I needed workers and I hired them. I have paid them the wages they demanded, improved their station most of the time, and renewed their contracts or dismissed them according to regulations. Some have left the factory to get ahead elsewhere; as one left, someone else took his place. Where originally three men were employed, 15,000 worked later on. Over the course of time, more than 100,000 men have gone through this cycle in my plants. Each one of them has received wages according to individual strength and ability. In most cases one could easily take the place of another, because workers do not have any inventions to their credit; one can find skilful workers everywhere as replacements. So there can be no question of anyone having any particular claim except for the usual one, that being increased wage and salary, which is always a consequence of greater performance. The apostles of Social Democracy, though, try to corrupt the minds of the most modest people through tempting speeches, and they will be to blame for the ruin of many a worker who lends them an ear and is therefore dismissed.
The industrial employer, just like the farmer, has to be prepared for any vicissitudes. Both often pay for the seed but reap no harvest. The worker, however, wants undiminished wages for his work. The cast-steel plant has to send its agents to all corners of the world without sparing any expense in order to obtain work for the factory; and these efforts do not always succeed. Some years yield no profit at all; but nevertheless the worker receives regular wages. It is imperative to gather the necessary strength during the good years in order to weather the bad ones. Without a reserve of profits, the employer would have to dismiss workers in the lean years. Yet even in the worst years, when everything was depressed, the plant continued to operate, produced surplus stocks or supplied products at a loss, just for the purpose of feeding the people and keeping their home-fires burning. – The doctrine of the Socialists also takes issue with everyone’s innate sense of justice. Just as everyone defends his property, so I defend mine. If an idea belongs to me, the experience is mine as well and so is the fruit it bears. The same holds true for the cast-steel plant and its production. It is I who has introduced inventions and new production methods, not the workers. The worker is compensated with wages, and whether I make a profit or loss out of that is my own business. [ . . . ]
I have had the courage to improve the workers’ lot by building housing for them – 20,000 people have already found accommodation – to establish schools for them, and to set up facilities to allow them to purchase necessities at affordable prices. To accomplish this I have gone into debt, which now has to be paid off. So that this may happen, everyone must do his duty, in peace and harmony and according to our rules. [ . . . ]
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