House and Garden 
MISSPENT LABOR AND MATERIAL 
The price of the chair on the left is $r.jo, of that on the 
right, $25.00 
fied and beautiful furniture. 
You see,” he 
•says, “ people don’t want it. The average 
customer takes the most ornate, ugly and 
expensive stuff that he can afford to'buy.” 
So we call one of his customers, Mrs. 
Rich. “ Mrs. Rich, we understand that a few 
days ago, you bought an elaborately deco¬ 
rated mahogany bed-room set for which you 
paid $960. Why did you take this one in pref¬ 
erence to the plain but very beautiful one ? ” 
Mrs. Rich : “ I bought this one because I 
thought it very beautiful. It is just covered 
with work. I wouldn’t have the plain one, 
it looks so cheap. It has no work on it. I 
like things that have lots of work on 
them.” 
Question : “ But why do you want 
them covered with ‘ work ’ ? ” 
Answer : “ Because any one can see 
that they cost a lot of money. I can 
afford expensive things and I want 
them to show it.” 
Mrs. Poor, the next witness, testi¬ 
fies that she bought a Brussels carpet 
last week; that its pattern is leaves, 
vines, flowers, fruit and animals all 
mixed up together; that it has a great 
many colors. When asked why she 
bought a carpet with such a jumble of 
color and pattern she answers: “ The 
plain carpets all look so cheap. Why, 
if I had bought one of them, folks 
would think we couldn’t afford any 
better. I know the plain ones cost 
just as much, or more, but they don’t 
show it. People think if there isn’t lots of work on 
a thing it must be cheap.” 
“Then, Mrs. Poor, you buy things that look 
most expensive in order to show how well off you 
are: 
Answer: “Well, yes; we like to have everything 
just as nice as we can afford, and we like to have it 
look as though it cost a great deal more than we 
paid for it. We like to think and have our friends 
think that we got a great bargain.” 
In summing up for the machine we must keep 
clearly in mind that it cannot think, feel nor design. 
It has very rigid limitations, but these in no way 
prevent it from making very beautiful things. But 
its limitations, as well as its capabilities, must be 
clearly understood. If its work were designed by 
artists, in sympathy with machinery, who recognize 
that it can do some things perfectly, but that 
it can imitate intricate handwork only bung- 
lingly; did they make designs based on the 
fundamental principles of art, the machine 
can make most beautiful objects. Instead of 
this, most of its work has been designed by 
stupid bunglers, by artisans who understood 
neither the machine nor art, designers who 
have rarely sought for artistic effects, but 
simply for the curious, the novel, the expen¬ 
sive looking. Unable to design furniture 
with beautiful structural lines, they have 
sought to cover up their ugliness by exces¬ 
sive ornamentation, paint, varnish, false stain 
and graining. As some one has said : “They 
DINING-ROOM CHAIRS DESIGNED TO BE 
EXECUTED BY MACHINERY 
125 
