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)

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THE NEW COMPETITION

II
When it comes to sheer brutality is there any worse than
that of the man who “beats” a contractor down until he
knows the poor devil cannot get out even and then holds
him to a losing contract ?
That is common custom under the old competition.
One day a young man who had made millions—and
boasted of it—pointed to the tiled roof of his new house
and said, “The fellows from San Francisco who did that
lost three thousand dollars on the job.”
“Then your house is not paid for?”
“Every dollar.”
“Except three thousand on the roof.”
“I paid them all their contract called for.”
“But not all their work called for.”
“Hah! I don’t see it in that light.”
“And never will—that’s the sad part of it.”
III
Brutal buying is manifest in so many forms. Railroads
and large corporations insist that work shall be subject to
the arbitrary inspection of and satisfactory to their own
engineers; while most engineers are both able and fair,
their interest is that of the companies, and not a few feel
they can best demonstrate the value of their services by
getting as much as they can out of contractors who are
helpless.
This is a one-sided arrangement imposed upon the seller
by the buyer. It is a manifestly unfair arrangement. And
it is an arrangement that the buyer in the end pays for
in one way or another. Where engineers have the reputa-