For those who are so illiterate as not to be familiar with the literature of business, I quote a definition of the word “house organ”:
“A house magazine or bulletin to dealers, customers or employees, designed to promote goodwill, increase sales, induce better salesmanship or develop better profits.”
In spite of Mr. Ramsay’s exceedingly thorough treatment of his subject, there is one type of house organ to which he devotes much too little space. This is the so-called “employee or internal house organ” and is designed to keep the help happy and contented with their lot and to spur them on to extra effort in making it a banner year for the stockholders. The possibilities of this sort of house organ in the solution of the problem of industrial unrest are limitless.
Publications for light reading among employees are usually called by such titles as “Diblee Doings,” “Tinkham Topics,” “The Mooney and Carmiechal Machine Lather” or “Better Belting News.”
First of all, they carry news notes of happenings among the employees, so that a real spirit of cooperation and team-play may be fostered. These news notes include such as the following:
“Eddie Lingard of the Screen Room force, was observed last Saturday evening between the mystic hours of six-thirty with a certain party from the Shipping Room, said party in a tan knit sweater, on their way to Ollie’s. Come, ‘fess up, Eddie!”
“Everyone is wondering who the person is who put chocolate peppermints in some of the girls’ pockets while they were hanging in the Girls’ Rest Room Thursday afternoon, it being so hot that they melted and practically ruined some of their clothing. Some folks have a funny sense of humor.”
Then there are excerpts from speeches made by the Rev. Charles Aubrey Eaton and young Mr. Rockefeller or by the President and Treasurer of the Diamond Motor Sales Corporation, saying, in part:
“The man who makes good in any line of work is the man who gives the best there is in him. He doesn’t watch the clock. He doesn’t kick when he fails to get that raise that he may have expected. He just digs into the job harder and makes the dust fly. And when some one comes along waving a red flag and tries to make him stop work and strike for more money, he turns on the agitator and says: ‘You get the h—– out of here. I know my job better than you do. I know my boss better than you do, and I know that he is going to give me the square deal just as soon as he can see his way clear to do it. And in the mean time I am going to WORK!’
