From Rick B
Saturday, July 23, 2005
"The St. Joseph Valley Register", October 27, 1880, page 5
TAKEN TO TASK.
One of the Herald's Campaign Boomerangs.
It will be remembered that in the day "Hendricks came" the Herald with a
great flourish of trumpets published as a rebuke to Messrs. Pine and Allen, managers of
the Singer works in this city, a letter from Mr. Geo. Ross McKenzie, vice-president and
general manager of the Singer Manufacturing company, which set forth the rule long ago
promulgated by the company that their business should in no wise be used for political
purposes, the penalty for such offense being immediate discharge of the employe so
engaged.
In due time this issue of the Herald reached Mr. McKenzie, who in the meantime had no
occasion to discharge any of his employes here on account of the rule above mentioned, and
that gentleman sat down and wrote the editor of the Herald a letter of which the following
is a copy. It was naturally expected that being an honorable (?) journal and anxious to
dissipate any false impressions it might have made, the Herald would publish this letter,
but more than a week having elapsed since the Herald received the letter and no
publication of it having been made, The Register takes the liberty of presenting the truth
to the public in the form of the letter itself. Here it is:
October 13th, 1880. [in italics]
To the Editor of the Daily Herald, South Bend: [in italics]
Dear Sir,--In a communication dated 7th October, 1880, we demanded that as an act of
justice, you should publish the truth, and correct some prior statements in your paper,
which were calculated to convey a false impression respecting the policy of this company.
You did publish our letter and had you stopped there, the false impression produced by
your previous squibs would have been finally removed, and our position properly understood
by the workingmen of your city. But we regret to see that your editorial comments on our
communication, instead of taking the form of a manly acknowledgment of error, are so
worded as to imply---first, that our letter was written at the request of the Herald, or
of the democratic central committee, an insinuation as grtoundless as it it absured, and
second: that we have reason to disapprove of of the action of our tried and trusted
managers, Messrs. Pine and Allen. These gentlemen, by many years of faithful work in our
business, have!
won a place in our esteem second to none held by anyone in the service of this
company---and while we made our statement that we would prevent and punish coercion, as
strong as possilbe, we well knew that no actual evidence of dishomorable or unfair action
on their part could ever be shown to us. The position defined by our letter is that which
the company has held since its organization twenty-seven years ago. Its principles and
practice in this respect are well known to all its representatives and employes; and so
far as we know, or believe, they are identical with those of very reputable manufacturer
in the north.
We remain yours truly,
THE SINGER MANF'G CO.
GEO. ROSS MCKENZIE,
Vice-Ptresident and General Manager.