THE CAPTAIN OF INDUSTRY 249 



exemplified in it. We fear that the American competitor 

 would come out well ahead, not only as regards speed but in 

 his general handling of the job. He would prove himself in 

 every way a superior organizer and a more resourceful engineer. 

 We have been reluctantly driven to this conclusion by 

 observation of the English and American systems. For an 

 English example we take a piece of work now actually pro- 

 gressing—if we may correctly use such a term — on a western 

 section of one of our main lines. It is a very simple straight- 

 forward job, but the country is too lonely for the engineering 

 staff. They have selected a lively seaside town about twenty 

 miles away for their headquarters. It is on a branch line of 

 their own railway, with very few trains, and they have to 

 change trains both going and coming. After a not too early 

 breakfast they catch a slow train, put in half an hour at the 

 junction station, and reach the scene of their labors about an 

 hour more or less before midday. This kid glove sort of rail- 

 way building would be an excellent joke out west. There the 

 engineering staff would in a similar case have a private car 

 allotted to them, and they would live beside their work till 

 it was finished. The rougher the country the greater hurry 

 they would be in to get away from it. But anyhow they 

 would put in a full day's work every day. 



The American organizer always has subordinates, because 

 he insists on having them. He looks about for them till he 

 finds them, and when he gets the right men he binds them to 

 him by putting them in the way of advancement. If there 

 be a born organizer among them he too gets his chance sooner 

 or later ^ WTierever there are the makings of a man, of a great 

 mechanic or an able administrator, of an inventor or a finan- 

 cier, they are sure to rise to the surface among these seventy 

 odd million Americans. In other countries they might die 

 unhonored and unsung,— in fact undiscovered,— but there is 

 little danger of such a fate in the United States. The passion 

 for doing big things is so universal in all branches of American 

 activity that every eye is strained in that direction, and every 

 success is hailed with national acclamation. It makes little 

 difference what the big thing may be — whether a political, a 

 commercial, or a dramatic success. On that point the 



