It was our own blunder in expecting the impossible.
The mills were at last about ready to begin[34] and an organization the auditor proposed was laid before me for approval.

I found he had divided the works into two departments and had given control of one to Mr.Stevenson, a Scotsman who afterwards made a fine record as a manufacturer, and control of the other to a Mr.Jones.Nothing, I am certain, ever affected the success of the steel company more than the decision which I gave upon that proposal.

Upon no account could two men be in the same works with equal authority.

An army with two commanders-in-chief, a ship with two captains, could not fare more disastrously than a manufacturing concern with two men in command upon the same ground, even though in two different departments.

I said: "This will not do.