United labor bulletin., 1910-01-28
SHOP KICKS AND KINKS.

job. They are quite ready to criticise
the rich because of their "uppishness,"
but I've noticed that at lunch-time the
laborers get off into corner by them
selves, because the journeymen refuse
to eat their sandwiches and drink their
beer with them. The draughtsmen con-
slider themselves superior to the pattern
makers, the patternmakers believe that
they are step higher in the social scale
than the machinists. the machipists
imagine that they can look down upon
the moulders, and so ii goes. There are
about seven different grades OF society
among the two thousand men in the shop
reminds me of the womens clubs back
in Petersburg. You will remember that
none of the wives of the firemen may
become members of the club composed
exclusively of the wives of the engineers,
and as for the wives of the brakemen-
they aren't in it. And their husbands
all belong to the brotherhood. Talk
about the aristocracy! We've got a good
ing the overalls
| never heard of so many rules and
regulations as they have in this plant.
had been accustomed to doing pretty
much as | pleased. Old man jenkins
used to tell us that he thought if we
were worth having about, we would do
the square thing by him, and further
more, he didn't propose to run kinder
Earten for full-grown men-he was con-
ducting machine shop with well-ma-
tured "greasers" Some of the rules are
all right, of course. l realize that in
shop as big as this there are always
scme fellows who simply cannot see the
Importance of having a MISUNDERSTOOD
5. stem But there has evidently been
waste of good cardboard printers ink.
and picture-frame moulding, in this case,
for l don't believe that one man in 20
has ever read the instructions. If the
bosses had been wise about the use of
this material, they might have printed
some tables showing the strength of
hoisting-chans and other material, the
best shapes for machine cutting tools,
the rules for computing the areas and
Une clTCullleTeHCeS Oh ClTcleS, lue
weights of various kinds and shapes of
iron, the rules of wheel gearing, and
other rules having to do with the general
subject of mechanics. 1t seems to me
that these might have helped the men,
and they need not have lost their self
respect, as might be the case with the
rules which are contained in their 1Sx30-
inch guide-boards
We've got a good Super" He's new
on the job, but l believe that he is going
to make things go. He is young fellow
mot over 35, but, while he is Tech"
graduate he had plenty. of practical shop
experience before he began to handle
men. He has passed down the line with
the boys, and hasn't any fancy ideas
about things. He knows a good job when
he sees it, and somehow, he usually
speaks of it. 1t makes a fellow feel like
trying it again after a word of apprecia-
tion from him. His assistant is a peach"
He graduated from the office. Never
handled tool in his life. They say that
he was promoted because he persuaded
the old man that he could introduce into
the shop more scientific system. Per
Laps the fact that he is the nephew of
an old friend of the boss had something
to do with his advancement. He is re-
sponsible for the rules about which l
have been writing. Naturally, when he
came into the shop, everybody closed up
like a clam. He couldn't get any infor-
nation. This gave him a good deal of
a setback, but he had few ideas of his
own which he introduced. He acts as
though he had read set of rules on
How To Succeed" or some other dope,
and he is now trying the thing out on
us fellows. He has the most elaborate
system ever invented. but he doesn't
seem to realize that there is an element
called human nature" which
enters largely into every industrial prob
lem At any rate, it doesn't bother him
very much-Rev. Charles Stelzle, in
Letters from a Workingman.'
r r -
II beats them all-La Belle.
r r r + + +
Deserts of Arabia.
David George Hogarth, the geographer
and explorer, said that in western Asia
there are vast areas on which no Euro