The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-01-20
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

l do not know how you feel you who
 glance over this column from time to
 time. but have read so much, heard SC
 much, and written so much about "ef.
 ficiency" that I am sick of the word
 and just at present fed up on what il ! stands for. co
 It might have been a good thine
 when it was originated, but from being
 a fad it has got to be a regular nui-
 sance, and is spelling the pleasures of life. I believe in working and in doing l it intelligently, but if efficiency is to
 be carried to point where it becomes an obsession in the end it will defeat itself
 1t lays hold of individuals and takes
 the joy out of them, and makes them bores in society. It gets start in the home and makes it a place to shun rather than to rest. It finds it's way into business and converts it into a converts them from places of spiritual power into material workshops. It gets it's fangs into a people and the nation is wrecked
 I know full well that in giving vent to my pent-up feelings I will bring down upon my head the leaders in the movement who bow down and worship at the shrine of the god of hustle. Teachers, preachers. lawyers, doctors, merchants. manufacturers, farmers and all the balance of the tribe bitten with the efficiency bug will sting me with vituperation, wither me with scorn, or pass me by in silent contempt. But what care I? I once had the fever, but, praise the Lord, I am con- valescing, and instead of having my mind absorbed as to methods to save time by cutting out useless motions and the thousand and one rules drummed into my head by the whole bunch of efficiency experts I now have time to use it on the things I like and not in vainly striving to carry out the instructions of those who make a liv- ing by the propaganda.
 I shamelessly confess that glory in
 the fact that I am not efficient in the sense the term is used by it's promo ters. This is not the idle statement of | a dilettante who never had the energy | to try out efficiency schemes, for I am to ip tr;o 1f trade, having studied the diagrams and memorized the rules, and nearly got nervous prostration in putting them into effect.
 No dipsomaniac was ever prouder of being able to pass bar room with the smell of whisky floating on the breeze than am to take my seat amongst a bunch of efficiency experts and remain immune from their dangerous doctrines have reached that stage where I could sit at the feet of the great Purinton himself and chuckle with delight while he was retailing his pet theories.
 
 I am ready to agree with the man " no Sdlu. ne QOCITlne or eII1ClenCy is a modern offshoot of the doctrine of total depravity," and who went on to make out case by citing the fact that man is born to sin, as the sparks fly upward. I know that trouble not sin, is the correct Biblical phrasing," but it all amounts to the same thing. Man is born to trouble; trouble is the result of sin. If there were no sin there would be no trouble-ergo, man is born to sin. I think with this chain of logic it is appropriate to write after it Q. E. D.
 never was so happy in my life to run across fellow who had reached my fallen state according to the eff cientists, if I may be permitted to coin word to label those who make effi- ciency a fetish. It's their idea that a man is born in economic sin, and lives in economic sin, until they come along with their gospel of always doing the right thing at the right time without lost motion. and so pluck the inefficient like brands from the burning. They have a saw dust trail for the wastrels in all walks of endeavor.
 George Burweu Dutton, my unknown friend, is authority for the best state ment of their doctrine. Here it is in a nut shell. I serve it up to you in the least wasteful manner, thereby making concession to them for like to be polite even when differing with my op- ponents: The doctrine of efficiency is based upon the economic statement of total depravity. The theological doc Urine says all men by nature are sin- ners; the economic says all men by nature are inefficient-that is, are eco homie sinners. Even sin is economic in this age. All men by nature do their tasks wastefully, unsystematically; but they may be saved by the methods of efficiency There: that's the modern theology for you"
 I hope and believe that I am a saved man in the theological sense, but I'll be blest if I care anything about being saved in the economic sense if must spend the balance of my life "card cat. aloguing my pleasures" and running my individual, my home ana my busi. ness according to a railroad time schedule made out for flyer with no provision to stop on the way and en. joy the country through which if