WHY NOT MORE BEAUTIFUL FACTORIES? 



25 



enter into consideration at all. His com- 

 pany, he says, "takes a broader view and 

 does this work because they believe it is 

 right." If, by doing this sort of work, 

 he says, "manufacturers expect to have no 

 trouble with labor, they will be disap- 

 pointed, but if they expect that general 

 improvement is to be of general advantage 

 to labor and all concerned, then it pays: 

 perhaps not in dollars and cents, but in 

 the good you do your fellow men." Speak- 

 ing of the work of the company, he says: 



"We are trying to give our men better 

 houses, schools, water, sanitary and hospital 

 conveniences at camps and mills. We have 

 thirty-eight camps and two mills scattered 

 over a distance of one thousand miles. We 

 encourage the public schools, we organize 

 night schools, we have circulating libraries, 

 circulating art collections, kindergartens, 

 cooking and sewing schools, reading and 

 game rooms." 



* ❖ SjC 



Doubt as to the actual benefit of such 

 work appears to result chiefly from the 

 well-known strike experiences of the N"a- 

 tional Cash Eegister Company, at Dayton, 

 Ohio. Some of the doubters refer to this 

 case. The manufacturers at Dayton, them- 

 selves, however, do not appear to share 

 the doubt. Mr. A. J. Tetu, of the Advance 

 Department of the Register Company, 

 writes : 



"There is no question that esthetic sur- 

 roundings to a business plant are productive 

 of a real business value. We know that our 

 efforts along this line have resulted in our 

 coming very prominently before the public 

 and business world generally, not only in 

 this country, but all over the world, and 

 the advertising which has been given us on 

 this account alone must be considered as 

 being of 'real business value.' " 



❖ * « 



Mr. George H. Barbour, of the Michi- 

 gan Stove Company, at Detroit, believes 

 that the best only can be accomplished by 

 having the buildings themselves properly 

 constructed. "One cannot expect build- 

 ings that have been in use for a number of 

 years to present as attractive an appear- 

 ance as those built recently." The em- 

 ployees of the Michigan Stove Company, 

 generally, Mr. Barbour says, have com- 

 fortable homes and surroundings in keep- 

 ing with the houses themselves. "I be- 



lieve that the more cleanly and attractive 

 a factory can be made so that the workmen 

 can have fresh air, the surroundings as 

 free from dust and objectionable things 

 as possible, the more it is to their benefit 

 and to the benefit of the concern." 



Mr. W. T. Lang, agent of the Brookside 

 Mills, manufacturers of cotton goods, at 

 Knoxville, Tennessee, says: 



"Our mills are covered with ampelopsis 

 and a court yard walls with the same vines, 

 in the center of which is a fountain sur- 

 rounded with a twenty-foot bed of caladiums. 

 These, together with several beds of cannas 

 planked about the yards, make our surround- 

 ings attractive in the summer time. It 

 proves a pleasure to our workpeople and 

 to ourselves." 



The William Barker Company, manu- 

 facturers of collars, at Troy, New York, 

 have "'always believed that good, full com- 

 pensation for labor will make laboring 

 men happy and so lead to attractive 

 homes." 



* * * 



That attractive surroundings are valu- 

 able as preventing waste and the produc- 

 tion of inferior goods is pointed out by 

 Mr. Charles B. Eockwell, treasurer of the 

 Cranston Worsted Mills, at Bristol, Rhode 

 Island. He declares that disorderly and 

 ugly surroundings 



"tend to waste on account of mixing up 

 articles in a way to produce confusion and 

 deterioration of the same through being 

 soiled or having to be put down in. grade 

 through doubt of their identity; order and 

 neatness tend to self-respect and pride of 

 an elevating character." 



❖ ❖ * 



"The more a man a man is, the more val- 

 uable he will be to any concern, and the more 

 he can do and will do to aid in its success. 

 Since esthetic surroundings are the constant, 

 silent appeal to the better nature of man, 

 that man v/ill do better work and do it more 

 quietly, quickly and pleasantly in congenial 

 surroundings than otherwise," 



Such is the verdict of Mr. E. B. Pike, 

 president of the Pike Manufacturing Com- 

 pany, which makes cutlery at Pike Station, 

 New Hampshire. Mr. Pike says, further : 



"It has been my endeavor to see that the 

 employees of our company have good, clean, 

 pleasant homes, kept painted and in good 

 repair and good sanitary condition, and 

 many pretty new cottages have been built 

 which we are helping the men to buy, they 

 turning in towards the purchase of a home 

 what they would otherwise pay out for rent. 



