seven in the morning
And every `` hand '' in those two great factories knew how all-seeing that glance was -- critical , but just ; exacting , but encouraging . All-seeing , in this instance , did not mean merely fault-seeing . Hiram Ranger , manufacturing partner and controlling owner of the Ranger-Whitney Company of St. Christopher and Chicago , went on into the cooperage , leaving energy behind him , rousing it before him . Many times , each working day , between seven in the morning and six at night , he made the tour of those two establishments . A miller by inheritance and training , he had learned the cooper 's trade like any journeyman , when he decided that the company should manufacture its own barrels . He was not a rich man who was a manufacturer ; he was a manufacturer who was incidentally rich -- one who made of his business a vocation . He had no theories on the dignity of labor ; he simply exemplified it , and would have been amazed , and amused or angered according to his mood , had it been suggested to him that useful labor is not as necessary and continuous a part of life as breathing .