Eddy, Arthur Jerome: The new competition: an examination of the conditions underlying the radical change that is taking place in the commercial and industrial world ; the change from a competitive to a cooperative basis (New York [u.a.], 1912)

88 THE NEW COMPETITION
knock off $500 I will give you the contract right here and
now.”
It is the offer of the contract then and there that is so
effective; few salesmen for companies in need of work can
resist the “take it or leave it” threat.
The president of a large manufacturing company said:
“When I need a crane I write for bids; when the bids
come in I send for the representatives of the companies
whose cranes I am willing to use. I put one man in one
room, the other in another where they can’t get at each
other, then I go from one to the other, giving each a
chance to underbid the other, but I do not name any fig-
ures. All I have to say is, ‘Well, have you any other
offer to make ?’ and each will cut his price again and again,
sometimes when he is already low.”
The result of this bidding in the dark is that the pur-
chaser gets a crane for less than it is really worth, often—
in dull times—for less than cost; the men who use the crane
get a piece of machinery that has been cut and pared until
the margin of safety is reduced to the danger line—no
one has profited by the transaction-
In all respects the letting of the crane contract parallels
the letting of the carpenter’s job—the same secrecy, the
same distrust, the same ignorance, the same playing into
the hands of purchasers quick to take advantage, the same
wide differences in prices—differences that alone prove ab-
sence of true competition.

VIII
The point is made that a wide difference in bids on work
of standard character demonstrates the lack of true com-
petition. Given a piece of work that presents no unusual
features and it goes without saying that ten intelligent con-
tractors would come to substantial agreement about its