But if the practices were not universal, if there was a steady, though slow, progress, ought not the public to recognize it? Was it not the duty of those who were called muckrakers to rake up the good earth as well as the noxious? Was there not as much driving force in a good example as in an evil one?
The office was not unfriendly to the idea. As a matter of fact The American Magazine had little genuine muckraking spirit. It did have a large and fighting interest in fair play; it sought to present things as they were, not as somebody thought they ought to be. We were journalists, not propagandists; and as journalists we sought new angles on old subjects. The idea that there was something fundamentally sound and good in industrial relations, that in many spots had gone far beyond what either labor or reformers were demanding, came to the office as a new attack on the old problem. Mr. Phillips, always keenly aware of the new and significant, had his eye on the movement, I found, and was willing to commission me to go out and see what I could find.
This was in 1912, and for the next four years I spent the bulk of my time in factories and industrial towns. The work took me from Maine to Alabama, from New York to Kansas. I found my material in all sorts of industries: iron and steel in and around Pittsburgh, Chicago, Duluth; mines in West Virginia, Illinois, and Wisconsin; paper boxes and books and newspapers everywhere; candy in Philadelphia; beer and tanneries and woodwork in Wisconsin; shirts and collars and shoes in New York and Massachusetts. I watched numberless things in the making: turbines and optical lenses, jewelry and mesh bags, kodaks and pocketknives, plated cutlery and solid silver tea services, Minton tableware and American Belleek, cans and ironware, linen tablecloths and sails for a cup defender, furniture I suspected was to be sold in Europe for antiques, and bric-a-brac I knew was to be sold in America as Chinese importations, railroad rails and wire for a thousand purposes, hookless fasteners and mechanical toys. I seemed never to tire of seeing things made. But do not ask me now how they were made!
I never counted the number of factories I visited. Looking at the volume in which I finally gathered my findings, I find there are some fifty-five major concerns mentioned; but these were those which in my judgment best illustrated the particular point I was trying to make. There were many more.
My visits had to be arranged beforehand. I took pains to make sure of my credentials, but I soon discovered that my past work served me well. The heads of the industries and many workmen were magazine readers, liked to talk about writers and asked all sorts of curious questions about men and women they had become acquainted with in McClure’s and the American: Kipling, Baker, Steffens, Will White, Edna Ferber, just coming on at that time. There was often considerable asperity at the top when I presented my letters of introduction. They set me down as an enemy of business; but again and again this asperity was softened by a man’s love of Abraham Lincoln. He had a habit of reading everything about Lincoln that he could put his hands on, collected books, brought out my “Life” to be autographed. That is, while I was persona non grata for one piece of work, another piece softened suspicion and opened doors to me.
My first move in a factory was to study the processes of the particular industry. Machines were not devils to me as they were to some of my reforming friends, particularly that splendid old warrior Florence Kelley, then in the thick of her fight for “ethical gains through legislation.” To me machines freed from heavy labor, created abundance. That is, I started out free of the inhibition that hate of a machine puts on many observers. I think because of this I was better able to judge the character of a factory, to see its weak as well as its good points. I was able to understand what the enemy of the machine rarely admits: that men and women who have arrived at the dignity of steady workers not only respect, but frequently take pride in, their machines.
Again, I gave myself time around these factories. The observer who once in his life goes down for half a day into a mine or spends two or three hours walking through a steel mill, naturally revolts against the darkness, the clatter, the smoke, the danger. As a rule he misses the points of real hardship; he also misses the satisfactions. As my pilgrimage lengthened, I became more and more convinced that there is no trade which has not its devotee.
“Once a miner, always a miner.” “Once a sailor, always a sailor.” One might go through the whole category.
“Why,” I now and then asked miners, “do you stay by the mine?”
“I was brought up to it.” “I like it.” “Nobody bothers you when you are working with a pick.” “Nice and quiet in the mines.”