ADDRESS OF HON. WILLIAM C. REDFIELD. 385 



In six prosperous concerns in one industry, all paying dividends, the 

 best was running at but 78 per cent of a fair and normal efficiency, and the 

 worst, though also prosperous, was running at but 30 per cent, and none of 

 them knew it. It would be very interesting, to say the least, if in some 

 great yard a man were set and backed by the owners whose duty it was to 

 criticize thoroughly and with care and sober judgment, but still to criticize 

 without mercy and without adhering to tradition, all that went on. In the 

 factory with which I was connected, and with whose shop management I 

 had nothing to do, I did this for many years and never found a day in which 

 something could not be bettered. I have a friend, who is the manager 

 of a great transportation business, who for twenty-five years has had this 

 habit; and while his plant has been of the best, he has never found the time 

 yet when searching examination of it would not make things go better. It 

 is not derogatory to the high character and alert brains of our shipbuilding 

 establishments to believe that that which is true of every industrial plant is 

 also true of them. 



Having said this much, it becomes necessary to say more. Our indus- 

 trial success has not been found in following European lines, but in departing 

 from them. In a new country with high wages the problem has been to 

 make these wages represent efficiency. This has been done even while 

 many cried that they could not do it, and it has been worked out successfully. 

 So there are men that say that American shipyards cannot build as cheaply 

 as foreign ones because of the wage rate. If you change the phrase to "do 

 not," I will in part agree — only in part — because the best marine authority 

 tells me that up-to-date battleships per ton have not cost quite so much in the 

 United States as in England, and because the head of one of our largest ship- 

 yards told me himself he could build battleships in competition with any 

 yard in Europe. 



I repeat, the progress of American industry has been in following its own 

 individual lines and not the methods of imitation. Those of our industries 

 who have stepped out on new paths have succeeded. Those that have 

 attempted to meet Europe at its own game have found their course rough. 

 Are there not facts to-day in addition to those cited which, if fairly weighed, 

 throw a further light of hope upon our problem? 



