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of their employees for special jobs to develop the low-grade and low-paid workers that they could be promoted. He had a very fine set of ideas.
I don't remember whether Smith had ever actually been the personnel manager of Filene's, but he may have been. I'm not sure that he wasn't. Anyway, he had been high up in that personnel department and in the training program. When the New England Council took him they took him because he had been such a success with Filene.
Then as Labor Commissioner of Massachusetts he had made a very fine impression. He had the full support and cooperation not only of the trade unions, but the full support and cooperation of the Chamber of Commerce, the local Massachusetts Manufacturers Association, and of the leading manufacturers. He was regarded by the business men very, very favorably, because what he had done as Labor Commissioner had been so intelligent. He had attempted to bring a kind of scientific point of view to bear on it. He had set up an accident prevention division, of which he had made Manfred Bowditch the head of. (his grandfather, Nathaniel Bowditch, wrote the great book on navigation, which is the standard navigation work.) That was regarded as a very successful and constructive enterprise
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