But a high protection tariff and a trust agreement are not the only advantages the Linen Thread Company enjoys. It has an alliance which gives it a commanding strategic position in the business, and that is with the organization popularly known as the “shoe-machinery trust.” This company began its life twelve years ago in New Jersey like so many of its kind. At that time, 1899, it was capitalized at $25,000,000, divided into preferred and common stock, the first at six per cent, the second at eight per cent. Six years after its organization the company underwent a reorganization. This reorganization seems to have been a way of getting rid of its extra earnings, for it presented its stockholders with comfortable extra cash dividends as well as a fifty per cent common stock dividend. According to the last report to which the writer has had access, 1907–1908, the capital of the company had in eight years increased from $17,250,000 to nearly $32,000,000, its surplus from $1,355,914 to over $13,500,000, and the net earnings from $1,770,110 to over $4,500,000.
One may fairly ask how they did it. It is clear enough when one looks at what they have had to go on. In the first place, the shoes of this country are now made almost entirely by machines. The first practical machine invented was the famous McKay sewing machine. It was followed rapidly by others: machines for welting, lasting, heeling, pegging, more than a score for performing the many complicated operations by which the modern “ready-made” shoe is built up. Up to 1899 these various machines were handled by different companies. But in that year the twelve most important concerns were combined into the trust named above, officially the United Shoe Machinery Company. Now there prevails and has since the days of McKay—who, by the way, was not the inventor but the promoter of the first shoe machine—a system of handling its output peculiar in manufacturing industries. It never sells, it always _rents_ its machines. That is, a maker of shoes cannot buy for his factory the machines to do his work, as the ship-builder, the miller, the woollen manufacturer, can. He rents the machines for a term of years, paying a royalty on each shoe made. When the shoe machinery company was formed in 1899, it inherited this curious method. It took hold of its various acquisitions with rare energy and ability, its aim being to produce what it calls a system of shoe manufacturing. To accomplish this it proposed to “tie” together the machines it controls in such a way as to give a practical continuity of service. That is, each machine was to be so adjusted to the others that the shoe could be passed from one to another without loss of time or waste of effort. To do this effectually meant improving the old machines as well as adding new ones. The results of the combination of machines and of the improvement are extraordinary. It is a practically continuous service enabling the manufacturer to increase his product, and the laborer, who in the shoe industry is paid by the piece, to increase his earnings.