Stenographer's Hands

"They make too many errors!" cried the great man in intense irritation, as he turned restlessly in his chair. "We keep a chart of the errors — we keep a chart of everything we do — and the number of errors a day per stenographer is constantly increasing. These errors are annoying, and they are costly. No matter how hard our office force try, they do not correct all of them. We were awarded a bid last month — one of the typists put a period in the wrong place and it cost our firm over a quarter of a million. In another instance the omission of a comma caused us to lose a law suit. Constant inefficiency — causing continual irritation and a lessened production of business! Our experts tell us that if the stenographic force were one hundred per cent perfect we could nearly double our business. I doubt that, but we could do much more than we are doing. I want you to devise some plan to stop the errors!"

Dr. Billings, eminent biologist and sociologist, looked curiously at the speaker. He had worked for Jerome Smith, President of Universal Utilities, for several years and had always found him an interesting personality and his problems vitally important. After a moment's pause he asked:

"How many stenographers do you employ, Mr. Smith?"

"Ten thousand in our New York offices. As you know, we decided to centralize all of our offices some years ago. We need ten thousand — but usually we have only about nine thousand and have to replace them constantly. We handle millions of letters, a year, and business life depends upon the character of these letters — and we cannot secure the right kind of stenographers."

"Why not raise their pay?"

"That has been tried. The more pay, the more pleasure; the more pleasure, the more fatigue and the greater number of errors."

"Then educate them!"

"They refuse. We have free night schools — one fifteenth of one per cent attend. They won't even go when we pay them. Claim they want relaxation at night. Do you know what the average stenographer does with her twenty-four hours?"

Dr. Billings laughingly confessed his ignorance of their special habits.

"We studied a thousand of them and made a composite picture of their daily life," said Jerome Smith, answering his own question. "They are High School and Business College graduates, about twenty years old. They stay in bed as long as possible, dress as fast as they can, bolt an insufficient breakfast and spend about one hour in the subway, or elevated, going to the office. From 9 A. M. to noon their work is fairly correct. During the noon hour they window-shop and eat a poor lunch. They would rather spend their money on silk stockings than beefsteak. From 1 to 5 their work becomes more careless as they become more fatigued. It takes them an hour to return to their home where they eat the only hot meal of the day. At 8 their boy friends come and take them to a movie or dance hall. They usually retire between 11 and 1. On Saturday afternoons they go to Coney Island. Sundays are periods of relaxation, unless their boy friends have a Ford. After an average of two years and three months of work they marry and keep on working till the first child is born. Then they cease to work, but from the day of their marriage, they become less and less efficient. If it is not for humanitarian reasons, we would discharge every woman as soon as she is married. The capable clever ones become private secretaries, the beautiful ones marry or go into private apartments, the dull ones are discharged, and last year our turn-over was sixty-five per cent. We can hardly hire and train them fast enough. Something has to be done. I engaged you with the understanding that you could solve such problems and I want you to get busy!"

Dr. Billings looked irritated as he replied:

"You talked to me about this a year ago and I gave you several models of a phono-stenic machine, invented in our laboratories. As I recall it, I advised that you have five thousand of these machines made and discharge ninety-nine per cent of your stenographers. You never commented on my suggestion."

"We gave it a trial! We are always willing to try anything! At first it looked as though it might work: it really was a beautiful piece of machinery. All our men had to do was to talk into a receiver and the sound was transmitted to the machine, transformed into mechanical activity and the letter was finished a second after the dictation ended. As I remember the details, the machine was entirely automatic, had a paper feeder and discharged the letter into one tray and the carbon into another. As a machine, it was perfect, but it could not think, consequently, there were many words that could not be used — for example, to — too — two — three different words, three different meanings, but only one sound for the three. Another difficulty was in the matter of pronunciation. In adjusting the machine you used an actor who is credited with having a wonderful voice and speaking perfect English. Unfortunately, in our office we have men from every part of the United States and many foreigners who have had to learn English. All of our men spoke English, but they all had a different accent, and none spoke as perfectly as the actor. The machine typed exactly what they spoke, but the letters it produced were certainly queer affairs. I was sufficiently interested in the proposition to invite the actor to come and dictate for us, and the letters he produced were perfect, so long as he was careful in not using words with two meanings."

"You could have had the machines adjusted to suit the different accents," replied Billings in a rather irritated voice.

"Certainly. I knew that! Then they would have been one man machines. If adjusted to a Pennsylvania Dutchman, it could not be used by an English speaking Spaniard. The invention was simply not practical. What I demand is better service from more efficient stenographers!"

"I do not see how that can be obtained!"

"You had better see! That is what I hired you for and let you write your own salary. I am a business man and not a scientist. All I know is that the stenographer is a human machine. She uses her hands to work with. The hands are connected with the brain. Brain, hands and typewriter produce letters — I must have perfect letters. It is your business to produce them. Get busy! When you have a plan, come and see me. Till then stay away from me, because the presence of inefficiency irritates me."

The biologist lost no time in leaving the office, while Jerome Smith turned restlessly to his next task. Having given this definite problem to Dr. Billings, he promptly forgot it — for the time being. He knew, and so did Dr. Billings, that unless the problem were satisfactorily settled, there would be a new biologist employed within a few months.

For the next month, Dr. Billings and his subordinates studied the race of stenographers. He found that practically every statement that Jerome Smith had made about them was correct. Those who were capable ceased to be mere stenographers and filled offices of trust as private secretaries. They ceased to function as mere letter writers. Many married. The dull ones remained dull. Gaps in the ranks were easily replaced by very ordinary material from business colleges. Replacements were frequent and the yearly turnover large. The average office worker was fairly capable but absolutely undependable. Most of them had ambitions and day dreams, but these did not extend in the direction of writing a perfect letter. A few grew old in the service, but most changed occupations before twenty-five. Socially, they were middle class, poorly housed, inadequately fed, but rather elegantly dressed.

Dr. Billings worked and studied and yet failed to see how the work could be more efficiently performed. His inability fretted him. His pride was hurt, and, in addition, he was faced with the loss of his position in case he failed to satisfy his employer. Worry, nervous strain and overwork produced insomnia. Finally tired, nature demanded sleep, and in this slumber came a dream from the subconscious.

From a high balcony he overlooked in his dream an office where several hundred stenographers were working at noiseless machines. He could tell from the continued intensity of their labor and the satisfied expression on their faces that they were happy in their work. Someone put an opera glass in his hands, and he focussed on one individual after another. He was at once impressed with the intelligent faces and the enormous, capable hands — large strong hands; long, and wonderful fingers, racing surely over the keyboards. In his dream he watched them, hour after hour, as they wrote letters — and he knew, without reading, that they were writing perfect letters at a terrific speed.

Waking with a start and shivering, he turned on the light. Unable to forget those hands, he placed his own between the light and the calcined wall, making huge extremities appear as shadows with twisting menacing fingers. Then he went to sleep, and the next morning, after shaving more carefully than usual, he called to see Jerome Smith; and in spite of his efforts, it was the scientist who was excited this time and not the capitalist.

Without preamble or delay, he blurted out the marvelous solution, which had come to him after his dream.

"We will secure better stenographers by breeding them!"

The astonished leader of finance could only stammer, "W- — w- — what?"

"Breed them!" repeated the scientist. "When man wanted to develop the carrier pigeon for speed, the trotting horse for racing, the pointer dog for hunting and the cow for increased milk production, he bred them. Burbank bred a spineless cactus — we will breed errorless stenographers!"

"You must be insane, Doctor!"

"Not at all, but I cannot blame you for thinking so. The students of developmental neurology, headed by Frederick Tilney and Dr. Huntington, organized the Galton Society of America. They have for years studied the growth of the brain, and they have shown that the development of certain areas in the cerebral cortex is directly controlled by the use made of the hand. They believe that there are certain undeveloped areas in the brain, especially in the frontal lobes, and that, as the use of the hand increases, these lobes will correspondingly be developed to greater usefulness.

"You spoke of human machines: you said that the perfect stenographer would have wonderful hands and an acute brain. That made me think. Stenography and typewriting are highly specialized uses of the hand, controlled by certain brain centers. The more expert the hand, the more highly developed will be the brain: the finer the cerebral growth, the more wonderful will the hand be in its accuracy. If we can develop new sections of the cortex, deepen the grooves between the convolutions, we can produce stenographers who are more nearly errorless. If we can breed them for accuracy and speed, we will have creatures as highly specialized as the racing horse or the bird-dog. These stenographers will remain faithful to their work, because they will be so bred that they will never want to do anything else, even if they are able.

"They will be perfect human machines, capable of doing one kind of mental-physical work and unable and unwilling to do anything else. By a process of selective breeding, we will increase their speed and decrease their errors. That is the solution to your question."

Jerome Smith remained silent for many seconds. Even though he was accustomed to tremendous problems, this was almost too much for his intellect to grasp. Finally he asked, almost in a whisper:

"But how can you breed them?"

"That is simply a matter of detail, technique, something for your experimental station to work out. I give you a fact — 'Breed them.' The rest can be left to your subordinates. Yet, I will give you the main outline of my plan. You appreciate the fact that most of your stenographers are women. When they marry, they mate with artisans, salesmen, street car conductors, occasionally with a business man, but never with another stenographer. I understand you have about ten thousand stenographers in your employ; gradually replace five thousand of the dull ones with five thousand male typists, the best you can find in the entire world. Build a suburban center with comfortable homes — and offer to every male stenographer who marries one of your office workers a home, rent free, and complete maintenance. Do not let them marry unless they both pass certain examinations for speed and perfection of copy. Give an extra bonus for every child born. Have a community hospital, day nursery, kindergarten, and school. Thus the mothers can soon return to their office, but the children will remain under your control. From their youth they will be taught stenography and typewriting: they will be made to live with their machines. As soon as they are efficient enough, put them to work in your offices. Make them independent of their families. From the first, control their twenty-four hours' activity. Always they will be stenographers — encourage them to marry stenographers — and breed stenographers. I believe that in ten generations you will be able to produce office workers that will turn out perfect letters and be glad to do it."

"Nonsense!!" shouted Jerome Smith, springing from his chair and walking excitedly up and down the room. "Ten generations would take two hundred years. You and I would be worm's food long before even a start was made."

"Under ordinary circumstances, your criticism would be warranted," replied the biologist, soothingly, "but wait till you hear the rest of my plan. In this special colony, we will have complete control of the food supply. The food will be part of the salary. We will furnish three meals a day — the nourishment of the babies will be completely under the control of our dieticians. With these foods we will incorporate certain chemicals, especially some obtained from the ductless glands. Thus, the growth of the babies will be accelerated. They will mature more rapidly than the average children. The first generation will be ready to marry at sixteen, whereas, the next generation will be working at ten and marrying at fourteen. Eventually, these specially bred stenographers will be doing full duty at six and marrying at eight. I do not believe we should force nature beyond that point. In fifty years, sufficient results will be obtained to make the experiment profitable. I thoroughly believe that five generations of such intensive breeding will yield a race of stenographers who are able to produce the finest of work and absolutely incapable of doing anything else."

Jerome Smith shivered. The idea, for some reason, was distasteful to him — and he said so. "I admit that the average stenographer is rather poor material, but they are human beings, Dr. Billings: I can hardly reconcile myself to your idea."

The scientist, however, was unable to brook opposition. "But it is for their own good, Mr. Smith! If you were just selfish in the matter, it would be different. You said yourself that their life was unhappy and unsatisfactory. You insisted that they had no future that was worth while — that few of them could advance. Your idea was that they were poorly fed, badly housed and that their sexual life was inadequate and unsatisfactory. If you follow my plan, you can make them comfortable and happy. Once they are bred to be capable stenographers, they will not want to do anything else. They will be able to attain the greatest satisfaction in their work. They will only be happy when taking dictation, and transposing it into type. Their motto will be, 'Efficiency plus Contentment.' No doubt, the time will come when we can have a new generation born every ten years; and every child will be born with the inherited desire to become a perfect stenographer. If it works, you can follow out the same plan with your other workers, but that is for the future to decide. You will be able to secure a great advantage over your competitors. In fifty years, Universal Utilities will control the market of the world — in two hundred years, you can have a specially bred line of workers. I can see that finally your organization could so breed workers that they would be willing to work for no other reason than the pleasure they had in it, or because they were forced to by the inherited urge. That is the picture of the future. We need only make a start."

"But won't they object? Can they be controlled?"

"Certainly! At first they won't realize what is happening — all they will know is that they are being well housed, excellently fed and beautifully clothed. The changes in the generations will come gradually. When the realization comes, it will be too late to resist. They will have only one ambition then — one primitive urge — to write perfect letters. Then they will only want to sleep and eat and work. All initiative will be gone except the desire to take dictation and write perfect letters. They will be machines, but human — they will know the difference between to and too and two. Can they be controlled? Why, Mr. Smith, the only strike you will ever have will come when you are unable to supply them with work!"

And Jerome Smith, President of Universal Utilities, was finally convinced. He was big enough to see that he was only a small part of an organization that might some day control the destinies of the world, that would hold in its grip the commerce of a universe. A small man might plan for a generation, but a big man would arrange a programme that would carry on in every detail a thousand years after his death. Alexander might make Macedonia famous for a generation, but William the Conqueror would found an Empire that would grow greater for a thousand years.

Jerome Smith looked into the future. He saw an organization, an office force that functioned perfectly, a sales organization of five thousand trained men, dictating to ten thousand errorless stenographers. He visioned a constant flow of perfect, beautiful letters, streaming in every direction from the central offices to all parts of the world, bringing in a volume of business that was the envy and despair of his rapidly weakening competitors. But he saw more than this. In his factories he saw specially bred workers, working rapidly with skilled hands, perfectly co-ordinated with highly developed brains. He wondered if the same principle could be applied to other departments of Universal Utilities — if salesmen could be bred to trail the uninterested customer with the unflagging interest of a blood-hound. Whether even the higher executive offices could not be filled with specially bred managers.

Realizing that time meant nothing, if only in the end the results were satisfactory, he gradually thought in terms of Universal Utilities, rather than in units of isolated humanity. Everything must be sacrificed for the organization. The individuals were of no value. In fact, he considered them simply as pawns on his chess board, things hardly human, living in human shape but somehow not worthy of sympathetic regard. The more he thought about the breeding of capable stenographers, the more he felt that the end result justified the means employed. He even reached the point where, in his grandiose pride, he felt that, like a true creator, he was changing something useless into a thing of beautiful utility. Without further delay, he gave the necessary orders. The final arrangements were made easily.

Universal Utilities manufactured everything necessary for the building and equipment of the suburban homes; the arrangement of a new salary scale and system of bonuses was also easy. The hard part was to find five thousand competent unmarried male stenographers to take the place of the five thousand incapable females who were to be discharged. Yet, even this was finally done — social centers were organized — every opportunity was given the ten thousand young people to spend their spare time with each other, thus encouraging matrimonial possibilities in every way. As a result, six thousand of the stenographers were married within a year and another two thousand at the end of eighteen months. Those who refused to marry were discharged and their places filled by younger and more socially inclined typists. As fast as they married, each couple was given a comfortable home in one of the apartments in the new community centers. The generous system of bonuses made the birth of a child an unqualified pleasure rather than a foreboding of disastrous poverty.

Such a programme could not be kept a secret. In fact, Universal Utilities used it as one of their most striking advertisements — not only to bring their firm into world renowned fame as unselfish philanthropists, but also to attract to their employ the most skillful office workers from all over the business world. For several Sundays the leading newspapers ran long advertisements in their Magazine section. One was headed:

SKILLFUL STENOGRAPHERS SEEK SUBURBAN HOMES

"Universal Utilities promotes health and happiness among its office force by encouraging its employees in every way to lead normal lives. Marriage among the stenographic force is encouraged and every inducement given the young people to become parents. Stenographic suburban centers are thoroughly equipped with hospitals, day nurseries and kindergartens. For the first time in the history of the business world the lesser employees of a great corporation are being given an opportunity to live the kind of lives that the Creator intended all men and women to live."

Naturally, children were born in these centers. In fact, many more children were born than were either expected or necessary for the continuation of the experiment, which both Dr. Billings and Jerome Smith were watching with the greatest interest. When, at the end of five years, the scientist reported to the Corporation president that there were now over ten thousand specially bred stenographic children, he anticipated his employer's question by ending his report with the statement:

"Under the present conditions of life in the stenographic centers, there is no doubt but that there will be many more children born and raised to maturity than there will be needed to carry on the experiment at the end of eighteen years. This is really a necessary part of the programme, especially in the early generations of breeding. There will be many children who will not be true to type. Later, we hope, by a series of carefully conducted measurements, to eliminate the unfit at a very early age. Even now we believe that much can be told by the shape of the hands and the length of the fingers. In this generation, however, a certain number of the children will resemble their grandparents more than their parents. We feel that we shall have to have thirty thousand children born as soon as possible in this generation in order to be sure of ten thousand adults who are perfect enough to carry on the experiment. Realizing the necessity of having as many children born as closely together as possible, we are now giving an extra bonus to stenographers who are twins. In this first generation, we will begin at once to teach stenography and typewriting in the primary grades, and we believe, that by the time the children reach the age of ten, we shall be able to pick out one-third of them as giving promise of special speed and accuracy. These will be trained in separate schools, while the duller ones will gradually be isolated, and in the course of years, be amalgamated with the ordinary city workers. I might add also that the special diet is working favorably; all the children are, on the average, two years in advance of the ordinary child in size, weight and intelligence."

Twenty years passed and eighty per cent of the old stenographers were retired on a liberal pension, being replaced in the offices of Universal Utilities by the first generation of specially bred and highly educated office workers. One out of every four of the children in the first generation had been able to pass the necessary tests. These had been sent to special schools where the entire time was spent on spelling, punctuation, grammar, stenography and typewriting. At the age of fourteen, they were working in experimental offices, while at fifteen they were being given positions in the main offices of Universal Utilities. As a rule, they were fine specimens of manhood and womanhood, having been given the best of care in every way since their birth. Irrespective of any ability they possessed, none in this generation were given positions unless they manifested genuine love for the work. Records were carefully kept and every precaution taken for the continuation of the work after the death of Jerome Smith and Dr. Billings. While the actual details of the proposed reform were only known to a few of the higher officials, still it was generally understood that Universal Utilities was sold to the idea that the business success of the future lay in perfect letters, written by errorless stenographers.

In such a company, more like a machine than an organization of human individuals, events moved with the regularity of clockwork. Jerome Smith at seventy-five was still watching the daily curve of errors which was placed routinely on his desk. With grim satisfaction he saw the line indicating the volume of business and the daily number of letters rise steadily towards a peak that could not even be estimated, while at the same time the number of errors per stenographer per day was steadily falling. This record was carefully watched and the results published. A definite scale of advance in salary was the reward for weeks and months of perfection. Some stenographers were able to go an entire month without spoiling their record. The perfect stenographer had not yet been born, but a wonderful advance was already apparent. The gain in speed was as remarkable as the improvement in accuracy. Special inventions had to be devised in order to allow the typewriters to respond rapidly enough to the flying fingers. It was even found advisable to devise an automatic paper feeder so that the typist would not have to stop to insert a fresh sheet of paper. A touch on the button put in a piece of correspondence paper, while pressure on a different button inserted an envelope.

It might seem that with the increasing speed and greater accuracy, the correspondence of Universal Utilities could be carried on with five thousand office workers instead of ten thousand. The truth was that the ten thousand stenographers were doing ten times as much work as the same number had accomplished twenty years before. The business had correspondingly increased. The carefully kept charts showed that the experiment was paying for itself in every way. When the third generation was born, there was a smaller per cent to be discarded — the result of the intensive breeding was beginning to show. As an old man, aged in body but still active in mind, Dr. Billings in his annual report to his employer, Jerome Smith, made the interesting statement:

"In the fifth generation, we are finding less than fifteen per cent of the babies who are not running true to type."

Two hundred years passed. Universal Utilities, now governed by Hiram Smith, descendent of Jerome Smith, ruled the financial world. During that two hundred years, the basic principle that "better letters produce better business" had never been forgotten. There were new ways of reaching the ultimate consumer: the radio constantly endeavored to furnish new contacts, salesmen in monoplanes reached every small town, but still the great bulk of the business all over the world had to be carried on by correspondence.

And that correspondence, carried on by Universal Utilities, was now approaching a state of wonderful perfection. Errors might be made in dictation, addresses might be wrong, but a mistake made by the ten thousand stenographers was now so unusual that the heads of departments were always inclined to blame the mistake on the other portions of the official force. Year after year the stenographers approached the perfection of beautifully adjusted machinery, with this difference: they could think, reason, evaluate, differentiate. To their finely co-ordinated muscles were added harmonious and specially trained minds. And most important of all was the pleasure that they took in their work. They were content only when working, they were happy only in the office. Nothing but severe illness might keep them from their machines. Their homes were simply miniature offices, where they talked over the work of the day, helped their children write letters and vied with each other in speed contests.

The increased love for their work influenced their social contacts. Those who were recognized as being ninety-nine per cent efficient hesitated in seeking the society of the eighty-five per centers. An unmarried girl who was ninety-seven per cent perfect in accuracy and speed was willing to keep company only with a young man who was as brilliant as she was — she certainly would not consider matrimony with one who was rated at ninety per cent. Their one track minds ceased to consider personal wealth, beauty, fame or sexual allure as reasons for marriage. All they could think, talk and dream of was their work and the possibility of some one, some time, working a whole year without making an error.

Sundays and holidays were observed but were always followed by days of increased production, as the ten thousand workers carefully rested, avoided every form of fatigue during their hours off duty, and in every way conserved their energy for the hours of production following the holidays.

One afternoon Hiram Smith was entertaining a young lady in his office. In fact, it was his daughter, recently returned from one of the most fashionable colleges in Massachusetts. Hiram Smith was disturbed, even though he tried to conceal his annoyance. His only daughter, in fact, his one and only child, had been dismissed from college on account of complete failure to make the necessary grades. The father had tried to keep her in college, but even his great wealth and unusual power had been insufficient to bribe the President of the college, who had simply said that the young lady was unwilling to study and could not stay.

There was nothing in the general appearance of the late collegian to indicate mental deficiency. In fact, she looked unusually alert and mentally active as she sat on the other side of the central table.

"Well?" grunted her father, savagely smoking a cigar.

"Well!" answered the daughter. "Is this the way you welcome your only-only?"

"You have disgraced me!" Hiram Smith replied. "Only my position has kept it out of the afternoon papers. All of New York knows about it. My daughter, Mirabella Smith, great, great, etc., granddaughter of Jerome Smith, thrown out of college, because she could not pass the necessary examinations."

"That is wrong, Dad!" protested the girl; "I could have passed them, but I did not want to — I told you that I did not want to go to college: I simply abominate mathematics and languages. I did not try to study."

"What are you going to do? Marry at eighteen?"

"No. I want to be a stenographer."

Hiram Smith nearly swallowed his cigar.

"A stenographer?" he whispered weakly.

"Yes. Your hearing is all right, is it not? You heard me the first time, didn't you? I have been practicing on a machine for over a year and can do some shorthand. I want a job in Universal Utilities."

It was then that the great man laughed — so heartily that his daughter began to blush in anger.

"I don't see anything funny," she protested.

Finally the man controlled his laughter.

"Have you ever seen one of our central offices?" he asked.

"No. Of course, not. You never let me know anything about your business: and you should, because some day I am going to run it!"

He looked at her in astonishment, but this time he did not laugh. He simply stood up as he asked her to come with him.

Walking through long halls, they finally went by elevator to the tenth floor of the building, which cared for much of the clerical activities of Universal Utilities. They entered a large room where, in glass enclosed, sound proof, individual offices, five hundred men were apparently talking into telephone receivers, though not a sound could be heard. As they walked slowly around the room the father explained the system to the daughter.

"In order to handle our tremendous volume of mail it is necessary to employ ten thousand specially trained clerks who do nothing except dictate answers to the hundreds of thousands of letters we receive daily. Years ago these letters were all dictated and taken down in shorthand. Now each clerk is connected by telephone to a stenographer, and as fast as a letter is dictated, it is written. Some of our men talk at the rate of one hundred and fifty to two hundred words a minute, but we have never found one who could talk faster than one of our average stenographers could write. Our business is a peculiar one, and we take great pride in our letters. They have to be absolutely individualistic. For over one hundred years we have tried to avoid the semblance of anything like a form letter. When John Jones of Honolulu receives a letter from us, it is a highly personal one from Universal Utilities to John Jones. He likes it. Our millions of customers like it. We are able to establish an individual contact and our customers stay with us. We have the world divided into ten thousand districts, and the mail from each district is answered by a man we have familiarized with that particular district; a man who is keenly alive to the special needs of the people, who seem to be his neighbors. He understands their habits, thoughts and reactions. Of course, we write letters in many languages, but eighty-five per cent of all our correspondence is conducted in English. We try to answer every letter within two days of the time it is received. Of course, some days are very heavy — Mondays and the days following holidays for instance — but we never fall very far behind. Each one of these ten thousand letter clerks dictates eight hours a day. There is a fifteen minute rest period after every forty-five minutes of work and an hour off at noon — a fairly long day."

Mirabella Smith looked with interest around the room. There were fifty offices on each side, and above them, in four rows, were four hundred more. In each cell a man was dictating to an invisible stenographer.

"We will now go into the next room," said her father. "Here you will find five hundred glass enclosed rooms in a similar arrangement, but in each of these rooms is a stenographer, connected in every instance with a letter clerk. They each have one of our noiseless, self-feeding electrical machines, which automatically discharge the letters, with envelopes attached, into wide tubes. These letters are then carried by endless conveyors back to the dictator, who takes the fifteen minute rest period to sign the letters he has dictated in the previous forty-five minutes. All he has to do is to sign them as they come to him, and another machine blots them, folds and seals the envelope. During the fifteen minutes he is thus occupied, his special stenographer sits motionless, eyes closed, relaxing every muscle, ready to spring into intense activity, when the dictating again begins. Of course, we have some stenographers, who still take dictation in shorthand, but only from the higher officers, who have not learned to dictate at the high speed necessary to make the most of this highly trained mechanical ability."

Mirabella looked at her father as he closed this sentence with the words, "mechanical ability." As though understanding her questioning glance, he went on, rather rapidly, seemingly defending himself from an implied accusation.

"You know, my dear, that is what these stenographers are — simply human machines. We take very good care of them — feed, house and clothe them nicely and provide for their every need. They are really very expensive to produce, but well worth all they cost."

"You mean they are slaves?"

"Not at all — go near that glass window and look at them. You will see they are human beings."

Mirabella stifled a swelling groan-like scream, mingled with nausea, as she looked into the cell of human machines. Live beings — god-like with the most lovely, most perfect, long-tapering fingers she had ever seen — hands, the sight of whose beauty summoned worship; but ere the sacred rite was completed, those emaciated faces, bulging foreheads, staring eyes, hideous expressions met the view. She was sick. Her ancestors had done it — martyred humanity for commercial greed.

But, grasping a plan, like a flash she covered her feelings and enthusiastically answered:

"Oh! Father, it's all so wonderful — this working plan of Universal Utilities."

"Yes. It is a great plan. They have bodies very similar to ours, only there is a slight bulging to the forehead, and the hands are larger and the fingers longer than in the average individual. Their shoulders are broader and their arms longer and more muscular. Our medical department says there is a shrinking of the body and lower limbs, but only slight. You see, they take practically no exercise, except what they have at their machines. We send them back to their community homes in special passenger planes. Once home, they relax. They go to bed early and have practically no amusements or sports. All they know, or want to know, is how to write a perfect letter. We have ten thousand human machines like that, almost evenly divided between the sexes — for two hundred years we have bred stenographers — we have raised them on an intensive scale, specially fed and educated them. I will tell you something that few realize, because we have thoroughly bribed and controlled all sources of information. These human machines mature at the age of nine years, marry at ten and produce baby stenographers at eleven years of age. In other words, we have bred stenographers on a scientific scale as race horses or blooded cattle. Your great-number-some-odd grandfather started the plan — we are reaping the benefit. Before his time, they had a great deal of trouble with their office force — now we have no trouble whatever. They are simply wonderful pieces of living machinery. Now you understand why you cannot be one of our stenographers. You are a wonderfully beautiful young woman. These living beings you see in these glass cells are simply machines — living, capable of some emotions, able to reproduce other generations of machines, but absolutely incapable of doing any other kind of work. They are human beings so highly differentiated in their heredity and development, that they are no longer to be considered on the same level with the rest of humanity. They have gained efficiency in one direction at the loss of initiative in every other plane of human endeavor."

The girl frowned.

"And Universal Utilities did this to these people and their ancestors without their consent?" she asked.

"Certainly. It would never have been done, if we had waited for their approval. They were mentally our inferiors — they made no attempt to progress by their own efforts. We took them and made them worth while, to themselves and to Universal Utilities — "

"I do not want to be that kind of a stenographer," said the girl hastily. "I want to be one of the old-fashioned kind I have read about, the gossiping, gum-chewing, error-making, soda-water-drinking, flirtatious kind of a girl, who went into the business world for the thrill she received. I want to be a stenographer, but not like those poor things. I think I will go back to college and graduate."

Her father really meant to check up on her movements, but he was so busy with a new side line, which Universal Utilities had absorbed, that he had absolutely no time to think about his family. This new project was nothing less than assuming a directing control of all the Protestant Churches of the world by welding them into one gigantic merger. The plan had long been dreamed of, but no one force had been powerful enough to bring it about. Now, with Universal Utilities to finance it, the scheme was accomplished, and there were no longer Baptists, Methodists or Presbyterians, but over four hundred and twenty sects, united to form the University Protestant Church. In every small town the little churches were torn down to be replaced by one beautiful chapel or cathedral. Hiram Smith attended personally to many of the details. In the meantime he neglected his daughter.

She never returned to college. Instead, she stayed in New York as the stenographer of a young physician. He was poor and his patients were poorer, but he was rather rich in having Mirabella in his office. In fact, they had decided on such a future while he was yet a medical student and she a student in a college. They had met at a dance. In a moment of confidence, she explained to him that she wanted to be a stenographer. That interested him and he returned her confidence by telling how he had bitterly disappointed his parents by becoming a doctor instead. At that time he did not know that she was the only child of Hiram Smith, owner and president of Universal Utilities — she was just a rich girl who wanted to be a stenographer, while he was only a poor boy who did not want to be one.

Mirabella Smith had gone directly from her father's office to the residence of the young physician. She lost no time in announcing her decision to him.

"I have come to be your stenographer, Carleton," she said in a very serious voice. "More than that, some day, I hope. I have just had my talk with father and he has told me some horrible things, and shown me even worse sights. For over two hundred years the company, which I will some day own, has been deliberately breeding stenographers — as cattle or white rats — breeding them to write perfect letters so Universal Utilities can become great and crush out its competitors. Now, after two hundred years, the poor things are just like machines. I saw them writing with the speed of a tornado for forty-five minutes and then resting quietly for fifteen minutes more till the sound of the dictating voice again spurred them into an almost super-human frenzy. I will own that company some day and with it will come the ownership of ten thousand human machines and their pitiful little children. Think of the babies — I understand that when they are old enough to talk they are put to work on miniature machines. They mature at nine, marry at ten. They have no childhood, no playtime. Why, even a hunting dog plays when it is a puppy. I wonder what they are like — socially. Can they talk as we do?"

The doctor looked at her lovingly, as he answered, "I can tell you a lot about it, Mirabella. I never wanted to tell you before because I did not want to hurt your feelings. My father and mother were stenographers, working for Universal Utilities, just as you say those people are working today. I was their first and only child. They had great hopes for me — I was a well formed baby — they longed for me to grow to be the Perfect Stenographer. But when the time came for my earliest training, something went wrong. I screamed at the sight of the toy typewriter that they put in front of me. I never did learn to use it — would not even touch it. To my parents' surprise, I only grew half as fast, both mentally and physically, as the other children of my age. At ten, when the other children were working and thinking of marrying, I had not yet entered my adolescence. Horrified, degraded by the thought that they had produced a monstrosity, my parents had me placed in an average New York City home, where they contributed liberally to my support, though the family that cared for me learned to love me and wanted to adopt me legally. As I grew older, my mother lived in the hope that I would change. She would come to see me once a year, carrying a portable Underwood with her. With tears in her eyes she would beg me to try to write. I tried to humor her. I even promised her that I would take lessons, but it was impossible. Finally she lost hope and told me that she realized that I was right in planning to lead my life in my own way.

"Last year I made an investigation. An ancestor of mine was a great New York surgeon. His daughter ran away, became a stenographer and worked for Universal Utilities. Scientists tell me that I am a throwback — a case of atavism. So, you see, I know what Universal Utilities has been doing. I am one of their experimental babies. I was born in one of their colonies, educated in one of their Community schools. I will tell you one thing more — for the last year I have been part time physician in one of their smaller colonies. It is a poorly paying position but it helps me to meet expenses. While practicing in this colony, I found out something — I will tell you what it is, when I am more sure of it. Just now it is so horrible that I hesitate to believe that it is true."

Carleton continued to practice medicine and Mirabella wrote his letters. Now and then she sold one of her diamond rings.

Meantime, life was not going smoothly for the thousands of people working in the gigantic office building, owned and operated by Universal Utilities. At first the truth was covered up, but finally it could not be concealed from Hiram Smith. He sat silently, white, sweating, trembling as the chairman of the Board of Directors told him the horrible fact.

"The stenographic force no longer can be trusted. The number of errors they are making is inexplainable and unheard of. Mistakes in spelling, punctuation, addresses, use of capital letters — in fact they are making every possible mistake. The survey shows that there is no change in the Colony life — the habits of these workers are unchanged. They are still interested in their work — they are doing their best, but for some reason they are making mistakes by the million, and, what is worst of all — they do not seem to be conscious of the fact that they are making them. When their attention is called to the inaccuracy of their work, they seem unable to comprehend the gravity of the situation. As a result of the multitude of their errors, the entire machinery of the Universal Utilities has become completely demoralized. Over eighty per cent of the letters have to be rewritten. The correspondence is three weeks behind hand, the letter clerks are becoming exhausted and neurasthenic, the sales force is discouraged and our shipping department no longer can work in harmony and with accuracy. Unless something is done at once, Universal Utilities will lose eighty per cent of its customers."

Something had to be done! But first of all the cause had to be determined, the reason for these errors. All the science — the entire skill of the research department of the company, was put to work and yet, at the end of a week, nothing was learned, and another week of disastrous errors followed.

In the strain of events, Hiram Smith died. His daughter, Mirabella, at once took charge of Universal Utilities. Her first act was to call a meeting of her Board of Directors and speak to them. She began her address:

"Over two hundred years ago an ancestor of mine decided to breed stenographers. He succeeded rather well. He not only bred like to like but eventually had a great deal of inbreeding. In this last generation, almost every husband and wife were cousins of some degree. No individuality was allowed and no initiative; he merely bred for accuracy and speed. All of you have followed in his footsteps. You have mated human beings as if they were rats or cattle. If you had studied the nervous systems of horses and dogs that have been bred in this way for many generations, you would have suspected the trouble with your present generation of stenographers. Any dog fancier will tell you how careful he has to be of white collies and fox terriers. One of your community doctors last year suspected what was going to happen.

"Over eighty per cent of your stenographers have nocturnal epilepsy. That means that they have convulsions which occur at night during their sleep. After the tonic and clonic muscular movements, they drop into a deep sleep, from which they only waken in time to dress, eat breakfast and go to work. They have no consciousness of the convulsion and no memory of it. On account of the intense muscular activity during the attack, they are tired, sore and bruised, when they start to work. That in itself would produce fatigue and errors, but in addition, there is in epilepsy, especially the nocturnal type, a very definite deterioration of the higher mental faculties. These unfortunates become dull, listless, incapable of highly specialized cerebration. They degenerate into listless animals. In their work, dress and speech, they give plain evidence of this dullness of the mind. Emotionally they change, become quarrelsome, abusive and indolent. This is what has happened to your office force. Two hundred years ago my ancestor started it; you have tried to carry out his plans — to breed stenographers. Instead, you have bred a race of demented epileptics. My medical friends, who are in your employ as physicians to the Colony children, tell me that almost all the little children are showing definite signs of the same nervous disease. You were not told of it sooner, because they were afraid of my father."

The Chairman of the Board looked dully at the young woman. Then he roused himself to action.

"How did you learn all this?"

"Oh! the doctor who made the discovery was a colony child. For some reason, your special foods and glandular preparations did not work on him and in his tenth year he was taken away from his parents and put in the home of common people. During those ten years he saw a great deal of the colony life — he used to play with the other children, and spend the nights with them. Things happened during the night that he could not understand, but he remembered them, especially when he started to study medicine. After he graduated, he worked for Universal Utilities as one of their Colony physicians, and his observations there made him positive of the presence of nocturnal epilepsy. Since then the disease has developed rapidly."

"Is there no cure?"

"None whatever. Universal Utilities has on its hands and conscience ten thousand epileptics and their children. All that can be done is to allow the defective race to die out. You will have to reorganize your entire office force — go back to the old system of incompetent, error-making stenographers who, in spite of their faults, are at least intensely human."

The Chairman, in his indignation at a woman's talking so disrespectfully and at such length to a dignified Board of Directors, demanded what the result would be.

"Under the stress of reorganization," Mirabella calmly replied, "Universal Utilities will lose over eighty per cent of its business. The time will come, however, when once again it will function smoothly, under conditions similar to its competitors. I will try to make the lives of the new stenographers happy, but never again will any effort be made to interfere with the normal progress of nature in the breeding of human beings. The unfortunate epileptics will be well cared for, but will die rapidly, and in twenty-five years the colonies will be converted into suburban homes for normal workers from the great city."

"Enough of this outrage!" stormed the chairman. "This meddling physician you speak of — who is he? Where is he? We'll teach him — "

In reply, Mirabella Smith simply called a young man from the back of the room where he had been silently listening to the entire proceedings.

"This is my husband, Dr. Carleton Thoney," she said softly. "He used to be a colony child, but Providence made him a healthy physician instead of an epileptic stenographer. Together, we will do all we can, not only to make Universal Utilities a great business once more, but also to make full amends for the errors its leaders have committed in the past."

The End.