it would pay?" My reply was: "If you think so, why not try it? It is not copyrighted."

I am a parson, and I used to preach as a theory what I now begin to see is a fact that there is a relation between what is right and what is good business.

It pays the employer to deal generously with an employe. But there is a higher motive, and it must be said in justice to the Ford Motor Company that it did not anticipate the increased. efficiency on the part of its men in return for the things done for them. Mr. Ford said to me at the time that the profitsharing plan went into effect that it was his intention to increase the force rapidly so that a larger number of men would be able to enjoy the benefit of the increased wage. He was disappointed to a certain extent in this because the efficiency of the men already in his employ increased to such an extent that the increase of the force to the number proposed was rendered unnecessary.

Let me say a word in behalf of the older men. Mr. Ford believes that every industry should take its share of the human problems of the community. In this he is quite right, for the burden of those advanced in years, of the cripples, and of those more or less inefficient for one reason or another, in the end is thrown back upon industry. In some way they must be provided for, and a little thought on the part of employers will give the majority of them an opportunity to do some useful work and retain their self-respect. I have the data to show that the big turnover comes in the group of employes between twenty and thirty-five years of age. The turnover is great among men of twenty-two and twenty-three years of age. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the majority of them are without responsibility. Then there is a drop, and again the spirit of restlessness increases along about the ages of twenty-seven and twenty-eight. After thirty-five the turnover among employes begins to fall off-men are becoming settled in life and in habits and steadied with responsibilities. In other words, looking at the matter from a commercial point of view, the workman between the ages of thirty-five and fifty is a better investment than the man between twenty and thirty-five.

Another thing I think you will find true the younger man is a poorer risk in the way of accidents. He is less careful and

thoughtful. He takes risks an older man will not take. The younger man will call for more assistance in the way of loans and charity than the older man. He is less regular in his work -is absent and late more frequently than the older man. In giving the older man a chance I am sure you will find again that what is right will be found to be good business.

LIABILITY OF ACCIDENT WITH REFERENCE TO AGE
GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY - PITTSFIELD WORKS

MR. S. W. ASHE: I want to supplement what Dean Marquis said about the value of older men in industry, particularly in

15

PERCENT

safety work. I carried out an interesting investigation one time to find out the relation of accidents to age. You probably know in some of the foreign countries that are so noted for efficiency the ratio of accidents to employes is greatest at about the age of fifty-five years. See attached curve of Schedman and Emery, for conditions in Germany. In other words, among the Germans. with regard to accidents they are very great at the point peak of the curve. From this point on, the curve falls rapidly. We carried on at Pittsfield a rather interesting investigation, which showed us about the ages of twenty-two to twenty-five that the curve had one peak. The curve fell and had another peak about forty-five.

In other words, we found that about thirty-seven years of age was the safest point and that the tendency to accidents among the younger men was as great as the tendency among the very much older men in industry.

MR. H. E. AKERLY: I would ask if the number of employes has been properly weighed?

MR. S. W. ASHE: Yes, everything is on a basis as the curves show.

ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION-SAFETY
AND HEALTH

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON-JUNE 6TH, 1917

THE CHAIRMAN: As you know, this is a Round Table discussion, and you need not mention your own names. It is entirely informal. We hope you will all enter into the discussion in a spirited manner, and that you will ventilate your needs freely, and that you will get specific assistance in your troubles. I will now turn the meeting over to Mr. S. W. Ashe, the chairman of the committee on Safety and Health.

CHAIRMAN ASHE: I think it would be desirable, in order to make the greatest progress, to probably devote the first twentyfive minutes of our time to the safety aspects of the problem, and then devote the second part of our discussion to health aspects. You all heard the paper this morning, and the only recommendation that I would make would be that in asking questions in regard to safety we confine ourselves almost entirely to safety educational work; that is, that we devote little time to the discussion of safeguards and safety devices and matters of that sort, because education is the part of the safety movement that we are primarily interested in. Now, I shall be very glad to turn the meeting over to you gentlemen so that you can ask any questions you desire. If there are any specific phases of safety educational work that the different members have tried out, that they have found successful in maintaining, and which have accomplished satisfactory results, we would like to know about them. If there are any matters you would like advice upon, we would be glad to do what we can to advise you. We will just make the meeting open to a statement of general experiences. Has anyone here any specific thoughts or ideas that you would like to bring out?

A DELEGATE: This is accident prevention by educational means, is that it?

CHAIRMAN ASHE: Yes.

A DELEGATE: I would like to ask whether there is any danger, as you men have observed it, in a sort of paternalism which may creep out in the safety work and health work?

CHAIRMAN ASHE: Is there anyone who would care to answer that question? You have all heard the question. What is the experience? The question is whether there is any danger of paternalism arising in connection with the use of educational methods in conjunction with safety work, whether any of you have had any experience on that.

A DELEGATE: I do not just understand the question, as it relates to safety first work. With regard to that class of work, I would say that last year during my vacation-it was not much of a vacation-but during the two months I am supposed to teach school they gave me a moving picture machine, and I went over the Erie Road from one end to the other, from Chicago to New York, and I could operate the machine very well and understood it thoroughly. I had to photograph the conditions under which the men worked, good and bad. The Erie employs a good many foreigners, and it was very difficult to get the men to pose naturally. They were always doing things wrong, and that made the movie wrong. That is the way they wanted it. What I mean is that they would assume exaggerated positions, they would pose in all sorts of positions, and we had to do our best to avoid that. Finally we did it in a secret way, stealing up behind them, or getting back of cars, or under cars, and in connection with the work I bought myself a suit of khaki and went into the matter quite thoroughly, and we had a pretty good set of films made in that way. On the return trip back, we exhibited these films to the men, and a good many of them could not understand the thing, but they would recognize their own pictures first, and they enjoyed the thing very much, and also their families.

We also have some films where we show some men being struck by locomotives. These appeal strongly to many of our trackmen. Some of these men are very careless, especially those who have a grouch; perhaps they have been fighting with their wives before leaving the house, and they come out and go to work and are thinking of the row they had with their wives, and they do not see the locomotive coming as they are walking on the track, and they are struck by it.

These pictures have been very helpful to us in bringing to