The ablest mechanic and
industrial organizer in New England at that time was Elisha K.
Root. Colt went after him, outbidding every other bidder for his
services, and brought him to Hartford to supervise the erection
of the new factory and set up its machinery. Root was a great
superintendent, and the phenomenal success of the Colt factory
was due in a marked degree to him. He became president of the
company after Colt's death in 1862, and under him were trained a
large number of mechanics and inventors of new machine tools, who
afterwards became celebrated leaders and officers in the
industrial armies of the country.
The spectacular rise of the Colt factory at Hartford drew the
attention of the British Government, and in 1854 Colt was invited
to appear in London before a Parliamentary Committee on Small
Arms. He lectured the members of the committee as if they had
been school boys, telling them that the regular British gun was
so bad that he would be ashamed to have it come from his shop.
Speaking of a plant which he had opened in London the year before
he criticized the supposedly skilled British mechanic, saying: "I
began here by employing the highest-priced men that I could find
to do difficult things, but I had to remove the whole of these
high-priced men. Then I tried the cheapest I could find, and the
more ignorant a man was, the more brains he had for my purpose;
and the result was this: I had men now in my employ that I
started with at two shillings a day, and in one short year I can
not spare them at eight shillings a day.
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