CHAPTER VII
THE SPIRIT OF THE CORPORATION
To one interested in social and industrial questions a tour over the vast properties and plants of the United States Steel Corporation can hardly fail to be of great educational value. It has been the writer’s good fortune to be able to make such a tour on more than one occasion. He had expected to be, and was, impressed by the various processes whereby iron ore is converted into steel ingots and then into rails, tubes, structural shapes, plates, bars, wire, nails, tin plate, and other products; by the monster machines used for loading and unloading ore; the blowing furnaces, pools of molten metal; the great rolls through which the red-hot steel is passed on its way to becoming a finished article of commerce; the mining of coal from the bowels of the earth, and the thousand and one other sights of what is probably the most spectacular of all industries.
But the more lasting impression was made not by the mechanical apparatus but by the human factor, the manner in which the vast human machinery that makes the Corporation was handled; the organization that made it possible for an army of more than a quarter of a million men to work in complete harmony and to a single end. In a word, the spirit of the Corporation.
As one becomes more and more familiar with the great company’s activities at first hand, more and more does it become plain that the entire organization is permeated with this spirit. From Judge Gary, its chairman and chief executive, and James A. Farrell, its president, who directs the manufacturing and commercial operations, down through the heads of the various constituent companies, and so through the subordinate officials, through those whom we may call the non-commissioned officers of the steel army, the foremen and mine captains, and finally among the men, both skilled workers and common laborers, there is evidence nearly everywhere of a universal sentiment of loyalty, of personal interest in the fortunes of the big company and of the will, on the part of each man, to give the best in him for the general result.
The above statement was originally penned six or seven years ago, after the writer’s first tour of the Corporation’s plants. Since that time the world has seen a general upheaval of labor. The Corporation itself has had to fight a great strike, and it would therefore be natural to suppose that the spirit of the Corporation had been adversely influenced during these trying years, but a recent visit to the Corporation’s plants did not bear out such a presumption. Rather, it left the impression that in spite of general labor unrest and notwithstanding the efforts of labor leaders to destroy it, the spirit of loyalty and coöperation is still strong in the great mass of the workers.
What is the reason for this spirit? How had it been possible to leaven with it so great a mass of men of different nationalities and varying degrees of intelligence? An excellent answer to these questions was furnished by one of the men, not one of the executives or operating heads, but one of the rank and file. He said:
“In the Steel Corporation the man who gives gets. Question those who are in the higher positions, who are drawing big salaries, and you will find that they all worked their own way from the bottom. Several of the men holding important jobs, now my bosses, I knew when they held little ones, and in every case I was satisfied that the advancement they got they fully deserved. I don’t believe that there is a single official of the Corporation, or of any of its subsidiary companies, who got his job through pull. Hard work is the only key to success with us, and it is a sure one. In brief, I feel bound to give this Corporation a square deal because I know that it will give me a square deal.”
A square deal—that is the secret of the Corporation’s spirit. The desire for justice, for fair and full recognition of fair and full service, is deep grounded in every man, and the management of United States Steel, by giving each worker the assurance that he will get just what is his due, has secured for itself the entire coöperation of most of its employees and has, as a result, an organization that probably could not be equalled elsewhere in the industrial world.
The Steel Corporation is a true democracy. No position in it, however high or responsible, is beyond the reach of any employee who proves his ability to handle the job. Farrell, now president, started as a laborer in a wire mill. The late Thomas Lynch, for many years head of the Frick Coke Co., handled a pick in the coal mines of that concern. Charles M. Schwab and William Ellis Corey, two former presidents of the Corporation, both started from the very bottom, as did Alvah C. Dinkey, one-time head of the Carnegie company, and a number of others. Even Gary, although he did not become connected with the steel industry until in middle life and after he had made a marked success in the legal field, was not the son of a wealthy man, and won his way to fortune by hard work combined with unusual business ability. There is no open sesame to honor and advancement in the big company, nor for that matter in the steel trade as a whole; the keys to success are ability plus energy.
“Nor could it be otherwise,” said one of the men who had himself climbed the ladder; “in steel making harmonious team work is essential to good results, and the natural leader rises to the top by the general recognition of his fellows.”