president of the company expressed himself as bitterly disappointed by
the results of his many kindnesses, and evidently considered the
employees utterly unappreciative. His state of mind was the result of
the fallacy of ministering to social needs from an individual impulse
and expecting a socialized return of gratitude and loyalty. If the
lunch-room was necessary, it was a necessity in order that the employees
might have better food, and, when they had received the better food, the
legitimate aim of the lunch-room was met. If baths were desirable, and
the fifteen minutes of calisthenic exercise given the women in the
middle of each half day brought a needed rest and change to their
muscles, then the increased cleanliness and the increased bodily
comfort of so many people should of themselves have justified the
experiment.

To demand, as a further result, that there should be no strikes in the
factory, no revolt against the will of the employer because the
employees were filled with loyalty as the result of the kindness, was of
course to take the experiment from an individual basis to a social one.

Large mining companies and manufacturing concerns are constantly
appealing to their stockholders for funds, or for permission to take a
percentage of the profits, in order that the money may be used for
educational and social schemes designed for the benefit of the
employees. The promoters of these schemes use as an argument and as an
appeal, that better relations will be thus established, that strikes
will be prevented, and that in the end the money returned to the
stockholders will be increased. However praiseworthy this appeal may be
in motive, it involves a distinct confusion of issues, and in theory
deserves the failure it so often meets with in practice. In the clash
which follows a strike, the employees are accused of an ingratitude,