* * * * *

Then there are excerpts from speeches made by the Rev. Charles Aubrey Eaton and young Mr. Rockefeller or by the President and Treasurer of the Diamond Motor Sales Corporation, saying, in part: 

“The man who makes good in any line of work is the man who gives the best there is in him.  He doesn’t watch the clock.  He doesn’t kick when he fails to get that raise that he may have expected.  He just digs into the job harder and makes the dust fly.  And when some one comes along waving a red flag and tries to make him stop work and strike for more money, he turns on the agitator and says:  ’You get the h——­ out of here.  I know my job better than you do.  I know my boss better than you do, and I know that he is going to give me the square deal just as soon as he can see his way clear to do it.  And in the mean time I am going to WORK!’

“That is the kind of man who makes good.”

* * * * *

And then there are efficiency contests, with the force divided into teams trying to see which one can wrap the most containers or stamp the largest number of covers in the week.  The winning team gets a felt banner and their names are printed in full in that week’s issue of “Pep” or “Nosey News.”

And biographies of employees who have been with the company for more than fifty years, with photographs, and a little notice written by the Superintendent saying that this will show the company’s appreciation of Mr. Gomble’s loyal and unswerving allegiance to his duty, implying that any one else who does his duty for fifty years will also get his picture in the paper and a notice by the Superintendent.

It will easily be seen how this sort of house organ can be made to promote good feeling and esprit de corps among the help.  If only more concerns could be prevailed upon to bring this message of weekly or monthly good cheer to their employees, who knows but what the whole caldron of industrial unrest might not suddenly simmer down to mere nothingness?  It has been said that all that is necessary is for capital and labor to understand each other.  Certainly such a house organ helps the employees to understand their employers.

Perhaps some one will start a house organ edited by the employees for circulation among the bosses, containing newsy notes about the owners’ families, quotations from Karl Marx and the results of the profit-sharing contest between the various mills of the district.

This would complete the circle of understanding.

LVII

ADVICE TO WRITERS

Two books have emerged from the hundreds that are being published on the art of writing.  One of them is “The Lure of the Pen,” by Flora Klickmann, and the other is “Learning to Write,” a collection of Stevenson’s meditations on the subject, issued by Scribners.  At first glance one might say that the betting would be at least eight to one on Stevenson.  But for real, solid, sensible advice in the matter of writing and selling stories in the modern market, Miss Klickmann romps in an easy winner.