I don't want my house put in repair, or rather out of repair, by a
master who employs "Jacks of all Trades."
I don't want my foreman to tell me too much at one time about the
faults of the workmen under him, as I may forget asking him about
himself.
I don't want a builder or carpenter to give a coat of paint to any
joinery work he may be doing for me, until I have examined first the
material and workmanship.
I don't want any jobbing carpenter or joiner, whom I may employ, to
bring a lump of putty in his tool basket. I prefer leave the use of
putty to the painters.
I don't want jobbing plumbers to spend three days upon the roof,
soldering up a crack in the gutter, and, when done, leaving fresher
cracks behind them. The practice is something akin to "cut and come
again."
I don't want a contractor to undertake a job at a price that he knows
will not pay, and then throw the fault of his bankruptcy on "that
blackguard building."
I don't want any more hodmen to be carrying up the weight of
themselves in their hod, as well as their bricks; I would much prefer
seeing the poor human machines tempering the mortar or wheeling the
barrow, while the donkey engine, the hydraulic lift, or the old gray
horse, worked the pulley.
I don't want house doors to be made badly, hung badly, or composed of
green and unseasoned timber.
I don't want houses built first and designed afterwards, or, rather,
wedged into shape, and braced into form.
I don't want to be compelled to pay any workman a fair day's wages for
a half day's work.
I don't want an employer to act towards his workmen as if he thought
their sinews and thews were of iron, instead of flesh and blood.
I don't want any kind of old rubbish of brick and stone to be bundled
into walls and partitions, and then plastered over "hurry-skurry."
Trade infamy, like murder, will out, sooner or later.
I don't want men to wear flesh and bone, and waste sweat and blood,
in forms of labor to which machinery can be applied, and by which
valuable human life and labor can be better and more profitably
utilized.
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