February 1. 1913] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



241 



that a friend noting his fondness for limericks, and also his 

 continued persistence for a rubber nomenclature, had sent him 

 the following limerick : 



THE OPTIMIST. 

 Said a cheerful old bear at the Zoo : 

 "I never have time to feel blue. 

 If it bores me, you know, 

 To walk to and fro, 

 I reverse it and walk fro and to." 

 "But this limerick," he continued, "also suggests a subject for 

 the next speaker, namely. The Elasticity of Rubber. I have the 

 honor tn introduce Mr. Lawrence .Sharkey." 



MH. SHAKKEY ON RUBBER— AND OTHER MATTERS. 



Mr. Sharkey proved to be a humorist. He admitted that his 

 only knowledge of rubber was attained through a recent visit 

 to an old friend of his — one named John. He stated that he 

 had called at liis friend's place of business and was hardly 

 seated when his friend was called to the 'phone, and he heard 

 him give an order for a certain number of tons of pickles — 

 nuggets — crepe — sheets and blankets. When the receiver was 

 hung up Mr. Sharkey e.\claimed : "In Heaven's name, John, what 

 business are you in?" and his friend replied, "The rubber busi- 

 ness." Subsequently, John took him over his mill and showed 

 him the processes of converting crude rubber into manufactured 

 product ; but the chief impression made on the speaker's mind 

 was of the extreme — not to say excessive — fragrance of the 

 crude material, which he averred "had limburger backed into 

 the corner and begging for mercy." But while Mr. Sharkey's 

 knowledge of the rubber industry w-as not very profound, it 

 served for a string on which to hang a great many diverting 

 anecdotes, which were not only good, but, better than that, 

 W'ere new ; as a consequence of which, when tlie speaker sat 

 down, he did so amid much applause. 



President Hood. — "Most arguments arise from misunderstand- 

 ing of the meaning of words used. The meanings of the words 

 'parsimony' and 'economy' are often confused. 1)ut a true defini- 

 tion of 'efficiency' once established clearly will make us all want 

 to 'get together for efficiency.' 



"And this is the subject of the talk by our next speaker, who 

 is the Secretary of the Efficiency Society of this city, a society 

 composed of live wires with high voltage. I have the pleasure 

 of introducing Mr. H, F. J. Porter." 



MR. PORTER ON GETTING TOGETHER FOR EFFICIENCY. 



We do not always realize how natural the processes are 

 through which we are passing when we do certain things. For 

 instance, we do not realize that the natural tendency which is 

 innate in all human beings to segregate in groups is what occurs 

 when a meeting such as this takes place. 



Man is a social animal. By that I mean that he has an innate 

 tendency to associate himself with others who have the same 

 common purpose, and this purpose may be either for self pres- 

 ervation or for aggression, or for some common characteristic. 



This was the force which operated in early days to form the 

 tribe, and later to bring the tribes together to form a nation, 

 and we see the same force operating in the formation of groups 

 for business and social purposes. Now when these groups form, 

 another action takes place which we do not always recognize as 

 perfectly natural and automatic, and that is the development 

 out of the group of some special personage who is best qualified 

 to lead the movement in hand. Thus, in olden times we had 

 the patriarch or the chief selected for his wisdom or his prowess, 

 and later we had the shrewd or capable business man, or other 

 person best suited to act as leader. This man having been so 

 selected receives the guarantee of the group that they will 

 support him. 



After a while another natural process occurs when the group 

 gets so large that the leader cannot keep in close touch with all 



its members. He appoints others to direct smaller groups into 

 which the larger one is divided, and here the psychology of the 

 situation changes, for these men so appointed are not the selec- 

 tion of the groups over which they are placed, but on the con- 

 trary are the selection of an outsider, to whom they are respons- 

 ible and whose interest they are subserving, and in order that 

 they may get these people to carry out his wishes, they may 

 have to use force instead of depending upon their voluntary 

 service. Now force always develops resistance, and all groups, 

 whether in the past or in the present, as they grow from small 

 to large, pass through this stage and the man once a leader of 

 the smaller group becomes the dictator to tlie larger. In this 

 way came monarchy, and in this way when the monarch's dicta- 

 tion became too arbitrary the resentment of his people over- 

 threw him. 



In this country, up to the middle of the 18th century, our 

 national and state groups were too widely settled to feel the 

 oppression of the ruler who was located in a distant land, but 

 linally the time came when through the importunities of his 

 emissaries they felt the pressure of his rule and they simply 

 threw it off, and came back to the old group association and 

 selected their leader; and this time in order not to make the 

 mistake which their experience had taught them, they limited 

 the leader's term of service, and so we got democracy. At this 

 time we were an agricultural nation and our national, state, 

 county and municipal groups did not require much adminis- 

 trative machinery to carry out their purposes. But about the 

 beginning of the 19th century, there came machinery and the 

 steam engine, and the man whose home was his castle built an 

 adjunct to it, installed machinery and an engine, invited in his 

 neighbors to help him manufacture this or that product, and 

 thus established the industrial group. As long as this group re- 

 mained small enough for the master workman to keep in touch 

 witli all his people, just so long did they all work together in 

 harmony, but W'hen it grew larger and the master workman 

 appointed superintendent and foreman, then came about the 

 psychological change before referred to, and the subordinate 

 officials having no knowledge of the principles of organization 

 and management, applied their self-devised methods, and when 

 the latter did not work, applied force to accomplish their 

 purposes. 



So in the growth of industrial groups we have developed small 

 monarchies w^ith dictators in control. This force they applied 

 aroused resistance, and we have allowed the antagonism between 

 employer and employe to grow to such proportions as to con- 

 stitute open warfare. 



It is by knowledge of the psychology of situations such as this 

 that the manager is able, by tact and the application of principles 

 of efficient management which are now- becoming known, to hold 

 himself in the relation of leader rather than that of dictator or 

 driver, and maintain such amicable relations between his em- 

 ployes and himself as to keep administrative mechanism oper- 

 ating smoothly. 



By efficient management I mean accomplishment with the least 

 amount of effort, for effort causes friction and friction means 

 cost, and when a manager can succeed in his accomplishment of 

 operating his business with the least amount of friction he is 

 operating efficiently. The principles which are now recognized 

 as those which conduce to efficiency are those which take advan- 

 tage of innate human tendencies. The manager lays out his or- 

 ganization in departments so as to develop a team where each 

 individual is so harnessed as to pull his part of the administrative 

 meclianism in parallel with that of his fellow in the next de- 

 partment, and the harness must be so adjusted to all of the 

 participants in the service that the latter do not overlap each 

 other's traces and so interfere with each other's movements. 



In our industrial field we must endeavor to search for the 

 principles of efficient organization and management, for manage- 



