Agiic . - !'■ oreisUy . Aiam Library ^V_ u- Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2007 witii funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.arcliive.org/details/executiveliiscontOOgowiricli THE EXECUTIVE AND HIS CONTROL OF MEN A STUDY IN PERSONAL EFFICIENCY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NKW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO E. P. Ripley Charles Schwab THE EXECUTIVE WooDROw Wilson Theodore Rooskvelt James J. Hill Wm. Sunday E. H. Gary THE EXECUTIVE AND HIS CONTROL OF MEN A STUDY IN PERSONAL EFFICIENCY BY ENOCH BURTON GOWIN ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF COMMERCE, SCHOOL OF COMMERCE, ACCOUNTS AND FINANCE, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY; MEMBER STAFF ALEXANDER HAMILTON INSTITUTE Weto gorft THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1915 All rights reserved At ^,00 O -A Copyright, 1915, By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 19x5. ,y;#^^./. o^ Norfoootr iPress J. 8. Gushing Go. — Berwick & Smith Go. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. y Uo JOSEPH FRENCH JOHNSON, Dean MEMBER OF THE 6LITE HE REPRESENTS THE EXECUTIVE AT HIS BEST 5!Oft/in^ PREFACE The very practical need of our times is more execu- tive ability. In proportion to the demand for it, such ability has always been scarce, and will steadily become more so under the rapid growth of organized enterprises of every sort. Happily, all of us seek power, be the direction what it may ; we are builded for upward striv- ing. Since it is only partially true that leaders are born, not made, this power-seeking tendency in our nature if cultivated may be turned into executive capacity. Such . result is the chief purpose of this book. One must always follow, even while leading ; we are never wholly initiators. Whom shall we follow ? In- sincerity, shiftiness, and bluster have too often won the ear of the foolish and clouded the discerning eye ; but hurling these epithets indiscriminately at every fresh seeker of power just as truly wounds the man of vision and exalts the thick-skinned mercenary. Since this study lays bare the means by which men control others, one is enabled more surely to realize its second aim, the wise selection of leaders and rational submission to their ^ guidance. The perpetuity of organized life depends upon the rise of superior men into positions of author- -^ ity, even though it mean oneself, the half-god, must withdraw when the god appears. The methods described are those which executives use, and they use them to get results. Whether the results are desirable in the case of any particular execu- tive, the reader will decide for himself in view of the principles presented in Part III. If these methods em- ployed to control men at times seem crude and harsh, viii PREFACE we must remember they were once more crude and more harsh. It is too often that, intent on the ideal, we over- look the very real progress already made, usually a case of overim patience delaying its own aim. So in judging our leaders and their methods we should adopt the rela- tive viewpoint, exacting of them no absolute standards, but content if in view of all the attendant circumstances they measure up as men. Around few questions have more controversy and spec- ulation been aroused than the one here treated. It is for this reason that in the following pages much con- crete material is being presented, since, in charting an intricate field such as individual ascendancy, a book of deductions is to be feared. As for the product in toto I venture to hope that through its influence not a few people will work together with increased efficiency. In prosecuting these studies, I have become much indebted to the hundreds of American executives furnishing me data about themselves; to numerous biographers to whom credit in the footnotes, on account of frequent quotations and their brevity, was not always given ; and also to my old friends. Professor Blakey of the University of Minnesota, Professor Barnes of the Tennessee State Normal School, and Dr. Miles of the Carnegie Institution's Nutrition Laboratory, and my colleagues, Dr. Grimshaw of New York University and Mr. Wahlstad of the Alexander Hamilton Institute, for reading the manuscript in proof sheets. Especially am I indebted to my wife, faithful heart, efficient worker ; and to my old teachers who inspired as they taught. E. B. G. New York City, January 1, 1915. CONTENTS PAGES Chapter I. Executive Ability 3-10 Its fundamental character. Importance of manage- ment. Increased size of management units. Heteroge- neity as a test of skill. Progressive peoples demand speed in operation. Efficiency as basic requirement. Why organizations develop. Conformity to type; the genius and the fool. Periods of stress give birth to social saviors. Two types of leaders; executive here studied. Plan of treatment. PART I. INDIVIDUALITY Chapter II. The Source of Personal Power . . 11-21 Removing the mystical from leadership. Group habits encase men. The cramp of custom in relation to migrant or innovator. Surmounting opposition. Maintaining positive attitudes. Executive meets opposition face to face. Energetic character of great men. The work re- / quirement. The unusual as opportunity; the overflow / nature. The basic requirement of leadership. The body viewed as a chemical machine. Chapter III. The Physique of Executives . . . ^2-34 Dorsal and ventral cavities of body; digestion. Sta- tistical investigation decided upon. Height and weight of railroad presidents, governors, university presidents, reformers ; other Hsts of American executives. Leaders compared with average men, with intellectuals and with men of less success. The question of correlation between leadership and physique. Tables showing weights and heights. Graphs of frequency distribution. X CONTENTS PAGBS , Chapter IV. The Energizing Level .... 35-42 Small-stature heroes dynamic men. Energy level fluc- tuates. The arousing of indolence. The possibility of retarding fatigue. Increasing the energizing rate through a stimulating environment. Individual wealth, authority, and social approval as stimuli. Other elements of stim- ulus in environment. The potential genius discovered. Progress promoted, with safety to individual ; high levels consistently maintained. > Chapter V. The Increase of Power . \ . . 43-54 Desire to act is inborn. The luminous idea has the onward impulse ; its effect upon Napoleon. Character- istics of this idea : clearness, narrowness, and ability to hold interest; how power may be derived through it. The will and its relation to the idea. Effect of the set task, faith in self, impulsive temperament, and intensity of conviction. Emotional power for leaders through constnictiveness and self-assertiveness, occupying the focal point, and assuming positive attitudes. The atmos- phere of power ; work without ceasing. Chapter VI. Effective Effort 55-72 Crude activity directed into effectiveness. Control of energizing rate; power as needed. Alertness; its advantages in dispatch, effective expenditure, and oppor- tunism. Methods through which originality is secured. The maturing of thought. Focalization demanded of executive by complexities of modern life. Initiative. Napoleon as an example of effectiveness in effort Methods. Chapter VII. Organization 73-84 Growth of organized enterprise. Its advantages in self-multiplication, division of labor, use of substitutes psychologically cheap, workable policies, stimulating and stabilizing effect upon executive ; ideal of effective ex- penditure. The organizer's type of mind. Drawing up a systematic plan ; the organization chart. Sorting out typical tasks, man analysis, adjusting man and task. Routine tasks and the use of machinery. CONTENTS Chapter VIII. Systematic Personal Effort . . 85-94 Administrative burdens crushing unless systematized. Classifying the material to be dealt with. Working at the apex of the business pyramid. Handling correspond- ence. Making use of mechanical aids. The "buffer." Aiding the overloaded memory. Planning the day's work. Sharing burdens with subordinates. Doing versus getting things done. Results without haste. Conclusion of Part I. Individuality. PART II. MOTIVATING THE GROUP ¥r f\ Chapter IX. Stimulating and Controlling Men . 95-105 Executive as stimulator. Apathetic or|;anizations far too common. Outer versus inner methods; stimulation as release. Mankind builded for action. Effort secured through stimulating instincts, emotions, intellect ; whole mind made active. Various methods available for this purpose. Control ; why men submit to others. Collec- tive struggle for existence breeds social nature, with subordination. Loyalty. How the executive as he stim- ulates secures control. Chapter X. Personality 106-121 ^ Power through presence ; as Webster, De Lesseps, '^ Napoleon. Explanation of personality. Physique, emo- tion, intellect, and socialized nature as elements of natu- ral prestige. Why personality includes both positive and negative appeals. The ascendancy based upon fear. Upon positive and neg^ive self-feeling. Upon inscruta- bility. Compoundings of emotions in admiration, awe, reverence, and love; the ascendancy thus established. Practical measures for extending personality's sway. -chapter XI. Imitation 122-134 Tendency to do as others do more than an instinct. In general, the superior is imitated by the inferior. Positions of authority confer imitation prestige. How wealth dazzles. The aristocracy of achievement. The idealizing tendency molds potter's clay into hero stuff. Imitation prestige colors all our thinking. Making use of imitation in management xii CONTENTS PAGBS Chapter XII. Suggestion 135-148 Hypnotism merely dramatic form of common phe- nomena. Various uses of suggestion. Every normal person suggestible. Suggestion power; prestige of the suggestor, suggestibility of the subject, the volume and duration of the suggestion. Mobs, crazes, panics, polit- ical "landsHdes." How suggestion is made effective. Slantwise and direct suggestion ; Antony's oration. Keeping suggestion positive. Infectious nature of sug- gestion, and how leaders utilize this. ^ Chapter XIII. Emulation 149-160 ' Breaking records through contests. Rivalry both lures and spurs. Utilizing emulation in management. The leader as pace setter. Enthuse an organization by mak- ing work a game. Contests with the " enemy." Beating records. The promotion policy. The quick, vigorous, and continuous action of emulation; its exalting the strong and efficient. Providing incentive, getting all to take part, and ruling out wranglings. Chapter XIV. Art 161-173 The leader as actor or stage manager. Why art pos- sesses power. The aesthetic demands of followers. Art stimulates ; its use for this purpose in war and work. The effect of medals and banners. Impressing things dramatically. Enlisting the imagination. Art permits high lights and shadings. Ceremonialism as a means of control. Degeneracy of art ; the Ancient Regime. Chapter XV. Illusion 174-187 Deception predated civilization. Its influence widely ramified to-day. Manipulating attention so as to empha- size or conceal. The befuddlement of reason; Mo- hammed convenient revelations, the prosperity argument in politics. By a clever distortion of values, illusion passes the shoddy as genuine. Credulity natural and error follows hard upon it. Error attractive ; it lives long and dies hard. How illusion approaches sincerity. CONTENTS xiii PAGES Chapter XVI. Discipline 188-202 Moral suasion versus the iron grip. Authority prestige. The feeling of inferiority in followers ; joyful subordina- tion and obedience. Open and closed resources. How obedience getters close resources. Are they closed to- day .'' Methods of making discipline effective. Graded penalties. The approach toward self-government. Good form in administering punishment. Why its certainty is important. Chapter XVII. Rewards 203-215 *' Followers possess keen bargaining scent. The real content of rewards. Wealth does not satiate. Motive behind American materialism. Why money alone can reward certain workers. Fatigue versus results. The grading of rewards. The antagonism between capital and labor. Day rate. Piece rate. Various modifica- tions developed under scientific management. Mutual interest plans. Right and wrong methods of bestowing rewards. Chapter XVIII. Idealism . ... . . 216-226 ^ The motivating power of ideals. How ideals are builded; their relation to moral virtues. Utilitarian ideaHsm. Idealism in war spirit, civic pride, theocratic groups, socialism. Emotionalized standards. Ideals ad- justed for effectiveness. Executives possessed of great expectation. The control of ideals indirect yet none the less real. Bringing idealism into work. Leader and cause unified. Chapter XIX. Instruction 227-244 Valuable knowledge accumulated; instruction quickly transmits it. Executives increasingly called upon to teach. Typical methods employed; library, lectures, bulletins and other printed matter, trips, self-improve- ment clubs, and schools. All knowledge not of equal value. Developing standards. Learner must retrace entire route but at accelerated pace. Weaving details into generalizations, applying generalizations to new concretes. Results attained. xiv CONTENTS PART III. LIMITS UPON THE EXECUTIVE PAGES Chapter XX. Interest and Apathy .... 245-258 Subordinates not mere puppets ; at all times they limit the executive. Lack of attention and interest negate most appeals. The psychological moment. Periods of waxing and waning interest, and effect upon executives. Forces making new adjustments necessary. What nor- mally interests people. Reshaping the interests. Com- pulsive ideas. Simplicity, removal of distractions, and permitting ebb and flow as means for maintaining inter- est Apathy obverse of interest. Chapter XXI. The Arousing of Opposition . . 259-274 The relation between apathy and opposition. How individual habits and gpup customs create opposition to innovations. Pain of a new idea, insecurity and danger in innovation; repression of innovator. The width of variation. The career of Joseph II of Austria ; changes slow to realize. Men because of age necessarily grow out of harmony. Statistical investigation of reformers. John Law's career. Coercive power. Chapter XXII. Competitors 275-292 Why competition -develops. Attitudes to be taken toward competitors, and advantages of each. The mind's discordant elements. How doubt arises and decision is secured. Individual resolution merges into group reso- lution. Prestige versus prestige, prestige versus logic, logic versus logic. When to use prestige and when to use logic. Securing complete motivation. Chapter XXIII. The Executive's Adaptability . . 293-300 Competition builds up centers of authority. Such authority always subject to adaptabiUty. Pure democ- racy in theory, and as practiced. Adaptation an all-per- vading principle in nature ; authority subject to it. The variety of demands upon the executive. Surplus favors adaptability. The gospel of relaxation. The perfecting of adjustments through experience. How the amateur becomes expert Old-fogyism. Maintaining balance. CONTENTS XV Chapter XXIV. The Final Process: Assimilation . 301-311 Restatement of thesis. Variations assimilated become living tissue. Men as representatives of their age. In- creasing stimulus; decreasing opposition. Making new appear old or old appear new. Difference between world genius and average executive. Time required to develop a conquering cause ; early trials of Mohammed and Jesus. Numbers usually win, yet not always ; the rise of superi- ority. The law of parsimony demands most for least; the executive a means toward this end. Appendix. A Statistical Study of Executives . . 313-335 THE EXECUTIVE AND HIS CONTROL OF MEN A STUDY IN PERSONAL EFFICIENCY CHAPTER I Executive Ability "Such earnest natures are the fiery pith, The compact nucleus, round which systems grow ! Mass after mass becomes inspired therewith, And whirls impregnate with the central glow." "The executive's chi^ business is to organize, deputize, and supervise." — E. P. Ripley. The control of men is the real problem of every or- ganization. Ninety-seven per cent of a group of man- ufacturers interviewed declare it their most serious difficulty ; scientific managers agree that systematic "sol- diering " is the menace of industry ; psychologists are convinced that the average man, without injury, could increase his output by a half ; observation and investi- gation reenforce the same truth, that progress waits upon men and is thus dependent upon executive ability. This need for executive ability is fundamental in all organized effort. Wolves have a head of the pack, mustangs in the Southwest group themselves under some powerful male, sheep follow the bellwether. Monkeys, if we may believe travelers' accounts, on their 2 EXEeUtrC'E, ABILITY raids or marches have general and staff. The reason is evident. Leaders make for effective group action, and whether it be animal herd, robber horde, war machine, or department store, effective group action in the struggle for existence means survival. Opportunity for the executive, now as heretofore, treads hard upon ability. The centraUzation of industry, the growth of cities, the increased facility of communica- tion, the development of the modem state itself, have alike socialized men, interlaced their interests, and expanded the boundaries of their collective life. The village squire merges into the representative, to appear before whose numerous constituents even requires much mileage and leathern lungs; stagecoach driver and keeper of the toll road have become railroad ofl&cials; peddler and money lender are transformed into depart- ment-store manager and corporation director, the one numbering his employees by the hundreds, his customers by tens of thousands, and the other with his finger on many of our purses ; handicraftsman, swept by the new currents of business, becomes captain of industry, the term manufacture {manu, by hand, Jactura, a making ; literally, a making by hand) to-day as a fossil revealing the surges of an Industrial Revolution. In short, where- ever one may choose to look, tremendous undertakings are being rolled up and await direction. To fail here is to be crushed under the load of civilization. With growth in size has come increase in complexity. It is no homogeneous population to which the present- day executive appeals. The old North-European stock, men from Ireland, Scandinavia, and Germany, no longer possesses America for itself, but must compete and mingle with the sons of Croatia and Serbia, Bulgaria and Mace- donia. When these rub shoulders within the same or- ganization, the racial difference in itself is liable to work COMPLEXITY AND SPEED 3 demoralization through coteries and cliques. Moreover, the skilled are found with the unskilled, the strong with the weak, the cultured with the grossly ignorant ; and machinery, pitting mechanism against man and mechan- ism against mechanism, complicates still further these himian differences. Utilities are being produced, trans- ferred, distributed, and consumed imder conditions continually growing more intricate. And this affects not alone factory foreman or sales manager, but preacher, editor, politician, agitator. They all give-and-take within the social mass. For their diverse ends they have builded organizations without number, more com- plex than any timepiece. In such heterogeneity are vast advantages, — else it would not have come about, — but it requires skill to realize these in practice. Another element involved is speed, a comparatively modern requirement. The ancient civilizations, Egypt, Persia, India, China, as the savage and patriarchal society which preceded them, gave promise of an ad- vancement they somehow failed to fulfill. Shackle upon shackle — communism in property and industry ; physical, economic, and social isolation; reverence for past achievements; rulership of the old; hypertrophy of institutionalism — stagnated these ancient peoples. Once on the path of progress, however, — in itself a great achievement, — with competition and discussion, the forward look, the tentative attitude, and the future brightly painted, men began to feel a thrill in motion. Such is increasingly true in our day. The inventor scarce has perfected one device before he is urged on by fresh demands; the politician in drafting a good bill has won opportunity to draft better bills ; the pleased scientist, contemplating his new generalization, is ad- monished to make it shorter and more comprehensive ; industry, pressed hard by labor for higher wage, capital 4 EXECUTIVE ABILITY for increased interest, landowner for more rent, and management for greater profit, vibrates with energy, its individual workman speeded up, its organization adjusted so that from raw product to shipping room the material flows without congestion, its capital made active through frequent turnover. Yet to work rapidly, to meet the new and subdue it promptly, in the in(h- vidual are characteristics of an expert; with huge and intricate organization, a task for super-man. Much more comprehensive than size of organiza- tion, its heterogeneity, or the required speed of manipu- lation is the demand for effectiveness in its operation. In fact, size, complexity, and speed are in themselves but means to this larger end, efficiency. Fundamentally, what is here involved is nothing less than success in the struggle for existence, the prime consideration why any creature should limit its individuality in order to lead the collective life. Ants exhibit no Hobbesian war, but instead dwell in colonies together ; prairie dogs live in towns ; wolves hunt in packs ; deer, cattle, buffaloes, and horses each group themselves into herds. Savages, in their clans, phratries, and tribes, indicate one stage in the transition toward Greek city state, feudal holding, EngHsh manor, German free city, workmen's gild; and these in turn are but the forerunners of present- day municipalities, neighborhoods, trade-unions, political parties, and corporations. Why have men thus per- sistently led the collective life? Because no principle is more basic than desire for greatest gain with least effort ; — men through combined actions can accom- plish what individually is impossible, they can get more as members of an organization than they could as individuals. To fulfill this collective ideal of effectiveness requires, of course, concerted effort; members must work to- EXECUTIVE A VARIATE 5 gether. In the securing of such action, we note, all men are not of equal value, and herein lies the origin of leadership. Men by nature and nurture are unlike, quite in keeping "with most natural phenomena, their qualities exhibiting a normal frequency distribution.^ Some few are geniuses, some few are cranks, most are mediocres. Now working together requires a certain degree of similarity; since mutually antagonistic men could never carry out a common enterprise, collective action rests upon proper conformity to type. Here arises the problem of the genius and the fool ; they are unlike most men, they insist upon retaining, nay, more than that, upon realizing, their unUkenesses; and it is difficult to distinguish clearly one from the other. The common criminal it is easy to lock up, yet what does the world not owe to Socrates, Jesus, Luther, Darwin? So stoned they the prophets. Selecting the right va- riate and cleaving only to him, thus becomes the chief * It is of some importance that this point of view be grasped. Let us illustrate by a study made of 61,581 flowers of the normal five-petal sort, these being found distributed as follows: No. of petals Frequency . . 234 5 678 I 6 283 61,060 221 9 I Of this five-petal flower, by far the greatest number were normal, that is, were true to type. But some five hundred varied from type; and the fact should also be noted that the greater the variation, the less the number of variates. These frequencies, plotted on a chart, would show graphically what is termed a normal curve of distribution. Galton found a Uke distribution in measuring the strength of pull of 519 men, and Karl Pearson has plotted a similar frequency curve indicating the distribution of intelligence in 1000 individuals. All books on statistics treat this subject of frequency distribution, the chapter in G. Udny Yule's Theory of Statistics perhaps being as good as any. For the examples here cited, see Vernon, Variation in Animals arid Plants, 15; Galton, Natural Inheritance, 199; and Biomet- rica, V, iii. 6 EXECUTIVE ABILITY business of the common man, for such variates are immensely helpful. The particular direction in which his helpfulness is shown depends upon the group need. With enemies round about, the strong arm and steady eye have won respect. When unusual calamities, uncanny visita- tions, and magic portents terrorize simple faith, he leads who best can peer into the unknown, placate the unseen, and stiffen troubled souls. With men's energies har- nessed to work, the materialistic conception of history widely held, and abundant natural resources waiting to be exploited, authority passes to the business man. Or again, a wider socialization emphasizes new alignments, elevating among men the applied scientist, the conser- vationist, the teachers of brotherhood, social justice, and other phases of applied idealism, as is being done in our own day. Be the particular need what it will, he who best aids his group in realizing it is the helpful variate, the successful executive. It would follow that leadership assumes maximum importance in times when the organization is under stress. Herds of cattle feeding quietly represent thor- oughgoing equality; let danger threaten, and forward stalks the defiant bull. The arrival of a stranger in the Indian camp finds many hands pointing the way to the chief's tent. War clouds gathering in the East permitted Themistocles to break with all tradition by making Athens the greatest naval power in Hellas. It was when government of the people, by the people, and for the people was threatened that Lincoln wielded a power such as few Presidents have ever possessed. Periods of uncertainty, of transition, of struggle intensify the group needs, and in them have all social saviors been born. To whom shall we to-day grant this title? To PERSONAL LEADERSHIP 7 him best able to bear the burden of a large organization, most versatile in dealing with its complexities, most adroit in pushing it at top speed, and most effective in guaranteeing its members greatest returns for least effort. Two types of men, each in his own way, seek to satisfy these tests: one, intellectual, — author, scientist, artist, historian, theologian, philosopher; the other, executive, — railroad president, governor, bishop, university presi- dent, trade-union official, factory superintendent. In one type, intellect is emphasized ; in the other, personal impression — a distinction by no means arbitrary, however. The intellectual leader is never divorced from face-to-face relations, and the personal leader depends upon intellect at every step. The difference is one of relative emphasis only. Of the two types, the latter, the personal, is here selected for study, and its representative in the following pages will be referred to as executive, or, should the context make the meaning clear, simply as leader. This study of the executive presents three main lines of investigation. First, the executive as an individual. What sort of a man is he? In what respects, if any, does he differ from ordinary men? These are among the questions discussed in Part I. Second, the executive motivating his organization. By what means are men stimulated? How is control secured? This comprises Part 11. Third, the reactions of his co-workers upon him. By what means do they limit his authority? How may these limits be expanded ? How secure effec- tive adaptation? This is for Part HI. Only by con- sidering these three points of view and balancing them in their mutual relations do we reach a complete psy- chology of management and explain the control of men. The claims of Part I are usually overlooked, the 8 EXECUTIVE ABILITY interest, instead, tending to dwell upon that which is more apparent and more striking, the executive dominat- ing his co-workers. But perhaps he has already with- stood certain tests, physical and mental, and it may be that these personal factors have determined that he should be leader and not of the led. Is the executive, therefore, a selected individual? To this question we now turn. EXERCISES 1. What four factors enter into production? What does each contribute? (See any standard work on economics.) 2. Show the importance of tl^e executive's contribution. Is his r61e increasing or decreasing in comparative importance? 3. Define "utUity." Is the politician as real a producer as the manufacturer? 4. Who is the greatest contemporary leader? 5. Are contemporary leaders surpassed by historical char- acters? 6. Illustrate by concrete example drawn from personal expe- rience : mutual aid among animals, leadership in animal groups, how a community decides whether the newcomer is a valuable member or otherwise, the four tests of executive ability success- fully met by a leader. READINGS McDouGALL, Socid Psychology, Ch. I. Kropotkin, Mutual Aid, Ch. I. PART I: INDIVIDUALITY CHAPTER n The Source of Personal Power "The initiative of wise or noble things comes and must come from individuals, generally at first from some one individual." — John Stuart Mill. "There is always room for a man of force, and he makes room for many." _ j^^^^ ^^^^^^^ Emerson. Each executive is inclined to feel his own task is un- like any other; "my business is different." It is a pleasant fiction. All executives are alike in this signifi- cant respect, they must handle people. Now human nature is pretty much the same the world over ; in con- sequence, however apparent the differences in manag- ing mill or public school or railroad, the executive's task is essenttally the same everywhere. Making use of methods diverse as to detail but alike in principle, the general manager, bishop, or politician each holds in hand the reins of power. From this point of view, may there not be certain activities in which the executive most clearly manifests his supremacy? And should not these when tevealed answer that age-old question as to what is the "secret" of leadership? Regarding the executive as a man of deeds, in order to estimate his capacity it is necessary to note both what he gets done and the conditions under which he does it. Let us consider first the conditions surrounding this man of affairs. 12 THE SOURCE OF PERSONAL POWER THE EXECUTIVE AND ADVERSE PRESSURE The executive, as has been pointed out before, rises to his full power in times of transition. Alexander, Napoleon, Washington, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Vail, all were men of change. The organization each controlled was much different when he had done with it. Yet how adverse to change is the rank and file! Habit breeds in the narrow outlook and routine practice of subordi- nates. The organization, quite the same as the larger organization termed society, develops its grooves of thought along which the mental Hfe flows freely but outside of which it is troublesome to go. The approved practice is in the air ; it impinges upon the individual at every turn. Thus is shaped the age-old struggle between con- formity and innovation, a struggle that is of daily sig- nificance to every executive. Conformity develops be- cause community enterprise requires concerted action, and concerted action entails disciphne. Certain types of conduct, in consequence, become reprehensible ; cer- tain types are approved, because they have seemed to work well. These tend to become social habits. Par- ents especially, by the overlapping of generations, shape plastic minds to the requirements. Supernatural sanc- tions come to attach themselves to these folkways, lending horror to the new or unknown and hardening the folkways into mores. As in primitive society, with its ancestor worship, its council of old men who merely disclose what always has been, its insistence that what- ever is, is right, so in the early empires of Egypt, Baby- lonia, and Persia, with the same practices writ large, individuality was dwarfed and innovation crushed under a cake of custom. But bold, hardy natures chafe under such restrictions. MEN OF ENTERPRISE 13 Like the Norsemen of whom Gibbon writes, "Impatient of a bleak climate and narrow limits, they started from the banquet, sounded their horn, ascended their vessels, and explored every coast that promised either spoil or settlement,'' variates from the East plowed the soft waters of the ^Egean, and in the sheltered harbors and fertile vales became the d3aiamic men of Greece. When Hellas cramped, their sons in turn pushed westward and Greek colonies fringed the Mediterranean. A like process was European nation building. The first kings were not institutions but merely individuals who, during the period of conquest and migration which formed the state itself, pushed to the front as success- ful military adventurers. **The communities conquered by the early host leaders probably regarded the latter as temporary nuisances, who would in due course be re- moved by the hand of death. Their position was totally opposed to the old ideas of society ; they were much too stem, much too enterprising, much too neglectful of time-honored practice, to suit the easy-going ways of patriarchal society." ^ Contemporary leaders realize, too, that notwithstand- ing the worship of progress we have not escaped the custom which cramps. Whole segments of social life are fossiliferous. Law's strict adherence to precedent, religion's indifference to the fact that it is the letter which killeth, education's materials designed for an age long past, public opinion's threatened "thought trust," industry's "red tape" parading as efficiency, all repre- sent a hardening of the social arteries. Such a situation does not stimulate all alike. Whether it be in a primitive group, an early empire, a conserva- tive state, or moss-grown factory, most men yield easily to the claims of custom. But abounding vitality is * Jenks, History of Politics, 84-85. 14 THE SOURCE OF PERSONAL POWER not yielding, but assertive. It makes men motors, not trailers. It insures an expansive personality, a reach- ing after the new and untried, a self unique and asser- tive. It is not mere inertia, however, with which a leader has to contend should he wish to introduce improved management, social justice, or a new freedom. Opposi- tion confronts the innovator. The Chicago papers re- ferred to the evangelist as "Crazy'' Moody and claimed that P. T. Barnum was backing the whole movement. Clergymen saw in William Lloyd Garrison "an arch- conspirator against the very framework of society, a wretch for whom the penitentiary was too good." ^ So industriously were tales of his "wickedness" circu- lated that the peasantry believed Clive had built the walls of his house so thick in order to keep out the devil.^ Wyclif's enemies termed him "a glutton when he ate, and a hypocrite when he fasted." Roosevelt's oppo- nents in a recent campaign, it is said, could not men- tion him without frothing at the mouth. The leader, therefore, as he clears the social jungles and disturbs its moss-grown trunks, is opposed as a fanatic, a danger- ous disorganizer, an unsafe man. Such opposition sends most men home — to bed. They withdraw within them- selves, their social self wilted. The vigorous nature, however, reacts positively. It rises above depreciation because the dynamo is within. Again, it is not merely withstanding opposition as such that must be noted, but the particular way in which the executive is called upon to meet it. The intellectual leader as editor pens the stinging blow, safely sheltered by roll-top desk; as sculptor in his studio he models the statue which divides into warring camps the world » William Lloyd Garrison, IV, 337. ' Malleson, Life of Robert Clive, 490-491. FACE-TO-FACE RELATIONS 15 of art; as peaceful scientist in his laboratory he but- tresses with evidence his revolutionary theories. As Voltaire, the luring old mocker, threw bombs at the Ancient Regime, himself in retreat, or Marat drove Lafayette into desperation with the scurrilous sheet composed in sewer or attic, this type of leader may be in the world and yet not personally of it. Our type of leader, however, must descend into the arena, there to contend face-to-face with robust personalities. A Melancthon, diffident, hesitating, of frail body and stammering tongue, by this test is clearly set apart in type of leadership from a Luther, "rough, boisterous, stormy, and altogether war Hke'' ; as he himself says, "bom to fight against innumerable monsters and devils." And this test of face-to-face relations, in industry, politics,^ and the ministry as well, will not soon pass away. So far as adverse pressure is concerned, consequently, we conclude that a leader must pierce the cake of cus- tom, surmount opposition, maintain the positive atti- tude, and meet opponents face-to-face, tasks all of which require vigor. ^ In the House of Commons the following scene occurred not long since. Mr. Asquith had made a statement. "Then up jumped Mr. Lounsbury, his face contorted with passion, and his powerful rasping voice dominating the whole house. Shouting and waving his arms, he approached the government Front Bench with a curious crouching gait, like a boxer leaving his comer in the ring. One or two Liberals on the bench behind Mr. Asquith half rose, but the Prime Minister sat stolidly gazing above the heads of the opposition, his arms folded, and his lips pursed. Mr. Lounsbury had worked himself up into a state of frenzy and, facing the Prime Minister, he shouted, 'You are beneath my con- tempt ! Call yourself a gentleman ! You ought to be driven from public life,' . . . For five minutes the Honourable George Lounsbury defied the Speaker, insulted the Prime Minister, and scorned the House of Commons. He raved in an ecstasy of passion; challenging, taunting, and defying." Atlantic Monthly, October, 191 2, p. 435. i6 THE SOURCE OF PERSONAL POWER THE WORK TEST The view has attained some popularity that greatness consists in rising above personal effort, that truly im- portant men rest content in making others work. It is believed, moreover, — and this view is illustrated in practice by the leisure class, — that returns come not from toil, but from having the throttle hold. Without doubt vast enterprises are managed only through or- ganization, as will later be shown; but organization 'ever requires an effective head. And as for the second view, an equality of opportunity is being worked out under which regime no idler may eat of another's bread. Leading historical characters, in addition, exempHfy no policy of inaction ; they have been mighty in effort. Bismarck's "power of work was marvelous. His phys- ical and intellectual vigor seemed inexhaustible." Charles XII, the Madman of the North, "like his father, was fond of hard work, and had an infinite capacity for taking pains." O'ConnelFs energy "was amazing, and only equaled by his enthusiasm." Mohammed "worked continuously, allowing himself no day of rest." John Wesley's "devotion to the plan of duty he had laid down for himself was so entire and so absorbing, that it left no time for leisure, hardly for reflection. He was always going somewhere." William the Silent, in preparing for the confederation, "left no stone unturned, exerting himself so strenuously that he hardly had time to breathe from morning to night." Although among the powers of Frederick the Great his " energy alone was truly great," this energy "was such that to him few achievements were impossible." Charlemagne, though burdened with the cares of a vast empire, tried in addition to educate him- self, learned foreign languages, studied grammar, rhetoric, logic, and astronomy under Alcuin ; and Einhard relates INTENSE ACTIVITY 17 that "Karl also tried to write, and used to keep his tablets and writing-book under the pillow of his couch, that when he had leisure he might practice his hand in forming letters." Such activity at times approaches the abnormal in its intensity. Henry IV of France was movement incarnate, and even in later years, "when after a long day's hunting his weary attendants could hardly stand, he would not rest, but must move about." His biog- rapher says that "from boyhood on, nothing is more characteristic of Alexander than his restless passion for reshaping and subduing. Action was almost a mania with him." The Emperor Napoleon, in the midst of his mighty toils of war, did not neglect the civil affairs of his huge domain. "We see him, in his tent at Asterode and Fenkenslein, administering, in the minutest detail, his centralized and all-controlling government. He props up the finances, tries to promote industry, en- courages letters and the education of the young, and keeps a watchful eye on a jealous police." These history makers in general seem to have practiced the view thus set forth by one of them : "Talleyrand," Napoleon once remarked to his Prime Minister, "the best evidence of abihty is immense capacity for hard work and an intense conviction of its necessity." And who shall claim the rulers of business or politics to-day are not like unto them? THE UNUSUAL AS OPPORTUNITY Such tasks as just mentioned draw the life blood; they leave the ordinary man with his personality ex- ploited. In this condition, he must forego unusual opportunity, because if embraced, it threatens to sub- merge him. As Bismarck at Saint Petersburg, on re- i8 THE SOURCE OF PERSONAL POWER ceiving news that a call to the Prussian ministry was imminent, wrote to Roon: "Your letter disturbed me in my comfortable meditations. Your cry Ho horse' came with a shrill discord. I have grown ill in mind, tired out, and spiritless since I lost the foundation of my health." Bismarck, however, with reserve possibilities, after a night's rest added this postscript of the morning, "If the King will to some extent meet my views, then I will set to work with pleasure." After a brief vacation, so far was his old spirit, decision, and directness of action recovered that he agreed to undertake the government as Minister-President, even against a majority of the parliament, without a budget, circumstances to try the strongest nerves. Carrying the burden which had crushed others, in nine years the King whom he had found ready to abdicate he saw crowned as Emperor of United Germany, himself at the peace negotiations, thus impressing an interested spectator: "I was at the outset struck by the contrast between the negotiators. Count Bismarck wore the uniform of the White Cuiras- siers, white tunic, white cap, and yellow band. He looked a giant. In his tight uniform, with his broad chest and square shoulders, and bursting with health and strength, he overwhelmed the stooping, thin, tall, miserable-looking lawyer with his frock coat, wrinkled all over, and his white hair falling over his collar. A look, alas, at the pair was sufficient to distinguish be- tween the conqueror and conquered, the strong and the weak." ^ With such powers as this as a basis, men move from province to capital, expand clerkships into managerial positions. No particular merit attaches to the usual accomplishment; but the man of energy-plus is able * Headlam, Bismarck, 146, 159, 161, 162, 358, 377. ENERGY-PLUS 19 to handle the emergency order or, like Alexander and Frederick the Great, construct an organization demand- ing more than any successor can furnish. He overflows his position. The recent term as president of a truly dynamic man was marked by a crop of pamphlets on "executive usurpation." Now vigorous men always will seek power; unusual energy cannot be restrained by the usual Umits, but expanding these limits will win distinction by doing the extra thing. What, then, should be regarded as the basis of execu- tive ability? Its ultimate source is energy. In with- standing adverse pressure, doing large amounts of work, and overflowing the usual, success is Unked up with energy. Limited vigor, it is true, permits a man to be a world figure, as Darwin or Spencer, to do thinking for all time; it may even permit men, like Hamilton, to be a leader of leaders ; but in the management of men at first hand mere physical energy is fimdamental. SOURCE OF ENERGY In seeking out the source of this energy we are led into a set of most interesting problems, the domain of physiological chemistry. Here preside a group of scientists intent on solving the riddle of life, and they have already gone far. Not only have they become able to produce artificially the compounds formed in the animal body, but the chemical reactions which take place in Uving organisms they can repeat at the same rate and temperature in the laboratory.^ Such experi- ments do much to place life upon a strictly natural- istic basis, which, it may be added, includes nervous phenomena as well. For to the physiologist the func- * Loeb, Mechanistic Conception of Life, 5. Sec also his Dynamics of Living Matter, 7. 20 THE SOURCE OF PERSONAL POWER tions of the nervous system, even the most intricate thought processes, are simply manifestations of energy. The capacities of the nervous system are thus dependent directly upon the chemical and physical alterations going on constantly within its constituents.^ The body, consequently, may be regarded as a chem- ical machine. Through the food which he eats — and digests J it must never be forgotten — the individual stores up within his body, for use when needed, quan- tities of highly complex and unstable chemical com- pounds. Operated upon by nervous stimuli, these compounds assume more simple and stable forms, at the same time liberating heat and performing work. The body is by no means static; composed of living cells, it is dynamic, the scene of incessant change. The building up process, termed anabolism, and the destructive process, termed katabolism, are continually going on side by side, a just balance between the two, in the long run, being essential to well-being and con- tinued accomplishment. A high energizing rate, con- sequently, calls for an equally rapid constructive process — via the lungs and stomach. It is clear, therefore, that a leader is well fortified in fundamentals when, as Thomas Jefferson wrote of himself, he is "blessed with organs of digestion which accepted and concocted, with- out ever murmuring, whatever the palate chose to con- sign to them." EXERCISES 1. Which binds its members more closely by custom, a religious organization or a business organization? Why? 2. What truth behind the phrase "Westward the star of em- pire takes its sway"? * Barker, The Nervous System. Howell, Text-Book of Physiology, 130-171 passim. EXERCISES AND READINGS 21 3. Why do we ridicule the customs of other peoples while oblivious to our own? 4. By what methods do some executives avoid face-to-face relations ? Why ? 5. Discuss the relation between business success and overtime. 6. Why do wage earners believe the executive does not work? READINGS Sumner, Folkways, Ch. II, or Bagehot, Physics and PolUicSy ch. m. Ladd and Woodworth, Physiological Psychology, Ch. XI. CHAPTER m The Physique of Executives "The body is but a watch, whose watchmaker is the new chyle." — La Mettrie. Viewing it as a chemical machine, is a larger body able to supply a greater amount of energy ? A diagram may make this problem clearer. As is indicated in the accompanying figure (Fig. i), the body is divided into two ca\dties, a dorsal and a ventral. The dorsal, housing the brain and spinal cord, need not now engage our attention. But the ventral, it is seen, is divided by a muscular partition, the diaphragm, into two sections: the thoracic, in which lie the heart and lungs ; and the abdominal, occupied in the main by the digestive system. The action of these various organs, briefly stated, is as follows : the food is taken into the mouth, there masti- cated, mixed with saliva, and swallowed. In the stom- ach and intestines this food is mixed with other fluids, digested, and after being absorbed through the stomach and intestinal walls, is carried away by the circulation. In the cells of the body this nutritive material combined with oxygen develops energy. The waste products of the process are removed by the blood which, in turn, is purified in the lungs. Now the question arises, a similar effectiveness of action being granted in each case: will not more capacious organs mean increased power ? Or, stating it in terms of the preceding chapter: should not leaders be physically large? 22 A STATISTICAL INQUIRY 23 spinal cord HMrt Diaphragtn It was with a view to bringing statistical evidence to bear upon this question, among others, that a letter of inquiry was sent to one hundred leading railroad executives, presidents in most cases, but a number of general managers of the larger systems being also included; fifty-five replied. Tabulated, their answers reveal the inter- esting information that this group of men aver- age fiye_feet, ten .and nine tenths inches in height ; weight one hun- dred eighty-six pounds. A slightly different type of leader was then chosen, and letters of inquiry sent to the respective governors. Forty-six re- pUes were tabulated. The governors are five feet, eleven and^Tiwo tenths^ incites Tall ; and weigKtT one hundred eighty-two pounds. An- other group of leaders was next selected, this time from the educational field, the university presidents. Seventy-six letters were sent ; sixty-one replies received. Again was indicated a man of relatively large physique ; height five feet, ten and eight tenths inches, weight one hundred eighty-one inUsiint Fig. I. — Dorsal and Ventral Cavi- ties OF Body. Reproduced from Overton's General Hygiene, copyright, 19 13, by American Book Company, Publishers. 24 THE PHYSIQUE OF EXECUTIVES pounds. One more illustration may here be given. Our country has its reformers, vigorous agitators against city congestion, tuberculosis, bad health and housing, har- bingers of good roads, short ballots, workmen's compen- sation, etc. These men, usually termed executive secre- taries, to the number of forty- two gave personal data. Their height is five feet, eleven and four tenths inches ; weight one hundred eighty-one pounds. Following this list, 2197 additional letters were sent, making a total of 2497. "^^^ names of those to whom inquiry was directed were secured from Who's Who, various directories, catalogues, and in some cases from secretaries or others informed regarding the particular group. The returns, it is believed, cover practically every important group of leaders in America. The data, including several other items of interest in addition to the figures relating to weight and height, will be presented in the various tables and diagrams which follow. In the Addenda the material is presented in summarized form, to which, it may be added, the reader should turn should he desire more information than is presented in connection with any particular diagram or table. THE HEIGHT OF EXECUTIVES In addition to the returns received from the executives it was thought advisable to secure data from intellec- tuals, as this term is defined in Chapter I. Accordingly, copies of the questionnaire were sent to six groups of such men — inventors, psychologists, artists, authors, musicians, and philosophers. In all, data were received from forty different groups of leaders, the most promi- nent men in the country. The replies received from these various groups were tabulated and the groups then arranged in Table I COMPARISONS IN HEIGHT 25 LEADERS RANKED ACCORDING TO HEIGHT Rank Name of Group Height I Reformers 5: 11.4 2 Superintendents Street Cleaning s- 11.3 3 Wardens 5:11.3 4 Governors 5: 11.2 5 Chdefs of PoUce 5:11.1 6 Socialist Organizers 5 : 10.9 ^ 5 : 10.9 7 Railroad Presidents 8 University Presidents 5 : io.8y 9 Economists and Sociologists 5 : 10.8 ; 10 Bank Presidents 5 : 10.7 II Senators 5 : I0.6 12 Bishops 5 : 10.6 13 Presidents State Bar 5 : lO.S 14 City School Superintendents 5 : 10.4 IS Presidents Labor Organizations 5 : 10.4 16 Presidents Religious Organizations 5 : 10.4 17 Corporation Directors 5 : 10.4 18 Chiefs Fire Departments 5 : 10.3 19 Anti-Saloon League Organizers 5 : I0.3 20 Y. M. C. A. Secretaries 5 : 10.3 21 Worid's Work List 5 : 10.3 22 Inventors 5 : 10.2 23 Authors 5 : 10.2 24 Sales Managers 5: lO.I 25 Artists 5: lo.i 26 Mayors --.^ 5 : lo.o 27 Factory Superintendents S: 9.8 28 Insurance Presidents 5: 9.7 29 Psychologists 5: 9-7 30 Presidents Fraternal Orders 5: 9.6 31 Chief Justices State Courts S: 9.6 32 Philosophers 5: 9.6 33 Merchants 5: 9.4 34 Rovmdhouse Foremen 5: 9.3 35 Anti-Saloon League Officials 5: 9.2 36 Lecturers 5: 9-2 37 Manufacturers 5: 9-0 38 Labor Organizers S: 8.2 39 Publishers S: 7.9 40 Musicians 5: 5.6 Height is given in feet, inches, and tenths of inches, and includes shoes. Shoes were also included in the policyholders' measure- ments to be quoted below. If height without shoes is desired, deduct one inch, the usual practice in university gymnasiums. Table I. 26 THE PHYSIQUE OF EXECUTIVES according to the average height of their members. In looking through this list of forty groups (see Table I), one finds the executives predominating in the upper ranks while the intellectuals are all within the lower twenty groups. THE WEIGHT OF EXECUTIVES In a similar way we may study the returns as to weight. For this purpose let us construct Table II, Leaders Ranked According to Weight. The same general conclusion is shown here, although the result in this case is somewhat more clear-cut than in the table showing heights. The executives predominate in the upper ranks, the six groups of intellectuals being con- fined to the lower quarter of the groups. The above conclusions seem to imply, perhaps, that greatness depends merely upon size. In fact, some who have seen these tables prior to publication in more than half seriousness have declared that their chances for fame were such and such, because were not their weights this and heights that? Further thought, however, will dispel many of these hasty conclusions. As was pointed out in Chapter I, leaders may be termed either intellec- tual or executive, the latter here being the type chosen for study. The professor of philosophy in one of our leading universities, height five feet, nine and six tenths inches and weight one hundred and fifty-eight pounds, is certainly, when judged by broad social effectiveness, not inferior to the average chief of police though the latter exceed him in height by an inch and a half and in weight by forty-four pounds. It is clear, in consequence, that the conclusion to be drawn from the above tables is not that eminence in general is necessarily correlated with size, but that COMPARISONS IN WEIGHT 27 LEADERS RANKED ACCORDING TO WEIGHT Rank Name of Group Weight 1 Superintendents Street Cleaning 216.7 2 Chiefs of PoUce 202.4 3 Wardens 191-2 4 Presidents Fraternal Orders 190.4 5 Chiefs Fire Departments 189.4 6 Y. M. C. A. Secretaries 188.6 7 Bank Presidents f 186.8 8 Factory Superintendents 186.7 9 Presidents Labor Organizations 186.3 10 Railroad Presidents 186.3 II Labor Organizers 186.1 12 Senators 185.0 13 Anti-Saloon League Organizers 184.9 14 Sales Managers 182.8 IS Worid's Work List 182.2 16 Governors 182.0 17 Reformers 181.7 18 University Presidents 181.6 19 Corporation Directors 179.8 20 City School Superintendents 178.6 21 Roundhouse Foremen I77-0 22 Mayors 176.9 23 Bishops 176.4 24 Anti-Saloon League Officials 176.3 25 Insurance Presidents 175-2 26 Publishers 171.9 27 Presidents State Bar 171-S 28 Socialist Organizers 171.0 29 Economists and Sociologists 170.8 30 Manufacturers 169.9 31 Presidents Religious Organizations 169.8 32 Inventors 169.4 33 Chief Justices State Courts > 169.0 34 Artists 165-7 35 Merchants 163-7 36 Lecturers 162.3 37 Musicians 161.9 38 Philosophers 158.4 39 Authors 158.0 40 Psychologists 155-3 Weight is given in pounds and tenths of a pound, and includes clothing. Clothing was also included in the policyholders' meas- urements. If weight without clothing is desired, deduct ten pounds, the usual practice in university gymnasiums. Table U. 28 THE PHYSIQUE OF EXECUTIVES TABLE SHOWING BOTH HEIGHT AND WEIGHT Name of Group Height Weight 5 : 11-3 216.7 Wardens 5 :n.3 191. 2 Chiefs of Police s II. I 202.4 Railroad Presidents s : lo.Q 186.3 Bank Presidents 5 :io.7 186.8 Reformers s : 11.4 181.7 Governors s : II. 2 182.0 Senators 5 • 10.6 185.0 Chiefs Fire Departments 5 •10.3 189.4 Presidents Labor Organizations S 10.4 186.3 University Presidents 5 10.8 181.6 Y. M. C. A. Secretaries 5 . X0.3 188.6 Anti-Saloon League Organizers S 10.3 184.9 Presidents Fraternal Orders 5 ■ 9.6 190.4 City School Superintendents S 10.4 178.6 Socialist Organizers s 10.9 171.0 Factory Superintendents S 9.8 186.7 Bishops S 10.6 176.4 Corporation Directors 5 10.4 179-8 World's Work List s 10.3 182.2 Sales Managers s 10. 1 182.8 Economists and Sociologists s 10.8 170.8 Presidents State Bar 5 lo.S 171S Presidents Religious Organizations 5 10.4 169.8 Mayors s lO.O 176.9 Labor Organizers s 8.2 186.1 Insurance Presidents s 9-7 175.2 Inventors s 10.2 169.4 Roundhouse Foremen 5 9.3 177.0 Anti-Saloon League Officials 5 9.2 176.3 Artists 5 lO.I 165,7 Authors s 10,2 158.0 Chief Justices State Courts s 9.6 169.0 PubUshers s 7-9 171-9 Manufacturers s 9.0 169.9 Merchants 5 9.4 163.7 Psychologists s 9-7 155.3 Philosophers 5 9.6 158.4 Lecturers s 9.2 162.3 Musicians 5 5.6 161.9 Table IH. HEIGHT AND WEIGHT 29 superiority in weight and height tend to favor one in the contest for executive positions. If the tables are examined, then, not from the standpoint of eminence but with such questions as these in mind. Does this man's daily work require him to meet others in an intimate, give-and-take way? How many people must he deal with, and what kind of people are they? it is believed the favorable relationship between size and executive capacity will not fail to impress the reader. For the purpose of such examination it may be helpful to com- bine Tables I and II into a third so that one has the data on both height and weight before him without the necessity of turning pages. (See Table III.) EXECUTIVES COMPARED WITH POLICYHOLDERS The above comparison had to do with executives and intellectuals, but it would also be interesting to know how executives compare with the average man, the so- called man on the street. Unfortunately, so far as the author is aware, no satisfactory data concerning the average man have yet been collected in this country. But the hfe insurance records of their policyholders furnish a fairly good substitute, at least the best that is at present available. The Association of Life Insurance Medical Directors and the Actuarial Society of America have recently co- operated in preparing and publishing a Medico- Actuarial Investigation, from which source have been drawn the data presented here in graphic form as a comparison with that of the executives. (See Figure 2.) This diagram indicates that the executives considerably exceed the policyholders in height. The distribution of the executives according to weight may now be shown in graphic form. (See Figure 3.) 30 THE PHYSIQUE OF EXECUTIVES One is unable, however, in this case to compare graphi- cally the executives with the policyholders, since in the above report it was not found necessary to compile a frequency distribution of the latter.^ But as it stands the graph indicates that the executives most common are from one hundred seventy pounds to one hundred eighty pounds, certainly men of good weight. sao 200 — — Exe sutlv 58 1 \ / \ » Poll syH Jlde: s DBG |140 ^120 ftioo / > > V / r / \ / / r V i 1 / / \ \ fc flo 1 / V ♦ \ 4D / / \ \ y f / .*'■ 1 \ \ ^ r •JZT. / - N \ •■■■i X C2I 5;2 5:3 5:.4 5:5 5<6 5:7 5:8 5:9 1:10 5:11 6:0 6tl 6:2 6^3 6U 6c5 6<6 6c7 Height InJ'eet and Inches Fig. 2. — Executives and Policyholders compared in Height.' * Although the measurements are not strictly comparable, it is in- teresting to note that the policyholders aged 53 years (approximately the same age as the executives, as is shown on frequency table in Ap- pendix, although for the executives this is an average age, some being above, some under) and the same average height as all the policyholders (58.5 in.) are 164.5 lb. weight. In comparison with this figure, the executives would be over sixteen pounds heavier. 2 The number of policyholders, 221,819, has been reduced propor- tionately to the same as that of the leaders, 1037; the frequency distri- bution being of course kept unchanged. The class interval being one inch, the above figures on height should be followed by a minus sign which has unintentionally been omitted. POSITION AND PHYSIQUE 31 an 39S IfiO 1 '^ 00 25 / \ 1 X > \ \ / . 1 \ s. / s N y f \ y > \ 110- 120- 130- 140^ 150^ Fig. 3. 160- 170 180 190 Weight in Pctoids ■Weight of Executives. aoo 210^ 220 230 Wi The class interval being ten pounds, the above figures on weight should be followed by a minus sign which has unintentionally been omitted. SIZE AND IMPORTANCE OF POSITION HELD In noting the favorable relationship between these important executives and their size, one is led to inquire if there might not possibly je some connection between the executive's physique, as measured by height and weight, and the importance of the position he holds. Upon this question some interesting data have been collected, and though the results are not as conclusive as one might desire (see note on page 32), they are still well worth consideration. Statistics have been received from preachers in small towns and villages where the total amount raised for church support was under one thousand dollars annually ; presidents of small colleges whose enrollment was under two hundred and fifty and annual budget 32 THE PHYSIQUE OF EXECUTIVES under twelve thousand dollars; principals of small public schools whose monthly salary did not exceed seventy-five dollars; county attorneys from six differ- ent states; salesmen of tj^ewriters; and station agents in towns not exceeding five hundred inhabitants. In no way is it to be implied that stigma attaches to any of these men. They are merely filling less impor- tant positions than the bishops, university presidents, city school superintendents, and others with whom they are compared. Their respective heights and weights are as follows. (See Table IV.) In each case the larger position is held by the larger man. PHYSIQUE IN RELATION TO POSITION Class Height DlFFERJENCE Weight Difference 1. Bishops 2. Preachers Small Towns 5 : 10.6 5: 8.8 1.8 in. 176.4 159.4 17.0 lb. 3. University Presidents 4. Presidents Small Colleges 5 : 10.8 5: 9.6 1.2 in. 181.6 164.0 17.6 lb. 5. City School Supts. 6. Principals Small Towns 5 : 10.4 5: 9.7 .7 in. 178.6 IS7-6 21.0 lb. 7. Presidents State Bar 8. County Attorneys 5 : IO-5 5 ' lo.o •sin. 171.S 162.4 9.1 lb. 9. Sales Managers 10. S^ilesmen S : lo.i 5: 9-1 I.I in. 182.8 157.0 25.8 lb. 11. Railroad Presidents 12. Station Agents 5 : 10.9 5: 9.4 1.5 in. 186.3 154.6 31.71b. Table IV. This will probably be as far as the average reader's interest will impel him to follow these statistics, and * The averages given in the above table were computed directly from the original schedules, but for the benefit of those who may wish to apply EXERCISES 33 if so he may neglect the Appendix, in which the results are analyzed in greater detail, and instead turn at once to Chapter IV, The Energizing Level. EXERCISES 1. What was the ascetic ideal of medieval times? Point out how this view still tends to color present-day thinking. 2. What correlation has been discovered between adenoids and defective teeth and eyes, and the laggards in our public schools ? 3. Discuss the significance to the South of the campaign against the hookworm. more refined methods to these data the items have been arranged in frequency tables (class intervals i in. and 10 lbs. respectively) from which the foUowing have been deduced : Class Number Average St. Dip. in Number Average St. DiF. IN Number Cases Height Dev. Inches Cases Weight Dev. Pounds I 81 70.8 2.4 82 178.2 26.9 2 30 69.2 2.7 1.6 31 160.5 21. 1 17.7 3 58 71.2 2.4 61 183.9 23.0 4 26 69.7 1-7 i.S 26 165.4 25-5 18.5 5 25 70.3 1.8 26 180.0 22.2 6 28 69.5 3-0 .8 29 159.5 21.7 20.5 7 38 69.5 2.7 37 173.I 25.1 8 31 69.1 1.8 .4 31 156.3 14.1 16.8 9 23 69.5 2.1 23 184.6 19.7 10 50 68.5 2.1 I.O 54 159.1 19.7 25.5 II 53 71.3 1.9 54 188.I 23.4 12 30 68.8 2.4 2.5 29 156.4 19.8 31.7 Another factor to be considered is that age affects weight, and since the two groups compared are not of the same age a correction should be made in this respect. In the Medico- Actuarial Mortality Investigation the data are presented upon which a rough approximation of this cor- rection may be made (page 13). The younger group in each case is the second and as weight during the periods under consideration increases with age, these corrections may be deducted from the weight differences shown in the table: Preachers 1.5 lb., presidents colleges .4 lb., princi- pals 6.8 lb., attorneys 4.1 lb., salesmen 5.9 lb., and agents 8.1 lb. These corrections are based upon the average age as shown in the statistical summary, pages 320-323, and, as will be recognized by those familiar with more refined methods, are rough approximations. 34 THE PHYSIQUE OF EXECUTIVES 4. What is the aim of the eugenic movement? By what means does it seek to attain its purpose? 5. Does your observation of executives confirm or oppose the various conclusions of this chapter? 6. Through what modifications in diet, exercise, bathing, sleep, etc., have you been able to increase your energy ? READINGS Lecky, History of European Morals, Vol. II, pp. 108-148. GuiiCK, The Efficient Life^ or ibid., Mind and Work, CHAPTER IV The Energizing Level "The plain fact remains that men the world over possess amounts of resource, which only very exceptional individuals push to their extremes of use." — William James. I The statistics presented indicate that physically the executive is an exceptional man. The problem of controlling others may seem thereby to assume a fatal- istic aspect — for who by being anxious can add a cubit to his stature? Yet certain men of small stature have proved themselves masterful; the founder of Method- ism a little man barely five feet six inches in height, Henry IV of France scarcely larger, Alexander and Lord Nelson possessing no towering frames, and Napoleon, so diminutive that in showing himself to his solcflers he chose to appear on horseback. But of these same men biographers have used the terms " always going somewhere," " power defied fatigue," " energy incarnate." Small of stature it is true, yet they were human dynamos. Energy is the true basis of leadership, and though in general related to size, is not at all definitely limited by it. Large men may be lethargic and small men dynamic. Physical and mental energy is not static in amount, but subject to considerable fluctuations. Individual lives constantly evidence such fluctuations. Clive, an idler and a scapegrace, once immersed in things 35 36 THE ENERGIZING LEVEL military reveled in life. Luther, than whom no reformers have been more ardent, ten years before the Reforma- tion, as a retiring professor pleaded that he might not be forced into theological teaching. The champion of Islam, Saladin, earlier in life loved retreat and the dis- course of pious men, and accepted command, as he recounted the scene in later years, " like one driven to my death." An idle, dreamy, slouching roamer was young Patrick Henry, a confirmed failure it seemed, until, having espoused the law and being roused by the Parson's Case, he was transformed into the fiery revolutionary orator. Benjamin Franklin through pressure alone was forced from the life of social ease he was planning at Philadelphia and by the Revolution molded into an American hero. The indolent Webster only under unusual stimulus would bestir himself and, intellect in full play, become as grand and effective in eloquence as is given human nature to be. Similar instances are observed again and again. Who has not seen, when loved ones were threatened, frail women becoming able to bear tremendous burdens; in the teeth of the storm sailors for long periods defying danger and fatigue ; in the political campaign tlie vital- ity of candidates rising with the strength of opposition ; or in life's common crises ordinary mortals undergoing strains it later unnerves them to recall? The energy rate does fluctuate ; occasions make the weak strong. Increased effort, it may be claimed, means increased fatigue. " Everything has its price and you cannot cheat nature with a lead nickel." But some men seem to have tapped reservoirs of power. They have ener- gized vigorously, and for years, and apparently have not been becalmed in the fatigue zone. Do they not prove that the energy Hne may be advanced and the fatigue line delayed, and that within this zone may INCREASING ENERGY 37 dwell a race of dynamic men? Life begins with the acceleration of oxidation in the egg, and in this increase lies the hope of more life. Obviously, this is a matter of considerable practical importance. If the energizing rate can be doubled, for instance, — a possibiUty confirmed by biographers, observation, and perhaps through the reader's personal experience as well, — it is making two men live where before was but one. The means for realizing this higher level, moreover, lie close at hand. They are four in number and will be discussed in turn. I. A STIMULATING ENVIRONMENT Exceptional achievement follows hard upon excep- tional stimuli ; or stated in terms of social environment, results from unusual incentive. A monotonous environ- ment produces listless men; but a stimulating social system, like a beautiful landscape, charms through its variety. There is differentiation, distinction. Among these distinctions, first place may be accorded wealth. Wealth, — In primitive society private property can scarcely he said to exist. What little the group pos- sessed, outside of ornaments, weapons, and scanty articles of clothing, was communal. But with the domestication of animals there became something individually worth while owning. Seizure, lordship, revenue, exchange, rise of the state and economic progress, all shaped its development from age to age. To-day not only it is the basis of economic Ufe, but its influence permeates the social system. All desire to own. ' 1 Added satisfaction comes from possessing that which is denied others. In the primitive forays, booty was not divided equally, but the champion received his extra share of plunder, presents, and land. " There is 38 THE ENERGIZING LEVEL a custom prevailing among the several states, as well as among individuals," wrote Tacitus in the Germania, " to offer voluntary contribution of grain and cattle to their chiefs." There is a similar custom prevailing among the several states of the modem world, of bestow- ing upon their " chiefs " contributions of stocks and bonds and real estate holdings. A satisfied feeling ofsuperiority over the humble trudger swells the self- regard of the " Silent Six " owner ; and the brownstone ,c front, the securities, the real estate holdings gently but ^vj* persistently impress upon him. Thou hast done well. ^•^ Authority. — That all men are equal and will be kept so by ideal social arrangements, is a view more enticing than well-founded historically. In fact, it is ' only among the most degraded tribes of mankind that a system of approximate equality is found. All others exhibit among their members differentiation and sub- ordination, a process which, expanding with civiliza- tion, in church and state and industry has developed hierarchies with centers of authority to tempt ambi- tious men.i There are openings on ahead, and men love to exercise authority. 1 One of the most interesting attempts to combat this universal tendency is found in the history of English trade-unions. They were democracies of "the most rudimentary t3^e, free alike from perma- nently differentiated officials, executive council, or representative assem- bly. The general meeting strove itself to transact all the business, and grudgingly delegated any of its functions either to officers or to committees. When this delegation could not longer be avoided, the expedients of rotation and short periods were used 'to prevent impo- sition' or any undue influence by particular members. In this earliest type of Trade Union democracy, we find, in fact, the most childlike faith not only that 'all men are equal,' but also that 'what concerns all should be decided by all.'" Webb, Industrial Democracy, 8. But growing administrative and tactical needs demonstrated the futility of the old system. There was presented a choice between ineffi- ciency and disintegration, uncontrolled dominance of a personal dicta- tor, or an expert bureaucracy. Trade-union constitutions, consequently, .have undergone a revolution. The powers of the general secretary have SOCIAL INCENTIVES 39 Social Approval. — Society has drawn up an elaborate scale of rewards and punishments, the skillful use of which may be seen even in primitive groups. So highly approved is the sea-lion hunter of Kamchatka that many men engage in the dangerous occupation less for the sake of the meat than in order to gain renown. The picked warriors forming the advance line of the Ger- manic hosts were held in such esteem that, says Tacitus, the " epithet, which originally indicated number, has, by this circumstance, become a Title of Honour. '^ The social position of a noted Polynesian chief was so exalted that no one dared to walk upright in the village when he was present, but all had to crouch down and crawl, and no cries or noise were permitted in his hearing. Differing from the Polynesian attitude merely in degree \ u^ is the sentiment expressed in the old English couplet :. .Jjy Ijt*^ " God bless the squire and his relations, L/ '^ A Teach us to know our proper stations." -^^ ^r \/ ' In civilized Hfe the social self is most deftly flattered and coaxed. As Chve, home from India, " had scarcely set foot in England before incense, so grateful to a man when offered by his country to mark that country's sense of the services he has endeavored to render her, impregnated the very air he breathed. The Court of Directors entertained him at a semi-royal public dinner. They presented him with a diamond-hilted sword of the value of five hundred guineas. They solicited his ad- vice with a deference which is only manifested by city men toward one whose merits have already forced themselves to the loftiest place in public approval." ^ been magnified and consolidated, a score of offices of varying power have been constructed, until nowhere is there found a more carefully graded hierarchy than in some of the modem "warring" labor camps. ^ Malleson, Live of Clive, 144-145. 40 THE ENERGIZING LEVEL One need only compare the later prevailing attitude of Englishmen toward Clive when the " infamous mon- ster " was on trial, to appreciate the vast range of social approval. Cheering throngs, public receptions, crowded banquets, messages of congratulation, titles, decora- tions, degrees, interviews, press notices, and at life's eventide flags at half-mast, conspicuous sorrow, statues, and social ancestor worship — these let us compare with the hoots and jeers, the triumph of enemies, the loss of friends, the acid editorial, the silent contempt or neglect, and the grip of law. Here are two sets of influ- ences which, human nature as it is,^ expand or shrivel the personal self, social approval so adjusted that it unceasingly stimulates. To those who believe in a forward-moving humanity, social life ever expanding, no problem perhaps can claim precedence over that of maintaining and perfecting a stimulating environment. For the welfare of the many is bound up with the achievements of the few, and the supply of progressive geniuses is linked up with the de- mand for their services. The man who might have evolved a new transportation system, introduced im- proved manufacturing devices, revolutionized agricul- tural tillage, replaced outworn customs for new measures of religion, government, or social relations, may never feel the stimulus necessary to a creative genius and dies without realizing the possibilities of his nature. This question is worth the serious thought of those 1 "I believe," writes Cooley, regarding the influence of the opinions of others, "that with all normal and human people it remains, in one form or another, the mainspring of endeavor and a chief interest of the imagination throughout life. As is the case with other feelings, we do not think much of it so long as it is moderately and regularly gratified. Many people of balanced mind and congenial activity scarcely know that they care what others think of them, and will deny, perhaps with indignation, that such care is an important factor in what they are and do. But this is an illusion." Human Nature and the Social Order, 177. PROVIDING INCENTIVES 41 who would multiply restrictions upon the statute books, oppose a business merely because it is successful, curb crudely the thought of those who dare move along untrodden ways, hound the doer of exceptional things, and provide only the prize which all men may grasp. Where incentive is not, pygmy men stand at the tiller, and they drive no ship through prosperous seas. Now wealth, positions of authority, and social approval indi- cate merely three of the many measures through which a stimulating social system may be developed, and no legislator nor molder of public policy need lack practical means for supplying incentive. The result of increased stimulation is an intensifica- tion of the selective process. Many will be called that the better may be chosen. Added pressure will be brought to bear upon these better to become best. Leaders will be, and are, " forced " in the social green- house. Men, in turn, can accommodate themselves to the raised levels. Blood is supplied more copiously to the active organs. The higher psychic centers are better nourished, sensuality is lessened ; in energizing rate the usual approaches the maximum. With the redistribution of his vital energies, the individual comes to live in the upper stories of his house. He has sur- passed his old self, and under the lure of incentive been molded into a super-man. EXERCISES 1. Is a stimulating environment compatible with socialism? 2. Which is preferable, a policy of regulated monopoly or enforced competition? An income tax or an inheritance tax? 3. What stimulus comes from friends? Followers? Enemies? Books? Parents? Teachers? Be specific. 4. To what positions may the young alderman aspire? The office boy? The miner's apprentice? 42 THE ENERGIZING LEVEL 5 . Is it preferable to attend an urban university or a small- to wn college? 6. Is more expected of a large-sized man? Comment. 7. Why are rival candidates usually both confident of victory in the coming elections? READINGS Ward, Applied Sociology, Ch. IX. MuNSTERBERG, The Americans, Ch. XXTTT. //- CHAPTER V The Increase of Power "Having been a rather sickly and awkward boy, I was as a young man at first both nervous and distrustful of my own prow- ess. I had to train myself painfully and laboriously, not merely as regards my body, but as regards my soul and spirit." — Theodore Roosevelt. In the preceding chapter we noted the influence of a stimulating environment. It is now our purpose to follow this stimulation into the individual mind; for the individual under the stimulation of environment is not a passive factor, nor does he, as an inert mechanism, merely pass on the force which has been communicated to him. The organism through Hfe is active ; the body is in incessant flux, built up of unstable elements, and the brain cells must transform their contents into energy of some sort. The restless passion for reshaping and subduing which Alexander exhibited is true of most eager spirits ; activity is normal. n. THE LUMINOUS IDEA Ideas gained from the environment do not rest in the mind as so much baggage. They are dynamic; each one of them tends to reaUze itself through action, and it will do so if not opposed. Hence an idea of a pecul- iarly compelling sort enlists energetic action and leads to tangible results. Such an idea we may say is luminous. 43 44 THE INCREASE OF POWER It shines and lures. To Napoleon it was his star of destiny, seen on all great occasions. " It commands me to go forward and is a constant sign of my good for- tune, and led by it, I behold the world beneath me as if I were being carried through the air." To Garibaldi it was Italy, to O'Connell it was Ireland, to Pitt it was Parliament, to Webster it was a united country, to Clay it was glowing conception of national destiny. To Lord Nelson, it was the service of king and country, which, born in a period of despair, ever afterwards was sus- pended, as he said, " before my mind's eye as a radiant orb that courted me onward to renown." Such terms as " our country," " democracy," " equal- ity," " freedom," " social justice," have stimulated gen- erations of public men, and without doubt will continue so to do. But the luminous idea itself is universal. The merchant finds inspiration in business elficiency, the editor in the reforms he espouses; the teacher sees in the youths before him splendid men of to-morrow ; and among the test tubes and compound microscopes the re- search worker has visions of germ conquests. The lumi- nous idea is merely one with power to draw men onward, and each may possess it. Its Characteristics. — This idea should, for one thing, be (i) Clear. The idea which has a power within the mind is one sifted from the maze and clearly perceived. The mental process, at first thought, would seem difficult, since evolving central notions requires a high order of intelligence. Yet the idea need only seem clear to its possessor. Practically any mind, by ruminating on the materials with which it is stocked, yields generaliza- tions later held as self-evident truths. A recent presi- dential aspirant, for instance, states that " after twenty- five years study I find the supreme issue, involving all others, is the encroachment of the powerful few upon THE IMPULSE OF IDEAS 45 the rights of the many " — and he continues to wage war with this as a slogan. It may be pointed out that because in these times of reconstruction ministers as a class are too often with- out the clear and positive idea, hypocrisy stalks about in many a declining church. Similarly these are recon- structive days in politics, education, law, and business, which means that here, too, is the unsettled opinion. What our social Ufe most needs is a more clearly defined set of values, with which, forward facing and positive, men may transact life's business with vigor. (2) Narrow. Every fact indeed is connected up with all other facts; but only the thinker threads his way through the complexities in which each particu- lar problem is immersed. The executive type ignores the qualifications, brushes complexities aside as " aca- demic " ; he is " practical," trusts in " common sense,'' and without further loss of time sets about focusing effort upon the " paramount issue." The idea thus held may be distorted, it is true, but it brings results. It has been said that Thomas Jefferson was egotistical and confident because he had convinced himself that he was a genuine and successful benefactor of mankind, — the teacher of a great gospel that, like the Sermon on the Mount, embodied all the science of government and human morality. But Jefferson held an idea whi^ enabled him to accomplish. (3) Interestimg.^Mi^^^tudiQS of ideas press for rec- ognition ; but those of interest alone are welcomed, and of these only the most interesting write the plan book of life. Of the remainder, some are rendered subordinate ; most are suppressed and, so far as motivation is con- cerned, become practically non-existent. But the idea selected and elevated over others, whether it be " United Italy," a presidency, the home on the hillside, " Social i 46 THE INCREASE OF POWER Justice," or what not, is able to stir consciousness and provides the onward impulse. Us Power. — Just as a medical student courts the society of physicians and the young lawyer seeks his kind, so the leader immerses himself in the atmosphere of his major theme. This to him is both necessary and easy; necessary, because complexities and frequent change of policy spell confusion among followers, and easy, because, once provided with a luminous idea, these followers reflect it upon the leader until, as in the solar motor, he is the objective upon which play a thousand beams. AccompUshment is then powerfully stimulated. This " led by a star of destiny,'' this rapture over work, this faith in ultimate victory, favorably affects the jdscera. Brain, heart, and stomach receive the effi- ciency stimulus. " I have, indeed," said Daniel O'Connell, "a glowing and — if I may use the expres- sion — an entl\usiastic ambition, which converts every toil into a pleasure, and every study into an amuse- ment." This idea, moreover, is kept gradually advancing. Mohammed's dream expalided with his fortunes, some- thing true, no doubt, of many men.» Yet there are those who, in a small environm^t, Vin the " big^' victory, reaUze the idea, are^iljjed tosleecSby me plaudits of the circumscribed, and thu^^jt^eA spend their hfe in a cove. It is the exceplnonal i^j^J&b^ ^jtf^ . local victory, spurns his neighbors'' chlaW(fj^i ■^((plants his idea where it dominates a wider scope? ^ ni. THE. WILL IN ACTION A luminous idea normally eAlist^ the will, since volition, as has been pointed out 'by James, in its last analysis consists simply in voluntary attention to an ROUSING THE WILL 47 idea. Alexander fastened his mind upon the result desired and, as by autosuggestion, clearly saw it as an accomplished reality; Cromwell was almost fatalistic in his belief that " (k>d's cause " would conquer. " His Majesty," wrote Stenbach of Charles XII, "seems to receive his inspiration from God alone; and has got the idea of a war so firmly fixed in his head that he can attend to nothing else." Need we wonder that such men are characterized by strong wills? It would be queer indeed were such not the case. Within the organism exist stores of energy ordinarily untouched because not reached by the usual nerve stim- uli. But increased stimulation unlocks these stores, the will in this way being able to develop power. The means for securing this increased power may be stated as follows : (i) The Set Task. A certain task set for per- formance becomes in turn the stimulus for its accom- plishment. The ancient Teutons, amid song and drink, boasted of forthcoming deeds. The Catti, tribesmen of Gaul, by leaving hair and beard uncut until after the death of an enemy, possessed, Tacitus says, a " prom- ise of heroic action." Wolfe disgusted the British states- men by boasts of what victories would follow his com- mand in America ; and then won those victories. John Quincy Adams, one of the most lonely and desolate of the great men of history, set for himself the most exacting tasks, and actually toward the close of his term he spoke of his trying, daily routine as constituting a very agreeable life. These set tasks, this being on rec- ord before others and making promises to oneself of what shall be done, have a result-getting value. They stiffen the will. (2) The Blocked Retreat, No wild animal puts forth supreme effort until brought to bay by the snarl- 48 THE INCREASE OF POWER ing pack. Nor does any man push his task with maxi- mum energy while one eye surveys the avenues of re- treat. But with retreat blocked and back to wall, men have so wrought that the accomplishment, once passed, fills them with amazement. The assistant, upon the death of the great divine, is compelled to ascend the pulpit ; the subordinate in the factory is compelled to assume large duties when the head official severs his con- nection with the firm. Pulpit and office chair, to the young men upon whom the new responsibilities rest, become a forcing house for power. It is because unusual demands are thus met by a welling up of power from within that " shoulder responsibility " is a good motto and " burn your bridges behind you '' a means toward greater accomplishment. (3) Faith in Self. Men of capacity often have that sublime faith in self which in little minds is mere arro- gance. " I am sure that I can save this country," said the Earl of Chatham, " and that nobody else can." His son possessed a like confidence : ^' I place much dependence on my new colleagues," said Pitt ; " I place still more dependence upon myself." Witness also Bismarck at thirty-six, seemingly undip- lomatic and unskilled, offering to undertake " anything which the King felt strong enough to propose to him " ; Mohammed, branded as a pretender and threatened with death, declaring " though they should array the sun against me on my right hand and the moon on my left, yet until God should command me or should take me hence, would I not depart from my purpose " ; Louis XIV, for a time after the peace of Nimwegen, believing he was permitted by God to undertake any scheme no matter how daring ; or Webster's public declaration, " I am quite aware that I am a man of considerable public importance, not only within the boundaries of Massa-' IMPULSIVENESS 49 chusetts, but without her boundaries, and throughout the length and breadth of this continent." Such faith in self, a compound of strong desire and belief in one's abiUty to attain it, makes men of iron resolution. (4) The Impulsive Temperament. The tendency is for action to follow upon desire in a simple and ready sequence. But some natures are so apprehensive con- cerning all possible contingencies and consequences that the will becomes sicklied over with the pale cast of thought. " The centipede was happy quite Uhtil the toad for fun Said, Tray, which leg goes after which?* Which worked her soul to such a pitch She lay distracted in the ditch, Considering how to run." Successful executives ordinarily are not typified by the musing Hamlet. The impulsive Moody, the free- dom-loving, unchastened and romantic Garibaldi, the jovial William the Silent, the Cromwell who impressed strangers as if he " hath taken a bit of wine too much," the cheery, exuberant Clay, the strenuous Roosevelt, represent action, not the obstructed will. They have not inhibited decision in order that the intellect might wander in a maze of speculation, but rather their wills react healthily. As Lord Palmerston wrote, apparently explaining his own procedure: " I believe weakness and irresolution are, on the whole, the worst faults that statesmen can have. A man of energy may make a wrong decision, but, like a strong horse that carries you rashly into a quagmire, he brings you by his sturdiness out on the other side." (5) Intensity of Conviction. It is one thing to yield so THE INCREASE OF POWER intellectual assent and another to believe with convic- tion. In the latter, mere assent is intensified by emo- tion. " A hot flash seems to burn across the brain," as Bagehot puts it. " Men in these intense states of mind have altered all history, changed for better or worse the creed of myriads, and desolated or redeemed provinces and ages. Nor is this intensity a sign of truth, for it is precisely strongest in those points in which men differ most from each other. John Knox felt it in his anti- Catholicism, Ignatius Loyola in his anti-Protestantism ; and both, I suppose, felt it as much as it is possible to feel it. . . . " We should utilize this intense emotion of convic- tion as far as we can. Dry minds, which give an in- tellectual * assent ' to conclusions, which feel no strong glow of faith in them, often do not know what their opinions are ; they have every day to go over the argu- ments again, or to refer to a notebook to know what they beheve; but intense convictions make a memory for themselves, and if they can be kept to the truths of which there is good evidence, they give a readiness of intellect, a confidence in action, a consistency in char- acter, which are not to be had without them." ^ Opportunities for setting tasks, cutting off retreats, holding faith in self, unclamping the will, and beheving with intensity, come to all of us. When such opportuni- ties are utiUzed, as in some measure at least may readily be done, the will becomes an instrument productive of power. IV. INFLUENCE OF EMOTION The influence of emotion, coming now to the last of the four factors upon which power depends, is a matter of common observation. The train wreck, the great ^Religious and Metaphysical Essays, II, 326-338, passim. THE ATMOSPHERE OF POWER 51 fire, the attack on national honor, temporarily at least change mediocres into heroes. The experience of An- toine Gerle is typical. A poor monk secluded in a monastery for nearly forty years, he quite lost his head in the turmoil of Paris, and, half-mad with excitement, became one of the leading orators of the Jacobin Club. Vergniaud, once too indolent to win high honors in school, a writer of poetry and social devotee when he should have prosecuted his divinity studies, a civil service appointee who quit his post because its drudgery disgusted him, having similarly had his imagination fired by the Revolution, became the great orator of the Jacobin party and took an infinity of trouble over his speeches. The indolent Danton could, as well, display enormous energy at a crisis, and he did so during the early days of June, 1793. Because of emotional power thus engendered it was p)ossible for the revolutionary movement in France to be directed by men hitherto unknown. More so than other men, the leader is in position to derive power through the emotions, the chief reasons perhaps for his superior opportunity being as follows: (i) Constructiveness and Self-assertion. The organ- ism has munerous instincts, the satisfaction of which causes pleasure and their obstruction pain, and whose promptings consequently constitute a never ceasing driving force. These instincts, moreover, being plastic, are modifiable. Hence in their waxing or waning they may assume dilBferent motivation values. Now management as an experience thoroughly stim- ulates two instincts, constructiveness and self-assertion. Men love to feel themselves a cause, to see a new product shaped under their direction; and they draw pleasure from rising triumphant over more and more obstacles, from extending the dominant personality over yet 52 THE INCREASE OF POWER vaster ranges of control. As was true of our recent strenuous President, most men's blood tingles when the reins of leadership touch their hands. (2) The Focus of Emotion. A leader is apt to be immersed in an emotion stirred atmosphere. But more than this, because of the masses' tendency to think in simple terms and concentrate their opinions of move- ments into estimates of one person, he occupies a focal point. However praiseworthy the private is conceded to be, pubhc opinion lauds the victorious general. The people of a city are easily kept interested in their mayor ; the alderman does not excite popular fancy. In this way, whatever of censure or approval is visited upon the organization falls upon its chief with redoubled effect. (3) Attitudes of Power. Every emotion has a phys- ical resultant ; but similarly has every movement its mental correlate. " I have often observed," wrote Burke, " that, on mimicking the looks and gestures of angry, or placid, or frightened, or daring men, I have involuntarily found my mind turned to that passion whose appearance I strove to imitate; nay, I am con- vinced H is hard to avoid it, though one strove to sepa- rate the passion from its corresponding gestures." ^ According to this point of view, the bodily manifesta- tion causes the corresponding emotion. Look brave and you feel brave ; assume the posture of grief and that emotion will soon steal upon you.^ Now a leader is constantly assuming attitudes of power. He stands prominently before followers : Napoleon on the hillock, Burke in Parliament, Bryan on the Chau- tauqua platform. His fist it is which thumps the chair- man's stand, his chest which throws the resonant voice into the far confines of the great hall, his muscles which 1 Sublime and Beautiful, cited by James, Psychology, II, 464. « Cf. James, ibid., Ch. XXV. EFFORT UNCEASING S3 assume the " come-on-boys " position. From these positive bodily attitudes he draws emotional power, in this way realizing in daily practice that unto him that hath it shall be given. POWER DEVELOPED Power, we may now conclude, is neither fixed nor inherent, but is fluctuating and can be developed. Its basis is revealed in the view that the body is a chemical machine ; its amount depends in part upQn..lli£_§ize of this chemical rnachine and in part upon the e fficiency with which it^ogerates. This operation in turn is suB^ ject to acceleration, the increased niQtiva.tion being due to a stimulating environment, the luminous idea, the will, and the emotions. These four constitute what may~be termed an atmosphere of power, men momen- tarily being caught up into it, and while thus influenced surpassing their ordinary selves. But these flashes of power may be made permanent levels of accomplish- ment, and from their old selves men rise to a new plane of being.i EXERCISES 1. How develop and train the will? (James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology, Ch. XV.) 2. Contrast in specific terms Hamlet with some successful executive. ^ This would mean, during working hours, effort without ceasing, a prospect directly opposed to much current talk of overwork, vacations, nervousness, and other mental disorders. Nevertheless the opinion of psychologists is shifting toward the view that such effort is not only possible, but can be continued without injury. "The more the mind does," said William James, "the more it can do." "In my practice as physician in nervous and mental diseases," ob- serves Dr. Boris Sidis, "I can say without hesitation that I have not 54 THE INCREASE OF POWER 3. What causes periods of business uncertainty? How secure religious positiveness ? 4. In what fact does the value of Christian Science consist ? 5. In maintaining the positive emotional state discuss the value of humor. Freedom. The evaluating of critics. Empha- sizing success and minimizing failure. Inspirational atmosphere. Life philosophies. 6. Outline a practical plan for increasing power. READINGS James, Memories and Studies, Ch. X. Roosevelt, Autobiography , Ch. II. {Outlook, March 22, 1913, 660-674.) met a single case of nervous or mental trouble caused by too much thinking or overstudy. What produces nervousness is worry, emotional excitement, and lack of interest in the work." "My rules for being able to work all the time," states Professor Thorndyke, "are: "Sleep all that is possible. " Get rid of all physical ills. "When one interest flags, find a new one. " Always keep on hand a supply of motives or desires. " Never learn by a roundabout method what can be learned directly. " Never allow the mind to dwell on a subject that may not be useful. " Waste no effort. Never worry. Never become excited unneces- sarily. " Think out what should be done and then do it without talking about it. "In a word," he concludes, " the whole doctrine is : Interest and motive for efficiency, and for protection sleep." CHAPTER VI Effective Effort "Get your principles right; the rest is a matter of detail." — Napoleon. The discussion of individuality to this point has concerned itself chiefly with the energy element. It is now pertinent to consider the use to which this energy shall be put. For only power effectively directed brings results ; and managers must meet the result test. Work, hustle, get things done — this has been the ideal of the American executive. But mere hustling means waste ; things " done " are often done wrong. Hence the era of crude activity is being superseded by a system of effectiveness in effort. POWER AS NEEDED This ideal of effectiveness applies first to the develop- ment of power itself. It is evident that energy is not fixed in quantity, but fluctuating, and that the indi- vidual, less completely, it is true, but still somewhat like the mechanical engineer, can control the power output. But what fireman would turn on forced draft and in- crease stoking when his engine had no load? Steam boilers work at continuous maximum capacity only when under continuous maximum load. Yet have we not seen men — ourselves perhaps guilty as well — running their bodily engines at full speed regardless of the lo^d ? 55 56 EFFECTIVE EFFORT The mere prospect of a task too often serves as an order " full steam ahead." Unresisted, this order dissipates one's energies before the race is on. Power, to the contrary, may and should be developed as needed. The dashing Garibaldi, if the encampment was far from the scene of danger, lay stretched out under his tent; in the Pullman which carried him to the Chicago convention of 191 2 Colonel Roosevelt retired early ; during the Baltimore convention, when the deadlock and long hours had thrown men into high tension, Bryan came to his room, threw off his coat, and, oblivious to the bustle of delegates around him, slept soundly for an hour. It is in such control that the first directive requirement is met, that power he developed as needed} ALERTNESS The outside world plays upon men's minds incessantly, sending its stimulations through their sense organs. But marked difference is shown in responding to these stimulations; though they travel the same road to- gether men do not all see the same things. That member of a group who reacts most advantageously is better * In this connection the qualitative element should be noted. Says James: "The words 'energy' and 'maximum' may easily suggest only quantity to the reader's mind, whereas in measuring the human energies of which I speak, qualities as well as quantities have to be taken into accoimt. Every one feels that his total power rises when he passes to a higher qualitative level of^ life. . . . Writing is higher than walking, thinking is higher than writing, deciding 'no' higher than deciding 'yes' — at least the man who passes from one of these activities to another will usually say that each later one involves a greater element of inner work than the earlier one, even though the total heat given out or the foot- pounds expended by the organism may be less . , . inner work, though it so often reinforces outer work, quite as often means its arrest. To reflex, to say to ourselves (with the ' new thoughters ') , * Peace ! be still ! ' is sometimes a great achievement of inner work." Memories and Studies, 234-235 passim. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT 57 able to direct the others and thus becomes a leader because of quicker response to stimuli. As Henry IV burst forth when he received threat of war from the Spanish king, " Let your master have a care, I should be in the saddle before his foot touched the stirrup.'* While the significance of a situation is slowly dawning upon an ordinary mind, the alert intellect has already seized it at the psychological moment. " Fortune," declared Cortes, " favors the daring." The Alexanders set too fast a pace for the Dariuses. This quick response to stimuH permits dispatch. With big enterprises to manage, there is distinct advantage in the mind which comprehends quickly and then reacts with vigor. Such mental organization insures volume in accomplishment, gives up-to-dateness, and outdistances competitors.^ It also makes for effective expenditure. In the control of men there is what may be termed the psychological moment, a tide which, taken at the flood, leads on to results. The salesman is alert to it, shrewdly timing his command, " Sign right here " ; the orator in his dramatic climaxes, the strategist in his campaign plans, the foreman in punishing the rule breaker, each moves in accordance with the same principle. The executive spends no energy in a losing fight, but like a wise hus- bandman harvests results when the grain is ripe. The quickness of response, in addition, permits fuller utilization of opportunities. Opportunities come not singly but in series, — the old motto notwithstanding, — and the great man is he who deftly turns every off er- 1 E. H. Harriman as chairman conducted the most rapid-fire meet- ings ever held in the financial district. Discussion, if ventured at all, usually ended with : "Oh, I knew all about that. It's all right. Let's put it through!" And through it went. A member of the executive committee once timed the proceedings and found that it took thirty-six seconds to appropriate six millions for equipment. 58 EFFECTIVE EFFORT ing into results for his own. In .factory and counting house, quite as truly as on gridiron or diamond, it seems the most successful men make the promptest use of the ideas which come to them. ORIGINALITY New ideas are rare, the development of one general- ization, it is said, being sufficient to make a man famous in science. Yet this is a changing and progressive world ; a manager is consequently forced to venture upon the unknown, and in making new adjustments show origi- nality. Whence is derived this originality? It is, for one thing, natural. In the facts of birth and variation, originality is to be expected. It would be realized more often, without doubt, were it not for the rigid insistence upon conformity practiced by home, church, and school. " I think I was as well brought up as most children," said Henry Ward Beecher, " because I was let alone." May we not say he was better brought up than most children, and that in a wider adoption of this poHcy originaUty would flourish? But shades of the social-convention prison house usually inclose the growing boy. His spontaneity is chilled or rudely repressed, his intelUgence fed upon materials unrelated to his own Hfe and hence lacking in vitality. Does it not seem culpable, for instance, that much of our meager stock of developmental methods should have been worked out in schools for imbeciles? Yet originality is a most precious possession ; regarded as natural, some seem to retain it by escaping the usual training, resisting the cramp of routine, or insisting upon self-assertion. Much depends also upon openness to impressions. Early in his railroading career young Cassatt, late GETTING NEW IDEAS 59 president of the Pennsylvania system, made it his business to be the most approachable of division super- intendents. No man was ever more sought after by cranks and geniuses alike, with their models of auto- matic couplers, sleeping cars, tanking and signaling systems. He was willing to seek through chaff to find wheat. He made it a rule, moreover, to be even more accessible to his own petty employees. Brakemen, switch tenders, trackmen, all found the door to his pri- vate office open, and their practical suggestions enabled many an innovation to reach its highest value. Here is a method which most executives adapt to fit their needs. On every hand are ideas, plans, methods, which these men quickly recognize of value; their openness of mind yields them with little cost a rich har- vest. A more positive plan consists in the active seeking of new ideas. A noted advertising man — advertising of all businesses being one which demands originality — cHps every illustration which contains a figure, a pose, a layout, or an idea of any kind that he finds stimulating. These nuggets of thought, embryo ideas, brilliant quotations and epigrams, bright articles, striking phrases, clever write-ups, he classifies and pastes on great wooden leaves on the wall — nine hundred square feet of the brain, experience, and knowledge product of his leading fellow craftsmen. Original ideas unfold in the educational trip, the late book, the magazine article, the conference, the new friend. " When I get hold of a man who is versed in the Word of God," said Moody, " I just pump him." Securing suggestions from subordinates is another method. Suggestion box, questionnaire, call to confer- ence, are among the means employed. " Bringing this down to actual factory management," says Superinten- 6o EFFECTIVE EFFORT dent Field of the Illinois Steel Co., " we try to get this feeling into our men by always stimulating the initiative in them. We are ready to pay the cost of anything that any of our men may make in our line and then the patent belongs to him, we receiving only the shop rights for use of the patent in these shops of ours here, and he having the right to sell the patent or to receive royalty from its use anywhere else he chooses." ^ So far have some executives carried this plan that the thought atmosphere of the establishment has been transformed. All become cooperators in the development of new ideas. A plan still more direct is the systematic production of new ideas. In the stories, long-haired inventors slip into the office, willing to lay wonderful secrets before the prosaic executive who rebufifs them. As a matter of fact, executives find such a source of supply inadequate. Only by experimental methods, special laboratories, libraries, observation trips, and trained researches can their needs be met. Hence invention is reduced to a science, is placed upon the basis of the salary check, and made to pay. All these means may be prolific in ideas, but they in- sure no permanency in the executive mind. Here arises the problem of retention, a serious question since a meager stock usually is not due to lack of impressions so much as our letting them escape us. Some have a tenacious memory, others may cultivate it, still others may make use of mnemonic devices.^ * Business Man's Library, IX, 53. * A notebook was Phillips Brooks' inseparable companion, and it is said the signs of his intellectual and spiritual growth may be traced in their multiplication. Henry Ward Beecher's little notebook was " full of sketches of ser- mons, hints, subjects, themes, with occasionally a fully drawn-out skele- ton. His pocket was generally half full of letters, and on the back of A WELL-STOCKED MIND 6i The great storehouse of impressions, however re- ceived, is the subconscious. Within its mystic cham- bers are packed all our yesterdays. From its winnowed materials leaders have developed those strange bursts of power such as Webster's masterful reply to Hayne, a speech occupying four hours and filling seventy octavo pages, yet practically extemporaneous. Webster had long steeped himself in the ideas of this speech, so much so that his whole hfe was really spent in preparation for it. Others may do as Webster, faithfully immersing their minds in law, accounting, scientific management, or what not, feeling secure that in time of need their subconscious will not fail them. Moreover, in the rearranging of these subconscious thought materials is the possibility of a new and effective combination, the bringing forth of an original concep- tion. This usually is the fruit of musing and solitude. The brilliant schemes of Cecil Rhodes were in the main developed during morning rides over the mountains in South Africa. Riding alone across the deserted slopes, with the stupendous works of nature frowning down upon him, Rhodes was able to commune with himself in peace. He recognized what many a harassed execu- tive has not yet grasped, that a thought to serve best must needs be well matured. Originality is rare, and the commonplace ever abides with us. But retaining in some measure freshness of viewpoint, cultivating openness to impressions, seeking the new, preventing the escape of impressions, and maturing thought combinations within the subconscious, all are means by which the brain becomes a thought factory and origination is maintained. from one to half a dozen of these, thoughts for sermons were jotted down as they struck him in the cars, the hotels, the steamboat." William F. Stead once wrote that a man without mnemonic devices was an intellectual prodigal. 62 EFFECTIVE EFFORT rOCALIZATION Granted that the thought currents, however, be made to play freely upon the executive brain, by their mere volume is one not in danger of distraction and conse- quent nervous breakdown? Such in truth is the fate of many managers ; they sink beneath the ideas which pour in upon them. Each generation has a vaster social heritage to encompass, more far reaching and intricate relationships to which adjustments must be secured ; and since men are born young and ignorant, the demands upon them exceed their powers.^ Thus they are tormented with difficulties — always have been, always will be — and turn with relief to whatever pilot is able to chart a clear course over troubled seas. Men in general do not wish to deliberate, to weigh and balance against each other a score of different proposi- tions. They prefer a clear-cut statement upon which action may follow, even wrong action being more com- fortable than no action, and if this statement be not clear and simple, they prefer that it be made so, even at the cost of distortion.^ The demand here made upon the executive is that he enter this complex field and systematize it ; that, guide ^ "We, the foremost labourers in creating this civilization," wrote Sir Francis Galton, "are beginning to show ourselves incapable of keep- ing pace with our own work. The needs of centralization, commu- nication, and culture call for more brains and mental stamina than the average of our race possess. We are in crying want for a greater fund of ability in all stations of life ; for neither the classes of statesmen, phi- losophers, artisans, nor labourers are up to the modern complexity of their several professions. An extended civilization like ours comprises more interests than the ordinary statesmen or philosophers of our present race are capable of dealing with, and it exacts more intelligent work than our ordinary artisans and labourers are capable of performing. Our race is overweighted, and appears likely to be drudged into degen- eracy by demands that exceed its powers." Hereditary Genius, 345. These words are evep more true now than when Sir Francis penned them. *Royce, Religious Aspects of Philosophy, 316-317. CONCENTRATED EFFORT 63 and interpreter, he concentrate within himself all the vague aspirations, shadowy longings, and confused ideas of his organization, and as with a burning glass set them forth with intensity. This is his most severe intellectual test. Whether it be the politician weighing the merits of free silver, direct primaries, social justice, anti-imperialism, or the new freedom as a taking issue, the advertiser or salesman Usting the several merits of an article in order to select its best talking point, or again, a corporation president, after an elaborate statistical in- vestigation, with the aid of many plotted records deter- mining the new sales policy or wage scale, the mental process is the same — details are focalized into principles. Focalization unifies the leader's Ufe and gives it in- tensity. The thought currents surge vigorously along the narrow familiar channels. Ordinary scruples, tri- fling entanglements, are swept aside. Under pressure, progress toward the goal is made, as was said of Alex- ander in his conquest of Asia, " with the fervid energy of a half -fanatic." Focalization provides the standard for measuring all passing phenomena. It never allows the deck hand to be master of the ship, neither does it seek to dispense with deck-hand services. It recognizes and makes use of all things in relation to the end in view. In this way men as social geniuses may synthe- size the greatness of their age and of their race. And in this same way, though in lesser degree, humble executives can direct coal yards, grocery stores, and bakeries more effectively than otherwise could have been. INITIATIVE Every organization head, be he merchant, manufac- turer, or poHtical leader, with increased civilization bears a heavier burden. Focalization, it has just been 64 EFFECTIVE EFFORT shown, enables him to hold a firmer grip on his task. Yet, after all, the matter is one of degree only. How limited is the field in which knowledge is fully system- atized, focalized, and how vast are the jungles within every executive's thought kingdom ! Complete knowl- edge before every decision is indeed only a dream of the future ; meanwhile we must act. In the twilight zone, one follows the light he has. Henry Clay, after examin- ing a question in only a surface manner, readily espoused one side of it, persuaded of the absolute correctness of his own opinion. He no doubt represents initiative over- done, but he inspired followers with a ready belief in his infallibility and accomplished much while others were merely agreeing that the question was complex. Truth is not full orbed ; but while we hesitate on the borderline of the unknown, the initiator surveys the broken arc, then boldly completes the circle. By using the same imperfect materials available to others, he constructs the bridge over which he invites all men to follow him. Thus was Luther, Alexander, the Christ; so were men led by De Lesseps, McCormick, Ingersoll, Bryan. His judgment may be wrong, it is true; but he removes doubt and exalts faith, and even in defeat he retains a mastery over men denied his hesitant and coldly calculating brother. EFFECTIVENESS ILLUSTRATED These mental processes, it may seem, spell rashness, and in the hands of the uninitiated they have frequently been followed by disaster. The very practical matter, in consequence, is how to wield them with effective- ness. From this point of view it is illuminating to study the plans followed by the Emperor Napoleon, for not only was he a marvelous example of every NAPOLEON AT WORK 65 quality above mentioned but his mind worked with a rare precision. In the first place the Emperor had organized avast news gathering machine. Every legation had secret instructions to keep record continuously of troop move- ments which passed under its eyes or came to its knowl- edge. An important position in the cabinet was created for d'Ideville, whose duty it was to extract from the dispatches of these diplomatic agents particulars about the composition and movements of foreign armies. "The muster-rolls which M. dTdeville succeeded in supplying," writes Meneval, "were drawn up with so much sagacity and accuracy that the Emperor knew the composition of foreign armies quite as well as that of the French." ^ During campaigns this secretary constantly followed Napoleon, questioning prisoners and country people, seizing every report and letter which the chances of war threw in his way. He bought off the enemy^s spies, men like Schulmeister, a veritable turncoat, who not only went personally in search of information but set out a swarm of emissaries who, Uke himself, knew how to obtain entrance everywhere. In each army corps, moreover, were stationed confidential agents who went about and sent in news. The Emperor again and again ordered his marshals by every means within their power to gather data concerning the enemy and his movements. And as for his own Grand Army, not a day must pass without a detailed report, down to the last cantonment, being submitted to him. In short, through organization, reports, spies, interviews, secret agents, clipping bureaus, Napoleon provided the means for getting information, and urged his subordinates to employ it continuously. To care for this incoming material and reduce it to ^ Quoted by Vach6e, Napoleon at Work, loo-ioi. 66 EFFECTIVE EFFORT usable form, the Emperor then developed a veritable statistical bureau. The material was sorted, summary statements drawn up and maps prepared, by secretaries who toiled with that assiduity characteristic of every- one around the Little Corporal. On halting from the march, "d'Albe saw to the installation of the Emperor's study. The portfolios containing papers, the maps, the two or three mahogany boxes with compartments in which was a traveling library, were spread out on tables when there were any, or on planks or doors sup- ported by trestles. In the middle of the room was a large table on which the best map of the seat of war was spread out. By means of colors, d'Albe had made clear on this map the position of rivers, mountains, or frontiers. This map was very accurately oriented before Napoleon entered, and with pins with heads of various colors there were marked, first of all the position of the different corps of the French army, and then of the positions of the enemy as far as they were known. At night time the map was surrounded by twenty candles, in the midst of which was a compass for measuring distances. ^'On the arrival of a dispatch d'Albe made a summary report, the Emperor following with his finger on the map, and moving amidst the pins the compass, the extent of which corresponded to the distance of a march." ^ In this rapid, graphic way he kept himself accurately informed of the Grand Army, the enemy and the sur- rounding topography. Meanwhile the Emperor was arriving at a decision, a flash of inspiration, if one judges by surface indications, a judgment pretty solidly supported if, to the contrary, his methods are considered.^ "When his idea had 1 Vach6e, ibid., 97-98. * It is significant to note in this connection that Napoleon never unduly forced himself to decide. Says Las-Cases: "The Emperor quickly acquainted himself with everything. He settled many things METHOD IN WORK 67 reached maturity/' Baron de Meneval tells us in his memoires, *'he began to walk slowly about the room and traverse its entire length. He then began to dic- tate in a serious and emphatic voice, without resting for a moment. As inspiration came to him, his voice assumed a more animated tone, and was accompanied by a sort of habit, which consisted in a movement of the right arm, which he twisted, at the same time pul- ling the cuff of the sleeve of his coat with his hand. In rendering his thought, expressions came without effort. They were sometimes incorrect, but their very incorrect- ness added to the energy of his language, and even mar- velously described what he wished to say." ^ If while working in his study the time for departure arrived, the last word of his dictation had scarce fallen from his lips before he ordered sharply, *' The carriage — to horse," and the secretarial staff rushed away as though set in motion by an electric current. METHODOLOGY Of Napoleon's tremendous accomplishment there is no doubt, yet after all was it due to certain mysterious mental operations or was it rather the result of incessant energy directed according to an excellent method? It is believed that the latter is the correct interpretation ; more than this, that the business executive is in position to surpass Napoleon in all the essentials of this method. in silence and threw aside everything which he considered useless. He read all letters himself, replying to some by a few words in the margin, and in the case of others dictating the reply. Those of great impor- tance were always put on one side, read twice, and never replied to until an interval had elapsed. He believed in the principle that it was neces- sary to sleep over things calculated to put one out of temper. Some- times he said 'until to-morrow, night brings counsel,' a customary phrase with him." Vach6e, ibid., 105-106. ^Quoted by Vach^e, ibid., 103. 68 EFFECTIVE EFFORT Obviously, since this method enables the more general principles of effective effort to be put into practical application, it is well worth while to consider the ques- tion of methodology at this point : I. Securing Detailed Information. — The policy which insures adequate guidance to any organization is based upon facts, not imagination nor mere hear-say nor vague rumor. It is not a matter of chance, of a wild leap in the dark ; to be consistently successful this policy must rest upon verifiable evidence. The executive does not court first the inner vision, but shrewdly surveys the ob- jective world. From its abundance he can draw data. Happily, the means for securing these data are several. A well-known business man, who in addition to his duties as general manager is able to write books, con- tribute frequently to the magazines, and deliver numer- ous lectures, uses the clipping scheme. To each of the many subjects in which he is interested he assigns a nimiber, and whenever in his reading he comes across anything of value bearing on one of these subjects he pencils in its appropriate number and turns it over to his secretary for filing. Sometimes the secretary copies the article, should it be, for instance, a brief extract in a book from which it is not desired to remove the pages. This plan is of special value to editors, teachers, and ministers, and at times proves very helpful to salesmen. The investigation is another source of information. The executive learns as he walks through the plant ; he also learns when he places the chemist with his reagents in a little room near by, or has a flat-chested young man poring over census reports in the library for him, or sets to work the scientific manager with his stop watch and four principles of efficiency. In getting information there is such a thing as knowing how, and these men in their field are expert. THE USE OF RECORDS 69 Closely related to the investigator is the man able to give competent counsel. It was long the boast of the old-time manager that he knew every process as well as any of his men. A practical, well-rounded, self- reliant craftsman, he scorned to surrender his pre- rogatives to accountant, chemist, purchasing agent, lawyer, press agent or welfare worker. Yet the execu- tive's task has passed the one-man stage, and with its resulting division of labor has come about the neces- sity of securing the competent counselor and of drawing from his store of specialized information. Extremely servicable and almost universally used, at least in some form, are records. "When there are many hands," we read in Ecclesiasticus, ''deliver all things in number and weight; and put all in writing that thou givest out or receivest in." This advice the business man diligently puts into practice; his orders, requisitions, purchases, invoices, investigations, follow- ups and employees all have their appropriately de- signed record blanks, an intricate and imposing array.^ The records tell the story. Of the several sources of information, of which the above may serve as illustrations, each executive chooses those which best meet his needs. The sermon builder scarce could use an accountant, nor would the public utility manager discharge his statistician, to rely upon newspaper cHppings concerning municipal rates in Europe. Moreover, the editor who fills his office with unconsulted cHppings, the manager whose employees record without discrimination every act, the census official piling governmental archives with data collected, then buried — show no recognition of the fact that inf or- 1 An excellent presentation of this subject of records, including numerous sample forms, is given by Schulze in Part III of his book, The American Office. See also works on accounting, such as Nicholson, Cost Accounting. TO EFFECTIVE EFFORT mation is but a means to an end. First is the problem, next its thorough analysis, finally the gathering of that information upon which its solution depends. 2, Making Inj or mation Usable. — The executive can- not spend his time poring over masses of details, even though it be granted every item is pertinent to his problem. These details must be classified, tabulated, summarized, a process in which the aim of manage- ment is one with the aim of science. Science would state the world of phenomena in shorthand symbols, management would develop throughout industry its standards of operation. It is in this respect that syn- thetic records and reports are of importance, they con- tain the essential facts compressed. "By scientific accounting," says James Logan of the United States Envelope Company, "the manufacturer scans the de- tails of his business with a vision multiphed many times. He looks through the accounts as a mariner looks through his reef-finding binoculars.'^ In other words, at the executive's desk is focused in compact and usable form the facts upon which the effective guidance of his organization depends.^ He is, as it were, at the front point of a great triangular 1 "A prominent financier of New York City is said to have a large room, on the top floor of his residence, where the walls are completely covered with curve charts on which points are plotted as rapidly as data can be obtained. This man is so limited for time that he keeps in touch with general financial conditions by referring to the charts in this room for only a brief time each evening. He disappears to his reference room to meet his private secretary immediately after dinner. In the centre of the room is a revolving desk chair with an ash tray fastened to one arm. For the length of one cigar the financier sits in his chair slowly revolving the chair until he has covered the information given on all of the wall charts, perhaps, if necessary, asking a few brief questions of his secretary. Though very little of the financier's time is taken, he is able by concentrated thought on the facts shown by his wall charts to keep in full touch with world finance and to map out his own plans for future operation." Brinton, Graphic Methods^ 306. PLANNING AND DISPATCHING 71 advancing column, able to project himself into the un- known, to decide with safety upon policies for the future because of firm grip on the past and present. J. Planning and Dispatching. — The information, first made known, then made usable, is finally to be put into operation. This is a matter of planning and dispatching. The visitor to a railroad roundhouse may see hanging on the wall a large bulletin board, on which is posted the numbers of trains and engines, the names of engineers and firemen, and the times due out; just as in the time-table the traveler finds somewhat similar information of trains and stations. Meanwhile along the steel rails thunder that which gives the plan a reality, trains operating on schedule time; and in his oflBice at the division point sits the chief dispatcher at his key, the master hand in this most wonderful example of planning and dispatching. The nature of their business forced railroads to adopt planning and dis- patching, and they found the method efficient. The bogy of ^'unproductive work" has retarded manu- facturers from realizing so fully as they might the bene- fits which systematic planning and dispatching hold for them. Yet factories in increasing number, and de- partment stores as well, have schedule boards, standard- practice instruction, route clerks and other of the ex- ternals indicating that the principle of planning and dispatching has been adopted. And here and there on the desk of a busy executive is found a daily work schedule, a sign that this same principle of planning and dispatching serves to increase one's personal effi- ciency. In briefest outline the problem of directing energy may now be sununarized. Power is to be developed only as needed, its expenditure to take place at the most fruitful moment. Originality reveals numerous possi- 72 EFFECTIVE EFFORT bilities, focalization determines which of these shall be pursued and realized. Initiative represents the manner in which the mental forces are marshaled, and the discussion of methodology indicates how this marshaling of forces, though rapid, may be safe and efficient. The general purpose of direction is to transform energy into results, but this aim includes the following chapter as well. EXERCISES 1. Discuss: "A good executive has been described as a man who decides quickly and who is sometimes right." 2. Are urban dwellers surface thinkers? 3. How far in advance of present tasks should one have a general plan? A detailed plan? 4. Is the sum total of wealth more or less valuable than knowl- edge of the means for producing it ? 5. Trace to its origins one of our modern appliances. (Tylor, Anthropology^ Chs. VIII or XIII.) 6. Distinguish clearly between copying and adapting the methods of others. Why is the former more common and the latter more serviceable? 7. Suppose in a factory you were trying to find the cost of pro- ducing a certain article. How would you analyze this problem ? READINGS Brinton, Graphic Methods for Presenting Facts ^ Ch. XIV, or Parsons, Business Administration, Ch. XX. King, Elements of Statistical Method, Part II, or Ward, Pure Sociology, Ch. XIX. CHAPTER VII Organization "Lasst jeden ganz das bleiben was er ist ; Er wacht nur driiber das er's immer sei Am rechten Ort ; so weiss er aller Menschen Vermogen zu dem seinigen zu machen." — Schiller. Effective relation among men is secured only through organization. Without it, effort is spasmodic and results are not had. Moreover, be it lowly organism, mob or factory, an undifferentiated structure means limited function. When more and more men, therefore, are drawn together to work as a unit, when these men must perform tasks of increased complexity, and when efficiency is sought in every process, executives find the only real solution lies in perfecting organization. To the manager, personally, this presents two problems. He usually commences as subordinate. Let him choose wisely his master, and guard well his spirit of initiative. For some masters prepare one for an age which has passed, and in grinding routine many a youth dissipates initiative and coggifies his life. However, advantages may be secured through organization, and these are to be made his. ADVANTAGES OF ORGANIZATION I. Through Organization a Leader multiplies Him- self. — The individual soon reaches the limits of his 73 74 ORGANIZATION activity. He may toil long hours at overloaded desk, but mere frantic effort avails little. When greater tasks face him, it becomes a choice between stepping aside or calling in help. Mirabeau was looked upon by the French as the Hercules of the Revolution. By his prodigious labors he is rightly so ranked. But Mirabeau had collected a veritable workshop of confidential agents, authors, and compilers. Frochat represented him in the Assem- bly, La March at court ; Dumont wrote his chief politi- cal speeches, the Abbe Lamourette those on the civil constitution of the clergy, Pellenc compiled, and Reyboz prepared even the famous speeches on the assignats, on the right of making war and peace, and the devolution of property of intestates. " Certainly," says Stephens, " no other man ever lived who found so many men willing to efiface themselves merely to contribute to his glory." 1 This plan of Mirabeau^s in its essentials — unifying the efforts of several upon a task too big for one — has been employed by every leader worthy of note from the primitive hunter, setting traps for elephants, to the present-day executive with thousands on his payroll. In this way puny efforts are multiplied until tasks of magnitude can be swung. 2. By Organization the Division of Labor is made Possible. — It is not alone in amount of work, merely more men ; effective management also means gradation of work with a consequent gradation of men. Under such conditions, men specialize. No longer a Jack-of- all-trades, each man within the organization has a dis- tinct occupation: machinist, fireman, pattern maker, bookkeeper. Each occupation in turn may be still further subdivided, workmen spending their days mak- ^ History of the French Revolution, I, 259-252. HABITS AND MACHINES 75 ing heels of a shoe, rivets for an automobile, knobs for a bookcase, a minute part but never a whole article.^ Under such a regime, men may assume tasks well suited to their particular ability; they soon acquire the dex- terity of an expert, and they can be kept employed at the same task without interruption. Product is thereby increased without proportionate unit cost. Not all organizations, of course, lend themselves to the same division of labor ; but they all lend themselves to a division of labor. And in working out the grading best fitted to his organizations each executive faces an opportunity of considerable import. 5. Organization permits the Substitution of Habits and Mechanical Contrivances for More Expensive Ner- vous Elements. — Initiation is a consumer of nervous force. It employs the whole organism. The individual always alert, casting out thought combinations as soon as once used and ever seeking new ones, lives distracted. But in the well-worn grooves of habit the mental machin- ery runs smoothly. This, management makes possible. Executives wrestle with the new and constantly changing demands, are alert to detect difiiculty and quick to de- vise the proper thought combinations. The rank and 1 In no industry has this been worked out more ingeniously than in meat-packing establishments. "The animal has been surveyed and laid off like a map," says Professor Commons ; " and the men have been clas- sified in over thirty specialties and twenty rates of pay from 16 cents to 50 cents an hour. The 50-cent man is restricted to using the knife on the most delicate parts of the hide (floorman) or to using the ax in splitting the backbone (splitter) ; and wherever a less skilled man can be slipped in at 18 cents, 18^ cents, 20 cents, 21 cents, 22I cents, 24 cents, 25 cents, and so on, a place is made for him and an occupation mapped out. In working on the hide alone there are nine positions at eight different rates of pay. A 20-cent man pulls off the tail, a 22^ cent man pounds off another part where the hide separates readily, and the knife of the 40-cent man cuts a different texture and has a different 'feel' from that of the 50-cent men. Skill has become specialized to fit the anatomy." Trade Unionism and Labor Problems, 224. 76 ORGANIZATION file thus make the required changes with a minimum of mental disturbance. A cheaper type of neural ac- tivity suffices. Especially noteworthy is this saving when mechanical contrivances can be substituted for mental processes. The adding machine's cogs remove burdens from brain cells. The calendar pad, the " tickler," the loose-leaf notebook, go far in providing a memory which never sleeps. The bulky ledger, the letter file, the stand- ardized sales argument set up in booklet form, the letter opener, the follow-up file, in fact all the equipment com- mon in organizations to-day, do these not mean a sub- stitution of inanimate for animate and thus make possible business units when magnitude would crush the strongest brain not thus supported? 4. The Most Effective Plans and Policies usually are Combinations derived from Many Minds. — The one- man-all-sufficient type of control is narrow and danger- ous. Unto no man is given all knowledge, but by com- bining that which many have the fullness of truth may be approached. This is accomplished by the suggestion system, the council of war in the commander's tent, the meeting of corporation directors, department managers, or travel- ing salesmen in convention, by all plans which get into service the thought of the organization members. From such plans emerge a unified policy and a collective wis- dom. The process apparently is both slow and expen- sive, but, if properly conducted, it possesses neither of these defects. 5. Organizations stimulate and stabilize Executives. — The stimulation derived from followers has been con- sidered on previous pages. But stimulation, in fact, is a reciprocal process in which executive and subordi- nates each in turn influence the other. By this action THINGS WELL DONE 77 and reaction, intensity is maintained and continuous power developed. Men in groups, therefore, in organ- izations for ends political, religious, commercial, are more apt to reach and keep the higher energizing level. Groups are more stable than individuals, — a point to be considered more fully in later chapters, — and hence followers serve as balance wheels and make for conti- nuity. This may mean they smooth out the excessive aberrations of their chief. It may also mean the very practical task of management during his absence. It is no compliment to his ability for an executive to see disorder possess his organization the moment his hand is withdrawn. It is, however, a personal triumph to have constructed a machine itself able to direct affairs. By their stimulating and stabilizing effect organiza- tions thus make possible an increase in activity without corresponding loss in effectiveness. 6. Organizing Ability permits Efficient Expenditure of Executive Energy. — According to the old motto, " any- thing which is worth doing at all is worth doing well " — but this is no guide whatever for the executive. Examination of property before purchase is worth doing ; but the shrewd dealer has taken in the saUent features, closed the deal, and is considering two new purchases, before minute scrutiny would declare the first task well done. Writing a letter is worth doing ; but the stenog- rapher shapes many a letter from merest indications, the manager pens only his signature — and oftentimes a rubber stamp suffices for that. The real test of effort is the getting of results, each unit of energy being ex- pended for maximima returns. Organization makes this possible. It permits a rank- ing of tasks according to their importance, a ranking of men according to their ability to deal with particular problems, an emphasizing of efforts according to their 78 ORGANIZATION respective returns. And the executive, as the master planner and combiner, thus has wide latitude in which to realize the ideal of effort expended according to the law of diminishing returns. Because of these very real advantages organization assumes significance whenever enterprise passes the one-man stage; the greatest of leaders have shown themselves especially skillful in its use. The phalanx of Epaminondas elevated Thebes, and improved by Alexander won Macedonian supremacy; this phalanx in turn fell before the more flexible legion, and with the new fighting machine Caesar advanced Roman rule. The politician in furthering his enterprise by organiza- tion has been quite as adept as the general, and the priesthood has at times distanced both. But the Ameri- can business executive, however, is the organizer of organizers, and his triumphs in this respect have only commenced. The isolated individual may be a dramatic figure, but the successful executive is he who best avails himself of other men's faculties. ORGANIZATION APPLIED r. The Organization Point of View. — In setting about to reap the above-mentioned advantages nothing is more fundamental than what may be termed the organization point of view. The essence of this is to see things as related. Upon the uninitiated all tasks press with equal persistence, but through increasing knowledge and expe- rience comes growth in power to discriminate, the ability to detect similarities and differences. Tasks no longer appear isolated but linked together like parts of a chain, related like grapes on a stem, subordinated like apex and foundation stone. This is the organization type of mind. It is common CHARTING THE ORGANIZATION 79 to those drilled in systematic thinking and long im- mersed in the materials of their particular vocation. Such a mind sees details, but only as parts of a whole ; reaches generalizations, but by the inductive route. I Ownership I Management Production Clerical Sellins j: f" ^ IT A. X pin riii pin ri. X 9 s •0 1 3 ^ 3 1 b 1 d 5 1 "O 1 i 1 1 & 1 ^ 1 ^ u f o § 1 S Fig. 4. — An Organization Chart. 2. The Systematic Plan. — If the activities of a fac- tory are analyzed, they are found to group themselves into certain general classes. These may be expressed graphically as per the above diagram (Fig. 4). The same activities, in the main, characterize a department store, an insurance company, or a imiversity. Each of these might accordingly be charted; and somewhat similar diagrams could be made of a railroad or contrac- tor's organization, a city government or reformers' club. Whence are these forms derived? It has seemed to some that the diagrams themselves possess a magical efficacy, and these in consequence have been sought, bought, or borrowed. But this is mistaking form for substance. It is the organization type of mind analyz- ing the concrete problems encoimtered in a particular So ORGANIZATION enterprise which produces the real functional chart. Discrimination is brought to bear upon the sum total of effort upon which the workings of the enterprise depends. Related Hues of activity are detected, singled out, grouped — a department, perhaps, is formed. The systematic plan is gradually shaped up, and works, because founded on fact. The organization, it thus becomes evident, depends upon the purpose or design of which it is to be the in- strument. Merely a means to an end, never an end in itself, all its principal divisions and every detail of its structure are shaped to express the purpose of its origi- nator. The systematic plan is thus organization think- ing externalized. And, it may be added, the executive may render this plan more helpful if he reduces it to graphic form, explains and keeps it before those whose efforts it is to guide. J. Building an Organization. — Organization involves two main elements, work and men. The basic require- ment is that these be effectively combined. In order to realize this in practice, the work, as has been stated above, should be analyzed until it assumes a form worthy to be termed a systematic plan. The result of this analysis is that general efort is differentiated into typical tasks. This is common in commercial business and in manufacturing. Division of labor has here been highly developed; scores of typical tasks, openings for men, exist in these organizations. The labor force, in turn, should be analyzed to find typical men. What is here desired in the beginning, of course, is numerous applicants from whom to choose. The successful politician, the plant whose labor reputa- tion is high, the pennant-winning club has a wealth of human material seeking alliance. Unto him that hath it shall be given. Moreover, the manager whose appli- MAN ANALYSIS 8i cants secured in this way are of low grade need not rest with them but may himself seek men. A process of man analysis is next brought to bear upon these applicants in the hope of discovering the desired type men. In a rough way such analysis probably began with the cave men. No one is without some ability to read men, a sort of intuitive process. This faculty in some has been developed to a high degree of sensitive- ness. It is said of Lincoln, for instance, that in select- ing incumbents for public trust he maneuvered men as pieces on a chessboard, dispassionately considering only which available piece would fit best in the square which he had to fill. As a rule, through long experience and observation, the study of successful employees and mis- fits, managers evolve standards and become able readily to pick men who satisfy these tests. This is the familiar rule-of-thumb procedure. It may seem that its defects condemn it ; but practically it works, and likely will be the chief reliance of managers for generations to come. Nevertheless, systematization means removing methods from " under the hatband," perfecting them, and getting them down upon paper. The various requirements for the position are noted, then graded in their order of importance. The result is what may be termed a score card. Such score cards the agricultural colleges have worked out satisfactorily for the judging of horses, cattle, grain, etc., and there is no good reason why in industry similar cards will not come into use. The principle is that standards be set, each separate qualification necessary for the position being ranked so many points on the basis of one hun- dred, and individuals thereupon scored high or low as they approach the ideal shown by the card. Merely the attempt to prepare such a score card will remove much of the indefiniteness of man selection. 82 ORGANIZATION To secure the increased certainty always desirable and often necessary as a basis for decision, the experi- mental psychologist is needed. His tests are more accurate and searching, and even certain of the more elusive psychological factors he plots on paper. His science, however, in the main is yet to be developed, and even then it is likely that important limitations will still attend its use.^ Nevertheless an auspicious begin- ning is under way which, even though it do no more than indicate possibilities, has already made organiza- tion building more systematic. An exact correspondence between type task and type man, though the attempt is guided by all knowledge available, is difficult if not impossible to secure. For- tunately, as a practical working policy, such corre- spondence is unnecessary ; mutual adaptation is possi- ble. The task modified to suit the man is one solution. To one person, especially in a small organization where the number of tasks considerably exceeds the num- ber of men, may be assigned the combination of tasks which best fits him. Or, instead of aiming at an ideal organization scheme, which, on account of the non-fitting men upon whose efforts the plan depends, would in practice be poorly executed, a much less ideal systematization of tasks by its better adaptation to the men involved may often yield superior results. What is desired is an effective fit, and this may often be reached through a modification of plan. Modifying men to suit plan is an equally good, often a better, solution. Human nature is not static, like clay bricks shaped once for all, but possesses plasticity which permits a certain amount of reshaping. How- ever, men vary considerably in this power of adapta- tion. Good heredity, native adaptability, and youth * Cf. Munsterberg, Psychology and Industrial Efficiency, 126-127. LABOR-SAVING MACHINERY 83 increase adjustment. Once selected, they are further molded into the desired ways, numerous plans for accomplishing which are discussed on later pages. When task and men are well fitted together — and kept so — the organization is effective. Work is easy, men are happy; harmony prevails, cooperation is assured, there is loyalty and efficiency. And these are results flow- ing directly from analytical power, the ability to detect elements in task and man; and constructive instinct, the creation of new and effective combinations. 4. Supplementing Men by Machines. — When work has been analyzed and planned in a systematic way, part of it is reduced to mere routine. Here is the opening for a machine. The control of the routine process is removed from human voUtion and becomes relatively fixed in a mechanism. The mind of the inventor thereupon really dominates these processes, the workmen becoming at- tendants. A high grade of thinking in one man thus per- mits the utilization of low-grade thinking in many men. Processes of greater and greater complexity are steadily being incorporated into mechanisms; scarcely a day passes would we not marvel at some new tri- umph of inventive genius were these not so common. The result is that machines have a continually widening scope, provided only that the work be reduced to routine. That our manufacturers are abundantly able to do this is proved by observation of their plants and the fact that the muscle power of every wage earner on an average is supplemented by three horse power.^ The equipment being demonstrated at business shows and found used by progressive concerns indicates a similar movement among commercial organizations.^ 1 Abstract, Thirteenth Census, 471. 2 In present-day ofl5ce practice the following devices are employed : billing machines, adding machines, bookkeeping machines, calculators, 84 ORGANIZATION After the typical tasks have once been outlined, consequently, the search for machines should parallel that for men; human effort thus being supplemented by mechanical contrivances and effective organization becoming triune in nature — task, man, and machine. Organization might then claim to be complete. Yet this is not so until the executive has applied it to himself and is personally a sharer in its advantages and require- ments. To a discussion of this point we now turn. EXERCISES 1. Discuss: "Executive abUity is the art of earning one's living by the sweat of another man's brow." 2. Illustrate by original graphic chart the plan of some organ- ization. 3. Consult with an employment manager concerning his method of selecting men. 4. Is it true that whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well? 5. Does immigration retard the development of labor-saving machinery or does the development of labor-saving machinery stimulate immigration ? 6. Discuss the use of the following : dictaphone, comptometer, mimeograph, card index, vertical letter file, loose-leaf books. 7. Why is the corporate form of organization so largely super- seding the individual proprietorship and partnership? 8. Are business concerns more or less closely systematized now than formerly? Why? READINGS MuNSTERBERG, Psychology and Industrial Efficiency, Part I. Blackford, The Man, The Job, The Boss. duplicators, addressing machines, typewriters, manibilling machines, filing devices, envelope sealers, stamp afl&xers, check protectors, folding machines, time clocks. And this list is by no means exhaustive. CHAPTER VIII Systematic Personal Effort "It is this thinking man — the Count Moltke, with his head over some papers — who sees that the proper motions are applied to matter in the activities of production, distribution, and adminis- tration." — Walter Bagehot. A MASS of material pours in upon every executive. Letters by the hundreds are dumped into the ofl&ce, the mere opening of which would often consume his working hours. Streams of callers besiege him ; receiv- ing each would leave the reception room still crowded at nightfall. Telephone messages, telegrams, messen- gers, memoranda from subordinates, press new problems upon him ; " unfinished business " haunts the office and, like Banquo's ghost, will not down. Under such a burden many a manager is being crushed. His life is one long losing fight. In spite of strenuous activity, there has remained no time for those larger problems upon which, after all, successful guidance depends. And this, too, even though the executive in question is an organization head and the incoming material is solely of an administrative nature. Obviously, to take a vacation in the mountains leaving things to go as they will, or to cut down the volume of business, are neither to be seriously considered as solutions. The real avenue of escape lies in systematizing one's own personal effort. Upon what measures does this depend ? I. A Classification of Material. — Analysis brought to bear upon this material reveals certain types or classes ; ^85 86 SYSTEMATIC PERSONAL EFFORT such, for instance, as correspondence, callers, telephone calls, telegraph messengers, unfinished business, new- business. The plan is merely to sort the various tasks into a few main categories, something which in most cases can readily be done since the classes are general and usually obvious. 2, A Subordination of Material. — The material thus classified should not be attacked as a mere mass. It is to be arranged in pyramid form so the executive may strike at the apex. This plan applied to correspondence, for example, would work out somewhat as follows: The incoming mail is sorted by an assistant. Part of it is of routine nature and need not come to the executive's attention at all. Certain letters may contain certain sections worthy of the chief's perusal. Such sections may be underscored or margin checked. Still other letters may be condensed for his rapid reading. Under some such plans as these the executive handles only concentrated correspondence. Every effort in reading hits the apex. The outgoing mail is handled from a similar point of view. Part of the replies are completely standardized and subordinates manage these without executive com- ment. Another part may be composed of standardized paragraphs, to the typists being given numbers referring to the particular paragraphs desired in each letter. Still other letters are answered by such general statements or notations on the letters as " Refuse request," *' Grant usual rate," " Ask W. to arrange this," the subordinates through long familiarity with the routine being able in this way to compose the entire letter. The small pro- portion of letters not disposed of by the foregoing means are to be dictated in their entirety. Thus there are numerous plans through which the executive effort ex- pended upon letters yields more and better returns. THE EFFICIENCY DESK 87 According to this general plan of subordinating material, the executive does not see every caller, but certain callers ; does not talk with every one who calls up on the telephone, but with a selected few ; does not seek here and there for what he needs, but has it brought ; does not pile his desk with undigested masses of figures, but studies boiled-down reports. Subordinates quarry at the base of the pyramid; he directs their efforts from the apex. J. Mechanical Aids. — System exists in the man ; it shows itself in his work. Does he get much done, does he do it well, does he get it done on time? Whoever thus qualifies is a systematic worker. It would follow that sys- tem in reality does not consist of card indexes, blanks and charts, red tape. Nevertheless, these things have their le- gitimate place, and, regarded in their true light as means to an end, assume an importance to the systematic man. A mechanical aid of great value, yet in whose drawers and pigeonholes lurk system's strongest foes, is the office desk. A flat- topped desk is the best type, and its deck should be kept cleared for action. Unfinished work, instead of being scattered here and there through a half- dozen pigeonholes, should be awaiting one in the hold- over file. Tasks for any reason not completed should be filed ahead. The new tasks should be sorted into the day's work folder. Each task as it is taken up should receive definite treatment. This may call for a series of little boxes or compartments^ properly labeled^ into which the outgoing material is sorted; and some form of filing system for that material which is to be retained. Of the various desk devices these are some of the most helpful. But whatever aids are used, the work should proceed in a rapid, orderly sequence. One disturbing factor is the presence of unwelcome callers. Among the methods for limiting loss of time 88 SYSTEMATIC PERSONAL EFFORT from this source are the " buffer," the private secretary, or switchboard operator who discriminates among callers ; the forestalling of trouble by granting a definite amount of time in advance; making the call fruitful by seeking information instead of giving it; rising as a sign the interview is terminated; or commencing work or looking at the clock as a hint to leave. But certain mechanical devices also serve well the same pur- pose. A buzzer is concealed where it may be con- veniently pressed ; the secretary rings a return buzzei whose sound warns the caller, or she appears in person to call the chief. Or by means of an electric writing attachment the executive may learn from the secretary who is waiting outside, and terminate the call ac- cordingly. By some such means as these, the executive, without offense, may control his caller's stay. Another disturbing element is a faulty memory. Managers must encompass an enormous mass of data — and the overloaded memory is almost certain to break down. Keep leading plans and principles in mind, turn details over to mechanical aids, is a good working rule. There is the ordinary notebook, the loose-leaf notebook, unbound leaves to be carried in a leather pocket case, in each instance the sheets being either plain or ruled to such special forms as are most serviceable. There is also the desk calendar pad, its sheets prepared in daily, weekly, or monthly forms with blank space for jottings. Another device is the hold-over file. Under proper label in this file is to be found the information when wanted. But perhaps the best device of all is a small card index to be kept on the desk and worked in connec- tion with loose sheets of paper of the same size carried in the pocket. Notations can be conveniently made upon these cards at any time; each sheet may then be filed in the card index under the proper date. WORKING ON SCHEDULE 89 " Don't take your business cares to bed with you," becomes in this way a maxim to be realized in practice. When the burden of detail has been rolled upon devices which never tire nor forget, the brain may rest in the faith that all is well. 4. The Day^s Work Planned. — The systematic worker wastes no time in getting under way. Upon arrival in the morning he reaches for the card index file; under the proper date is its " Things for To-day." In the similar pocket of the hold-over file reposes the " Unfinished Business " now ready for attention. On the calendar pad is the Hst of appointments. Upon a certain designated place at his desk is soon to be placed the " New Business," properly boiled down by subordi- nates. Here are the materials to be builded into the day's work plan. This material first is to be classified. Although each business may make necessary slight variations, all executives will be able to make some general classifica- tion. For instance, some material may be disposed of by dictation ; it can be slipped into the " Ready to Dictate " section of the day's work folder. Certain tasks must not be delayed ; these should be sorted into the " Im- mediate Action " section. Other tasks, it is commonly found, require consultation with a co-worker; such material is to be slipped into a section labeled with his name. Some tasks cannot at present be solved, must be delayed until the required quotations, perhaps, are received; these should be set forward in the hold-over file. The day's work thus assumes a plan. A schedule can now be prepared. In black and white the mechan- ical aids give their commands — and these are to be obeyed. There must be no turning over to sleep another half hour when the business alarm clock rings out its orders. 90 SYSTEMATIC PERSONAL EFFORT 5. Sharing Burdens. — The foregoing plans rest upon the assumption that the executive is not to do every- thing himself. He could — at least he often feels he could — do these things better than anybody else, and for this reason managers of the over-particular sort frequently grind themselves out in routine. " The proverbial reluctance to allow those to enter the water whom we would have swim," observes John Wanamaker, " has given short measure to many a success." Napoleon, in his failure to relieve himself of details by building up an adequate staff, is an illustrious in- stance of this truth. During his early years he made up for this by remarkable activity, but by the time of the last German campaign the intellect, once sweeping and vigorous enough to compass all details, had begun to falter.^ Napoleon's defeat at Leipsic was mainly due to his neglect of details which he here seems to have left largely to subordinates. Hitherto he had saved them practically all the thinking, and now in the emergency they possessed no directive capacity, but looked to him to arrange everything. Such business Napoleons are legion, and Leipsics in consequence are being lost every day. Working strenuously at a desk overloaded with de- tails may give one the feeling that things are moving swiftly ; however, the real test of an executive is not so much what he does as what he gets done. " Let the other fellow do the work," says Alexander J. Cassatt of the Pennsylvania ; " I've been trying the experiment of confining myself to learning how a thing ought to be done — and then seeing that somebody else does it that way." 1 Another railroad executive, Charles E. Perkins, for many years president of the Burlington, summarized his working principles as follows : " Never do, or undertake * System, November, 1906, 449. SHARING RESPONSIBILITIES 91 to do, yourself what can be done sufficiently well by a subordinate. There are things enough which cannot be done sufficiently well by subordinates to occupy your time and mind. " Trust those under you, and let each one work at his problems, for the most part, himself; otherwise your subordinates will not learn to depend upon themselves, but upon you. " Keep as much as possible out of petty everyday details. Let stated reports be made to your adjutants, if you choose, but do not take it upon yourself to see them all. So long as the machine works smoothly you should be a looker-on, except as to those particular parts of it which, because others cannot do them well enough, you yourself may undertake to attend to." ^ Burdens should be shared — to that all no doubt will agree — but how? Too minute attention to de- tails buries the executive beneath his organization; ignoring all details, he becomes an alien outside it. The proper balance is struck by making one's personal effort systematic. Organization activities are graded and reduced to pyramid form; the executive works at the apex. The pyramid itself, however, is no monument, but a throbbing organism with conununication fibers binding it to the organization head. And the execu- tive now and then quits his lofty post to move among the substations, seeing for himself how truly their ac- tivities are being transmitted to him and sensing afresh the significance of their work. To the executive whose powers are organized great accompHshment becomes possible; task after task is taken up and dispatched at a clip. Yet there is no undue haste. Men forced to hurry have badly disposed of their time; the systematic man can afford leisure. * Morris, Railroad Administration^ 95. 92 SYSTEMATIC PERSONAL EFFORT Originality and initiative are not frittered away by detail but conserved through organized effort. With reserve power and time at his command the executive rises to his true position as shaper of policies and di- rector of men. Part I may now be concluded. It has considered, in turn : energy, its significance and development ; direc- tion, the application of power for specific ends; and organization, the securing of larger results through systematic effort, both among subordinates and with oneself. Yet the possession of these three qualities is only one phase in the control of men. Individuality seeks to realize itself; the organization builded for this purpose must be motivated, and to this problem is devoted Part II. EXERCISES 1. Which comes more natural to men, doing things or having them done? Which is the true executive policy? 2. Of what importance to the executive is the private secre- tary? Why have these secretaries frequently advanced to ad- ministrative positions ? 3. How improve the memory? What plans enable you to prevent overloading the memory ? 4. Draw up a day's work schedule. 5. Why is household work usually very inefficient? Describe the arrangement of an efficiency kitchen. 6. Describe in detail how a certain executive's office might be arranged for greatest efficiency. READINGS James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology, Ch. XII. How to Systematize the Day's Work. (The A. W. Shaw Co.) PART II: MOTIVATING THE GROUP CHAPTER rx Stimulating and Controlling Men "No wild enthusiast ever yet could rest, Till half mankind were like himself possessed." — COWPER. "Executive ability consists in getting the right men in the night places and keeping them willingly at the top notch." — Herbert G. Stockwell. In order to realize his individuality, the executive must motivate his group ; that is, must stimulate and control other men to do what he would have them do. " When the mayor crosses the threshold with quick step, every clerk bends more eagerly to his task," it was recently said of a New York magistrate. " The moment he appeared, everything was in motion," was the way his biographer characterized Lord Nelson. William the Silent was " one of those people who bring hustle and activity with them wherever they are." Henry IV of France dispatched those spirited notes which " seem written when his foot was already in the stirrup. They breathe the fresh vigor of the morning and recall in their stirring brevity the note of horn or trumpet rousing huntsman or soldiers." ^ Chinese Gordon so impressed ^ One of these reads as follows : " Put wings to your best horse. I have told Montespan to break the wind of his. Why? That will I tell you at Nerac. Hasten, speed, fly. This is the command of your master and the prayer of your friend." 95 96 STIMULATING AND CONTROLLING MEN the whole population that " The Pasha is coming " was news that inspired alertness in every functionary. Such men — and there are many like them — commu- nicate a thrill at every contact. Executives vary considerably, however, in this re- spect. In organizations seemingly well constructed one often observes the lack of " snap,'' " vim," " push " ; apathy reigns, systematic " soldiering " cuts away profits; the whole force, it is declared, is a lazy lot. Wholesale discharge somehow fails to remedy matters. The new force soon settles into the snail's pace main- tained by the old ; the disease has not been eradicated. It is this same disease whose miasma pervades railroad shops, department stores, public schools, counting houses. Its blight swells the bankruptcy courts and dwarfs the nation's surplus. And no one appreciates this fact more keenly than the average executive. His subordi- nates exercise only a part of their powers, and he knows it. Yet the energy is there all the while, a mine of wealth for the prospector, reservoirs of power ready to be tapped. The executive need not fail. THE SOURCE OF EFFORT Directed effort, commonly termed work, is at bottom due to neural matter stimulating muscular tissue. The influence of the leader at most is only secondary; pri- marily, subordinates act because their brain cells so command. Now the basic elements of mind are the instincts. Vague and general and, in our present state of knowledge, impossible to classify accurately, these instincts and the primary tendencies growing out of them furnish the springs of all human activity. The English psychologist first to discuss the instincts ANALYSIS OF MIND 97 with systematic emphasis, William McDougall, has drawn up the following classification : ^ Flight Acquisition Repulsion Construction Curiosity Reproduction Pugnacity Parental instinct Self-assertion and self-abasement Gregarious instinct He also presents some general or non-specific innate tendencies, such as sympathy, suggestion, imitation, emulation. From the viewpoint of instincts, then, why do men act? Because they fear, are disgusted, or cu- rious or angry ; because they desire to assert themselves or abase themselves; because they wish to acquire or construct, to gratify the parental instinct or enjoy the company of their fellows; in short, to satisfy their innate or instinctive tendencies. A second element, however, enters in to modify the play of mere instinctive activity, and this is feeling. Viewed in the light of evolution, certain types of reac- tion have proved advantageous to the species; these in general are pleasurable. Certain others have proved detrimental; these on the whole cause pain. Pleasure and pain, consequently, entering in as powerful adjuncts to the instincts, have their part in shaping activity. A third element must also be considered, the intellect. In the complex life of civilization, success does not depend merely upon instinctive and emotional promptings; at every turn is seen the influence of consciously wrought- out adaptations. The intellect becomes the supreme factor in adjustment to environment. Men toil because they judge the results of labor preferable to idleness; they submit to continued effort and enforce self-discipline because it appeals to them as intelligent procedure. 1 Social Psychology, See especially Ch. III. H 98 STIMULATING AND CONTROLLING MEN From the above brief analysis of the mind may be drawn two conclusions of extreme importance. However commonplace they may seem, it is from the neglect of these principles that stagnation often rules the camp; by their recognition and application the organization moves at double-quick. I. The True Springs of Effort are found in the Minds of Followers. — Activity on the part of the executive is only a means to an end ; the real test is the effect pro- duced in subordinates. The orator who gesticulates most violently often has a bored audience, the foreman does not abolish " soldiering " merely by dashing about the shop. We may be entertained by acrobatic stunts, but not stimulated. Although forty-pound blows on the top of a piano produce no music, two-ounce strokes on the keyboard may fill a whole room with melody. The lighter strokes have been properly placed. This illustration from the piano is confirmed in a most emphatic way by experi- ments upon living organisms. Galvanic power applied to the nerve in a frog's leg releases energy 70,000 times greater than the original stimulation.^ Organisms, therefore, should be likened to a great pile of dry-goods boxes, to sticks of dynamite; proper stimulation is the match, the percussion cap — relatively insignificant in itself but sufficient to cause the bonfire, the tremendous explosion. With human beings this is especially true. A word gently spoken has set a whole army in motion. A simple gesture may evoke in tensest enthusiasm. One unit of energy properly appHed multiplies itself a million fold. But this energy to be effective is not pounded upon men's rough exteriors, but releases the power latent within. * James, WUl to Believe, 224-225. Cf. his Memories and Studies, 138-139. THE RELEASE OF ENERGY 99 In this fact is to be found the right point of view. A leader should not work upon the exterior, pounding and forcing, but from the interior, stimulating and releas- ing. It is his task to pull triggers in the minds of fol- lowers. Activity is thus readily initiated. Even lower organ- isms are not passive to the environment, but essentially active. Inertness by no means characterizes mankind. Shaped as it has been by a struggle for existence cen- turies old, human nature is essentially dynamic.^ Man has a full complement of instincts which press for dis- charge; a range of emotional promptings unrivaled in the animal kingdom; and intellectual conceptions of the most compelHng sort. Physiologically and psycho- logically, he is builded for action. Sociologically, as well, the same is true. Even among primitives the motto is often shaped to spur the laggard. "Be not idle, but labor diligently, that you may not become slaves," say the Karens of Burma. " Persever- ance always triumphs," is a saying of the Basutos. In the sowing of com, again and again Zoroaster found true merit. The words of St. Paul are equally clear and explicit, " If any will not work, neither let him eat." This belief that activity is commendable is especially deep-grained in the Americans. A picked lot, energetic migrants from many lands, they never weary of inculcat- ing maxims of industry, no stories being more highly prized than those in which success is won through stern ^"All the inducements of early society tend to foster immediate action; all its penalties fall on the man who pauses; the traditional wisdom of those times was never weary of inculcating that 'delays are dangerous,' and that the sluggish man — the man 'who roasteth not that which he took in hunting' — will not prosper on the earth, and in- deed will very soon perish out of it. And in consequence an inability to stay quiet, an irritable desire to act directly, is one of the most con- spicuous failings of mankind." Bagehot, Physics and Politics, 186. loo STIMULATING AND CONTROLLING MEN endeavor. It is felt that everybody should be doing something useful, that recreation is justifiable only because it prepares people for more work. By this social tradition, consequently, is shaped in the minds of followers an attitude valuable to managers, viz. a more ready willingness to respond to stimulation by expending effort. The source of energy has been well prepared. 2. There are not merely One hut Several Means of Releasing Energy. — A man is willing to expend effort, as was pointed out above, because prompted to do so by any of the numerous instincts, the different emotions, or the various phases of intellect. This is the second conclusion of importance. The mind is complex and can be reached in many ways. Yet this fact is often neglected. Employers of labor, for instance, usually proceed upon the assumption that the mind has only one motive force; they rest their case upon the pay check. This view is narrow. De- sire for gain is only one of many motives, a fact which is demonstrated again and again by employers who through wider appeal secure greater effort for less money cost. Men's minds may be compared to a log jam in the spring freshet. There is surging and seething, much energy under restraint. The chief logger of the lumber drive chooses in advance neither bank nor midstream location for attack ; but when the jam is on, he seeks out the key log. If this one log does not release the jam, he attacks those next in importance until the whole mass swings off down the stream. The logs are ranked ac- cording to their releasing power. The leader of men should so rank the means at his command. When the executive has recognized that the true source of organized energy is in the minds of subordinates, and like an artist employs the means which best release it, MEN'S SOCIALIZED' T^ATURE ' » ''' ^ ' ^ ' ^i a certain effort on his part will develop maximum effort in them. And this, so far as stimulation is concerned, is the ideal of leadership. CONTROL Stimulation is only one phase of the matter.^ It is not energy per se which suffices, but energy insuring results. Aimless efforts may in fact be worse than none, because destructive. In order that accomplishment may be made certain, control must intervene. The problem is how this may be secured. Granting that full stimulation may be had, how prevent discordant action ? Why do not men under urging inevitably take to the woods ? Fundamentally, this depends upon their social nature, a quality in itself due to the fact that throughout the age- long struggle for existence collective effort has meant survival. As bees hve in swarms, ants in colonies, wolves in packs, and elephants in herds, so have men from their very earliest origins united their efforts in common cause.2 Every advance in civilization since the cave 1 Fundamentally, control is a phase of stimulation, since, as Howell points out, the impulse conveyed to tissue or cell by nerve fiber may stimulate activity, in which case the efifect is exciting, or, if already active, the tissue or cell may be reduced to a condition of rest or lessened activity, the effect then being inhibitory. Cf . Text-book of Physiology, 75. Similarly Verworn defines stimulus as "every alteration in the external vital conditions." Cf. Irritability, 37. However, in this dis- cussion the popular usage of the terms is retained. 2 So important does Darwin consider this social nature that he con- cludes "it might have been an immense advantage to man to have sprung from some comparatively weak creature" because "an animal possessing great size, strength, and ferocity, and which, like the gorilla, could defend itself from all enemies, would not perhaps have become social ; and this would most effectually have checked the acquirement of the higher mental qualities, such as sympathy and love of his fellows." Descent of Man, 64. Cf . also Kropotkin, Mutual Aid. 162 ; STIMUI^ATING ANt) CONTROLLING MEN men has increased, not decreased, their interdependence. Our contemporaries live only through mutual aid. One result is very clear, that this evolution has developed a socialized human nature. Untempered egoism is a myth. It never could have characterized the intergroup relations of men since that stock defective in socia- bility would have been long since weeded out. The child is thus born to be a member of society. Socia- bility is implanted within him from birth and he grows only by building a social self. It follows that a person wishes his social self to stand well in the eyes of his fellows. This is a conspicuous trait among savages as among civilized people, self-regarding pride in fact being universal. We all necessarily care what others think of us. To secure this favorable opin- ion, therefore, one makes himself an obliging member of the group, subordinating himself for the sake of collec- tive harmony. This subordination may be racial, as instanced by the negro tucking himself into lowly positions in the South or the Australian native's menial attitude in the presence of EngHshmen. Or it may be subordination to class, admirably set forth in an old English tale written about 1875, — " The peasantry and little people in country places like to feel the gentry far above them. They do not care to be caught up into the empyrean of an equal humanity, but enjoy the poetry of their self- abasement in the belief that their superiors are indeed their betters.'' Or it may be subordination to the democratic multitude. In the small and rude commu- nities of the former, each man depends primarily upon himself and even in the common councils feels his per- sonal independence and significance. In a far-flung democracy, however, one's own being shrinks and seems lost in the great human hive. Overwhelmed with the LOYALTY 103 sense of its insignificance, individuality wilts and ere- long succumbs to this " fatalism of the multitude." ^ Or again it may be subordination to parents, common enough to us all; or to masterful persons or ideals, as will be considered in detail later on and need not here concern us. What should be emphasized is simply this : subordination is extremely common and the exec- utive deals with men long habituated to it. Subordination, in turn, includes much more than mere passivity or negative self-feeling. It implies willingness to serve, a willingness which easily becomes devotion, a trait inbred in human nature and so empha- sized by home, school, church, and occupation that only the exceptional man knows not loyalty. There is something savoring of the sublime in the little life stories continually filtering in from camp and factory and office; here a watchman withstanding plunderers, there a captain bravely going down with his ship, again an aged employee rounding out a half century of serv- ice with the same firm, all indicating devotion un- shaken to this monitor within the breast. Loyalty is a real force among men. In the socialization of human nature, subordination, and the development of loyalty, control is made possible. Its application, we may note further, is conditioned by two additional elements : (i) Homogeneity insures Like Response to Stimula- tion. — A flock of wild geese when frightened rise simultaneously from the water. The appearance of the cowboy over the ridge is followed by common action throughout the cattle herd. The comedian's joke brings a general laugh. A cry at the left and every head turns that way. In fact, if it were not so, if instead ^Bryce, The American Commonwealth, II, Ixxxiv. \ 104 STIMULATING AND CONTROLLING MEN each member reacted differently to the same stimula- tion, collective action would be impossible and society could not be. Because of this like response, however, leaders through stimulation are able to secure concurrent action. Uni- fied effort is thus possible; subordinates may be con- solidated upon a single policy. An executive, in his attempt to release the energy latent in followers, can proceed upon the assumption that team work will follow. (2) As with Stimulation so with Control, its Source is within the Minds of Followers and there are Several Means of securing It. — To those whose idea of stimu- lation is bound up with whip or goad, control will also appear as hand clutch or prison. But many a man while held is stubbornly striking back ; and prison walls often house rebellious spirits. In those cases where stocks and bars do control, it is still not by virtue of these things primarily. At most they are secondary. It is the controlled spirit which yields up the desired type of action. Control in its essence, therefore, is not mechanical, does not consist in things. It is psychological, consists in the shaping influence which one mind exerts over another. A considerable array of paraphernalia, it is true, may assist in affecting this result, but such things are mere externals and means to an end. Control is a matter of inhibition and direction, and these are products of each individual consciousness. Since stimulation and control are thus matters of the mental life, the executive must needs possess knowl- edge of human nature and skill in appealing to it. Prick- ing, caressing, urging, restraining, he would move through the innermost hearts of men, their master. But what of his technique, how does he do it? The EXERCISES AND READINGS 105 following ten chapters will attempt to give detailed answers to this question. Commencing with the most elusive of the means through which one individual exercises ascendency over others and gradually working toward the more matter-of-fact, these chapters will survey the various methods by which the group is motivated. EXERCISES 1. Why is handling men necessarily a complex problem? Show that heterogeneity of organization makes it increasingly so. 2. Select an advertisement which appeals to an instinct. An emotion. The intellect. 3. What follows when the promptings of the various instincts conflict? 4. Show that "no man liveth unto himself alone" is justified by scientific analysis. 5. Illustrate by concrete example: collective struggle for existence, gregarious instinct, concurrent action, loyalty. READINGS Ross, Foundations of Sociology, Ch. VIII, or Ward, Pure Sociol- ogy, Ch. XII. Ellwood, Sociology in its Psychological Aspects, Ch. XII, or Parmlee, Human Behavior, Ch. XX. CHAPTER X Personality Lear. "Dost thou know me, fellow?" Kent. "No, sir; but you have that in your countenance which I would fain call master." In an elusive yet effectual way, some men have exer- cised power through presence alone. " The mere look of the man and the sound of his voice made all who saw and heard him feel that Webster must be the em- bodiment of wisdom, dignity, and strength, divinely eloquent, even if he sat in dreamy silence or uttered nothing but heavy commonplaces." ^ Garibaldi " enjoyed the worship and cast the spell of a legendary hero." Mirabeau " is possessed of a secret charm that opens him the hearts of almost all people." Cortes spoke, and the assembly, which had gathered in a spirit of mutiny, broke up with cheers and shouts of, " To Mexico ! To Mexico ! " To overcome the unanimous opposition he met with, De Lesseps " had only to show himself. He would speak briefly, and in face of the charm he exerted his opponents became his friends. The English in partic- ular strenuously opposed his scheme; he had only to put in an appearance in England to rally all suffrages. In later years, when he passed Southampton, the bells were rung on his passage." ^ 1 Lodge, Daniel Webster y 192-193. * Le Bon, The Crowd, 157-158. 106 CONTROL BY PERSONALITY 107 Said Vandamme of Napoleon : " That devil of a man exercises a fascination on me that I cannot explain even to myself, and in such degree, that, though I fear neither God nor devil, when I am in his presence I am ready to tremble like a child, and he could make me go through the eye of a needle to throw myself into the fire." ^ Such is the compelling personality. Apparently ignoring all the usual means of control, he yet casts a spell over men and binds them to his will. } SOURCES OF PERSONALITY Upon what depends such exceptional power? This question, it is evident, would probe the very depths of human nature, would lay bare the " riddle '' of person- ality upon which so many occult societies and seers still flourish — and our natures have hidden recesses never yet explored. Nevertheless, an explanation may be attempted. The results, however incomplete, will have a value. The power of personality so mystifies the beholder that he yields though unable to tell why. This indi- cates the power is not due to rational appeal. Its ex- planation must be sought in the subconscious, in expe- riences which hark back to racial origins. It is in the instincts and emotions that this racial experience slumbers, embedded there like fossils of a by-gone age. Through a personal presence the subconscious product is stimulated. The effect is uncanny, perhaps, because the subject does not realize himself possessed of the qualities through the stimulation of which it is pro- duced. These qualities, of course, are complex because the life history of man has been so. To set them forth in 1 Le Bon, The Crowd, 152-153. io8 PERSONALITY detail would require consideration of every influence impinging upon human beings from Pliocene age to date. Nevertheless, the ground patterns of human nature have been shaped by certain major interests, these centering in food, safety, shelter, and sex satis- faction. This, for one thing, has involved fighting long continued ; not general warfare, it is true, since this is possible only among relatively well-developed states, but petty raids. Men have long lived in the shadow of combat, either actual or threatened. They have also lived in fear of the unseen. The unexpected and the unexplainable were never far removed, with death hovering at the margin. In addition, these men have lived as a social unit. Success depended in large meas- ure upon keeping the common bonds intact. Social virtues were deeply impressed upon each member. In the collective struggle for existence, therefore, during an intense experience which began some two hun- dred and forty thousand years ago and yet continues, was developed an ideal, more or less vague no doubt but still an ideal, of what sort of man the leader should be. Types of instinctive and emotional reaction were fixed in human nature as to what should be his recep- tion once did he appear. Failure in either of these directions would have meant group extinction; no community which consistently fled before a puny war- rior or scorned its wisest men could possibly continue to exist. The members, consequently, learned to react promptly and strongly to the properly qualified man. What were his primary qualifications? I. Physical Prowess. — In critical situations again and again the value of physique has been pressed home upon consciousness. Consider the vivid impression made upon each follower when his chief, as is often true in savage society, favorably terminates a war IMPRESSIVE PHYSIQUE 109 through the strength of his arm, or, to cite an example of more recency, when his general wields the battle ax as did Bruce before Bannockburn ! ^ Justice as well hinged upon personal prowess. If custom did not settle a difference, a fight would, and might made right. And favor with the opposite sex, moreover, was no matter of tea table and tango, but of hard muscle and sure eye. " The women," said an Igorrote chief, " won't marry our men if they do not take heads." In respect to this one element, the race has been sub- jected to a series of experiences in which, other things being equal, physical prowess has meant success and survival. Accordingly our racial consciousness favors physique and renders it an element of natural prestige.^ The statistics of executives, it will be recalled from Chapter III, indicate men of relatively large size, taller and heavier than intellectuals and surpassing in both these respects also the men who held similar but less important posi- tions. Such men in the competition for executive pre- ferment are favored because their size is impressive. 2. Emotional Control. — As a usual thing, the stream of consciousness flows along smoothly. But the unex- pected dams the stream, the current is thrown back 1 Bruce was riding up and down his lines when an English noble, mounted on a powerful charger and heavily armed, rode out to challenge a Scottish noble to single combat. To the horror of his army, the king himseK sprang forward to accept the challenge. The two warriors charged upon each other in full view of their respective armies. But Bruce, nimbly avoiding his opponent's lance, rose in his stirrups and with one mighty blow of his battle ax crushed the helmet of the English knight and clove his head from crown to chin. Robert Bruce, in the eyes of his rugged troopers, was a king fit to rule. 2 It is doubtful if the meeting of men is ever free from an undercurrent bearing this thought, "What would result if we laid hold of each other?" Civilization, indeed, will go far before it reduces men to brains and stomach. no PERSONALITY upon itself, and there ensues turmoil in the mind. Such a result among organizations of men is common; the unexpected often does appear, since rarely in the collec- tive life is the road well charted and fully poKced. Wrecks, fires, wars, floods, panics, are merely the more dramatic incidents of a life in the jungle, in the pres- ence of the unknown and the unseen. The mental currents are often caused to surge back upon themselves, and we know not what to do. Indecision does not sweep all men alike. Because of his physical prowess — height, weight, strength, vigor — the favored person may withstand the influence shaping others in attitudes of fear or anger or grief. By refusing to assume these attitudes, he escapes the emotions which normally accompany them. Or the significance of the situation may possibly escape him. In this case he is fearless because he does not know. Or the event may fail to impress his consciousness be- cause this is dominated by conceptions already held. The mind focused upon some central purpose is freed from , marginal excitations because it will not attend to them. Emotional power, strength, control, result. The favored individual becomes director, not follower. He is fearless in the midst of those who fear, decided though surrounded by indecision, calm when waves of anger sweep followers, self-contained while others wonder, positive in self-feeling in the midst of fawning adulation and effacement. J. Intellectual Ability. — The mass of phenomena in which we live furnishes an intellectual test par excel- lence. It must be perceived, for one thing, and in this some fall behind at once. They " never noticed that.'* This matter perceived is next to be woven into concepts. Here is another test, the ability to organize knowledge. NATURAL PRESTIGE iii The mental stock is to be surveyed and kept in shape. This demands memory, the ability to know what one has and produce it when needed. These concepts are then brought to bear upon questions which arise. Judg- ment results ; and this is surely a test of note. Finally, there is the attitude toward new material, for the indi- vidual's world is not fixed but in process. Can the intellect make room for this new material, under its influence modifying old concepts or shaping up the new concepts which the facts demand? Here, too, is a test which probes deep into one's intellectual capacity. Men under these tests are classified and ranked in an intellectual hierarchy. In times of need, the lower ranked turn toward the topmost — "He knows." Adherence is gained through superiority of intellect. 4. Socialized Nature. — Men must work together for common ends, a necessity in which lie both the origin and development of conduct. Now the action termed " good " is that which in general favors this working together ; " bad " conduct is that which on the whole makes collective action difficult or impossible. With this practical test as a standard the group passes upon the sentiments held by its members. Love, hate, gratitude, scorn, envy, revenge, sorrow, and sympathy, singly, or in widely varying combinations, all are ap- praised, both in respect to the sentiments themselves and the particular occasion when manifested. Here again men may be ranked. Selfishness, boorish- ness, criminality, all actions detrimental to the collec- tive welfare are considered reprehensible; the indi- viduals characterized by them are ranked low and, moreover, if below a certain standard, are jailed or possibly electrocuted. To the contrary, refinement, manners, tolerance, sympathy, ability, and wilHngness to play the social 'r61e gracefully and devotedly, all 112 PERSONALITY bespeak the socialized nature. It was no accident that the uncouth General Jackson possessed courtly manners when President. The sources of personality, it is believed, are here revealed, and if so the whole phenomenon is placed upon a naturalistic basis. Personality consists in those posi- tive qualities which have meant survival to the group in its struggle for existence. The present exercise of this power, consequently, is colored by long-past racial experience. To this fact is due its mysterious element ; it entails reaction to conditions once vital yet simple, however changed these conditions may now be. With this qualification in mind, that group survival is to be interpreted in its broad sense, personality indicates merely a pronounced development of essential quaUties. Such constitutes natural prestige. EFFECT UPON FOLLOWERS Natural prestige, viewed in the light of its evolution, has meant two very different things, either repression, when opposed to the individual, or elation, when sup- porting this individual and opposed to his enemies. Which reaction would be aroused by his appearance obviously depended upon whose side the man of power was found. Personality thus possesses both positive and negative appeals, its influence extending from the extreme of one through intermediate stages to the ex- treme of the other. This would necessarily be so, although in much current discussion of that " indefin- able something termed personality " this fact is not grasped and confusion results. With this distinction in mind, however, it is clear that personality has not one but a range of appeals, and in this range certain typical EFFECTS OF PERSONALITY 113 appeals may be roughly set apart for discussion. These are as follows : 1. Fear. — There is no emotion more deep-rooted and powerful. Once roused, it haunts the mind and, by bringing back in dreams and in waking hfe alike the terrifying impression, it becomes the great inhibitor of action, both present and future.^ Whoever can wield such a weapon effectively thereby establishes ascen- dancy in marked degree. And this certain leaders have been able to do. William Pitt in his ready control over Erskine and Sheridan " seemed to exercise a sort of fascination of terror." Said a circuit member in speaking of the famous cross-examiner, " Russell produced the same effect upon a witness that a cobra produces on a rabbit." Webster, when thoroughly roused and indignant, had a darkness in his face and a gleam of dusky light in his deep-set eyes unnerving to contemplate.^ All strong men, to a certain extent, possess this power. Even though for us, we are a bit apprehensive of what might occur were they against us. 2. Subjection. — Subordination, as has been pointed out, far from being solely an affair of the strong arm, is in harmony with certain traits of human nature. Nega- tive self-feeHng is at least as universal as positive self- feeling. Men desire the support of the strong and are ready to yield. As was said of Webster, ^' he was so big and so strong, so large in every way, that people sank into repose in his presence, and felt rest and confidence in the mere fact of his existence." Real satisfaction this. 1 McDougall, Social Psychology, 55. 2 Dr. Cadman, of Dorchester, told of a young minister, fresh from Andover, who when he found Webster's piercing eyes fixed upon him, was struck dumb in the midst of his discourse and sank into his seat, leaving the doctor, more accustomed to face the distinguished hearer, to finish the sermon. Harvey, Daniel Webster, 400. 114 PERSONALITY The leader, moreover, is elevated far beyond his real merit ; it is the tendency of idealism thus to do. Every follower becomes a self-accuser, drawing a sweet sad- ness from contemplating his inferiority and exalting his chief into a mystical hero. Here is a rift which in individual experience widens as the years pass. Constant subjection breeds the servile nature. Subordination means increased subor- dination. But the face of the leader, to the contrary, becomes more impressive, his glance more command- ing, his carriage more dignified. Judges, bishops, busi- ness executives, grow with the years.^ 5. Wonder. — The unfamiliar possesses attraction power. The instinct of curiosity is an active seeker after experiences, and in each unusual there is opened up a new possibility. When the explanation has once been made, interest lags. Curiosity does not flourish in well-tilled fields. The strange, the unusual, or the inscrutable ^ both attract and arouse fear, a mental ^ The judges in the Cadi's divan at Tunis thus impressed Greenville- Nugent : "What is finer than the face of one who has been accustomed to wield authority over the common herd? Decisions that none may question, glosses which none may contradict, pardon which none other dare bestow, doom which no other dare pronounce, the power which for years has been theirs alone, is stamped upon their thoughtful coun- tenances; and this moral force is more potent to sway the masses who crouch at their feet than are all the swords of the Janissaries who guard their portals." Cited by Ross, Social Control, 113-114. 2 The power of mere inscrutability, as Cooley points out, arises from the fact it "gives a vague stimulus to thought and then leaves it to work out the details to suit itself. . . . Those who are mentally abnormal present in a striking form the inscrutable in personality; they seem to be men, but not such as we ; our imaginations are alarmed and baffled. In the same way a strange and somewhat impassive physiognomy is often, perhaps, an advantage to an orator, or leader of any sort, because it helps to foe the eye and fascinate the mind. Another instance of the prestige of the inscrutable is the fascination of silence, when power is imagined to lie behind it. It is the same with personal reserve in every form ; one who always appears to be his own master and does not too INSCRUTABILITY 115 state which, now set on advance, now on retreat, leaves its possessor subject to him who has invoked it. Wonder in this way increases personal ascendancy. The reserve and taciturnity of the Swedish monarch, Charles XII, "baffled all conjecture." Cecil Rhodes proves " an engima to every one who has come in con- tact with him." Disraeli was " a mystery man by instinct and policy." Washington, writes Senator Lodge, was " the most absolutely silent man that his- tory can show." General Grant at the close of councils in the commander in chief's tent left his voluble generals mystified by his taciturnity. And perhaps less dramatic, yet basing its appeal upon this same power of wonder, is the business rule of the head of Chicago's Clearing House : " Let the other man do the talking." 4. Admiration. — Admiration is a compound emo- tion. It results from the fusing of wonder and subjec- tion. The one draws the beholder toward the object, the other humbles him before it.^ Through a twofold relation, therefore, admiration insures ascendancy. " Dear to us are those who love us," says Emerson, " but dearer are those who reject us as unworthy, for they add another life ; they build a heaven before us whereof we had not dreamed, and thereby supply us new powers out of the recesses of the spirit, and urge us to new and unat temp ted performances." The admired person exists in the mind as an ideal, and hence may be quite superior to the real person. Although William the Silent had bungled the campaign, even those victories won being achieved through neglect of his orders, he was early hailed as the Father of his readOy reveal his deeper feelings, is so much the more likely to create an impression of power. He is formidable because incalculable." Human Nature and the Social Order, 313-315, passim. 1 McDougall, Soc. Psy., 128. *;^is ii6 PERSONALITY Country and in his honor the whole population sang the Wilhelmuslied. The magical effect of Garibaldi's voice and presence were such that before a single great victory had been won the worship of him rivaled that of Mazzini. And the career of a certain popular states- man proves that in America, as well, successive defeats may serve merely to increase admiration for the stand- ard bearer. 5. Awe. — When admiration is blended with fear, the result is termed " awe." The new product may be compounded in varying proportions, in some cases the fear element predominating and in others the ad- miration element being superior. But in the emotion, at any rate, is much of power. Gladstone always made his hearers beheve that the subject he discussed was that upon which the foundations of heaven and earth rested, a fact which accounts for much of his long- continued supremacy. Webster's similar power of exciting awe is shown in the remark of a bitter aboli- tionist opponent present at the 7 th of March speech : " When Webster, speaking of secession, asked ^ What is to become of me,' I was thrilled with the sense of some awful impending calamity." 6. Reverence. — When Hiram Johnson in the campaign of 191 2 came before the Connecticut State Convention, posters and papers had proclaimed him as " The man who single-handed cleaned up California ! The man who in one session of the legislature forced the enact- ment in the law of every single pledge of the platform upon which he was elected. The man who changed California from one of the worst boss-ridden states of the Union into one of the freest and most progressive in less than six months' time." The effect upon the dele- gates when he appeared and spoke was tremendous. Men and women became worshipers. 'm THE HUMAN TOUCH 117 The psychological explanation of this and similar instances may be stated thus: Here was a power, admired yet feared, something to rouse awe. Yet all the time it was felt that this power was seeking to do good, and hence was entitled to gratitude. The blend- ing of these two emotions, awe and gratitude, creates reverence.^ When personal ascendancy has reached this plane of positiveness, the strongest lever of control is threat of resignation. The group may disagree with the revered one, but live without him it cannot. 7. Sympathy. — A popular leader is often claimed to be " so. human.'' The meaning is evidently that through all the varying social relations he is able to maintain the personal touch. What he presents is congenial to the minds of followers. A bond of good will and fellow- ship is established ; he evokes trust and like feeling. Power to arouse sympathy is, of course, increased by similar experiences; as the clear and ready speech of Haywood, his I. W. W. followers say, was " learned way down in the depths of the dripping mines where the straining timbers screech." The loyalty of not a few organizations is increased by the feeling, " The old man knows. He's been through the mill." When natures similarly socialized are brought together, S3nii- pathy naturally develops. All really popular leaders have possessed this sym- pathetic personal touch. So cordial was the handclasp of Blaine that each person felt he had met a friend whom he was glad to see. " His genial presence," said an Enghsh bishop of Phillips Brooks, " seemed to fill the room." Thanks to his name, in WilHam the Silent one may imagine a dark, brooding figure, but as a matter of fact a pleasant way, a ready identification of faces, a cordial greeting to all comers, were such natural habits 1 McDougall, op. cU., 132. ii8 PERSONALITY to him that even opponents admitted, " Every time the Prince lifts his hat he wins a friend.'' 8. Love. — Sympathy normally merges into love, and a vast amount of this affection enters into everyday human relations. It is love's tendency to seek out the object of its affection and find pleasure in its presence and in its service. It causes a general outflowing of emotions into the fuller Hfe, an activity and control so admirable as to have won praise from moralists in all ages,^ and similarly to have insured the ascendancy of not a few leaders, even prosaic men of affairs. In- deed, whoever wins the love of men, because he deserves it, has at his command the deepest currents of life. USE OF PERSONALITY Through natural prestige is opened the possibility of much power. Its series of influences — considered above point by point but in practice often inextricably mingled — ranging from fear to love, appeal to that which Hes deepest in human experience. But execu- tives too often overlook these ancestral springs, even scorn these elusive elements of motivation. Basing their appeal upon externals, frequently upon the crudest and most materialistic of externals, they pose as "practical men." Such, however, they are not.^ For being prac- *"He that loves," wrote St. Augustine, "flies, runs, and is joyful; is free and not restrained. He gives all for all and has all in all, since he is at rest above all in the one highest good from which every good flows and proceeds. He regards not gifts, but beyond all good things turns to the giver. Love oft knows not the manner, but its heat is more than every manner. Love feels no burden, regards not labors, strives toward more than it attains, argues not of impossibihty, since it beheves that it may and can all things. Therefore it avails for all things, and fulfils and accomplishes much where one not a lover falls and lies help- less." Cited by Cooley, op. cit., 128. ^ "Why have the newspapers so delighted to vilify me?" inquired an ex-railroad president recently forced out imder public pressure. "I HUMANIZING THE ORGANIZATION 119 tical means nothing more than employing workable methods, and in personality there is a vigor and width of appeal no wise executive will overlook. To him the question is how. It is easy to personalize the relations in a family, social club, or small workshop, in fact it would be diffi- cult not so to do ; but should the organization increase in size and complexity, numbering its employees by thousands, with many of them assigned to branches widely separated, mechanism too readily crowds out personality, and the human touch is lost. However dynamic the chief, to those on the periphery his real self is in danger of being too distant to appeal. Here is an elusive yet very real problem. The sway of the personal self evidently must be expanded; fortunately, there are various methods by which this may be done. " I go out through the plant as often as I can and make it a point of nodding to every one," says one executive. A series of " Good morning, George ! " " How's that sick mother of yours, James? " or " They tell me you're doing good work, John ; keep it up," as he walks down the aisles, is the plan of another. If walking will not cover the distance, there is trolley, train, and automobile; the thought if a man knew his business and worked at it hard and produced the best product he could with the materials available, that was enough. But apparently it was not. . . . What should a man do to prepare for the kind of storm that hit me? " "He might have made more friends outside of the line of business friends with the public." "But I hadn't the time. I was too busy. I have had six weeks' vacation in forty-four years. How could I find the time to meet your newspaper reporters and cultivate the good will of editors? I engaged a man to do that work. I said to him, 'Now you attend to all of that.' Wasn't that enough?" New York Times, Oct. 27, 1913. His successor evidently thinks not. To date he has written a book, delivered numerous banquet addresses, cultivated the reporters, and is already noted for cordiality. The policy apparently succeeds. I20 PERSONALITY business manager, as well as the political campaigner, should show himself to " the people." This often is more readily accomplished if isolated workers are drawn in from the outposts to one central location. At branch office, district meeting, convention, or trip to the home plant, face-to-face relations are established and family ties cemented. To an appreciable degree, especially if aids are selected with this end in view, personality may be organized. Employees near the leader can pass his spirit along. The human touch, transmitted through district manager, works superintendent, department managers, and fore- men, may thus bind together the " old man " and his newest raw recruit. Or, varying the method somewhat, the chief's intentions are humanized and distributed far and wide by his personal dynamo, the social secretary. The human element can also be transmitted whenever written and printed matter is issued. Letters in general may mirror the personahty of the writer, and, even though many correspondents dictate, the human-in- terest element introduced by each can be made repre- sentative of house policy. Cards, booklets, wrapping paper, advertising, all can be made distinctly indi- vidual ! An occasional letter it may be well worth while to write in long-hand. The ways and means are many but the principle is clear. Personality has a value and this the executive may realize in practice. Whether it be by wann hand- clasp, cheery greeting, open office, walk, telephone, public address, travel, or letter, the true leader humanizes his group. Every event and every detail throughout the entire organization is then significant, because personal. EXERCISES AND READINGS 121 EXERCISES 1. Show how, due to its method of appeal, men of widely vary- ing qualities may all possess personality. 2. Point out the changing type of his influence as a man of personality passes from stranger to friend. 3. Is the large physique of more service as energy producer, as shown in Chapter II, or as a means of impressing others? 4. A leading mayor recently canceled all his dinner engage- ments that he "might have more time to work." Was his rea- soning sound ? 5. The following have been written of a reformer, a politician, a prelate, and a baseball magnate, respectively: "a long, lean, hatchet face, with dark brows and brooding eyes" ; "six feet tall, all bone and sinew, with a square jaw and piercing gray eyes"; "few profess to be able to fathom him" ; "a smiler and a hand- shaker." How would each affect followers? 6. How may personality be developed? READINGS CooLEY, Human Nature and the Social Order, Ch. IX. CHAPTER XI Imitation "A man overtops others, not only by his stature, but as well by what he stands on." — Edward A. Ross. Men have a tendency to do as others do, normally in common enterprises trooping along together. So deep-rooted in human nature is this tendency, that some psychologists have termed it the instinct of imitation. In its lowest form it is merely an impulse toward like action, as in a football game one finds himself pushing against his neighbor's shoulder when the home team makes a line plunge. In its highest form, to the con- trary, it is conscious and volitional in the extreme; as the apprentice hand day after day seeks to duphcate the work of journeyman or manager. Between these dif- ferent aspects are numberless gradations. However, in each the activity of the initiator induces like action in the subject. Upon what depends the direction and scope of imi- tation? Its causes are complex, and may be analyzed into a number of factors. In general, nevertheless, these may be reduced to one, the superior is imitated by the inferior. This process may be considered somewhat in detail. IMITATION PRESTIGE Superiority, as a breeder of imitation, has its basis in the conventions of society. A person possesses imita- 122 IMITATION PRESTIGE 123 tion power because of his relative position in the social hierarchy. If it were not so, the current values would be upset and collective action rendered ineffective. But he is copied who exemplifies the things his group most approves. Now what in general are these? J. Positions of Power. — In government, church, education, or industry there is a hierarchy of positions, the upper tiers, by the mere fact of relative rank, en- abling their possessors to bedazzle subordinates and secure imitation. " The example of an emperor,'^ says Dill,^ " must always be potent for good or evil. We have the testi- mony of Pliny and Claudius, separated by an interval of three hundred years, that the world readily conforms its life to that of one man, if that man is the head of the state. Nero's youthful enthusiasm for declamation gave an immense impulse to the passion for rhetoric. His enthusiasm for acting and music spread through all ranks, and the Emperor's catches were sung at wayside inns. M. AureHus made philosophy the mode, and the Stoic Emperor is responsible for some of the philosophic imposture which moved the withering scorn of Lucian. The Emperor's favorite drug grew so popular that the price of it became almost prohibitory. If the model Vespasian's homely habits had such an effect in reform- ing society, we may be sure that the evil example of his spendthrift predecessors did at least as much to de- prave it." In the position itself there is imitation prestige. The mere title " Senator," " Bishop," " Superintendent," " General Manager " has a power all its own. English- men, though unable to discern clearly the distant figure, recently shouted themselves hoarse because " The Presi- 1 Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, 31, cited by Ross, Soc. Psy., 166. 124 IMITATION dent of France is in that carriage." The presumption is that whoever holds the position of power is superior. He is imitated accordingly. 2. Possession of Wealth. — In a democratic and materialistic society the glamour attaching to position passes to the possessor of goods. Wealth implies superiority. " Verily a man with money is the top of all creation." His equipage is the finest, his costly en- tertainments dazzle. Heavy sermon, cartoon, and news- paper copy, while possibly critical, all tacitly assume his money bags are the real source of power. He possesses what all secretly long for, and his ways they fawningly ape. A shrewd newspaper owner has thus expressed it:^ " Those who have not succeeded in amassing money worship those who have, and these worshipers are in the majority. Their every thought is to become like the rich ; to emulate their every act and success. It is a sensation with them ; they crave sensation. . . . Give the people what they want. Give them an aristocracy. Tell them how these men and women have become rich. Tell the people how they spend their money; what they say ; how they live ; what their ambitions are. Tell it with pictures. Tell it interestingly and we will sell this paper," — an analysis which is a sad commen- tary, no doubt, but true. It at least sold papers. With wealth thus prized, its possessor is elevated. His prestige and hence imitation value varies according to stock holdings and country place. In a most literal sense it becomes true that unto him that hath it shall be given. 5. The Achievement of Success. — The foremost deity in America is, after all, the God of Success. The require- 1 Mr. Pulitzer of the New York World, cited by Ross, Soc. Psy.^ 176-177. THE WORSfflP OF SUCCESS 125 ments of Mammon are too often met by birth, marriage, favor, or luck to bedazzle a people so little removed from the pioneer life. For pioneering demands personal virtues, strength, and capacity, and to tame the wilder- ness those energetic migrants were drawn from Europe who, there protestants and opposers, were ready to abolish all titles of nobility and set about guaranteeing equality of opportunity for all. But with no titled aristocracy, landed estates, elab- orate ceremonials in state or church, our society needed some method of distinction to remove it from the conomonplace. This was found in achievement. It clothes with prestige the man able to do things. It creates a new aristocracy, the elect being merchant princes, manufacturers, capitalists, railroad magnates, inventors, and officials. Its chief hero was once a rail- splitter, its emphasis on self-made men so accentuated that aspiring politicians furbish with care rusty remem- brances of barefoot boy, harvest fields, and working one's way through college. New pinnacles of fame are thus constructed, the ambitious being as eager to scale these as ever was knight to win tourney or emperor to swell his coffers with tribute. For success elevates one into the aris- tocracy of achievement and this insures prestige or imitation power. ^ ^ The glamour surrounding achievement is, of course, disputed by the prestige accorded birth. Colonel Higginson gives this amusing illus- tration: "When Theodore Parker first visited Cincinnati, at that time the recognized leader among Western Cities, he said he had made a great discovery, namely, that while the aristocracy of Cincinnati was unques- tionably founded on pork, it made a great difference whether a man killed pigs for himself, or whether his father had killed them. The one was held plebeian, the other patrician. It was the difference, Parker said, between the stick 'ems and the stuck 'ems; and his own sympathies, he confessed, were with the present tense. It was, in other words, aris- tocracy in the making." On the other hand, says Professor Ross, "occasionally the strong 126 IMITATION The particular elements upon which prestige depends exist as a composite in practice, in general being a reflec- tion of the group desires. Position, wealth, and achieve- ment represent merely three phases of these desires; there are many others, and the relative emphasis of all changes with the times. But whatever they be, in any particular situation they dazzle and lure, elevating cer- tain favored figures into examples clothed with prestige and securing widespread imitation. This is no mere rippling on the surface of the social seas ; for the most part men adopt creeds, manners, styles of clothing, modes of entertainment, pohtical and philosophic views, not because of utility but through prestige alone. Imi- tation penetrates to the still coves and has power to stir the social deeps. 4, The Idealizing Tendency. — Ability to radiate waves of imitation may depend far less upon what one is than what he is thought to be. In a very real sense a person imagined exercises greater social power than ever possible for the actual person. His followers have remade the very human figure, touching up the high lights, smoothing out defects in the shadows, enveloping all in a mystic haze. Louis XIV might have been no hero to his valet, but the French people during more than two thirds of his long reign made him into a god and worshiped him. They distorted .him, it is true, just as other people have distorted Lincoln and Garibaldi and Bismarck, but it was a labor of love, and they humbled themselves before that which they had made. climber has a proper pride in his achievement and flaunts it in the face of the aristocracy of birth. Pope Urban IV, the son of a cobbler, who himself had worked at the trade, chose a cobbler's tools as his symbol. Senator Sawyer of Wisconsin, who made a fortune in sawmilling, put on his carriage, the Latin vidi, which, being translated, signifies, 'I saw I'" Cf. his Soc. Psy., 169-173. MEN REAL AND IDEAL 127 Because of this idealizing tendency, a leader's fame often far transcends his real merit. The first sight of a man of whom one has heard much — a president, rail- road builder, banker, or financier — is thus apt to be disappointing. Under calm scrutiny the mystic halo fades. " He looked to me," Webster said of Jefferson, whom he met at Monticello, " very different from any ideal I had formed of him." The rift between fact and fancy widens with death. Biographers discover in the great man's youth instances of prophetic precocity. Criticisms fade and eulogies are accentuated until a wide discrepancy exists between current popular beliefs and earlier contemporary ac- counts. A mythical personage is shaped up, often from materials sadly deficient in hero stuff.^ Admirers draw from this, their creation, that vague stimulus so con- genial to the constructive imagination. Reinterpreting their hero from age to age, they make of him a vast radiating center, a most precious and undying part of the social heritage. Such is Mohammed, or Napoleon, or Caesar, or Lincoln, or any of those countless souls to whom the idealizing tendency has vouchsafed immor- tality. IMITATION IN MANAGEMENT One is inclined to pride himself upon independence, to magnify his individuality or originality; consequently, 1 Says Mommsen of Cato's death: "It is an affecting fact, that on that world-stage on which so many great and wise men had moved and acted, the fool was destined to give the epilogue. He too died not in vain . . . republican opposition borrowed from Cato its whole attitude, — stately, transcendental in its rhetoric, pretentiously rigid, hopeless, and faithful to death ; and accordingly it began even immediately after his death to revere as a saint the man who in his lifetime was not in- frequently its laughing stock and its scandal." History of Rome, IV, 536-537. 128 IMITATION the wholesale influence of imitation is minimized. " As a matter of fact," says James/ '' we find ourselves be- lieving, we hardly know how or why. Mr. Balfour gives the name of * authority ' to all those influences, born of the intellectual climate, that make hypothesis pos- sible or impossible for us, alive or dead. Here, in this room, we all of us believe in molecules and the conser- vation of energy, in democracy and necessary progress, in Protestant Christianity and the duty of fighting for * the doctrine of the immortal Monroe,' all for no rea- son worthy of the name. We see into these matters with no more inner clearness, and probably with much less, than any disbeliever in them might possess. His unconventionality would probably have some grounds to show for its conclusions ; but for us, not insight, but the prestige of the opinions, is what makes the spark shoot from them and light up our sleeping magazines of faith. Our reason is quite satisfied, in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of every thousand of us, if it can find a few arguments that will do to recite in case our credulity is criticized by some one else. Our faith is faith in some one else's faith, and in the greatest matters this is most the case." Most of our mental furniture is borrowed. The beliefs thus held may easily be disproved by analysis, nevertheless they shape our daily endeavor. Among such beliefs may be mentioned : " manual labor is degrading ;" " pecuniary success is the only success ; " " civic worth is measured by pecuniary success ; " " conservatism is good form whereas radicalism is vulgar; " and that " things are beautiful in proportion as they are costly." ^ The poor in general ape the rich, none being more ready to apply the commercial- 1 Will to Believe, 9. * Ross, Soc. Psy., 111-116. THE POWER OF EXAMPLE 129 class standard of success than those who have the least.^ Whatever is of such social import must have a value in management. Whether it manifests itself merely as an impulse, enlists volition, or, looking at its influence from a somewhat different angle, shapes the reigning social values, imitation possesses a power not to be ignored. By what means may this power be reahzed in practice? The followers of great captains have felt the enthu- siasm of example. Exclaimed Garibaldi, " Let him who loves his country in his heart and not with his lips only, follow we/ " Zeno aroused his troops by declar- ing he personally would lead them, but when through fear he dared not do so, his Empire of the East was lost. Royal titles, long hair, and hanging beard could not keep a Merovingian on the throne that had known Clovis and was to see Charlemagne. Henry III of France sought to render himself imposing through stately ceremonials. Chamberlains, chief physician, cupbearer, officers of state, cardinals, and princes crowded the royal bedroom when His Majesty for break- fast sipped a cup of tea. Crowds of courtiers fawned 1 This distortion of values is well shown by Miss Addams : "During one of the campaigns a clever cartoonist drew a poster representing the successful alderman in portraiture drinking champagne at a table loaded with pretentious dishes and surrounded by other revelers. In contra- distinction was his opponent, a bricklayer, who sat upon a half-finished wall, eating a meager dinner from a workingman's dinner-pail, and the passer-by was asked which type of representative he preferred, the pre- sumption being that at least in the workingmen's district the brick- layer would come out ahead. To the chagrin of the reformers, however, it was gradually discovered that, in the popular mind, a man who laid bricks and wore overalls was not nearly so desirable for an alderman as the man who drank champagne and wore a diamond in his shirt front. The district wished its representative *to stand up with the best of them,' and certainly some of the constituents would have been ashamed to have been represented by a bricklayer." Democracy and Social Ethics, 257-258. I30 IMITATION upon him all day long, and bands of singers followed him to his bed. But Frenchmen despised his weak personality, and the power based on ceremonials crumpled under Navarre's challenge at Ivry : " Comrades, here is your king. Should your standard fall, rally round my white plume; you will find it on the path of victory and honor ! " Such men are a radiating center for imitation. Alex- ander covered with wounds, Caesar drawing his sword and using it like the rest, Cortes sparing himself no danger while leading his little band in Mexico, Charles XII of Sweden again and again recklessly exposing himself to death and throughout his last campaign faring worse than the meanest of his soldiers, William the Conqueror after the battle of Hastings calmly divesting himself of shield and helmet battered by many blows, these are the captains who have captured the hearts of followers. Yet their policy, in spirit at least, is possible to present-day executives. Let even the most systematic of these at times shake off routine bonds, stand shoulder to shoulder with subordinates, and be baptized anew on the firing line. Imitation, moreover, as personality, can be increased in its scope through organization. Apprentices are given efficient workmen as a model for copy. Employees noted for industry are placed in conspicuous positions where the sight of their activity may tone up the whole force. The men selected for promotion must qualify as examples. The incompetent clerk, the mistake in shipping address, the tactless treatment of an important customer, such incidents are not permitted to demoralize the force by receiving undue emphasis. Evil can be imitated as well as good. But by deftly removing error from the foreground, the bulletin pictures the winner of " our last sales contest," the promotion write-up indicates OUTER AND INNER IMITATION 131 that " our organization " does seek out merit for re- ward, the sales letter mentions that " our new car " has just been purchased by the governor. In short, the limelight plays upon accomplishments, thus endowing them with prestige that they may increase many fold. From officers nearest him to distant employee and cus- tomer, all become banded together by that imitation prestige whose source is the executive himself. Three factors may now be considered which somewhat condition the use of imitation in management : (i) The Content is First Imitated, Later the Form} — The newly landed immigrant is an odd figure, a bit of the old world in the new ; but he does not long remain so. His foreign-style clothing is discarded after a time for garments of American cut ; his language, manners, diet, amusements, are reshaped, and he becomes as one of us. It seems as if, first copying us in these externals, in the end he becomes an American in spirit. Quite the contrary, in fact, occurs. He was conquered first of all by Americanism; copying its externals has been simply carrying out more completely the inward imi- tation felt even before migrating. Outer conformity is merely evidence of the inner change which preceded it. Similarly the executive who masters subordinates first of all masters them in spirit. This thoroughly done, his walk, peculiar phrases, dress, perhaps even his energy and efficiency, spread throughout the organiza- tion. That is, when the subordinate is free to follow his inclination, he first imitates the spirit and later on the letter. When, however, imitation is made compulsory, the reverse is true. The inferior adopts the externals of the copy forced upon him, but the inner spirit is all his own. In religious conquests, for instance, the conquered * Tarde, Laws of Imitation, 199-204. 132 IMITATION perform the rites of the new religion, but the faith is that of their fathers. In practice these principles would work out somewhat as follows : When the mere form suffices, imitation may be forced. The raw recruits are ruthlessly drilled into line. The apprentice is ordered to copy the product of the journeyman and the movements through which it was produced. In short, when the standard practice is clearly established, its imitation can be enforced. Externals suffice when routine rules. But throughout vast segments of collective endeavor no standard practice has yet been reached. Printed instructions may tell the assembly-room workman exactly how many turns to give bolt A ; they can never be all-embracing for the salesman nor lawyer nor engi- neer nor for any of those millions whose effort must conquer the unexpected and whose success is linked up with initiative. Esprit de corps then rises in value. Sub- ordinates adopt the central policy or spirit of the house, but in each concrete situation they employ whatever means will best realize this policy in practice. When the content thus alone suffices, imitation becomes free^ resting on its prestige value. (2) The Superior is not Imitated with Discrimination. — " When there is a real personal superiority," says Cooley,^ " ascendancy is seldom confined to the traits in which this is manifested, but, once established in regard to these traits, it tends to envelop the leader as a whole, and to produce allegiance to him as a concrete person. This comes, of course, from the difficulty of breaking up and sifting that which presents itself to the senses, and through them to the mind, as a single living whole. And as the faults and weaknesses of a great man are commonly much easier to imitate than * Cooley, Human Nature and the Social Order, 309-310. EFFECTIVENESS IN IMITATION 133 his excellences, it often happens, as in the case of Michel- angelo, that the former are much more conspicuous in his followers than the latter." It requires a high degree of skill so to maneuver oneself and all other heads in an organization that de- sired qualities are strikingly set forth for imitation and all others rendered ineffectual through suppression. Education is one solution, since on the part of subordi- nates this following the good and rejecting the unfit involves rational imitation. (3) Different Bodily and Mental Attitudes vary in Degree of Transmissihility} — Motor impulses are ex- tremely infectious. When bodies of men keep time to music, even non-marchers find themselves in step. Yawning is contagious, gestures and postures follow the smart-set model, dancing as a fad spreads from city to city. In short, with all things not the objects of con- scious attention men are highly imitative. Emotions spread readily among men. In boom towns all are infected with hope, and in bank panics all with fear. Hate, enthusiasm, religious fervor, fanaticism, each eludes all logical tests and skips nimbly from mind to mind. Slowest of all is the imitation of ideas, es- pecially of the coldly scientific sort. These appeal to intellect and involve deliberate weighing, which con- sumes time; and frequent rejection, which in so far as this one mind is concerned bars their spread. The careful scientist, far less quickly than the fervent poet, secures a national hearing. How the executive shall use his imitation policy thus depends somewhat upon what is to be transmitted, and the time available. The old-time revivalist, the trade- union agitator, the promoter of boom towns, the director *Ross, Soc. Psy., 124-130 passim. See also 121-145; and Tarde, Laws of Imitation, 194. 134 IMITATION of all forlorn enterprises where men must act by faith not fact, successfully appeal to emotional imitation. A sales convention, disorderly in its proceedings, may so seethe with enthusiasm for " The House" that it is no place for the interchange of ideas, and these latter are then offered for imitation through house organ or letter. EXERCISES 1. Should the emperor go to the front when technically the war can be directed better from the distant capitol? 2. How prevent a man of marked capacity but dissolute habits from demoralizing the organization? 3. Do our contemporary leaders exert more or less influence than those dead? 4. How was it that Henry IV of France disguised as a wood- cutter was rebuffed by the lady who smiled upon him as king? Was it true love? 5. Do we accept the reigning values of our own class or of the class to which we aspire? 6. What purpose in the promoter's offer of special rates, even gifts of stocks, to influential persons? Of the high salaries being tendered "dummy" directors? READINGS Ross, Social Psychology, Chs. VII-XI. Tarde, The Laws of Imitation^ Ch. VI. CHAPTER XII Suggestion "Man is a suggestible animal, par excellence, and the laws of hypnosis work on a great scale in society." — Boris Sidis. The skilled hypnotist seems to possess a magic, uncanny power, and one does not readily cease to wonder at his control. Yet the hypnotist, with all his wands and mysterious passes, exhibits merely the exag- gerated forms of a phenomenon going on about us continually, but which, because of its prevalence and unobtrusive action, draws no particular attention, in fact is commonly overlooked. Seemingly it may make very little difference whether clerks ask, " Shall we send the package? " or, " Shall we send the package or will you take it with you?'' but a big department store found that merely adding the latter phrase cut their delivery costs thousands of dollars. This firm merely capitalized suggestion for its own benefit; and others may go and do likewise. The politicians, in fact, have been doing this for a long, long time. At opportune times they spread broadcast the slogan, " Pass Prosperity Around,'' which being interpreted means " Elect me ! " Or, as a recent presidential candidate assured the voters of Illinois, " whenever dangers threaten our nation a man is always raised up able to solve them," quite as deft, and in this case quite as workable a suggestion as ever emanated from conjurer's wand. In the speeches of Henry IV of 135 136 SUGGESTION France we find little argument but skillful flattery, much praise of himself and energetic exhortations to others, vague but often-repeated promises of future benefits — and such Henries have multiplied in our day. Suggestion should not be disdained because its use has victimized the gullible, for it serves honest executive as well as charlatan. We are not at present concerned with the question, whether these various means of motivation are put to good use or evil, but solely with their particular effectiveness in controlling men. Now every normal mind is suggestible; that is, it tends to accept with more or less conviction propositions sub- mitted to it for which logically adequate grounds are lacking.^ Moreover, consciousness being in its very nature motor, the immediate effect of feeling is move- ment. Logical grounds or none, the mind acts upon its convictions ; " the abrupt entrance from without into consciousness of an idea or image which becomes a part of the stream of thought and tends to produce the muscular and volitional effects which ordinarily follow upon its presence," ^ viewed in its effects upon us as social beings, is a dominant motivating force. " The Thirty-second Demibrigade," said Napoleon, " would have died to a man for me because after Lonato I wrote, * The Thirty-second was there and I was at ease.' " SUGGESTION POWER Suggestions produce results, and hence are true forces. Their power of impact is conditioned by the following factors : * This is the criterion set by McDougall. Ci. Soc. Psy., 97. 'The definition of suggestion offered by Baldwin. Handbook of Psychology, II, 297. SUGGESTION PRESTIGE 137 I. Prestige of the Suggestor.—li the suggestor is an inferior, his proposition probably will be ignored, if not disdained. The idea may fare little better if it comes from an equal. But let it emanate from a recog- nized superior, a priest, a teacher, a general manager, an honored statesman; the critical faculties are lulled by his prestige and the suggestion produces conviction. The impact of suggestion is rendered more powerful on the sugges tor's part by his faith in self} Las Casas once said to Napoleon : " Sire, at Potsdam, had I been you, I would have taken the sword of Frederick the Great and I would have worn it." The answer of the master was : "I had my own." Faith in self serves as a spark in tinder, kindling in others by suggestion the powers required for its own verification. Another means, and one closely associated with faith, is self-respect. Subordinates' respect for their chief is at bottom but a sympathetic reflection of his own self- respect. He passes current with them at the value he has set upon himself. By thus causing others to share this value, the man of strong self-respect increases both his positive self-feeUng and his adherent's negative self-feeling, thereby expanding his own suggestion power. Still another element is energy. A conflict of forces is involved when two persons approach each other, and in a group this is commonly multiplied into a sharp ^ "The men of ardent convictions who have stirred the soul of crowds, the Peter the Hermits, the Luthers, the Savonarolas, the men of the French Revolution, have been able to call up in the souls of their fellows that formidable force known as faith, which renders a man the absolute slave of his dream. ... Of all the forces at the disposal of humanity, faith has always been one of the most tremendous, and the gospel rightly attributes to it the power of moving mountains. To endow a man with faith, is to multiply his strength tenfold. The great events of history have been brought about by obscure believers, who had little beyond their faith in their favour." Le Bon, The Crowd, 135-136 passim. 138 SUGGESTION contest. Men of little energy are unable to withstand the mental blows rained upon them, and take to cover. Vigorous natures, to the contrary, cast off the sugges- tions impinging upon them. They hurl forth a veritable swarm of ideas and images. Instead of being shaped, they shape others. Closely related to energy is the objective temperament. It implies the outflowing nature, the freedom from self- examination, morbid analysis, and criticism. As was said of Napoleon, " Introspection was alien to his being ; his critical powers, if turned in for a time on himself, quickly moving back to work upon men and affairs." The introspective temperament necessarily directs the attention toward self, admirable enough, perhaps, for poets, philosophers, ethical teachers, and other students of the inner world; but the executive would possess an outer world. Objectivity is his. All these, however, are elements of personality ; and other qualities which might be mentioned could be classified either under that head or as aspects of imita- tion prestige. A more extended discussion is thus un- necessary. We may conclude by saying natural and imitation prestige fits a man to exercise a vast suggestion sway. 2. Suggestibility of Subjects. — The fundamental char- acteristic of suggestibility is that normal inhibition is broken down and the mind of the subject Hes open, more or less at the mercy of the incoming idea or image. Upon what factors does this condition, termed sugges- tibility, depend? First may be mentioned credulity. A body of knowl- edge, well organized, critical, may be lacking. Witness the belief of children in fairy tales, of primitive folk in magic incantations, of rural dwellers in rain-making and crop-insuring devices. Because belief is natural SUGGESTIBILITY 139 while the critical faculties must be developed and trained, suggestion tends to run riot in ignorant minds. A second element is found in temperament. Every one is familiar with the onward-looking, optimistic temperament, as contrasted with the critical, self- centered type. A person of this latter nature is liable to be hostile toward suggestions, taking pride in his own conclusions and coolly resisting the intrusion of others. The sanguine temperament, because its cur- rents are warm, ardent, and outward flowing, is a more cordial host. A third factor i& an abnormal mental condition. This abnormal state may be no more serious than absence of mind. " An absent-minded professor is directed by his wife after dinner to go upstairs and change his clothes preparatory to receiving callers. On going in search of him after the callers have left, she finds him asleep in bed. Undressing had suggested ' bed,' and bed had suggested ' sleep.' " ^ Fasting heightens suggestibility. The stable mental- ity by this means is dethroned, and the victim, often a religious enthusiast, is enabled to hear voices and see visions, not of God, but merely concoctions of his hyper- sensitive consciousness. There is much of sense in three meals a day. Fatigue, similarly, produces an abnormal state of mind with increased suggestibility. Wearied brain cells no longer are alert, critical; the bars are thrown down and all ideas are of equal value as they stream in and take possession of consciousness. Extravagant motor consequences at any time are liable to ensue. The essence of abnormality consists in a dissociation of consciousness, the separation of the higher control- 5, Soc. Psy., 18. I40 SUGGESTION ling centers from the rest of the psychic stream.^ This running a partition through consciousness holds the ordinary criteria of belief in abeyance and the sub- waking self becoming master, suggestibility is height- ened. In absence of mind this separation usually is slight, in hypnosis it verges toward the absolute. In general it may be said, degrees of suggestibility corre- spond to degrees of dissociation. 5. Duration. — As constant dripping wears away the hardest stone, so continued hammering by suggestion reshapes consciousness. " It is not by advancing a political truth once, or twice, or even ten times," O'Con- nell once said, " that the public will take it up and finally adopt it. Incessant repetition is required to impress political truths upon the public mind. Men, by always hearing the same things, insensibly associate them with received truisms. They find the facts at last quietly reposing in a corner of their minds, and no more think of doubting them than if they formed part of their religious belief." ^ It required four years of persistent endeavor before John Quincy Adams attained a position of importance in the senate. Moody from the provinces bombarded London with revival suggestion constantly for two years before he swept down upon the city as a conquering general. Hiram Johnson traveled over California for nearly seven months hammering away at one issue, 1 "In the normal state the waking, controlling consciousness is always on its guard, and when enticed, leaves its ground only a single step, and that only for but a moment. In normal suggestibility the psychical scar is faint ; the lesion affected in the body of consciousness is superficial, transitory, fleeting. In abnormal suggestibility, on the contrary, the slit is deep and lasting — it is a severe gash. In both cases, however, we have a removal, a dissociation of the waking from the subwaking, reflex consciousness and suggestion being affected only through the latter." Sidis, Psychology of Suggestion, 89. * Dunlap, op. cit., 46. THE POWER OF SUGGESTION 141 closing nearly every speech by saying : " Remember this, my friends : I am going to be the next Governor of Cali- fornia ; and when I am, I am going to kick out of this government William F. Herrin and the Southern Pacific Railroad. — Good-night." In the mental life as in nature there is a season for seed sowing and a season for harvesting.^ The reitera- tion of suggestions apparently may be harmless amuse- ment. But in the end the orator has woven his spell, the trade-marked article is sought, the missionary has remade his converts, the unmigrant is fused in the American melting pot. The impact of suggestion after suggestion has broken down inhibition, and the idea or image is firmly planted in the mind. <^. Volume. — A suggestion has enormous penetrating power when from all sides it beats upon consciousness. " Scarcely anyone," says Bagehot,^ " can help yielding to the current infatuations of his sect or party. For a short time — say some fortnight — he is resolute ; he argues and objects; but, day by day, the poison thrives, and reason wavers. What he hears from his friends, what he reads in the party organ, produces its effect. The plain, palpable conclusion, which every one around him believes, has an influence yet greater and more subtle; that conclusion seems so solid and unmistakable ; his own good arguments get daily more and more like a dream. Soon the gravest sage shares the 1 The old-time revivalist holding camp meetings shrewdly recognized this fact. "We gave invitation to all the Presbyterian ministers to unite with us at our quarterly meetings," wrote one of these; "but they gen- erally pleaded as an excuse that they had appointments to fill, and Fri- day, Saturday, and Sunday would pass off without any aid from them ; but on Monday we generally saw some of their ministers in the congre- gation, but having our plans filled up for that day we consequently paid no attention to them ; for we were fully convinced that they only wanted the Methodists to shake the hush, and they would catch the birds. ^' 2 Physics and Politics, 93-94. X43 SUGGESTION folly of the party with which he acts, and the sect with which he worships." Whoever lives in an atmosphere of infectious belief by what chance will not inhale it ? Shrewd leaders have not failed to note the power of mass suggestion, and in the beginning have carefully nursed their psychic product until it acquires strength to sweep the opposition. The " straw vote '' result is widely circulated. Early successes at the polls are proclaimed " test votes,'' with headlines screaming " First blood for Blank ! " At opportune times tons of campaign thunder are dumped into the mail racks.^ Hordes of hired spellbinders are turned loose, their leathern lungs serving to increase the psychic reso- nance. The candidate issues " An Address to the American People.'' Suggestion acquires momentum. The psychological effect of seeing state after state go for a certain candidate usually is that more states do likewise. Citizens are assured " everybody's doing it." They imbibe the perfervid atmosphere — and vote while in that condition. The election returns indicate a glorious victory for the plain people. Such are foundations upon which suggestion power rests. Prestige, suggestibility, duration, volume, these four, if left to run riot, are able to dethrone the strongest character^; in lawless mob, financial panic, religious * It is said upon the authority of an official competent to state the facts that during the presidential campaign of 191 2 the government printing office turned out 50,000,000 documents. Stacked up in a single pile these would reach more than thirty miles into the sky, and if the separate pages were placed end to end, they would girdle the earth five times, enough being left over to reach from Washington to the Philip- pines ! We may well sympathize with the New York Sun's announce- ment: "The Political Debating Society and Anti-Business Association at Washington adjourned yesterday." * A reporter was thus influenced by Francis Schlatter, the "Messiah" of 1895 : "As I approached him I became possessed of a certain super- MAKING USE OF SUGGESTION 143 craze, and kindred delusions, they have checkered his- tory with the deepest tragedies of the psychic life. But they have as well melted crude natures together, stiffened worthless men into martyr mold,, imbued them with that fervor seen in patriotic defense or holy war. Whether its results be good or ill does not here concern us so much as this fact, that suggestion has power within groups of men. SUGGESTION IN PRACTICE When suggestion is to be employed, there are several methods which, if taken as guides, will considerably increase its effectiveness. These may now be con- sidered. ^' Suggestion should vary in Directness according to the Suggestibility of the Subject. — In order that suggestion may accomplish its ends, it is necessary that there be a cleft in consciousness ; that is, the higher controlling phase of mind must be separated from the lower brain centers. In abnormal suggestibility, this cleft is deep, a gash so serious that the subwaking self lies unprotected before the incoming idea or image. Direct suggestion may then be employed. But under normal condition, the cleft is slight, easily closed ; consciousness must be natural fear, which it was difl&cult to analyze. My faith in the man grew in spite of my reason. As he released my hands my soul acknowl- edged some power in this man that my mind and my brain seemed to fight against. When he unclasped my hands I felt as though I could kneel at his feet and call him master." Sidis, Psy. of Sug,, 302-303. The pioneer preachers during the widespread revivals occurring about a century ago joyfully, though without understanding, related instances of how those coming to break up the meetings were themselves humbled and converted, "struck down by the hand of God." Peter Cartwright tells of a bully who had stealthily approached the altar from the rear, with a number of frogs strung on a piece of hickory bark, his intention being to slip them over the revivalist's head. But "the spirit which moved over the multitude struck him down at full length; he roared like a bull in a net, and cried aloud for mercy." Autobiography , 380. 144 SUGGESTION caught napping and the suggestion, Hke a thin blade, deftly inserted. Only the indirect approach will here succeed. In practice, the normal mind is usually approached under cover of a slantwise suggestion, this gradually increasing in directness as the suggestor comes more and more to dominate the suggested. In twenty minutes the suave salesman who opened the canvass with com- pliments soothing as a day in June is transformed into a tyrant who bluntly directs the prospect to " sign right here.'* The street-comer agitator first hammers home the claim, " Labor is the only source of wealth " ; after- wards he declares, " You're big fools to let the capitalists keep on exploiting you " ; and only later on he says, " Each throw in a dollar to help us fight your cause." We may conclude that the normal mind is influenced best by slantwise suggestion, but that heightened sugges- tibility permits entrance to more and more direct sug- gestions, in h^^pnosis even direct appeal succeeding from the first. This general truth is capable of fruitful application. 2. Suggestion Valites vary according to Degree of Posi- tiveness. — The suggestor works as an artist, a stroke here, a stroke there, but every stroke one that counts, every move directed toward the picture desired. The leading lawyer of Iowa, it is said, will take nothing but a strong case. His record constitutes positiveness. Pat- rick Henry had wonderful address in leading off the minds of his hearers from unfavorable points, a plan usually followed by men who win cases. In commercial con- cerns, the wrangling employee is dismissed, the credit man perfects himself in extracting money painlessly; " the customer," says Marshall Field, " is always right." Industry sees the rise of the " PubUcity Engi- neer," a trouble mender, a harmonizer, a creator of good KEEPING SUGGESTION POSITIVE 145 will who keeps his corporation favorably before con- sumers. Suggestion is kept positive. Another means is to acknowledge no defeat. Sam Houston maintained his personal dignity under every circumstance, and after his deposition as governor he walked the streets of Austin as if he had been victor in the contest. During the greatest reverses of his career, it is said of Daniel O'Connell that " his language in public was as hopeful as ever. His very presence in- spired confidence." Such suggestions go far to neutral- ize defeat; its power is lessened when treated as if it were not. This indicates a point of view concerning the treat- ment of criticisms. A reply, exhaustive and reiterated, especially in cases where it cannot be made crushingly convincing, frequently defeats its own ends by suggest- ing that the criticism itself is well founded and a body blow. Clay, for instance, merely weakened himself by his many replies to Kremer^s accusation of a " deal " between himself and Adams, the famous " coalition of Blifil and Black George, — the combination, unheard of till then, of the Puritan with the blackleg." Much more effectively did Webster, after a two-hour attack had been made upon him in the senate, rise with great delib- eration and dignity, and after a telling silence say, ** Mr. President, if the Senator who has just taken his seat is not too much fatigued, I move that the senate do now go into an executive session." Expectancy also makes for positiveness in suggestion. Consider the effect upon the fleet when just before Trafalgar Lord Nelson signaled from the flagship, " England expects every man to do his duty." Re- formers, divines, philanthropists, leaders of all causes which live by faith alone, have invariably been great expecters. They have first convinced themselves that 146 SUGGESTION these expectations would be realized. And this faith, by stimulating the onward-moving impulse in followers, insures its realization. By keeping suggestion positive, the field of conscious- ness is more or less limited ; the attention is kept from irrelevant matters ; there is monotony and inhibition.^ A suggestion made under such conditions not only has power, but this power, in addition, is exerted in the direc- tion which the suggestor would have. J. The Infectiousness of Suggestion renders Cumulative Results Possible. — Suggestion is a mass phenomenon ; its sweep varies with compactness. The Kentucky revivaUsts of a century ago, when they had drawn people from miles around into one dense throng at the camp meeting, transformed even idle onlookers and scoffers into shouting converts. The agitator, the reformer, the lodge organizer, the orator, the sales manager, alike beUeve in mass influence ; and the ticket seller for the fake show says, " Move up close, boys." When men pack together, voluntary movements are restricted, in- dividuality wilts. Let attention be fixed by some stir- ring phrase, — "Liberty," "Democracy," "Votes for women," "54^40' or Fight," — by some calamity or national insult or crisis, contagion sweeps the throng ; a crowd in the psychological sense is formed. This is no mere sum total of the individuals com- * This process is especially marked in the forming of a mob. "When the preacher, the politician, the stump orator, the ringleader, the hero, gains the ear of the crowd," says Sidis, "an ominous silence sets in, a silence frequently characterized as 'awful.' The crowd is in a state of overstrained expectation; with suspended breath it watches the hero or the interesting, all-absorbing object. Disturbing impressions are excluded, put down, driven away by main force. So great is the silence induced in the fascinated crowd, that very frequently the buzzing of a fly, or even the drop of a pin, can be distinctly heard. All interfering impressions and ideas are inhabited. The crowd is entranced, and rapidly merges into the mob state." Psy. of Sug., 300. CONTAGION 147 posing it, but a new psychic product with characteris- tics peculiar to itself. This new product is irrational and impetuous because people do not think under excitement. The subconscious self dominates; waves of emotionalism beat upon the brain, suggestibility is heightened, the reverberations from each member enor- mously multiply the contagion. Suggestions are em- braced with fervor; the throng feels itself possessed of irresistible power, and its members, since the crowd is anonymous, freed from individual responsibility, set about its acts with irresistible impetuosity. Because its force is cumulative, suggestion may throw a vast power into the hands of one man, the leader. At a gesture from the Little Corporal, regi- ments of French youth strove like super-men amid war's carnage. Himself only a boy of ten, Nicholas of Cologne drew one hundred thousand into the Children's Crusade, led them through hardships which thinned their ranks a third. A penniless adventurer, John Law, so dazzled the populace with visions of wealth that all Paris went money-mad. A hitherto unknown Jew, Sabbathai Zevi, threw his countrymen into religious intoxication upon declaring his Messiahship ; business men devoted themselves to prayers and penitence, the synagogues re- soimded with cries, sighs, and sobs for days at a time, the fame of Sabbathai spread throughout the world, and many in prophetic rapture raved, " True Messiah of the race of David ; to him the crown and kingdom are given ! " And much could be said of Dowie and Miller and Smith, and a host of others who have waved the magic wand over brain-stormed followers. But this, it will be said, is mobbishness ; few groups ever exhibit such extreme contagion, and what sensible executive, moreover, would wish that they should? Quite so. But the difiference is one of degree, not kind. 148 SUGGESTION The street riot and the directors' meeting, however sharp their contrast may be, have at least this element in common, their collective action is influenced by sugges- tion. This power, coming into play whenever men asso- ciate together, always to a degree overrules the indi- vidual mind and dictates the decision. Suggestion power, therefore, is something which every organization head should develop and guide to his own ends. EXERCISES 1. Account psychologically for a financial panic. A run on a bank. How employ suggestion to avert either? 2. Illustrate how the advertiser employs suggestion. The salesman. The revivalist. The borrower. 3. Analyze from the standpoint of suggestion the careers of Dowie, Joseph Smith, Captain Cook. 4. Explain, by personal experience if possible, the theory of hypnotism. 5. Analyze Antony's funeral oration with respect to directness of suggestion. {Julius CcEsar, Act III, Sc. II.) 6. What basis has the Indian motto, "A stuffed prophet shall not know secret things"? A bank president's statement, "The best way to drown the anvil chorus is to keep on delivering the goods " ? 7. Discuss the press agent as a factor in political campaigns. As an ally of public service corporations. READINGS Le Bon, The Crowd, Book II, Ch. III. Smis, The Psychology of Suggestion, Chs. I, XXVII, XXXIII. CHAPTER XIII Emulation "For men 'tis not enough to be alive; The noblest joy of being is to strive." — Stark. "We believe that the good men are the men who want to win." — Walter H. Cottingham. In the late '6o's two great railroads, one starting at Sacramento, California, the other at Omaha, Nebraska, were pushing across the Western plains toward each other. On many a day the construction gangs of the two companies laid more miles of track than an ox team averaged in a day's travel on the old overland trail. " Such performances as these," says Carter,^ " attracted the attention of the newspapers in the East, which began to send their star correspondents to the front and to announce the number of miles of track laid each day, as baseball scores are announced nowa- days. " All this notoriety spurred the rival construction gangs to renewed exertions and made them boastful. One day the Union Pacific laid six miles of track. The Central Pacific thereupon laid seven miles of track. Upon hearing of this feat the Union Pacific laid seven and a half miles. " The Central Pacific authorities declared their men could lay ten miles in one working day if they wanted ^ When Railroads were New, 254-255 passim. 149 ISO EMULATION to. Vice-President Durant, of the Union Pacific, offered to bet ten thousand dollars that they couldn't do it. The money was covered, and April 29, 1869, was set as the day for the race. " A large party of distinguished guests assembled to see the bet decided. Four thousand men, trained by the discipline of four years to the precision of a machine, began their mighty task on the stroke of seven o'clock. Most of the working force was composed of Chinamen, but the Chinamen were not heavy enough to lay the rails. " For this work there were eight stalwart Irishmen, whose names have been handed down to posterity — Michael Shay, Pat Joyce, Thomas Daly, Mike Kennedy, Fred McNamara, Ed Killeen, Mike Sullivan, and George Wyatt. They handled the rails at the rate of one minute forty-seven and a half seconds to each two hun- dred and forty feet. " In six hours they had laid eight miles of track, so* they nailed a board with the word ^ Victory ' on it to a stake, and stopped for dinner on the boarding train, which was now run up. After the usual noon rest of one hour, work was resumed. At exactly 7 p.m. ten miles and two hundred feet of track had been laid. . . . Then, to prove that the job was well done, Campbell, the boarding boss, got on the locomotive and ran the heavy train back over the ten miles of newly laid track in forty minutes." Under the spur of emulation was performed that day a track-laying feat never since equaled. Rivalry places the social self in jeopardy. It forces upon this self the prospect of failure, of being relegated to inferior positions ; and the prospect of ascendancy as well, of displaying power before onlookers. It thus becomes an impulse of the most far-reaching social MAKING WORK A GAME 151 importance,^ and exercises an influence upon the organ- ism of an intensely stimulating sort. Laboratory experi- ments indicate that the prick of emulation retards fatigue and hberates latent energy not otherwise avail- able.^ Here is a force ; how may executives employ it ? THE EMULATION POLICY The emulation policy rests upon the assumption that deep down in the heart of every man is the desire to win, that all men are not equal and should in tests be allowed to prove they are not. The lethargic and the humanitarians, it is true, exalt equality ; but the ordi- nary many love power and self-assertion and the discom- fiture of competitors. The vast majority of men are anxious to align themselves, their pulse being quickened when a race is on. Accordingly, the contest element is introduced whenever possible ; work is made a game. In introducing competition or the game element, rivalry may be instituted between : (i) Leader and Followers. — This is a very old method, according to Tacitus it having prevailed among our ^ Of no other peoples is this so true as of the western Europeans. "With us," says McDougall, "it supplies the zest and determines the forms of almost all our games and recreations ; and Professor James is guilty of picturesque exaggeration only, when he says ' nine-tenths of the work of the world is done by it.' Our educational system is founded upon it ; it is the social force underlying an immense^ amount of stren- uous exertion ; to it we owe, in a great measure, even our science, our literature, and our art ; for it is a strong, perhaps an essential, element of ambition, that last infirmity of noble minds, in which it operates through, and under the direction of, a highly developed social self-consciousness. The emulation impulse tends to assert itself in an ever-widening sphere of social life, encroaching more and more upon the sphere of the combative impulse, and supplanting it more and more as a prime mover of both individuals and societies." Soc. Psy., 294. 2 See Triplett, "The Dynamogenic Factors in Pacemaking and Com- petition," Am. Jour. Soc, VI, 507-533; and Wright, "Some Effects of Incentives on Work and Fatigue," Psychological Rev., XIII, 23-34. IS2 EMULATION early ancestors. The ancient German chieftain was disgraced if excelled in valor, and since it was consid- ered equally disgraceful for a warrior to be surpassed by his chief, we have here some explanation for the fierce courage shown by both. It may be said to be a racial trait that subordinates expect in their leader a pattern for emulation. Should the executive satisfy this expectation, he possesses a two-edged weapon; it sets forth right action and represses all other. When Alexander's soldiers dissented from his plans for wider conquest, he quashed the threatened mutiny by point- ing out how he himself had fared. Charlemagne, ac- cording to the old tale sung at castle dinner gatherings, once made firm his wavering soldiers by putting into their mouths these tormenting words, " We left him to besiege Narbonne alone ! " Carnegie's rise from one dollar and twenty-five cents a week, the push of the office manager once office boy, the vigorous example of executives everywhere, furnish a keen incentive to subordinates to go thou and do likewise. (2) Individuals and Groups within Organization. — The employee pitted against his co-workers strives for first place within his group, then for supremacy over the winner in a competing group, a plan which, skillfully adjusted to include men of every rank, subjects the whole organization to the emulative impulse.^ * This has been well worked out by President Cottingham of the Sherwin-Williams Co., whose sales force is probably unsurpassed in the world. "We have what we call the *Top-Notcher Trade Sales Compe- tition,' through which we urge every member of our selling organization to better efforts by reason of honors and money prizes. Every member of the selling force tries to be the top-notcher in his district, the top- notchers of a district are in competition with other districts, and the district managers are keen to turn in higher sales than other districts, thereby involving a competition from the lone salesman up to the branch managers within the very headquarters ofl&ce." Printers^ Inky Feb. 13, 1914. KINDS OF CONTESTS 153 Where the individual's efforts are so merged into those of the groups that his own results cannot be sifted out for comparison, competition is instituted between these groups instead. Carnegie pitted plant against plant. Corey as head of one plant, he made pace setter for Schwab, and Peacock for both the others. This was a method the " Little Iron Master " probably learned while employed by the Pennsylvania system. Our railroads for purposes of administration are sepa- rated into divisions, and whereas British managers never know what other sections of the road are doing, American managers constantly compare these units in their per- formance. Statistics and cost records are said to be dull reading, but never to groups vying for superiority. (3) Organization and ^^ Enemy ^ — This type of con- test, " our organization vs. competitors," supplies much of the driving force among officials in business and industry ; yet it has not been utilized as it should be among the humble employees. They, too, will come to feel zest by being brought into the great game. The normal individual quite readily develops loyalty to his own group and enmity toward all competitors. The enemy has long meant merely the outsider, and a belli- cose disposition has never been lacking in mankind. In poUtics, especially, advantage is taken of this fact. The contest is termed a " campaign," and much is said of the party " war chest," " carrying war into the enemy's country," " laying siege to his stronghold," " first blood," " fight to the finish." Upon the least show of apathy, spellbinders and candidates alike employ this picturesque language, bloodthirsty, drawn from war and prize ring. During the last presidential election, one candidate assures us, " I want to fight for the liber- ties of the American people." Another says he is " proud to fight shoulder to shoulder with the men and 154 EMULATION women in the ranks." After the ballots are counted, the successful candidate finds the results " a clear-cut victory for the people " ; the defeated one declares " the fight has just begun." By such tactics an election arouses tremendous interest, and since the struggle for orders is quite as keen as the struggle for votes, the wise manager will pass the news along. (4) Worker and Records. — Each summer hundreds of players and millions of " fans " become thoroughly stirred over certain columns of percentages on the score sheet, a clear indication of how stimulating a mere record-breaking contest may be. It means satisfac- tion to salesman, batter, or pieceworker to beat his last year's record. Like a tantalizing enemy this shade of his former self has risen before him, and he has now bowled it over — prowess is still his ! Comparisons of all sorts are possible and workable. It may be " this week with last week," " this week against the same week last year," " that top-notch record of Smith's," or scores of similar plans. Setting in advance the result desired is another method. The set task is a challenge. Even in factories where piece- work is done, a ticket on which the office states the amount expected that day brings increase of output. If the worker himself sets up a mark for attainment, the same result is secured. Even boasting may yield the forward impi^lse, for the boaster places himself in jeopardy and onward is the way out.^ ^ President A. Montgomery Ward likes to hear his men talk of what they are going to do. "You see, men who talk that way have to make good or be humiliated. Their boastful words would be hard to swallow in case of failure. So they lie awake nights thinking how to win, get down early, and hustle. The whole place gets full of the infection. The other departments wake up and enter the race. And the result is a heavy gain all along the line and a fine esprit de corps that keeps things on the go." Business Man's Library, IX, 9. « PROMOTION 155 (5) Individual and Advancement. — Human nature is an unfolding, a reshaping, always in process. The actual man is to his own consciousness often less real than his ideal self ; and the position held frequently has less power with him than that to which he aspires. The possi- biUty of advancement thus introduces emulation in its subtlest form. And in so far as they have come to see this, executives realize the value inhering in a good pro- motion system and accept the view that each employee is a double, what he is and what he may be. Says President WooUey of the American Radiator Company : " In our own experience every young man is regarded in the light of a possible future executive. Our company has developed a plan of self-perpetuity. We have never gone outside of our own organization to fill executive positions, but each head is expected to de- velop and train his successor, so that when the time comes for promotion, there will be an available man to step into every place left open." ^ " I go over my pay roll every Saturday night," writes another manufacturer, " to see whose salary I can raise. My men are no more anxious for advancement than I am to promote them." Carnegie made his steel mills forcing plants for men, drawing managers from the ranks and making milhonaires of his young lieu- tenants. " Promotion," says A. Montgomery Ward, " is what we seek more strenuously than even our employees do ! " The promotion policy requires that men lacking promise be dismissed, and that around those retained every method of development be brought to bear. When these learn that capacity for advancement is the thing desired, they will respond with enthusiasm and efficiency. * Business Man^s Library, VIII, 65. iS6 EMULATION EMULATION GOOD AND BAD The emulation policy presents some decided advan- tages. It is quick and vigorous in action. Witness the rush of men to a street fight, the immense throngs at a football game, the yell of delight when the politician " pitches into the bosses," the enthusiasm which marked the progress of the great " fighters " in a recent national campaign,^ the resolve which lights the eyes of his hearers when the President calls for warriors of peace. Emulation may also be continuous in its influence, since the mind acts upon its opinions and nothing causes such zealous belief in these as having fought for them. The revolutionary struggles spread the ideals of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity from philosophers to the far confines of France and made fervent advocates of a peasantry who hitherto were but men with hoes. The Boers never more revered the policies of Oom Paul than after the Transvaal had been laid waste in their defense. Similarly have been impressed the American love for liberty and toleration and freedom from taxation without representation ; and similarly may be impressed a belief in the superiority of one's own organization and willingness to strive mightily that its achievements be not surpassed. If ideas are to be made a continuous motivating force, let men fight for them. Emulation exalts the strong and efficient. The pre- * A reporter gives the following description of Governor Johnson at Chicago in June, 191 2: "The first notes of his voice keyed up your nerves to a fighting pitch. We can't imagine any one's listening to Johnson for five minutes without wanting to fight — either to fight with him or to fight against him. His voice sounds just as an east wind feels. It grates and snarls and pierces, and puts you all on edge. The whole man goes with the voice. Every posture and gesture is one of inten- sity.^ His hands are nearly always clenched. His muscles are tense. His jaw, a good strong fighting jaw, is set." And his running mate was like unto him I A SPUR TO PROGRESS 157 mium is placed on victory, and victory to be worthy must be won. All methods available for this purpose, be they old or new, it matters little, are pressed into service; others are eagerly sought, the sole criterion being, Will they prove effective? Hence competition insures rapid change, with a high death rate among practices hallowed by tradition. The backward look, blind worship of precedent, routine elaborated into " red tape," nepotism, all are " scrapped " under the ruthless demand for results at lowest unit cost. Even war for this reason has merit. It destroys the antedated and the useless, and especially in those of the offensive, it favors the open mind. The invaders, as Morris points out,^ not only leave their country behind them, but much of their social heritage as well. " They march imder new skies, over new soils, through new climates. They come into the closest contact with new customs, laws, and conditions. And their local preju- dices only partially march with them. The laws of the peaceful state are abrogated in the army. Its members are brought under other laws and discipline. Religious influences weaken. A sense of Hberty fills the mind of the soldier ; expectancy arises ; new hopes and fears are engendered ; the old quiet devotion to law becomes a tendency to license. " Thus the mind of the soldier is in a state essentially unlike that of the peaceful citizen. It is in a state rendering it a quick and ready solvent of new experi- ences. All its fixity of ideas is broken up, the deep foundations of its prejudices are shaken, it is in a recep- tive condition; fresh thoughts readily pass the broken barriers of its reserve." Yet however valuable is the contest idea, if it is to be realized in practice, there must he something for which * Quoted by Ross, Soc. Psy., 248-249. iS8 EMULATION to strive. This will no doubt readily be granted. Still, many an executive is now exhorting his men to climb mountains when he has scarce provided a little hill. To climb high men need a strong incentive. This incentive some have sought in cash prizes, in merchandise prizes, or a percentage on sales above a certain amount.^ Simply because " $500 in gold for the best August sales record " has been offered, they would have a salesman vigorously tramping the blister- ing pavements, and he often fails so to do. Money motive must be supplemented by honor motive; and this in turn by the joy there is in playing merely for the love of winning. The executive knows this is true of himself; not the money alone but the honor as well and the thrill to be in action playing as an expert the greatest game in the world, business. To men thus motivated the rewards become secondary; the accom- plishment primary. In practice — to point out another defect — emula- tion is often too restricted in its scope. When the compe- tition is announced, many, regarding themselves out- classed at the start, refuse to enter the lists. Others withdraw upon the slightest indication that their chances are poor. This narrowing continues until only a hand- ful really at heart are feeling the zest of contest. A difl&culty of this sort should be obviated by a judicious system of handicapping or other method for insuring equal opportmiity to all.^ 1 See Ch. XVII on rewards. •President Cottingham tells the plan followed by his company: "There are some salesmen who are in what might be termed fertile ter- ritory, where the number of sales and the amount reached would more than overbalance that of a salesman in a harder territory. It would be illogical to expect the high results from a salesman in territory of small towns and sparse settlements as from the man in densely populated districts. To overcome this we get estimates for the coming year's business from the salesman himself, his district manager, the general RULES OF THE GAME 159 Still another difficulty is that in the struggle for victory quality often suffers. The vote getter, the bricklayer, the evangelist, the salesman, under the competitive spur, may take an extremely shortsighted view ; " After us, the deluge ! " A wise selection of standards under which winners qualify is the surest way to obviate this defect. Emulation, moreover, readily degenerates into anger, envy, jealousy, and hate. Instead of the brisk but friendly pace expected, an executive too often finds win- ners vainglorious, losers disgruntled, selfishness exalted, and cooperation destroyed. The factional spirit creeps in, and the forward moving becomes nil. The emulative impulse, however, has merely broken its banks and flooded the fields. The margin between it and pugnacity, with its bitter surges of emotion, is narrow, yet the remedy is not entire suppression, as some have thought, but guidance. Under proper direction, its currents will steadily turn the wheels of toil. The need is but for rules of the game, and these enforced. In athletic contests, to take an illustration from a field in which competition holds first rank, emulation though intense is well restrained. Let the umpire, however, be unfair or unseeing; there will be reenacted the wranglings which have broken up many a boy- hood game. Now it is because the rules of the game are either not well drawn up or properly executed that so much ill-feeling at present exists in politics and industry. And it is the wise manager who, before the competition is under way, plans so that it shall not run amuck. sales manager, and lastly from the chiefs in control. Then if a salesman overshoots the work of estimate, increases his sales to a greater degree than was estimated, his markings would be equally as high as those from the salesman whose sales totaled a greater amount in dollars, but whose sales did not represent the effort put forth by the one who made the smaller amount of sales in dollars and cents." Printers' Ink, Feb. 13, 1914. i6o EMULATION EXERCISES 1. In the construction-gang example given at the opening of this chapter note point by point the various elements of incentive. 2. Should one go outside his organization in filling an important vacancy ? 3. Why do so few men from the shops advance into managerial positions? 4. What attitude do labor unions take toward the view, ''once a laborer always a laborer"? Of what influence upon the labor problem? 5. With reference to some specific organization, what may be made the basis of a contest ? 6. Mention the best contest you have witnessed, and outline the various elements through which its success was assured. READINGS McDouGALL, Social Psychology, Ch. XI. HoYT, Scientific Sales Management, Chs. XIII-XIV. CHAPTER XIV Art "You call these toys?" observed Napoleon of the ribbons and crosses of his Legion of Honor. "Well, you manage men with toys! " The r61e of actor or stage manager is never without its influence in leadership. Chatham, it was claimed, upon meeting a bishop " bowed so low his nose could be seen between his knees." Sam Houston, an old asso- ciate remarked, was always acting ; "he appreciated the value of a scene." And quite as deft as playwright did Tetzel employ the paraphernalia of both church and state. The bells of town or city announced his approach; the officials of the place, the citizens, and even the school children, marched in procession to meet him. A red cross, emblazoned with the Pope's coat of arms, preceded him. On a velvet cushion his papal commission was displayed. Once inside the church, the red cross was raised in front of the high altar, the indulgence chest was placed beside, and the real per- formance began. Indulgences were extolled as being manna dropped from Heaven, while other graphic pic- tures, drawn of Purgatory with seven years' penalty reserved for every mortal sin, terrorized his simple hearers.^ But all ordinary stage trappings were eclipsed by the elaborateness of the Ancient Regime. " You have seen ^ Jacobs, Luther, 63-64. H 161 i62 ART nothing," says Chateaubriand, " if you have not seen the pomp of Versailles, even after the disbanding of the king's household; Louis XIV was always there." Says Taine,^ " It was a swarm of liveries, uniforms, costumes, and equipages as brilliant and as varied as in a picture. It was made expressly to be painted, being specially designed for the pleasure of the eye, like an operatic scene." Formalism did not here extend its sway merely over the externals of life, the banquets, receptions, hunts, balls, weddings, and drives in state, but penetrated into every detail of his family, table, wardrobe, chamber,^ stable, or chapel. The king could not change his boots without a ceremony, in fact he could not reach the point of donning his shirt in the morning without having gone through four ceremonies, and this act involved a fifth. Louis himself was the central figure in the monarchical show, and, as Bolingbroke adds, if he was not the greatest king, he was the best actor of majesty, at least, that ever filled a throne. To what is due this motivating force found by Louis adhering in pompous parade, Tet- zel in dramatic picture of heaven and hell, Luther in his hymns, Houston in his sombrero ? Evidently to something deeply laid in human nature. And this upon analysis is found to be true. These leaders have molded men with thedramatist's touch, which 1 The Ancient Regime, 91. 'The king's apartments are thus described: "Two principal digni- taries preside over this and each has under him about a hundred subor- dinates . . . in all 198 persons for domestic service, like so many domes- tic utensils for every personal want or as sumptuous pieces of furniture for the decoration of the apartment. Some of them fetch the mall and balls, others hold the mantle and cane, others comb the king's hair and dry him after a bath, others drive the mules which transport his bed, others watch his pet greyhounds in his room, others fold, put on, and tie his cravat, and others fetch and carry his easy chair. Some there are whose main business it is to fill a comer which must not be left empty." Taine, op. cU., 96-97. ART'S POWER OF APPEAL 163 means that in one form or another they employed art. Now the essence of art is harmony ; its elements are fit- ness and beauty. From this more fundamental point of view, art is not something merely for the salon, but a living principle, a force which permeates all activity. Art for its own sake, a claim often urged, is basicly untrue; art is for Hfe's sake and it rises to its highest plane of effectiveness only as it makes possible more life. Because of natural selection — and not due to some critic or a school which flourishes for a day and then is not — all its forms and phases have been woven into the social heritage and there has been developed so widely among men the feeling for beauty and the sense of the fitness of things. These things have made for survival. THE SERVICE OF ART Personal ascendancy, it would follow, does not rest solely upon doing things ; there must be method, fitness, workmanship, in a word, art. The principle is simple, its applications numerous. The Assyrian kings spoke no command save from the throne. Alexander in his victories had an eye to their dramatic effect, and as unique as his conquests was his method of celebrating them. Garibaldi, when he wished to meet his volunteers, appointed for assembly place the Piazza of St. Peter's — and he came late. Saladin builded such a Great Palace that of its size and splendor the Arabian histo- rians speak with bated breath. Robert Bruce before all his followers smote his English antagonist such a blow on the helmet that the ax clove his head from crown to chin. Louis Napoleon alternately played upon the French love for national honor and the glory of his family name. Andrew Jackson, to mention but one more example, created dramatic conflicts, himself i64 ART appearing as an invincible Hercules constantly meeting terrible monsters dangerous to the American people, and slaying them all with his mighty club. Such meas- ures as these, modified to fit the situation, bear fruit; the aesthetic nature is satisfied. They have a stimulating effect as well. In ancient Finland it was beUeved that canoes were better built when the " boat-building " song was properly recited by the craftsman, and no doubt this was true. The dancer is most agile when the music is stirring, the campaigner would have his brass band, Luther's oppo- nents sang themselves into his ranks through use of Protestant hymns, Moody had his Sankey, and work- men the world over sing songs of exhortation. Art stimulates, and, as may be observed again and again, under its influence one does not so easily succumb to fatigue. It is in times of war, however, that art as a stimulus attains its maximum. Here is demanded more than prompt, vigorous action and the delay of fatigue ; fear must be conquered and the passion of cruelty made over- mastering. This effect savages induce by sham fights, during which the timorous native stiffens his courage for the real onset ; or by war songs the lust for slaughter is provoked. " The savage blood of the Ahts," observed a traveler ,1 " always boiled when the war songs were recited, their fingers worked convulsively on the paddles, and their eyes gleamed ferociously; altogether they were two hundred murderous-looking villains." Art is thus able to incite the savage to transient madness ; and similarly through the deadly impact of phrases such as, " Land for which our fathers died," " Give me liberty or give me death," " Remember the Maine," " Scot- land Forever," or by the strains of " Deutschland Uber * Sproat, quoted by Hirn, The Origins of Art, 267. ART STIMULATES 165 AUes," " Star-Spangled Banner " or the " Marseillaise," civilized men have been whetted to deeds of violence. This stimulation, moreover, may do much to insure collective action. When such activity is essential, those phases of art are developed which make for inti- mate cooperation. Witness the canoe dances and boat- ing songs of insular people, the sowing songs and har- vest dances of agriculturists, and especially the choral songs so fully developed by warring people. Among the peaceful Hottentots every dancer is a law unto himself, but their more dominant neighbors, the Kaffirs, act in strict unison. The North American Indians move through their dances with soldier-like regularity, while the Maori warriors in their most furious movements main- tain uniformity and regularity, the slightest motions of their fingers being simultaneous and even their eyes all moving together. Rhythm, of course, has an aes- thetic value, but viewed historically this function has been far surpassed by utilitarian advantages; it facili- tates common action. Art in this way has a value for leaders long since recog- nized. Among savage tribes, when any task requiring combined effort is to be performed, a presul often demonstrates in dance or pantomime the sequence of movements required.^ An Iroquois chief ambitious to lead a war party would draw the braves into a war dance and after rousing their passions in this way would set out before their ardor had time to cool. A Maorian with his followers executes a military pantomime which stimulates the warriors to fight and regulates their move- ments in battle, but more than this, as a European traveler has been compelled to admit, it " strikes terror into the heart of any man." In Australia even four or five mischievous old women with their chants, which 1 Hirn, op. cit., 257. i66 ART are accompanied by tears and groans, can soon work forty or fifty men into frenzy, fanatics ready for any deed of blood. ART AND THE EXECUTIVE This racial experience is something of which modern executives may avail themselves. The Sherwin-Wil- liams Co. coined a special title for their leading salesmen, " Top Notchers " ; whenever a meeting is called these top-notchers have a table or section apart from the others, their president quite correctly pointing out, " You may say this is childish, but then you know we are but children of the grown-up sort." Another com- pany calls its leading men " Record-Breakers." When a certain mark has been exceeded, the salesman gets a medal in the shape of a watch fob ; if he breaks it a second time, he receives a bar to hang below the medal, and so on. Other alert managers have transformed prosaic sales reports into spirited " motor races,'^ " base- ball games," " marathon runs," and like events, each man through pictures, diagrams, and averages shown in the house organs being inspired by his own, or prodded by his nearest competitor's " hits," " home runs," or " scores to date." Officers of the police and fire departments each year award medals, the mayor himself pinning the emblem upon the breast of its possessor in full view of " a dis- tinguished assemblage." Railroad executives bestow bands of gold braid which conductors wear upon the sleeve, each band signifying so many years of worthy service.^ Y. M. C. A. " boosters " mark the progress * The Erie Railroad has worked out a unique plan for similariy honor- ing its engineers. Its elements are these : First, the Order of the Red Spot, according to which any engineer distinguished for fine work has the number plate of his engine painted bright red. Several privileges, such as preferred runs, preferred attention at the division point, accrue EXECUTIVE AN ARTIST 167 of their campaign contributions by a giant thermometer or a clock dial over which a huge hand moves from day to day, underneath each being a slogan " See it rise ! " or " Make it strike 12 ! " Carnegie, in his pitting plant against plant, provided for that furnace which held the record for lowest production cost an enormous broom. For the sake of having this broom proudly displayed over their furnace, ironworkers blistered their hands and managers thought far into the night. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, is no phrase for the executive. He accepts human nature as it is, and in no idle moment has devised songs and games and banners and emblems. In conveying information from one mind to another, art possesses a unique power. An artist or playwright with a few bold strokes, a vague hint here and there, produces a vivid picture. Yet this picture in reality is not his but rather the product of the imagination which he has stimulated and which, left to itself, is able to evolve briefest outlines into completeness. Now this same imaginative tendency in our nature, this possi- bility of vast increase through its functioning, serves the painter or playwright no less well than the executive. He, too, is an artist, albeit this fact he would be last to admit. In a dramatic way his message is impressed upon sub- ordinates and followers. When accused of drunken - to members of the Red Spot order. Second, a Roll of Honor is printed each month, in which appears a list of the most unusual and distinctive services rendered to the company by its men. Third, as a crowning tribute to its engineers, it was decided to allow to each man of long service and exceptional loyalty the privilege of having his own name, instead of the usual number, painted on the cab of his locomotive. The pride this inspires baffles description. Of the eighteen engineers thus far honored in this way, not one has ever varied once from the pinnacle of perfection since he was given his name on his cab. To this system is due in a measure the remarkable result accomplished by the Erie, the carrying of 225,000,000 people in the last eight years with only one fatality. i68 ART ness, he admits, " I drink about as much as ," naming, "by permission," an eminent divine; and he follows this with a crushing vindication in the courts. It being rumored of another that his chief lieutenant is disaffected, he makes no labored reply ; they appear at the opera arm in arm. Or he rebukes followers, as Mohammed once stilled the clamor for spoils by sud- denly plucking a hair from the back of a camel and in raised voice saying, " By Allah ! I have never taken from the common spoil the value of that camel's hair more than my fifth ; and that fifth has always been ex- pended for your good." Or again he lampoons his opponent in doggerel, mean, undignified, no doubt, but strong because infectious. In a Broadway parade thousands once lustily sang : "Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, Continental liar from the state of Maine!" Here, too, is use for the image-stirring phrase, the " Lib- erty, Equahty, and Fraternity," " Fifty-four forty or Fight," " Onward, Christian Soldiers," " Home Rule for Ireland," into which men at one time or another have read their intensest convictions. Such phrases, in fact all such means, are symbols; yet as such they sufl&ce, for the imagination works through them with a mini- mum of trouble and a maximum of output. The leader in reality furnishes merely an arc; the followers build up the whole circle of his power. " It has frequently been noticed," says Cooley,^ " that personal ascendancy is not necessarily dependent upon any palpable deed in which power is manifested, but that there is often a conviction of power and an expectation of success that go before the deed and cojatr^l the minds ^ Human Nature and Social Order, 295-296 passim. fflGH LIGHTS AND SHADINGS 169 of men without apparent reason. There is something fascinating about this immediate and seemingly cause- less personal efficacy, [yet] it appears to be simply a matter of impulsive personal judgment, an impression of power and a sense of yielding due to interpretation of the visible or audible symbols of personality. An- other may impress us with his power, and so exercise authority over us, either by grossly performing the act, or by exhibiting traits of personality which convince our imaginations that he can and will do the act if he wishes to." And this latter, perhaps, is by far the more influential. It is this idea or image of him mirrored in the group consciousness and not what he himself necessarily is, which motivates followers, a fact empha- sized by the careers of Mohammed and Dowie and Napo- leon and, though to a less extent perhaps, unHmited numbers of leaders. Now through increasing and retaining this divergence between person and image, art performs another service ; it permits high lights and shadings. This " spot light and shadow " effect is of wide applicability. The skilled lawyer plays the spot light upon every element favorable to his case, trying to look most cheerful when hit hardest. The new improvements, the perfected organization, the broken records, executives push into the foreground. The chief place at the banquet, the carefully timed entrance to the platform, the open carriage preceded in the procession by gorgeous ranks,^ what are these but ^ Even savage chiefs are adept in the use of such means to retain ascendancy, as the following description written by two missionaries in Africa will illustrate : "The great monarch himself approached. He was heralded by some eighty individuals, each wearing a cap of monkey's skin adorned by a golden plate, and each holding his seat in his hand. Then came the dwarfs and buffoons in red flannel shirts, with the offi- cials of the harem ; there were also sixty boys, every one of whom wore a charm sewn up in leopard's skin, with written scraps from the Koran, which were highly prized; this train was followed by five tastefully 17© ART spot light upon leader and shadows for followers ? Posi- tive and negative self-feeling are thus induced. Art in this way serves as a means of control. It tames the ego in flippant offender, raw recruit, awkward appren- tice, vainglorious lieutenant, and binds him to the organized will. As Mr. Spencer points out, " the earliest kind of government, the most general kind of govern- ment, and the government which is ever spontaneously recommencing, is the government of ceremonial obser- vance. [It] has ever had, and continues to have, the largest share in regulating men's lives." ^ Hence the inaugural oath, the military salute, the state carriage, the throne, crown and scepter, the titles of nobility, the intricacies of court etiquette, the splen- dor of a Durbar. Similarly in law we retain the robe and wig, the grave demeanor, the prescribed penalties, the archaic language — the "Guilty or not guilty?" the " may God have mercy on your soul ! " Religion likewise is a museum of antiquity, its priestly robes, holy water, Latin service, crucifix, and candlesticks all point- ing to an age long past. Such obedience-getting means usually command slight carved royal chairs, hung round with gold and silver bells, but all black, being stained with the blood of human sacrifices. "Next, under an enormous silk sunshade, appeared the actual throne chair, encased with gold, and with long golden pipes carried behind it, as well as various wonderful vessels and articles of vertu. A peculiar music was heard rising above the sound of the horns and the beating of the drums. . . . "Still larger fans and umbrellas now approached, preceded by a corps of a hundred executioners dancing ; all wore leopard-skin caps, and had two knives slung from their necks. The dismal death drum, whose three beats were heard from time to time, closed the procession. "Now the music became wilder and louder, the ivory horns sounded shriller, the screaming and howling surpassed all description. Led by an attendant under a magnificent sunshade of black velvet, edged with fold and kept in constant motion, the royal potentate appeared." Ellis, ^shi-Speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast, 258-259. * Principles of Sociology, II, 3. ART MAY DEGENERATE 171 respect in the upward climbing, the reforming tempera- ment, the men without sense of the past ; yet once them- selves in authority these radicals often reinstate the forms they heretofore sought to destroy. The explanation is simple ; efficacy adheres in them. " The reason why institutions of control are so full of survivals," says Ross, " is that such institutions work the better the older they grow, which is not true of a construction in syntax, a funeral service, a pattern of tool or garment. De- vices in the field of control, however crude at first, im- prove with age like wine. A duty enjoined in the old sacred books on the precept of an ancient sage binds us more than would the same if it came to us imhallowed by time. Crown and royal blood win for the Emperor Dom Pedro an obedience that his republican successors in Brazil can command only by military force." ^ ELEMENTS OF DECADENCE Art in the hands of a skilled stage manager is an effec- tive producer of impressions. It serves as a canopy under which the leader's real self may find cover, a scenery upon which followers may gaze. But through its possibiHty of making the outer do service for the inner, an element of decadence is introduced, the dry rot to be found imdemeath the follies of fashion, the eulogies pronounced over the bier of public swindler, the pur- chased sympathy of confessor, even the suavity of eti- quette. Such degeneracy is more than a moral question, how- ever; it seriously hinders effectiveness. Art readily passes over into the formalism which, substituting the outer for the inner, mistakes this outer as the end in itself and after a time if left unassailed glorifies the ^Soc. Psy., 273. Cf. his Social Control, 111-114, 190-194. 172 ART cocoon in which the vital impulse is encased. Its possibilities are therefore as completely nullified as were the Grand Monarch's during the Ancient Regime. " The king," says Taine/ " suffers the same torture and the same inaction as he imposes. He also is playing a part ; all his steps and all his gestures have been deter- mined beforehand ; he has been obliged to arrange his physiognomy and his voice, never to depart from an affable and dignified air, to award judiciously his glances and his nods, to keep silent or to speak only of the chase, and to suppress his own thoughts, if he has any. One cannot indulge in revery, meditate or be absent-minded when one is before the footlights ; the part must have due attention. . . . " Strictly speaking it is the life of an actor who is on the stage the entire day. To support this load, and work besides, required the temperament of Louis XIV, the vigor of his body, the extraordinary firmness of his nerves, the strength of his digestion, and the regularity of his habits ; his successors who came after him grow weary or stagger under the same load. But they cannot throw it off; an incessant, daily performance is insep- arable from their position and it is imposed on them like a heavy, gilded, ceremonial coat. . . . Verily, the king resembles an oak stifled by the innumerable creepers which, from top to bottom, cling to its trunk." Art the servant had become formalism the despotic master. And to present executives as with Louis this possibility is never absent. EXERCISES I. Discuss : "It has been the misfortune of the present admin- istration that its mistakes have been more spectacular than its accomplishments." ^ The Ancient Regime, 104-109 passim. EXERCISES AND READINGS 173 2. Why is it that a joke is often worth two arguments? 3. Explain how a formalized sympathy, even hypocrisy, tends to develop in ministers. {Atlantic Monthly, April, 1913, 573-) 4. Why do Americans, especially business men, underrate the power of emblems, ceremonies, music, etc.? 5. Over which has art more power, Latin or Teuton? Of what significance to plant managers ? 6. How can a manager show graphically the accomplishment of the various members of his staff? READINGS Ross, Social Control, Chs. XIX-XX. CHAPTER XV Illusion "The only real measure of the social importance of an idea is the influence it exerts on men's minds. The degree of truth or error it contains is only of interest from a philosophic point of view." — GusTAVE Le Bon. In the management of men there are those whose sole test of a measure is, " Does it work? " And to make more certain that it does, they concern themselves with the line between fact and fable, which, at best, is faint. Under deft manipulation the senses are obsessed by the shifting mirage and the judgment is tricked of its right- ful conclusion. Possibly not for always, since truth, with men all scientists in some distant age, may possibly become full orbed, but meanwhile, at least, the will- o'-the-wisp, magic, and the hidden wire. The intriguer has his day. Deception, in fact, predated civilization. It is found even among the lower animals, as persons familiar with horses or dogs have probably discovered. Herr Groos tells the amusing story of a pointer who shammed sleep after he had stealthily licked all the clabber out of a bowl ; also of a monkey caught when about to rob a hen's nest, who thereupon tried to look very artless.^ Dogs and monkeys, in turn, are far surpassed in guile by the " simple " savage. The nimble intellect early vied with the strong arm as a means of control. The old, the ab- normal, the maimed and the blind, by magic incanta- ^Play of Man, 297-299. 174 ILLUSION UNIVERSAL 175 tions, spirit visitations, swoons and trances, sought to justify their right to be. It remained for later ages, however, to render illusion a fine art. The splendid art of diplomacy refines some- what the crude art of lying. The ablest diplomat whom Great Britain ever sent us is termed " quiet, altogether British and unfathomable." Much history has been made by men such as he. George III by a certain persis- tent astuteness, by the dexterous utilizing of political rivalries, by cajoling some men and betraying others, by a resolute adroitness in turning every opening to his own advantage, built up his own power while steadily outwitting his opponents. " Never," declared Pitt after one encounter, " never has he so baffled me." ^ His coimterpart has flitted across the scenes at Vienna, at Berlin, at Madrid, in the councils at St. Peterburg and the solemn conclaves of Rome ; Europe has known Bis- marck and Mettemich, the De Medici, and Richelieu. In our own country a " little magician " once maneu- vered himself across the slippery arena of Washington politics up to the first place, and others, though perhaps less adept, still thus advance themselves part way. Of course the demand now is, let there be light. But " rings " and cliques with their " bosses " and " dough bags " still persist, and as the plowshare of publicity scratches the surface the wires are deeper laid. Be not too absorbed, however, over the politicians. In what organization, be it business, church, or reformers' club, has plain dealing ever approached the one hundred per cent mark ? Illusion is a universal coloration process, and of its ramifications there is no end. In surveying this activity one may discern certain typical methods through which it operates ; to a consideration of the more important of these we now turn. * Rosebery, Life of William Pitt, 13. 176 ILLUSION TYPES OF ILLUSION I. The Shifting of Attention. — Not what is, but that to which the mind attends — this constitutes reality from the view of motivation. And this fact shrewd manipulators have recognized. They keep the atten- tion fastened upon that which it is their interest to have seen. A splendid exterior may so draw the eye that the in- terior is freed from scrutiny.^ Log cabin and hard cider pleased the backwoodsmen. What matter if "Old Tip" knew not the tariff? The "American System " had nothing peculiarly American about it, but the name was adroitly chosen and served its purpose. The " old hero " as a St. George killing the dragon or an invincible champion of the sacred destinies of the American people, driving out " Old Nick's money " and " Clay's rags," in his war against the " monster monopoly " exercised a wonderful charm over the popular imagination. To the gravest arguments and remonstrances, the answer was, literally, " Hurrah for Jackson ! " A great cause, especially a divine cause, has a prestige all its own. But every great cause is besieged by self- seeking " supporters," foul hands making capital of fair duties. And convenient it is for such as these to confuse the distinction — one ought to say, contrast — between cause and self. Personal enemies readily be- come " plotters against our house," " traducers of our * "An immigrant in Pennsylvania set himself up in the banking busi- ness, but it was some time before he got the money of his countrymen for safe keeping. He secured their confidence by buying a large safe, which he placed in his store, near the front window, so that the passers-by could see it. The money soon began to pour in, not because he was an honest man, but because he had a big safe in which to keep it." Roberts, New Immigration, 181. CONFUSING THE ATTENTION 177 fair city," or " blasphemers of our God." Individual orders are merely the rules of the house, the demands of patriotism, the will of the people, perhaps, the solemn mandates of Jehovah plainly expressed in the Scriptures. To such lofty motives as home, loyalty, patriotism, and worship, men's minds are always attuned, and hence opportunity is never lacking this wearer of the mask. Too great eagerness to push oneself forward implies selfishness and brings reproof. Hence a leader places himself " in the hands of his friends." In a seemingly receptive manner merely, he awaits the call of duty. " I am no politician," were the often-expressed words of Andrew Jackson. But he had William B. Lewis for a friend, Lewis, the great father of the wire-pullers, skilled in the art of starting movements apparently spontaneous, at a distance, and in a quarter from which they win pres- tige and popularity; skilled also in planning the stage setting, adjusting the r61es, giving cues, and drilling each player faithfully in his part; wonderfully patient and pliant, yet energetic in moving the drama toward the denouement when the chief actor comes to the foot- lights and bows to the will of the people.^ Worthy com- patriots all of the Australian boomerang thrower! Defeat implies weakness. But shall followers be permitted to gaze long upon evidences of disaster ? The defeated politician immediately after the votes are counted flays ringster control, arraigns the sordid interests, vows eternal devotion to the people, all with delightful inconsistency. The priest points proudly to the armor of those whose lives by power of prayer were saved from shipwreck. Only a cynic raises the query, Where is the armor of those who prayed and yet were drowned ? Napoleon entranced the French with visions of military glory; mothers bereft of their soldier sons ^ Sumner, Andrew Jackson, 77-78. N 178 ILLUSION mourned within the home as was proper, while in public places were displayed the captured standards of Austria or of Prussia — " Vive la France ! Vive Temper eur ! " The Roman emperors to offset each fresh disaster set up new grandeurs toward which they bade the populace look.i When success is doubtful or himself distasteful, it is not well that one should sit upon the throne ; a puppet may play the part. A slip, a reverse, the puppet only is sacrificed. Again, should results be ample, there is much said of " solid achievements. '^ If results be lacking, efforts are emphasized ; " the noblest duty is to strive." And if both are wanting, he is still " such a good man." During schoolboy days, the trickster suggests, " See that little bird ! " — upon which we lose an apple, a marble, or some such thing. With the passing of boy- hood, this crude device gives way to cleverest manipu- lation, yet now, as then, efficacy adheres in that idea interesting enough to dominate consciousness. 2. Errors Regarding Causation. — It does not suffice merely to distract attention; illusion also shapes the interpretation of what is seen. It deftly combats the evidence of one's senses, twists far out of line the normal sequences of thought, and causes men to look askance * "After great fires and desolating wars," says Dill, "the first thought of the most frugal or the most lavish prince was to restore in greater grandeur what had been destroyed. After the great conflagration of 64 A.D., which laid in ashes ten out of the fourteen regions of Rome, Nero immediately set to work to rebuild the city in a more orderly fashion, with broader streets and open spaces. Vespasian, on his accession, found the treasury loaded with a debt of more than a billion and a half dollars. Yet the frugal emperor did not hesitate to begin at once the restoration of the Capitol, and all the other ruins left by the great struggle of 69 A.D. from which his dynasty arose. . . . Titus completed the Colosseum, and erected the famous baths. Domitian once more re- stored the Capitol and added many new buildings." Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, 227, cited by Ross, Soc. Psy., 34. THE BEFUDDLEMENT OF REASON 179 at simplicity itself. In this befuddlement of reason much is accomplished by certain convenient theories of causation. Nothing is more clear than that increased danger swells the chances of death. Mohammed theorized to the contrary; every event, according to the Koran, was predestined from eternity and could in no wise be avoided. No man could die until his alotted hour was at hand and die then he must, whether a sneaking coward at home or amid the storm of battle a valiant defender of the faith. Islamism forgot meekness and philan- thropy, and became a religion of violence and the sword. Common sense was routed by predestination. Politics, crises, and climate are not perhaps one and the same thing. Yet every four years we learn that hard times, closed factories, bankruptcy, and soup kitch- ens are inevitable with Democrats in power; that, contrariwise, the winds are balmy, the crops good, the sun shining on a happy land and prosperous people when a Republican sits in the White House. 'Tis a witching argument — with perhaps a bit of truth in it. The danger argument is another one artfully employed. The insurance solicitor convinces the prospect that he is not long for this world, and then gets a doctor's cer- tificate to prove to the company that he is. " Friends and Fellow-citizens," so ran the presidential candi- date's last reminder to the voters, " we stand face to face with a great decision, a decision which will affect the whole course of our National life and our individual fortimes throughout the next generation. It cannot be postponed." Says the promoter, " This is your last chance " ; and he solemnly quotes a certain verse from Shakespeare. Division of labor involves specialization, with supe- riority possible only within a restricted field. But, as i8o ILLUSION has been pointed out, ascendancy is seldom confined to this restricted field but envelops the leader as a whole. We admire not merely Emerson's thought, but his style, his face, his house ; in fact, everything connected with him is ennobled. In this tendency lurks another ele- ment of illusion. The successful warrior is elevated to the presidency; the eminent chemist creates a pro- found impression by his religious views ; the words of a Croesus are final concerning art treasures and church service; the moral enthusiast holds the masses spell- bound by his clear division of mankind into plutocrats and plain people or by his deep-chested opinion on our currency laws. The primitive medicine man readily threw the levers of causation. He made rain to fall, detected plots, appeased evil spirits, and easily interpreted both his success and his failure. And the course of his descend- ants is not yet run. 5. The Distortion of Values. — Illusion penetrates even deeper into the mental Uf e ; it shapes the symbols with which the mind has to deal. These S3mibols in their normal condition represent the winnowings of the ages, the economic, juridical, political, aesthetic, religious, scientific and ethical valuations possessed of which and obedient to which the favored groups have triumphed in the long struggle for existence, the standards through which all human experience continues to be measured, the coin, so to speak, by which society's business is transacted. Havoc is visited upon these values, when the solicitor emphasizes insurance ; the physician, health ; the minister, salvation ; the old men, conservation ; the yoimg men, progress; the politician, himself and his mission. The special pleader in every case would distort current values, and thereupon play the game with leaded dice. DEMAGOGUES i8i It may perchance be that the popular side is not in- variably the right. But vox poptdi, vox dei, demagogues and other self-seekers pose as ministering angels obeying the divine voice. In this case the flattered divinities usually are mere parrots, and plucked birds at that. A like error persists in the goodness view, the mischievous fallacy that a " good " man can do no evil. The igno- rant alderman voting on a ninety-nine year franchise, the old family physician dictating sanitary regulations for the slimis, the tax collector with hopelessly muddled books, the train dispatcher erratic though a member of the church choir, these may perpetuate their iniquity long after the highwayman and gangster have been jailed. They meant well ! So does the ward politician, the " boss " denounced as mercenary, immoral, a vulture, a leech, but who in fact moves among his constituents as a kindly friend, getting jobs for the imemployed, provid- ing bail, shoes, turkeys at Thanksgiving and baskets at Christmas, attending weddings and church bazaars where his purse is always open and the question of tainted money is never raised. A good man indeed, popular, charming in his smile and his benevolences — but we pay his bills. Obedience has a true value, yet skillfully manipulated it means to do as one is told. "It is a real pleasure for me to greet so many of my Italian friends," a recent gubernatorial candidate assured his audience; then the slantwise suggestion, " I know they are my friends, because they always vote for me on Election Day, and that is the real test of their confidence." Similarly says the Talmud, " He who humiliates himself will be lifted up; he who raises himself will be humiliated." The soul of the ancient Egyptian in the Book of the Dead pleads, " I am not swollen with pride." In the Koran one is admonished, " (k>d loves not him who is proud i82 ILLUSION and boastful." Such tools, carefully forged, embedded in holy writ, deceivers itch to use ; " Keep an ear open for God's commands " too often means " Listen to me." The evidence of the senses fails us in the presence of the unseen ; accordingly, around its mysteries, its hopes and fears, distortion reaches the climax. Under its touch the future is not gray but white or black, a thing of rap- ture or terror. " A drop of blood shed in the cause of God," says Mohammed, " is of more avail than two months of fasting and prayer; whoso falls in battle, all his sins are forgiven; at the day of judgment his wounds shall be resplendent as vermilion and odoriferous as musk." And, " Thank God," said a pioneer preacher,^ " the day is not far distant when you miserable and unrepentant sinners will be chained down to Hell's brazen floor, and the devil with his three-pronged har- poon will pierce your reeking hearts, and pile upon you the red hot cinders of black damnation as high as the pyramids of Egypt, and fry the pride out of your hearts to grease the gudgeons of the ragwheels of Hell." The contrast between these two selections is noticeable. Both brought results. The present, so the prosaic economist tells us, dis- counts the future. But a lively image hath its own effect, and the future is still afar off. THE THEORY OF ILLUSION How account for the widely extended scope of illusion and its tremendous influence? In the source of the mind's materials is revealed one explanation. Accord- ing to the general law of perception, of that which domi- nates consciousness, part has come through the senses 1 Maxwell, History of Randolph County, W. Va., 315. ILLUSION EXPLAINED 183 while another part, possibly the larger, is self -supplied.^ In this self-supplied mental store lie fruitful causes of illusion. For illusion is attractive. It appeals. The facts may indicate stony roads and hot sun and the parched tongue ; but illusion paints the lotus tree, the cool spring, the rewards, and if at first its picture is not pleasing, it may readily be made so. Consciousness finds such images lively, entertaining, satisfying. And the mind deals only with the materials it possesses. Now, contrary to what may appear at first to be true, belief is natural and thoroughgoing, while skepticism is a thin veneer laid on in fear and trembling. The primi- tive tendency, from which we are all only more or less removed, is to believe everything conceived; in fact, doubt is the really difficult mental state. Says James : ^ " The greatest proof that a man is sui compos is his ability to suspend belief in presence of an emotionally exciting idea. To give this power is the highest result of education. In imtutored minds it does not exist. Every exciting thought in the natural man carries credence with it. . . . Whichever represented objects give us sensations, especially interesting ones, or incite our motor impulses, or arouse our hate, desire, or fear, are real enough for us. Our requirements in the way of reality terminate in our acts and emotions, our own pleasures and pains. These are the ultimate fixities from which the whole chain of our belief depends.'' Creduhty, even after many painful experiences, continues to rule whole segments of the mental life. Error follows hard upon credulity. It could scarce be otherwise, since truth is reached only by fitting materials harmoniously together, a process of synthesis in which elements are arranged in proper sequence. The chances for a misfit are numberless. The savage * James, Pn». 0/ P^y., II, 103. ^Ihid., 308-311 passim. i84 ILLUSION wonder worker notes that after he tramped around a certain stake, with many passes of a wand and continu- ous mutterings, a rain fell. He connects these two sets of phenomena. When a rain is again desired, he sets into operation the " causes," and after a time behold, the shower falls. His magic has worked. The error here results from his having connected two things in reality unrelated, a misfit in thought mechanism. And this is precisely what whole masses of men have done and are doing all the time. Error flourishes. In greater or less degree it claims every person in even the most enlightened countries, perpetuates superstitions, false conceits, prejudices, makes intellectual cowards of us all. And yet from such minds, however error laden at times they be, comes the guidance that we have. The only real antidote to error is truth. Now truth is not given to men in their sleep, but, even under the most favorable circumstances, must be won through much patient toil and disinterested devotion. Its progress, consequently, is subject to human control. Those whose case rests upon error have well recognized this, and under their direction have multiplied the most ingenious methods of opposition. Ceremonialism is one of these. It deftly forestalls complete knowledge by curbing overfamiliarity and keeping others at a distance.^ " Every one sees what * Very adroitly the savage wonder worker shrouds himself in mystery. Says Ellis ; "Until recently his face might not be seen, even by his own subjects, and if circumstances obliged him to communicate with them, he did so through a screen which concealed him from view. Now, al- though his face may be seen, it is usual to conceal his body; and at audiences a cloth is held before him so as to hide him from his neck downwards, and is raised so as to cover him altogether whenever he coughs, sneezes, expectorates, or takes snuff. The face is partially concealed by the conical cap with hangmg strings of beads. It is death for anyone, except members of the court, to sit or stand behind the Awnjale." Op. cit., 70. Cf. Ross, Soc. Con., 240. TRUTH AND ERROR 185 you appear to be," remarked Machiavelli, " few really know who you are." " Among a man's peers," says Ba- con, " a man shall be sure of familiarity ; and therefore it is good a little to keep state." This keeping state ranges from mere impressive personal demeanor to the elaborateness of the Ancient Regime. No man is said to be a hero to his valet, but most followers by a wide margin are denied such intimacy. Even those who come to know their chief best may increase, rather than diminish, the illusion. A wide divergence, as was pointed out in connection with the goodness fallacy, often exists between standards set by the individual in private life and those he applies to his public acts. The black-frocked man kindly patting the Httle girls' heads in Sabbath school perchance was yes- terday a secret rebater and to-morrow will water stock. The grafting district leader, pictured in the cartoons as having horns, is found upon acquaintance to be mild mannered, of fond heart and friendly purse. Their crimes are social, not personal ; it is crookedness on the large. Yet their friends are willing, even zealous, bearers of colored bulletins. A very workable opposition to truth is the emphasis upon the danger encountered. The old paths indeed are pleasant. Over them have our ancestors walked; with every turn and roadside spring, habit has long ac- quainted us ; and have not lusty runners at times for- saken its well-worn surface only to return defeated and, as they trudge in our midst once more, tormented by self -alienation ? At some time in his career, due, perhaps, to misfortune, learning ill wrought out, or fatigue, every man under stress is as tinder to the council emanating from many a crafty breast, " Knowledge is merely a proud conceit, quite useless. Believe. Trouble not thyself, leave all to me." i86 ILLUSION This suggestion, if need be, is followed by active sup- pression. The discoverers of truth have been hounded, thrown into prison, as was Galileo ; vehemently abused, as was Darwin ; prevented from publishing his writings, as was Descartes in his Traite de Monde; their works prohibited even though published, as is done by the papal Index Lihrorum, which catalogues most of our great or epoch-making books ; worst of all, themselves, thinkers untold, — and necessarily unknown too, — deterred from investigation which would have brought us long since to the plane toward which we now toil. A vast sacri- fice that error might persist ! Nevertheless, bigotry and insincerity are practically everywhere considered a scar in character. The double- dealer tends to radiate doubt, distrust ; surely no rally- ing standard. Some additional element evidently must enter in to explain why illusion has long played a part on the checkered stage of actuality, and its curtain is not yet rung down. This element is found in its close relation with belief. The shrewd plotter, the knave or strike breaker or street agitator, the promulgator of mining scheme or fantastic futures, detached at first, a mere manipulator, in the end embraces the same lively image that enticed followers. " We must only in cold blood act as if the thing in question were real/' says James, " and keep acting as if it were real, and it will infallibly end by growing into such a connection with our life that it will become real.'' Illusion thus comes to envelop leader as well as followers ; he, too, is more or less duped. EXERCISES 1. Is there more pleasure in realization than in anticipation? 2. Name some current superstitions. May one be influenced by beliefs which, if criticized, he openly repudiates? 3. Is any one consistently sober and rational? EXERCISES AND READINGS 187 4. Which is more readily taken by phrases and formulse, philosophic and theological speculations, — the Latin or the Teuton? Urban dweller or rural dweller? 5. Compare in openness of countenance primary and high school pupils. Agricultural and law school students. 6. By what methods do men seek to make themselves more impressive? 7. What elements of illusion in the censorship of war news? READINGS Roosevelt, Autobiography, Ch. Ill {Outlook, April 26, 1912,917- 941). Machiavelli, The Prince, Chs. XV-XIX. CHAPTER XVI Discipline "I doubt much whether the power of particular persons over their neighbors has ever in any age of the world been so well defined and so easily and safely exerted as it is at present." — J. F. Stephen. In the binding of many to the will of one, no method historically has been more employed than discipline. A double-lashed whip, its smart has followed hard upon sins both of commission and omission. And though closet philosophers say much of moral suasion, in the stern realm of fact there is still need for the iron grip inside the velvet glove. THE BASES OF AUTHORITY The executive usually finds that handling discipline is much like playing with fi.re; the method possesses efficacy but is dangerous. Being guided by the proper point of view will largely obviate this danger and in- crease the control ; and this point of view, in turn, is best gained through considering, in connection with each case as it arises, the bases of authority. The most general statement perhaps is that obedience varies directly according to the degree of positive self- feeling of leader in relation to the negative self -feeling of follower. In the chapters on personality, imitation, and suggestion, the significance of prestige was pointed AUTHORITY PRESTIGE 189 out. In a very real sense, and related to these others, we may speak of authority prestige. Napoleon possessed it. An obscure general, — in the opinion of his seasoned staff officers a mere little upstart dispatched them from Paris, — upon taking command of the army in Italy he appeared at headquarters girt with his sword, explained the measures he had taken, gave his orders,*dismissed the staff ; by his mere presence he vanquished the rough generals, one of whom, Augereau, admitted outside that this little devil of a general had inspired him with awe. John Wesley " could overawe a mob with the still and searching look of his eye. Even his friends some- times stood in a certain awe of him, and seldom ven- tured to oppose his wishes." Of Pamell it is said, " He would give a stern straight look from those strange eyes of his, and I have seen even bold men shrivel under the gaze." Thus does natural prestige secure obedience, yet prestige in all its forms works toward the same end.^ Personality, impressive demeanor, exalted position, a series of successes, close touch with the unseen, the splendors of a coronation or a Delhi Durbar, each enables him who commands to cast a certain spell over those who obey. In combination their power is well- nigh invincible. This, however, is but one phase of the matter. With *A curious instance is the native "captain" appointed in each dis- trict of Guiana by the colonial government. "From that day," says Thurm, "wherever he goes, he carries with him his certificate, a most potent and mysterious document to the Indians, and a huge staff of letter- wood, as signs of authority. His power is strangely real, considering that to enforce it he has to depend but on his own influence, on a sheet of paper, and a stick such as every Indian might cut for himself. The document is far the most dreaded of his insignia. His orders to any Indians of his district are almost unhesitatingly obeyed." Among the Indians of Guiana, 212. ipo DISCIPLINE the evolving of leader prestige, there has gone on in followers' minds a development of their own negative self-feeling. The two aspects are complementary. This tendency in followers to admit inferiority is imi- versal. It appears to be closely correlated with the gregarious instinct and perhaps is definitely impressed during the period of tutelage imder parents; at least it is a necessary concomitant to collective effort.^ In consequence, large numbers of men, a considerable majority perhaps, find satisfaction in humility, lack of responsibility, and obedience. The native Australians, because he did not use his gun against them, came to despise Lumholtz as a small white man. The rich landlord, collecting his rents with severity. Miss Addams found, was nevertheless greatly admired by the slum dwellers, though the poor landlord, he who pitied and spared, was treated with a certain lack of respect. The President during visitors' days hears over and over again the fervent " God bless you ! " Says Wilson, " Up from the common soil, up from the quiet heart of the people, rise the streams of hope and eulogy." This is no enlightened selfishness, but devotion, willing service that continues though sorely tried. The Ancient Regime at Versailles ground the masses into misery, yet the inhabitants of town after town willingly and joyfully raised statues and various monuments in honor of Louis XIV and his victories, and not all the infamies of Louis XV could shake the devotion of the masses to his welfare. Michelet relates, " When it was known in Paris that Louis XV, who had left for the army, was detained ill at Metz, it was night. People got up and ran tumultuously hither and thither without knowing where they were going; the churches were opened in the middle of the night . . . people assembled at every * Cf. 101-103. OPEN AND CLOSED RESOURCES 191 cross-road, jostling and questioning one another without knowing what they were after. In several churches, the priest who was reciting the prayer for the king's health was stopped by his tears, and the people replied by sobs and cries. The courier who brought the news of his convalescence was embraced and almost stifled; people kissed his horse, and led him in triumph. Every street resounded with a cry of joy : ' The king is healed ! ' " ^ And this was for Louis XV ! The difference between positive self-feeling in leader and negative self-feeling in follower lies at the heart of authority. The power does not consist in things, but is spiritual, intangible. " Mutiny Acts," says George Bernard Shaw, " are needed only by officers who com- mand without authority. Divine right needs no whip." Turning now to the second general statement in general related to the first, we may say, that disciplinary power varies indirectly with the degree of independence of the subject. Here we have at bottom the question of open or closed resources, a matter of vast historical signifi- cance. When resources are open, by his own effort at first hand, a man may subsist. To cause him to for- sake these opportimities and labor for a master requires slavery, the personal possession of one by another. No other plan suffices. For if every man in his own right had access to resources, were he not possessed each would serve his own interests. But when resources are closed, escape is cut off. Industrially, the capitahst has the funds, the landlord has the lands. The compulsion which once resided in gang driver and bloodhounds now adheres in the social system. Accordingly, followers are no longer possessed nor bound in body, simply because such precautions are needless. To most men the boasted independence often ^ Le Bon, Psychology of Revolution, 146. 192 DISCIPLINE heard mentioned, if analyzed, usually means freedom to starve. The executive may therefore rest secure; the unruly are dashed to their own destruction, the others, tamed into faithfulness, are crowded toward him.^ Obedience getters, instead of aiming at the recalci- trant directly, have often adroitly set about closing his resources. The only road to royal favor under Louis XIV was attendance at Versailles. Says Taine : ^ " To be present was an obligation ; it might be called a continuation of ancient feudal homage; the staff of nobles is maintained as the retinue of its bom general. In the language of the day, it is called * paying one's duty to the king.' Absence, in the sovereign's eyes, would be a sign of independence as well as indifference, while submission as well as assiduity is his due. The eyes of Louis XIV go their rounds at every moment, ' on arising or retiring, on passing into his apartments, in his gardens, . . . nobody escapes, even those who hoped they were not seen ; it was a demerit with some, and the most distinguished, not to make the court their ordinary sojourn, to others to come to it but seldom, and certain disgrace to those who never, or nearly never, came.' Henceforth, the main thing, for the first per- sonages in the kingdom, men and women, ecclesiastics and laymen, the grand affair, the first duty in life, the true occupation, is to be at all hours and in every place 1 "When in Berwick, Pa., conversing with the employment agent, we saw foreigners waiting around that office all day. We expressed sur- prise at seeing them there hour after hour, morning and afternoon, but the employment agent said: 'That's the way the foreigner does; tell him you don't want him in the morning, yet he'll hang around all day and show himself. An American will come to the window in the morning and, if refused work, he goes away immediately and you don't see him again until the following morning, when he does the same thing.* During the winter 1907-1908 troops of foreigners hung around industrial plants, waiting the call of the employer ; no matter what hour he called, they were there to answer." Roberts, New Immigration, 293. ' The Ancient Regime, 100-102 passim. SECURING OBEDIENCE 193 under the king's eye, within reach of his voice and his glance." Said La Bruyere, " Whoever considers that the king's countenance is the courtier's supreme felicity, that he passes his life looking on it and within sight of it, will comprehend to some extent how to see God, constitutes the glory and happiness of the saints." Declared Due de RicheHeu, " I would rather die than pass two months without seeing him." George III, similarly surrounding himself with peers yearning for lieutenancies or regiments, for stars or strawberry leaves; with prelates and numberless servi- tors whose convictions were unequal to their appetites, had merely to whisper his august disapprobation — apparently stiff necks were suddenly flaccid and joints became as water. Cortes destroyed the ships upon which his soldiers might retreat from Mexico, a very literal means of closing resources ; Bismarck guided authority into his own hands by ruling that no subordinate should com- municate with the king except through himself ; Robes- pierre so played the shadow of the guillotine upon his colleagues on the Committee of Public Safety that one glance from the master brought pallor and despair. It is easy to discipline, as these men have shown, when one possesses the strangle hold. In a more real sense, however, control is not exer- cised over the corporeal self or material fortunes so much as over the social self. Ever comes the question. How sit we in the estimation of our fellows? Savages live in superstitious dread of the person who possesses their names; but so are civilized men sensitive to what is done to their fair name, i.e. the reflection of themselves in the minds of others. Ridicule, disdain, contempt, exposure, all threaten to eclipse the social image. 194 DISCIPLINE But the most subtle form of closed resources hinges upon faith in the unseen. A priestly class claims to hold the keys of heaven and hell, and all avenues thereto. It alone can define orthodoxy, provide forms of worship, administer sacraments, offer prayer for departed souls, and procure forgiveness of sins, a series of opportuni- ties for control and exploitation which have been employed with adroitness for more than a thousand years. These two bases of authority, the degrees of self-feeling and independence held by executive and subordinate in relation to each other, may seem far removed from shop or office friction. In reality each case of control rests upon these principles, and no discipline is effective not in accord with them. To apply them, however, one may well consider certain more specific policies as per the following discussion. EFFECTIVENESS IN DISCIPLINE Among subordinates are always those insistent upon freedom, and more or less restive under restraint, these often being, too, it may be added, the most valuable members of the organization. Hence the very practical question arises. How to make a minimum of compulsion secure the ends desired. We may now survey the means through which this is realized. I. The Gradation of Penalties. — This involves first the certainty of guilt. And this in turn means the elimi- nation of guesswork, the substitution of adequate in- formation-getting agencies. The Harriman lines check their local agents by a press-clipping bureau, in which the real sources of complaint are traced out. In other companies the watchful executive eye is supplemented by checkers, inspectors, complaint bureaus, detectives, ADMINISTERING PUNISHMENT 195 occasionally an investigation, and by minor officials, each of whom in turn is responsible for certain subor- dinates. The facts must first be known. Definiteness of punishment should follow hard upon certainty of guilt. In theory, of course, all will agree that pimishment is for the offender ; yet resentment rises when wrong is discovered and not necessarily when the wrongdoer is present. The day when the congre- gation is sparse normally calls forth the scolding sermon on lax church attendance, however contrary to principle this may be. Execrations in the counting house do not reach the defaulting cashier in Canada, nor do rogues more than smile at blind rage. Let the vials of wrath, if used, be employed with specific intent. The evildoer is liable to be tiiick-skinned ; only concentrated acid will bum. Full measure^ too, is required for the glaring offense. ^ He who would successfully rule a turbulent country should not hate blood. Essentially a non-fighting man, Madero employed no rigorous means, even with his bitterest enemies. Reyes and Felix Diaz both fell into his hands after starting revolutions against him, and neither was put to death, as his friends demanded, but lived to plot against him again. So mild was Henry IV that the princes and nobles of France saw in rebellion a game in which there was much to gain and little to lose. Mazzini's easy tolerance, while it secured good behavior in general, was flaunted by the rougher elements in Rome. Now it is for these worst that punishment is especially designed. Restraint is the end sought, be the means to secure it severe or mild. The disciplinarian, accordingly, should select from a wide array of weapons that which serves best in each particular case. There are the rack and pinion, guillo- tine, noose, dimgeon, and kindred instruments of torture 196 DISCIPLINE able to crush out life itself.^ There are the fine, the suspension, the discharge, all wielded in their direct form by the average employer; scarcely less so by men such as Andrew Jackson, who once saw to it that of the twenty-three Tennessee legislators voting against him twenty were not retained to ofl&ce, an object lesson not soon to be forgotten ; and who as President cleaned the public service of every nefarious Adams adherent ! Other weapons no less effective in the hands of a master are irony, sarcasm, and invective. John Randolph employed these in a most cutting way, with elongated arms and long, bony forefinger pointing at the object of his aversion as with a stick. Samuel Houston char- acterized Jefferson Davis as " Ambitious as Lucifer and cold as a lizard," an instance typical of his stinging humor. John Quincy Adams had a power in invective under which men winced and cowered, even became dumb or furious with mad rage before his fiercer assaults, and he used it untiringly and without mercy. Such methods, and the list might be prolonged indefi- nitely, indicate the range of the compelling force; it varies at need from the lightest touch of displeasure to the death-dealing vengeance wreaked by an Assir-Natsir Pal. Be this force, however, rigorous or mild, its gen- 1 The extremities to which ancient monarchs would go is graphically set forth by the Assyrian Assir-Natsir Pal's account, written about 850 B.C., of his conquest. "They did not embrace my feet. With combat and with slaughter I attacked the city and captured it; three thousand of their fighting men I slew with the sword. Their spoil, their goods, their oxen, and their sheep I carried away. The numerous cap- tives I burned with fire. I captured many of the soldiers alive. I cut off the hands and feet of some, the ears, and fingers of others ; the eyes of numerous soldiers I put out. I built up a pyramid of the living and a pyramid of the heads. In the middle of them I suspended their heads on vine stems in the neighborhood of their city. Their young men and their maidens I burned on a holocaust. The city I overthrew, dug up, and burned with fire. I annihilated it." West, Ancient His- tory, SS' SELF-GOVERNMENT 197 eral effect is to induce fear ; and fear is the great inhib- itor of action. 2. Social, Moral, or Religious Supplements. — The one disciplined is not an isolated individual but a member of an organization or group. The initial compulsion visited upon him thus may be multiplied manyfold, pro- vided his group also turn upon him. In this loss of gen- eral esteem, this forfeiture of fellowship and respect and religious peace, with all cultivated natures, lies the real onus of guilt ; few, even the most stiff-necked, can long bear up under it. But unduly coercive methods imite the group in opposition, make a hero of the wrongdoer, and in this way defeat their own ends. Religious persecution abounds in instances of this overdone sort. Anne Dur- bourg, condemned to be burned alive, by exhorting to her very last breath, made more converts among the by- standers than had the books of Calvin ; said Latimer to Ridley when he was led out to be burned, " We shall this day light such a candle in England as shall not soon be put out," a prophecy abundantly verified. But simi- larly fruitful have been the deaths of those faithful to Catholicism ; " The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church." We must conclude that resistance even unto martyrdom does not prove the truth of anything. The martyr spirit, as Professor Ross points out,^ is a mark not of truth but of collective reaction. If effectiveness is to be secured, this collective reaction must be turned against the culprit in support of the punishment. Ben Butler usually had the numerous " hangers-on " in the court room on his side from the start, and he deftly employed their glances and audible approval for the discomfiture of the hostile witness. The Keiser Company heads off any resentment due to ^ Soc. Psy., 304. Cf. 299-305. 198 DISCIPLINE penalties for tardiness by turning these fines into the fund for needy employees. A merchant having too many slow-pay customers, by offering prizes for the best essays on "How to Collect Poor Accounts," stirred up so much talk over credit and what should be done with those who did not pay that not only did his cash business increase rapidly, but many, evidently fearing that their neighbors* suggestions would be employed upon them, paid up. The public schools have worked out notable instances of pupil government, and in pursuance of the same policy college faculties have encouraged the honor system. The principle, whatever concrete forms it may take, is clear : disciplinary power may he so supplemented that its original source in the executive is broadened until self-government ensues. J. The Dhgree of Publicity. — Shall the discipline be publicly or privately administered ? A sufficient answer perhaps is found in the above discussion; it depends upon the relations existing between offender and organ- ization. When the eyes of the many indicate contempt, scorn, or disdain, strength of control inheres in the public spectacle. To the contrary, punishment being even pleasurable when inflicted before a S3nnpathizing group, no miscreant should be permitted to fashion for himself a neat make-up in the public mirror. Let him suffer in private. fii the group, moreover, there is likely to be foimd both saint and sinner. The sensitiveness of the saint need not be unduly abused by witnessing the crude yet salutary measures necessary to restrain the sinner. Let the coarse malefactor have private punishment, consequently ; knowledge of what transpired is sure to seep to others of his kind. Frequent discipline, in addition, indicates friction, its suggestion effect in this way being negative. Hence the A DISPENSER OF JUSTICE 199 added value of private punishment. Hence, too, the effectiveness of " nipping troubles in the bud," of " iron- ing out spots that threaten trouble." The organization which apparently runs smoothly by its seeming harmony tends to make these indications a reality. 4. Formalized Discipline. — Discipline in any organ- ization does not rest solely upon the initiative of its executive, upon territory de novo; there are certain accretions upon which it may build. Society in general has its conventions and customs in conformity to which all men are expected to act. Each type of minor organ- ization still further modifies these broad social rules, working out regulations which apply more particularly to its own activities. The medical profession has its code; so has the steamfitters' union. More or less happily meeting the situation and hallowed by usage, sometimes, in fact, hardened into a written form backed up by authority of the state, such rules and regula- tions in themselves constitute a binding force. The railroad enginemen expect pimishment to fall upon the fellow member who disobeys orders ; he himself expects it, usually accepts it as his lot. 'Tis the rule of the road ! Discipline has become formalized, and, though wielded by an organization head, both its necessity and the forms and degrees of its punishment take on an impersonal character. Individual resentment if it be aroused dashes itself fruitlessly against the gnarled trunks of ancient trees. 5. A Sense of Detachment. — He who wields the rod should appear not foe but dispenser of justice. Brutish violence, the red fang of violence, the glowering brow, bring fear, but they do not necessarily stir the monitor within the breast. It is, however, a matter of neither harsh penalty nor easy, but of the dispenser's being considered as the spokesman of Right, the embodiment of Justice, the mouthpiece of Divinity. 300 DISCIPLINE With this sense of detachment are connected three policies. First, the rule maker should respect his own regulations. It is related that when Cortes unwittingly violated the ordinances regarding attendance at divine services, he accepted reprimand from the pulpit on the following Sunday and, to the stupefaction of the Indians, submitted to the prescribed flogging in public. Such deeds are the greenhouse in which the sense of detach- ment may flourish. Second, with the passing of retaliation, the plea of extenuating circumstances gets a hearing. The intent may be considered. Punishment becomes an efficient psychological machine by means of which pressure is evenly distributed. And third, by this sense of detachment is settled the problem of burden bearing in reality. The onus of guilt belongs to the offender. Let it weigh upon him. The good disciplinarian does not swelter under a load of misdeeds, but rather does he bend every effort to a much more fruitful task, that of opening the path upon which the self-alienated may return home. Meanwhile his voice is strong, his face serene; for he has sinned not. 6. The Element of Certainty. — The essence of disci- pline is the sense of restraint it induces. Its effective- ness as a weapon, therefore, in no wise depends upon the mere sum total of blows or demerits issued, but upon minimum compulsion's securing the desired con- trol. This fact emphasizes the importance of certainty ; it deters. The many who would transgress, knowing the fate of him who did, are thus without punishment bound to the ways of order. Moreover, this sense of restraint which pervades fac- tory, school, or state has its positive as well as its nega- tive effect. For, as Professor Ross rightly observes, the rules of the game are respected by the many good CERTAINTY OF PUNISHMENT aoi men chiefly because they are forced upon the few bad. Were this respect not justified, goodness would be penal- ized and wickedness exalted in high places, a process in which any organization would be ground into dust under the iron heel of selfishness. But certainty, the faith that justice will be meted out, brings uneasiness and insurrection into the breast of the guilty, while the rule- abiding are calm and confident. It rewards as well as deters. It does not follow, however, that certainty is synony- mous with a long list of penalties drawn up with exact- ness and published in advance. Such procedure has evil influence, in that it seems to assume wrongdoing as a matter of course, by its list of possible offenses, suggest- ing crimes otherwise never conceived; it apparently dares men to oppose, and there are those who cannot withstand a dare ; and especially does it turn the pro- spective wrongdoer into a skillful bargainer. " So much spoiled work, so many days off. Is the game worth the candle? " Hence along with certainty of pimishment may be intertwined much uncertainty as to means and amount. Though he knows not what, the evildoer knows there is something. In the unfamiliar and the unknown lurks fear; and fear, once roused, haimts the mind. EXERCISES 1. Suppose a contractor's laborers ojffered to become his slaves. Would it be to his advantage to accept ? 2. Why do executives find those married, or at least con- tributing to the family support, easier to discipline? 3. What changes during the past century in family discipline? How does this affect executives? 4. In disciplining factory operatives what penalties are most effective? 5. Should capital punishment be abolished? Corporal pun- ishment in schools? 202 DISCIPLINE 6. Discuss the pros and cons of magnanimity as a policy of discipline. 7. Should greater punishment be visited because of things done wrongly or things left undone? 8. Outline a system of records for some specific organization, through which undesirable employees discharge themselves. READINGS Machiavelli, The Prince, Chs. XEI-XIV. Roosevelt, Autobiography j Ch. XII. CHAPTER XVII Rewards "There is nothing men will not attempt when great enter- prises hold out the promise of great rewards." — Livy. Ranging from firmest determination to softest color- ation of consciousness, the call to effort evokes the query, What am I going to get out of this? Were it not so, satisfactions would have been spurned and the race, expending its energies fruitlessly, in the long struggle for existence had perished. Because it is so, the average man seeks the largest return for least effort, and executives are not only compelled to furnish these rewards, but to display them before adept bargainers. Lest this seem unduly to limit leadership to men of money, it may be pointed out that rewards are varied and need not necessarily savor of the material at all. Any small boy, with no thought of coin, would be proud to carry the sweater and protect the mitt of his major league hero. In such service is joy. Thousands trudged willingly along imder the warm promises of Henry IV, the dashing example of Alexander, the glory paintings of Bonaparte, the splendor of Louis XIV's Versailles, the illusions of John Alexander Dowie, the fear felt for a Rameses or a Cyrus. Nor even in this rationalistic age have " solid realities " yet claimed the full orb of life. The non-material, even though at times intangible as the tints of a rainbow palac^, has its place, may even be forsooth the most real of all realities. This becomes 203 204 REWARDS possible since rewards consist in certain psychic reactions, at bottom being not in things hut of the mind. THE VARIETY OF REWARDS A whole gamut of rewards is thus thrown open for use. Public spectacles once pleased a people ; Nero provided these. Amorous attachment with the females captured in war was a Moslem longing ; Mohammed had a convenient revelation which removed all scruples. Security with the unseen was of deep interest to medieval Europe ; " Lo ! " said Tetzel. " Heaven is open. Oh, senseless men, who do not appreciate such a shedding forth of grace ! For twelve pennies you can deliver your father." A seat in the peerage was the bait Pitt industriously employed ; he ennobled with unsparing hands. National glory, political preferment, personal health, rejuvenated society, anything which shines in the eyes of men can he used for their reward. Now of these things which are accounted good, the material has never ceased to lure. By its ability to oil the wheels of social intercourse through lavishness in /entertainment, winning thereby the coveted mate by (outmatching feminine coyness with gilded display, and compelling social esteem by means of a wide-flung conspicuousness in leisure and a conspicuousness in waste; with its costly sacrifices and sanctuaries and rich spoil finding favor with the unseen and making legal action devious but convenient ; and by its nodding or frowning upon artist, composer, playwright, author and journalist until even the once furious outcry over tainted money has been toned into respectability by tainted news and tainted ethics, — wealth makes vivid the Hindu poet's claim, " Verily a man with money is the top of all creation." At least the fact is clearly THE LURE OF GOODS 205 emphasized, that since cravings in all forms may thus lay claim to goods, greed is whetted to a keen edge and avarice swells to monstrous proportions.^ Wealth lures ; in addition, it does not satiate. Unlike most other instincts in this respect, acquisitiveness expands without limit. The second glass of water yields less satisfaction than the first, the third apple possibly evokes no response whatever, the fourth griddle cake may be nauseating ; yet the first thousand dollars beckons for the second, the comfortable bank book is followed by the coupon, and hard upon this is the brown- stone, the country place, the steam yacht, more bank books and more coupons, — ad infinitum but not ad nauseam. The few men content with possession as a means of satisfying other desires are almost edipsed by those desiring possession for its own sake. In material rewards, for those who are able, lies the possibility of much motivation. Folk came from all parts of Egypt to see Saladin, and none appealed to him in vain ! Men of seeming riches whose finances were in disorder, influential ladies in pecuniary embar- rassment, insolvent young nobles, merchants and bankers in distress, all appHed to Caesar ; his gold, says Mommsen, flowed in streams. Before victory graced Mohammed's banners the idolatrous tribes of Arabia held aloof; but the first cavalcade which entered the gates of Medina with the plunder of camp made converts of almost all the heathen inhabitants, and the hitherto ignored Mohammed was hailed as a triumphant chief. It was by means of champagne, sausages, and cigars that Napoleon III, the lavish dispenser, bought the shouts of " Vive Napoleon ! Vive I'Empereur ! " from whole regiments on the plains of St. Mairr. Be the circuit direct or many steps removed, money is able. 1 Ross, Foundations of Sociology, 1 70-1 71. 2o6 REWARDS The American, critics from abroad to be believed, is especially led by materialistic motives. Perhaps this is true, though by no means in the sordid sense implied. Americans from the first have rejected titles and class distinctions, in many respects, as compared with Euro- peans, developing a society devoid of charm. But in wealth was afforded a convenient means of differentia- tion, and this the American had adopted and utihzed. In consequence, riches with us serve not as lucre, but as signs of personal prowess. These signs, however, are not so clear that he who runs may read. The millionaire has his automobile, but so has the multitude. His wife has a sealskin coat and a diamond necklace; the cunningly disguised badger's skin adorns the drug clerk's wife, and the coal heaver's spouse wears paste diamonds " detected only by experts." Such " successes " — and they are wide- spread — intensify to maddening pitch the pursuit of wealth. The itch for gold spreads throughout the social system until even the vaunted idealist, though possibly self-deluded, at heart here moves with the multitude. It is true, the crass appeal to gain is resented, most men preferring to pose a bit ; but at bottom the pocketbook argument usually wins.^ Especially is this true when the task is prosaic. The discoverer of the North Pole, the painter of the salon prize winner, the writer of an immortal poem, in honor reaps his true reward. His name is forever connected up with his product, his task necessarily being more or less spectacular, and bringing rewards from many sources. ^ The New Freedom at Washington was ushered in by a deluge of demands to serve the government — with proper emoluments. Speaker Clark kept four stenographers busy dictating replies to his job seekers. Confessed another Congressman, " I have received about a thousand letters in the past four days, and they are still coming." The motto properly revised evidently was, "Apply the way you vote." EMPHASIS ON MONEY 207 Not so with the carpenter, the blacksmith, the sweat- shop tailor, with all those whose labor is secret because to the user the maker is unknown. His product bestows no great pubKc honor upon the concrete mixer or the workman who, in the division of labor, makes one three hundred and fiftieth of a shoe. Yet these men, too, must have a motive; this is pecuniary, necessarily so. It is not without reason, since Ufe abounds with stupid tasks, that money rewards easily overtop all other methods of stimulation and control. APPORTIONING REWARDS In seeking for principles upon which to base an effec- tive system of rewards we plunge into the most lively problem of present-day management. All the old sys- tems are under fire ; workmen and job are being sub- jected to laboratory analysis, new methods are being devised and tested out. It seems indeed that the im- portance of the human energy element in industry is in process of realization. It may be well at the outset to focus attention upon this fact, that what is primarily desired from workmen is not fatigiie, hut results. It is perhaps a natural tendency of our nature to measure labor by its irksomeness, the penance idea in industry. This, however, does not accord with what to the management is the fundamental reason why wages are paid at all, viz. the productive- ness of labor. Accordingly, the executive ranks are be- coming more and more closed to that old-time manager whose view of efficiency was based upon a crude measure of muscle weariness. The muscles, it is true, may be- come weary; nevertheless, men are not paid because they grow tired at work, but because they produce. A primary principle, therefore, is that rewards are to 2o8 REWARDS be graded according to results produced. Here lurks another fallacy, vigorously seized upon and emphasized by agitators, and responsible, no doubt, for much unrest among wage earners, — the view that production refers solely to material objects. According to this view, the concrete mixer is the real builder of the bridge and is entitled to the full reward thereof, a part of which, how- ever, often an extremely large part, being somehow filched from him by architect, contractor, and other leisurely gentlemen. But production refers merely to the creation of utilities, and these, being defined as what- ever is able to satisfy wants, may be either material or non-material. In this sense it is clear that so far as their abiUty to produce utilities is concerned, all men within an organization are not of equal value. The division of labor has made for a ranking of men accord- ing to types of effort manifested by each, and rewards have been made somewhat proportional. A certain shoe manufacturer pays a stores clerk at beginning fifteen dollars per week, an amount which, increased as he becomes more experienced, yields the head of the stores department one thousand five hundred dollars per year. Another well-known manufacturer, an automobile maker, in his plants has rewards ranging from fifteen cents an hour to sixty thousand dollars per year. The grading of rewards has in general stopped short of those at the basis of our industrial pyramid, here being commonly enforced the flat day wage rate. The man is paid for his time ; what he does during this time, while it may possibly affect the tenure of his position, is without influence on his wage rate. Even though the wages paid to the group presumably are fair, the indus- trious and efficient workman is hampered. He sees that additional or better directed effort, so far as rewards are concerned, is thrown away. He proceeds to "sol- SYSTEMATIC "SOLDIERING" 209 dier " systematically. Example is infectious, and his, set by a superior workman, is especially so ; the con- tagion spreads through the plant, and from plant to plant, until, as now, systematic soldiering becomes a dry-rot menace in industry. Should the above-average workman seek to raise his wage, he does it through collective bargaining, usually conducted by means of trade-unions. A new wage rate is brought about by collective pressure. It means that poorer workmen are then overpaid and hence demoral- ized, that the exceptional man is still underpaid, that mediocrity is enthroned, that the management often suffers from extortion, and that the seeds of discord spread broadcast yield harvests of inefficiency. In practice, not all these evils usually are encountered in any one instance. The workmen are put under the watchful eye of a foreman. Wages are set at what a good man should be willing to work for. The foreman drives his gang at the swiftest pace possible. Laggards are discharged, in so far as collective pressure from other members will permit. Exceptional men by and by may be made foremen. These endure the present dis- advantage, discounting them in the light of later pros- pects. While all workmen still receive the same wage, the flat rate is somewhat modified and supplemented. But these changes usually are slight and represent no break in the order of things. To satisfy ambition and stimulate initiative, to meet the claims of justice as well, rewards must rest, not upon time taken but work done. It means an entire shift in point of view. And to operate it successfully requires not merely skill in management but also moral fiber. There are numerous variations of this wage plan, some managers meeting success with one type, some with another, as particular conditions vary. But they 2IO REWARDS '^ all require a standard reward to be set. Fundamentally, the distribution of wealth is here involved, the question of how best to divide into its four parts the returns of industry, viz. wages, interest, rent, and profits. With human nature as it is, each party in the apportionment magnifying its own influence while minimizing the claims of the other sharers, we may be sure that the an- tagonism which arises between capital and labor will persist for a very long time. The best remedy, and, from his standpoint, the only real solution of the labor problem, perhaps, is that the executive shall become efficient in producing and fair in dividing. And this, happily, is now in process. In setting the standard reward itself, various methods have been employed. The management may decide and announce the fact, the employees may decide and employ pressure to enforce their wishes, a man picked by the company and another picked by the workmen may work together and average their output during a specified time, an arbitrator can be called in either to work or to estimate, or the standard reward may be set in conference. However decided upon, should it be accepted as satisfactory, the basic requirement will have been met. This standard reward in practice is subject to numer- ous modifications. One form widely employed is the piece rate. The more units completed the higher the wage. This flat piece rate in turn may be modified into the differential piece rate, the higher the number being turned out the greater the piece price rate. Or it may be a cost rate. The management is willing to pay a certain wage cost per article produced. The slow worker gets a low wage because with him the standard cost wage is divided by the relatively large number of hours it took him to complete the product. The rapid WAGE SYSTEMS 2H worker doubles his wages by cutting down his time one half as compared with the standard time. Or again it may be a premium rate. Sometimes this premium is given all who complete the standard task set. At other times the premium itself is graded, the bonus increasing proportionally as the standard task is ex- ceeded. By such means, and in their combination and adap- tation, individuality is recognized in that the reward is made specific and personal, more fitting. High- grade men get top-notch wages, low-grade men are scaled down. Such a payment plan works both ways, attracting the efficient and eliminating the incompetent. Its effect is to develop the working force able to increase output. This increased output is maintained at a less imit cost than was formerly possible even under what likely was a considerably lower day wage rate. Managers are coming to look behind high or low wages so-called, and focus their eye on this production cost per article. To take an illustration from the field of mechanics, it is estimated that thirty-seven Chinese coolies working on a treadmill are required in order to produce one con- tinuous horse power. Though their wages are only one cent per hour, the annual cost for one horse power is $1336. Our managers may pay for the same power only thirteen dollars. Hence, should such one-cent-per- hour employees by chance be discovered at work in an American shop, they would be discharged summarily as the most ruinous of expense makers. What really interests executives is the possibility — and it is being realized again and again — that with high wages may still be secured low labor cost. Much is said of the common interests of employer and employee, but in a very real sense their relations also 212 REWARDS contain an element of antagonism. The employer desires product, wages being merely a means to that end. The employee, vice versa, desires wages, product with him being merely a means to an end. In this, as in other situations, it is common for rivals to clash. Here then is another task for the executive ; although wages have been adjusted so that minimum reward induces maximum expenditure, the men's success should he hound up with that of the management. " Caesar," says Mommsen, " took care that victory, which primarily no doubt brings gain to the general, should be associated also with personal hopes in the minds of the soldiers." Cortes had some of the best men of Cuba rallied to his standard and financially interested in having his expedition succeed. John Quincy Adams refused to secure his reelection by the use of patronage ; but coining the phrase, " You may say to all our anxious Adamsite friends that the harnacles will he scraped clean of the Ship of State, '^ Hill, an emis- sary of the " Old Hero," rallied new hosts of self- seekers to do valorous service. Jackson was elected and his friends were remembered. Only an occasional politican — and he usually a single termer — has since repeated Adams' blunder ! What the politician has done, the average executive may even more so do. The plan is first to determine the factors upon which his success depends ; secondly, to grade the rewards so that these particular factors will be realized in practice. Has the problem of labor become so simplified through the use of machinery that* the machine, not the man, is the predominant factor? A flat day wage suffices. It may be bestowed upon any one able to meet the pace mechanically set. But does quantity rest upon individual initiative? The piecework plan supplies the incentive. It allows the APPEALS TO SELF-INTEREST 213 employees to align themselves. Or does success to the manager rest upon quality ? A day rate with emphasis upon this requirement, with penalties for low-grade work, perhaps, being the most positive emphasis, will yield high standard product. The quality road is fully as pleasant as the quantity road if the rewards beckon that way. In the case just cited, however, quantity is apt to be neglected. But piece rates with standard quality maintained by inspection can be adjusted to secure both quantity and quality. Or again, does this execu- tive find his success lies in non-fluctuating output or long tenures for employees? Although statistical tabula- tion indicates his field is of hill and dale, proper adjust- ment of rewards will grade it flat. And long tenure follows hard upon cimiulative rewards based upon length of service. When their own success is bound up with that of the management, men lend a ready ear to pleas of common interest, since this covers self-interest as well.^ BESTOWING REWARDS As a general thing it may be said that the present discounts the future. The " now " is more lively in the mind than the " after a while." The reward which comes four times a month, therefore, is able to buy more human * A new general storekeeper, appointed to put a stop to the general negligence and waste which had developed in a railroad system that heretofore had not held its men accountable for the supplies they drew, had he proceeded in summary fashion would have made a host of sincere and dangerous enemies, rebels resentful of any doubts cast upon their honesty or veracity. The new chief announced: "We're in a receiver's hands, and every nickel counts. It counts as much for our steady wages as it does for the road. So I'm asking you to turn in every supply item you're ready to throw away ; to sign for everything I furnish you ; and, for all our sakes, to make everything go as far as it can." The wasteful use of supplies suddenly stopped. 214 REWARDS effort than its equivalent paid in one lump sum at the close of the month, simply because it yields greater stimulation. Hence the opposition of certain building contractors, for instance, to the weekly payment plan showed a curious disregard of their own interests. Not only should they have voluntarily broken away from the monthly payment system, but they might well eschew checks and pay in crisp one-dollar bills. Readiness of pajnnent, however, should not be pushed to the extreme of payment in advance. With all for- ward-looking people — and those who accomplish are mostly of this sort — the future discounts the past. Thus, in contrast to the witching anticipation of what may be, what has been is at best a prosy figure. Effort in return for satisfactions already enjoyed is pretty apt to be of a dogged stick-to-it-tive sort. Proper bestowal should not only regard time but spirit. Grudgingly given, they impress upon workers the view that rewards are forced from the management. The im- plication which follows is that pressure should be applied to this unwilling source, it being perhaps easier to coerce the employer into granting the added reward than to earn it by turning out more product. And this pressure tends to increase every time the management yields, even though in the meantime an Ancient Regime nears collapse or a factory drifts toward the danger zone. Willingly granted, rewards cause workers to feel that it is their mastery over conditions which yields the wage. This, in fact, is the correct view ; wages can be paid only because labor applied, creates utilities and increases value. It is his mastery over conditions which fills the working man's pay envelope. Let him act from this standpoint, and he will pursue with whetted zeal his mastery over crude forces. The difference is vital ; it entails no less than a change in point of view. EXERCISES AND READINGS 215 EXERCISES 1. What are the rewards enjoyed by the alderman? The iron molder? The baseball player? Are wage earners too materialistic in their attitude toward rewards? 2. Why have chairs for employees, electric fans, dancing at noon hour, etc., been opposed by some employers? 3. If necessary, and as a constant policy, how high wages can an employer pay ? How low wages could laborers accept ? What sets the actual wage? 4. Does increased production on the part of certain workmen throw other workmen out of employment? What view as to this do laborers hold? 5. Why are there strikes among wage earners? Why not among office workers? 6. Is the control of patronage a source of strength to a man in public Hfe? 7. Outline the system of reports and other records that some organization uses as a basis for its rewards. READINGS Taussig, Principles of Economics^ II, Ch. 47. Gantt, Work, Wages, and Profits. CHAPTER XVIII Idealism " The zeal of nature never cools, Nor is she thwarted of her ends ; When gapped and dulled her cheaper tools, Then she a saint and prophet sends." — James Russell Lowell. Ideals possess an unique power, as has been, and is being, demonstrated again and again. The knightly type made chivalry, and redeemed the Middle Ages of much barrenness; the crusader ideal drew thousands over trails made desolate by the withering bones of those who had gone before ; the dazzling amage of glory and honor for Fair France is the secret of Napoleon's phe- nomenal sway ; the ideals of liberty, equaHty, progress, and fair dealing among men profoundly and continuously stir ninety-three millions of Americans; just as truth, honor, devotion to home and country, are among those conceptions which, proposed to his mind as a goal, draw the individual on to attainment. The ideal is a standard tinged with emotion, able to provide both the vision which inspires and the social mirror in which the personal self is admired or scorned. Whence are ideals derived ? They spring up natu- rally whenever men make common cause together, and, viewed in their most far-reaching and general aspects, are a product of the milieu. Society is the great artificer, overhauling codes, modifying customs, shaping ideals, all in her own interest. In her attempt to 3l6 THE APPEAL OF IDEALS 217 realize perpetuity, she lays hold of certain desired types of conduct, soldier courage, nurse tenderness, mother love, judge sternness, minister compassion, and exalts them for admiration and imitation. Note, for instance, how the soldier ideal, embracing such difficult elements as courage, endurance, fidehty, and self-sacrifice, is impressed upon men. Everywhere this desired type is glorified by literature, applauded at banquet table and parade, reverenced by religion, honored by monuments, statues, festivals, and commemorations. Whereas all disparagement of the soldier, the cruelties, hard- ships, agonies, and harassments he both inflicts and endures, is restrained, the adventurous, dramatic, and picturesque elements are flashed before the dazzled eye ; soldier worth is emphasized on the most momentous and solemn occasions, and associated with all that is beau- tiful and holy.^ A set of values as to what is worthy is thus minted. It after a time comes to be accepted as true coin of the realm ; all of us, children especially, being taught to take it without discounting. This is true not only of the soldier but of the physi- cian, the priest, the railroader ; in fact, the various voca- tions, the sexes, the classes, all possess ideals. Gener- alized into abstract types they constitute the moral virtues.^ Conformity to them insures self-respect, disobedience brings shame. In a most subtle way, therefore, idealism offers both rose and thorn. Its ap- peal, voiced by leaders, has shown a capacity to exalt duty rather than privilege, evaluate honor higher than victory, emphasize motive as well as result, set at naught the easy doctrine of expediency, make stern justice more attractive than the goddess of goods, and wean men from the luring bowers of self-interest to become toilers for the common welfare. ^ Ross, Soc. Con., 223-224. • Ross, op. cit., 226, 235. 2i8 IDEALISM Idealism is no mere azure haze, but a reality based solidly upon the collective struggle for existence. In this struggle, efficient group action makes for survival. Accordingly, qualities which whet men for effort, such as courage, industry, ambition, and perseverance, espe- cially for cooperative effort, such as forbearance, obe- dience, and service, have all been stamped approved by successful group after group in this world-old struggle. Products of the common consciousness, group ways of looking at things, standards emotionalized, social ideals in an imperious way guide the destiny of the race. Does it not seem that the executive, whether he deal with men in factory, commercial club, or church brother- hood, should not cease to use and cultivate this idealistic streak in human nature? Each man, drawing from the common stock of ideals, has through them an inner mo- tivating force, and this force can be stupidly opposed or wisely taken advantage of by him who directs. But more than this, ideals are in themselves a normal growth, some sort, good or ill, evolving whenever men associate in organizations together. This opportimity the execu- tive will embrace, for the good of his organization becoming a shaper of ideals. PHASES OF IDEALISM In what may, perhaps, be termed its primary form, idealism rests upon the ground of common economic interest. Such appeal may no doubt appear crude — " give more, get more " — nevertheless it is strong. A typical example is profit sharing, the essential difference here being, as compared with the usual methods of pay- ment, that part of the individual's reward is directly condi- tioned by the prosperity of the company. Since his personal prosperity to this extent rises and falls with PROFIT SHARING 219 that of the group to which he belongs, he tends to be mindful of the general interest, making his own efforts more productive and keeping a watchful eye upon others. From such a plan, one might reasonably expect, would issue a transformation in industry; and such, in fact, has been the result in certain instances. Its numerous failures may be traced, it would seem, to industry's being subject to fluctuations, which change the amoimt of total profit and hence premiums distributed ; to the financial operations' being intricate or secret, perhaps under present conditions necessarily so, which to the common man places premium on faith, not fact ; and to the fact that whereas the workmen's standard of living is advanced readily, once raised it tends to be lowered only under pressure. At any rate, the ideal of mutuality has made steady progress during the last decade and now manifests itself in a great variety of efforts. Social insurance, pensions, museums of safety, Ubraries, housing and recreation facilities, cooperative discipline, and profit-sharing indi- cate that the relations of capital and labor have become more sympathetic, and a new spirit moves in industry. A higher type of idealism does not rest with mutuality, but involves subordination to that which is regarded as superior to self. This commonly results whenever men associate on good terms together. Each puts forward the kindly word, the cheery smile, the optimistic ex- terior, cramping into hidden nook his private griefs and bravely claiming, " All is well." There thus emerges a collective consciousness higher than that of the individ- uals who compose it and to which they yield obedient service. From the difficulty of visuaKzing the individual members of a group, especially if this group be large, 220 IDEALISM there by and by emerges a somewhat abstract con- sciousness — spirit of cooperation in the business house, college spirit of the student body, esprit de corps of a regi- ment, civic pride in a city, patriotism in a nation, zeal of the theocratic devotee. Mere ideas? True, but lively ideas, images that stimulate. The war spirit, roused by the attack on Sumter in '6i, augmented by burning sermons from pulpits, military proclamations and orders in every paper, radiant bunting and brass bands in every city, war speeches and war appropria- tions in every legislature and every city or town council, stirred the North until every village green was a muster- ing ground, peaceful foundries and workshops com- menced casting guns or making cartridges, and parades, drums, flags, and bayonets filled the streets. Ours was a people devoted to an ideal not dimmed though four years of blood must intervene. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, a magical formula underlying one great popular movement after another, during the French Revolution turned its adherents into preachers and propagandists, passionate proselyters of foreigners, and convinced its leaders that, supported by the Almighty, the Republic had been decreed since the beginning of time. The theocratic ideal nerved the Boers through long years of fruitless strife, intense po- litical faith in our own day has caused hardened politi- cians with bared heads to sing " Onward, Christian Soldiers," ^ and socialism by many of its followers is ^The Roosevelt convention at Chicago was thus commented upon by the New York Times. "Let no one mistake the Progressive Party. Theodore Roosevelt may or may not be bitten by personal ambition, but the men who are following him believe sincerely that they are followers of the Lord en- listed for the battle of Armageddon. They may be absolutely wrong about it, but about the strength of their conviction there cannot remain a doubt in the mind of anybody who saw the strange, moving, and com- THE USE OF IDEALS 221 being stripped of all economic details and embraced as a new religion. It is hard to withstand men so possessed. An ideal is a standard, plus emotion. As is indicated by the above, these two elements may be compounded in varying proportions. The workman who prods his listless neighbor because he feels that good application on the latter's part will mean a few cents added to his own pay check, may represent one extreme in this com- pounding, the rational element predominating very nearly imto selfishness; the other extreme, perhaps, is the zealot enraptured by some such vision as God's rules on earth, a conception thoroughly emotionalized. Between these extremes are all possible gradations, and it is for the executive to decide which proportion of each element serves him best. EFFECTIVE IDEALISM As a practical policy, the efficiency of idealism, par- ticularly in its higher phases, is conditioned^ by the following factors : I. Enlisting the Imagination. — In multiplying effort manyfold, the imagination plays a royal role. An indi- cation, a vague hint, is a stimulus to thought, the initiator of completed scenes. The imaginative appeal carves out bold headlines, with strokes that rouse the mind to supply its own details. The leader with a flash of wit, a stirring phrase, a brilliant generalization, a pelling spectacle in the Coliseum to-day. It was not a convention at all. It was an assemblage of religious enthusiasts. It was such a con- vention as Peter the Hermit held. It was a Methodist camp meeting done over into political terms. From Jane Addams of Hull House fame, sitting in the first rank below the platform, to Judge Ben Lindsay of Denver, sitting halfway down the hall, there was an expression on every face of fanatical and religious enthusiasm." 22a IDEALISM dazzling prophecy, evokes imagery ; and followers, pos- sessed of this, love to do the rest.^ 2, Right Adjustment of Ideals. — An ideal too distant loses its power to draw; too near, is commonplace. There is, in consequence, some point at which for any particular individual or situation its effectiveness reaches maximum, and it is the executive's practical problem to locate this. In his own mind Daniel Burnham saw beautiful visions of cities to be ; his supreme gift lay not in these but in visualizing them in most practical terms for the big men of his day. A certain well-known president of an agricultural college, a born ideaUst, enthuses over the wonders of the rural life that is to come; but he, too, along with panegyrics concerning " God's great out-of- doors," has much to say of improved drainage, crop rotation, and commercial fertilizer. Ideals may thus reach from the most prosaic up to the azure heights. Followers may lay hold where they will. J. Expectation. — One who rules through idealism usually is characterized by enthusiastic expectation. He represents the onward flowing, upward striving as- pects of life, faith in the possibility of great accomplish- ment. The clear-eyed scientist may disprove his assumptions at every step, the philosophic pessimist ^ Chairman Beveridge at the Chicago convention aroused outbursts of approval by his statement: "We stand for a nobler America. We stand for an undivided nation." The details which a little later he attempted to present proved boring. Such would especially be the case in a fervent group such as the Progressives were. Still, the President in his inaugural showed judgment in besprinkling his brief address with such image-provoking gems as: "This is the high enterprise of the new day: to lift everything that concerns our life as a nation to the light that shines from the hearthfire of every man's conscience and vision of the right. . . . The feelings with which we face this new age of right and opportunity sweep across our heartstrings like some air out of God's own presence, where justice and mercy are reconciled and the judge and the brother are one." EXPECTANCY APPEALS 223 readily points out that his ends are chimeras; yet the world of men, nevertheless, continues to belong to the man of hope. All great periods of revival, of expansion of the human mind, especially those outbursts of intel- lectual and moral vigor ushered in by Jesus, Luther, Wesley, Rousseau, Fichte, Carlyle, have been based upon the appeal that ourselves and the highest are linked together, that Gk)d and man may be bound into one. Those who deny this, who would close the channels to these inherent and powerful tendencies in human nature, cannot hope to triiunph.^ Mankind is moving forward. Even failure so-called does not disprove the value of expectation. The street sweeper possibly is not the great public benefactor the commissioner believes him to be, the convict is doubtless pictured far too favorably by the generous warden, the struggling little college fails to secure the enrollment and endowment prophesied by its president, the convert may later prove the evan- gelist was mistaken ; the results do not measure up to fervent expectation, the glow departs, the promised land becomes dimmed before realization. Neverthe- less, this positive faith in great attainment has made the real attainment surpass what otherwise it would have been. The leader, a man of optimism, enthusiasm, and faith, has pointed toward the heights and bade men transcend the limitations which pure reason would dictate. He demands much and gets it. Expectation justifies itself by its fruits. 4, Indirect Control. — Idealism is usually not thought of as a method of control ; it varies so widely from the ordinary patterns of restraint. Because it seeks to develop standards and emotionalize them, leaving to these the securing of conduct, its approach, in fact, is * James, Prin. of Psy., II, 314-315. 224 IDEALISM somewhat removed. It lacks the direct swing, the cramp, the crushing triumph over miscreant and brute which renders discipline so powerful an engine of order. Yet these latter may not necessarily be the best means of securing control; they readily degenerate and, by prohibiting free inquiry, criticism, and unhampered choice, and destroying self-confidence, render those who yield ignorant and servile men. Control is gained, but at excessive cost.^ The other method seemingly is all too circuitous, — to attempt controlling salesmen, for instance, by lift- ing up their position, telling them the history of the company, pointing out the officials who have climbed up from small positions, of how the company now holds a unique place in the world's work and that its services to society are indispensable ; yet such a process implants an ideal whose restraint, however indirect, illusive, and apparently permitting full self-direction, is none the less real. It, moreover, produces subordinates of spirit, moral strength, and manly independence, granite upon which an organization may safely build. 5. Enlightened Partnership. — The division of labor within our huge commonwealth has in a most subtle way clipped the wings of idealism. The individual has become a cog, and an unseeing cog at that. " As sad a sight as an old hand-loom worker in a factory attempting to make his clumsy machine compete with the flying shuttles about him," says Miss Addams, " is a working man equipped with knowledge so meager that he can get no meaning into his life nor sequence between his acts and the far-off results. . . . The man in the fac- tory, as well as the man with the hoe, has a grievance beyond being overworked and disinherited, in that he does not know what it is all about." ^ * Ross, Soc. Con., 244. * Democracy and Social Ethics, 212, 211. THE VISION WHICH INSPIRES 225 But the danger is wider than industry. The wage earner may year after year make numberless twenty- fifths of a shoe, never a whole one; yet business men, professional men, transporters, farmers, and miners likewise have their hearts and minds continually focused upon narrow segments of the social life. Unable to visualize the teeming millions with whose welfare every effort of theirs, in reality, is connected up, they, too, isolated, perish for want of vision. EnUghtened partnership is needed to restore the personal connection between means and ends, to exalt the individual life by showing how in every act one's influence affects the entire organization, even penetrates into the uttermost parts of the earth. Such partnership affords unity, the sense of mechanical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual solidarity, by means of which the lives which otherwise might be lost are rounded into fullness. 6. Self- Alignment. — In the process of action and reaction, idealism transforms not subordinates alone, but executive as well. Partaker of the spirit which animates them, controlled by the same standards roimd which they rally, he necessarily identifies himself and his ambitions with the welfare of the movement of which he is a part. His individual personality expands to its overpersonal task, that of serving as the symbol of a cause. When a regal nature is thus animated by con- tact with the universal, selfish interests fade and joy is found in service. EXERCISES 1. Why are men of idealistic attitudes preferred by industrial concerns? 2. Should the firm practicing profit sharing keep its books open for employee inspection? Should workmen share losses the same as profits? Q 226 IDEALISM 3. Trace the development of professional ethics among lawyers. Physicians. Accountants. 4. Contrast in some concrete instance the control of men by discipline with that by ideals. 5. Compare the methods employed by Bismarck as chancellor with those of Roosevelt as president. 6. Of what influence upon its standards is the growing tend- ency toward university rather than office training for the pro- fessions? READINGS Ross, Social Control, Chs. XVII-XVIII. Roosevelt, Autobiography, Ch. V. V CHAPTER XrX Instruction "The era of force must give way to that of knowledge, and the policy of the future will be to teach and to lead." — Henry L. Gantt. The purpose of this chapter is to indicate how results may be secured through the systematic appeal to intelli- gence. This process is somewhat different in point of view and much more narrow in scope than education in general, including as the latter does such remote and comprehensive ends as preparation for complete living, character building, self -realization, or socialization. In- struction, to the contrary, consists in imparting knowl- edge and skill methodically, a much more specific task whose functions will become clearer as we proceed. The need for instruction began with man's origin, and never shall cease to be because there is always something to teach and some one who may profit thereby. The something to teach, moreover, is witnessing a wonderful expansion. Valuable data concerning railroading, min- ing, business, and politics, the product of busy brains in office, field, factory, and laboratory, are accumulating. These advance steadily out from book, magazine, lecture, convention, wherever on the firing line new thought combinations are evolved. It is perhaps not too much to say that, so far as the present is concerned, in these workable ideas is revealed the promised land. The executives of a past generation hoarded well their trade secrets. Only trusted employees knew much about the general processes of manufacturing and selling, while 227 338 INSTRUCTION the knowledge of special processes and plans was retained by the head of the firm and by him bequeathed as a family inheritance. The chief assets, in fact, often consisted in this knowledge held in secret. Such a view is now rapidly disappearing, necessarily so because industry and commerce are passing the one-man stage. In manufacturing, the single-proprietor establishments now employ only twelve per cent of the American wage earners and produce less than ten per cent of our total product ; corporations employ six times the number of workmen and manufacture seventy-nine per cent of the total output. Due to the fact of this collective production, men's interests are bound together; the executive is obliged to explain his plans, for other men must be intrusted to work them out. And it thus becomes increasingly true that he succeeds best who teaches best. It is perhaps to be expected that the statesman will educate the people to his way of thinking ; at least from the ancient Egj^ptian monarch, Ptah Hotep, to the candidate in the most recent " educational campaign " this seems to have been an approved course of procedure ; that the editor, the physician, and the preacher also will adopt some systematic means in molding the minds of their adherents, and in so doing will assume somewhat the functions of a teacher. But in industry and com- merce as well, it is being recognized increasingly that the welfare of their organizations is similarly connected up with instruction. In fact, it is coming to be less a question of whether or not it should be done, as how best to do it. FORMS OF INSTRUCTION This transmission of knowledge, once executives definitely seek to accomplish it, may be effected in a INSTRUCTION PLANS 229 variety of ways.^ The following cases will serve as types. The First National Bank of Chicago provides a library, a speciaKzed collection of books, almanacs, and magazines treating of banking and finance. An industrial concern, the Weston Electrical Instrument Works, for its library has secured in addi- tion to standard reference works many volumes and periodicals which relate to machinery, engineering, and electricity. A number of the employees, their interest in things industrial being stimulated by this library, are taking courses in the Newark Technical School or in correspondence schools. So far has this library move- ment now won its way, that in visiting important con- cerns here and there one is agreeably surprised at the frequency with which he may discover a modest yet growing collection of books and bound volumes of trade journals. It is a practical method and, with the devel- opment of a specialized literature, bound to increase. The wholesalers and retailers of Boston cooperated to provide lectures on salesmanship. Various firm members addressed the class; in connection with the addresses demonstrations being given. More commonly individual concerns have lecturers appear before their own employees, the subjects selected being those of most direct benefit and the address frequently being printed and distributed. Even a limited number of these, pre- sented by men able both to instruct and inspire, will fill subordinates' minds with the student atmosphere. The American Radiator Company publishes a bulletin distributed gratis to employees, its purpose being to promote a broad knowledge of the company's business, 1 Cf. Tolman, Social Engineering, Ch. IX, for illustrations. The Bulletins and Annual Reports of the National Association of Corporation Schools, 124 W. 42d Street, New York City, are of special value in this connection. 230 INSTRUCTION and by expanding personal capacity to increase oppor- tunity for all members of the organization. This bulle- tin is by no means merely of the " ginger up " or the " uplift " sort into which so many promising publica- tions have degenerated. While it does contain articles making for inspiration, closer mutual interest, and good fellowship, it presents also much matter-of-fact instruc- tion. Less pretentious than such bulletins, yet still serving educational purposes, are the booklets, pam- phlets, circulars, outlines, and sermonettes, with which organizations here and there are informing and train- ing their members. Though it be the elaborate report of a technical investigation issued by an automobile manufacturer, or again only a motto, " The voice with the smile wins,'' distributed by a telephone company, the purpose, that of instructing subordinates by means of printed material, is realized. The National Cash Register Company utilizes trips as a means of educating its employees. During the World's Fair at St. Louis it shut down the factory for two weeks in order that its making and recording forces, two thousand two hundred in number, with a generous percentage of their expenses paid, might enjoy the imique advantages there afforded. Later the company sent on a European trip a party of sixteen, nine of them being chief officials at headquarters, five district man- agers, and two factory experts. Similar trips are made to New York, Chicago, Boston, or to manufacturing centers like Pittsburgh, the parties varying from half a dozen to twenty. Trips, of course, are only one of sev- eral methods employed by this progressive organization, but it finds these of value ; conditions are studied, view- points broadened, and many suggestions brought back for the betterment of machine and methods. The girls at the Plymouth Cordage Company's mill COMPANY SCHOOLS 231 formed a club several years since, the members then numbering eight or ten. The primary purpose was social, but the members promptly started work in sewing, courses in English, Italian, and art, and so successfully pushed these various activities that the membership has increased some tenfold. Much the same result has be^n accomplished by the woman's league at Wanamaker's. Once a month this league holds a social evening, with a lecture, reading, or music, time for sociability, and dancing; and at other times classes are carried on for chorus singing, mandolin pla)dng, physical culture, dancing, sewing, English, German, and French. Such volimtary organizations as these indicate that em- ployees, quite in harmony with the aims of their execu- tives, are anxious for self-improvement. The New York Edison Company maintains a school^ this being the most serious of the various measures of instruction. This company offers five courses in elec- trical engineering, one course in accoimting, and seven courses in salesmanship. These latter courses, held during working hours, are compulsory for all employees of the commercial department. The first-year courses for new employees treat of the history and development of electricity, including inspection trips to the central stations, substations, and meter-testing laboratory, elements of central station business getting, principles of individual efficiency, business letter writing, and public speaking. The second-year courses, open only to those who have completed the first-year courses, give instruc- tion in hygiene, health, recreation, and psychology, the principles of salesmanship and their relation to business building, and company policy and organization. Exam- inations are given, and satisfactory work wins a diploma.^ * Outline of Educational Courses for 1913-1914, New York Edison Company. 232 INSTRUCTION The Union Pacific Railroad offers through its Educa- tional Bureau various courses, such as mechanical engineering, signal work, transportation, traffic, main- tenance of way, civil engineering, agents' courses, air- brake course, locomotive firing, and locomotive running. Says General Superintendent Park : " The men take to the scheme — it is something they have long wanted. In the three months since the bureau was established over 500 students have been enrolled, all earnestly press- ing their special work to the extent that success is assured." ^ A beginner everywhere, perhaps, whether he be the newly engaged office boy or the just-promoted general manager, is given certain instructions as to what is expected. Now in reahty, libraries, lectures, bulle- tins, trips, clubs, and schools, including variations and combinations of these worked out to meet particular needs, represent merely attempts to make these direc- tions more effective. WHAT SHALL BE TAUGHT But in what does this effectiveness consist? Is it knowledge, discipline, power, or some other of the numerous aims which teachers at different times have set for their guidance and toward which they have urged learners? At the outset it may be urged that there is nothing inherently worth while in instruction as an end in itself. " Man's business here," observes Frederic Harrison, "is to know for the sake of living, not to live for the sake of knowing." Of all this accu- mulated wisdom, chemical practice in the laboratory, office practice in the insurance company, buying practice in 1 J. S. Eaton, Education for Efficiency in Railroad Service, U. S. Bureau of Education, Bulletin 10, 1909, 96-97. STANDARDIZATION 233 the wholesale concern, man management in the selling organization, are not certain parts as compared with others particularly helpful and hence more worth know- ing for the sake of living? They are. This is clearly indicated by the fact that knowledge is systematized. In this process, details are classified and grouped under subheads, subheads are fitted into larger units, and at last is reared that vast pyramid of organized knowledge termed science. The winnowings of the centuries are evolved into general truths. Into them have been distilled myriads of facts ; from them may be drawn aid in solving multitudes of detail difficulties. The goal of instruction, therefore, is to teach these general truths and their application to concrete problems. Instruction is effective in so far as it does this. The first requirement of instruction, therefore, is that there be properly systematized material. Unless this requirement be met the teacher sinks into an im- parter of unrelated details, a blind leader of the blind. Of what worth to the apprentice are the teachings of the chief whose own efforts are based upon merest guess- work; and is not a most serious instructional obstacle found in the fact that as yet over vast stretches of our industrial system men are tramping without compass, the one best way having not yet been found ? Certain pioneer attempts have been made to remedy this difficulty. The work done assumes a significance far surpassing the apparent value of the facts discovered, since the result of chief importance lies in the new point of view furnished. The belief is centuries old that, in astronomy, physics, or mathematics, general laws are the summum honum; only very recently in industry has been recognized the possibility of sup- planting rule-of-thiunb by standardization. Frederick 234 INSTRUCTION W. Taylor spent twenty-six years studying how best to cut metals, attacking the two questions, at what cut- ting depth shall the lathe be run, and at what speed shall it be set, and in some 30,000 to 40,000 experiments he cut into chips with the experimental tools more than 800,000 pounds of steel and iron.^ Frank B. Gilbreth studied the motions made by bricklayers in getting a brick from where the tenders left it until it was mortared into the wall, devised various schemes, such as having the bricks brought to the mason in a different way than usual, placing them in a somewhat more convenient position, arranging the scaffold in an improved manner, by means of which the number of motions required was cut down from eighteen to four and one half .^ The editor of Industrial Engineering, interested in this new science of motion study, developed an arrangement of materials and sequence of motion through which the girls folding and sealing letters in his of&ce increased their output four times. ^ A Chicago real estate dealer in his correspondence similarly worked toward standardization. Through care- ful analysis of inquiries he was enabled to classify them and draw up a series of form letters which simpli- fied his work without loss in effectiveness. A Detroit advertiser for several years has so carefully keyed his advertising and recorded the inquiries received that he is now able to estimate with fair accuracy the " pull " of his different copy."* The Curtis Publishing Company during the past three years reduced its stenographic cost from $7.69 to $2.58 per thousand square inches of type- written matter, at the same time advancing wages from $9 to $11 per week; in other words, increasing the de- * Taylor, Principles of Scientific Management, 105-106. * Gilbreth, Motion Study, 88. See also chart, 107. * Op. cit., xiv. * Shryer, Analytical Advertising. SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 235 partment's efficiency, based upon these two tests, by about two hundred per cent.^ But the Curtis Publishing Company, in common with these other concerns mentioned, recognized the necessity of basing effort upon systematized material. The management studied the methods in practice, ana- lyzed and classified them, eliminated the faults which heretofore had been either unobserved or deliberately neglected, and embodied the approved methods and directions in textbook form. A school was instituted in which, with these textbooks as a basis, the routine of the office was explained in detail. Every mechanical operation, the insertion of a sheet of paper in a type- writer, the arrangement of the desk drawer, even such elementary operations as making erasures, ruling lines in ink, and the making of figures, has been studied, analyzed, and the one best way discovered that it may be prac- ticed by every office worker. These examples, indicating how industrial and com- mercial concerns in the most painstaking way have developed a standard practice, emphasize a point of view valuable to every executive. The one best way, it is true, is known accurately only in the most limited fields, yet its spirit at least should permeate all attempts at leadership. Especially is this true of all great popular movements, in the initial stages of which there is almost certain to be more heat than light. Brass bands, ream upon ream of speeches, the parade, and the banquet proclaim that salvation, figuratively speaking, is at hand. It is the task of the wise leader to see that out of the confusion after a time emerge certain central truths, a more or less accurate standard practice. The movement then becomes effective, teachable. The first requirement of instruction has been met. * System, October, 1913, 390-397. 236 INSTRUCTION EFFECTIVE TEACHING The matter to be taught having been properly pre- pared, the point of view now shifts toward the learner. How may he best apprehend these general principles and become able to use them with effectiveness? By experiencing their growth within his own mind, a process analogous to their original development. There are no mysterious short cuts to knowledge. The mind to be taught must retrace the same path by which the gen- eralization was reached, even though under skilled instruction the pace is immensely accelerated. This necessity gives to teaching three main processes which may now receive brief consideration.^ I. The Acquiring of Details. — A new idea creates in the mind very much the same impression as does the stranger arriving at the lawn party — there is need for mutual adjustment. Now this adjustment is more rapid if in teaching one proceeds from the known to the unknown, and, aided by the self-activity of the learner, welds this new to the old. By calling up in his mind all the related ideas possible a foundation is prepared for the new material. By giving him an aim, a concrete, definite, simple, short, and attractive statement of what is to be undertaken, he will be enlisted in the building process. The material of instruction having been gathered, it is now to be provided as needed by the teacher or demonstrator, the learners in this case being considered as interested onlookers; or perhaps this material is presented by the printed page, it fulfilling the function of a text ; or in part it may come from the learners themselves, stimulated and directed by the 1 This view is based upon the well-known Herbartian Formal Steps. For an illuminating discussion see McMurry, Method of the Recitatiotif especially Chs. vi-ix. METHODS OF TEACHING 237 instructor. The process in any case is one of transferring mental materials. As a result of it, through questions, vivid pictures, repetitions, and reviews, indelible images become stamped upon the mind. The details are ac- quired. 2. The Development of Generalizations. — Important as details are, their real function is to serve as crude materials for the construction of general truths. It is these general truths which give freedom and impetus to thought and adequate means for its expression; which signify a good classification of one's knowledge, an organization of thought which renders facts easily retained, readily surveyed, and quickly produced in the moment of need; and which provide an apperceiving mass, able to assimilate new knowledge easily and quickly, a chart and compass with which the thinker steers through confused regions without losing his bearings. The learning process is poorly organized which stops short of these. The process of induction rests upon a comparison of different bits of concrete data, the noting of recurring phenomena, and the stating of these as generalizations. The full triumph of science demands that these general- izations be all-embracing, that a systematized universe be set forth in shorthand symbols. Yet any approach to this ideal involves a certain simplification, in which, from our present relative point of view, success is met because details are handled in packages. J. The Application to Concrete Problems. — The learn- ing process is not complete until the knowledge gained becomes usable in practice. Generalizations constitute the theory, but no real antagonism exists between theory and practice, the two in reality being intimate co-workers, — at bottom, only different phases of the same thing. Hence induction and deduction are as normally insep- 238 INSTRUCTION arable as systole and diastole. Concrete experiences are builded into general notions, general notions in turn are applied to new concretes. It is in this last step particularly that public educa- tion is lamentably weak. Its students possess much theory, but flounder in the realm of actuality. They discern little connection between the principles taught in school and the practical difficulties they face ; in many instances the break between school life and real life being never bridged. But in this respect the instruction furnished by department store manager, railroad executive, or politi- cal leader is particularly strong. Its details are usually poorly presented, its general notions are apt to be unde- veloped and hazily held, yet every link in the chain has been rigorously tested out in practice. To a compara- tively high degree the general notions held by practical men are made to do service. RESULTS OF INSTRUCTION We have now completed our brief survey of the three steps in instruction. It has been pointed out that details must first be acquired, that from these, general principles are to be constructed, and that in the application of such principles knowledge becomes power. It now remains to consider, in conclusion, three general results which may accrue to the executive through his use of the in- struction policy. These may be set forth as follows : I. Definite Procedure. — From the stock of assembled knowledge issues guidance. The material, in organized and usable form, reposes in the learner's brain as a director of action, a measure of accomplishment. 'D^e instructed individual is transformed into an effective workman. BENEFITS GAINED 239 In its wider aspects, moreover, instruction creates a new and larger brain. Its net is wide flung ; from indi- vidual workmen, ofiicial, and competitor, from obser- vation, printed page, and experiment, is accumulated a rich spoil. Adapted, it becomes the essence of organ- ization, the directive agent in industry, business, or social life. 2. Rapid Development. — It is quite essential that in order to gain any well-rounded knowledge concerning his organization, the novice should begin at the bottom. The recognition of this fact is responsible for such in- stances as young Ward, the millionaire baker's son, driv- ing a deHvery wagon, and young Vanderbilt, clad in overalls, working in the railroad shops; contact with conditions at first hand gives the " feel " and point of view. It is equally true that the men most valuable to an organization are at the top. The general manager out- weighs a score perhaps of district managers, and the ability of the chief executive himself may not exist in the combined capacities of half a hundred shipping clerks. Since men should begin at the bottom yet be- come more valuable as they near the top, the practical thing is to accelerate the process, if possible. Instruction accomplishes this. In the public school, a child in twelve years imbibes a social inheritance which the race has constructed only in hundreds of thousands ; the college graduate, the heir of all the ages, in sixteen years has traversed in great thought strides the toilsome journey from cave man to contemporary. Instruction in the railroad, factory, bank, or insurance office simi- larly will accelerate progress for the amateur who would be vice president. Mastering details, weaving them into general principles, and with these solving new prob- lems, under skilled instruction he travels through the organization as with seven-league boots. 240 INSTRUCTION 5. Tentative Attitudes. — Instruction is based upon evidence; its aim is merely to see details as they are and from them to deduce principles which when appHed will work. But this point of view, simple as it may seem when stated, removes from instruction, and from organ- izations making use of any instruction worthy of that name, the danger of becoming static. Its appeal to intelligence promotes progress and insures toleration. It has provided a method by which difficulties are solved through the discovery of truth, a means through which, because open to all, individual initiative is secured. The discussion of the various methods by which men are motivated we may now conclude. It has been shown that these methods embrace a wide variety of appeals, ranging from the elusive force of personality to the matter-of-fact system of instruction. These appeals, taken singly or in combination, leave nothing in our instincts, emotions, or intellect which they cannot stir. It is for the executive, a practicing psychologist, to select and use them as he will, to become, in other words, an artist playing upon the strings of human motive. EXERCISES 1. Why are theorists and practical men so often mutually antagonized? What indications that such antagonism is lessen- ing? 2. In some process now unsystematized, illustrate how stand- ardization might be brought about. 3. Should subordinates be given general or specific directions? 4. What reasons behind the movement for schools in factories and commercial houses? 5. Is it advisable for business men to discuss their policies in trade magazines? 6. Should a young man dependent upon his own efforts for support pursue a liberal-culture college course? 7. Discuss and illustrate the following maxims of teaching: the concrete before the abstract ; facts before definitions or prin- EXERCISES AND READINGS 241 ciples; processes before rules; from the particular to the gen- eral; from the simple to the complex; from the known to the related unknown. READINGS McMuRRY, Method of the Recitation. Annual Report (latest), National Association of Corporation Schools. PART III: LIMITS UPON THE EXECUTIVE CHAPTER XX Interest and Apathy " For many are called, but few chosen." — Matthew xxii. 14. The average subordinate is by no means a mere pup- pet for another's deft manipulation. He has rights and claims. And the executive who would control him through mysterious passes, counterfeit rewards, or blaring command, — who would, in short, use him as a tool in getting something for nothing, — wins no lasting power, but usually runs quickly amuck. It is not alone in revolution that the driven press back upon the driver. This fact emphasizes the general truth to be considered in Part III, that in the control of men executives are always under restrictions. The first of these to be con- sidered, the subject of the present chapter, is apathy; the subordinates are not interested. No one can possibly be interested in everything. His consciousness is bombarded by a multiplicity of stimuli ; in fact, persistently besieged by claimants for attention. To grant audience to each would entail complete distraction, and produce a mind fit only for the madhouse. Hence to live the mental life at all, consciousness, as an ejB&cient executive, is forced to be- come a selective agent, evaluating the incoming stimuli on the basis of their relative importance. In this rank- 24s 246 INTEREST AND APATHY ing process, certain of them are suppressed; others evaluated more highly, receive attention. Every one from his own experience knows how atten- tion operates. Out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought, the mind takes possession of one, withdraws from others in order to deal effectively with it, focalizes and concentrates upon it, holds it in clear and vivid form. The other items of the outward order, millions of them, though present to the senses, never properly enter into experience. Be- cause they hold no interest, they are screened out and their appeal by no chance has force.^ INTEREST AND THE EXECUTIVE Since the stimulus unattended never takes possession of consciousness, to the executive non-interest on the part of his subordinates is fatal. The efficacy of the foregoing methods of stimulation and control depends upon the interest they hold in the minds of followers. Person- ality, emulation, rewards, instruction, all of them have a power — if the mind attends to them. If not, they are sounding brass. Hence arises the value of what may be termed the psychological moment — the stimulus then falls upon a peculiarly receptive consciousness. " When I used to say as I rode through the lines in the heat of battle," declared Napoleon, " ' Unfurl your flags, the moment has come,' the French soldiers simply shook with eager- ness." This same sense of the psychological moment impelled Mohammed to receive his new revelations always 1 "This whole function of conceiving, of fixing, and holding fast to meanings," says James, "has no significance apart from the fact that the conceiver is a creature with partial purposes and private ends." Pfin. of Psy.y I, 482. Cf. 402-404. WHEN INTEREST WAXES 247 at such opportune time, Moody to offer a prayer just be- fore the vote was taken in a wrangling Sunday-School Convention, the manager to extend promotion on the subordinate's birthday or to spread the message of cooperation on pay day, Caesar to move amid poHtical plans and intrigues eighteen years before heading an army, and Pitt, early in his career, to refuse the coveted prime ministership tendered him because " the fruit was not yet ripe.'' If the moment is propitious, i.e. if interest can be en- listed readily, it is often given to small men to wield large powers. During the " great fear " in France, the cry, " The brigands are coming " enabled nameless men to head battalions of their own marshaling. The French Revolution was led by mediocrity.^ The reawakening of patriotism which swept the country after the Agadir crisis furnished the setting for a domi- nant personaUty, President Poincare, just as the war spirit later reared new pinnacles of power in Joffre, von Hindenburg, Grand Duke Nicholas, and the Kaiser. Similarly, Pitt, not yet twenty-five, once wielded in England a power such as no other minister had since the Revolution, supported, as Lord Rosebery observes,^ on the tidal wave of one of those great convulsions of feeling which in Great Britain express and relieve pent-up 1 Desmoulins, a hitherto unknown newspaper correspondent, by- mounting a wine table in the Palais-Royal gardens and haranguing the crowd concerning the dismissal of Necker, initiated an impulse of vast import on that 12th of July. Stanislas Maillard, appearing in the Place de la Gr^ve justas a body of some five, hundred women, wrought up to a state of frenzy over their wrongs, many of them starving and all desirous that some one should be punished, were about to hang an unfor- tunate abb6, by seizing a drum, and shouting "A Versailles !" led the entire rabble with loud shouts on the road to Louis' palace. In the same way the headstrong enthusiasm of the revolutionary recruits, later mar- shaled by Dumouriez, was the real cause of his victories. 2 William Pitt, 57-58. 248 INTEREST AND APATHY national sentiment. Our own country in 1896 wit- nessed an interesting illustration of the same sort. A curious crisis confronted the Democratic party ; successful four years before, its delegates were now divided, anxious, and in doubt — the proper setting for a conqueror. When Bryan illumined the darkness, " You shall not crucify humanity upon a cross of gold," it was as if an oracle had appeared. The carnival of materialism then ended, and the revivalist had come to his own. How interpret these great movements of waxing interest? The answer, perhaps, is to be found in the nature of interest itself. It represents the dynamic phase of consciousness, the outward, projective aspect of mind, the organizing activity par excellence. Now this type of activity is especially emphasized when habit becomes inadequate to secure adaptation. Hence in periods of transition, witnessing as they do the break- down of the old before the newly developing is competent to guide, what was heretofore in the custody of habit is taken in charge by interest. When Luther nailed up his theses, to take a most prominent single instance in the movement, the religious currents were soon thrown from their smooth channels ; a period of questioning, denunciation, and experiment ensued. Europe for decades seethed with religious interest. All transitional periods, be they civil wars, democratic movements, or labor upheavals, illustrate the same tendency. The wax- ing and waning of interest varies directly with the need for new adaptations. A period of change thus provides unique opportunity for the guiding hand. Witness the power wielded by Lincoln during the Civil War, the authority of the relief committee's head while the flood is on, the repudiation for the time being of democratic control as the trade- imionists engage in strikes. The dazzling figures of PERIODS OF CHANGE 249 history, — Napoleon, Caesar, Bismarck, Alexander, Gari- baldi, Washington, — are men of transitional eras. Is it likely that the era of change has passed, that, humanity floating without jar on the smooth currents of habit, the power of leaders is to suffer eclipse ? Pos- sibly the world will never again witness the climactic scenes of nation making and reformation and democra- tization. Social control steadily becomes more stabilized ; a sounder core of directive matter is developed in the individual brain. Yet change in itself has not ceased. Even though, like a rotating wheel, the striving millions pursue the same cycle of satisfaction, cumulative by- products sufficient to cause social change are left behind. Nor does each generation reproduce accurately the copies set by its ancestors, another source of gradual change. Especially, however, do such fundamental stim- uli as growth of population, accumulation of wealth, migration, innovation, cross-fertilization of cultures, interaction of groups, conjugation of societies, and al- teration of environment throw new strains upon the social order and require far-reaching adjustments.^ Scarce an executive, be he vice president of a trust company or humble foreman of a grading gang, manages an organization not profoundly in the grip of one or more of these molding forces. And these forces, it is safe to say, will abide for an immeasurably long time. SECURING INTEREST The problem of maintaining interest within an organ- ization, however practical the need, is elusive when one considers methodology.^ But in general it may be 1 Ross, Found, of Soc, Ch. VIII. 2 Angell declares, "When we seek to discover what attributes an object must possess in order to be interesting, we are forced back at once upon uninstructive generalities." Psychology, 364. 250 INTEREST AND APATHY said that a person is interested in whatever seems to afford self-realization. This, of course, is based upon a broad conception, of what constitutes self. "In its widest possible sense," says James,^ " a man's self is the sum total of all that he can call his, not only his body and his psychic powers, but his clothes and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors and friends, his reputation and works, his lands and horses, and yacht and bank account. All these things give him the same emotions. If they wax and prosper, he feels triumphant ; if they dwindle and die away, he feels cast down, — not neces- sarily in the same degree for each thing, but in much the same way for all." According to this view of person- ality, and it is justified by analysis, self-realization be- comes comprehensive. Multitudes of things are inter- twined with self-feeling ; and self-feeling entails interest. Human nature as a whole accepts certain fundamentals as interesting, basic appeals, therefore, being possible among all peoples. At the same time, races and classes vary somewhat in the means chosen for self-realization and the relative emphasis placed upon these. The negro's attention is given to parade and show; gold- headed canes, brass bands, the swagger style, to him represent the humanly desirable. In a municipal cam- paign, the ears of the " faithful " prick up at hints of booty, the sober citizen pays heed to arguments drawn from tax sheets. Because of these variations — and they commonly prevail among groups, nay, even among individuals and in the same individual at different times — choosing the successful appeal requires insight. In the foregoing chapters a wide range of appeals has been considered; from personality to instruction, the various means have been analyzed through which some particular group might elect to realize itself. The * Prin. of Psy.f I, 291-292. RESHAPING SUBORDINATES 251 policy of the executive in making use of these appeals may be indicated by the conduct of Alexander at Issus. He rode down the line, to the Macedonians naming their battle fields and victories, to the Greeks speaking of another Darius overthrown by their forefathers at Marathon, selecting the particular appeal to nerve each phalanx in turn. Similarly Hannibal before Zama prom- ised booty and pay to the mercenaries drawn from many lands of Europe, bade his Italians remember the glory of their former victories under his banner, reminded the Carthaginians of their ancestors and their wives and children. Hannibal, too, was a man of insight. To a certain extent, followers can be reshaped so they will respond favorably to given appeals. Since human nature is plastic, not static, to secure the response desired time only in many cases is necessary. It is merely a matter of months before the newly landed peasant from Slavonia will accept the slogan, " Join the union ! " The Philippine jungle men, whose delight once was only in the shady trees near the road bed, were in due season strenuously laying rails for the " green papers " they first ignored. Subjected to influences long continued, the child who might have been an artist becomes a prosperous merchant, a coal heaver, or a pick- pocket. Imbibed from the milieu are the values we all accept, social products. The stimulus of personahty, suggestion, discipline, and so on, as wielded by an executive, may constitute environment only to a limited degree, but in their whetting of interests they possess the power to form habits — and habits once fixed often find us reacting to interests heretofore alien to our being. The executive, for purposes of interest, has reshaped his subordinates. In this reshaping process, much depends upon the inherent nature of that which is to be impressed. Since 252 INTEREST AND APATHY \ the mind exercises a selective influence upon the numer- ous claimants for attention, some ideas readily fade, disintegrate; others, however, are prepotent, able to dominate consciousness. What of these? In general, j they represent objects of passion, appetite, or emotion, I i.e. instinctive reactions; feelings of pleasure or pain; ideas to whose reaction we have grown accustomed by habit; or ideas of things present or near in time and space. As compared with such objects, in the struggle to possess consciousness all far-off considerations, un- accustomed reasons, and motives alien to the instincts normally are dispossessed. They lack impulsive power and they prevail, when they ever do prevail, with effort.^ Some applications possibly may render the import of these principles clearer. The unseen normally has less power over attention than tactile impressions, such as comfort of clothing, warmth of room. But when to neglect of this unseen once was linked the far more pungent of impressions, the torments of hell fire, thou- sands set out as crusaders; daily sufferings, unusually severe though they were, succumbed before the vivid phrase of the herald, " Help us, Holy Sepulchre ! " The oft-recurring in general is able to discount the 1 James, Prin. of Psy., II, 536. These qualities Professor James, when considering the persistence of an idea even though contradicted, has outlined somewhat more fully as follows : " (i) Coerciveness over attention, or the mere power to possess con- sciousness : then follow — " (2) Liveliness, or sensible pungency, especially in the way of excit- ing pleasure or pain. " (3) Stimulating effect upon the will, i.e. capacity to arouse active impulses, the more instinctive the better ; "(4) Emotional interest, as object of love, dread, admiration, de- sire, etc. ; "(s) Congruity with certain favorite forms of contemplation, — unity, simplicity, permanence, and the like ; "(6) Independence of other causes, and its own causal importance. "These characters run into each other." Ibid., 300. STRONG APPEALS 253 unusual; yet this unusual at times possesses greater motivation than a whole series of the ordinaries. See with what persistence is remembered the assassination of Lincoln, the breaking of the bank at Monte Carlo, the drowning of the boy who ran away from Sunday School to fish, the confession of the conscience-stricken clerk, the impudent machinist hurled down stairs by the " old man." The unusual, if exceptional, gains in impressiveness. Again, the real in toto often possesses less power than as a sign. The laconic command frequently is more impressive in what it leaves out than in what it con- tains. And just as the cartoonist with a few clever strokes sets a Mexican revolution before us, so a scrawled autograph, an image-stirring phrase, a dramatic coup, at times multiplies its power many fold. The imagina- tion is ever ready to leap from trifles to encompass great measures ; and even reasoning itself, if of high order, is a dropping out of steps and a playing with signs. The executive may make the little do service for the much. Li any case, should these various aspects of interest coalesce, their effect is heightened. Saladin, for in- stance, by promises of treasure, spirited exhortations on courage, and tales of the monstrous barbarities in- fliicted by the Franks upon the vanquished, induced his troops, in the face of hunger and incessant assaults, to hold out for seventy-five days. Mohammed, in his famous conquests, united in one effective appeal the grandest scheme of a conqueror, the lust of a freebooter, and the sanctified zeal of an apostle. The Conqueror of Mexico played first on the religious sentiments of his followers, then on their pride as Spaniards, and last and always on their itch for gold. Martin Van Buren — and Jefferson as well — based his political power on a curious but potent mixture of philosophy, states- 254 INTEREST AND APATHY manship, and electioneering. And the pure gospel of the Nazarenewas vulgarized, though at the same time made popular, by combining with its lofty ideahsm crude rewards and punishments and enough illusion to make it go. The summation of tensions thus secured, even were each appeal in itself weak, at last overcomes resistance; a nervous discharge ensues and energy is released. MAINTAINING INTEREST The above will perhaps suffice to indicate, on the basis of the principle given, how in concrete situations inter- est may be secured. It now remains to consider the means by which, when once secured, it may be main- tained. J. Its Current should he Concentrated. — Our con- sciousness, as has been pointed out by Royce, constantly tends to the minimum of complexity and the maximum of definiteness. If things have more than a certain complexity, either our attention falters, allowing the whole mass to go by without discrimination; or we yield to the desire to believe this complexity does not exist, our minds catching at the slightest excuse to postu- late regularity and simplicity. Whoever would hold attention should work in harmony with this tendency of the mind. The public speaker who opens with " There are just two points we need to consider," grips attention from the first; the one who rises to make " a few general remarks " lulls his hearers' alertness, for they have been bored before. The wise leader accordingly concentrates attention upon one problem at a time — the general manager " boils down " his directions ; the advertiser hammers home one argument each issue, leaving others for " a later message " ; the politician selects " paramount " issues. DISTRACTIONS 255 Such clearness and simplicity do not overload interest, but maintain it to the end. 2. Distractions should he Eliminated,, — The mind, as was pointed out above, is selective in its interests ; ignoring some ideas, admitting though minimizing some, magnifying others, it possesses perspective. But this is far from saying that the selections of interest normally coincide with the requirements of our daily tasks. The office boy looks at the special delivery letter, but does it rouse impulses able to contend with the luring sound of the five o'clock bell? Even the executive himself, seated at work-piled desk, dreams for a moment of the griddle cakes served that morning or perchance quite ignores a $10,000 contract when the automobile tire explodes outside, — present-day requirements subju- gated to the claims of racial instincts. Every means, therefore, by which interest and task can be brought into harmony should be employed for » whatever it may be worth. Removing distractions is one of these. Its worst form is merely noise; loco- • motive whistles, elevated trains, automobile horns, street cars, heavy trucks, old-clothes men, fruit venders, newsboys, and construction gangs produce a roar in the street outside, which floating into office or factory and adding itself to the ring of telephones and call bells, click of typewriters, slam of doors, pound of machinery, and sounds of dictation, conversation, and footsteps, din the ears incessantly. Rows of callers, unexpected interruptions, uncertainties, suspicions, fur- ther increase the strain upon attention. The executive, and his subordinates too, beset by these foes of concen- tration, plod along with only a fraction of their full powers doing service, exhausted at night, not because of their achievement, but because of the expenditure of energy in resisting distractions. 256 INTEREST AND APATHY These, however, to a great extent can be eliminated. Anti-noise crusades in the municipality, and in each establishment a careful running of partitions, muffling telephone and call bells, using rubber matting and rubber heels, deadening walls and floors, the removal of plant or office to quiet location, exalting quietness as an ideal, and providing a working schedule according to which one task at a time is taken up and dispatched, all are means by which, distracting influences reduced to a minimum, interest may more easily hold to the task at hand. It is a practical program which any executive bent upon efficiency may well foster. 5. Interest involves Successive Action and Reaction. — Interest is a matter of pulsations, of ebb and flow, there being no such thing as continuous voluntary attention. The nearest approach to it, that which is commonly termed continuous attention, in fact, consists solely in a succession of attempts to hold the topic in consciousness, the mind occup3dng itself first with one phase, then with another, until, should the subject be congenial, hours may pass with interest still engaged.^ The astute auctioneer takes account of this ebb and flow as he urges for higher bids; ^ baseball managers 1 James, op. cit., I, 420-421. * Note how Joseph P. Day, the most successful of real estate auc- tioneers, in the following stenographic report of a sale, observes this law of action and reaction. After commenting favorably upon the property, he asks, "How much am I bid?" "Fifty thousand dollars? Oh, no, thirty thousand, thirty thousand dollars — thirty-five thousand — forty thousand. That is where it should have started. Forty thousand — forty-one thousand — forty- two — forty-four — fifty thousand dollars ! That is where you should have begun to bid. Fifty-one, one, one, one — fifty-two — three — four — five — six — seven — eight — nine — sixty thousand dollars. "That last man is a very cautious person. Sixty-two thousand dollars. [Bidding rises, with several more reaction periods, to eighty thousand.] It is going, the third and last call, at eighty thousand. "Look here, Mr. Shanley, you have the reputation of being one of EBB AND FLOW OF INTEREST 257 have learned that hard-driven teams may be expected to " slump/' that in a crucial series the machine over- keyed is liable at any crisis to " crack " ; politicians find that periods of popular excitement normally are followed by periods of lassitude, hence after a vigorous agitation the wise ones return to country places for the " much-needed vacation" or go on some far hunting expedition. The process apparently is dilatory; but as in heart beat systole cannot be separated from diastole, so through action and reaction interest is maintained. Variety or change, a conmionly used expedient, too frequently involves aimlessness; interest is held but nothing definite is accomplished. This defect is over- come by exhibiting in turn various phases of the same topic. Chancellor Lloyd George, no doubt, seeks to realize in England but one principle, democracy; yet the interesting chancellor is said to have a talent for stirring up things, apparently possessed by no other man in British politics. William Jennings Bryan very likely has drawn more people into his audiences than any other man in all history; free silver, anti-imperialism, guarantee of bank deposits, government ownership, all have been successively embraced in his repertoire. Underneath these, however, the safeguarding of the many against the encroachments of the few seems through the years to have been the sole issue of the perennial Bryan. the best restaurant men in New York. You know what the value of this property will be, backed by your judgment in the restaurant business. Eighty thousand dollars is the price. Are you going to lose your repu- tation as a man of good judgment? "Mr. Shanley has good judgment. Eighty-five thousand dollars. [Bidding continues.] Soldi Sold to Shanley Brothers at ninety-six thousand dollars." Had Mr. Day vigorously forced the bidding without pause, the sell- ing price probably would not have gone higher than seventy thousand. That it went to ninety-six shows how Mr. Day capitalized a psychological principle. 2S8 INTEREST AND APATHY When the successive objects of attention are bound to- gether in rational sequence, interest is maintained and the central topic, branching and budding in the mind, bears a rich fruitage. APATHY Apathy is the obverse of interest, the bog into which those, lost to the narrow path of attention, will wander. Apathy represents the indifferent, lethargic phase of life; interest, the dynamic, propulsive phase. Yet between them is a broad twilight zone, the territory shading from dazzling day to darkest night, in which all organizations now labor. Their effectiveness, depending both upon the relative position they now hold and the direction in which they tend, affords opportunity for the executive's skill. He would have his organization approach interest and quit apathy, and fortunately this is not impossible. EXERCISES 1. Should an executive enforce systematic rest periods? Maintain a lunch room? 2. Which consumes more energy, what one does or what he resists doing in order to concentrate? 3. Illustrate the operation in specific cases of the various causes of change. (See page 24^.) 4. Harmonize the opposing claims, "The times produce the leaders needed," and "Leaders shape the times." 5. Show how the victory of the Japanese over the Russians was influenced by the previous knowledge each had of the other. 6. Analyze the elements in the appeal of a politician, an adver- tiser, a preacher, and a labor organizer. Illustrate successful appeal. Ill-chosen appeal. READINGS James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology, Chs. X, XI, XIV. CHAPTER XXI The Arousing of Opposition "The world ever loves to charge those as mad who, in devo- tion to a great cause, exceed its cold standard of moderation." — William Ware. Apathy is frequently followed by opposition. The organization, no longer content with passivity, in a more positive way would limit its chief by bringing adverse pressure to bear upon him. Indifference is exchanged for constraint. This constraint may be due to friendly rivalry, contrary suggestion, or instinc- tive hostility, but its most proUfic source is what may be rather broadly termed a sense of difference. Every one knows what this sense of difference is like, the feeling that somehow the other person is out of touch. In every organization, due to association and cooperation, the interplay of suggestion, sympathy, common ideals, and the like, certain similarities are developed in our group to which the outsider is unmis- takably alien. Perpetuated by habit, these similarities come to take on binding force. The old organization is overgrown with conservatism, and the guiding rule of its members is what has been done before. But every organization, necessarily so, as has been shown, is in the grip of change and must continually make new adjustments. The innovator, be he political reformer with a new justice or a department manager yearning for greater efficiency, urges, even forces, for- 259 26o THE AROUSING OF OPPOSITION ward his new plan. What characteristic effects upon the group members does this entail? They are Pained. — " One of the greatest pains to human nature/' says Bagehot/ " is the pain of a new idea. It is, as common people say, so ' upsetting ' ; it makes you think that, after all, your favourite notions may be wrong, your firmest beliefs ill-founded; it is certain that till now there was no place allotted in your mind to the new and startling inhabitant, and now that it has conquered an entrance, you do not at once see which of your old ideas it will or will not turn out, with which of them it can be reconciled, and with which it is at essential enmity. Naturally, therefore, common men hate a new idea, and are disposed more or less to ill treat the original man who brings it.'' This is not to be wondered at. A carpenter with hammer and saw, in the opinion of its former owner devastating the old mansion, is yet not more ruthless than this new idea at work upon the mental furbishings of the past. Its havoc is like unto physical injury. They are Alarmed. — They see here an attempt to set at naught the group habits, these being their most precious conserving agency, the social cement which holds each man to an allotted task within his profession and his class, the enormous fl3nvheel which alone insures uniformity and regularity. For these habits are based upon what has, to all appearances, been done safely many times. Security, apparently, is ever on the side of the backward look. The innovator would walk the hitherto untrodden path, a venture fraught with danger not only to himself, but to those with whom he lives. He offers, even urges, uncertainty and dread . Is this necessarily so ? Safe inno- vation, the accurate positing of oneself into the unknown, * Physics and Politics, 163-164. CRANK OR GENIUS? 261 depends upon knowledge and foresight. Until promised land shall have become as accurately plotted as ancestral fields, the new will continue synonymous with the in- secure ; and such wisdom, it is safe to say, will not be brought about in our time. They are Repelled. — Their reigning set of values the group believes to be violated. These may be economic values, threatened by the mining promoter, the stock jobber, the spendthrift, the burglar. Or political values may be brought to the fore, jeopardized by the " bag man," the demagogue, the lobbyist, the " boss." Or again it may be (esthetic values, trampled upon by the boor, the newly rich, the artist freak, the gaudy fash- ioned. Or ethical values, perhance, are endangered by the franchise getter who tenders two hundred thousand for the new church edifice, the corporation lawyer with legislative position, the contractor on the board of edu- cation, the wine-bibber in the cabinet. These men, no doubt, are extreme examples, and it may seem not difficult, perhaps, for groups to set their faces as flint against them. Yet similarly stoned they the prophets. It is the man now a misfit, good or bad, who repels his fellow group members, the future alone being able to rank him definitely fool or genius. About its innovator, this misfit who causes pain, alarm, and repulsion, his organization would throw its noose. Its repression, indicated by coldness, criticism, withholding funds, denunciation, ridicule, contempt, hatred, in fact, if considered necessary, by the use of every device of social control, bears in upon him. The concrete pro- cess is illustrated in all biographies and set forth in every daily paper. Having examined its causes, we turn now to the second part of our inquiry, how high shall this opposition mount. Two factors are here involved, one being the width of 262 THE AROUSING OF OPPOSITION variation which it is sought to impose. Should the immi- gration question, for example, be under discussion, the legislator who advocated a stricter disease test would naturally arouse less opposition than he who would refuse entrance to any alien whatever. Analyzing this factor, the width of variation, as it appears in practice, we find it normally represented by three different elements. Firstj the Speed Element. — The reforming Emperor Joseph II of Austria, a zealot penetrated by eighteenth- century ideas as to the duties of an absolute monarch, began to carry out his measures in a fearless and almost revolutionary spirit. He ran new district lines through his domain irrespective of the various nationaUties, refused to be crowned king of Hungary, would not sum- mon the Hungarian diet, and proclaimed German as the official language. Among other reforms, he abolished serfdom, established common tribunals, softened the penal code, issues new codes based on the principle that all citizens are equal before the law, transferred the censorship of books from the clergy to laymen of liberal sympathies, granted complete freedom to the press, and issued an edict of toleration, guaranteeing freedom of worship to all Protestants and to members of the Greek church. He instituted pubHc libraries and obser- vatories, foimded a medical college, a university, and schools for the middle classes, and encouraged art by offering prizes. He fostered industry and trade by destroying many monopolies, aiding in the establish- ment of new manufactures, making Fiume a free harbor, and opening the Danube to his subjects from its source to the Black Sea.^ In fact, as we ponder the manifold activities of Joseph II, the speed at which he brought about reforms, one is tempted to scorn the clumsy mil- lion-headed Demos and long for an abrupt, Jovian * Cf. Ross, Soc. Psy., 300-302. CHANGES SLOWLY CONSUMMATED 263 intervention, ourselves perhaps, at least our hero, as the intervener. Joseph II was such an efl&dency expert ! All his changes were well meant, but the emperor, in the ardor of his convictions, had not developed the skill- ful and sympathetic subordinates required to carry his good intentions into fruitful practice, nor did he realize how far he had shot ahead of the prevailing sentiment of his people. Discontent soon manifested itself in nearly every part of the monarchy ; there was rebellion in Tyrol, furious conflicts in Hungary between peasantry and nobles, persistent opposition in the Austrian Nether- lands, a feeling of license and dread throughout the empire. So precarious was Joseph's position that he had to imdo almost everything he had attempted to accomplish during the previous nine years; and the monarch who hoped to have regenerated a people, in his last days was rendered miserable by the conviction that his career had been a failure. Thoroughgoing changes must needs be slow ; the mind is not a mushroom growth, and the heritage of any or- ganization has been builded bit by bit. A rapid pace within a relatively slow-moving organization necessarily means increase of friction. Second, the Interest Element. — Any man whose life span is long will at some stage of his career be almost certain to be opposed, due to the fact that the arc of the indi- vidual mind cannot possibly he superimposed in its entirety upon that of an organization. Usually these arcs coincide for a brief period ; theoretically, they touch only at one point. A statistical investigation will make this truth clearer.^ 1 This investigation was undertaken during my senior year as an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin, and the results, of which the following is a summary, entitled Correlation between Periods of Reformation Activity and the Leadership of Young Men, 1909, are on file 264 THE AROUSING OF OPPOSITION ^ In society innovations are always at battle with folk- ways? No advance would be possible were this not true, for progress consists in an orderly substitution of the less-adapted old by the more-serviceable new. But this substitution, though gradual, is subject to pulsa- tions. ^At times, conservatism dominates, and things remain pretty much as they are; at other times, pro- gressivism secures the ascendancy"^ and a period of un- usually rapid change follows. ^ During these reformation epochs what age of men rise to positions of authority ? Selecting ten great periods of reform as representa- tive,^ in each reform choosing the twelve leading men directing it,^ tabulating the ages of these men,^ and com- paring them with the average ages of non-reformers, national leaders during quiet epochs, selected in essen- tially the same way, the results have been foimd to be as follows : 'J at the University Library. Mr. Brooks Adams, in his book The Theory of Social Revolutions, published in 1913, advances a much similar hypothesis, stated in these words: "No established type of mind can adapt itself to changes in environment, even in slow-moving civilizations, as fast as environments change. Thus a moment arrives when the minds of any given dominant type fail to meet the demands upon them and are superseded by a younger type, which in turn is set aside by another still younger, imtil the limit of the administrative genius of that partic- ular race has been reached. Then disintegration sets in." 1 Commencing with the Protestant Reformation in 161 7 it includes the most important movements since then, closing with the Turkish Revolution of 1909. * A much larger list was first compiled, and from this list were taken the twelve to whom most space had been devoted in the biographical cyclopedia. ' This proved to be the most difficult of all, the deciding upon, as a basis for finding his age, the particular time at which each individual was exerting upon his period a maximum influence. In the case of a reformer this would not necessarily mean the maximum influence of his entire life, but simply of the reformation period in which he took part. The decision, though difficult, is essential, for it would surely be unscientific to compare their entire life spans, and manifestly impossible to detect the first entrance into consciousness of the reformation impulse. THE AGES OF LEADERS 265 The Protestant Reformation was led by zealous church- men whose average age was thirty-eight;^ but at other times the church has moved quietly along under the careful hand of sixty-six. ^ Men of forty-two arose to leadership during the Puritan Revolution,' leaving it to men of sixty- three to guide England during quiet times.* Our own forefathers, in the Revolution of 1776, aver- aged less thanl forty years of age ; ^ our second group of * Luther 43, Melanchthon 30, Calvin 40, Zwingli 42, Knox 47, Carl- stadt 41, Hutten 30, Bucer 45, Latimer 49, Farel 41, Hamilton 24, and Osiander 24. Average age 38. 2 Leo IX 50, Gregory 157, Gregory VII 58, Innocent III 46, Nicholas V 54, Julius II 65, Leo X 42, Adrian 63, Clement VII 54, Pius X (Sarto) 68, Gotti 69, Oreglia 75, Rampolla 60, Svampa 52, Venmetelli 69. Aver- age 66. In this list of fifteen, four are names of the most important popes during the long history of the Church, five held office during or near the time of the Reformation, the tenth is that of the late pope, while the remaining five were his closest competitors in the papal election. The age of the pope is given at the date midway between his election and death. It also appears from the above list that the average ages of the popes is 55.7 years, almost eleven years less than the general average for the entire fifteen. This may be accounted for by the fact that sev- eral of these popes were vigorous reformers too. For example, Innocent III, whose aggressive policies extended papal authority more widely than ever before, drew forth this comment upon his election at the age of 37, **Alas, the Pope is too young: help. Lord, thy Christendom." And that it is the policy to elect old men is seen in the cardinals' refusal at the recent conclave to elect the popular and efficient Rampolla, giv- ing as a reason, "He is too young; he can wait until next time." Too young at sixty ! ^ Cromwell 42, Eliot 49, Hampden 47, Holies 42, Hyde 32, Ireton 30, Lenthall 50, Pym 57, Prynne 41, Strode 42, Waller 44, and Vane 28. Average age 42. * Pitt 59, Melbourne 59, Peel 54, Russell 64, Derby 62, Aberdeen 70, Palmerton 76, Disraeli 73, Gladstone 72, Salisbury 65, Rosebery 47, Campbell-Bannerman 70, Asquith (1909) 56. Average 63.6. The date selected for arriving at the ages of these prime ministers has been the year midway between their accession to ofl&ce and the closing of their term. ^ John Adams 40, Samuel Adams 49, Benedict Arnold 36, Benjamin FraiJdin 72, Nathanael Greene 39, Patrick Henry 29, John Jay 33, Thomas Jefferson 33, John Paul Jones 32, Lafayette 24, Robert Morris 47, Washington 44. Average 39.8. 266 THE AROUSING OF OPPOSITION reformers, some seventy-five years later, the Anti- Slavery Agitators, averaged forty-one ; ^ while at other times American destiny has been intrusted to men averaging well above fifty-three.^ Liberty, EquaHty, Fraternity, were secured in the French Revolution by a group averaging only thirty- eight and a half,^ though at other times French leaders have averaged over fifty-nine.^ The Regeneration of Prussia was wrought by men of forty-six and six tenths years ^ ; quiet epochs see men of sixty-one and eight tenths ^ advance to places of re- sponsibility. 1 J. G. Biraey 48, John Brown 48, Cassius Clay 40, Frederick Douglass 35, William Lloyd Garrison 26, Joshua Giddings 53, Elijah Lovejoy 35, Lucretia Mott 47, Wendell Phillips 28, Gerritt Smith 53, Charles Storrs 38, Harriet Beecher Stowe, 41. Average age 41. * The lists for United States include the presidents and eighteen speakers of the house, the age given being that midway in their term of ofl&ce. When this makes a half year it is rated a year in every other instance. Washington 61, John Adams 64, Jefferson 62, Madison 62, Monroe 63, Adams 60, Jackson 66, Van Buren 57, Harrison 66, Tyler 53, Polk 53, Taylor 65, Fillmore 51, Pierce 51, Buchanan 68, Lincoln 54, Johnson 59, Grant 51, Hayes 57, Garfield 50, Arthur 53, Cleveland 54, McKinley 56, Roosevelt 47, Taft (191 2) 55. Average age of presidents 57.5. Winthrop 38, Cobb 35, Boyd 53, O'Brien 36, Orr 36, Pennington 64, Grow 39, Colfax 43, Baline 41, Kerr 48, Randall 50, Keifer 46, Carlisle 51, Crisp 48, Reed 54, Henderson 61, Cannon 71. Average age of speakers 47.8. General average 53.6. ' Siey^s 42, Desmoulins 31, Mirabeau 41, Lafayette 34, Danton 33, Marat 49, Hubert 38, Dumouriez 53, Cambon 39, Robespierre 33, Camot 40, Napoleon 30. Average 38.5. * Catherine de Medici 61, Admiral Coligny 52, Duke of Sully 50, Cardinal Richelieu 57, Cardinal Mazarin 57, Colbert 61, Duke of Choiseul 51, Turgot 49, Guizot 60, Louis Napoleon 58, Thiers 75, MacMahon 68, Gr6vy 79, Sadi Camot 57, P6rier 47, Faure 56, Loubet 65, Failli^res 67. Average age 59.4. The above list comprises nine presidents of France and an equal number of statesmen who held positions of importance during the preceding age. 'Amdt 42, Bliicher 69, Boyen 40, Clauswitz 31, Fichte 49, Gnei- senau 51, Grolman 34,Hardenberg6i,Niebuhr 35, Schamhorst 56, Schon 38, Stein 54. Average 46.6. * Ancillon 67, Kamptz 60, Schmalz 53, Witzleben 51, Wittgenstein 57, Wrangle 64, Von Moltke 70, Von Roon 60, Bismarck 61, Von Capri vi 61, REFORMERS AND NON-REFORMERS 267 In the modernizing of Japan the yellow race proves itself no exception to the rule with leaders under thirty- nine,^ nor is a different result seen in the Awakening of China by men of practically the same age.^ In the last few years the Revolution in Russia has been the work of men in their forties,^ reformers whose radical measures have been resisted by conservatives of fifty-eight^; and in the Orient a similar result is wit- nessed when the Yoimg Turks are found to be young Turks indeed, reformers of thirty-two.^ Prince Hohenlohe 78, Count von Bulow (1909) 60. Average age 61.8. The above list comprises six conservatives whose reactionary leadership prolonged the struggle for a constitutional government from 181 5 until the outbreak of revolution in 1848, two important ministers, and the four chancellors of Germany. ^ The Mikado 27, Fukuzawa Youkicki 47, Ito Hirobumi 38, Iwakura Tomoni 43, Itagaki Taisuke 40, Kido Takayoshi 43, Mori Arinori 33, Okubo Toshimichi 44, Okuma Shigenobu 34, Saigo Takamori 47, Shibu- sawa Erchi 33, Yamada Akiyoshi 37. Average age 38.8. Owing to the inadequate historical materials at hand regarding Japan, China, and Turkey, in the case of reforms in these countries the reformers are given while quiet-epoch leaders are omitted : the averages for these countries are later compared with the averages for the other countries. ' Chiang Ping Lun 30, Chin Tien Whah 25, Emperor Kang-shu 24, Julen Khelan Yenfu 40, Kang Yu Wei 40, Lee Hung Chang 60, Liang- Chi-chio 26, Ma Liang 70, Sun Yat Sun 45, The Prince Regent 27, Yang Tu 30, Yuon Li Kan 48. Average age 38.7. The above ages are esti- mates kindly furnished me by Chinese students. ' Aladin 33, Alexander Petrunkievitch 62, Alexinsky 32, Father Gapoy 67, Father Petrof 45, Gerus 32, Herzenstein 55, Jollos 46, Maxim Gorke 38, Osol 32, Prince Michael Trubeczkoi 52, Vinaver 43. Average age 44,7. Numbers 5, 6, 8 and 10 are estimates furnished me by Russian students. * Admiral Alexiff 62, Grand Duke Alexis Alesandrovitch 56, Prince Michael Khilhoff 63, Grand Duke Michael Nicholaivitch 64, Grand Duke Nicolas Nicholaivitch 50, Plehve 60, Pobiedonostseff 79, Grand Duke Sergius (died 1905) 48, Stolypin 46, Trepoff 51, Grand Duke Vladimir 59. Average age 58. * Enver Bey, Niyazi, Ahmed Riza Pasha, Djavid Talleat Bey, Achmet Bey, Kiamil Pasha, Hilmi Pasha, Miniassi Befik Bey, Ali, Selim. Aver- age age (estimated) 32. For this estimate I am greatly indebted to Mr. Charles Roden Buxton, author of Turkey in Revolution^ and Dr. James 268 THE AROUSING OF OPPOSITION The results may be summarized in the following table ^ AGES OF REFORMERS AND NON-REFORMERS Reformers Non- reformers Difference IN Ages Protestant Reformation 38 66 28 Puritan Revolution 42 63.6 21.6 Revolution of 1776 39-8 54.5 14.7 French Revolution 38.5 59-4 20.9 Regeneration of Prussia 46.6 61.8 15-2 Anti-Slavery Agitators 41 54.S 13.5 Modernizing of Japan 38.8 Awakening of China 38.7 Revolution in Russia 44-7 58 13.3 Turkey 32 J Fig. 13. The above table makes evident that in every case reformers are decidedly younger men than non-reformers'^ No particular emphasis is laid upon the amount of dif- ference shown. It is realized that strict statistical accuracy is impossible in an investigation of this nature, and discriminating critics, no doubt, will find reason to disagree on several points in the foregoing tables. In no case, however, is it believed that such disagreement would seriously affect the results. For[it is felt certain that any one who works through similar material will concur in the main with the conclusions from this evi- dence presented, the statement of which is as follows : (i) Reformers do not differ materially in age from one period to another. '\ Those who led the Protestant L. Barton, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Boston, Massachusetts. YOUTHFUL REFORMERS 269 Revolution four hundred years ago were approximately the same age as the reformers of later times. r(2) Daring young leaders plunge a nation into the foment of change; conversely, new conditions call forth aggressive innovators."] Henry Clay, at thirty-four, the head of a band of bold young Western leaders, brought on the war of 181 2. Thirty-nine years later, grown conservative, the Great Pacificator championed the Compromise of 1850. With the passing of Clay, Web- ster, and Calhoun, new leaders rose whose advent was followed by the Civil War. C (3) Youthful reformers later in life become conserv- ative,^ Japan's marvelous progress was stimulated thirty years ago by the same men who, now grown con- servative, are opposing the reforms which younger leaders are desiring to consummate. Hence arises that most pathetic figure, the once ardent reformer now through age transformed in temper, yet unable to realize that what he advocates has been superseded long since, and sorely wounded by the darts of " mossbackism " he once hurled at others. He is an alien prophet whose shouts of " Lo, here ! " " Lo, there ! " no one heeds. I (4) The old men occasionally found active as reformers are usually following their youthful bent. ^ Pym, given in the foregoing lists as a reformer at fifty-seven, broke with Charles I twenty years earlier, a reformer at thirty- seven. Bliicher, given as a reformer at sixty-nine, then displayed the same aggressive willfulness as at eighteen. Kiamil Pasha, a Young Turk of eighty-four, has always had very liberal ideas. And Petrunkievitch's age of sixty-two seems difficult to reconcile until the fact appears that he has been an active agitator for thirty- eight years, a reformer at twenty-four. C (5) Reforms are wrought by youth; old age governs during quiet epochs. 1 This is the main conclusion to 270 THE AROUSING OF OPPOSITION be drawn from the foregoing evidence. Its correlative may be stated as follows : C (6) The degree of conservatism characterizing an epoch may he roughly measured by the ages of its leaders J The requirement, it will be noted from our present point of view, is set by the many, the multitude who, contributing sentiment and stability, secures its ends through a shrewd choice of leaders. The man shall not be chosen whose years declare him out of touch with the current need. It is this last point, this being in touch with current need, and not merely the element of age, which at bottom the foregoing investigation has emphasized. This gives interest, and interest insures the readier in- corporation of all variations, that haven sought through storm and stress by those who direct. But because the individual passes from youth through maturity into old age more rapidly than does his organization, he is nec- essarily out of touch part of the time and hence boimd to arouse opposition. Third, the Distance between Fact and Representation. — When a leader eludes suspicion and, deftly sidestepping judgment, appeals direct to credulity, he often pushes expectancy to strange extremes. But a collapse is inmiinent at any time. The career of John Law in France is a notable instance of this sort. Some three hundred years ago. Law, a handsome, dig- nified, and gentlemanly Scotchman, proposed to the Parisians a most enticing financial scheme. Its basis was inflation, yet it took the French by storm. A frenzy for speculation ensued. Professional speculators, cred- itors of the government, noblemen, churchmen, com- moners, and servants whom their suddenly acquired fortune had filled with the hope of rivaling their masters, all classes cherishing the same illusions, crowded into the CAREER OF JOHN LAW 271 fwe Guincampaix. As the rents increased manyfold, residences were converted into offices by the stock- jobbers, and merchants gave up their shops ; a cobbler, converting his stall into an office by placing in it some stools, a table, and a writing desk, rented it for two hundred francs a day. The brokers, organized into regular swindling com- panies, " bulHsh " or " bearish " at the sound of a bell signaled from the office of one Papillon, reaped a harvest never since equaled, even by Wall Street. A million francs were sometimes made in a day. Servants at times became suddenly rich as their masters, it being related that one of them, meeting his master in the rain, stopped his carriage to offer him a seat. In a few months all were fascinated by this wild illusion. The shares had mounted to thirty times the original price, and no one stopped to consider what was the foundation of this enormous wealth. In the eyes of the wondering crowd. Law, as the author of such prodigies, became a chimerical being, superhuman, a demigod to be reverently worshiped by the throngs, overwhelmed with flatteries in prose and verse, his very servants courted, and he himself so beset with adulation that he had no repose, day or night. The collapse was sharp. An acute financial crisis spread ruin among the investors. The suddenly made rich were even more suddenly beggared, and all would find a scapegoat. Law's house was mobbed, his carriage broken to pieces by street rioters, he himself insulted and intrigued against. " I am," he said, " like the chicken with golden eggs, who was worth no more, dead, than a common fowl." ^ All movements in which feeling predominates are * Thiers, John Law and the Mississippi Bubble, especially Ch. v. 272 THE AROUSING OF OPPOSITION liable to mount to unstable heights. The lynching mob, the rioting strikers, the frenzied revivalists, the political paraders, the ardent revolutionists, breed leaders who fear to be moderate. Social sanity for the time being is abandoned. But not for long. Rationality in the end is co-worker with efficiency ; a reaction soon or later is certain to occur, and a new leader, a man of reason, thereupon is thoughtfully crowned. We have now considered the width of variation, con- ditioned as it is by the speed limit, the interest element, and the distance between fact and representation; it remains in conclusion to note the second of the two factors upon which the height of opposition depends, viz. the degree of force with which these variations are urged. The executive intent on increasing output or lowering expenses or introducing his new scheme of management cannot alone batter down the inertia of habit-bound men nor withstand their general opposi- tion. But he can win a few to his cause, with these few force in other adherents, until his party, swelled into a dominant power, overrides the none too vigilant major- ity. This is all the more readily possible because men normally differentiate into interest groups, gangs, cliques, factions, sects, parties, and classes. While owning a general allegiance to the entire organization, these grant special allegiance to the particular part with which their interests are closest. Such were the intriguers of Florence, the barbarian invaders of Rome, the followers of Luther in Germany, the Committee of Safety during the French Revolution, the trade unions and the trusts of our day, the special interest groups which spring up in church conferences, factories, or commercial concerns. These inner groups, loyally devoted to the man who furthers their cause, SPECIAL INTERESTS 273 be he president serving stockholders though " the public be damned," or boss plentifully feeding the system, serve as an organized form of repression upon the larger group outside. The larger group has always viewed with concern the development within itself of an apparently revolutionary organization, waxing in prosperity and power, whose success is accounted ominous. And the force visited upon this larger group, it has sought to hurl back upon the aggressor. Thus has developed the fraud, pomp, prescription, and superstition with which a ruling class would master the masses, and similarly is to be explained the pennant- winning team and peerless sales and factory organizations torn with internal dissension. But by this same means, this use of force, groups of men have attained goals which otherwise would have remained only visions. The deduction to be drawn from this chapter, in conse- quence, is that he who selects a narrow variation and pushes it with little force is not necessarily the wise man- ager. In this way, it is true, he meets with slight re- sistance, yet he never brings large things to pass. A far better policy than no opposition is little opposition in proportion to gains made, and, however fruitful the variation and ready the force, stopping short of being overwhelmed. Due to this aim, a knowledge of oppo- sition's causes and possible height does not serve peace so much as effectiveness. EXERCISES 1. Why has the introduction of scientific management often been followed by hostility in the shops? Why does organized labor oppose scientific management? 2. What American careers comparable to John Law's? 274 THE AROUSING OF OPPOSITION 3. Show that the exchange of methods of advertising by bankers and circuses would be mutually disastrous. 4. How was it that Luther so readily inaugurated the Refor- mation ? 5. What policy should be pursued in reference to complaints? 6. Why did Columbus arouse opposition, and by what means was he opposed ? Cyrus McCormick ? William Jennings Bryan ? READINGS CooLEY, Human Nature and the Social Order, Ch. VH. White, History oj the Warfare oj Science with Theology, Ch. I. CHAPTER XXII Competitors "Nothing is easier than to admit in words the truth of the uni- versal struggle for life, or more difl&cult than constantly to bear this conclusion in mind." — Charles Darwin. Competition develops because there are not enough places for all who would rule, the various aspirants necessarily running afoul of one another. These compet- itors are of two possible sorts : unlike, as minister and amusement manager vie for the same man's presence; and like, as when representative of German bridge builder and representative of American bridge builder seek contracts from a South African railroad. A nec- essary preliminary, therefore, is this classification of one's opponents. attitude of contestants In entering upon a contest, one may take the initiative, or he may leave this to his opponent, or both may attack simultaneously. In other words, these attitudes are presented : I. A denies or opposes B, but B does not deny or op- pose A} — At times A is the innovator intent on reshap- ing things. He looses the first broadside, because there will be no struggle until he does, and waiting irritates * For the phraseology of these terms I am indebted to Ross,5oc. Psy.j 317, 318. See also Tarde, La logique socicUe, 138-141. 27s 276 COMPETITORS one of his temperament. Sometimes the shot he fires is heard round the world, as Luther in his attack on Rome, Garrison indicting slavery, Jesus upbraiding the Pharisees; sometimes not, as millions of nameless opponents through the centuries could testify. At times B is the innovator, desiring for the time being only sufferance in order that, under cover, he may survey the field and station his outposts. Antony, a meek and sorrowing friend, a plain blunt man who speaks right on, nears the close of his oration before he defiantly shouts, " Here was a Caesar ! when comes such another? " The nephew of Napoleon, then a penniless adventurer backed only by the prestige of a great name, heralded on his way to the National Assembly by " Vive Louis Napoleon ! Vive I'Empereur ! " received by his colleagues, however, in deep silence, prefaced thus his maiden speech : " Receive me into your ranks, dear colleagues. You need not doubt that my conduct will always be inspired by respectful adherence to the law; it will prove to all who have endeavored to traduce me that no one is more devoted than I to the defense of order and the consohdation of the Republic " — an adroit move toward the imperial honors he then coveted and later held as Napoleon III. Powers in the bud court protection from the withering criticism which later they withstand with ease. Two policies similarly are open to the well-established. It may pay no attention whatever to the newcomer, thereby suggesting the latter's insignificance and its own self-sufficiency. Or it may destroy the competitor in his chrysalid state, applying in thoroughgoing fashion the view that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Obviously, the practical wisdom of eaci policy depends upon a correct estimation of the competitor in relation to oneself. If he is destined to be harmless, let ATTACKING THE COMPETITOR 277 him destroy himself or leave the deed to others. Should it mean later a death grapple, wrestle early. His Holi- ness the Pope might well have chided himself over his first dilatory tactics with Luther; so might the trust magnate chide himself should he snap up the factory built merely for competitive blackmail. In this type of contest there is not only a utilization of the time element, because of which in reality many a victory has been won before the first shot, but there is often the added advantage of devolving upon an oppo- nent the initiative of conflict. Caesar so maneuvered that, while himself keeping on legal ground, he compelled Pompey to declare war and that as a revolutionary leader opposed in his tactics by a majority of the senate. The advantage is considerable, often representing the sole difference between a waxing and a waning cause. The assailer courts repulsion, the defender tends to draw aid imto himself. 2. A and B mutually deny and oppose One Another. — Each side boldly asserts its claims, declares also its absolute incompatibility with the other. Temporizing poKcies thereupon are abandoned, a decision must be made and adhered to, and an alignment thereupon takes place. Each individual comes to realize not only his own opinion, but also that there are others holding contrary views. This in turn intensifies his own con- viction, widens the breach between himself and opposers, and makes him a zealot in uniting all wavering ones to his cause. The attack on Sumter unified North against South, South against North, and this was followed by the dislodging of one border state after another from its assumed position of neutrality. The war with Spain united all factions behind a Republican administration and did much to recement North and South; the struggle against corrupt rings has shown marvelous 278 COMPETITORS power to weld diverse elements in our municipalities; the sales force, brushing against the enemy day by day, possesses a determined loyalty to the house not grown among factory operatives who know not what it is all about.^ When Greek meets Greek every one does know what it is about, and along the rank and file all is expec- tancy. It is pleasant to achieve, but never so stirring as when others seek that which we would have. The contest itself is carried on much like a military campaign. There is the surprise, the feint, the crushing blow, the flank movement, the reserve attack, the antic- ipatory movement, even at times not a Kttle of spy and traitor. But good strategy demands, one must never overlook, that at all times one's resources be valued not in themselves, but in relation to the opponent's, and in general the style of contest be developed in which our best weapons are available, thus pitting strength against weakness. COMPETITIVE WEAPONS Since the object of competition is to win those of contrary views over to our own, the place of contest is really within the individual consciousness. The mind, because of its primitive credulity, has gathered to itself the strongest assortment, superstitions, gaudy imagery, odds and ends of percepts, concepts in all stages of completion, a veritable jungle in which perforce the fiercest natural enemies often slumber undisturbed.^ To such a mind each competitor now addresses his respective appeal. Doubt and inquiry are raised. Con- sciousness is filled with unrest, prone to act merely ^ An interesting suggestion comes from one manufacturer who, in full view of his factory windows, nailed upon the high board fence his competitor's "hide." • James, Prin. of Psy., II, 299. SECURING DECISION 279 because decision relieves the tension of doubt and is agreeable, yet dreading the irrevocable and hence hesitant. How is a competitor to end this irresolution and secure from the person's will the decision he desires ? Evidently by rousing and guiding the mind, for will is merely the whole mind active} Now the means to do this have been considered in Part II with such detail that they need not be further discussed. By their use, the instincts, emotions, and intellect are stirred, and irresolution passes into resolu- tion. It might seem that competition is then at an end, but this step is rather preliminary than final. The individual mind, acting upon its conviction, allies itself with those of similar conviction and action, and opposes those of contrary beliefs. Competition is not ended but broadened. TYPES OF CONTEST In this competition, every element of motivation — personality, suggestion, rewards, instruction, etc. — in reahty enters into combination or opposition with every other element, obviously a very complex proced- ure. But for the sake of clearer presentation, may not these be grouped into fewer yet still typical forms of contest? This is possible. The various instinctive and emotional appeals may be combined into one and termed prestige ^ ; the intellectual appeals similarly may be termed logic. In the struggle evolved by compe- tition, consequently, these two elements may give rise to the three following types of contest : * Angell, Psy., 379. ' Tarde, Laws of Imitation, 141 ; Ross, Soc. Psy., 297-299. Ross' use of the term "merit" does not seem to me justifiable, since merit may rest with either side. 28o COMPETITORS I. Prestige against Prestige. — Each opponent bedecks himself in all possible prestige conferring insignia. Such impressive adjuncts as ponderous tones, piercing eye, beetle brow, authoritative carriage, decorations granted by imperial decree, sword worn on many a hard-fought field, are lavishly displayed; though an opponent, shrewdly sensing the popular mind, finds that power also adheres in the sack suit and battered gray hat, in being a plain man of " the people " or in living close to his men. When in poHtics prestige opposes prestige, hired " spellbinders '' harangue whoever will hear ; floods of lithographs, campaign buttons, " facts about those del- egates," becloud the issue ; " Truth Tellers " track the leading opponent from state to state; in the closing days of the campaign men of " influence '' invade the doubtful territory; at the last moment a tremendous " roar " is loosed. Defeat, if experienced, is explained away, the appearance of victory is maintained; and redoubled, though perhaps quieter, effort wards off the threatened collapse. In general, each side seeks to buttress up its cause through apparent possession of authority, wealth, position, or whatever else is hiunanly desirable. Cortes in Mexico was " Chief -Justice and Captain- General of the Municipality of Vera Cruz," a mere fiction of his own creation. William the Silent solemnly declared himself " Stadtholder of Holland, Zealand, and Utrecht," even while another had been appointed and legally he himself was a rebel. Frederick II, in the eyes of the pope a wicked and lost wanderer, addressed himself, or encouraged his followers to address him, in such mod- est titles as " Vicar of God on Earth," the " Reformer of the Age," a new " EHjah discomfiting the priests of Baal." Bonaparte, the plebeian, contracted marriage with a princess, imperial blood for twenty generations, WEAPONS WHICH BEDAZZLE 281 seeing to it, also, that his coronation was graced by the spiritual presence of His Holiness the Pope. The emperor, moreover, by himself placing the iron crown upon his head in such august presence, suggested that none other earthly personage was so exalted. It is an often-worked plan. In consequence, current claims of lineage, achievements, wealth, abiHty, and intentions frequently remind one of Mark Twain's witty refutation, " I find the reports of my death grossly exaggerated." Next to being mighty oneself is to be in close league with the mighty ; one can then at least reflect an alien luster. So highly was esteemed the privilege of forming a part of Louis XIV's society, that opportunities to ap- proach the king in such menial capacities as domestic in his household, as usher, cloak bearer, or valet, even in 1789 were eagerly purchased for thirty, forty, at times a hundred thousand livres. The ambitious angler for social position flushes proud as she displays on her card tray pasteboards from one of the Smart Set ; countless humble shopkeepers announce " Purveyor to His Royal Majesty " ; the ward " boss " passes around the word that he also is backed by speakers and money from a " swell " source ; and the rulers are legion who have emphatically announced, " God is on our side." The implication is clear: What the mighty have approved let none other seek to question. As prestige clashes with prestige it is not in the nature of things a marshaling of arguments. The emotions rise, the contest degenerates. Van Buren's foes shouted with furor, " Van, Van, a used-up man " ; Clay's enemies circulated upon every occasion that most vital of politi- cal lies — " the bargain between Puritan and black- leg " ; Lincoln was described as *' an ignorant country lawyer, reeking with filthy stories " ; even his more temperate critic addressed Daniel O'Connell as, 282 COMPETITORS "Scum condensed of Irish boy ! Ruffian — coward — demagogue ! Boundless liar — base detractor ! Nurse of murder, treason's factor ! Spout thy filth — effuse thy slime ! Slander is in thee no crime." Wyclif s enemies called him not merely a glutton when he ate and a hypocrite when he fasted, but a turncoat, a mirror of hypocrites, a fabricator of lies, John Wicked- believe, an instrument of the devil ; the pope, according to Frederick II, was " a Pharisee anointed with the oil of iniquity and sitting in a seat of corrupt judgment, a false vicar of Christ and deceiving serpent/' Charges and counter charges; epithets and shouts of "liar," " scoundrel," " traitor," " thief" ; lurid headlines, turgid spellbinders, fulminations, claim the arena when reason decamps and emotion rules. Some, of course, will have no sympathy with such a contest nor for the means with which it is carried on. It may be pointed out, however, that emotionalized men may storm heights as well as fight in the pit. 2. Prestige against Logic. — The reign of prestige, the executive learns, gives him an organization of strong faith and enthusiasm. But in handling prosaic details it makes many mistakes. In fact, so complex has grown the subordinate's task that well-thought-out conduct alone will suffice. Logic accordingly has some grounds for brushing aside the claims of prestige, but, grounds or none, it insists that arguments be produced and threshed over in discussion. Now the mere putting up of a subject to discussion, with the object of being guided by its results, as Bage- hot points out,^ is " a clear admission that that subject is in no degree settled by established rule, and that men * Physics of Politics, i6i. DISCUSSION 283 are free to choose it. It is an admission, too, that there is no sacred authority — no one transcendent and divinely appointed man whom in that matter the com- munity is bound to obey. And if a single subject or group of subjects be once admitted to discussion, ere- long the habit of discussion comes to be established, the sacred charm of use and wont to be dissolved. . . . Once effectually submit a subject to that ordeal, and you can never withdraw it again ; you can never again clothe it with mystery, or fence it by consecration ; it remains forever open to free choice, and exposed to profane deliberation." The prestige which flourished as the green bay tree, under such withering interrogation is shorn of its foliage. The remark of General Richelieu, himself a witness of three successive reigns, to Louis XVI, " Sire, under Louis XIV no one dared to speak a word, under Louis XV people spoke quite softly, under your majesty they speak quite loud already," indicates the normal degeneration of prestige under criticism. Those unable to justify themselves by fact dread dis- cussion. For discussion deals ruthless blows to False Decretals, Divine Right, Special Privilege, the claim that whatever is is right. It unmasks the pious doctrine that slavery is justified by Biblical texts, that the sacred duty of subjects is obedience, that whoever bandies about the words " home," " our country," " God," is thereby unassailable. In general, it ousts the long-bearded Meriweg in favor of the Major Domus, and in turn exchanges Carolingian for him, in the words of the old chronicle, " whose miHtary prowess, wisdom, faith, mark as the fittest to fill it." Hence losing sides oppose discussion.^ Dogma has sought in every possible way to curb rea- son. The Copernican theory in astronomy, the Dar- * Ross, Soc. Psy., 307-308, 284 COMPETITORS winian theory in biology, the naturalistic explanations of volcanoes and fossils and disease, the propounders of all were so hounded that here, as in the case of the church, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of science. Aris- tocracy buttresses her waning prestige by press censor- ship, repression of " rabble " gatherings, convenient definitions of treason, the exaltation of ignorance, the insertion of a designing hand into the school curriculum. Privilege urges the sacredness of vested interests, stig- matizes innovation,^ throttles single-tax agitators, de- velops a predatory press with which, brilliant editors having chloroformed their readers, the picking of pockets may go on. In such service, the customary methods of stimulation and control take on a certain brazenness. But this, the executive says, is alien to his own school superintendency — or management of factory or store. Not so. His new methods, demonstrably better, are opposed by subordinates " without any reason " and scorned by competitors whose quality and " superiority " were set long since. And in turn, to make the matter personal, is not the new plan, a demonstrably better plan, much less noteworthy when heralded by other concerns than by the peerless organization or even when evolved by subordinates instead of his own wonderful initiative? 1 "Since the leisure class is in great measure sheltered from the stress of economic exigencies, its ofl5ce in social evolution is to retard the move- ment and to conserve what is absolescent. This conservatism on their part is commonly explained as due to a vested interest, of an unworthy sort, in maintaining present conditions. The truer explanation would seem to be that the wealthy class is not constrained to demand change, and hence conservatism, characterizing as it does the wealthier and therefore more reputable portion of the community, has acquired a certain honorific or decorative value. Conservatism, being an upper- class characteristic, is decorous; and conversely, innovation, being a lower-class phenomenon, is vulgar." Veblem, Theory of the Leisure Class, 198-200, adapted. A CONTEST OF REASONS 285 J. Logic against Logic. — Each side here aims, through clear and cogent reasoning, to produce conviction. It is no mere contentious appeal, a modicum of evidence distorted by prejudice and made without real intention of changing any one's opinion; but a winning of the intellect by clear thought and presentation. This clear thought, admirable alike in orator or business manager, is no chance product, but results from a mastery of analysis.^ From the mass of detail the essential ideas, those over which the clash will come and the result turn, are sorted out and firmly held. These essential ideas, backed up by facts, authoritative opinions, and reason- ing based upon them, cause conviction in the opponent's mind. But is not such procedure in practice too fine spun for any save academicians? It may be. Yet increasingly numerous is becoming that choice fruitage of civiliza- tion, the rationalized person.^ He is fascinated neither by the great man nor the crowd, impressed neither by antiquity nor novelty, but, open equally to ideas coming from subordinates and superiors, he judges them only by their apparent fitness. For him Hfe is always in 1 Such analytic power preeminently characterized Chief Justice Marshall, of whom one writer says, "So perfect is his analysis that he extracts the whole matter, the kernel of inquiry, unbroken, clean, and entire." Similarly was such power the chief cause of Lincoln's early success as a lawyer and his later astonishing ability to understand com- plex military situations. His mind, it is said, ran back behind facts, principles, and all things, to their origin and cause. Clocks, omnibuses, language, paddle wheels, and idioms never escaped his observation and analysis ; he must know them inside and outside, upside and downside. He was remorseless in his analysis of fact and principles. Woe be to the man who hugged to his bosom a secret error if Lincoln got on the chase of it. Time could hide the error in no nook or comer of space in which he could not detect and expose it." Hemdon and Weik, Life of Lincoln, HI, 594-595, cited by Baker and Huntington, Principles of Argumentation, 14-15, adapted. 2 Cf. Ross, Soc. Psy., Ch. xvi, especially the brilliant paragraph, 285-286. 286 COMPETITORS process. Prices, materials, forms of organization, opin- ions, even dogmas, he realizes are in the grip of incessant change. Accordingly he mistrusts long-standing prac- tices as being out of touch with present requirements, keeps plastic by renovating his ideas as the years pass, and, refusing the cramp of custom, boldly posits the standard of relativity as his guide. It is because of him, and others of like kind, that talk, mere " endless talk," has ushered in an age of progress and redress. Well has it been said : " It is safe to sup- pose that one half of the talk of the world on subjects of general interest is waste. But the other half certainly tells. We know this from the change in ideas from gen- eration to generation. We see that opinions which at one time everybody held became absurd in the course of half a century, — opinions about religion and morals and manners and government. . . . There can be no doubt that it is talk — somebody^s, anybody's, every- body's talk — by which these changes are wrought, by which each generation comes to feel and think differ- ently from its predecessor. No one ever talks freely about anything without contributing something, let it be ever so little, to the unseen forces which carry the race on to its final destiny. Even if he does not make a positive impression, he counteracts or modifies some other impression, or sets in motion some train of ideas in some one else, which helps to change the face of the world. So I shall, in disregard of the great laudation of silence which filled the earth in the days of Carlyle, say that one of the functions of an educated man is to talk, and, of course, he should try to talk wisely." ^ It is such talk as this which parts wheat from chaff, and guarantees a harvest to the executive whose logical grounds are superior. * Godkin, Problems of Modern Democracy, 221-224 passim. Quoted by Ross, op. cii,, 310-311. CHOOSING THE APPEAL 287 CHOICE OF PRESTIGE OB LOGIC It may have seemed that prestige is doomed when logic appears; yet observation does not confirm this view, nor does an analysis fail to reveal that either may in certain instances be superior. The practical problem, consequently, is to note with care these in- stances. This will now be done. J. The Subject over which the Competition takes Place. — This subject, a proposed tariJff, a wider main street, a new tramway, an improved machine, possibly has some unusual argumentative points. The sales- man able to demonstrate that his office appliance cost- ing one hundred dollars does the work of two six-doUar- per-week clerks, should pencil and paper it before the prospective buyer. Suppose the subject, however, is the poetry of Shakespeare, the prophetism of Dowie, the suffrage movement, the new dancing, tea's supe- riority in taste over coffee. By what chain of reasoning can it be definitely settled? None. Their respec- tive strengths inhere in prestige, and by means of it they hope for favor and survival. The nature of the subject, however, is not the sole criterion ; much depends also upon whether it is new or old, changing or static. The old, well-established, and relatively static runs smoothly in the grooves of habit ; it is the new and changing, especially so if in addition it is important, which must drag its adherents into the unknown and over strange roads. And this latter prestige has not the power to do. The intellect, in- stead, is the supreme agent in perfecting new adaptations, and it necessarily is here called into play. Once the change has been initiated, prestige comes into supple- ment, perhaps ultimately to assume entire charge. The nile of effectiveness therefore is : logic for the new or 288 COMPETITORS rapidly changing, prestige for the old and relatively static. 2. The Persons upon whose Conviction the Competi- tion Turns. — There are those apparently who apply without ceasing the searching test of merit. It does not suflSice to them that a thing is good. They have adopted in thoroughgoing fashion the viewpoint of relativity and the thing must be better, demonstratively better, than possible others before it wins their assent. Yet how few have thus rationalized themselves. It is, no doubt, the ideal widely held, but are we not flattered into acquiescence when some one suggests, " You, a reasonable man, "? In fact, it could hardly be otherwise. Rational attitudes are a later fruitage in the individual life, people being born young and igno- rant and only gradually working their way upward through layer upon layer of instinctive and emotional reactions into the clear light of reason. Moreover, there are temperamental differences which still further delay the transition. The Protestants after four hun- dred years of strife have not destroyed the Roman church, nor have the Unitarians as yet proselyted the Methodists; whisky and beer and wine and temper- ance each have a selected, not a chance, group of ad- herents. Much depends, in addition, upon homogeneity or heterogeneity. Should the members of the group ad- dressed be of like nature and attainments, logic will reach them with effectiveness; arguments range from complex abstractness to simple concreteness, and hence in skilled hands may be adjusted to any group. In heterogeneous organizations, however, the cement of prestige sets best. Its appeal harks back to the sub- conscious, a comparatively imdifferentiated racial expe- rience in which, when contrasted with the nimiberless APPEALS COMBINED 289 gradations of reason, men are alike. Because it thus has a wider range with heterogeneous groups of men prestige is more effective. J. The Sort of Action Desired. — Both prestige and logic are able to secure action, yet if either must be used alone, the latter is perhaps stronger. Especially is this true should the person to whom appeal is made be non- suggestible, a critical, self-centered type; or in non- suggestible condition, comfortable, well, secluded. Should opposite conditions prevail, an audience packed in moving picture show, a throng pushing toward bank door, strikers roused over the death of a fellow member — prestige rises in power. By means of its contagion, a whirling suction is developed, able to strip the most rational and scatter his sane thoughts aloft in the winds. The action, moreover, is rapid. It takes time to run over arguments one by one, heaping up facts and weighty opinions until the eye of reason is satisfied ; but this is logic's method. Prestige scorns such laborious proce- dure. Skipping nimbly onward, flashing a happy phrase here, a mirage there, encouraging and exhorting with deft caress and glance, she has drawn men into a far country before they realize what it is all about. Con- verted quickly, they may even more suddenly return. The slow caravan of logic possibly has not yet passed the borders of the home land, but every step is con- sidered, and there is no thought of going back. The respective merits and shortcomings of logic and prestige have now been considered in relation to subject, people, and action desired. What of their use in partic- ular instances? When it comes to practice, the old motto is here emphatically true. In union there is strength ; consequently, never employ either unsupported by the other. This may be represented by a diagram. 290 COMPETITORS a X e 1 Instinctive and ^""*'*^ Emotional Reaatixjnff Reason Reactions ] b z d Let xz be termed the motivating line, moving freely to the right or left with y, the place of intersection, correspondingly changing its location. Let xy and yz be the proportions of prestige and logic respectively required by the particular situation. Suppose it is a corporation director's meeting and the executive is pro- posing to curtail the budget — he slides line xyz sharply toward " Logic " (cd), thereby increasing the reason Fig. 5. — Prestige versus Logic. element (xy) at the expense of the instinctive and emo- tional element (yz). He becomes argumentative. Sup- pose it is the huge mass meeting just before the polls open on the morrow. The candidate commences with accurate statements, but, warming to his subject, he implores " every patriot who loves his home, his country, and his God, to perform his full duty to-morrow, that the glorious heritage of our fathers be forever saved from the insidious foes of evil " — xyz is far toward ab. Every situation, indeed every separate phase of the situation, calls for readjustment of this motivating line. The leader, like locomotive engineer at throttle, slides it from side to side as his organization, throbbing with energy, works out the destiny he has set for it. Thus is revealed the essential oneness of the entire process; these two elements are not antagonists but supplements. Prestige gives the touch of persuasive- COMPLETE MOTIVATION 291 ness which, warming the mind into cordiality, secures logic a hearing ^ ; it adds fervor to the dry appeal of rea- son and gives it power. Logic, in turn, satisfies the critical faculties, and to the power of prestige provides stability of action. The line xyz^ in reality, is not single but broken at y. Simultaneously, xy may advance toward cd^ yz toward ah, both lengthening and waxing in power as they go. The instincts, the emotions, and the intellect are stirred, and that simultaneously. Substituting now for the terms " prestige " and " logic " the complete categories personahty, imitation, sugges- tion, emulation, art, illusion, discipline, rewards, idealism, and instruction, we see how through combination of these the whole mind is made active, and in the group complete motivation is secured. This represents not merely the overthrow of competitors, but the highest possible triumph of the executive. Completely moti- vated, with interest roused and opposition allayed, the members of his organization strive as super-men to do his will. 1 "It is an old and true maxim," said President Lincoln, "that a 'drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.' So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, when once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing his judgment of the justice of your cause, if indeed that cause reaUy be a just one. On the contrary, assume to dictate to his judgment, or to command his action, or to mark him as one to be shunned and despised, and he will retreat within himself, close all the avenues to his head and his heart; and though your cause be naked truth itself, and though you throw it with more than Herculean force and precision, you will be no more able to pierce him than to penetrate the hard skull of a tortoise with a rye straw." Scott, Influencing Men in Business^ 153-154. 292 COMPETITORS EXERCISES 1. Do men more often base their decisions upon evidence or seek evidence to justify their decisions? 2. Show how the contest of prestige versus prestige tends to degenerate, while that of logic versus logic tends to rise. 3. Should a coffee merchant oppose other brands of coffee or other drinks, as tea or cocoa? 4. Do churches suffer more from the competition of other churches or from non-church influences? 5. Under the present organized competition is the labor problem more or less serious than heretofore? 6. Why do tottering empires often resort to foreign wars? When a centralized monarchy wars a democracy, what differences in policy pursued by the respective leaders? READINGS Bagehot, Physics and Politics, Ch. V. Ross, Social Psychology, Chs. XVIII, XXII, or Bryce, The Ameri- can Commonwealth, II, Part IV. CHAPTER XXIII The Executive's Adaptability "Licinius, trust a seaman's lore, Steer not too boldly to the deep, Nor, fearing storms, by treacherous shore Too closely creep." — Horace. Competition provides scope for the powers of the strong man. It puts a premium upon mass action, the single wage earner or tradesman or manufacturer in the strife for existence or for prosperity being hard pressed by organized labor or chain store or trust. Moreover, as management increases in efficiency, the smaller or- ganization is routed by its larger opponent. But every organization calls for an executive, and the larger and more complex the organization, the keener its opponents, the more necessary he is. The claim is often advanced that numbers of men without authoritative direction can work together for their mutual interests. As set forth in theory it is plaus- ible enough, and not a few adherents have been won to it. The Industrial Workers of the World, the coopera- tive societies, the anarchists, the advocates of the ini- tiative, the referendum and the recall, even claim to have proved the theory in practice, with citation of cases as evidence. Observation of these cases seems to indicate quite a different result. The syndicalists, in trying to establish a thoroughgoing industrial democracy, have themselves developed a hierarchy with powers quite more absolute 293 294 EXECUTIVE'S ADAPTABILITY than what they set out to overthrow. The cooperative societies, in this country at least, have a history filled with accounts of internal dissension and wasteful methods, those enterprises of less disappointing careers usually being ruled by some member energetic and ambitious enough to enforce his will over the incompetents. The advocates of the initiative, the referendum, and the recall have all the best of it in argument ; but their en- thusiasm has one effective damper, the lethargy of the average citizen. He goes not to the polls, much to the chagrin of reformers who witness the machinery of pure democracy desecrated by machine men of the old school. And as for the socialists and the anarchists, under the guise of a new nomenclature their theories practically reinstate the present forms of authority, and in so far as they have abandoned purely theoretical attitudes for active propaganda, the same aristocratic tendencies appear among them, the destruction of which in others constituted their sole purpose as reformers. So long, in fact, as men work together in organizations, central- izing tendencies will prevail and the strong man will find there is need for him. But though this be true, does it mean his dominance is without limit? An all-prevailing principle of nature is adaptation, and it begins with the lowest forms of animal Hfe. The dull-hued grasshopper escapes de- struction through lack of contrast to his surroundings, the tiger by tawny stripes increases his chances for prey, the East Indian butterfly maintains its numbers by a wonderfully exact resemblance to a dead leaf. Adapta- tion, to these creatures, is on the basis of survival ; failure means extinction. Were the executive submitted to definite tests, should he not also reveal adaptability ? He is being submitted to such tests daily, and he does reveal adaptability. He is obliged to. Beneath the PRESSURE UPON EXECUTIVES 295 stockholders as owners and above the subordinates as operators lies the executive's task, himself, as scores have felt it, ground between two millstones. He is the go-between, the unifier, the harmonizer, in short, the executive. The city school superintendent, pressed hard by board of education, teachers' committees, educational reformers, parents' desires and pupils' claims, longs for the freedom he vainly supposes the merchant to enjoy. The merchant, however, besought by travelers for orders, employees for better wages and working conditions, by tithe gatherers for donations, and by the pubUc for higher grade merchandising, is scarce an object of envy for him who would do as he pleases. Nor is any executive. He must meet the conflicting forces which fall upon him, distribute and direct them, urge them toward the composite goal, himself attacking and retreating, resolute and pUant, stern or mild as will best attain the results without which one never quaUfies as executive. This demand for adaptabiUty, happily, is something which the executive may with persistence prepare to meet. Surplus, either physical, mental, or material, is a prime requisite. It is the cushion which dissipated the jar.i Since the first duty of any organism, it may ^ * There are numberless methods by which this cushion is kept con- ditioned. Under strains which crush the ordinary man, Alexander on the march diverted himself with fox hunting or fowling, or, with the hosts of Persia before him and Arbela an event of the morrow, "sleeps more soundly than was his wont"; the Iron Chancellor discussed the "most serious subjects with a genial and careless bonhommie" ; the Lord Protec- tor of England could lay aside "his serious and great business" and rival his secretaries in making verse ; the Conqueror of Mexico enjoyed a game of chance, jesting and laughing over his gains and losses ; the Founder of the Dutch Republic, far from the brooding figure implied by the term 'Silent,' was a genial companion, at times making merry with beer, wine, and noisy poetry; the Prophet of Allah joined in childish games with his nephews, a leader, one of the followers declared, who was almost always smiling. 296 EXECUTIVE'S ADAPTABILITY be said, is to maintain its life, should this surplus near depletion it ceases to part with the energy required for adjustments. Under pain of being robbed, the man of limited nerve capital, yet anxious to accomplish some great purpose, is forced to remain soUtary. Herbert Spencer, marvelous example of a man for years never far removed from mental collapse, who yet completed a monumental work, greatly restricted his personal in- tercourse with guests, and especially shrank from argu- ment. "His common practice," writes Sir Francis Galton, "when pressed in a difficult position was to finger his purse and saying, 'I must not talk any more,' to abruptly leave the conversation unfinished." ^ It is also related of Darwin that when the guests who had called to discuss evolutionary theories engaged him in particularly animated conversation, he was unable to sleep that night. He lived in semi-seclusion at Downs, much more happy there, no doubt, than was Spencer in London, who, unable to adapt himself readily to other people's ways, fidgety and irritable when anybody or anything did not meet his own very decided views, moved from boarding house to boarding house. They were eminent intellectual leaders, yet neither of them, it is safe to say, could have superintended a factory suc- cessfully nor withstood the trials of a gubernatorial campaign. The surplus energy t5^e need not thus shield itself, but presses forward, and in so doing perfects its adjust- ments. For the life processes issue in a great twofold adaptation, expansions and contractions, the former representing waxing, the latter waning, vitality — with all special adaptations secured during the expansive movements.^ The outflowing life, the excess vitality * Duncan, Herbert Spencer, 501. ' Baldwin, Mental Development, 249. EXPERIENCE 297 which brings one into many experiences, provides the raw material from which adaptability is woven, and thus, though the surplus be in body, mind, or goods, unto him that hath it shall be given.^ To this surplus one may add experience. From his earliest youth equally at home in the Tuileries or the Louvre, among the motley crowd of Italian adven- turers, intriguing priests, dissolute gallants, ambitious nobles, and unscrupulous statesmen, or again in the retired strongholds of Protestantism, in the cottages of the peasantry or in the camps of the Huguenot veterans, Henry of Navarre developed that versatiHty which united France and won him a crown. Napoleon, when yet a sublieutenant of artillery, poring over military and political|treatises,2 Cortes planning a conquest while his followers wrangled over spoils or indulged in desultory trading with the natives. Nelson placing on paper before he sailed the maneuvers which subsequently crushed the combined fleets of France and Spain at Trafalgar, similarly represent adaptability in process. The sub- 1 Napoleon illustrates how these elements are intertwined. At the military school of Brienne, an uncouth Corsican with scarcely a livre he could call his own, he was the butt of the school jokes and tricks. As the financial dictator of Europe he was surrounded with throngs of admirers. Both physique and temperament shared in the transforma- tion. " He was thin, and of delicate aspect, in youth ; his frame and his features seemed to expand with his fortunes, and he became heavy and obese as age advanced. Napoleon was taciturn and morose in youth ; under the influence of ever favoring fortune this reticence and austerity vanished. His tastes and sympathies seemed to expand, and Napoleon became joyous, talkative, fond of companionship, brilliant in social intercourse." Morris,^ Napoleon, 404, 418, slightly adapted. 2 "His intellect was not confined by the narrow bounds of professional duties; he studied military history with intense earnestness; became one of the most learned of soldiers; and especially pored for laborious hours over military maps and plans of fortresses. . . . Nor were these the limits of that eager industry; he devoured treatises on law, phi- losophy, theology, and the art of government. Innumerable extracts and notes from his pen on these subjects remain unpublished." Morris Napoleon, 7. 298 EXECUTIVE'S ADAPTABILITY conscious, long saturated by the particular materials, develops deftness in dealing with them. The amateur becomes expert. This process of experience getting as an aid to adapt- ability might well continue without check were it not for this Umiting factor — old-f ogyism. The child's mind is a bundle of tendencies ready to be shaped; the youth's mind is less plastic ; the mature mind indicates increasing rigidity ; and the rule in later life — to which there are indeed brilliant exceptions — is that conclu- sions once reached tend to remain undisturbed. Old- f ogyism tends to encase us as the years pass. The danger need not be serious should one's occupation permit conservatism. The bishops, in our questionnaire returns, average 60.6 years in age, the chief justices of the state supreme courts 61.7, some eight or nine years older than the general average and surpassing the re- formers by thirteen years.^ But the average executive, the man who commands the top-notcher sales force which invades every hamlet or whose orders quicken the pace of iron workers, trainmen or voters — he must not be very young nor yet very old. The executive, we may conclude, by the very nature of his work is an adjuster, and he must possess adaptability. Here then is the Scylla and Charybdis into which leader * The Congressional Directories on being tabulated show little varia- tion in the House during the 52d, S4th, S7th, sgth, 60th, and 62d Con- gresses. In the 62d Congress, the Democratic Representatives averaged 47.9, the Republican 51.7, an average of 49.4 for both; Democratic Senators 55.2, Republican 58.4, 57 for both; a total for all legislators of 51 years. The reversal of 191 2 is thus commented upon by Public Opin- ion : " It is to a peculiar degree a Congress of new men. The old political war-horses are conspicuous by their absence, and those that are left are shorn in large part of their leadership. 'There is,' says a Washington correspondent in speaking of the Senate, * something almost tragic about the vanishing of the "elder statesmen" from both parties; and in the House there has been a veritable sweep of the Goths and Vandals so far as the old order of things is concerned.' " April, 1913, 265. BALANCE 299 after leader plunges to his destruction. Henry Clay's perorations so outdistanced safer judgment that bitter altercations often would follow, especially undesirable in the case of a candidate for the presidency. John Randolph's system of terrorism, effective in the politics of Charlotte, in Washington reacted upon him so vio- lently that he was driven from public Hfe. Sam Houston, rivaling a circus in ability to attract Texans, gained no foothold in the U. S. Senate with his frontier eloquence. General Grant, carrying his military habits into the White House, precipitated one petty squabble after another, warped by his previous experience and out of touch, just as Clive was because of India, and the old Roman governors, through conducting in the provinces a legalized, military tyranny, with difficulty found their way back to the common civic level. It has become a proverb that uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, quite as applicable to obstinate general manager as to self-styled imperial demigods. The centralizing tendencies pointed out at the begin- ning of this chapter do provide niches of power for the strong man ; they do not, however, as those of aristo- cratic yearnings would have us believe, condemn the common man in store or factory or state to the perpetual rule of oligarchs. The executive as he forges ahead is made to realize in no uncertain way that the age-old evolution of democracy has now reached the point where the checks upon a superior's power are tolerably effec- tive. As he motivates his men, the executive must hold their interest lest costly opposition be aroused or they themselves be lost to a competitor who offers them more for the same effort. The result is no autocrat, but a selected man, one who in his particular situation fits. The truly great leader, in consequence, represents variation, for variation alone removes him from the 300 EXECUTIVE'S ADAPTABILITY mediocre ; he backs this up with strength and resolution, since, without these, thought products never burst into reality but remain forever fanciful ; but he has control as well. He stands aloof from idle theorizing, passing under ruthless scrutiny all available ideas until the most workable only is sorted out. This he seeks to realize. Ever discriminating between possible and im- possible, wielding power but seized with no giddiness of the tyrant, recognizing even when on the pinnacle of success its limits, he possesses effectiveness. In his character, therefore, strength is so combined with moderation, variation with adaptation, that balance is secured.^ EXERCISES 1. Justify the saying "young men for action, old men for advice." 2. Compare the span of effectiveness in jurists, major league ball players, and accountants. 3. By what means may one postpone the cramp of age (old- fogyism) ? Give instances. 4. Show that the form in which Christ's message was presented is one source of its vitaUty. 5. Outline a plan by which adaptability may be developed. READINGS James, Talks to Teachers on Psychology, 199 — 228. Jordan and Kellog, Animal Life, Ch, VIII. * Well has Mommsen analyzed the true greatness of Caesar: "In his character as a man as well as in his place in history, Caesar occupies a position where the great contrasts of existence meet and balance each other. Of the mightiest creative power and yet at the same time of the most penetrating judgment ; no longer a youth and not yet an old man ; of the highest energy of will and the highest capacity of execution ; filled with republican ideals and at the same time bom to be a king; a Roman in the deepest essence of his nature, and yet called to reconcile and combine in himself as well as in the outer world the Roman and the Hellenic types of culture — Caesar was the entire and perfect man." History of Rome, IV, 545-546. CHAPTER XXIV The Final Process: Assimilation "It is pleasant to see before others what is coming, but it is hard to wait until enough of the others see it to make the coming possible." — Henry D. Lloyd. "It may be true that he travels farthest who travels alone; but the goal thus reached is not worth reaching." — Theodore Roosevelt. At the beginning of this final chapter the connection existing between the three different phases of our in- vestigation perhaps deserves restatement. In Part I was emphasized individuaHty, the divergence of the execu- tive from the average, the man himself being termed a variate and his ideas variations. In Part II were consid- ered the various methods through which the executive motivates his organization to the end that these varia- tions of his be realized in practice. In Part III has been discussed so far the reaction which his organization makes to the executive's purposes and methods, the net result of which is that the variations undergo selec- tion within the group and the leader himself is made adaptable. We now come to the final process in which these variations — forced home by the various methods of motivation, that is, by personality, imitation, sugges- tion, emulation, art, illusion, discipline, rewards, ideal- ism, and instruction ; selected and limited by apathy, 301 302 THE FINAL PROCESS: ASSIMILATION opposition, and competition — become incorporated into the organization, living tissue henceforth. This process may be termed assimilation.^ Its im- portance is usually overlooked, men being more taken by the energetic and apparently effective action of the individual as compared with the slow, lumbering gait at which whole groups move. Nevertheless, ideas unassimilated remain forever adventitious, a lesson which despots, impatient reformers, and efficiency experts learn only haltingly. Once assimilated, however, the executive's task is completed. The preceding fifteen chapters have considered in detail the methods by which the executive motivates men to carry out his ideas and the means by which such ideas are made easy to assimilate, and we may now draw from them certain more general principles : (i) The more numerous the points of contact , the more rapid the assimilation. — A judicious selection of men increases the points of contact. With the proper subordinates drawn to his standards, a Garibaldi, a McCormick, a Napoleon, a Carnegie sees his ideas, readily externalized. But what sales manager could develop points of contact with tramps for sales force? Could Grant have succeeded with Coxey's army or James J. Hill with Marshall Field's employees ? None of them would attempt it. The organizer, therefore, courts suc- cess in advance ; he builds his machine of parts which will enter into the required closeness of contact. Choosing from among the various methods of moti- vation those best adapted to the particular situation also increases the number of contact points. The vis- ionary statesman appeals to idealism, the contractor to *See Simonds, "Social Assimilation," Am. Jour. Soc, VI, 790-822; VII, 53-79, 234-248, 386-404, 539-556; especially the "laws of assimi- lation," VI, 807. GENERAL PRINCIPLES 303 rewards; and each may be equally successful, but not vice versa. The skillful combination of methods is even more important. Suppose that in a certain situation nothing incongruous results from a combination of per- sonality, imitation, rewards, idealism, and instruction; the effect could scarcely fail to be mastering. It is such combined appeals — and everywhere they are far more readily secured than single appeals — that fully motivate. Industrial managers are broadening the old basis of rewards and discipline until, having added emulation, idealism, instruction, often others, they possess a safe foundation for man management. Politicians, to take their chief as an illustration, combine strength of per- sonality, deftness of suggestion, emulation, discipline, rewards, a naive inscrutability, and the loftiest appeal to idealism. In reality, however, it is interest which furnishes the greatest number of contact points. The lively, image- provoking idea cannot remain an alien. It penetrates and abides. Congenial to the mind, developing within consciousness in a cumulative way, it evokes the glow which makes the welding easy. The orator, commencing somewhat as an alien but establishing before long a bond of common relation between himself and audience, impels his hearers in the end to accept ideas which, advanced at first, would have been repudiated. The politician, " keeping his ear to the ground," reading shrewdly the popular mind, develops such numerous contact points that he often knows his constituents' desires better than they themselves do. This ability at its maximiun makes a leader the mouthpiece, pos- sibly, of his age. He utters best that which all would have said. In the young Louis XIV the French nation saw an epitome of itself; in John Knox the heart and mind of the nation was revealed to itself in a measure 304 THE FINAL PROCESS: ASSIMILATION beyond any other of his countrymen ; their day and generation was uttered through Lincoln and Washing- ton, Cromwell and Bismarck, Napoleon and Caesar. These men all illustrated by practice that being in touch is a rule of effectiveness. (2). The less the opposition, the quicker [the assimi- lation. — Less opposition is aroused if the leader varies in one direction only, while conforming in general. Hamilton met Burr in duel because, he said, " the ability to be in future useful probably is inseparable from a con- formity with public prejudice in this particular." The municipal " boss," that horror to decent citizens, is cor- rupt, it is true ; yet in most respects he represents that for which his own constituents secretly long. A certain popu- lar prime minister in Spain never missed mass, but he emp- tied more monasteries than any other premier Alfonso has had since he began to reign. Any executive easily discov- ers enough minor points obnoxious to his organization to jeopardize the entire forward movement, if he but insist upon them. It is well to be diverted by no non-essen- tial, but, tolerant and conforming in general, press for one's main objective. Minimizing the degree of difference is another method through which less opposition is aroused. When his organization is custom bound, the executive decks his variations in ancient garb.^ The energetic mayors of 1 " Sir Henry Maine tells a delightful story of an Indian village which had had a water supply provided for it by a paternal British Govern- ment. The villagers were notified, as a matter of course, of the official regulations laid down for the proper use of the water. An East End district of London would be only too glad to get a good water supply on such terms. But to the patriarchal society of India the notion that customs could be manufactured by an official pen was simply incredible, and it was not until a wise official induced the village elders (by what means is not stated) to persuade the rank and file that the rules in ques- tion were really of immemorial antiquity, though their existence had only just been discovered, that the difficulty was solved." Jenks, History 0/ Politics j 71. EMPHASIZING ESSENTIALS 305 the palace, though dispossessing the Merwings of all power, nevertheless permitted the king to retain his royal title, long hair, and hanging beard. " Seated in a chair of state," says the old chronicler Eginhard, " he used to display an appearance of power by receiving foreign ambassadors on their arrival, and by giving them on their departure, as if on his own authority, those answers he had been taught or commanded to give." Similarly the barbarian conquerors, leaders like Clovis, Theodoric, Alaric, and Egbert, appropriated the character and attributes of the tribal chief they dis- possessed. The pedigrees of these chiefs generally led up to some mythical hero, long reverenced by the tribes- men as the ancestor of them all ; and the wily usurpers, through a series of fictions to be accepted only in a sim- ple age, persuaded their subjects that they really were members of these ancient famiHes.^ It is an old illu- sion, still in use. The politician cites to his hearers Aristotle's Politics and glibly quotes a line from Cicero, the anti-saloon agitator and the tax reformer draw deadly parallels between ourselves and the Fall of Rome, the general manager assures the suspicious work- men that he is merely extending and not introducing a new wage plan, the lawyer and the jurist juggle prece- dents until we marvel at the hybrid births of constitu- tion or code, the prophet in the pulpit buries his new- hatched projects deep under Holy Writ. Clad in such sober garb, the newcomer apparently is of the old and as such less disturbs the grooves of habit. On the other hand, when novelty is ascendant, the leaders furbish up their faded notions that these may impress as new. Captains of industry deck out in splen- did terminology the old truth that the laborer is worthy of his hire. Reformers eagerly seek converts to doctrines 1 Jenks, op. cit., 85. 3o6 THE FINAL PROCESS: ASSIMILATION tested out centuries since and relegated to the social museums. The politician heralds as a discovery the class struggle, himself perhaps not yet having heard of Cleisthenes or the Gracchi. A difficult task it is to turn humanity's interest toward a long since explored and cobwebbed cavern; yet some have attained a bit of prestige and a following, too, by brushing aside these cobwebs and shouting, " El Dorado ! " Should opposition be aroused, assimilation is much hindered, since nothing makes one cKng more tena- ciously to his opinions than having fought for them. The best policy in general seems to allow it vent. It is the mind surcharged that is dangerous. One executive arranges a special meeting at which irate stockholders are free to heckle him, another gives cordial considera- tion to every complaint, another meets each grievance with " Sit down. Let's talk things over." Still another — this a premier — invites the republican agitators to dine at the royal palace that he and the king may debate with them as they all break bread together. Such a plan does more than relieve unsafe pressure; it promotes mutual toleration. To such an extent has this toleration grown among civilized men that we may well be amazed to note how many the differences yet how few the violent clashes of opinions. Why have we gotten past the age when across each difference falls the shadow of a club? Discussion, endless talk wisely directed, is responsible for this progressive change. It has hindered precipitate action, that old failing of the race and by elevating the thinker over club wielder or fulminator, has put a premium upon intelUgence.^ The roots of opposition thereupon are laid bare, and in the glare of reason is the remedy applied. Not every leader nor every cause, however, can undergo such * Tarde, Social Laws, 130-132 ; Bagehot, Physics and Politics, Ch. V. MEETING COMPLAINTS 307 searching dissection, and live. To all such — and they are many — were it better to endure those ills of oppo- sition they have than fly to others they know not of. (3) The slighter the variation the quicker its assimi- lation. The practical man hesitates to commit himself to detailed and far-reaching plans, into which are liable to enter factors now unsuspected and over which he can exercise no control. To him the views of Field Marshal von Moltke are much more sound : " It is a delusion to believe that a plan of war may be laid for a prolonged period and carried out at every point. The first collision with the enemy changes the situation entirely according to the result. Some things decided upon will be impracticable; others which originally seemed impossible become feasible." This view pushed farther gives us the opportunist, fashioning his creeds as the times demand. Some men do prefer to work at close range to their task, ideahsts perhaps but always practical and never far removed from their followers. To the unscalable summit Roosevelt never points ; nor does Carnegie nor Wanamaker nor, in fact, most of the executives now on the broad plains of reality guiding hmnanity from day to day. The man whose efforts are considered success- ful only as they meet the test of his firm's balance sheet cannot direct men in terms of a thousand years; such generalizations and prophecies he may not venture upon save at club or banquet. Such nearness to their work some men assume by consistently minimizing their variations. The English labor leaders as they sit on the benches in parHament wear the same workingmen's caps as their comrades do in the shops. Jefferson, condemning the formaUties and elegance of Washington and Adams, expressed an indifference to dress and the conventional rules of 3o8 THE FINAL PROCESS: ASSIMILATION society; and although his equipage as president was similar to that used by the nobility in Paris or London and his inauguration attended with as much pomp and ceremony as the physical conditions would permit, widely circulated the pleasant fiction that he rode unattended and hitched his horse to a post 1 Jackson would have the plain people feel he was ever on their level — even in manners ; in reality, his courtly bearing won all the ladies, Mrs. Webster, according to her husband, being for him decidedly. Rudeness with him was deliberate and convenient. Whatever the means they see fit to employ, all men such as these maintain close relations with their respec- tive groups ; in so doing they represent a more imme- diate effectiveness. Others vary so widely that clear appraisal is not at once possible ; while some shout " genius," others shout " fool." To the future alone is left the final verdict. Meanwhile, not overlooking the thousands rightly termed cranks and thereupon suppressed, for lack of discern- ment precious gifts in human form daily are crushed out, and what might have been never is ; others, — as was said of Charles Fox, possibly could have been said of William Jennings Bryan, — though less rudely treated, preach to the deaf ears of one generation great principles which become accepted truisms in the next. A Darwin, a Luther, a Jesus scatters the seed of a thousand years upon what is then sterile ground. It is not given such men to witness the harvest. Bound up within the width of variation which he espouses is the leader's choice between the immediate and the remote, opportunism and reformation, fellow- ship and distinction. The intellectual leader, it has been shown, tends toward wider variation, and to him no doubt should* more often be accorded the title of world IMMEDIATE EFFECTIVENESS 309 genius. It is he who alone in the travail of his spirit gives birth to the idea destined to master the multitude. But the executive, no solitary mountain climber, no propounder of absolutes or ultimates, it is true, empha- sizes what is feasible and, close knit to his fellows, moves with them toward the goal. He, too, has served. (4) In general^ the more numerous the agents of assimi- lation in relation to the assimilated the more rapid the process. Mass impact usually breaks down individual resistance or realigns the smaller of two contending groups. The Slavonian, buffeted about by American- ism at every turn, parts with his native tongue, native costume, native mannerisms, and, before long, dresses, bargains, and swears in true Yankee style. On the fringe of Little Judea, that compact stronghold of Hebrewism planted in New York's East Side, man after man de- taches himself from the inner core by moving north- ward toward Harlem, in the end being engulfed by the city. It is mass which here operates witii cumulative force. It would follow as a corollary that time is required to develop a conquering cause. Mohammed during the first three years of his mission made only forty converts, these, too, being yoimg persons, strangers, and slaves. Jesus left but twelve, humble folk they were, to preach the gospel imto all men, and his faith, like Mohammed's, for generations moved only among the lowly. The anti-slavery sentiment Garrison found for several years too weak to remove the editor of the Liberator from ab- ject poverty, the self-binder industry McCormick with greatest difficulty urged from its blacksmith-shop origin, the petroleum field was not expanded until year after year a certain lynx-eyed Rockefeller urged it forward by dint of persistence and not overscrupulous methods. It is hard to develop momentum. 3IO THE FINAL PROCESS: ASSIMILATION The momentum once established, however, adherents multiply. Moody by evangelizing Brooklyn, Phila- delphia, and even Chicago, fulfilled a prophecy made once when his hearers were only a handful, " It is slow work, but if you want to kindle a fire, you collect a bit of pine whittlings, Hght them with a match, and keep blowing until they blaze. Then you pile on the wood 1 " Mohammed's cause once under way unified Arabia and threatened before long to engulf all Europe. Jesus' twelve have since multiplied into four hundred ninety- four millions, an assimilating host bent, its leaders now declare, upon the Evangelization of the World in this Generation. In a very real sense it thus becomes true that nothing succeeds like success. Yet the outcome does not rest solely upon numbers. Were such true, the estabhshed simply because it was the established would be self -perpetuating ; and this clearly is not always so. A variation, born in isolation but nurtured by resolute breast, winning a minority and these well-organized and motivated, again and again has lain the majority helpless before it. The truth here entailed perhaps justifies statement as the final principle. (5) Superiority tends to dominate. Who does not seek power and who would not ascend into the high places before men ? In truth, scarce no one ; the well- girded, the altruistic, the designing, the visionary, the hopeless incompetent, each yearns to direct and, if re- sponsive to the inner motive alone, would extend his sway over group after group of subordinates. In so doing, his lust for dominance, for self-expansion and personal profit very possibly would be gratified; but what of the claims of the many ? He who would correctly interpret men and their re- quirements must view both in terms of the struggle for MOST FOR LEAST 311 existence. Humanity began in the jungle, and, guided by one central principle, has slowly pushed its way to- ward the open. This principle is nothing less than greatest gain for least efort, the so-called law of parsimony. To maintain his hold, the executive must square with it. Not every man who says " Go here," " Go there," sees men spring to do his bidding. His commands ring true and he himself qualifies as an executive only when these men if obedient to him produce with greater effec- tiveness and increased benefit to themselves. Subordi- nates place themselves under his control because they have wants, and their efforts directed by him yield them increased gratifications. Unmistakably in the end, the executive must realize for his co-workers the fullest liberty compatible with order, the most thorough equality consistent with prog- ress, the completest fraternity possible with self-preser- vation — himself a toiler that others through him may rise. The last word of leadership is thus one with the supreme appeal of Christian morals, he that loseth his life shall find it. EXERCISES 1. Why do men so often complain that their wonderful plans dwindle into such meager accomplishments? 2. Was his generation at fault in opposing elements in Christ's teaching we now prize? 3. Discuss: "All progress is due to the coercion of an indif- ferent majority by a determined minority." 4. Comparing the executives of the past with those of the present, what policies in the control of men will likely be worked out in the future? 5. Summarize briefly the chief functions of an executive. READINGS Ward, Applied Sociology, Ch. XI. APPENDIX A STATISTICAL STUDY OF EXECUTIVES APPENDIX In the preceding pages, the general discussion was supplemented by data of a statistical nature. These data, because they probably held very little interest for the majority of readers, were not commented upon at length in the text. However, for the benefit of those desiring further details concerning this material, the following information is being presented here : 1. The Problem. In studying executives, it is both important and interesting to raise the questions: In what respects, if any, do they differ from ordinary men ? Moreover, do they differ to the extent that a type group is formed ? These questions of variability, if their answer in full be attempted, raise a wide variety of considera- tions. For instance, are boys reared in wealthy homes more likely to become executives as compared with boys from humble homes? Does belonging to a religious organization, as the Catholic Church, increase one's chances of succeeding as a railroad president ? Are good looks a handicap to the candidate for Congress ? It is true, these questions appear somewhat theoretical, but in fact they are far less so than many over which end- less discussions have taken place, and are still, for that matter. It is obvious at the outset, therefore, that one cannot with profit enter into all the ramifications of the questions stated at the beginning of the above paragraph. All phases of these questions are not equally valuable, for one thing, and another restricting factor is found in the method to be applied in solving the particular phase selected, to which we now turn. 2. Methods of Solution. In seeking a solution to the questions stated, the executive's variation from the or- dinary man and trueness to his own type, the first method likely to impress one as feasible, is personal observation. In fact, this is a method the author employed diligently 314 APPENDIX 315 and with profit to himself when in the course of his regu- lar duties he for several months had daily opportunity -to converse with from ten to fifteen chief executives. Moreover, the field one is able to cover by personal in- vestigation may be extended considerably by conferences with friends and acquaintances, readings in daily papers and magazines, and a persistent study of biographies. This material, however great the light it throws on the problems under consideration, lacks quantitative definite- ness. It was for this reason that data of a statistical sort were felt to be worth while, partly for the informa- tion contained in the data themselves, partly as a check on the other material of the investigation. 3. Factors Investigated. When it came to deciding upon the factors to be investigated, much depended upon the particular means employed in order to obtain the information. Such possible methods as personal inves- tigation and enumerators were rejected in view of the author's finances and time available, and a question- naire to be sent through the mails was decided upon. The problem at once arose as to what questions should be submitted. Needless to say, the information one would like to receive from these executives would cover an extremely broad scope; in fact one could without difficulty set down a list of forty or fifty questions which it would be desirable to know about. It does not take long experience in statistics to prove that desirable is to be strictly subordinated to possible. In general, the more questions asked the fewer replies received. The decision as to full information or numer- ous replies thus becomes a matter of relative emphasis, for though the investigator may have either he cannot have both. A few preHminary tests in this particular instance indicated that cutting down the number of questions so rapidly increased the percentage of replies 3i6 APPENDIX that the number in the end was reduced to six. Later on, after about two thirds of the blanks were sent out, a seventh question, closely related to the two which pre- ceded it on the schedule, was added. 4. The Schedule. In order to increase still further the percentage of replies a niunber of details were given care- ful attention. The questions themselves were printed on a postal card, the investigator's name and address being placed on the opposite side. These questions were made simple to understand, easy to answer, and the in- formation they called for offered little opportunity for bias. The questions, however, being of a personal nature, the recipient might feel them somewhat inquisitorial, unless this danger were provided for. In order to guard against the danger and at the same time encourage the executive to reply, a short explanation was given of the purpose of the investigation and the importance of in- cluding this particular reply in the data. To lessen the clerical work involved, this explanation was printed on the bottom of the letterhead, the brief letter above being typed or hand written. These, no doubt, are minor matters, yet any one fa- miliar with the questionnaire method will agree that the percentage of replies received, as shown in the statistical summary, is gratifyingly high. It is all the more so when one considers that these men represent the most impor- tant executives in the United States. A sample of the schedule is here shown reduced : ^se TOeififjt (gfci) mm C?W- ^00 at HEatriage Number of Ci)iltitm bom to sou ♦* gour fatfjer. ** " paternal grantifatfjer.. APPENDIX 317 5. Accuracy of Replies. The proportion of schedules completely filled out was very high. For instance, in answers regarding the weight and the number of chil- dren the percentage was approximately ninety-seven and ninety-nine per cent respectively. As an indication of accuracy, these percentages are favorable. Each individual filling out the schedule, it is needless to say, was responsible for the accuracy of his answers, and in only certain cases was the correctness of his state- ments even questioned. In these instances, the figures were so irregular as to arouse suspicion and a letter of inquiry was thereupon sent. If no reply was received, the item was dropped from the list. It is quite certain that slight changes in the schedule by which the degree of accuracy desired would have been indicated, as "Age in years , months ," "Height in feet , inches , quarter inches ," would have been useful in increasing the accuracy of these returns. In regard to height, it was decided after some little consideration that the direction "without shoes'' would draw more accurate replies than the direction "with shoes," though this supposed benefit would be partly offset by the contrast with the neighboring item with its direction "with clothing." Later on for purposes of comparison it was found necessary to deal with these height returns as with shoes, by adding one inch. It is interesting to note, however, that whereas six feet is an attractive figure and might be expected to show an undue proportionate frequency such as the cen- sus returns show at zero and five in age classifications, the frequency distribution so favorable to the item six feet was compiled from schedule items five feet eleven inches, the statements of six feet on the schedules themselves showing a sharp decrease in frequency. 6. Scope of Inquiry. It being impossible to secure data 3i8 APPENDIX from every executive in the United States, the selection of representative cases was necessary. Business has been represented by nine groups of men, a total of 495 cases, as shown in the statistical summary. Political leaders comprise three groups, 267 cases ; law two groups, 93 cases. Public service includes four groups, 150 cases. Labor leaders are represented by two groups, 54 cases, reformers by four groups of 120 cases, religious leaders by three groups totaling 273 cases, educational leaders by three groups of 162 cases. The last might be termed in a general way pubUc leaders, and comprises groups 25, 33, and 34, a total of 158 cases. The other groups were studied for comparative purposes, as has been indicated in previous chapters. It may seem that undue emphasis has been placed upon the business field, 495 copies of the questionnaire having been sent to business men as compared to 267 to poHtical leaders or 120 to reformers. The vaUdity of this criti- cism, if offered, would depend largely upon one's concep- tion of the term "executive.^' In view of the treatment of the subject in the preceding chapters, it is beHeved that the questionnaire has not given undue emphasis to any particular group of executives, although the reader is in position to decide for himself upon this point. The composition of the various groups is commented upon briefly in the notes following the statistical sum- mary. It may be added that in selecting the names to which questionnaires were to be sent, an earnest ef- fort was made to secure true samples. 7. Adequacy of Data. Since returns have been tabu- lated for numerous groups of leaders, one test concerning the adequacy of data is whether or not these returns from the various groups seem to harmonize. As shown in the statistical summary, this appears to be the case. It happens, moreover, that this test can be applied APPENDIX 319 in a somewhat different way. After some 1600 copies of the questionnaire were sent out and the returns tabu- lated, it was thought well to draw up additional lists and secure returns from these for the purpose of testing the first results. An additional question was added to the second questionnaire, the number of children born to the paternal grandfather, and, as is shown in the statis- tical summary, the questionnaire sent to groups 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 36, 37, 43, 44, 45, and 46. The returns from these sixteen additional groups appear to substantiate the results first secured. In such anthropometric data as height and weight, a normal frequency distribution is to be expected. Hence the degree of skewness encountered is another test concerning the adequacy of the data here presented. The frequency tables on height and weight given on later pages have been studied from this point of view, and the degree of skewness shown appears to justify the view that the data are adequate for th^ purpose to which they have been put in the preceding chapters. It may be added that the following rough measure of skewness was the one employed : , 3 (mean — median) skewness = —^ -, — ^-i — • — ^^ * standard deviation The use of this formula is discussed critically in Yule's Theory of Statistics (see especially page 150). The frequency tables on pages 325-331 may be made use of by those desiring to apply more precise measures for determining the degree of skewness. 320 APPENDIX STATISTICAL QtTESnONNAlRE Age AT Group (a) Age Mar- UN- riage: Sent Rec'd Aver- age RTV.n I RaUroad Presidents 100 55 55-5 26.7 I 2 Insurance Presidents SO 39 49.2 28.0 4 3 Manufacturers 50 32 62.5 26.5 I 4 Merchants 50 32 60.7 29.2 2 5 Sales Managers 60 23 42.8 27.1 2 6 Foremen Roundhouses 25 9 40.1 25-5 7 Factory Supts. 35 18 45-7 25-9 I 8 Bank Presidents 50 34 53-7 27.6 9 Corporation Directors 75 45 54.5 27.2 3 lo Governors 65 46 51.2 28.6 5 II U. S. Senators 91 48 55.8 26.4 3 12 Mayors no 69 46.8 28.1 5 13 Chief Justices State Courts 45 32 61.7 28.4 I 14 Pres. State Bar Assoc. 48 38 54.0 29.0 15 Chiefs of Police 50 21 57-0 24.7 16 Chiefs of Fire Dept. 25 15 57.2 26.8 17 Supts. Street Cleaning 25 9 52.4 26.0 18 Prison Wardens 50 28 53-3 25.8 I 19 Pres. Labor Organizations 40 26 48.3 24.6 20 A. F. L. Organizers 14 7 43-6 27-5 21 Socialist Organizers 20 II 48.7 30.2 22 Anti-Saloon League Org. 20 13 47.6 24-3 23 Anti-Saloon League Officials 21 13 54.0 253 24 Reformers 59 42 48.6 26.7 3 25 World's Work List 58 33 55.6 28.9 2 26 Pres. Fraternal Orders 61 40 52.6 24.6 3 27 Bishops 115 83 60.6 26.8 4 28 Y. M. C. A. Secretaries 10 9 49.0 26.1 29 Pres. Religious Org. 28 15 57-2 27.0 I 30 University Presidents 76 61 51.8 27.6 31 City Schools Supts. 36 26 52.6 28.0 I 32 Economists & Sociologists 50 36 48.9 28.0 33 Lecturers 50 33 46.8 25.4 4 APPENDIX 321 SUMMARY Number of Children rmr-nREN Weight Childless Height (A) Gen. Av. (c) Av. per Fam. (d) Father (e) Grand- father (/) 3.63 3.70 2 S.78 186.3 5:10.9 I 2.74 3.05 2 6.02 6.41 175.2 5: 9.7 2 3.50 3.61 5 6.53 169.9 5: 9.0 3 340 3-64 7 6.36 163.7 5: 9.4 4 1.82 2.00 4 5-47 5.50 182.8 5 : lo.i 5 2.CX3 2.00 2 7.11 6.87 177.0 5: 9.3 6 2.61 2.78 2 6.05 186.7 5: 9.8 7 2.85 2.85 3 5.61 8.00 186.8 5 : 10.7 8 2.88 3-09 4 6.17 6.41 179.8 5 : 10.4 9 2.30 2.58 9 6.80 182.0 5:11.2 10 3.14 3-35 6 7.43 185.0 5: 10.6 II 2.79 3.01 7 6.66 176.9 5 : lo.o 12 3.21 3-32 3 7.56 169.0 5: 9.6 13 3-07 3-07 5 7.13 6.88 171.5 5:10.5 14 4.09 4.09 4 7.09 6.CX5 202.4 5:11.1 15 4.00 4.00 I 5.80 5.41 189.4 5 : 10.3 16 3.62 3-62 2 6.88 7.25 216.7 5:11.3 17 3-67 3.81 2 7.92 8.II 191. 2 5:11.3 18 3.69 3.69 2 7.34 186.3 5 : 10.4 19 3.83 3.83 6.33 186.I 5: 8.2 20 2.50 2.54 3 9.36 171.O 5 : 10.8 21 2.46 2.46 4 6.15 184.9 5 : 10.3 22 4.2s 4.25 6.00 176.3 5: 9.2 23 2.76 2.91 9 5.12 181. 7 5:11.4 24 2.51 2.67 5 6.36 182.2 5 : 10.3 25 2.60 2.81 3 66.2 190.4 5: 9-6 26 4.27 4.55 7 6.57 176.4 5 : 10.6 27 3.11 3.11 2 5.00 188.6 5 : 10.3 28 3.60 3-85 I 5.66 169.8 5:10.4 29 2.62 2.62 12 5.85 181.6 5 : 10.8 30 2.84 2.84 2 5.80 178.6 5:10.4 31 2-55 2.55 3 S.44 170.8 5 : 10.8 32 2.90 3-32 3 6.81 162.3 5: 9.2 33 322 APPENDIX Questionnaire Age AT Group (a) Age Mar- riage: UN- MAR- Sent Rec'd Aver- age RIED 34 Publishers 50 34 56.5 28.2 35 Psychologists 50 43 45-0 30.0 6 36 Plulosophers 50 37 44.2 29.2 2 37 Inventors 45 26 47.8 26.S 3 38 Musicians 50 23 51.8 30.0 2 39 Artists 50 31 53.2 30.4 7 40 Authors SO 42 55-5 28.2 7 41 Preachers Small Towns 50 32 45-7 26.2 42 Pres. Small Colleges 35 26 50.1 26.5 43 Principals of Schools 75 30 35.2 26.5 10 44 Station Agents 50 29 33-1 23-7 I 45 County Attorneys 50 32 40.3 27.2 4 46 Salesmen 100 55 31.6 26.8 17 47 Farmers 75 32 60.5 26.4 48 Bankrupts 20 (a) The source of these names in some cases, perhaps, deserve a brief explanation : Lists 3, 4, 38, 39, and 40 were derived from Who's Who; 5 are from a large commercial organization ; 6 are from various division points, several roads being included ; 7 came from large industrial concerns; 2, 8, and 9 were derived from finan- cial directories ; 20, 21, 22, and 23 were furnished me from the respective headquarters; 12 were from mayors of the largest cities ; 24 refers to the executive secretaries of various reformative organizations, such as the good roads movement, the abolition of child labor; 25 was drawn from the fifty-eight men whose pictures were given a full page in the World's Work during several months in 191 1 (foreigners and accounts due to death were excluded, as what was wanted was a list of men molding affairs at present) ; 28 came from the list furnished by headquarters ; 30 refers to the state universities and larger privately endowed institutions; 32 and 36 were drawn from the catalogs of leading universities ; 33 was derived from magazines devoted to lyceums; 35 from Cattell's American Men of Science; 37 was kindly furnished by Mimn and Company ; 44 and 45 were picked at random from va- APPENDIX 323 Number 01 f Children Children Childless Weight Height (A) Gen.Av.(c) Av. per Fam. (d) Father (c) Grand- father (J) 3.44 3-44 2 6.79 171.9 5: 7.9 34 2.18 2.54 5 6.21 155.3 5: 9.7 35 1.70 1.80 10 5.62 6.35 158.4 5: 9.6 36 300 3.39 3 6.53 5-33 169.4 5:10.2 37 2.13 2.33 6 5.73 161.9 5: 5.6 38 2.32 3.00 3 5.61 165.7 5:10.1 39 2.28 2.74 5 5.63 158.0 5 : 10.2 40 3-34 3.34 I 6.84 159.4 5: 8.8 41 3-46 346 2 6.53 164.0 5: 9-6 42 1.70 2.55 3 7.34 7.46 157.6 5: 9.7 43 2.00 2.07 4 6.03 7.00 154.6 5: 9-4 44 2.21 2.62 6 6.38 8.44 162.4 5: 8.1 45 .96 1.52 14 4.96 5.38 157.0 5: 9.1 46 5-93 5.93 6.84 166.9 5 : 10 47 48 nous sections of the country ; 46 were furnished by two leading typewriter companies ; 48 came from the lists given by the New York Times. The others were secured in the main from directories and the World Almanac, 191 1 and 191 2 editions. The selections were made according to the rules of sampling. (6) This refers only to those married. (c) Refers to total nimiber, including both married and un- married. {d) Refers only to those married; also to number born. (e) Refers to number born, not necessarily to number living. (J) Same as above. This question was not included in all the questionnaires sent; hence the small number of returns. (g) Weight includes clothing in all instances. It is the prac- tice in gymnasiums to deduct ten pounds for clothing should net weight be desired. {h) Height is given in feet, inches, and tenths of inches, and includes shoes in all instances. Gymnasiums deduct one inch for shoes if net height is desired. 324 APPENDIX 8. Table of Averages. The preceding table presents the general results of the investigation, the material being sum- marized in a series of averages. These averages were ar- rived at by adding the items shown on the original sched- ules, and hence are more accurate as averages than those given in later frequency tables which were arrived at by using the values of the mid-point of the class interval. The notes following the table perhaps will make sufficiently plain the source from which the original names and addresses were secured, and the definition of the terms employed in the table's headings. The first two columns naturally interest the author much more than they do the reader. 9. Results. In stating briefly some of the results of this investigation it may be pointed out that the author, not being a technician in statistics nor primarily in- terested in statistical technique, has not applied the re- finements of such technique to these data. He has made use of the rougher methods only since they seemed ade- quate for the purpose at hand. Nevertheless, it is hoped that by presenting the following frequency tables, those who desire to apply some, of the more refined methods may have available raw material with which to work. A number of interesting conclusions might be drawn from the material collected, but we must forego dis- cussion of all save the two main questions proposed at the beginning of the inquiry ; that is, the difference if any between executives and others, and the possibility of their undergoing selection which would result in the formation of a type group. In the preceding chapters, these questions have come up for consideration, but at this point certain statistical evidence may be presented and summarized. We shall accordingly consider the material bearing on age, height, weight, age at marriage, niunber of children, joining of associations, and voca- tional persistence. APPENDIX 3*5 lo. Frequency Tables. The terms used as titles in the following tables perhaps deserve a brief explanation. "Executives" are the first thirty-four groups shown in the above statistical summary. "Lesser Executives" are the small town leaders, groups forty-one to forty- seven inclusive in the above summary. "Intellectuals" are groups thirty-five to forty inclusive. " Merchants and Manufacturers" are from the National Cyclopedia of Biog- raphy ; "Artists and Authors" are from the same source. "Reformers" and "Non-Reformers" are those discussed on pages 265-268 of the text. "Policyholders" are from the Medico- Actuarial Mortality Investigation mentioned in Chapter III. The tables will now follow in order. Frequency Distribution According , TO Age Age in Yeam Execu- tives Lesser Execu- tives Non-Re- formers Reformers Intel- lectuals 20— 2 20 25- 8 30 9 3 30- 19 41 16 10 35- 77 31 3 15 24 40- 132 28 4 26 27 45- 170 22 7 17 38 50- 222 20 18 II 29 55- 135 12 23 7 16 60- 136 12 23 3 8 65- 81 7 16 I 10 70- 52 3 10 3 5 75- 23 3 4 8 80- II 2 3 2 85- 90- 2 I Number of cases 1070 231 III 108 181 Average age 53-7 41.5 57-7 40.9 50.4 Probable error ±.228 ±.607 ±.614 ±.668 ±.620 Standard deviation II. I 13-7 9.6 10.3 12.4 Coefficient of variation 21 33 16 25 25 326 APPENDIX Frequency Distribution According TO Height* Height in Inches Execu- tives Lesser Execu- tives Intel- lectuals Policyholders 53- I 54- 55- 4 56- 5 57- 17 58- 19 59- 38 6o- 396 6i- 3 441 62- I I 1,198 63- 2 2 2 2,625 64- 2 4 I 6,591 ^r 6 II 2 12,130 66- 34 21 9 22,057 67- 42 24 17 28,086 68- 93 36 28 37,544 69- 114 42 27 32,248 70- 150 32 23 32,718 71- 156 27 20 23,014 72- 176 13 28 14,585 73- no II 17 4,783 74- 74 IS 2,342 75- 39 I 4 669 76- 16 2 229 77- 14 2 53 78- 3 17 79- I 3 80- I 3 81- 2 82- 83- I Number of cases 1037 225 197 221,819 Average height 71.4 69.3 70.7 68.5 Probable error ±.054 ±.103 ±.129 ±.003 Standard deviation 2.6 2.3 2.7 2.4 Coefficient of variation 4 3 4 4 * The accuracy of the conclusions to be drawn from these figures would have been increased were they classified strictly according to the APPENDIX 327 Frequency Distribution According to Weight ^ Weight in Poxnros Executives Lesser Ex- ecutives Intellectuai^ 100 — I I 110 — 4 2 120 — 22 6 14 130- 36 29 16 140 — 85 47 29 Iso- 80 46 34 lde - 144 42 35 170- 165 19 26 180- 145 17 21 190- 127 14 9 2CX> — 85 5 7 210- 66 6 s 220 — 49 I I 230- 18 I I 240 — 3 250- 14 I 260 — 3 270 — 4 280- I Number of cases 1052 233 202 Average weight 181. 1 161.0 162.9 Probable error ±.58 ±•95 ±.115 Standard deviation 28.1 21.5 24.3 Coefl5cient of variation 16 13 15 element of race. A question concerning race was not added to the sched- ule, owing to the belief that the decreased number of replies would be more serious than the importance of the information justified. An examina- tion of the names to which the questionnaire was sent does not indicate that this element has been of importance, save perhaps in one group, the musicians. Here are found several names such as CaufFman, Goetschen, and Huss ; and the musician's low rank in height, as shown in the statisti- cal summary, is probably due in part to the racial factor. ^ As was shown in the preceding table on age distribution, these three groups differ in average age and hence a correction may be made in this respect. On the basis of the Medico- Actuarial Mortality Investigation (page 13), the lesser executives if equivalent in age to the executives would be approximately 3.4 lb. heavier, and the intellectuals if equiva- 328 APPENDIX Frequency Distribution According to Age at Marriage Age in Yeabs Execu- tives Lesser Execu- tives Intel- lectual Merchants AND Manu- facturers Artists and Authors 15- 20— 25- 30- 35- 40- 45- 50- 55- 60- 65- 10 334 426 161 69 15 9 I 2 3 75 92 28 2 2 I I 29 83 37 II 13 2 2 26 29 22 6 I 12 8 2 I I Number of cases Average age Probable error Standard deviation Coefficient of variation 1027 27.7 ±.115 5-5 20 203 26.6 ±.207 4.4 17 176 29.6 ±.289 5-7 19 86 28.0 ±.413 5.7 21 70 25.2 ±.628 7.8 31 lent in age to the executives would be approximately .7 lb. lighter. These corrections, as will be recognized by those familiar with refined methods, are rough approximations only. As was pointed out in an earlier chapter, comparable measurements of the policyholders are lacking. But policyholders of approximately the same age as the average for the executives (53 yr., which is the age of each case and not as with the executives an average age, with some above and some under) and the same average height as all the policyholders (86,5 in.) are 164.5 lb. weight. APPENDIX 3^9 Frequency Distribution According to Number of Children ^ Intel- lectuals Merchants Artists Number or Children Born Executives and Manu- facturers AND Authors O 137 37 25 59 I 129 20 17 15 2 i8o 44 16 9 3 193 34 15 6 4 123 23 9 4 5 99 5 9 3 6 74 5 2 I 7 38 4 3 I 8 20 4 3 9 17 4 I 2 lO 8 II 2 12 I 13 6 14 IS Number of cases 1027 180 100 IOC Average number 3.1 2.5 2.4 I.I Probable error ± .050 ±.105 ±.074 ±.074 Standard deviation 2.4 2.1 I.I I.I Coefficient of variation 76 84 46 102 * The biographies in the National Cyclopedia of American Biography from which the data concerning the merchants, manufacturers, artists, and authors were secured, seemed to follow quite closely a standardized form, one item of which was the number of children. Accordingly, cases in which mention of children were omitted were marked zero. It is likely, however, that this has resulted in error, the averages shown being somewhat lower than the actual situation would warrant. 330 APPENDIX Frequency Distribution According to Number of Chil- dren Born to Father and Paternal Grandfather Father's FAnm-Y Grandfather's Famely NtncBEK OF Children Born Executives InteUectiials Executives Intellectuals I 33 5 4 I 2 8l 22 10 5 3 IOC 20 20 7 4 107 23 24 6 5 120 22 33 II 6 132 31 33 7 7 112 27 39 8 8 118 16 27 4 9 98 10 20 6 lO 63 13 5 3 II 39 4 II 12 27 2 12 2 13 18 I 9 I 14 6 I IS 8 I I i6 4 3 17 I 3 I i8 2 I 19 I 20 I 2 Number of cases 1071 198 257 62 Average number 6.4 5.8 7-1 6.1 Probable error ±.o6s ±.134 ±.146 ±.256 Standard deviation 3-2 2.8 3-5 3.0 Coefficient of variation 50 48 49 49 APPENDIX 331 Frequency Distribution Frequency Distribution According to Joining of According to Vocational Associations * Persistence "^ Mer- chants Artists Points on Marking AND AND Scale Manu- Au- fac- thors turers Under 5 40 65 5- 35 18 10- 12 9 15- 6 5 20- 3 3 25- 30- I 35- 40- 45- I 50- I 55- 60- I Nmnber of cases 100 100 Average number 8.8 5.6 Probable error ±.660 ±'•343 Standard devia- tion Q.8 5.1 Coefficient of va- riation III 91 Mer- chants Artists Points on Marking AND AND Scale Manu- Au- fac- thors turers I I I 2 2 I 3 2 8 4 I 3 5 9 9 6 15 4 7 7 12 8 17 8 9 22 28 10 24 26 Number of cases 100 100 Average number 7.7 7.6 Probable error ±.444 ±.505 Standard devia- tion 6.6 7.5 Coefficient of va- riation 86 98 * In order to measure association joining, one hundred biographies of artists, authors, actors, and inventors (mostly artists and authors, hence the above title) in the supplementary volume of the 'National Cyclopedia of American Biography were studied and compared with an equal number of merchants' and manufacturers' biographies. All organi- zations strictly business were barred. Membership in a real estate associa- tion, for example, was omitted, while the trusteeship of a "fresh-air farm" counted two points. The following scale of rating points was used: 6 Chief organizer of new association. 5 Joint organizer of new associa- tion. 4 President of an association. 3 Vice president or other officer. 2 Director or trustee, i Member. In examining the above table we find three unusual cases, business 33^ APPENDIX II. Conclusions. The averages and the coefScients of variation shown in the preceding tables on frequency dis- tribution may now for convenience be placed in summary form, as has been done on page 334. The bearing of this material upon the two main questions proposed may now receive brief statement : // appears that the executives are taller and heavier than ordinary men. One might add that they came from larger families than the intellectuals and that in turn they tend to rear larger families; also that they join men whose joining of non-business organizations totaled over 45, 50, and 60 points respectively. On examining the original accounts, it ap- pears these men were politicians as well as business men, and although according to the Cyclopedia they were primarily merchants and manu- facturers, in reality it is chiefly through their political activities that they were known. If they are to be regarded as politicians, it is difficult to see why membership in many of these organizations was not directly in line with their primary interests and hence under the above definition should be excluded. If these three cases are omitted, we have : cases 97, aver- age 7.42, standard deviation 5.89, and coefl&cient of variation .65. '^ While the above data from the National Cyclopedia was being com- piled, a similar list was made of vocational persistence. The two hundred cases were marked on the following scale of ten points, devised to represent the attitude taken toward their life work : 10 Continued one line of activity as sole business throughout life. 9 Continued one line thoroughout life, but also engaged in related sublines. 8 Continued one line, but added unrelated sublines. The cleavage between this and the above is that here his personal attention is given to the subline whereas there money might have served instead, his life interest being in No. 8 partially diverted. 7 Changed in maturity to closely related line of work. And it may be added that in none of these do " changes " refer to boyish interests and positions held. No. 7 means no serious break in personal interests. 6 Changed in maturity to somewhat related line of work. 5 Changed in maturity to entirely different line of work — a clear break in life interest. By " entirely different " is meant work in which his former experience would be of little or no service. 4 Made two changes, closely related. 3 Made two changes, somewhat related. 2 Made two changes, imrelated. I Changed three or more times. APPENDIX 333 associations more freely. These latter points, however, are perhaps more significant when viewed from the standpoint of the second question, the extent to which executives have undergone selection. It appears that the executives are subject to a somewhat stricter selection than the intellectuals. In age the exec- utives show a lower coefficient of variation than either the lesser executives or the intellectuals, and the non- reformers, comparable to executives under present con- ditions, are similarly more closely selected in age than the revolutionary leaders. In the number of their chil- dren, the executives come nearer the normal (on the basis that it requires three children to realize family per- It may aid to clearness if the above frequency distribution be pre- sented by a graph. 30 - \ •^ ^ 25 Exe 'utiv 1 ^^ B^W ' ■ Iiit< llect'in^lR 1 f 20 A ^' 15 -. ^^* /I f / 'n .*' 1 10 / / N 1 i »k / \ / X 1 5 / \ k. / / \ \ / / \ /f X f ^J '- /- ""*" **- — ■ / 4 5 6 7 8 Number of Points as per Marking Scale Fig. 6. — Vocational Persistence 334 APPENDIX O o tun a°> U > M g i iii ^5 CO O VO 00 On On a'^i w vo o o J-l lo -^ lO O^ ■^OO O^ CS H H OO ■^ -^ Tl- t^ O^vO M O O d 6 cJ ON 'O^? "I s=. vo CO O M On M ■^SO NO ii M VO NO O NO O 0\ (N CO M