My story . tended to protectworking men from exploitation by the company store,an institution we never had in connection with any of ourindustries. To avoid violating the law therefore weshould have to hand over to each employe his full pay incurrency with the understanding that he was to presenthimself immediately at another window in the office andbuy an agreed upon percentage of certificates. We were selling rails for such cash payments as wecould get and accepting the purchasers bonds for the re-mainder. We were proposing to do for our men justwhat our customers were doing for us. The bond
My story . tended to protectworking men from exploitation by the company store,an institution we never had in connection with any of ourindustries. To avoid violating the law therefore weshould have to hand over to each employe his full pay incurrency with the understanding that he was to presenthimself immediately at another window in the office andbuy an agreed upon percentage of certificates. We were selling rails for such cash payments as wecould get and accepting the purchasers bonds for the re-mainder. We were proposing to do for our men justwhat our customers were doing for us. The bonds wereto be held by a joint committee of company representa-tives and working men and against these bonds the certifi-cates were issued. Our employes decided to accept ourproposition, and our cooperative enterprise, for that iswhat it was, proved entirely satisfactory. The certifi-cates passed at nearly par and we experienced no seriouslegal embarrassment, nor was there any misunderstand-ing of our z o C/5 z < z < z o z I jj I h h U THE LESSONS JOHNSTOWN TAUGHT 47 In a way these certificates corresponded to clearinghouse certificates, at that time forbidden by law, but sincepartially legalized — which is to say that certain nationalbanks now have legal authority to issue clearing housecertificates. Its curious that what is right and lawful forsome banks is wrong and unlawful for others. But neces-sity knows a law that isnt written on statute books andwill continue to force the use of clearing house certificatesor similar expedients from time to time until we are wiseenough to arrange our money-issuing machinery with aview to taking care of business in hard times as well as ingood times.* * Appendix. VI HENRY GEORGE, THE MAN AND HIS BOOKS My interest in Privilege, as this record has shown, wasall on the privileged side. The unwisdom of the publicin making grants of the highway, or the question of mu-nicipal ownership would have been as incomprehensible tome as
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