One's Own Business.
He was one of the most attractive young business men I have ever met, and he had recently gone into business for himself after many years spent in working for others on a salary.
He was contrasting his present with his past experiences.
"Then, you see," he said, "when it came five o'clock I would shut up my desk, and that would be the end of it for the day. And if I wanted to leave at four, there was no one to object. But now—why, now I'll sit up till two in the morning over a bit of work. There's no end to my work, no end! But I like it! My! I like it!"
The glow of mastery, the exhilaration of command, which that young man felt was spurring him to put his heart's blood into his tasks. He had done faithful work before. He had enjoyed a large salary, and his services had been appreciated. But now!—well, it was precisely the difference between play and work, between drudgery and—genius.
I think it is a pity that the work of this world could not be so arranged that every honest laborer should have this proud delight of conducting his own business. Our continually increasing complexity of life is placing that ideal farther and farther away from the majority of toilers. Factories, department stores, syndicates, and trusts are making privates of all but a very few major-generals. The aggregate loss of human happiness I believe to be incalculable.
And the loss of human efficiency, too. If I covet for the worker the joy of directing his own affairs,-for to all true workers their work is their most interesting and important affair,—I also covet for all employers the spontaneous and overflowing eagerness and interest shown by my friend when he became his own master. If all wage-earners had the same zeal which they would have if they were owners of the concern, the world's work would go forward at a rate absolutely unimagined.
Can the riddle be solved? Have I run up against some such problem as the theologian's attempt to reconcile God's omniscience and omnipotence with man's free will? Certainly the world's tendency toward combinations cannot be stopped or even checked. Certainly the great majority—an ever-increasing majority-must be directed, and a few, perhaps an ever-lessening few, must be directors. Is the joy of conducting one's own business finally to be lost to the world?
There is a solution. Not for a moment do we doubt that. It is not to come along the lines of any mechanical socialism, any fanciful Bellamy scheme. It is to come as men begin to realize the ideal of Christian brotherhood. In this happy state, hitherto unrealized for all the Christian centuries, Paul's simile of the body will be worked out in life. The hand will not say to the head, nor the head to the hand, "I have no need of thee," but all parts will have equal honor and authority when mankind becomes "the body of Christ."
The solution is not, and cannot be, until men become the sons of the same Father and therefore brothers, and the Father's business becomes their own.
The Sand and the Shovel.
A workman was digging a well in sandy soil. He got down about twelve feet when the sand came pouring down through a suddenly opened gap between the boards. Faster and faster it came, and he was rapidly becoming overwhelmed by it.
Jones looked down the well. "Fill the buckets as fast as you can," he called, "and I will haul them up and empty them." The workman did so, but still the sand rose.
Smith looked down the well. "You need a bigger shovel," he said, and threw one down. But still the sand rose.
Brown looked down the well. "You are not systematic," he said. "You have the bucket too far from where you are digging. You make a lot of waste motions." Brown gave some efficiency directions which the workman followed. But still the sand rose.
Robinson looked down the well. "You work too slowly," he said. "Be more energetic! Spunk up!" He lowered a tonic, which the workman drank. But still the sand rose.
Then the Boss of the Job looked down the well. "Gettin' the best o' ye, hey?" he shouted cheerfully. Then he came down the ladder with a board, which he nailed across the gap, and the well was soon clear again.
Moral: There's more than one way of keeping on top of your work.
Up Close to Your Work.
Once there was a man that made a foolish wager. All wagers are foolish, for that matter, but this was particularly foolish.
He bet that he could tie a brick to two miles of cord, and, pulling on the further end of the cord, move the brick. He thought he was sure of winning.
The experiment was made outside the city of Chichester, England. A brick weighing about seven pounds was used. Two miles of stout cord was tied to it, and the man pulled. And he could not budge the brick.
Neither could you, for the friction of the two miles of cord upon the level road increased the seven pounds of the brick, as has been roughly estimated, to a dead weight of about one ton!
The lesson I get from this experiment in physics applies to all my work. It is this: do not work at long range! Get up close to whatever you are doing. It is a weight that you must lift. Very well: put your two hands directly under it, and lift! Do not tie a rope to it and go off a mile or two and pull.
There are all sorts of long-distance ways of working.
Some people must have committees appointed for everything, and put the cord of two or three business meetings, and a set of resolutions, and an election, and a chairman, and committee meetings, and preliminary reports, and instructions, and a second report, and a lot besides, between themselves and their brick.
Some people even go further, and really cannot see their way to get anything done without forming a society for the purpose.
Others cannot undertake any matter, however simple, but they must first study it up at great length in all the libraries to which they have access.
Still others cannot go to their tasks till they have consulted a dozen people about them, and put two miles of more or less expert advice between themselves and their brick.
And others before doing anything must write out a plan for doing it and a set of elaborate rules, stretching two miles of self-manufactured red tape between themselves and their brick.
Give me the men that have no use for such ingenious subterfuges for avoiding work! Give me the men that, when they see a thing needs to be done, go and do it! Is it a brick to be got out of the way or built into a wall? Very well. Here are two hands. Presto! The deed is done. And now, what next?
A Model Worker.
If I were asked to name the best worker of my acquaintance I believe that I should be compelled to pass by everything with feet and hands, and turn to a bit of paper. Does anyone know a better toiler than a postage stamp? Consider what claims it has upon that proud title.
In the first place, it is a common remark that it sticks to its business better than any other workman. Indeed, it may well be questioned whether that very phrase, "sticking to business," did not originate with our humble friend.
Moreover, it takes whatever job is offered. It may be to carry that letter just across the street; or it may be to go with that letter to Alaska or the Philippines. It makes no difference. Master Stamp is ready for either, with a face equally bright.
Then, this model worker of ours always follows directions. If the letter goes astray, it is not his fault; and really, a wonderfully small proportion of letters go astray.
Our friend in scarlet is not looking, you observe, for a soft job. He may be sent five thousand miles, while his neighbor just the other side of the perforation is sent into the suburbs. He never grumbles and says that he ought to get five thousand times as much for it as his neighbor. No; two cents, each of them; that is all they ask.
And he magnifies his office. He does thorough work. He does not give short measure. He never gets tired and stops ten or a hundred miles short of the goal. He always goes as far as he can.
Brother Stamp, too, is ready at any hour of the day or night. You have only to run your wet sponge over his back (or your tongue, if you are not particular), press him on the letter and say Go! He is off like a race horse.
He is a democratic workman. He will work just as readily for Paddy O'Flynn as for William K. Vanderbilt, and do no more for the belle of Fifth Avenue than for her washwoman. Whoever has two cents may command his whole-hearted services.
He is the same in all dresses. Sometimes he is in gala attire, as on the occasion of the Columbian Exposition, or the Trans-Mississippi, or the Pan-American. Never mind. He does not hold himself a bit higher for all his fine clothes, and he is just as ready to go on errands.
My jolly postage stamp, you see, has not been discouraged by his apparent insignificance. He is only a piece of paper, less than an inch square, but he has won universal respect in the only way universal respect can be won,—namely, by getting a specialty and making a success of it.
A dirty job? Yes. The very first step in it is always to suffer a deluge of black ink. But what is a canceling machine compared to the glory of doing the government's business?
For our stamp—like some human servants of the King who are about the King's business—knows well what is back of him. He holds up his head with dignity. Well he may, for it is always the head of George Washington or some other great man. He wears the government uniform. He has back of him all the power of this great nation. And he can do any work to which he is set—through this power which strengthens him.
One's Own Master.
It is possible to put the cause of "the present unrest" into a single sentence of twenty-eight words and thirty-five syllables, and we are going to do it. Here it is:
What men want is the certainty that every man willing to work shall get a chance to work, and get for himself the full results of his work.
Observe: certainty; no panic, strike, lockout, dismissal, spree, whim, manipulation, combine, trust, or speculation to prevent it.
Observe: every man—ditcher, kitchen maid, college president, fireman, bank director, farmer, lawyer, middleman, breaker boy, manufacturer, Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan, John Smith, Mary Smith, Bridget O'Sullivan.
Observe: the full results—what his work is worth to the world, head work, hand work, organizing, distributing, transporting, growing, making, bossing.
That is the problem. When it is solved "the present unrest" will cease, and not till then.
Men Vs. Machines.
A mining engineer has invented a machine for cutting coal from the seam. He claims that it will do the work of a miner twenty times as fast as a man can do it, and fifty per cent cheaper. That is, counting the work done and the cost, this machine is worth to the mine-owner precisely thirty human miners. Each machine will require only two men to operate it. Moreover, the machine removes cleanly ninety per cent of the coal, whereas the average miner removes only seventy per cent of it, so here again the machine has a big advantage over the man. It is estimated that if the machine is introduced it will throw out of work from two-thirds to three-fourths of the present miners.
This is interesting news for miners. Workmen in all callings have become wonted to such news. They have been seeing for decades their work taken from them by wonderful machines. It is no wonder that millions of workers have come to hate "laborsaving" machinery, and to call it, in their own minds, "labor-killing machinery."
It is often urged, on the other hand, that in the end these machines make work for more workers than they supplant. That may be true. The machines must be made, in the first place, and they must be replaced when worn out. Moreover, machinery greatly stimulates industry and commerce, and that means more work. But this does not help the miner. He is not a machinist. He is not a trader. He is not a railway man. All he knows is that he is thrown out of work, and it is poor comfort to him to be told that some other man, perhaps fifty years hence, will get a job because of his distress, poverty, and hunger.
The growth of the machine calls upon all Christians everywhere to be very thoughtful of the laborer, to open doors to him, to educate him so that he can turn his hand to more than one employment, and especially to tide him over the hard places in his life. These are days of perplexing transition from a world of hands to a world of steel cogs. Let us all help to make the transition as easy as possible.