Christopher and the Clockmakers

by Sara Ware Bassett

"These are some of the oldest and best known firms."

Christopher thought a moment.

"Of course I've heard of some of them," remarked he. "The Hamilton everybody knows. It is advertised in almost every magazine."

"The Hamilton watch came into being under interesting and, I may say, tragic circumstances. One day a bad railroad accident happened out near Cleveland, Ohio, and when the calamity was investigated evidence proved that neither of the engineers on the unlucky trains that collided was really to blame. The trouble was that their watches did not agree. There was a difference of four minutes between them. Both timepieces were good ones that never before had led their owners astray; but on this fatal day they were responsible not only for the deaths of two blameless engineers but also a number of mail clerks. It is strange, isn't it, that the public must always experience a terrible lesson before it wakes up to safeguarding human life? Let us have a fire in which many persons perish, and we begin to move heaven and earth to inspect buildings and install fire escapes; or let a lot of people die from shipwreck and we cannot buy life belts fast enough. But we always wait until after the disaster has occurred before we do it. Thus it was with this fatal railroad accident. Once the catastrophe had happened and the poor chaps were dead, a set of rules was established whereby men employed on trains must carry watches of a specified quality. No cheap article was to be allowed in future. And not only must the railroad worker purchase such a watch, but he must keep it cleaned and properly regulated."

"That was all very well to decree," replied Christopher, "but how could the authorities make sure such a rule would be obeyed?"

"Ah, the railroad took no chances of being fooled," was McPhearson's instant reply. "A watch inspector was appointed whose duty it was to examine every important official's watch once in a stated period and see that it conformed to the requirements. If a watch failed to keep up to the standard set—by that I mean if it lost or gained more than a very trifling amount a week—it was condemned and ordered to be discarded and a new one had to be bought."

"But how about the men?" put in Christopher, a hint of disapproval in his tone. "What if some of them couldn't afford to purchase these fine-running, expensive watches? Being told to toss your watch out the window and get another isn't always possible."

"It was to meet the objection that you have just raised that a week after the wreck the Hamilton Watch Company of Lancaster was organized. It aimed to manufacture a good, close-running watch at a moderate price, and it fulfilled its promise. The proposition was a sound business one, too, for all over the country men were employed to whom correctness of time was of vital importance—switch-tenders, motormen, engineers, conductors, not to enumerate the thousands of other working people to whom being prompt at ferries, trains, cars, and their job was imperative. So, you see, the age provided a distinct market for a high-class article of this sort and the Hamilton Company was intelligent enough to realize and seize it. Good business is seeing your chance, grabbing it, and then holding onto it."

The lad smiled.

"Of course there are times," continued McPhearson, "when it is possible to create a market out of whole cloth. If, for instance, you can think of something that would be useful to the public, something they themselves have never happened to think of before, you can bring it to their attention by clever advertising and make them want it. That is the method the Waterbury Watch Company followed in launching their goods back in 1880. For a long time two Massachusetts men had been wondering whether an exceedingly cheap watch that would be within the reach of even quite poor people could not be made. Such a commodity, they argued, could not fail to have an extensive sale. The problem was who could they find to construct this sort of timepiece? Then on a fine day Mr. Locke, one of the men, saw in the window of a Worcester jeweler a miniature steam engine that had previously been exhibited at the Philadelphia Centennial. Immediately the thought came into his mind that a workman who could construct such a perfect toy must be both ingenious and inventive, and he went into the shop and offered Mr. Buck, the maker of the wee engine, a hundred dollars to produce for him a cheap watch of the type he had in mind."