and report on a given piece of property who sells or turns over to outside parties information belonging to his employer, or who uses it for his own personal ends. Can anything be farther from the object for which men are employed, more base, more dishonorable?
Let us have the opinions of men of wide experience. I once recommended a young man for the position of assistant to one of the leaders of science in this country, who wrote back to make further inquiries, and wound up with this: "I want a man who is orderly, interested in the work and who will devote himself to my interests. If he will not devote himself to my interests I don't want him, no matter how competent he may be."
Dr. Rossiter W. Raymond, the venerable secretary of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, a man who has perhaps had a larger, more varied and more honorable career in connection with mining operations in this country than any other one man, says on this subject:[1] "Loyalty commands to-day the highest price in the market: "and he says much more to the same effect.
In one of the large banking houses of New York City this notice is posted up in full view of prospective customers: "If you can't cooperate, don't come round."
A few days ago I saw a letter from the manager of one of the largest mining companies in the world which contained the following reference to a man who had not been loyal to his employer: "I personally consider that a pick and shovel are the only instruments a man should be allowed to use who abuses his employer's confidence."
I doubt if the man who says this would want such a person about him even to use his pick and shovel. For if a man is not loyal, no one trusts him, no one feels comfortable with him around, and no one wants him at any price, or for anything.
Loyalty is so highly esteemed by most people that one is ready to overlook slow head, slow hands and slow feet where loyalty exists, while without it no skill or agility of mind or body makes one a desirable employee.
In large enterprises where many men have to cooperate, the lack of loyalty throws all the machinery of organization and administration out of gear; nothing runs smoothly.
Employees, assistants, partners and colleagues are wanted to help, to render service, not to hinder, to bring disorder and disorganization into an enterprise, no matter whether that enterprise is a great industry or a small one, a club, a fraternity, an organization of any kind whatever. No institution can long survive without the loyalty of its members to the common interest and purposes of its organization, and to each other.
- ↑ Engineering and Mining Journal, June 23, 1906, p. 1199.
