The City of Vision
ONE easily gets a cross-section view of the United States in nine northern counties of New Jersey, because here are to be seen, according to government census, the eleventh industrial city of the country and a contiguous community of homes that range from the humble cottage to the large estate.
In this metropolitan area one finds the early and later American. It has a population of two million, three hundred thousand; Newark, with four hundred and fifty thousand souls, is its centre.
On June 11, 1924, Newark’s Central High School children erected a tablet which reads in part; ‘Here the tide was turned on the morning of November 21, 1780, in a running fight and skirmish between Newark’s Minute Men, under the command of Colonel Phil Van Cortland, and a party of about one hundred refugees and British soldiers. Newark’s one thousand souls manfully stopped the infantry.’ This big bronze tablet, placed on the outer wall of one of Newark’s famous institutions, was an invitation to tell the result of that skirmish to-day.
One enters this concern, known as L. Bamberger and Company, — which has for its shibboleth ’One of America’s Great Stores,’ — and learns from the management that there are thirty-two hundred coworkers operating in one hundred thousand square feet, in all their varied forms of service. Peak days see over one hundred thousand people entering the store, where one buys for cottage or estate practically everything that is made in the world.
The concern started in a small way in 1893, with a vision; you see the result of this vision in the various departments of the different floors. Happy, smiling faces greet you wheresoever you go. One of the bundle boys tells you in confidence he will soon progress, because progress is the plan under which this concern operates. In 1893 L. Bamberger and Company started; to-day it is acknowledged to be one of America’s great stores, doing a business three times larger than that of similar department stores in cities of half a million.
Five days of continuously taking shorthand notes brought out these facts plainly: the concern treats its coworkers as well as it treats the buying public; it is just as gracious in accepting return packages and making adjustments as in selling.
The writer actually compared these departments with every large New York store and found as great a range of assortments here. There are not five stores like the Bamberger store in the country.
The buyers include persons of moderate means, the well-to-do, the rich, and the exclusive rich. The service to all is the same, because the people who serve are in turn served by the management. Everyone is on an equal footing here. Sex is no barrier.
A cardinal principle is that the laborer is worthy of his hire, and he gets it from the management. In the various restaurants, including the coworkers’ restaurant, the same thought, treatment, and care are carried out, and tips are taboo. A physician and dentist, and their assistants, under the management’s pay, wait on coworkers daily. One finds the spirit of right thinking prevailing in every part of the service. Bamberger’s suburban drivers always help autos in distress.
The management aids coworkers in bettering themselves. The ramifications of these efforts include welfare work, night schools.
INSTITUTIONAL PUBLICITY
As one of the customers said: ’There is a subtle charm about this store that brings added sense of joy to shopping. One tires less at Bamberger’s.’
L. Bamberger and Company publishes a magazine of real beauty that delineates the finer things of northern New Jersey; it sells for thirty-five cents and has reached eighty thousand in circulation, Charm is its name.
The store windows show the true touch of an artist.
The big parade of the year: Newark’s school children take a day off and march through the streets in gala splendor with the spirit that makes a great city. Here you see public, parochial, and private school children of every race and creed, of every age and type, marching with one accord to prove to all the true freedom of democracy, and you say, ‘ Whence comes this vision realized?’ Here is one answer: Seventy-five years ago a handful of men began the making of men’s and boys’ shoes that was destined to leave an impress on the city and to establish firmly the well-known attributes of the eleventh industrial city of the country. These Johnston and Murphy shoemakers are now operating one of the largest shoe manufacturing plants of its kind in the country, and that they are right to the second is shown by the fact that by far the larger number of college men to-day are to be seen shod in the neat’s leather that has been made into shoes by Johnston and Murphy. These shoemakers are selling shoes in every nook and cranny of the country.
As you go in, the workers begin to tell you that some have been here five years, some thirty years, some forty-five years, and that they feel themselves to be a part of the institution, in which each one is ready to aid the others, from the owners and officers to the cleaners and packers. The writer interviewed at random seventy-five workers; they informed him the main thought seemed to be that a steady pay envelope the year round is the rule and guide of the company. The men said they knew they had a job as long as they could work and many had a job after they could do no work; that they could count on home buying, education for the children, insurance, and know that no one would come along with harassments. The firm saw to it that the concern was up to the minute. New machinery is the order of the day. Progress is so continued from week to week as to become a practical part of the organization. More than fifty per cent of the men own their own homes clear. One of the Building and Loan Associations of Newark was started in Johnston and Murphy’s shoe manufacturing plant. The men and women tell you that they have no welfare rides and regulations, because, like the acquisition of new machinery, welfare has been going on from the foundation.
There is an air of cheer about the place. It comes from continuity of purpose, lack of discord, and a real love of the work. The best, the very best leather procurable in the world is cut up by men who have been doing this work for years. Each order from every retail buyer is made according to the specification. This order is carried through in every department.
So, as one old shoemaker said, ’This is a big custom house. The shoes are practically all bench made.’ Johnston and Murphy also makes shoes to individual measure.
The visions of the founders of Johnston and Murphy are realized and are really typical of Newark, knowing no discord or strife.
The latest addition to good workmanship comes in the new department to repair Johnston and Murphy shoes; you can give the dealer your Johnston and Murphy shoe and have it returned to you from Johnston and Murphy’s factory in Newark — again ready for wear. Go wheresoever you will throughout this, the eleventh industrial city of the country, and you find the workman looking to management to make his adjustment when necessary. One finds a forty-year-old institution working in iron and steel, on whose products the entire nation depends for comfort and locomotion safety. Starting with an original invested capital of fifty thousand dollars, it now has a valuation running into millions. The concern has never had internal discord, strife, or confusion. Many of its workmen have translated their efforts into homes and education and improvement. One workman, covered with the grime of his calling, grabbed my hand and took me up to the outer view to see his home that he could walk to for a hot lunch. He was all aglee about it.
All day long you talk and make shorthand notes amid the vibration and din of forging hammers, and you come away with the satisfaction that the National Lock Washer Company is right. Every observable unit shows prosperity, and one learns that the present officers and managers are all college graduates. The principal offices are in Newark, New Jersey, with plants in Newark and Riverside, New Jersey, and their branch offices are in practically every large city of the country. The company owns its own rolling mills, annealing furnaces, drop-forging plant, lock-washer manufactory, a plant for the machining of drop forgings, a modernly equipped heating plant, and a plant devoted to the production of railway-car hardware. It produces phosphor bronze, lock washers, railwaycar hardware in an almost infinite variety, and quantities of custom forgings which find their way into printing presses, elevators, pneumatic tools, trolley cars, steel barrels and oil containers, and numberless parts of equipment and machinery.
The company’s products are in world-wide use. Countless millions are using railroad and automotive vehicles, radios, machinery, and mechanical equipment which depend on its products. For instance, besides lock washers and improved Hipower spring washers, it manufactures spring steels and steel rods of special shapes, as well as brake forgings, and so forth. When your boy coasts downhill, in all likelihood you will find the runners of steel on his sled were fashioned here.
As the Civil War was receding from view, Heyward Harvey, an inventive genius, was uncovering a great number of useful ideas, and many of these inventions have become a part of the ordinary mechanism of the country. It was he who invented the National Rib Lock Washer. The National Lock Washer Company was established January 11, 1886, to produce Harvey’s invention. It started in a loft — a few men, an idea, a small sum of money.
By dint of thought and continuous trials the company developed what is called the Hipower spring washer, used in rail joint construction, in frogs and crossings. It is highly resilient and is designed to meet the conditions of fastmoving trains.
Here was a task. Railroads adopt inventions, but only after careful trial; time is demanded to see what the result will be. To-day by far the larger number of rails are joined and protected by this Hipower spring washer. The company makes a large variety of steel shapes; it does custom forgings for various mechanical purposes and minute forgings that are really wonderful— the effort seems to have a romance all its own.
The men at work tell you that they are satisfied with their arrangements because in the main they are ‘on their own.’ Every man feels that he is at liberty at any time to go into the president’s office and take his problems with him. In this large concern it is still the vogue for all to know each other and work together, and so carry out the ideas of the founders.