Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1890-12-04
BUMDING or INDUSTRIES.
THE Work In Which Omaha Manufac-
turers Are Now Engaged.

turers Are Now Engaged
The Wages They Receive and the
Marvellous DexEerfIy They Attain
IN Handling Improved Machinery.
Eight hundred thousand dollars worth
of leatherI
More than enough to carpet the
heart of the city, and then shoe every
man, woman and child in Omaha-yes
and all the human beings in Douglas
county.
This is the quantity of leather made
into foot covering and sold every year
by w. V. Morse & Co., of that city.
Their big, handsome five-story and
basement building at the the southeast
corner of Eleventh and Douglas streets
comes as near being a model whole
sale and manufacturing establishment
as can be found between the oceans.
The firm pays out more than $780,
600 in cash every year for wages to its
employees.
Nearly two hundred people are en-
ployed within the four walls of this
magnificent establishment to say moth
ing of the travelling men employed by
the firm. OF their 200 employees about
go per cent are girls, who earn from
50 to $l2 week, according to their
competency; and brighter, more in
.telligent and more thoroughly skillful
company of young women would be
difficult to find.
OF the $780, 900 worth of boots and
shoes sold every twelve months by w.
". Morse & Co., $500, 900 worth, or
$50, 900 pairs are made entire in the
firms establishment at the location
named.
A more thoroughly supplied and sys-
,tematic factory cannot perhaps be
found in the United States. A party
of sixty ladies and gentlemen, whether
easy to please or of the most fastidious
tates, might call at the factory any
hour of the day, leave their measure
for a pair of boots or shoes, and return
an hour afterward and find that their
orders had been filled-that the boots
and shoes they had ordered had been
made during that one short hour. If
the party had remained to see the 120
boots or shoes manufactured the ladies
of the company would have noticed
that sixteen different pieces of goods
were put into their loot coverings,
while the gentlemen would have dis
covered that only nine were put into
each of theirs. Their guests would
also have observed that each boot or
shoe passed through fifty different pairs
of hands, that 100 different machines
costing from $50 to 81, 900 apiece and
operated by electricity were called in
to use to accomplish the work and that
big bolts of linen, silk, satin and pat
upon in the operation.
And then if after every one of the
sixty ladies and gentlemen had put on
their footwear and gone away they
would find themselves walking in boots
or shoes that were as easy as old ones,
as pefectly fitting and artistic as ever
they had worn in their lives.
The establishment occupies the base
ment and entire five floors, and to the
casual observer it would seem to be
about time the firm added at least
two more stories to its building, since
every foot of space is crowded with
goods, machinery and employees. In
the basement is found the immense
stock of rubber goods; on the first floor
the offices, packing and sample rooms;
on the third, merchandise, while the
fourth and fifth floors are given up ex-
clusively to manufacturing.
What perhaps, will prove to the
public to be the newest and most novel
of all the little features in connection
with this great factor in Omaha's pros
perity and advancement is this:
By a singularly ingenious, accurate
and complete system, this firm keeps
a record of the name of every work.
man who has anything TO do with the
manufacture of a shoe. and a year Oh
more afterward by looking at the shoe
and then turning to this system of rec
ord the firm can tell the names ofevery
one of the fifty or more who haC
to do with its manufacture, and JUS
which one performed this, or the on,
who performed that part of its con
structiOn- This system is of the ut
most importance and value to the firm
in determining the skill and care o
its employees. If shoe is returned b.
a retail dealer who, in turn, has hat
1t thrown back upon him by reason o
a defect in the construction. the man
ufacturer turns to his record, finds GU
which of his employees has blundereC
and deals with him accordingly.
At 20 man thinks he knows it all; at 3
he merely thinks he could have known 1t a