to Jim, was the discovery
I made in a few minutes, when I met him, that unlike Henry Ford, whom I
met for the first time the same week, he was not a genius. He was a man
with a hundred thousand duplicates in America.

Any one of a hundred thousand men we all know in this country would do
what he did if he happened on it, if just the right Jim, just the right
moment, stuck his head in the door.

Here's to Jim, of course.

But after all not so much credit to Jim. There are more of us probably
who could have stuck our heads in the door.

The greater credit should go to the lying awake in the night, to the man
who was practical enough to be inspired by a chance to quit and quit
sharply in his own business, being fooled by himself and who got four
hundred men to help.

Incidentally of course though he did not think of it, and they did not
think of it, the four hundred men all in the same tight place he was in
of course, of trying not to be fooled about themselves, asked him to help
them.

Of course with both sides in a factory in this way pursuing the other
side and asking it to help it not to be fooled, everything everybody says
counts. There is less waste in truth in a factory. Truth that is asked
for and thirsted for, is drunk up. The refreshment of it, the efficiency
of it which the people get, goes on the job at once.

XIII

LISTENING TO JIM

(A Note on Collective Bargaining)

I would like to say to begin with that I believe in national collective
bargaining as it is going to be in the near future--collective bargaining
executed on such subjects and with such power and limitations and in such
spirit as shall be determined by the facts--the practical engineering
facts in human nature and the way human nature works.

I do not feel that collective bargaining has been very practical about
human nature so far. The moment that it is, the public and all manner of
powerful and important persons, who are suspicious or offish or
unreasonable about collective bargaining now, are going to believe in it.

A book entitled "A Few Constructive Reflections on Marriage" by a man who
had had a fixed habit for many years of getting divorces,--a man whose
ex-wives were all happily married would not be very deep probably. A
symposium by his ex-wives who had all succeeded on their second husbands
would really count more. Most candid people would admit this as a
principle.

The same principle seems to hold good about w