Pioneering Feminist Saw Danger of Corporate Greed in 1895

Nellie Bly called corporations “Great Money-Grasping Machines, Headless and Heartless.”

NELLIE BLY SAYS
New York World — February 19, 1895

I hear so much about the employed having no loyalty for their employers. Who says anything about the employer having no loyalty for his employees?

No one. And yet this is the secret of the whole trouble. There is almost no loyalty among the employers, and the knowledge of that fact is rapidly killing the loyalty of employees and swelling the ranks of labor unions.

The wide breach which has arisen between the employers and the employed is due to this lack of loyalty. The employer lacked it and his hard and unfair treatment taught the employed to forget it. Faithful service deserves faithful recognition, and the small sum paid for a man’s hire does not end the employer’s obligation any more than the employee’s obligation ends when his day’s work is done.

It is a ghastly thing to think of working for a man merely for the amount of money he pays for the service rendered — the employers having the same feeling for his workmen as he has for the street car for which he pays five cents to carry him, or the workman to have the same…