too. There was no rising or falling of tone. He stated the case quite simply, and with an air of having done it many times during his period on watch. Then he bent lower and peered more intently under the lights, brushing one arm across his face, as tho the pelting rain also interfered with his business of seeing in the night.

The chauffeur again took up the conversation, stating that we carried the signed pass of General If we had mentioned the Mayor of Chicago we would not have made less impression. The ghostly sentries at the sides of the car did not budge. The patrol in the center of the road in the same monotone announced that one of us would descend. One would be sufficient. The others might keep the shelter of the car. But he would see these credentials from General If to him they did not appear in order our fate was a matter within his discretion. As he read the pass he sheltered it from the rain under the cape of his coat. The guards at the sides of the car remained as tho built in position. Then the leader handed back the paper and brought his hand to salute. The others immediately broke their pose,

moved into the light, and likewise saluted. The tension relieved, we all felt friendly. As we started forward I held a newspaper out of the window and three hands grasped it simultaneously. We had hundreds of newspapers, for some one told us how welcome they would be at the front.

A

T AN intersection of roads a couple of miles further on the rain was pelting down so fiercely that we did not clearly hear the "qui vive." The chauffeur desperately called out not to shoot as a file of soldiers suddenly swung across the road with rifles leveled. On their leader we then tried an experiment, which we afterward followed religiously. We handed over a newspaper with our pass. To our surprise he turned first to the Government war communiqué printed on the first page and read it through, grunting his satisfaction meanwhile, before he condescended to even glance at the document which held our fate and on which the rain was making great inky smears. Then he saluted and we drove on rapidly, everybody smiling.

We passed no more patrols, but finally when our lights picked out the first signs

of the next village they also brought into bold relief a huge pile of masonry completely filling the road. We stopped as suddenly as tho another soldier with a rifle barred our way. We wondered what it could mean, for we were sure this village had not been in the battle --had not suffered the devastation of batteries.

A villager then loomed out of the dark at the side of the car and informed us that the road was barred because the bridge just beyond had been blown up, and that we could not pass over the pontoon until morning. The inn, he told us, had never been closed nor was its stock of tobacco yet exhausted. He offered to conduct us, and when the innkeeper, a very fat innkeeper, looked over our credentials from General he insisted that, altho the place was full, certain guests should double up in order to make room for us.

He then called his wife, his daughter, his father, and his father's wife that they might be permitted the honor of shaking us by the hand as he held aloft the candle, the flame of which flickered down the ancient stone corridor that led to our

rooms.

S

THE BOMBARDMENT

LOWLY, without force, the rain drops into the city. It stops a_moment on the carved head of Saint John, then slides on again, slipping and trickling over his stone cloak. It splashes from the lead conduit of a gargoyle, and falls from it in turmoil on the stones in the Cathedral square.

Where are the people, and why does the fretted steeple sweep about in the sky? Boom! The sound swings against the rain. Boom, again! After it, only water rushing in the gutters, and the turmoil from the spout of the gargoyle. Silence. Ripples and mutters. Boom!

Boom! The vibration shatters a glass on the étagère. It lies there formless and glowing, with all its crimson gleams shot out of pattern, spilled, flowing red, blood-red.

A thin bell-note pricks through the

silence. A door creaks. The old lady speaks: "Victor, clear away that broken glass."

"Alas! Madame, the Bohemian glass!" "Yes, Victor, one hundred years ago my father brought it-"

Boom! The room shakes, the servitor quakes. Another goblet shivers and breaks! Boom!

see copper carp, lazily floating among cold leaves. A wind-harp in a cedar-tree grieves and whispers, and words blow into his brain, bubbled, iridescent, shooting up like flowers of fire, higher and higher.

Boom! The flame-flowers snap on their slender stems. The fountain rears up in long broken spears of disheveled water and flattens into the earth.

He He sees

Boom! And there is only the room, the table, the candle, and the sliding rain. Again, Boom! - Boom! - Boom! stuffs his fingers into his ears. corpses, and cries out in fright. Boom! It is night, and they are shelling the city! Boom! Boom!

Retorts, globes, tubes, and phials lie shattered. All his trials oozing across the floor. The life that was his choosing, lonely, urgent, goaded by a hope, all gone. A weary man in a ruined laboratory, that was his story.

Boom! Gloom and ignorance, and the jig of drunken brutes. Diseases like snakes crawling over the earth, leaving trails of slime. Wails from people burying their dead.

Through the window he can see the rocking steeple. A ball of fire falls on the lead of the roof, and the sky tears apart on a spike of flame. Up the spire, behind the lacings of stone, zig-zagging in and out of the carved tracings, squirms the fire.

It spouts like yellow wheat from the

gargoyles, coils round the head of Saint John, and aureoles him in light.

It leaps into the night and hisses against the rain.

The Cathedral is a burning stain on the white, wet night.

Boom! The Cathedral is a torch, and the houses next to it begin to scorch. Boom! The Bohemian glass on the étagère is no longer there.

Boom! A stalk of flame sways against the red damask curtains.

The old lady cannot walk.

She watches the creeping stalk and counts.

Boom!-Boom!-Boom!

The poet rushes into the street, and the rain wraps him in a sheet of silver. But it is threaded with gold and powdered with scarlet beads.

The city burns.

Quivering, spearing, thrusting, lapping, streaming, run the flames. Over roofs, and walls, and shops, and stalls.

Smearing its gold on the sky, the fire dances, lances itself through the doors, and lisps and chuckles along the floors.

The child wakes again and screams at the yellow-petaled flower flickering at the window.

The little red lips of flame creep along the ceiling beams.

The old man sits among his broken experiments and looks at the burning Cathedral.

Now the streets are swarming with people. They seek shelter, and crowd into the cellars.

They shout and call, and over all, slowly and without force, the rain drops into the city.

Boom! And the steeple crashes down among the people.

Boom! Boom, again! The water rushes along the gutters.

The fire roars and mutters.
Boom!

F

OR years and years it has been preached and written unto people that on the first day of January they should sit down and look back over the past year. As a matter of fact they should sit up and take notice. If I were a preacher or a moralist or a dealer in good advice, I would tell people to throw their 1914 calendar into the waste basket and devote their attention to the twelve pages of 1915.

You can draw just as many moral lessons from the future as from the past. The constructive business builder looks ahead. The man with the backup memory sees only the bumps which

W

HAT is your greatest problem in business?" was asked of John H. Patterson, president of The National Cash Register Company. And the answer was: "Men! It is comparatively easy to develop plans and methods; we can buy raw material and machinery; we can build factories; but without men of the right sort, all of these other things are of no avail. The bed-rock basis of all business is men."

Hugh Chalmers, president of the Chalmers Motor Company, says there are five "M"s in the word businessmoney-materials - machinery — merchandise-and men. "All but one are given quantities with which a definite result can be accomplished. Man is the big, uncertain quantity-the hardest to get, to understand, and to hold."

At the head of every conspicuously successful business institution will be found a man who has fully grasped the vital importance of the human element in business. In most cases this fact alone will account for the success of the business. I have interviewed hundreds of executives, from the presidents of the largest industries which employ thousands, to the managers of little two-by-four shops, and I have always asked the same question: "What is your greatest problem in business?" In nine cases out of ten, the answer might be summed up in a single word, "Men." Oftentimes the manager of a business, especially if it is a small business, pays too much attention to the things which he makes, and not enough atten

IN

tion to the people who make them, the people who sell them, and the people who use them. "It's not things that make life-it's people," says Walter H. Cottingham, president of the SherwinWilliams Company. "It's not things which makes business, it's peoplepeople with red blood in their veins, men and women with hearts and feelings, aims and ambitions-men and women susceptible to encouragement and sympathy, training and discipline."

Many a business is held back and prevented from taking full advantage of its opportunities simply through the inability to obtain the right kind of men. A notable example of this kind is the case of Sears, Roebuck & Company in its early days. The late Mr. Sears, contrary to the general rule, never experienced any difficulty in selling. Such a volume of sales did he pile up that he was hard put to find enough goods with which to fill orders. He solved this difficulty by reorganizing existing factories, and by building new ones. Then came the man problem. He simply could not find enough correspondents to care for existing business.

Such difficulty did Mr. Sears experience in this connection that he ran standing advertizements in the principal newspapers throughout the country calling for men. These advertizements read to the effect that, "If you are a correspondent, or think you can be developed into one, don't wait to write us a letter, but get on the train and come straight to us. We will hire you at once at a fair salary and advance you rapidly." Mr. Sears claimed that the

about the things which have been; conserve your energy for the things to

come.

Remember that poor old Job sat among the ashes and longed for the past until he became aggravated at Bildad, and began looking forward.

The greatest religion man will ever know is built on the forward look. Prophecy took hold upon the hearts of men and they keep the prophecies in their lives and the histories in their libraries. Things, times and people advance so rapidly that you not only have to look forward but you must keep moving with them if you want to be with them. "Eyes front," then-and a Happy New Year to you.

BUSINESS

growth of his business in the early days was greatly handicapped by his inability to obtain the right kind of men fast enough to keep pace with its development. And this despite the fact that he was known as one of the most liberal and fair-minded employers.

Now the problem does not end with getting the right kind of men. Men are to a business what raw material is to a manufactured product-simply a bundle of possibilities And just as a product can be rendered useless through mishandling the raw material, so can men be rendered useless to their employers through mishandling. Many an employer loses thousands of dollars through letting the right man go at the wrong time.

Man may be said to be a reasoning, but at times hardly a reasonable, animal; and nothing brings this fact into clearer perspective than the complex attitude of some executives towards their employees. They "hire and fire" promiscuously, allowing whim and caprice to overrule their better judgment. With the advent of accurate systems of cost keeping, many employers found out to their surprise that it cost a considerable sum of money to mold even an office boy into satisfactory shape. One of the largest automobile concerns states that it costs on an average of two hundred dollars to hire and "break in" each one of its general run of employees. And this figure is, of course, considerably increased when applied to executives.

Getting the right men is simply the first step. Having secured them, the

next problem is to get them to work honestly and efficiently and then we must hold them. Too frequent changes are costly in actual money as well as in lost opportunities. Here, then, is the problem of man-handling. A wellknown executive gives it as his opinion that the way to get the utmost out of men and to maintain harmonious conditions is to direct them without their knowing it.

The work of a machine can be gauged exactly for a given time; the work of a man depends upon his willingness and capabilities. While it is no doubt true that some employees may be put in the balance and found wanting, and still others tried and found not at all, a careful analysis would show that the trouble in most instances was due, in a large measure, to poor manage

ment.

In the past, many firms sought to handle men by sternness-by making them rigidly toe the line at all points. Then came the realization that fear paralyzes effort. It forces on a man a defensive instead of an aggressive state of mind. And in consequence he will lack the swing and dash that characterize the successful business man.

As a general proposition, the greater a man's ability and the higher his mental development, the less he will stand for control by gang-boss methods. Supervizion all men must have—even the president of a firm is supervized by his board of directors. But there's a great difference between supervizion and bossing. Bossing rubs a highstrung man the wrong way; intelligent supervizion puts him on his mettle and brings out the best that is in him. The problem is to get the drive into an organization without any of the harsh ness usually associated with the term, and to operate high-pressure methods with a human touch.

An executive of the General Electric Company told me that the "secret" of his success was his method of getting his men interested in their work; and, as he expressed it: “Get them interested in their work and they will not seize upon a half-holiday like a hungry dog a bone; they will not care so much whether the Bostons or the Philadelphians won yesterday, they will not worry about what their neighbors think about them, they will not care a rap whether it is Friday or Monday; you will find them with their shoulder against the wheel, doing the best for themselves and for you."

"In dealing with all our men," says W. K. Page, an executive of the Addressograph Company, "we proceed on a basis that each man wants to make good. Take salesmen, for example. A salesman may fall down for any one of a dozen reasons. Conditions in his territory may be bad; no matter how hard and intelligently he may work, it

may be impossible for him to produce a satisfactory volume of business. Or, on the other hand, his personal habits or his selling methods may be at fault. "Before taking any man to task we first try to discover the real reason for his non-success. Then we talk or write to him in a friendly way—take him into our confidence. We impress on him that we want him to make good, and that we are willing to do all we can to help him. We never attempt to force a man-we aim to lead. Nor do we ever criticize without offering constructive advice.

"No two men can be handled alike, however. Some men yield at once to friendly treatment; others have to be given a mental jolt. Here is a typical case of how the latter method was applied successfully: A salesman in one of our branch offices, whom I will call Smith, lagged behind in his sales. He failed to respond to friendly encouragement. He seemed to have lost his grip. We decided he needed a good hard jolt. So we transferred him from the selling to collecting department. Now this hurt his pride, as it was designed to do. No man who considers himself a salesman can maintain his self-respect under such conditions.

"But even tho we took him off our sales force, we impressed on him that we still considered him a good salesman and wanted him to stay with us, but on his repeated low monthly showing he naturally could not expect us to allow him to continue as salesman. A month passed, and then Smith asked to be reinstated on our sales force. We had been waiting for this, and immediately granted his request. Within a month of his being reinstated his sales amounted to more than seven times his previous highest monthly record. And he has been a consistent big producer ever since.

"Different tactics were required in dealing with another of our salesmen, whom we'll call Jones. This man held one of the highest sales records of our company. Then his sales dropped off. Heart-to-heart talks proved of no avail. Overconfidence was Jones' trouble, with possibly a touch of conceit. He took the attitude that he had made a permanent reputation with the company and did not need to work hard any

more.

"Iron-hand methods, tactfully applied, were called for in this case. So we 'read the riot act' to Jones and told him that while we wanted him to continue with us, we would not further tolerate his half-hearted efforts. replaced his existing contract with one that hedged him in with severe restrictions. We placed him on a basis where he had to work—and work hard in order to make even a fair show

We

Jones to his senses. Then substantial orders began to come in from him. He was a good fighter and reconciled himself to his fate. He set to work to show us that he could still break sales records despite the handicaps we had placed on him—and he did. At the end of three months, Jones had learned his lesson thoroly and was willing to admit that possibly he had been wrong.

"Then we placed him back on his old basis, took off the curb, and let him alone pretty much as in his old days. That was about a year ago. Ever since Jones learned his lesson, he has made even bigger sales records than before. And, furthermore, he is grateful to us for having forced him to get a new grip on himself."

There is a trite saying that a little authority causes some men to really grow, while others simply swell. Not long ago I came in close contact with an actual case of this kind. A young man who had made reasonable showing with a small manufacturing concern secured a similar position with a larger concern. In his new position there were opportunities which did not exist in the smaller place, and at first he tried to make the most of them. By applying some of the methods used by the smaller concern, methods which were in no way unusual, he improved the records of the department of which he had taken charge.

The management complimented him. upon his work, increased his salary check and gave him wider latitude. Immediately his ego, which had thus far in a measure been hidden, bloomed in all its offensiveness. He hadn't the mental capacity to do creative work, and so he resorted to petty schoolboy methods. He discovered (?) that all the other heads of departments were grossly inefficient, and took particular pains to bring all errors to the attention of the management. It was only a short time before he had won the enmity of his associates. Errors he himself made aplenty, and it was amusing the way he would cover them up; but his associates didn't "tattle," as they preferred the more gentlemanly method of letting him "hang himself”—which he did in time.

A fine-appearing young man recently applied for a position with a firm that you'd recognize almost as quickly as your Own name. He successfully passed the tests to which this house subjects all applicants for positions, and was hired subject to his references proving satisfactory.

ally, he was unmanageable. One former employer took the trouble to write a pen-and-ink letter saying that the young man was as "unmanageable as an unbroken broncho and altogether an impossible sort of individual."

Now the manager who had just hired the "unmanageable" young man was a human sort of individual. His analytical power was above the average, even for a successful manager; he had made a close study of human nature, and took considerable pride in his methods of handling men. He resolved to "manage" the "unmanageable."

A few months later this manager met the man who had warned him against hiring the young man. "How long did young Blank last with you?" queried the man who had written the letter. "He's still with us, is doing well, and is easily one of the brightest young men in our organization," was the response. "He has the ability, and it will not be long before he will be holding one of the most responsible positions with our company. All he needed was an opportunity to do things. I gave it to him, and he has made good." The writer was present at this meeting, and, scenting information, asked

for the details. The manager was quite willing to discuss the case, as he had found it a very interesting one. "Young Blank is one of the most promising young fellows in our organization. Rather high-strung, it is true, but that is because he is a bundle of nervous energy; when given an opportunity to do things, without being hedged in with red tape and conventional system, his ability enabled him to show results.

"When I read his references, I suspected the trouble-he'd been bossed too much. Some men, like some horses, won't stand restraint. Put a heavy curb on them, boss them around at every turn, and they kick and prance and are generally unmanageable. But let them alone-give them some free rein-and they do their work, do it well, and need little if any supervizion." All problems in business simmer down to the human unit and the development of this unit. Henry R. Towne, president of the Yale & Towne Manufacturing Company, says: "For many years we have been devoting our time to increasing the efficiency of our machines, but now we must concentrate our efforts to increasing the efficiency of the human unit."

59

A business is simply an inanimate machine, made up of a large number of parts. Its power must come from men. And just as it is the problem of the engineer to use the steam at his command with the least possible waste and to the greatest advantage, so is it the problem of the executive to handle the human power in a way that will produce the best results.

The problem of man-handling is the problem of human nature. It can not be reduced to exact rules, and a large part of the waste in business to-day is caused by the inelastic system and cutand-dried regulation with which some executives have curbed the activities of their men. Temperaments differ radically, and these temperaments in turn are modified by conditions. It is all a question of first accurately diagnozing the trouble and then applying the remedy best suited to overcome it. But whatever the method used, all masters in the art of handling.men are agreed that it should be builded on sympathy and the ability to get the other man's view-point.

There are plenty of fellows who can "Do it now," if some one will just tell them what to do and how to do it.

H

E HAS been a pretty successful business man. He has made some money-put aside enough to live on at ease the rest of his life. A friend of mine showed me a letter from him the other day, and in it appeared the following paragraph: "It may surprise you to know that I am going to give up business-let someone else take my place. I am fifty years old; I think I have worked long enough to deserve a rest. I have bought a little piece of land out in California. I shall move out there, build a bungalow, play golf and enjoy life."

"Do you know," said my friend, who is also a successful business man in every sense of the word, "that paragraph somehow seems to tell the story of a misspent life. By that I don't mean anything disparaging to the man's mode of living. He's a fine gentleman. But somehow I can't imagine any real virile man, who has the right outlook on life, wanting for a minute to give up active life to spend the rest of his days playing golf. I don't mean that a man should tie himself down to business and never get out into the open to enjoy life. But why give up active life entirely?

"Personally," he continued, "I like golf and motoring and hunting, and such like outdoor recreations. And I indulge myself in them too. If I want

"How long would it be, do you suppose, were I to do such a thing, before I should be absolutely out of touch with everything alive and active in life? My business friends would become a thing of the past-big men who give me inspiration and impetus. I would find myself living in yesterday, instead of to-day; I would eat my heart out, through longing to do something and be someone, instead of doing nothing and being no one, as far as progress is concerned.

"Yesterday I was down-town and passed James J. Hill walking up the street, talking business to two of his lieutenants. How happy would he be with a bungalow and eternal golf or any other amusement? He gets a lot of pleasure out of life. He goes to Labrador on a fishing trip, or to Glacier National Park for an outing. He plays while he plays. And then back he comes and gets into the midst of things again, where there's life and

action and work. And it's the same with all your really successful men, isn't it?

"I say that the man has acquired a wrong perspective on life and living, who, after years of life and work in business and affairs, feels that he should give these things up and devote the remainder of his life to doing nothing. All those years he has entertained a wrong view of business. He has failed to get from it what he should get. He has confused it only with busy-ness. In my estimation that man alone gets the full out of life who enjoys work and enjoys play up to the very last moment, but who never becomes the slave of either.

"The energetic man must have more of an outlet for his spirits than can ever be found in aimless pleasureseeking or recreating. He would die a-moping with such an existence. Some of them have tried it, and been forced to get back in harness to keep themselves alive. Temperate use of muscular and mental vitality is the best elixir of life any man can take. And eking out your days in a bungalow, with golf on the side, isn't that sort of a tonic."

(We are indebted to Edwin N. Ferdon, of the Brown & Bigelow corporation, for this re

port of an interview with his friend. This is Of only one man's view-point on the subject. course there are two sides to every question. Will you tell us yours?)