146 
FOURTEENTH REPORT. 
alleged to be a menace to the prosperity of every establishment and of 
every wage earner in the nation. The causes of soldiering, according to 
Mr. Taylor are three in number; but these are readily reducible to two. 
These two causes may be stated as follows: (A) the general acceptance 
of the lump-of-work doctrine; (B) the lack of scientific management. I 
have elsewhere 1 shown that the lump-of-work argument cannot be so 
easily laughed out of court as same economists and employers would 
have us believe. The workingman is interested in tomorrow's job and 
wages rather than in some indefinite benefit to society next decade. “The 
knowledge that a certain policy, if pursued by all for a period of years, 
will inevitably bring about reductions in the wage scale does not appeal 
to the average wage earner with a family to feed, clothe and shelter in 
the direct and forceful manner that the immediate probability of slack 
work does. He sees that by ‘nursing’ a particular job he may work 
longer or another fellow workman may be employed. This is something 
tangible, the other is a remote and uncertain possibility. Immediate 
work for John overshadows the vision of a chance of future employment 
for Tom, Dick, and Harry, and other unnamed and unknown individ- 
uals.” 
Mr. Taylor directs attention to the shoe industry. The introduction 
of machinery into this industry has undoubtedly cheapened the price 
of shoes to the consumer; and the workers can, as a consequence, afford 
to buy more and better shoes. And it may also be true “that there are 
relatively more men working in the shoe industry than ever before.” 
But it is also a fact that many workers were adversely affected by the 
introduction of shoe machinery. That great and spectacular outburst 
of unionism, — the Knights of St. Crispin — was not the fantastic result 
of purely imaginary dangers. Many men with wives and children to 
feed, clothe and honse, saw their trade, that is. their means of earning 
a decent livelihood, being ruined; they saw, and their vision was not 
defective, the menace at that time and place of cheap labor. Their 
problem was individual and immediate, not social and a matter of 
future welfare. Allow me to point out that this non-social lump-of-work 
argument is closely paralleled by what may well be called a lump-of- 
capital argument. 
Many a corporation composed of individuals who are not in business 
for their health, has obtained a patent upon some new appliance which 
would cheapen the cost of production but necessitate the scrapping of 
much valuable equipment; and, consequently, with the aid of our anti- 
quated patent laws such corporations have quietly shelved the patents. 
The attitude of the capitalist in such a case is not very dissimilar to 
that of the workman who opposes the introduction of machinery or of 
new processes which threaten his trade or his lump-of-capital. In 
addition to the prevention of soldiering on the part of workingmen 
one of the problems of a well-rounded program of efficiency engineering 
would be to prevent the shelving of new appliances and machines, and, 
perhaps, to call for a modification of our patent laws. But as far as 
mv knowledge goes, our efficiency engineers have not paid much atten- 
tion to this important matter. 
With these illustrations before us, you are asked to direct your atten- 
<The History and Problems of Organized Labor, pp. 132-134. 
