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Organizing for Peace and Prosperity

are

MERICAN business men possibly the best organizers in the world, and yet one who investigates will find as many different plans in effect in industrial management and in building of organization as there are organized units. It is not possible It is not possible that all of them are the best; there must be some choice between them all.

In starting a new manufacturing plant in a chosen location the first great problem is organization. How can you get together the number and kind of men needed to enable you to prosecute successfully your business? When you have secured the best men you can for the various tasks you wish them to perform, you must weld them into a compact, cohesive, virile, loyal, ambitious, and efficient group.

A management can hope to do little without the confidence, the good will, and co-operation of its men. Such important factors cannot, however, be secured in a day or by the mere adoption and announcement of company policies and plans.

Mutual confidence is essential to all group accomplishment, and it is something that must be created after considerable contact between management

and men. It is something that must be earned and deserved-it cannot be bought.

To build up a spirit of confidence there must first be much of understanding of company policies, of company problems and plans. Absolute frankness, together with great patience and clearness in explanation of these things, will in time create the beginning of a firm foundation of confidence.

WE had that problem of mutual con

fidence to solve here in Middletown, and we began trying to solve it when we began building the organization. We outlined the company's policies and plans, informed our men as to what they could expect in treatment and cooperation from the company. Then we tried to live faithfully up to every policy and promise. A management must make good to its men, just as the men individually and collectively must eventually make good to the management. But the management must do it first.

Human confidence is, however, such a

By GEORGE M. VERITY

sensitive but strong and abiding trait that, like the oak, it is of very slow growth. It must be planted, incubated, and cultivated over a long period of time, as only time can prove honesty and consistency of purpose as well as the soundness of one's plans.

It is, of course, a fact accepted to-day without argument that working conditions, wages, and hours of employment must be the best that high regard for human life, earnest effort, and competitive conditions will permit.

This, however, was not altogether an

I do not think we encountered any accepted fact when we began trying to do it here in Middletown. Still, it was not a particularly difficult thing to accomplish. We tried to make supervision of work human, reasonable, and patient -tried to supervise in a spirit of understanding rather than in the old-fashioned, arbitrary way of issuing orders without understanding what it was all about. We tried to make actual working conditions -ventilation, sanitation, wash-rooms, lockers for clothes, cooling arrangements for furnaces, and all equipment and conveniences reasonable and helpful. To put it in a word, we treated the men like human beings.

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George M. Verity President of the American Rolling Mill Company

very serious obstacles to establishing confidence here. Some of the men were "from Missouri." That must be expected from men who find themselves in a new environment. Also there were a few isolated individuals who were just naturally Bolshevik in nature and did not want to see the company make good in its announced, rather new, policies. But they gave less trouble than might have been expected.

If the policies of a management are sound, honest, generous, helpful, and inspiring, the confidence of men can be obtained and held, but only as it is deserved. Confidence once secured and followed by a continuous campaign of education, which will from period to period give your organization a broad understanding of the problems and necessities of your business, will in due time enable you to secure the co-operation and efficiency needed in the solving of all your problems.

While you are working on the inside there is much that you can do on the outside to not only speed up but to enlarge the results you are endeavoring to obtain. Working hours are now usually one-third of the time that workers have to spend. When work is over, there are still eight hours for recreation and eight hours for rest and recuperation.

Ia men sends his recreational hours

HAVE always contended that the way

largely determines the kind of man he is. His home life, his social and recreational activities, as well as his community life, must all find expression in one eight-hour period.

Perhaps I will be pardoned for referring so frequently to our own organization. I am not doing so out of egotism; but whatever knowledge I have of industrial organization was gained here, and, if I am to make myself clear, I must refer to the school in which I learned. We did something for the recreation of the men by forming an Armco organization to which every man from top to bottom belonged. That organization planned recreational and social activities, all of which were very meager to begin with, but they were improved and broadened as time showed that they were practical, helpful, and desirable. In time garden plots were provided for all who desired them. Baseball, football, athletic events

generally, and entertainments of various sorts were planned in season, on the theory that what a man does in his recreational hours unquestionably either builds him up or pulls him down.

In a sermon Dr. Robert Freeman, of Pasadena, California, said once something much to the point. These are his words: "The soul grows on what you do in your spare time; and because of what has not been done in spare time there will be many a tombstone that ought to

be chiseled:

HERE LIES

A SUICIDE

DECEIVED WITH THE FANCY THAT GOING THROUGH LIFE WAS LIVING WHOSE SOUL MIGHT HAVE BEEN SAVED HAD SOME FEW HOURS BEEN SPENT IN HEROIC MINISTRIES

OR

IN RESOLUTE UNSELFISHNESS"

We have tried, also, to link up the factory with the home. As a plain fact, the home has been the foundation of all our planning. Where home life is not what it should be there can be no real happiness or efficiency. We organized a local realty company to build suitable homes and to sell them on easy payments. A large percentage of Armco men are home-owners, and the standard of their homes is very high.

A visiting nurse, sympathetic and skilled in human affairs, appears at every home where there is trouble of any kind -whether the trouble is a joy or a sorrow, a birth or a death, or a lesser event in the life of the family. After her first visit she is always welcome as a friend. Representing the management as she does, her ministrations help to create a feeling of friendliness and co-operation.

Friday-night entertainments in the auditorium of the Administration Building provide amusement for men and their families. On Saturday morning a moving-picture show is given in the general office auditorium, exclusively for all the children of the neighborhood.

The home is the foundation of our present civilization. So anything you can do to make good homes available on easy terms, to make home life respond to man's best needs, to assist in creating a sound and progressive community life socially, recreationally, educationally, morally, and spiritually, will bring you large

returns.

Industry cannot, as I see it, separate itself from the community in which its plants are located and in which its people must live. In proportion to its strength, industry should help the community to respond to the present-day needs of an advancing civilization in order that its people may live such lives

outside their working hours as will help to develop them in the largest and best way, and thus prepare them for the responsibilities which they must assume in their working hours.

We have tried to tie our plant closely to the community. The Armco band, comprising some fifty-two pieces and led by a Middletown man, Frank Simon, who won his reputation with Sousa, gives a free concert in Armco Field every Thursday evening during the summer months. From five to eight thousand people usually attend these concerts. Armco Park, a rolling tract of woodland and meadows owned by the company, is

Frank Simon

Armco Bandmaster

maintained and operated as a community park, free to all. The company gives its support to the Middletown Civic Association, which operates sixteen community service agencies in the interest of all the people. These agencies comprise all of the community activities not taken care of by the municipality under its City Commission.

Community and industrial peace and stability go hand in hand.

In dealing with human life, self-respect and initiative must be encouraged and developed. Any policy that tends to smother or lessen either of them is working backward, and not forward. It is therefore just as important that you permit your men to assume their full share of responsibility in the working out of all of your mutual problems as it is for you to stand ready and willing to do your part, whatever it may be.

In the conduct of this company's business both managers and men as individ

uals are given the opportunity to take the initiative in carrying out every phase of the company's work. In order that they may act intelligently and with understanding of the company's problems, they are kept fully posted as to plans and the resultant profit or loss in every period. Every part of the company's work is carried on in a spirit of co-operation and mutual interest.

M

ANAGEMENT and men cannot, of necessity, "give in kind." When men give of their best in interest in their work, in honest hours of efficient effort, in loyalty, in suggestion and planning, and in faithful service, they are contributing their full part, and it is then up to the management to do anything and everything within the economic, finan-cial, and material limits of its power to make life and a job for the men worth while.

Members of the Armco Association, which, as stated, includes every member of the Armco organization, pay dues of fifty cents a month. After about fifteen years of operation, the officers of the Association made a request of the management that the company bear the cost of certain athletic and entertainment activities which the Association could not pay out of its regular income. The answer of the management was that it did not seem wise or best for the company to assume directly any part of the cost of work carried on by the Association, but that the company would agree to pay into the treasury of the Association fifty cents for every fifty cents paid by an individual member. In other words, the income of the Association was doubled, but the management of Association affairs was left absolutely in Association hands.

That is what we call a fifty-fifty program. Where the men of an organization serve the company the best they can in any and every way, that is their fifty per cent. It is then up to the company to do anything and everything that it can in promoting the interests of its men and their families and to make life and a job with the company worth while. That is the company's fifty per cent, irrespective of which side has expended the greater amount of effort or money.

If you expect to build a business on these lines, you may be certain of discouragements, for life is a combination of encouragement and discouragement, in which some seem to find more of one than the other.

You can rest assured that in all human affairs the individual or the group who can be discouraged in the working

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out of any of their plans will be. It is the individual or the group who, in spite of many difficulties, simply will not be discouraged in any serious degree or for any length of time that finds the largest

success.

You will find discouragement in that many individuals will be harder to convince of your sincerity of purpose or of the fairness or soundness of your policies than you will feel should be. You will find discouragement in what would seem to you much of wasted effort where you feel you have done your best. You will find discouragement in that no human. plan of organization is perfect. The best has its weak points, which must be allowed for. Life was not made to be perfect, but we must keep the weaknesses in our policies and plans within reasonable limits.

We have had discouragements here, plenty of them, but they do not look so large in retrospect.

In a general way, our first ten years of operation were consumed in earning and

securing the confidence and good will of our first small organization of about five hundred men. At the end of ten years we built a new and much larger plant and brought about fifteen hundred new men to Middletown at one time. The new men were not only "from Missouri," as workers who know the early traditions of the steel business always are, but they could not understand the spirit of good will and co-operation that seemed to exist. It was entirely new to them. They felt that the company must have its old men bought up or fixed in some way and that the apparent good feeling could not be real. They were suspicious, not only of the management, but of the older members of the organization. It was necessary, therefore, to start all over again. Company policies, plans, and problems had to be visualized through patient effort. The way to co-operation patient effort. The way to co-operation had to be shown. The result to be obtained from "mutual effort" and "mutual interest" had to be proved. But, within a reasonable time, the original group and

the new and larger group were welded into one compact organization, and the very satisfactory results secured from our first ten years of effort were not only duplicated but strengthened.

You will find discouragement in that things will happen to retard your efforts that apparently no one can prevent— that is life.

However, if your policies are sound, if in their creation you have taken into account human frailties, human emotions, human reactions, and human psychology, and if you have the courage to persistently and consistently follow your adopted policies, in spite of all discouragements, you are bound to succeed.

Middletown, Ohio, enjoys a very high standard of industrial and community peace, happiness, and prosperity, all of which make for stability, and that result has been secured through an earnest and conscientious effort on the part of all of our manufacturers to follow policies which I have endeavored to describe.

Glacier Park as an Outdoor Laboratory

Ο

UR National Parks have been much advertised for their beauty and as places for recreation and pleasure. They have been well called the people's playgrounds, and as such their value has fully repaid the trouble and expense required for their preservation. Little attention, however, has been paid to their great value as laboratories, especially for the study of geology, botany, and zoology. The vast size of our country and its slow rate of settlement in colonial times have prevented people from realizing that there is now very little of it left in its original condition. As the years go on and the United States approaches the condition of Europe, the value of the conservation work of the past half-century will be more and more realized by scientists, as it is already appreciated by the lovers of natural scenery and of wild life. This is not a matter of so much importance to the geologist, as he is more concerned with the conditions of the rocks under the surface of the earth, and he generally welcomes any of the acts of man which lay bare hidden geological formations. But to the botanist and zoologist it is of the highest importance to have extensive areas in which can be found plants and animals living in the conditions in which

By W. G. WATERMAN

they had existed for centuries before the generations. Ten per cent of precoming of the white man.

In this connection a warning may not be out of place. This double value of our preserved areas should be borne in mind and the recreational function should not be allowed entirely to overshadow the importance of the preservation of the original conditions. Recreation in our natural preserves must sooner or later destroy these original conditions, as it inevitably destroys or drives away many of the original inhabitants, both plants and animals. This occasionally happens, even with the best of intentions, if scientific experts are not consulted when plans for preservation are formulated. This is especially true in areas devoted to the preservation of some special forms of life, notably in bird refuges. Here the planting of alien food plants or the destruction of predatory animals may easily destroy the balance of nature. and produce communities which are quite different from the original ones.

In order to prevent this unintentional destruction of original conditions, certain preserves, or a portion of each preserve, might well be segregated from mere pleasure-seekers, in order that the original conditions may be preserved as nearly as possible for study by future

served areas would not be missed by the pleasure-seekers, and these preserves within preserves would satisfy the needs of our scientists for all time.

Of all our National Parks, Glacier Park, in Montana, is in some respects the most valuable for scientific study, as it combines within its limits the most varied conditions and offers most diverse specimens of geological, botanical, and zoological formations. Phenomena which could not be observed except by arduous journeys of thousands of miles to many parts of the temperate and Arctic regions are here combined within a few hundred square miles, and in this respect Glacier Park is unique on this continent and almost in the world.

[blocks in formation]

on the east, we find horizontal strata covered with glacial deposits and exhibiting a gently rolling topography. In the park itself are found many of the features produced by the activities of mountain making, and the two are brought into immediate contact by the great Lewis overthrust fault, which pushed the folded mountain strata out over the horizontal deposits of the plains. The escarpment thus produced is trenched by innumerable streams of all sizes, furnishing many of the features of river erosion and deposit.

Glaciation added its quota to the collection, as in other parts of the country, but here remnants of the original glaciers still exist. Thus we are able to see, not only the effects of glacial action, but the glaciers themselves actually at work. In one instance, Iceberg Lake, the glacier comes down to the edge of a body of standing water and produces real icebergs before the eyes of the observer. To be sure the glaciers are small and practically all of them are of the cliff type, but several are large enough to show all the characteristics of glacier structure. Here bergschrunds, crevasses, an occasional serac or ice cascade, glacial streams, ice caves, and moraines are all to be found, if not on one glacier, at least not many miles apart.

Below the surface alternate layers of limestones, shales, and sandstones exhibit the leading features of stratigraphy. While it would be too much to expect to find volcanic action actually going on, the results of previous volcanic action are present. Intrusive lava sheets which forced themselves between layers of sedimentary rocks already deposited and the dikes which were formed where lava pushed up vertically through cracks in the rocks are frequently exposed on the eroded mountainsides. In at least one locality a lava flow which poured out on the surface of the earth was preserved by a subsequent deposit of sand. Later this covering sandstone was removed by erosion, and in Granite Park one can see laid bare all the features of a modern lava flow.

[blocks in formation]

With the folding of layers are found also the more minute changes in structure known as metamorphism in the mashing and splitting of rock masses.

When the slow movement of the rock masses became irresistible and the layers could no longer bend, they broke and produced faults of all sorts, both small and large, culminating in the huge Lewis overthrust, which carried the mountain masses from five to fifteen miles out over the horizontal layers of the great plains. The subsequent wearing down of these pushed-up strata furnishes illustrations of all sorts of erosion. On the steep mountainsides and summits rock fragments are pried loose by freezing and fall in talus slopes of all grades. Steep slopes of shingle alternate with piles of rock fragments of all sizes. On the middle slopes are all sorts of rock ledges and terraces, and in the valleys alluvial cones, deltas, and flood plains.

N the field of botany the features pre

sented are as diverse and as comprehensive as those of geology. The characteristic vegetation of three sections of the continent-Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic-meet here, and this insures not only the presence of a large number of species, but also a much greater diversity than can be found in any area of similar size in the whole country. Thus the taxonomist finds a rich and varied flora, while the ecologist finds a great variety of communities adjusted to the various physiographic features. physiographic features from mountain summits to valley floors.

On the east side of the park the prairie vegetation of the great plains mingles. with the plants of the lower slopes of the mountains. The stream valleys which border the east front of the mountains furnish groves of deciduous trees with thickets of willow and alder along the streams. Occasional tongues of conifers alternate with the deciduous trees in the valleys and wander up the sides of the low hills in open stand and with stunted habit.

Where the stream valleys are broad and flat, ponds and small lakes furnish an abundance of aquatic plants, and there are occasional alkaline depressions with their characteristic plant life.

On the narrow flood plains of the larger streams which flow down from the mountains are heavy forests of conifers, with tall trees growing in close stand. The undergrowth of shrubs and ground plants is dense and rich in species, while ferns, mosses, liverworts, and fungi are abundant.

These forests extend up the side of the valleys, but the trees gradually become shorter and more scattered and the un

dergrowth is also more scanty. On exposed shoulders and knolls conditions are frequently very dry and the plant species on them are characteristically different.

On the middle slopes of the mountainsides the vegetation shows a marked change in habit and species. The trees are small and very scattered, and low shrub thickets have largely taken the place of tree communities. Typical mountain meadows of grasses and flowering plants are frequent and afford the best-known and most striking feature of the mountain vegetation.

On the upper slopes the trees take on timber-line characteristics, and are only a few feet in height, with gnarled and twisted branches. On the gravel slopes grass meadows are the rule, while on the coarser boulder and talus slopes the plants grow only in small clumps between the rock fragments. Lichens of various colors appear in great profusion on the bare rocks themselves.

Near the summits characteristic alpine plants begin to appear, and many of them are closely related to the plants of the Arctic barrens far to the north. On rounded gravelly mountain-tops these plants persist to the very summits, but on sharp peaks almost the only vegetation is found in the lichens, which even there are abundant on all bare rock surfaces.

Along the small streams and in the wet depressions above timber-line still other species appear, and the vegetation resembles that of the Arctic muskegs and wet tundra.

N the other side of the Continental

Divide the general character of the vegetation is similar to that of the east slope, but many western forms add variety and interest to the composition of the plant communities.

In the western valleys the forests are much denser and more luxuriant than those of the east slope, and on the flats at the head of Lake McDonald extensive sphagnum bogs are found.

A very important division of plant ecology has to do with the order in which plant communities succeed one another. In a region like this, where glaciers are continuously retreating and laying bare stretches of plantless soil, there is abundant opportunity to observe the appearance of pioneer plants and also the order in which the different communities follow one another. The earliest stages in these successions are found on the clay and gravel moraines, on gravel and rock slides, and in the ponds and streams of the glacial fronts. From these beginnings various lines of succession can be

[graphic][merged small][merged small]

Mountains of Glacier National Park-a workshop for the scientist as well as a playground for the tourist

traced to the climax forests in the bot- visits of man, this very change affords toms of the stream valleys.

THIS

HIS subject has been the one least studied in Glacier Park, but it is the one most needing study, as the composition of the animal communities is rapidly changing.

Opinions differ somewhat as to the numbers and status of animals in the park. Until recently it was thought that the presence of tourists as well as poaching in the winter was killing off the larger animals or driving them into less accessible parts of the mountains. In the last few years, however, it would seem that adverse influences are being overcome and that the larger animals are increasing in number. The smaller mammals are certainly becoming accustomed to the presence of man, but on this account there is less opportunity to study them in their natural condition.

On the whole, the park is rich in animal life, and appearance, habits, and distribution of animals offer attractive opportunities for study.

Even if the character of the animal communities is changing through the

an opportunity to study the reactions of
the animals to man, which in itself is a
matter of interest and of considerable
value.

cies of fish, many native and some introduced. Birds and insects are everywhere, especially in the valleys, but many species are found even on the mountaintops and on the edges of the glaciers and snow-fields.

Among the larger mammals are to be found, not only mountain sheep and goats, but elk, moose, and deer. In cerIN tain spots along the continental divide tain spots along the continental divide N view of the varied opportunities for goat, sheep, and deer are frequently seen, and in more retired spots elk are not uncommon. The grizzlies are disappearing, but the brown bears are becoming accustomed to man and are probably increasing in numbers, although they are not as common around the hotels as in some of our other mountain parks.

Among predatory animals the coyote is occasionally seen and the mountain lion still exists in the wilder portions of the park. Among the rodents the marmot and porcupine are becoming adjusted and are frequently seen, while squirrels and chipmunks are very common, especially around the hotels and mon, especially around the hotels and chalets. The cony is timid and does not seem to be as common as formerly. In the bodies of water there are several aquatic mammals, and a number of spe

study along the lines indicated, it is hoped that our universities and colleges, and even high schools, will take advantage of these opportunities and send summer classes to our various National Parks. This, of course, is being done to some extent by near-by institutions, but the practice might well be followed by those at a greater distance. There is no way in which education and recreation can be combined to better advantage than by a summer course in one of our National Parks. Every such course helps to pay interest on the investment made by our country in setting aside these pre.. serves, and thereby helps to justify the original investment and the expense of the upkeep. Moreover, the class of visitors brought by such courses will add to the morale of the parks and will help to offset the indifference and carelessness shown by some of the tourists.

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