and who appreciate your confidence in trusting the destiny of the Association to their care. The services of your Directors are unpurchasable in private enterprise, yet they and other Committees have been willing at all times, to serve the membership without expectation of reward or credit. They have been content in the knowledge that their efforts are a valuable con- tribution to civic endeavor in the safe and sane develop- ment of a bigger and better Indianapolis. Your Directors are freely giving their valuable time, energy and ex- perience to organization work in your behalf and mem- bers are at all times welcome to their counsel, assistance and advice. The Directors are assured that the member- ship joins in these expressions of appreciation of their very valuable services and in extending thanks to them for their untiring devotion to these affairs. It has been well said that: "The individual employer should not be content with desiring an association to help him when he has a strike and to help other em- ployers when they have strikes, but he should give his active moral and financial assistance to the organized effort to make his city a place in which the spirit, of the community forbids industrial warfare." It is the hope and belief of your Officers that with a continuance of the patriotic and unfaltering co-operation of a law-abiding citizenship, the good influence and usefulness of this Association will be further and materially extended during the ensuing years. Respectfully submitted, J. EDWARD STILZ, President ANDREW J. ALLEN, Secretary ASSOCIATED EMPLOYERS OF INDIANAPOLIS, INC. February 8, 1924 HOW THE "OBJECTIVE" OF INDUSTRIAL INDIANAPOLIS IS BEING REALIZED Being excerpts from "A Narrative of Industrial Indianapolis," by Secretary Andrew J. Allen of the Associated Employers of Indianapolis, which will run for several months as a serial in the Association's monthly Digest, beginning in March. Facts and figures that every citizen should know, will be presented, depicting a steady, substantial and permanent civic growth: a story of unstinted activity, expansion, peace and progress in every department of industry, commerce and finance. The Associated Employers Digest is a monthly membership bulletin and those employers who desire to receive it regularly should join the organization. Indianapolis, the twenty-first city in the United States, is essentially a manufacturing center. Its factories to the number of 1250, manufacture 850 distinct articles, repre- senting an industrial investment of $230,000,000 as com- pared with $87,500,000 in 1914-an increase in 7 years of $142,500,000. The total value of the city's manu- factured products in a single year has reached $427,000,- 000, or more than three times the value of our industrial output in 1913. The leading industries of Indianapolis in commercial lines in 1923, classified from the viewpoint of value of manufactured products, were as follows: Meat Packing, Automobiles, Auto Accessories, Metal Trades, Machine Shops, Food Products, Wearing Apparel, Print- ing Trades, Grains and Cereals, Furniture and Phar- maceuticals. There are 56,000 adult wage earners employed in the city's industrial plants. Salary earners in office, factory and store, greatly increase the total number of all groups of workers, the approximate number being 150,000- from 7000 to 10,000 of whom are said to be unionized. The present population of Indianapolis is given as 350,000 in the latest Census Bureau estimates. The city's average population increase during the 'past three years has been about 1000 per month. In 1920 the population was 314,194 and in 1922 it was 342,718. The prediction has been made by local business men that by 1935 the population of Indianapolis will reach 500,000. Our people must see to it that these newcomers possess the qualifications that make desirable citizens whose talents will be directed in constructive channels rather than along destructive lines. This is an important civic responsibility and cannot be evaded with safety. BUILDING AND HOME RECORD Residential growth as represented in the 1923 building statistics for Indianapolis afford added proof that the city is thriving industrially. Its previous building record was shattered in 1923 when a total of 15,767 permits were issued (an increase of 14 per cent over 1922), representing a valuation of $27,144,494. This was a gain of 3.57 per cent over the 1922 total of $26,110,607. Building valua- tions for previous years were $12,794,556 in 1919; $15,284,119 in 1920 and $18,328,965 in 1921. In the volume and value of building construction last year, Indianapolis stood nineteenth among the twenty- five principal cities of the country included in a national building survey which covered 266 leading cities and towns. Local building operations in 1923 were dis- tributed as follows: Homes 2828 $12,467,197 Tenement Houses 24 877,550 Concrete Block Buildings 228 625,589 Buildings (Fire proof) 40 5,558,865 Buildings (Non-Fire Proof) 161 2,736,525 The remaining permits and valuation include mis- cellaneous, stables and sheds, repairs and alterations, the last mentioned item totaling 8003 permits and $2,879,155 valuation. Indianapolis is known as a home-owning city. Eighty- five thousand families occupy 79,000 dwellings, thirty- five per cent of which are owned by the occupants. The last census placed Indianapolis first among all cities over 200,000 population in the number of homes per 1000 of population. Five thousand new homes were built in Indianapolis during the past two years. A new dwelling was completed here in 1923 for each 35 minutes of day- light time according to report of the Indiana Bell Tele- phone Company. FINANCIAL STABILITY The physical growth of Indianapolis is reflected in the assessed valuation of property which was over $600,000,- 000 at the beginning of 1923. This city ranks eighth among all the larger cities in a per capita wealth of $1,913.17, and its average per capita debt is $64.25 according to the U. S. Census Bureau which states that $78.68 is the average per capita indebtedness of all other cities with more than 100,000 population. Thirty-three per cent of the city's population have individual incomes exceedinag $1800 per year, and the fifty-eight Building and Loan Associations have invest- ment deposits from home owners and other thrifty people, approximating $56,000,000. Indianapolis is re- garded as a panic proof city. Its thirty-five banks and trust companies have resources of more than $200,000,000 which showed an increase of $40,000,000 in 1923. The amount of bank deposits totaled $142,831,756 on December 31, 1923, or about $416.76 per capita as follows: National Bank deposits $72,271,319; State Banks $18,924,649; Trust and Savings Companies $51,635,788. The bank clearings in Indianapolis passed the billion dollar mark in 1923 for the first time in the city's history, amounting to $1,049,631,280. This was $148,000,000 more than in 1922 and about $115,000,000 higher than the 1920 peak period of post-war inflation. It is pre- dicted that Indianapolis bank clearings in 1924 will pass the two billion dollar mark. The prosperity of the city is also indicated by the local post-office receipts for 1923 which totaled $3,741,607.20, an increase of $433,- 663.61 or 13.11 per cent over 1922. Postmaster Bryson predicts that the 1924 receipts will exceed $400,000,000. HEALTHY SCHOOL ENROLLMENT "Conditions of health and school enrollment tend to show that, (a) Local employers are earnestly co-operating in the collective effort to promote mental and physical hygiene through improved and healthful working con- ditions and, (b) There is a minimum of child labor in Indianapolis. In a list of 39 cities, Indianapolis ranked thirty-seventh in expenditures in 1920, for health service, according to the American Journal of Public Health. The city's per capita health expenditures over a ten year period, is given as 45.1 cents. The average per capita cost of other large cities for health service is stated as 70.4 cents, and the highest per capita cost indicated in the table was 104.9 in Bridgeport, Conn. Illiteracy in Indianapolis has been reduced to 2.1 per cent largely because of the enormous school enroll- ment which has increased two and one-half times in 23 years. Today, the approximate high school enrollment is 10,000 whereas in 1900 it was 2251. The present enrollment in the city's elementary grade schools is about 52,000 and in 1900 it was 27,000. Since 1915 alone, there has been a total increase of 12,865 in school enrollment, an average of 1,196 each year for grade schools and 642 for high schools in Indianapolis. The high school enrollment over a period of years has been far ahead of the grade schools, and indicates that our population is thrifty and prosperous to a degree that enables these boys and girls to prepare themselves for higher learning. Living conditions here are such as to render it unnecessary for the city's youth to contribute towards the family income by entering upon a livelihood immediately upon leaving the elementary schools. The community is benefited by this higher type of citizenship for which it pays $58.38 per capita, according to Chas. Kettleborough, Director of t"% :Indiana State Legislative Reference Bureau, who say; that this includes a total school debt for Indianapoli of $8,488,000 and a total city debt of $9,852,336. The cost of school maintenance in Indianapolis according to the U. S. Census Bureau, was $4,082,000 in 1922, an increase of 149 per cent over 1917 which was $1,637,000 ur a per capita cost of $5.55; the per capita in 1922 was $12.19. This book is a preservation facsimile produced for the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. It is made in compliance with copyright law and produced on acid-free archival 60# book weight paper which meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (permanence of paper). Preservation facsimile printing and binding by Northern Micrographics Brookhaven Bindery La Crosse, Wisconsin 2010