Word: batted
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Presently Bat'a shoes began to move on endless belts past workmen, each of whom performed a single operation. If the belt hurried a little, why so did the workmen-and were paid according to the number of shoes they produced...
Amid the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the emergence of Czechoslovakia, the Bat'a firm weathered strenuous post-War depression and came at last into deadly cutthroat competition with the old hand-shoemaker class. One day Shoeman Bat'a cut his prices 50%. Soon hunger-haunted shoemakers paraded through Prague, displaying placards: Bat'a Shoes are Paper Shoes! Shoemaker mobs became ugly...
Shoe Tycoon Bat'a's next two moves were characteristic, shrewd. He offered charitable relief to out-of-work hand shoemakers, on certain conditions; and the offer was indignantly refused. Then, with his fighting decks cleared, Thomas Bat'a forced an investigation of his shoes by a Committee of the out-of-works, forced them to admit and sign a statement that his shoes were leather, not paper, and finally placarded all Czechoslovakia with enlarged photostat copies of the statement...
Since that crisis the Founder has not been troubled by cries of "Paper Shoes!" Today his wares are sold in Chicago by Marshall Field & Co., in Cleveland by the May Co., in New York by Macy's-for $3.94, $3.95 or $3.96, except that de luxe Bat'a shoes sell...
...photographs show row upon row upon row of white cement workers-homes. The statistics prove that each has a bathroom. More photographs show dozens and scores and hundreds of the 12,000 Bat'a workers, all apparently clean, robust and inclined to athletic sports on Bat'a play-fields. Further statistics prove that Bat'a workpeople can buy as much for their wages at Bat'a Company stores as Ford workpeople can buy at Ford Company stores-although of course Bat'a wages are lower than Ford wages in gold...