p 



THE TRIUMPH OF THE AMERICAN IDEA 207 



high that a Scotch firm makes an imitation of one of our 

 western stoves, advertising it broadcast as the simon pure 

 imported article, and sweeps the field. 



The value of the American workman and his ideas is 

 demonstrated in many strange ways. In the Urals, with 

 magnificent iron ore deposits close by, it costs the govern- 

 ment with cheap native labor, twice as much to turn this 

 ore into rails and bridge girders as it does to import the fin- 

 ished product direct from America. In Shanghai, we under- 

 sell the output of the great Shanghai cotton mills worked 

 with pauper labor, and in Burmah we build bridges in half 

 the time for half the price demanded for the same work by 

 British firms. In India, our locomotives are the cheapest 

 and the best, our rails the most satisfactory, while in Cal- 

 cutta the American idea of the skyscraper is being intro- 

 duced by a shrewd Yankee, and the trolley line in Bombay 

 is owned in New York. The American idea is making a 

 triimiphant sweep the world over, and protest as they may, 

 the old world nations realize the situation. 



That American machinery of all kinds is the best in the 

 world, there can be no longer any doubt. The exhibits at 

 the Paris and Glasgow expositions convinced even the most 

 skeptical manufacturers of Europe of this fact. But why 

 is it so? Foreign visitors to our machine shops often ask 

 why it is that a German, Frenchman, or Russian on American 

 soil can turn out better work, and that more rapidly, than 

 he can elsewhere. There are those who attribute this fact 

 to the effect of our wonderful exhilarating atmosphere, 

 but the truth is that their speedy adoption of the American 

 way of doing things is at the root of it all. In America, the 

 workman to secure good wages, or even to hold his job, must 

 show that he is a better craftsman than those about him, 

 or when slack times come he will inevitably be dropped. 

 Again, piecework prevails, so that a powerful incentive ex- 

 ists to turn out as much work as it is possible to perform. 

 Moreover, in America, one man learns to master the machine 

 that turns out the cogwheel of a watch, another the making 

 of a cycle sprocket, or the cylinder rod of a locomotive; this 

 may be all he knows about the making of a watch, cycle, or 



