The Washington times., 1911-05-10
By WILLIAM CARLETON

| WIN u men tHlDlONeQ at n
dollar and a half a day. the saving of a
single hour meant the SAVING Of good
many dollars.
1t may seem odd that so obvious a
fact was not taken advantage of by the
present contractors. Doubtless il was
realized, but nv later experience
showed me that the obvious is very
often neglected. --
In this busin ess. as In many others.
the details fall into. rut. and often a
| newcomer with fresh point of view
viii detect waste that has been going
on unnoticed for years.
l was alH.oSt forty years old, fairly
intelligent. and I had everything at
stake. So ] was distinctly more alert
than those who retained their positions
merely by letting things run along rs
we'll as they had always been soing.
SCt however You may explain IL, ]
knew that the foreman didn't get as
much work out of me as ne might have
done.
In spite of all the control 1 exercised
over my self, often quit work realizing
that half my strength dCTing the day
had gone for nothing. And though it
NAV sound like boaSting 10 say Ii,
think l worked both more conscien-
tiously and intelligentlv than most of
the men.
In the FIRST place, the foreman was a
bully. He believed in driving his men.
He sWore at them, and goaded them as
an ignorant countryman often tries to
drive oxen.
The result was a good deal the same
as 1t is with oXen-the men worked ex-
citedly when under the sting, and loafed
the rest of the time.
In a crisis The boss was able to spur
them on TO their best-though even then
they wasted strength in frantic endea-
VOr-but he could not keep them Up to
consistent level of steady work. And
that's what counts.
AS in 4 Marathon race, the men who
maintain a STEADY plugging pace from
start to finish are the ones who accom-
plish.
The question may be asked how such
4 boss could keep his job. / myself did
not understand that at first, but later as
/ worked With different men and under
different bosses l saw that It was be-
cause their methods we're much alike
and that the results were much alike.
A certain standard had been estab-
llshed as to the amount Of work that
should be done by a hundred men an
this was maintained The boss had
would work, and the men had figured
out to minute how much they could
loaf Neither man nor boss took any
special interest in the work itself.
The men were allowed to waste just
SO much time in getting water, in fill
ing their pipes, in splitting on their
hands, in resting on their shovels, in
lazy chatter, and so long as they did
LOl eACGeu JIllS TOtnlHB was SdlO.
The trouble was that the standard
was low and this was because the men
had nothing TO gaint by steady. con-
scientious work, and also because the
boss did not understand them nor dis
tinguish between them.
For instance, the foreman ought to
have got the work of two men out of
me but he wouldn't have, IL / hadn't
chosen to give 1t. That held true also
OF Rafferty, and one or two others.
n
man made a study of these men who,
in this city at any rate. were the key
to the contractors problem, and learn
ed their little peculiarities, their stan
dards of justice. their ambitions, their
weakness and their strength. he ought
to be able 10 increase their working
capacity.
Certainly an intelligent teamster
does this with horses. and it seemed
as though il ought to be possible to
accomplish still finer results with men.
To go a little farther in my opinion, it
also seemed possible to pick and select
the best of these men instead of TAX
ing them at random.
there were at least half dozen who
stood out as more intelligent ami
stronger physically than all the others.
Why couldn't man in time gather
about him say a hundred such men
and by better treatment possibly bet
ter pay, possibly a guarantee Of con-
tinuous work, make of them a loyal.
hard working machine with a capacity"
for double the work of the ordinary
gang? Such organization as this was
going on in other'li lines Of business, why
not in this?
With such a machine at his COM
mand. a man ought to make himself
a formidable competitor with even the
long established firms.
At any rate this was my theory, and
II gave a fresh inspiration to my work
Whether anything came of 1t or not, II
was something to hope for. something
to toll for, something which raised this
digging to the plane of the pioneer who
joyfully clears his field OF stumps ard
rocks.
# swung me from the present into
the future. It was a different future
from that which had weighed me down
when with the United Woollen. This
was no waiting game. Neither your
pioneer nor your true emigrant sits
down and waits.
Here was something which depended
solely upon my own efforts for its sue
cess or failure. And I knew that II
wasn't possible TO fail so dismally but
what the joy Of the struggle would al
ways be mine.
In the meanwhile I carried with me
to my work note book, and during the
noon hour I set down everything which
! thought might be of any possible use
to me. ! missed no opportunity for
learning even the most trivial details.
Continuation OF This Story Will he
Found In Tomorroxv,s Iasue