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THE DOLLAR VALUE OF PATRIOTISM 837
finished product leaves the factory from the bottom floor. Each step in the manufacturing
process is so taken that the raw material is moving precisely toward
the finished stage and in the direction of the shipping door.
It is not necessary to say, I believe, that, with this faster routine established,
the business saves time and makes vast sums of money. Thus to marshal material
properly not only will help the nation to get the things it must have—my
definition of practical industrial patriotism—but it gives the factory owner
economy wdiich has, now and hereafter, a measurable dollar value.
The production record and earning power of the Ford factory and the Elgin
watch works support both assertions as to the time saving and economical value
of this business plan.
What lias been said up to this point has concerned itself with saving the time
of the workers that the nation may not suffer because 2.000,000 are going to war.
This proposed routine will help, hut if the nation is to avoid disaster, we must
do something more than produce. We must distribute. That raises the question
of handling of materials.
Nowhere are the good and bad methods more vividly portrayed than on the
docks. To see the bad method under the spotlight, I advise you to go to the
wharves at New Orleans or Mobile. There merchandise for transshipment is
brought in by trains and wagons. It is unloaded and dumped indiscriminately ;
it is put wherever the clock foreman happens to see an empty space when something
must he got rid of. After a few hours of such work, the wharf is a litter.
When the ship arrives and the loading begins, it seems that everything is
directly in the way of everything else. Often, the work that was hastily or
thoughtlessly done has to be done over and over again.
By contrast, R. C. Martens, a Russian with a business in New York, is a