Before his machine had been perfected a rival was in the field. Mr. Thomas Carney, a man who had seen much life as a lumber merchant, captain during the Civil War, explorer, and railroad promoter, settled down in 1884, at Chicago, to the manufacture of coin-changers. "When in various businesses," he says, "we used gold and silver only, and it seemed to be a sheer necessity to have something of a money-changer to assist us in handling it and making change. The custom then was to throw the different coins into a special receptacle marked for each. I invented, and in my own shop built this coin-changer, the keys of which, when touched, would, through the tube, drop the coin into the hand as wanted. At Chicago we made five or six hundred of these coin-changers, but by mistake placed the price too low, and after some conference I became assured that there was not enough money in it. A rich Chicago manufacturer had become familiar with the urgent need of a cash register, and the losses which followed in business without one. The National, at Dayton, had then been invented, but had not then been perfected as it has been since. Parties at Chicago agreed to put up the money if I would invent what would answer the purpose of a cash register and make a marketable machine. I went home and gave the matter some hard thinking, and talking with my son about the matter one night, I looked up at the clock and said, 'Why, Harry, there is the right thing. Sixty minutes make an hour; one hundred cents make a dollar. All I have got to do is to change the wheels a little, put some keys into it, and there will be a thing which will register cents, dimes, and dollars, just as that clock will register time in minutes and hours.' In clocks the minute wheel, when it has revolved to its sixty point, throws its added result of sixty minutes over on to another wheel, which takes up the story, with one hour in place of the old sixty minutes. The first wheel then begins again and goes its round. A second complete revolution of the minute wheel throws another sixty minutes on to the hour, and gives one more hour registered, making two hours, and so on. I took some wheels, and with pasteboard made hands and a machine. It was very rough, but I took it to my friends and explained it to them. We went on, but encountering difficulties and obstacles, we merged our whole enterprise in the National. I followed it, and have since invented, worked, and helped along in the National Cash Register service. I developed the No. 35 machine which the company began on and uses yet. It is now in use in every civilised country, for it can be made to register English money and any decimal currency."
In 1883 Dayton contained five families. The following year Colonel Robert Patterson bought a large property in the neighbourhood, and helped to develop a small town, which has since grown into a thriving manufacturing centre. His two sons, John H. Patterson and Frank J. Patterson, bought out all the original proprietors of the National Cash Register, greatly improved the machine's mechanism, and built the huge factory which employs about 4,000 men, women, and girls, and is one of the best-equipped establishments in the world to promote both an economical output and the comfort of the employés. The Company's buildings at Dayton cover 892,144 square feet of floor-space, and utilise 140 acres of ground. In convenience and attractiveness, and for light, heat, and ventilation, and all sanitary things, these structures are designed to be models of any used for factory purposes. A machine is made and sold every 2 1 / 2 minutes in the Dayton, Berlin, and Toronto factories collectively. According to its destination, it records dollars, shillings, marks, kronen, korona, francs, kroner, guildens, pesetas, pesos, milreis, rupees, or roubles. Registers are also made to meet the needs of the Celestials and the Japanese.
So necessary is it for these machines to be ever improving, that the Company, with a wisdom that prevails more largely, perhaps, in the United States than elsewhere, offer substantial rewards to the employé who records in a book kept specially for the purpose any suggestion which the committee, after due examination, consider likely to improve some detail of mechanism or manufacture. Five departments are entirely devoted to experiments carried out by a corps of inventors working with a special body of skilled mechanics. New patents accrue so fast as a result of this organised research that the National Company now owns 537 letters patent in the United States and 394 in foreign countries.
Many ideas come from outside. If they appear profitable they are bought and turned over to the Patents Department, which hands them on to the experimenters. These build an experimental model, which differs in many respects from the types hitherto manufactured. A cash register must be above all things strong, so that it can bear a heavy blow without getting out of order, and must retain its accuracy under all conditions.
The model finished, it goes before the inspectors, who thump it, hammer it, almost turn it inside out, and send it back to the Factory Committee with reports on any defects that may have come to light. If the inspectors can only knock the machine out of time they consider that they have done their duty; for they argue that, if weaknesses thus developed are put right, no purchaser will ever be able to dislocate the machinery if he stops short of an actual "brutal assault with violence."
Next comes the building of the commercial type, which will be sold by the thousand. The machine goes down to the tool-makers, a select board of seventy-five members, who list all the parts, and say how many drill-jigs, mills, fixtures, gauges, etc., are necessary to make every part. Then they draw out an approximate estimate of the cost of producing the tools, and after they have listed the parts, they turn them over to the various departments, such as the drafting-room, blacksmiths' shop, pattern shop, foundry, etc., after which the various parts are machined up. Then the tool-maker assembles together the various tools, and makes a number of the parts that each tool is designed for; so that when all the tools have done their preliminary work, the makers possess about fifty machines "in bits." These are assembled, to prove whether the tools do their business efficiently. If any part shows an inclination "to jam," or otherwise misbehave itself, the tool responsible is altered till its products are satisfactory.
Then, and only then—a period of perhaps two years may have elapsed since the model was first put in hand—the Company begins to entertain a prospect of getting back some of the money—any sum up to £50,000—spent in preparations. But they know that if people will only buy, they won't have much fault to find with their purchase. "Preparations brings success" is the motto of the N.C.R. So the Company spares no money, and is content to have £25,000 locked up in its automatic screw-making machines alone!
Human as well as inanimate machinery is well tended under the roof of the N.C.R. The committee believe that a healthy, comfortable employé means good—and therefore profitable—work; and that to work well, employés must eat and play well.
They therefore provide their boys with gardens, 10 feet wide by 170 feet in length; and pay an experienced gardener to direct their efforts. To encourage a start, bulbs, seeds, slips, etc., are supplied free; while prizes of considerable value help to stimulate competition.
One day, ten years or more ago, Mr. Patterson saw a factory girl trying to warm her tin bucket of cold coffee at the steam heater in the workshop. He is a humane man, and acting on the unintentional hint he built a lunch-room which contains, besides accommodation for 455 people, a piano and sewing-machine which the women can use during their noon recess of eighty minutes. A cooking school, dancing classes, and literary club are all available to members. The Company encourages its workers to own the houses they inhabit, and to make them as beautiful as their leisure will permit. Mr. Mosely, who took over to America an Industrial Commission of Experts in 1902, and an Educational Commission in the following year, paid visits on both occasions to the National Cash Register Works. In a speech to the Committee he said: "I do not know of any institution in the world which offers so beautiful an illustration of the proper working conditions as the National Cash Register Company. Your President has asked me to criticise. I cannot find anything to criticise in this factory. I have never seen such conditions in any other factory in the world, nor have I ever seen so many bright and intelligent faces as we have seen at luncheon in both the men's and women's dining rooms. I believe this factory is as nearly perfect as social conditions will permit."