Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1915-01-13
"What You and / Que Germany"
System and Organization and Efficiency In All Things Made
In Germany-How 1t Works In Banking, Commerce
and Labor. va s.mHg4s ~ -

merce. merchants associations and agri-
cultural unions. From bottom to top the
rate-making of the German railways pro-
oeeds under the eye and with the CO.
operation of the mCn who use the rail-
ways.
In the United States the railway manag-
ers and the shippers are mutually hostile.
iheN appear before the Interstate Com
merce commission as ~litigants-as COM
plaInants or culprits. Then the members
OF the commission. seven non-shippers and
n-on-ma nasers appointed by one man. the
president. say yes or mo- and the l:t-
giants go on To their next litigation.
Success Proves System Right.
do not say that we are all wrong
ana that the Germans are all right. Far
from that, 1 say only: Watch them.
stop calling them mere automatic of au-
tocracy. and watch them" German In
dustrN and German transportation. weld
ed tremendously together in daily coop
Grafton. can be seen today reaching out
into the export trade of the world and
dragging back into Germany n great deal
more OF 1t. a very great deal more of 1T,
than German industry. by itself. on It's
own merits, would deserve. Again, the
philosophic. system-making German, true
pupil of philosophic, system-making pro-
feSsors.
1t is he that has organized also a system
of education and government and busi-
ness. in-ter-connected, in which labora-
tories are stationed at every vantage point
7 where squads and regiments OF scientific
Investigators. pure and applied. can
charge at the problems of the future. He
is why there are so many researchers i'm
Germany. The scientific German is merely
one aspect. one weapon. OF the organizing
German.
And he hasn't done the easy task OF or
glnizing a centralized system. He has
Ol.oNni2pI "a 6}ffllSe5 SySten Vie has nrO-
duced a systematic labyrinth.
That fact will show in my illustration
labor.
The greatest modern device for protect
ing the laborer against the consequences
OF being IA laborer is admittedly social In
surlnce. In that device the Germans are
admittedly the originators and the mas
tiers. But do they operate 1T through one
man or one set OF men or a few sets OF
men? Quite TO the contrary.
German social Insurance., except in small
part, is not even state insurance. The
state does not operate 1T at all. The In
surance against accidents to laborers is
operated by groups OF employers. The in
surance against sickness is operated by
countless groups of employers and en-
ployes together. If people get hurt too
much or IT people get sick too much. these
groups begin TO lose money too fast; and
so they Introduce safety devices to pre-
vent accidents and so they build sana-
forums to prevent illness, on their own
initiative. The marvel of German social
insurance is precisely that 1t spurs indi.
vidual initiative to top speed.
No German Army Of Idle.
Leaving insurance. look now at a Ger
man labor exchange. where laborers come
to- find jobs. Look at the one In Strass-
burg. Is some fang or tusk of the i'm
perial government projected into Strass-
burg to poke the docile German laborer
into employment? Quite to the contrary
again. The Strassburg labor exchange is
nanage by a Joint committee of employ
ers and employees. And more.
When II Strassburg laborer. going 10 the
: Strassburg labor exchange, can not there
find a: job, he begins to draw Il certain
amount of money each day from a certain
insurance fund which insures him against
unemployment That is, he begins to
draw it in certain circumstances And
those circ umstances are these. that he has
, contributed to the fund and that he is a
member of some one of certain trade UNI
ions. For the municipal unemployment
| insurance fund or Strassburg is "A coop
GRAFTON between the Municipality and the
f organized labor of the city.
Paternalism? Coercion? Drill? There
Q lesson out of Germany for us in the util-
4 izing of the spontaneous sclf-interest OF
all groups and classes of people. the or
ganizing of Individual initiative for II CO
operative national purpose. And this is or
: the other side of a very deep gulf from
: mere centralized autocracy.