Veteran Employees of Corning Honored

Veteran Employes [sic] Employees of Corning Glass Works

Signally Honored at Anniversary Dinner

Former Ambassador Houghton Presents $1000 Check To Each of Four Workers

In Service of Company Over Half Century. Community Building Project Announced.

PRESENTATION of checks for one thousand dollars to four veteran employes [sic] employees, each of whom has rounded out over a half century in the service of the Corning Glass Works, and an address by Alanson B. Houghton, of the executive committee, and former ambassador to Great Britain and Germany, were the highlights of the company's 61st anniversary dinner held at the Masonic Cathedral in Corning N. Y., Monday evening, September 23. Three hundred and seventy-five employes [sic] employees who had been with the organization 15 years or over were guests of the company at the dinner.

During the evening Mr. Houghton, who made the presentations to those employes [sic] employees signally honored in recognition of their long and devoted service, also announced that the board has voted to erect a Corning Glass Works club house in honor of his brother, the late Arthur A. Houghton. Details concerning plans for the new project have not yet been worked out, he stated.

Mr. Houghton was introduced by Dr. E. C. Sullivan, president of the company, and following his address presented service pins to employes [sic] employees who had earned them by advancing from one five-year classification to another this year. Mr. Houghton was presented with a 40-year service pin himself and also with an honorary membership in the company's Production Club. This honorary membership is given every employe [sic] employee of the organization when he has served for 40 years.

The four veterans who have completed over 50 years in the employ of the Corning Glass Works and were presented with checks for $1,000 each in recognition of their services are George Miles, William Rotzel, Frederick Duerlein and Frank J. Hultzman, Sr. Both Messrs. Miles and Rotzel have been with the company over 55 years.

Service pins were presented the following employes [sic] employees, who this year advanced from one five-year classification to another: For 45 years - Thomas P. Henry; 40 years - William Bolton, Hon. Alanson B. Houghton, W. E. Johnson, Charles E. Nelson; 35 years - George W. Conover, Harry Culver, Fred Drost, Fred Murray, Fred Silas; 30 years - Sturges F. Cary, Charles J. Cramer, Andrew Hall, Andrew Jack, Frederick Mulford, William Phillips.

In his address former ambassador Houghton said in part:

"I hope these banquets will be a permanent feature of our year. Each of us is so busy on our own job that it is a good thing and a wise thing for us to come together and talk things over and get to know each other's point of view.

"I have reached the point in service where I am to have a 40-year service button. If Dr. Sullivan thinks I am going to jump for joy at having 40 years of service behind me, then he is greatly mistaken. I am glad I have lived through those years, but when I think that I am 40 years nearer the tomb, I refuse to be joyous over the fact. But I would jump twice as high and shout twice as loud were I to be presented with a 20-year button tonight and I would jump four times as high and shout four times as loud, if it were a 10-year button.

"Getting old is all right. It comes along whether you want it or not. But when I think of the world in which we are living and the future of this world, which intrigues me, I refuse to be glad at the thought of leaving it.

"Dr. Lyman Abbott, whom some of you remember as pastor of Henry Ward Beecher's church in New York, once told me that when he thought of the wonderful things he was going to do and all the wonderful things he was going to see when he died, he could hardly wait to die. I have none of that feeling. Death will come and we'll take it in the day's work when it does come, but I refuse to be glad that I have 40 years of service behind me, and that much less ahead.

"There is one thing, however, that puts a different light on it. The board of directors voted this morning to give each one of the men, who had completed 50 years or more of service a check for $1,000. To this morning I resolved that I will go through the next 10 years if I can in order to get my clutch on one of those checks.

"Forty years is a long time, yet I can remember just as vividly as if it were yesterday coming down the hill one morning and reporting for work in the shipping office and taking up the broom, wetting the end of it so as not to raise the dust and sweeping the floor to make the room habitable. For my labor I was paid $7.50 for six 10 hour days - and I am not sure that I wasn't overpaid at that.

Recalls Olden Days

"In those days we had just five chimneys of the tall kind. You stoked the fire and most of it went up the chimney and you melted glass with what was left. Mr. Moxley was in the blowing room; Mr. Tully in the shipping room and a certain young man named Githler was in the tube shed. That same man by his wisdom, ability and loyalty later became manufacturing chief of the company.

"Those were the days when the glass business was regarded as secret. Every company had one or two recipes, which it kept in its safe. There was no machinery except the hand press, which used to get out of order every year around Bath Fail time.

"We made glass with the blow pipe, which is in reality an adaptation of the old potter's wheel used by the Egyptians. Those in charge of the plant thought glass making which had not changed in centuries would not change for a few centuries more.

"I have no words to tell you what I think when I recall those two desks where my brother Arthur and I worked and argued for so many years. I think it is a happy augury that this morning another Arthur Houghton entered the organization to work his way up.

"The board of directors has determined to make a factory club house in memory of my brother. I can't give you many facts-yet, except that there will be a bowling alley, a swimming pool, reading room and a large room that can be used for a gymnasium and for dances. It is hoped to have it done and in readiness for you during the coming year; perhaps not late in the year. I hope you will find much use for it and feel great enjoyment in using it, for I am sure if my brother were here, that is what he would want you to do and feel.

"When one thinks of 40 years in the economic life of the country, it is an interesting figure, that 40, because it takes us back to the late 80's and it was then, most historians and economists believe, the America we know took its beginning."

Mr. Houghton outlined the history of the country prior to this time briefly, showing how each period, each national crisis had its particular bearing on settling the foundation principles of the nation. He pointed to the War of Independence and the War of 1812, which definitely established the country's freedom; the Civil War which left one-half the country devastated and the country burdened with a debt, which in those days looked astronomical in proportion and which many thought could never be paid.

"Until we come to the 80's" continued the speaker, "the nation had never worked itself clear of these problems. I thought many times when abroad and America was accused of lack of sympathy towards devastated countries that we do know what it means to have devastated areas; we do know what it means to have a debt no one thought could be paid and to have our money depreciated three times in value.

"With our money stabilized and our debts regulated industry really began to develop in this country in the 80's. Prior to this time agriculture had been the principal industry of the country with the proportion of factories small. Industry began here under conditions no country ever knew before. There was perfect freedom; no tariff, no frontiers, no restrictions of any sort from ocean to ocean, but we did not make the most of our opportunity. On the one side was capital. Then came the old fashioned trusts; not mergers to lower price by economy and greater efficiency, but monopolies to force prices upwards.

"Naturally labor did the same thing. It organized and began fighting capital. Industry gradually forged ahead. Every one conceded that valuable time and money was being frittered away. Then legislation came along, some wise, some not so wise.

"The thing that did overcome this state of affairs and that has changed the whole spirit and life of American industry is the simple realization that if you want to get the biggest possible output out of your plant, you can't get it by driving your men. Capital, management, labor are the three elements in industry today. Unless each gets its fair share and is willing to co-operate, you can't get your best production. This has its finest illustrations in our industrial life today.

"Broadly speaking, that is what has brought in the era in which we are living; an era of high wages, good living conditions and general wealth and prosperity."

The speaker gave figures showing that where an American workman is paid 100 (based on the two primary commodities food and rent, rather than money, which fluctuates) the British workman is paid 51, the Swedish, 44; the German, 35; the Belgian, 27, and the Italian, 23.

In closing he said: "This is an economic age, an age when industry is beginning to dominate. Less attention is being paid to changing boundaries and more attention is being paid to raising the standards of living for the common man.

"As we try to do honest work and to deal freely and honestly with those we serve, then surely not only are all of us going to prosper and to share in this rising tide of prosperity, but what is much more important, we are going to strengthen and build up the republic and the republic which today is the inspiration and hope of the world."