He had not realized how many elements entered into the matter, and what a high degree of specialized knowledge must be brought to the task. In the beginning he had fancied himself as capable of working out the basis for ideal relations between him and his employees as any other. He soon discovered himself to be all but unequipped for the effort…. It was a saving quality of Bonbright's that he would admit his own futilities. Therefore he called to conference the country's greatest sociologist, Professor Witzer.
The professor, a short, wabbling individual, with watery eyes that could read print splendidly if it were held within six inches of them, and who, when he did read, moved book or paper back and forth in front of his spectacles in a droll, owlish, improbable way, instead of letting his eyes travel across the lines of print, was skeptical at first. He suspected Bonbright of being a youth scratching the itch of a sudden and transient enthusiasm. But he became interested. Bonbright compelled his interest, for he was earnest, intense, not enthusiastic, not effervescing with underdone theories.
"What you want to do, as I understand it," said the professor, "is merely to revolutionize the world and bring on the millennium."
"What I want to do," said Bonbright, "is to formulate a plan that will be fair to labor and fair to me. I want a condition where both of us will be satisfied—and where both will know we are satisfied. It can be done."
"Um!…" said the professor. "Are you, by chance, a socialist?"
"Far from it."
"What are your theories?"
"I haven't any theories. I want facts, working facts. There's no use palavering to the men. What they want and what I want is something concrete. I want to know what they want, and how much of it will be good for them. I want something that will work in dollars and cents, in days' work, in making life more comfortable for the women and children at home. If merely paying wages will do it, then I'll pay the wages…."
"It won't," said the professor. "But it 'll go quite some distance."
"It isn't a matter of sentiment with me," Bonbright said. "It's a matter of business, and peace of mind, and all-around efficiency. I don't mean efficiency in this plant, but efficiency in LIVING…. For the men and their families."