created nothing more remarkable than himself. Thirty years ago he was a stern business man. He was successful as the world measures success and was soon rated a millionaire. But the processes of self-directed evolution have transformed the serious man of commercial affairs into the light-hearted philanthropist whose efforts have lifted a considerable portion of the race into a loftier social and moral atmosphere. Rising out of a business community whose richest men laid the foundation of their fortunes by purchasing public officials as if they had been so many cattle offered at auction in the pens, Mr. Nelson stands among his fellows uniquely alone-a powerful exponent of the simple life and business reform. When Folk lifted the curtain on municipal corruption in St. Louis ten leading millionaire business men were found to be involved. How many escaped exposure because a three years' statute of limitations threw around them a screen of secrecy will never be known, but only recently Governor Folk

told me that he seldom entered a café in St. Louis, boarded a train, or walked half a dozen blocks on the streets that he did not come in contact with some man of great wealth who had poisoned the very functions of state or municipal government by the bribery of public officials. The recent exposures have given the people of the country a pretty accurate idea of existing business and financial methods and their relation to government affairs. It is only necessary to say here that if the plan of Mr. Nelson had been generally adopted the standard of business ethics of the country would be high; people would have faith to invest their earnings in various enterprises without fear of being robbed by dishonest officials, and there would not be the specter of a Homestead massacre or the tyrannical hand of a trust magnate lurking in the shadow of our so-called great philanthropies.

Mr. Nelson is a native of Norway. He came to America with his father when he was two years old, and grew to manhood

on a farm near St. Joseph, Missouri. Starting out for himself as a young man he secured employment as a book-keeper in a St. Louis plumbing-supply house. In a year he acquired an interest in the business, in two years was its manager, and at the end of five years withdrew and established the present N. O. Nelson Manufacturing Company, with general offices and salesrooms in St. Louis, and factories at Leclaire, Illinois, and Bessemer, Alabama. He now has three-quarters of a million dollars invested in the business, and the annual sales of the company amount to $3,000,000. Mr. Nelson's share of the profits last year was $108,000, of which $53,000 in dividendpaying stock went to his customers; $38,000 to his employés, and $17,000 in cash to the public.

Let us now, with this introduction, turn from the general to the specific, and form a more intimate acquaintance with Mr. Nelson and his work, and by examining his ideas of business and philanthropy, as we find them exemplified at Leclaire and in the affairs of the company of which he is president, determine whether he is promoting rational living-whether he has been successful in his effort to solve the great problem of life along the most humanitarian lines.

First profit-sharing, and then Leclaire. The latter was the natural consequence of the former, for when Mr. Nelson's interest in the financial welfare of his employés became deep-rooted enough to influence him to share his profits with them, it was but another step when he began building homes for them and throwing around them an environment that would give them a powerful social and intellectual uplift.

Sixteen years ago Mr. Nelson purchased one hundred and twenty-five acres of land adjoining the city of Edwardsville, Illinois, twenty miles east of St. Louis. Here he founded Leclaire. The principal factories of the company were removed from St. Louis to the new town to provide work for its inhabitants.

Mr. Nelson closed his magnificent mansion in St. Louis and went to Leclaire to live in a modest two-story frame house which he had erected for his own home. In the beginning a dozen comfortable six-room houses on lots one hundred by one hundred and forty feet were built for the employés. The village was laid out on the park plan, the long avenues and driveways meandering gracefully through it. Leclaire was a success from the beginning, and now it is a wonderful community of five hundred persons.

It has no mayor, no aldermen, no municipal government, no rules, no do n'ts. There is absolute individual freedom. The dweller in Leclaire is not compelled to do anything. He may work for the Nelson company or elsewhere as he prefers. Freedom is one of the cornerstones of Leclaire. It was Mr. Nelson's idea that his people shall be untrammeled. He believed that with proper surroundings laws would not be needed to hold them in restraint. He never gives an order—never speaks a cross word. And yet Leclaire, with its lack of conventionality, has a well-defined plan, the central purpose of which is to make life worth living. The plan, as set forth at the beginning of this story, has six distinct features, all separate in themselves, yet dove-tailing so nicely that there is not the slightest discord. The subdivisions which might be called the foundation principles, in the plan of Leclaire, are in their relative importance: Work, Education, Recreation, Beauty, Homes and Freedom. Manifestly the most important consideration in the building of a city to promote right living is work. Employment is provided by the large factories that are in operation throughout the year. Not a man who is able to work is idle. There is something for everybody to do. The regular union wage scales are paid in the factories at Leclaire. Wages are no higher nor lower than elsewhere for the same kind of work. Living expenses are reduced to the minimum, and as the employés derive stated

profits each year from the stock they own in the company, they are able to get along far better than the average workman whose employer's interest in him ceases when he is handed his pay envelope at at the end of the week. Work being essential in the scheme of life, and necessary to its fullest enjoyment, Mr. Nelson believes that the conditions under which men labor ought to be made as pleasant and agreeable as possible. The factories at Leclaire are well ventilated. The windows are large, admitting the maximum of light. Mr. Nelson is a great believer in fresh air. That was one of the principal reasons for building Leclaire, because it took his employés from the crowded districts of St. Louis and sat them down upon the broad, rolling prairie over which sweeps air as pure as ever flowed from nature's fountain. While every man employed in the Nelson

factories is expected to attend to his duties there are no bosses to continually prod them. Being profit-sharers in the business they are interested in its success and work with a will, needing no boss. It is an inspiration to visit the factories and see every man working as if he enjoyed it. In the summer time the windows and doors are wide open and floods of light and air pour into the workshops, giving the employés practically all of the advantages of out-door work, with none of its inconveniences.

The men are members of the union or not as they choose. Mr. Nelson believes in labor unionism, properly directed, and encourages his employés to join the unions. But that is a matter wholly of their own choice. There has never been any serious labor trouble at Leclaire. In the sixteen years of its existence there have been two sympathetic strikes, neither of which