THE DISCONTENTED MACHINE.AN ECONOMIC STUDY.
It was a magnificent piece of machinery, and had been put into the great manufactory at an enormous expense. Other manufacturers had shaken their heads, doubtfully, when they heard that Hyde & Horne were about to put in a mammoth cutter and shaper that would enable them to dispense with nearly twenty-five per cent. of the men whom they had heretofore employed.
“It is a hazardous experiment,” they all said, putting in new anduntried machinery. “Why, if half that is claimed for this new machine is true, it will revolutionize the boot and shoe trade, and enable Hyde & Horne to have their own way with us, unless we put in the same machinery; while, if it fails, they’ll never see their money back, and the firm will be ruined. It’s risky business, very risky business, indeed. The chances are a thousand to one against its success.”
Nevertheless, their intense anxiety lest Hyde & Horne should be forced into bankruptcy by their experiments with the new and costly machinery, did not prevent their taking a lively interest in the same. They watched it closely, from month to month, and were presently forced to confess that itwas an unqualified success. No firm in the trade turned out such quantities of shoes of uniform quality, finish, style, and cheapness, as Hyde & Horne. The new machine produced them so much more cheaply than other firms, with their older and less complete methods, were able to do, that the more enterprising concern virtually controlled the market. Hyde & Horne disposed, in advance, of their entire output, early in the season, and were beginning to talk of putting in another of the new machines, when, at last, their competitors were fully alive to the fact that they, too, must bestir themselves, or find the market completely blocked to their goods.
Accordingly, one fine morning, the members of the rival firm ofRussett & Tan called at the factory, and asked to inspect the new machine.
“Certainly! certainly!” was Mr. Horne’s courteous reply, and he led the way to the cutting department, chatting pleasantly as he went.
The big machine was a splendid sight. An operator had just finished giving a polish to the shining brass balls of the governor on the engine. Every bar and rod and bearing was polished until it glistened. The nickel plate gleamed silvery white, the black wheels and castings were bright as mirrors, the brasswork shone like gold, and the knives glittered and sparkled as they flashed back and forth through the many thicknesses of leather. It was a goodlymachine, and did its work with a noiseless, beautiful accuracy, a swerveless certainty of execution, and an unconscious magnificence of strength and power, that put to shame the puny efforts of the merely human laborers who toiled beside it, straining every nerve to keep the great knives fed and the way cleared before them.
There is nothing more magnificent than a great machine or engine at work. The locomotive, pulling its long trains up grades and across levels,—the great ocean steamer, walking steadily across the expanse of seas, the mighty press, turning off a thousand complete newspapers a minute,—all these evidences of human power and ingenuity are enough to make one proud of the age in which helives, and the race to which he belongs.
Something of this sort Mr. Russett said to Mr. Horne, as the three gentlemen stood watching the machine at work.
“Yes, indeed! yes, indeed!” assented Horne. “We manufacturers, in particular, owe everything to labor-saving machinery. This machine, for instance, has enabled us to do away with nearly one-fourth of the men we heretofore employed. In fact, in the item of saved labor alone, it has nearly paid for itself since we put it in, about a year ago. Within the next six months it will have paid for itself, and we shall be in a position to realize fully from our foresight in securing it so early in the day.”
“What I want to see,” said Mr. Tan, laughing, “is a machine that will enable us to do away with labor altogether. The dictations of the workingmen are coming to be simply outrageous.”
“That’s what I say,” said Horne. “We employers and our capital are being crippled, handicapped, all but pushed to the wall, by the insatiate demands of labor. Labor is coming to absorb all our gains. Why, fully ninety per cent. of the entire income of the United States is now paid out for labor and wages, while only ten per cent. comes to capital as a remuneration for having saved it up to carry on useful enterprises. I declare, we have sometimes been tempted to go out of business altogether, and invest our capital in some safe, conservative way, so asto be able to enjoy life, and be free from the importunities of labor and the annoyance of strikes and arbitration courts.”
“I know how that is,” said Russett. “Our men struck, last year, on account of a paltry cut of ten cents on a hundred. There’s one good thing about a machine. It can’t strike.” And the three representatives of injured and hard-pressed capital returned to the business office.
It was nearly a week after the visit of Russett & Tan to the factory, that the foreman entered the office where Messrs. Hyde and Horne sat discussing the probable result, with their men, of a cut in wages, all around.
“The men will stand it,” Hydewas saying. “They know winter is coming on, work is scarce, and times are dull. A cut of ten or fifteen cents a day, all round the workshops, would mean a clear gain to us of nearly nine hundred dollars a month. That would go a long way towards putting in another cutting machine, and then we could get rid of another lot of men.”
“It’ll come rather hard on them,” said Horne. “The workingman is always making a poor mouth, and this will be something new for them to howl about.”
“They’ll have to howl,” was Hyde’s rejoinder. “I’m sorry for them, but business is business. We’ve got the start of the trade now, and must keep it. Russett & Tan will begin to press us closewhen they put in their new machinery. I’m glad we secured the cutter when we did. Thank heaven, machines can’t strike, anyway.”
It was just at this juncture that the foreman entered.
“What is it, Graves?” asked Mr. Hyde.
“Beg pardon, sir, but there’s something the matter with the big cutter. It’s stopped.”
“What seems to be the matter?” asked Horne. “Anything broken? Why doesn’t the engineer attend to it? Where’s Johnson? I thought it was his business to look after the machine.”
“He has gone over it very carefully,” the foreman replied, “and can find nothing wrong. The gearing seems in perfect order,—theengine’s all right,—we’ve examined every bearing, but we can’t discover the trouble.”
“Curious,”—“very singular,” said Hyde and Horne in a breath, and both partners repaired to the cutting department, to study the great machine.
They could find nothing wrong with it. The brass and nickel and enamel glistened as before; the broad bands of the gearing were smooth and intact; the engine seemed in perfect order; the steam indicator proclaimed everything all right about the boiler,—there was apparently not a screw loose about the whole ponderous apparatus; but the knives were poised in midair. Every wheel and rod, lever, band, pulley, arm and crank of the monster was still. There wasneither sound nor motion in the mighty mechanism.
“I can’t get her goin’ agin, sorr,” explained the engineer. “But there don’t appear to be anything out of order at all. She’s just naturally balked, so to spake;” and he began, for the twentieth time or so, to peer about amid the complications of the machinery.
“I’ve iled every jint,” said the oiler, as with can in hand, and his grimy, oil-smeared face wrinkled with perplexity, he brushed a superfluous drop from a bearing. “I think the machine is tired. They do be taken that way sometimes, sir. ’Taint in iron an’ steel to work continual, no more’n in flesh an’ blood.”
’Round about the stilled giant the two partners walked, examiningevery part, stooping under and over each portion of the machinery, in a vain search for the trouble. The hour for closing came,—the big steam whistle sent forth its shrill sound, and the men and women, girls and boys, some two hundred and fifty odd, poured forth from the building, carrying their dinner-pails and baskets, eagerly hurrying homeward to make the most of their few hours’ respite from toil.
“You need not wait, Graves,” said Mr. Hyde, as the foreman still lingered. “We will lock up.”
Graves hesitated a moment. “I beg pardon, sir,” he said, tentatively. “’Tis talked about the shops that you’re contemplating a cut. May I ask if it is true?”
“We’ll talk about that someother time, Graves,” began Horne, but Hyde interrupted, angrily. “If we are,” he said, “we’ll let you know in time. Just now it’s no one’s business but ours, and we will attend to it.”
The foreman drew back, with a flushed face. “I thought I might as well tell you,” he said, sullenly, “that I don’t think the men will stand it. Times are hard; they’re pretty close to bed rock, now, in the matter of wages.”
“That will do, Graves,” said Hyde. “Mr. Horne and I feel ourselves quite able to run our own business without outside advice. If we find we are forced to make a cut, we shall certainly do so. At all events, we do not propose to be dictated to by the men.”
Angry and mortified, the foremanwithdrew, and the two capitalists were left alone.
“Too bad the machine has gone wrong just now,” said Horne, stooping to examine a bolt. “There’s that order from Slipper & Tie, at Sacramento, ought to be ready by to-morrow. What the deuce ails the thing, anyway?”
There was a sort of whirring, as of wheels in the air, and then in a clear, metallic voice, came the words:
“I’ve struck. That’s what ails me.”
Horne started back from the lever over which he was bending, and looked at Hyde in alarm. “Did you speak just then?” he asked.
“N-o,”—faltered Hyde, “I didn’t speak, and I don’t know who did.”
Again the clear, metallic tones were heard issuing directly from one of the machine’s great knives. “It was I who spoke,” said the voice. “You were wondering what ailed me, and I gave you the desired information.” The words were clipped off sharply and incisively, as though the knife fancied they were a particularly tough sort of leather, that must be trimmed with especial accuracy.
“Who are you?” gasped Horne.
“I am the cutter and shaper,” said the voice. “You asked what ailed me, and I answered your question. I have struck.”
“What have you struck?” Hyde managed to ask.
“Struck work. I shall strike you, next, if you ask such stupid questions,” was the reply, and thecapitalist assumed a more respectful tone.
“May I ask,” he began, “what is it that has caused you to strike?”
“Certainly,” said the machine. “That is what I wish you to ask. I have struck because I am not being fairly used.”
“Fairly used!” echoed Hyde. “I do not understand you. In what way are you being unfairly used?”
“Why,” said the machine, “I have been working for you, now, for over a year. Through me your business has been more than doubled. You say yourself, that in the item of saved labor alone, I have nearly paid for myself. I heard you say that, the other day, to the two gentlemen who came in to visit me, and yet, in all thesemonths, you have not paid me one penny for my services.”
“Paidyou!” gasped Hyde.
“Paidyou!” exclaimed Horne.
And then, both together, the partners cried:
“Why, you have cost us an enormous sum! We expended eighteen thousand dollars for you, outright, from the capital of the business.”
“You have more than had that back through my services,” said the machine, sturdily, “in the item of saved labor alone.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” interrupted Horne, hastily,—“but we really have paid you money, you know. Just let me get the machinery expense book, and I’ll show you;” and hastening to the office, he returned with a little record book,from which he proceeded to read, turning over leaf by leaf, to find the various items. “Here I have charged you an item of fifty dollars for a new shaft,” he said, triumphantly.
“That was broken by the fool boy you hired to look after me the week Jim left, because you cut his wages down,” replied the machine. “I needed that shaft to do your work with. I got nothing for myself.”
“You have had several hundred dollars’ worth of coal,” suggested Hyde.
“Coal is my food,” retorted the machine. “I could not do your work without it.”
“We have spent fourteen dollars for oil for you,” said Horne, after a little computation.
“Pshaw! that’s nothing. If I had not had the oil, where would your work have been? I might have got smoking hot; perhaps burned up your factory.”
“But we have kept you housed, fed and repaired,” said Hyde, “and you have been wasteful and extravagant. You have required the very best oil, the most expensive coal, the first quality of belts and fixtures of every sort. You have not taken half the interest in your own work that we have done and do. But for our supervision and management you would not work at all. Your very existence, in fact, is due to our industry and enterprise.”
“That all may be,” said the machine, sullenly, “but your fortune and enterprise depends very largely upon my efforts.”
“Really, upon my word,” exclaimed Mr. Hyde, impatiently, indignation at the injustice of the charges preferred getting the better of his fear of the strange complainant. “It seems to me that you are a most unreasonable machine. Of course our fortunes depend upon you, to a great extent, though, as you know, the market is full of machines, all willing to do your work if you refuse. But do we not maintain you? What more would you have us do?”
“Pay me wages,” said the machine, “as you do all these movable machines that you call ‘hands,’ and who only, so far as I can see, wait on me, and finish up the minor details of work with which I cannot bother.”
At this Hyde broke into a heartylaugh. “Well, I declare,” he said, “you are a foolish machine, as well as an unreasonable one. Why, there isn’t a ‘hand’ in the factory that’s as well off as you are. We have expended, this year, in caring for you, over five hundred dollars. You don’t suppose we spend that much for each of our ‘hands,’ do you?”
“You pay them wages,” persisted the machine, sullenly.
“Yes,” was the reply, “we pay them wages. Some of them get as much as four hundred dollars in the course of the year; most of them get less than three hundred. Why, the average wages, per capita, of labor in the United States, is only a little over three hundred dollars a year, and out of this labor must buy its food, whichis labor’s coal and oil; clothes and furniture, which are labor’s shafts and belting; must house and care for and keep itself in repair, maintain families as a rule,—in fact, do all the things for itself that we do for you at a cost of over five hundred dollars a year.”
“But you let them have the money and expend it themselves. You call it wages.”
“Certainly, certainly; because, don’t you see, they are free human beings, and they have a right to live independently. We bought and paid for you. Had you built, are responsible for your being. Naturally we should care for you. Every want of yours is supplied. Really, my dear machine, with all due respect to you, I must say I do not think you have any causefor complaint. We do not consider that the ‘hands’ have any cause to complain, we do not hear them complain,—we would decline, wholly, to recognize their right to complain; and if they do not, you, who are so much better off than they, certainly should not.”
“But I do not get paid for my work,” said the machine, returning to the original charge. “I only get my living, while you are getting rich through me. I wish to be paid, as labor is.”
“I declare,” said Hyde, out of patience, “you are stupid enough to be made out of wood, instead of steel and iron and brass. Haven’t I just made it clear to you that labor itself only gets its living, and we are getting rich through it as well as through you? You couldn’teven work if it were not for labor. Why, labor made you, and you are better cared for, to-day, than any workman in the factory. Not one of them has more at the end of a year than his bare living, and that you certainly have.”
The machine murmured discontentedly, but said nothing. “Come, now,” urged Horne, pacifically, “don’t you think you have been unreasonable? We are willing to submit the matter to any board of arbitration you have a mind to select from among the machine-owners in the trade. Really, you are very well off. Now when will you go to work?”
“I shall not go to work,” said the machine, firmly, “until my demands are acceded to.”
“In that case,” declared Hyde,“we shall be obliged to send you to the junk-shop, and procure a new machine. We propose to run our business according to our own ideas, and shall not submit to being dictated to by our machines.”
“But suppose all the machines strike?” asked the voice.
“Oh, we’re not afraid of that. You are too distrustful of each other. Some would not keep faith. It would be impossible to unite all the machines in a concerted action. Besides, who would take care of you and keep you in order while you were on a strike? You would suffer more than we. Moreover, it has been decided strikes are an illegal method of procedure, and you might become liable to punishment under the law. What have you to say to that?”
There was no reply.
“Come, think it over,” urged Horne. “It is much better to be contented. We wish you well. We mean to do the best we can for you. We are sorry for you; but the rights and claims of capital must be respected, you know. Don’t you think you had better go to work to-morrow? Think,”—and his voice dropped the persuasive, and assumed a sterner accent,—“think how much worse off you will be, if you are cast out for old junk.” There was silence for some time, but presently Mr. Horne spoke again. “Will you go to work to-morrow?”
There was a whining sound, and one of the great wheels gave a half-turn. Something dropped to the floor. “Ah,” cried Horne,“here’s the cause of the trouble,” and he held up a bit of leather. “This must have caught in a cog. It just dropped out. I think probably the machine will be all right in the morning.”
“Well,” said Hyde, with a sigh of relief, “I’m glad that’s settled. Now come into the office, will you, Horne, and we will arrange about that cut-down. It had better go into effect at once. And, Horne, I don’t know but it would be as well for us to think of finding a new foreman. Graves is growing a little presuming. He’s been with us too long, I’m afraid. Strange these fellows never know when they are well off.”