Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-09-16

pie which American manufac.
turers developed. German paper
pulp mills, French tire factories, English
chocolate works, Russian cotton printing
plants, Swedish typewriter factories, Ice
land fisheries and Finnish agricultural
undertakings and innumerable other en-
terprises throughout Europe operate on
efficiency principles copied from Ameri-
can industrial establishments.
Leading employers of Great Britain
and England's shrewdeSt labor leaders
are now holding meetings to devise ways
for collaboration of capital and labor in
the economic reconstruction OF British
industry. The world industrial parlia-
ment known as the international labor
organization-a corollary of the League
of Nations-laSt June unanimously
adopted a resolution to work for meas
ureS looking toward substitution of en-
ployer-worker collaboration for Europe s
traditional class war. The thought was
to apply in Europe industrial relations
principles successfully used in America.
Nothing very original or surprising
traveller as he hears about these develop
ments. We've been doing all those
things for years"
Remarkable Change Coming.
The student of economic and social
questions who gaZeS out over Europe from
this unrivaled observatory and examines
these changes in the light of European
history and tradition comes to a quite
different conclusion. This he says, IS
q revolutionary departure for both Euro
No1 1nk
Europe as a whole turns its back on
traditional methods and adopts these
new policies a new, more powerful COM
petitor will challenge prosperous indus
trial America. The social consequences
of this change may be as far-reaching
as were those which followed the ap-
plication of steam power and the de-
velopment of the factory system a
century and quarter ago."
When a sleepy old American factory
employs an efficiency engineer for time
studies and business economist for re-
searches into markets and distribution
methods no one thinks about revolution.
It is merely considered belated awak-
ening to the newer business methods =
something inevitable if the business is
to survive in a fiercely competitive age
adoption of such methods in European
plant is quite a different matter All
European tradition and standards are
against them. The manufacturer in
Czechoslovakia or Germany who decides
to use mass production methods is a
verttable Columbus sailing new seas
Europe is accustomed to doing things
the way it did them a century or more
ago and to using machines that. preced-
ing generations found acceptable. It has
lived a pretty comfortable and satisfying
existence by following tradition.
Europeans Expect Little.
Europe, too, is highly individualistic
despite its drift toward collectivism.
A European just naturally expects to
have a suit of clothes or a pair of
shoes little different from those
every one else wears. He likes to find
q place where food product is made
just to his taste. Standardized auto
mobiles, shoes, breakfast foods which
the American takes for granted are
uninteresting if nos diStasteful to the
average European buyer.
The European workingman is accus-
toned : to working longer hours for
far less money than the American
workingman. He never expects to own
a motor car or to buy fur coat for
his wife, and unless his child is to
become clergyman he hardly dreams
of his receiving a college education.
But in some respects the European
workingman thinks ne is more fortu-
nate than the American factory worker
as he understands that workers lot.
The European thinks he is craftsman
instead of a mere machine tender. He
can and does do more varied tasks
during his days work and he doesn't
work as hard as the machine makes the
American work.
The son of wage Garner, the Euro
pean workingman expects his children
to be wage earners rather than mem
bers of a more fortunately situated So
cial class. Regardless of his political
or social views, the European wage
Garner tends to think of his employer
as a hard, impersonal creature, inter-
ested in getting the most for the least
return. He expects to fight for such
wage increases and improvements in
working conditions as he obtains. He
and his class are in a struggle for
the good things of life with the en-
ploying class. whose disposition is to
yield as few of those things as possible.
Communists See Danger.
This, broadly speaking, is the tradi-
tional mentality of Europe. That men,
tality prevails pretty generally today.
For a continent with such a tradition
to turn its back upon the past and re-
order its life on American methods is
no small matter There are many who
doubt that Europe will thus abandon its
past and Americanize. There are more
who think the class struggle is too
deeply ingrained in the European soul
for American imported ideas OF class
collaboration to make any appreciate
Roadway. Cultural leaders and pub
licists write fervent appeals to Europe
to deny admission to the American
Trojan horse, which they declare will
bring cultural ruin along with material
prosperity. The Communists are doing
their best to prevent the spread OF the
class collaboration propaganda and to
keep alive the passion for the class
struggle.
It is far too early to comment with
any assurance on the future OF the
class collaboration movement. That
European industry is fast Americana
ing and will almost universally Amerl-
canize-or perish-within decade or
two seems indisputable as one studies
the reports received here at the Inter-
national Labor Office and the Interna-
tional Management Institute, which is
affiliated with the labor Office.
Change Under Surface.
The visitor from highly standardized,
efficiency worshiping America who first
sees Europe in 1928 probably will ask
where this alleged revolution is taking
place. To him Europe will seem a
highly picturesque old-fashioned, in
efficient place which few snappy
Americans, given free hand, could
greatly improve. Those who know pre-
war Europe and who take the trouble
to look at factories, glance over current
literature or visit scientific congresses
will recognize the amazing sweep of the
new technique and its apparent sure
ness of conquest.
The key business men and industries
in various countries see salvation and
prosperity in characterization" and
they have chosen the route to saliva
ton. Their colleagues who cling to the
old methods will survive while, but