The Square Deal Feeds the Circle
Binghamton, New York
Life on a circle sees things come around
again. There is no escaping its chase of you.
The only question: which is faster—the furious hound
you released a circumference ago, or your two
slow legs? The kismet of living in time is war
(or peace), the sown reaped as surely as the dropped shoe
will fall and the stopped fall will thud on the hard floor
of George F. Johnson’s six antique carousels
delighting greater Binghamton today, and what’s more,
all still free of charge, as Johnson’s legacy will
insisted: and this a glimpse into his circle-feeding
back in the day his company shod soldiers—a sales
volume that bred success. He was bent on treating
his workers well: health care, wages, house subsidies,
parks, theater, swimming pool, menagerie-wheeling
merry-go-rounds, sure that any one of these
would make company families feel that they belonged.
In time the circle turned, as did the great economy’s
boon into bust. With Endicott Johnson loyalty strong,
they divided the diminished pot, eating dandelions
and singing loud the company anthem Marching Along
Together. When the union sent their agents trying
to organize, Johnson met the crowd with tears
in his eyes. The workers finally voted not to buy in.
A capitalist caring for his work force? The cynic hears
nothing but manipulation. But the circle
does not lie. Until he died the turning years
were kind to him who engineered the Square Deal,
and even though decades later entropy
would take the company down and away, its fertile
influence even shaping nascent policies
of fledgling neighbor IBM. Round and round
the heavily lacquered horses have carried this same esprit
de corps forward through time. The old headquarters now
a church. Homes inhabit the Sunrise and Century suite.
Kindness in orbit: from children rising up and down
in the merry calliope carnival sound to the steady beat
of soldiers marching in the terrible taking of high ground
long ago, the best of soles cushioning their feet.
NOTES:
This poem is written in terza rima hexameter. A natural reading of the poem, which nearly sounds like prose, betrays the reality of the strictly adhered to structure.
See transcript of NPR’s radio broadcast The Legacy Of George F. Johnson And The Square Deal at https://www.npr.org/2010/12/01/131725100/the-legacy-of-george-f-johnson-and-the-square-deal for much of the information below:
1. Of the fewer than 170 antique carousels remaining in the U.S. and Canada, six vintage Allan Herschell originals are in Greater Binghamton, originally purchased and set up by George F. Johnson, owner of the Endicott Johnson Corp, a local shoe manufacturing company. Because of the uniqueness of these carousels and the incomparable circumstances of their survival and existence, all six are placed on the New York State Historic Register and the National Register of Historic Places. They are in the following parks: Ross Park, Recreation Park, C. Fred Johnson Park, George W. Johnson Park, West Endicott Park, and Highland Park.
The well-loved George F. Johnson, 1857-1948
2. Johnson called his employee benefits program “the Square Deal”, an early example of welfare capitalism.To give you a taste, new employees at Endicott Johnson were given a copy of a pamphlet called "An EJ Worker's First Lesson in the Square Deal." It read, in part:
"To the new EJ worker: You have now joined the happy family in the square deal. If you are faithful, loyal,
and reliable, you will earn a good living under fair conditions. You are indeed a part of the company.
Remember that you are cared for when sick, medical and hospital services are yours, privileges of many
kinds are yours. Your friend, George F. Johnson."
This sign can be seen today entering Johnson City
3. During the good times, Endicott Johnson would host band concerts in the park on Sunday evenings, according to Gerald Zahavi, who wrote Workers, Managers and Welfare Capitalism. The final song was "Marching Along Together." Endicott Johnson workers and managers took the song as a sort of anthem, a symbol of the bond they felt between labor and management.
4. During a severe economic downturn, Johnson came into the factory to make a speech, according to former worker Earl Birdsall. Birdsall recounts Johnson saying: "My friends, times are rough. But I'm gonna tell you one thing. We're not gonna lay nobody off. We're all gonna work, take what little we got and share. There are lots of dandelions on the hills and fish in the rivers so we'll have to live on that."
5. A union vote was scheduled for early January 1940. During union negotiations former Endicott Johnson worker Elmer Knowles remembers “And [Johnson] went down and he parked his car in the parking lot and he tried to talk to us on the loudspeaker. And I'll never forget there was tears in his eyes. He drove away in tears.” More than 15,000 workers had a choice of voting for or against unionizing. 80 percent of the workers voted against the union.
6. The former central headquarters, located on the eastern edge of Johnson City, has been converted into a church. In the autumn of 2016, New York State Homes & Community Renewal entered into a development agreement with Affordable Housing Concepts and Libolt Construction to gut rehabilitate the former Sunrise and Century buildings into a pair of affordable housing sites. (Wikipedia: Endicott Johnson Corporation).