intensely proud of its provisions for the welfare of its workers.
Industrial recreation is no mere idle phrase to it. In hard fact no
small portion of the remarkable esprit de corps of the store is due to
its well organized recreational and social service work. In a large
measure this part of the operation of the store corresponds to what the
War and Navy Departments did through their Commissions on Training Camp
Activities during the great war. Bearing in mind our likening Macy's to
an army in an earlier chapter, the parallel now becomes a close one
indeed. Organized recreation promoted better team work in the war; it
now promotes better team work in business. Ergo, it is for the welfare
of Macy's that it shall promote organized recreation beneath its own
roof.
And yet that very phrase, "welfare work," is not often used underneath
that roof. It has the flavor of patronage which is so wholly lacking in
this family of thousands, and so it is thrust forever into the discard.
"The bunch" gets together--you see, you may call the family by almost
any name that pleases you best--various groups are forever assembling at
the Men's Club or the Community Club and making plans for their numerous
activities. And these last cover a surprisingly large range.
Any male employee of the store may join the Macy Men's Club. It is a
wholly self-governing body and, aside from making up the inevitable
deficits that accrue, the store has no paternalistic or direct attitude
whatsoever toward it. The club itself is situated at 156 West
Thirty-fifth Street, just west of the store, but entirely separated from
it. It occupies two floors of an extremely comfortable building. In its
externals it differs very little from any other sort of men's club.
There are a reading room and a smoking room where, toward the close of
the day and well into the evening, its members may relax. And there is a
restaurant serving extremely good meals.
It is only as one pokes beneath the surface that he begins to find out
how very real this small institution, that is an offshoot of the larger
one, really is. Its restaurant serves meals at considerably less than
cost. And the fact that this club is regarded as something more than a
mere combination of eating-place and rest-room is shown by its
organization activities in other directions. For example, its members
interest themselves in general athletics to the extent that, in the
proper seasons, they have very creditable teams of baseball, basketball,
football and the like, while occasional outings with suitable field
events are arranged. Each Thursday evening there is organized athletic
work in a large private gymnasium that is especially hired for the
purpose.
In fact it is at this last point that the Men's Club comes in contact
with the Community Club, which is the nucleus organization covering
other recreational activities among the women, the girls and the younger
men of the store family. For, by careful planning, both of these clubs
manage to use the big gymnasium of a single evening, while, after the
athletic work is over, the floor is cleared and there is dancing until
going-home time.
These comforts are not given without some cost to the Macy folk. That
would be very bad business indeed. It has been so decided long since.
And so, while it may be human nature to be ever on the lookout for
"something for nothing," it is quite as human to derive very much
additional enjoyment from the things for which one pays. Even the
suggestion of charity is not pleasant. And with this in view these clubs
charge nominal sums for their privileges. In so doing they earn the
respect of those who share in them.
Dues for the Men's Club are placed at three dollars a year--that surely
is a nominal figure. These go toward the development of club activities
outside of its actual running expenses (rent, the restaurant, etc.). The
gymnasium fee is another three dollars, which is much less than one
would pay for a similar facility elsewhere in New York.
The scale of charges for the Community Club is quite different. The dues
here are but twenty-five cents a year--its membership is made up mainly
of lower-salaried folk--with small extra charges for special activities.
For instance, the Spanish class, which is taught by one of the Spanish
interpreters in the store and which has a constant attendance of about
forty, costs its pupils the very inconsiderable sum of five cents a
lesson. The gymnasium charge is kept in a like ratio. There are a few
others in addition. The aggregate cost, however, of as many activities
as an average employee can take up is of little moment or burden to him
or to her--nothing as compared with the sense of independence that goes
with the small act of payment.
The Choral Club, under the direction of a competent leader, meets
Wednesday evenings in the big recreation room on the third floor of the
store, with a usual attendance of about two hundred men and women who
are trained in part singing and in chorus work of various sorts. This is
not only enjoyable and popular for its own sake but it has an added
value in leading toward the organizing of the store's talent for
concerts and for musical plays.
And it has such talent. Do not forget that--not even for a passing
moment. It would be odd, indeed, if a family of five thousand folk did
not develop upon demand much real histrionic and artistic ability of
every sort. And when such potentialities are fostered and encouraged,
the results--well, they are such as to warn Florenz Ziegfeld and the
rest of the Forty-second Street theatrical producers to keep a sharp
eye, indeed, upon Macy's.
On Monday evenings, the entire winter long and well into the spring, the
Dramatic Club meets and here every budding Maxine Elliott or Ina Claire
has her full opportunity. On Tuesday there is a get-together
evening--one begins to think with all these evenings so neatly filled of
the calendar of a real social enterprise--and then one sees the store
family at its fullest relaxation. Here was a recent Tuesday night. It
was just before Christmas and the store was approaching the annual peak
load of its year's traffic. Yet it had no intention whatsoever of
relaxing a single one of its social endeavors.
On this particular Tuesday evening our salesgirl--the one whom we saw
but a moment ago being inducted into the selling organism of the
store--made her first personal acquaintance with the Community Club. Let
her tell her own story, and in her own way:
"Up in the recreation room a few hundred of us gathered for a regular
party. Some few of us had gone home after store hours for our dinner;
the others had had it right in the store's own lunchroom. It surely is
great the way that you _can_ get a meal there in Macy's at any time you
are staying late--either on duty or on pleasure.
"At about six-thirty the evening's program got under way--so that the
many friendly, chattering groups of girls in the big room finally had to
simmer down to something approaching silence. Then the Choral Club
began singing for us--some good, old-time Christmas carols first, and
then some other songs. All of us joined finally in the chorus, leaving
the club to carry the difficult parts. They could do that all right,
too. Mr. Janpolski, their leader, finally gave us a solo and after that
there was a grand march led by our own beloved Marjorie Sidney.
Everybody joined in--not only in body, but in spirit. It was like
Washington's Birthday in the big gym up at Northampton. Messenger girls,
college graduates, salesfolk, deliverymen, managers--everyone was just
the same in that blessed hour. Distinctions of the store were gone. We
were boys and girls--some of us a bit grown up and grayed to be sure,
but all with Peter Pannish hearts--having a real party once again.
"The grand march ended in dancing for every one--with a jolly negro at
the piano doing his level best to uphold the reputation of his race for
really spontaneous music. Finally, after many encore dances, everybody
withdrew from the floor and out came Mr. Salek, the director of the
Men's Club, and Miss Knowles, doing an almost professional dance. The
Castles had very little on this couple--the way Salek lifted his partner
and then let her down--slowly, slowly, still more slowly--reminded me of
Maurice and Walton. Their performance brought down the house. Of course
they had to respond to encores; again and again and again.
"Following this--for Macy's believes that variety is the spice of all
life--a Junior recited the unforgetable ''Twas the night before
Christmas and all through the house.' She really was a darling. And how
Christmassy she looked, with her big butterfly sash and her hairbow of
scarlet tulle.... Next on the program came dancing--for everybody.
First, however, there was another march, so that each couple received a
number--while every little while certain numbers (the couples that held
them) were eliminated from the floor. The nicest part about this
elimination dance, as they called it, was that instead of only the last
couple getting the prize, as is generally done--every couple, as soon as
its number was called and it left the floor, went over to a big
chimney-top, with a proverbially jolly 'Santa' peering out of it. There
Santa gave to each one a little gift, such as a whistle, a stick of
candy, or a jolly little rattle. Then, after more dancing, refreshments
were served by gaily garbed Junior waitresses. After which the dancing
continued until the merry Community Club Christmas dance was entirely
over."
Already I have touched upon the annual vacation of the Macy worker--one
week with pay after eight months continuous employment, two weeks after
two years, three weeks after five years, and a month after twenty-five
years of service. A charming retreat among the hills of Sullivan County,
eighty-seven miles from New York and, through the foresight of the
management of the store, purchased long ago, provides an ideal vacation
spot for the Macy girls who wish to spend their holidays among truly
rural surroundings. For this purpose a large farm house and a hundred
acres of surrounding land were acquired by Macy's and more than fifty
thousand dollars spent in enlarging the house, beautifying the grounds
and otherwise making them suitable for their summertime uses. In
addition to the big and immaculately white farm house there are three
cottages upon the property. As many as sixty-five girls can be
accommodated at a single time upon it.
Three jumps or so from the main house and stretched out in front of it
is a lake; a regular lake, if you please, big enough for boating and for
bathing, although not so large that one of the keen-eyed chaperones may
keep her weather eye on those of her charges whose tastes run toward
water sports. In this Adamless Eden bloomers and middy blouses are _de
rigueur_, and as the few restraints imposed are only those inspired by
ordinary good sense, the girls experience the real joys of living.
All of these activities and interests--and many, many more besides--are
faithfully chronicled in the Macy house organ, _Sparks_. Here is a
monthly magazine--of some sixteen pages, each measuring seven by ten
inches--that in appearance alone would grace any newsstand, while its
contents almost invariably bear out the attractiveness of its cover
designs. Practically the entire publication is prepared by its staff,
which, in turn, is composed of members of the Macy family.
House organs, such as this, are, of course, no novelty in the American
business world of today. There probably are not less than fifty
department-stores alone which are now printing brisk contemporaries of
_Sparks_. The internal publications of a house, such as Macy's, have
long since come to be recognized as one of its most valuable media for
the promotion of morale. It costs money, but it is money well expended.
So says modern business. And modern business ought to know. For it has
tested the results. And the house organ long since became one of the
really valuable aides.
Here, then, in _Sparks_ is not only a medium in which the Macy folks may
come the better to know about one another, a bulletin board upon which
the heads of the house may from time to time carry very direct and
sincere messages to their big family, but a mouthpiece in which the
embryo literary genius may become articulate. And, lest you be tempted
to believe that I have permitted simile to carry me quite away from
fact, let me show you a single instance--there are a number of others
beside--in which a real literary genius has come to bloom underneath the
great roof that looks down upon Herald Square:
His pen name is Francis Carlin--but his real name, the one under which
he entered Macy's, is James Francis Carlin MacDonnell. Of him _Current
Opinion_ but a year or two ago said: "The writer (Carlin) ... was until
a few weeks ago a floorwalker in one of the big department-stores of New
York City (Macy's) and was discovered by Padraic Colum. He had his book
obscurely printed and it has been unobtainable at bookstores until
recently.... It has the true Celtic quality. The dedication alone is
worth the price of admission: 'It is here that the book begins and it is
here, that a prayer is asked for the soul of the scribe who wrote it for
the glory of God, the honor of Erin and the pleasure of the woman who
came from both--his mother.'"
Mr. MacDonnell has written two books: this first, _My Ireland_, and more
recently the _Cairn of Stones_. That he has great talent is again
attested by _The Boston Transcript_ which said recently: "Mr. Carlin's
Celtic poems, ballads and lyrics are nearer the fine perfection of the
native poets belonging to the Celtic renaissance than those produced by
any poet of Irish blood born in America."
After which, who may now dare say that genius may not blossom in a
department-store? And even were it not for the gaining glory of Carlin,
the pages of any current issue of _Sparks_ would show that there is more
than a deal of artistic merit in the widespread ranks of the Macy
family. The desire for self-expression is never stunted. And the pages
of its avenue of expression are read by none more closely than the
members of the family who hold the ownership of Macy's.
And yet these men--the heads of the great merchandising house--are not
only accessible to their business family through the printed word. They
are not standoffish. On the contrary, they are most widely known
throughout the store; most reachable, both within their offices and
without. Take the single matter of grievances, for a most important
instance: A Macy worker may feel that justice on some point or other is
being denied him by a superior. In such a case he has immediate recourse
to any one of three expedients: he may take his case to the department
of training, to the general manager of the store, or to one of the
officers of the corporation. As a rule, however, the difficulty can be
straightened out in the first of these avenues of appeal, which is an
automatic clearing-house for all matters of personnel. The heads of this
department have been chosen as much as anything for the sympathy which
enables them to review any employee's case intelligently and fairly and
for the influence that makes it possible for them to see at all times
that full justice is being done. While the fact that the worker,
himself, may take the matter to the general manager or even to one of
the three members of the firm, is a practical guarantee against
persecution of any sort.
[Illustration: THE SUMMER HOME OF THE MACY FAMILY
Recreation in the modern store stands side by side with education in
perfecting the individual employee]
Just off the corner of the recreation room on the third floor is the
private office of the assistant superintendent of training. Her title
sounds rather formidable and does justice neither to her job nor to her
personality: for in reality she combines the qualities of a charming
hostess, an efficient manager and a mother confessor.
In the Macy book of information for employees there is a paragraph under
the heading, "Department of Training," which says: "It is the purpose of
this department to interest itself in all the employees of this
organization. Do not hesitate to go with your troubles to the assistant
superintendent of training, whose duty it is to interest herself in you:
both in the store and at your home. She will be glad to give you advice,
both in business and in personal matters."
And so she has her hands full, and sometimes her heart as well; for,
among five thousand folk of every sort and kind, there are bound to be
many perplexing personal problems and troubles, to which the very best
kind of help is the kindly and disinterested advice of a sympathetic and
understanding person. And when that person is a woman--a woman of rare
tact--the problem is generally apt to approach its solution. Which makes
for friendship, not merely between the worker and that woman, but
between the worker and the store. And so still another rivet is clinched
in the great morale bridge between the business machine and the human
units that enable it to function so very well indeed. And the Macy
spirit becomes an even more tangible thing.
As one goes through the store he finds many evidences of the things that
go to upbuild that spirit. It may be only a printed sign cautioning
courtesy and cheerfulness, not merely between the store workers and its
patrons, but between the members of the Macy family, themselves. "A
smile with every package and a 'thank you' as good-bye," rings one. And
remember that other, again more cautious: "In speaking say 'we' and
'our,' not 'I' and 'mine.'" It may be the warm hand of friendship from
the member of the reception committee to the new girl that comes to work
under the Herald Square roof, or it may be any of the long-planned,
coolly devised methods of social justice to the store employee. These
last are never to be overlooked.
For instance, three months after the day that a new employee first
arrives to work at Macy's, membership in the Macy Mutual Aid
Association becomes automatic. In no small way it becomes a real part of
his job. It is the object of the M. M. A. A. to provide and maintain a
fund for the assistance of its members during sickness and of their
families or dependents in case of death. Dues in this association are
graded according to the worker's salary, consist of one per cent. of the
salary up to thirty dollars; while the sick benefits are two-thirds of
the salary, limited by a benefit of twenty dollars. The death benefits
are five times the weekly salary, with a minimum of sixty dollars and a
maximum of one hundred and fifty dollars.
It is obvious that these dues do not of themselves pay the benefits. The
house "chips in." Yet not through sympathy, but through one of the
tenets of good business as we moderns have now begun to know it.
"It would be poor business for me, indeed," said a silk manufacturer of
Connecticut to me not long ago, "to let my people become sick. I want no
germ diseases in my mills. Neither do I want the mills to cease their
continuous operation. That, too, is poor business. And so the sickness
that may cost my worker ten dollars may easily cost me twenty-five--in
the stoppage of my plant, alone."
The control of the Macy Mutual Aid Association is, moreover, vested
solely in the hands of the store employees. An itemized statement of its
receipts and its disbursements as well as its proceedings is posted each
month on the store bulletin boards and printed in _Sparks_, so that
every member of the organization may know its exact affairs. It
decidedly does not work in the dark.
I should be derelict, indeed, in regard to this whole question of health
in modern industry--and of the particular modern industry of which this
book treats--if I neglected in these pages that corner of the high-set
eighth floor--flooded by sunshine during the greater part of each
pleasant day--where sits the Macy hospital, conducted by the Macy Mutual
Aid Association. It is, of course, solely an emergency hospital, yet one
where doctors, nurses, dentists and a chiropodist are constantly on
duty. Three doctors--two men and one woman--consult with and prescribe
for the patients, two dentists look after their teeth, and a chiropodist
takes care of that prime asset to all salespeople--the feet. Those
members of the hospital staff are professional men and women of the
first rank and they work with the best and latest equipment. Although
the emergency hospital is primarily for the services of the store
workers it stands also at the service of any one who may come into the
building and need its services. For instance, in case a customer becomes
ill, a wheelchair is sent, and he or she, as the case may be, is taken
to the hospital for immediate restorative treatment.
One or two final phases of this family life upon a huge scale in the
very heart of New York and I am done with it. Thrift, in the Macy
category of the making of a good worker, comes only next to good health.
Under that same widespread roof there is a savings bank for the sole
use of Macy folk. Any amount from five cents upward is accepted as a
deposit and the fact that good use is made of this constant incentive to
thrift is evidenced by the continued and prosperous operation of the
institution. It has not been necessary to organize it as a full-fledged
savings bank. At the end of each day it transfers its funds, by means of
a special messenger, to one of the largest of New York savings banks
which handles the accounts directly. The law does not permit a savings
bank in the State of New York to open branches--else that would have
been done at Macy's long ago. The messenger method was the only feasible
substitute.
Believing that even the most provident may occasionally have good
reasons, indeed, for wishing to borrow money, the heads of the house
have set aside a permanent fund as a loan reserve for the Macy folk. Any
one who has been in the store's employ for at least three months may,
upon advancing even ordinarily satisfactory reasons, borrow from this
fund. The limit is a sum which can be repaid in ten weekly installments.
No security is required nor is any interest charged. The employee is
bound by nothing but his honor.
That sixty-four years of continuous operation have established the
commercial success of Macy's should be patent to you by this time. But
now that you have known of the present-day family that dwells beneath
its roof, you may ask: Has this policy toward its personnel worked out
in hard practice? The question is indeed a fair one. To carry it still
further, is this machine of modern business humanized and inspired in
fact as well as in theory? One cannot help but think of the machine.
Machines _are_ hard. Generally they are fabricated in that hardest of
all metals--steel. Can steel be warmed and tempered? Can the fact be
recognized that the units of the Macy store are human and warm; and not
steel and cold?
I think so. I imagine that you would have the answer to all these
questions if you could talk for a little time with Jimmie Woods, whom we
saw, but a short time hence, as a push-cart horse for the early Macy's
and who has come today to be the assistant superintendent of the store's
delivery department. His new job requires much more push than that
old-time one. As a caption-line in a recent issue of _Sparks_ aptly
said: "Jimmie Woods delivers the goods." Metaphorically speaking, the
house of Macy does the same thing. And at no point more than in its
treatment of its human factors.
The day was not so very long ago when the life of a salesperson, even in
a New York store of the better class, was not a particularly enviable
thing. We saw, when we discussed the earlier Macy's, the long hours and
the low wages of the rank and file of the organization. These things
have changed today--in all department-stores that are worthy of the
name. Public opinion was partly responsible for the change. But I think
quite as large a factor was the realization that gradually was forced
upon the minds of the merchants themselves that the old methods were
poor business methods. Macy's knows that today. We have seen the man
who came to New York fifteen years ago with eleven dollars and a
suitcase come to a high-salaried position with the house today; the
retail furniture salesman earning over six thousand dollars a year, the
twenty-five buyers at ten thousand a year and upward, as well as those
at twenty-five thousand a year and upward. And we know that every one of
these men and women have been the product of the Macy organization--from
the moment that they began at the very bottom of the ladder.