One Way Out: A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America

by William Carleton

But more interesting to me than anything else was the opportunity I now had as a foreman to test the value of the knowledge of my former fellow workmen which I had been slowly acquiring. I was anxious to see if my ideas were pure theory or whether they were practical. They had proven practical at any rate in securing my own advance. This had come about through no such pull as Rafferty's. It was the result of nothing but my intelligent and conscientious work in the ditch and among the men. And this in turn was made possible by the application of the knowledge I picked up and used as I had the chance. It was only because I had shown my employers that I was more valuable as a foreman than a common laborer that I was not still digging. I had been able to do this because having learned from twenty different men how to handle a crowbar for instance, I had from time to time been able to direct the men with whom I was working as at the start I myself had been directed by Anton'. Anton' was still digging because that was all he knew. I had learned other things. I had learned how to handle Anton'.

I had no idea that my efforts were being watched. I don't know now how I was picked out. Except of course that it must have been because of the work I did.

At any rate I found myself at the head of twenty men—all Italians, all strangers and among them three or four just off the steamer. My first job was on a foundation for an apartment house. Of course my part in it was the very humble one of seeing that the men kept at work digging. The work had all been staked out and the architect's agent was there to give all incidental instructions. He was a young graduate of a technical school and I took the opportunity this offered—for he was a good-natured boy—to use what little I had learned in my night school and study his blue prints. At odd times he explained them to me and aside from what I learned myself from them it helped me to direct the men more intelligently.

But it was on the men themselves that I centred my efforts. As soon as possible I learned them by name. At the noon hour I took my lunch with them and talked with them in their own language. I made a note of where they lived and found as I expected that many were from my ward. Incidentally I dropped a word here and there about the "Young American Political Club," and asked them to come around to some of the meetings. I found out where they came from and wherever I could, I associated them with some of their fellows with whom I had worked. I found out about their families. In brief I made myself know every man of them as intimately as was possible.

I don't suppose for a minute that I could have done this successfully if I hadn't really been genuinely interested in them. If I had gone at it like a professional hand shaker they would have detected the hypocrisy in no time. Neither did I attempt a chummy attitude nor a fatherly attitude. I made it clearly understood that I was an American first of all and that I was their boss. It was perfectly easy to do this and at the same time treat them like men and like units. I tried to make them feel that instead of being merely a bunch of Dagoes they were Italian workingmen. Your foreign laborer is quick to appreciate such a distinction and quick to respond to it. With the American-born you have to draw a sharper line and hold a steadier rein. I figured out that when you find a member of the second or third generation still digging, you've found a man with something wrong about him.

The next thing I did was to learn what each man could do best. Of course I could make only broad classifications. Still there were men better at lifting than others; men better with the crowbar; men better at shoveling; men naturally industrious who would leaven a group of three or four lazy ones. As well as I could I sorted them out in this way.

In addition to taking this personal interest in them individually, I based my relations with them collectively on a principle of strict, homely justice. I found there was no quality of such universal appeal as this one of justice. Whether dealing with Italians, Russians, Portuguese, Poles, Irish or Irish-Americans you could always get below their national peculiarities if you reached this common denominator. However browbeaten, however slavish, they had been in their former lives this spark seemed always alive. However cocky or anarchistic they might feel in their new freedom you could pull them up with a sharp turn by an appeal to their sense of justice. And by justice I mean nothing but what ex-president Roosevelt has now made familiar by the phrase "a square deal." Justice in the abstract might not appeal to them but they knew when they were being treated fairly and when they were not. Also they knew when they were treating you fairly and when they were not. I never allowed a man to feel bullied or abused; I never gave a sharp order without an explanation. I never discharged a man without making him feel guilty in his heart no matter how much he protested with his lips. And I never discharged him without making the other men clearly see his guilt. When a man went, he left no sympathizers behind him.

On the other hand I made them act justly towards their employer and towards me. I taught them that justice must be on both sides. I tried to make them understand that their part was not to see how little work they could do for their money and that mine was not to see how much they could do, but that it was up to both of us to turn out a full fair day's work. They were not a chain gang but workmen selling their labor. Just as they expected the store-keepers to sell them fair measure and full weight, so I expected them to sell a full day and honest effort.

It wasn't always possible to secure a result but when it wasn't I got rid of that man on the first occasion. It was very much easier to handle in this way the freedom-loving foreigners than I looked for; with the American-born it was harder than I expected.

On the whole however I was mighty well pleased. I certainly got a lot of work out of them without in any way pushing them. They didn't sweat for me and I didn't want them to—but they kept steadily at their work from morning until night. Then too, I didn't hesitate to do a little work myself now and then. If at any point another man seemed to be needed to help over a difficulty I jumped in. I not only often saved the useless efforts of three or four men in this way but I convinced them that I too had my employers' interests at heart. My object wasn't simply to earn my day's pay, it was to finish the job we were on in the shortest possible time. It makes a big difference whether a man feels he is working by the day or by the job. I tried to make them feel that we were all working by the job.