A Successful Experiment. Democracy means that each worker shall have a voice and a vote in determining the conditions under which he works as well as some share in the ownership of the business. The only answer to the argument against democracy is a successful experiment in democracy. A manufacturing plant in a democratic country must recognize in these days that the only scheme that will succeed must make for a larger control of the business by a larger number of the people employed. The Baker Manufacturing Company, of Evansville, Wisconsin, has carried out a stock-owning, profit-sharing plan with great success. Since 1899 the lowest additional wage paid to the employees has been 60 per cent. and the highest 120 per cent. based on average wages. Every employee has a vote in the company, and the annual meetings are held in the town hall. The stock issued each year represents real value, for every dollar of it is put into material improvements in the shop and its equipment. I visited Mr. Baker some years ago and he told me of the success of his plans. Just before I left I said: “Mr. Baker, do you think that you have been wise in putting so much effort into the creation of this new form of industrial organization?” He replied: “Well, I am past seventy years of age and have all the money I can use conveniently. I enjoy life and have the friendship of my workmen. I do not need to station detectives about my home to protect me while I am asleep; and another thing, we never have had a strike in this town. We are all friends and fellow workers.” Surely these are the things that accumulations of money cannot produce and their possession is beyond value. What has been done in this factory connected with the steel trade ought to be possible everywhere.
The Church and Its Approach. The scheme of adjustment is a difficult one, and the church is not meeting the situation in any adequate way. Its task is before it and must be attacked with persistence, with skill, and with patience. This means, first of all, that the church in the communities where the steel workers live must find a method of approach through the home and the school to the heart and the life of the people. Until this is done, it will be futile for the church to even attempt to minister to the people in the deeper things of life.
CHAPTER VII
The World of the Transportation Men
“Here, boss, jes’ take fo’ dollars’ worth of ride out of this here bill.” This was the response of an old Negro riding on a Southern train when asked for his ticket by the conductor. Without a word the conductor gave him the change from a ten dollar bill and a ticket to tuck into his hat and which allowed him to ride to a town approximately two hundred miles distant. When the train reached its destination the old Negro began to fumble in his pockets and then he picked up his bundles and slowly got off. Three hours later, as a train coming in the opposite direction stopped at the station, the same Negro got aboard, paid his fare back to the starting-point and arrived early in the morning. Going up the street he met the judge of the district, who said to him, “Hello, John, what are you doing out so early? Where have you been?” “I ain’t been nowhere, Judge; I jes’ been doing a little traveling.” This is not an isolated case by any means. I told this story as I had heard it to a conductor on another road and he said it was a very common thing to have fifteen or twenty white people as well as Negroes “ride out” the mileage covered by a five dollar bill.
The American is the most restless person in the world. We are always on the move and a large amount of our traveling is purposeless. We simply travel because we like to be going somewhere. This trait in us is a survival from a long past age in man’s development. This primitive love of change is strengthened by the economic pressure under which most of us live. Early man wandered from place to place in search of his food. Modern man does the same, the only difference being that he does not now look for his food ready to his hand, but looks for a place to work, so that he can earn money with which to buy his food. “We have been married twelve years,” said a vivacious little lady, “and I have lived in six states. It seems that my husband is always getting a chance to better our condition, and we both have come to look forward to a move about every two years. If we just live long enough, we will have lived in every state in the Union.”
But transportation as we understand it to-day refers to the moving of freight, express, and mail, as well as to the moving of men and women. Man himself was the original burden-bearer and became the first transportation system, carrying combined freight and express. He simply took his bundle on his shoulders and used his legs as the means of moving from one place to another. Then he used other men to help carry his loads. There has been much speculation as to how the stones used in the building of the Great Pyramids were brought to the desert and put into place. Many theories have been advanced. One of the latest is that the Pyramids are made of concrete and that they were poured rather than quarried. However the material was secured, or in whatever way the work was accomplished, we can be sure of one thing and that is that all of the material was carried by men. They were the slaves of Pharaoh and this was the usual form of the transportation system of Egypt. There were auxiliary lines which employed camels, asses, and some horses; but the slave was the principal carrier just as he is in Africa to-day. The rivers and the oceans were used as highways of travel, but the boats were very crude affairs and the slaves chained to the seats and pulling on heavy oars formed the motive power. The oars were made in graduated lengths, one bank above another. The three-tiered Roman boat was known as the trireme and it was the great-grandfather of the ocean liners with their triple screws. It is a long development from the primitive methods of travel and burden-bearing in the early days of Egypt to the great transcontinental railway lines and the ocean steamships of our day!
Progress and Transportation. The word progress carries within it the implication that there is a road over which the race of men is passing. The roadmaker has always been the pioneer of civilization. The advent of steam and the perfecting of railroads marks a period of development throughout civilization itself. Some one has said that it would be far more interesting and informing concerning the facts that will transpire in the next one hundred years, if we could see the railroad map showing all the transportation lines in the different continents to be published in the year 2018, than if we could have a map that would simply show the national boundaries. A nation may be compared to a human body. The railroad lines are the arteries along which flows the life-blood of the nation. Industry is the center of a nation’s life, and it pumps commerce over the rails and thus keeps the body growing and in a healthful state.
Age of the Engineer. The great world war has been characterized in many ways, but perhaps the best characterization of all is that it is an engineers’ war. Eliminate the work of the engineers, civil and mechanical, from this war and it could not have been fought. For that matter the last seventy-five years of the world’s history has belonged to the engineers. Ninety per cent. of all our comforts, conveniences, and practical achievements is due to their work, and what wonders have been wrought in this time! The engineer has accomplished more in the field of transportation than in any other realm. Transportation, represented by the railroads, the steamships, the automobiles, and the better roads that have been built to accommodate them, makes up the chief differences between our age and all those ages preceding.