ave it, and bought us out.

"One of the incidents which caused a very great cheapening was that,
when we started, one of the important processes had to be done by
experts. This was the sealing on of the part carrying the filament into
the globe, which was rather a delicate operation in those days, and
required several months of training before any one could seal in a fair
number of parts in a day. When we got to the point where we employed
eighty of these experts they formed a union; and knowing it was
impossible to manufacture lamps without them, they became very insolent.
One instance was that the son of one of these experts was employed in
the office, and when he was told to do anything would not do it, or
would give an insolent reply. He was discharged, whereupon the union
notified us that unless the boy was taken back the whole body would go
out. It got so bad that the manager came to me and said he could not
stand it any longer; something had got to be done. They were not only
more surly; they were diminishing the output, and it became impossible
to manage the works. He got me enthused on the subject, so I started in
to see if it were not possible to do that operation by machinery. After
feeling around for some days I got a clew how to do it. I then put men
on it I could trust, and made the preliminary machinery. That seemed to
work pretty well. I then made another machine which did the work nicely.
I then made a third machine, and would bring in yard men, ordinary
laborers, etc., and when I could get these men to put the parts together
as well as the trained experts, in an hour, I considered the machine
complete. I then went secretly to work and made thirty of the machines.
Up in the top loft of the factory we stored those machines, and at night
we put up the benches and got everything all ready. Then we discharged
the office-boy. Then the union went out. It has been out ever since.

"When we formed the works at Harrison we divided the interests into one
hundred shares or parts at $100 par. One of the boys was hard up after
a time, and sold two shares to Bob Cutting. Up to that time we had never
paid anything; but we got around to the point where the board declared
a dividend every Saturday night. We had never declared a dividend when
Cutting bought his shares, and after getting his dividends for three
weeks in succession, he called up on the telephone and wanted to know
what kind of a concern this was that paid