The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1912-03-12

happened to be testifying before the
Committee on Labor of the House of
, Representatives on Thursday, March
1, 1900, and the transcript of his
testimony fortunately remains intact
| to. this day to throw light on the
working methods of Frederick w.
! Taylor, the subject of our sketch.
| I'VE had men with stop watches
over the workmen working on an axle
| lathe, or whatever else it might be-
said Mr.. Harrah, land every time
man looked up they took his time:
| every time he stopped to breathe they
! took his time, and in that way they
got absolutely the amount of time en-
work.
I'VE make it a rule to run a ma
chine to break" continued Mr.. Har-
rah. For instance, the life of a ham
mer bar may be two years. If that
hammer bar does not break inside IF
the two years go for the forgemas-
| ter, because he is not getting the work
| he ought to out of the forge. 1t is
the same way in the machine shop. If
lathe, the natural life of which
might be two years, does not break
down before that, 1 would go for the
engineer in charge"
Mr.. Harrah did not divulge infor-
| nation as to whether, in the event a
workman failed to break down in a
given number of years under the ter
rife pace scientifically mapped out by
Mr.. Taylor he would demand to know
the reason, but he was frank enough
to add. I'VE have absolutely no re-
gard for machinery or for men,"
| Mr.. Harrah's testimony was Taylor
esque. See how we'll it corresponds
With Paragraph 312 of Mr.. Taylor's
book of instructions: "All employees
should bear in mind that each shop
exists first, last and all the time for
the purpose of paying dividends to it's
owners"
workmen were permitted to leave the
mill to take meals.
| mo, sir" he replied. "Once a man
passes inside the red fence, he stays
there until his days work is through"
| The science" of keeping men pen.
ned in was shown when a huge con-
tainer filled with molten metal gave
way in this same Midvale plant and
| 4 u
Is others seriously hurt. The prin-
ciple of this feature of Taylorism was
again demonstrated in the Triangular
Shirt Waist Factory fire in New York,
could not get out until their days
work was done, and they did not get
out until the grim destroyer burned
them.
Mr.. Harrah, unconsciously, perhaps,
struck the keynote of Taylorism when
he said: Run to break! Under the
speeding-up features of the Taylor
| system both machines and men are TO
run to break! If hammer bar
breaks down there is some expense
| to replace it, but if a workman breaks
down it costs nothing to put on a
new man. AS long as the supply Of
men holds out, the system can go on.
1t may be granted that if the Tay-
operation, it will mean great produc-
ton in goods and things, but in so
far as man is concerned it means de-
struction. While it is producing
wealth. it is grinding man.
There are other considerations of
primary and more important char
acter than merely producing wealth."
declared Samuel Gompers recently,
| the physique, that the spirit, the
mind, hopes, and aspirations of man
shall also be cultivated and given an
opportunity for higher achievements"
Social good comes, not by wearing
men out prematurely through working
T; them to the limit of their strength
like beast of burden, but rather in
| the higher principle found in what
President Taft said in a recent adj
| dress:
"Good business is not everything in
] life; the making and accumu alton of
money should not be the chief end of
a community. There has been dan
ger in the past that the rush for
wealth would injure the moral fibre
of the people and degrade their ideals
and standards