The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1883-12-29
- . LABOR.

published by Charles Scribners Sons, in
which the author presents some of the
threatening aspects Of the labor question,
resulting chiefly as he believes, from the
Of machinery in agriculture and the
Manufacturing interests. The introduce
gI,fv part oil the book is devoted to an en-
..k.niry as TO the degree IN which the use of
ANsincry has displaced human labor IAN
inyestiration which the author claims has
never previously been undertaken. If this
be the case. and we dc not recall anything
that proves the contrary, Mr.. Moody's de-.
demonstrations SO far as they go-are novel
and suggestive, He confines his enquiries
10 4 few Of the special employments which
he saws contribute directly to the supply
q the three great wants of mankind, and
begins with agriculture
IN this department Of human industry
he finds chat one man with the improved
plows tlsasihave superseded those in use by
our fathers, will now perform in one day
the labor which fifty years ago would have
occupied two men i've days or perhaps
four 10 six men seven days; one man, that
Is, taking the place Of from ten to thirty
In sowing seed or planting corn by the ma
chinery now in use, child may do ten
times the work Of grown person by the
old methods; while in working corn, the
labor of twenty men with hoes is now acs
complished in the same space of time BY a
single man guiding a cultiTator.k In Elay5
cutting the displacement Of manual labor
is.not less marked One IMAM with a hay
cutter may do the work Of twelve men
with scythes; the tedder operated by a
man aud horse, 4 lis the place of twenty la
borers with the hand fork, while the horse
rake rakes up twenty acres a day where a
man with the ordinary mandrake can cover
but two. 1t is, however; IA harvesting
corn and grain that the saving is greatest.
Until very lately corn was gathered by
hand. but now a machine is driven through
the tieldwhich shnsks and gathers the ears,
leaving the husks behind, and that without
pulling up or breaking down the stalks.
In this way the labor of seven men is saved,
while in Smelling the ears one man and
machine will perform the work of 10, 100
or $50 hand workers, according to the ca
pacity Of the machine Formerly, by a
hard days work, one man might be able to
cut and bind quarter Of an acre of gram;
now with harvesting machine he may cut
so acres in the same time, or 800 times as
much. This is perhaps the greatest achieve
ment in this direction any rate In the
field Of agriculture
In the manufacture of yarn the statistics
quoted by Mr.. Moody show that the I'M
proyements in one mill, which he takes as
a representative of its class, have displaced
fifty per cent. Of its former employees, and
that one person with the improved ma
chinery now fills the place and does the
work that required 40S carders and spin
ners with the tools and machinery in com
mon use at the close of the first quarter OF
the present century In weaving cotton
cloth one girl with her improved machine
looms stands in the place that half salcen-
fury since would have required one hun
bred women to fill. In boot and shoe
making one man now turns out three thou
sand pairs in a year, where fifty years ago
he could not produce more than tive hum
bred pairs In carpentry the planning ma
chine fills the place of fifteen to twenty
men with hand planes; the circular saw that
of a dozen men with hand saws while the
sewing machine does the work of dozen
women with needle; and the perfectlhg
printing press, which is one of the most
astonishing exhibitions of the economy OF
force, enables seventy-five men to do that
which at the beginning of this century
would have required ten thousand to per-
form.
Another source Of the displacement OF
labor Mr.. Moody finds in the enormous
bonanza farms of the West, which within
the last five or ten years have attained such
formidable proportions In 1860 the num-
Der of farms in the United States OF one
thousand acres or morewas 1884; in 1870,
owing probably to the partition Of South
ern plantations, it had diminished to ;, 10;
while in 1880 it had increased to 28,578.
This enormous and rapid growth in land
monopoIies during the last ten years IS
mainly in the Northwest, where farms of
from one thousand to forty thousand acres
are not at all uncommon. The Gfandln
farm of forty thousand acres covers three
times Che area Of New York city, and the
whole farm property of the Grandins would
furnish sites for FIVE such cities On these
farms there are no permanent residents.
They live at distance-in st. Paul, Chi
cago, New York, or it may be Europe
several Of the largest belonging to Gold
smidt, the German banker, of Frankfort
on-the-Main. Those who work them are
only temporarily employed during the few
months that the season lasts. In this
way, says Mr.. Moody, "the finest sections
of our country, in tracts running up to the
size Of eight hundred or more square miles
areas that would give fifty acres of plow-
land to mere than one thousand families:
and to our fathers would have furnished
homes, ample employment and comfort to
more than ten thousand people-are now
without even one home, and furnish but
transient and uncertain employment to a
few hundreds
In view Of this state of things Mr.. Moody
foresees only disaster and ruin. The COM
mon belief that machinery, while it seems
to displace labor, readily opens up new
avenues Of work, and so equalizes the 1atlo
between demand and supplys he regards as
~ faIlaeu. Indeed he considers that all the
labor which has been thus displaced by
improved machinery remains to-day un-
employed, making up an army of oilers and
Migrants equivalent to fifty per cent. OF the
working force of the country. 1t is when
Mr.. Moody leaves his facts aud INDUCES
in conjecture of this kind that his argu
ment becomes weak. If the conjecture
were true. every other person whom we
meet on &c Street would be out of employ
ment; whereas we know from observation
that the proportion Of unemployed persons
in the community is inconslderably small
1t is true that the census shows that out of
36,00o,000 people, ten years old and up
wards, only l7,OO0,00O are on the @oecu-
patton tables but the remaining l9,O0Q,5
900 may be thus satisfactorily accounted
for
School going population; say. 6,0oo,ooo
Females over IL, comprising the
vast body of wives and daughters. IL; o0O, OoO
Mates between l6 and 6O:............ $4,000
Males over 60........................'... ooo,VoV