cause actors and musicians are in a stronger moral and economic position than mill hands. CHAP. ΧΧΙΙ The IntelObey Their ligent Will Superior ganization Event Not Been dated Men who appreciate the indispensableness of plan and order in great undertakings will, without in the least lowering their self-respect, render due obedience to their superiors. The in an Ormore intelligent, therefore, the rank and file of an organization the less is the need of prestige and severity in order to uphold the authority of the superior. Before hinds it may be necessary to set the officer apart by sword, gold lace, feathers, charger, and sternness of demeanor, in order that he may be looked upon as a higher being; but intelligent enlisted men may regard their officer as above them in a military sense without feeling that he is above them in everything. An army can never be a mass meeting or a debating society, but democrats may be organized into a well-disciplined fighting force without losing their sense of civic equality. Likewise the head of a school system, a hospital, or a bureau, while he must command the confidence of his teachers, nurses, or agents, is not obliged to inspire them with fear or awe in order to get his plans carried out. Unpaid workers cannot be disciplined by the crude methods of Volunteer reprimand, fine, lay-off, demotion, or dismissal, but must be reached through esprit de corps or conscience. Unless it inflicts death, a secret revolutionary organization cannot punish without risking betrayal. A heavy hand on boy scouts, party workers, Red Cross volunteers, or friendly visitors will in the end disrupt the organization. The member of a relief party or an exploring expedition is controlled chiefly through pressure by his fellows. In the religious order, the priesthood, the ministry, or the foreign mission, the fulcrum for authority is the solemn vow by which one has freely surrendered one's self to God and the acceptance of this vow by order, church, or mission board. The means of discipline - entreaty, rebuke, isolation, prayer, warning, and suspension are not punishments so much as appeals to conscience. The contrast between exacted and volunteer service is so broad that the executive who has conducted with success military or industrial organization may fail ignominiously when directing a body of scholars, missionaries, or social workers. A third determinant of organization is the spacing between the organized. Men fall more readily into the grades imposed by the technique of associated effort if they are already spaced. Thus Workers Can Be Disciplined Only by Spiritual CHAP. Difference of Age and Sex Makes Easy the relation of superior to subordinate chafes little if the former is older. The instructor cheerfully bows to the head professor's twenty years' advantage in experience. Boy scouts find it easy to obey their adult leader. The snowy crown of abbot or bishop Obedience lends a fatherly character to his authority. The young fellows in the ranks are literally "boys" to the grizzled colonel and they feel that "the old man knows." The cub reporters will run their heads off to execute the orders of the old war horse at the managing editor's desk. Sex reinforces age in making it easy for the male school superintendent to direct the work of young women teachers and for the male doctor to hold in obedience young The Expert Is Obeyed Discipline Is Easily Borne When the Job Appeals to One's Instinct of Workmanship women nurses. Special knowledge and training set apart their possessor. The men on the team recognize the fitness of their taking orders from the star player who coaches them. Artisans accept as master the architect with his wealth of technical knowledge. To their lieutenant enlisted men attribute all manner of inscrutable wisdom acquired at West Point or Annapolis. Singers feel a wide gulf between themselves and the chorus director who from a thousand voices can create a single mighty instrument. Knowledge of the mysteries of navigation helps put a distance between forecastle and cabin. Finally, it makes a difference whether the controlling purpose in an organization is the doing of a worth-while work or the maximizing of profits. As a rule, capable workers become interested in some concrete aspect of what they are doing. For example, a railroad force will be keen for mastering snowdrifts and floods, for making schedule time, breaking records, beating a rival road, or perfecting the service. They strain continually to reach a standard of excellence in their minds, and normally, as their efforts succeed, their standard rises. Now, this disinterested eagerness is best developed when the president of the railroad is a railroad man, when the newspaper owner is a newspaper man, when the schools are under an educator, and when the philanthropy is in charge of a social worker. But it dies when Capital comes out in plain view, takes the reins, and drives for profits without heed to excellence. Zeal is chilled in artisans required to make sham things instead of real, in reporters when their news stories are killed in the interest of advertisers, in railroad men when avaricious banker management denies their plea for safety devices, in teachers when their chief is an agent of property-owners working to keep taxes down, and in professors when their head is not a scholar but a moneyraiser, or a conservative deputized to "sit on the lid." In factory, mine, or department store, the quality of the work may suffer little from the control of the private capitalist. But in the production of such services as protection, education, communication, transportation, and publicity, the ascendency of the commercial motive deadens the spirit of real efficiency. One object of the extension of government activity in these fields is the substituting of service for profit as the motivating force behind the organization. THE BENEFITS OF ORGANIZATION The benefits of organization are many and great. Among them are: CHAP. XXII Capitalism the Pro Fails in duction of the Services tion Vast 1. The accomplishment of ends which are quite unattainable Organizaby means of unorganized efforts becomes possible. The soldiers Handles of an army broken up into bands may still wage a feeble guerilla Underwarfare, but in weather forecasting, canal digging, railroad tion, or the postal service, unorganized effort is completely impotent to furnish the desired result. opera takings sionalizes, 2. A common interest cared for intermittently by all such as Profes fire-fighting, thief-catching, levee-mending, or road-makingmay be turned over to the continuous efforts of a few who have gained skill from experience or fitted themselves by a preliminary training. Special 3. The division of a work into its natural parts and the assignment of these to different individuals permit the utmost ad- Aptitude, vantage to be taken of special aptitude, knowledge, or training. Conversely, men with particular weak spots may keep to lines of work in which they are not handicapped by them. Specialists 4. Narrowing the field of attention is favorable to the attain- Develops ment of a higher degree of expertness. Thus we see a deliberative body resolve itself into committees, each to study and report upon a particular class of questions. Not public bodies alone, but civic, commercial, and scientic bodies as well, organize themselves on the committee plan. 5. Many distinct efforts are fitted into a single comprehensive, intelligent plan. We see this not only in industry and war but CHAP. Combines also in a clearing-house, an educational system, a party effort, an agitation, a propaganda, a commercial campaign, weather obNumerous servation, and scientific research, in so far as they are well organized. Ordinarily those who plan a work direct its execution, but there is a tendency to form a thinking and planning branch of the administrative body, which advises but does not execute. This is the "general staff," a device used first in the army, but suitable for other kinds of organization. Efforts Into a Harmonious Whole Avoids Eliminates the Waste of Competition and Stim ulates Men to Do Their Best Organi- Necessi- -- One reason why many matters which might be looked after locally such as public security, poor relief, the care of defectives, public education, the administration of highways and forests have so often devolved upon the state is that the state has the better chance of finding able and expert men to provide the plan and determine the policies under which the work shall be conducted. 6. Co-ordination into a larger whole ends that needless duplication of effort which often shows itself among agencies which are striving for the same end, such as charities, missionary undertakings, educational institutions, propagandist groups, and reform movements. 7. Elimination of the wastes of competition is possible. This is seen particularly in the economic field. Combination among producers in the same line ought to cut down their outlay for advertising, salesmen, selling agencies, and cross-freights. 8. Serving as a useful part in a great beneficent, permanent organization supplies some men with a large superpersonal end which appeals to their imagination and sustains them in their life work. 9. Not all men are fit for solitary work. Many a man finds in working on a team an inspiration and a stimulus he can find nowhere else. The fellowship of his mates, the leadership of his superior, the spur of rivalry, and the hope of promotion provide powerful incentives which he would miss as an isolated worker. THE WASTES OF ORGANIZATION But the gains through organization are subject to deduction on account of the wastes to which it gives rise: 1. In a team or gang, the man who directs is also a doer, but, as the group becomes larger, there comes a time when he drops his tools, and from that moment begins the burden of "overhead expense." In large enterprises the cost of the timekeepers, checkers, inspectors, storekeepers, overseers, bosses, foremen, superintendents, and managers becomes a serious offset to the saving effected by intelligently concerted effort. СНАР. XXII Calls for Audit, 2. In an organization that has not outgrown the powers of one man, the manager's eye checks waste of time and material, and his Check and memory holds the records by which the competent worker is promoted or the poor worker dismissed. But in the big concern there must be installed an elaborate system of record, check, and audit which constitutes another deduction from the operative force. In extended organization the subordinate with his heart in his task chafes under the necessity of making entries, filling out forms, filing memoranda, and writing reports which do not in the least advance the work he has in hand. Energy in mission, 3. Not without loss is energy transmitted through a series of shafts, belts, or cogwheels; nor is it possible for the intelligent Transpurposes of the heads of elaborate organizations to be carried out without waste through friction between the parts. The center forms no true picture of the situation confronting the extremities. Orders are misunderstood or lose in force as they descend in the chain of authority. As Burke said of the effect of the Atlantic on the government of the colonists of Great Britain, "Seas roll and months pass between the order and the execution, and the want of a speedy explanation of a single point is enough to defeat the whole system. . . . In large bodies the circulation of power must be less vigorous at the extremities." Improvement. in communication has removed much of this difficulty in government, yet all large organization is liable to such waste. 4. A tendency to formalism and red tape is to be noted. A French commission on the naval budget found on shipboard "together with thirty-three volumes of regulations intended to determine the details of administrative life on board, a list of 230 different types of registers, ledgers, memoranda, weekly and monthly reports, certificates, receipt forms, journals, fly-leaves, etc." In the ministry it found that "hundreds of employés are occupied exclusively at calculating, transcribing, copying into innumerable registers, reproducing on countless fly-leaves, dividing, totalizing, or despatching to the minister figures that have no reality, that correspond to nothing in the region of facts, which would probably be nearer the truth if they were one and all in Tends to Formal ism, |