That was a creed which Rod Norquay, Andy Hall, and Oliver Thorn held in common. These diverse men--Andy, a fiery proletarian rebel, whose steel-trap logic picked fallacies and blunders wholesale in the modern economic system, yet whose inherited instincts drove him to fight with the clan when the clan went to war, and from which he had returned with a touch of bitterness and a tinge of cynicism; Rod himself, a patrician by birth, training, environment, a gentleman in the amplest meaning of that much-abused term; Oliver Thorn, the gentle, contemplative, kindly, shrewd old man--they shared that conviction. It was more than a conviction; it was an article of faith. "I may be wrong. If I am it will break me instead of getting me what I want," Rod had said to Andy in the beginning. "But this is my idea: men will work faithfully if they are even reasonably satisfied with their job. Men are still capable of loyalty even to a boss and a job, although a lot of propaganda denies it, and the intellectual radicals say it's a slave attitude. I don't mean to fall back on the insincere platitude that the interests of the employer and employee are identical. But I, as well as the men who will work for me, will be faced with a condition, as somebody put it, and not a theory. So long a& they must work for a wage and I must make a profit to keep them employed, anything that will reduce possible friction is worth considering on its merits. So we start on this basis; we forestall agitation for better conditions by setting an example in the way of conditions. We provide first-class living quarters. We serve the best food available. We pay top wages, with the added inducement of a bonus based on production. No man is to be fired for any sort of economic heresy. They are free to do their own thinking, to express their individual opinions about the outfit, about working conditions, about industry in general. They can agitate and discuss any social theory whatever without risking discharge. I don't care whether they are Reds, Syndicalists, Socialists, Free Thinkers, Single Taxers, theorists of any description whatever,--so long as they will devote their working hours to doing the work. That's a general policy. I think it will go. The surest way to breed fantastic theories is to muzzle men through fear. The surest way to make men dissatisfied is to be arbitrary over trifles. The coöperative commonwealth may be a million miles away, but coöperation on the job with benefit to us both is not an impossibility. I think that will work." It did work. It had an effect beyond mere efficiency on the job. It did away with inhibitions that bred sullenness. When a man was well-fed, well-housed, well-paid, where it was easy for him to see that he was regarded as a human being with certain rights and privileges, an atmosphere of good feeling soon developed.