How Big Salaries Are "Earned."
When testifying before the New Jersey insurance committee on the 19th, U. S. Senator John F. Dryden declared that as President of an insurance company he was worth every cent of his $65,000 salary, because "ability commands price, and every big enterprise in the country is looking for men who can achieve." Farther on in his testimony Senator Dryden disclosed one of the elements of the ability for which he thinks these high salaries should be paid. It is ability to spend money so as to conserve the political conditions of the country in such manner as to make profits. He was defending his payment of insurance money into the Republican corruption funds of 1896, 1900 and 1904. It must be conceded that ability for this kind of achievement does command high wages. And it may be worth high wages, if the achiever keeps himself and his employers out of prison. But when ordinary men speak of earning or not earning big salaries, they are thinking of useful workmanship and not of successful highwaymanship.
This is from the July 28, 1906 edition of The Public.
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