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Legislature without exercising any direct influence over them; but Frank Bird's workmen felt that he had a personal interest in each one of them.
He never was troubled with strikes.
When hard times came his employees submitted to a reduction of wages without murmuring, and when business was good they shared again in the general prosperity.
As a consequence Mr. Bird could go to the Legislature as often as he desired; and when he changed from the Republican to the Democratic party, in 1872, they still continued to vote for him, until at the age of seventy-one he finally retired from public life.
On one election day he is said to have called his men together, and to have told them: “You will have two hours this afternoon to cast your votes in. The mill will close at 4 o'clock, and I expect every man to vote as I do. Now I am going to vote just as I please, and I hope you will all do the same; but if any one of my men does not vote just as he wants to, and I find it out, I will discharge him to-morrow.”
One can imagine Abraham Lincoln making a speech like this, on a similar occasion.
Frank W. Bird, like J. B. Sargent, of New Haven, was a rare instance of an American manufacturer who believed in free-trade.
This was one reason why he joined the Democratic party in 1872.
He considered that protection encouraged sleazy and fraudulent work, and
1905. E. P. DUtton and Co. Boston,.
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