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834 ILLUSTRATED WORLD
for it. Sometimes a long hunt revealed the
fact that the typesetter was still working on it,
and we had to putter and kill time until the
machines caught up. Several times, proofreading
revealed the fact that whole columns
were lost and hours were spent in making the
required readjustment.
Get my notion straight! Suppose we put
the whole thing on a cash basis. Both shops
charged the same price for the same job.
()ne, by moving the work rapidly, made a
twenty-five per cent profit on it. The other,
by moving the work slowly, allowed the labor
cost to eat up the profit and to add a loss.
One shop made money ; the other failed.
To go a little deeper into the
subject, the superintendent of our
printing plant said:
"We have more work than we
can get men to do. Our men
know they are never going to be
laid off. Because speed today
does not mean
idleness tomorrow,
our
men will 'pull
out'."
The other
perintendsaid:
"You can't
c e this
£. You are wasting
time to try
If He Is Giving His
Best to His Work He
Can Count Himself a
True Patriot
An Evil to Be Eradicated
He would work hard and constructively
—if materials were to be had. Because
of poor organization, however, part of
the laborer's time is deliberately
wasted. This is to be remedied by examining
thr system, not by cursing the
man with the hod.
the next bi
another three or four days. They are
going to try to make this one last until that one comes."
That, I believe, is a familiar picture of America
before the war. In a few tense districts there was
more work than there were men. In most places there
was not enough work to go around. This fact dictated
speed and profit in some places and loitering and loss
in others.
The Federal Trade Commission has made one astoundg
discovery but I believe it has misinterpreted the facts.
found that of 250,000 business concerns in the United
States, fully 100,000 never paid a dollar in dividends. It
elieved that these concerns had not charged enough to
cover cost. I believe they charged enough but that costs ate
up the profits because the men killed time while waiting for
the next job to come in. We were a nation of commercial
dawdlers and dissipated our earnings by wasting time.