Samuel S. Fels, Philadelphia’s foremost philanthropist, has just inaugurated a new wage system affecting the 500 employes of his soap company by virtue of which they will receive weekly five and a half days’ pay for five days’ work.
General Hugh S. Johnson, NRA administrator, congratulated Fels on his “vision and fine sense of responsibility” when the announcement of the new pay schedule was made.
“This decrease of the work-week without any reduction in pay,” wrote Johnson, “still further exemplifies your policy of fair dealing.”
In his anouncement Fels said his action was in line with his efforts “to go beyond the letter of the New Deal requirements and carry out, to every extent possible, the spirit of the President’s program.”
Fels recently expressed his business philosophy in a book, “This Changing World,” in which he expressed a conviction that the manufacturer who is fair to his employes will receive a similar treatment from them.
Born in 1860, in a little North Carolina village, the manufacturer entered the soap business when he was 16. He is interested in low-cost housing, the single tax and child study.
At Yellow Springs, O., he has established a unique laboratory for the study of children from the pre-natal stage to adolescence.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
