Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/748

 734 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

The president of the company says : "Organization is our watchword. With perfect organization we have not the ideas of the few, but all the ideas of all the men, in every capacity. We accomplish this result without a superintendent, by a series of committees which increase in importance as they reach the highest committee. This representation by committees prevents favoritism and gives each man a voice. We endeavor to make our system automatic in order that we may be dependent upon no one man. This enables the officers to throw off the details of the business and keep their attention on the weakest points as long as it may be necessary." Quite the opposite from the normally successful factory, where the superintendent boasts that nothing goes on without his knowledge.

Perhaps the most striking thing about the business to the business man is the fact that there is no superintendent. Just as the most surprising thing to the workmen would be that there is no "boss." The management of the business is entirely by committee. The general policy of the business and the conduct of its affairs are in the hands of the executive committee, con- sisting of eight officers, including the president and vice-presi- dent the Messrs. Patterson, owners of the business. This committee has general oversight of the three general divisions of the business: the office division of 167 employes; the selling division of 327 employes, agents ; and the making division, the factory, of 1,250 employes. The factory is under the control of the factory committee of five, experts in various lines of factory work. One member of this committee acts as its chairman each month, in regular rotation. The com- mittees meet once each day, and oftener when necessary, for general consultation ; a majority can always act. Each member has control of a group of the fifty or more departments into which the work of the factory is divided. Each of these committee- men has special duties, connected in the main with designing of tools or control of experimental departments. In addition each machine has a special committee, at the head of which is one of the five factory committeemen. The office division, including some twenty-three departments, is under the control of a larger