My 'favorite' line that I've heard from my management at my company (which is also over 100 years old) is "there's a reason that people stay here for their whole career. That's in rebuttal to me bringing up that we are cutting benefits and that's a problem.
Uh-huh, cognizant enough to know that people historically stuck around, but also been around long enough to climb the corporate ladder and then start pulling that ladder up after them.