were being clicked at once by six hundred young women, a fantastic aural
nightmare, though none of the young women appeared to be conscious that
anything bizarre was going on.... And then I was in a printing-shop,
where several lightning machines spent their whole time every day in
printing the most popular work of reference in the United States, a
bulky book full of pictures, with an annual circulation of five and a
half million copies--the general catalogue of the firm. For the first
time I realized the true meaning of the word "popularity "--and
sighed....

And then it was lunch-time for about a couple of thousand employees,
and in the boundless restaurant I witnessed the working of the devices
which enabled these legions to choose their meals, and pay for them
(cost price) in a few moments, and without advanced mathematical
calculations. The young head of the restaurant showed me, with pride, a
menu of over a hundred dishes--Austrian, German, Hungarian, Italian,
Scotch, French, and American; at prices from one cent up as high as ten
cents (prime roast-beef)--and at the foot of the menu was his personal
appeal: "_I_ desire to extend to you a cordial invitation to inspect,"
etc. "_My_ constant aim will be," etc. Yet it was not _his_ restaurant.
It was the firm's restaurant. Here I had a curious illustration of an
admirable characteristic of American business methods that was always
striking me--namely, the real delegation of responsibility. An American
board of direction will put a man in charge of a department, as a
viceroy over a province, saying, as it were: "This is yours. Do as you
please with it. We will watch the results." A marked contrast this with
the centralizing of authority which seems to be ever proceeding in
Europe, and which breeds in all classes at all ages--especially in
France--a morbid fear and horror of accepting responsibility.