THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 How to Manage Men 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES 
 
 OF 
 
 EMPLOYING LABOR 
 
 BY 
 
 E. H. FISH 
 
 Formerly V ice-President Boston Employment Managers' Association 
 
 Formerly V ice-President National Association of 
 
 Employment Managers 
 
 NEW YORK 
 THE ENGINEERING MAGAZINE COMPANY 
 
 1920
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1920, BT 
 THE ENGINEERING MAGAZINE COMPANT
 
 Library 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THIS book is offered with the earnest hope that it will 
 help its readers to think, and think clearly, on the whole 
 matter of the relations between workers and their employers. 
 In these after war days it is most interesting to see the 
 struggles through which employers are passing in their efforts 
 to find the one panacea for their troubles. Many can seemingly 
 not think of this as a large, broad problem, affected by the 
 work of almost every department of their organization, but 
 feel that there is some patent medicine that will cure all ills, 
 and which can be administered by a small organization headed 
 by a man who is willing to work for less than the average 
 workman in the plant. It is needless to say that no such 
 panacea exists, and it is to be regretted that there are so many 
 men in high positions to whom it needs to be said again and 
 again. It is also a fact to be viewed with alarm that there 
 are workers who do not see that there is only disaster ahead 
 if their policy of "taking it all" is maintained. It may well 
 be that the fault lies with employers who have not taken 
 their employees into their confidence and have not shown 
 them where the money goes which is taken in exchange for 
 the goods sold. No one really intends to kill the goose which 
 lays the golden egg, but if we do not know her limit it is 
 easy to destroy her useiulness as a producer. 
 
 So in arranging the material that presented itself as de- 
 sirable in a treatment of the "Principles of Employing Labor" 
 it seemed wise to divide it into four general parts or sections. 
 The first, under the title "Establishing the Employment De- 
 partment," considers the general policy that the management 
 should adopt in its labor relations, and then passes on to the 
 standards for selection and training employment managers, 
 the machinery of employment, and the basic factors whereby 
 
 1267278
 
 Iv 
 
 the work of the department can be evaluated. The second 
 part is more particularly devoted to the employment manager 
 and his immediate and personal problems. He is the one 
 who must record and select, must secure and train his own 
 office force, and administer in a broad way the work of his 
 department, keeping in touch with all the other departments 
 of the plant, for he is serving all the others. 
 
 The third part deals with those efforts and conditions 
 that tend to satisfy and bring contentment to the workers. 
 The title is "Promoting Industrial Relations," and such mat- 
 ters as the rights and duties of labor, hours of labor, health, 
 sanitation, rest periods, recreation, housing, and financial aids 
 are presented with an attempt to evaluate these activities. 
 
 The final section "Industrial Education" is devoted to the 
 great subject of training and education in industry. The be- 
 liefs and declarations of the industrial educators for the past 
 ten years were demonstrated during the period of war when 
 it was plainly shown what improvements in production and 
 industrial effectiveness could be brought about among un- 
 skilled and semi-skilled workers simply by a brief course of 
 intensive, specialized training. Not only does this last section 
 deal with these matters, but it also takes up the training of 
 foremen and that essential instruction which is one of the 
 bases of all Americanization work. 
 
 It has been a difficult task to give the different subjects 
 considered their proper relative value. It is easy to write at 
 length about social service work in the factory, about group 
 insurance, and the like, but these things are not the vital part 
 of the industrial relation, and all the insurance and social work 
 that can be done will not affect the state of a plant that has an 
 attack of labor unrest. These efforts are good in their place, 
 but their place is a small one relative to methods of wage pay- 
 ment and of management of labor in the shop. 
 
 It would have been easy to devote many pages to the forms 
 and machinery of the employment office. There are as many 
 sets of forms as there are employment offices, and every em- 
 ployment manager thinks his are the best. But as a matter of 
 fact the forms are of so much less importance than the spirit 
 in which the work is done, so much less important than the
 
 v 
 
 backing which the management gives the various departments 
 dealing with employment matters, that they sink into a low 
 place of importance. 
 
 On the other hand, there is the important question, which 
 each company must settle for itself What is its real attitude 
 toward its employees? Employment management, safety en- 
 gineering, social service, housing, feeding, all have been used 
 time after time for purposes of deception, to make the em- 
 ployees less conscious of the exploitation to which they were 
 being submitted. It has been very hard for a great number 
 of employers to look on their help in any other way than as 
 so many ignorant people who did not know enough to conduct 
 a business themselves and who were, therefore, a subject for 
 exploitation. Th'ey find it difficult to look on the hiring of a 
 man as a purely business contract which cannot result favor- 
 ably unless both parties are benefited thereby. 
 
 Analysis of labor turnover shows in many cases that even 
 where the management desires to meet its employees on a 
 fair basis they are prevented from so doing by the disposition 
 of their foremen. There has never been a time when good 
 foremanship has been more needed than at present, but a man 
 may be a very poor foreman and yet hold his position through 
 lack of adequate means of measuring his efficiency. This 
 lack may not necessarily be the fault of the foreman; it may 
 come through a false standard by which his efficiency has been 
 measured in terms of daily output, rather than output over 
 a long period. 
 
 So it has been my intent to evaluate the things which go 
 to make up a satisfactory working organization. It has also 
 been my desire to show that the things which are needful for 
 this purpose are not only inexpensive, but that they are very 
 profitable, for business can only be carried on if there is a 
 reasonable profit to those who assume its risks. 
 
 I wish it were possible to give credit by name to the great 
 number of people who have aided in the writing of this book. 
 To do so, however, is impossible for many thousand workmen 
 from many kinds of industry and the officials of firms em- 
 ploying hundreds of thousands of men have generously given 
 me their viewpoints. A part of the matter was presented in
 
 vi 
 
 serial form in Industrial Management during 1919, and for 
 editoral assistance in the preparation of the present volume, I 
 am deeply indebted to Mr. L. P. Alford and Mr. E. W. Tree. 
 
 E. H. FISH. 
 Worcester, Mass. 
 March, 1920.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PART I 
 ESTABLISHING THE EMPLOYMENT DEPARTMENT 
 
 CHAPTER I. WHY ESTABLISH AN EMPLOYMENT DEPARTMENT .... 3 
 Fundamental Basis of Dealing with Employees The Status of the 
 Worker The Need of the Future The Foreman's Opportunity 
 Establishing Contact Between Worker and Owner Authority in the 
 Shop Financial Relations Selection of Workers Transportation 
 of Employees The Problem of the Commissary Department 
 Industrial Democracy Workmen and Their Representatives The 
 Bill for Labor. 
 
 CHAPTER II. POLICIES OP MANAGEMENT 10 
 
 The Fundamental Policy The Employment Department an Execu- 
 tive Body The Problems of Industrial Relations "Firing Help"- 
 Welfare Work Why Men Labor The Shop Creed Creating Confi- 
 dence Between Workmen and Management The Employment 
 Department's Position Disagreements in the Shop and Their 
 Settlement. 
 
 CHAPTER III. SELECTION AND TRAINING OP EMPLOYMENT MANAGERS . . 16 
 The Ideal Employment Manager Rating the Manager's Work 
 Some Manager's Ways of Getting Results Types of Employment 
 Managers Education and Employment Work Engineering Schools 
 and Employment Management Industry and Labor Teaching 
 Employment Management The Manager's Job Two Ways of Ob- 
 taining an Employment Department. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. THE MACHINERY OF EMPLOYMENT 22 
 
 The Office of the Employment Department The Waiting Room 
 Peak Loads Type of Applicants Records Requisition for Help, 
 Their Value and Importance The Interviewing Room Methods of 
 Interviewing Personal Questions Secret Societiesand Labor Unions 
 The Company's Relation to the Interviewer The Requirements for 
 a Successful Interviewer Women Interviewers Methods of Meeting 
 Men. 
 
 CHAPTER V. HIRING THE WORKMAN 34 
 
 The Employment Department an Agent of the Foreman Meeting 
 the Foreman Endorsing the Requisition Medical Examinations 
 Relation of Medical Examiner to Interviewer Passes Interviews 
 with Men After Hiring Files and File Rooms The Relation of the 
 Safety Engineering Department. 
 
 vii
 
 Vlll 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER VI. EMPLOYMENT FORMS 41 
 
 Forms, the Least of Employment Management Reasons for Forms 
 Classification of Data Referring to Applicants Size and Arrangement 
 of Forms Requisitioning Help Form for Increases in Pay Transfer 
 Forms Receipts for Company Property Forms for Reporting 
 Absent and Change of Job Duplicate Copies of Forms The Use of 
 Folders in the File Room. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. TRADE AND MENTAL TESTS 47 
 
 Requirements of a Trade Test Catch Questions "Try-Out" Tests 
 Testing Men While on the Job Value of Trade Tests Mental 
 Capacity The Sensitiveness of Workers The Right Man in the 
 Right Place Memory Tests Word Tests Concentration Tests 
 The Final Factor in the Selection of Labor. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. RATING LABOR TURNOVER 54 
 
 Methods of Rating Labor Turnover Analysis of Turnover Com- 
 parisons Within the Shop The Employment Department and Labor 
 Turnover Three Methods of Calculating Labor Turnover A Typi- 
 cal Example of the Method of Computing the Cost of Labor Turnover 
 Tardiness. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. HAS THE EMPLOYMENT DEPARTMENT ANY PART IN THE 
 
 DEMOCRATIZATION OF INDUSTRY 65 
 
 The Ambition of the Employment Department The Democratization 
 of Industry The Employment Department as the Company's Repre- 
 sentative The Interests of the Workman Individual Prooerty 
 Rights Cooperative Operation The Education of the Workman. 
 
 CHAPTER X. DEVELOPING THE LABOR SUPPLY 73 
 
 The Cycle of Industrial History The Supply of Workers The Flow 
 of Labor The Race Problem The Market for Skilled and Unskilled 
 Labor Influence of the Love of Home The Worker's Limitations 
 The Solution of the Problem The Expansion of Business Increasing 
 the Labor Supply Motion Study and Production Women in the 
 Industries. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. SELECTING AND PLACING WORKERS 84 
 
 Wanted: A System of Selecting Workers The Classes of Workers 
 Industrial Misfits Vocational Guidance The Need of Teachers 
 Selecting the Worker Characteristics Which Influence the Placing 
 of Workers Happiness on the Job The Elements of a Good Job 
 The Problem of Training Physical Selection. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. THE UNEMPLOYED WORKMAN 92 
 
 The Influence of Extravagance on Unemployment Seasonal Employ- 
 ment The Employment Manager's Opportunity The Employer's 
 Efforts Often Futile Some Ways of Solving the Problem. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. ADVERTISING AND SCOUTING 96 
 
 The Aims and Value of Advertising Increasing Rates for Labor and 
 Its Effect on the Labor Market Display Advertisements The 
 Ethics of Advertising and Scouting How Some Firms Secure a Supply 
 of Labor Legitimate Scouting The Policy of the Firm.
 
 IX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES 102 
 
 The Employment Agencies Conception of Labor "Floaters" The 
 Methods of the Agency State and Federal Agencies as a Solution to 
 the Problem Their Records and Needs of the Future The Public 
 Agency, Its Objects and Limitations Employer Association Agencies, 
 Their Value and Method of OperationSocial Organizations The 
 Field of Operation. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. COLLECTIVE BARGAINING 109 
 
 Collective vs. Individual Bargaining The Evils of Collective Bargain- 
 ing The Employer's Strange Attitude One-Sided Collective Bar- 
 gaining The Impossibility of Dealing With Individuals The Em- 
 ployment Department's Opportunity Records The Workmen's 
 Leaders Strikes The Labor Unions The Employer's Mistake 
 The Wisdom of Collective Bargaining Wage Rates and Production 
 The Needs of the Future A Prophecy Concerning Collective Bar- 
 gaining. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. REFERENCES 118 
 
 The Need for Discussion Promises and Fulfillment The Foremen's 
 Way of Giving References Why Men Will Not Give Notice of Leav- 
 ingThe Employer's Mistake The Solution of the Problem 
 Records as an Aid to Securing Jobs The Ideal Way of Effecting a 
 Change. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. FOLLOW-UP IN THE SHOP 124 
 
 The Need for Follow-up The Basis of the Work Records Com- 
 plaints and the Method of Settlement Why Men Leave What the 
 Records Show and How They Should be Kept Secret Wage Rates 
 Follow-up Outside the Shop The Ideal Follow-up Man and His 
 Problem. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. ATTENDANCE 131 
 
 The Factors Which Affect Attendance How the Attitude of the Firm 
 Increases Attendance Personal Reasons for Absences The Ma- 
 chinery for Recording Shop Attendance Some Common Reasons for 
 Absence. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. TRANSFERS 135 
 
 The Need for Transfers The Employment Manager's Position in 
 Making Transfers How Many Shops Handle the Problem The 
 Proper Methods of Effecting Transfers. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. THE EMPLOYMENT OF THE OFFICE FORCE 139 
 
 The Status of the Office Force Types of Department Heads Shop 
 Methods as Applied to Office Work Selecting Office Workers 
 Women in the Office The "Old Women in Trousers" The Pay of 
 Office Help Underpayment Office Misfits Hiring Office Help a 
 Three-Party Contract Business Training. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. WOMEN IN THE SHOPS 146 
 
 Women in Industry During the War Objections to Women Doing 
 Manual Labor "Fit Work" for Both Men and Women Some 
 Changes in the Shop Due to Hiring Women The Selection of a Suit- 
 able Working Garb "Womanalls" Women as Foremen The Shop 
 Matron. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. EMPLOYMENT OF MINORS 154 
 
 What Constitutes Child Labor The School vs. the Shop A Study of 
 Why Boys are Discharged.
 
 X 
 
 PAOB 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. EMPLOYMENT OF CRIPPLES 161 
 
 War Cripples "Dead-End" Jobs The European Method of Em- 
 ploying Industrial Cripples The American Way The Problem of the 
 Day Laborer The Difficult Case of the Man of Strong Mentality 
 Training the Industrial Cripple Tubercular Cases The Duty of the 
 State. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. SOCIAL MISFITS 167 
 
 Society and Its Misfits The Social Misfit in the Shop Mental Cases 
 Treatment in the Shops The Employment Manager's Course. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. SAFETY ENGINEERING AS RELATED TO EMPLOYMENT . . 172 
 The First Problem, Securing Mechanical Safeguards Safe Practices 
 the Result of Experiments The Safety Man, an Engineer The Need 
 for a Safety Engineering DepartmentCooperation a Matter of Edu- 
 cation Two Ways of Organizing a Safety Engineering Department 
 The Merits of the Amateur Safety Committee The Professional Plan 
 The Placing of Responsibility Difficult Plants to Safeguard 
 What Constitutes an Accident Hospital Cases Dangerous Jobs The 
 Safety Department as the Representative of the Insurance Company. 
 
 PART III 
 PROMOTING INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF LABOR 185 
 
 The Employer's Right to Protect His Property Strikes and Boycotts 
 The Right to Organize The Solution of the Problem The Advan- 
 tage of Organizing Wages and Strikes The Recognition of the 
 Union The Right to Labor Industrial Peace. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. HOURS OF LABOR 193 
 
 The Basis of Hours of Labor "Automatic Jobs" The Two Extremes 
 of Labor Salesmen's Hours Appointments Men Who Wait for 
 Machines Machine Tenders The Social Factor in Hours of Labor 
 Overtime The Governing Principle in Determining the Length of 
 the Shift Influence on Production of the Worker's Method of Spend- 
 ing His Non-working Hours The Length of the Noon Hour Night 
 Work. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. THE COMMISSARY DEPARTMENT 204 
 
 The Dinner-pail System Why It Fails The Solution of the Prob- 
 lem Why it is Not Put Into Effect Company Restaurants Cost vs. 
 Service Food Substitutes The Employees of the Commissary 
 Department Cafeterias vs. Lunch Rooms The Cost of Food 
 "Letting Out" the Feeding Privilege ^The Scheme of Serving Parts 
 of Meals Milk Wagons and Milk Stations A Study of Their Value. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. HOUSING 214 
 
 The Requirements of a Typical Workman's Family The Kitchen, 
 Its Size and Equipment Floors Sleeping Rooms Heating Halls 
 and Reception Rooms The Evolution of the Workman's Family 
 The Size of the Lot Location Two-Family Houses Why Con- 
 cerns go into Housing "Cheap" vs. "Low Cost" Houses Typical 
 Designs of a Workman House Double Houses Three Deckers 
 Apartment Hotels The Selection of a Manager Selling Homes to 
 Workman Renting Housing as a Means of Investing One Solu- 
 tion to the Problem.
 
 XI 
 
 PAOB 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. HEALTH AND SANITATION 228 
 
 Cleanliness in the Shop Checking Workers' Garments The Storage 
 of Food Personal Cleanliness Corners and Cuspidors Floors and 
 Windows Building and Yards Mud, an Enemy to Production 
 Cleaning Machinery Physical Examination of Employees, Its Value 
 and Abuses The Training of Industrial Physicians. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. REST AND RECREATION 237 
 
 The Measure of a Useful Life Rest Periods Why Men Change Jobs 
 The Value of Vacations Vacations for the Men in the Shops How 
 Some Shops Solve the Problem Recreation as a Substitute for Vaca- 
 tions Shop Baseball Teams Tennis Football Basketball Other 
 Sports Theatricals Carnivals Orchestras and Bands The Com- 
 pany's Attitude Toward Recreation The Need and Value of Rec- 
 reation Gardens, Their Size, Location, and Value. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. FINANCIAL, RELATIONS AND LABOR TURNOVER . . 251 
 Why Men Change Jobs The Basis of Compensation Methods of Pay- 
 ing for Labor Hourly Rate-^-Yearly Salary Premium Systems 
 Task and Bonus System Piece-work System Methods of Dis- 
 tributing Wages Cashing Checks Factors Which Influence Labor 
 Turnover Loan Money to Employees Financial Rewards In- 
 surance Profit Sharing. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. NON-FINANCIAL REASONS FOR LABOR TURNOVER . 266 
 Why Men Refuse Certain Jobs Work Which Should be Eliminated 
 Accidents and Their Effect Upon Labor Turnover Unhealthful 
 Working Condition Sanitation Morale Tenure of Job The Shop 
 "Wireless" Welfare Work The Task Confronting the General 
 Manager Reorganization and its Effect The Workers' Age and its 
 Relation to His Working Capacity The Relation of Home Affairs. 
 
 PART IV 
 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. THE STATUS OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION . . . 279 
 The Value of Vocational Education The Development of the Engi- 
 neering School Training for the Trades Apprenticeship Private 
 Vocational Schools Corporation Schools Public School Public and 
 Corporation Schools in Cooperation The Control of Vocation Train- 
 ing Technical High Schools The Number to be Trained 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. A STUDY OF THE PROBLEM 289 
 
 A Statement of the Problem The Education of the Worker The 
 Time Required An Analysis of the Processes of Industry Adapt- 
 ability of the Worker The Needs of the Present 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS . 294 
 The Present Status of the Training Creating the Ability to Work 
 Specific Training Pre- Vocational Education Cooperation Between 
 School and Shop How the Worcester Trade School Divides the Time 
 Between Shop and Classroom.
 
 Xll 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. VOCATIONA L EDUCATION IN THE INDUSTRIES . . . 300 
 Why Young People Leave School Their Realization of Their Mistake 
 How They are Being Helped Commercial Schools Private 
 Schools Corporation Schools The Merits and Value of Each 
 Y. M. C. A. Schools Public School Evening Courses The Value and 
 Limitations of the Evening School How the Problem is Being Solved 
 The Fitchbury Plan The Controlling Purpose. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. GENERAL TRADE METHODS 309 
 
 The Basis of All Vocational Training The Need of Teachers A S^udy 
 of the Industries The Training of the Workers. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. THE TRAINING OF FOREMEN 313 
 
 The Need of Training Foremen The Status of the Foremen The 
 Foreman's Opportunity His First Job Characteristics of an Ideal 
 Foreman How a Foreman Should Handle Men Local Nomenclature 
 The Care of Tools and Machinery Holding Men on the Job How 
 to Give Instruction Motion Study Safety Work. 
 
 CHAPTER XL. AMERICANIZATION 323 
 
 The Status of Americanization Americanization Defined The Mis- 
 takes of the Past The Cure The Greatest Force for Americanizatip-
 
 Chapter I WHY ESTABLISH AN EMPLOYMENT DE- 
 PARTMENT? ..... 3 
 Chapter II POLICIES OF MANAGEMENT ... 10 
 Chapter III SELECTION AND TRAINING OF EMPLOY- 
 MENT MANAGERS . . . .16 
 Chapter IV THE MACHINERY OF EMPLOYMENT . 22 
 Chapter V HIRING THE WORKMAN ... 34 
 Chapter VI EMPLOYMENT FORMS ... 41 
 Chapter VII TRADE AND MENTAL TESTS ... 47 
 Chapter VIII RATING LABOR TURNOVER ... 54 
 Chapter IX HAS THE EMPLOYMENT DEPARTMENT 
 ANY PART IN THE DEMOCRATIZATION 
 OF INDUSTRY? . 65
 
 PRINCIPLES OF EMPLOYING 
 
 LABOR 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 WHY ESTABLISH AN EMPLOYMENT DEPARTMENT? 
 
 SCIENCE, engineering, and accounting have all far out- 
 stripped in their progress the art of handling men, for 
 with few exceptions this activity of our civilization is carried 
 on exactly as it was in the earliest years of the so-called fac- 
 tory system. It is true that some concerns have given con- 
 siderable thought and attention to the promoting of personal 
 relations, but for the most part all that one finds is merely 
 the machinery of scientific employment; forms, files, and in- 
 dexes are unlimited and the vital spark which alone can make 
 such a department profitable is lacking. 
 
 As a fundamental basis for all dealings with employees 
 there should exist above all else a good business relation, for 
 good business demands that everything be open and above 
 board. Retail merchants long ago discovered the one-price 
 system and they gave up the idea of taking advantage of the 
 customer's ignorance of values. No such condition prevails 
 in the purchase of labor, however, except where employers, 
 usually against their will, have made a bargain with some 
 labor union for the delivery of so many men at so much per 
 head, which is equally as far behind the progress of the world 
 as the other method. 
 
 As we have become more and more an industrial people 
 we have found it necessary to call from the ranks of men 
 whom we previously considered unfit, those who now do rela- 
 
 3
 
 4 
 
 tively fine and accurate work. As we have done this we have 
 taken away from the great rank and file much of the oppor- 
 tunity for advancement, as most workers now know only a 
 minute fraction of the processes of any line of manufacture. 
 It may be said that this is as much the fault of the workers 
 as of employers, in that when they formed their unions they 
 should have made a reasonable knowledge and skill in the 
 trade a part of the entrance requirements. But employers 
 who set themselves up to be big brothers and fathers to their 
 employees cannot gracefully find fault with them for not 
 having greater foresight than they themselves exercised. 
 
 But the past has gone and we now face the future, so the 
 placing of the fault is not material. What needs to be done 
 is to build up a working force the world over, so that a larger 
 part of the workers may actually become producers. The 
 part of the proceeds of manufacture which the most profitable 
 businesses pay to the owners is so small, compared with the 
 part that goes to non-producing workers, that it is very much 
 more to the advantage of the business world to so organize its 
 work as to reduce the number of non-producers rather than to 
 quarrel over the relatively small amount which is taken by 
 the manufacturer. 
 
 At present we are suffering a great economic loss due to 
 workmen moving around from job to job. Many of these men 
 advance themselves each time they move, but the greater 
 number of these cases represent imaginary opportunities. 
 After a man has moved from one job to another a few times 
 he gets to consider it as a part of life, and then he moves along 
 without any thought or hope of ever settling down. This is 
 all curable, but it is not cured by opening an employment 
 department nor by so-called welfare work, but by establishing 
 a spirit of fair play and mutual helpfulness from the top of the 
 firm down. 
 
 The foreman, straw-boss, or whoever comes in most imme- 
 diate contact with each workman, has the best opportunity to 
 be the adviser of his men. His efforts, however, must be taken 
 up with administrative detail and he has little chance to 
 become really acquainted. It is not always wise for him to 
 be on too intimate terms with them, as some will take advan-
 
 5 
 
 tage of the acquaintance and try to secure favors and advan- 
 tages. He can, however, be square with his subordinates. 
 Too many are known by their men to be apt to fly off in a 
 rage, and discharge out of hand any one who dares come with 
 a complaint or a suggestion. Autocracy in its most violent 
 form prevails in most shops in the relations of the foremen 
 to those immediately under them, and it exists even in shops 
 whose general managers and superintendents intend to create 
 the very best working conditions possible. They have no 
 way of knowing what is going on, for very few workmen dare 
 speak to the head of the firm. They are overwhelmed indi- 
 vidually, and only dare see him in a group. 
 
 It therefore becomes the duty of an employee relations 
 organization to establish a contact between the owners, direc- 
 tors, or whatever body has the ultimate responsibility, and the 
 people upon whom they depend for the actual production of 
 the goods which give them their profit. The establishment 
 of a direct line from worker to the highest official is often 
 resented by the men through whose hands complaints, peti- 
 tions, etc., must travel as they consider that it is treading on 
 their prerogatives and taking away their authority. As a 
 matter of fact, there is no such thing as authority, in its real 
 sense, possible in any shop. There is rule by fear of discharge, 
 which has been a joke for the past few years, but which is 
 just as possible in the future as in the past. Discharge may be 
 direct and actual, or it may be that the foreman will make 
 things so unpleasant for a certain man that he will be glad to 
 hunt up another job. Often this is done so carefully and with 
 such a wealth of experience that not even the man concerned 
 realizes what has happened to him. 
 
 Another important part of the work of the employment 
 department should deal with financial relations between the 
 concern and its employees, for after all the wages paid each 
 worker are the most important thing which he gets from the 
 company. But if, as is so often the case, each foreman is 
 allowed to fix the wages, or the rating of his men without 
 supervision he takes on another autocratic power which may 
 be very harmful to the company, both through the chances 
 for petty graft and favoritism, and also by the bad effect
 
 6 
 
 in other departments through the dissemination of information. 
 
 When a new man first strikes town he can usually find out 
 which is the best shop in his line of work and also which 
 department in that shop is considered the best. Best, in this 
 case, meaning the same thing as it does to any purchasing 
 agent where he can get the most for the least. If the em- 
 ployee relations department has the sole function of standard- 
 izing wages and ratings between departments so that one is 
 as desirable as another, it will justify its cost in the decreased 
 flow out of one department into others. Many employers 
 deceive themselves into thinking that refusal to allow transfers 
 from one department to another stops the flow. But it does 
 not. Many men who are refused permission to change leave 
 and then later come back, perhaps under a different name, into 
 that other department. 
 
 The selection of men and women for their jobs, following 
 them up to find out whether the selections were good or 
 whether the employee is wasting his own and the company's 
 time, is still another function of the employment department 
 that has received a great deal of attention on paper, but 
 which is most commonly found to be carried out very much 
 as it was years before any agitation for scientific selection was 
 even considered. There are certain qualifications which are 
 assumed in every man, but which are not always found. We 
 all want honest workers ; we make an effort to find out whether 
 the applicant has ever been in jail for thieving, but we do 
 nothing to find out whether he has habitually stolen time 
 which he has sold to previous employers. We are at fault 
 here, for he may have been reformed in jail, but discharging 
 a man for laziness has no reformatory effect. We are begin- 
 ning to inquire into a man's physical soundness, timidly to be 
 sure, but with an intent to some day make it a worth-while 
 job; but we make no inquiry into his mental health. The 
 number of men who were taken into the army and navy from 
 really good jobs and who are being discharged as "constitution- 
 ally inferior" is a startling reflection on employment methods. 
 
 We make no effort to sort out men by temperament or dis- 
 position. The phlegmatic are placed where quick action is 
 needed; and nervous, high-strung men are assigned to the
 
 7 
 
 watchmen's force. The only change which has actually taken 
 place is that instead of men being turned down by one foreman 
 and not knowing who else to apply to, they are now candidates 
 for all the jobs that are open. 
 
 The transportation of employees to and from work is an- 
 other problem which should receive the attention of the em- 
 ployment department. The fact that trolley cars or trains run 
 between the plant and the city is apparently accepted by some 
 employers as an evidence of adequate transportation, espe- 
 cially if they find it possible to keep enough names on the 
 payroll to fill the shop. They do not ride on their own trains 
 often enough to find out what are the real conditions. Just 
 why the same fare should be charged for standing room in 
 cars that should have been condemned years ago, and on runs 
 where a snail's pace has to be held to enable an inadequate 
 train crew to collect the fares, as is charged for more fortunate 
 passengers who insist on plenty of room, a seat for everybody 
 and quick passage, is something for the employee relations 
 department to give careful consideration. This should be 
 done not merely to keep down labor turnover, but to bring up 
 the spirits and the physical powers of the men. A man who 
 has ridden for an hour or more hanging on a strap in an ill- 
 ventilated car cannot go to work with a vim and the energy 
 of a man who has had a half mile or a mile walk from his 
 home, or a ride in a comfortable seat in a well-ventilated car. 
 
 Feeding men who do not live within an easy walking radius 
 of the plant is still another of the so-called smaller problems 
 of the employment department but one which has an impor- 
 tant bearing on the preservation of good business relations. 
 Practically every firm declares its intention of giving its em- 
 ployees food at cost, and most of them do it below actual cost, 
 though, like the problem of training, few are willing to face 
 it squarely and keep a record which includes all the costs 
 which would have to be charged to it if it were run by an 
 outside commercial organization. 
 
 But even when food is served at actual cost it has to com- 
 pete with food brought from home where the cost of the 
 major materials entering into it are all that are taken into 
 account. The- workman's wife or mother does the work of
 
 8 
 
 cooking and putting up the meal, the salt, butter and other 
 extras come out of the family store ; in fact, very little is pur- 
 chased for the exclusive purpose of filling a dinner pail. 
 Competition with this method is impossible except as the em- 
 ployer may consider that it is profitable for him to invest some 
 money in the better health for his employees. 
 
 All of these matters, just briefly discussed, and in some 
 cases still others, become at times very much the concern of 
 the firm. Its greatest danger is that seeing the necessity of 
 doing something along these lines to make it possible to get 
 and keep an organization, it will do these things in a patroniz- 
 ing paternal way and so offend more than help. Men cer- 
 tainly resent being treated as other than independent. They 
 may not agree to strike in a body, but they go on individual 
 strikes whenever they feel that their individual liberty is 
 being curtailed. 
 
 Certain people much concerned about industrial democracy 
 are suggesting that all these matters be given over to repre- 
 sentatives of the employees. They point to certain quite 
 successful lunch rooms, and to many successful mutual benefit 
 associations, thus conducted. They overlook the fact, how- 
 ever, that all these activities require the investment of capi- 
 tal which the workmen do not have, or having could not be 
 advised to invest in a firm where their presence is dependent 
 on so many things which they cannot control. Housing, for 
 instance, requires an investment of capital. It is quite desir- 
 able for men to own their own homes, but no one can con- 
 scientiously advise a workman to buy a home in a "one man" 
 town. All sorts of unjust and unnecessary squabbles come 
 up in such places, and it may become so unpleasant for 
 himself or his family that he would be glad to give away his 
 equity in the house for the sake of moving away. As an ideal 
 to be carried out if ever the time comes when a shop consists 
 of a stable group of people who are owners as well as workers, 
 it is an excellent thing; but during a period of transition which 
 may last for many years it seems to be impossible for one 
 group of people to furnish capital with which another and 
 wholly indeterminate group of people may carry on a business. 
 
 This is further complicated by the fact that in the past
 
 9 
 
 workmen have shown poor judgment in selecting their repre- 
 sentatives. That is, they have been represented by fighters 
 rather than by business men. No doubt employers are 
 much to blame for this, as they have seldom met an organi- 
 zation of their employees on a business basis at first, but have 
 waited until forced to do so by fighting tactics. On the other 
 hand, whenever the employers have met their employees 
 on common ground the latter have too many times persisted 
 in leaving their interests in the hands of men of the fighting 
 type. It will undoubtedly be a long time before mutual con- 
 fidence can be expected, and in the meantime the best we can 
 probably do is to entrust to the employment department the 
 task of learning the views of workmen and preserving, so far 
 as may be possible, the rights and privileges of both sides. 
 It can only do this, however, if it is in the confidence of both 
 sides. Its function must be largely judicial, and it must be 
 in a position to condemn boldly and successfully any unfair 
 dealings no matter by whom sanctioned. Furthermore, the 
 duties of the head of the employment department should be as 
 important in the eyes of the board of directors as those of 
 any member of the organization under the general manager. 
 He should be intimately acquainted with the business, its 
 methods, finances, and hoped for developments. 
 
 There are few manufactured products in which, if all the. 
 steps from the raw material through to finished product be 
 considered, the bill for labor is not the largest item. This 
 labor is for something which cannot be bought when the 
 market is low and sold when it is high. If not used moment 
 by moment it is lost. An individual firm may find it profitable 
 at times to slow down or close, but the community's interest 
 is such that already we frown on such a practice. In other 
 words, we are all gradually recognizing the desirability of keep- 
 ing the wheels turning and the largest possible production 
 going forward even though the product may not be immedi- 
 ately salable. Does not the control of this largest purchase 
 which we make demand the supervision of men much higher 
 in rank than the foremen and overseers to whom we have 
 formerly and even now so largely entrust it?
 
 CHAPTER II 
 POLICIES OF MANAGEMENT 
 
 IN the consideration of the employment problems of any 
 concern it is a fundamental statement, and one that cannot 
 be too strongly emphasized, that employment management 
 must emanate first of all from the concern itself. The em- 
 ployment manager can no more accomplish his work without 
 official backing than can the sales manager or the works man- 
 ager. This does not mean, however, that the employment 
 manager should work with his hands tied but rather that he 
 should work with the knowledge that he will be supported. 
 He may be experimenting, but it must be the company's 
 experiment, and they must stand or fall with him. Any com- 
 pany which attempts employee relations work with the idea 
 of letting some one "try his hand" at it and deciding later 
 whether or not it is what they want will surely fail. 
 
 Backing the employment department merely means that 
 the company takes a position toward its employees and then 
 announces that position. The employment department is the 
 executive body which puts these principles into effect. It 
 may be and should be foremost in formulating the ideas and 
 principles for which it stands, but before any principles are 
 announced, or even tentatively put forward, they must become 
 the principles of the company. The methods of administra- 
 tion, the arrangement of the offices, the forms to be used, and 
 the personnel of the department are all matters that the com- 
 pany management will seldom wish to be concerned with, 
 but responsibility for policies properly rests with it. 
 
 At the present writing the thought foremost in one's mind 
 in this connection is the democratization of industry, but there 
 are other matters of scarcely less importance such as hours of 
 
 10
 
 11 
 
 labor, methods of paying, housing, transportation, safety, 
 health, and sanitation, and a long list of other industrial rela- 
 tions on all of which it is necessary to have a complete and 
 well-defined understanding of basic principles. Deciding each 
 case on its merits is not conducive to uniform justice, nor is 
 it likely to lead to contentment and satisfaction on the part 
 of the employees. 
 
 Above all these, however, there towers the necessity for 
 a uniform and established principle toward the method of 
 severing connections with employees, in other words about 
 "firing help." Whenever it becomes possible to bring labor 
 turnover near the zero point, or even to the small percentage 
 say of 15 or 20 per cent per year, then we shall have to be 
 much more particular about the justice of these forced de- 
 partures, not that the justice of the case will be any different, 
 but because the difficulty of finding a new job will be so 
 greatly increased. When there is only one-tenth the shifting 
 about of men it will be ten times as hard for a man to find 
 a new job, and a job will then become a prized possession. 
 It will also become as much a crime for an employer to take 
 a job away from a man, without due process of law, as it is 
 for him now to take land, buildings, or money in the same way. 
 This principle is seldom thought of in this light. To-day the 
 privilege of working in a given shop is not marketable, nor 
 would it be so if the privilege were transferable, but if we 
 succeed in accomplishing one of the most recognized objects 
 for which employment departments are organized, these rights 
 will then have a value, and obviously, having a value will 
 then cease to be something that can be taken away without 
 recompense. 
 
 In a lesser degree this is also true of all matters which 
 might be classed under the name of welfare work. Gardens, 
 games, theatricals, dining rooms, houses, and company stores, 
 all these, after a little time, become prerogatives rather than 
 things to be appreciated. They become a part of the wages 
 paid but are seldom taken into account when comparisons 
 are being made. They are therefore dangerous matters with 
 which to experiment unless the firm is fully prepared to go 
 through with them. On the other hand, there is the expecta-
 
 12 
 
 tion of returns from the employees, and this is almost wholly 
 summed up in the one word, production. Production must 
 carry the firm, its welfare work, its employee relations, and a 
 reasonable profit, or else sooner or later the firm will cease to 
 exist. There are workers, and many of them, who fulfill the 
 socialist idea that men will do their tasks well regardless of 
 the amount of their wage. The larger number, however, must 
 have something else besides ideals. 
 
 Men how work because of habit or necessity, for the love 
 of money, for the love of what it will buy, or for various other 
 reasons all of which can be classified as positive or negative. 
 A man who works hard through fear of discharge, fear of pov- 
 erty, or fear of losing caste in his world cannot put forth his 
 best efforts, while on the other hand, the man who works 
 because more money will add to his happiness, or because it 
 is a pleasant duty, can accomplish wonders. The company's 
 policy should, therefore, be based, in a general way, upon 
 whether it will induce men to work for it in this latter and 
 positive way, or whether it will hire the type of brow-beating 
 foremen and superintendents who go on the theory that all 
 men are crooked and will not work unless driven. The latter, 
 of course, attract to themselves the kind of men who are lazy 
 and crooked and who do not mind being watched since they 
 know that they need it. 
 
 It is highly important that every shop have a creed, a 
 general statement of principles, subject to change, of course, 
 but always published, and always lived up to, so that when a 
 man says to a foreman, "You must not do that because Article 
 12 of the Code says that you must do otherwise," the foreman 
 will know that Article 12 will be lived up to, and that he will 
 be held accountable. Such a creed will likewise have a whole- 
 some effect when the foreman can point to a set of rules on 
 the wall and say, "That is what the management says they 
 will back me up in, and I know from experience that they 
 will do it." 
 
 When no one, not even the management itself, knows what 
 principles it will stand for to-morrow, there can be neither 
 confidence nor lasting plans between workmen and manage- 
 ment. Stability in industry comes from confidence that the
 
 13 
 
 firm has the capital and the credit to establish a policy and 
 to stick to it through thick and thin. The concern does this 
 in its sales and in its manufacturing. It also establishes the 
 belief in the minds of its customers that it will still be in 
 business in the years to come and ready to render service. It 
 erects its buildings with a view to the future, and it establishes 
 its credit with the banks, but in very few instances does it 
 attempt to secure for the future the good-will of its employees. 
 It is the old-fashioned concern that has kept men in its employ 
 twenty or thirty years that can hold its best help, and such 
 concerns have the most strongly established position with their 
 men because they have maintained a uniform policy for so 
 many years. 
 
 A concern which wishes to establish itself in a position 
 wherein it will not be troubled by strikes, must do so either by 
 this slow process over a long period of years, or else it must 
 come out plainly and boldly and, with nothing concealed, say 
 to its men, "Here is where we stand ; if you come to work for 
 us you come under these conditions and they will not be 
 changed except with your consent." .This sounds drastic, and 
 yet would any employer make a deal with just one man on 
 any other basis? Would he agree to sell machinery to a man 
 at a given rate and then expect to change the rate without 
 consulting him? He would not, and he could not if he wished. 
 Nor do we encourage a manufacturer to establish a factory 
 in our town, and after agreeing to purchase a supply of goods, 
 without notice tell him we have changed our minds and that 
 he ought not to have located in our town. Such a case is 
 fairly comparable to the way we do treat our employees. The 
 fact that last week we told one of our men that he was doing 
 the best work in the shop and gave him a raise in pay does 
 not seem to be the least bar to our "firing" him next week. 
 If men realize that their jobs are constantly in jeopardy, and 
 that they must always keep packed ready to move, one need 
 not wonder that they do move, and labor turnover will be 
 high whenever a concern has no established policy upon which 
 men can rely for the continuance of their jobs. 
 
 It is not enough, however, that the company should enun- 
 ciate a policy. It must also put the employment department
 
 14 
 
 in a position to see that its policies are carried out. lit can- 
 not say to the men, "You shall not be discharged without a 
 hearing and a careful study of your case," and then have the 
 whole plan upset by a foreman who demands that unless a 
 certain man be "fired" at once he himself will leave. It is 
 accordingly just as necessary that the foremen understand and 
 acquiesce in the principles of the company as it is for the 
 men to agree to abide by them. Such relations should be a 
 whole-hearted agreement, with no reservations. The fore- 
 man who cannot maintain discipline without the right to dis- 
 charge should not remain a foreman. As a matter of fact he 
 can, and probably will, accept these principles without any 
 expectation of saying "I told you so" every time that some 
 minor hitch occurs in their application. It would also seem 
 that if there is a scheme of shop committees, there should 
 likewise be another committee of foremen who could present 
 their side of the case, for while they represent the management, 
 yet in a shop of any considerable size they are almost as 
 distant from it as the workmen themselves. 
 
 Disagreements are certain to arise for honest differences 
 of opinion are inevitable, but here too there should be a known 
 principle governing the company's method of approach. It 
 should not be left to the foreman to smooth out a threatened 
 rupture of good feeling and then later the case be taken over 
 by some other official. Nor should it be the duty of the em- 
 ployment department to attempt to settle a strike. To be 
 sure the employment department has its judicial functions, 
 but it is necessarily in a rather difficult position, because 
 though dependent on the company for its existence it must 
 keep an "open ear" for anything that savors of a charge 
 against the company and it must also stand for the right no 
 matter how partisan it might care to be. 
 
 In the settlement of disputes the employment department 
 can usually furnish information which will be of help to 
 both sides in bringing about an amicable settlement, but 
 there should be some definite official, preferably in the direc- 
 torate, to whose attention every disagreement which threatens 
 to become serious may be brought. In this case, as in every 
 other similar relation, it is highly important that there be
 
 15 
 
 a definite policy, and even if that policy is a bad one, the fact 
 that it is known to the employees will prevent many men 
 from placing themselves in a position from which they could 
 not make a good retreat. On the whole a policy which pro- 
 vides that all sides of the case will be heard by some one 
 high enough in the organization to command respect is the 
 one which will bring the largest profits.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE only type of employment manager who deserves the 
 name is one who has the courage of his convictions, who 
 loves his work more than he does his job, and who is willing, if 
 necessary, to lose his job rather than break faith with the 
 employees whom he has hired for the company. In other 
 words, his is a missionary job. 
 
 The works manager and the sales manager have both es- 
 tablished themselves as necessities, and no firm ever considers 
 getting along without them. They have also established for 
 themselves certain lines of credit. The works manager gets 
 credit for low cost production ; the sales manager for increased 
 sales. To be sure, either one may get unearned credit or 
 suffer from undeserved losses, but they know the standard by 
 which they will be judged and they play the game according 
 to the rules. 
 
 There are no rules, however, by which the employment 
 manager is rated. He may reduce labor turnover from 500 
 per cent to 100 per cent, but if he figures that he saved the 
 hiring and breaking in of 20,000 men, and that each man would 
 have cost $50 to find and train, and he therefore tells the man- 
 agement that he saved them a million dollars, he is laughed at 
 for his pains. As a matter of fact, he probably saved them 
 a great deal more than that for $50 is a low figure for most 
 shops. However until there is a standard method of crediting 
 the employment manager with what he accomplishes, he will 
 continue to rank with the minor departments of the office, and 
 be looked upon as a necessary evil the cost of which must 
 be reduced to a minimum. 
 
 16
 
 17 
 
 If a man looks on employment management as a good job 
 and one that he wants to hold indefinitely, he can, by a num- 
 ber of subterfuges, accomplish a great deal without having the 
 real cost charged up to his department. He may, for example, 
 secure separate accounts for safety, hospitals, and educational 
 work, and he can also get a great deal of work done by men 
 whose salaries are charged against other departments. An 
 educational department against which there is charged only 
 the salary of the director and one or two clerks looks like a 
 very inexpensive department, but if the time of the different 
 foremen who act as instructors were charged against the edu- 
 cational department the directors would most likely decide 
 that it would be much cheaper to consolidate all educational 
 work and secure full-time instructors. The same is true of 
 many other of the schemes which are used by employment 
 managers, safety engineers, or educational directors to cover 
 up their expenses and make themselves so inconspicuous that 
 their jobs will not be taken away from them. 
 
 Since an employment manager must have the spirit of a 
 missionary, and since there is at present no accepted way of 
 measuring what he accomplishes, it is quite likely that he 
 will not ask for all of the salary that he deserves; consequently 
 salaries are bound to be low. Many men, however, are at- 
 tracted to this work because the salaries which are paid seem 
 high to them, and it is a problem for the concern to distinguish 
 between the real employment manager and the time server. 
 
 There are all kinds of people making good in this work: 
 graduates of colleges and of the school of hard knocks, and 
 men and women of every imaginable type. There are, however, 
 resemblances which are noticeable as soon as one talks with 
 them; resemblances which are visible at their conventions no 
 matter how much they may disagree among themselves, and 
 which revolve around the coming of a day of better under- 
 standing between managers and men, rather than any rela- 
 tions between capital and labor. There is also the common 
 desire to act as intermediaries between men and their em- 
 ployers and to get them to see that their interests really lie 
 in the same direction. Get a man with the desire to help 
 straighten out the labor tangle, find out if he has common
 
 18 
 
 sense, see if he has worked with his hands, pay him enough 
 salary, give him an office every bit as good as the works or 
 sales manager, and then give him authority commensurate 
 with the salary and the office and you will have an employ- 
 ment manager. But the man with the most self-sacrificing 
 spirit in the world will fail if he does not have the open and 
 well-advertised backing of the management, and that comes 
 through apparent favor. The management always gives the 
 men on whom it relies money enough to keep up good appear- 
 ances and offices suited to their position. That is the com- 
 pany's way of advertising its standing to the world and to its 
 other employees. 
 
 Perhaps to-day most successful employment managers are 
 so-called educated men, but it does not require much formal 
 education to do the work of the employment manager. There 
 are, however, more capable men acquiring an education now 
 than ever before, and many concerns demand that their em- 
 ployment manager be a graduate of a college or technical 
 school. This assumption presents somewhat of a handicap to 
 the man who aspires to work of this nature, because, without 
 the slightest excuse for it, employers are tending toward mak- 
 ing a college or technical school education an essential quali- 
 fication for this and other jobs which have little need of such 
 training. 
 
 If the head of the department is wise he will educate him- 
 self in the ways of the shop and office before he starts to work. 
 It is not necessary that he actually work in every department, 
 but if he has not done similar work he ought at least to try 
 it long enough to find out just how much he can do without 
 getting completely tired out. He should also be familiar with 
 all the jobs which his assistants and subordinates are to do, 
 for his own protection if nothing else. As far as training 
 for employment management goes it is unnecessary for a man 
 of intelligence to go to a special school, for there is plenty of 
 printed material to give him the necessary information. Codes 
 for the guidance of the profession have not as yet been estab- 
 lished, neither are there professional secrets, and every em- 
 ployment manager is ready to tell his experiences and is eager 
 to hear those of others.
 
 19 
 
 Perhaps some day our engineering schools will establish 
 courses in employment management but they will not be so 
 much courses in employment management as they will be 
 courses in business management and common sense. The 
 principal problem in this profession is to think one's way 
 out of the difficulties which arise from moment to moment. 
 When a foreman threatens to throw up a job. he has held for 
 twenty years unless a certain man is "thrown out" of the shop, 
 and all the evidence brought before the employment manager 
 proves that the man was right and the foreman wrong, there 
 is need of some quick thinking on the part of the manager for 
 he must so present the case to the foreman that the latter will 
 realize how unfair he has been. This, of course, cannot always 
 be accomplished, and it is sometimes wonderful how long 
 service makes a superintendent blind to inefficiency and pig- 
 headedness. It is problems such as these which take up the 
 time of employment managers rather than the problems of 
 larger magnitude which are discussed at their conventions. 
 
 Industry is based on the need of men for work, and only 
 within the past few months has there been any consideration 
 of the problem which arises when labor can pick and choose 
 its work. It looks now as though this new state of affairs 
 might never revert to the old. Men are finding it possible 
 to maintain high wages, and employers are not going to sacri- 
 fice their profits. Many an employer has sworn that he would 
 never advance wages a cent, but he has quickly done so when 
 the way to profitably advance them has been shown to him. 
 
 From time to time courses have been offered in employ- 
 ment management. Such courses have included the systems 
 used, the layout of the department, and all the other items of 
 lesser importance, and while a knowledge of these is desirable 
 from the point of view of the employer, they are not a sub- 
 stitute for any very large part of the real job. Any firm 
 which wishes to install an employment department can call 
 in an expert, and for a couple of hundred dollars secure a 
 layout. For a few hundred more they can obtain a full set 
 of necessary forms, but they are still a long way from having 
 an employment department. But when they have secured a 
 man who has the nerve to tell his boss what is wrong with
 
 20 
 
 him and the departments under him, then the firm is in a 
 fair way to have an employment department. 
 
 Almost every manufacturing plant has its weak points and 
 the men usually know what they are. Sometimes they cannot 
 tell what the difficulty is in terms that can be understood by 
 the general manager, but the employment manager should 
 understand them and he should be able to translate 
 them for the men higher up. Many of these troubles 
 appear trifling in the eyes of the management, but un- 
 til the grievance has been removed there will be neither 
 peace nor comfort. How many plants could depend on retain- 
 ing the same foreman if the workmen were to vote on the 
 question, even though they were limited in voting to the old 
 reliable men, and secret ballots were taken? One of the largest 
 jobs of an employment manager is accordingly to discover the 
 hidden practices of the foremen. An employment manager 
 should not be hostile to the foremen, but ought to know 
 which foremen should be replaced. 
 
 The ability to handle such problems is not acquired in a 
 school, for the employment manager graduated from the best 
 school imaginable possesses only the skeleton of his profession ; 
 the rest he must obtain by experience. He can be sure of one 
 thing, however, and that is that all the information he can 
 obtain will be of value to him. He needs to be the best in- 
 formed man in the place, not only about his own company 
 methods and processes, but about those of other industries as 
 well. He needs to know what a man means when he applies 
 for a job and says that he has had five years' experience at 
 "pulling over" or at "vamping." He needs to know the ways 
 of the firms which are competing for help, so that if a man 
 comes and claims that he was short changed at Brown's shop 
 he will know whether such was really the case or whether some 
 money was taken out of his pay envelope to cover his mutual 
 benefit dues. He needs also to know that one of his own 
 foremen may be a most excellent man when supplied with 
 Polish workers but worthless if supplied with Italians. 
 Knowledge of matters such as these results from observation 
 and cannot be taught in any school. This is probably the 
 reason why men of such diverse training have made good in
 
 21 
 
 these positions. Any training in fact which sharpens the 
 powers of observation, which brings a man into contact with 
 his fellow men, and which teaches him to find out what they 
 think, is good training ; the rest is merely a matter of develop- 
 ment on the job. 
 
 If the firm is in a state of development, and does not know 
 whether they want an employment department or not, and 
 furthermore does not want to spend much money experiment- 
 ing with one, then they will be very likely to do one of two 
 things, either promote some clerk in the pay roll department 
 to the job, or else secure the graduate of some school who has 
 a diploma certifying to the completion of a course in employ- 
 ment management. In either instance they may develop, and 
 ultimately have a full-fledged employment department. The 
 chances, however, are rather against them ; for such cases seem 
 to be another one of those instances in which the Topsy 
 who was not born but "just growed" is not likely to be re- 
 ceived into the family organization on an even footing with 
 the departments which have held high favor with the manage- 
 ment in the past. In order that the employment manager 
 possess the standing which is a prerequisite for success, it is 
 therefore necessary that the position be filled by some one 
 from outside the organization, or else by some one from inside 
 who is already known to stand high in the estimation and 
 favor of the general manager. The graduate must, unless he 
 has had previous experience in some line which makes him 
 eligible for a large job, content himself with a position as an 
 interviewer, a follow-up man, or some subordinate job until 
 he makes a reputation for himself. It is also very unlikely 
 that he can hope to jump into a position which pays any 
 considerable salary and which leads in any direct way to re- 
 sponsibility for the work.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 THE MACHINERY OF EMPLOYMENT 
 
 T TSUALLY the management considers that it has done its 
 \^J full duty when it has provided the employment depart- 
 ment with an office fully equipped in keeping with the 
 position which it feels that the department should have. As a 
 matter of fact, this is only providing machinery, and while 
 such machinery is absolutely essential to the conduct of the 
 business of employment, yet, with nothing back of it, it is a 
 poor investment. As has been said before, an employment 
 department is only effective when it becomes the authoritative 
 mouthpiece of the management, and the machinery of the 
 department cannot become such. If the management is not 
 visibly back of the department the department ceases to be 
 of value, and all its machinery is worthless. 
 
 The employment department naturally cannot function 
 without a place in which to meet candidates for jobs. The 
 place may be in the works, it may be down-town, or it may 
 even be a room in some distant hotel, but wherever it is the 
 firm cannot afford to have it reflect other than the prosperity 
 of the company. Figure 1 shows an excellent type of room ; it 
 is clean, and well lighted and ventilated, but the benches are 
 not so inviting as to make the room a loafing place. Too often 
 men applying for jobs get the idea that the company is nig- 
 gardly from their first contact with the waiting room of the 
 employment department. Managers questioned as to the 
 reason for the dark, dirty, and unattractive waiting rooms 
 excuse them by saying that the kind of men who apply are 
 not worthy of any better quarters, or that it is impossible for 
 them to be kept clean on account of the filthiness of the men 
 who congregate in them. These statements, however, simply 
 
 22
 
 23 
 
 reflect the opinion of the observer. It is true that many men 
 are seeking work in our shops and factories who are not pleas- 
 ant to look at, but they are Americans in the making, and we 
 cannot afford to overlook the fact that we have a chance here 
 to speed up the making. 
 
 Cleanliness is, of course, not obtainable without action. 
 Because a place was clean last week is no reason for expecting 
 it to be clean next week, unless something is done to make it 
 
 FIGURE 1. 
 
 WAITING ROOM OF THE EMPLOYMENT DEPARTMENT AT THE LYNN 
 WORKS OF THE GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY. 
 
 so. If the waiting room is built for easy cleaning, as all rooms 
 ought to be, and is always clean when a new crowd enters it, 
 a surprisingly small amount of attention will be required. In 
 one well-known waiting room where from 30,000 to 40,000 
 men gathered in a year the greatest amount of cleaning was 
 made necessary by a dozen office people who gathered there at 
 noon to play cards. So, first of all, the employment depart- 
 ment needs a waiting room large enough to accommodate the 
 applicants with seats during ordinary days and to shelter peak 
 loads with men standing not uncomfortably near together. Ex- 
 perience indicates this area to be in the vicinity of 10 square
 
 24 
 
 feet per man employed each week. That is, a concern hiring 
 120 men per week would require a waiting room of 1200 
 square feet, or about 30 feet by 40 feet. If this is made with a 
 concrete floor, with a very slight pitch toward a drain, and the 
 base board is also of concrete and carried up high enough 
 so that the room can be easily and safely flushed and mopped 
 out, there will be no trouble about cleanliness. 
 
 The greatest peak load in the waiting room usually occurs 
 on Monday and Tuesday mornings before ten o'clock. 
 The type of man available at these times is especially poor 
 and consequently it is difficult to have a great deal of com- 
 passion for the majority of them. It is seldom that a really 
 capable man comes in early on either day. After ten o'clock, 
 however, the desirable men come in by ones and twos, and 
 they continue to come the rest of the day and week. These 
 men need prompt attention and comfortable quarters while 
 they are waiting for an interview because they are more sensi- 
 tive and high-strung than the Monday morning crowd. They 
 are also more independent. It is an excellent idea to have a 
 fair-sized waiting room beyond the main waiting room into 
 which the more likely appearing men can be admitted. 
 
 Most of the Monday and Tuesday morning applicants can 
 be dismissed without consideration, although it is probably 
 wise to take a brief record of each man, if for no other purpose 
 than to have statistics available as to the flow of labor toward 
 the shop. For this purpose all that is needed is a simple 
 form giving the applicant's name, address, last shop worked 
 in, kind of work done, wages expected, and, possibly, age. 
 Statistics concerning the last shop in which the applicant 
 worked are also desirable as they indicate the state of employ- 
 ment in that shop. For example, if a given week shows a 
 great increase in the number of applicants who have formerly 
 worked in a neighboring plant it may mean that the neigh- 
 boring plant has not kept wages up to the market, or that 
 there is an unpopular foreman, or that some new rule is dis- 
 liked or an old one is being enforced. At all events it indicates 
 a possible supply of men which can well be sought out. It 
 is surprising how many times a foreman in another shop will 
 often unwittingly help to secure an excellent supply of labor.
 
 At the same time that there is a flow of help into the wait- 
 ing room there should be a flow of requisitions from the fore- 
 men or superintendents so that, as far as possible, the right 
 man will be given the right job. Theoretically, there should 
 be a written requisition for each man wanted and it should 
 be in the hands of the employment manager a considerable 
 length of time before the man is needed in the shop. As a 
 matter of fact, however, it is common practice to find that 
 the requisition, if made out by the foreman at all, is made 
 out after he has the man at work, and this is known as "co- 
 operation" on the part of the employment department. Such 
 procedure is unfair to the employment department. It comes 
 about through men leaving without notice, or the foreman 
 not discovering that men have left until a week or two after it 
 has happened. Then he is ready to overlook all formalities 
 and cut all red tape to get a man quickly so that when the 
 superintendent comes around he will not find an idle machine. 
 Consequently, he will take any one and with very little inquiry 
 as to his ability. The machine runs, the department looks 
 busy, and everything is all right, except production. More- 
 over, the shops whose superintendents think they have the 
 hardest working forces usually have a great deal of "Miis kind 
 of work because they have the most men leaving the job 
 without notice. This can only be cured if the employment 
 department has the management sufficiently back of it to 
 insist on time to find the right man for the job, and this in- 
 sistence will save a great deal of the rapid turnover which 
 to-day is so prevalent. 
 
 It is almost always found that the men who stay only a 
 few days are the men who were hired hastily, and who were 
 not acquainted in detail with what was expected of them. 
 It is all right for a foreman to say that he only hires the men 
 who are willing to do anything, but after they have spoiled an 
 expensive job they find some way to cover it up and leaving 
 by the back door they never come back, not even for their 
 pay. Willingness to do anything for a given number of dollars 
 and ability to do it should not be confused. 
 
 Written requisitions should be insisted upon, so far as 
 possible, and the employment department should only treat
 
 26 
 
 as emergency cases those which are emergencies and not im- 
 providence. If unconfirmed telephone messages are accepted 
 the condition will surely arise when foremen will explain high 
 labor-turnover in their departments on the ground that the 
 employment department sent them there, which is awk- 
 ward for that department unless they are able to show the 
 requisitions on which they were sent. The question of 
 whether the requisitions should originally come from the straw 
 boss, immediately over the men, the foreman, the superintend- 
 ent, or the works manager is one which depends on the re- 
 sponsibility which is placed on these men. Generally speak- 
 ing, it is hardly fair to place responsibility on a foreman 
 without giving him control over his department. If the straw 
 boss is simply a mouthpiece for the foreman, he should not be 
 allowed to make his own requisitions for unlimited numbers 
 of men. If it is the foreman who is held responsible, he should 
 be the man to make the requisition, and it should not be sub- 
 ject to approval by any one higher up, unless that person 
 does actually keep track of all the requisitions which go 
 through his hands. 
 
 When the works manager has the requisitions go through 
 his hands purely as a matter of form it only slows down the 
 work without doing anybody any good. He may imagine 
 that others think he inspects them, but he fools only himself. 
 So far as the number of workers is concerned, the works 
 manager should have a comparative statement, week by week, 
 or month by month, showing the number in each department 
 and also, wherever possible, figures showing the production in 
 the same departments. If such information is put in graph- 
 ical form it is much more easily read than if tabulated. 
 
 The requisitions should be as explicit as possible. They 
 should not merely call for a man for a given department, but 
 they should state specifically what he is expected to do. This 
 is not for the purpose of obstructing transfers, but to give the 
 employment department a fair chance to select a suitable man. 
 The large number of wounded soldiers now being trained and 
 placed in shops has brought our attention more strongly than 
 ever to a realization of the fact that most men have limitations 
 and that willingness to "do anything" does not guarantee abil-
 
 27 
 
 ity. It is usually inadvisable to establish wage limits, as the 
 foreman who puts on a wage limit might take it off if he saw 
 the applicants. But, whether wage limits are specified or not, 
 if each man is supposed to be hired on his ability and experi- 
 ence it is absurd to set one in advance of seeing the man. In 
 some cases what is really meant is descriptive in its nature 
 rather than limiting. When a foreman calls for a fourteen 
 dollar a week girl for his office he may mean the kind of a girl 
 that will usually work for fourteen dollars. He may be very 
 much pleased to take on a sixteen dollar a week girl when he 
 sees her. 
 
 The requisitions and the applicants should meet each other 
 at the door of the interviewing room. The undesirable should 
 be weeded at the door, only a mere record as previously sug- 
 gested being taken, and remainder of the men admitted to 
 the interviewing room. These, for the most part, will be 
 available for employment. The interview is perhaps the most 
 important work which the employment department is called 
 upon to do. It is not always done with that thought, however, 
 but possibly more often with the idea that such a task con- 
 sists in getting some sort of answers to a set of questions. 
 Done in this spirit it is no better than the old way of hiring 
 men on their looks. 
 
 It would be better if the interviewer who makes the deci- 
 sion did not fill out any blanks but simply talked with the 
 candidates, and another man, who might be little more than 
 a clerk, secured the written data. The principal objection to 
 the latter system, however, is that the original interviewer, 
 the man who decides, does not have anything to remind him 
 of the points which he should consider before making his de- 
 cision. He is liable, therefore, to give a very short interview 
 to a man if some one point about him is especially favorable. 
 He thus loses the chance to touch on the candidate's weak 
 points, knowledge of which is exceedingly important. Possibly 
 this can be overcome if the interviewer makes a report giving 
 his impressions as to activity, loyalty, willingness to work, etc., 
 and leaves only those items which are positive facts to be 
 entered by the clerk. It is more the custom, however, to 
 divide the job differently, and have a preliminary interviewer,
 
 28 
 
 who sorts out the unemployable and then routes the likely 
 men to different interviewers through their clerks. If the 
 final interviewers are men skilled in the trades for which they 
 are interviewing this makes a very good system, its worst 
 feature being that it is a system and not a human way of 
 making a selection. 
 
 It is very difficult to organize the employment of any 
 considerable number of men in such a way that much of the 
 human element is left in it, and yet that is the fundamental 
 reason for having an employment department. The passing 
 of a candidate from one interviewer to another and the filling 
 out of a multiplicity of forms do not impress him favorably. 
 The less the candidate has to do himself the more of his 
 friends he will advise to come around and apply for jobs. 
 The exception to this is found in the more moderately paid 
 office help who appear to be impressed with the size and 
 intricacy of the application blank which they are asked to 
 fill out. In the shop, however, it is better for the applicant 
 to see as little as possible of the machinery of the department. 
 
 How much of purely personal detail it is wise to ask for is 
 a question, for beyond a certain point almost any man will 
 either drop the matter in disgust or else lie about it, and 
 in either case the employment manager fails in his purpose. 
 This point is much further advanced now than it was even a 
 few years ago. The draft questionnaires, the income tax re- 
 turns, and the minute care which was taken all through the 
 war to discover possible disloyalty have all helped to make us 
 less careful of our secrets, and possibly also to have fewer 
 of them. At all events, no man of to-day goes into the em- 
 ployment office of a concern of over five hundred men without 
 expecting to answer a long and rather searching list of ques- 
 tions. Some of these questions are impertinent to the contract 
 about to be made, for after all hiring a man is making a 
 contract, to be sure a contract easily broken by either side and 
 too often lightly entered into, but a contract nevertheless. 
 
 It is the object of the contract to secure for one party the 
 services of an individual who will perform a certain work, the 
 exact nature of which, however, is usually unknown to both 
 parties, and for the other party to sell certain very indefinite
 
 29 
 
 services for the largest possible price and under the most 
 advantageous terms. A contract thus made under such loose 
 conditions is necessarily dangerous to both parties, and should 
 only be entered into by men of the most rigid honor. As a 
 matter of fact it is entered into by all kinds of men on both 
 sides and also very carelessly in most instances. This is one 
 of the reasons for the large labor turnover which is so preva- 
 lent. "The green field just over the fence/' in some other 
 shop looks so very good to the man working in our shop that 
 he cannot be convinced that he is wrong in leaving except by 
 trying it. When he tries, He finds there are just about the 
 same number of things which are disagreeable about the new 
 .job that there were about the old one, and so he becomes a 
 sadder but not necessarily a much wiser man. 
 
 After. he has jumped about from shop to shop for ten or 
 fifteen years it begins to dawn upon him that all shops are 
 about alike. Employers cut their eye teeth earlier in the 
 game and so they soon give up hoping for an organization 
 that will always be loyal. Such a state of affairs will prob- 
 ably remain about as it is until proprietors discover how little 
 they know about the work being done by their men. Then it 
 may be possible to place employment on a more stable plane, 
 and the contract may be a definite one with which both parties 
 are acquainted. 
 
 In no case, however, does this contract become a matter of 
 religion, membership in secret or other societies, the man's 
 state of divorce or marriage, or his debts. If these questions 
 are asked it is either for the sake of asking questions, or for 
 the sake of finding out something which is not pertinent to 
 the contract. It may be that they are asked in order to 
 determine, in the mind of the interviewer, the status of the 
 man's character, which is all very well if the position is one 
 of trust and responsibility, but character is something so often 
 a matter of environment that it seems hardly possible that 
 a man can have other than a good character if he is in the 
 right surroundings. It is much more to the point to be able 
 to say to the applicant that the shop is fit for a man to work 
 in than it is to know whether he attends church and whether 
 that church is the one favored by the works manager. It
 
 30 
 
 will also be likely to have more effect on his character to be 
 in surroundings where the Golden Rule is practiced six days 
 in the week than to go to church for an hour or so on Sunday. 
 
 Inquiry into one's membership in secret societies or labor 
 unions comes in the same category. If the shop is distinctly 
 and without question a closed shop, either for or against labor 
 unions, that fact should be well known to the applicant, and 
 if it is a closed shop, in the ordinary sense of the word, every 
 applicant should show his union card before he is admitted to 
 the interviewing room. If the shop does not hire members 
 of unions the fact should be plainly stated in a sign over the 
 entrance. Since the great majority of shops are ostensibly 
 "open shops," that is they hire men and not memberships, 
 they can hardly look into membership without exciting the 
 suspicion that they have an ulterior motive. Of course every 
 open shop is an object of suspicion to the unions, whether 
 justly or not, and an inquiry only excites further suspicion and 
 without giving a very clear idea of the actual conditions. 
 
 It might also be said that purely from an employment 
 standpoint it is no part of the company's business to inquire 
 how many children an applicant has, for so far there has been 
 no sliding scale of wages based upon the number of his depend- 
 ents. Whether there should be is another question and one 
 that seems to be a community rather than a company matter. 
 There is no special reason why a man with six children should 
 produce more than a man with three. In fact, he may be so 
 harassed with their sleeplessness at night and the cost of 
 feeding and clothing them that he will be very much less 
 valuable than if he were single. The reason an inquiry is 
 almost always made into the size of a man's family is because 
 of the theory that the larger his family the longer and closer 
 he will stick to the job. This is once more an expression of 
 intention to take advantage of the under dog's necessities. To 
 be sure men with large families do stay longer on the job 
 than single men, but on the other hand, it is doubtful whether 
 it is wise to have men in the shop who would work elsewhere 
 if they dared to make the break. Intimidation never made 
 profits for any shop, and the fear of discharge which is held 
 over men as a whip cuts especially heavily on the married men.
 
 31 
 
 Inquiry into ownership of property is a similar matter. 
 The fact that a man owns a home is looked upon by many 
 employers as just one more indication that there is a man 
 who can be exploited before he will leave the shop. If, how- 
 ever, the interest of the concern was in the number of Ameri- 
 can-born children who will be coming along later as prospec- 
 tive workmen, or if their interest in his home was in having 
 workmen near the shop, then these inquiries would be justified, 
 otherwise they become of interest only as statistics and are 
 hardly worth the suspicion which they arouse in the men. 
 They are however the most common questions asked, even 
 though there seems to be little or no use made of the answers, 
 unless it be the rather questionable uses just suggested. 
 
 The interviewer himself soon becomes a part of the ma- 
 chinery of the department and to avoid having him perform 
 his duties in a purely mechanical way it is necessary that he 
 be a man with a real interest in the work he is doing. This 
 makes it necessary that he be thoroughly posted on all of the 
 company's affairs for he cannot do his best work if he is blind- 
 folded. Too many managers believe that the affairs of the 
 company should be kept from their assistants, and yet they 
 complain that their assistants do not take the interest in 
 their work that they should. How can a man take an interest 
 in the selection of employees unless he knows whether they 
 are going to be needed permanently, or whether the demand 
 is made because of a temporary spurt in business? If he 
 is just another "hired man" there is little incentive for him 
 to do other than put in his time and be around convenient 
 to the paymaster once a week. He is a part of the concern, 
 or else he is merely a dummy. He should know of the big 
 orders as soon as they are received, if not as soon as they are 
 expected. He should know of the falling off of inquiries so 
 that he may not overhire, even though foremen may requisi- 
 tion men. He should know of changes in pay and the reason 
 for it. In fact, he should know all the company's business as 
 quickly as it is proper for it to be known outside the general 
 manager's office. In almost all shops, however, he is depend- 
 ent on the "shop wireless" which works faster on good news 
 than bad and which is not always entirely reliable.
 
 32 
 
 The interviewer should be a man old enough to command 
 the respect of every applicant, but he should not be so old 
 that he is unappreciative of new ideas. He should be alert 
 and constantly on the watch to find better ways of carrying 
 on the work of the office. He ought to know enough about 
 every job in the shop so that he does not have to depend on 
 any job analysis, or rather he should have the job analysis 
 of every part of the work so clearly fixed in his mind that, if 
 necessary, he could dictate an analysis to a stenographer. 
 There are some men who can do this without having worked 
 in the shop, but there are very few whose powers of observa- 
 tion are equal to such a task, unless they have at some time 
 done similar work as a means of livelihood. 
 
 There is a vast difference between doing work for the sake 
 of the money which comes from it and doing it for the sake 
 of knowing how it is done. It has been observed that very 
 few serious labor troubles occurred during the generation of 
 employers who came up through the ranks and formerly 
 worked with their men. Whether this is literally true or not, 
 the idea is fundamentally good. If the employment depart- 
 ment is to represent the management to the men it will profit 
 much by having this actual working contact in its past history. 
 
 A very young man, no matter how bright and capable, is 
 not suited to this work for the simple reason that he cannot 
 look the part. It is in many ways a judicial part, and is so 
 considered by the employees. They resent being told things 
 by a young chap which they would take perfectly well from 
 an older man. It is not the fault of the young men that 
 they are not suited to this work, but rather their misfortune. 
 This, however, only applies to the men who actually decide. 
 The clerical work can be done by young fellows or by girls. 
 Such work is excellent training for young men who will 
 some day be. employment managers, and such jobs ought not, 
 therefore, to be filled entirely by women. 
 
 Employment of women as interviewers or even as employ- 
 ment managers is by no means unheard of, and women have 
 made some very good records, especially in places where a 
 considerable number of girls were employed. They are, how- 
 ever, under a severe handicap owing to the natural reluctance
 
 33 
 
 of a man to ask of them what may seem like a favor, and also 
 of the preference which women have for dealing with men. 
 
 Under stress of necessity, both sexes will apply for jobs 
 where they have to state their case to a woman, but it is not 
 by choice, and the shop which employs them for such work 
 does not get the best labor which is available. There is no 
 doubt but that women are quite as capable as men of making 
 good selections from among those who apply, but their handi- 
 cap is in the applicants themselves. It is such an important 
 matter in many places to get the highest quality of labor 
 which can be found that this phase of the matter should be 
 fully considered before hiring is put in the hands of women. 
 To be sure women have done many things successfully which 
 may seem to parallel employment work, but if such work be 
 analyzed it will be found that it involved positions in which 
 women could "play up" their sex and arouse feelings from 
 which business is supposedly free. Women in employment 
 work cannot gain anything from the sex appeal. 
 
 There is a great difference in interviewers as to their 
 methods of meeting men. One will be all smiles and very 
 affable and he is apt to be rated as a sissy among applicants. 
 Another will be gruff and growl at every one, on the ground 
 that unless they are impressed with his importance they will 
 not start to work in the right spirit of obedience. He is 
 shunned by the better class of men, unless they are very badly 
 in need of work. Another will ask very few questions but will 
 size a man up almost entirely on his appearance, possibly by 
 a system of his own, or by some one of the physiological tests 
 that have been made much of in the past few years. He is 
 unsatisfactory to the applicant as the latter usually wants to 
 tell his story to some one who will sympathize with him. 
 
 The most successful interviewers are good listeners. It is 
 not altogether pleasant to sit and hear a man ramble through 
 his past experiences, but if he has a weakness it will come out 
 for no system of questioning will bring out so much as a 
 sympathetic and apparently willing listener. Of course there 
 are men who prove exceptions to this rule, but they are few 
 in number, and almost all of them are bashful rather than 
 reticent.
 
 HAVING once brought the requisition for help and the 
 man to fill the requisition together, there still remains 
 the task of actually accepting him and taking his record. An 
 occasional employment manager will say that as long as he is 
 employment manager he is going to hire the help without in- 
 terference from any one else. This is a mistake, for no matter 
 how capable he may be there is the psychological condition to 
 be met which comes about because the man will work under 
 a foreman, and until the man is satisfied with the foreman 
 and the foreman with him the contract is of no value. The 
 employment department is really the agent of the foreman in 
 securing help. It may not appear that way on the organiza- 
 tion chart but that is the effect which it has. If, as agent of 
 the foreman, the employment department hires men and sends 
 them to work there will be much more danger of a critical 
 attitude than as if the foreman and workmen had met. To be 
 sure, there will come a time when the foreman will say to 
 the employment department, "Send along your men and don't 
 bother me; you can pick them as good as I can," and when 
 that time comes the employment department has come a long 
 ways toward functioning as it should. It will not profit it, 
 however, to force the issue. 
 
 How is the man to meet the foreman? Sometimes a num- 
 ber of men can be held in the waiting room and the foreman 
 can come in but it is usually better for the man to see the 
 foreman on the job. It is expensive to furnish guides, but it 
 is the only safe way. It is not always done, however, and 
 even during the war it was not an uncommon sight to see 
 men wandering around in munition plants and shipyards try- 
 
 34
 
 35 
 
 ing to find a certain foreman with the very uncertain directions 
 given them at the employment office. The opportunities for 
 harm thus afforded were unlimited. Even in peace times 
 there are very few shops so arranged that a man can be safely 
 directed to a given foreman. It is much better to hire a boy 
 to do this work, but it is not a good job for the boy unless he 
 is of the kind that learns readily by observation as he is very 
 apt to loaf two-thirds of the time. 
 
 If the man is accepted by the foreman he should endorse 
 his approval on the original requisition sheet. This is for the 
 protection of the employment department, and it adds one 
 more reason for a separate requisition for each man. In fact, 
 the general requisition written for ten, twenty, or a hundred 
 men does not lend itself to the easy working out of a system 
 of keeping track of labor. Each man is a unit by himself; he 
 is not like any other man even though he goes by the same 
 title and draws the same pay. He must be given a separate 
 number and a separate place on the payroll and the best place 
 to begin to make him a separate unit is on the requisition 
 before he is hired. 
 
 Whether a man should be introduced to the time keeper, 
 and have the location of the time clock, the locker room, and 
 the wash rooms pointed out at the time he meets the fore- 
 man is a question to be decided chiefly by the probability 
 of the man's actually coming to work. Where shops of a 
 similar nature are closely crowded . together it is customary 
 for a man to take a half a day off and "go shopping around" 
 for a job, promising at each shop to go to work the following 
 week. Thus, if there are four shops, there is one chance in 
 four that he will accept a particular job, and under such con- 
 ditions it probably is better to spend as little time on him 
 as possible. In such a case, however, it is sometimes an ad- 
 vantage to insist on his coming prepared to go to work, and 
 if this is expected the word will soon spread that only such 
 men need apply as are willing to take the job. This has 
 another good effect in that it decreases the number of men who 
 go back to their present employer and secure an unearned 
 raise in pay on the ground that they are going to leave to take 
 a job with some rival.
 
 36 
 
 Somewhere during this period a medical examination 
 should be given. If such an examination is used to eliminate 
 undesirables it should come after the preliminary interview, 
 but if it is intended to help the employment department place 
 the desirable men where, from a physical standpoint, they will 
 be best fitted, then it should not come until after the final 
 interview, for at that time the medical department can have 
 all the information as to the man's expected place in the 
 organization. On the other hand, if the medical examination 
 is merely one to seek out men with contagious diseases and 
 disqualifying disabilities, as seems to be the case in some 
 shops, it does not make any difference where it comes as it is 
 about equally out of place everywhere. 
 
 The physical examination room is not, strictly speaking, a 
 part of the employment department, but is rather a branch 
 of the medical department which is preferably contiguous to 
 the interviewer's rooms. Nearness is of great importance, and 
 delays occasioned by waiting for the doctor are very bad, 
 for when a man is waiting he imagines himself suffering from 
 all kinds of diseases. To be sure, a large proportion of our 
 population is accustomed to physical examinations and knows 
 what its physical condition is, but there are large numbers of 
 others who ought to know their condition who do not, and 
 who are apt to grow nervous through delay. We may, there- 
 fore, say that it is essential that the medical department have 
 its facilities for examination near at hand and ready for instant 
 service. Figure 2 shows how this is accomplished at the Lynn 
 Works of the General Electric Company. There should also 
 be every attention paid to reducing the length of time between 
 the applicant's coming into the outer waiting room and his 
 getting the job, or knowing that he does not get one, because 
 from his point of view all that time is lost. He much prefers 
 the old way of hailing the foreman through the shop windows 
 and being hired right then and there, and the nearer we can 
 approach that as an ideal the better. 
 
 Some mention should also be made of the plan of having 
 physical examinations made only after the workman has been 
 on the job a week or two. It has the merit of financial econ- 
 omy, if that is a merit, but it does not help the employment
 
 37 
 
 ptj
 
 38 
 
 department in its selection, and it does not prevent men with 
 contagious diseases from getting into the shop. It is quite 
 like locking the barn door after the horse is stolen. There 
 are many so-called "practical" employment managers who 
 claim to be able to tell by looking at a man whether or not he 
 is physically able to do any given job. They point to individ- 
 ual failures of doctors to notice certain ailments which develop 
 after the men are safely in the shop, and yet this type of 
 manager almost always has faith enough in doctors to call 
 one in if sickness, or even the appearance of sickness, visits 
 his home. There is no doubt but that in many cases the 
 doctor would, if he were hiring men for himself, take a chance 
 on the man's appearance and hire him without any examina- 
 tion, but knowing as he does that there will inevitably be 
 knockers in the shop he cannot take the same chances in 
 another man's shop. 
 
 Every effort should be made to make the physical examina- 
 tion as easy for the men as possible. Men of draft age are 
 accustomed to examinations, but that does not necessarily 
 mean that they are fond of them. If, as is common practice, 
 there are individual dressing booths, each man should see 
 where he is going next before he is asked to prepare for 
 examination. Asking a man to step into an ill-lighted booth, 
 and leave his clothes behind with whatever valuables he may 
 have with him, and then to step out into a room of which 
 he knows nothing will certainly make him suspicious. A plan, 
 which seems very successful, is to have the door by which the 
 man enters lock from the inside and to let him lock it; also 
 to have the door which leads into the examination room lock 
 on the outside so that he cannot step out into that room 
 until the doctor is ready for him. In this way there is ensured 
 the same privacy as is found in any physician's office. A 
 very satisfactory method of installing these booths is shown 
 in Figure 2 on the previous page. 
 
 There should also be some scheme built into the layout of 
 the examining room and the employment office so that there 
 can be quick access from the interviewer to the medical ex- 
 aminer. No written records can possibly be the equivalent 
 of a face to face conference. The examiner and the inter-
 
 39 
 
 viewer necessarily are thinking of the man in different terms, 
 one might almost say in different languages. In order, there- 
 fore, that the medical description be translated so as to have 
 an effect on shop work there must be constant consultation, 
 or else there will be a lack of cooperation. Constant associa- 
 tion between doctor and interviewers will also bring about 
 a proper respect for each other's abilities. 
 
 Many shops use passes which have on them a photograph 
 of the man to whom they were issued. The time and place 
 to take such a photograph is before a man leaves the employ- 
 ment department and as soon as his shop number can be as- 
 signed to him. That is, the man and his shop number should 
 be photographed at the same time, otherwise it is very difficult 
 to pick out the man's photograph. Any one who questions 
 the wisdom of photographs on passes can confirm his judg- 
 ment any time by taking a few passes to the different foremen 
 and watchmen and ask them to name the men from their 
 photographs. The effect of the portrait is largely psycholog- 
 ical however and in this respect it is similar to the pass itself, 
 for if a watchman becomes suspicious he cannot see any re- 
 semblance between photograph and owner, and if he is not 
 suspicious he will not look at either. 
 
 Remote from such parts of the employment office there 
 should be a place, usually with a small waiting room, for all 
 kinds of interviews with men after they have begun work. 
 This should be the place where men come with all their trou- 
 bles and where men are sent by the foreman whenever disputes 
 occur. In other words, it should not be possible for the rest 
 of the employees to guess why a fellow worker has visited 
 that room. This room should be used for men who want 
 increases in pay, for men whose foremen think they should 
 be dropped, for inquiries about income taxes, and for every 
 purpose when men want an interview with some one repre- 
 'senting the management. For that reason, whenever the 
 plant is too large for all who seek such interviews to be seen by 
 one man, the work should not be subdivided, but should be 
 divided among the representatives of the management. 
 
 If there is a central file department for all employee rela- 
 tions activities, it should be located so as to be easy of access
 
 40 
 
 both by telephone and by messenger, so that whoever needs 
 information may get it at once. These files for rapid use 
 should all be "top drawer files," or, better yet because cheaper, 
 they should be open trays set on top of the files of the "dead 
 cases." Just how long the "dead" files should be kept is an 
 open question which is apt to be settled by the room that is 
 available, but, generally speaking, it is very possible that men 
 will show up after an absence of ten years or even more and 
 very often after five years, so that no short term file will give 
 all the information that is likely to be wanted. 
 
 This file room should not only give a complete history of 
 the individual's connection with the company but it should 
 also have an alphabetical index of those in the entire shop, 
 so that telephone calls can be answered promptly. This can 
 best be kept on a visible index so as to be easily and quickly 
 consulted, but it is not and cannot be a substitute for the 
 complete folder with all information about the man. It may, 
 however, give a few of the outstanding facts which are con- 
 stantly used. For example, it may give the man's nationality 
 by birthplace, so that a complete census of the shop can be 
 taken by running over the cards, and it should, of course, give 
 the department in which he is working. A few such facts can 
 be readily tabulated in this way, but an attempt to put a 
 man's entire history on a card prevents all possibility of getting 
 enough on to permit of a real study of employment cor. Jitions 
 as they exist in the shop. 
 
 In addition to all these matters there is a great need of 
 proximity to the safety engineering department, to the pay- 
 master, to the time keepers, and to the hospital, because all 
 of these departments should work together. Furthermore, the 
 location of the employment department should be easy of 
 access to outsiders and this usually means near the office. 
 If the hiring of the office force is also part of the functions 
 of the employment department, then its location should be 
 such that office applicants can reach the employment depart- 
 ment without going in by the same door which admits laborers 
 and others. Its location, however, should also be selected with 
 an eye to ease of access to the men after they are working in 
 the shop.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 EMPLOYMENT FORMS 
 
 NINE out of every ten people who venture into employ- 
 ment management, either as employers or in the depart- 
 ment itself, ask first of all for the available forms used by 
 others of the profession. Forms are really the smallest part of 
 the work. There can be a profitable employment department 
 without any, and there can be unprofitable departments with 
 the finest forms that can be devised. In other words, employ- 
 ment is a matter of judgment, intuition, and psychology, 
 rather than a matter of rules. 
 
 In general there are three reasons for having forms. The 
 first, that a record of the history of each employee may be 
 available whenever the time comes for him to be promoted, 
 transferred, or when he leaves the company; the second, that 
 figures be available for statistical purposes in which the work- 
 ing force is treated of as a body and analyzed as to its married 
 state, its housing, age, education, etc. ; the third, that informa- 
 tion be kept as a check on the employment department itself, 
 to determine, for instance, whether or not its judgment was 
 correct as to certain characteristics of the applicants. Under 
 each of these heads there are of course many items concerning 
 which the employment department should have complete 
 and detailed information. 
 
 The proper classification of these items is given in Table 1 
 and it will be noted that the items refer only to applicants. 
 Later it is probably worth while to follow up and keep a 
 record of each man which will indicate how well the person 
 who selected him did his work, and how keenly alive he was 
 to the possibilities of making suitable placements. If an in- 
 terviewer selects a man of great activity and initiative for a 
 
 41
 
 42 
 
 job as a watchman he is as much in error as if he had selected 
 a man of the sluggish type and no initiative to be an assistant 
 in the engineering department. The records of the opinions 
 which the interviewer formed are very valuable to him as 
 time goes on and he discovers his own tendencies to overrate 
 or underrate his impressions in different directions. This is 
 especially true in hiring girls for both shop and office. 
 
 TABLE 1, CLASSIFICATION OF DATA REFERRING TO APPLICANTS 
 
 Historical 
 
 Statistical 
 
 Check 
 
 Name 
 
 Name 
 
 Name 
 
 Address 
 
 Address 
 
 Address 
 
 Shop number and depart- 
 
 Home address 
 
 Date of birth 
 
 ment 
 
 Date of birth 
 
 Industrial history (com- 
 
 Date of birth 
 
 Industrial history (three 
 
 plete) 
 
 Industrial history (three 
 
 or more jobs) 
 
 Date of completion of 
 
 or more jobs) 
 
 Educational history 
 
 school 
 
 Extent of education 
 
 Birthplace 
 
 Desire to improve self 
 
 Nationality 
 
 of father 
 
 Stability 
 
 Citizenship 
 
 of mother 
 
 Sobriety 
 
 Married 
 
 Citizenship 
 
 Personal appearance 
 
 References 
 
 First papers 
 
 Courtesy 
 
 
 Second papers 
 
 Recreations 
 
 
 Final papers 
 
 Hobbies 
 
 
 Married 
 
 Avocations 
 
 
 Single 
 
 Reading 
 
 
 Divorced 
 
 Willingness to work 
 
 
 Widower 
 
 Knowledge of work 
 
 
 Children 
 
 Activity 
 
 
 Number 
 
 Initiative 
 
 
 Age 
 
 Loyalty 
 
 
 Sex 
 
 
 
 Working 
 
 
 
 Other dependents 
 
 
 
 Memberships 
 
 
 
 Company organizations 
 
 
 
 Unions 
 
 
 
 Societies 
 
 
 
 Political party 
 
 
 
 Church 
 
 
 
 Army 
 
 
 The first column of Table 1 consists almost entirely of data 
 which is likely to be called for at any time by the manage- 
 ment of the concern or by governmental agencies. It is prac- 
 tically an essential minimum of information regarding the 
 members of the force. Some firms do not keep any record 
 of a man's industrial history, but nearly all do for the sake of
 
 43 
 
 having a record to use when transfers take place. A few firms 
 do not take any record of educational history, but in these days 
 when Americanization is so important it seems desirable to 
 know how much or how little schooling each man has had. 
 Merely to assume that all foreigners are uneducated works 
 great injustice to many well-educated men who are not yet 
 familiar with the English language. In the case of higher 
 positions it is necessary to have this data. 
 
 The question of the size and arrangement of the form to 
 be used by the interviewer is one that is usually left to the 
 employment manager. Some find a card, five by eight inches, 
 most satisfactory, but in general it is better to use a sheet of 
 paper not less than eight and one-half by eleven inches. The 
 information to be put on this first interview card or sheet 
 may cover as little as is covered by the first column of Table 
 1, or it may include all the items. There is an advantage in 
 having all the information which may be required for statis- 
 tical work on one side of the sheet, but the items marked 
 "Check" may appear on the other without making the work 
 cumbersome. It is also easier to read these cards, or any 
 other similar records, if the items are arranged in columns 
 rather than in solid text. It is probably better not to have 
 any medical data appear on this card, not even height and 
 weight though those may help to identify the man. A photo- 
 graph, however, costs very little and is much better as a means 
 of identification. So much for the interviewer's card, which 
 is the one chiefly used and which carries the most information. 
 
 The next most important form is the one which the fore- 
 man uses in requisitioning help. Its exact form is of very 
 little consequence but usually the policy of the office will 
 determine whether a separate card or slip shall be made 
 out for every man, or whether there shall be a blanket order 
 calling for a given number of men of one grade. In any case, 
 however, it is highly important that the requisition show with 
 the greatest possible clearness exactly what the foreman wants. 
 This can often be accomplished, depending of course on the 
 industry, by printing on the request a list of the jobs for 
 which men might be needed, and then all the foreman need 
 do is check the list. The average foreman's hand writing is
 
 44 
 
 generally poor, and this system may help the employment 
 department a great deal. Furthermore, .this requisition, if 
 one is used for each applicant, may become a receipt for the 
 man hired; that is the requisition may be sent to the fore- 
 man along with the applicant when he leaves the employment 
 office, and if the foreman accepts him he then signs a printed 
 statement to that effect on the back of the requisition and 
 returns it to the employment department. In this way the 
 form becomes a complete statement that the foreman needed 
 a man and that he received one that was acceptable to him. 
 
 There should also be a form for requesting increases in 
 pay. This is substantially a request to the cashier to change 
 the rate of pay from one rate to another. The form should 
 vary according to the plan adopted for putting through in- 
 creases. If requests may start from a number of different 
 sources there should be a place on the card for each of the 
 different officials to sign. It is often the plan to place the 
 initial step in the hands of any one of several men and in 
 such cases the proposed raise does not become effective until 
 signed by a certain number of them. Most of these men, how- 
 ever, sign in a very perfunctory way and there is, therefore, an 
 advantage when making up these forms in providing for as 
 few signatures as possible. 
 
 A transfer is frequently considered, as far as forms are 
 concerned, as if the man left one department and were hired 
 in another. In some cases a transfer card is made out noting 
 that so-and-so has been transferred from one department to 
 another and a place provided for both foremen to sign, indi- 
 cating that they approve. This is not, however, a good system 
 because it gives the foreman who is losing the man a chance 
 to block the transfer even though it be temporarily. 
 
 During the time the man is in the shop he will have numer- 
 ous articles in his possession which belong to the company. 
 These may range from locker keys to perhaps a trombone or 
 a base drum and in some places it is customary to take a 
 receipt for all these articles and file it with the man's other 
 records. Inasmuch, however, as it has little or no bearing on 
 the man's standing, but is simply a memorandum to be used 
 in making a settlement when he leaves, it would seem as if
 
 45 
 
 it should be filed with the department which makes that final 
 settlement, usually the paymaster or the cashier. No special 
 form is needed for these receipts, though sometimes one is 
 made up which contains the names of the different articles 
 most often entrusted to the men. 
 
 When a man is absent or leaves the company there should 
 be a form used for investigating such acts. Usually the first 
 man who knows that a workman has left is his foreman or 
 straw boss, or perhaps the time-keeper. It depends, of course, 
 upon how the organization handles the work. In any case, 
 whoever is responsible should notify the employment depart- 
 ment. How soon such information should be sent to the 
 employment department is a question whose answer depends 
 upon the system employed. It varies in different shops, and 
 also somewhat according to the case from a single day to a 
 week. In times of great pressure men whose work is essen- 
 tial to the progress of production may even be "looked up" 
 the same day they are reported out. A form for this may 
 be a simple notice to the employment department that John 
 Smith, Number 30 of Department K, is out, cause unknown, or 
 if known, why, and should be investigated. 
 
 On this form there is usually a line on which the foreman 
 may indicate, if he does not think the man suited to his work, 
 the kind of work which he believes the man can do. Such 
 information is usually of no value however for there are 
 few foremen who will recommend a man for whom they have 
 a dislike. This same notification to the employment depart- 
 ment may also be used to report the investigation of the case. 
 If the request of the foreman for the investigation and the 
 results are on a single form there is thus brought together the 
 complete history of the man's departure, and for future ref- 
 erence such information may be of value for it may happen 
 that the man will want to come back. Inasmuch as the in- 
 vestigation is made in the employment department or by 
 them there only needs to be enough blank space allowed for 
 an explanation of, say, about fifty words. 
 
 In all the cases just mentioned the number of duplicate 
 copies to be made depends on how many people have need 
 of the information, and whether they want it merely for their
 
 46 
 
 information or for their approval. As a general rule there is 
 more paper laying around in different offices than there should 
 be, and unless there is real use for duplicates it is better not to 
 make them but to refer the person who occasionally wants the 
 information to the file room where the original is kept. 
 
 If a folder is used in the file room, a form may be placed 
 on the outside giving the most essential points of the man's 
 connection with the firm. There should be, of course, the 
 man's name and shop number, and if the number does not 
 carry with it the department that should also be stated. The 
 date of his entry into the employ of the concern should like- 
 wise be given and in addition the dates of any previous en- 
 tries and exits. Whether the rates of wages at different times 
 should appear in so prominent a place depends on how much 
 the company believes in an open and above board method of 
 doing business. It is, of course, easy to say that the rate of 
 pay a man is getting is determined by agreement as an indi- 
 vidual and therefore should be kept secret and confidential 
 by the employer. On the other hand, it is very seldom that 
 this is so, for usually it is well known around the shop what 
 rate is being offered for different jobs, and if a man suspects 
 that he is not being paid as much for his work as the firm is 
 offering green hands he can very easily find out from the men 
 who have gone in and applied for a job, or he can send one of 
 his friends around to apply and find out for him. Then, too, 
 if there is anything confidential about it, it is all on the side 
 of the employer. Every man who gets a raise has to tell some 
 one, and once told it is known to everybody. Whether this 
 information goes on the outside of the folder or on the inside 
 is, however, a matter of small import, but it should be so placed 
 on record that the employment department with little effort 
 may report from time to time that certain men should be 
 investigated with a view to increasing their pay. 
 
 Finally, there are so many men who prefer to "quit" and 
 look up another job rather than to go to their foremen and 
 ask for an increase, that it is worth while for the employment 
 department to keep track of them all and to see that at some 
 stated interval they are investigated.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 TRADE AND MENTAL TESTS 
 
 IF an applicant for a job sees fit to lie about his previous ex- 
 perience there are two ways in which his misrepresentation 
 may be discovered, one by finding out from his previous em- 
 ployers, the other by "trying him out." Former employers 
 have little real interest in him and cannot be expected to pay 
 sufficient attention to his case to do it justice. The inquiry 
 is usually turned over to one person after another until finally 
 some one is reached who has sufficient friendship, or enmity, 
 for the man to interest himself in his case and so write a reply. 
 This reply is thus seldom dictated by the disinterested party 
 whom the inquirer would like to reach, and experience indi- 
 cates that only a small proportion of these letters of inquiry 
 are answered by responsible persons and that the answers 
 which are received are not much more dependable than the 
 original statements of the applicant. As a consequence em- 
 ployment managers have been inclined to consider the subject 
 of trade tests as a substitute, and with the hope that they may 
 prove to be useful. 
 
 Trade tests may be of several varieties, from catch ques- 
 tions, answerable only by people accustomed to the same 
 nomenclature as the inquirer, to complete opportunities for 
 "try-out" on the job. The same thing happens in using these 
 tests, however, as is observed in our schools, namely, that there 
 are certain people who are very good at passing examinations, 
 and not especially well fitted for anything else, and there are 
 others that go to pieces under pressure, and yet who can be 
 depended upon to do their daily jobs successfully. 
 
 The very first requirement for a good trade test is that it 
 shall not be presented in such a way as to make the man un- 
 
 47
 
 48 
 
 der examination feel too keenly that he is being marked on 
 the results of his work. When a man is asked catch questions 
 he is likely to obtain a poor impression of the firm that will 
 stoop to such child's play, and he is quite apt to leave in dis- 
 gust. On the other hand, he may have the feeling that it 
 will be easy to put almost anything over on them if he is 
 employed. We might go still further and say that it is 
 desirable to make every effort to avoid asking questions 
 which, through ignorance of the man who wrote them, are 
 catch questions. Such questions, of course, cannot be re- 
 garded as catch questions in the part of the country where 
 they originated, but they are to men from another part of 
 the country. For example, the names "monkey block" as 
 applied to the compound slide of a lathe, and "housing " as 
 applied to the uprights or posts of a planer may be misun- 
 derstood by men who can not only operate but build both ma- 
 chines. It is desirable, therefore, that all questions asked 
 should be reviewed by men with broad acquaintance and ex- 
 perience so as to avoid colloquialisms such as these. 
 
 Another serious difficulty is that tests which consist of 
 questions alone can usually be answered by men with a book- 
 knowledge of the subject and nothing else. Some will reply 
 that men having technical acquaintance with these trades will 
 not apply, but that is offset by the large number who have 
 started correspondence courses and gone far enough to know 
 the implements of the trade. Such men find these written 
 trade tests very simple, much more so in fact than holding the 
 job afterwards. 
 
 The second type of trade test is one of action. If, for ex- 
 ample, the man is asking for recognition as a cabinet maker, 
 he is asked to make a dovetail joint and of course to do so 
 by hand. If he is a blacksmith he is required to "turn" a 
 horse shoe, or repair a diamond-point lathe tool. Similar 
 tests are given in other trades and if, in the opinion of the 
 expert in charge, the man does the job in a workmanlike man- 
 ner he is accepted. There are, however, two objections to such 
 tests: the first that most trade experts place quite as much 
 importance upon the methods by which the work is done as 
 upon the results obtained; and the second that trade tests
 
 4Q 
 
 AV 
 
 cannot be varied so much but that it is easy for outsiders 
 to coach men to pass them in the same way that men are 
 coached for civil service and other examinations. 
 
 The trade test which appears to give the most satisfaction 
 is the test given while the man is "on the job" and at work on 
 the product of the shop. That is, the man is hired condi- 
 tionally, and put to work. If the foreman is the kind of man 
 he should be, he gives this new man some rather simple work 
 for a day or two until he gets used to the place, and then he 
 gradually assigns more and more difficult work to him until he 
 finds out the man's limitations. In this way two weeks may 
 be consumed, if the man is as he represents himself to be, but 
 if he is a "faker" this can usually be found out in a few days. 
 If he is taken on as a beginner then of course his "tryout" 
 term is somewhat longer. This tryout system produces good 
 results only in the hands of a qualified foreman, for if he is 
 below the average he may at once put the newcomer on ihe 
 most difficult work the shop affords with the idea of "taking 
 the starch out of him." In such cases the new man usually 
 helps to increase the labor turnover. His separation from 
 the company may be rated as due to "Incompetent" or "Left 
 town" or "Got a better job," but it should really be classified 
 to "Poor foremanship." 
 
 There is, nevertheless, some preliminary value to be de- 
 rived from the results cf trade tests, because such tests are 
 easily varied, and will thus not be reduced to the coaching 
 level. If the interviewer has himself worked at the trade he 
 will use his experience to follow up any trifling statement 
 which makes him suspect the applicant is not stating the 
 truth. For example, a man who has run a planer of a cer- 
 tain make should be able to give a fair description of its feed 
 mechanism even though he has run it for only a short time. 
 On the other hand, a man may be a very good lathe hand 
 and while working at it for years he might never have done 
 any faceplate work. In such a case it would hardly do to 
 turn him down because of his lack of familiarity with face- 
 plate work, unless that were the specific kind of a job which 
 he might have to do. It will not do to turn down an appli- 
 cant for a job as a blacksmith because his hands are limber,
 
 50 
 
 and he can bend them back of a straight line with his palm, 
 for there are blacksmiths who do not "choke" the hammer 
 handle, though we must admit they are rare. So it is with 
 all trade tests, they must of necessity be the tests of the indi- 
 vidual interviewer, otherwise commercial use will be made of 
 them by people who tutor or coach their candidates. 
 
 There is still another reason why the interviewing should 
 be done by a high-grade man, and it is this: such a man 
 has great opportunities for saving money for the company. 
 If he selects men nine times out of ten who are as good as 
 represented, he is worth almost any sum he may name. If 
 he gets them right half the time he is better than most man- 
 agers. In spite however of all the trade tests he may de- 
 velop, he will probably still continue to hire men on his esti- 
 mate of their character, and if he is backed by foremen who 
 will also give men of character a chance, he can safely take 
 on many men who may be a disappointment at first, but who 
 under sympathetic treatment, and proper instruction and 
 guidance will make the best of workmen. It may be that we 
 will ultimately come to think of all candidates for jobs as 
 subjects for training, and that instead of hiring a man for a 
 specific job, we will hire him because of his possibilities, and 
 then train him so as to make the best possible use of his abil- 
 ity. If that time comes we will most certainly make use 
 of the so-called psychological or mental tests. 
 
 Mental tests are unquestionably of great value, but it 
 should always be borne in mind that there are two things 
 which seem to have more to do with an individual's success 
 than all the knowledge of specific detail, and these are his tem- 
 perament and his ability to absorb information in other 
 words, his mental capacity. Temperament may be an inher- 
 itance, or it may be acquired, but in either case it is an asset 
 or a handicap in a given man according to the work he is 
 doing or the people by whom he is surrounded. A man 
 may be capable of doing a large amount of work, but if he 
 cannot do it in harmony with a given set of people he will 
 have to find the right set or else work alone. Furthermore, his 
 inability to work with that particular set does not prove that 
 he lacks aptitude for the work.
 
 51 
 
 It is an almost universal rule that refinement is accompa- 
 nied by sensitiveness. A truck horse does not respond to the 
 lash like a trotter, and a thoroughbred dog will hide from sight 
 if cuffed lightly while the mongrel will have to be whipped 
 into obedience. The same is true of man. The more capa- 
 ble a man is of fine work, the more easily is he led, and the 
 harder driven. Those at the head of the organization do not 
 always consider this fact. They themselves are surrounded 
 with safeguards against intrusions, their secretaries keep un- 
 desirable visitors away, and they depend on their positions 
 to prevent any unpleasant conversation in their inner sanc- 
 tums. Under such conditions, it is only natural that they 
 wonder at an occasional lapse of temper on the part of their 
 subordinates, and they forget the time when they themselves 
 were not so shielded, and when they also gave way under 
 pressure. All men are human, and it is not possible for 
 every one to .shield himself from attack. If these executives 
 could only see that they are throwing away many opportuni- 
 ties of developing good men, by trying to turn a sensitive em- 
 ployee into a thick-skinned one, they might find a hitherto 
 unused source of profit. As it is, vocational guidance is fu- 
 tile in many instances, because after placing the right man 
 at the right job he does not remain there because he has been 
 placed with the wrong people. In the greater democracy 
 toward which we are moving let us hope that we are going 
 to get away from the autocracy of those who consider that, 
 having made their dollars, they have thereby become a model 
 by which the rest of the world should be molded. 
 
 Suppose, however, that we some day reach the stage where 
 the right man doing the right work will find himself so placed 
 that he can be happy in his surroundings. Then we will have 
 the problem, not of finding a man trained for the work, but 
 of finding a man fit to do the work who can be trained. Abil- 
 ity to absorb training depends on mental control of muscles 
 and on capacity for understanding. Ability to do many things 
 in a profitable way is dependent on ability to think quickly and 
 accurately at the same time. These abilities can undoubtedly 
 be discovered by test, but they are also subject to improvement 
 by practice. It is possible to test the length of time for a
 
 52 
 
 muscle to respond to the direction of the brain, and it is also 
 possible to increase the speed of transmission as any athletic 
 coach will testify, since the winning of many a sprint lies in 
 the start which in turn depends on the speed with which the 
 sound of the starter's pistol is transmitted to the leg muscles 
 of the runner. 
 
 Mental tests are of many kinds, and all have some desir- 
 able qualities. They usually include tests for memory. One 
 such test is as follows : A page of portraits of men and women 
 with their names printed under them is given to the appli- 
 cant, also another page which contains the same portraits but 
 in a different order and without the names. The applicant 
 is given a certain time in which to study the named portraits 
 and then an equal time in which to give the right names to 
 them in their rearranged order without consulting the named 
 portraits. This corresponds closely to introducing people to 
 the candidate and then asking him later to identify them. 
 This, however, is a very incomplete test of memory, as much 
 so as it would be to ask the candidate to memorize a stanza 
 of poetry. A test of memory should be varied, as many a man 
 with no memory for faces never forgets a telephone number 
 or a price quotation, and a great many boys with the worst 
 possible remembrance for dates can tell the score in every big 
 league game for a month back. Memory tests should be di- 
 rected through the eye by means of pictures, maps, figures, 
 dates, etc. ; through the ear by means of oral dictation ; through 
 the nose by means of the sense of smell, and through the feel- 
 ing by means of the work for which the man is being chosen 
 to do. The man whose work will require him to remember 
 color combinations or musical scores should not however be 
 tested as to memory by being asked to compare one set of 
 portraits with another. 
 
 Then there is the familiar test for definition of words taken 
 at random, or for example from the bottom of the last col- 
 umn on every tenth page of the dictionary. This tests vo- 
 cabulary, and also curiosity, for words selected in this way 
 inevitably include many which no workman or even office man 
 can count as an asset. The shoemaker who goes through life 
 thinking that the word "secular" relates to the "sexes" or to
 
 53 
 
 "sects" will undoubtedly do just as good a bit of shoe repair- 
 ing as if he had had the curiosity to look up the word. 
 
 There is also the concentration test in which one is in- 
 structed to do numerous utterly foolish things, and if this 
 test is given to an adult he will usually be so amused or dis- 
 gusted with the test that he will not make a good showing. It 
 proves however much or little according to the spirit in which 
 it is undertaken. A better test is to fold a piece of paper three 
 or four ways into triangles and ask the candidate to fold his 
 piece the same way. This tests both the powers of imitation 
 and the ability to concentrate, and the test can be varied so 
 that men cannot be coached. Another mental test requires 
 one to name the opposite of any word, as: now later; black 
 white; hot cold; etc. Matching of proverbs, which indicates 
 to a considerable degree the amount of thinking men have 
 done, is likewise a favorite test and an excellent one if under- 
 taken in the right spirit, but one which usually strikes the 
 humor of the candidate rather than his sense of responsibility. 
 
 It is almost impossible to take one of these tests with the 
 thought that any one would make the hiring of a man de- 
 pend on them. This does not mean, however, that out of 
 them all no good can come. On the contrary, it should result 
 in sets of easily variable tests which will disclose the thinking 
 powers of the candidate, and show whether he has the mental 
 ability to learn. As a test of attainment they do not seem 
 promising, but as a test of ability to learn they should have 
 a real value.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 RATING LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 THE subject of rating labor turnover has had vastly more 
 attention than it deserves, and yet a book of this kind is 
 hardly complete without some reference to the methods em- 
 ployed. Practically all the methods in use are based on zero as 
 perfection. That is, no labor turnover is the ultimate goal. 
 Usually it can only be reached over brief periods of time, 
 although a shop with a few mature and experienced mechan- 
 ics may not lose a man for a year's time. Its record is, there- 
 fore, perfect, although perfection is most commonly thought 
 of as 100 per cent. The methods of computing labor turn- 
 over are analogous to those employed in determining the 
 turnover of goods in a store or market. There a man turns 
 over his stock once, twice, or three times a year. In our shop 
 we also turn over our working force once, twice, or three times 
 a year and call it 100, 200, or 300 per cent, as the case may be. 
 That is, a complete change of help each year becomes the 100 
 per cent labor turnover. From this, together with our experi- 
 ence, we have rather come to think of a 100 per cent turnover 
 as the normal thing and any one whose rate for the year is 
 greater or less is quickly called upon to explain. The shop 
 whose turnover is 500 per cent is bad. Why is it? If it is 
 50 per cent, please also explain. Do they keep men they 
 ought to discharge? Do they pay more than the market rate 
 of wages? What is the matter? 
 
 Practically every one agrees in their method of figuring 
 labor turnover up to the point that it is some kind of change 
 of help per year divided by the normal force for that year. 
 Beyond that all is disagreement, but the basis of all these 
 methods is the use of zero as perfection, and the custom is 
 
 54
 
 55 
 
 probably too deeply rooted to be upset now no matter how 
 thoroughly we may believe it to be wrong. The greatest ob- 
 jection to it, however, is the tendency to look on a 100 per 
 cent turnover as being near enough to perfection and the fact 
 that comparisons based on labor turnover without analysis 
 are not apt to be fair. The greatest gain that is likely to be 
 made is in the analysis of turnover. If we have a thousand 
 sick men in a hospital we know how many beds we must pro- 
 vide, and we know roughly how large the building must be, 
 but until we know what ails them we can do very little toward 
 curing them. Just so, if we know how large the labor turnover 
 is in a given shop we can tell how large a room must be pro- 
 vided for the employment department, and how many inter- 
 views will be needed, but we have no help from the gross 
 percentage of turnover to aid us in finding the cure. 
 
 An analysis according to departments shows the personal 
 relations between foreman, working conditions, and the men. 
 An analysis of causes of leaving shows impersonal remedial 
 measures. An analysis of the men's condition of life gives us a 
 line on future hirings and it usually indicates a preference 
 for married men. An analysis of applicants and employees 
 accepted gives a line on the state of the labor market and in 
 general we wish to know how many laborers without tech- 
 nical knowledge of the simplest sort are applying and taken in, 
 how many learners, and how many experienced men. We also 
 like to know of each of these groups how many of them are re- 
 hired and how many are new. It is better to make the divi- 
 sion between learners and experienced men, because the cus- 
 tomary division between skilled and semi-skilled has a dif- 
 ferent significance to each man who makes an analysis, while 
 we usually know when we hire a man whether we expect to 
 train him for some job or whether he is fitted to step directly 
 into it. If the latter, he expects to be retained only if he 
 makes good without training; but if the former, he is not ex- 
 pected to make much of a showing until he has had a more 
 or less definite time in which to learn his work. In this con- 
 nection Figures 3 and 4 on the following pages are of interest 
 as they illustrate different types of forms used in recording 
 labor turnover.
 
 56 
 
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 58 
 
 Once an analysis is made there is a basis for comparison 
 within the shop, which is much more valuable than a com- 
 parison between shops. We keep comparative cost accounts 
 for this same purpose. We do not go out and advertise from 
 the housetops that our costs per ton or gross are so much or 
 so little, but we do watch the fluctuation of cost from month 
 to month between departments, and we do so with profit. To 
 be sure, if we stop making so much of percentage of labor 
 turnover we give up a strong talking point for employment 
 management, for it is possible to show that if a given firm's 
 labor turnover is reduced from 200 to 100 per cent and they 
 have 5000 men they have thus saved the training of 5000 
 per year, which at $100 each is a saving of a half million dol- 
 lars. While this is undoubtedly true, yet because that par- 
 ticular half million is not segregated, and because it may be 
 more than the whole year's net profit, it makes it difficult for 
 the employment manager to get even a hundred dollars added 
 to his salary on account of the saving. 
 
 The whole theory that employment management cuts down 
 labor turnover is reluctantly accepted hy proprietors. The 
 employment department does not cut down labor turnover. 
 By making itself a perfect nuisance the employment depart- 
 ment can get reforms installed in various departments of the 
 shop which will reduce labor turnover, but in very few if any 
 instances is it placed in a position to put those reforms in op- 
 eration. The choice and selection of men and vocational guid- 
 ance are the only means that are completely enough in 
 their hands to effect a tangible result. If the interviewers 
 are sufficiently well acquainted with the different foremen so 
 that they 'can send to each department the type of men whom 
 its foremen will give adequate attention, it can in this way 
 reduce labor turnover decidedly over what it will be if men 
 are suited to the work, but not to the foreman. The work, 
 however, may not be done as well nor as efficiently, but the 
 turnover will be less. On the other hand, working conditions, 
 hours, wages, and methods of paying, etc., are only the sub- 
 ject of advice on the part of the employment manager. In 
 other words, the value of an employment department is not 
 necessarily expressed in terms of reduction of labor turnover,
 
 59 
 
 for the total turnover for a shop does not express anything 
 that is of real value to any branch of the organization. 
 
 As previously stated, labor turnover is quite generally 
 agreed upon to be changes of employees over a year's time di- 
 vided by total employees. The disagreements arise over 
 whether change shall be expressed by numbers leaving, com- 
 ing, or by replacements. Also whether unavoidable changes 
 shall be neglected, and whether the denominator of the frac- 
 tion shall be actual men working full time and totaled day 
 by day or whether a rougher approximation shall be used. 
 To some it seems that the number of hirings should be used, 
 because that is the apparent fundamental reason for having 
 an employment department; hiring, however, costs but little. 
 Others say that the number of those leaving should be used, 
 because that is the loss, and the loss of men adds to the shop 
 expense. Still others, and among them the writer, believe 
 that replacements should be used, because the greatest cost 
 of labor turnover lies in the cost of training, and actually 
 only those who are hired to replace those who have left repre- 
 sent labor turnover. If, for example, a shop is growing in 
 size, no employment department can keep the number hired 
 below the number required to increase the force and it should 
 not in any sense be charged with the cost of hiring and train- 
 ing these men. To be sure, expansion of business is accom- 
 panied by a certain cost of training an additional number of 
 men, but such costs should be considered by the sales depart- 
 ment before it decides upon making the effort to increase the 
 sales, and it is almost certain that the cost of the product will 
 be burdened with a greater cost for training men because of 
 the expansion of business. That is, in order to increase the 
 force by a hundred men it may be necessary to train or partly 
 train five hundred. The first hundred, or rather the hundred 
 who finally remain, should be a charge to the expansion, but 
 the other four hundred who were wrongly selected should be 
 a charge against the employment department, or such other 
 department as contributed to the causes which led these four 
 hundred to terminate their connection. 
 
 Let us now consider the case of a shop which is experienc- 
 ing a decrease of business. If it must decrease its force by
 
 60 
 
 one hundred men and it discharges them, then the employment 
 department should not be charged with what it had previ- 
 ously cost to train those men, because it had already been 
 charged with that cost once before when they were hired and 
 the cost of their training incurred. If, however, in the proc- 
 ess of decrease two hundred men left and one hundred who 
 were hired were taken on to replace another hundred who 
 were not discharged, and whose dismissal was not contem- 
 plated, then the employment department should be charged 
 with cost of replacing that hundred men who were lost un- 
 intentionally. Many claim, however, that all men hired have 
 to be trained and, therefore, they bring an expense on the 
 firm which should be charged against the employment de- 
 partment. Others claim that the men leaving should be used 
 as a basis, on the ground that they were an asset, as the re- 
 sult of an investment, and that their leaving is a loss. Both 
 are right to a certain extent, but neither of these latter plans 
 takes into account the fact that expansion or contraction of 
 a business is not usually within the scope of the employment 
 department, and that it is either good management which 
 allows the expansion or bad luck which necessitates contrac- 
 tion. It is true that the firm which expands unduly may have 
 to contract, and equally so that the firm that contracts may 
 expand. Over long periods of time, however, the contraction 
 or expansion becomes only a small matter compared with the 
 total flow. For example, a shop begins with 1000 men and 
 increases 100 men per year for ten years. During that time 
 it maintains a turnover of nearly 200 per cent. It will, there- 
 fore, take in 30,000 people and lose 29,000, and its turnover 
 figured by three methods, whose differences are so small as 
 to be negligible, are therefore as follows: 
 
 OQ noo 
 Replacements ............. , iv: -^ 10 = 187% 
 
 1,550 
 
 Hirings ................... 4- 10 = 193ft 
 
 1,550 
 
 Leavings .................. - 10 = 
 
 1,550
 
 61 
 
 The different methods of obtaining the denominator like- 
 wise change the result but slightly. It should be kept in mind 
 that the number of men on the payroll cannot be above the 
 number of places or stations in the shop. The number of 
 stations vacant may be considerable, but if the average at- 
 tendance is 90 per cent this does not mean that it is safe to 
 put on a force of 110 per cent of the number of stations be- 
 cause on Wednesdays and Thursdays there will be nearly 100 
 per cent attendance. That is, the shop equipment must be 
 such as to carry the peak load of employees the days they are 
 present. Therefore, it would seem as though the total num- 
 ber of names on the payroll is a reasonable basis for com- 
 putation, and to arrive at an average of this number over a 
 period of a year it is usually near enough to take the average 
 of those on the payroll at the first of each month. This is, 
 of course, on the assumption that the names of employees 
 that have left are promptly dropped from the payroll. 
 
 The question of unavoidable losses is not a large one. 
 Death claims but few. Minors have to change at the bidding 
 of their parents. Employees also become superannuated. 
 All these, however, are but "a drop in the bucket" compared 
 with the great numbers who leave because they think they 
 can better themselves. Consequently labor turnover com- 
 puted by dividing the number of those who leave by the 
 number of those who are on the pay list month by month or 
 week by week gives as nearly a correct figure of labor turn- 
 over as one obtained by any other means. 
 
 In this connection an illustration of the method of com- 
 puting the cost of labor turnover might prove of interest, and 
 the following specific case is accordingly presented in the hopes 
 that it may arouse discussion. The figures are actual but the 
 names are fictitious. The problem is to determine what it 
 cost the Blank Manufacturing Company to allow John Smith 
 to leave and to fill his place with John Doe. It is a simple 
 case in that only the one attempt was necessary to fill the job. 
 The wages paid to Doe are shown graphically in Figure 5. We 
 are neglecting any mention of the actual cost of handling the 
 separation of Smith from the company, and the discovering 
 and hiring of Doe, for each of these operations costs on the
 
 62 
 
 average a little less than a dollar, and they may well be neg- 
 lected inasmuch that we are by no means sure within many 
 dollars of the other costs. 
 
 It will be seen by Figure 5 that during the time Doe was 
 learning we paid him $49.81 more at day rates than he would 
 have received if we had paid him at piece-work rates. This, 
 we are sure, is a part of the cost of replacing Smith. Also, at 
 the time this change took place, we find that we made an ac- 
 ceptable profit when our piece workers were making 40 cents 
 per hour. The only excuse for retaining men making less 
 
 April May June July Au9- Sept. Oct. 
 510 152025 510152025 510152025 510152025 5!OI5"2025 510152025 510152025 
 
 510152025 5 10 153325 510152025 510152025 510152025 510152025 510152025 
 April May June July Aug. Sept. Oct. 
 
 FIGURE 5. GRAPHIC EEPRESENTATION OF WAGES PAID TO JOHN DOE. 
 
 than that was that they were learners and could be expected 
 to make more later on, so that they would repay us for the 
 loss in production. During the time before Doe reached the 
 40-cent rate we would have paid him, if he had been a normal 
 producer, $115.50 in addition to the $49.81 mentioned. Dur- 
 ing all this time our manufacturing overhead was practically 
 a dollar an hour. From the time he came with us until he 
 passed the 40-cent rate the overhead charges totaled $800, 
 which, however, must be spread over the $162 worth of work 
 which he actually did, or practically 500 per cent overhead
 
 against 250 per cent for the average man. From this we con- 
 clude that one-half of this $800 for overhead charges has been 
 wasted and so we add to the account against the change $400 
 less the $115.50 mentioned above. The total cost for the 
 training period by this method of computation would then be : 
 
 Paid hour rate above piece rate earnings $49.81 
 
 Excess overhead charge incurred 284.50 
 
 $334.31 
 
 Another way in which this may be figured, but which seems 
 to make it still more expensive to change help, is as follows: 
 
 Total wages paid Smith while reaching normal 
 
 productivity $211.75 
 
 Overhead paid during that time per man 800.00 
 
 $1011.75 
 
 Value of work done $162.00 
 
 Overhead which would have been 
 
 paid if it had been done by Doe, 
 
 250 per cent 405.00 567.00 
 
 $444.75 
 
 Possibly this second method is not only less involved but 
 also more nearly correct. It has seemed to the writer that 
 it was better to put all the expenses, outside of actual train- 
 ing, under the general charge of overhead as that is where they 
 show in most accounting systems. If we attempt to pick out 
 all the items of spoiled work, damaged tools and machinery, 
 additional expense for accidents and so on, we get into a maze 
 of uncertainty. Neither of the methods suggested above may 
 be the best but if we wish to valuate the work of service de- 
 partments we must do it on some approximate basis which 
 uses the material offered by the regular accounting system of 
 the factory, and which can be applied both to individual cases 
 and to department turnover as a whole. The case cited is one 
 in which the payment of piece rates with an hourly rate dur- 
 ing part of the learning time simplifies the problem of earn-
 
 64 
 
 ings, but except in new jobs it should be possible, under any 
 modern system of cost keeping, to compare a man's actual 
 earnings with those which are average, or necessary to the run- 
 ning of the shop on a fair profit. 
 
 Coupled with labor turnover and subject to some of the 
 same limitations is tardiness. This is figured on a percentage 
 basis from number of people late and number of oppor- 
 tunities. For example, if 15 people are late once a day in a 
 shop with 1000 present, the percentage of tardiness would be 
 figured by dividing 15, the number of tardinesses, by 2000, 
 the number of opportunities, or % of 1 per cent. Percentage 
 of tardiness is also figured on the basis of total number on the 
 payroll, which is much more easily done and just as accurate. 
 It, too, is of value only when used to decrease tardiness and 
 that it cannot do unless the reasons for tardiness are known. 
 For example, as happens occasionally, the company arranges 
 car service to the factory in the morning and the cars do not 
 reach the factory on time, then the management should be 
 called to account rather than the people who are late. What 
 happens, however, is that the foreman or head of the depart- 
 ment does not have access to the management and would not 
 dare tell them the truth if he did, so he makes it unpleasant 
 for the subordinates, and quite likely at the very same time 
 some member of the management is telling some enthusiastic 
 convention how efficiently they handle transportation for their 
 employees. 
 
 As in the case of labor turnover comparisons with other 
 plants have only a slight value as compared with analysis be- 
 tween departments or analysis by distances traveled. The 
 latter is apt to show that there are certain car lines and cer- 
 tain distances have their high percentage of tardiness. Peo- 
 ple who live next door, especially if they are married, cannot 
 be expected to be prompt. There are a multitude of little 
 things around the house that "hubby" can do so easily in the 
 last two or three minutes, which take fifteen. The most re- 
 liable man is the man who lives the furthest and has the least 
 dependable transportation. He starts about two cars too early.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 HAS THE EMPLOYMENT DEPARTMENT ANY PART 
 IN THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF INDUSTRY? 
 
 AN employment department is a hiring agency, for it dis- 
 covers and selects men and women for the jobs which the 
 company offers. This is its preliminary function. It has, 
 however, added little by little to its duties until now its ambi- 
 tion, realized in a few instances, is to become the connecting 
 link, the diplomatic channel, between employee and employer. 
 In other words, the employment department now aims to take 
 up one of the most important functions of foremanship as it 
 was formerly understood, and unless foremen rise to their op- 
 portunities better than they have in past years some such 
 change is inevitable. 
 
 The democratization of industry, when one gets close to 
 it and looks it squarely in the eye, is not the "bug-a-boo" that 
 some have feared, for it is apparent now it merely means that 
 instead of the management getting its information as to the 
 state of mind of its employees through foremen and a few iso- 
 lated workmen, all anxious to say something that will please, 
 it will get such information through workmen's committees. 
 The information will thus be authoritative rather than con- 
 jectural, and instead of the men letting grievances go until 
 their imaginations make mountains of them, there will be 
 earnest and serious consideration by both parties before any 
 blows are struck. 
 
 Who is in a better position to represent the management 
 in this process of getting together than the employment de- 
 partment? It has tried, and tried honestly in almost all cases, 
 to be impartial and to take the place of shop committees as 
 well as act for the management. It cannot, however, do both, 
 
 65
 
 66 
 
 for its very existence depends solely on the management. Its 
 self-interest is thus with the management, and no matter how 
 broad-minded it may be, this necessity compels loyalty even 
 where its best judgment and sympathies are with the men in 
 the shops. Nevertheless as a body to represent the manage- 
 ment, the employment department is ideally placed, because 
 it has, or should have, sufficient knowledge of the financial con- 
 dition of the company to know what wages it can pay for a 
 given production, or how much it can expend on improved 
 working conditions. 
 
 For example, if a building costing hundreds of thousands 
 of dollars has been built in such a location that it shuts off 
 air and light from another building where the work generates 
 great heat, the working conditions may become unbearable 
 and an individual strike may soon be in full sway. If, how- 
 ever, the interests of the workmen had been consulted, the 
 building would never have been placed there, and if the man- 
 agement had realized that the increased labor turnover caused 
 by this proximity would cost them more every year than the 
 building did, they would not have built it either. But there 
 was no one to warn them. The workmen did not know the 
 building was planned until the contract was let, and even then 
 they did not know how high it was going to be until the con- 
 tractor laid the roof timbers. The same is true in many, many 
 activities. The management is so sure of itself and its su- 
 perior minds that it fails to realize that in the shop are many 
 men who may later rise to put them out of business, just as 
 they passed and left behind the men who were so sure they 
 knew it all in the preceding generation. It would seem as 
 though any management would be anxious to secure the co- 
 operation of all the ability in the organization. Few, how- 
 ever, see it in that light, sometimes because they cannot see 
 any ability to recognize, and sometimes because they are afraid 
 that if they do recognize it, others will think that they them- 
 selves are slipping behind. 
 
 Another reason why ability is often not recognized is the 
 fact that there is still a feeling that individual property rights 
 are necessary. For instance, a man starts a business, it grows 
 and he takes in a few trusted employees or some friends with
 
 67 
 
 some money, always retaining, however, 51 per cent or more 
 of the stock. He does not necessarily select these men for 
 their ability, but often for their social qualities or to please his 
 wife, or for some other equally unscientific reason. Having 
 surrounded himself with a few choice friends, he may next 
 decide to sell more stock and to sell it in the market so that he 
 and his friends may still control the business by trusting to 
 luck that the purchasers will never bother to attend a stock- 
 holders' meeting. During all of this development he has seen 
 to it that he has taken no visible chance of losing control. It 
 is still his business and he talks about it as such, and the mo- 
 ment a suggestion is made that employees be allowed to pur- 
 chase stock, his hands go up in holy horror. What if they 
 should at some distant date acquire control? Then HE would 
 be out and chaos would reign. To him it is a horrible and 
 incomprehensible situation. He cannot understand how any 
 one else could conduct the business successfully. His own 
 sons, bright though they may be in other people's minds, could 
 not possibly do it. It is safer to let them play golf and travel 
 on his earnings than to "let them monkey around the works." 
 Or if they do come in they must be held at drudgery until 
 they lose all spirit and get to believe that the old way is the 
 only way. Under these conditions with this feeling of in- 
 tense egotism controlling so many industries, is it any wonder 
 that industrial democracy makes slow headway? 
 
 It must also be admitted that such examples as we have 
 had of shops and stores turned over to employees has not 
 been altogether reassuring. Cooperative stores are perhaps 
 among the most marked examples of enterprises conducted 
 by workmen and clubs for their own benefit. They seldom 
 run for any great length of time. Those that do are usually 
 found to have been dominated by some one leader who proved 
 to be a better organizer and manager than even he suspected. 
 He has become just as truly the owner of the store as the man 
 across the street who has his own name on the sign. His 
 associates do not overthrow him because they are afraid they 
 cannot get any one else to run it, or because they cannot agree 
 among themselves as to his successor. The fundamental 
 trouble seems to be that they cannot agree, any more than
 
 68 
 
 other people can, to pay any one a salary in excess of what 
 they are getting themselves. If industrial democracy is to 
 succeed, workmen will have to be educated to see that men 
 whose ability makes it possible for them to produce more 
 should receive a greater compensation. The coxswain in an 
 eight-oar shell iz a little insignificant fellow and he looks like 
 excess baggage. And yet in a race he is worth at least as much 
 as any of the oarsmen. 
 
 This education of the workmen ought to have been going 
 on for years. Nothing has been done, however, and now as a 
 result we are in serious danger of seeing many experiments in 
 democratization fail. Shop committees will likely be formed 
 and then they will make the most preposterous demand that 
 salaries of executives be reduced, and that can only result in 
 many changes, for such men will not be reduced. They will 
 prefer to leave and take a position elsewhere even if at a 
 lower salary, or they may very likely become producers them- 
 selves. In their places will be put men who are in the favor 
 of the men on the shop committee, chosen, like the circle of 
 friends around the original proprietor, for qualities other than 
 business ability. The result must inevitably be a lessened ef- 
 ficiency, a still greater increase in the cost of living, and an all- 
 around imitation of the ills of government in a republic. In 
 the long run, workmen will become educated, they will elect 
 capable men as leaders and there will be no apparent change 
 from present conditions. Workmen will acquire the same 
 apathy that stockholders now have and will not attend meet- 
 ings or even read balance sheets, unless they show that a divi- 
 dend must be passed. But during the transition period, if 
 it comes, we will have to pay heavily for the luxury of de- 
 mocratization just as we now pay heavily for everything that 
 is managed by the government. 
 
 Possibly there may be redeeming features. Possibly there 
 will be greater honesty in the goods produced. Where every 
 one knows what is going on, evil doing is exposed at once, for 
 only a small group can carry on underhanded schemes. There 
 will be less work done under unhealthful conditions, there 
 will be an unearthing of a great many petty faults of fore- 
 men that have hitherto been glanced over, but the net result
 
 69 
 
 for some time to come cannot help but be an increase of the 
 high cost of living. It should finally be borne in mind that 
 we have practically worked under a scheme of democratiza- 
 tion so far as production is concerned all during the war. 
 Foremen then did not increase production by loud talk. They 
 were only able to get it by offering good facilities for doing 
 the work and paying extremely well for getting it done.
 
 PART II 
 
 Chapter 
 
 X 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XI 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XII 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XIII 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XIV 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XV 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XVI 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XVII 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XVIII 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XIX 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XX 
 
 DEVELOPING THE LABOR SUPPLY . . 73 
 
 SELECTING AND PLACING WORKERS . 84 
 
 THE UNEMPLOYED WORKMAN . . 92 
 
 ADVERTISING AND SCOUTING ... 96 
 
 EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES .... 102 
 
 COLLECTIVE BARGAINING .... 109 
 
 REFERENCES . . . . . . . . 118 
 
 FOLLOW-UP IN THE SHOP .... 124 
 
 ATTENDANCE 131 
 
 TRANSFERS 135 
 
 THE EMPLOYMENT OF THE OFFICE 
 
 FORCE ......... 139 
 
 WOMEN IN THE SHOPS 146 
 
 EMPLOYMENT OF MINORS .... 154 
 
 EMPLOYMENT OF CRIPPLES . 161 
 
 SOCIAL MISFITS 167 
 
 SAFETY ENGINEERING AS RELATED TO 
 
 EMPLOYMENT . ... 172
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 DEVELOPING THE LABOR SUPPLY 
 
 INDUSTRIAL history is a record of alternate feast and 
 famine, whether we look at the labor problem from the 
 point of view of employer or employee. The periods of exact 
 adjustment of supply to demand have been few and passing. 
 In a primitive state every one worked as hard and as long as 
 he chose, and he lived well or poorly according as he worked 
 hard, long, and effectively or the reverse. There was the ad- 
 vantage, however, that no one suffered for lack of opportunity, 
 no matter how much he might lack in comfort or luxury. 
 
 One of the penalties of the capitalistic scheme of organiza- 
 tion is that every time the workers take a real hand in govern- 
 ment capital becomes afraid, and draws in its credits until 
 the storm has passed, and since most business is done on credit, 
 its contraction is fatal to employment. If, on the other hand, 
 credit is good, and the money owners have the upper hand and 
 feel sure of it, then the mad rush of those who know that their 
 capital produces a demand for more labor than is available 
 creates bidding for it. Stable firms whose product will not 
 stand an increase in price go to the wall. Confidence is lost, 
 credit is withdrawn, and the circle of events starts all over 
 again. Thus far in human experience there seems to be no 
 way to avoid this cycle. Whatever party is in power is of 
 course controlled by human beings and human beings nearly 
 always abuse power. 
 
 This is not all bad. It is better to clean house occasionally 
 than to live always in the accumulated litter of years. We 
 wonder how long it will be before we learn to keep the house 
 of business clean day by day. These fluctuations in demand 
 do not create equal or even similar changes in the supply. 
 
 73
 
 74 
 
 The same number of potential workers are living each day 
 without regard to the opportunities for them to labor. 
 
 What happens to those whose work is not needed by capital 
 in dull times? Where does the supply come from in flush 
 times? The normal division of workers and non-workers in the 
 United States is approximately as follows: * 
 
 Workers Per cent. 
 
 Men 30 
 
 Women 8 
 
 Non-Workers 
 
 Children 16 and under 10 
 
 Men and women over 55 5 
 
 Men and women parasites 26 
 
 Men and women crippled and disabled 1 
 
 Women in homes. . 20 
 
 100 
 
 When times are dull and the shops, stores, and factories 
 are releasing employees, the percentage of men and women 
 working decreases, a small percentage go into the column of 
 parasites, either as loafers, going to school (all schools gain 
 some from this cause and lose others for causes discussed later) 
 or idling at home, helping mother, etc. A few women marry 
 for a home, but the large number shift about from one job to 
 another until they drive out the least firmly attached people, 
 the women who have homes but who work casually. 
 
 When there is great demand for labor it brings out all these 
 people and makes additional calls on the parasitic class, takes 
 many children from school and to a small extent draws on the 
 men past fifty-five years of age who had considered them- 
 selves beyond employment. There are two exceptions: 
 thrifty people take advantage of flush times to marry because 
 they can afford it; or if they are married and have children, 
 send them to better or more advanced schools because they 
 likewise can afford it. 
 
 l The accuracy of this division is not vouched for except as a suitable basis 
 for discussion.
 
 75 
 
 Seemingly, we have always made the mistake of thinking 
 of the labor supply as something tangible, that could and 
 should be stabilized and brought to rest. We are learning 
 now to think of it as a stream, flowing sometimes in a destruc- 
 tive torrent, sometimes quiescent, but seldom decaying from 
 stagnation. Flow is necessary and desirable ; without it prog- 
 ress is impossible, but the flow must be controlled so that it 
 will not work harm to itself. 
 
 Employers are unwittingly as much the case of violent 
 movement among their workers as the employees themselves. 
 It is customary to blame workers for undue unrest and to 
 assume they should be blind and deaf to the frantic appeals 
 of competitors for their labor, while as a matter of fact each 
 employer is doing the same thing in his own way. Some work 
 quietly ; others with large advertisements and much overstate- 
 ment of advantages to the prospective worker. 
 
 It has always been our custom to plant a new industry 
 at a point selected for its shipping facilities, raw material sup- 
 ply, market, etc., and to trust to luck and strong-arm methods 
 to secure the necessary workmen. From now on we shall 
 have to consider the labor market, for labor has tasted the 
 raw meat of power; it likes the taste and craves more. So 
 we have to consider the flow of labor in very much the same 
 way as we do friction, very valuable when we want to put on 
 the brakes, and a hindrance when we are putting on all steam 
 to go ahead. There are certain fairly definite things which 
 tend to decrease the mobility of labor which we sometimes 
 wish we did not have to consider. The first of these, and the 
 one which has produced the greatest trouble when overlooked, 
 is racial. 
 
 We have before us every moment the regret for having 
 brought in the negro race, quite as much on their account 
 as our own. It is a constant warning against our bringing in 
 the yellow races. Any race with whom inter-marriage is pro- 
 ductive of questionable results must sometimes feel that we 
 have allowed them to look into the promised land and then 
 barred the way. China is no doubt swarming with men able 
 to do much of the work which we have wanted done, and 
 willing and able to do it for a very much lower wage than the
 
 76 
 
 European races. It would be easy to let them in, but past 
 experience shows plainly the impossibility of sending them 
 back when the need is over. In other words, they do not add 
 to the elasticity of the labor supply. What is to constitute 
 the final solution of this problem is difficult to imagine. 
 
 The problem of industry, which was brought to the front by 
 the war, is how to get the purely laboring work of the world 
 done when opportunity is open for as many as can do work 
 involving some mental action. Our industries have been so 
 reorganized that work which was formerly done by fairly 
 skilled labor is now being done by men whom we formerly 
 thought capable of nothing beyond hewing wood and drawing 
 water. This so depleted the ranks of the purely laboring 
 classes that in many instances it was necessary to pay more 
 for unskilled labor than for skilled, and oftentimes a totally 
 unskilled man pushed his income above that of many pro- 
 fessional men, notably teachers and ministers, so that many 
 of the latter left their professions and became actual producers. 
 
 Another of the influences preventing the desirable flow of 
 labor is the attachment which many people have for their 
 homes. The great influx of Europeans which preceded the 
 war might seem to indicate that no great attachment influ- 
 enced Europe; but the quality of those who came to work 
 compared with those who came as visitors makes it necessary 
 for us to revise our estimate of the European population. The 
 very type which would have made us the best workers quite 
 largely stayed at home. The vigor with which the French 
 and Italians and the other invaded nations fought, definitely 
 determines this fact. Even in our country we have to realize 
 that there are large colonies of certain races in certain cities 
 who are little disturbed by advertisements for "Help Wanted" 
 in other and near-by cities. They live together, work together 
 and, if they move at all, move together. 
 
 A third important item is lack of versatility. A machinist 
 or a shoe worker can find work and accomplish as much in 
 one portion of the country as another, but the very decided 
 specialization into which industry has developed has brought 
 a vast number of men and women into our industries who 
 know only enough to perform a single operation, and that only
 
 77 
 
 when the machine which they are using works perfectly. Such 
 people can only go down the scale, unless money is expended 
 to teach them a new operation. As a war measure, the so- 
 called vestibule school, teaching only operations and not 
 principles, was desirable and profitable both in money and 
 results. As a peace measure it helps to steady the flow from 
 industry to industry, but it also greatly adds to the difficulty 
 of making transfers of labor in the interest of the community 
 as a whole. 
 
 These three principal obstacles to the mobility of labor- 
 the race problem, the love of home, and the lack of versatility 
 add to the difficulty of expanding or contracting business. 
 If business is expanding above the normal, we are faced with 
 (1) the temptation to import the yellow man, (2) the fact 
 that the better class of workers are attached to a home, and 
 prefer demotion to change, and (3) we find the expense of 
 reeducating large numbers of employees to be very large. If 
 business is decreasing, we are confronted with (1) a large sup- 
 ply of people whose homes in foreign lands do not attract 
 them once they have tasted our life, (2) those who own or are 
 attached to their homes cannot and will not move where there 
 are better opportunities, and (3) those who have learned to 
 do only one thing find themselves totally unfitted for change. 
 The natural result is unemployment and loss in purchasing 
 power, which reacts making business still poorer and poorer, 
 until the disease has run its course, people economize and we 
 once more build up and call out the working reserves. 
 
 A cure for this lies in the creation of a large reserve of 
 men and women capable of doing several things, capable be- 
 cause they know fundamental principles. Their training is 
 the duty of the nation, because if they are to be mobile and 
 able to equalize working conditions, they must be ready to 
 pass state borders and go wherever the great demand exists. 
 We already have a great body of men possessed of the wander- 
 lust who may seem at first sight to fulfill this need, but such 
 is not the case because they are simply travelers going from 
 place to place without thought of shortage of labor, to-day 
 appearing where there are already more workers than can be 
 employed, and to-morrow leaving places where there are al-
 
 78 
 
 most none, stopping only long enough to accumulate the fare 
 to the next town, and with no regard to the needs of the 
 community or the industry. 
 
 We need a "flying squadron" of workers who would corre- 
 spond in the worker's world to money in the financial world. 
 A few mobile and controlled people could steady employment 
 just as a small amount of real money serves to pay the bal- 
 ances of the checks sent back and forth between banks. There 
 is, however, no escape for the shortage of unskilled labor except 
 the decrease of business, if we stick to our intent to leave out 
 the yellow races. We can resort to high wages on the principle, 
 not usually accepted that the person who does disagreeable 
 things should be paid a bonus for doing them. If every- 
 body worked solely for the love of work, then the above prin- 
 ciple would apply and the president of the company would 
 draw the smallest salary; but only recently have we seen any 
 such leaning, and that only to a limited extent. The remain- 
 ing alternative, and the one which our industrial history 
 indicates to be most successful, is to do away with the necessity 
 for unskilled labor. 
 
 After all, our most expensive work, the work which gives 
 us the least return in satisfaction, is the lifting and carrying 
 done by man power. Unloading cars of coal or other similar 
 materials by shoveling over the sides seems a wilful waste 
 when we know how to dump them by machinery which only 
 requires the release of a lever or turning a switch. One man, 
 who may very well be a cripple in many ways, can do the work 
 which a dozen laborers would do. It seems wrong also to ask 
 any man to lift burdens which might be raised by power ; yet 
 we have to admit that for some time to come we will have 
 mental defectives who seem incapable of doing work which 
 requires mental strength above the lowest order. It should be 
 possible, however, to so arrange our plants that the percentage 
 of such defectives would be closely related to the purely labor- 
 ing work to be done. 
 
 Some reader may be impatient and say, "Why concern 
 ourselves about the world supply of workers? What we need 
 is more people to-morrow in our own plant." While this is 
 true, no one should make plans for large individual expansion
 
 79 
 
 of production until he has given careful consideration to what 
 would happen if every one should begin to expand equally. 
 We ought not to open new branches, or build new factories 
 depending on deliberately drawing employees away from other 
 plants near or far away. 
 
 It is hardly conceivable that a town will attempt to se- 
 cure a new manufacturing business when its Board of Trade 
 knows that its population is very nearly 100 per cent em- 
 ployed. As soon as the new shop opens its doors, natural 
 curiosity draws many workers from other local factories. 
 These people for the most part are those who are' discon- 
 tented and men whom their employers can profitably release. 
 Nevertheless, it immediately raises a storm of protest from the 
 older shops, who accuse the new shop of "stealing help," so 
 they retaliate by deliberately offering inducements for some 
 of the very men whose absence from their plants was profitable 
 to come back. This goes on until all raise their rates as high 
 as they dare, about which time a supply of workers begins to 
 flow in from outside towns and everybody gets all the men 
 they need and everybody is satisfied, except the people from 
 the outside towns. Inasmuch as the employers seldom have 
 any means of knowing where their men go when they leave, 
 they do not know where to direct their complaints. 
 
 The fact that the suffering firm is not able to protest does 
 not, however, make it right for some one else to offer imagi- 
 nary or temporary inducements to its employees. Such re- 
 movals of men from one city to another only cost time and 
 money, and in the end serve no useful purpose. Reprisals are 
 easy and frequent. Such reprisals only serve to create wage 
 conditions that are unfortunate, because they inflate work- 
 men's ideas of their worth and get them into habits of spend- 
 ing more than they earn, which habits are not easily dropped 
 when the inevitable deflation of business comes. 
 
 All this applies, of course, to the artificial bidding up of 
 rates and not to rates increased to correspond with increased 
 earnings. Just so long as employers strive to induce employees 
 to leave each other for money consideration rather than for 
 better opportunity, we shall have unrest, discontent, and dis- 
 trust. Men who have worked for a firm for several years, who
 
 80 
 
 have asked for higher wages and been refused, cannot help 
 being suspicious when under such conditions they find other 
 men offered 10, 20, or 50 per cent more money to come in and 
 work beside them. 
 
 Since in the end expansion of business as a whole can only 
 be accomplished by an increased amount of work done, there 
 are only two legitimate ways in which it can be accomplished : 
 
 (1) By bringing out labor which has for the time being retired. 
 
 (2) By each individual doing more work. To accomplish the 
 result in either way it is only necessary to offer better oppor- 
 tunity for men to earn money. Every increase in opportunity 
 to earn draws out a few more people who do not work when 
 wages are low, because they work so slowly as to create an un- 
 due overhead charge. Every increase in the amount of work 
 which it is possible to place before workers in such a way that 
 they can accomplish it brings added production. 
 
 Certain types of people when offered overtime work will 
 overwork until they are worn out. These same people offered 
 larger wages for a given amount of work will loaf a part of 
 the time, usually enough so as to secure about one-half the 
 increase in wages. For example, ship riveters, whose wages 
 went up during the war from about 35 cents per hour to 70 
 cents, worked about two-thirds to three-fourths of the week. 
 The wise employer sees to it that every facility is offered his 
 employees to do work easily and effectively, and then sees that 
 they are paid in proportion to the work accomplished. Hours 
 of labor are not so important as the question of how tired the 
 workers get during those hours. Men get tired by the day. 
 Their daily hours should be such that with the facilities of- 
 fered them they can surely come to work the next day fully 
 recuperated. They live only one lifetime, so they should work 
 so as to accomplish the maximum amount of work for that 
 lifetime. In other words, it is a mistake to ask or even allow 
 men and women to overwork when young, since it may so 
 shorten their working life that they may not be able to pro- 
 duce more than a small fraction of what they should. 
 
 Men and women left to themselves waste time in false mo- 
 tions, but they waste more energy in awkward motions and un- 
 necessary handling of material. For example, in the early
 
 81- 
 
 stages of the war 3-inch Russian shells were contracted for to 
 such close dimension specifications that they could only be 
 commercially produced by grinding. In one shop they were 
 stood on end on the floor between machines. The operator 
 had to step to one side, pick up a shell, lift it to its place in 
 the grinding machine, and when the operation which took 
 only seconds to perform was done, place it on the floor at the 
 other side, taking one or two steps to do so. In another shop, 
 narrow benches were built from machine to machine nearly 
 on a level with the centers, and the shells were rolled from 
 machine to machine. Each worker had only to lift the shells 
 an inch or so, could stand in his tracks all day long and in- 
 stead of the machine standing idle nine-tenths of the time, it 
 was actually grinding about seven-tenths of it. In other 
 words, the second shop offered its workers the opportunity to 
 produce seven times as much work as the first. 
 
 Men undirected will more often than not do their work in 
 ways which produce undue and unnecessary tiredness. Much 
 of this can be remedied by study. Not necessarily time study, 
 nor motion study, but study to see whether the work is most 
 easily and effectively done standing or sitting, whether changes 
 in lighting help or hinder, and a consideration of other factors. 
 Every gain in the ease with which work is done, every gain 
 in handling materials by power rather than by hand, makes 
 possible either longer hours, or greater production during 
 short hours, or both. Either, gives us the equivalent of a 
 larger working population without the added expense for food, 
 housing, . clothing, and transportation which is always at- 
 tendant on the transfer of people from place to place. 
 
 From the purely selfish point of view of the individual em- 
 ployer, it would seem that obtaining these gains should be the 
 first expedient, rather than the hiring in of more employees. 
 Profit lies in the saving in overhead charges by reducing the 
 ratio between total costs and labor costs. A greater profit 
 may also be in the better feeling on the part of the workers. 
 Wherever one may go he always finds discontent in shops that 
 are rapidly increasing their numbers by bringing in new and 
 awkward people, whom the old hands have to train and who 
 must be paid the same as the experienced men, but whose early
 
 82 
 
 earnings are obviously much less. The old hands cannot be 
 blamed for jealousy. It is only human nature to resent an- 
 other's having an unearned income and to resent being asked 
 to teach as well as earn. Hence the smaller number of new 
 people have to be brought into a shop the better the feeling 
 and the greater the production per dollar of payroll, even 
 though the actual payroll, through overtime and high wages, 
 may be quite large. 
 
 If all these efforts to do away with the need of labor do not 
 provide the necessary employees, the most elastic part of the 
 working population, the women, should be appealed to. Dur- 
 ing the war many women were drawn into productive work by 
 the call of patriotism, many by money, and probably many 
 more through just plain curiosity. They will go out of in- 
 dustry through the reverse process. First because the in- 
 centive of patriotism and the need for their work appears to 
 pass; second because their curiosity has been satisfied, and 
 last, if and when the money incentive is withdrawn. Many 
 however, will be reluctant to give up the independence which 
 they have acquired. In spite of all that has been said about 
 the place of women in the home, and the need of the home in 
 our social life, women have had the short, hard end of it. The 
 saying that "Woman's work is never done" is only too true. 
 There seems to be too much work in the home or too little. 
 The wives of well-to-do men find life a burden because social 
 ties, so strong that they cannot avoid them, take up all their 
 time without entertaining them or proving of any profit. The 
 wives of wage earners are given over to housekeeping, the 
 rearing of children, and soothing a more or less tired and dis- 
 couraged husband. Now, for the first time in history women 
 have been accepted as wage earners, have been able to earn 
 living wages by manual as well as mental effort. They know 
 that they can make a better living than the average husband 
 can offer them as their share of his earnings. 
 
 Women will probably be for some time our greatest elastic 
 labor force. Men must work, for they can hardly live on their 
 wives or female relatives. Women have for so many centuries 
 either lived on their husbands and male relatives, or else been 
 virtually their slaves, that they accept it as a natural condition.
 
 83 
 
 The new idea of being wage earners and producers is to them 
 an abnormal one, no matter how desirable. Women accept 
 working conditions as they may be in shops with less complaint 
 than men. They have accepted men "for better or for worse" 
 through all the centuries and they very naturally, having so 
 often realized the worst, expect to continue to receive it to 
 some extent. 
 
 During the transition stage in which women find them- 
 selves, they will doubtless be less dependable than they have 
 been or will be later, but they seem to be the one logical and 
 numerous source of supply for the present. Possibly it may 
 happen that when they again become settled in their own 
 minds, business will have found some way to eliminate the 
 elasticity whidh seems inseparable from our present methods. 
 
 To sum up the situation : We have had a shortage of labor 
 so long that the memory of bread-lines and unemployment 
 commissions is very dim, but we are just as likely to have them 
 now as we were to see prosperity then. But for now, what are 
 the legitimate ways to draw men and women to the employ- 
 ment offices of industry? W T e have tried high wages and we 
 have tried short hours. Neither method does any good be- 
 cause each only tends to form expensive habits, which cannot 
 be realized because they also produce high-living costs. The 
 shops which have maintained high daily attendance and low 
 labor turnover through the war are the concerns which have 
 followed the labor market rather than led it, and who have 
 offered their employees decent working conditions and the fa- 
 cilities for earning large wages. They have found it possible, 
 by the investment of relatively small amounts of capital, to 
 employ the types of labor that do exist, and to keep the work 
 flowing to them as rapidly as they can use it. They have found 
 their actual cost per dollar of production much more stable 
 than the cost of living. In other words, they have placed their 
 men in a position to earn as much more as they needed to cover 
 that high cost.
 
 IF a supply of labor can be assured of such a kind and 
 volume so that some choice is possible, and the men them- 
 selves be assured of equal opportunity to secure the kind of 
 work to which they are adapted, the next problem is to place 
 them in their best niches with the least total cost to the com- 
 munity and, incidentally, to the individual employer. 
 
 Many plans for predicting employers' capabilities have been 
 advanced. We have had psychological and physiological tests 
 which have been industriously promoted, and which have each 
 had some following. No one thing that is before us could so 
 greatly add to the profits of business as the proper vocational 
 guidance of men, and nothing else has more advantageous 
 possibilities for the employees. It would seem from this view- 
 point that any method of selection which proved even moder- 
 ately reliable would receive immediate recognition. None has 
 however, from which fact we may safely conclude that such a 
 system is yet to be found. But there are a few things which 
 help to make broad divisions; for example, all employees 
 may be divided into those who work solely with their muscles 
 and those who use their heads to help their hands. The first 
 class is really very small. They are subnormal people, de- 
 fectives, who are not dangerous to the community except as 
 they propagate their kind. They are incapable of more than 
 the most elementary and simple reasoning and they exist by 
 intuition and habit. 
 
 All the rest of mankind is capable of being taught some- 
 thing. They are capable of at least minor success in some 
 useful work. Some of the limitations which we have thought 
 positive are beginning to fade away. An ear for music, for- 
 
 84
 
 85 
 
 merly thought to be a birthright, can be cultivated. The voice 
 can be cultivated. A few are colorblind, but nearly every one 
 can learn something of colors. A few are naturally mechani- 
 cally inclined, but since the advent of the automobile many 
 more have developed mechanical tastes and ability. We begin 
 to wonder if anything is impossible to the normal mind. 
 
 If this is so why, then, have we so many industrial misfits? 
 Why so much inefficiency? The answer is simple. We do not 
 teach and we do not supervise. One principle only is necessary 
 to determine whether a worker is rightly placed. Does he enjoy 
 his work? A man may enjoy his work if he likes the work for 
 what it will bring him in comforts and enjoyment outside, 
 but he cannot continue to enjoy it year after year unless his 
 heart is in it, and he can see that he is accomplishing something 
 worth while. Whether he will enjoy doing a given piece of 
 work depends on whether he knows how to do it, and whether 
 the man who supervises his work enthuses him with the need 
 and value of it. Men go from job to job, trying to find a place 
 where they can work in comfort and harmony and have a suf- 
 ficient income to live like their fellows. The least of these in 
 the long run is money. The greatest is harmony, by which the 
 author means not merely lack of friction, but appreciation. 
 If employers could only understand that appreciation is the 
 best agent for vocational guidance they would cease finding 
 fault with men whose conscientious efforts need only to be 
 better direction. 
 
 A certain school of educators maintains that what a man 
 learns in one vocation does not carry over into another. They 
 believe that a boy brought up in a machine shop will have to 
 learn the carpenter's trade from the beginning, and that it will 
 take him just as long to do it as though he had never worked 
 at any trade. This is likely so far as the technical details pe- 
 culiar to the first trade are concerned, but fundamental prin- 
 ciples are the same in all trades and those a man can take with 
 him wherever he goes. At the best, however, we have to admit 
 that there is a tremendous loss of time spent in learning the 
 purely technical details of trades and professions. Not many 
 people can be found, especially among those who are success- 
 ful, who have not spent years of their lives learning things for
 
 86 
 
 which they have had no use during the time of their greatest 
 success and prosperity. 
 
 Experience, however, is leading some to think that the 
 problem of vocational guidance is not so much a function of 
 the man himself as of the environment in which he is placed, 
 the personality of the people who share in his training, and the 
 personality of the men with whom he works. In other words, 
 there is a growing feeling that the right kind of a teacher and 
 the right kind of a supervisor can enthuse, encourage, and 
 make a man out of almost any worker of intelligence along 
 any line of useful endeavor. 
 
 If this is so, why have we, all of us, fallen down so obviously 
 in trying to do this very thing? We have made no scientific 
 selections. We have tried to run our shops with what is prac- 
 tically "run of the mine" material, and while we have kept 
 the shops running we have done it at a tremendous cost. There 
 are two answers: first, we have not encouraged capable men 
 to become teachers in any branch of our training program; 
 second, we have not progressed in our training of foremen, 
 or rather we have not yet begun to train them at all. 
 
 We have some most excellent teachers and we have some 
 most excellent foremen, but neither profession pays enough so 
 that it attracts men whose family ties demand that they earn 
 substantial salaries. The average college professor is paid less 
 than a machinist, and many a foreman has known that the 
 majority of the men under him carried home on payday as 
 much or more money than he. 
 
 It is more important that all this should be changed than 
 it is that men should be measured psychologically, phrenologi- 
 cally, or by any other long-named science. It should be pos- 
 sible for a boy to get enough of an insight into various occupa- 
 tions which are open to him, so that he will know what he 
 likes, and then it should be possible for him to rather gradu- 
 ally specialize in that direction, first having a thorough founda- 
 tion in general principles. Our public schools are at fault in 
 that they lose sight of their opportunity to teach many things 
 at once. Their textbooks of mathematics employ problems 
 which have no application in life whatever, where they might 
 at the same time they are teaching mathematics, teach busi-
 
 87 
 
 ness practices and the fundamentals of science. Physics ir 
 taught without realizing that its only excuse is in its applica- 
 tions. So we might go through the whole list of studies which 
 are so closely intertwined in life that we can hardly separate 
 them, but which professional educators have dissected and 
 killed at one stroke. 
 
 Of all places in life where science is needed the job of fore- 
 man has been the least affected. To-day's foreman is last 
 year's foreman one year nearer old age. The new blood which 
 has been brought into our shops has made some progress be- 
 cause things had to be rushed so fast that the older men did 
 not have time to fill them with the prejudices which have filled 
 the craft for generations. The great majority exercise only 
 authority. Take away from them the right to "fire men" out 
 of hand and they are lost to find something to do. The ten- 
 dency not to progress has made it necessary to supplement 
 their efforts with the functional foremen and other people who 
 add to the overhead charges without increasing production 
 over that which is possible without them. The problem of 
 employment then consists of three parts, selection, training, 
 and supervision, none of which is as yet reduced to anything 
 like a satisfactory basis. 
 
 Selection can only be done along broad lines. Any one who 
 claims to be able to distinguish between men fitted by nature 
 to be plumbers and those fitted for steam fitting, or between 
 carpenters and cabinet makers, is probably mistaken. Any 
 employment manager who keeps records of the industrial his- 
 tory of the men who come to him realizes that men do work 
 with some degree of success at a number of very diversified 
 trades. The variety is so great that no law can be discovered 
 by which one can tell what trades lead to what others. This 
 only goes to convince us that most men can be trained about 
 equally well for a number of different callings. This is more 
 pronounced as we go into the ranks of technical graduates. 
 There we find men graduated as chemists who are now work- 
 ing as mill engineers, and civil engineers in charge of manu- 
 facturing plants. 
 
 There are a few characteristics which determine to some 
 extent how much one may safely spend for training a given
 
 88 
 
 man. If he has constantly roved about, unless he has taken a 
 step ahead at most of the jobs, he is likely to move on with as 
 little thought, to be carried away with the greenness of the 
 grass in the next field. There is always, however, the chance 
 that he may stop moving at the next job. When a man claims 
 to have constantly been the victim of unfair tactics he may be 
 wrong and may have a vivid imagination. On the other hand 
 he ought not to be condemned without inquiry, as it is per- 
 fectly possible for a firm to misjudge a worker and lay things 
 to him with which he had nothing to do. 
 
 Tactfulness is something which may grow with maturity 
 and which may also decrease as man passes his zenith. Tact 
 is not needed in every job. Some require a thick-skinned man 
 who is utterly oblivious that he has offended, because that is 
 the only kind who can stand offensive speech from the other 
 fellow. It is a quality which reflects the management, how- 
 ever, so a man should not be judged lacking in tact unless he 
 has worked under the influence of a tactful man. 
 
 The qualities which affect the rank and file and without 
 which workmen are unsatisfactory, no matter how much they 
 may produce, are loyalty, cooperative spirit, and willingness to 
 work. With a shop full of loyal, cooperating, intelligently 
 working men anything can be accomplished. It is usually pos- 
 sible to make a shrewd guess as to these qualities in a short 
 conversation. If a man claims to have been overworked in the 
 last few places where he has worked, to have been given more 
 than his share to do, and would not j^o back to work for any of 
 his previous employers, there is serious danger that he will not 
 work faithfully for the new concern nor will he work with 
 others, and he will probably knock the concern for which he is 
 working. Almost every kind of blunder and unintentional 
 error can be forgiven the faithful man who goes about his work 
 with serious intent. The man who conceives that the world 
 owes him a living and who intends to give as little labor as 
 possible in return for what he gets is a burden on the com- 
 munity and a source of discontent in the shop or office. He 
 corresponds to the merchant or manufacturer who gives as near 
 short weight as he dares, and misrepresents values. He tends 
 to hurt all the rest of the people in the same business. A little
 
 89 
 
 talk with a man will disclose any such tendency, if the conver- 
 sation turns naturally on the reasons why he has left previous 
 jobs. A man of that type cannot help airing his ideas. 
 
 If there is a sufficient supply of men to cover the needs 
 for intelligent workers after eliminating the purely manual 
 type and the men who do not intend to work, the process of 
 selection seems at present to be limited to placing men on the 
 kind of jobs at which they have had the most experience, or 
 the nearest to the kind of experience which the new job re- 
 quires, and then training them for that work. Of course, if a 
 man has a deep rooted aversion to the kind of work which 
 must be done it is not wise to induce him to take up with it 
 by offering high wages. He soon gets used to it and puffed 
 up with the importance which entitles him to the larger pay 
 and demands more. If the man for whom he is to work cannot 
 sell him the job by convincing him that it is a really good job 
 he had best pass it up. It does not pay to sell a man a job 
 that he does not want just because the salesman can do it, 
 any more than it pays to sell a man a pair of shoes too tight 
 for his comfort. 
 
 However, a man who really knows almost any trade and 
 who is able to present his ideas clearly can convince most men 
 that it is a good trade to learn, especially if the shop will pay 
 wages nearly equal to full pay while he is learning it. This is 
 because most trades are good trades, and because most men can 
 be moderately successful barring disabilities which affect one 
 trade more than another, in any of them. Most of the occupa- 
 tions can be made attractive, and in most of them a man with 
 a disposition to be happy can be. 
 
 Happiness on the job is not necessarily governed by the 
 job. If no one is allowed to go on a given job except those of 
 a sunny disposition, the chances are that all will remain happy, 
 and the job will acquire a reputation for being a good one. 
 One grouch, however, will ruin an otherwise perfectly good 
 job. If this grouch happens to be the foreman it may cost 
 the firm much more than it would to pay him a pension and 
 replace him with a man who can see the bright side of things. 
 The old idea that so long as an employee did his work well it 
 could make no difference to his employer what his habits were,
 
 00 
 
 nor whether he was sour or not, has had its day. We are none 
 of us so strong but that we sooner or later reflect our surround- 
 ings. A man who is not cheerful is sick, physically or mentally, 
 and should be cured before he is allowed to communicate the 
 disease to others. 
 
 Other elements which help to make a job a good one in the 
 estimation of workers, are whether the sanitary surroundings 
 are good, even temperature, not too cold in the winter, and 
 even more important not too hot in the summer, not too heavy 
 work in handling the materials used, only a reasonable amount 
 of walking, little stair climbing. In other words, physical com- 
 fort and work which does not require physical exhaustion be- 
 fore night. Add these conditions to readiness of access to the 
 plant from home and the cheerfulness referred to above the 
 jobs which are offered become attractive to most men, provided 
 they are given a reasonable amount of conscientious training 
 before they are expected to make good. 
 
 The problem of training in itself is one of considerable mag- 
 nitude, especially from a money point of view. If every shop 
 kept accurate information as to the cost of training its work- 
 ers, including wages paid and not earned, work spoiled in pro- 
 cess, damage to machinery and tools, loss of production, etc., 
 they would immediately quit promiscuous hiring and give 
 to the serious consideration of some highly-paid expert in 
 the business the task of securing a working body of men who 
 were convinced by something more than words that it would 
 be made worth their while to stick to the firm. When there 
 is a labor turnover of 100 per cent or more, and that is a 
 very creditable showing, the shop ceases to be a productive 
 plant and turns into a very inefficient educational institution. 
 That is, it has the aims of a manufacturing plant and the 
 methods of a school. Where the average man stays one year 
 or less everybody is in training all the time, the graduates go 
 to work in some other plant where they go through this same 
 process of training for still another job. 
 
 Finally the selecting and placing of workers involves a 
 physical examination, but a physical examination which at- 
 tempts only to eliminate men ; to select the physically perfect 
 would leave very little for the employment department to do,
 
 91 
 
 for the early experience in recruiting the army indicates that 
 physically perfect men are very few in number. Later ex- 
 perience shows that most physical defects can be cured, or 
 else can be so offset by the work offered that they do not count 
 severely. Men with weak hearts are probably not much 
 greater risks than men who may develop them later. That is, 
 knowledge that one has a weakness and knowledge of how 
 to watch out for it is safer than the assumption that one is 
 perfectly strong. The true reason for a physical examination 
 is to make sure that men are placed where they will not be a 
 menace to themselves or to others. Of course, those with con- 
 tagious diseases should not be allowed to mingle with the 
 crowd in or out of a shop. So long as public health authorities 
 permit it, the shop serves itself and its other employees if it 
 puts up the barrier. Other ailments, and just now especially 
 the disabilities brought on by war, should not bar any man 
 from earning a living but should make us all the more keen to 
 find a way to place them where they may earn the maximum 
 wages. This is in no sense charity, it is only partial pay- 
 ment in a very limited sense for what they have done for the 
 world. We should not allow our sentiment for the wounded 
 soldier or sailor to let us overlook the industrial cripple who 
 is as much the victim of the present social order as the soldier. 
 He is as truly sacrificed to our necessities, but not in as spec- 
 tacular a way.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 THE UNEMPLOYED WORKMAN 
 
 THE larger and more spectacular forms of unemployment, 
 due to fluctuations in business and periodic hard times, 
 occupy such a large part of our attention that we are very apt 
 to overlook the daily and weekly problems attendant on the 
 ordinary course of the flow of labor. We have seen men 
 out of work and their families in want, and although we see 
 the economic waste of it all, as well as the suffering, we are 
 compelled to acknowledge that the employment departments 
 in our shops can do little to alter the conditions. Our em- 
 ployment departments can, however, through the efforts of 
 its individual members, avoid participation in the extrava- 
 gances which cause hard times. This is very difficult to do, 
 and we should not be too severe on those who find themselves 
 unable to battle against the current of opinion of their friends 
 and neighbors. Men, and especially women, will always de- 
 mand these things which they feel essential to their status in 
 life. In fact, most of us not only demand certain things to 
 satisfy our pride in the community in which we live, but also 
 to hold our very jobs, for unless we live in a certain style our 
 employers may think that we do not appear well enough to 
 represent them and so they will hire others. We all know 
 that we are "riding for a fall" but sometimes we seem power- 
 less to prevent it. 
 
 Nothing short of general education of every one will stop 
 these periods of speculation and high living. Employment 
 managers may "sweat blood" trying to make jobs where none 
 exist, by cutting down hours and days of work, and by dis- 
 tributing the work among a larger number of men, but that is 
 only treating symptoms and not striking at the root of the 
 
 92
 
 93 
 
 disease. Then again a great many of our modern habits tend 
 to remove us from the need of personal thrift as they sub- 
 stitute community thrift. For instance, we insure our lives 
 instead of putting money in the bank. The lottery element in 
 insurance appeals to us. We buy land and create public parks 
 and live in a flat. In fact, we have many habits which we pay 
 for in taxes, thereby letting our more fortunate neighbors 
 "hold the bag." The old thrifty way was for every one to 
 acquire supplies of food and clothes against a rainy day, but 
 by so doing the interest on the money invested was lost. Just 
 now we seem to be in a transition stage where the great profit 
 is to the man who accumulates any of the necessities of life, 
 corners the supply, and then profits by our needs. When that 
 stage is past and the man who withholds necessities from the 
 market must have a government permit to do so, we may then 
 be free from these spasms of wealth and poverty. That, how- 
 ever, will likely require years of bitter experience. 
 
 The favorite kind of employment improvement just now 
 seems to be that due to seasonal employment, but as long as 
 there are seasons of the year there must of necessity be sea- 
 sonal jobs. Years ago a man who owned a farm expected to 
 raise enough so that he and all his family and hired men 
 could live on it all winter. No other way occurred to him. 
 His men worked for him all summer; why should he not be 
 charged with their support all winter? Now the farmer lets 
 his extra help go as soon as the rush season is over. He is still 
 under the legal necessity of supporting his wife and children, 
 but the moral obligation toward his help has vanished. He 
 does not even trouble himself as to where they go or how they 
 live. In fact, he does not even know whether they survive the 
 winter. The same transition has taken place in nearly every 
 seasonal occupation. It must be said, however, that the new 
 conception represents a decreasing amount of paternalism. 
 Under the old idea that it was the employer's duty to support 
 his workers during periods of enforced idleness, it was also as- 
 sumed that he could control the movement and dictate the 
 way of living of these men. This was all very kindly and 
 benevolent, but it had the effect of making the workers less 
 independent. Certainly the man who accepts a job knowing
 
 94 
 
 that it is for the season only, and who makes provision out of 
 the returns from the job for the period in which he may be 
 idle, is far more independent than if he curled up by the chim- 
 ney to let the winter blow by. On the other hand, if he learns 
 another vocation so that he may quickly find and begin other 
 work, as soon as he is through with the first job, then he is 
 worth just that much more to himself and to the community. 
 
 It is in such cases as this that the employment manager 
 has his best opportunity to help. He can study the seasonal 
 occupations in his vicinity and make provision to take on 
 house painters and other outdoor workers in the fall, and in 
 the spring the wood choppers who are just emerging from 
 the backwoods. If his shop is running on seasonal lines he 
 can also plan to hire men from other seasonal lines rather 
 than get them exclusively from other and competing shops. 
 Of course, some of these men must be given considerable train- 
 ing which appears wasted when after six months they disap- 
 pear, but if they have been properly impressed they will be 
 back again another year. It may seem like "carrying coals 
 to Newcastle" to suggest teaching men additional trades or 
 vocations when so many of them will confess to having al- 
 ready worked at a dozen or more, but the great trouble is that 
 these men have not really learned any trade. Their experi- 
 ence in these many 'lines is not planned; it is accidental. 
 
 Sometimes the efforts of the employer to stabilize employ- 
 ment in his own shops are well meant but not effective. A 
 manufacturer of straw hats, for example, thought it would 
 be wise to put in a line of felt hats so as to "round out the 
 year." The proposition was perfectly logical. The straw hat 
 season 'has very definite times of "beginning and ending. Felt 
 hats are worn the rest of the year. The times of purchase are 
 well known. And a hat is a hat. His employees for the 
 most part were Nova Scotians who came down each fall and 
 worked through the winter. They did not take kindly to 
 the idea of learning the making of felt hats. They had de- 
 veloped a habit of spending their winters in a climate that 
 was slightly less objectionable than their own, they made good 
 money, but they preferred, perhaps very prosaically, to go 
 back where their winter's saving would make them rich for
 
 95 
 
 the summer, and where their labor consisted chiefly in rais- 
 ing a few vegetables. They had developed a philosophy of 
 life that to them was ideal. They did not want anything 
 better and so quite naturally they did not favor the new idea. 
 
 Such instances may be multiplied but nevertheless it is 
 not unwise fcr a man to have two strings to his bow. It 
 stabilizes employment during the season. Men who expect to 
 leave a given job at a definite date do not usually leave it until 
 that time. Nor do they leave one shop and go to another in 
 the same line. Present methods of computing labor turn- 
 over, however, penalize the employment office in a shop which 
 only expects to operate at full force a part of the year. If 
 two shops, each employing a force for six months in the year, 
 would consolidate, it would immediately appear that the 
 labor turnover of the combined plant was a hundred per cent 
 lower than the average of the two. The large problem seems 
 to be, however, not to entirely remove seasonal occupations, 
 but to arrange them so that the seasons will meet without too 
 long a vacation between. Public employment agencies can, 
 if they will, do a great deal to help this situation. Theirs is 
 a neutral position and they should know and be able to di- 
 rect men to other places where employment is likely. Many 
 firms would be glad to start their seasons a week or two weeks 
 earlier than they otherwise would if they could be sure of 
 securing men before they had an opportunity for a "general 
 good time," with its attendant loss of morale. 
 
 It should constantly be borne in mind that the reduction 
 of labor turnover has its disadvantages in that it makes it dif- 
 ficult for a man to get a job. When a firm with a thousand 
 employees finds it necessary to hire five thousand men in the 
 course of a year to maintain its working force it cannot stop 
 to be too particular in its selection of men, but let that labor 
 turnover be cut down so that it requires only five hundred, 
 which is entirely within the possibilities, and the man who is 
 out and is looking for work has less than one-tenth the chance 
 of finding a job than he did before. To be sure there are not 
 so many other men looking for these jobs, but there are a 
 great many men who are by no means first choice men, and 
 who will thus be obliged to wait weeks in idleness.
 
 WHENEVER a factory produces more goods than its cus- 
 tomers can purchase it turns to advertising and sends 
 out salesmen. Similarly when a shop requires more or better 
 help than come to its doors it likewise advertises and sends 
 out scouts. The sale of goods has been quite thoroughly re- 
 duced to known and agreed principles through long years of 
 experience, but employment managers have yet to come to a 
 similar understanding regarding labor, for at present the only 
 idea seems to be to get the men, and any way is deemed right 
 so long as it accomplishes its purpose. It is of course legiti- 
 mate to advertise for men and to send out scouts to secure 
 them, provided that by so doing no one is injured. In other 
 words, we have a right to do as we please so long as we harm 
 no one else, but when we do, then there must be a compro- 
 mise. Employers soon recognize this within the limits of 
 their own town, for they usually make agreements that they 
 will not hire from each other. And yet, if these agreements 
 were strictly adhered to it would be unjust to the employees, 
 but since they are not it helps to steady the situation even 
 though it may not cure it. 
 
 When such an agreement is made the employment man- 
 ager naturally turns to other towns for his help, and prefer- 
 ably far away, so that the news of his advertising will not 
 reach his home town. The great danger is of course that men 
 who would otherwise be contented and happy will read into 
 these advertisements much more than is there. They rea- 
 son that if the Jones Manufacturing Company advertises for 
 help it must be because they need help very badly and so will 
 expect to pay higher wages to get them. Accordingly the 
 
 96
 
 97 
 
 workmen either go and inquire the new rates and then return 
 to see if their own concern will not give them the same, or 
 else they go and hire out at the new rate, thereby cutting off 
 their connections and any prospects for promotion that may 
 have been theirs. Very often, however, these advertisements 
 do offer exactly the opportunity which the men are seeking 
 as not very many concerns spend money for advertising of this 
 kind unless they are desperately in need of help. 
 
 This increase of pay, through competition which may be 
 only local, is not healthy for either party. It puts a premium 
 on constant shifting about and does not help the shops to 
 maintain a constant working force. It also tends to divert 
 the attention of workmen from their work and in a way to 
 make speculators of them, and speculation in jobs is just as 
 demoralizing as speculation in stocks. Any man who is con- 
 vinced that he is working in a rising market and that the way 
 to get the top price is to work a few weeks in a shop and then 
 leave for a small raise, and do the same a second and third, and 
 even a fourth time, has very little interest in the shops he is 
 using as stepping stones, and by the time he has reached the 
 top he is confronted by a falling market and nothing to show 
 for it but disappointment. This is entirely apart from legiti- 
 mate increases in pay because of a depreciation in currency, 
 or increase in the workman's earning power, for the wise firm 
 sees to it that such advances are made without waiting for 
 the man to come and ask for them. 
 
 Increasing rates to attract men is very much like cutting 
 prices to attract trade, and that is a discredited method. Ac- 
 cordingly we will surely find this bidding for help discred- 
 ited, but we must not fail to note that it has an advantage 
 for the employee as he thus knows the state of the labor mar- 
 ket. Men should also be able to find out where there are 
 vacancies without going to employment agencies, for as a 
 matter of fact all that the private agency has to sell is inside 
 information as to where there is need of help, and, unfortu- 
 nately, it sometimes happens that the information which they 
 do sell is not correct. It is better for a man to learn of ex- 
 isting vacancies directly from the company which offers the 
 jobs than it is for him to obtain his information incorrectly
 
 98 
 
 through rumors that have reached an employment agency, or 
 through statements given out by a foreman who only judges 
 the whole plant from his own little department. Men should 
 certainly not be left to find jobs by chance and the employee 
 who takes Monday morning off to go "shopping" for a job 
 should not be any more likely to find one than the man who 
 sticks to his job and sends a letter of application, yet the man 
 who goes is much more likely to land the job. 
 
 If every one advertised their needs day after day and did 
 not use display advertisements men would soon learn to de- 
 pend upon advertisements and consequently neglect the pri- 
 vate agencies. In fact, the keynote to the whole difficulty is 
 the competition of size and display of advertisements. It is 
 good publicity to use large advertisements but it is poor psy- 
 chology. It is also poor business, for the large display ad- 
 vertisements which appeared during war time, and some of 
 which are still appearing, are not so expensive but that most 
 concerns can employ them if necessary. A six-inch advertise- 
 ment is lost just as much among a number of others of the 
 same size as a half-inch advertisement is among others of its 
 kind. The best suggestion that can probably be made is to 
 encourage advertising, but to limit it to the standard small 
 type of the undisplayed advertising column, and provided 
 every one can be persuaded to do the same, this gives every 
 one the same chance. If advertising is generally used it will 
 also save much loss of time by men traveling to places which 
 require no help and being turned away without a job, when 
 the next shop up the street may need them. 
 
 It is wise to avoid advertising rates of pay and if for no 
 other reason than that the rates should not be fixed before 
 the man is seen. It may be necessary, and it is unfortunately 
 the practice in many shops, that rates of pay should be set 
 for the job and not for the man. This of course refers to 
 hourly or daily rates, for there are always men capable of 
 earning wages greatly in excess of the standard rate of the 
 community and usually these men do not apply for jobs where 
 the rate is advertised. 
 
 Then there are men who would never know what rate to 
 demand were it not for the advertisement, men who never
 
 99 
 
 drew the advertised rate in their lives, and many of whom 
 never even did that particular kind of work. These men for 
 a time at least profit by the advertised rate. Above all, how- 
 ever, advertising the rates starts bidding. Just as soon as one 
 shop offers a slightly higher rate for ordinary labor than a 
 competitor, and it becomes known, some other shop will out- 
 bid it, from spite if nothing else, and then a war is on from 
 which no one makes a permanent gain. If an understanding 
 could be reached by which men would not be given a higher 
 starting rate than the one they last received, and their wages 
 were then readjusted according to their earnings after three 
 or six months of experience, undoubtedly there would be much 
 less stealing of help and a great deal more satisfaction. Such 
 a plan would put it up to the man to make good, and after 
 that if a raise were given often enough to those who do show 
 signs of progress there should be no trouble holding them. 
 
 All advertising and all scouting should be done on the basis 
 of the most complete publicity of opportunities and the least 
 danger of misrepresentation. There should be no artificial 
 barriers to prevent men changing jobs, but there should be 
 every precaution that men do not change under a misappre- 
 hension. The idea that men who work for a concern thereby 
 become in some way a part of the shop should not obtain, ex- 
 cept as they are attracted to the shop and urged to stay by 
 legitimate methods, for a shop which tries to prevent its em- 
 ployees getting other jobs is bound to lose out in the long run. 
 
 In this same connection there is great danger, in fact even 
 greater than in the case of advertising, that the scout system 
 will work injury, for when the employment department is 
 pressed for help to the point of desperation it may throw eth- 
 ics to the winds and resort to any means to get the requisite 
 numbers. The management very likely will lay down certain 
 principles, including an injunction against stealing help from 
 others. The employment manager knows, however, that all 
 the capable men have jobs in normal times and in abnormal 
 times he is doubly sure that every one fit to do the work has 
 a job. Therefore, if he hires any one at all he is likely to be 
 accused of stealing and since he is to have the name of thief 
 he thinks he might as well get whatever credit there is at-
 
 100 
 
 tached to furnishing an adequate labor supply and so he pre- 
 pares to steal where the stealing is easiest and there is the least 
 danger of its being reported to his concern. 
 
 For this purpose he sends out scouts to distant points not 
 where business is bad but rather where it is good. He in- 
 structs these scouts that they are not to hire any one who is 
 working but only men who have left their jobs and who have 
 decided to leave town in any event. The scout works on this 
 highly altruistic plan about one day. Then he writes his chief 
 a doleful letter and says there are no men to be had, but when 
 in reply he receives a telegram saying that what is wanted is 
 men and not letters and for him to get men or quit, he then 
 throws whatever ethics he has to the winds and he hires men. 
 In fact he almost shanghaies them. He makes promises he 
 knows will not be kept, and he signs them up. He advertises 
 that Mr. Brown or Mr. Smith will be at the Eagle Hotel on 
 such and such a day to hire the men. He dares not let it be 
 known for whom he is hiring for fear a telegram to the big 
 boss would result in his being fired at once. If men are not 
 disgruntled he makes them so. He tells them that since slave 
 days no one has worked for such poor pay, or under such 
 "rotten" conditions as they, and he paints for them a sort of 
 heaven on earth, with nothing much to do except spend the 
 heat of the day under an electric fan, occasionally feeding a 
 machine. He even buys their tickets and ships them to his 
 home town and the only redeeming feature of the whole per- 
 formance is that some of the men get lost at every manufac- 
 turing town along the way. 
 
 This is a doleful tale but it is not overdrawn as a great 
 many employment managers will admit when they write their 
 autobiographies. Scouts go from one town to another and 
 the net result is a great deal of traveling which does no good 
 and a great deal of unrest stirred up by just plain lying. How- 
 ever, not all scouting is bad. It is possible to do legitimate 
 work in this field, but it cannot be expected to produce im- 
 mediate results. If the scout has principles and is not 
 hounded out of them by insistence from home he can act as 
 a missionary or a salesman. What he has to sell is just as 
 legitimate as what the salesmen : from his firm have to offer.
 
 101 
 
 He is selling opportunity, and there is little enough real op- 
 portunity for sale. If he goes to a town and advertises truth- 
 fully, hands out circulars descriptive of his plant and his town, 
 shows the advantages of living there, its schools, its libraries, 
 its banks', its low cost of living (if there is such a place), op- 
 portunities for recreation, diversity of employment, etc., or in 
 other words, if he puts forth legitimate reasons, which he can 
 substantiate, why men should like to work for his concern 
 and live in his city, he will get a few men, and only a few. 
 
 These few men, however, should not be given their rail- 
 road tickets. They may be promised that the fare will be re- 
 funded if they stay a month, but at the end of a month, if the 
 conditions are a little better than the scout has painted them 
 to be, it will be necessary to force the money on them. They 
 will write home and get their families to come, and from that 
 moment they become scouts themselves and there will follow 
 a steady flow of men to the new field. It will only come, how- 
 ever, if the new field is really better than the old. If the shop 
 that is sending out scouts is not a good shop, and if it is not 
 in a progressive town, it can make no permanent gain. Their 
 employment manager will have to steal or go without. Of 
 course, some day misrepresenting working conditions and ex- 
 changing worthless stocks for Liberty Bonds will go out of 
 fashion by way of the jail route, but at present we still seem 
 to have the Caveat emptor sign (Let the Buyer Beware) over 
 the doors of too many employment departments. 
 
 Such employment managers are in a peculiar position. 
 They have duties to perform and they have above them men 
 who insist that these duties be done ethically, but yet they 
 impose conditions which make it impossible. Whether a man 
 should resign from such a position and plainly tell the man- 
 ager that he cannot be a party to such acts, or whether he 
 should fight it out and hope from his humble position he may 
 be able to reform the management is a question he must de- 
 cide for himself. We can, in any event, at least admire his 
 courage if he tries the latter.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES 
 
 THE idea of an employment agency is primarily based on 
 the thought that labor is a commodity to be bought and 
 sold at wholesale or retail and at certain fairly definite rates. 
 An order for a hundred laborers, a dozen machinists, or ten 
 mill hands goes through very much the same process as 
 an order for a carload of pig iron or a thousand feet of tim- 
 ber. It is the intention to always be able to deliver from 
 stock, consequently as long a waiting list is kept as possible 
 and if the goods are not on hand the next best thing is to go 
 out and pick them up. The employment agency is not 
 troubled either in pocketbook or conscience about the danger 
 of reciprocal action because they do not care whether the men 
 stay on the job or not; in fact "floaters" are their best asset. 
 This applies literally to private agencies, and government 
 agencies, whether state or federal, inherit the same ideas for 
 they largely recruit their officials from the private agencies. 
 They also favor the "floater" not for his financial value to 
 them, for there are no commissions, but because he counts in 
 their annual report a.s twelve men placed if they can get him 
 into a different job every month. 
 
 If the objects of agencies are thus so entirely contrary 
 to those of employment departments, how can they be ex- 
 pected to cooperate? It would seem that the desire of the 
 employment department to cut down labor turnover would 
 operate to put out of business a large number of employment 
 agencies, as their revenue is derived from the constant shift- 
 ing of men from job to job. Such is not the case, however, 
 for the method of the employment agency is to stir up the 
 great mass of labor, and to see that men are discontented. 
 
 102
 
 103 
 
 They first place a man in a job and then in a few days let him 
 know that they understand that there is to be a change in the 
 management and that he had better leave and get a good job, 
 and then while on the next job they see to it that he is sorry 
 he changed so he will come back again for another job, and so 
 it goes. They are always sympathetic, they let him tell his 
 whole story, and he seldom, in fact he never, "catches on" to 
 their game. 
 
 Let us for a moment consider the functions of an agency. 
 It is or should be a clearing house. Suppose a city of mod- 
 erate size has a hundred shops located chiefly on the outskirts. 
 It might easily take a man a month and five dollars in carfare 
 to see every shop and sit around in the employment office 
 long enough to find that he could not get a job. A central 
 agency by the use of the telephone could send him to at most 
 three places out of which he would surely land his job. Over 
 a wider territory than one community this is even more ap- 
 parent. The shifting about of men from one city to another 
 should be a function of some agency, and should be controlled 
 by something beside luck. Men go from place to place to- 
 day with very little more to guide them than Columbus had 
 when he started his journey. Columbus had a good excuse, 
 but we have no excuse to offer for allowing these men to travel 
 about with nothing to guide them but hope and a rumor. 
 The very fact that so many do get stranded and have to go 
 home on charity is enough to condemn society for allowing it. 
 
 The state and federal employment bureaus were created 
 to remedy this condition. It was supposed that they would 
 be so closely knit together that they could shift labor as rap- 
 idly and as directly as each case might demand, but there has 
 been a great deal of criticism of the federal agencies for their 
 alleged failure to meet the call. This criticism, however, is 
 unfair when directed at the general principle underlying their 
 functions. They did not have time to find out what their 
 jobs were, nor how large they were. They had to build a 
 great organization with almost nothing for salaries, and no 
 time in which to make proper selections of employees from 
 the applicants who would consider the wage amount which 
 they offered. They drew the backbone of their organization
 
 104 
 
 from private agencies because there was no other place to 
 draw from, and thus all the evil traditions of the private agency 
 were introduced into the system. These men could not be 
 expected to acquire ideals over night and in many cases they 
 simply kept on with their tricks on a larger scale than ever. 
 These men gave the service a decidedly bad name. They 
 were, however, being gradually eliminated when the crash 
 came. This of course proves nothing against government em- 
 ployment agencies. It only indicates what should be done 
 next time. Given an adequate leadership, suitable quarters, 
 and money enough to hire men with high ideals, as well as 
 ability, and there is no reason why they should not supplant 
 private agencies. They should understand that they are to 
 be judged by the smallness of the movement of men rather 
 than by the bulk of their business. In other words, they must 
 be like employment managers, always trying to work them- 
 selves out of a job. 
 
 While it is most important to find men and women to do 
 the work, they cannot put forth their best efforts unless they 
 are placed in quarters and under conditions that make it pos- 
 sible for self-respecting men and women to come to them for 
 jobs. Too many otherwise well-informed men and women 
 think that all workmen are slovenly, dirty, and foul-mouthed, 
 and they seem to think that a public employment agency must 
 have similar characteristics to attract workmen. The trouble 
 is that they meet hundreds of workmen on the street dressed 
 quite as well as they are and do not recognize them. Nor do 
 they understand that such workmen, which means practically 
 all that are skilled or semi-skilled, will not go near an agency 
 public or private that is dirty and which appeals only to foul 
 people. It is probably wise to provide separate offices not 
 only for men and women but also for skilled and unskilled la- 
 bor. The office for skilled help ought to look at least as well as 
 a similar employment office in a large shop doing an equal 
 amount of business, and the salaries should be at least as good 
 instead of only about half or two-thirds as was the custom 
 during war time. 
 
 Given good surroundings and adequate salaries, the next 
 thing is ideals. High salaries make these possible but by no
 
 105 
 
 means guarantee them. By ideals the author means noth- 
 ing visionary or impracticable, but merely a realization 
 that men seeking jobs are not mendicants but that they are 
 seeking to sell something of value in the best market and 
 are entitled to the same gentlemanly treatment that a sales- 
 man expects to receive when he offers his goods. The man- 
 agers should also constantly remember that what these men 
 have to sell is the most perishable goods that exists. Labor 
 must be used now or never. A day or a week wasted look- 
 ing for a job can never be made up. A man working a sea- 
 sonal trade may be out of work a week or two weeks between 
 seasons, if he does not have assistance in getting some other 
 kind of work to do, and he should not, therefore, be punished 
 for being jobless by being placed upon a "waiting list." The 
 good of the individual and the good of the man are the same 
 to the public agency. 
 
 The public agency can hardly place men in jobs. It can 
 only nominate. One shop in the community may need a 
 dozen weavers, and another a dozen machinists, and yet 
 neither shop could safely give carte blanche to an agency 
 not under its control to make contracts, even oral ones, with 
 any dozen weavers or any dozen machinists they might 
 have on their list. The shop can only consider the applicants 
 in the same way as if they came to their employment office 
 of their own volition. Moreover, there are great differences 
 in men who rightfully style themselves weavers or machinists. 
 A man who has spent his life weaving ribbon may be able to 
 earn his living weaving burlap; but reverse the program and 
 it is not so likely. If the community needs more machinists, 
 the public employment office should know from its relations 
 with other similar offices where there is lack of work so that 
 men may be offered the new opportunity without disturbing 
 the labor conditions in their home town. This method, how- 
 ever, is more expensive than the private agency's method of 
 offering large inducements to men who are well placed. In 
 this connection something should be said of the employment 
 agencies conducted by associations of employers. 
 
 The object of these agencies while primarily selfish and 
 self-centered is good in so far as it tends to offset the bad
 
 106 
 
 practice of the private agencies. Its limitations are two in 
 number, the distrust which workmen naturally have for it due 
 to its backing, and its own tendency to develop black lists. 
 Just so long as workmen feel that they are selling their serv- 
 ices to an enemy they will feel this suspicion of any employ- 
 ment agency fathered by a combination of employers. At 
 times when the employment departments of individual firms, 
 that are considered good places to work, are crowded with 
 applicants, the public offices will have a good representation 
 and the employers' association offices will have almost none 
 at all. This is so because the association office functions only 
 when unemployment is prevalent, and when men must have 
 jobs even if they have to beg for them. 
 
 Most men feel that it is begging for a job to go to an as- 
 sociation office. The result is that the greatest value of these 
 offices is in the records which they keep and the histories of 
 workmen which are available. These histories are complete 
 only as they are made so by reports from the individual em- 
 ployers of men whom they hire and let go. It is these indi- 
 vidual reports which lead to the building up of what prac- 
 tically amounts to black lists. What usually occurs is that 
 firms report not only that John Smith worked from one date 
 to another, and that he was paid so much money and did a 
 specific kind of work, but they also include comments which 
 are confidential but which are available to the membership. 
 
 Then there is a class of men whose only desire for em- 
 ployment is in a certain limited group of concerns. They do 
 not want their names spread broadcast as candidates for jobs 
 and to them the association bureau offers an excellent op- 
 portunity. As a means for securing help in any great num- 
 bers for their members, however, the association bureau is 
 not likely to be a conspicuous success. Its very form limits 
 it to the needs of a small group of employees, and even the 
 men whose services are valuable to a number of groups do not 
 find it of much use. For example, if in a given city the build- 
 ers of machine tools form an association and run an employ- 
 ment bureau, they may find that after all they employ less 
 than half the machinists in town and applicants do not come 
 to them for this very reason.
 
 107 
 
 Social organizations also deserve a word of comment for 
 they find jobs ostensibly for all but usually in effect only for 
 their members and friends. Their employment bureaus are 
 pests in many instances, the exception being the inactive 
 ones and a very few who realize that they have no excuse for 
 existence except as they serve a useful purpose. For the most 
 part their activities begin and end with telephoning to influ- 
 ential men, usually members, and asking them to use their 
 influence to get John Smith a job because he needs it. They 
 may begin by calling up the employment office of this influ- 
 ential man's shop, but as soon as they learn that the employ- 
 ment department is not interested in John Smith's needs but 
 only what he can offer, they give it up. They are therefore 
 apt to complain at the lack of sympathy shown by the em- 
 ployment department and so they appeal through influence, 
 thereby assisting Smith to take the first step toward becom- 
 ing a parasite. 
 
 These association agencies, however, do have large op- 
 portunities for helping the employment situation and many 
 times they would do so if the aversion to them were not so 
 great. They could, if they would, act in a manner about half 
 way between the public agencies and the employment depart- 
 ments by functioning as a rating bureau. The public em- 
 ployment office cannot possibly make selections of men based 
 upon any more information than that given by the men them- 
 selves. They cannot, as we have said, differentiate between 
 different grades and different specialties; they must deal in a 
 rather broad, general way and as a result they cannot appeal 
 very strongly to the man who has a specialty which he wants 
 to follow. 
 
 If these societies could only learn that in their anxiety to 
 help they only harm, they would soon desist. They may go 
 into it for the selfish purpose of getting jobs for members, or 
 they may do it for the patriotic one of helping the returned 
 soldier, but in either case the result is the same, for their only 
 means of securing jobs for their members is pull, influ- 
 ence, threats of .reprisal, and assertions of disloyalty. The 
 harm they do is to the man's self-respect for when he finds 
 that he can get good jobs any time by appealing to friendship
 
 108 
 
 or a pass word he thinks he has discovered something better 
 than work and unfortunately he is more than half right. Al- 
 most every firm has dead wood in its organization drawing 
 good pay and looking very important but whose presence there 
 can only be accounted for on the ground that they were 
 "wished into the organization." These men find it is easy 
 to stay and the man with real ability who does not realize that 
 the management wants to be praised more than it wants divi- 
 dends finds his promotion choked by these tactful and diplo- 
 matic parasites. 
 
 Finally, all things considered, it seems as though public 
 employment agencies should be encouraged because they havo 
 a large and legitimate field of action and because the only 
 way to drive out the private agency is to offer something bet- 
 ter. It has been clearly shown that the bureau of the trade 
 association has a bad reputation which will require years of 
 patient good behavior to cure ; such an organization, however, 
 has a specialized function to perform, and by cooperating with 
 the employment departments of individual firms it can do so 
 to the profit of all.
 
 PERFECT freedom can only be brought into industry 
 when those who wish to make their bargains for employ- 
 ment individually can do so, and those who wish to make them 
 by groups can also do so. We are never able to acquire perfect 
 freedom because that which would be entirely harmless in iso- 
 lated instances cannot be tolerated where men gather together 
 in large numbers. What we must always consider is not the 
 greatest good to the greatest number, but the greatest total 
 good to all. The evil results of the crude attempts at col- 
 lective bargaining, which have been so much in the public 
 eye for many years, are so evident and the good effects are so 
 little known that we are apt to believe that it is all bad and 
 that no good can come of it. The very fact that a man has 
 risen from the ranks, worked his way through obstacles alone 
 and emerged as the directing head of some great industry, is 
 positive proof that he cannot believe in collective bargaining, 
 for people like himself at least. He cannot of course be ex- 
 pected to have the same point of view as the man who finds 
 himself submerged in such a complex social and business mael- 
 strom that he cannot see his way out except by clinging to 
 some one else in blind faith. 
 
 The man who must cling to some other man's coat tails 
 has a choice of two evils. He may cling to his employer's and 
 the latter may in a paternalistic way drag him along with 
 him. Every day we see instances where men rise to places of 
 considerable prominence by reflecting their superiors, but who 
 utterly fail when they lose their grip on their leader. The 
 other alternative is to cling to his neighbor and his neighbor's 
 neighbor in the belief held before them constantly by our 
 
 109
 
 110 
 
 National motto, E Pluribus Unum. By sheer weight of num- 
 bers and without leadership of the true kind they hope to hold 
 their own against the selfishness of employers who should have 
 both unity and leadership. And often, although they have ad- 
 vanced their cause, it has been due not so much to sheer 
 weight of numbers as to the fact that the unity and leader- 
 ship of employers has so often proved to be imaginary. 
 
 Employers who have been most bitter in their denunciation 
 of collective bargaining have themselves encouraged it by 
 setting up standard wages, standard hours of labor, and uni- 
 form regulations as to work. That is, in all vital matters they 
 have established collective bargaining while still pretending 
 that they are dealing individually. Every time a raise in 
 wages is refused to an individual, on the ground that if one 
 employee is advanced others will also have to be, they take one 
 more step toward universal collective bargaining. Laziness 
 and ignorance on the part of employers are responsible; lazi- 
 ness, in that it is easier to set a wage rate for a class of men 
 than for each individual; and ignorance, in that wages have 
 been set without a full knowledge of what was expected or 
 required of employees. Accordingly, wages, especially piece 
 rates, have been set in total ignorance of what men were 
 capable of doing. Very few shops have seriously attempted 
 to discover how long a time is actually necessary to do any 
 one of the operations in its processes of manufacture. If a 
 stop watch is used to time men already doing productive work, 
 it practically proves that the management does not know what 
 is the most important part of production. 
 
 As long, however, as employers practice this one-sided form 
 of collective bargaining, and as long as they decline to consider 
 individual cases, but attempt to treat all alike, just so long 
 is there certain to be friction, because this method does not 
 appeal to any of their employees as fair and just. Neither 
 does it appeal to those who want their cases considered on 
 merit; nor even to the man who wishes to be carried along 
 by the tide, because he does not see that he, or his accepted 
 leaders, are in any way consulted. In other words, the deal 
 is collective, but it is a bargain only in the sense that certain 
 conditions are offered which are to be accepted or refused as
 
 Ill 
 
 the case may be. If the conditions are not accepted there 
 results either a general strike, which is unfortunate for every- 
 body, or individual strikes classified as labor turnover which 
 are equally costly and lamentable though not so spectacular. 
 If a concern employs a thousand men and the labor turnover 
 is 200 per cent, it makes little difference that the same turnover 
 did not occur through two complete strikes in that year for 
 the same number of new men have to be broken in to take 
 the place of those who went out either singly or en masse. 
 
 Experience indicates that it is very costly to actually deal 
 with any considerable number of men on a strictly individual 
 basis. In order to do so it is necessary to have an organiza- 
 tion in which judgment of individuals is exercised by foremen 
 each of whom knows only a small number of workers and who 
 also has his own ideas as to how the men under him should 
 be rated. In a shop with ten thousand employees there may 
 be a hundred foremen who are thus able to have a fair ac- 
 quaintance with the men under them, but the hundred fore- 
 men will inevitably have a hundred differing standards. A 
 single workman passed from one foreman to another will 
 have one hundred different ratings, depending not alone on 
 the capacity of the foreman he happens to be under to deter- 
 mine his value, but on his value as brought out by that par- 
 ticular foreman. 
 
 There are superintendents who claim to know every man 
 in a thousand-man shop, and to know just what he is worth 
 as related to the other men, but superintendents who are really 
 capable of doing this are so rare that it is permissible to doubt 
 their assertions until they prove them. In any case, a shop 
 with such a remarkable superintendent is likely to lose him at 
 any time, and then it is faced with the certainty that it will 
 not be able to duplicate him. An organization which is wholly 
 a matter of personality is not an organization; it cannot go 
 on without its individual mainspring. Even a moderate sized 
 business cannot afford to be dependent on individuals at any 
 point in its organization. It must literally be an organization 
 plus a heart in order to succeed. In the face of increased size 
 of business organizations we shall have to give up the idea 
 that more than a small proportion of the employees can be
 
 112 
 
 given entirely fair-minded individual treatment through the 
 medium of a military organization which makes their foremen 
 the representatives of the company. 
 
 It is almost equally difficult to maintain a purely individ- 
 ual relation to employees through the medium of an employ- 
 ment department and for very much the same reason, which 
 is the lack of opportunity for personal contact with a large 
 number of people which shall be intimate enough to make fair 
 judgment of them possible. If contact is maintained through 
 an employment department it must be chiefly through their 
 records, and indeed it is much better for a man to be judged 
 by his record than by the whim of some foreman who might 
 easily reverse his own judgment. For example, if a foreman 
 wishes to discharge a man for incompetence and there are no 
 records, it is impossible to offset the fact that a recent occur- 
 rence looked like the act of an incompetent person ; but when 
 the records indicate that this same man has a high attendance 
 record, that his spoiled work record is much below the average, 
 and that he has been recommended for increases in pay several 
 times and granted them on the score of exceptional ability, 
 then the foreman may have to admit that he was hasty. 
 
 The greatest difficulty with records in an employment office 
 is to get all the good marks into the record. The black marks 
 get there automatically, but the creditable ones are easily 
 overlooked. On the whole, however, the system by which a 
 man is judged by his record is infinitely fairer than when he 
 is judged by the impulse of one man, and it is especially so 
 if a serious attempt is made to hear both sides of the case. In 
 fact, it sometimes seems best that the employment manager 
 is not well acquainted with everybody, for it puts him in a 
 much better position to act judicially if it is generally known 
 about the shop that he does not make intimate friends and 
 confidants of everybody. 
 
 It would seem that if any firm hesitates to follow the ap- 
 parent tendency toward collective bargaining it might well 
 seriously consider dealing with individual workmen through 
 the medium of an employment department, known to authori- 
 tatively represent the management and which preserves suffi- 
 cient distance from entangling personal friendships so that
 
 113 
 
 it will be accepted by the employees as fair and even-minded. 
 There is, however, a greater and greater tendency for employ- 
 ers to very quietly and unostentatiously admit a leaning to- 
 ward catering to the class of employees who feel the necessity 
 of leaning on one another, or on some leader whom they may 
 select in company with their fellow men. There are, however, 
 very decided objections to doing this under the conditions 
 which have surrounded much of this kind of bargaining in the 
 past. Some of these conditions have been brought about by 
 the employers themselves, such for example as the fighting 
 type of leaders which the men have had and the tendency for 
 them to bring in outside help to fight their battles for them. 
 The fighting type of leader naturally gravitates toward places 
 where fights are necessary to win their case. Employers have, 
 however, so often refused to admit that there was an organiza- 
 tion to which their employees belonged, and so often over- 
 looked the chance to discuss matters sanely with the reason- 
 ing type of leader that it has been impossible for the latter to 
 continue in office. Employees have also brought in outsiders 
 as spokesmen; that is, paid professional agitators, because ex- 
 perience has taught them to expect that the leaders in any one 
 shop if known to the management will be summarily dropped 
 from the rolls. Therefore, their only safe course is to get others 
 who have no fear of discharge to represent them. 
 
 It should also be borne in mind that the very fact that 
 there is an organized strike in any shop is an indication of 
 at least a desire on the part of the workmen to stay employed 
 in that shop. In effect, they say to the management, "We 
 like to work for you except for the things which we are de- 
 manding." When the same number of men leave of their 
 own accord and go to work elsewhere it may easily mean that 
 they feel that they have no use or sympathy for the firm. A 
 quiet strike thus carried out one by one and shown only in 
 the labor turnover may indicate a very much worse condition 
 of affairs in the shop than an open strike. 
 
 Another way in which employers have helped to bring 
 about conditions which they find a burden lies in their failure 
 to offset the propaganda of the labor unions. When one of 
 the representatives of the labor unions comes into a city and
 
 announces a campaign the employers too often help him by 
 announcing their determination of fighting him on every 
 proposition before they know what it is. This makes it easy 
 for the representative to convince the general public that 
 the workmen are martyrs, and martyrs almost always get a ma- 
 jority vote. When an attempt is made to offset the arguments 
 of the agitators it fails to reach its mark because it is too far 
 above the heads of the class it is intended to influence, or if 
 the speaker attempts to imitate their leader it is too obviously 
 an imitation. If a small fraction of the thought that is put 
 into sales campaigns was put into campaigns for holding em- 
 ployees through their sympathies and reasoning ability, there 
 would be much less friction. 
 
 In almost every successful labor campaign there has been 
 an element of justice back of labor's demands, but the greater 
 part of the allegations and demands have been so exaggerated 
 that it should have been possible for capable speakers to 
 have shown the workmen that they were being unwisely led. 
 Employers who study the situation are beginning to see that 
 one mistake that they have made was in belittling their 
 opponent. A labor agitator may not appear very bright, he 
 may drink quite all the law allows, but he is foxy, and he puts 
 on his appearance as a part of his job. It takes a keen mind 
 and a man with a gift of talking in plain and unmistakable 
 language to counteract his efforts. More than that, he must 
 be able to go before workmen with clean hands. He must 
 discover the nucleus of truth in the agitator's story and his 
 employers must remove the real cause of the trouble before 
 his words will have any effect. 
 
 Suppose that all cause for mutual distrust could be elimi- 
 nated from the minds of all parties, would it then be wise to 
 have universal collective bargaining? Let us see. Universal 
 collective bargaining is something very different from bar- 
 gaining with labor unions as at present organized in the 
 United States. Now it is only possible to deal collectively 
 with less than ten per cent of those working for wages. It 
 is noticeable that labor organizations have never claimed 
 that any very large percentage of workers were organizable 
 and that they have never had in their organizations more
 
 115 
 
 than one-fifth of those that they have claimed as eligible. 
 Whether this is intentional or not, it has made it possible for 
 the limited membership to demand and to secure wages out 
 of all proportion to the others without unduly or noticeably 
 increasing the cost of living for all. It was only when the 
 war brought about an effect similar to the unionization of 
 many more men that the increased wages which they de- 
 manded raised the cost of living to the point where we all find 
 this problem to be ours rather than one solely between em- 
 ployer and employee. It is trite to say that increase in general 
 wage rates without increased production must be felt at once 
 in the cost of everything into which labor enters. It is also 
 possible to greatly increase the income of a small percentage 
 of all employees, especially those engaged in trades not related 
 to food products, without appreciably affecting the total cost 
 of living. 
 
 The experience of the country during the war indicates 
 that total unionization of workers carried out without regula- 
 tion would benefit no one. If wages are universally increased 
 and production decreased there is inevitably a readjustment 
 which is the equivalent of a depreciated currency, and not 
 only does no one profit but we are all placed in a position in 
 which we cannot trade with other countries where infla- 
 tion is not the rule. Universal collective bargaining should 
 mean that every employer would make his bargain for labor 
 not with each individual who comes to his gate, but with the 
 group of men who are already working for him. It does not 
 mean dealing with other bodies of men working perhaps in 
 diversified shops in other localities, or possibly not working 
 at all. Nor does collective bargaining in its true sense mean 
 that the men working in a given shop will ask some one out- 
 side their own number and representing interests other than 
 their own to come in and sell their labor for them. It does 
 mean, however, that they will collectively and through duly 
 accredited representatives deal for all with the employer. 
 
 Organizations composed of representatives of a number of 
 shops in the same line of work might deal with organizations 
 of a number of employers in that same line of business. In 
 other words, there can be only minor objections to dealing
 
 116 
 
 with representatives of one's own employees provided every- 
 thing is done in a trustworthy way. The practical objections 
 are based on experiences which make employers and employees 
 each feel distrust for the other. Whether there is any way in 
 which this distrust can be eliminated and a new relation estab- 
 lished is of course still an open question, "nit it is very certain 
 that there will be industrial unrest until there is some way 
 provided for both parties to come together in confidence and 
 with good intentions toward one another. 
 
 There must also be some way provided by which the rela- 
 tive value of labor in different industries may be kept adjusted 
 in an equitable way. The pre-war condition in which an all- 
 around machinist received less pay than men in occupations 
 which could hardly be called trades, is not fit for perpetua- 
 tion under any scheme of collective bargaining. Within the 
 easily learned occupations these discrepancies adjust them- 
 selves through the flow of men from one calling to another, 
 but between the trades such as that of machinist or plumber, 
 where quite a time is required for learning, there is no pro- 
 vision for the rapid exchange. A man does not lay down his 
 machinist's or plumber's kit and take up riveting without giv- 
 ing the matter a great deal of thought. He feels a certain 
 pride in his calling and accepts the chance to make a dollar 
 or two a day more pay in the other vocation only with reluc- 
 tance, if at all. 
 
 There is also the problem of promotion which can be solved 
 by promoting not within the rank but from one rank to 
 another. Such a plan is noticeable in organizations like the 
 army or navy where every man of a given rank receives the 
 same compensation, and rivalry for promotion is just as keen 
 as where all men are paid different rates but called by the 
 same name. It would simplify matters very much if it were 
 possible to determine from a man's rating what he formerly 
 drew for pay. For example if every third-class machinist 
 were paid forty cents per hour (where day rate is used) the 
 fact that he held that rating in Jones' shop would determine 
 his pay there. His next employer's problem would then 
 simply be to discover whether he was entitled to a promotion 
 to second-class machinist.
 
 117 
 
 There is also the satisfaction of knowing that everything 
 is out in the open. The man who asks for an increase in pay 
 because his wife heard that his next door neighbor got three 
 cents an hour more working at some other shop would know 
 at once whether or not the story were true, and his employer 
 could assure him that if he was entitled to the rating that the 
 other men had he also could get the same rate. So far as the 
 employee himself is concerned it is better to have the help of 
 a committee of his mates in passing upon the question of 
 his rating than it is to leave the matter entirely to the whim 
 of a foreman who has no interest in the man as an individual, 
 and whose ideas are so often dependent on the state of his 
 mind and health. 
 
 The most successful shops have means of their own for find- 
 ing out the temper of the shop. They usually know how a 
 given move will be looked upon by their workmen before they 
 make it. Thus in its practical working there would probably 
 be little difference between a successful shop which dealt with 
 its men collectively and any other shop, except that there 
 would be a very much better feeling among the workmen 
 which must inevitably come with the sense that they have 
 some part in the way the shop is being run. There is a 
 great difference between living in a republic and a monarchy. 
 At the present time all attempts to establish collective bar- 
 gaining within a shop must be entirely experimental. .There 
 is no precedent of sufficient magnitude to make it possible 
 to say how it will work out. It is very safe to prophesy from 
 the political history of the country that when it is first tried 
 in any .shop there will be a flood of crazy suggestions which 
 will have to be eliminated ; and after that if the management 
 demonstrates its intent to play fair there will be so little 
 interest in it that the management may feel that it is useless 
 to maintain the machinery of the organization. In this they 
 will be mistaken, as the very fact that the machinery is there 
 by which the employees may bring matters to the attention 
 of the management and ask for a hearing, is a safety valve, 
 the very presence of which will maintain peace.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 REFERENCES 
 
 HOW much interchange of information should there be 
 between employers? Should a man who leaves be re- 
 quired to give a notice? If he does not give a notice should he 
 be punished by the next employment office *he applies to by 
 that office refusing to hire him? Shall he be required to give 
 references, and shall his references be looked up? All these 
 questions are in the minds of the employment manager most of 
 the time. They are more vital than the percentage of labor 
 turnover and yet they are not discussed and labor turnover 
 is, all of which simply means that labor turnover is a "safe" 
 subject and this interchange of information is not. If we 
 are to discuss these matters frankly we must at once admit 
 that our ideals cannot be reached until we are ideal ourselves, 
 and we employment managers, superintendents, general man- 
 agers and all, are a long way from being ideal. In all these 
 matters we are prejudiced parties. Worse than that, we form 
 our prejudices on very little evidence and we do it hastily. 
 
 If we were all that we ought to be it would be perfectly 
 safe for workmen to trust us in these matters, but we cannot 
 expect them to do so while we act as we do. For example, a 
 certain man who was hired with a distinct understanding that 
 his pay was to be advanced a given amount at the end of 
 six months waited eight months, and then when he asked for 
 his raise was told that he was not worth it and if he did not 
 like it he could "quit." He quit, and his former superior 
 attempted to prevent his being hired by the next company 
 to which he applied. When such a state of affairs is possible 
 and there is no court of review, how can we ask any one to 
 trust us? 
 
 118
 
 119 
 
 Similar occurrences are common. Men leave or are dis- 
 charged and their foremen go to the foremen in other shops 
 and "tip them off" that the man is not fit to be hired. There 
 is no specified objection and nothing is written, consequently 
 there is no redress. There probably is no formal black-list 
 but there are many private oral understandings which have 
 all the ill effects of a black-list, This pernicious practice is 
 not entirely confined to men of the grade of foremen but ex- 
 tends to superintendents and sometimes even to the general 
 manager. It is done by foremen whose superiors do not know 
 it but would frown upon it if they did, and, strange to say, 
 even superintendents and general managers who would not 
 tolerate for a minute such practice on the part of any one 
 under them are also guilty. Of course, every case is "differ- 
 ent" or "special" and men who deplore lawlessness will take 
 the law into their own hands to prevent a man's getting 
 another job. They will do it to the injury of good men -whom 
 they want to keep, and to the injury of alleged bad men 
 whom they want to punish. Under these circumstances, and 
 they are not rare, we have little chance to point a finger of 
 scorn at any one. If there is any firm that has not been 
 guilty of one of these two acts in the past year it is indeed 
 an exception. Nor can we afford to place credence on the 
 statements of other firms as to men who have left or are 
 proposing to leave. 
 
 Many men will not give notice that they are going to 
 leave for fear that all other equally good or better jobs will 
 be immediately closed to them. They only learn this by ex- 
 perience, but once they have learned it they are not likely, to 
 forget. If asked for references, they give the names of men 
 whom they know will give them a good name. If the firm 
 writes to former employers it knows in advance that it will 
 get a reply that is not worth much, in fact, no more than the 
 reply they themselves send out under similar circumstances. 
 There is a difference between putting down statements in 
 black and white that may fall into the "hands of the employee 
 himself and conveying the information over the telephone or 
 at a meeting with no reporters allowed, for confidential letters 
 are not always kept confidential. References are often shown
 
 120 
 
 or read to the man himself and the writer has even known 
 them to be given outright to the victim. It is best not to 
 ask for them. But if they are called for it is wisest to reply 
 only by a statement of fact guarded by some such phrase as, 
 
 "Our books show that ," "Our records are incomplete 
 
 but they would seem to indicate that ," etc. This 
 
 does not entirely ignore the request and yet it avoids the dan- 
 ger that the firm will get into serious trouble. 
 
 As these matters are at present we might as well admit 
 that employers are injuring themselves by reducing the in- 
 centive to give notice of leaving; and their employees by giv- 
 ing vent to their indignation when it would be fairer to first 
 investigate the man's side. It should not be thought that the 
 writer does not appreciate the fact that a great number of 
 employers are fair-minded and would not consciously stoop to 
 such acts and would be shocked to know that they occur in 
 their shops, but one foreman or one superintendent who is 
 provoked at the action of some workman may easily give the 
 entire shop "a black eye." A hundred honest men cannot pro- 
 tect themselves from being smirched by the action of the one 
 who meets a foreman from another shop and tips him off that 
 John Smith is leaving Foreman Jones' department and he 
 ought not to be hired by anybody. 
 
 If our present method is bad what can be done for pro- 
 tection? Shall every applicant for a job be allowed to tell 
 his story uncorroborated? That is practically what happens. 
 John Smith can go to any shop and state that he worked for 
 any list of concerns that he cares to mention and the list goes 
 down on his record. If letters are sent to these previous 
 employers it is a dead certainty that a considerable fraction 
 of them will have no record of John Smith at all except on 
 the payroll. There may be a record that he left for "a better 
 job," "got more money somewhere else," or more likely just 
 "left," but if the record does not show that he worked there 
 it proves nothing except that a very superficial record was 
 kept. Then again, men often work for a sub-contractor. A 
 builder, for example, may hire his own men but the plumber 
 appears only on the books of another contractor. All the man 
 knows is the name of the foreman and what his wages were.
 
 121 
 
 It would simplify records and make it very much better 
 for both employers and for employees if every man carried a 
 card indicating where he worked from date to date, what his 
 rating was, and how much he was paid. If the record were 
 correct it would be a help ; but if the record were incomplete, 
 or wrong in any particular, or if it gave any personal animad- 
 versions it would be worthless. Personal opinions are not 
 facts, even though many of us think so deeply that our 
 thoughts impress us as facts. We may have known John 
 Smith for ten years and be willing to swear that he never 
 drank a drop and then suddenly discover that he drank 
 regularly, but at home. In the same way we form opinions 
 in the shop from only half the information. 
 
 A system of open records by which every man's industrial 
 history could be known would no doubt be a handicap to a 
 few. There are men, however, who have had bad spots in 
 their past records and have lived them down. Indeed, there 
 are but few men who have not done something that they 
 do not like to have advertised from the housetops. Our an- 
 cestors came here to get a fresh start, and most families who 
 investigate the records of their ancestors find accounts of men 
 that should have been hung, and often some that were. 
 
 If it were not for the great expense of "breaking in" men, 
 it might seem that it would be best to hire men on their 
 record as given by themselves, but employment records seem 
 to indicate that more men were mistaken in accepting a given 
 job than their employers were in selecting them. During the 
 war from ten to twenty men left their jobs voluntarily to every 
 one that was "fired." It would seem, therefore, that workmen 
 have more cause to object to the meager information that they 
 can get about a job before they take it than employers have 
 to bewail the inaccuracy of the information they get about 
 candidates for a job. On both sides it seems to be a case 
 of "try it and see." The employee, however, is guaranteed his 
 wages during the trial period but the employer is not guaran- 
 teed production, and usually does not get it. The workman 
 who leaves a good job to take one that is represented to him 
 as better has no redress if he finds he was mistaken. 
 
 The solution of the whole problem is perfectly simple but
 
 122 
 
 not at all likely. It is direct, straightforward honesty of 
 thought and action. Whenever we reach the point where we 
 decide to tell nothing about men that we could not go into 
 court and prove ; when we are willing to state facts and let the 
 listener form his own opinions; when we are willing to see 
 men rise above their former selves and to help them forget 
 that part of the past that we would like to forget with them, 
 then we can get along without any system of records from 
 one shop to another, and we will be much more ready to ask 
 candidates for jobs to be equally frank with us. 
 
 There is no doubt but that notice, and liberal notice, should 
 be given by either party to a change. Employment is a con- 
 tract, and it should be a contract not broken except by mutual 
 consent. It is just as bad for an employer to discharge or 
 "lay off" men without notice as it is for men to leave in the 
 same way. How long a notice should be given depends upon 
 conditions. There is a legal fiction to which no one pays any 
 attention, that the notice should be equal to the time between 
 payments; if wages are paid weekly a week's notice, or if 
 semi-monthly payments are made then the notice should be 
 correspondingly lengthened. This, however, is hardly a fair 
 basis. The real basis should be the facility with which either 
 party can again place himself in as good a position. It may be 
 that the labor market is overstocked and the employer can 
 get a man with less trouble than the man who is leaving can 
 get a job, or the reverse may be true. For the sake of the 
 community as a whole no man ought to be out of a job and no 
 job should be left unfilled. This necessitates a complete un- 
 derstanding between workmen and employers which can never 
 exist if short notices prevail. It is entirely possible to imagine 
 a tribunal before which those who are unable to agree on these 
 matters may present their cases so as to have the benefit of 
 disinterested opinion. The best concern to work for in the 
 eyes of workmen, other things being equal, is one which assists 
 their men to find another job before they leave. This is not 
 Utopian, for it is done and done very quietly and effectively 
 in more than one establishment of national reputation. 
 
 So far as references and the looking up of past records are 
 concerned there are a few questions that are legitimate to
 
 123 
 
 ask. For example, if a candidate states that he worked for 
 the Jones Manufacturing Company for three years it is proper 
 to expect that their records will be sufficiently complete, or 
 their memories clear enough, so that they can confirm or 
 deny his report and tell approximately what his duties were. 
 If he were there three years and worked at a task similar to 
 that required in the new shop he may very likely be a good 
 man to hire, even though his last foreman condemns him as 
 being utterly worthless. In other words, the fact that he 
 remained three years shows either that he was a good man 
 or else that the foreman was so stupid in not discovering his 
 faults until the end of three years that his opinion in any 
 matter may well be questioned. 
 
 The records of employers' associations are also used by 
 some, and if these records are honestly and faithfully kept 
 they should give a fairly complete industrial history of the 
 man who remains in one community. If studied they may 
 show that a considerable group of men have a sort of estab- 
 lished route. First they work for A and draw good money at 
 piece rates until they get tired; then they go to work for B 
 where the work is easy and the pay light; then it approaches 
 tax time or vacation or Christmas and money is needed, and 
 so they go to work for C who maintains an average shop, but 
 ultimately return to A again when the absolute need of re- 
 plenishing their exchequer is upon them. These routes are 
 very natural ones and can only be avoided when employers 
 standardize their jobs in terms of mental and physical fatigue, 
 and pay accordingly. It will also save teaching a large- num- 
 ber of employees several vocations. These association records 
 are often vitiated by the presence of the opinions of foremen, 
 but so far as facts go they are valuable in that they show the 
 trend of affairs and thus give employers a chance to study 
 the effect of their own shortcomings rather than to rail at 
 the supposed stealing of their competitors.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 FOLLOW-UP IN THE SHOP 
 
 ONCE a man is hired he is very likely to be left to his own 
 resources and so allowed to "sink or swim." Some fore- 
 men build and some destroy, and good employment manage- 
 ment either gets rid of the destructive foreman or else supplies 
 him with help not worth training by other and more compe- 
 tent foremen. But no matter how good the selection and dis- 
 tribution of men there is always a considerable number who 
 will hide their light under a bushel, unless they are encouraged. 
 Chief among such are the men who are "licked," the men who 
 have lost their grip, the men who are afraid. There are also 
 men whose shop life is a constant fear of ridicule, of fault-find- 
 ing, and of expectation of discharge, and these men do not 
 dare to do their best because of the fear that they will spoil 
 the work. In fact, most of these troubles are the result of 
 fear. The men are usually not fearful for themselves, but 
 for their dependents, and so they hold their jobs long after 
 they should, because they cannot see how their wives and 
 children can possibly exist without the particular job which 
 they then hold. 
 
 Follow-up in the shop is dependent upon a knowledge of 
 the way in which each man spends his money. The young 
 fellow who sends nothing home to his parents and who has 
 no wife seldom fears the foremen and in general for that rea- 
 son many foremen prefer the married man because he will 
 stand bullying. Follow-up in the shop should also include 
 an exact knowledge of each man's actual performance, his 
 attendance, his tardiness, his production, and all his increases 
 in pay and changes from job to job. Then, when the foreman 
 charges him with spoiling a job or unreliability, there is the 
 
 124
 
 125 
 
 record day by day to prove or disprove it; and it often shows 
 not that the man has changed from the steady production 
 of years but that the foreman has changed. When a man's 
 records show steady production, repeated increases in pay, 
 and steady attendance, the foreman's allegation that he "never 
 was any good anyway" falls rather flat. Without the records, 
 however, the man's defence is worthless against the word of 
 the foreman. 
 
 The follow-up in the shop should not consist entirely of 
 paper-work showing men's records, but it should be a matter 
 of acquaintance with all his difficulties. Much of this is 
 automatic. When the employment department takes over the 
 hiring of help, every foreman instinctively feels at liberty to 
 mention the shortcomings of the men hired by that depart- 
 ment, and in this way and without any system of forms for 
 complaints the employment department, or at least its travel- 
 ing members, get a first-hand opportunity to straighten out 
 many troubles. On the other hand the men who come in 
 through the employment department feel that the department 
 is responsible for everything that the shop does differently 
 from what they imagined it would, and so they bring in their 
 grievances long before they would ever think of saying any- 
 thing to the foreman about them. 
 
 The very formation of an employment department thus 
 establishes follow-up in the shop whether it is intended to 
 or not, and a follow-up which cannot be neglected. This very 
 fact also makes it quite necessary to "have men of maturity of 
 judgment and experience in the employment department, in- 
 stead of the boys one is apt to find, for such men act as 
 mediators and often reduce the complaints and counter-com- 
 plaints to bare facts. Every possible kind of complaint will 
 be made and the management will hear that Foreman Smith 
 will not show the men what to do ; that John won't do the work 
 he is told to do ; that Foreman Parker plays favorites and will 
 not give good work to any one else; or that racial prejudice 
 counts too much. A great many of the complaints such as 
 these are really based on policy and can only be decided by 
 the company itself or by its general manager. If it has been 
 the experience of years that men of a certain nationality are
 
 126 
 
 better 'adapted to do a certain job than others, the prejudice 
 cannot be broken down over night. If men of other races 
 are put on the job it will be only to do the minor tasks and 
 they will find it unjust. Of course it is unjust, but as long 
 as the foreman knows that he will not be discharged he will 
 continue the practice. Such matters cannot be settled by 
 the employment department but must go to the management, 
 and there is no one but the employment department to see 
 that they get there. 
 
 Many times difficulties of a more formidable nature can be 
 settled without appeal. Workmen are apt to make nasty 
 remarks when angered. They realize the futility of appeal so 
 when they get to the point of desperation they "blow up" 
 violently. That starts a flood of recrimination which can only 
 be stopped either by the intervention of the employment de- 
 partment or through sheer weariness. Inasmuch as both sides 
 are generally right in agreeing that the other side is wrong, 
 there usually results a "cooling off" and a shaking of hands 
 over it when the whole affair is steered by a tactful man who is 
 not afraid of telling both parties where they made their mis- 
 takes. Every complaint should therefore be run down no 
 matter how obvious its cause may seem to be, for there is 
 always the chance that some new root of discontent may be 
 discovered. 
 
 One of the most difficult tasks of the employment manager 
 is to get at the real cause of a man's leaving, or the reason 
 why he is out looking for another job. It has been said that 
 language was given to man wherewith to conceal his thoughts 
 and it seems true in the follow-up office. Some men do not 
 want to talk at all on the score that "the least said the soonest 
 mended." They realize that the next job may not be as good 
 as they hope and they want to pave the way for a possible 
 return, and so they claim that they are going to get more 
 money when the real reason is that they think that they are 
 not getting a square deal. The range of concealment runs 
 clear through to the man who thinks he can get back at his 
 foreman by making charges which he will not have to stay 
 and substantiate, and if he therefore knows it is difficult to 
 get his final pay without appearing in the follow-up office
 
 127 
 
 where he is expected to hear the other side of the story, he is 
 not so likely to stretch his own. 
 
 It is most important that each man's records be kept to- 
 gether in such a way that his full industrial history, so far as 
 it is known, is available at once. This should include all the 
 data which the employment department has secured, all the 
 records of the medical department and the accident depart- 
 ment, changes in work and pay, attendance, piece-work earn- 
 ings week by week, bonuses, etc. It should also be known 
 whether the man is engaged in any of the welfare activities 
 such as bands, gardening, athletics, etc., and with these records 
 any man who desires promotion, or whose foreman wants to 
 get rid of him, can be assured that his case will be decided on 
 facts rather than on snap judgment. A man whose work is 
 falling off may be partly excused and partly given encourage- 
 ment if it is found that there was a new arrival in his family 
 about the time that the taxes on his house came due. He 
 may need a helping hand more than he needs a reprimand. 
 It is also often bothersome for a department to send to a 
 general file room for a man's records, and yet when they do 
 get them such records may prove to be of great value. It 
 may be found, for example, that the man who is continually 
 having minor accidents may be having a run of absences from 
 the shop and it may also be discovered that he is having some 
 quiet little drunks, or it may be discovered that he is laboring 
 under some unusual or excessive burdens at home and that 
 his mental state is such that he ought not to be working where 
 a false step might jeopardize his own or others' safety. Then 
 again, if one of the higher officers of the company becomes 
 interested in an employee it is very much more satisfactory 
 for him to have a complete record of the man, rather than 
 to have to ask a dozen different people for the information. 
 
 If these records are complete there will immediately be a 
 great demand for them from all officials who have occasion to 
 deal with labor matters; and there will be great temptation 
 to take off innumerable statistics (and usually very expensive 
 ones) to satisfy men higher up in the organization. Some 
 official may make a guess that the greatest number of absences 
 occur in some one nationality or that certain districts of the
 
 128 
 
 city show the most tardiness due to the service rendered by 
 the trolley company, or that the proximity of saloons is what 
 makes the labor turnover high in certain groups of men. All 
 these questions are of interest and their answers valuable, 
 but even with complete records it is always expensive work 
 to undertake. The wise employment manager therefore in- 
 vites the department which wants the statistics to come and 
 get them at their own expense, merely opening the file room 
 to them for that purpose. 
 
 This brings up another topic which is inevitable with a 
 central file room, and that is the fact that it is impossible to 
 keep wage rates secret. Rates can of course be kept in cypher, 
 but some one must know the cypher and as soon as some one 
 knows it every one usually knows it. There is, however, no 
 more risk in the employment department than there is in the 
 paymaster's department or the cost department. The differ- 
 ence is that the employment department is so much nearer 
 the men, and so much more approachable, that men discover 
 more than they otherwise would. In most cases, however, this 
 is desirable, for it is much better that every one should know 
 the truth rather than guess for guesses are sure to be partly 
 wrong. There is no use falling back on the theory that each 
 agreement with each man is an inviolable secret for it cannot 
 be kept so after it has once been made. In fact, the day of 
 secret business agreements is rapidly going, for at present there 
 is little that is done which is not in some way the concern 
 of a great many people. 
 
 Such being the case, it is also proper for a concern to in- 
 quire into certain habits of its employees, in other words, there 
 should be follow-up outside the shop as well as within. 
 Usually an employer is in an excellent position to know the 
 effect of the man's outside life on his productive powers. If 
 a man throws away his ability to produce by his dissipations, 
 by too little sleep, by too much worry, or by too much fear, 
 it shows plainly in his work, and if his employer knows what 
 is at the bottom of the loss of productive capacity he can help 
 to remedy it. If it is dissipation he can at least advise and 
 admonish. If it is too little sleep he can discover whether 
 it is caused by dancing, theaters, movies, or by overambitious
 
 129 
 
 study, and then act accordingly. If it is worry he can help 
 remove the cause; and if it is fear, usually fear of financial 
 loss, he can help remove that also. 
 
 All this implies an intimacy of contact which is not usual. 
 When shops were small such matters were known to the 
 owners, now they may be known to the foreman, but the fore- 
 man can hardly be said to represent them. Nor can a poorly 
 paid social service secretary fill the place for a "hired man" 
 cannot represent the management. The representative of the 
 management must be some one who is prosperous and who 
 looks the part. He should live well but not ostentatiously. 
 He should be known to have carried a dinner pail and earned 
 his own living at day wages. In other words, he should not 
 only look the part and act the part, but he must be the part. 
 He need not be handsome, in fact, better not so, because some 
 husbands are jealous and he must call at homes when hus- 
 bands may be away. Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roose- 
 velt would have made excellent follow-up men; in fact, they 
 were follow-up men for the whole country. 
 
 So far, perhaps all will agree, but not much further. Some 
 say that the relation should be purely and definitely business, 
 others that it should be social. The first send out a follow-up 
 man when one of their employees is out to see if he is sick or 
 drunk and his report ends the case. The second keeps full 
 knowledge of the man's social conditions, increases in family, 
 deaths, marriages, moving from house to house, division of 
 expenditures, etc. The first looks at its men as number so- 
 and-so, or more charitably it looks on them as independent 
 thinking units entitled to independence and not needing cod- 
 dling. The second group knows how to live and how to spend 
 its money and it will not rest until it has everybody following 
 the straight and narrow path of thrift and economy. It does 
 not realize that what is "one man's meat is another man's 
 poison" but prescribes the same for all. 
 
 The best path, as usual, may be found somewhere between 
 the two. A good follow-up man soon sees enough of the 
 seamy side of life to realize that some measure of happiness 
 is possible for those who do not live according to the tenets 
 of the so-called middle class. He soon learns that standards
 
 130 
 
 of living are matters of habit and custom. He finds it difficult 
 to draw the exact line between picking wild grapes by the 
 roadside and jumping the wall to reach those around which 
 some enterprising farmer has built a fence. To be sure, we 
 would like to bring all our friends from foreign shores to think 
 as we do, but they also would like to have us think their way. 
 Our own history is such a development and change from Puri- 
 tan times that we cannot possibly hold ourselves up as models 
 to others.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 ATTENDANCE 
 
 THERE are many factors which affect shop attendance 
 and some of them can be influenced and even very 
 largely controlled by the employment department. The prin- 
 cipal factor is the intangible one of spirit or shop morale. This 
 is naturally dependent upon many other factors, but it can un- 
 questionably be maintained if the shop is a popular one, if 
 the men working together are congenial, if the foremen treat 
 every one alike, if the management does not hold itself too 
 far aloof, and so on through the whole list of things which 
 affect labor turnover and which keep men in a friendly mood. 
 
 Possibly the most active factor that affects attendance is 
 what might be called the social side of affairs. If a congenial 
 lot of people come to work every day on the same trolley 
 car, or walk down the same street, it is much easier to be on 
 time than it is to stay out or to be late, and the further 
 such workers have to come the more regular is their attend- 
 ance. It is of interest to note in this connection that such a 
 fact is the opposite of that in the case of labor turnover, as 
 the lowest labor turnover is among those living near the shop. 
 The long distance traveler must catch a certain car or be 
 very late, and consequently his entire family soon become 
 accustomed to his regular departure. 
 
 Another very large factor is the attention which is paid 
 by the firm to absences and tardiness. If men find that their 
 staying out or coming in late makes no difference, and that 
 nothing is said about it, they find it easier to repeat the act 
 again. Most men have a certain amount of conscience about 
 such matters and they wish to please, but if they find that no 
 one is concerned at their absence, they simply say, "The old 
 
 131
 
 132 
 
 place ran before I came here and I guess it will run if I stay 
 away." A very strict foreman gets good results as the men 
 soon find that it is easier to arrange in advance for absences 
 than it is to go and talk with him about it afterward. If there 
 is proper supervision by the employment department, and 
 every man knows that he will have a chance to explain every 
 absence and every tardiness, then there will be a decided fall- 
 ing off in both. This, however, depends on the keeping of 
 good records. Most shops have some sort of daily or semi- 
 daily reports which the foremen or timekeepers are supposed 
 to fill out and return to the office. In shops where use is 
 made of these records there is no trouble keeping them, but 
 just as soon as a foreman finds that a record which he forgot 
 to send in was not called for, he feels that he need not be 
 particular and from then on he makes them out only when 
 he has time. 
 
 Almost all of both absence and lateness is purely per- 
 sonal, only a very small percentage being entirely unavoidable. 
 The personal absences divide themselves about equally be- 
 tween social and business necessities ; if weddings and funerals 
 are granted to be social, and shopping, paying bills, and cash- 
 ing checks are considered business. For example, a man buys 
 a house. He has made all his investigations Saturday after- 
 noons and Sundays, but when it comes to the actual securing 
 of the mortgage and the passing of the deed he must go to 
 the bank and the courthouse when they are open and will 
 transact business with him, for they make their hours for the 
 convenience of the greatest numbers. To be sure, there are 
 banks which are open evenings, but generally no one is present 
 who can make loans. If the shop is a little out of town the 
 simple cashing of a check also means loss of working time. 
 
 It also quite frequently happens that the man who wishes 
 to buy fertilizer, seeds, or garden tools finds that the hardware 
 and seed stores are closed on Saturday afternoons. All this 
 has been brought about by laxity in the shops and the ease 
 with which men can get away on a reasonable excuse. The 
 shops have simply let the stores and banks impose on them by 
 the creation of a Saturday half holiday. The stores naturally 
 welcome the half holiday because it transfers considerable
 
 133 
 
 shopping from men to women, and stores always prefer the 
 female shopper because the male shopper goes to buy a defi- 
 nite article but his wife is at least tempted to stop and look. 
 One thing, however, can be done by the shop and that is to 
 attend to banking matters for its employees. That is, they 
 can arrange for the cashing of checks and the deposits of 
 money and checks in the local banks. They probably will not 
 be asked to attend to the securing of loans, but that only comes 
 once or twice in the lifetime of most men. 
 
 Attention to this matter of absence and lateness will 
 raise shop attendance in some cases from 90 per cent to 95 
 per cent, and this increase will easily add about 5 per cent to 
 the productive capacity of the shop without adding anything 
 to the overhead charges so that in the long run attendance 
 is an important factor. Many of the social absences are due 
 to the fact that the wife has discovered that nothing happens 
 when she makes an engagement which necessitates her hus- 
 band being absent Monday morning, and so, whenever it is 
 convenient, she arranges a visit over Sunday and plans to re- 
 main until Monday morning, and naturally she includes 
 hubby in the invitation. 
 
 The machinery for accomplishing results is very simple. 
 A ruled card with a line for every month, cut by vertical lines 
 for each day in the month, and a card for every man arranged 
 alphabetically or by number according as the daily absence 
 reports are made by name or number. A girl to obtain the 
 information over the telephone is also necessary, and she 
 enters upon each man's record, as the information is received, 
 whether the absence was for business, social, or illness, and 
 the latenesses the same way. In case an absence runs over 
 two days or three days, as the custom of the shop dictates, she 
 makes a note for the outside follow-up man to investigate. 
 If the absence is given as sickness she notifies the hospital. 
 When the man is reported back she gets him on the phone 
 if he can talk English and finds out his version of why he 
 was out. If she cannot obtain a satisfactory reply in this 
 way she notifies the inside follow-up department and they 
 investigate and report in turn to her. These cards after a 
 period of six months show some rather interesting facts.
 
 134 
 
 They usually show first of all that almost the entire force is 
 very constant in its attendance, and that the great bulk of 
 the absences are by only a few people. The cards also usually 
 show that the largest part of these absences were due to 
 social reasons, that legitimate business took the next largest 
 number, and that sickness kept least of all away. 
 
 The company also obtains considerable valuable informa- 
 tion. It may find that a valuable man is staying home with 
 a sick wife because he cannot raise the cash to hire a nurse. 
 It is cheaper for the company to finance him than to have 
 him stay away. Or a man may be having difficulty in holding 
 his house, a mortgagee may be trying to collect and the man 
 may be having a hard and futile search for money. The 
 company may be able to put him on the track of it in a few 
 minutes, or it may prove to him that his equity is worthless 
 and advise him to let it go. And so it often happens that 
 by a company taking a businesslike and at the same time 
 friendly interest in their men's absences they may discover 
 many things which they ought to know and in which they can 
 be of real help. Thus the secrets, if there are any, of a high 
 attendance record are merely to furnish an attractive place in 
 which to work and to show an interest in the men who work 
 there.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 TRANSFERS 
 
 THERE is no doubt but that the shop, the workman, and 
 the community are best served when every man is work- 
 ing where he is most productive and most happy. It would 
 also seem that this is so necessary that no one would allow 
 selfish motives to interfere with the moving about of men 
 from one job to another, and yet the question of transfers is 
 one of the most difficult problems that the employment man- 
 ager must solve. 
 
 Suppose, for example, there is a man in Mill A who is 
 very efficient and Mill B is short of such men. It would seem 
 the only sensible thing to do is to transfer the man from Mill A 
 to Mill B. But no, the superintendent of Mill A will protest 
 in nine cases out of ten and propose to substitute the poorest 
 worker he has. He feels a property right and pleads that 
 possession is nine points of the law. This man is his man and 
 he will throw up his job if he cannot keep him. On the other 
 hand, if by any chance the superintendent of Mill A is willing 
 to make the transfer, the superintendent of Mill B at once 
 "smells a rat" and will not take any of the cast-offs of Mill A. 
 The real trouble is, of course, that neither superintendent 
 has confidence in the management and both are so selfish 
 that they will neither of them cooperate for the best interest 
 of the company. 
 
 There is, however, a chance for argument on the first point. 
 Every superintendent and every foreman ought to be a very 
 good judge of the men in his organization and both ought to 
 be well enough acquainted with their men so that they can 
 judge of their fitness for their present or other jobs. Therefore, 
 if the general manager tries to get them together they both 
 
 135
 
 136 
 
 feel that he is stepping out of his part. On the dther hand, 
 if the employment manager asks the right to transfer men for 
 the best interest of the company he also meets with opposition, 
 on the ground that he is not in a position to know as much 
 about the men or the need of men as the different department 
 heads. If the employment manager admits the first part of 
 this allegation he ought to throw up his job, and if he has to 
 admit the second part it must be because he is not sufficiently 
 in the confidence of the management to know. 
 
 As a matter of fact, in almost every case the employment 
 manager is the only one who is acquainted with the situation 
 and who is disinterested enough to make such a decision. If 
 it could be generally understood that men are hired to work 
 for a concern and not a department, but that for the time 
 being they are assigned to different departments because it is 
 thought that they will be most effective there, then it might 
 be easier to make these transfers. As it is, with each foreman 
 and head of a department standing on his dignity as a little 
 czar enthroned there to rule without question, transfers are 
 often impossible. If, however, the department head is not 
 supreme, if the management controls their plant and the 
 foremen work for the best interests of the company, transfers 
 will then be made as a matter of course. It all depends on 
 the relative position of foremen, managers, and employment 
 department. It often comes back to the understanding ex- 
 isting between foremen and the firm when they are hired. 
 
 In many places the only restrictions on the foremen's 
 actions are those based on his failure to produce a given 
 amount of goods for a given cost. As long as he obtains the 
 prescribed production he may break all the ten command- 
 ments and any man-made laws as well. In other words, the 
 shop is turned over to subordinates to run as they please, pro- 
 vided the immediate returns are great enough. The general 
 manager in such a place has supervision over the sales and 
 accounts, but is seldom seen in the shop. 
 
 What is he to do if he makes up his mind that the conduct 
 of the shop, where most of the money is disbursed, is part of 
 his job as manager? He finds, first of all, that this problem 
 of transfers is the most delicate of all the problems that con-
 
 137 
 
 front the introduction of employment management. If he is 
 of the non-resistant diplomatic type he will refuse to hear of 
 any of the harmful practices that this lack of cooperation in 
 the shop brings, and the employment department will conse- 
 quently make no transfers. The foremen will of course "swap 
 help" as before and in much the same way that baseball 
 players are treated, the consideration being some favor for 
 the foreman who takes the short end of the trade and every- 
 thing except the workmen's rights and the company's inter- 
 ests will be well guarded. 
 
 On the other hand, if the general manager is of the type 
 that believes the shop will stand being managed and profit 
 by it, he will put this matter of transfers into the hands of the 
 employment department and he will instruct them that as 
 one of the cardinal principles of their work they are to place 
 workmen where they can be of the most value to themselves. 
 Also, if they find that they have placed men in the wrong 
 places, or if the conditions change in these places, or if for 
 any other reason the best interests of the company are served 
 by the moving of men from one place to another, they are to 
 consider only that best interest of the company, provided 
 however, that nothing is to be done without the man and the 
 foreman or any one else who may be concerned having a 
 hearing. As a matter of fact such hearings will seldom be 
 called as most of the alleged reasons for not transferring men 
 come down to purely personal ones that will not stand pub- 
 licity. It is not unusual for a foreman to block a proposed 
 transfer on the ground that his department will go all to 
 pieces if the man is taken away and then in a few days 
 "fire" the same man and on the ground that "he never was 
 any good anyway." 
 
 There is danger, of course, that if the right to transfer men 
 is placed directly in the hands of the employment department 
 that some foremen will resign, but it is not at all likely that 
 such will be the case for very few foremen like to even think 
 that they will have to go back to the bench or to a machine 
 in another shop and so work their way up again. Jobs as 
 foremen are usually obtained either by promotion or by solici- 
 tation on the part of another employer so that going after a
 
 138 
 
 foreman's job is a rather uncertain venture. The only fore- 
 men not likely to give the employment departments handling 
 of transfers a fair trial are those who happen to have timely 
 offers of other jobs which in all probability they would have 
 taken in any event. 
 
 Judging by experience in other phases of employment 
 work foremen are very glad to have an employment depart- 
 ment to which they can "pass the buck." When things do 
 not come out just right it is a great relief to them to throw 
 up their hands and say, "Just look at what your employment 
 department sent down; how can any one make good with 
 that gang?" Of course, they do not really mean all that they 
 say, but it does serve to create the impression that they are 
 not solely to blame, and this one fact, if no other, is ample 
 proof of the necessity for placing in charge of employment 
 work men of wide experience and acquaintance. No boy can 
 hold the position with success, nor for that matter can any 
 man, no matter how capable he may be, unless he has the sup- 
 port of the management.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 THE EMPLOYMENT OF THE OFFICE FORCE 
 
 OFFICE employment is receiving much less attention than 
 shop employment for the simple reason that there is 
 much less apparent pressure from high labor turnover. As a 
 rule, the general manager has a better knowledge of the office 
 force than of the shop force. He is better acquainted with its 
 personnel for it is much easier for an office man to get a mes- 
 sage through to the management than for a shop man to do 
 so. Then, too, office men and women are more apt to be of 
 a stable type, less ambitious or willing to wait longer for a 
 good opportunity. Their vacations have a larger holding 
 power for more changes take place between September and 
 January in offices where vacations are given to those on the 
 books January first than during all the other eight months of 
 the year. 
 
 There is, however, ample opportunity for the office force 
 to help earn dividends. For instance, there is very likely to 
 be found in an office in which each department head does his 
 own hiring and fixing of salaries a considerable discrepancy in 
 the rates paid to people of apparently similar qualifications, 
 and an equally great discrepancy in rates of wage increase. 
 There is a good reason for this, and it lies in the difference in 
 methods of management. One pays good rates and raises sal- 
 aries as often as he can find an excuse. He gets good results 
 if he demands them and if he so arranges his work that there 
 is no duplication of effort. Another pays low wages and only 
 gives increases grudgingly and only when a general exodus is 
 in sight. He gets results by driving, for there are always men 
 and women who are afraid to look for another job, who have 
 little faith in their ability to sell their services, and who will 
 
 139
 
 140 
 
 stand up and work under such tactics. The "driver" usually 
 claims, and he honestly believes, that all people are of this 
 class. He is borne out in his views by the fact that only 
 that type apply to him for a job after his methods once 
 become well known and he therefore has no chance to observe 
 the willing and ambitious worker. 
 
 Such conditions as these present excellent opportunities 
 for the employment manager to apply the identical principles 
 which he does in the shop. He can prevent the heart-burn- 
 ing jealousies which must of necessity prevail where one 
 group of people are plainly treated differently than another. 
 He can at least insist on similar increase in pay and at similar 
 intervals. He can also apply tests which will conclusively 
 define each stenographer's ability, and the same can be done 
 in the case of those who use various other types of machines. 
 Entry clerks can likewise be standardized as to the difficulty 
 of the work each can do and, if necessary, transfers from de- 
 partment to department made until each worker is doing the 
 highest grade of work of which he or she is capable. 
 
 The machinery for conducting an office employment service 
 is less cumbersome than the size of the problem might indi- 
 cate. The office force of a manufacturing concern will average 
 less than ten per cent of the total force, and the turnover will 
 seldom be equal to even half that of the factory, so the 
 problem is usually about one-twentieth of that in the shop, 
 so far as mere numbers are concerned. There is, of course, 
 usually a great deal more care expended to secure the right 
 person for the position and the applicants are also much more 
 anxious to make permanent connections. Usually the appli- 
 cant for an office job prefers to fill out an application blank 
 and the size of the blank seems to have a real appeal to them. 
 It should be a sheet of paper of at least letter size and prefer- 
 ably ledger size. It may be desirable to .transcribe the infor- 
 mation on a card for office use, but it is better to leave the 
 filling out of the blank in the hands of the applicant, if for 
 no other reason than it gives a good basis for judging them. 
 Most of them fill out the blank in rather poor fashion. 
 
 The questions which are asked may be best directed more 
 toward determining mental ability rather than proficiency at
 
 141 
 
 any one thing, because the way in which a given unit of work 
 should be done can be taught to an intelligent person very 
 quickly, whereas lack of mental ability may prevent the pro- 
 motion and transfers which make a flexible organization. 
 Generally speaking, office applicants are also more willing 
 to go into details as to their past history and less inclined 
 to say what their past earnings have been. They also feel 
 more respect for the confidential nature of their relation to 
 former employers and accordingly less inclined to make un- 
 favorable statements even though they may be true. There 
 likewise is more inclination among them to follow the line 
 on which they have started. That is, their careers are more 
 apt to show continuous progress, while those of shop men 
 are apt to be full of complete changes of occupation. 
 
 Girls are, of course, the hardest to place in the position 
 where they fit in with the office system. They will persist in 
 playing up their sex. They make themselves very agreeable 
 and attractive when looking for a job but afterward, when 
 some emergency loosens their restraint, they show their true 
 natures. For this reason some firms prefer to have a woman 
 hire their female office employees. There is danger in this, 
 however, as women have very little mercy for shortcomings of 
 others of their own sex, and they are therefore apt to be so 
 critical that they either do not secure an adequate supply 
 or else the force has so many homely girls that the men in 
 the office find it disagreeable. The men are also very apt to 
 feel that the women workers are forcing them out of their 
 jobs by being willing to work for less wages, and therefore if 
 they do not get some recompense in the way of a good-looking 
 office force their pessimism is likely to get the upper hand. 
 
 Then there is the problem of the "old women in trousers." 
 They are a product of the system which denies shop men the 
 right to promotion into the office and makes the accounting- 
 department something entirely separate and apart from the 
 shop. We ought to find some way in which a young fel- 
 low who does well in the shop, but who is not of engineering 
 caliber, can be promoted into the office. The avenues of pro- 
 motion through the shop are daily becoming rarer because 
 of the number and quality of engineering graduates, and
 
 142 
 
 unless some opening is left through the office and sales depart- 
 ments there is likely to be little encouragement for men of 
 high caliber to enter industry by that road. 
 
 There has always been a tendency to pay office people 
 in something besides cash. They get shorter hours, vacations, 
 and clean, quiet and comfortable quarters. They appear to 
 the shop man to be the favorites of the organization. A 
 shop man does not at first sight see the appeal of the privi- 
 leges. He has adjusted his scale of living to a certain level. 
 If he enters the office he sees a decrease of possibly five dollars 
 a week in his income, and he sees that he and his whole 
 family will also be compelled to spend much more money on 
 clothes than they did before. He sees no cash value in 
 the short hours and vacation, only more expense. He dis- 
 covers that men who accept office positions pay heavily for 
 the privileges which go with them and that their positions 
 as favorites are anything but profitable from a monetary 
 standpoint. This condition is likely to remain as it is unless 
 there is a greater influx of red-blooded men into our offices. 
 
 With the great increase in mechanical devices such as book- 
 keeping machines, adding machines, tabulators, etc., and the 
 systematization which leaves routine work in the hands of 
 routine clerks, there should be a field which will attract men 
 of wide shop and general experience. It will, however, prob- 
 ably increase the labor turnover rather than decrease it. 
 Live men will change jobs occasionally but it is better that 
 they should rather than get in a rut. It is also better for 
 the office to have some influx of new blood of men who can 
 look on the office methods innocent of the fact that they 
 "have always done it that way." The employment depart- 
 ment's problem in the office is not so much one of reducing 
 labor turnover as it is to adjust the petty differences which 
 occur, and to secure employees who will give adequate re- 
 turns for larger salaries than they are ordinarily paid. 
 
 Underpayment in the office is not usually underpayment 
 for services rendered but rather small pay for services which 
 should be rendered, and it is the fault of the employees them- 
 selves rather than the management. When a clerk could take 
 the time to add a column of figures the third and fourth time
 
 143 
 
 in hopes of getting it twice alike, there was an excuse for 
 doing everything at the same rate, and we still retain this 
 leisurely air in all but a few of our more progressive offices. 
 It means, however, a constant fight if the employment depart- 
 ment champions the cause of the men in the office who are 
 trying to upset traditions, for tradition is very strong. If the 
 cashier got $200 a month ten years ago why pay him more 
 now? He is not even present as many hours a week as he 
 was then. To be sure, he is handling twice or three times 
 as much money and the company is making three or four 
 times the profit, but then why pay him more? And the only 
 reason that he gets more salary is his friendship for some one 
 high up or fear on the part of the concern that he will leave, 
 and thus some one else will see all the skeletons in the com- 
 pany's closet. 
 
 One of the disagreeable but necessary functions of an 
 employment department is dealing with the people who have 
 been retained on the payroll long after they have demon- 
 strated their incapacity for their work. There are very few 
 offices without some of these people. They have been on 
 the payroll so long that no one has the heart to remove them, 
 and yet, in a way, they set the pace for the rest of the force. 
 A pension system is the only real cure for they cost less if 
 merely on the payroll and not taking up time and space in 
 the office. Unfortunately there is not a great deal of oppor- 
 tunity for the establishment of piece rates in the office. If 
 it could be done, however, it would make these misfits self- 
 eliminating, as well as give the rest of the force a chance 
 to really measure themselves and acquire the standing, finan- 
 cial and otherwise, that they desire. So much, outside of 
 purely routine work, depends on good judgment and care that 
 the piece rate system does not seem to be feasible for office 
 work. Typists can be paid by the line with the aid of counters 
 on their machines. Stenographers depend so much on the 
 quality of the dictation that it hardly seems fair to make them 
 suffer for the faults of their dictators. Everything else, how- 
 ever, is so difficult to measure that it is cheaper to allow 
 inefficiency to have full sway. 
 
 It has already been pointed out that there seems to be no
 
 144 
 
 reason for making the machinery of employment any differ- 
 ent for the office than for the shop with the possible excep- 
 tions, however, of the use of a written application and a 
 separate place for the interview. All applicants know whether 
 they are looking for a shop job or an office job, and the entrance 
 to the employment department for office jobs is better through 
 the office itself. In fact, the less it has the ear marks of a reg- 
 ular employment office the better. It should simply be a part 
 of the main office where applicants are sent to be interviewed. 
 
 All that has been said about "hiring" being a contract ap- 
 plies even more to office positions than to shop, for the tenure 
 of office is longer and the possibilities of responsibility are 
 greater. The applicant is more apt to approach change of job 
 with caution but there should certainly be no attempt on the 
 part of the employment department to be dictatorial. The 
 contract should be the result of a meeting of minds; of the 
 applicant, the employment manager, the man under whom he 
 is to work and that man's immediate superiors. A harmonious 
 organization is improbable where any one in it feels that some 
 one has been "wished on" him. This is more likely to be a 
 vital point in the office than in the shop, for a larger propor- 
 tion of office jobs cannot be defined. The very routine jobs 
 can of course be treated like those in the shop. A girl whose 
 duties are well defined, who is in contact only with other girls 
 in that department and responsible only to her immediate 
 superiors does not need to be passed upon by any one else, 
 but in so many cases is there contact with several departments, 
 while definite responsibility rests with only one head, that it 
 seems very desirable that all department heads should at least 
 have a chance to register their opinions before the girl is 
 hired. The ideal office would, of course, be one in which 
 every one was hired in a subordinate position and promoted 
 as they developed. To this should be added training; not 
 merely the casual training which comes as the result of ex- 
 perience, but definite intentional training with a view always 
 of building up character, ability, and a knowledge of the work 
 of the office. 
 
 Such definite training may cover everything from courses 
 in English and punctuation for copy girls, to courses in busi-
 
 145 
 
 ness administration for executives; the idea being to build 
 on whatever foundation the employee may have, rather than 
 to insist on a single course for all. 
 
 Above all, however, the office force should be taught co- 
 operation. It often happens that an organization is built 
 upon a non-cooperative basis, the work being done by a few 
 men who each do it all themselves, but when the organiza- 
 tion outgrows the one-man stage it is in serious danger of 
 going on the rocks for lack of cooperation on the part of those 
 who can most profit by it. If the instructor in charge of 
 the class in business administration can be persuaded to per- 
 sistently emphasize cooperation and the management itself 
 attends the class, as it should, a great deal of good may result, 
 for many of these men honestly believe that they are co- 
 operating and thus need to be shown the error of their ways.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 WOMEN IN THE SHOPS 
 
 IN the early stages of the war we heard much about the em- 
 ployment of women in the shops of England and France 
 and we saw many pictures illustrating their work, not only 
 on light parts such as rifles but also on heavy shells and 
 machines as well. We looked at these pictures with curiosity 
 and then we looked at our women and said, "They can never 
 do such work." Soon, however, we ourselves were at war and 
 then, just as we were about to find out if our women could 
 do such work, the armistice was signed and now we hope that 
 we shall never know. It is true there were factories where 
 a few women from Poland or other European countries did 
 laboring work, but they for the most part had but recently 
 arrived in this country and thus had not acquired our ways 
 to say nothing of our ideals. 
 
 There is something distasteful to us about a woman getting 
 dirty, no matter how honest the labor may be, and especially 
 about her doing heavy work. In the first instance, our feel- 
 ings are only sentimental. We do not want our wives and 
 daughters to appear to work hard. We look on them as 
 playmates and we hate to have them helpmates any longer 
 than possible. Our second objection is based on physiological 
 reasons. We know that a woman cannot lift as much as a 
 man, but we must admit that her endurance is greater. How- 
 ever, for work within the ordinary limits of man power, a 
 woman will tire more easily than a man, though after each is 
 tired, the woman, if she thinks it necessary, may hold out 
 longer than the man. 
 
 We are, however, gradually discovering that it is very 
 expensive to hire purely manual labor of any kind and that 
 
 146
 
 147 
 
 it pays much better to install machinery to do the work. 
 Such machinery naturally brings more and more shop jobs 
 within the list of those considered legitimate for woman, and 
 in fact, excluding sentiment, there is no reason why a woman 
 should not work at anything that is fit for a man to do; if 
 by fit we literally mean so. Figures 6 and 7 illustrate two 
 types of work to which women are adapted. The first shows 
 a girl welding small parts for aeroplanes, and the second a girl 
 operating a molding machine. At such work men and women 
 can compete on a basis of equality, since the jobs are fit for 
 both. Hand molding however is not suited for women, and in 
 most places is even uneconomical for men. Welding by hand 
 at a blacksmith's forge is equally unsuited to women, and 
 likewise inefficient when large production is considered. 
 
 There are, of course, jobs around furnaces and kilns where 
 men in order to live must work half or two-thirds naked, but 
 they are not fit jobs for men and their number is growing 
 less and less with time. The number of men who will take 
 such jobs is also growing less and the men that we do employ 
 are always demanding and getting higher rates. Soon, how- 
 ever, the point will be reached where machinery that we 
 considered impossible a few years ago will become a neces- 
 sity and some one will then invent it. There are other jobs 
 that require work on high stagings where there are ladders to 
 climb, but already our laws provide for hand rails and toe- 
 boards, and in some places the laws are enforced. If, there- 
 fore, the advent of women into these jobs will make them as 
 safe as they ought to be, we shall certainly have much for 
 which to be thankful. 
 
 Women in the shops make it necessary to have as good 
 toilet facilities for the men as for the women, and there is, 
 therefore, always the complaint that if women are employed 
 there is great expense for new plumbing. However, if facili- 
 ties were what they should be, part could be assigned to the 
 women and part to the men. Most places are ashamed to 
 let the women see what filthy places their husbands and sons 
 have had to use, and so they do go to the extra expense of 
 installing new toilets which ought to be charged up as con- 
 science money and never as the cost of employing women.
 
 148 
 
 Another result of employing women in the shops is the 
 better guarding of machinery. A man with a missing finger, 
 if he does not tell how it happened, may get credit for being 
 a war hero, but a girl with a finger gone or a scar across her 
 face is handicapped infinitely more than a man with the same 
 disability. Of course this is sentimental and all wrong for 
 we ought to have the same feeling toward the man with the 
 disability that we do toward the woman. At all events, it is 
 the same conscience that makes us put in reasonably good 
 plumbing which also makes us see the danger of machinery 
 to women, and so to put up guards where we would not do so 
 for men even though the law demands it. Therefore the cost 
 of extra guards should also be charged to the conscience fund. 
 
 A similar condition of affairs usually also exists in the eat- 
 ing places. Men through sheer force of habit take their din- 
 ner pails and during the noon hour lie around in dirty cor- 
 ners and under cars, dropping their food on unfinished work 
 and leaving the crumbs and crusts and cores, all without com- 
 ment, because it is the custom. When women are employed, 
 however, they must have a clean, bright, airy place to eat 
 and it is expensive to install such places. To be sure it pays, 
 and so do similar eating places for men, but only occasionally 
 do we find a shop that has imagination and faith enough to 
 build such places for its men. 
 
 Similar changes occur in other habits which men have ac- 
 quired in the shops. Swearing is eliminated or modified, and 
 chewing tobacco decreases. Overalls are washed from time to 
 time. In fact the woman-shop is at least more civilized. But 
 what is the effect on the women? As it brings men up, does 
 it also bring women down? Happily there is nothing in the 
 records to justify such an opinion. It is true that in Europe 
 the number of illegitimate children increased in all countries 
 during the war, but that was very likely due to the customs 
 and to the fact that with them marriage is an afterthought 
 rather than a forethought. There is always a class of women 
 who are man-crazy and who will go into shops or any other 
 places where the chances of picking up an acquaintance seem 
 good, but there is nothing to indicate that this number is in- 
 creased by the fact that they can get into shops. In fact they
 
 149 
 
 cannot get in a well-organized shop in any great numbers 
 for they are easily "spotted." On the other hand, there is 
 
 FIGURE 6. GIRL WELDING SMALL PARTS FOR AEROPLANES. 
 
 FIGURE 7. GIRL OPERATING MOLDING MACHINE. 
 
 greater danger that good girls will be unjustly given a bad 
 
 name than that bad girls will get into a shop and stay there. 
 
 One of the great problems which arises in connection with
 
 150 
 
 the employment of women is the selection of a suitable garb 
 and it seems to be usually one of skirts vs. trousers. This 
 question is one that the male sex is going to have very little to 
 say about for women will always wear what they choose, little 
 or much, and ours is only to look and gasp from time to time. 
 Judging by the past, however, women are not content to look 
 homely for any great length of time. To be sure many of 
 their fashions have seemed unbecoming in the past but they 
 have not lasted long. Women must attract the male sex or 
 else be entirely false to their traditions, and we are not likely to 
 see the traditions of centuries shattered in a few years. They 
 may work in the shops, and undoubtedly they will for a long 
 time, for they have found an independence they had not even 
 dared to hope for, and for a time they will undoubtedly 
 affect the overalls, otherwise the "womanall," but nature will 
 most surely assert itself with something more becoming. 
 By becoming, we ought to mean something that enhances their 
 beauty either by adding to it or by setting it off and in some 
 cases women may possibly wear mean, ugly clothes in the 
 hopes that men will then look on their faces and admire them. 
 
 As a working costume for many jobs, the womanall 
 shown in Figure 8 seems very suitable, but we can hardly 
 expect any great number of young ladies to aspire to such a 
 costume. For the greater number of jobs, 90 per cent surely, a 
 skirt for a woman and an apron for a man seems the most ap- 
 propriate, for machinery is now so universally well guarded 
 that there is little or no danger of the apron getting caught 
 and less of the skirt which women wear, because that does not 
 have the loose corners of the apron. In addition to the ele- 
 ment of safety the women want a garb that can be worn over 
 the street costume in winter and used as a substitute in sum- 
 mer. This is easily accomplished by means of a dress of some 
 khaki-like goods made along the lines of the conservation 
 dress designed by the food administration and worn by so 
 many women during harvest time and while they were can- 
 ning vegetables, and for almost every job that women are 
 likely to pursue in any numbers this costume has all the ad- 
 vantages and none of the disadvantages of the womanalls. 
 
 Another topic which always comes up is that of the sex
 
 151 
 
 of the foreman. It seems natural to the masculine mind that 
 a room filled with women workers should have a woman as a 
 
 FIGURE 8. THE "WOMANALL," A WORKING COSTUME FOR WOMEN. 
 
 foreman. This is the custom in some industries but not in 
 many, for it seems to be a fairly well-established fact that wo- 
 men prefer to work under a man rather than one of their own 
 sex. Whether this is because they expect to be able to fool him
 
 152 
 
 more effectively in case of necessity or whether it is aversion to 
 see another woman outrank them is a question. The fact re- 
 mains, however, that there are many barriers between men 
 foremen and women workers. 
 
 The next step is the appointment of a shop matron. 
 Whether she shall be a policewoman or whether she shall be 
 a social worker is not yet apparently settled. There are more 
 social workers to-day than policewoman and yet the extreme 
 social type, the woman who wants to be a mother to the work- 
 ers, but who was never actually one to her own children, does 
 not usually last. Young women especially look at shop work 
 much the same as they look on school, as a sort of game where 
 the object is to beat the rules. Not that the rules are wrong 
 and oppressive, but the fact that they are rules constitutes 
 them a challenge. The extreme motherly type never gets her 
 eyes open. She always thinks of her "chicks" as "innocent 
 little things" who never could break a rule. And there is no 
 harm intended for once they demonstrate that a rule can be 
 broken, they let it alone and try to break another, but it up- 
 sets all the calculation of a masculine foreman. He has lived 
 all his life in the constant need of a job, and he cannot un- 
 derstand the philosophy of a girl whose idea of being dis- 
 charged is that she will have an extra week's pay in her pocket 
 with which she will buy candy and a book and curl up in a 
 corner and be really happy for a day or two. Making rules 
 for girls is something of a joke in itself. Of course there are 
 some girls who not only support themselves but mothers and 
 younger brothers and sisters as well, but a man can hardly 
 inquire closely enough into their home affairs to find it out, 
 and the girls are not apt to volunteer the information. 
 
 A matron should be a woman in whom the other women in 
 the shop have confidence. She must not be of the "doll" type 
 and yet she should not be so homely that the other girls 
 will say, "If working in this shop makes women look like 
 that I'll work somewhere else." She should have worked in 
 a shop long enough to know how the women feel who work 
 there. It will also be much better if she is a mother and 
 preferably the mother of girls of an age such that they could 
 work in the shop.
 
 153 
 
 The matron should not be responsible to the foreman, 
 though she should cooperate with him so far as he will al- 
 low her to do so. She should not cooperate to the extent of 
 trying to transmit his orders and directions to the girls. If 
 he appears to be having trouble making them understand, 
 she might "listen in" and find out why they do not understand 
 or if they are bluffing him. All cases of illness should come 
 through her hands, though accident cases should not wait for 
 her. Many of these cases are mental disturbances only and 
 can be cured by a few minutes' rest and being let alone. A 
 Christian Scientist would make an excellent matron if she 
 could only realize that the laws of chemistry are just as much 
 laws of nature as the laws of the mind. Whether there are 
 such Christian Scientists or not the author does not know.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 EMPLOYMENT OF MINORS 
 
 WHAT constitutes child labor is a variable rather than a 
 fixed quantity. Some states, like Massachusetts, pre- 
 scribe tasks which boys up to the age of twenty-one shall not be 
 allowed to do. In a strictly legal sense child labor stops only 
 at that age. Most of us, however, think of it in terms of four- 
 teen or sixteen years of age. Men now fifty years old do not 
 look on child labor with the abhorrence that seems to possess 
 the younger generation. Most of them worked as children 
 and worked hard, and yet they survived. They also survived 
 much fried food, bad teeth, poor ventilation, and poor sanita- 
 tion. They are the toughest of the boys and girls of their 
 generation. The rest are dead. The present generation looks 
 back on the child mortality of those days and thinks that 
 the price paid for child labor was indeed high and as a con- 
 sequence we are now going through a period of coddling which 
 may possibly not produce the virile manhood which we need. 
 Work in reasonable quantity is good for all, young and old, 
 but what constitutes a reasonable quantity is no more easy 
 to determine than to fix the amount of alcohol or tobacco 
 that a person should have at different ages. What is good 
 for one may be very harmful to another and some boys would 
 be very much better off for some really hard labor as young 
 as fourteen years. Others, of course, would not. 
 
 It seems to be the fashion to give these growing boys the 
 choice of what seems to them to be two evils, go to school or 
 work, thus making a punishment out of the two most valuable 
 experiences a child can have. It would seem as if the 
 transition from one to the other, to produce the best results, 
 should be an easy one of increasing working hours and de- 
 
 154
 
 155 
 
 creasing school, but neither shops nor schools are organized 
 to do this, the exceptions being so few as only to prove the 
 rule. Theoretically, education should be a process of learn- 
 ing to live without the aid of instruction. When a child leaves 
 school he should be able to go on and learn anything he may 
 wish without the aid of a school, but practically the schools 
 drop him, or he drops the schools, half fledged and with but 
 little knowledge of how to succeed with the world. He throws 
 himself into a store, a shop, or an office and is "kicked" about 
 until he has a little sense, which means that he learns that the 
 school way and the business way do not mix any more than 
 oil and water. He is perfectly willing to be "kicked" around 
 for a while as otherwise the transition from short hours, many 
 holidays, and vacations to long hours and no vacations is 
 too sudden. He gets the equivalent vacation while waiting 
 for a new job to turn up, somewhere, on the average, between 
 five and seven times per year. 
 
 At present there is a struggle going on between the pub- 
 lic schools and the employers for the control of these chil- 
 dren. The public school authorities resent the criticism, the 
 truth of which they cannot deny however that not quite 
 two per cent of all their pupils complete their educational 
 program. They want to keep the children's names on their 
 books by any means that is possible. Employers, on the 
 other hand, no matter how much they may say in condemna- 
 tion of boys in particular, are constantly trying by hook or 
 crook to get them into their shops, for boys form a valuable 
 addition to any working force. They command low wages 
 and enough of them grow up into useful positions so that on 
 the whole they are a very profitable part of the organization. 
 Also the fact that so large a proportion of what is taught in 
 our schools is either useless in itself, or else is taught in such 
 a way that it seems useless, makes many men honestly believe 
 that it would be better if the coming generation went with- 
 out the only kind of education the public schools seem willing 
 to offer, and grew up in the atmosphere in which they are to 
 work and live. 
 
 Aside from this question, however, we have the problem 
 of what to do with the boys when they are in our shops. As
 
 156 
 
 a rule, they are left to themselves and to illustrate what may 
 be the result of such a practice the following may be of in- 
 terest. The American Boy, a prominent boys' paper, has pub- 
 lished a list of fifty reasons, as given by employers, to the 
 discharge of their boys. These reasons might be classified 
 under the following heads: 
 
 Dishonesty 13 
 
 Overzealousness 9 
 
 Lack of interest 7 
 
 Dissipation 3 
 
 Discourtesy 2 
 
 Inaccuracy 2 
 
 Disloyalty 2 
 
 Hasty decision 2 
 
 Drew loafers 1 
 
 Bull in a china shop 1 
 
 Jealousy 1 
 
 Cruelty 1 
 
 Lack of adaptability 1 
 
 Too much mother 1 
 
 Lack of detail 1 
 
 Lazy 1 
 
 Late 1 
 
 Wanderlust 1 
 
 In the minds of these employers, dishonesty consisted in 
 being so to them and to their customers or clients. It was 
 all petty, it was the kind of dishonesty that is practiced in our 
 schools and which is winked at, and in a way it may therefore 
 be said to be the product of schools. In our schools rules are 
 made not in the interest of justice, but rather to make the work 
 of the teacher easier and the boys have prided themselves on 
 their ability to break these rules and not get caught. When 
 they leave school they mistake the dictates of their consciences 
 for the petticoat rules with which they formerly contended. 
 Just so long as we tolerate the convenient tyranny that is 
 practiced on our children in public schools we have no right 
 to criticize too harshly their product. What we are doing in 
 a rather inefficient way is to break these boys of their small 
 dishonesties, but what we should do is to remove the cause. 
 
 Overzealousness was the next largest cause of trouble.
 
 157 
 
 These were the boys who had been told by their fathers, 
 mothers and teachers, in fact by everybody, that there is plenty 
 of room at the top, and that it is the faithful boy who discovers 
 some way to increase his employer's profits by several hun- 
 dred per cent that wins out. Naturally having heard it from 
 all sides he goes to work with this high resolve and soon he 
 sees a chance to make improvements, and mindful of the 
 stories he has read proceeds to do so. He gets caught in the 
 act, and is summarily fired, and after this has happened a 
 dozen times or more he begins to get an idea that the world 
 does not want to be improved, so naturally he begins to settle 
 down into the uninterested stage which takes in the next larg- 
 est number of boys discharged, and which lasts many of them 
 for life. Just how much initiative is lost by this repression 
 no one knows. It is not as bad as it was a few generations 
 ago, and a few more generations may find that the dreams of 
 youth are not all to be sneered at and discarded untried. Boys 
 do bring up the most foolish ideas, in the light of our vastly 
 superior knowledge, but when we consider that what we have 
 to-day our own fathers laughed at we ought to carefully 
 consider even the wildest schemes of our sons. It does not 
 take a man of even middle age to remember when men who 
 played with kites and dreamed of flying were thought mildly 
 insane, and Jules Vernes' fantastic stories of submarines were 
 considered good fiction but not connected with fact. 
 
 Then there is the opposite extreme, the boys that have had 
 the initiative kicked out of them, whose dreams have been 
 ridiculed until they are afraid to say that they have any. They 
 form 14 per cent of these cases. Some of them will swing 
 back but more will not. The brightest boys in school seldom 
 amount to much afterwards. They seem to blossom and die 
 out of the race. They are usually high strung, sensitive, and 
 not fitted by nature to buck against the world the way it is 
 organized. It is just as foolish to throw this part of our work- 
 ing force away as it would be to decline to raise grape fruit 
 because it is not all wanted by people who will come and get 
 it. Great genius can command respect even if it is sensitive. 
 People will pay large prices and come by thousands to hear a 
 man play a violin. The violinist may be and usually is tern-
 
 158 
 
 peramental, which means that he lives his own life and lets 
 the world go its own way. But let the boy who is sensitive to 
 criticism come along and he is squelched before he gets started. 
 He might make a better accountant, or a better mechanic, 
 than the thick-skinned chap that works next to him, but we 
 discourage him as soon as possible and thereby throw away 
 a force that we can ill afford to lose. Very seldom is there 
 any sustained effort to show boys the points of interest in the 
 work he is hired to do. Very many times there are none. He 
 is hired to be present and to do as he is told. He does not 
 know the meaning of the messages he carries. He is not in any 
 sense a part of the organization. He is simply a necessary 
 evil and is frequently reminded of the fact. 
 
 Dissipation was the cause of discharging three of these 
 boys. Not real dissipation but such things as staying out late 
 at night and smoking cigarettes; in fact all such things that 
 a few people call dissipation and the rest term kid foolishness. 
 They were not argued with, in fact most of the employers did 
 not even wait to see if the boy would deny it. 
 
 Discourtesy, inaccuracy, and disloyalty each claimed two. 
 Discourtesy in a boy of adolescent age is only a natural state. 
 The fair-haired darlings that are courteous between the ages of 
 fourteen and sixteen will probably die young. They ought not 
 to be placed where courtesy is needed, but despite this we give 
 them jobs as office boys, and have them show visitors to the 
 offices of the manager and president. They cannot help being 
 irreverent and burlesquing the waddle of the fat "party" as 
 soon as he turns his back. They are simply on the wrong 
 jobs. Girls do the job much better and at that age have a 
 great deal more sense. That is, they think more in conform- 
 ity to the ways of society. 
 
 Disloyalty ranks with dishonesty in its source, if not in 
 fact. It is dishonest to accept pay from a company to which 
 one cannot be loyal. Boys, however, are quite inclined to 
 think that honesty to the concern means that they cannot 
 be loyal to a superior who is trying to put something over on 
 the management. After they get a little older they wink at 
 such practices and get along better with their superiors and 
 with their own consciences but only by lulling the latter to
 
 159 
 
 sleep. Real disloyalty is very rare. What passes for it is 
 usually lack of interest. Inaccuracy is the crying sin of all 
 youth. It is not often a cause of dismissal because employ- 
 ers do not dare to put boys where inaccuracy counts for much. 
 It is a fault of the public school system where a 50 or at most 
 a 60 per cent mark passes. Think of an office where a 
 clerk was allowed to stay if he got a half of his additions 
 right ! 
 
 The rest of the causes affected only one boy each. Of 
 these one is "too much mother," or a tendency of the mother to 
 ask for special privileges for her son. Her boy is too good for 
 the work he is given to do ; or he has to come home at three 
 o'clock on Wednesday to have a music lesson. The boy who 
 suffers from "too much mother" is to be pitied rather than 
 blamed, and he cannot be told to resent it. There is no cure 
 unless through the father and he probably has trouble enough 
 of his own with a wife of that type. One boy proved to be 
 of the type that is always breaking things; he grew so fast 
 that his muscular control did not keep up. Another seemed 
 to have a following of other boys who were merely loafers. 
 They hung around the store and drove trade away. He had 
 the faculty of making friends without the discrimination to 
 make the right kind, and to all appearances no one took the 
 bother to tell him differently. Another could not remember 
 detail. One more could not keep still. He just had to move 
 on and on. One each was lazy and tardy, a very small number 
 considering that these two attributes are usually considered 
 as belonging to boys. 
 
 W T hat does all this mean to employers? It means that 
 men have to go through the boy stage. Nature demands time 
 in which to develop not only the body but the mind, that this 
 development must go through certain stages or result in 
 abnormal and one-sided development. If we want to make 
 the best men out of our boys, and want to make the most profit 
 out of them at the same time, we must study boy-nature. 
 The school of hard knocks may be a good school. It is ef- 
 fective, to be sure, but no one would think of running a stock 
 farm on the plan that we use to train (?) our boys in the stores 
 and shops. We simply cannot afford to discharge a boy for
 
 160 
 
 any of the reasons given above. These are symptoms that the 
 boy is being natural or developing as is to be expected from 
 the surroundings in which we have thrown him. The school, 
 with its distinctly feminine environment, is the first thing in 
 his life that needs reforming. Then we need to learn to rea- 
 son with him in terms that he can understand. There are 
 very few boys who do not want to do right. They do not 
 understand why we do some things the way we do, and if we 
 stop and think a moment we find it pretty hard to give any 
 other reason than that we have always done it that way. It 
 often seems hard to bring ourselves to treat with a boy as we 
 would with a man of our own age, but the cases where it has 
 been done seem to have been profitable. Just so long as a 
 boy is treated as a boy, in the usual sense, he remains a boy. 
 It is only when he begins to look like a man that he is treated 
 in such a way that his self-respect is given a chance to as- 
 sert itself.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 THE results of the physical examinations made at the be- 
 ginning of the war showed a very small percentage of 
 perfect men, even so far as freedom from disease and deforma- 
 tion are concerned. In a sense every man unable to pass these 
 severe tests is a cripple, but technically speaking, a war 
 cripple, as defined by law, is a man whom the War Risk In- 
 surance Bureau rates as being over ten per cent disabled for 
 his former vocation. Even this, however, is quite contrary to 
 the view so often held by the general public that a cripple is a 
 man who has lost one or both legs and must beg on the street 
 corner to secure a living. Thanks to the foresight of Congress, 
 there will be few if any poverty stricken cripples as a result 
 of the war, but we will still have industrial cripples to be em-- 
 ployed and they must be profitably employed. 
 
 In the past it has too often been the habit of superintend- 
 ents to offer any man who was hurt in the shop a job run- 
 ning an elevator, or as a watchman, or some other "dead end" 
 job, and this arrangement would continue until there was a 
 change in superintendents, or a spasm of economy struck the 
 firm, by which time the man had usually become a chronic 
 "dead-ender" and was unable to arouse himself to even ask 
 for a man-size job. As a result of the work done in the re- 
 habilitation of war cripples, there will however undoubtedly 
 be a great change in the reclamation of shop cripples. 
 
 There are two fundamental ways of handling the prob- 
 lem of disability. , The first is the European method which is 
 based on the immutability of the trade, by which a man who 
 was injured in such a way as to decrease his ability to earn 
 money is supplied with artificial means; the second is the 
 
 161
 
 162 
 
 American plan which seeks to develop the man's mental powers 
 rather than his physical ones. Under the European method 
 a man who had been a pattern maker and who had lost an 
 arm would be supplied with an artificial arm for Sunday 
 wear, and also a kind of holder into which the various tools 
 of his trade could be inserted. He would be trained to use this 
 artificial arm and sent back to his old work. This is prob- 
 ably the best possible way in Europe where families follow 
 one trade for generations, but in this country where it is the 
 exceptional boy who even tries his father's trade, and most 
 men can show record of having tried several different callings, 
 this plan is not the best. It is rather more in keeping with 
 the customs of this country to train the injured man for some 
 other trade, preferably one for which some one of his previ- 
 ous occupations form a basis, and in which that particular in- 
 jury will not be a great handicap. For example, a man with 
 one leg may have been a most excellent house carpenter, but 
 he can no longer safely climb ladders. He can, however, be 
 trained to become a pattern maker and given a job which will 
 not require him to be on foot all day, or he may be taught to 
 read architectural blue prints and thus become a draftsman or 
 an estimator. 
 
 One of the most difficult cases to handle is that of the day 
 laborer, who has had nothing to offer but his manual labor, 
 the strength of his body. Very few accidents can happen to 
 such a man without taking away all his visible assets. He 
 has nothing to build on, not even in many cases, a knowledge 
 of English sufficient to enable him to intelligently discuss his 
 case. These men may be divided into two classes, one the 
 merely ignorant, and the other those mentally lacking, clas- 
 sified in the army and navy into cases of dementia prsecox, 
 or constitutional inferiority. Many such men are really capa- 
 ble of earning a fair living, if under suitable conditions, and 
 many of them did and were only made to suffer when in the 
 course of army discipline they were obliged to obey orders 
 without having time to think the matter over. With a drill 
 sergeant barking at them they naturally went to pieces very 
 soon, and of course suffered a nervous collapse and had to be 
 surveved out.
 
 163 
 
 These men, whether their disability occurs in the service 
 or in private life, are really suitable subjects for treatment in 
 an institution. However, they are often able to earn a com- 
 fortable living for themselves in some of the many positions 
 in industry where the duties to be performed are more or less 
 of the alarm clock variety, that is they must be present and 
 ring in an alarm if things are not going right. Industry is 
 still so organized that there is yet need of such men, and it 
 probably will not change materially for some time to come. 
 There should, however, be saved for men of this type jobs that 
 have the semblance of importance, as typified by a uniform 
 and brass buttons, for although they cannot accept any real 
 responsibility they are happy in the belief that their jobs 
 are important. 
 
 Another difficult case to deal with is that of the man who 
 has a strong mentality, but who quarreled with the system 
 of formal education which prevails and leaving school went 
 to work long before he ought for his own good. We cannot 
 but feel a strong sympathy for him, and perhaps we are in- 
 clined to bewail the ineptitude of our public school system 
 and let it go at that, but this does not in the least help him. 
 It would seem as though a country which has for so many 
 decades allowed its schools to be predicated on the needs of 
 the two per cent of the population who desired to go to col- 
 lege, should at least provide the means for helping these un- 
 fortunates ; but we do not do it that way. However, it is pos- 
 sible under the Rehabilitation Act to place these men back in 
 the schools which they left, tell them that this is the system 
 and that if they can stand it it will do them good, and see if 
 they will not stick to their job better than they did before. 
 
 While this may seem much like thrusting medicine down 
 a man's throat while he is powerless to resist, or in milder 
 form, taking advantage of his inability to see any better way 
 out of his difficulty than the one we offer, it is effective. These 
 war veterans have matured a great deal because of their ex- 
 periences, and their attitude toward education is vastly dif- 
 ferent from that which they previously showed when partak- 
 ing of formal instruction. They have learned to accept what 
 comes to them, and to try to find some good in it and they
 
 164 
 
 consequently find much in our educational system which they 
 can appreciate. In addition they are, for the most part, defi- 
 nitely headed toward some vocational goal and vocational ed- 
 ucation is just creeping out from under the wing of the gen- 
 eral school system, and getting ready to hold up its own head. 
 These soldiers are just in time to both profit by the industrial 
 education movement and to help it along by demonstrating 
 its practical value. 
 
 The same sort of training should be given to the industrial 
 cripple. If he is well educated or well started on an educa- 
 tion he should be given all the practical, useful education he 
 can profitably use. It may seem as though he did not need 
 such training, but the public interests demand that he have 
 it. There are too few boys and young men who are mature 
 enough to really get full value from technical training of any 
 kind, but here among our cripples are men capable of devel- 
 oping brain power beyond that possessed by the younger fel- 
 lows who have taken their school work as a necessary evil 
 connected with playing on the baseball team of some well- 
 known college. 
 
 From the American point of view this is the keynote of the 
 whole situation: to develop brain power rather than to offer 
 the mechanical aids which seems to be the European way. 
 This applies not only to men capable of acquiring a college 
 education, but also to the men in all ranks of industry, com- 
 merce, and profession. If a man has been working as a ship- 
 ping clerk in a hardware store, and can no longer do so be- 
 cause he is lame he should be given training in bookkeeping or 
 cost accounting and put in the main office, where in spite of 
 his handicap his acquired knowledge of hardware will make 
 him worth more than the office-reared clerk. If it is a case of a 
 man who has been working in a railroad shop as a machinist, 
 and he can "carry on" no longer because of the loss of a leg, 
 or a wound across the back which prevents his lifting, he can 
 be sent to a trade school, and in a comparatively short time 
 trained to do light fine work, such as running a bench lathe 
 or small hand fitting or assembling, for the principles of ma- 
 chine work are the same regardless of the size or weight of 
 the work.
 
 165 
 
 These ways of assisting disabled men seem comparatively 
 simple, and they are usually simple when the disability is a 
 visible one. When a foreman has a one-armed man or one 
 with both legs made of wood, he has a constant reminder of 
 the man's handicap, and a reminder which makes the disabil- 
 ity seem greater than it really is. But if the man is one of 
 those who are doubly unfortunate in that the disability is seri- 
 ous and yet invisible, his lot is much harder. This applies 
 to men severely gassed during the war. These men did 
 very nicely while they were living in camps and practically 
 out of doors all the time, but as soon as they came home, and 
 went back to sleeping indoors without a vestige of ventila- 
 tion, their health failed. Such men are very apt to blame 
 the shops, when as a matter of fact it is more often the air 
 at home, or rather the lack of it, that causes the trouble. It 
 is possible, however, that this may have a good effect on the 
 rest of us, as these men will have to insist on ventilation in 
 order to keep well once they are cured again, and that will be 
 most excellent for us, no matter if it is uncomfortable while 
 we are getting used to it. 
 
 The first thought these men have, and the same applies to 
 the great number of tubercular cases as well, is to get out- 
 doors and the first job they think of is on a farm. The man 
 who was born and raised on a farm does not think of this, but 
 the man whose acquaintance with farm life is confined to what 
 he has seen in the movies, or what he has seen when driving 
 out on a Sunday in his automobile, is carried away with it, 
 and will demand as a right that he be trained in agriculture. 
 The experts in lung troubles, however, seem to have grown 
 away from farm life as a cure and are insisting that location 
 is one of the least of their problems. But they do insist on 
 an abundance of fresh air and a proper diet to build up the 
 patient's resisting power. Inasmuch as nearly two-thirds of 
 the patient's life is outside the shop they are now laying more 
 stress on his home life and surroundings and not so much to 
 the shop, especially after the case has been arrested. By 
 an arrested case 'of tuberculosis they mean, not a cure, but 
 that nature has walled off the section of the man's lungs which 
 is affected and that unless the wall breaks down there is no
 
 166 
 
 more danger from the disease than to any other man. The 
 wall may, however, be broken down through sickness of an- 
 other type, through the effects of a spree, or by too strenuous 
 exercise or work, especially work which involves movement of 
 the arms and upper part of the body. 
 
 The men who are suffering from bronchitis are likewise in 
 constant need of plenty of fresh air. This and tuberculosis are 
 the two most prevalent disabilities which are not visible but 
 nevertheless they have a great many victims. Such men need 
 the watchful care of their foreman, and he also needs some one 
 to watch over him to keep reminding him not to assign work 
 which may break down the man's resistance and make him 
 go all through the process of arresting the disease again. A 
 careless workman, or a careless foreman who threatens dis- 
 charge if an unreasonable order is not carried out, may easily 
 scare a man into a relapse. There is, of course, great danger 
 that men will discover that they can lay back on the job and 
 pretend that they cannot do tasks which they might as well 
 do; and if they are transferred on to piece 'work there is like- 
 wise danger that these same men in their greed will overdo 
 and acquire a real disability. Such men require the most con- 
 stant watching not only by the doctors but by the employment 
 office, which is likely to have a better perspective than the 
 foreman who is close to the individual worker. 
 
 Everything that is being done for the returned soldier 
 applies to the industrial cripple. It is not enough that he be 
 given medical and surgical care,, that he receive a fraction of 
 his former pay, and that he be put on the payroll at the old 
 rate, but he should also be placed in a position where he can 
 command his old rate from any employer, even if it is nec- 
 essary to spend considerable time and money in so doing. He 
 could well afford to pay for this training himself out of the 
 increased earnings which he will get, but he has not the cap- 
 ital to finance it. In all probability the state and federal 
 governments will step in and assist the employer to finance 
 this period of training for a new job. It is their duty and it 
 is to be hoped they will recognize it as such and act ac- 
 cordingly.
 
 THERE is a vastly different attitude from that of a few 
 years ago toward certain people who do not harmonize 
 with the social world. To-day a man who is convicted of some 
 minor crime or misdemeanor is quite generally let off very 
 easily until he shows signs of developing a law-breaking habit, 
 and even then on his release he is given every opportunity to 
 enter industry, for to-day the curative or reformatory quality 
 of work, under comfortable and pleasant conditions, is be- 
 coming well recognized. Nowadays, when a man leaves prison 
 he comes out with the backing of real friends who want to 
 see him make good. There are not the identifying marks of 
 incarceration that one would suspect from reading current lit- 
 erature. He comes out and goes into employment unless he 
 wishes it otherwise. He goes into a shop where his record is 
 not known to any one outside the employment department and 
 even then to only a very few in that department. No one 
 in the shop will give him away in a fit of anger unless it is 
 some chance acquaintance who knows that he was "put away." 
 He literally starts afresh. 
 
 Should the employment department take on these men if 
 they present themselves? It is a question. They most cer- 
 tainly should not without the consent of the management, but 
 with the approval of the management a small number of men 
 well scattered through the shops may safely be taken on, espe- 
 cially if it is known that they are not acquainted with each 
 other. The great danger to these men is temptation. They 
 may have been under tremendous and peculiar stress when 
 they yielded to temptation, and it must always be remembered 
 that they have demonstrated their breaking point. They 
 
 167
 
 168 
 
 have shown a limit. No man should be tempted to anywhere 
 near the breaking point any more than a steel beam should be 
 loaded to its limit of elasticity. For this reason special care 
 should be taken that men who have thus suffered should not 
 be further punished by the shop in which they are placed. 
 They should be paid enough so that their minds are not con- 
 cerned with financial problems. They should be made to real- 
 ize that the people who know of their past are anxious to see 
 them live it down. There should be an abundance of physical 
 activity about their work so as to keep their minds off them- 
 selves, and they should not live in the slums but somewhere 
 where they will associate with self-respecting people whose ex- 
 ample they can follow. In other words, they should be in the 
 environment that every man needs, not merely in a special 
 environment of their own. It should also be kept in mind that 
 our judicial system is not without flaws, and the man may 
 be innocent of the crime for which he was convicted. 
 
 In addition to these social misfits there are the innocent 
 mental cases, who form in some degree a part of the force of 
 every shop. Discussion of mental cases is to some extent a 
 delicate matter for each of us must judge by our own stand- 
 ards, and of those we are none too sure. We always should 
 remember the saying of the old Quaker who told his wife 
 "Every one is queer except thee and me, and thou art a little 
 queer." The layman who attempts to discuss this subject 
 with an expert in psychopathy, or to read his books, finds him- 
 self confused by a series of long words some of which are 
 meant to convey fine distinctions but more to cover up their 
 lack of exact knowledge. Stripped of all verbosity it appears 
 that every one, according to one writer, who does not learn 
 by experience is mentally unbalanced. As a people, we are 
 inclined to be too severe in our judgments in this respect. 
 Most of our great inventors have been classed as mentally un- 
 balanced. In the minds of the public Langley died mildly 
 insane, but now we know that he was simply wiser than the 
 men of his generation. 
 
 We accordingly modify our definition so as to cover only 
 those who try the same things and under the same conditions 
 time after time, and who refuse to try anything except the
 
 169 
 
 time honored methods. In the latter class we must place the 
 men with obsessions which they cannot explain but on which 
 they pin their faith. These men may fear to walk under a 
 ladder or are .unwilling to hire men with red hair or even go 
 so far as to condemning all men of one nationality, without 
 knowing any of them. There are also people who feel bodily 
 pains where no apparent physical cause for them can be found. 
 We are of late becoming more careful of this class because 
 physicians are discovering sources of pain that they did not 
 formerly recognize and Christian Scientists are finding ways 
 to get people away from the belief of imaginary pain. We 
 must, therefore, conclude that mental defectives are only those 
 who either have not the normal ability to reason, or who do 
 not exercise that power. Of course some are sick and can be 
 cured by physical means. Others can be cured by suggestion, 
 that is by convincing them that they can reason, and getting 
 them to have faith in the person guiding them. 
 
 It is not profitable to place such men where they are un- 
 happy, and where they are subject to unnecessary irritations. 
 This is of course also true of other people, but those who do 
 pioneer work must expect to meet trying conditions into which 
 mental cases should not be allowed to venture. A great many 
 mild cases were intensely aggravated in the army and navy 
 by the sudden change from an easy-going life to one in which 
 commands were barked out and no appreciable interval of 
 time allowed for the comprehension of orders; very necessary 
 from a military point of view and very bad from the point of 
 view of the troubled mind. Time alone will bring these men 
 back to their old state. A nagging foreman has the same ef- 
 fect as a barking sergeant. Such a man should not be allowed 
 to have any of these cases under him. He will only make 
 them worse and throw away their possible productive capacity. 
 If we are to get the utmost production, every one must work 
 who is capable of work and the mere fact that a man is slow 
 of comprehension, that he sticks in ruts, and that he seems 
 stubborn about changing cannot be allowed to stand in the 
 way of his efforts to help increase that production. 
 
 In the shop this mental deficiency shows itself in an inabil- 
 ity to think quickly or cooperate and in stubbornness. The
 
 170 
 
 first of these can be overcome by putting those so afflicted on 
 routine work and taking plenty of time to break them in on 
 the job. Some can do real complex work, after a long pe- 
 riod of experience, if they only have to take one step at a 
 time. This will apply by far to the greatest number, but 
 there are always some who cannot endure routine work, who 
 must have variety, and whose trouble comes with too quick 
 thinking rather than too slow. These men need to have iso- 
 lated jobs where they do not have other people under them 
 and where no great degree of team work is required. Such 
 men do well as repair men, adjusters, time clerks, or painters, 
 in fact in any jobs which do not call for leadership, or the neces- 
 sity for following. For example, a man who had demonstrated 
 his inability to get along with others was made a designer of 
 the machines on which he had formerly worked and with great 
 success, and another was made an investigator where the very 
 qualities which formerly had made him seem queer then made 
 him successful. 
 
 Stubbornness may come from either group, from the first 
 because of sheer inability to comprehend new ways, or from 
 the other through belief that some other way is better, but 
 lacking the power to express that belief in convincing terms. 
 In this latter class must be placed all men who "buck the 
 crowd." All men who are ahead of their times are also usually 
 classed with them, but only until the time comes when they 
 are proved to have been right. We should, therefore, be very 
 careful in making up the classification. Usually we consider 
 all conservatives as being intensely sane and they in turn clas- 
 sify all radicals as at least mildly insane. It is equally fair 
 for the latter to think the same of the conservative who is so 
 slow to change with the times that he holds back the progress 
 of the shop. For example, the executive who will not accept 
 modern machinery and methods of production is just as much 
 of a mental case as is the workman who slows up production 
 by being unable to comprehend new methods. Similarly the 
 designer who insists on giving his firm designs for which the 
 market will not be ready for ten years is just as bad as the 
 man who demanded ten years ago what are now accepted as 
 normal working conditions in the shop.
 
 171 
 
 To discover such men in the shop and to suggest their 
 treatment when found is a very delicate one for the employ- 
 ment manager. The easiest way of course is to discharge 
 them, but the better way is to study each case and then seek 
 out the foreman who had a sense of fair play and a fatherly 
 interest in his men and place these men with him. This is 
 one of the few instances where paternalism is needed and is 
 justified. These people are not wholly grown up and most 
 of them, the sluggish type in any event, prefer paternal treat- 
 ment and gravitate ultimately to a place where they receive it. 
 
 Finally, there are the men who are ahead of their time, 
 and whose ability to cooperate is limited by their knowledge 
 that the people with whom they might cooperate are behind 
 the times. Such men are valuable and many a firm has re- 
 gretted in after years that they permitted men of this type to 
 leave them. It is well to isolate them, however, and to tol- 
 erate them for the good they do.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 MEN work, not only for money, but to avoid loss. If a 
 man receives a thousand dollars a year, and then meets 
 with an accident which costs him in medical attention and loss 
 of pay another thousand, he has really worked a year for noth- 
 ing, even if he comes out of the accident as well as ever. It 
 is well known that many more accidents occur through the 
 carelessness of workers than through the neglect of employ- 
 ers to provide proper safeguards. Here, therefore, are two 
 separate and yet intertwined problems. One that of persuad- 
 ing employers not only to provide safety devices but to en- 
 force safe practices; the other that of getting employees to 
 accept those safe practices and abide by them. 
 
 The first part of the problem, that of securing mechanical 
 safeguards, is usually the simplest. If the company has been 
 making money it is easy to get appropriations for this pur- 
 pose as it is an evidence of good faith, for it practically 
 says to the workmen, "We are backing this Safety First 
 matter with our money, so you know we believe in it." 
 The difficulty is to find out what safety practices are of value 
 and then to put them into effect. It is easy to obtain me- 
 chanical safety devices because all we need to do is to write 
 an order to the engineering department to do the job. Un- 
 fortunately there is no department that has to furnish and 
 enforce safe practices, for the safety engineering department 
 as usually constituted seldom has a chance to really enforce its 
 rulings. It usually finds a condescending compliance which 
 is easier than opposition. 
 
 Safe practices can usually only be arrived at by experi- 
 
 172
 
 173 
 
 ment. The safe practice must not impede production. If 
 it accelerates it the safety engineer is a good man. It is only 
 possible to try out new methods of doing work behind closed 
 doors for if it became known that the safety engineer had tried 
 a method which slowed the work down 50 per cent it would be 
 next to impossible for him to put over the new scheme, even- 
 though it helped the piece-workers to add 50 per cent to their 
 earnings. Safety engineering ought to be linked up closely 
 with the engineering and the production departments. If it is 
 not it cannot give the aid that it should and it must accord- 
 ingly work without a knowledge of what is going on around it. 
 
 A good safety man should first of all be a good engineer. 
 He should realize that the shop must maintain production. 
 He should be in touch with the employment department so 
 that he knows what kind of men are being taken on, so that 
 he can tighten up on his safety practices if the quality goes 
 down and let up on them when it is safe to do so. It should 
 always be borne in mind that accidents are proportionate to 
 the lack of intelligence of the men employed. Much of what 
 seems like carelessness is really due to ignorance, and igno- 
 rance in its turn may be due to lack of understanding of 
 English or to slowness in getting used to new ways of doing 
 the work. 
 
 In times past when every one in the shop worked his way 
 up and men took an interest in their fellow workers and 
 warned them of dangers, there was little need of safeguards. 
 Back gears did not need to be covered because every one knew 
 which were the danger points and kept away from them, and 
 the same was true of the buzz saw, the jointer, and the shaper. 
 Accidents were then few and far between and if the same 
 men were available to-day our shops would have no need of 
 guards. Now workmen of a very much lower caliber are 
 doing work which we formerly thought demanded skill ac- 
 quired through long years of practice. These men are good 
 imitators but for the most part poor mechanics. They are 
 also very apt to imitate the careless things they see done, for 
 they do not realize the possibility of danger. They see a man 
 let his fingers touch a running gear on the side that is running 
 away from the danger point and so they let their fingers touch
 
 174 
 
 one on the side that is running toward danger with conse- 
 quent loss of fingers or perhaps a hand. 
 
 The other problem, that of securing the cooperation of 
 men who are normally careless, is a matter of education. 
 There is abundant literature to be had, moving picture films 
 that can be shown, and examples of the serious consequences 
 of carelessness that can be and must be continually brought to 
 the attention of the men. Very few people who constantly 
 take chances themselves realize that bad accidents occur to 
 many who do the same things. Take the simple matter of 
 getting on and off a street car when in motion. It is perfectly 
 safe to do this under certain conditions, but if the pavement is 
 slippery, or the light is poor, or the hand rail on the car is loose, 
 or is not where it was expected, it is dangerous. It is also very 
 dangerous to the novice who thinks he must imitate a more ex- 
 perienced person or to people of the non-athletic type who 
 are sometimes in just as much of a hurry as any one else. For 
 the sake of the example, those of us who can swing on and 
 off a street car should stop, even though we feel no danger in 
 it ourselves. Not all of us are sensible enough for that, so 
 the street car companies, aided and abetted by the state leg- 
 islatures, have made it necessary for us to be boxed into the 
 cars and not allowed to get on or off until after the car stops. 
 
 The organization of a safety engineering department may 
 take on two different aspects, or it may be a combination of 
 the two. These may be called the professional and the ama- 
 teur. In the first the planning of safety work, and its execu- 
 tion is in the hands of men whose sole duties are to take care 
 of that work. They accept full responsibility for it so far as 
 the limitations of their authority will allow, and do not as a 
 rule require cooperation beyond obedience to their rules and 
 regulations. Whatever of an educational nature is done is 
 done under their supervision. The other plan involves a shop 
 safety committee made up of men from different departments. 
 These men are foremen and workmen, and their safety work 
 is purely a side line, usually an interesting one but a side 
 issue nevertheless which they have to lay aside whenever 
 their real work is pressing. The result of this is that when 
 business is quiet, and the men in the shop are well acquainted
 
 175 
 
 with their work, there is very good and efficient safety work 
 done, but when the work is rushing they are busy with pro- 
 duction and the safety work suffers just when it is most needed. 
 
 There are, however, real merits to the amateur safety com- 
 mittee, especially in parts of the country where membership on 
 committees, and especially those which entitle the member to 
 a badge, are valued. If the membership is rotated and if 
 the committee is split up into a number of sub-committees 
 with jurisdiction over small floor areas so that in a committee 
 of three one has had at least one month's experience and an- 
 other two months', while the third is a new member, there 
 soon is a quite considerable body of "alumni" of the safety 
 committee all cf which body can wear a safety insignia which 
 may soon come to be valued. If the members of this com- 
 mittee are given some little extra authority such as repri- 
 manding any one seen indulging in unsafe practices, there is 
 enough responsibility and authority to appeal to a very great 
 number of men and make them show an interest which can 
 only have a good effect on the morale of the whole organiza- 
 tion. In a very mild way there is also a certain democratiza- 
 tion which comes about through the feeling lliat here is a way 
 in which a man, without even becoming a foreman, does be- 
 come an active, potent part of the organization. 
 
 The best in each of these methods should be sought out 
 and employed. The professional plan provides a responsible 
 body which knows that it will be held accountable for failure 
 to provide safeguards, and to establish and promote their use 
 and the use of safe methods of doing work. It can only avoid 
 blame by proving that they made recommendation to the 
 Board of Directors which if adopted would have made the ac- 
 cident impossible. The amateur plan helps to form a consid- 
 erable body of men who have an interest in safety matters 
 and who in a way police the plant, and help turn public 
 opinion in favor of the safety engineering department. 
 
 There is always need of good feeling among workmen 
 toward the safety department because it is quite the rule for 
 foremen to belittle its work. This is often the expression of 
 a certain amount of jealousy. They feel that the safety en- 
 gineer takes over a little of their prerogative and lessens in
 
 176 
 
 some small way their own job. It is probably true that the 
 further the foreman is from being a czar in his department the 
 less awe he creates among his subordinates. This does not 
 mean that they respect him the less, but it does mean that 
 he does not feel his own importance so much. If the fore- 
 men can be given some part in the safety work so that their 
 subordinates feel that the safety engineer is not in some way 
 dominating the foreman, it adds to the latter's pride and 
 makes him imagine he is being held in higher esteem by them 
 than he otherwise would be. 
 
 Under any system whatever the arrangement by which 
 safe practices are put in effect, or whatever organization car- 
 ries them out and installs safety devices, it is necessary that 
 it have authority to stop machinery which is left unguarded 
 and prevent its use during the time it is unguarded. This 
 authority will for the time being stop production and will thus 
 interfere with the record of that room or that machine, con- 
 sequently it brings down the wrath of the foreman, and if the 
 man is on piece work, of the workman also. For this reason 
 if no other the safety work should be under the jurisdiction 
 of some department which is not subject to the production 
 department, as otherwise that department in spite of its own 
 best judgment and what would be the calm judgment of the 
 men affected, would allow production to go on, thereby 
 jeopardizing the men on the job. 
 
 The hardest plant to thoroughly guard and in which to 
 secure safe practices is the one which keeps no records, but 
 in which the superintendent claims that there have been no 
 accidents for many years. Such a record is desirable and a 
 superintendent who can show it is certainly entitled to credit 
 for safety work of his own, but unfortunately it usually de- 
 velops that the reason he claims long immunity from accident 
 is that he has a short memory. He forgets that a man broke 
 his arm last year and a man was killed three months before 
 that. These things are not in the record. They came at 
 scattered intervals and they made little impression except on 
 his sympathies. 
 
 There is also the case of the superintendent who says that 
 he pays insurance premiums to cover the care of the wounded.
 
 177 
 
 and that discharges his obligations. He should be told, and 
 told with emphasis, that money cannot discharge these obli- 
 gations. A man disfigured for life has lost more than can be 
 paid by money. A man may earn just as much after his arm 
 is broken and healed, but a man conscious that he has a body 
 that is a drawback is injured in a way that money does not 
 cover. A man who has a crippled and distorted hand cannot 
 rise in some industries except through sheer genius. If he was 
 an elevator boy and his hand was caught in a defective gate, 
 he may make just as good an elevator boy as ever, but who 
 knows into what he might have developed. It is sentiment 
 that keeps us from giving this boy a chance, just as much so 
 as it is sentiment that gives the soldier with the same handi- 
 cap the preferences. We go to extremes in these matters. 
 The fact that a single preventable accident occurs in a 
 plant should be a matter of deep regret, and something 
 that should at least make every one more determined to see 
 that there is not another. If we take the natural life of 
 man according to the scriptural three score years and ten, 
 the manager who negligently allows the lives of seventy men 
 to be shortened by a year apiece has murdered his man. If 
 more of them would look at it in this light, and not merely 
 in connection with safety work there would be much more 
 happiness. 
 
 It is also troublesome to define just what shall be rated as 
 an accident, but this is only of consequence when we are keep- 
 ing score. A scratch from a nail is usually accidental. That 
 is, men seldom purposely try to do it. If it happens that the 
 nail was loaded with bacteria of the wrong kind, or if the 
 man's physical condition was poor, it may have resulted in 
 blood poisoning, sickness, loss of time, loss of production, ex- 
 pense of treatment, much mental suffering and anxiety, and 
 possibly a hand disfigured with a scar for life. What was the 
 accident? W T as it the scratch, which in nine cases out of ten 
 would have healed without trouble, or was it that this par- 
 ticular nail carried infection, or was it that the man's hand 
 was dirty and carried germs which could get into the system 
 through the wound? Was it that the man did not report the 
 accident and get it properly dressed, or was it the fact that
 
 178 
 
 the man was in a run-down condition and did not offer the re- 
 sistance to the germs that he should? In the last case we can 
 also ask whether the man got in this run-down condition from 
 overwork or overplay. 
 
 All these accidents may happen in turn or in combina- 
 tions, but in any case the accident was started by a nail which 
 was where it ought not to have been. If we charge up nail 
 scratches which occur in a department and which come to the 
 attention of the hospital, to that department, there is danger 
 that the foreman will wink at the practice of tying up each 
 other's wounds, and may even encourage it as the easiest way 
 to keep his score down. That is, if the hospital tries to excite 
 rivalry by posting scores, it may defeat its own ends by tempt- 
 ing bad departments to camouflage its accidents. A casual 
 visitor in a shop with splendid hospital facilities, if he is not 
 with any one in authority, is almost sure to see men bandag- 
 ing themselves and each other. 
 
 The only safe practice is to have all accidents of even the 
 most trivial nature sent to the hospital. There are two prob- 
 lems which arise even then ; the first is that of the piece-worker 
 who hates to lose a few minutes to run over and have a wound 
 dressed, or the sensitive man who dreads the physical pain 
 due to the rough handling his wound will probably get; and 
 the second is that of the man who likes to go to the hospital 
 because it takes him away from work that he likes so little 
 that the hospital seems a luxury. The first two cases should 
 be sent, and the doctors should be cautioned that some one 
 of their victims may turn doctor himself some day and give 
 them a dose of their own medicine. Some of the most 
 capable doctors are brutes, probably because their services are 
 needed so badly that no one dares tell them the truths which 
 they ought to know, consequently as they grow in ability and 
 practice tKey lose all sense of humanity, and cure for the 
 cure's sake and not for the man's sake. The last man, the one 
 who runs to the hospital to get away from work, is probably 
 sick, mentally if not physically, and probably needs other 
 treatment than that for which he came. 
 
 We have also to consider that men naturally gravitate 
 toward the best jobs they can get. If a job is dangerous, if
 
 179 
 
 the last man on it was hurt in the regular course of his work, 
 no man wants to take it unless he is making more money by 
 so doing. That is, jobs which show signs of danger must 
 either pay more money or draw a lower class of men. This 
 does not show on the cost accounts, but it is there. During 
 the war a married man was granted exemption on the ground 
 that his dependents needed him more than the country 
 did. On the same ground the more dangerous jobs in the shop 
 should be reserved for the single men. However there is the 
 tendency to hire married men and then assign them the jobs 
 that need doing, and since a married man will usually stand 
 for more than a single man, it is usual to find married men in 
 these dangerous places. 
 
 The safety engineering department should also represent 
 the insurance carrier so far as is practicable in dealing with 
 the men. If the company carries its own insurance, as is pos- 
 sible in some states, then the safety department should be 
 the active link between the treasurer and the men. He should 
 pay them, either by a cash payment or by a voucher drawn 
 on the cashier, all their claims whether for medical treatment, 
 for hospital bills or for compensation. The department should 
 also be in a position to exceed the legal payments for com- 
 pensation whenever the merits of the case seem to demand it. 
 
 The compensation laws are framed to avoid the danger of 
 malingering, but even so a thrifty man may easily join mutual 
 benefit associations and secret orders, so that financially he 
 is much better off sick than well. Most men, however, have 
 not been so provident, or are more honest, and their families 
 need every cent of the income which they formerly had in 
 order to make both ends meet. It should be possible to treat 
 such cases just as the general manager himself would have 
 done it years ago when the shop was small, by paying full 
 wages while the man is out of work and adding whatever 
 bonus seems appropriate. At the best our laws provide for 
 rather meager medical treatment and for only about two-thirds 
 pay, during a time when naturally the family expenses are 
 very greatly increased. 
 
 If the safety department keeps in close touch with these 
 men they can win their confidence better than any one else.
 
 180 
 
 There is at least one good feature of the compensation laws 
 in that they virtually put a premium on coming back to work 
 in the same place. If a man is hurt and does not show up 
 again there are always rumors of permanent disability and 
 disfigurement, just as soon after the armistice there were wild 
 rumors that a certain hospital in New York City was filled 
 with hundreds and then thousands of "basket cases" (men 
 with both arms and legs amputated), and like that rumor, 
 which was not even based on one such case, these are found, 
 if the man comes back, to be as utterly untrue. The confi- 
 dence and good will of workmen are worth more to the busi- 
 ness than most people think. 
 
 Evory one realizes that there is a great advantage in hav- 
 ing the first choice of workmen, that the tail-enders are not 
 profitable no matter for how little they will work, and that 
 there is not much difference in rates even though there is a 
 great difference in production. The first choice men are not 
 attracted by advertisements, they do not take up jobs at ran- 
 dom, nor do they leave them thoughtlessly. They move from 
 one shop to another only after careful inquiry among their 
 friends, and they are pretty sure that the new shop is better 
 than the old before they apply for a job. These men are 
 much influenced by the safety work of the new shop. They 
 are for the most part careful, but if in an absent-minded mo- 
 ment they put a hand in a dangerous place they want to feel 
 that the company will take good care of them. 
 
 Knowledge of these conditions is widespread. A shop may 
 let some poor devil go who got mixed up in an accident. He 
 may have come back to his old job, but they found an expe- 
 dient to relieve him of duty on some ground other than his 
 disability, and they were glad to be rid of the burden. Can 
 they keep this a secret? Not a bit of it. They may next 
 hear from it at some convention a thousand miles from home. 
 Inside secrets are secrets only to those who stay at home. 
 They travel and a black mark is set up in many men's minds. 
 
 There is also great danger of an increase in accident cases 
 if the settlements are handled by professional agents from the 
 insurance company. It is impossible for these men to have 
 a sympathetic interest in the multitude of cases that they
 
 181 
 
 must handle, in one shop this morning, in another this after- 
 noon, and so on. A man with a crushed finger is to them a 
 crushed finger case entitled to so many dollars a week and so 
 much medical care. It belongs to case number so-and-so, and 
 if you want to look it up you can find out what the man's name 
 is, but better not because it may be Szcyweinzkicz or some- 
 thing like that and if you spell it wrong the records will get all 
 mixed up. This is of course not the fault of the insurance 
 man ; it is his misfortune, and yours if you let him make the 
 settlement. The safety department can pay out this same 
 money and produce the impression that the company is genu- 
 inely interested in the man as well as his case. They can 
 also help in other ways besides with money because they are 
 one with the welfare department, and they know the man's 
 home conditions. Likewise with the aid of the medical de- 
 partment and the employment department, they can get him 
 back into the shop and at least mentally occupied long before 
 the insurance man would have the right to send him back to 
 work; in fact, in every way the safety department is in the 
 logical position to handle the financial part of the case than 
 is any one else.
 
 PART III 
 
 PROMOTING INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS 
 
 Chapter 
 Chapter 
 Chapter 
 Chapter 
 Chapter 
 Chapter 
 Chapter 
 
 XXVI 
 
 XXVII 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 XXIX 
 
 XXX 
 
 XXXI 
 
 XXXII 
 
 Chapter XXXIII 
 
 THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF LABOR 185 
 
 HOURS OF LABOR 193 
 
 THE COMMISSARY DEPARTMENT . 204 
 
 HOUSING 214 
 
 HEALTH AND SANITATION . . . 228 
 
 REST AND RECREATION .... 237 
 FINANCIAL RELATIONS AND LABOR 
 
 TURNOVER 251 
 
 NoN-FlNANCIAL REASONS FOR LABOR 
 
 TURNOVER 266
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF LABOR 
 
 IT has been such a habit with us to grant the owner of real 
 estate the privilege of putting up trespass signs, and our 
 trespass laws have been so firmly upheld by the courts that 
 we have quite naturally come to believe that there must be 
 a right to forbid trespassing, and the right to privacy and 
 sole enjoyment has, therefore, hardly been questioned. It is 
 time, however, that we should look into the matters and see, 
 not in a radical way, but in a thorough way, whether such 
 rights as they exist in law and in habit may not be subject to 
 considerable modification. 
 
 If one of us walks across a friend's pp' ' \a the country 
 there is no harm done, and it is not trefr osing. If we tramp 
 across his blueberry patch and eat a few handfuls of berries 
 there is no perceptible wrong done, but if we walk across a 
 man's lawn in the city, and by our example suggest to others 
 the propriety of also doing so, then we do a real wrong and 
 should very properly be stopped. Furthermore our city friend 
 should not be compelled to stop us physically by building a 
 fence, or by knocking us down, but by appeal to the police 
 force which all help support. 
 
 This analogy applies equally well to some of the friction 
 which arises between employers and employees. When a firm 
 has invested a certain amount of capital in land, fenced it in 
 and built shops or stores upon it, they immediately assume 
 a right to say who shall or shall not enter. We, for the most 
 part, grant their right to say so because that is the law, and 
 we respect the law whether we believe it to be just or not. 
 Of course the spirit underlying the law of trespass is the pre- 
 vention of damage. To prevent any one damaging property 
 
 185
 
 186 
 
 we say that the owner shall have the right to prohibit every- 
 body or anybody from trespassing. The owner may classify 
 people. He may say that only well-dressed people shall be 
 allowed. He may say that only men shall be admitted. He 
 may say that only those belonging to certain churches or soci- 
 eties shall be excluded. In all these cases he is supported 
 by the law and we, the people, are responsible for the law. 
 
 On the other hand, it is equally legal for a man and his 
 friend to agree not to go through another man's pasture, or 
 across his lawn, or enter upon his land, or into his buildings, 
 but the two have no right to endeavor to persuade others to 
 join them for to do so may in many cases work an injury 
 to the owner. Accordingly we rightfully should consider 
 whether or not the action on either side does harm, rather than 
 whether it is within a law which was a crude attempt made 
 hundreds of years ago to meet conditions which have since 
 been much changed. 
 
 Let us apply this to strikes and boycotts. Nearly every 
 shop loses the equivalent of all of its help once every year, 
 not all at once of course but fairly prorated day by day. More- 
 over it cannot be proved that this larger number were influ- 
 enced by each other, or that the management was distinctly 
 to blame and that it intentionally or unintentionally fostered 
 the very feeling which produces the outflow. On the other 
 hand, if some one person or a group of persons, with or with- 
 out cause, deliberately tries to persuade others to injure the 
 company by leaving it there is cause for action, and they can 
 theoretically be enjoined from doing this injury. Theoret- 
 ically, because there is no punishment enforceable. 
 
 Likewise, whenever a concern decides that it will arbi- 
 trarily exclude any man from employment it does that man 
 a wrong. If the concern says to John Smith that he shall 
 never work for it, it is doing him a wrong and it is not doing 
 itself any good. It is doing Smith a wrong because Smith is 
 one of a great multitude of men who make it possible for the 
 firm to exist, and because Smith is a part of the great gen- 
 eral public which grants the rights by which the concern makes 
 a profit. Furthermore, the concern does itself a harm be- 
 cause Smith, no matter what his present shortcomings may
 
 187 
 
 be, is yet a man; he may change for the better, and he may 
 make an excellent and profitable employee. 
 
 All strikes and lockouts depend upon whether or not the 
 people in general control the government. Any strike or lock- 
 out must necessarily work harm because it causes loss of pro- 
 duction which cannot be made up. The length of the work- 
 ing day is not so very important because each individual has 
 only about so much vitality which can be called forth before 
 he must rest. The days that are lost are important because 
 they can only be made up if the life of the individual be 
 lengthened, which is not at all probable in case of enforced 
 absence from work, no matter what may be the effect of an 
 ordinary vacation from worries. 
 
 This harm may apparently be made up to the winner by 
 the increased wage won as a result of strikes, or the saving of 
 wages won by the owners, but either advantage is "robbing 
 Peter to pay Paul," Peter, however, not recognizing that he 
 has been robbed. In other words, the public foots the bill, 
 and since the public also makes the laws which allows it to 
 play the part of Peter in this little drama, it has only itself 
 to blame. 
 
 When we consider that the total number of people in this 
 country who are sufficiently organized to conduct a successful 
 strike is much less than ten per cent of all workers, and that 
 lockouts are comparatively few in number, we can perhaps 
 understand why both are tolerated. It is of course because 
 they do not really affect the public in their present state of 
 development. But the real danger is not in their present form 
 but rather in their possible growth and the danger that we 
 are creating a Frankenstein monster which may some day be- 
 come so large as to swallow up not only the very people who 
 to-day profit from it, but also the rest of us as well. 
 
 So much for the dangers. In spite of abuses we still have 
 to go back to the original simile and to admit that the pub- 
 lic has a right to determine what constitutes trespass and 
 what does not. No one owner of a vacant lot can hope to 
 keep people from crossing it except by force or a fence, unless 
 he has the support of public opinion. No man can long 
 bar people of a certain sex, religion, or nationality from cross-
 
 188 
 
 ing or entering his land. In fact he cannot pick and choose 
 on any ground that does not affect all alike for a very long 
 time. His reasons for his choice must be rational and must 
 have justice back of them. The fact that a man belongs to 
 a certain society in itself cannot long be held up as a bar to 
 employment. If, however, that society is not law-abiding, and 
 if the man is bound to break laws by virtue of his membership 
 in it, then of course he is personally and individually an un- 
 desirable man to have at large, to say nothing of working for 
 some one who is affected by the law-breaking tendencies of 
 himself and his associates. On the other hand, the fact of 
 organization does not necessarily imply law breaking. That it 
 has done so in the past creates a suspicion that it will do so in 
 the future and many organizations will have to overcome this 
 suspicion before they can expect to be treated with respect 
 and confidence. 
 
 The right of engineers to belong to local and national en- 
 gineering societies, the right of physicians to have their or- 
 ganizations, and the right of educators to similarly organize 
 themselves has never been questioned simply because these 
 men have an unbroken record of legality in their procedure. 
 Their potential power for harm is vastly greater than that of 
 all the labor organizations in the country. There have been, 
 however, organizations of employers which have apparently 
 stooped to practices which are hardly much above the level 
 of those whom they oppose. Such practices include black- 
 listing men and refusals to allow men to change employment 
 within the circle of the organization, and by indulging in these 
 practices the organizations harm themselves just as surely 
 as do the labor organizations. They have the one advantage, 
 however, of the benefit of legal advice, and being more patient 
 and looking farther into the future, they are not so apt to 
 run counter to the letter of the law. Nevertheless they arouse 
 as much antagonism, unrest, and suspicion as if their prac- 
 tices were not within the law. 
 
 The solution of the problem seems to the general public 
 very simple. Let every organization be fair, open, and above 
 board and for a sufficient length of time to convince every one 
 that it has become habitual and there can be no more friction.
 
 189 
 
 If these organizations of employers and employees will not 
 act honestly and above board because their own best interest 
 demands otherwise, then they should be forced to do so in 
 the same way that individuals are compelled to obey the law. 
 Probably both sides will agree to such a proposition, but each 
 side will probably be able to xe only the sins of the other. 
 
 Supposing, however, that both sides will play fair. Is 
 there any advantage in organization? Yes, very decidedly so, 
 but only for the advantage that now comes to associations of 
 professional men, which is chiefly one of education and im- 
 provement of the individual. Any association will prosper as 
 long as it returns good educational value to its members and 
 as long as membership in that society is recognized as carry- 
 ing with it respected standing in the profession. If, for ex- 
 ample, a society of plumbers lent its efforts to the improved 
 worth of its members through educational work or the inter- 
 change of ideas among its members, and if membership in 
 that society was recognized by the world at large as a guar- 
 antee that its members were capable workmen, then there can 
 be little doubt but that such a society is very much worth 
 while from every point of view. It is only when such a so- 
 ciety becomes drunk with power and overrides the laws for 
 which its own members are partly responsible that it becomes 
 an outlaw and a blot on society. This does not necessarily 
 mean that the right of any individual to leave the employ of 
 any firm can be abridged, nor is there any reason why any 
 number of men should not leave at the same time and for the 
 same cause, if the cause is just. But when men who wish to 
 leave attempt to intimidate others who do not feel the same 
 grievance keenly enough to join the movement of their own 
 accord, then the society does become obnoxious. 
 
 Suppose, however, that during the time of abundant labor 
 supply, due to lack of business, a firm sees fit to reduce wages 
 and impose heavy tasks as a condition of permanent employ- 
 ment. What redress have the employees except to strike? 
 They have the redress that is always open. ^ Then can quietly 
 and peaceably leave their jobs and take other and better ones. 
 If, however, there are no other better jobs, then it clearly shows 
 that the employer was meeting the market so far as wages and
 
 190 
 
 tasks were concerned, and a strike under such conditions, if 
 successful, would simply mean that coercion made the em- 
 ployer grant increased prices which he may charge to the con- 
 sumer as a result of the advertising which the strike furnished. 
 But how can the employees or the public tell whether the 
 firm is making money enough to pay the increased wage out 
 of the profits or whether it will have to raise prices, and if the 
 latter, whether the public can justly be called upon to pay the 
 increased prices? 
 
 The only reasonable strike for more money, or lessened 
 production, is one based on a careful and complete investiga- 
 tion made by competent people with all the facts before them. 
 Such a strike, however, has not come to the author's attention. 
 A strike under any other condition virtually says to the work- 
 ing public that the few men in the shop intend to hold up 
 the larger number who use that product and take away from 
 each of them a small sum of money so as to put a larger sum 
 in the pockets of the men who work in the shop. It is as 
 though a thousand workers making soap were to demand that 
 the product be sold for a cent a cake more and that cent be 
 added to each man's wages. It is not the employer who suf- 
 fers; it is the purchasing public. The man who is profiting 
 from a strike of freight handlers may be paying more for 
 shoes, clothes, food, and entertainment because he is being 
 held up by others who are lining their pockets at his expense, 
 and in the end such a game of robbery cannot be good for 
 any one. 
 
 The most vital question which is being asked, however, 
 concerns the recognition of the union. Here again what is 
 said and what is meant is not synonymous. Recognition 
 really means that the firm realizes and admits that there is a 
 union. Every firm in fact does admit that there is a union 
 among its employees, if such is the case, and it is usually 
 quite well informed about the union. What the firm dis- 
 likes to do, however, is to recognize the right of the union to 
 control in any way the matters which they themselves have 
 considered in the past their own prerogatives. Among these 
 has been the right to discharge at will. These rights have 
 been previously discussed and the author has endeavored to
 
 191 
 
 show that they do not rest on a broad or sound foundation. 
 On the contrary, the very arguments against this indiscrimi- 
 nate exercise by the employers are equally valid against its 
 exercise by the employees or their representatives. If a ques- 
 tion can be raised as to the legitimacy of arbitrary trespass 
 rules enforced by a certain class of people, the same ques- 
 tion can also be raised against arbitrary rules enforced by any 
 other class. 
 
 The public alone through its legally elected representatives 
 has the right to decide what people shall be allowed or not al- 
 lowed to work in an industry. This is shown in the general 
 acceptance of child labor laws, and laws affecting women in 
 industry. But more rather than less such legislation is likely, 
 for when an organization of workmen declares that none but 
 members of that organization shall work in a given industry, 
 or when an organization of business men attempt to draw 
 similar lines, they equally infringe on the rights of the peo- 
 ple as a whole to regulate its internal affairs. The great ma- 
 jority of manufacturing establishments, stores, and farms have 
 a very much larger list of ultimate consumers than of em- 
 ployees. For the latter to be able to say to the great number, 
 "You will have to pay more for this product than before, be- 
 cause we want more than our share of wages/' is absurd, es- 
 pecially as these consumers are for the most part workmen 
 themselves. It is not a recognition of the union which labor 
 leaders demand, but rather that the great body of workmen 
 who are not organized shall permit themselves to be exploited 
 for the benefit of the few. 
 
 Finally there is no doubt but that the right to organize 
 must be admitted on both sides. The . abuse of the power 
 which the organization brings has resulted in bad feeling which 
 will take generations to overcome, unless some radical purify- 
 ing power comes to the surface. Wage adjustment by strikes 
 and lockouts is unscientific, and operates to the detriment of 
 labor in other industries. It is also selfish and undemo- 
 cratic because it is for the chosen few who prove that they 
 realize it by not taking in the many. 
 
 May we not conclude that industrial peace can only come 
 when labor unions are compelled to become responsible or-
 
 192 
 
 ganizations, and associations of employers are met by laws 
 drawn by as capable men as those whom they employ to find 
 holes in them? Suppose that a labor union were required 
 to deposit government bonds to the extent of $100 per 
 member with the Department of Justice as a bond to 
 keep the peace. If the union had a thousand members 
 there would then be an income of about $4000 which no 
 leader or organizer would jeopardize without thinking many 
 times, because it would assure him his salary. On the other 
 hand there is the painful fact that we do not send men to our 
 legislatures who altogether represent us intelligently and 
 forcefully. The larger firms outbid the public. We are fre- 
 quently confronted with the spectacle of men of real and ac- 
 cepted ability quitting public life literally impoverished and 
 compelled to make proper provision for their families.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 HOURS OF LABOR 
 
 IT seems quite generally agreed that eight hours of sleep 
 per day are necessary for the proper recuperation, physical 
 and mental, of the average man. Of course we are not all 
 alike ; some men can work long hours and there are also those 
 who find it necessary to have long periods of rest. In gen- 
 eral, however, it may be said that the man who works so hard 
 or so long that he cannot recuperate from it in eight hours 
 is taking chances on shortening his natural life. This, how- 
 ever, is only a rough average ; it varies with every individual, 
 with the temperature and with the humidity, but more than 
 anything else with his state of mind. Possibly the latter has 
 more to do with determining hours of labor than any other 
 single factor. There is also need of time to eat and for diges- 
 tion of the food. People likewise need entertainment and re- 
 laxation. 
 
 All these needs vary in different parts of the world. 
 We who live in the northern parts, who find zest in fighting 
 our way against storms and enjoy the contrast of snow and ice 
 with the warmth of the fireside, do not always stop to think 
 that there are other parts where it is impossible for men to 
 work as continuously as we do. When we travel we are apt 
 to call other people lazy, when they are merely trying to live 
 and to do all the work they can. We forget that we live by 
 the lifetime, and that it is best for all to so live and work as 
 to accomplish the most work in that lifetime. But even in 
 this latitude there is a great variation in the effects of dif- 
 ferent jobs on the same man, depending of course on the ex- 
 ertion which they put forth. There are the jobs which con- 
 sist for the most part in being present and ready to do some- 
 
 193
 
 194 
 
 thing which seldom has to be done. We are replacing these 
 jobs, as rapidly as possible, with automatic machinery. 
 
 One of the earliest of these replacements was due to the 
 invention of the valve gear for the steam engine which was 
 used in place of a small boy who formerly opened and closed 
 the valves. This not only liberated the boy from a monoto- 
 nous job but it started the way toward high-speed engines. 
 The effect of withdrawing these automatic jobs from the work 
 of men is, therefore, very likely to add to our opportunities for 
 mechanical advancement. Jobs which consist in being pres- 
 ent are just suited to the temperament which likes to go fish- 
 ing, but hopes the fish will not bite too often. There are not 
 a great number of men who want these jobs, but those who are 
 available are usually quite willing to work long hours. If 
 they try to shorten their hours it is for the sake of lengthen- 
 ing the hours for which they receive overtime pay. The only 
 limit on these jobs is the social limit. These men have the 
 same social claims made on them that other men do, and 
 especially so if they are married. If they work long hours they 
 keep their families away from many social diversions which 
 the family would otherwise enjoy. Sometimes their families 
 will enjoy these diversions without them and in such cases 
 there is frequently trouble. It is sometimes possible for men 
 to be employed alternate weeks on day and night shifts and 
 in such cases the jobs should be divided into a short-day week 
 and a long-night week. 
 
 Then, too, some of these jobs consist in "watching the 
 wheels go around" and being ready to make needed repairs 
 and adjustments, put in new stock and otherwise look after 
 a machine or group of machines. The hours of such work 
 are also limited to those prescribed by the custom in that in- 
 dustry, unless the work is such that it demands constant vigi- 
 lance and rapid work in making adjustments to get the ma- 
 chinery going again after a stoppage. A battery of auto- 
 matic screw machines on close jobs may require such con- 
 stant attention, and there may be so many of them, that an 
 eight-hour day is too long. On the other hand, if the amount 
 of work to be done does not justify the shop having many 
 automatic machines and the work is not so close, or if the
 
 195 
 
 machines are in good repair so that adjustments are not often 
 needed, then the operator may be able to work long hours 
 without undue inconvenience. Under "ordinary conditions an 
 offer of time and a half for overtime will bring almost any 
 man away from his social ties for as many hours as the su- 
 perintendent wants. The most serious danger is to the fam- 
 ily where the eternal triangle is so easily brought about if a 
 young woman finds herself a sort of daily widow. 
 
 Then there are the real working jobs where all day long 
 men must either spend their muscular energy or must con- 
 tinually keep their minds on problems. These include the 
 two extremes, the purely manual labor and the highly skilled 
 labor of the mechanic, the engineer, and the office man. These 
 men nominally work long hours, but it is safe to say that the 
 majority of them could do all that is necessary in a very much 
 shorter time, if it were not for interruptions which they can- 
 not control. A general manager, for example, may say that 
 he works regular shop hours, thereby meaning that he is 
 present that much of the time. His life, however, is usually 
 largely spent in waiting for some one else, in attendance on 
 meetings (half the time of which is taken up listening to 
 some one who has nothing to say) and in general waiting for 
 people to get through talking about things which he grasped 
 as soon as they began to discuss them. The men down the 
 line find themselves similarly situated, except that their idle- 
 ness is even more the result of waiting for those higher up. 
 
 Then there is the inevitable dawdling that comes with 
 brain weariness in the latter part of the day, followed by a 
 brief spurt just before quitting time when a man's conscience 
 spurs him on to make a brave finish. Most men do not real- 
 ize that they give way to brain fag, but they see others doing 
 it and wonder why. In the shop, the more highly skilled men 
 are almost always able to direct work rather than do it, the 
 exceptions coming from those who do the extremely fine work 
 of scraping or lapping the final fit, whose efforts represent 
 small fractions of a thousandth of an inch. The men who 
 run machines come more nearly under the class of men who 
 are paid for being present, except that they, like professional 
 men, are paid for knowing how.
 
 196 
 
 Salesmen are another noteworthy instance of men putting 
 in long hours and working a short time. A salesman begins 
 work when he first gets on a train as he starts on a trip and 
 his work does not stop until he gets home, at least that is his 
 version of it. Yet all salesmen sit around in hotel lobbies 
 and in other men's offices hour after hour waiting for the 
 proper time to present their cards. It pays to wait. This 
 waiting is not done to pass away the time, for it is the hard- 
 est thing that a live man does. It is done because the time 
 to see a prospect is when they are "biting." There is no use 
 fishing in a trout stream in an open meadow in the heat of the 
 sun, and there is no more use trying to sell rubber boots in 
 July to a perspiring purchasing agent. He may look at 
 samples in a perfunctory way, because that is his duty, but 
 if there is any excuse for not buying he has it ready at hand. 
 
 From a personal point of view there is no doubt but that 
 it would be better for all these men to do their work as 
 quickly as possible and then go home, or to the golf links, or 
 wherever else they preferred. Possibly they could do this if 
 every one tried to help the other fellow instead of lying back 
 and keeping him waiting. The old notion that men are im- 
 pressed by the importance of the man who keeps them waiting, 
 or who puts them off on some understrapper, is all exploded. 
 The man who is put off in this way nowadays knows that 
 the other fellow is either bluffing or that his work is very badly 
 organized. 
 
 There is, however, besides this waste of others' time, the 
 waste that comes about through lack of appointments, broken 
 appointments, and appointments going over their allotted 
 time. It is our way in this great free land to assume that our 
 friends, business and otherwise, have nothing better or more 
 necessary to do than to listen to our funny stories, and that 
 they should hold themselves in readiness to do so without 
 warning. Consequently we go around calling without mak- 
 ing appointments. In some cases there are two valid reasons 
 for this, one that we are afraid that if we telephoned for 
 an appointment we would be obliged to tell why we wanted 
 it, and not having a very good excuse, we would not get it; 
 rule number one of the salesman being, "Get in ; no matter
 
 197 
 
 how, get in." The other reason is that we think the man a 
 snob if he does not say, when we ask for an appointment, "Oh, 
 come in any time. I am always here to my friends," and 
 then we expect to be let in through the side door or go in 
 ahead of the line. 
 
 Whether we like it or not, it is only right to make appoint- 
 ments, keep them and then get up and go without running 
 over our time. The latter is the most difficult to do, because 
 our errand is so important, and we do not want to stop talking 
 long enough to let the other man express an opinion until we 
 have exhausted our logic. We are also very much inclined to 
 take the short cut of the telephone route. We know that 
 Jones is a busy man, we suspect his lobby is full of men wait- 
 ing their turn, so we pick up the telephone, knowing that he 
 cannot help but respond to our call or that his secretary will 
 not be sure enough to stop it. So we may use up half of the 
 time allotted to some other man's interview without accom- 
 plishing nearly so much as we might if we could actually have 
 seen him. 
 
 Let us next consider the man in the shop, the high-grade 
 man who knows how, and who waits patiently hour after hour 
 for the machine to finish the work so that he can set the tools 
 for another operation. To be sure, if the shop is large enough 
 and there are enough tools available, he may set up the work 
 and make the adjustments and then leave the machine for 
 some helper or assistant to operate, but it is not every shop 
 that can introduce such refinements although they must of 
 necessity have such machines. Too often a man of this abil- 
 ity feels it beneath him to operate any other machine in con- 
 junction with his specialty, and so he will not take on work 
 of a different character. Piece-work rates, however, will often 
 make a great difference in his pride, and he may do for money 
 what he would not do for the sake of making the time pass 
 more quickly. However, if he will not do other work he puts 
 himself in a class with those who are paid for being present 
 only and he might as well work long hours. 
 
 In all kinds of industry there are a great number of men 
 whose work consists in doing tasks which the machine has not 
 been made to do. One man may find his work solely in tak-
 
 198 
 
 ing the product of one machine and feeding it into another. 
 There may be an attachment for doing this work which the 
 shop does not possess. It may be too expensive, it may not 
 be adaptable to different sizes of work, or it may require too 
 much adjustment for varying sizes. In fact, there may be a 
 dozen reasons why this man should perform a function that 
 can be performed by a machine. If the work is heavy he 
 needs moderate hours, for no one can continue active physical 
 labor over an eight-hour day, nor indeed over a much shorter 
 one. If the work is light he may even stay for a fourteen- 
 hour day without injury to himself. 
 
 On the other hand, another machine tender whose work 
 consists in feeding material to a machine, but who has to keep 
 his mind constantly on the job, ought not, for the good of 
 the product or his own good, be allowed to work any over- 
 time, and an eight-hour day may be too long for most effi- 
 cient work. In this connection consider for a moment the 
 matter of cloth inspection. For such work a man will sit 
 hour after hour and pull down yard after yard and bolt after 
 bolt of goods, examining it for knots and flaws of every kind, 
 and sometimes the goods will be passed along for several 
 minutes while the inspector is daydreaming and so of course 
 he has not had the slightest idea what passed by him. 
 
 All these are but illustrations of the differences in the time 
 which men may work on given jobs and it makes us rather 
 wonder if there is anything to guide us in setting a working 
 day except the social side. If it is necessary in a shop that 
 there should be a uniform working day for every one, the 
 length of the day can hardly be based on working necessity 
 or on the tiring quality of the work, for in the latter case the 
 day could only be as long as that required to tire out the hard- 
 est worked man. There is, however, no insurmountable ob- 
 stacle in having different hours of work on different jobs in 
 the same factory. There may be trouble if there are only 
 two sets of hours, but with several different sets there is not 
 much chance to raise objections, and especially so if the wages 
 are based on piece rates or a straight hourly basis, and if the 
 employment department does not seem too antagonistic to 
 transfers. This is always supposing that none of the day-
 
 199 
 
 light hours begin before transportation is available, and that 
 they do not end later than, say, six o'clock, so that men can 
 discharge their social obligations. Night work can, of course, 
 be carried on over' longer hours, but as a general rule night 
 work is not wise except as an emergency job to allow a larger 
 number to work continuously by day, and where the worker 
 is paid for being present but not for working a great deal. 
 
 Experience during the war indicates that, given sufficient 
 money, men in general will work just as long as they can with- 
 out going to sleep on the job. However, after the man has 
 reached his physical limit he has to lay off for enough time to 
 make up for the extra time that he gained. Generally speak- 
 ing, and taking the money reward into account, length of hours 
 should be determined by experiment and experience rather 
 than by the fashion of the day. The eight-hour day slogan 
 is just as unscientific as a ten-hour or a twelve-hour or any 
 other specified hour. It is only a watchword and it means 
 nothing to any one worker. It is a rallying cry, much like 
 a college yell. 
 
 The governing principle should be that each shift should 
 be just as short as it can be, and yet allow every man who is 
 employed on a given kind of work to do all the work that 
 is good for him to do, provided that the hours come at such 
 a time that he can take his part in the world as a social being 
 a-nd be not merely a wage earner. The hours should be short, 
 from the employer's point of view, because there is so much 
 overhead charge which stops when the wheels stop revolving. 
 His overhead charges are also less the shorter the time, but 
 they go on just the same when the help are dawdling through 
 the last hour or two of the day after they are already tired. 
 Then too there should be a very careful watch over those 
 who work at machines -which require a constant speed of 
 work for the operator. Machines which require the material 
 to be fed in at regular intervals, and which would require 
 the work to be put through them again if a feeding time were 
 skipped, are dangerous jobs, because men who are sick and 
 who should be at home will nevertheless be "on the job" 
 for the sake of the money which it brings, and they will surely 
 suffer unless they are closely watched.
 
 200 
 
 The best interest^ of the worker are conserved when he 
 earns the most money that he can without getting so tired 
 that he does not entirely recuperate during the night. There 
 must be considered, however, his method of spending the 
 evening. It may be that he goes home and rests, he may 
 go out and dance until morning, he may work in his garden 
 until he is utterly tired out, or he may go to some amusement 
 place where he undoubtably rests because it takes his mind 
 from himself. All these of course have an effect on the work 
 which he does the next day. He may profit or he may lose 
 by it, but it is safe to say that it affects his employer at least 
 twice as acutely as it does him. Yet his employer has no 
 right to utter a word of protest, because it is out of working 
 hours, and it is not usually possible to prove that the effects 
 of the night before cause the poor work or the small amount 
 of work which he did. If constant records of men's work are 
 kept, and ' especially if they are kept in graphical form, it is 
 apparent that, with many of them, there are considerable 
 variations from day to day. 
 
 Some of these variations are traceable to the weather, or 
 to some other uncontrollable influence, but there will be those 
 which can only be accounted for by the man himself. He 
 should be given an opportunity to so account for them, which 
 will at least give him a chance to realize that the firm' is 
 watching him and knows how he is getting along. If it 
 proves that his slump was due to sickness he should see the 
 company doctor at once, while if it is due to late hours or 
 dissipation he should realize that the company suffers more 
 than he does, by reason of the fact that the overhead charges 
 which go on regardless of his absence are usually at least 
 one hundred per cent and often more. It is unfortunate 
 that there are so few jobs where it is possible to keep daily 
 count of each man's production. Most of the jobs where this 
 can be done are those where the speed of production is deter- 
 mined by the faithfulness with which men feed material to 
 machines. In a general machine shop, for example, the only 
 way that any one knows whether a man did a full day's work 
 is by guess, or, if one likes it better, by judgment. If he 
 works on piece work, no one knows which are the fat jobs
 
 201 
 
 and which are the lean jobs for that particular man, so 
 that comparisons based on piece-work earnings are not entirely 
 reliable. It would be a wonderful advance if each man's real 
 work were metered in some way so that every one could get 
 what he earned and so that his condition at the close of each 
 day's work could be compared with his earnings. 
 
 Another matter which should be considered and which is 
 rather closely related to the length of the working day is the 
 length of the noon hour. This is almost universally an hour, 
 the exceptions being in the direction of shortening it. In 
 many cases it is cut down to a half hour, this being so in 
 almost all places where every one brings a lunch and treats 
 it as a lunch. Usually such a condition is found in the office 
 rather than the shop, for the office force is more inclined to 
 eat lunch in the middle of the day and dinner at night. The 
 only apparent excuse for the shortened lunch hour is that a 
 full hour is not enough for the digestion of a substantial meal, 
 and since it is not enough we might just as well make it still 
 less. There is, however, some gain in sitting around after a 
 heavy dinner in the middle of the day. Smoking is probably 
 good only as it can be done while relaxing and because it 
 tends to relaxation. Men who do hard muscular work can- 
 not carry through even an eight-hour day without stocking 
 up with heat-producing foods, even though it be midsummer. 
 On the other hand, the office force do not really need a heavy 
 midday meal. In fact, they would be better off with a bowl 
 of crackers and milk and a plate of ice cream. 
 
 It has been most interesting to see how the introduction 
 of a second and in some cases a third eight-hour shift affected 
 the lunch hours. In order to get in three eight-hour shifts 
 it was necessary to omit more than a momentary recess for 
 dinner. This was usually limited to fifteen minutes, though 
 in some cases it went up to twenty. The two eight-hour shifts 
 were many times arranged from seven a. m. to three-thirty 
 p. m. with a half hour for lunch, and the second shift from 
 three-thirty p. m. to midnight, if the cars ran as late as that to 
 take the men to their homes. In other words, the two shifts 
 cut the lunch down to thirty minutes and the three shifts cut 
 that in halves. No very evident harm seemed to come from
 
 202 
 
 these abbreviated lunch hours. The fifteen-minute periods 
 did not allow many men to get to the company cafeterias, 
 but usually meant that they must eat as they worked, in the 
 dirt and at or near their machines. The three-shift plan, 
 however, seemed only to be effective with machine operatives 
 whose principal duty was being present. They might in 
 many cases quite as well have worked through the fifteen- 
 minute periods, eating as their machines were still running. 
 Manual workers, such as blacksmiths, of course did come in 
 on these shifts in some places but not in a great many. They 
 seemed to run to the two-shift plan with sometimes a longer 
 shift and an easier gait at night, thus drawing more money 
 but not accomplishing more work. 
 
 There is something, however, that does not seem just 
 natural about working at night. It seems to disturb all our 
 ideas of what is right and natural, and all our faculties cry 
 out against it. The men who best succeed in night work, 
 that is, those who come nearest to doing the same amount 
 and quality of work at night as in the daytime, are the men 
 of lowest mentality. They do little in the daytime and not 
 much more at night. As these men become more capable, 
 as they learn to earn money and to spend it, they seem to 
 gain only on the day shift; at night they are just as stupid 
 as ever. This may of course be partly because they are clever 
 and they find that their appearance of stupidity obtains for 
 them certain privileges which they otherwise could not get. 
 
 As a patriotic measure night work was undoubtedly neces- 
 sary and as an expedient to gain production and hold cus- 
 tomers who might otherwise be lost it may be profitable, but 
 as an economical measure for making profits it is only in 
 comparatively few cases that it can be said to pay with 
 any type of labor except the watchers and waiters. Of course, 
 there are lines of production in which constant operation 
 twenty-four hours a day and seven days in the week is neces- 
 sary, but they for the most part deal with operations involving 
 heat, like blast furnaces, dry kilns, pottery kilns, etc., and 
 they do not require the employment of a large proportion of 
 highly-skilled labor. Such few men as are needed of the 
 latter type can command extremely high wages and they are
 
 203 
 
 inclined to be the type that gets rid of its money most expe- 
 ditiously. Occasionally one saves his money and gets into 
 some other part of the work, but for the most part they do 
 not develop into a type that would encourage any one inter- 
 ested in the progress of humanity to increase the amount of 
 such work that is being done.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 THE COMMISSARY DEPARTMENT 
 
 EVEN when a shop or store is located in the business center 
 of a large city the feeding of its employees is likely to be 
 a matter of moment and when it is located miles from regular 
 restaurants the problem becomes one of desperation. In any 
 case a company commissary has to compete with home 
 cooking which is not always of a kind to be envied. The 
 older business men hark back to their boyhood days and 
 refer to the dinner pail as the unfailing solution of the prob- 
 lem. The least actual outlay of money is necessary for the 
 dinner-pail system. Mother puts up a dinner for husband, 
 sons, and daughters, and charges no more for her labor than 
 as if she had prepared them a midday meal at home. In fact, 
 mother is often glad to do it because she can snatch a bite at 
 noon and get a good seat at the movies while her neighbors 
 have to preside over a hot and heavy dinner at home. Her 
 family, however, often feel the lack of substance in the meal 
 they carry, and as soon as possible they relieve mother still 
 more by buying a lunch at the nearest, cheapest, and quickest 
 lunch place. In late spring and early fall the dinner pail 
 does very nicely when supplemented by a thermos bottle, 
 but in summer ice cream is needed and in the winter the ab- 
 sence of hot foods is keenly felt. This want is filled by the 
 cheap lunch place when in summer it provides frozen vege- 
 table lard which passes as ice cream, and in winter the hot 
 gravy stews with occasional gristly bits of questionable meat. 
 Neither dinner pail nor quick lunch, however, sends em- 
 ployees back to work in the afternoon with anything like the 
 spirit with which they came in the morning. In each case 
 too much of one kind of food is usually eaten. In both sum- 
 
 204
 
 205 
 
 mer and winter hot stews are proving the most popular and 
 most profitable foods furnished. The old New England idea 
 of three hearty meals a day with pie and baked beans holding 
 the position of least turnover on the bill of fare seems to 
 dominate the menu of more than a majority of working peo- 
 ple. The one great exception is in the case of girls working 
 in offices whose meals, if carried, consist of dainty sand- 
 wiches composed of thin slices of bread lined with a single 
 leaf of lettuce with a dab of mustard on it. With this 
 is a bit of cake. No wonder rest rooms are so often needed. 
 Just so long as the one-hour noon time prevails, we shall have 
 this problem of trying to get people to so eat that they will 
 be fit to work during the afternoon. Most business men find 
 it pays to make their midday meal a very light lunch and 
 then go home to a substantial evening meal. Workmen, 
 however, find it difficult to do this because the light lunch 
 does not last them through the five-hour afternoon and be- 
 cause wife objects to cooking a heavy meal in the afternoon. 
 That is the time to be dressed up and meet her friends. 
 
 The solution of the entire problem would seem to involve 
 a complete housing and feeding plan which would provide a 
 lunch at midday heavy enough to have the needed lasting 
 qualities and light enough to allow of comfortable working 
 by one o'clock ; and also provide a community kitchen which 
 would send out a complete hot meal at night to households 
 where the wife did not wish to allow the business of the 
 family to interfere with her pleasure. So far as the author 
 knows, however, no attempt has ever been made to do all 
 of this. Some places provide a dietician who gets up bal- 
 anced meals, which means that so far as they can estimate 
 average needs the muscle and brain foods are served with 
 enough heat producers to suit the season. Practically it is 
 very difficult for the ordinary restaurant goer to tell whether 
 he is in a place which affords a dietician or one which does 
 not, for after all a restaurant which does not offer what the 
 patron wishes to buy and at the price they wish to pay soon 
 goes out of business. 
 
 In order to pay, a company restaurant must have a fairly 
 well-distributed load; it must buy cheaply and it must not
 
 206 
 
 have any wasted wages. It must also sell at a fair price to 
 compete with the dinner pail. The general manager should 
 be convinced that every dinner pail driven out of the place 
 is a gain. If it cannot be driven out except by housing he 
 should remember that it costs about $4000 or $5000 to provide 
 a house for each family and while he may eventually obtain 
 a good return on his money, it is slow in coming and mean- 
 while he ties up much capital. 
 
 It will seldom fail to show that it pays to serve a good 
 lunch and forget the cost. Our worst enemies, when we are 
 trying to be fair to our help, are our cost departments because 
 they fail to distinguish between visible and invisible assets. 
 They can see checks from customers only at face value. They 
 think the payroll represents all that the workmen are entitled 
 to or want. "Put it all in their pay envelope" is a favorite 
 saying which means nothing because "all" cannot be put there. 
 A dollar in a man's pay envelope is not worth as much as an 
 actual fifty cent food value offered at lunch time. If we could 
 get cost accountants to put the apparent financial loss of 
 feeding employees into the overhead charges and let it be 
 absorbed then we would not be troubled so much over the 
 loss. Years ago every machinist was expected to furnish all 
 his small tools. If we should now be presented with a monthly 
 account of the cost of operating all tool rooms we would be 
 staggered, but we would not at all be likely to go back to the 
 old way even though it would be analogous to the dinner- 
 pail method of handling the food question. 
 
 Another fact that should be kept in mind when the burden 
 of feeding employees is considered is that the very location of 
 a plant which makes it necessary to provide meals may be 
 an immense profit in itself, so much so as to make the burden 
 insignificant. All references so far as to expense are based 
 on the assumption that this balance will appear on the wrong 
 side of the ledger. There are only two ways in which it 
 seems possible to avoid this. The first is to fail to charge all 
 the expense which the commissary department incurs to that 
 department, the other is to fail to give as good food values 
 for a dollar as are returned in public eating houses which 
 employees would naturally patronize if they could.
 
 207 
 
 Failure to keep accounts correctly is not so very important 
 to the business as a whole. It simply means that some ex- 
 penses, usually salaries, heat, light, rent, and other similar 
 items are charged to other accounts. The profit shown, if 
 these are not charged to the commissary department, is imag- 
 inary but useful, because it helps keep the management in 
 ignorance of matters which would cause them additional and 
 useless worry if they knew about them. The other way in 
 which the account is made to look right is by the use of 
 food substitutes and by cutting down the size of orders. Food 
 substitutes are not necessarily harmful, for often it is possible 
 to present a most appetizing dish for little money which for 
 the time is very satisfying, but does not have "staying" 
 qualities. Also certain dishes like baked beans are very satis- 
 fying and they contain considerable nutriment but they are 
 not especially appetizing. A continuous diet of baked beans 
 becomes almost nauseating and so cannot be maintained, while 
 a diet of French cooking, all taste and no substance, is attrac- 
 tive but leads to starvation. It is this very fact which leads 
 people who habitually dine at restaurants to change so fre- 
 quently. They crave the appetizing features and yet they 
 must also have the food value. The very rare restaurants 
 which give both are crowded to capacity, and if it were not 
 for the danger of still further overcrowding them, it would 
 be possible to name one or two restaurants in every city of 
 over a hundred thousand inhabitants whose proprietors are 
 growing wealthy and whose patrons stick to them year in 
 and year out. The only difference between them .and the 
 failure on each side of them lies in the fact that their 
 food both tastes good and is good. 
 
 If it is granted that industrial and commercial establish- 
 ments can get a chef or steward who can accomplish this, his 
 salary alone almost guarantees an operating loss. A profitable 
 restaurant is usually operated at least sixteen hours a day 
 and it has some customers all the time. On the other hand, 
 a shop cafeteria or lunch room operates about twenty minutes 
 a day and it has to carry almost as large a payroll as if it 
 were a commercial restaurant. It can of course call on a 
 few people from the shop, but for that matter so does the
 
 208 
 
 commercial restaurant call in extra people at rush hours. It 
 requires almost as many cooks and dish washers to carry the 
 peak load in one case as another. Pastry cooks and others 
 who prepare cold dishes can be employed more in proportion 
 to the total load. The employees of the industrial restaurant 
 will demand and get the same weekly pay that they could get 
 in the commercial restaurant and they will get all their meals 
 there no matter what the agreement may be. 
 
 Another trouble with commissary departments is that they 
 are side lines, and side lines seldom pay until they become the 
 central object of some individual big enough to make them 
 pay. The larger number of so-called successful small restau- 
 rants are only successful because the proprietor is active with 
 the business and because he is content, or has to be, with a 
 smaller income for his own business than he would accept as 
 a salary from some one else. 
 
 In practice, the range of commissary activities is very 
 great. The cafeteria idea seems to serve the purpose at pres- 
 ent, although some plants maintain a lunch room similar to 
 that shown in Figure 9. As a matter of experience common 
 to all of us, it is better to wait a little between courses for 
 food to find its level than to bolt one thing after another in 
 an attempt to break a record. When men to be served stand 
 in line over five minutes the time seems three times as long 
 as it is, and if there are girls in the line and they have a 
 chance to pick over the food offered they will use up so much 
 time that the line is really and seriously delayed. There is 
 the same psychology that pertains to crowds leaving a theater. 
 They will push and fuss until they reach the sidewalk, then 
 they hate to leave the place. 
 
 There is inevitably complaint if the cost of a meal is 
 anywhere near the cost of equally good food and service out- 
 side. This is perfectly natural. The firm almost always lets 
 it be known that they intend to serve food at cost. People 
 in general know nothing about actual cost of cooked food 
 served on the table. For instance, they know that sirloin 
 steak is eighty cents a pound, and a quarter of a pound is 
 enough for any one. Therefore anything over twenty 
 cents for an order of steak is robbery. Potatoes cost prac-
 
 209 
 
 tically nothing by the bushel; why therefore should anything 
 be added to the cost for potatoes? If people would only 
 realize that hotels and restaurants do not, as a rule, make 
 large profits except when they cater to the outsider who comes 
 to town for the express purpose of getting rid of his money, 
 and who insists on being conspicuous while he is about it, 
 they might perhaps realize that it is beyond the power of 
 their employer to cut prices at all. There is really no good 
 
 FIGURE 9. LUNCH ROOM AT THE LYNN WORKS OF THE GENERAL ELECTRIC 
 
 COMPANY. 
 
 reason why they should expect to get something for nothing 
 from their employer. It is this feeling that prompts many 
 large firms to give the privilege of serving food to some inde- 
 pendent concern. They give rent, heat, light, etc., and in 
 return expect their employees shall have food at a reasonable 
 price. What the employees get is of course just what they 
 would get at any similar lunch place. There is no balanced 
 ration, no attempt to make sure of food values, but rather 
 to adopt seasoning that will permit of the cheapest cuts of 
 meat. Letting out the feeding privilege is the easiest way 
 to handle the proposition but, barring the dinner pail, it is 
 likewise the worst.
 
 210 
 
 Another excellent way is serving only a portion of a meal, 
 expecting that all the cold food, with the exception of ice 
 cream, will be brought by the workmen. This is usually car- 
 ried out on the canteen plan with a thick soup or a thin 
 stew, coffee and doughnuts, milk, pie, and ice cream on the 
 menu. It is expected that all hands will bring their own 
 sandwiches and they will complete the meal by buying 
 at the counter. This is probably quite as satisfactory ' to 
 both sides as anything that is done. Not all men want soup 
 as a preliminary to their sandwiches and this allows those 
 who make a full meal from the shop menu a chance to buy 
 promptly. There are no trays. Each person buys each course 
 separately, which again distributes the load better than the 
 cafeteria. When, however, one is standing in line and is hungry 
 he feels the need of desserts which, when he comes to them, 
 he should cut down on or perhaps eliminate entirely. Almost 
 any cafeteria will show quite a percentage of uneaten desserts 
 which have been bought because *they look tempting to a 
 hungry man but do not taste so good after his real hunger 
 was satisfied. 
 
 Another help is the so-called milk wagon or milk 
 station. This is for the sale of milk, ginger ale, and other soft 
 drinks during the working hours. If milk is available around 
 six or seven cents a quart it can be sold in this way at five 
 cents per drink (about three drinks per quart) and the over- 
 head carried. Ginger ale with the red pepper left out can 
 be sold for even less money. It has no food value, but it 
 helps quench thirst and is cooling. The red pepper is useful 
 only to stimulate thirst so it is best left out of the shop drink. 
 The questions which confront a shop considering this plan 
 are: first, whether it is best to allow the sale of it during 
 working hours, second, if it is to be sold what is the best 
 way to dispense it. It may safely be assumed that if men 
 want a drink during working hours they will get it. It may 
 take them from their work for some time but they will get 
 it nevertheless. They may have to go to their locker or wher- 
 ever they store their dinner pail, but most of them have ther- 
 mos bottles or they bring pint bottles of milk and keep them 
 in the sinks or in a pail of water. If the concern does not wish
 
 211 
 
 to imitate the ostrich it can centralize all this drinking by 
 selling milk and soft drinks in such a way that every one will 
 know about it and where it can be watched and controlled 
 if loafing or horseplay starts. If it is offered openly there is 
 no doubt but that a few men will buy who would not be 
 enterprising enough to bring it with them. 
 
 A study of some thousands of men at The Norton Com- 
 pany's plant in Worcester, Mass., where much work is done 
 under hot and dusty conditions, showed that piece workers and 
 day workers are practically equal in their demands for drinks 
 and that about 80 per cent of the workers take one drink 
 per day and that more men take two drinks than either one 
 or three. Very few, about only 3 or 4 per cent, take three or 
 four drinks. This loss of time may be very readily made up, 
 and is made up by piece workers. How much day workers 
 make up is problematic. The need for milk in shops where 
 dust is in the air is about equally felt summer and winter. 
 The need for ginger ale is*much greater in summer. 
 
 It is expensive to dispense these drinks, especially the 
 milk. It is not safe to figure the overhead charge at less than 
 100 per cent. Ginger ale can be cooled, allowed to warm up 
 over night and cooled again without loss, but milk must be 
 kept cold all the time, and even so some will sour, especially 
 if a wet day comes after a large stock is on hand. The only 
 safe way to handle milk is never to have enough, but that is 
 poor practice because every one would then stop to take a 
 drink earlier than he otherwise would so as to be sure of a 
 drink before it is all gone. The greatest call for all refresh- 
 ments comes when about three quarters of the working 
 period has passed with rather little regard for the length of 
 the period. Men take a drink as though it were a sort of 
 stimulant to carry them through the last hour's work before 
 the time for a complete rest. It is this crowding of the sales 
 into a short period that makes the vending so expensive. The 
 boys who sell it have to be paid for a full day's work, because 
 it prevents them getting a job which would call for full time, 
 and because if they were only required to be there during the 
 sales period they could not use the rest of the time profitably. 
 So the sales places are kept open all day. They sell a little
 
 212 
 
 all the time, but the peak load is well defined, and when it 
 exists there must be enough boys available so that men are 
 not kept waiting their turn. It is less expensive to put on 
 enough boys than it is to let men get in the habit of expect- 
 ing to line up and start a conversation which may last quite 
 a while after they have disposed of their drink, 
 
 The periodic nature of this thirst makes it improbable that 
 milk wagons are a desirable solution of the problem as they 
 must start on their rounds an hour or so before the men are 
 ready for them, and then they keep on going up to closing 
 time. They also only visit a fraction of the men at the time 
 that they feel the need of the refreshment. If the milk sta- 
 tion is used it should be so located as to make as little travel 
 as possible in a plant or zone and so that the travel does not 
 go through some departments where quiet is necessary. They 
 should also be so located that ice and supplies may be delivered 
 from the outside of the building so that the shop will not be 
 invaded by outsiders. There should also be in the stations 
 facilities for washing utensils. Paper cups are not suitable 
 and cups of pasteboard are too expensive; but a mug or cup 
 such as is used in the quick lunch places, which can be washed 
 and sterilized in a steam bath before they are used, will prove 
 the most satisfactory. 
 
 Whether or not candy should be sold at these stations is an 
 open question, usually determined in each plant by the danger 
 of its spoiling finished work. In a textile shop it is probably 
 bad, in a forge shop it might be good, and hard candy which 
 does not melt easily would be the choice. The use of candy 
 is either wise or foolish according to how much real sugar 
 and chocolate it contains. Many of our returned soldiers have 
 the chocolate habit, so they will probably be able to judge 
 the quality of what is sold to them. If candy is sold there 
 will inevitably come the demand for cigars and cigarettes 
 and so on until these milk stations are in danger of becoming 
 newsstands and fruit markets. It seems wise, therefore, to 
 check this at the very start and confine the sales to milk, 
 buttermilk, and chocolate candy, and to offer only one drink 
 like ginger ale. 
 
 In general it may be said that the necessity or value of
 
 213 
 
 milk stations can be judged by the tendency of the men to 
 bring milk or coffee with them from home, or to buy it from 
 enterprising storekeepers or peddlers nearby. If the bubble 
 fountains are full of pint bottles and the corners are piled 
 with thermos bottles, it is probably better to make a business 
 of selling milk and stand the overhead charge for the sake of 
 having the sale out in the open and under control. If all the 
 loafing has to be done out in sight, there are very few men that 
 will attempt to abuse the privilege.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 HOUSING 
 
 DURING the war the matter of housing the employees of 
 a company became an essential to good employment 
 management. Many families were moved from places where 
 housing could at least be obtained to places where there was 
 none and under the rush of circumstances it was only natural 
 that mistakes were made. The greatest mistake, however, is 
 likely to be perpetuated unless the profession of industrial 
 architecture gives more consideration to the needs, wants, and 
 whims of the workers. The advantage to a firm of having 
 acceptable hqusing facilities near its plant is only exceeded by 
 the advantage of having the kind of housing which will be a 
 strong attraction for the right kind of men. 
 
 Workmen's families are of all sizes. Race suicide is not 
 prominent, however, and large families are numerous. The 
 kind of a house which appeals to the owner of a large business 
 and the kind which appeals to his employees may be very dif- 
 ferent. A typical family may consist of father, mother, two 
 daughters, and two sons, in which case three chambers will 
 suffice. On the other hand, there may be one daughter and 
 three sons, which will make one more bedroom necessary. It 
 is hardly right to induce workmen to buy houses of less than 
 six rooms: living room, kitchen, and four chambers in addition 
 to bath room. The plans of such a house are shown in Figure 
 10. If a considerable village is to be built there will undoubt- 
 edly be calls for all sizes of apartments from a single room up, 
 but the smaller ones will not be a large proportion of the 
 whole, and the people occupying them will be moving into 
 larger and larger apartments as time goes on. 
 
 While the thoughts of an architect are apt to center around 
 
 214
 
 215 
 
 the living room, the thoughts of a workman's wife center 
 around the kitchen. It may be repugnant to the architect 
 to eat in the kitchen, but the wife realizes that a great num- 
 ber of steps are required to carry food and dishes into the 
 dining room and to clear off the table and get them back 
 again. At .the very lowest estimate she can save half a 
 mile of travel every day if there is no separate dining room. 
 Pantries are another luxury that waste many steps. A built-in 
 kitchen cabinet is much more to the point and costs less. 
 
 There should be room for a coal stove for cooking, which 
 is of course unnecessary in natural gas regions. It may be 
 
 ' Employees House 
 FIGURE 10. SUGGESTED PLANS OF A WORKMAN'S HOUSE. 
 
 old-fashioned, but if the housewife does her own cooking and 
 does not know how to use gas it will prove invaluable to her. 
 Then, too, the gas companies unfortunately take advantage 
 of the habits they so carefully nurture and boost the price of 
 gas about the time that coal stoves appear on the local scrap 
 heaps. Home architecture should center around the kitchen, 
 and next to the kitchen should be the "back room." It should 
 be large enough not only for the ice chest but also for a coal 
 bin big enough to hold about half a ton. Since the chambers 
 will usually be upstairs, the bathroom will be there also, 
 but if it is possible to install a downstairs toilet with a bowl 
 and wash basin it will be appreciated many times, and all the 
 more so if it is close to the kitchen. There is no need of 
 making the ceiling high ; eight feet will give ample room and 
 sufficient ventilation.
 
 216 
 
 The size of the kitchen itself is very important. There is 
 really more danger of making the kitchen too large than of 
 getting it too small. A kitchen is a one-woman shop and 
 one should be able to stand in one place and almost touch 
 anything from the stove to the sink. China closets are not 
 much needed, as most of the china will be on the dining table 
 most of the time. Even where there is no occasion for a coal 
 stove there should be a chimney and a hood over the gas range 
 to take away the odors. A kitchen 10 feet square is large 
 enough for any family, even if the functions of pantry are in- 
 cluded. If it is 10 feet by 14 feet (or possibly 10 feet by 16 
 feet) it is amply large for both kitchen and dining room for 
 a family of six. 
 
 The most troublesome place in the house to get just right 
 is the kitchen floor. It must stand washing. Hot stove lids 
 will occasionally be dropped on it. It must be used all the 
 time so varnish is almost prohibited. A bare, well-smoothed 
 concrete floor is probably not only the cheapest but the best. 
 More expensive but very fine is linoleum laid on either a soft 
 wood floor or on concrete. It will outwear almost any other 
 flooring, especially if the quality known as battleship lino- 
 leum is used. Hard-wood floors made of yellow pine are, 
 however, the most common. If rip-sawed they are not bad, 
 but if they are the plain-sawed boards they ultimately splinter. 
 These floors become almost black if treated with any of the 
 ordinary floor oils, which many women consider an advantage 
 because they hide the dirt. Maple flooring is not often used 
 in the cheaper class of houses, because of its cost. The old- 
 fashioned oil cloth was not very bad but it was not made of 
 good materials and was not thick enough to stand the wear. 
 
 Next come the sleeping rooms. Small rooms with cot 
 beds are well liked. Small rugs about 8 feet by 10 feet are 
 easily obtained, and if the rooms are 9 by 11 a very narrow 
 hard-wood border allows the use of these rugs. It is better 
 to make the rooms rectangular so that rugs can be used, for 
 every one avoids carpets on account of the cutting and fitting 
 and taking up and beating and relaying, but every one likes 
 a good rug that can be easily taken up and cleaned when 
 necessary. The ventilation of the bedrooms should also be
 
 217 
 
 considered and can frequently be secured by placing doors so 
 that cross currents of air can be induced to flow no matter 
 which way the wind is blowing. If bedrooms and bathroom 
 can be square, that is, the side walls run clear to the ceiling 
 with the walls vertical all around, it will be appreciated. In 
 spite of the time-honored and entirely truthful tales about the 
 use of bathtubs as coal bins, if a proper bin is provided there 
 is little doubt but that bathtubs will be more and more used 
 for their legitimate purposes by our best working families. 
 The bathroom floor offers the same problem as the kitchen 
 floor and can be solved in the same way. 
 
 The heating of the house is another important matter. 
 The great temptation is to put in a small heater of whatever 
 kind is used, relying on the maker's guarantee of a 70 degree 
 inside temperature in zero weather. An expert can make 
 even a small heater do this by frequent feeding of coal, but 
 what is required is a heater that will give heat a few minutes 
 after it is opened up in the morning and continue to heat with 
 the small amount of fuel which the wife puts on in the middle 
 of the day. This means a large heater, whether it be hot air, 
 steam or hot water. Since the price of a hot-air outfit is 
 necessarily less than either of the other two it is very apt to 
 be the choice, and it is a very good choice except when a cold 
 wind is likely to come from the north for several days in 
 succession. Then it becomes impossible to heat the north 
 side of the house. A coil of pipe in the furnace of the heater 
 connected to one or two hot-water radiators will often, how- 
 ever, cure this trouble. As between steam and hot-water heat, 
 the family that lives in the house may not be able to tell 
 which they have. Hot water responds more slowly to open 
 drafts and carries its heat longer, and if cared for intelligently 
 it may give a more even heat, but if neglected it will cause 
 longer periods of shivering. 
 
 Heating of water is another problem. If coal stoves were 
 used exclusively it would be the logical thing to put in a 
 boiler and use the waterback in the stove, though any less 
 efficient scheme would be hard to find. Since gas is so gen- 
 erally used there should be a gas heater for this purpose even 
 though it is very expensive. A separate laundry is desirable
 
 218 
 
 but not necessary, except in a few homes. Most housewives 
 who do their own work prefer to wash in the kitchen. The 
 set tubs make an excellent table through the week and do not 
 take up much room. On the other hand, and especially while 
 there are small children in the family, it may be very desirable 
 for the washwoman to have a place by herself, perhaps in 
 the basement, so that the woman of the house may go on 
 with her regular rounds of duty. 
 
 Thus far we have considered the absolutely necessary parts 
 of the house. We must, however, make an appearance. 
 There must be a front hall or reception room and a living 
 room. Parlors seem to be things of the past and rightly so. 
 The reception room has also dwindled in many recent cases 
 to a storm vestibule just big enough to get into and close 
 the door. The living room is the main room. The space 
 actually used by a family of six for living purposes, with an 
 occasional caller, is about 200 square feet. More is for show 
 only and for the very occasional wedding or funeral. Whether 
 a fireplace can be afforded is a question. It is not altogether 
 a luxury for during at least four months of the year in a New 
 England climate it saves the starting of a fire in the furnace. 
 If the family lives in the kitchen there is not much advantage 
 in building a fireplace in the living room. 
 
 The process of evolution going on in these families is of 
 course away from the kitchen toward the living-room and 
 dining-room stage. Not all houses need have all the chambers 
 furnished at once. If houses are rented there is an economy 
 in building some with only four rooms and another with more, 
 but if they are to be sold, the purchaser should not be asked 
 to bet on the future size of his family. 
 
 The size of lot upon which the house is built is an exceed- 
 ingly important item. Bearing in mind the tendency toward 
 automobile life the small lots near large cities are a necessity. 
 They save time spent mowing lawns, tending gardens and 
 shrubbery, and shoveling sidewalks. With the beautiful 
 drives and parks for the upkeep of which we are all taxed it 
 seems a pity for every one to try to have a little exclusive 
 park of his own, for unless one can control at least an acre 
 of land he cannot make much of a park. Gardens for vege-
 
 219 
 
 tables are better if located at a little distance from the home 
 rather than close by the house. 
 
 Another factor which the purchaser or tenant will consider 
 is the location. He wants to be within walking distance of 
 the shop, which usually means not over a mile, but his wife, 
 and especially his daughters, will insist that the house shall 
 not be in the back yard of the shop or of any shop. If there 
 is no easy way to get from the residential district to the 
 shopping district except by passing the shop, that district had 
 best be left unhoused. This is somewhat of an argument 
 against grouping a number of shops in one locality or allowing 
 a shop to grow too large. If we can have all the space within 
 one mile of the shop and outside the half mile circle for hous- 
 ing we can place 6500 families on the assumption of 5000 
 square feet for each lot and as much more in streets and parks. 
 Each family will average about one and one-half workers, ex- 
 cept in the textile districts where the average will be at least 
 twice as great, giving us 10,000 to 20,000 as the limit for a 
 plant with all the workers walking home to lunch, and all 
 far enough from the shop to feel that they are home when 
 they get there. 
 
 Thus far we have discussed the question of housing only 
 from the employee's standpoint and we have dealt with single 
 houses only because the largest number will live in single 
 houses. A two-family house is not objectionable, however, 
 because almost any two sets of people can adjust themselves 
 to each other, but three almost always split into a clique of 
 two. The lone family soon moves out but only to be replaced 
 by another which in turn either gets out or else breaks up 
 the combination by forming a friendship with one of the 
 others. The only successful three family combination is one 
 in which one family owns the house and rents the other two 
 apartments. The two tenants will then form a defensive com- 
 bination and fight for their rights. 
 
 The concern which goes into housing usually does so for 
 one of two reasons, first, because they find that they cannot 
 expand or even keep their force together without it, and sec- 
 ond, because they think it good advertising. Concerns which 
 proceed upon the first plan will usually demand economy and
 
 220 
 
 so-called efficiency, but those who follow the second will 
 spend a lot of money before they come to a realization of the 
 small returns for such large outlays. There are two stages 
 in the development of a housing plan. The first, when the 
 housing is sufficient to attract the necessary people to operate 
 the plant, and the second, when it is large enough so that no 
 one has to be hired who lives out of walking distance. The 
 first stage merely covers a necessity ; it shows no profit on the 
 books, in fact it may very likely show a loss. It may be that 
 an increase in wages for all hands is prevented at this stage 
 of the development but no one knows for a certainty. There 
 is little likelihood that the houses will rent for enough to cover 
 a fair return on all the expense incurred. The greatest value 
 is having met a necessity. The second stage, when every one 
 who works in the shop lives within walking distance, marks a 
 distinct economic gain. It may be that the employee profits 
 by his saving of carfare, time, and luncheons, or it may be 
 that the employer profits by attracting people at a lower wage 
 or because he has the choice of a better grade of people. The 
 apparent loser is the local transportation company, but that 
 company will probably take the broad ground that the excess 
 call on them for transportation morning and night can only 
 be met with a loss, and that the profit comes from the rides 
 paid for by their families, even though the total so spent is 
 less than that which would be paid for riding to and from 
 work. Thus the establishment of ample housing near the 
 shop does not transfer a loss from one party to another, but 
 it creates a distinct gain for every one. 
 
 If the employer goes into housing from altruistic motives, 
 or if he does it for advertising or for show, he will undoubtedly 
 hire an expensive architect and build a beautiful village, but 
 his experiences do not have much in them to aid the firm which 
 goes into it for revenue only. There is also a question, which 
 is open to debate, as to whether a firm which builds a model 
 village and sells below cost is doing right by his workmen or 
 by his competitors. 
 
 From the point of view of the, employer who is in need of 
 housing, or who sees the economic gain from it, the best hous- 
 ing is that which satisfies the workman, or more especially his
 
 221 
 
 family, and which costs him the least in the long run. There 
 is a distinction between "cheap" housing and "low cost" hous- 
 ing. The former is obtained by light flimsy construction and 
 poor workmanship; the latter by so designing that the maxi- 
 mum useful space is placed within the minimum of walls 
 and roofs, and by using economically such materials as will 
 give the maximum of wear before they need be replaced. 
 
 The design that gives the most room for the least money 
 is the one which is nearest a cube. For a single house, built 
 around the kitchen as previously suggested, such a design 
 
 Front View with Hip Roof 
 A 
 
 End View with Gambrel Roof. 
 
 B 
 FIGURE 11. SUGGESTED TYPES OP WORKMEN'S HOUSES. 
 
 will give a building about 26 feet square, two full stories high, 
 and with a hip roof, a front view of which is shown in Figure 
 11-A. The plans of such a house have already been shown in 
 Figure 10. The first floor should contain the living room, 
 kitchen, back room, and toilet. The second story will be di- 
 vided into four sleeping rooms, each 9 feet by 11 feet, and a 
 narrow but ample bathroom. This floor plan gives small 
 closets in each chamber. These can be made deeper by length- 
 ening the house about one or two feet. If a little more luxury 
 is needed a fireplace can be built into the living room, using the 
 same chimney with an additional flue that is used for the 
 kitchen. A porch can be added at the end of the living room 
 as indicated by the dotted lines of Figure 11-A, and when the 
 dining-room stage is reached the necessary space can be taken
 
 222 
 
 from the kitchen and back room and a small dining room 
 made. This plan gives four corner sleeping rooms with cross 
 currents of air and doors all at the center of the second floor so 
 that any circulation of air that is possible is obtained. The 
 objection to the plan is that the house is essentially ugly, 
 and no amount of shrubbery grown around it can make it 
 much less of a blot on the landscape. It will, however, suit 
 the people who live in it and it gives the owner extremely 
 good value for the money put into it, and ugly as it is, it is 
 not so ugly as the three-tenement house commonly known 
 as the three-decker. 
 
 This house can be slightly improved in looks by giving it 
 a gambrel roof as shown in Figure 11-B. This costs more be- 
 cause the gables are added on each end and the dormer win- 
 dows must be added for each sleeping room in order to obtain 
 the circulation of air needed. By slightly modifying these 
 houses with different designs of stoops and piazzas, making 
 some face the road and some at right angles to it, building 
 some of shingles and others of stucco, a pleasing variation can 
 be obtained which will make the casual observer think that 
 he is in a model village designed by some great architect. If 
 there is also added curved streets, trees and shrubbery, a very 
 pretty village is obtained. Half the effect of a village is 
 obtained by what is concealed. Curved roads lead one to 
 want to see what is around the curve. Trees and shrubbery 
 conceal, and in sufficient profusion make almost anything 
 that man can build beautiful, or at least bearable. 
 
 Such a house as has been described can also be joined to 
 another as a double house. Double houses are not, however, 
 desirable. They add a little to the available space, if each half 
 house is allotted the same room as single houses, but that is 
 not always enough advantage to offset the decreased ventila- 
 tion in the rooms on the sides which adjoin. The next home 
 usually considered is a two-family house, each having a floor 
 one above the other. If the housing is a renting propo- 
 sition this is very acceptable, but if the houses are to be sold 
 most families will prefer to have a single house or else build a 
 three-decker and rent two flats, occupying the other them- 
 selves. While this does not make for happy living conditions
 
 223 
 
 it is profitable as the rent from two flats usually pays all the 
 expenses of the house and gradually reduces the mortgage. 
 
 The greatest objection to the three-decker is its appear- 
 ance. It cannot by any possibility be made good looking. 
 It stands too high for even trees to conceal and it is long and 
 narrow as well as high. Two- or three-deckers are sometimes 
 placed side by side and the whole then made nearly a cube. 
 The architectural development is handled more like a city 
 block which is in turn an imitation of an Italian urban castle. 
 That is, the first floor is stucco or covered with wide weather- 
 boards, the second, shingled or narrow clapboards and the 
 third has windows in pairs with an arch over them and col- 
 umns between, all being surmounted by a heavy cornice. Such 
 an effect carried out in stone and brick is very effective, but 
 when done in wood and left unpainted half the time it is not 
 so very much more impressive than the isolated three-decker. 
 It has also the disadvantage that the rooms in the two adja- 
 cent sides look directly at each other and are necessarily dark. 
 
 There is also the Philadelphia style house, built by the 
 mile and every one the same except for the number on the 
 door and the cut of the window draperies. These houses ap- 
 peal to the automobile family. They cost little. Each room 
 has some sort of a window ; they are easily heated hi cold 
 weather; the sidewalk is easily shoveled and they are usually 
 located near the shopping and theater regions. They must 
 be attractive in appearance to some people or they would not 
 be tolerated. 
 
 The apartment building is also not so likely to appeal to 
 employers except as an adjunct to a village. He may want 
 to build a large building which is a combination of hotel, club 
 house, and apartment house, but it is little more than a 
 transient proposition. It may house new arrivals in the com- 
 pany's employ while they are looking around for a perma- 
 nent place. It may appeal to newly married couples, and it 
 may be a show place at which to put up visitors when the of- 
 ficials do not care to or cannot invite them home. Such a 
 combination apartment house and hotel brings in problems 
 of management much apart from those of manufacturing. 
 Any firm undertaking it is apt to discover that it is necessary
 
 994 
 
 &S~I. 
 
 to employ some one who knows the business to conduct it, 
 and then they are very sure to discover that if the salary 
 which they pay such a man is charged up to the operating 
 costs, there is a sizable deficit. That is, such a hotel, or 
 whatever it may be called, is not likely to be large enough to 
 pay the income to the manager that he can earn working for 
 some one else. There is no reason for expecting competent 
 managers to leave good jobs and take up similar work for a 
 manufacturing plant where no one knows the hotel business 
 and subject themselves to the added restrictions of that or- 
 ganization. Some of them do it without either pleasing them- 
 selves or the manufacturers. A hotel only pays when it is 
 large enough to pay a manager a good income, which he earns 
 by scrutinizing every expense and when it can exploit every 
 source of income to the limit. Just as soon as an employer 
 starts a hotel every one gives up paying tips, or hat checks. 
 In other words, they do not expect to stand for any of the 
 methods of extracting little extras which they cheerfully pay 
 when they are in a regular hotel. They will kick about prices 
 of food which they would never think of complaining about 
 under other conditions. The only way such a hotel can be 
 made to pay is to conduct it the way other hotels are con- 
 ducted; in other words as an independent unit of sufficient 
 size to insure business enough to carry the overhead of a 
 capable organization. Because a $6000 man can succeed with 
 one size plant is no assurance that a $3000 man can succeed 
 with a plant half the size. 
 
 It is not likely that firms will undertake to any very great 
 extent the building of apartment houses for single men or 
 women. It is not worth so much to get them within walk- 
 ing distance because with them the time away from the shop is 
 apt to be a drag rather than an asset. It is the man with a 
 family that is the problem. In fact a housing plan with fairly 
 roomy houses such as described also takes care of the single 
 men and women because each of the small families that buys 
 or rents a house is quite likely to offer a room to rent. 
 
 Whether houses are sold or rented, the relation of landlord 
 to tenant is bound to occur in its principal form for some 
 time. If a sale is made it will most likely be a conditional
 
 sale with only a small equity owned by the possessor. An out- 
 right sale for cash is very unusual. Many of those who buy 
 do so with no expectation at the time of ever completing the 
 purchase, but they buy because they can thereby get into a 
 house without fighting for their children's existence. If a sale 
 is made it will usually be necessary to make it subject to a first 
 mortgage, which may be held by a savings bank, and a second 
 mortgage held by the company. This second mortgage is the 
 one on which payments on the principal are credited. The 
 bank mortgage can undoubtedly go on indefinitely if the places 
 are kept up. 
 
 Some firms prefer to own all this property and offer it for 
 rent only to employees, and in such cases when the relations 
 of employee cease he will be expected to give up his tenantry. 
 Others take the extreme ground that they are not in the real 
 estate business from choice, but want to get out of it as soon as 
 possible by selling the house, preferably, of course, to employ- 
 ees who are old and faithful and who can be relied on to stay. 
 Both firms, however, overlook the real reason for offering 
 housing which is to get a sufficient supply of help within walk- 
 ing distance of the plant to man the shop. In order to do so 
 there must be entire confidence on the part of the workman 
 in the justice and fair play of the employer, and that means 
 usually on the part of the foreman. Ask almost any man 
 from the shops and the factories for whom he works and his 
 first reply is the name of his boss, then he is ready to tell for 
 whom his boss works. A single unjust eviction early in the 
 housing work will excite a distrust which it will take years to 
 overcome. A firm really cannot afford to dispossess a fam- 
 ily until the neighbors demand it, and never because he ceases 
 to work for the concern that owns the house. The fact that 
 a tenant is also an employee ought not to influence his ten- 
 ancy. If it does he is an object of charity, or else he is not 
 being paid his full value in wages. For this reason it is best 
 that all the workers' relations to the housing proposition should 
 be through people with whom he does not come in contact 
 as an employee. 
 
 If a firm goes into housing with the idea of investing a 
 small sum of money and then building more houses as pay-
 
 226 
 
 ments are made they will make very slow progress. Suppose 
 that $100,000 is appropriated and that with it twenty houses 
 are built and sold. If the owners of each has paid down $500, 
 or 10 per cent of the purchase price, it cannot be expected 
 that over $150 will be paid on the principal of each during 
 a year, or a total of $3000 per year, which is not enough to 
 build another house until eight months have passed. At this 
 rate it would be almost thirty-six years before one home a 
 month could be built, unless more money is put into the 
 venture. It may be safely stated that at present in the north- 
 ern part of the country at least, $5000 is none too much to 
 estimate for each house. The $1500 or $2000 house of which 
 we occasionally hear is based on much less room than has 
 so far been referred to and prices that have a historical 
 value only. 
 
 A concern with 5000 employees in many lines of manu- 
 facturing will have an actual capital of about $5,000,000. If 
 it finds it necessary to provide housing it may find one or two 
 hundred houses to attract the necessary employees to carry 
 their load, but if they are going to house enough of their men 
 to bring them the greatest saving that due to men living 
 within walking distance they will have to build approxi- 
 mately 2000 homes, which in turn means another $10,000,000 
 invested in real estate. Half of this can be placed in savings 
 banks and the other half can be wiped out in from ten to fifteen 
 years by a sinking fund for rents or a system of partial pay- 
 ments if the property is sold. It is thus a problem of large 
 magnitude and one which any firm may be pardoned for ap- 
 proaching with reluctance. These people must live some- 
 where, however, and that somewhere will be wherever a real 
 estate speculator has been able to get hold of an attractive 
 plot of land cheap enough, but located with very little refer- 
 ences to the place where men may find work. 
 
 It would seem that there might be real estate operators 
 glad to work with employers to develop suitable areas. Their 
 interests, however, are purely selfish and the problems of em- 
 ployment are not their problems; consequently they are not 
 altogether sympathetic toward any proposition that does not 
 promise them their maximum quick returns on money in-
 
 227 
 
 vested. If an appeal is made to the local chamber of com- 
 merce the best that can be done is to ask for a general hous- 
 ing plan for all industries, which will surely result in building 
 where all shops are as nearly the same distance as possible and 
 everybody has to use the trolleys, which is just what the in- 
 dividual employer wants to avoid The problem is really 
 the problem of employers, and he is actuated by just as selfish 
 motives as he is in any other part of his business. He should 
 be willing and anxious to carry his own burdens. If he moves 
 his plant into the country he should count the cost of hous- 
 ing as part of the necessary capital invested, and just as nec- 
 essary as the buildings to house his machinery and materials.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 HEALTH AND SANITATION 
 
 MANY managers are of the opinion that if the local city 
 ordinances regarding sanitation are amply strict, and 
 that if they are complied with there is nothing further that 
 they should be called upon to do. However, no matter how 
 stringent these regulations may be or how well they are en- 
 forced, there is still a great need for education along these lines, 
 for health and sanitation in the shop depend very largely on 
 cleanliness. Cleanliness is closely tied up with insurance risk. 
 Greasy papers, for instance, in which food was wrapped make 
 an excellent foundation for spontaneous combustion. Posting 
 general orders to clean up does no good, for what is every- 
 body's business is nobody's business. 
 
 Some shops pride themselves on looking dirty, on the 
 ground that they are too busy to clean up. This is foolish, as 
 it costs no more to keep clean all the time than to upset pro- 
 duction occasionally and have a general housecleaning. Chips 
 in small quantities can be removed without stopping the ma- 
 chinery. Oil pans save oil, as well as prevent floors getting 
 oil-soaked. Greasy belts do not pull; they only go around. 
 Wiping chips from machine tools with waste for lack of 
 brushes consumes the waste. Drawers full of greasy overalls 
 and closets full of old newspapers cannot be used for legiti- 
 mate purposes. In fact, it is a question whether closets and 
 drawers have a legitimate place in a shop at all. Everything 
 ought to be out in the open, and visible even to the casual ob- 
 server. If overalls are too dirty to be worn they should be 
 washed, or thrown away. The same applies to toilets and 
 locker rooms. Why should there be privacy? In our army 
 camps there are no such things as partitions, let alone doors 
 
 228
 
 229 
 
 inside the toilets. Light is present everywhere. Lockers for 
 clothes are prescribed by law in some states, and the law is 
 obeyed to the letter, but is there any worse plan than to store 
 one's apparel in a tin box a foot square and three feet high? 
 
 Looking at these matters from an employment point of 
 view, we must admit that men seldom, if ever, inquire in the 
 employment department about them, but if the general man- 
 ager will give up his motor car occasionally and ride in the 
 smoking seats of trolleys he will hear things that will doubt- 
 less surprise him, regardless of how much he tries to make his 
 shop a model one, that is unless he has taken advice and sug- 
 gestions from the shop, or unless he used to work in the shop 
 himself. It is simply surprising how well men understand 
 the condition of business and how clearly they see through 
 the camouflage which employers sometimes throw around 
 their efforts to make money and at the same time appear open 
 and broadminded. 
 
 If it were not for state laws, it would be better to check 
 all garments and hang all coats on a standard coat hanger 
 where there is light and a circulation of air. Where this has 
 been tried, however, there is dissatisfaction, due not to any 
 inherent difficulty with the plan, but to the inadequate num- 
 ber of people assigned to do the checking, especially on the 
 exit side. Men would rather fight with each other for ten 
 minutes in the endeavor to get to their own lockers than to 
 wait comfortably in line the same length of time, and any man 
 who is not outside the shop in ten minutes feels as though he 
 were inefficient. This feeling is usually fostered by the trans- 
 portation companies. They want to pull out their trains or 
 trolleys the instant their cars are full, and in consequence 
 every one wants to get the first car. An arrangement by 
 which people are admitted to the car through a turnstile, and 
 only as many are admitted as can be comfortably carried, is 
 helpful. The cars can also be so distributed that the occa- 
 sional employee who wants to strike one more blow with his 
 hammer after the whistle blows can do so, and yet not have to 
 walk home. Any manager who deplores the avidity with 
 which his men leave their work should look into the conditions 
 surrounding it and see if he himself is not partly to blame.
 
 230 
 
 Another item of consequence is the storage of food. No 
 matter how good the food that is offered by the company res- 
 taurant or cafeteria there will always be some who prefer 
 their dinner pail and bottled coffee or milk. Left to them- 
 selves they deposit these where they can easily find them, and 
 having them near at hand, it is only natural that they should 
 stop around ten o'clock to consume them. This takes time 
 and also in certain cases spoils work, for some products are 
 ruined by discoloration, and a greasy doughnut laid on top of 
 some finished product may make it worthless. Food brought 
 into the shop should be stored in the lockers or checked in 
 such a way as to be obtainable only out of working hours. 
 In some places refrigerators are provided and milk bottles left 
 there, but the thermos bottle has become popular and it does 
 not now seem necessary to provide refrigerators. 
 
 Personal cleanliness should be insisted upon and men should 
 be discouraged from going out at night without washing. In 
 one way it is none of the company's business how its employees 
 look on the street, but in another way it is very much their 
 affair. The employees have no way of enforcing a standard 
 of living but the company has, and while there may be in- 
 stances where dirty men are prosperous and excellent me- 
 chanics, they are rare. Cleanliness of work clothes is another 
 item with which the health department may well concern 
 itself. Usually if arrangements are made so that it is easy 
 for men to send their overalls to the laundry they will take 
 advantage of it. Some wives would rather have the five cents 
 that this service costs, but for the most part they can be de- 
 pended on to keep their husbands looking neat. The worst 
 man to handle is the man who is so busy that he has no time 
 for cleanliness. 
 
 Corners and cuspidors are next on the list. Several firms 
 paint the floor and the walls at each corner white, and put 
 a cuspidor there. This is for two reasons, one that a man 
 does not like to be the first one to spit on a clean spot, second, 
 that the cuspidor will show more plainly. Painting of walls 
 and ceilings is a part of the job. How often it can be afforded 
 depends on the need and cost of light. Entirely apart from 
 the quality or quantity of work which can be done under
 
 231 
 
 different lighting conditions is the effect on the man himself. 
 It is almost impossible to do fine work in dirty, crude sur- 
 roundings. There is a psychological influence that is felt by 
 the most obtuse person. If the work is coarse and crude, then 
 there is little need of expense for light. In a storeroom for 
 castings it may be an open question whether to secure light 
 by means of whitewash or electric lights, but if the work at 
 hand demands the use of instruments of precision there is 
 little doubt which is cheaper. 
 
 Floors and windows should also be kept clean. Without 
 supervision floors will be swept about once a week and win- 
 dows never washed. In fact, it is not absolutely certain that 
 it pays to wash windows in some places. They accumulate 
 a certain amount of opaqueness in about a week after being 
 washed and they do not seem to get much dirtier for an in- 
 definite period. That is, there is certain dirt that will cling 
 to glass but the rest falls off. Window washing in a machine 
 shop or foundry becomes more a matter of pride than of 
 profit. The effect on the men is mostly that of inciting their 
 pride in the shop. The opaqueness of normally dirty windows 
 is about the same as that of clean ribbed glass which is so 'much 
 used, ostensibly to throw light into the center of the room, 
 but practically to prevent the men from seeing outside the 
 shop. Ribbed glass is of course a greater accumulator of dirt 
 than plain glass and is also much harder to wash. 
 
 Dirt is usually defined as matter out of place, on which 
 score some machine shop superintendents claim that their 
 floors are not dirty as what is on them belongs there. There 
 is a growing tendency to wash even machine-shop floors. 
 This is made possible by the change to concrete floors under 
 cranes and where heavy work is done, reserving the wood 
 floors for places where the work is light. Cleanliness in ma- 
 chine shops is partly a matter of sentiment and partly busi- 
 ness. Men will get cut and continue to get infected wounds, 
 if cleanliness is not demanded, and they will stumble and 
 fall on things in the dark if there is not light. 
 
 Every day should be clean-up day around the outside of 
 the buildings and in the yard. Lawns and shrubbery simply 
 represent cheap and effective means for keeping clean certain
 
 232 
 
 unused areas. It is easier to mow grass than to pull weeds, 
 and it is much more effective than trespass signs. Even 
 the most ignorant immigrant will hesitate before dumping a 
 load of bricks in the middle of a lawn, but any theory that 
 grass and shrubs will take care of themselves will be soon 
 disproved by a trial. 
 
 Mud is another expensive enemy to production, if the shop 
 is big enough to have more than one building. Some shops 
 dodge the question by the use of underground or covered and 
 floored passageways. These, however, are expensive. Mud 
 between buildings means loss of time from men picking their 
 way around instead of walking freely; loss of time on hand 
 trucking, and substitution of teams where hand trucking would 
 be cheaper. As soon as a firm installs storage-battery trucks 
 it builds good roads through the plant. Horses say nothing 
 about cobblestones and mud, and they eat little if any more 
 when they are working hard, but a storage battery writes its 
 own story of wasted current. Men do not protest because 
 they do not expect it will do any good, but the cost accounts 
 show plainly what the men who have to work in mud would 
 like to say. 
 
 Cleaning machinery, especially the machines such as cen- 
 tering machine drill grinders, tool grinders, etc., that are used 
 by a number of men, also comes under the head of sanita- 
 tion. Again what is everybody's business is nobody's busi- 
 ness. It is hard to get a lathe hand to clean his machine 
 when he sees the drill grinder cleaned by a laborer. We are 
 all perfectly willing to do menial work, if there is no menial 
 around to do it, but as soon as a servant appears we want him 
 to do .it all. We all go camping in summer and clean pots and 
 kettles and make up cots, but as soon as there is some one 
 to do part of it we want it all done for us. But there is really 
 no good reason why a man to whom we pay 80 cents an hour 
 should knock off work an hour early on Saturday to clean up, 
 when a 40-cent man would be glad to do it in half an hour if 
 we give him time and a half. The time given in so many 
 shops for each man to clean up is looked on as a sort of picnic 
 or gift by the management. It is harder work than going on 
 with production would be and yet the men look at it as an
 
 233 
 
 agreeable change. It certainly does not hurt the turnover to 
 give it and yet from a financial point of view it seems like 
 paying out two dollars for something done that plenty of peo- 
 ple would like to do for one. 
 
 Another matter very closely associated with health and 
 sanitation in the shops is that of physical examination of em- 
 ployees, and it has become a rapidly growing custom to fur- 
 nish free physical examination to employees upon their en- 
 tering the service, and in some cases at periodic intervals 
 afterwards. The theory underlying this examination is truly 
 social and hardly a matter of employment. It is usually, how- 
 ever, linked up with the employment service and for that rea- 
 son demands attention. 
 
 As a social precaution there is no doubt but that every 
 one owes it to himself, his friends, and all with whom he comes 
 in contact, to keep well and strong and able to carry on with 
 his share of the work which comes before him. He cannot 
 afford to neglect oncoming disease or injury, nor can he right- 
 fully take any chance of spreading disease. It is a fact that 
 public neglect of the situation has driven employers into the 
 supervision of the health of their employees and has forced 
 them to install hospitals, such as are shown in Figures 12 
 and 13, and yet some will ask, "Why will an employer spend 
 money unless he does it for profit? If he does it for profit, 
 there must be something selfish about it." As a matter of 
 fact there is a selfish side to the employer's enthusiasm and 
 there are abuses of the plan. These things, however, are not 
 inherent and can, and undoubtedly will, be done away with 
 when the public is fully informed. The profit to the em- 
 ployer comes through the fact that a well man has an entirely 
 different attitude toward work than a sick man ; his tendency 
 toward carelessness is not so great and he is not merely able 
 but anxious to do his work. It is the normal state for all of 
 us to work. Most of us can find work enjoyable, if we are 
 strictly fit to do it, but a sick man can rarely enjoy any kind 
 of work, or pleasure either, for that matter. 
 
 The abuse of the system is in the ease with which it can 
 be used to hasten the departure of undesirable men from the 
 firm. There are very few physically perfect men. Almost any
 
 234 
 
 one can be rejected by the medical department on some score 
 or other. On the other hand, there are very few men who can- 
 not pursue some occupation to great advantage and build up 
 their health at the same time. If the medical department is 
 allowed to reject men permanently, except for contagious dis- 
 eases, there will be a suspicion that it is a part of a system 
 of discrimination. Every plant offers some opportunity for 
 men not altogether perfect from a physical standpoint. A 
 
 FIGURE 12. 
 
 MEN'S DISPENSARY AT THE LYNN WORKS OP THE GENERAL 
 ELECTRIC COMPANY. 
 
 steel mill may be a bad place for a man with heart trouble, 
 but every steel mill has a repair shop, a carpenter shop, or an 
 office where such men with training can safely work. Tu- 
 bercular men can work, if the disease is arrested, in places 
 where great activity of the upper part of the body or vigor- 
 ous breathing is not required and such jobs are not scarce. 
 The old idea that a tubercular patient should be outdoors in 
 all weather is discarded. He needs quiet and rest until na- 
 ture walls in the disease, then he can live as the rest do. Even 
 victims of venereal diseases, once cured past the com- 
 municable state, should not be debarred from work.
 
 235 
 
 In so far as an industrial medical department departs from 
 the methods it would employ if it were a public institution it 
 is subject to scrutiny and criticism. It is really the advance 
 agent of a general service which must surely come as a result 
 of its own missionary work. Even then, however, when it 
 does become a public function to make physical examinations 
 there will be need of industrial physicians in each shop to in- 
 
 FIGURE 13. HOSPITAL OF THE NORTON COMPANY. 
 
 terpret the examinations in terms of the work to be done in 
 that shop. Unfortunately there are not at present great num- 
 bers of industrial physicians who can do this for their own 
 examinations. That is, there are not many who know fully 
 what the requirements of each job in the shop may be in 
 terms of physical efficiency, and there are not many interview- 
 ers in employment departments who can interpret the med- 
 ical examiner's report in the same way. It would seem, how- 
 ever, that it would be easier for a doctor to acquire this tech- 
 nical knowledge than for the interviewer to gain an adequate 
 knowledge of medicine.
 
 236 
 
 This knowledge of the physician must be first-hand knowl- 
 edge to have value. No job analysis will take the place 
 of actual contact with the job. If the work is dusty the physi- 
 cian ought to live in that dust for a time, otherwise he will 
 never know how it feels. He ought likewise to go out into 
 the shop and perform some of the typical operations and he 
 ought to be kept posted and allowed to watch the new proc- 
 esses which are introduced. When the examining physician 
 shows by his conversation that he is familiar with the job for 
 which the man he is examining is applying, he can get 
 the confidence of that man. If, on the other hand, he makes 
 a hurried, superficial, perfunctory examination, he arouses a 
 feeling on the part of his patient that he was looking for 
 something wrong and was disappointed in not finding it. The 
 author has seen men passed by a very prominent industrial 
 physician at the rate of one every two minutes. At this rate 
 he may have been able to catch the most serious cases of men 
 who could not rightly be employed anywhere, but he could 
 not give consideration to the advisability of employment in 
 one part of the plant or another, nor could he by any chance 
 establish a feeling of confidence on the part of the man whose 
 first contact with the plant was being made.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 REST AND RECREATION 
 
 WE all want to live a long and useful life, and the amount 
 of work we do in a lifetime should be the measure of 
 our usefulness, but how long one should work without rest de- 
 pends so much on the work, and on the physical and mental 
 condition of the worker that it is impossible to lay down a rule 
 that workers in some trades should have a rest period but 
 in others not. Rest periods are a matter for experiment and 
 trial. In one plant it may be found beneficial to stop all work 
 in the middle of the morning, open the windows wide and go 
 through five minutes of calesthenics. In another, it may in- 
 crease production for men to stop work for a few minutes 
 and sit down and loaf. Or if it is found that a gain comes 
 from a stoppage of work in which the men can get a drink of 
 milk, or eat a doughnut, it may be that the work is at a pace 
 which makes great demands on men's strength, or is monoto- 
 nous, or in some way saps their physical and nervous vitality. 
 When work is monotonous, and requires close and concen- 
 trated attention, it is necessary to give frequent rest periods, 
 but if the work consists in merely being present or if it re- 
 quires heavy work for a few minutes followed by relaxation, 
 then there is little need of rest, for the work furnishes its own 
 rest periods. In this connection Figures 14 and 15 are of in- 
 terest as illustrating approved types of rest rooms. 
 
 If the one who lays out shop work has done that kind of 
 work himself he can almost always lay it out in such a way 
 that it can be carried on without undue fatigue and over the 
 usual working day. Scientific management says, "Keep a man 
 at a machine and be sure everything is brought to him so that 
 there will be no break in his production." Nature says to 
 
 237
 
 238 
 
 him, "Cut loose from this and do something different; your 
 nerves are not made of steel and constantly doing the same 
 thing over and over will wear them out." So he gets an- 
 other job, and often without realizing what it is that makes 
 him listen to the attractiveness of the new job. He may also 
 change jobs in order to get a vacation, for very few shops 
 grant vacations. But the need is there in men's minds and 
 they take vacations. Usually they leave their job, loaf a week 
 or two, go visit some relatives and come back and get another 
 
 FIGURE 14. A TYPICAL BEST BOOM FOE GIRLS. 
 
 job, either with a competitor or possibly in the same shop, in 
 which case they explain their absence on the ground that, 
 "Uncle Tom was sick and I had to go in a hurry," or some 
 such equally inane excuse. If the man is needed, the employ- 
 ment manager accepts the excuse and takes him back. Such 
 practice is common and it seems incredible that employers 
 do not respond to it and grant vacations in a regular way. 
 
 Vacations in general seem to be a prerogative of the of- 
 fice. There seems to be a theory that it is not so very im- 
 portant if the office work is not kept right up to the mark, or 
 else a theory that office people can so organize their work that
 
 239 
 
 by working a little harder they can catch up with their work, 
 or by all working a little harder they can do enough more 
 work than usual so that some can stay out. However, if 
 vacations were solely for the purpose of rest, there would be 
 but little excuse for them. 
 
 The greatest value of a vacation lies in the opportunity to 
 get out of ruts. Most of us inherit the ruts of the traditions 
 of our trades or professions, but there is another way to get 
 
 FIGURE 15. A GOOD EXAMPLE OP A MEN'S SMOKING BOOM. 
 
 out of these besides throwing up the job, and that is to go 
 off for a ten days' or two weeks' vacation, forget everything 
 about the job, and get utterly tired out in a new way and 
 ready to start back on the job with a new idea of our rela- 
 tions to other people. 
 
 Another reason for a vacation is that it gives both the 
 man and his superiors a chance to discover something as to 
 the former's value to the concern. It may demonstrate that 
 he needs to be there every day to keep his work going, which 
 indicates that he needs to have it more thoroughly organized.
 
 240 
 
 On the other hand it may be demonstrated that his being 
 away for a short time does not affect his work at all, from 
 which some short-sighted men may conclude that he is not 
 needed, but which will impress the long-headed general man- 
 ager as indicative that his work is well organized, and that the 
 man is not afraid to go away and leave it in the hands of 
 subordinates. If the general manager is the sort of man who 
 will hire a subordinate, squeeze all he knows from him, get him 
 to train an assistant and then fire him to save money, the 
 whole force should know it at once and seek employment 
 elsewhere. It is not, however, fair to meet such treatment by 
 neglecting to break in an understudy, or by failing to make' 
 complete reports such that others could take up the work in 
 case of emergency. Two wrongs never make a right, and the 
 latter action is at least as reprehensible as the former. 
 
 Whether vacations are necessary in the shop is not alto- 
 gether clear. If the labor turnover in the shop were as low 
 as it is in the office, and there may be such places, then there 
 would be good reason to offer vacations with pay. As a mat- 
 ter of observation, however, the office turnover may almost 
 always be depended on to be only about one-fourth as great 
 as in the shop. If the ratio is less it is because the shop is 
 well conducted and men like to stay there, for office turnover 
 varies much less than that in the shop. Shops in which men 
 will stay a year are rare, but offices in which they do not stay 
 over two years are even rarer. If men who come to work in 
 the shop could be expected to stay at least two years, there 
 would probably be an entirely different feeling about vaca- 
 tions. As it is men get their vacations, but they get them 
 between jobs. In order to get a labor turnover as low as 100 
 per cent it is necessary that a considerable fraction of the 
 employees have more than two different jobs in the course of 
 one calendar year, for quite a number will stay along year 
 after year, no matter how good reasons are given them for 
 leaving. The average newcomer in a 100 per cent shop can- 
 not be expected to stay more than about three months. Un- 
 der the circumstances, and seeing that he is taking about four 
 vacations a year, it is no wonder he is not offered vacations at 
 the company's expense.
 
 241 
 
 We must, however, give some consideration to what will 
 happen if we are successful in cutting down labor turnover 
 to the point which sometime we all hope to reach. When men 
 only leave for good reasons, through necessity or because the 
 firm they are with cannot offer them the advancement which 
 they can demand, there will not be these between- jobs vaca- 
 tions, but there will be at least as great a need as ever for vaca- 
 tions so far as the individual employees are concerned. A 
 few shops have met this need by closing down for a week or 
 so during the very hot weather. Then every one who is not 
 needed to paint and clean and move machinery goes to the 
 seashore or mountains, and in some way gets a little different 
 view of life, and comes back tired out physically but with a 
 better feeling than ever toward the company. This has the 
 drawback of inflexibility, the loss of production from idle ma- 
 chinery, and it is entirely impossible in lines of manufacture 
 which require continuous operation. A fair test of this kind 
 of vacation occurred at the time of the heatless days dur- 
 ing the winter of 1918, when many shops lost very heavily 
 through inability to keep production going. Inasmuch as 
 most of the continuous industries are dependent on some kind 
 of heat treatment, that shutdown affected them to a very 
 large extent, but probably no more so than an intentional va- 
 cation would have done. 
 
 The greatest disadvantage of such a system from the em- 
 ployee's standpoint is that every one goes at the same time. 
 But if the father's vacation comes in early July and his son's 
 in August, the wife will either get two vacations or else father 
 and son will throw up their jobs and take their vacations when 
 they want them, and trust to luck to get their old jobs back 
 again. If, however, the shop has an established custom of 
 shutting down at a given period so that all who work there 
 know when the vacation comes, perhaps all the family may 
 get jobs in the one shop. It simply comes down to the elemen- 
 tary but unheard-of principle that working for a firm is in 
 itself a kind of contract, the terms of which should be known 
 to both parties before they begin and which should not be 
 capable of change without the agreement of both. 
 
 Many shops encourage recreation as a partial substitute
 
 242 
 
 for vacations. For instance, if there is a vacant field near the 
 shop large enough for a diamond, there will surely be base- 
 ball, even if a daily collection has to be taken to pay for broken 
 windows. By and by there develops a team that thinks itself 
 capable of making a showing against the teams of another 
 shop. If it is a shade weak in its pitching staff there begins 
 to be a mysterious flow to the employment department of 
 men who have been bush leaguers or well-known amateurs. 
 The employment department is not concerned with an ap- 
 plicant's minor failings, and so soon one of them gets a job 
 and then there is a challenge to some other shop. A game is 
 played, and whichever wins, the management begins to sit 
 up and take notice by bragging about the team or bragging 
 about the team they are going to have next year. If there 
 is a real baseball fan in the management, which is almost a 
 certainty, there soon comes an appropriation for uniforms and 
 for a field with backstops and an infield like the manager's 
 front lawn, and bleachers and dugouts as well as dressing- 
 rooms and shower baths. Then of course a team on which so 
 much depends cannot possibly do its best if it cannot prac- 
 tice and even with the daylight saving, plan in force it can- 
 not practice and get home at the same time the rest of the 
 shop does, so it gets out, with full pay, at four o'clock every 
 afternoon. Then there has to be a number of rooters, umpires, 
 and coachers and a second team and a lot of alternates on the 
 field every afternoon, say somewhere between fifty and a hun- 
 dred people all helping win the pennant. Next comes the need 
 of a first baseman, and there is a fine chap that can be had, 
 but he does not know anything about the business, so the 
 works manager says he will find him something to do, if the 
 employment manager takes him on, so he is hired and for- 
 gotten all about except at practice time and games when he 
 appears from some place or other. Then some one discov- 
 ers that the rival team is recruiting in the same way and a 
 yell of "professionalism" goes up, and the big game reduces 
 itself to a fight between the professionals of both sides and 
 the management says that they never will do anything of the 
 kind again, and they do not until the next spring. 
 
 This is the history of hundreds of shop ball teams. There
 
 243 
 
 are two alternatives, one to hire men outright -to play base- 
 ball and never expect them in the shop nor allow them there, 
 the other to have a purely amateur team. The last is ideal, 
 but like many other ideals not at all easy to accomplish. At- 
 tempts to form ball teams strictly within the shop do not work 
 out because a team made up of the best players is almost cer- 
 tain to contain some professionals. They are legitimately 
 members of the force, having been hired purely to work and 
 not with any thought of playing ball. The mischief seems to 
 be done as soon as the management takes hold in a construc- 
 tive manner. If it holds off and only tells the ball team what it 
 cannot do in the name of the company there is a better chance 
 of satisfaction, though not much chance of a winning team. 
 Just as surely as the company takes any part in the direction 
 of the team it will have to take it all and it might as well have 
 a professional team and charge the cost up to the amusement 
 of the management. 
 
 None of the other sports that are indulged in by shops 
 present these difficulties. Tennis presents only the cost of 
 the courts, which may run as high as $500 each if they are 
 made for experts, and nowadays there are a few experts al- 
 most everywhere. Tennis is not, however, for the multitude. 
 It is a game which finds more favor with office men than with 
 the shop. Football does not seem to be in great favor partly 
 because there is not a professional flavor to it, and largely be- 
 cause it is played when the sun is setting early and there is 
 no chance for practice except on company time. Furthermore 
 by the time the football season is on the management is too 
 much disgusted with sports on company time to consider tak- 
 ing on another. 
 
 In the winter basketball claims a good many, especially 
 if there is some place where a little practicing can be done 
 during the noon hour. That brings out men who wonder how 
 it is possible for the players to make so many tries for the 
 basket and miss, and so they shoot a few and with gamblers' 
 luck make them, and then they are in the game for life like 
 the golfer who hits the ball on the nose the first time. Bas- 
 ketball has the advantage that it is most interesting when 
 played between departments, and the teams are fairly
 
 244 
 
 matched; it does not require practice on company time, the 
 equipment is inexpensive and quite a number get a chance to 
 play in an evening. It is a purely amateur sport and one that 
 has enough action to keep the audience on their feet half the 
 time. Handball has a few devotees, but not enough so that 
 many courts are built; hockey hardly needs the backing of a 
 company and yachting, rowing, etc., are really not often com- 
 pany sports, but since they are usually clean, there is not much 
 objection to the various organizations or clubs adopting the 
 company name. 
 
 The other amusements which seem to be creeping into 
 the limelight are theatricals and festivals known by various 
 local names. The latter appear to be the outgrowth of pic- 
 nics. At first the shop shut down for a day and all hands went 
 to some grove with basket dinners; there were swings, dancing, 
 bowling, soft drinks and popcorn, and then boat races, tub 
 races and possibly a tug of war between the married and sin- 
 gle men, and also races of various and not too serious a na- 
 ture. From that has developed a sort of stay-at-home pic- 
 nic on the company grounds, if there is room enough, in which 
 there is a distinct separation between entertainers and en- 
 tertained, and spontaneity is omitted. There is a parade of 
 ancients and horribles, with a prize awarded the most bizarre 
 outfit, and a series of acts of almost a vaudeville nature, par- 
 ticipated in by volunteers and always including a clown band 
 and various thrilling but fake acts. The participants always 
 have a good time and the audience seems to enjoy it very 
 well. If, as is often advertised, it is a long afternoon full of 
 surprises, the audience may get tired of it and walk off in the 
 middle of the performance, but if the length is tempered with 
 mercy so that the audience does not get to making compari- 
 sons it passes for a success. 
 
 These carnivals cost a great deal of money, but they give 
 a great deal of advertising. They do not necessarily sell goods 
 directly but they keep the firm's name in the foreground. They 
 also act as advertisements for help of the most effective kind. 
 Whenever the flow of applicants into the employment depart- 
 ments lags it is a good time to have a parade or some other out- 
 door activity to which all the men in the neighboring shops
 
 245 
 
 can come. Many of them will be around in the next two or 
 three days to see the employment department. They are not 
 quite so efficient as the pied piper, but they act on much the 
 same principle. In fact, the wives have a great deal to do with 
 it. They go and they come home full of enthusiasm over 
 the shop, and tease their husbands to go get a job in some 
 live place like the So-and-So Company where they have a 
 jazz band and do every sort of thing to amuse their help and 
 their wives and children. 
 
 Then there are the orchestra or the brass band and the min- 
 strel show and the amateur theatricals into which they lead. 
 An orchestra naturally grows out of the companionship of 
 three or four men who discover that each plays some instru- 
 ment. They get together for their own pleasure at each 
 other's houses until the great idea strikes them that they are 
 pretty good. Then they play in public, perhaps give a mod- 
 est concert or play to the employees during the noon hour, or 
 in some other way launch themselves before the public and 
 the management. They do well and then the management 
 makes the fatal step of admitting it and encouraging them to 
 add to their number and give a series of concerts. 
 
 About this stage comes the question of union regulations. 
 If there is to be a band it must, in most eastern communities, 
 be a union band, but if the shop is an open one it may object 
 to the presence of a union band among its members though 
 it would never think of inquiring or objecting if the individ- 
 ual members played in different union bands evenings and 
 holidays. After the band or orchestra is nicely going there is 
 certain to be some one with a liking for amateur theatricals 
 who suggests a modest little entertainment for the celebration 
 of some anniversary; it is put on and is so nearly a profes- 
 sional performance that it has to be repeated. From that the 
 next stage, with the support and financial backing of the man- 
 agement, is a show given in a hall to which admission is 
 charged and the profits accrue to the most convenient charity, 
 or for the benefit of the pensioners of the shop. This first show 
 may net a slight profit, but the standard is rapidly rising and 
 the performance is so nearly professional that the next one 
 must be wholly so. As with baseball for six months preced-
 
 246 
 
 ing the next entertainment there is a steady flow of profes- 
 sional and semi-professional men and women into the em- 
 ployment office. The cost department begins to keep tabs on 
 the lost time incident to rehearsals, a theater is hired, profes- 
 sional dressers are employed to help in the make-up, and 
 everything is done on a larger scale than ever. The house is 
 sold out to capacity but when the bills are all in, instead of 
 the favorite charity receiving a substantial check there is a 
 deficit of some thousands of dollars. 
 
 The conclusions which the reader may draw from all this 
 are likely to be that when professionalism and the manage- 
 ment begin to come in, the good of all these recreations goes 
 out. Just for a moment let us think, if we can, of any rea- 
 son why the management should interest itself in the enter- 
 tainment of its employees. They are not likely to lack en- 
 tertainment. Since the advent of the movies it is possible 
 for a few cents to get all the thrills that one can absorb, and 
 it is a very small community that does not offer enough so 
 that a different film can be seen every night. There is no 
 need of seeing company baseball when it is just as easy and 
 only a trifle more expensive to see professional ball that is of 
 interest to everybody. There is no need for company dances, 
 because there is every opportunity for those who ' want to 
 dance to do so elsewhere, and so far as shows are concerned 
 better vaudeville than the shop can offer can be had in any 
 city of 50,000 inhabitants. 
 
 Amateur entertainments are of value from a social stand- 
 point because of the personality of those taking part. As 
 soon as the makeup and acting are so good that the actor's 
 own friends do not know him, then this personal side vanishes 
 and it becomes simply an entertainment to which many peo- 
 ple go in duty bound but who would much prefer having spent 
 that particular evening elsewhere. If it can be kept ama- 
 teur, given in the shop in some room cleared for the purpose, 
 and followed by a dance and a buffet lunch, there will be the 
 gain of better social understanding and improved acquaint- 
 ance If to this can be added the presence of the leading 
 members of the management, about every good result that can 
 come from plant entertainment will be attained.
 
 247 
 
 After all, however, what the management wants to bring 
 about through all these things is not to give entertainment to 
 their employees, but to use the entertainment to bring about 
 a better understanding between their employees and them- 
 selves. Business hours give no opportunity, and it is only 
 through entertainments of this kind in which people of all 
 parts of the organization forget their rank, and all come to 
 a common level of companionship, that the chance comes for 
 the management to prove to their employees that they are 
 all of the same common clay. If they encourage such meet- 
 ings and then stay away themselves they lose almost the 
 whole benefit which might come from it. 
 
 Besides all these forms of recreation there is still another 
 which should receive consideration. The author refers to gar- 
 dens. During the war nearly all who could had a garden, but 
 now that the war is over are they worth keeping up? Do they 
 pay? We muot first of all admit that if men could work the 
 same amount of overtime in the shop that they spend in their 
 gardens they would refuse to keep it up, unless they were paid 
 a great deal more than they make out of their gardens. Or 
 to put it another way, if they had to pay as much for their 
 vegetables as they would cost if they had to pay shop rates 
 for the labor, they would think they were robbed, and they 
 would be right. There may be exceptional market gardeners 
 who would make more money in that business but who like 
 to work in a shop, but they are few and far between and they 
 are only the exception that proves the rule. So it may be ac- 
 cepted that a small garden is not a money making venture. 
 But we also must admit that every shop has men and women 
 who like to work in a garden just as others like to tinker over a 
 motor boat. For this reason gardens should really, except as 
 a war measure, be classed as recreation. 
 
 Like all other recreational matters gardens cease to func- 
 tion if they are not left pretty freely to the gardeners. The 
 company may contribute quite a bit to their maintenance, and 
 probably will, but it must not be too visible. If there is a 
 suitable plot of land accessible and belonging to the company, 
 there is pretty sure to be a request for its use. In fact, it 
 seems to be accepted by both employer and employee that
 
 248 
 
 such land should be contributed for this use. The firm can 
 well afford to do it, if for no other reason than that it stabilizes 
 the labor turnover among those who take up the land. It is 
 not unusual to find that the labor turnover among gardeners 
 is only one or two per cent of that among the general run of 
 help. There seems to be something about a garden that 
 makes a man want to watch it grow. 
 
 Of course only a small fraction of the employees of any 
 shop want any one form of recreation. There will be more 
 gardeners than tennis players and fewer than there are base- 
 ball fans. If 10 per cent of the male forces want gardens, it 
 is about normal ; if more want them, there is probably an eco- 
 nomic force back of it. This 10 per cent will go at their gar- 
 dens in very haphazard fashion, unless there is some leader- 
 ship. One will plant beet seeds six inches deep and another 
 will put beans on the surface, but if the shop management 
 sees this inefficiency and attempts to eliminate it more harm 
 than good will be the result, for then the men will lay down 
 on the company and blame it for any lack of rain or sunlight. 
 If, however, the company keeps its hands off, but suggests to 
 a few of the gardeners that organization is a good thing, then 
 after they have blundered through a season, they will likely 
 get together and form an organization that will buy fertilizer 
 by the carload and seed, tools, and everything else at whole- 
 sale. They will learn that it is better to agree with the rest 
 for the sake of the money saving and this for many will be 
 their first lesson in cooperation. Then they will get some one 
 of their number, or some man from a nearby agricultural col- 
 lege or a farm bureau, to give them lectures all through the 
 winter on planting and cultivating and spraying, etc. They 
 may come to the company for credit, though it is better if 
 they contribute toward the seed fund and the fertilizer fund 
 through the winter. It may be, of course, that the purchas- 
 ing agent by writing on the company letter-head can get them 
 better prices on their purchases than they can get them- 
 selves. Experience seems to indicate, however, that the less 
 dealings of a financial nature they have with the company 
 they work for the larger number there are that will take up 
 gardens and go through with it. It is even better that they
 
 249 
 
 should go to some one else to get the land plowed and har- 
 rowed, even though the firm's horses are eating their heads off 
 in the barn. 
 
 There is more danger that too large gardens will be given 
 and planted than too small. When the land is freshly plowed 
 and harrowed it is very easy to put in seed, but when July 
 comes and weeds grow several times as fast as the vegetables, 
 and when the sun is hot, and the garden gets large, then 
 there is danger that men will discover they undertook too 
 much and will neglect their work and let the weeds win. 
 From 3COO to 4000 square feet is enough for any one man to 
 try to cultivate alone, if he is going to raise the usual run of 
 vegetables for his own table. If he 'plants potatoes he can 
 usually handle twice the area. If he puts in sweet corn he 
 can also easily handle more, but he will raise more than one 
 family can eat. It is unusually better for each one to raise 
 all the different vegetables he wants rather than for each to 
 specialize and then exchange. Since gardens are a form of rec- 
 reation there is need of as much variety as possible, so even 
 though it is more efficient for men to specialize it does not 
 follow that the most efficient garden in point of production is 
 the most effective. 
 
 The best location is, of course, one which is nearby the 
 men's homes. If there are city gardens near a man's house 
 he should not be the subject of too much pressure to join with 
 the others in gardens near the shop. There is too much of this 
 kind of pressure, whether it is brought in play to have gar- 
 dens or to play baseball. It is a great temptation for base- 
 ball cranks, for example, to decry the selfishness of men who 
 prefer to do their duty to their wives and children to playing 
 ball. These men have a right to spend their leisure hours in 
 the kind of recreation that appeals to them and they ought to 
 be praised for sacrificing the kind of fun they enjoyed before 
 they v/ere married for the kind that is of profit and interest to 
 their families. 
 
 There is undoubtedly a great gain from men having their 
 gardens together. There is the incentive of rivalry and of pride 
 in a well-kept garden, but it can be overdone. The man with 
 a little garden in his own back yard may find just the same or
 
 250 
 
 greater incentive in the admiration of his family or his neigh- 
 bors, and he may take away prizes from others in the gen- 
 eral gardens. It is fairly safe to say that gardens so situated 
 that they add a mile to the trip to and from the shop are not 
 successful as vegetable gardens. They are all right for pota- 
 toes, since some friend with a car will bring the crop home, 
 but no one wants to tramp a mile for a handful of lettuce, a 
 bunch of beets, or a peck of string beans. 
 
 As a v/hole, these gardens in the hands of amateurs form 
 an inexpensive form of recreation which appeals to a substan- 
 tial percentage of workers. They help to cut down labor turn- 
 over by giving the men an additional tie to the shop, and this 
 is legitimate because it makes it profitable to stay, in dis- 
 tinction from things which make it a loss to leave.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 FINANCIAL RELATIONS AND LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 THERE are a multitude of reasons why men leave one 
 shop to go to another. Some are legitimate, some imag- 
 inary, and some foolish, but the most prominent ones center 
 around the question of wages and hours. Workmen have 
 nothing to sell except their services. Custom has wedded us 
 to the thought that wages are compensation for time spent, 
 which is a mischievous idea for there are few jobs in which 
 wages are paid for bodily presence only. Most wages are paid 
 to those who actually carry on production, or to those who 
 help to keep it going. The real unit therefore is the unit of 
 production, and is not convertible to units of time, even though 
 we pretend to do so. The daily unit is necessary because men 
 must recuperate once a day. If it were possible to do other- 
 wise we would have men who would want to work twenty-four 
 hours and then rest forty-eight. It is also cut into weekly 
 units because of the sensible and scriptural injunction which 
 affects the majority of male workers. The fact still remains 
 that what we are concerned about is not tonnage per hour 
 but tonnage per day or per week. 
 
 The men who accomplish things are the men whose minds 
 are on their jobs all the time. Such men overhear a chance 
 remark at a ball game which sets them thinking about some- 
 thing which aids production. They are called absent-minded, 
 which means that their minds are engaged in some better oc- 
 cupation than that of the friends who criticize them. Large 
 production is entitled to large rewards regardless of the length 
 of time consumed. One man may have a slow but certain gait 
 which he can keep up for long hours, his home surroundings 
 may be such that he is happier in the shop than at home. 
 
 251
 
 252 
 
 
 
 Why should he not be paid for what he produces and allowed 
 to work as long as he desires? Another man works more rap- 
 idly, perhaps he lets his brain help his hands, and he does an 
 equally large amount of work, but he is completely exhausted 
 at the end of seven hours. Why should he be induced to 
 spread this work over ten hours? Why not pay him for what 
 he accomplishes and then let him stop? Some men want 
 leisure for an avocation, but many would be willing to speed 
 up, for the sake of an extra hour or two of their own. 
 
 Much has been said about the non-financial rewards of 
 labor but a study of the reasons which men give for leaving 
 any given shop will almost certainly show that the prospect 
 of earning more money is the largest factor. But is this labor 
 turnover due to higher wage3 in. other shops to be taken as a 
 reliable index of the state of wages in our own? Probably it 
 is, if at the same time there is considered the number 'of the 
 men who come back from these other shops wiser than when 
 they went away. If men go and do not come back, it gen- 
 erally means that they have found a better job. If a consider- 
 able number of men come back after having gone out looking 
 for higher wages, and if they come back without further finan- 
 cial inducements, then it is safe to say that wages are high 
 enough. This does not mean that everything about the con- 
 cern is right. It simply means that the employees realize their 
 need for money well enough so they are not looking for changes 
 on that one account. 
 
 While methods of paying for work are not of the impor- 
 tance that we have tried to make them out to be in the past, 
 it is nevertheless well to briefly consider them. The different 
 methods seem to be variations of: (1) hourly rate; (2) yearly 
 salary; (3) premium; (4) task and bonus; (5) piece work. 
 
 The hourly rate is the most pernicious of all and the least 
 productive of friendly feelings between employer and em- 
 ployee. It is also by far the most used. It implies, if it does 
 not prove, that the employer confesses that he does not know 
 how much work a man ought to do, but prefers to take a 
 chance, rather than to set a definite task or to agree to a defi- 
 nite price. In other words he bets that his employees know 
 less about it than he does.
 
 A yearly salary is justifiable only when the employee is 
 engaged in originating something ideas, usually. A man who 
 is really on the job twenty-four hours a day deserves a salary 
 and any man who would work at the same job without a salary 
 if he could, deserves one. In fact, in any case where the worker 
 has his heart in his work he should have a salary. It is, how- 
 ever, a most unbusiness-like thing to accept a salary, for the re- 
 cipient throws away one of the greatest incentives of his growth 
 when he accepts it. When a man is working at piece rates his 
 income automatically increases as he grows more expert and 
 capable, whether it is feeding punch presses or selling them. 
 But when he accepts a salary he places himself where his em- 
 ployer can only guess his value by reason of the offers which 
 he gets to go elsewhere. He no longer has a gage by which 
 to discover whether he is growing or shrinking, and he be- 
 comes the victim of opinion, which is formed by impressions 
 which the employer receives from fellow workers and others. 
 
 The premium system confesses immediately to a doubt as 
 to what a workman can or should do. It virtually says to 
 the man, "You know that I am human and that I would not 
 let you earn over $5 a day at piece rates, but here is a scheme 
 by which I will only take away from you one-half of what you 
 earn in excess of your daily rate." After a while workmen 
 come to see it in this light, therefore its use is not widespread. 
 
 Task and bonus recognizes the fact that we have talked 
 hourly rates so long that everybody makes comparisons by 
 that method. Therefore it pays men by the hour, but if they 
 do more than a given "stent" it pays them an extra bonus 
 which may or may not be in proportion to production. As 
 a half-way measure toward the right thing both premium and 
 task and bonus systems have great merit. 
 
 Piece work has been abused so much and hi such an open 
 spirit of meanness, that while it has all the virtues that we 
 can require, it is very hard to reestablish in many places which 
 need it. Its two faults are, or have been, the setting of rates 
 while in complete ignorance of how much work could be done 
 in a day or a year, and cutting of rates when this ignorance 
 proved costly. Really the first was the only fault, the second 
 came through self-preservation.
 
 254 
 
 A piece rate based on past performance under an hourly 
 rate has no scientific value. That method of setting rates has 
 made the stop watch something despised by workmen, and 
 a laughing stock for the few who have endeavored to get at 
 a true rate. Almost every repetitive job in a manufacturing 
 establishment can be divided into the actual work done, which 
 it is easy to calculate from the drawing, and the time spent 
 and wasted in looking for the tools, rigging, etc., with which to 
 do it, and in making necessary adjustments. Whenever piece- 
 work rates are set and the workmen have a true belief that 
 the firm will maintain them, no matter how much they may 
 earn, there is an immediate demand for tools and equipment 
 which will allow them to make big money. It will surprise 
 almost any shop superintendent to take any single job in his 
 shop and discover how large a proportion of the time of his so- 
 called producers is spent in hunting for things which should 
 be at his elbow. One shop which has a most excellent name 
 for efficiency discovered that its 20 gangs of erectors had 
 only one tap wrench of a size which all needed. At least 
 one man was spending all his time hunting for or waiting for 
 that wrench. 
 
 Successful use of piece rates can only be expected when 
 the rates are set after definite experiment has shown how long 
 it actually takes to do the operation under consideration, the 
 wasted time reduced to a reasonable and computable limit 
 and assurance given and lived up to that rate once set will be 
 maintained, no matter if the workman in question makes more 
 than his boss. -It is very easy to compute how long it takes to 
 drill a given hole at a certain number of revolutions per min- 
 ute and a definite feed. It is easy to compute the time re- 
 quired to plane a certain area with a definite overrun and a 
 known cutting and return speed and feed. It is easy to find 
 out how long it takes to put the piece to be drilled in a jig and 
 take it out again, or how long it takes to put the part to be 
 planed in a holder and level it up, but it is impossible to figure 
 how long it will take John Jones to find a dozen castings to be 
 drilled, find a helper to take them to his machine and then 
 hunt up the foreman and find out what size hole is needed, 
 where, and how deep. That is, piece rates are only applicable
 
 255 
 
 to such cases as are definitely and accurately studied, in other 
 words to cases where the employer can give his subordinate 
 correct instructions and know that they can be followed out. 
 When the worker is an expert who knows more about the job 
 than the boss, when scientific accuracy is not present, then day 
 rates or some of the compromise methods are best. 
 
 It is, however, an admission of ignorance or incompetence 
 on the part of the management to be in such a position that 
 routine work cannot be put on a satisfactory piece-rate basis. 
 It has been necessary in almost every place where scientific 
 piece rates have been installed to take away from the foremen 
 the function of leadership, and reduce him to the standing 
 of a disciplinarian. The great majority of present-day foremen 
 do not know how to originate ways of doing work adaptable 
 to the machinery and tools available for the job. They can 
 only do what they did in "the old shop." It has been found 
 necessary to make up a planning department for which old 
 foremen have seldom been found suited. In fact, it seems as 
 though the problem of what to do with the foremen who are 
 obstructing production in our shops to-day is going to be one 
 of the great problems which must be solved before the simple 
 and rational straight piece rate is a complete success. 
 
 As a method of distributing wages the time-honored pay 
 envelope and the check are running a race, with the check 
 in favor in large establishments. The proportionate expense 
 of distributing each week's pay envelopes is lower in a large 
 establishment than in a small, but the aggregate is large 
 enough to draw attention to it as a cost which can be re- 
 duced. A check can be written in less time than is required 
 to put money in an envelope, and checks can be verified if they 
 do not add up to the correct total more easily than envelopes 
 can be emptied and the money counted. Opposed to the ques- 
 tion of cost is put the feeling of the workmen, which is very 
 naturally in favor of the pay envelope and against the check. 
 Comparatively few workmen have accounts in banks which 
 handle checks. None of them wish to deposit the whole 
 amount in a savings bank, and the savings bank will seldom 
 cash a check for the sake of the dollar or two deposit which 
 workmen may make. Again they have only the noon hour in
 
 256 
 
 which to go to the bank and get their money. They find a 
 crowd there and are lucky to get away in time to get back to 
 work on time, to say nothing of losing their lunch. They look 
 on it as a scheme by which the company dodges the state law 
 compelling it to pay off on company time. They lose on an 
 average at least half an hour a week standing in line to get 
 actual money to spend, which is not merely loss of time but 
 is uncomfortable. Just what effect this has on labor turn- 
 over is unknown. It may be the one deciding reason why a 
 man leaves, the last straw so to speak, but it is not at all likely 
 to be a fundamental one and among men who do leave shops 
 where checks are used it is practically never given as the rea- 
 son for leaving. 
 
 There is a method of cashing checks that is likely to be an 
 unknown one by the time this book is printed and that is at 
 the saloons. Whether it will be possible to pay in checks when 
 the saloons are closed is a question which can be answered 
 only when they are out of business. It was undoubtedly 
 profitable for the saloons to cash checks, as a man with a pocket 
 full of money is much more likely to spend it freely than a 
 man with only a little. If the savings banks could only get 
 away from traditional hours, and other limitations, and con- 
 sent to make money when there is money to be made they 
 might also assist in making men 'thrifty. The same persuasive 
 powers that will make a man set up the drinks for his friends 
 will at least increase the amount of his savings. A bank 
 which would cash checks after working hours could easily 
 make it a condition that a deposit of at least $1.00 per week 
 should be made without stopping the flow of checks this way. 
 Many banks are open one evening a week for deposits, but 
 they will usually refuse to cash checks or do ajiything else that 
 can be claimed as obliging. If saloons had run on bank hours 
 and had been as disobliging there would have been no prohibi- 
 tion amendment for none would have been needed. 
 
 A reasonably low labor turnover can only be obtained 
 where it is more pleasant for the employees to stay than to 
 leave. They may not leave, and usually do not, until the 
 disagreeable features of a job overbalance the agreeable ones. 
 It may be the size of the lockers, it may be the dust in a shop,
 
 257 
 
 or the dampness of the floors, or it may be one of a thousand 
 little annoyances no one of which is an excuse for moving, but 
 which altogether make it seem that the next job that is of- 
 fered is better. The method of distributing pay envelopes, 
 or checks, if those are used, is another one of these small items 
 which are so important. When the shop is small and the 
 owner is superintendent, manager, and treasurer all in one, 
 then it is natural for him to put up the payroll in the en- 
 velopes and then distribute them himself. When the shop 
 grows, he hires a bookkeeper and turns the payroll over to 
 him. After a while the bookkeeper finds the tramp around 
 the shop irksome, he has not the interest of the owner and 
 he sees the job only as a long, unnecessary tramp. He then 
 has a little window cut through the office wall next to a pas- 
 sageway through which the men can go as they leave the 
 shop. He can then sit on a stool and pass out the envelopes. 
 If the men file by in numerical or alphabetical order he can 
 arrange his envelopes accordingly and speed the line past the 
 window at a rapid pace. 
 
 This is efficient, if all we look at is efficiency of distribu- 
 tion, but if we consider the effect in the shop it may be quite 
 otherwise. When the proprietor went out in the shop with 
 his handful of envelopes he called every one by name, and if 
 any one stopped to ask a question he answered it. If there 
 is a time when two people can get close together it is when 
 they eat together, or when one settles his obligations to the 
 other. The psychological time in the shop for unifying the 
 organization is payday, but it cannot be done through a hole 
 in the wall which discloses nothing but the cashier's necktie. 
 Probably very few men would stay on a job a longer or a 
 shorter time because of the way the pay envelope is handed 
 out, but the management can get much nearer to a correct 
 understanding of the feeling in the shop through a cashier or 
 a paymaster who each payday goes around the shop. 
 
 Unfortunately there are many managers who are so puffed 
 up with their success that they claim that they reached their 
 present positions alone and without help. Their acquaint- 
 ances, however, could tell a different story. Such men are 
 like ostriches who run and hide their heads in the sand to
 
 258 
 
 avoid disaster. They bury themselves in their offices away 
 from the friends who would give them the most help. When 
 the paymaster reports black looks and sullen acceptance of 
 pay envelopes it is certain that production will not long be 
 maintained. Long before that stage is reached there should 
 have been a change. A shop full of beaten men is not profit- 
 able. A shop which is not making profit enough to grant its 
 men all the rights to pursue happiness that other shops do is 
 either not getting enough for its goods or it is a superfluous 
 shop and should be wiped out. It is worth real money to the 
 management to have information as to the feeling in the shop. 
 All the foremen and superintendents, and all the paid spies 
 and detectives in the world cannot find out as much in their 
 way as will come freely to the cashier who circulates through 
 the shop. In the first place he represents the management 
 from a different angle than the foreman. Furthermore, the 
 cashier is almost always closer to the management than the 
 foreman and the men feel it. The foreman may be friendly, 
 but not officially, for officially they are enemies, and so is the 
 superintendent. 
 
 If the paymaster is to be a diplomatic envoy from the man- 
 agement he must look the part. He must be a man's man, 
 and look and act as though he were in the confidence of the 
 head office, and he cannot do that long unless he really is. He 
 should be a man who remembers names. He should know 
 whom to call Mike and whom to call Mr. Smith. He should 
 remember who has had a baby and who has buried a relative. 
 He should not stop to chat, but he should have a cheery word 
 for as many men as possible if nothing more than a "Hello." 
 He should be quick and active so that men will not be kept 
 waiting, and yet he should not appear nervous and hurried. 
 
 The method of paying, however, is but a small item con- 
 nected with the financial relation of employer and employee. 
 Of course a purely business relation with employees calls for 
 the payment to them of their wages when earned, and in- 
 difference as to what use they make of their money. But if 
 the firm has facilities which it can share with its employees, 
 without expense to itself, it should do so for it will taus obtain 
 the good will of its men. Such things as allowing employees
 
 259 
 
 to use vacant land for gardens, using their purchasing power 
 to secure low rates on groceries, and ability to build houses 
 cheaply, if extended to employees, help make the firm more 
 friendly in the eyes of workmen, and undoubtedly help to 
 hold men. 
 
 Has a firm better facilities for loaning money than men 
 have for obtaining it themselves? The answer must be "Yes," 
 and for a number of reasons: one that the firm can borrow 
 money at lower rates than the men, another that it has a bet- 
 ter opportunity to know who wants money for a legitimate 
 purpose, again because it is borrowing money from its em- 
 ployees all the time without interest. On the other hand, it 
 must be admitted that to add to the relation of employer and 
 employee that of borrower and lender has its elements of 
 temptation to abuse. This may be on either side. If a 
 workman is so heavily in debt to his employer that he does 
 not dare throw up his job, there is the temptation to at least 
 defer increases in pay which might be otherwise forthcom- 
 ing. However, this is no worse than the temptation which 
 comes to the employer who discovers, through also being a 
 director in a bank, that some subordinate is having financial 
 difficulties. It is easily avoided if the placing of loans is done 
 by another department than the one which has to do with 
 wage increases. 
 
 The second item, that the firm is in a position to know 
 whether or not its employees wish money for legitimate pur- 
 poses, is true only if the employment department is organ- 
 ized to know all about the men on the payroll. If a man 
 wants to build a house and has anything at all to offer as a 
 first payment, has a job which can be made permanent, and 
 is in good enough health to take out life insurance, he is a 
 fairly safe risk. If the man's need of money grows out of 
 sickness, either his own or of his family, his employer is in 
 much the best position to know whether he is getting ade- 
 quate medical attention. Many times it is cheaper in the 
 long run for the firm to hire a good specialist than to leave 
 the man to the care of his family physician, and yet the man 
 himself simply could not stand the expense of the specialist, 
 because his credit is not good enough to borrow the money
 
 260 
 
 except at usurious rates. This may seem paternal, but when 
 a man is sick he is more or less of a baby and he welcomes the 
 kind of paternalism that puts him in an independent position. 
 
 The loans which are called for range from the "dollar until 
 pay day" to thousands of dollars to build a house. The man 
 who is always a dollar or two short the day before payday 
 is laying the foundation for thriftlessness. He may be of the 
 type that hates to get into debt and who would rather obtain 
 a few dollars from several chums than to go somewhere and 
 borrow ten dollars and feel at peace with the world. Again 
 it must be admitted that the loan sharks greatly discourage 
 men from borrowing in a businesslike way. There are very 
 few places where a man who needs a sum of money under a 
 hundred dollars can get it without paying much above the 
 legal rates for it. The firms which advertise low rates to 
 workingmen usually succeed in making up charges for imag- 
 inary services and charge interest in advance so that the real 
 rate is excessive. 
 
 How then can employers afford to enter this competition 
 so far as their own men are concerned? And how can they 
 loan money at rates which make the transaction a business 
 one? A great majority of shops pay weekly, but they hold 
 back some money. If, for example, they pay off on Wednes- 
 day afternoon they owe their men six and one-half days' pay. 
 The interest on this six and one-half days' pay at six per cent 
 is. 39 per cent of one day's pay. If the payroll is $10,000 a 
 day the money held back is $65,000 and the interest on it, 
 which is what the men lose, is $3900 per year. If the com- 
 pany should through loaning money to its employees lose 
 $3900 per year in bad notes, expenses, etc., it would still break 
 even. A $10,000 a day payroll just at present means a shop 
 with a little more than 2000 employees; a fund of $3900 for 
 making small loans in a shop of that size would be ample to 
 supply all legitimate calls for loans. The exception to this 
 is in the matter of real estate and there it is seldom necessary 
 for the firm to advance any money but only to loan its credit 
 by a guarantee of steady employment. 
 
 If a firm makes arrangements to advance money to men 
 in this way it is only reverting to the old way, when the owner
 
 261 
 
 was his own cashier and went around with a box of pay en- 
 velopes in his hands, distributing the money himself and 
 hearing all the hard-luck stories. Then it was the easiest 
 thing in the world for men to get loans, if there was anything 
 like a reasonable excuse for it, and to-day the same conditions 
 would prevail if the owners could go around and distribute 
 the wages themselves. 
 
 There is still a third factor which enters into the financial 
 relations between employer and employee, and that is the 
 question of financial rewards. These may take the form of 
 insurance, bonuses, or profit sharing. There are two distinct 
 and opposing viewpoints regarding such rewards. These de- 
 pend on the financial status of the person rewarded, his men- 
 tal attitude toward financial matters, and his tendency to stay 
 in one place. Theoretically, every one who labors effectively 
 is doing some part of his work for the future as well as for the 
 present, for he at least accumulates some experience for fu- 
 ture use. But, as a matter of fact, all of us prefer our rewards 
 as we go along. 
 
 We also like to think we are running our own affairs and 
 we do not see, for example, that our life insurance is any more 
 the affair of the firm for which we work than is our choice of 
 neckties or the food we eat. There is no doubt, however, but 
 that insurance companies will give lower rates for wholesale 
 business than for retail, especially if payment of premiums 
 is guaranteed by a well-rated firm. Cost of life insurance is 
 made up by adding to the premium due to mortality enough 
 to cover cost of selling the insurance and cost of collecting the 
 premiums and a trifle for disbursing benefits. A casual glance 
 at the report of any insurance company creates the impres- 
 sion that its profits are due to lapsed policies, for there are 
 millions of dollars collected in this way every year from peo- 
 ple who are oversold, but as a usual thing it has cost so much 
 to sell it that these few payments do not cover sales cost. If 
 a few hours' work will sell a thousand or ten thousand policies, 
 even if each is small and if there is no cost for collection, it 
 would naturally seem as though the recipients of the policies 
 should be very thankful to have them. The trouble is that 
 very few people really demand life insurance, and most of
 
 262 
 
 that few do not need it, but take it out as a purely business 
 proposition. To have something thrust at us that we do not 
 want, even though it is a bargain, appeals to us no more than 
 the neckties and cigars that our friendly female relatives de- 
 light to buy at Christmas time. 
 
 The most satisfactory type of group insurance is the kind 
 that comes from mutual effort, usually through so-called 
 mutual benefit associations. These are purely self-gov- 
 erned and voluntary associations in most of the successful 
 cases. Their one outstanding defect is that they seldom grant 
 sufficient insurance, for the usual limit is $100 with a sick 
 benefit of five to ten dollars per week. This is supposed to 
 cover the cost of a modest funeral preceded by board at home 
 while one is sick. The cost of this insurance is usually in the 
 vicinity of twenty-five cents per month, at which rate such 
 an organization will apparently make a surplus. The word 
 apparently is used advisedly for usually the funds are collected 
 and disbursed on company time, officers work for nothing, 
 company stationery and stenographic service are available and 
 the thousand and one things that cost the independent com- 
 pany money are free. More than that, the service of these 
 mutual benefit associations is taken advantage of by only 
 relatively few of the employees. The men who will come in 
 are the men who stay with the company year in and year out, 
 so a mutual benefit association can hardly be thought of in 
 the light of a means to hold men on the job. This is one of 
 the strong talking points of the advocates of group insurance. 
 They point to the larger policies which they issue, the greater 
 stability of their companies, and the fact that their policies 
 cover every one. They claim great stabilizing value and say 
 very little about the increased premiums. If the claims for 
 stabilization can be established it is very likely profitable, as 
 the true cost of changing help is seldom if ever acknowledged 
 by employers. 
 
 There seems to be no way of proving that any definite re- 
 duction in flow of labor through the shop can be expected from 
 issuing insurance policies. From the employer's point of view 
 it is a present, which costs the company little but is expected 
 to look large. Anything offered by employers except hard
 
 263 
 
 cash is apt to be looked on for a time with suspicion. They 
 ask why it is offered and the only reason they can see is that 
 their employer thinks it will pay. If it pays him they do not 
 expect that it will pay them. That, however, is not in accord 
 with experience. Of course, this is the one most prominent 
 difficulty between employee and employer they cannot see 
 a mutual profit in sticking together. If group insurance 
 brings them together it pays, if not it misses one point of 
 advantage. If it brings them together it does so because the 
 insurance seems to the workers like an addition to their pay. 
 It is usually too far in the future to mean much of an addition, 
 in fact it means very little, because those who are already 
 carrying insurance do not drop it on account of going to work 
 where more is offered. They do not expect to stay there. 
 Very few people go to a new shop with any idea of a perma- 
 nent job. They stay only by accident, not by intent, until 
 by and by a few get so they are afraid to go out looking for 
 a job. It is doubtful if any kind of insurance, mutual benefit 
 or otherwise, will make any difference in this attitude of this 
 class of employees. 
 
 When a man is ready to throw up a job it is usually be- 
 cause the new job pays more. In such cases it is almost im- 
 possible for him to assign a definite value to his insurance 
 policy. If the new company to which he is going makes a 
 similar provision it has no value at all. If there is a value 
 to the company it is only because it is the first in the field in 
 the community. The second concern cuts the value in half and 
 so it goes until the value is gone and the cost is a liability. 
 In other words, there is serious danger that group insurance 
 may succeed so well as to become a mere settled charge against 
 doing business at all. Compulsory insurance would put all 
 employees on an equal footing and would simply be another 
 change in business, which it would seem should be a charge 
 either on the community as a whole or on the individual. 
 
 Discussion of the question of making this a charge on the 
 community as a whole also brings up the question of com- 
 pulsory health insurance, as the principles of both are the 
 same. The demand for both so far seems to be traceable to 
 people who are interested in a sociological way, or possibly to
 
 264 
 
 those who may profit from it financially. The argument is 
 that it is a good thing for any one to carry life and health in- 
 surance as proved by the large number who do; therefore, it 
 is a good thing for all. Since it costs such great sums to sell 
 the insurance which is carried, it ought to cost much less 
 to carry insurance on everybody than on the few. Whether 
 this is true or not we can only speculate. One of the reasons 
 for the present high cost of selling insurance is the intense 
 rivalry for the business of the few who have both money and 
 good health. The two unfortunately do not always go to- 
 gether. If the great general public is taken in, the collection 
 of premiums will be in the hands of the tax collector and the 
 cost will not likely be charged to the insurance department, 
 but the average general health and longevity of the insured 
 will undoubtedly change quite markedly. To be sure, it will 
 bring in many who cannot now get insurance at normal rates 
 and who need it, and many who do need it but are not per- 
 suaded of their need. In fact, it is doubtful if they will be 
 persuaded even by law, which fact might possibly wipe the 
 plan off the statute books soon after it was put in effect. It 
 seems to be a safe thing to say that we cannot expect any 
 law to stay on the statute books that is not subscribed to will- 
 ingly by a majority of the people affected by it, as witness the 
 shifting back and forth of cities from license to no license 
 under the local option laws. Insurance is so logically a good 
 thing that it should and would cost very little to sell it ex- 
 cept for the keen competition of rival companies for a small 
 number of large accounts. 
 
 Profit sharing is another deferred payment which has suf- 
 fered from wrong use of the word. A guaranteed profit shar- 
 ing, distributed at a certain date and for a fixed amount, is 
 nothing but an increase in pay. True profit sharing shares 
 losses also. So far as records show there has been little or no 
 successful true profit sharing which was not combined with 
 so much paternalism and good management that its success 
 could not be proved to be due to the profit sharing feature of 
 the business. To go clear to the root of the matter we have 
 to ask ourselves what proportion of people really want to be 
 in business for themselves after they learn what the penalties
 
 265 
 
 are and what worries and hardships are entailed. They may be 
 compared with the pioneer who is either compelled by his 
 nature to get far away from the haunts of men, or compelled 
 by his necessities to get far from his creditors. Many a man 
 is in business who has often wished he could get out whole. 
 He only stays in after he can get out because he cannot sell 
 for what he thinks the business is worth. 
 
 Probably nine-tenths of the male members of the human 
 race want only enough to eat and wear, and a warm corner 
 in which to sleep. We do not want responsibility; we care 
 more for tenure of job than for the privilege of leading, oth- 
 ers. We will, and do, sell our share of the future profits of 
 the firm for which we work for our daily stipend, paid with 
 clocklike regularity and spent at least as regularly. We sell 
 our birthright for a mess of pottage and we are not ashamed. 
 Why try to share profits with those who will not take a 
 chance themselves? If an employee wants to get into the 
 firm, why not open the door a crack and see if he widens the 
 crack? It is not necessary to invite everybody in at once. 
 
 Who contributes to profits? Surely not everybody, be- 
 cause then profits would be enormous. It is only those who 
 do more work than they are paid for doing, who really put the 
 business on a paying basis. No system of cost keeping is sure 
 to spot those who pay or those who do not. One man may 
 make a business pay by accomplishing a great deal of work 
 himself, another by keeping out of the way while others work 
 as he has planned.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 NON-FINANCIAL REASONS FOR LABOR TURNOVER 
 
 ONLY a very few years ago a man who declined a job be- 
 cause it was too heavy, too dusty, too wet, or even too 
 dangerous was accused of being lazy. To-day it is well under- 
 stood that such jobs are worth more money than the light, 
 clean, dry, safe jobs and still there are few acceptable takers. 
 It is not laziness that has advanced these jobs to a higher 
 price, it is prudence on the part of workers and mental inertia 
 on the part of employers. 
 
 But even apart and aside from a spirit of fair play and 
 humane considerations, it does not pay to have such work to 
 offer. It should be eliminated as inefficient. In fact a job so 
 heavy that men accept it with reluctance, is heavy enough to 
 pay for putting in some mechanical lift. Jobs which involve 
 working in a dust-laden atmosphere are also bad. Shop dusts 
 do not carry the bacteria that street dusts do, but they carry 
 sharp cutting particles, especially if there is emery or other 
 abrasive in the air. The worst trouble with dust is that there 
 is no gage by which the amount can be tested. Superin- 
 tendents will declare that rooms are not unduly dusty which 
 seem to outsiders to be very much so. No one can prove, how- 
 ever, that they are wrong. State laws often provide that all 
 dust due to manufacturing operations be removed, but such 
 laws cannot be enforced except by the arbitrary will of the in- 
 spector, because he has no way of scientifically determining 
 whether the law is complied with or not. It cannot be liter- 
 ally complied with because there is no such thing as a dustless 
 room. The nearest approach is that of the plenum system of 
 ventilation where the same air is used over and over again, 
 being washed and otherwise purified as it is circulated. How- 
 
 266
 
 -267 
 
 ever, some men and a great many women simply cannot work 
 under such conditions because of the excess air pressure. 
 
 The whole subject of risks of physical injury, as offset by 
 safety engineering, is worthy of separate and more complete 
 treatment than can be covered when we are thinking about 
 holding men on the job. Men very often change jobs be- 
 cause of a bad accident, not to themselves, but to others. The 
 sight of men who have lost an arm or a hand when doing the 
 same kind of work, has at least a disquieting effect if nothing 
 more. This affects their wives and mothers more than the 
 men themselves, and it is through the influence of women that 
 the most serious effect of accidents is felt. Other things being 
 equal, the shop with the cleanest record will have the fewest 
 men leaving it. 
 
 The fact, however, that accidents seldom occur is no con- 
 solation to the man who does get hurt. A leg or an arm lost 
 will never grow again. A crushed finger may be a bother and 
 a disfigurement for life. A shop where castings have been oc- 
 casionally dropped from a travelling crane without hitting any 
 one, has no assurance that the next casting that slips will not 
 kill enough men to make up for all the years of this foolish 
 practice. Luck is a poor mooring. It is sure to change. 
 
 True accident prevention is something that must be ap- 
 plied all the time. Building a guard, posting a notice, scold- 
 ing a man who takes off a guard, do little good. Constant 
 supervision is necessary. What is needed is a department 
 whose sole duty it is to see that guards are used, and that safety 
 practices are followed. This is easy if standard safety prac- 
 tices are formulated. It cannot be done if every one works as 
 he sees fit, because then it becomes a matter of the personal 
 opinion of the inspector, which has little weight in most places. 
 If it is everybody's business it is nobody's business. 
 
 Other disagreeable working conditions can also profitably 
 be eliminated. It was once, and is still now a time-honored 
 custom to rebuff men who wanted comfortable surroundings 
 by a sarcastic inquiry as to whether they would not like easy 
 chairs and carpets on the floor. Now we find that it almost 
 pays to have both in some places. There is, however, a great 
 deal of difference between comfort and ease. A man may be
 
 268 
 
 able to do a great deal more work if he can do it in comfort. 
 Some shops were formerly run with much the same idea that 
 the old Puritans had, that if a man was comfortable he must 
 be sinful. The better way is to make the job comfortable and 
 then find men to do the work who appreciate comfort. They 
 will likely appreciate the opportunity to make the extra money 
 that their added production will entitle them to. Of course, 
 if they are expected to take the comfort as part of their pay 
 they will not stay. 
 
 This situation is especially true of such conditions as af- 
 fect men's health. Leaving the individual man out of con- 
 sideration it is a wasteful thing for all of us for any man to 
 have his working life shortened by disease, and especially by 
 a disease that brings lingering illness. Every one of us has 
 to do some additional work for the sake of such men and to 
 help pay their doctor's bills. 
 
 Failure to care for the health of workers on the part of em- 
 ployers is usually through lack of knowledge or attention. 
 For example, in a shop well known as a good place to work, 
 a gang of laborers struck because there were not enough whole 
 rubber boots to go around and they were required to work in 
 a wet ditch. When the matter was sifted down it was found 
 that the stores man had decided how long a pair of rubber 
 boots ought to last and until they had been out of stores that 
 length of time they were to be considered to be perfectly good 
 rubber boots and no amount of actual holes made any differ- 
 ence. Needless to say they got their rubber boots, although 
 even then their foreman was disposed to fire a few of the ring- 
 leaders to make an example of them so that they would not 
 kick again even if they had good grounds for so doing. 
 
 Coupled with the working conditions are a number of 
 minor ones connected with sanitation. Most men appreciate 
 good washrooms, toilets, lockers, etc., but there are always 
 a few rowdies in every shop who look on them as signs of ef- 
 feminacy and who try to abuse them from the start. Many em- 
 ployers have been deterred from doing more in this direction 
 because of this abuse. They would not think of spending the 
 same amount of money on equipment or small tools without 
 keeping it under supervision all the time. If they would
 
 269 
 
 wateh their sanitary appliances as closely as they watch the 
 small tools in their tool rooms they would have no more 
 trouble than they do with tools. Once installed and in 
 regular use the vigilance can be slightly relaxed, but not al- 
 together. Such sanitary conditions certainly attract a better 
 class of men and make those of a lower class better. It is true 
 that many men only notice these better surroundings by their 
 absence when they go to other shops, but if that leads them 
 to come back and talk about it, the purpose is served just as 
 well; in fact better for the man who has once made compari- 
 sons and found the other shop wanting will not go again except 
 for considerably higher pay. 
 
 The greatest influence on labor turnover comes about 
 through the elevation of the morale of the whole shop. A 
 certain type of man which frequents ship yards and construc- 
 tion work is not especially susceptible to better influences, 
 but the great majority of semi-skilled and skilled mechanics 
 are quite sensitive to their surroundings and especially to the 
 people whom they meet. This applies to general cleanliness. 
 The old saying that cleanliness is next to Godliness is evi- 
 dently much believed. Men who have worked in a clean shop 
 never forget it, and they always have a leaning toward return- 
 ing to it. Moreover, it costs almost nothing. It takes very 
 little more time to clean up chips every day than once a week, 
 the tonnage is no different. The largest cause of uncleanliness 
 in most shops is oil, which is a very expensive loss when con- 
 sidered quite apart from its effect on the workman. It re- 
 quires many barrels of oil to bring shops to the state of sat- 
 uration which many exhibit, enough surely to make drip pans 
 an economy. 
 
 Another consideration which has an influence on the flow 
 of labor, though quite apart from this last subject, is tenure 
 of job. On a building job no one expects to stay until the 
 job is finished. The first men on the job may be hundreds of 
 miles away when the plastering is being done. No one thinks 
 anything of leaving the job for another one when the chance 
 appears, regardless of the state of the building. Labor turn- 
 over, if figured, would be high. But on a job which has the 
 earmarks of permanency there is likely to be a considerable
 
 270 
 
 part of the force which is indispensable and which does stay 
 through thick and thin. The rest of the force, however, is 
 very much inclined to seek other employment whenever any- 
 thing happens to make them suspect that there is a falling off 
 of business. 
 
 Every shop has its "wireless" or underground news service 
 through which the workmen know, and oftentimes truly, all 
 about the incoming business of the company before the presi- 
 dent himself hears of it. The presence of this "wireless" sys- 
 tem is full evidence that the company has not the habit of 
 taking its employees into its confidence. It would seem much 
 better for the whole organization to know the truth about the 
 state of business than for individuals to get wrong and .un- 
 justifiable suspicions. The fact that "wireless" is sometimes 
 right places it higher in the esteem of the shop than the little 
 information which the management so rarely gives out. 
 
 Much of so-called welfare work is done for the sake of 
 placing employees in a position where they cannot readily 
 quit their jobs without a loss. The ethics of this is question- 
 able. If the effort is made, however, to put the employee in 
 a position where he gains by staying there can be no ques- 
 tion raised. A man with a family which makes social ties, 
 whose children are in school, stands to gain very greatly by 
 certainty of occupation in that particular vicinity. The indi- 
 vidual shop realizes that it stands to gain by his continued 
 work, but oftentimes overlooks its share of the common gain 
 if the man continues to work in the same town, in other words, 
 keeps his residence nearby. There are undoubtedly many 
 quiet understandings between firms that they will not hire 
 men who leave each other's shops. This has a tendency to 
 drive workmen out of town. The community suffers, and the 
 suffering is shared among the different shops. Nobody gains 
 anything because any man who suspects that he is the victim 
 of such a conspiracy not only wants to wipe the dust of that 
 town off his shoes, but he also warns everybody that he knows 
 what to expect. Then the superintendents in that place won- 
 der why it is so difficult to get the right kind of men into their 
 shops. 
 
 Tenure of job means that every man can be assured of a
 
 271 
 
 square deal, that he will not be discharged out of hand for 
 some trivial thing, and that he will not be made subject to 
 petty annoyances because he has in some way displeased the 
 boss. When shops were considered large if they had 200 em- 
 ployees there was not the trouble that there is now on this 
 score. Then the man who made or lost money in the busi- 
 ness was in the office and paid off his men with his own hands. 
 His foremen reflected him in everything they did. Now it is 
 the very rare and exceptional manager who is reflected so far 
 down the line as his foremen. In fact there are literally very 
 few general managers. Most men carrying that title have 
 some department of the business which is their hobby. One 
 thinks the sales department makes the profits and keeps that 
 under his finger. Another thinks that the financial end is all 
 important, and his accountants are figure heads because he 
 is his own comptroller. A few think that production is the 
 important thing, and they pretty generally have a good idea 
 of what is going on in the shop and a correspondingly vague 
 idea of the other departments. Very rarely is there a general 
 manager who discovers that the most of his outgoing cash is 
 paid for human service, and that he can well afford to spend 
 a considerable time on that side of the question. 
 
 The natural result of this lack of many-sidedness on the 
 part of chief executives is that their influence is little felt 
 among workmen. There have been a few notable exceptions, 
 especially in the steel business^ but as a usual thing the fore- 
 men are not at all acquainted with their general managers. 
 Their conception of what the management wants comes to 
 them through superintendents, whose sole idea is that they 
 are judged by immediate results, and any failure to show those 
 results will be inexcusable. Consequently there is little time 
 wasted on the man whose record to-day is no better than 
 yesterday's. The system is inexorable and there is no appeal. 
 It is this very thing, a thing of which many otherwise able 
 executives are unaware, that has brought about the extreme 
 and unfortunately antagonistic state between employers and 
 employees. It is what gives us so many executives with the 
 highest of ideals having under them shops where ideals seem 
 to be unknown. These are the very men who appear to be so
 
 272 
 
 charitable to the men who have been ruined by the system 
 practiced in their own shops. 
 
 It is doubtful if there is any cure for this except a com- 
 plete overhauling of shop organizations. There appears to be 
 no place in the future for foremen and superintendents who 
 have been in the habit of taking unfair advantage of individ- 
 ual workmen and have discharged them out of hand. The 
 newer plan of having each foreman limited to discharges from 
 his own department and giving the employment department 
 the right to place the man in another department is only a 
 step, and not altogether a satisfactory one. Foremen can 
 make the shop so unpleasant for men that they are anxious 
 to get away and poison the minds of all their friends against 
 that shop. Foremen will agree among themselves not to take 
 on men who have been sent to the employment department 
 for transfer. The spirit of our shops will have to be entirely 
 changed before the high ideals which are expressed and hon- 
 estly held by our industrial leaders can be realized. The whole 
 organization will have to think in terms of permanency in- 
 stead of in terms of to-day's profits. 
 
 Still another thing that militates against permanency of 
 organization is the idea so often met that youth wins. An 
 organization of young men has pep and push. It dares to 
 do things at which older men balk. However, an organiza- 
 tion of young men is almost always really an organization of 
 men younger than the leading spirit. When one is thirty any 
 man over thirty is a doubtful case. When he is fifty boys of 
 forty-five are a trifle young to be trusted with important mat- 
 ters and when he is seventy the young fellows of sixty hardly 
 ought to be taken on at all. That is, age as treated in many 
 establishments, is relative and not actual. 
 
 If we follow the careers of men, big and little, we cannot 
 help noticing that the men who grew old in years without 
 aging in mental grasp, are the men whose early years have 
 been spent in manual labor. If we were to prescribe for a 
 long and useful life, full of satisfaction, we would advise that 
 up to the age of forty a very considerable amount of a man's 
 time should be spent in active, muscle using work. After forty 
 there should be a gradual change to mental effort, so that after
 
 273 
 
 the age of sixty perhaps there would be little physical work but 
 it should all be mental. These young fellows just out of col- 
 lege need to go on with work which will allow them to show 
 the physical prowess which they have shown in college. They 
 cannot afford to become old men before their time. Their 
 jobs are in the shop learning thoroughly the innermost secrets 
 of manufacture, or on the road demonstrating the products 
 of the shop. Later, as the physical urge wears down is time 
 enough for them to come into the office or into administra- 
 tive duties, which they can then approach with the knowledge 
 of materials and of human nature that they cannot get in any 
 other way than by actual contact. 
 
 Shops which get a reputation for dropping men as they 
 approach any age limit whether it is forty or fifty, find that 
 valuable men seek other jobs several years before they reach 
 those limits. Actual years have little relation to working ca- 
 pacity. Over-anxiety, anger, worry, and most of all fear, all 
 contribute more to age a man than even physical dissipation. 
 More people suffer from fits of anger than from drink, more 
 from fear than from late hours. Men who live in the fear that 
 at some definite period they will begin to go down hill, and in- 
 stead of choosing jobs, will be lucky to have one, cannot do 
 good work. There are, to be sure, a few men whose mentality 
 is subnormal, whose mental powers never grew and whose 
 earning capacity is dependent entirely on their muscles, but 
 they are very few in proportion to the whole. They must 
 necessarily be our door tenders, elevator operators, and occupy 
 our other low-grade jobs which for the most part consist in 
 being present. 
 
 The most pitiful cases are those of men who early in life 
 have started in as clerks, with no opportunity or inducement 
 for exercise enough to keep their blood flowing. Their lives 
 have been dwarfed and made inefficient. They never have de- 
 veloped a body capable of carrying a large brain or conceiv- 
 ing large thoughts. As they grow older there is nothing for 
 them to do but to gradually sink back and fade away with 
 hardly any one to notice their exit, because they have not 
 had the contact with the physical side of the business they 
 are in which is necessary for a true understanding of it. It
 
 274 
 
 seems that we were intended to use all our faculties, and the 
 man who has only seen and talked and heard about an indus- 
 try doesn't know it. He must have handled and smelt it as 
 well. There is an old saying, just as true now as ever, that no 
 man can sell lumber whose hands are not full of slivers. The 
 same thing applies to every business. No one can talk in- 
 telligently about steel, or cotton or oil or any other of our 
 products who has not been on intimate physical terms with it 
 for a long time. How much better it would be if our offices 
 were filled with men who really knew the business. They could 
 accomplish twice as much and be worth correspondingly more 
 than the men who have always had the collar and cuff jobs. 
 
 Finally, men change jobs because of their home affairs. 
 This, however, is a matter requiring a great deal of serious 
 thought. Merely seeing that the problem exists will not solve 
 it. It is tied up with our whole social organization. 
 
 Under home conditions are included, health, health of fam- 
 ily, inheritance of money, combining or splitting up of fami- 
 lies, going to school, marital relations and differences of opin- 
 ion, and many other things which the majority of people pre- 
 fer to fight out among themselves, whether the world suffers in 
 consequence or not. Many employers are inclined to take a 
 part in such matters, so whatever our personal views may be 
 we ought to give it serious consideration. 
 
 What are the cures for the large labor turnover found in 
 many shops? They are as many as there are shops and wrong 
 conditions. Each shop must be studied by itself. There is 
 no cureall. Some of the most prominent and prevalent trou- 
 bles have been outlined but the whole situation can be summed 
 up in the words "fair play." 
 
 Details depend on the conception of fair play held by em- 
 ployer, employee and more especially by the foremen with 
 whom workmen come in contact. We are too much inclined 
 to assume that what has gone on in the past must have been 
 right. That is something that we will have to stop at once. 
 We will have to let the past bury itself so far as possible, start 
 with a clean slate, and judge each case by whatever we can 
 see of the future. The foreman of the future will have to be 
 a diplomat who acts to secure the best possible cooperation
 
 275 
 
 between those who furnish the capital and those who fur- 
 nish the labor, rather than as a taskmaster solely represent- 
 ing the owner, and commissioned to get as much for as little 
 as possible.
 
 PART IV 
 
 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 
 
 Chapter XXXIV 
 
 Chapter XXXV 
 
 Chapter XXXVI 
 
 Chapter XXXVII 
 
 Chapter XXXVIII 
 
 Chapter XXXIX 
 
 Chapter XL 
 
 THE STATUS OF VOCATIONAL EDU- 
 CATION 279 
 
 A STUDY OF THE PROBLEM . . . 289 
 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION IN THE 
 
 PUBLIC SCHOOLS 294 
 
 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION IN THE 
 
 INDUSTRIES 300 
 
 GENERAL TRADE METHODS . . . 309 
 THE TRAINING OF FOREMEN . .313 
 
 AMERICANIZATION 323
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 THE STATUS OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 
 
 THE prosperity of a country depends on the prosperity of 
 its people rather than on its possessions, and individual 
 prosperity is the greatest insurance of peace that can be 
 imagined. Prosperity moreover does not mean a national 
 opulence based on paternalism, but comfort earned by indi- 
 vidual initiative. Without such initiative a family, corpora- 
 tion, city, or nation may be prosperous as a whole, but its 
 prosperity is founded on the ability of one or a few men, and 
 it is certain to fluctuate with the changing leadership which 
 time surely brings. The advancement of the many lies in the 
 training of each individual so that he willingly takes his share 
 of the burdens of self-support and community welfare. What- 
 ever advantages the inhabitants of the Western hemisphere 
 may enjoy above those of the Eastern are unquestionably due 
 to the larger liberty for personal development and individual 
 initiative which the people have claimed and won, and the 
 logical extension of this liberty is the training of every person 
 in the vocation in which he can make the most of himself. 
 
 Vocational education is as old as civilized history. It 
 found early expression in the training of professional men and 
 although scoffed at it nevertheless proved its worth, so that 
 to-day it is universally expected that a man will enter the 
 professions from a school rather than from an apprentice- 
 ship. It is true that a few enter law by reading and a few 
 enter the ministry without formal education, but the few 
 only serve to accentuate the general rule. About fifty years 
 ago vocational education, in the form which has developed 
 into engineering education, had its beginning in a modest way, 
 with no loud claims and no apparent reason for exciting the 
 
 279
 
 280 
 
 envy of any one. Nevertheless it met with opposition, not 
 merely from the cultural schools but from the professional 
 schools as well. The development of the engineering school 
 has been a slow one but engineers are now recognized as 
 professional men and the faculties of their schools take their 
 places on an equal footing with those of older institutions. 
 
 Such schools, however, all deal with the professional side 
 of vocational training. What can be said of the training for 
 the more prosaic duties of life? Entrance into the trades, 
 arts, and crafts has been from the earliest times through 
 example and practice. They have been carried on very 
 largely by rule of thumb, and precedent and experience have 
 carried more weight than reason. Acquiring a trade has been, 
 and still is, very largely a process of memorizing unrelated 
 facts and blindly practicing accepted methods. Apprentice- 
 ship was the only avenue of approach. It was a mild form 
 of slavery into which a boy was sold or bound at so tender an 
 age that his proclivities could not possibly be predicted with 
 any degree of certainty. It was, moreover, so undemocratic 
 that it could not flourish on western soil, and the wonder is 
 that it survived as long as it did. Apprenticeship under an 
 indenture is now so rare as to be a curiosity. Its place, how- 
 ever, can hardly be said to have been filled. Workmen for 
 the skilled trades have been recruited from men who have 
 been attracted from countries where apprenticeship is still 
 accepted, or from those who have "stolen" trades by working 
 in one shop after another until they finally acquired a degree 
 of dexterity and skill that enabled them to hold permanent 
 positions. But if we expect to maintain a supply of trained 
 men, it is necessary for us to first of all consider the facilities 
 which are at hand and their possibilities of development, and 
 then if these are found inadequate to consider new means. 
 
 At the present time there are four types of schools to which 
 a young man or woman may go in order to acquire a knowl- 
 edge of an industrial occupation or trade. These are: 
 
 1 Private vocational school 
 
 2 Corporation schools 
 
 3 Public schools 
 
 4 Public and corporation schools in cooperation.
 
 281 
 
 Private schools immediately divide themselves into two 
 classes, those conducted for a profit and those which are en- 
 dowed so that their benefits are partly philanthropic. Schools 
 of the first type are found in large cities where they thrive at 
 the expense of those who feel the pressure of poverty, and 
 who must accordingly begin work at the earliest possible mo- 
 ment. Such schools teach nothing that is not absolutely es- 
 sential to an immediate earning capacity. They give rule of 
 thumb instruction with very little reference to basic princi- 
 ples and none at all to what may be called shop economics, 
 or the social and political relations of men, as the class of 
 people to whom they cater cannot afford the money nor the 
 time to learn anything but the most essential operations of 
 the trade which they expect to follow. A great deal of dissat- 
 isfaction regarding these schools has been expressed by- both 
 workmen and employers but as yet no adequate substitute has 
 been offered. They do not, as a rule, teach with the thorough- 
 ness that is desirable from all sides of the question, but they 
 do offer a better and more efficient means than "picking up" 
 a trade. The private schools on the other hand which are 
 endowed, and which are really philanthropic in that they of- 
 fer tuition at less than cost, are doing good work, but they 
 are few and far between. Many of them have lost their dis- 
 tinctive trade features and have taken a place intermediate 
 between trade schools and technical schools. They turn out 
 men who aim to become foremen rather than workmen and 
 while their ambition is laudable it does not add materially to 
 the facilities for learning manipulative processes. 
 
 Second on the list is the corporation school, which is a 
 private school run for a profit, but not, however, for an im- 
 mediate profit. It may be possible to conduct such a school 
 so that its product will pay for the cost of maintenance, but 
 it is not at all likely that it can be done and still turn out 
 the type of graduates that will prove the most valuable. 
 These schools are distinct from the first class of private schools 
 in that the latter gets its profit from the tuition charged, 
 while the corporation school not only gives free instruction 
 but pays wages as well. This very fact excites suspicion in 
 the minds of many as they wonder whether a school in which
 
 282 
 
 the learner has to produce enough to earn his way can be 
 thorough enough to give the general training which is de- 
 sirable. It can be said, however, that corporations find it to 
 their advantage to devote a very considerable amount of time 
 to education in economics as distinct from the immediate 
 shop problems, and that training in loyalty and a proper un- 
 derstanding of the problems of manufacture and sale, which 
 are outside the immediate sphere of the workman, prove to 
 pay good future dividends. 
 
 None but shops of some considerable size and wealth can 
 afford, however, to maintain any educational departments, and 
 consequently Only a small part of the youth who might like 
 to learn a trade can be accommodated by them. This and 
 the feeling which prevails, especially among the workmen 
 themselves, that education is a community problem has led 
 to the establishment of a number of publicly supported trade 
 schools, usually known as vocational schools. Such schools 
 range from pre-vocational, which aim only to open the way for 
 the pupils to enter the lowest grade of a vocation, to those 
 which teach a trade together with the essentials of a cultural 
 education. Public schools for this purpose are expensive as 
 compared with the cultural public schools, but if adequate re- 
 sults are obtained the expense is justified. It has been pos- 
 sible in several states to obtain legislation which grants state 
 aid for such schools as give direct and substantial trade train- 
 ing and the cost to the local community has been brought 
 down to approximately that of the ordinary high school. 
 
 Grave questions of control have been brought out by the 
 movement for industrial education. It is necessarily admitted 
 that the industries must be manned and that the interest of 
 the country as a whole demands that they be well manned, 
 and yet there are a great many people who shrink from any- 
 thing that will look like public sanction of any form of school 
 that does not prepare its students for college or university. In 
 fact, the entire school system of the country has been based 
 on the idea that every one should aspire to become a uni- 
 versity graduate, and that men for the trades and industries 
 should be recruited from the leavings or by-product of these 
 schools. At one time the advent of the engineering school
 
 283 
 
 seemed likely to break up the unity of this plan, but the prob- 
 lem was solved by recognition of the technical schools by 
 the colleges, and while this concession was made grudgingly 
 there is little doubt but that it was a wise decision. The 
 same solution, however, can hardly be made of the industrial 
 school problem. Such a school cannot train men for the higher 
 schools of engineering, because it is frankly something more 
 than an educational movement. It plans to teach and train 
 at the same time. The graduate must be able to prove his 
 knowledge by his work. It is not enough that he should be 
 able to calculate the speed at which a steel shaft would re- 
 volve in a lathe. Such knowledge alone is worse than use- 
 less to him. He must be able to put the shaft in the lathe and 
 turn it at the proper speed. 
 
 It will, therefore, be seen that there is a real difference, 
 which is also irreconcilable, between the formal education of 
 the public schools and the education and training of the trade 
 school. This difference has led to a bitter controversy as to 
 the control of the new schools. The dispute is always over 
 the question of whether the new schools will be established 
 and controlled by the same agencies as the public schools, that 
 is, whether they shall be a part of the public school system, 
 or whether they shall be under entirely separate control. The 
 advocates of separate, or "dual" control, claim that the op- 
 portunity to do this work has rested with the public schools 
 for many years and they have not merely ignored it but have 
 fought it bitterly. They also claim that there is a very press- 
 ing need of trade training, that the prosperity of the country 
 is dependent on it, and that if it is to succeed it must be 
 placed in the hands of its friends. They cite the results of 
 placing drawing and manual training in the hands of the pub- 
 lic schools. They claim that these subjects have been so highly 
 refined by the public schools that there is no value left in 
 them from the point of view of the industries to which they 
 are supposed to apply. The professional educator, on the 
 other hand, sees grave danger that boys and girls who might 
 otherwise grow up into the professions may be diverted into 
 what he considers the baser channels of trade and industry. 
 He believes that they should be given every opportunity to
 
 284 
 
 advance to as high a position as possible, and his idea of a 
 high position is one that demands a great amount of the 
 preparation which formal education offers. 
 
 Experience, however, indicates that it is not at all neces- 
 sary to arrange the curriculum of an effective trade school in 
 such a way as to handicap the graduate no matter in what 
 direction he may desire to advance. The studies which are 
 offered to him in high school, with mental discipline as their 
 aim, are replaced by others which combine with that same 
 mental discipline much useful information. The actual num- 
 ber of hours of recitation in most of the trade schools is as 
 many as are required in the average high school for graduation. 
 Work in foreign languages is usually omitted, a considerable 
 amount of mathematics is made more directly applicable to 
 the industry in hand, and much more attention is also paid 
 to physics. The shop practice is almost entirely added time. 
 The pupils in a trade school are kept a great deal busier than 
 those in the usual high school, but the work is varied so much 
 between shop and class room that there is neither mental nor 
 physical weariness. There appears no good reason why all 
 of these innovations should not be incorporated in the public 
 schools. The experiments at Gary seem to indicate that a 
 very considerable gain comes from lengthening the time dur- 
 ing which the pupils are under the supervision of the school 
 authorities. Boys and girls of high-school age who attend a 
 single session and are left to study out of school are very 
 apt to do their work in a most perfunctory manner. They 
 either play all the afternoon and then sit up late at night 
 to get their lessons, or else they study all the afternoon and 
 go out to dances, parties or theaters late at night. 
 
 The lack of useful application of many of the studies which 
 children are forced to endure for the sake of getting into 
 college is constantly calling forth a great deal of adverse criti- 
 cism. The colleges, however, are self-perpetuating and there- 
 fore independent of public opinion. In the Middle West 
 where public control is gaining ground there is a marked 
 change in the attitude of the college faculties toward the 
 people and the result has been that some advancement has 
 been made. This same public opinion may yet assert itself
 
 285 
 
 in unmistakable terms all over the country, and it may be 
 that the absorption of the industrial schools by the public 
 schools will mark the passing of the name in one direction and 
 the methods in the other. 
 
 As a matter of economy of money, time, and effort, there 
 is no doubt but that all educational effort should be under a 
 single administrator who should be broad-minded enough to 
 recognize that education may be useful as well as luxurious. 
 So long as colleges depended solely on the rich men's sons for 
 their support the people as a whole wished little to say about 
 their methods, but as soon as it became possible for the poor- 
 est of boys and girls to work their way through the colleges, 
 aided by scholarships granted by the public, then it became 
 essentially an affair of the people. The industrial school 
 movement is largely a public movement, and as such it recog- 
 nizes the right of every citizen to training at public expense, 
 no matter whether the immediate object of that training is 
 entrance to the professions, to commerce, or to the industries. 
 The people will not recognize that the professions are in any 
 way any higher than the industries. They remember that 
 "a man's a man for a' that," and they will ultimately insist 
 that their schools recognize it also. 
 
 It, therefore, seems safe to conclude that in many instances 
 it is wise for a community to safeguard its industrial schools 
 by placing them under the control of a friendly board of 
 trustees until the time comes when their value and right to 
 exist is recognized by the authorities of the public schools and 
 it is safe to make the control the same for both, without danger 
 that the practical nature of the trade school will be taken 
 away. In this way the energizing force of the more vital 
 methods of the trade school will become an important factor 
 in the creation of a public school system which will serve 
 the needs of both present and future with greater efficiency. 
 
 The difficulty of control, as previously discussed, has led 
 to an attempt to combine on a cooperative basis the best of 
 the public school systems and the best of the shop systems. 
 The shop furnishes the training in mechanical processes, by 
 putting the pupils at productive work and paying them wages, 
 while the school furnishes the cultural studies and the class-
 
 286 
 
 room work which relates to the trade. The division of time 
 between shop and school varies from the half-time school, in 
 which alternate weeks are spent in shop and :chool, to the 
 continuation school in which from four to ten hours a week 
 are spent in classroom and the rest in the shop. 
 
 This method of cooperation has been extensively exploited 
 but as yet has not had any widespread adoption. The diffi- 
 culty appears to be in the lack of an understanding of the 
 problems of the shop by the school people and a correspond- 
 ing lack on the part of the shop men. The scheme is not at- 
 tractive to employers, unless the apprentices are profitable, for 
 in most instances it appears to be undesirable from all points 
 of view to put the pupils under bond to remain during the 
 whole course. In fact, there is a very decided feeling among 
 the more progressive manufacturers that an unwilling worker 
 costs more than he earns. At the same time it is equally well 
 accepted that boys need to be strongly led and influenced, and 
 that their tendency to drop one job and go to another is often 
 like falling "from the frying pan into the fire," and that in 
 the long run they appreciate the employer who has held a 
 stern hand over them. 
 
 A discussion of the opportunities for trade training would 
 not be complete without some reference to the relation of the 
 technical high school to the industries. Many of these schools 
 have remarkably fine and complete equipment. They have 
 all the facilities for giving a very complete training, and yet 
 they seldom offer courses which they claim will fit boys for 
 skilled trades. These schools teach wood working, machine 
 work, forging, etc., not for their application to production but 
 for their educational value. They are primarily schools, and 
 tradition has long attempted to confine school work to purely 
 educational activity. The signs of the times seem to indicate, 
 however, that social and industrial activities will soon take 
 their places on a plane of equality with the more purely educa- 
 tional work. Both require not only teaching but practice as 
 well, for it is not enough that the pupil shall know ; he must 
 also be able to put his knowledge to work with intelligence, and 
 with a certainty that he will produce results with reasonable 
 celerity and with some degree of automatic action. This the
 
 287 
 
 technical high school does not attempt to do and the result 
 is that their graduates find themselves without the proper 
 training with which to enter industry, except on its lowest 
 rounds which seem to tHem to be beneath their dignity. 
 Therefore, they are apt, if they seek employment in shops at 
 all, to go into offices or drafting rooms where their training 
 proves helpful in that it has given them an amount of me- 
 chanical intelligence which, is lacking in the graduates of the 
 grammar or the ordinary high school. 
 
 The number who are able to avail themselves of any or 
 all of these forms of education is very small compared with 
 the great number of wage earners who might profit by some 
 form of training. The census of 1910 disclosed about thirty- 
 eight million earners in the country (this omitted all women 
 keeping house in their own families, probably because it was 
 impossible to establish the amount of their earnings) and of 
 these at least half were in skilled or semi-skilled occupation 
 in which the use of both hand and brain is necessary. The 
 same census classification also shows there were over six mil- 
 lion people on farms whose need of education will at once be 
 admitted. In addition to this there were over seven millions 
 in manufacturing work. Then there were three hundred thou- 
 sand in transportation, a million and a quarter in trade, two 
 million in the professions (who have already been provided 
 with facilities for education and training), nearly two million 
 more in domestic service and nearly a million in clerical work. 
 There were also a quarter of a million in public service to which 
 entrance can be gained only by long and arduous labor, and 
 to these there should also be added another million and a half 
 of farm laborers, every one of whom could profit by training. 
 The number of housewives whose earnings are quite equal to 
 that of the head of the family, if the service rendered could 
 be expressed in money, is unknown, but it seems safe to assume 
 that for every ten of the population one woman works hard 
 to bring up a family, feeding and clothing them during their 
 childhood. The women who idle away their time as butter- 
 flies in society greatly impress us because we hear so much 
 about them, but they do not constitute a large part of the 
 population. Thus only about 1-70 of 1 per cent of the work-
 
 288 
 
 ers are getting direct training for their vocations, and only 
 14 of 1 per cent are getting education which is even related 
 to their vocation. 
 
 All of these different forms of industrial education can 
 only be considered in the light of experiments, none of which 
 can be said to have failed, and none of which have as yet 
 appealed to the public as leading toward a solution of the 
 problem. In fact, the problem is composed of so many and 
 so diversified problems that even more experiments and more 
 diversified means will probably yet have to be devised and 
 tried out.
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 A STUDY OF THE PROBLEM 
 
 IT has already been pointed out that a very large part of the 
 work of the world is done on a basis of precedent rather 
 than on a basis of scientific investigation. Scientists have 
 busied themselves with large problems, and the details of the 
 methods by which their discoveries may be made useful have 
 been neglected. Scientific management, so called, has little of 
 science about it but is rather a bringing together of rules of 
 thumb and classifying them so that they may be workable 
 by system. It is, however, undoubtedly the entering wedge 
 toward the application of science to our shop and factory 
 problems so that some day our work will all be done on a 
 more satisfactory basis. When that time comes the 
 problem of trade training will be much simplified be- 
 cause it will become a problem for which our educational 
 system has been expressly developed. In the mean- 
 time there is great demand for able mechanics and capa- 
 ble men. In good times prices may be made high enough 
 to cover ineffective work, but in dull times prices drop to a 
 low level, and the best of workmen are not good enough to 
 make it profitable to do the small amount of business that is 
 presented. In slack seasons the men who can be retained 
 need to be better developed as all around workmen because 
 it is necessary, in many cases, that they should combine with 
 their regular work other functions which belonged to men 
 who were dropped from the payroll. The problem will, of 
 course, not wait for our shops to be placed on a scientific basis, 
 but fortunately a considerable part of the problem is not 
 likely to be changed by that innovation. 
 
 The highest type of workman is the one who not only has 
 
 289
 
 290 
 
 the ability to earn money but also the ability to spend it 
 wisely and to live in a right attitude toward his fellowmen. 
 Education in the appreciation of what is good, in distinction 
 from what is costly, is at least as necessary for the man who 
 is to earn large wages in the industries, as it is for the man 
 who is to earn a small wage through the professions. If a 
 bricklayer earns $2000 a year he certainly should know how 
 to spend it to the same advantage as a professional man who 
 earns no more. The very fact that industrial education is 
 intended to .make the wage earner more prosperous is reason 
 enough for insisting that he also be given at least as much 
 of an education in appreciation as the boy who expects to 
 enter commercial or professional life. Then again the wage 
 earner comes in more intimate contact with the disputed 
 points between labor and capital than those in other walks of 
 life. It is desirable that he be fully informed of all the cir- 
 cumstances which should influence him in his attitude toward 
 his employer. He should be taught, not merely his rights 
 under the law, but also his responsibilities and duties as a 
 man and a citizen. In this one field alone much can be done 
 to alleviate labor troubles, for most disputes come about 
 through misunderstandings. Nor are such misunderstandings 
 limited solely to labor troubles which break out in strikes, but 
 they extend to the daily and hourly friction which has so bad 
 an effect in a factory where disagreement is smoothed over but 
 not up-rooted. 
 
 It should not require a large amount of time to present 
 those portions of the curriculum which should be common to 
 all schools but which are not always given sufficient promi- 
 nence. The larger part of the time must still be given to 
 practice, which is different for every trade and for every com- 
 munity in which the trade is practiced, but which also has 
 some fundamental principles which are common to groups of 
 trades if not to all. The one fundamental of all trades and 
 vocations is the art of measuring, and this can be taught with 
 profit to those in every walk in life. The same principles are 
 used by the cook and the machinist though the latter might 
 not recognize it at once. Beyond this point the different voca- 
 tions can be subdivided into large groups having common
 
 9Q1 _ 
 
 ^\J A. 
 
 principles, until the point is reached where a final decision 
 must be made and the pupil takes up the training which ap- 
 plies only to the particular trade which he has chosen for 
 his life work. 
 
 In order to properly consider the various trades and their 
 relations and to discover, if possible, the extent to which trade 
 training may be used as vocational guidance, it is necessary to 
 analyze the processes of industry as well as the mental pro- 
 cesses of the prospective worker. All vocations may be broadly 
 divided into those which are mere repetitions of a given task 
 and those which require original thought in each case. For 
 example, a weaver or a street sweeper who has once learned 
 the particular manipulations of his craft becomes almost auto- 
 matic in it; he meets with no emergencies except those with 
 which he soon learns to cope. On the other hand, the lawyer, 
 clergyman, farmer, or painter, all have to meet every case as 
 it comes. They each use certain fundamental principles in all 
 that they do, but those principles become simply tools with 
 which they do their work. In the other class the work is the 
 routine exercise of principles. A little study of the various 
 industries discloses the fact that there is great need of reason- 
 ing power, and that the number of places where men can work 
 in a purely automatic atmosphere is small. We also discover 
 that almost all vocations have their automatic details. The 
 lawyer carries this so far that a large part of his work consists 
 of filling in standard legal blanks, the minister is apt to fall 
 back on stock expressions, and the machinist who is working 
 at a semi-automatic machine supplies the remaining amount 
 of automatic action. 
 
 Then there are two distinct types of industry when con- 
 sidered as a whole. There is the type in which a raw material 
 is treated in various steps but always in the same steps, like 
 the manufacture of wire, of textiles or of garments, where one 
 process follows another always in the same order and where 
 there is little or no variation in the product that requires varia- 
 tion in the workman's manipulation. At the other extreme 
 are vocations like wood carving, stone cutting, etc., which call 
 for very little repetition of work but for a very decided degree 
 of artistic ability.
 
 292 
 
 There is also the question of the adaptability of a given per- 
 son to any one or a number of different vocations. It is neces- 
 sary for our comfort and prosperity that all these vocations 
 should be fully manned no matter what their lack of desir- 
 ability. To-day the undesirable jobs are filled by those who 
 cannot get desirable ones, and who accordingly get the smallest 
 pay and the least satisfaction in life, but it is conceivable that 
 if every one were trained to do the work he was best fitted 
 to do, that it would be possible to fill what are now the unde- 
 sirable jobs only by making them desirable, either by better- 
 ing their surroundings, by additional compensation, or by 
 decreased hours. 
 
 There is a great difference in men from physical, mental, 
 and temperamental points of view. The improvement of ma- 
 chinery has diminished the physical distinction until it is 
 almost eliminated. Derricks and cranes have taken the place 
 of strong backs, and brute force is confined to athletic tri- 
 umphs. The mental and the temperamental attitude are the 
 strong deciding factors which determine the work which one 
 should attempt. Ability to do a given piece of work and a 
 liking for that work may not necessarily go together. A 
 man may be able to earn the best living working at some 
 task for which nature has fitted him in everything except a 
 liking for it. In that case he must decide for himself between 
 his duty to his family and the community, which leads him 
 to do the work at which he is most valuable, or to follow 
 his own inclination and do the agreeable task and accept the 
 material sacrifice which is inevitable. 
 
 Any program of industrial education must take into con- 
 sideration the present state of affairs. It is not enough to 
 suggest a way of training those who will be the workers and 
 the leaders in years to come. It is necessary to provide for 
 the improvement of those who are already working. The 
 program should not, however, be such that it will attract the 
 young man or woman who might otherwise get a full training. 
 It should not be necessary for a boy or a girl to give up a 
 broad general education in order to learn the specific details 
 of any vocation. He should not be obliged to enter industry 
 in order to get a training in that industry. On the other hand,
 
 293 
 
 if circumstances make it necessary for him to seek employ- 
 ment he should not have to give up all hope of becoming edu- 
 cated in as broad a sense as his surroundings and mentality 
 will permit. Finally the mental capacity of the pupil must 
 be taken into account, not that any mental faculty cannot be 
 developed under proper treatment but because efficiency de- 
 mands that we make the most of our natural possessions, and 
 because the work of the world affords places for every type of 
 mentality short of the imbecile.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS 
 
 VOCATIONAL training in the public schools is a compara- 
 tively simple problem, and one which has been suffi- 
 ciently worked out for so many vocations that a more or less 
 established method of procedure can be set up as capable of ef- 
 fective use. On the other hand, the relations of the basic prin- 
 ciples of the various industries have never yet been thorough!^ 
 brought out, with the result that each vocation is taught as a 
 unit, and so the boy who enters one and finds that he is not 
 able to adapt himself to it without a serious struggle and de- 
 cides to enter another has to go back and cover the entire 
 ground of the new vocation. Attempts have been made to 
 study individuals, and to give them intelligent advice as to 
 the vocations in which they might find success, but the psy- 
 chologist has so far declined to concern himself very closely 
 with the actual conditions of industry. Until some one who 
 has had personal experience with the industrial processes under 
 the pressure of necessity also studies the question from the 
 point of view of the psychologist there is little hope that much 
 help will come from that direction. Caution will dictate that 
 it is desirable that every boy and girl study the subjects which 
 are common to all vocations. This is already done in our 
 public schools which are vocational to the extent that they 
 teach reading, writing, the use of mathematics, and science. 
 
 Beyond this point, however, it should be possible to carry 
 along parallel courses with interlocking channels so that the 
 pupil who after grammar school decides upon a college course 
 and who later finds that his desire cannot be fulfilled, except 
 at the cost of extreme hard work, can change to a course 
 which leads to industrial or to commercial life. During all 
 
 294
 
 295 
 
 this preparatory time the fact should not be overlooked that 
 the greatest common lack of school children is the inability 
 to work except under constant oversight. Training in work, 
 the creation of the ability to do something regardless of 
 whether it is a process in any particular vocation, is of prime 
 importance. A child may be taught to work in a garden 
 without taking away any of the chance of his becoming an 
 expert stonecutter or lawyer. We are in the throes of an all- 
 too-prevalent tendency to sympathize with childhood and to 
 protect it, and too little inclined to train it for the stern reali- 
 ties which it must soon face. It is better for a child to learn 
 to apply himself and to find the satisfaction of a job well done 
 than it is for him to be thrown on a world which is full of 
 temptations when he reaches his maturity. It would un- 
 doubtedly be a great advantage to both boys and girls if 
 they could be brought in intimate contact with real work 
 under surroundings which would safeguard their physical and 
 moral well-being. This can be done in the school by provid- 
 ing shops in which the work offered could be so simplified 
 that the training in work and application will receive the em- 
 phasis rather than its educational value. 
 
 Once past the stage during which education should be quite 
 general and when the pupil has come into contact with enough 
 different vocations to have acquired some idea of his prefer- 
 ences and to have given his advisers some notion of his future 
 possibilities, the time for specific training in a given industry 
 is reached. This training should be very direct. It should 
 consist of practice on the actually productive work of the 
 trade. While the educational value of the work should not 
 be overlooked it is necessary that the pupils should not be 
 allowed to forget its commercial value. Work should be done 
 in all the ways that are commercially used. No work should 
 be performed until the pupil understands why; nor should a 
 job be allowed to pass until the instructor is satisfied not only 
 that it was well done but well understood. Shop practice 
 should dominate the training, but it should only lessen the 
 relative place of the general and related mathematical and 
 scientific work which should be given between the intervals 
 of practice.
 
 296 
 
 These two portions of trade training might well consist of, 
 first, pre-vocational work dealing with work in general with 
 no particular aim beyond familiarizing the pupil with work 
 and the various vocations which he might enter, and second, 
 specific trade training under supervision of instructors whose 
 work it is to make something of the boy rather than to get the 
 boy to do the largest amount of work. The time which should 
 be given to these two periods should not be definitely pre- 
 scribed. It might begin at twelve years of age and run two 
 years for the majority, but it should last for each individual 
 only until he definitely finds himself and is ready for specific 
 training in a vocation which he and his advisers could agree 
 upon as likely to prove satisfactory. For the pupils who did 
 not so easily find their place it should last much longer and 
 cover a wider range, until the instructors were ready to agree 
 upon the probable place in life to which the pupil might rea- 
 sonably aspire. It is fully as important that the apparently 
 hopeless cases should be thoroughly studied as that the 
 brighter and more decided pupils should be prevented from 
 making rash decisions, for the ill-effect on the community 
 will be greater in the former case than in the latter. The 
 bright boy will make a change into another vocation more 
 easily than the duller pupil. 
 
 It is found most satisfactory to make the alternations be- 
 tween classroom and shop weekly, because this plan gives a 
 very desirable continuity of work, and also because it is then 
 easy for a pupil who finds it necessary to earn his way to 
 continue his school work half of the time. That is, a pupil 
 in a school where alternate weeks are devoted to classroom 
 work can, in case of necessity, secure a job in a shop where 
 he can pair off with another boy who will work the weeks 
 that he is in class, and thus still retain his membership in the 
 school and secure the advantages of both the cultural and re- 
 lated studies. 
 
 A typical division of time between shop work and the 
 various classroom studies is shown in Figure 16, which is the 
 arrangement used for machinists at the Worcester Trade 
 School. The cultural studies are grouped between the lines 
 A and B, the related studies are above and the more strictly
 
 297 
 
 manual work below. The related studies begin with a review 
 of arithmetic, applied to the trade, which is called, Shop Com- 
 putations; a small amount of time is also given to algebra 
 and geometry, and trigonometry is studied under the name of 
 Study of Triangles. All these subjects are very elementary 
 and confined closely to the applications which a pupil may 
 reasonably expect to find in his daily life or in his trade. 
 These related mathematical subjects are continued through 
 
 FCTC/T Term Consists of 14- Weeks. 
 \ 
 
 Term 
 
 FIGURE 16. DIVISION OP WORK AT THE WORCESTER TRADE SCHOOL. 
 
 four terms, or one and one-third years. It is followed by 
 Natural Science which for those in the machinist's trade con- 
 sist of mechanics and strength of materials, a little electrical 
 work, and a very small study of heat, light, and sound. At 
 the same time there are given short and elementary courses 
 in Cost Accounting, Commercial Arithmetic, Bookkeeping, 
 and Commercial Law. The Cost Accounting and Bookkeep- 
 ing are based on the actual work of the shops, close watch 
 being kept of each pupil's activities exactly as if he were work- 
 ing for wages, and the results are tabulated as they would be 
 in a commercial shop. 
 
 Under the head of English, there are really three divisions :
 
 298 
 
 first, reading for general information and style, second, read- 
 ing the trade papers for the sake of familiarity with the me- 
 chanical progress of the trade, and third, study of the English 
 language and the pupil's own use of it in compositions con- 
 sisting of reports of the work which he did in the shop the 
 previous week. This work in English goes through the entire 
 course of study; it is paralleled by a shorter course in the 
 History of Commerce and Invention, which has two purposes, 
 one to dispel the idea which pupils form from the use of ordi- 
 nary text books, that history is confined to wars and bloody 
 conquest, the other to bring plainly before them the fact 
 that a large part of the construct! .'3 work of the world has 
 been done by mechanics and engineers rather than by the 
 men from what are sometimes considered higher walks of life. 
 There is also a course in Commercial Geography, which is 
 made broad enough to cover the general lines of commerce of 
 the world instead of being confined to the paths in which the 
 product or the materials of the specific trade follow. The 
 last two and two-third years include a course in Good Citizen- 
 ship based primarily on the relations of the pupil to the shop 
 in which he may be employed, his fellow-workers, and then to 
 the city, state and nation of which he is a part. 
 
 The larger part of the work of the school, that indicated 
 below the line B, is manual, but not automatic. Drawing, 
 which extends through the course, changing during the last 
 year to Jig and Fixture Design, is done on a shop drafting- 
 room basis. The course in Shop Work consists of actual use 
 of machine tools on productive and salable work, while the 
 course in Shop Instruction stands intermediate between the 
 related work and the shop work. It is a combination of hand 
 work and mental work which considers the whys and where- 
 fores of the shop work, and finds the points of application of 
 the other class room work to the shop. 
 
 This schedule is typical of that used in the larger number 
 of trade schools. The number of hours devoted to the differ- 
 ent subjects is varied somewhat, and the subjects are changed 
 for the different trades. A printer does not need the amount 
 nor the kind of drawing that a machinist or a pattern maker 
 demands. A painter has no need of much of the mathematics,
 
 299 
 
 nor does a bricklayer need the kind of natural science that has 
 been outlined above. Each trade needs and receives special 
 treatment and consideration. The length of the course is 
 varied according to the idea which prevails in the particular 
 school, namely, whether the graduate is to be wholly prepared 
 for any branch of industry, or whether he is expected to ac- 
 quire a considerable portion of his training in the outside shops 
 after graduation. In general this outline is followed in prin- 
 ciple if not in fact.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION IN THE INDUSTRIES 
 
 NO matter how good the facilities offered them, many young 
 people leave our schools and enter the industries. 
 Their reasons for so doing are many. They may feel the 
 pressure of money matters through necessity or through a 
 desire to become spenders at the earliest possible moment. 
 They may be weary of school and anxious to change, merely 
 for the sake of change. They may honestly feel that the 
 surest way to advance is to begin at the bottom and work up, 
 without having any very definite idea as to the possibility 
 of working up, or it may be that some one of a number of 
 different schemes for the training of workmen in the shops 
 may appeal to them. The plea of poverty when followed to 
 its conclusion most often turns out to be avarice. The chil- 
 dren, or their parents, want those things which they are accus- 
 tomed to think of as luxuries, or which seem to them to stand 
 for social position. If it is a case where the children are 
 anxious to get away from school life, it may be because they 
 are over-age and sensitive about associating with smaller 
 children, or it may simply mean that they have not found 
 themselves, and so they must wander industrially until the 
 time comes later in life when they shall awaken to their pos- 
 sibilities. The author's experience with young men leads him 
 to group the larger part of such misfits in industries under this 
 latter head, and to feel that most often they reach the floating 
 stage through lack of encouragement rather than through any 
 exalted idea of their ability to get along without training. 
 The "swelled head" is much talked of but rarely met with 
 among workmen. 
 
 Regardless of how these young people of both sexes reach 
 
 300
 
 301 
 
 the shops and factories without any vocational training, the 
 fact remains that they do, and in very large numbers. They 
 often reach the age of twenty or twenty-five before they find 
 that they have aspirations which can only be met by increased 
 earning power. They discover the impossibility of saving 
 anything on the wage of unskilled workers, and that their 
 only hope is in increasing their wages to the point where 
 there is a margin between their actual necessities and their 
 income. If at this stage, and before they give up hope, they 
 can be reached and given an opportunity to make something 
 of themselves, the gain to the community is almost beyond the 
 power of figures to express. 
 
 The various agencies which are attempting to meet this 
 condition may be divided into the commercial, the philan- 
 thropic, and the selective. The commercial is represented by 
 those private schools which teach for a fee that covers the 
 cost and affords a profit to the promoters. The philanthropic 
 includes both privately endowed schools and those which are 
 conducted by the community through the local community 
 alone or by means of state and federal aid. The selective 
 include those private firms or corporations which select their 
 employees through the medium of a training class, which is 
 both an educational factor and a selective process and by 
 means of which the dead wood is eliminated, and the capable 
 and willing worker whose possibilities may be brought out is 
 thus selected. 
 
 Of these three types, the philanthropic should do the most 
 for the worker. The selective will do the most for the in- 
 dustry. The private school, operated for profit perhaps, has 
 a field in those lines of endeavor where a small amount of 
 training will enlarge a person's earning capacity to a consider- 
 able extent. For example, a man may find himself unable to 
 accept a promotion which is open to him unless he learns to 
 read drawings. In that case a very short but intensive course 
 in plan reading may be worth a very considerable sum of 
 money to him. These schools, however, will very likely 
 give way before the advance of the other two, but they will 
 have served their purpose because they have paved the way 
 for the philanthropic and semi-philanthropic schools such as
 
 ^-302-. 
 
 those conducted by the Y. M. C. A. in all sections of the coun- 
 try. These Y. M. C. A. schools have broken away from 
 traditional and formal education, and offer evening courses 
 which have a specific purpose in mind, and which do not 
 necessarily form a part of any long continued course of study. 
 They give, for example, a ten weeks' course in plain reading, 
 or a twenty weeks' course in press feeding. These short de- 
 tached courses are now known as "Unit Courses" and are now 
 being adapted to the work of the evening public schools. 
 
 It has long been the custom for the public schools to offer 
 evening courses, for a small fee or even free of charge, in such 
 subjects as drawing for machinists, design for jewelers, etc., 
 which were intended to supplement the work which the work- 
 man might be doing during the daytime, and also to open 
 these courses to others who might hope to learn a trade by 
 so attending. However, it is now generally recognized that 
 it is a hopeless task for any one to learn a trade of any com- 
 plexity by attending evening school alone, no matter how good 
 the instruction nor how complete the equipment. Accord- 
 ingly, several states which have passed laws devoting public 
 money to the aid of vocational schools have stipulated that 
 none of it shall be used to train men in trades which they 
 do not have the opportunity to practice during the daytime. 
 This has caused considerable criticism, based largely on the 
 assumption that every one should have the opportunity to 
 acquire a trade at the expense of the community, even if it 
 must be done under conditions that seem unlikely to bring 
 any tangible results. Probably sober second thought will lead 
 the critics to see that very often men need to be protected 
 and prevented from wasting their time upon something that 
 has very little chance of returning them adequate rewards, 
 and that the effect of these laws is only to make it necessary 
 for men to back up their faith in their ability to learn a new 
 trade by actually entering a shop or factory. 
 
 It should be noted that it is often found desirable in even- 
 ing classes to entirely separate practice work and theoretical 
 or book work. The average mechanic thinks that his most 
 rapid advancement will come with the ability to do work other 
 than that which he has been accustomed to do, and this is
 
 303 
 
 undoubtedly true in many cases. It is very often difficult 
 for a machinist who is a lathe hand to get any opportunity 
 to become a planer hand, even though by so doing he might 
 make himself worth several dollars more a week. If he can 
 go to an evening school where he can learn to operate a planer 
 he will do so. The same is true in almost all the other trades. 
 It is only after a man has begun to lift himself above the gen- 
 eral level of his fellow-workman that he begins to -see the 
 need of advanced mathematics, science, etc., and then only 
 as they are very directly applicable to the work which he sees 
 ahead of him. While this is to be deplored, it is a condition 
 which must be met if any degree of success is to come from 
 evening school work. 
 
 The greatest difficulty with which evening work has to 
 contend arises from the habits of those who attend. A man 
 who works at a more or less manual trade is not likely to be 
 in the habit of going out evenings. His idea of comfort is 
 usually confined to a pipe and a comfortable chair in the 
 kitchen. If he goes out at all it is either to a moving-picture 
 show or to some other place where he has nothing to do but be 
 entertained. If he goes to a club or society it is usually to sit 
 and smoke, but if he attends an evening cohool it necessitates 
 an entire change of mental habits that very likely have become 
 deeply rooted. For that reason he prefers the shop to the 
 classroom, for there he feels more at home, the results are 
 more tangible, and he is less likely to make himself conspicu- 
 ous by his mistakes. There is a great deal of sensitiveness 
 among workmen even though they may appear callous on the 
 surface and it must be reckoned with in dealing with them. 
 
 This limitation of the evening school has led many large 
 employers of labor to establish classes which have the same 
 general intent as the evening classes, but which they conduct 
 in the daytime and often in their own shops. The pupils are 
 their own workmen, usually young men or boys, who are paid 
 wages which continue during the time which they spend in 
 the classroom. These workmen are usually called apprentices, 
 though they are seldom indentured. Such corporation trade 
 schools are of three kinds: (1) those in which there is but 
 slight change from the old apprenticeship system, and where
 
 304 
 
 there is no organized attempt to do other than secure the 
 apprentice a fair rotation through the different branches of 
 the trade; (2) those in which the shop work is left to be guided 
 by the foremen of the different departments, subject only to 
 a general scheme of transfer from one department to another, 
 but where from four to twelve hours per week are devoted to 
 classroom work of the type which would be offered in an 
 evening school; (3) those in which a distinct apprentice de- 
 partment is set off in the shop under the care of men whose 
 first duty is to make workmen of the boys by instructing 
 them carefully and painstakingly in the methods of the trade 
 as practiced in the shop, and where there is also the class- 
 room work belonging to the second type. 
 
 Of these three types the third is of course the most favored, 
 as it is the most complete and best fits in with the more mod- 
 ern and scientific method by which shops are at present being 
 conducted. It is the most costly at first but probably the 
 most profitable in the end, and especially so if the instructors 
 are selected for their ability to teach modern methods and 
 keep their pupils from acquiring those deplorable habits which 
 are more or less persistent in the shops, such as the lack of 
 application and the doing of work in ways which are time- 
 honored but not effective. 
 
 One very distinct advantage which the corporation school 
 has from the point of view of the trade is that being a private 
 school it can make its own selection of pupils with only due 
 regard to its own best interests. It will not be likely to have 
 the patience with boys in their formative stages that a public 
 school should have. In fact, the tendency is not to accept 
 boys until they are well through the adolescent period and 
 have begun to take account of themselves and to begin to feel 
 a responsibility. The boy from a public or private trade school 
 should have a start of from two to three years over the young 
 man from a corporation school. On the other hand, it is in- 
 evitable that the cost of carrying a boy through a public trade 
 school will be greater than the cost of similar training in the 
 corporation school. The value to the community, however, 
 will be likely to be much greater in the case of the public 
 school, since the boys who will be accepted and graduated
 
 ~~ oUO 
 
 by the corporation school will be a picked lot who probably 
 would have done pretty well in any case, while the public 
 school pupil will be the run of boys, some bright and capable 
 without training and some rather dull and slow with the best 
 that can be done for them. 
 
 The corporation school can also be run on comparatively 
 narrow lines, though fortunately many are not. The boys 
 may have their education confined almost exclusively to those 
 subjects which it is known will add to their value while they 
 are employed by the company which educated them, or their 
 education may be broad enough to include subjects which they 
 may never find a direct use for unless they .change their voca- 
 tion. General education is not usually considered to be a part 
 of the work of a corporation school. It is usually expected that 
 boys entering these schools will have had a grammar-school 
 education, and possibly part, if not all, of a high-school train- 
 ing, so that little criticism can be made if the education 
 offered by the corporation is confined to subjects which it 
 seems probable will be of immediate value to the pupil. 
 
 The cost to the employer of this form of education is con- 
 siderable. It not only includes the cost of furnishing instruc- 
 tion, and the expense incidental to the room and apparatus 
 which it requires, but it includes the loss of earning capacity 
 during the time the apprentices are in the classroom, the loss 
 of the overhead charges for the machinery and space which 
 they normally occupy in the shop, and the loss due to the 
 additional time spent in giving them instructions in the shop 
 itself. All these can only be made up by increasing the effi- 
 ciency of the workman, both during the course and after it is 
 finished. Inasmuch as the average skilled workman probably 
 does not do more than 50 per cent of the work which he 
 might do each day, if he knew better how to do it, it is evident 
 that there is an excellent chance for a corporation to make a 
 school profitable both to itself and the young men which it 
 is training. The largest profit, however, is a deferred divi- 
 dend, for the greater the effort to exploit the apprentice and 
 get immediate returns the less valuable he is likely to be after 
 graduation. If, however, greater effort is put into his instruc- 
 tion, and less into the rapidity with which he does work during
 
 306 
 
 his apprenticeship, he is likely to establish a strong base on 
 which to later build rapidity of production. 
 
 There is a danger that the graduate may leave the shop 
 where he has received his training and rob it of the opportu- 
 nity to profit by the work which has been put into him. One 
 of the older of these schools reports however that over 90 
 per cent of its graduates remain in its employ, while another 
 deliberately advises many of its graduates to go out for a 
 year or two into other shops to broaden their ideas of shop 
 methods, trusting that they will return later and be all the 
 more valuable. They report that they find this a profitable 
 procedure. In the case of the first shop it should be stated 
 however that it is practically the only shop in the country in 
 its particular line, so that there is not the same opportunity 
 for a young man to acquire additional knowledge having a 
 direct bearing on its work by going to other shops. 
 
 The corporation school is varied by a connection with the 
 public school, by two methods which have been given a con- 
 siderable degree of prominence. One of these is the so-called 
 half-time school, or Fitchburg plan ; the other the continuation 
 school. Both of these have their strong points, also their 
 weak ones. The Fitchburg plan is an arrangement whereby 
 a number of pairs of boys alternate, week in and week out, 
 between the public schools and the shops in which they are 
 employed. It is a strong plan in that it places the cost of 
 instructing the pupils in the cultural and semi-cultural studies 
 in the hands of the community, and yet leaves the specific 
 training for the trade to industry. The danger is that the 
 division of the training may be one-sided, for, as is almost 
 always the case, the pupils are sent from the shops to the 
 public schools with all degrees of preparation and from places 
 where diversified trades are practiced by different methods. 
 Also the instructor who is called on to teach anything beyond 
 the most elementary mathematics, drawing, and science finds 
 himself totally unable to do justice to any one except on an 
 entirely individual basis. This limits him to a class of eight 
 or ten, which is so far below public school standards as to 
 excite vigorous comment and make the cost excessive. If the 
 work of the classroom is confined to those subjects which are
 
 307 
 
 of common interest to all the pupils it virtually becomes a 
 typical high-school class, and the pupils might as well be sent 
 to a high school alternate weeks and have the same curriculum 
 as is given to those who are not working. In other words, 
 the specific trade instruction should be eliminated from the 
 course and any classroom work related to the specific trade 
 should be given in the shop as in other corporation schools. 
 
 There is also another objection which is made by some, 
 but which is usually a theoretical one, and that is that every 
 class in a public school should be open to any one who has 
 the requisite preparation, for when a boy's membership in a 
 given class is contingent upon his being employed in one of 
 a given set of shops the condition of business will have a posi- 
 tive influence on the employment of the pupils. This is a 
 condition, however, that is not likely to occur, as it is not 
 probable that any school superintendent will actually expel 
 a boy from his classes simply because he has been discharged 
 from a shop. 
 
 The second method by which the industries and the public 
 schools cooperate is by means of continuation classes con- 
 ducted by the public schools. These classes are identical in 
 aim and treatment with those conducted by the corporation 
 schools except that they must be made sufficiently general in 
 their scope so that pupils from different industries or branches 
 of the same industries can be taught at the same time. There 
 is thus the same difficulty about giving specific instruction 
 in studies relating to the different trades as in the half-time 
 school, and this is inevitable unless the local industries are 
 of such size that classes can be formed into which each pupil 
 will fit and find work in which he has a direct interest. The 
 continuation school is, therefore, best adapted for cities where 
 no one industry is large enough to support a class of its own, 
 and yet where the industries are large enough so that individ- 
 ual classes having a common purpose may be held. 
 
 The controlling purpose of all these schools is the same 
 as in all other trade education, namely to fit boys and girls, 
 young men and young women who have already entered the 
 industries for higher places. The aim is both selfish and un- 
 selfish. The first impulse to form a corporation school may
 
 308 
 
 come from a desire on the part of the firm for greater profit, 
 but in order to make the greatest profit, it must be even more 
 profitable. to the learners than to the company which inaugu- 
 rates it. Its instructions must of necessity be directed along 
 the more or less narrow lines of the specific trade or vocation 
 for which it is intended to train the pupils. The broader edu- 
 cation must have been acquired before the pupil left school, 
 or it must be obtained by dint of much reading outside of 
 working hours, or by means of correspondence courses.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 GENERAL TRADE METHODS 
 
 NO matter what the method by which vocational training is 
 to be given it is of prime necessity that it be based on 
 the way in which the work of the industry is done. Unfor- 
 tunately there is a great lack of understanding of this sub- 
 ject which is not confined to the promoters and teachers of 
 industrial subjects, but which also prevails among workmen 
 and higher officials of manufacturing concerns. It would 
 seem as though men who had practiced a trade all their lives 
 would be the best fitted to prepare courses of training and 
 teach those trades, but in practice this is not the case, for such 
 men have acquired their knowledge in the slow and laborious 
 school of life. They have never analyzed what they do, and if 
 confronted with the question, "Why do you do that?" they 
 are absolutely unable to give any reason, except that that is 
 the way it has to be done. They are ultra-conservative be- 
 cause they have all their lives been dependent on the salary of 
 the job in hand. They have not dared to think independently, 
 nor have they had the opportunity to try the simplest experi- 
 ments. They assume that what has been good practice always 
 will be good practice. A shoemaker's or a stone mason's ham- 
 mer is shaped to-day in a way that was established by custom 
 centuries ago, and few workmen can be found who will use 
 any other than the standard implement, nor can any one 
 state why that shape is the best. 
 
 Unfortunately the teacher, the college man, has no con- 
 ception of the needs of the industrial worker. He may enter 
 a manufacturing plant for a short time to acquire the "atmos- 
 phere," but in the short time that he is willing to give he 
 cannot possibly get more than the most superficial acquaint- 
 
 309
 
 310 
 
 ance with the work. He will not stay long enough to put him- 
 self in the class with skilled workmen who have only reached 
 their positions through years of diligent application. Tech- 
 nical graduates who have gone into shops and worked their 
 way up are likely to acquire the proper viewpoint of the rela- 
 tions of industries and educational work, but they can very 
 seldom be persuaded to do this because they can command 
 higher places in the industrial world. The work, if done, must 
 then be done by cooperation between shop-trained men and 
 school-trained men. The facts of the industries must be 
 brought out by the shop men and laid before men who can 
 analyze and answer the perpetual question, Why? If the shop 
 men do not know why, then there must be experiments which 
 will give the answer. The gain to the industries themselves 
 from the results of these experiments would justify the ex- 
 pense, even if no training whatever were done. A little, a very 
 little, of this work has been done in the name of scientific man- 
 agement, but even there too little attention has been paid to 
 underlying principles and too much to development of motion 
 studies of rule of thumb methods. 
 
 Such a study of the industries will develop at once two 
 very distinct types of manufacturing. One which we may call 
 the process method, for lack of a better name, and the 
 other the part manufacture and assembling method. Under 
 the first may be classified most textile work, most of the man- 
 ufacture of iron and steel, production of foodstuffs, etc., while 
 under the latter are building operations and the manufacture 
 of automobiles, engines, and other machinery. The work 
 under the first heading is done largely by men of little skill 
 who have no conception of the process as a whole, but who 
 are guided and led by a few men of large ability and equally 
 large wage earning capacity. Each of these industries is sus- 
 ceptible of study in minute detail. The actual labor is largely 
 performed by machinery which has been subjected to the long 
 and intense development by the ablest of minds. 
 
 These industries employ more than half the workmen and 
 women of the country, comparatively few of whom can hope 
 for promotion within the industries. Nevertheless, the records 
 show that the leaders have been selected, or have pushed them-
 
 311 
 
 selves forward, from the ranks, and the same process is likely 
 to continue. Training for this branch of industry then would 
 seem to be possible along two different lines. One for the 
 rank and file who need only intelligent instruction to do the 
 specific thing which they may have to do, and the other suffi- 
 cient education in the English language, if the person is a 
 foreigner, to enable him 'to read and understand instructions 
 in English, and possibly some elementary instructions under 
 the general head of civics calculated to give an intelligent idea 
 of the form of government under which he lives and its rela- 
 tion both to him and his employer. 
 
 The other type of industry, where individual parts are 
 made, often using the material partially manufactured in mills 
 of the other type and then assembling them to form a com- 
 plete machine or other article, requires an altogether different 
 type of employee. In general it is desirable that they have 
 acquaintance with more different processes. For example, a 
 man employed in an automobile factory running an engine 
 lathe should be able to do any work which may be suited to 
 the capacity of his lathe. If he is a milling machine operator 
 he may find work brought to him in such a way and with 
 such fixtures that it has a great sameness, but if he leaves 
 the automobile factory and goes to a shop which makes tools 
 he will find that every job which comes to his machine is 
 different from every other job, and that if he is to succeed 
 he must find a way to do each new job and do it expeditiously. 
 
 In other words, while there is simple and elementary work 
 for all classes of mechanics in this type of industry each class 
 has its opportunities for the highest grade of skill and 
 the best of planning and thinking capacity even if the work- 
 man is not promoted to be a foreman or to take any other 
 executive position. In a factory of this type it is important 
 that the workman should be taught to analyze the jobs which 
 come to him, to plan out their method of holding them on his 
 machine, to select the proper cutting tools, to make the neces- 
 sary measurements and make the desired cuts in the proper 
 order to avoid distortion of the work through the release of 
 internal stresses. To be sure, in isolated cases, and as a mat- 
 ter of necessity brought about by the lack of thinking me-
 
 312 
 
 chanics, this work has devolved upon a planning department 
 which is composed of some of the brighter and more capable 
 mechanics who are allotted the task of planning out the work 
 for others to execute, but in general there is almost no limit 
 to the advancement which capable initiative will bring. 
 
 The training of such a man must consist of a thorough drill 
 on all typical operations in an actual shop under conditions 
 as to accuracy and finish equal to those demanded in the 
 commercial world. This must be supplemented by training 
 in thinking about the job, both before and after it is done; 
 before the job, because he must learn to plan his work, and 
 after it is done to consider why his instructor's method was 
 better than his if such was the case. It can by no means be 
 predicted that the apprentice's method may not at times 
 be better than the accepted shop method, as he comes to it 
 with a mind free from all traditions which often keep an 
 otherwise capable man from seeing what is obviously an im- 
 proved method of manufacture.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX 
 THE TRAINING OF FOREMEN 
 
 FOR the past ten or fifteen years we have talked a great 
 deal but done very little toward training workmen. Now, 
 however, there seems to be no doubt but that this form of 
 training is safely launched and that in the course of time it 
 will grow until it will satisfy the demand. We have, however, 
 done very little to improve the foremanship of our factories. 
 To be sure, we advise our young men to attend certain engi- 
 neering or trade schools, with the hopes that they will come 
 out with a higher grade of technical knowledge of certain voca- 
 tions than they could get within the shop itself, but this does 
 not of necessity even act to sort out foremen, and the records 
 appear to indicate that if these men stay in the ranks it is 
 only for a short time while they are gathering strength to climb 
 higher. These schools do not add to the number of capable 
 foremen. During the war it was no unusual thing for work- 
 men to make more money than the foreman over them. In 
 fact, it is a question whether the larger number of foremen are 
 much more valuable than a workman who has the initiative 
 and persistence to go ahead with his work and who thus re- 
 quires but little supervision. 
 
 Formerly a foreman was a man who directed the efforts of 
 other men who knew perfectly well what to do, but who would 
 otherwise have kept all the good work for themselves. In 
 other words, the foreman for the most part steered the craft. 
 Then there came a growing tendency to fill up the shop with 
 men of less and less knowledge of the work, and with less in- 
 tention to earn their income. The foreman then gradually 
 became a disciplinarian and later on an instructor. During 
 all this time foremen were recruited from among the workmen 
 
 313
 
 314 
 
 who showed signs of willingness to work, as well as some 
 capability with the work itself. There was also a tendency 
 to pick out the driving variety, the sort of man who would 
 rule by brute force, but not being allowed to do so tries to 
 scare men into working for fear they may be discharged. 
 During the war these foremen had to change their methods, 
 for men were not at all fearful about losing their jobs, their 
 only fear being that they would not move from one job to 
 another fast enough to take every cent they could from the 
 rising market for their services. 
 
 Just what the state of the relation between worker and 
 foremen will be when conditions again become normal no one 
 knows, but it is fairly safe to assume that it will be many 
 years before the fear of a foreman is going to be a strong factor 
 in industrial relations. It is of course much better to appeal 
 to the self-interest of the worker, and the successful foreman 
 is likely to be the man who helps his subordinates most ef- 
 fectively to produce more and thereby earn more. If fore- 
 men can only be educated along these lines, we may find the 
 whole industrial problem much nearer of solution than ever 
 before. To-day, however, foremanship is still of the pre-war 
 type which smacks of autocracy rather than democracy. 
 
 A large part of the working forces of this country have but 
 recently come from other lands and their most intimate con- 
 tact with this country is through the foreman under whom 
 they are placed. Their Americanization may depend in a 
 great measure on him. Can we therefore afford to select our 
 foreman without taking into account the fact that to the 
 worker he represents America? These men have come from 
 countries in which a man is a carpenter because his father was 
 a carpenter and his grandfather was a carpenter. Here, how- 
 ever, he finds an entirely new attitude. He finds the spirit 
 of adventure, and in his efforts to better himself, he sees no 
 harm in saying that he has worked five years at a trade when 
 as a matter of fact it was five weeks. The consequence is 
 that from this part of our population our system of public 
 trade schools cannot provide, for some years at least, any ade- 
 quate supply of help, even to the most common trades. In 
 the meantime the largest function of our foremen will be
 
 315 
 
 that of training these men and women. They will have to 
 do their work intelligently and keep order by sane and rational 
 methods. The foreman of to-morrow must have a keen reali- 
 zation of his men's trend of thought. He must know that 
 he cannot expect that the same method will get the same work 
 from a Finn as from a Greek. He must be a builder of men, 
 and he must be able to both see and cultivate the good quali- 
 ties in a man. 
 
 His first job with a new man is to find out what that man 
 knows, not what some one has taught him to say, but what 
 he really knows. It is not enough to set him at work at some 
 machine to see what he can do, for he may spoil the machine 
 and injure himself. Indirect questions help, for if the man 
 claims to be a planer hand, and does not even know what 
 makes he has run, it is unlikely that he has had a very long 
 or intimate acquaintance with them. In a way this is also 
 a function of the employment department, but that depart- 
 ment has to deal only in a general way with the fitness of the 
 candidate for a job, while the foreman has the problem of 
 making as good a workman out of him as his limitations will 
 allow. He may play safe by putting him on some simple 
 job, and letting him work up gradually, but the nearer he 
 comes to correctly sizing up the man's ability at the start, 
 the less expensive will be his probationary period. 
 
 A characteristic which all foremen might well possess is 
 that of patience, but unfortunately most foremen do not have 
 patience enough with the men who have not been brought up 
 as they have. There are many capable mechanics who are 
 slow to learn, and they have only learned by being kicked and 
 cuffed around from shop to shop. It would have cost the 
 community no more to have had one shop carry them the 
 entire time, in fact, it would probably have cost less, but as 
 it is each shop has contributed part of their education and 
 none, until they had their trade well in hand, received any re- 
 turn. Any foreman can undoubtedly recall many instances 
 of men who made a bad start in life and who have since done 
 well; possibly some of them have outstripped him. 
 
 If a new man fails in the first task that is set before him, 
 it may be that his instructions were insufficient, for if one
 
 316 
 
 man does not understand another there is always the chance 
 that the one who gave the instructions is not clear in his own 
 mind as to exactly what he desires done. Probably every 
 shop has at least one foreman who really does not know how 
 to do many of the tasks which he daily directs. He has always 
 had the good fortune to find men who could do the work. 
 When the time comes, however, that he cannot find a man 
 ready trained for a particular job, and he has to break in a 
 man, there is serious danger that he will at least get out of 
 patience with several men who might have made excellent 
 men for the job, if he had frankly admitted that he himself 
 did not know how to do it. Again, if a man does not under- 
 stand instructions he may not be deaf, he may merely be 
 unacquainted with the English language as misused in our 
 shops and he will certainly not understand any better if the in- 
 structions are yelled. On the other hand, he may understand 
 if the foreman is patient and repeats his directions slowly and 
 distinctly. Timidity is often mistaken for ignorance. A 
 timid man may make a most excellent workman. To be sure 
 it would be easier in some ways if all men were not at all 
 timid, or else all were equally so. To some men ordinary 
 courtesy seems like timidity, and they will often turn down 
 men who since have gone through experiences which would 
 take the heart out of those same blustering foremen. These 
 timid men once acquainted with the shop make excellent 
 workmen. They are not so likely to stir up trouble, for they 
 lack initiative. 
 
 Timidity is likewise often attributed to men who merely 
 are assuming what they consider their place in life. When 
 foreigners first come to this country they are apt to assume 
 the same attitude toward better dressed people that they for- 
 merly showed toward their "superiors," but after they have 
 been here a little while they are apt to let the natives take 
 the narrow side of the walk. It would be better for them if 
 they had been taken in hand by the right kind of a foreman 
 and part of their natural timidity preserved, at least enough 
 so that they would be content with the part of the walk which 
 is theirs. It is difficult to estimate how much of the Bol- 
 shevism which now exists in this country is due to lack of ap-
 
 317 
 
 preciation by foremen of their proper part in Americanization. 
 
 It is also difficult for a man who knows how to do a certain 
 task, and who has acquired that knowledge through long prac- 
 tice, to recall the difficulties through which he himself passed, 
 and to realize that others with even less aptitude for the 
 work can be taught to do it too. We are all apt to overlook 
 some minor but very essential point in our directions to 
 others. If we visit a strange city and inquire the way, and 
 are told to go down a certain street, take the second turn to 
 the left, then the first turn to the right as far as the red 
 building, and then turn to the left, we are apt to get directions 
 mixed after the second turn and have to inquire again. A 
 man who has never run a lathe is in about the same state of 
 mind. If he is shown the shipper rod, the feed reverse, the 
 longitudinal and cross feed, the tail stock and hand wheel, the 
 compound rest, where to oil the machine, and his job all at 
 the same time, it is a safe bet that he will forget something. 
 In fact he may not get further than the shipper rod. The 
 safe rule is to show only one thing at a time. In the case 
 mentioned, the man should have been brought to a lathe which 
 was already oiled, the work in place and tool set to the right 
 diameter, so that all he had to do was to push over the shipper 
 rod, and pull it back when the tool reached a chalk mark. If 
 he is thus shown one thing, and allowed to do it even once, 
 he is very much more likely to do it that same way the next 
 time than if he is given a confusing mass of instructions. 
 
 Then again, some foremen use their own nomenclature, and 
 if the man comes from another section of the country and is 
 used to another name he is no more of a fool than the fore- 
 man himself. In fact, the foreman ought to admit that his 
 fondness for localized nomenclature is foolish and provincial, 
 and he should try to accustom himself to the words used in 
 all parts of the country. In any event he certainly has no 
 right to criticize a subordinate who brings in a word which is 
 new to him ; it is his business to know the whole category. It 
 is also part of his job to make what impression he can on 
 the world-wide problem of a universal nomenclature. There 
 are certain names which are more widely used than others, and 
 if every one tries to find out what these names are and intro-
 
 318 
 
 duce them gradually in the shop there may ultimately be 
 brought about the adoption of a single name. If the busi- 
 ness is one which is peculiar unto itself there may be occasion 
 for the publication of a dictionary, or word book, of the indus- 
 try. Such books are now in use in some , industries and they 
 are very helpful, though it must be admitted that they are 
 used more by the stenographers in the office than by the shop 
 force. With the coming of women into industry the foreman 
 should remember that many of the names used in the shop 
 have a different meaning in the minds of women. Some very 
 simple words like "dog" and "apron" at first remind women 
 of something quite different than that which it is intended 
 the words shall convey. It is just as necessary that these 
 words shall be explained in their new significance as it is that 
 words which have different significances in different shops 
 should be explained. 
 
 Another matter which foremen should be particular about 
 is the care of tools and machinery. It is second nature for 
 men who were in the shops fifteen or twenty years ago to take 
 good care of their tools, for then it was considered a part of 
 each man's training, and many men owned most of the tools 
 which they needed. Now it seems to be left to the foremen 
 to see that tools are provided; tools which only a few years ago 
 were brought in by men who would have been ashamed to 
 call themselves mechanics if they could not present a suitable 
 kit. Nevertheless it is necessary for production that the 
 proper tools shall be at hand, and a shop full of men running 
 to each other and borrowing personal possessions is only worse 
 than a shop in which the supply furnished by the firm is 
 inadequate. It is, or it should be, part of the foreman's job 
 to see that enough tools are at hand so that every man can 
 do the most effective work. It may be that he can secure 
 these tools by going to the superintendent and getting them 
 placed in the tool room, or perhaps he can best get them by 
 shaming the men into buying them for themselves. Then 
 again, it may be that when the employment department hires 
 the man, the desirability of possessing a suitable set of tools 
 is impressed upon him. Unfortunately there seems to be a 
 great uncertainty as to the tools which a workman should
 
 -319 
 
 have. During the war this was compromised in many places 
 by not expecting anything, and stocking the tool room as 
 liberally as possible. It seems as though a foreman whose 
 men own their own small tools would always find them more 
 stable, dependable, and reliable than the foreman whose work- 
 men were always running to the tool crib or borrowing from 
 each other. Pride in property is a strong influence toward 
 stability. The man who might give up his job and rush into 
 some other line of work that offered a slight increase in pay 
 is not so apt to do it if he has $50 invested in small tools that 
 will be of no use in the next shop. The possession of the 
 tools seems to bind him to his trade. 
 
 Another matter in which foremen should be instructed is 
 that of sharpening and properly arranging tools for rapid pro- 
 duction. At the present time most men have never been ap- 
 prentices and they have never stayed on a job long enough to 
 make their foreman anxious to help them to any great extent, 
 but if their present foreman will only take the pains to demon- 
 strate to them how much can be gained if they will sharpen 
 their tools while something else is going on, and keep them 
 arranged, then a connection will have been established that 
 will make the labor turnover much less. 
 
 Foremen should also be made to realize that with the 
 present rapid flow of labor through the shops it is also part 
 of their duty to retain as many as possible of those who are 
 really fitted to do the work, not through favoritism, but by 
 making it as easy as possible for them to progress. Some 
 may resent being given too easy jobs, but the great majority 
 rather appreciate having an easy time until they get used 
 to their surroundings and acquainted with the ways of the 
 shops. This was especially true in munitions shops where many 
 men were anxious to get ahead so that they might earn more 
 money, or else they were patriotic and wanted to boost pro- 
 duction, but so many of them came into the work with so 
 faint a notion of what it was all about that they were very 
 glad of the time that was given them to get used to their new 
 surroundings. An easy job to a man who comes into a new 
 industry is one which requires the learning of the fewest 
 things. For example, a man who has been accustomed to
 
 320 
 
 turning straight work, and is therefore familiar with the mo- 
 tions necessary to throw the shipper rod over and to set the 
 tool for depth, is ready to learn to cut vee threads without 
 much exertion and delay. On the other hand, if he were 
 put on a job of faceplate chucking he might find the change 
 too great and so he would not work with the same confidence. 
 
 The same reasoning applies to practically every other tool 
 and operation in machine shops and elsewhere. New press 
 men should have a chance to get accustomed to the noise of 
 operation and to the recurring motion of the machine before 
 starting in responsible charge of a machine, no matter how 
 sure of themselves they may be. It may save fingers, if 
 nothing more, and it will give the learner a sense of the need 
 of care on his own part. Sometimes, of course, it is possible 
 to hire men who come fully prepared to take hold at full speed, 
 but even then it is better to make them understand that they 
 will have to come on as helpers until their regular jobs will 
 be ready for them. This is especially true when taking on 
 female operators. Most of them are quite unfamiliar with 
 rapidly moving and noisy machinery. It is better, if possible, 
 to fence off a few machines and have the beginners do the 
 first part of their work away from the curious glances of the 
 others and especially of the male operators. After they once 
 get accustomed to their work so that they do it with a degree 
 of confidence, even if not automatically, they can be moved 
 out in the shop or the fence can be torn down. Of course, 
 there is a type of girl which will much prefer an admiring 
 gallery even when she is making mistakes, but they appear 
 prominent, not by their numbers, but by their persistence in 
 being seen. 
 
 When a foreman is giving instructions, if he stops to ridi- 
 cule some other way of doing the job, or to explain how it was 
 done in so-and-so's shop twenty-five years ago, the wrong way 
 is likely to make more of an impression than the right way. 
 Instruction should be put on a single track and should not 
 run into discussion, until the operator is sufficiently well 
 trained. In other words, if there are several ways to do a 
 job which are used under different conditions, teach one thor- 
 oughly before mentioning that there are others. This should
 
 321 
 
 not be taken to mean that methods should not be illustrated. 
 It often helps a man to tell him some story or anecdote that 
 will always remind him of the fact that one is presenting. 
 Instructions may be given in detail and yet be concise. Com- 
 pleteness is the most important. A detail omitted may alter 
 the entire conception of the worker, and yet that detail may 
 seem entirely obvious to the foreman. Conciseness, however, 
 is almost assured if the instruction is divided as at first sug- 
 gested into units, and this analysis of the work is a large part 
 of the successful foreman's job but one to which many pay 
 little attention. 
 
 Motion study should also be taught to foremen. By this 
 is meant motion study literally, not any one man's idea of 
 motion study. A great deal of time is lost by awkwardness, 
 which may be smoothed out but which is not necessarily 
 always inefficient. There are always men who cannot do any- 
 thing except in an awkward way but they should not be de- 
 barred from working just on that account. Mr. Gilbreth has 
 said that each worker does his work in one of three ways, 
 one when he is just working, another when he is being watched, 
 and the third when he is showing some one else. From this it 
 is evident that if we want to know how a man does a job we 
 must see him without his knowing that he is being watched. 
 Some foremen appear to know everything that is going on 
 without looking. They probably have quick perceptions and 
 do not have to stare at a man to grasp the fact that he is 
 sitting down and doing nothing. Great care should be taken 
 in correcting any one's methods to be sure that it is actually 
 an inefficient method that is being pursued, for the method 
 which one is tempted to criticize may be just the one that 
 might better be adopted. 
 
 Another duty of the foreman should be to see that his 
 men are fully instructed in the dangers of the work in which 
 they are engaged. These dangers may be: (1) occupational, 
 (2) accidental, (3) due to ignorance, (4) due to carelessness. 
 
 Occupational dangers are those which are inherent and pe- 
 culiar to a given job. They can be eliminated or, at least, 
 minimized by mechanical safeguards. Sometimes the me- 
 chanical guard cuts down production and is, therefore, con-
 
 322 
 
 demned by both superintendent and worker, but whether 
 guards are furnished or not, or whether they are adequate or 
 not, the duty of the foreman remains clear. He should warn 
 and show the operator just what dangers are present. A me- 
 chanical guard which is broken or accidentally removed is 
 much worse than no guard at all, as it gives the worker a sense 
 of security and makes him depend on the guard and not on 
 himself. It is usually unnecessary and unwise to mix in- 
 struction as to dangers with instruction about work. The 
 first few days of employment show few accidents in most 
 plants. It is only when "familiarity breeds contempt" that 
 danger really comes. It is usually best, therefore, to wait un- 
 til the new employee is fairly into the swing of the work be- 
 fore pointing out its dangers. This applies to the foreman's 
 work and should not be construed into permitting the em- 
 ployment department to gloss over or ignore dangers in- 
 herent in the work offered candidates. 
 
 A true accident is something which cannot be foreseen. 
 For example, a man who has for months been lifting heavy 
 boxes into trucks without strain, may some day slip and strain 
 his back. Such an accident may cause him much suffering and 
 loss of time, but it could not be foreseen. Accidents like this 
 make up about 10 per cent of all accidents in a well-guarded 
 shop, and will make up a larger and larger percentage as other 
 unnecessary accidents are cut down. 
 
 Accidents due to ignorance and carelessness constitute by 
 far the greater part of all accidents. They cannot always be 
 separated, as many cases caused by carelessness are laid by the 
 help to ignorance. Ignorance is the great plea and alibi of 
 the foreigner and only the most persistent and unrelenting 
 watch by the foremen will reduce these accidents. It is not 
 natural for the pushing, aggressive, energetic worker that we 
 like to have in our shops to be careful. The fact that men are 
 careless only adds to the responsibilities of the foreman. 
 There is no one else to take his place as a big brother to the 
 men under him. They can be appealed to on the score of the 
 loss to their families, for no compensation laws offer anything 
 like adequate recompense for time lost, to say nothing of men- 
 tal and physical anguish.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 AMERICANIZATION 
 
 WHILE there seems to be an entire unanimity of opinion 
 as to the need of a concerted and country-wide Ameri- 
 canization of our foreign-born element, there is nevertheless a 
 most complete divergence of opinion as to what constitutes 
 Americanization. Efforts along this line thus far seem to point 
 in two directions, first teaching the foreign born to speak Eng- 
 lish, and second, getting them to take out naturalization 
 papers. However, an American is something more than a 
 man who can read and write and exercise the power to vote at 
 convenience. He is a man who believes in the constitution 
 of the United States, and who can and will defend that con- 
 stitution by word and act whenever it is called in question. 
 He is a man who believes that every one should be willing to 
 make sacrifices for the common good, and make them in such 
 a spirit that they are not real sacrifices at all. Teaching Eng- 
 lish is one step and only one, and taking out naturalization 
 papers is but another. Americanization, however, is not 
 wholly an act of the immigrant. It must be shared by those 
 of us whose families have been here for generations. We have 
 invited these people to come to us. We have been too busy 
 to pick out our guests, so we have sent out wholesale invi- 
 tations. W T e are sorry that some have misunderstood us, but 
 we must abide by what we have done and do the best we can 
 to have the ideals of all the people who live here such that a 
 true American can subscribe to them. 
 
 Americanization cannot be accomplished by absent treat- 
 ment. A class of Italians can be taught English by one of 
 their own number who has been here long enough to become 
 an American citizen, but they will not be as thoroughly Amer- 
 
 323
 
 324 
 
 icanized by the process, as they would have been if the teacher 
 was one whose family has been here for generations and who 
 thus unconsciously represents to them ideals which perhaps 
 cannot be described, but which can be transferred by inspira- 
 tion rather than by injection. Our error lies mostly in just 
 this, we expect our new-come guests to learn their way about 
 the house and to learn and adopt our ways of living and meth- 
 ods of thought without personal contact with us. The nat- 
 ural result is that they learn very soon that we did not really 
 intend to invite them and that we are sorry they came. Con- 
 sequently through fear they have associated themselves to- 
 gether prepared to defend themselves against what proves to 
 be imaginary interference. This condition must of necessity 
 grow worse instead of better, until we are willing to hold out 
 a helping hand, not a hand full of money but the hand of wel- 
 come and of acquaintance. The word brotherhood has been 
 so many times used to indicate something so akin to pater- 
 nalism that it is a dangerous term to use, but 'if we could think 
 of a big brother who is not too ready to raise his hand in their 
 defense, but who helps them to help themselves, then that 
 is the sort of big brother that we should all be to our friends 
 who are not yet fully Americanized. 
 
 It is very common to find a man with a strange name com- 
 ing forward very rapidly through our shops or commercial es- 
 tablishments. We wonder how he does it, especially if he 
 begins on the lowest round of the ladder. Later it develops 
 that he was a graduate of some college or engineering school 
 in his own land, and that his early months here were passed 
 in obscurity while he was acquiring a working knowledge of 
 English. Men of this type feel the lack of cordiality more 
 than those in more humble walks of life at home, but they 
 do find themselves accepted sooner or later, while the digger 
 of ditches is left to himself to take up with all the unfortu- 
 nate theories which are offered by victims of social unrest. 
 Small wonder if they come to believe that all Americans are 
 too "high-brow" to condescend to meet them halfway. Un- 
 less we are ready to get acquainted with them we must ex- 
 pect that the Bolshevik ideas will carry them away. It is 
 very much like the effect of the saloon which has competed
 
 325 
 
 with the churches on very much the same basis that Bol- 
 shevism has competed with American ideals. When a man is 
 thousands of miles from home he is ready to make friends with 
 the first man who will fraternize with him. If this first man 
 has un-American beliefs to present we have no right to find 
 fault with any one but ourselves. 
 
 What then is the cure? Not merely more English, though 
 that is necessary, for it is useless to offer instruction in Eng- 
 lish and stop because no one comes. It is necessary to make 
 the instruction and the surroundings such that the type of 
 men whom we want will want to come. This does not mean 
 that wealthy people should open their parlors and pour tea 
 for the class. It means that a room with comfortable chairs, 
 tables instead of desks and with the "No Smoking" signs care- 
 fully removed, should be provided. It means that the teach- 
 ing must be done by a man who can command the respect of 
 his class, not by his erudition, but by his being a man's man. 
 He does not need to lick his students but he should be able to 
 do it and he should look the part. He should rank high 
 enough in the community so that his pupils know that he is 
 a part of the American nation and that they are not being 
 taught merely by the hired man. The atmosphere of the en- 
 tire place should be one of business-like welcome and good 
 feeling. It should be easier and more comfortable for men 
 to go to school than to stay at home. 
 
 But after the night-school work that is possible there is 
 much left to do to make the surroundings truly American. 
 In all the larger cities there are sections where the only thing 
 American is the fact that the architecture is of the Civil War 
 era The people are all of one race and they carry with them 
 the customs and habits, to say nothing of the language of 
 their former homes. They do not need to do anything differ- 
 ent because their whole life can be lived in that quarter; they 
 can buy everything that they need and secure all the amuse- 
 ment they can comprehend and afford without doing more than 
 take an occasional day at the park or beach. They have their 
 own paper in their own language and stores where the signs 
 and everything else are plainly imported. In smaller cities 
 these distinctions are not so evident but there is still the coun-
 
 326 
 
 ter effect. It is the line of least resistance for men and women 
 to come here and to live in the old way and not to become any 
 part of the Nation. All this can be cured in time, if we can 
 first of all do away with the foreign language newspaper and 
 then with the foreign stores and markets. In other words, if 
 we make it inconvenient for a man to stick to the ways of his 
 nationality and make it easy for him to become an American 
 he will do it ; otherwise he will not. 
 
 Our greatest forces for Americanization so far seem to be 
 baseball, plus the more recent effect of the war. People who 
 at home would take no interest in baseball soon grow to be 
 regular attendants here, and the democratizing effect of the 
 bleachers is not to be belittled. Here men are just men, a 
 home run brings the same feelings to the sympathizers with 
 each team and everybody is so partisan over the game that 
 rank, money, station, and nationality go in the discard. 
 
 Much has been said about a spiritual awakening among 
 those in the fighting. It is a spiritual awakening in the sense 
 that they have a new basis for valuation for themselves and 
 others, but not very markedly in the sense of a change of re- 
 ligious spirit. However, unless something is done to keep 
 this same relation awake, and to avoid going back to the con- 
 ventional way of thought, much of this new point of view will 
 inevitably be lost. So long as the foreigner finds it easier to 
 remain a foreigner he will do so. It must be made the line of 
 least resistance for him to do otherwise, and that must be ac- 
 complished by men who have been for generations in this 
 country, if we are going to preserve the sturdy and self-reliant 
 qualities which make true Americanism. Those among us 
 who most easily follow traditional ideals must give our time 
 as we can make a way to spare it to getting acquainted with 
 our foreign brothers. The bootblack, elevator man, fruit ven- 
 dor, all that we come in contact with, will be better Americans 
 for contact with Americans who will treat them as fellow be- 
 ings rather than as a useful part of our economic world, alone. 
 This does not mean preaching sermons. That is the woi-st 
 thing that can be done, but it is possible to talk a very mild 
 brand of politics to them, and to get their point of view. If 
 it does not agree with ours it is certainly just as American
 
 327 
 
 for us to argue it out with him as with some one who simple 
 differs with us over party fences, and much more profitable. 
 
 But after all Americanization is a personal individual affair 
 and nothing that can be done wholesale and by deputy. We 
 will Americanize our friends just when we discover that they 
 are of the same clay that we are, and just when we want to do 
 it, and no sooner. All the classes in English, all the speech- 
 making can amount to almost nothing alongside the personal 
 effort we can all give to make it the easiest thing for them to 
 become good Americans rather than retain their foreign cus- 
 toms and ways.
 
 INDEX
 
 INDEX 
 
 Absences, 131. 
 
 Causes of, 132, 134. 
 
 Forms for reporting, 45. 
 Accident, 
 
 Compensation laws, 179. 
 
 Insurance, 179. 
 
 Prevention. 267. 
 
 Records, 176. 
 Accidents, 
 
 Causes of, 322. 
 
 Hospital cases of, 178. 
 
 Labor turnover and, 267. 
 
 Professional insurance agents and 
 settlement of, 181. 
 
 What constitutes, 177. 
 Adaptability of workers, 292. 
 Advertising for labor, 
 
 Basis of, 99. 
 
 Display, 98. 
 
 Evils of, 96. 
 
 Scouting and, 96. 
 
 Age limits, labor turnover and, 273. 
 Agencies, 
 
 Educational, 301. 
 
 Employment, 102. 
 Americanization, 323. 
 
 Forces for, 324-326. 
 Amusements, 244. 
 Apartment hotels for workers, 224. 
 Applicants, 
 
 Classification of data referring to, 
 42. 
 
 Types of, 24. 
 Appointments, 
 
 Keeping of, 197. 
 
 Necessity of, 196. 
 Association employment agencies, 
 
 106. 
 Attendance, 131. 
 
 Keeping records of, 132, 133. 
 
 Relation of social affairs to, 131. 
 
 Value of watching, 133. 
 Autocracy in the shop, 5. 
 
 B 
 
 Banking affairs, employees, 133. 
 Bargaining, collective, 109. 
 Baseball teams, 242. 
 Basketball, 243. 
 Bidding up rates, 79. 
 
 Black listing, 119. 
 Bonus system, 253. 
 Boycotts, 186. 
 Boy workers, 155. 
 
 Value of, 159. 
 Business expansion, 80. 
 
 Cafeteria, shop, 207, 208. 
 
 Capitalistic organization, penalties of, 
 
 73. 
 
 Carnivals, shop, 244. 
 Child labor, what constitutes, 154. 
 Cleanliness, 
 
 Floors and windows, 231. 
 
 Labor turnover and, 269. 
 
 Machinery, 232. 
 
 Personal, 230. 
 
 Shop, 228. 
 
 Value of paint as an aid to, 230. 
 
 Waiting room, 23. 
 Colleges, workers' attitude toward, 
 
 284. 
 
 Commercial schools, 301. 
 Commissary department, 204. 
 
 Cost of, 207, 208. 
 
 Letting out privilege of, 209. 
 
 Menus, 210. 
 
 Serving portion of meals in the, 210. 
 Company property, forms for receipts 
 
 of, 44. 
 Company restaurants, 205. 
 
 Cost of, 206. 
 
 Location of, 206. 
 Complaints, 125. 
 Collective bargaining, 109. 
 
 An experiment in, 117. 
 
 Individual dealing vs., 111. 
 
 Some employer's attitude toward, 
 110. 
 
 Value of records in, 112. 
 Concentration tests, 53. 
 Cooperative stores, 67. 
 Corporation schools, 281. 
 
 Advantage of, 304. 
 
 Cost of, 305. 
 Cost, 
 
 Corporation schools, 305. 
 
 Feeding employees, 206, 207, 209. 
 
 Housing, 226. 
 
 Labor, 9. 
 
 331
 
 332 
 
 Cost, 
 
 Labor turnover, 16, 61, 62, 63. 
 
 Training workers, 90. 
 Cripples, 
 
 American plan of handling, 162, 164. 
 
 Assisting industrial, 165. 
 
 Day laborer as a, 162. 
 
 "Dead-enders," 161. 
 
 Employment of, 161. 
 
 European plan of handling, 161, 
 164. 
 
 Industrial, 164. 
 
 Mentality of, 163. 
 Cuspidors, care of, 230. 
 
 Dealing with employees, fundamental 
 basis of, 3. 
 
 Democratization of industry, the em- 
 ployment department's part in, 
 65. 
 
 Developing the labor supply, 73. 
 
 Dinner-pail, failure of, 204. 
 
 Discharging men, 11. 
 
 Discourtesy of minors, 158. 
 
 Dishonesty of minors, 156. 
 
 Disputes, 
 Employment department's part in, 
 
 14. 
 Shop, 126. 
 
 Duties of labor, 185. 
 
 Education, 
 
 Number who can obtain, 287. 
 
 Employment managers, 18. 
 Educational departments, 282. 
 Eight-hour day, 199. 
 Employees, 
 
 Feeding of, 7. 
 
 Physical examinations of, 233. 
 
 Representatives of, 8. 
 
 Transportation of, 7. 
 Employers' associations, 123. 
 Employment, 
 
 Cripples and, 161. 
 
 Machinery of, 20. 
 
 Minors and, 154. 
 
 Office force and, 139. 
 
 Safety engineering as related to, 
 172. 
 
 Records, 112. 
 Employment agencies, 102. 
 
 Association, 106, 107. 
 
 Characteristics of, 105. 
 
 Federal, 103. 
 
 Functions of, 103. 
 
 Object of, 105. 
 
 Policy of, 102. 
 
 Public, 105, 108. 
 
 State, 103. 
 
 Employment department, 
 
 Ambition of, 65. 
 
 Backing the, 10. 
 
 Democratization of Industry and, 
 65. 
 
 Duties of, 5, 14. 
 
 Need for, 3. 
 
 Need of confidence in, 9. 
 
 Part in shop disputes, 14. 
 
 Representative of the management 
 66. 
 
 Records, 112. 
 
 Two ways of making an, 21. 
 
 Waiting rooms, 22. 
 Employment forms, 41. 
 Employment management, 
 
 Basis of, 10. 
 
 Courses in, 19. 
 Employment managers, 
 
 Cooperation with foremen, 34. 
 
 Education of, 18. 
 
 Follow-up in the shop and, 126. 
 
 Kinds of, 17. 
 
 Problems of, 20. 
 
 Rating of, 16. 
 
 Salaries of, 17. 
 
 Seasonal employment and, 93. 
 
 Selection of, 16. 
 
 Scouting and, 101. 
 
 Training of, 16. 
 
 Transfers and, 136. 
 Engineering societies, 188. 
 Evening schools, 302. 
 
 Americanization and, 325. 
 
 Value of, 302. 
 
 F 
 
 Feeding Employees, 7. 
 
 Cost of, 206. 
 
 Solution of problem of, 205. 
 Federal employment agencies, 103. 
 
 Failures of, 104. 
 Files, method of keeping, 40. 
 File departments, 40. 
 Financial relations and labor turn- 
 over, 251. 
 
 Financial rewards, 261. 
 Firing help, 11. 
 
 Fitchburg plan of education, 306. 
 Floaters, 102. 
 Follow-up men, 130. 
 Follow-up outside the shop, 129. 
 Follow-up in the shop, 124. 
 
 Employment department and, 125. 
 
 Records and, 125. 
 
 Wage rates and, 128. 
 Food, storage of, 230. 
 Food problem, the, 205. 
 Foremen, 
 
 As teachers, 320. 
 
 Characteristics of, 315. 
 
 Duties of, 313.
 
 333 
 
 Foremen. 
 
 Labor turnover and, 319. 
 
 Motion study and, 321. 
 
 Nomenclature of, 317. 
 
 Opportunity of the, 5, 314. 
 
 Relation to workers, 314. 
 
 Safety work and, 321. 
 
 Sex of the, 151. 
 
 Supervision of tools and machinery 
 by, 318. 
 
 Training of, 313. 
 Forms, 
 
 Absence, 45. 
 
 Duplicate copies of, 45. 
 
 Employment, 41. 
 
 For requesting increases in pay, 44. 
 
 For requisitioning workman, 43. 
 
 Reasons for, 41. 
 
 Size and arrangement of, 43. 
 
 Transfer, 44. 
 
 Gardens, 247. 
 
 Location of, 249. 
 
 Size of, 249. 
 
 Use of company property for, 259. 
 
 Value of, 248. 
 Guy schools, 284. 
 General managers, value of, 271. 
 General trade methods, 309. 
 Girls, office, 141. 
 Group insurance, 262. 
 
 Happiness on the job, 89. 
 Health and sanitation, 228. 
 High school, technical, 286. 
 Hiring the office force, 144. 
 Hiring the workman, 34. 
 
 Conferences between interviewer 
 and physicians when, 38. 
 
 Meeting the foreman, 34. 
 
 Physical examinations when, 36. 
 
 Showing the worker lay of the 
 
 shop, 35. 
 
 Home affairs and labor turnover, 274. 
 Home ownership, the employer's at- 
 titude toward, 31. 
 Hospitals, typical, 234, 235. 
 Hours of labor, 193. 
 
 Brain worker's, 195. 
 
 Effect of machinery on, 194. 
 
 Machine tenders, 198. 
 
 Manual laborers, 195. 
 
 Night work and, 199, 202. 
 
 Noon hour and, 201. 
 
 Skilled workmen's, 197. 
 
 Social life and, 194. 
 Houses, 
 
 Apartment, 224. 
 
 Plans of workmen's, 215. 
 
 Selling vs. renting, 225. 
 
 Housing, 8, 214. 
 Company, 220. 
 "Cheap" vs. "low cost," 221. 
 Cost of, 226. 
 
 Increasing Rates to secure labor, value 
 
 of, 97. 
 
 Individual property rights, 66. 
 Industrial cripples, 164. 
 
 Ways of assisting, 166. 
 Industrial dangers, 321. 
 Industrial education, 282. 
 
 Analysis of, 291. 
 
 Definition of, 290. 
 
 Present condition and, 292. 
 
 How to give, 290. 
 
 Study of, 289. 
 Industrial misfits, 85, 170. 
 Industrial unrest, a solution of, 188. 
 Industry, 
 
 Problem of, 76. 
 
 Stability in, 13. 
 
 Types of, 291. 
 
 Vocational training in, 300. 
 Instructions, giving of, 316. 
 Insurance, 261. 
 
 Insurance policies, value of, 263. 
 Interviews with men after they are 
 
 hired, 39. 
 Interviewing, 27. 
 
 Questions asked in, 28. 
 
 Wisdom of asking personal ques- 
 tions, 30. 
 Interviewers, 
 
 Failures of, 27. 
 
 Ideal type of, 32. 
 
 Methods of, 33. 
 
 Value of, 50. 
 
 Women as, 32. 
 
 Labor, 
 
 Adjustment of, 116. 
 
 Campaigns, 114. 
 
 Cost of, 9. 
 
 Duties of, 185. 
 
 Hours of, 193. 
 
 Mobility of, 75. 
 
 Organization, 115, 191. 
 
 Records, 46. 
 
 Rights of, 185. 
 Labor supply, 
 
 Advertising methods of securing 
 a, 97. 
 
 Developing the, 73. 
 
 Workers' versatility and, 76. 
 
 Love of home and, 76. 
 
 Machinery and, 78. 
 
 Peak load in the waiting room, 24. 
 
 Obstacles to mobility of, 77.
 
 334 
 
 Labor supply, 
 
 Population and, 79. 
 
 Race question and, 75. 
 
 Stabilizing the, 77. 
 
 United States, 74. 
 
 Wages and, 80. 
 
 Women and, 83. 
 Labor turnover, 
 
 Analysis of, 55. 
 
 Age limits and, 273. 
 
 Causes of, 267. 
 
 Cost of, 16, 61-63. 
 
 Cleanliness in the shop and, 269. 
 
 Cures for, 274. 
 
 Economic loss due to, 4. 
 
 Employment department and, 58. 
 
 Financial relations and, 251. 
 
 Foremen and, 319. 
 
 Figuring, 54, 59, 60, 61. 
 
 Home affairs and, 274. 
 
 Loans and, 259. 
 
 Method of paying and, 256. 
 
 Non-financial reasons for, 266. 
 
 Office, 142. 
 
 Physical injuries and, 267. 
 
 Rating of, 54. 
 
 Sanitation and, 268. 
 
 Seasonal employment and, 95. 
 
 Shop morale and, 269. 
 
 Tenure of job and, 269. 
 
 Vacations and, 241. 
 
 Ventilation and, 266. 
 
 Wages and, 252. 
 
 Welfare work and, 270. 
 
 Working conditions, 267. 
 
 Shop "wireless" and, 270. 
 Labor Unions, 188, 190. 
 
 Bonding of, 192. 
 
 Propaganda of, 114. 
 
 Recognition of, 190. 
 
 Workers' membership in, 30. 
 Lack of interest of minors, 157. 
 Lockouts, 187. 
 
 Loans and labor turnover, 259. 
 Lockers, use of, 229. 
 Lunch rooms, 209. 
 
 M 
 
 Machine Tenders, hours of labor of, 
 
 198. 
 Machinery, 
 
 Care of, 318. 
 
 Cleaning of, 232. 
 
 Guarding of, 148. 
 Machinery of employment, 20. 
 Management, policies of, 10. 
 Manual labor, 78. 
 Manufacturing, types of, 310. 
 Medical departments, 
 
 Abuses of, 234. 
 
 Value of, 235. 
 
 Memory tests, 52. 
 Men, characteristics of, 51. 
 Mental misfits, placing, 169, 171. 
 Mental tests, 47. 
 
 Value of, 50, 53. 
 Minors, 
 
 Education of, 155. 
 
 Employment of, 154. 
 
 Reasons for discharge of, 156. 
 
 What constitutes, 154. 
 Misfits, social, 167. 
 Milk in the shop, need of, 210. 
 Milk stations, 210. 
 Motion study, 321. 
 
 Production and, 81. 
 Mutual Benefit Associations, 262. 
 
 N 
 
 Night Work, 202. 
 
 Hours of labor of, 199. 
 Nomenclature, foremen's, 317. 
 Non-financial reasons for labor turn- 
 over, 266. 
 
 Noon-day meal, need of, 205. 
 Noon hour, length of, 201. 
 Notice of leaving, 119, 122. 
 
 Occupational Dangers, 321. 
 Office force, 
 
 Conducting an employment service 
 for the, 140. 
 
 Cooperation of, 145. 
 
 Employment of, 139. 
 
 Hiring the, 144. 
 
 Labor turnover and, 142. 
 
 Privileges of, 142. 
 
 Problem of, 141. 
 
 Promotion in, 141. 
 
 Qualifications of the, 141. 
 
 Salaries of, 140. 
 
 Training for, 144. 
 
 Underpayment of, 142. 
 
 Wages of, 143. 
 Orchestra, shop, 245. 
 Organizations, 
 
 Labor, 115. 
 
 Shop, 272. 
 
 Social, 107. 
 Overtime, 195. 
 
 Increasing the labor supply by, 80. 
 Overzealousness of minors, 156. 
 
 Passes, 39. 
 
 Pay, forms for requesting increases 
 
 in, 44. 
 
 Paying for work, methods of, 252. 
 Paymaster, types of, 258. 
 Pensions, office. 143. 
 Photographs on passes, 39.
 
 335 
 
 Physical examinations, 38. 
 
 Employees and, 90, 233. 
 
 Hiring workman and, 36. 
 Physical injuries and labor turn- 
 over, 267. 
 Piece rates, 
 
 Basis of, 254. 
 
 Office work and, 143. 
 Piece work, 253. 
 Placing workers, 84. 
 Policies of management, 10. 
 Premiums, 253. 
 Private schools, 281, 301. 
 Production, 
 
 Hours of labor and, 200. 
 
 What it must carry, 11. 
 Profits, 265. 
 
 Distribution of, 4. 
 Profit-sharing, 264. 
 Promotion in the industries, 310. 
 
 The Problem of, 116. 
 Public schools, 
 
 Evening courses and, 302. 
 
 Vocational training in the, 294. 
 
 R 
 
 Rating Labor Turnover, 54. 
 Rate of pay, advertising, 98. 
 Receipts for company property, 44. 
 Recreation, 237. 
 
 Amateur entertainments as, 246. 
 
 Employees' attitude toward, 246. 
 
 Gardens as, 247. 
 
 Orchestras as, 245. 
 
 Picnics as, 244. 
 
 Sports as a, 242. 
 
 Substitute for vacations, 242. 
 Records, 
 
 Best way to write, 120. 
 
 Employment office, 112. 
 
 Forms for, 43, 44, 45. 
 
 Failure of present methods of giv- 
 ing, 120. 
 
 How to solve the problem of, 122. 
 
 Legitimate questions to ask as, 123. 
 
 References, 118. 
 
 Workman's, 121, 127. 
 Reference cards, 121. 
 Representatives of the employees, 8. 
 Requisitions for workman, 25. 
 
 Endorsing the, 35. 
 
 Origin of. 26. 
 Rest, need for, 237. 
 Rest periods, 237. 
 Rest rooms, 238, 239. 
 Restaurant, the company, 206. 
 Rights of labor, 185. 
 
 S 
 
 Safety Committees, 175. 
 Safety engineers, 173. 
 Characteristics of, 173. 
 
 Safety engineering, 
 
 Amateur committee of, 175. 
 
 Attitude of the workman toward, 
 175. 
 
 Cooperation in, 174. 
 
 Employment and, 172. 
 
 Foremen and, 321. 
 
 Safeguards and, 173. 
 Safety engineering departments, 40, 
 172. 
 
 Accident insurance and, 179. 
 
 Accidents rating and, 178. 
 
 Accidents, records, 176. 
 
 Insurance settlement, 180. 
 
 Organization of, 174. 
 Safeguards, need of, 173. 
 Salaries, yearly, 253. 
 Salesmen, hours of, 196. 
 Sanitation, 228. 
 
 Labor turnover and, 268. 
 Schools, 
 
 Comparison of, 283. 
 
 Control of, 285. 
 
 Cooperation of public and indus- 
 trial, 285, 306. 
 
 Corporation, 281, 303. 
 
 Evening, 302. 
 
 Litchburg plan of, 306. 
 
 Gary, 284. 
 
 Industrial, 283. 
 
 Shops vs., 155. 
 
 Trade, 282. 
 
 Trustees of industrial, 285. 
 
 Type of, 301. 
 
 Vocational, 280. 
 Scientific management, 289. 
 Scouting, 96. 
 
 Basis of, 99 
 
 Methods of, 100. 
 Seasonal employment, 93. 
 
 Labor turnover and, 95. 
 
 Value of, 95. 
 
 Secret societies, worker's member- 
 ship in, 30. 
 
 Selecting employment managers, 16. 
 Selecting workers, 6, 51, 84, 87. 
 
 Concentration tests for, 53. 
 
 Memory tests for, 52. 
 
 Trade tests for, 47, 48, 49. - . 
 Shifts, length of, 199. 
 Shop, 
 
 Baseball teams in the, 242. 
 
 Cafeterias, 207, 208. 
 
 Creed of the, 12. 
 
 Eating places in, 148. 
 
 Follow-up in the, 124. 
 
 Garb for women in, 149. 
 
 Hours of labor in the, 198. 
 
 Matrons, 152. 
 
 Morale and labor turnover, 269. 
 
 Organjzation, need of, 272. 
 
 Organizations, 271. 
 
 Smoking in the, 212.
 
 336 
 
 Shop, 
 
 Swearing m, 148. 
 
 Toilet facilities, 148. 
 
 "Wireless," 270. 
 
 Women in, 146. 
 
 Skilled workers, hours of labor, 197. 
 Smoking in the shops, 212. 
 Soft drinks in the shop, need of, 211. 
 Social misfits, 167. 
 
 Mental types of, 168. 
 
 Positions for, 170. 
 
 Question of employing, 167. 
 
 Wages of, 168. 
 Standardizing wages, 6. 
 State employment agencies, 103. 
 Strike leaders, 113. 
 Strikes, 113, 186, 190. 
 
 Why tolerated, 187. 
 
 Tardiness, 64, 132. 
 
 Teachers, the need of, in industry, 
 
 86. 
 
 Theatricals, shop, 244. 
 Thrift, the need of, 93. 
 Tools, care of, 318. 
 Trade methods, 309. 
 Trade schools, 282. 
 
 Curriculum, 284. 
 
 Division of work in Worcester, 296. 
 
 Schedules, 296, 298. 
 Trade tests, 47. 
 
 Faults of, 48. 
 
 Requirements of a good, 48. 
 
 "Try-out," 48. 
 
 Types of, 47. 
 
 Value of, 49, 53. 
 Trade training, 
 
 Pre-vocational work in, 295. 
 
 Specific, 295. 
 Training, cost of, 90. 
 
 Employment managers, 16. 
 
 Foremen, 313. 
 
 Office force, 144. 
 Transfers, 135. 
 
 Employment department and, 137. 
 
 Forms, 44. 
 
 Reasons for, 136. 
 
 Value of, 137. 
 
 Transportation of employees, 7. 
 Try-out tests, 48. 
 
 Tuberculosis, ways of assisting men 
 with, 165. 
 
 U 
 
 Unemployed Workman, 92. 
 Unions, 188, 190. 
 One fault of, 4. 
 
 Vacations, 
 Shop, 240. 
 Value of, 239. 
 
 Ventilating systems, 266. 
 Vocational education, 
 
 Industrial, 300. 
 
 Professional side of, 280. 
 
 Status of, 279. 
 
 Types of, 280. 
 Vocational guidance, 86. 
 Vocational schools, 280. 
 Vocational training in the public 
 schools, 294. 
 
 W 
 
 Wage rates, keeping of, 128. 
 Wages, 
 
 Checks given as, 256. 
 
 Distributing, 255. 
 
 Hourly rate of, 252. 
 
 Influence on labor supply, 80. 
 
 Labor turnover and, 251. 
 
 Methods of distributing, 257. 
 
 Office force, 143. 
 
 Piece work, 253. 
 
 Premiums as, 253. 
 
 Standardizing, 6. 
 
 Task and bonus, 253. 
 
 Yearly salary, 253. 
 Waiting rooms, 22. 
 
 Peak load in, 24. 
 
 Size needed, 23. 
 Welfare work, 11. 
 
 Labor turnover and, 270. 
 Womanalls, 150. 
 Women, 
 
 Eating places for, 148. 
 
 Industry and, 82, 146. 
 
 Machine operators, 147. 
 
 Toilet facilities for, 147. 
 
 Welders, 147. 
 
 Working garb for, 149. 
 Word tests, 52. 
 Workers, 
 
 Characteristics of, 87. 
 
 Cost of training, 90. 
 
 Hours of labor of, 200. 
 
 Inefficiency of, 85. 
 
 Need of teaching, 311. 
 
 Needs of the industrial, 309. 
 
 Physical examination of, 90. 
 
 Placing of, 84. 
 
 Qualifications of, 6, 88. 
 
 Selection of, 6, 84, 87, 89. 
 
 Supervision of, 87. 
 
 Supply of, 89. 
 
 Surroundings of, 90. 
 
 Training of, 85. 
 
 Unionization of, 115. 
 Working conditions and labor turn- 
 over, 267. 
 
 Working force, needs of, 4. 
 Workmen, 
 
 Attitude toward safety work, 175. 
 
 Cooperating with the, 66.
 
 337 
 
 Workmen, 
 
 Demands of, 92. 
 
 Families, size of, 214. 
 
 Hiring the, 34. 
 
 Meeting the foreman, 34. 
 
 Number in United States, 74. 
 
 Seasonal employment of, 93. 
 
 Types of, 289. 
 
 Unemployed, 92. 
 Workmen's houses, 
 
 Appearance of, 218. 
 
 Company building of, 220. 
 
 Designs of, 221. 
 
 Doubles houses, 222. 
 
 Heating of, 217. . 
 
 Location of, 219. 
 
 Need of, 220. 
 
 Workmen's houses, 
 
 Philadelphia type of, 223. 
 Plans of a, 215. 
 Purchasing of, 225. 
 Renting of, 225. 
 Selling, 225. 
 Size of, 214. 
 Size of rooms, 216. 
 Size of lots, 218. 
 Two-family, 219. 
 Three-family, 219. 
 Three-deckers, 223. 
 Water supply of, 217. 
 
 Y. M. C. A. schools, 302.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 DEC 
 
 SO 1964 
 
 ,NI*rtSVfY OF CAL 
 
 DEC 9 1954 
 
 INS't- 
 
 FORNIA 
 
 Form L9-25m-7,'63(D8618s8)444
 
 A 000177380