to have made the effort with a superb prodigality and an astounding
ingenuity.

Take, for a good, glorious example, the very large insurance company,
conscious that the eyes of the world are upon it, and that the entire
United States is expecting it to uphold the national pride. All the
splendors of all the sky-scrapers are united in its building. Its foyer
and grand staircase will sustain comparison with those of the Paris
Opéra. You might think you were going into a place of entertainment!
And, as a fact, you are! This affair, with nearly four thousand clerks,
is the huge toy and pastime of a group of millionaires who have
discovered a way of honestly amusing themselves while gaining applause
and advertisement. Within the foyer and beyond the staircase, notice the
outer rooms, partitioned off by bronze grilles, looming darkly gorgeous
in an eternal windowless twilight studded with the beautiful glowing
green disks of electric-lamp shades; and under each disk a human head
bent over the black-and-red magic of ledgers! The desired effect is at
once obtained, and it is wonderful. Then lose yourself in and out of the
ascending and descending elevators, and among the unending multitudes of
clerks, and along the corridors of marble (total length exactly measured
and recorded). You will be struck dumb. And immediately you begin to
recover your speech you will be struck dumb again....

Other houses, as has been seen, provide good meals for their employees
at cost price. This house, then, will provide excellent meals, free of
charge! It will install the most expensive kitchens and richly spacious
restaurants. It will serve the delicate repasts with dignity. "Does all
this lessen the wages?" No, not in theory. But in practice, and whether
the management wishes or not, it must come out of the wages. "Why do you
do it?" you ask the departmental chief, who apparently gets far more fun