pt an
increase. I was no better myself. I didn't really expect to be head of
the firm. Nor did the other men. We weren't working and holding on
with any notion of winning independence along that line. The most we
hoped for was a bigger salary. Some men didn't anticipate more than
twenty-five hundred like me, and others--the younger men--talked about
five thousand and even ten thousand. I didn't hear them discuss what
they were going to do when they were general managers or
vice-presidents but always what they could enjoy when they drew the
larger annuity. And save those who saw in professional work a way out,
this was the career they were choosing for their sons. They wanted to
get them into banks and the big companies where the assurance of lazy
routine advancement up to a certain point was the reward for industry,
sobriety and honesty. A salary with an old, strongly established
company seemed to them about as big a stroke of luck for a young man
as a legacy. I myself had hoped to find a place for Dick with one of
the big trust companies.

Of course down here these people did not have the same opportunities.
Most of the old firms preferred the "bright young American" and I
guess they secured most of them. I pity the "bright young American"
but I can't help congratulating the bright young Italians and the
bright young Irishmen. They are forced as a result to make business
for themselves and they are given every opportunity in the world for
doing it. And they _are_ doing it. And I, breathing in this
atmosphere, made up my mind that I would do it, too.

With this in mind I outlined for myself a systematic course of
procedure. It was evident that in this as in any other business I must
master thoroughly the details before taking up the larger problems.
The details of this as of any other business lay at the bottom and so
for these at least I was at present in the best possible position. The
two most important factors to the success of a contractor seemed to me
to be, roughly speaking, the securing and handling of men and the
purchase and use of materials. Of the two, the former appeared to be
the more important. Even in the few weeks I had been at work here I
had observed a big difference in the amount of labor accomplished by
different men individually. I could have picked out a half dozen that
were worth more than all the others put together. And in the two
foremen I had noticed another big difference in the varying ca