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the sharing with capital and management in the actual operation
and control of industry.
Such a program meets the need which heretofore has
been evident. Moreover, it is of epoch-making importance
that in this arrangement the union of the employees accepts
the “principle of economic accomplishment” as the basis of
cooperation, and that management guarantees that the reward
to labor shall be coextensive with its achievements.
The union has, in other words, adopted as a method of
working procedure with management the most comprehensive
plan of industrial efficiency, cooperation, and democracy
which has thus far been developed. The underlying
principles of the agreement, as well as the methods employed
in applying them, have had a practical demonstrated
success under Mitten Management in Philadelphia since
1911.
Now that this agreement has been made, it probably will
and undoubtedly should become the constructive program
of the entire organized labor movement. It will be brought
before labor conventions and conferences for discussion
and adoption. It will be urged upon arbitration boards
and other agencies of wage adjustment.
Its principles are based on sound economics. They are
also in accord with the constructive declarations which
have been issued since the World War by the churches of
all denominations. By these and other liberal sources it
will without doubt be brought forward as a sound and conservative
constructive plan for democratizing industry.
What the Mitten-Mahon agreement may mean may be
gathered from a declaration made by Mr. T. E. Mitten
before the Congress of American Industry in Philadelphia
on September 25, 1926. He stated that if the principles of
the plan were adopted on the railroads of the country, the
employees, within ten years, would acquire a controlling