But it is in a sense raw material, I believe, that suggests the beginnings of several studies both human and economic. Mr. Walter Lippmann has recently pointed out that men do not act in accordance with the facts and forces of the world as it is, but in accordance with the "picture" of it they have in their heads.[1] Nowhere does the form and pressure of the real world differ more sharply from the picture in men's heads than among different social and racial groups in industry. Nor is anywhere the accuracy of the picture of more importance. An open-hearth furnace helper, working the twelve-hour day, and a Boston broker, owning fifty shares of Steel Preferred, hold, as a rule, strikingly different pictures of the same forces and conditions. But what is of greater importance is that director, manager, foreman, by reason of training, interest, or tradition, are often quite as unable to guess at the picture in the worker's head, and hence to understand his actions, as the more distant stockholder. Perhaps a technique may some day arise which will supply the executives of industry not only with the facts about employees in their varied racial and social groups but supply the facts with _due emphasis_ and in _three dimensions_ so that the controller of power may be able to see them as descriptive of men of like mind with himself. The conclusion most burned into my consciousness was the lack of such knowledge or understanding in the steel industry and the imperative need of securing it, in order to escape continual industrial war, and perhaps disaster. There are certain inferences, I think, like the above, that can be made from this record. But no thesis has been introduced and no argument developed. I have recorded the impressions of a complex environment, putting into words sight, sound, feeling, and thought. The book may be read as a story of men and machines and a personal adventure among them no less than as a study of conditions and a system. C. R. W. FOOTNOTE: [1] _Public Opinion_: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1922. Contents I CAMP EUSTIS Bouton, Pennsylvania 1 II MOLTEN STEEL IN THE "PIT" An Initiation 16 III THE OPEN-HEARTH FURNACE Night-Shifts 30 IV EVERYDAY LIFE 45 V WORKING THE TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR SHIFT 62 VI BLAST-FURNACE APPRENTICESHIP 81 VII DUST, HEAT, AND COMRADESHIP 96 VIII I TAKE A DAY OFF 114 IX "NO CAN LIVE" 127 EPILOGUE 141 STEEL I CAMP EUSTIS--BOUTON, PENNSYLVANIA