Newspapers / The Echo (Pisgah Forest, … / Sept. 1, 1945, edition 1 / Page 5
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September. 1945 THE ECHO Full Text Of Pres. Harry Straus' Speech FROM PAGE ONE Now let us talk for just one ®oment about the purpose of the ^ve-Year Club. As I told you when we met about a year ago, the purpose of this club is that all us who are members should be- come better acquainted; that this club should develop fraternity, 8ood fellowship and respect for ®ach other, to the end that those Who are working within the vari ®Us corporations, such as Ecusta, Champagne and Endless, will know Mch other and realize that only toited we can win, and if we pull Hi opposite directions we are bound ™r defeat. We wanted to start the Five- Year Club exactly on September «nd, 1944, which was the exact °ate of the five-year period, af "'hich time so many of you here "by far the largest portion of you ~~had worked for us five years, or '■ather I want to say at which time worked together for five years. We were in the midst of war ac- ‘*vities. The situation, which at time was in the hands and the Power of all of us, had been taken ®ver by the government, and we restrictions as to policies, "'ages, bonuses; and the partic- War type of bonus which is rep resented by the Five-Year Club "'as under the control of the gov ernment. I promised you, and I JOade this statement frequently in Joe past, that as soon as we reached the five-year period, all of you ^ould be entitled to become mem bers of the Five-Year Club, which, ^ou know, includes a 5% bonus over your base wage. According to aws in effect at the time, we had make application to the War La- ‘'Of Board. We naturally wanted to ^onipiy with the law. We filed ap- Wications, and, to my greatest dis appointment, we were turned down •'uumerable times, for reasons in applicable to me. I don’t know ^hy, but they saw fit to turn down application, submitted to them Y Personal appearances before hem, when I told them that we made the promise to you in ^od faith. We appealed our case, '"e Went to the National War La- or Board in Washington. They Urned us down. They sent us to Atlanta. They turned us down; and on and so on. I have told you ‘his before. V-J Day Declaned About this time, our Army and ^avy succeeded in subduing our •>emies, and V-J day was declared. a result of this victory, which «ad far reaching effect on the lives * all of us. President Truman re minded restrictions on wage in- ^eases, bonuses, and things of type. Immediately I gave in- ‘fUctions to our Accounting De- •!*>1ment to get busy and make out he checks, retroactively to the first when all of you were with us *ve years, and that is September 1944. This was a tremendous ®*ief to me because I felt I had ^rformed the promise which I made to you in good faith. Tonight we are at our second ^®eting. We are not only simply “®eting to have a good time, but ®lso have the pleasure of being to present to you the retroac- '^e checks for the 5% bonus which ^ ere coming to you since more one year ago; and all those ho are members of the Five-Year , *ub will continue to receive that ‘‘Oftus. I hope in four years from now —because we have all been work ing together for six years—all of us, and many more of us, will meet right here and become members of the Ten-Year Club. The arrangement for all this payment was not an easy one. It required the checking up of all payroll records of all of us here, and, as I stated before, there are 350 members of this club. Each one of your weekly payrolls, for six years, had to be carefully checked, tabulated, and figured. It was quite a job to accumulate and tabulate and finally arrive at the right amount which is rightfully coming to all of you. Our Account ing Department, our Payroll De partment has worked laboriously on the job, and I know they did a good job. If, through no fault of Ours, we have made a mistake, or have omitted somebody, I assure you—and I want you to take my word for it—it was not done in tentionally. If you will bring such cases to my attention, we will look into them. We have in the little program before us printed, in the middle pages, the Five-Year Service Bo nus Plan in fair and simple lan guage, in seven paragraphs. We tried to explain and lay down the conditions and the laws for govern ing eligibility to the Five-Year Club. From today on, we want to live up strictly to these rules, and everybody who qualifies under them will become eligible for membership in the Five-Year Club, and will have to enter strict ly according to these very simple and plain rules, which all of us must try to live up to to the best of our ability. I will ask the editor of the ECHO to publish these rules in the next issue which will appear in a few days, so that those who are not present here tonight, for one reason or another, and also the prospective members of the Five-Year Club, will know exactly the rules and regulations which govern the eligibility to our Five- Year Club. Strenuous Years Endured Ecusta, Champagne and Endless have passed through five very strenuous years. We worked suc cessfully. We have lived up to our obligations towards our customers, and we have made many friends. This was only possible by close co-operation and by application to your work which all of us here— and even those who are not assem bled here tonight but who are working for Ecusta, Champagne and Endless—have contributed to the various corporations to make this possible. For this success, I thank you all. We must treasure this as a franchise, which is very valuable to all of us. We must guard it; we must protect jt; we must improve on it. We are mak ing good cigarette paper; we are making good booklets; we are mak ing good belts; and the belt of to morrow, the cigarette paper of to morrow, and the booklets of to morrow must be better than those which we are making today. This must be our ambition. Our vari ous corporations—the three of them—(I don’t want to enumerate them each time; when I say “we”, it means all of them) have a na tional and international reputation. We have made friends and cus tomers in practically every part of the world. We have sent our merchandise to countries which we never thought would ask for merchandise made here. And we are very proud of the fact that they not only wanted to buy tnis merchandise of ours while they couldn’t get it elsewhere, but we have their assurance that they want to adhere to our products, even when other sources of supply are available to them again. One of our proudest achievements is that we have received many orders to ship our paper to France. All of you know that, prior to the in corporation of Ecusta, the largest —I think 95%—of all the cigarette paper which was consumed in the United States was made in France. Champagne Paper corporation, of which I was at that time, and still today, the president, was the importer of the largest share of that paper. Can you rejoice with me when I say that instead of im porting cigarette paper from France—due to the help and co operation of all of you—we are shipping today American cigarette paper, cigarette paper made in Pisgah Forest, to France, where they appreciate our merchandise and consider it better than what they made themselves. I will see to it that this will always remain like this. I don’t feel that we need fear that cigarette paper and sup plies of other articles will be re placed by imported merchandise. The important part of our pro gram tonight is the distribution of the bonus checks; and it is also a pleasure to present to each and ev eryone of you who is a member in the Five-Year Club a little em blem, which has imprinted on it your membership in the Club, and also the name of the corporation for which you work. We will dis tribute these in a few minutes. I hope you will have as much pleas ure receiving your check, as I have pleasure in giving it to you; and I hope this little silver emblem, which bears the name of either Ecusta, Champagne or Endless, will be worn by you many, many years to come with pride, dignity and honor, and will remind you of the Five-Year Club, which real ly made it possible for you to own it. Heads Bowed In Tribute Before we go much further, I want you to remember with me, with bowed heads and with a great deal of reverence, the four mem bers who sacrificed their lives for our country, who should be with us today, but who were called away. We want to think of them for just a few seconds. Their names are: Christie P. Costanza, William M. Heaton, Theodore Schepkowski and Talmadge Stock still. God bless their souls. I want also to welcon^e as our guests tonight some of our soldier boys, and I especially think »of Harvey Souther, who I remember when he came to our office, in what is today Mr. Bennet’s home. He wore knee pants, was a little boy. Today he has a lovely wife— I happen to know her—and is the proud father of two children, and is a brave soldier. I also want to recognize James McCormick, who I welcome here. His father is sit ting right next beside him, and I understand another one of his boys is in the Army. I am very happy to see you both with us tonight. Before I conclude, I want to wel come some of our Honorary Mem bers; men who have contributed to the success of Ecusta, Champagne and Endless, and who we decided last year to elect as Honorary Members. I have reference to Mr. Ralph H. Ramsey, a man all of you know, and a man who is a true friend of Ecusta. As I have said so often before, and never hesi tate to repeat, he is responsible to a great degree for Ecusta anchor ing in Pisgah Forest. I also have reference to Mr. C;. V. Hanlon—I don’t think you know him as well as you know some of the others—looks after our freight; matters. He contributed a good deal to the winning of our freight case, which resulted in giving flax; fibre—the raw material whichi Ecusta and its subsidiaries origi nated in this country—the Sams’ freight consideration as it receives to other destinations. Mr. Hanlon did a marvelous service, which will have a far-reaching effect on oth er commodities which play an int- portant part in Southern indus tries. Patent Attorney Praised I also want to refer to Mr. Par rott. Mr. Parrott all of you know. He is the handsome patent attor ney from Charlotte, who takes a good deal of interest in our patent affairs. His job is not only to pro tect the new ideas which anyone of you should produce, but also to protect us from infringing on other peoples’ patents, so that we can always be proud of what we have created without stepping on other peoples’ toes. Let us now proceed with the distribution of the checks How ever, before we proceed with this,. I want to take/occasion to express; my thanks to Mr. Eversman andl his staff of artists, who have con*- tributed so greatly to our enters tainment tonight. As usual, they; worked while we enjoyed our*- selves, and are always ready to> do something to make our gather*- ings and parties a success. I thank: all of you. I also want to take this oppor^ tunity to thank Mr. Leon Fngl,f«in and the staff of handsome, rffi- cient and lovely young ladies who took care of us tonight for theilr help. They certainly helped ttt give us a splendid meal, and t&e way it was served did not inter fere with our enjoyment of it. It is impossible for me, due to the fact that our family is so big, to hand each of you your checks and pins, so I have asked the va rious heads of the departments to give you your individual docu ments, (At this time the pins and cheeks were distributed. Miss Mary Sue Thome pinned the End less Belt Corporation pin on Mr. Straus; Mrs. Marie Nelson pinned the Champagne Paper Corporation; pin on Mr. Straus; and Mrs. Sonya; Colwell pinned the Ecusta Paper Corporation pin on Mr. Straus.) I hope that all of you received your presents, and as I have men tioned previously, I hope you will enjoy the pins and wear them with pride for many years to come. I would like to add that all those who are in the Army and Navy, and who have left our services— I hope they will come back soon and in good health—have auto matically been elected members of the Five-Year Club, and will re ceive their certificates and their emblems on the day they again en ter the friendly gates of Ecusta, Champagne and Endless. I hope —Turn To Pag« Sixtem
The Echo (Pisgah Forest, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Sept. 1, 1945, edition 1
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