The executive offices of the Consolidated Companies occupied an entire floor in one of the most spacious buildings on Broadway, yet to a casual visitor they gave little indication of the vast power which centred there.  The rooms were substantially furnished, but everything evidenced a restraint equal almost to the conservatism which is so distinguishing a mark of the old-established English houses.  This was an expression of Robert Gorham’s individuality, and the Companies itself reflected it in its modest exterior appearance as in all other features, emphasizing the one influence which held together and amalgamated into a composite unit the many factors which necessarily formed the integral parts.

Gorham’s ideas of business management were scientific, and his first step, after absorbing a new concern, was to have the principles of science introduced.  He insisted that the workman should be supplemented by close co-operation on the part of the management in laying out his work for him in advance; by showing him how to eliminate unnecessary motions; by teaching him to make every portion of his work, however simple, a scientific performance; by studying his own individuality to the extent of assisting him to correct methods which militated equally against his own highest efficiency and the obtaining of the highest efficiency of the machine he operated; by bringing him to a realization that traditional knowledge of his specialty was a lower grade of skill than that knowledge gained by modern scientific study.

On the other hand, he undertook to correct faults of administration as well as inefficient methods of execution, demonstrating to each manager the cash value to the Consolidated Companies of this close co-operation with his workmen.  It was shown that greater product was to be obtained from workmen who performed their tasks under conditions which tended to make them happy and contented, which gave them opportunities to advance themselves to points marked only by their personal limitations; where they could maintain their self-respect and with his help increase it, in that they could hope to become the most skilful operatives in their particular specialties, and to earn higher wages than any employer could afford to pay under other conditions.  With every machine, human or mechanical, running each day at its maximum degree of productivity, Gorham knew that the corporation could well afford to share its largely increased income with those who had co-operated to secure it; and the workmen could not begrudge their employer the augmented profits, since they not only had received their share, but because they knew that the increase was the result of the efforts of the management quite as much as their own.

Throughout the offices themselves was to be found every equipment which modern ingenuity had devised for shortening the processes of daily routine, and of eliminating or reducing to a minimum the details which so clog the wheels of any large enterprise unless properly systematized.  Every man exactly fitted the position in which he was placed, and the machine moved forward with an accuracy and a force which was irresistible.  The same casual visitor would have noticed this had he been at all observant, and could not have failed to admire the precision which marked every business incident, however trivial.