which we knew to be of insufficient strength or of unscientific design, we resolutely declined.  Any piece of work bearing the stamp of the Keystone Bridge Works (and there are few States in the Union where such are not to be found) we were prepared to underwrite.  We were as proud of our bridges as Carlyle was of the bridge his father built across the Annan.  “An honest brig,” as the great son rightly said.

This policy is the true secret of success.  Uphill work it will be for a few years until your work is proven, but after that it is smooth sailing.  Instead of objecting to inspectors they should be welcomed by all manufacturing establishments.  A high standard of excellence is easily maintained, and men are educated in the effort to reach excellence.  I have never known a concern to make a decided success that did not do good, honest work, and even in these days of the fiercest competition, when everything would seem to be matter of price, there lies still at the root of great business success the very much more important factor of quality.  The effect of attention to quality, upon every man in the service, from the president of the concern down to the humblest laborer, cannot be overestimated.  And bearing on the same question, clean, fine workshops and tools, well-kept yards and surroundings are of much greater importance than is usually supposed.

I was very much pleased to hear a remark, made by one of the prominent bankers who visited the Edgar Thomson Works during a Bankers Convention held at Pittsburgh.  He was one of a party of some hundreds of delegates, and after they had passed through the works he said to our manager: 

“Somebody appears to belong to these works.”

He put his finger there upon one of the secrets of success.  They did belong to somebody.  The president of an important manufacturing work once boasted to me that their men had chased away the first inspector who had ventured to appear among them, and that they had never been troubled with another since.  This was said as a matter of sincere congratulation, but I thought to myself:  “This concern will never stand the strain of competition; it is bound to fail when hard times come.”  The result proved the correctness of my belief.  The surest foundation of a manufacturing concern is quality.  After that, and a long way after, comes cost.

I gave a great deal of personal attention for some years to the affairs of the Keystone Bridge Works, and when important contracts were involved often went myself to meet the parties.  On one such occasion in 1868, I visited Dubuque, Iowa, with our engineer, Walter Katte.  We were competing for the building of the most important railway bridge that had been built up to that time, a bridge across the wide Mississippi at Dubuque, to span which was considered a great undertaking.  We found the river frozen and crossed it upon a sleigh drawn by four horses.