The Investigators Investigate

...THE INVESTIGATORS INVESTIGATE By C. J. FREUND IN RECENT years great changes have taken place in American industry which have had a far-reaching effect upon the social and economic life of the nation...

...the marvelous machine which empties a car of coal by turning it upside down interests them only because this machine has replaced a half-dozen men who could perform the work laboriously in a day or two...

...No thanks," he said, "I'm not interested in those departments...

...We thought he would remain no less than three or four days and were surprised when he said that he could remain only a few hours...

...I remember a sociologist who spent eight months in a study of the organized charities of a certain industrial community and considered two weeks long enough the following year to determine the influence of automatic machinery upon the living habits and economic standards of the same community...

...Sometimes general public opinions have been formed regarding industry which have no foundation whatever in fact...

...We proceeded to gather for him the information which he needed and planned to take him to those departments which were involved in his problem...

...He made us suspicious by evading discussion of the fundamental questions included in his subject...

...Naturally, the layman will read those reports of industrial conditions which are most interesting and which have the greatest appeal for his imagination in preference to a less fascinating report which may be more correct...

...Authors and editors comprise the second classification of superficial investigators of industry...

...Unfortunately, the careful and conscientious report of the legitimate student of industry is seldom startling and consequently is overlooked while the sensational account of the superficial observer makes a deep impression...

...Undoubtedly they are doing much to maintain that interest...

...The difference arises undoubtedly from the much greater proportion of maintenance mechanics who are required in the automatic plant...

...We trust that we did not violate hospitality when we denied him admission to our works...

...They came to find the facts in industry, whatever the facts might be, and have been eager for any information which might affect their findings in any way whatever...

...Please see that they are given all the information they want and show them every possible courtesy...

...This, of course, is an altogether different question from the effect of automatic machinery upon total employment in industry...

...An outstanding example is a general conviction on the part of practically all who think about the matter at all that automatic machinery is doing away with the skilled manufacturing trades...

...and the production department where problems in control and traffic of unbelievable difficulty are solved with the help of great numbers of men throughout the plant whose work requires constant mental exertion...

...They are very frankly capitalizing the public interest in industrial problems...

...Public opinion has been formed by writers and lecturers who are not in possession of the facts and cannot be because the facts are not known...

...They have formed certain theories in advance regarding industry, the theories have become fads and their purpose in visiting industrial establishments is to pick up here and there separate items of information to support their theories even though the bulk of the evidence may be against them...

...As a result, the public impression of the part played by industry in modern life is based almost altogether upon the information furnished by professional scholars and investigators...

...How will repetitive work, the concentration of the population in cities and the absorption of individuals in vast, coordinated manufacturing processes affect American habits of living ? Is machinery becoming too dominant a factor in our civilization...

...However, people are concerned almost exclusively with the sociological aspect of industry...

...The speaker made a comparison between the number of skilled mechanics in a typical, old fashioned machinery-building shop and a modern, up-to-date metal-working plant in which automatic machinery is used...

...Strange as it may seem, the comparison indicated that 33 percent of all employees in the automatic plant were skilled mechanics while only 26 percent of the total employment in the so-called "mechanics' paradise" were skilled...

...The automatic plant produces practically all the automobile frames used in the United States and it is generally admitted by economists and engineers that automatic machinery has been more highly developed in this shop than in any other metal-working plant...

...A flying trip of three or four months through the industries of the country can hardly be considered a sufficient preparation for a book or a series of lectures on fundamental industrial problems, although the public will accept both book and lectures if they are clever...

...He was particularly interested in the assembly line and stood for a long time watching men attach tanks and fenders, locate motors and transmissions, insert bolts, secure nuts and perform similar operations over and over as one unit after another passed on the line...

...Before proceeding, I wish to pay my respects to a very great number of these visitors who have been simple and sincere students, hard working, thorough 182 THE COMMONWEAL June 18, 1930 and unprejudiced...

...A certain professor spent a year in Washington in order to study the workings of the senate committees...

...But they are not interested primarily in facts, they are looking for startling bits of information and spectacular particulars which have no important bearing on the subject matter in hand but which make fascinating reading...

...Poles, Spanish-Americans, Scotch and Irish and Czechoslovakians have come occasionally and there were three or four Hindus and Turks...

...Watches, plumbing and heating appliances, vacuum cleaners, artistic furniture, automobiles, silverware, and even houses are made in quantity and at extremely low cost...

...Persons engaged in industrial work are seldom able to interpret industry to the public, they are too absorbed in their tasks, their viewpoint is not broad enough and they cannot rise above their environment to observe its effects upon the entire social structure...

...this is what the public wants to read...

...Confer with me about this if you think necessary...

...many were British, German, Japanese, Norwegian and French...

...However, to a person engaged in industrial work who pretends to be neither a scholar nor a scientist nor to be familiar with the methods of the scholar or scientist, the majority of these investigators appear to be superficial and many of them positively unfair...

...Not so long ago our plant was visited by a wellknown author whose work is read by thousands...

...Reference is made only to skilled trades...

...Perhaps the writers and lecturers consider that it follows necessarily from the nature of the problem that highly automatic machinery does away with opportunities for skilled work...

...These changes have sometimes been called, collectively, the second industrial revolution...

...Those who are nationally known are frequently the most slipshod in making their surveys...

...Still another group of these investigators are largely economists and sociologists and are, I believe, called "progressive thinkers...

...Such questions are raised and studied more and more...

...but he thought and said that two days at Gary had given him a comprehensive knowledge of the steel industry of America...

...One comes to mind first not because it is most numerous but because it irritates the most...

...We read the notes and ventured the opinion that they did not represent the facts in the matter...

...They admit that industry affects society and is therefore worth studying, but they seem to feel that the industrial world is so inferior to their own academic world that men of their calibre should understand the entire industrial scheme of things at first sight...

...Also, I must recognize again the very many investigators of industry in whose work and attitude the layman at least can discover no irregularity whatever...

...When a man lectures or writes books on industrial subjects after working five or six or ten years in industry he may be qualified for what he is doing...

...It may be desirable to emphasize once more that all this expresses the viewpoint of a layman, not of a scholar criticizing the work of some of his fellows...

...Their methods arouse resentment...

...Almost without exception these visitors have been of high calibre, well informed and pleasant company...

...You are assigned to entertain all such in future...

...Shortly after he made a six weeks' tour of the automobile industry of the country and considers himself a great authority on the subject as a result...

...Accordingly, it does not seem to follow necessarily that automatic machinery destroys opportunities for skilled work...

...I did not reply but I suggested to him that we visit the many auxiliary departments: the tool-making department where hundreds of the most skilled mechanics build the special fixtures and appliances without which production and automatic machinery would be impossible...

...He asked us to take him through the plant to permit him to gather information for a "story" on a certain subject...

...Ask any man who is educated and considers himself informed what has been the effect of automatic machinery upon the trades and crafts and he will reply promptly that automatic machinery is crowding them out...

...In this plant pieces are carried along on automatic conveyors from machine to machine, are automatically removed from the conveyors to the machines, are automatically located on the machines, the machines are automatically started and stopped again, the pieces are automatically released from the machine, automatically returned to the conveyor and automatically carried to the next machine...

...For instance, it is fashionable just now in certain circles to denounce the modern development of industry as generally pernicious and particularly to point out the degrading effect of monotonous production work on the individual worker as if all, or nearly all, industrial work were of this nature...

...The majority of this group are college and university faculty members who are unable to be friendly and engaging enough to hide their conviction that they are considerably superior to any and every one associated with industry...

...As a result of these new manufacturing methods, industrial enterprises have grown rapidly...

...I have in mind a friend who is a graduate student of good standing in a reputable educational institution...

...The Census of Manufactures, the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, the National Bureau of Economic Research, the National Industrial Conference Board, and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers have no data on the subject and several of these authorities have repeatedly and emphatically asserted that no acceptable information is to be had anywhere concerning the effect of automatic machinery upon the skilled trades...

...The plant has frequently been called a "mechanics' paradise...

...In the old fashioned shop machinery is built on a jobbing basis...

...There have been editors, professors, sociologists, newspaper reporters, lecturers, free lance writers, graduate students, officials of state and federal governments and doctors of philosophy representing great foundations...

...the maintenance department where workmen of the highest qualification constantly exert their ingenuity in keeping the machinery of the plant in perfect running order...

...The superficial investigators appear to fall into a number of major divisions...

...Since then I have had many interesting contacts and experiences...

...They seem to think that all industrial people are totally materialistic and capable of no idealism whatever...

...A paper before a recent convention of the Society of Industrial Engineers is directly to the point...

...Industry has enough to answer for without being accused before the public by persons who have almost no first-hand information...

...Perhaps they are paid according to the amount of writing they produce and cannot afford to spend too much time in preparing their work...

...Shortly after I reached my office one morning, about four years ago, the messenger on his first round dropped into my tray the following note from the vicepresident and works manager: There has recently been a great increase in the number of visitors to these works for purposes of investigation...

...I merely want to go into your shop to get the graphic stuff, material for dressing up the piece...

...Under the circumstances, it is only natural that industrial development should become a subject of general discussion...

...and some of his associates agree with him...

...the engineering department where principles which are known to be correct, although they are not yet understood, are applied every day in design work...

...These articles have now been standardized, adapted to manufacture in great numbers by automatic and semi-automatic machinery and have become necessities of life for the great mass of the people...

...The electric power requirements of a typical American manufacturing city increased 1,000 percent from 1916 to 1927, although the growth of the city has not been exceptional...

...None of the machines in the plant can be one-purpose machines because of the great variety of work, and for the same reason the operators must be highly skilled...

...The arrangements were made and we went together...

...They give their articles a tone of scholarship by the use of smart phrases, "exhaustive survey," "careful study of representative plants during a tour of the entire country," "scientific analysis" and others...

...Perhaps not," he replied, "but you know how it is...

...I have seen all I care to see...

...they have appreciated the vastness and complexity of modern industry and have taken industry seriously...

...A factory in which 1,000 men are employed is no longer considered large...

...the heat-treating and metallurgical departments where the physical characteristics of steel and other metals are controlled almost at will by the application of science and skill...

...Articles of luxury for the wealthy few were formerly produced by long hours of painstaking and skilful effort...

...Finally he succumbed to persistent influence, took us into his confidence and produced a complete set of notes for the article...

...Horribly degrading work, isn't it," he remarked...

...It is certainly true that certain trades, such as horseshoeing and sail-making, have been rendered practically obsolete by modern machinery but it has never been proved of the skilled manufacturing trades in general, although quite generally taken for granted...

...A doctor of philosophy devoted two years to a study of rural life in a number of counties in southern Vermont...

...He asked if he could visit an automobile manufacturing plant...

...Most of them have been Americans...

...It is not unusual for a manufacturing plant to double its capacity every year for several years in succession...

...The visitors have come and gone by the hundreds with a great variety of viewpoints, enthusiasms, prejudices, note-books, spectacles and visiting cards...

...there were a few Italians, Chinese, Swedes, Russians and Swiss...