work is done well, create a feeling of pleasure and satisfaction among the people engaged upon their work, and this feeling reacts favorably toward the successful accomplishment of the work; while on the other hand, incessant, rasping, unfair criticism results in making the help nervous and affects the work unfavorably. Where work is done on orders for particular customers it thus acquires a sort of personality with the work-people, and the touch of the manager in transmitting through his organization the wishes and criticisms of each client should be such in each case as to make the "personality" of the work as agreeable as possible to the workers.

Beyond this and very important is the helpfulness of having as many as possible of the executive staff of a plant know one's customers personally. A trip through the market for each one at least two or three times a year is the way to do this. Personal acquaintance, understanding and friendship on either side make up a strong mental background for what before was only an endless flow of letters or orders. Too often a customer has no understanding of the difficulties and risks of manufacturing, while an executive at the plant thinks of the customer as a fussy or unreasonable person to please whom is impossible. Face to face each realizes the other is human; the customer grasps the idea of conditions not always possible to control; the plant executive sees that the mill's customer has in turn his customerbe it some further manufacturer or the general public-who must be satisfied or appeased. Where the nature of a business is such that a company manufactures and markets its product direct through a large selling force covering a wide area, for example the entire country, the ends above outlined are largely achieved by gathering the selling force together at the plant, say every six months just before the opening of a season, and having manufacturing and selling heads spend a week in conferences, formal and informal. This is current practice in many places and the results are immeasurably beneficial. The principle, however, is in all cases the same: bring those who manufacture a product into the closest possible touch with the final users of that product. COMPETITORS

Lastly, in the list of contacts as we are taking them up, but of prime importance, are the manager's dealings with his com

petitors. Much less than a generation ago each piece of knowledge a foreman in a mill possessed was regarded by him as his own private property. If he divulged it to the management he felt his hold on his job was just that much less secure. Examples of this in the textile industry come freely to the writer's mind. A boss dyer, before the advent of the great development of German dyes, was very close about recording his old wood-dye formulas. If he happened to be sick, or on vacation, or if he quit his job, so much the worse for the plant for the time being-he was not looking ahead for himself or for his plant. A foreman carder in a cotton mill had a remarkable mixture of oils for treating the leather on the rolls of his draw-frames. Nothing under heaven could persuade him to divulge this recipe. The relation of plant to plant in competition in the same industry has been, and to a large extent still is, in the same condition as that of these foremen in clinging to their past knowledge. While it is not suggested that one's special trade secrets should be trumpeted from the house-tops to one's bitterest competitor, it is a fact that a certain attitude of mind begets certain results. Useful knowledge cannot be locked up in a chest and kept for any time from the use of men, without some one happening along and picking the lock. The man who is always worrying about guarding his work and methods from others will not have room in his mind for big constructive thought looking to future development and betterment. Every good thing brought out in industry is going to have imitation and in most cases successful imitation. So after all the chief benefit in singularity or individuality of ideas and methods is to be a leader in these, to be a year or two, or even six months, ahead of the crowd; not only not to follow, but to be far from content simply to be "on the band wagon" as they say in politics; one must be far ahead of the "band wagon" or average knowledge and practice, to get the real benefits we are contending for.

Now what, you are asking, has all this to do with the relation of a manager to his competitors and to other plants? Just this. No one has a monopoly of good ideas, and it is only by exchanging ideas through contacts with one's competitors that a manager can truly grow. This applies just as much to the other plant's manager as to yourself. Even without giving out any special

formulas or peculiar trade secrets, without even showing certain machines of unusual design or accomplishment, one man can visit the plant of another in the same industry with very great profit to both. It matters not whether the visit is made or is received.

I cannot remember any visitor to our plant from a competing plant, and all are welcome, who by his questions has not stirred up some new line of thought which has led to helpful action of one kind or another. This, of course, would seem the lesser of the opportunities for benefit. In visiting another's plant a host of new ideas is gathered, not necessarily of one specific method or process, but of doing a score of things which you are doing, but in an entirely different way, of tackling a problem from a new standpoint, of accomplishing the same result with less toil or under healthier conditions for the workers. As in the case of one's customers, closer acquaintance with competitors also causes everyday vexations to disappear. The futility of pirating help is quickly realized and practices of this kind which bring no lasting advantage, but only ill will, fall naturally into disuse. The broadening effect of exchanging plant visits is remarkable, the results are mutually advantageous, the benefit is great to the industry as a whole, particularly in view of the new era of world competition on which we are entering.

Again in matters of markets such as costs and prices, a great amount of good is gained by frank and open dealings with one's competitors, good not only for one another but for one's customers, for the trade at large. Should the plant manager also have to do with the selling policy of the business he will find that free comparisons with competitors of costs for a given operation or product, legitimate publishing of prices that have been quoted on standard lines of work, all make for stable market conditions benefiting both buyer and seller.

Plants, even industries, are like individuals. Some are broadminded, receptive of new ideas, progressive, energetic. Others are narrow in outlook, suspicious of all change; they are clinging to the past, waiting to be pushed. Let no one think that by an open-minded attitude he will so reform his industry that there will be no laggards left to set the average market price above his costs. There is more, a million times more to gain by industrial reciprocity than by isolation and stagnation; and the stepping

stone to reciprocity is the broad-minded attitude of the management, and first of all, of the manager.

CONCLUSION

The manager himself then is the focal point of all these various contacts of plant relationships. Under the old conditions he was often a victim, ground between the upper and nether millstones, capital and labor, his employers and his help. The new view, speaking somewhat in the language of the army, would rather regard him as a thoroughly efficient liaison officer promoting understanding, coöperation and harmony. Instead of being broken down or in a rut, he should be full of contagious enthusiasm, ready for leadership, carving out new lines of progress. But assuming him to be a man of integrity, force of character, brains and energy, what is the most important characteristic of his work? Unquestionably his attitude. It is his compass according to which he will steer toward the east, the coming day, the new vision, the broadening opportunity; or toward the west, the setting sun, the days that are past, the closed mind. He must keep in touch with things in a large way. What is going on in England, for example, in the work of the Joint Industrial Councils and their share, at least in an advisory capacity, in governmental problems of reconstruction and adjustment will be of live interest to him. So far has this development gone that it is even suggested (by Sir John Pilter, honorary president of the British Chamber of Commerce at Paris) that joint commissions of employers and employes "visit the principal producing centres in their trade in other countries and there see at first hand the conditions with which they must coöperate or compete and study any advantage or improvement which might well be carried home. The scheme is based on the doubtless sound notion that, broadly speaking, labor has little if any knowledge of the main currents of industry, and that if employers were to share their knowledge of competitive markets with their employes, there would be a clearer understanding on the part of labor of the problems for whose solution 'capital' is responsible." A moment's thought of the vast possibilities contained in this outlook and of the rapidly changing conditions of the new world of today cannot fail to stimulate the imagination and to challenge real ability.

Labor Agreements with a Powerful Union

THE

By HON. JACOB M. MOSES1

Lawyer, Baltimore, Md.

HE Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America are not affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. The organization came into being in the autumn of 1914, when a large number of the tailors and cutters in a body left the United Garment Workers of America (affiliated with the A. F. of L.) and subsequently united with the Tailors' Industrial Union (formerly known as Journeymen Tailors' Union) under the name of The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. Its first convention was held in the City of New York, December 26th to 28th, 1914. This fact is mentioned because in the brief period of its existence it has become the dominant labor organization in the men's and boys' clothing industry in America. It has a membership of over 100,000 and it has agreements governing industrial relations between its members and the most important clothing manufacturers of the country. The new organization from its inception was distinguished by an enthusiasm, a morale and an idealism which are quite remarkable and it has developed a type of leadership which has attracted wide attention both within and outside of the labor movement. The report of the general officers at the first convention emphasized the need of education as an indispensable element of success in achieving the aims of the organization. I quote from said report as follows:

An organization of labor, to be true to its mission, to be able to elevate the workingmen mentally, materially, morally and in every other sense, while gathering strength for the ultimate emancipation of the working class from the wage system, must be predicated on education. An economic labor organization built on the solid foundation of knowledge and enlightenment will never be in fear of destruction, will be able to withstand any storm, and the workingmen will find in it shelter and protection. A workingman brought into the Union

by the ennobling influence of education will not have to be urged in season and out of season to remain in the Union. The Union will always live in his own soul and he will always be found in the organized ranks with his fellows. The

1

1 Judge Moses acts as impartial chairman in the two Baltimore shops having agreements with the Amalgamated and referred to in this article. [Editor.]