Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1897-01-15
OUR CANDIDATE IN 1900
Labor and Ma chinery.

frequently been raised during the
present century of industrial develop
ment, that improved machinery is
the hostile competitor of the work
ingman. With the Introduction of
each new labor-saving device it was
freely predicted that capital would
be enriched, labor impoverished. 1t
was so with the cotton gin and the
loom; with the locomotive and the
reaper: with the sewing machine and
the typesetter Ia each case the
prophets were false prophets; not be-
cause they loved lying, but for lack
of knowledge. Their outlook was too
narrow. They mistook the little cir
Gle which included their own par
ticular interests for the broad area of
the industrial world at large.
When the weavers complained that
the'loom, by enabling one man to do
the work of many, would throw
multitude out of employment, they
did not forsee that the reduced cost
of the product would multiply the
demand for it SO rapidly that the
call for labor would increase tenfold.
When Stephenson demonstrated
that freight and passengers could be
hauld by locomotives over iron rails,
the stagedriver, the ostler and the
lnnkeeper grew riotous, and declared
that the bread was being taken out
of their mouth. Yet to-day in the
United States alone the railroads
give employment to nearly million
men, and by the stimulus which its
transportation facilities have given
to industry it is the indirect cause of
the employment of ten millions more.
Elias Howe with his sewing ma
chine in q public competition beat
live OF the swiftest sewing hands in
factory, and ut once the cry went up
that the new device would throw
thousands of tailors out of employ
ment. Instead of so doing, it made
such a reduction in the cost of sewed
goods that the increased demand
called into existence an army of
workmen and workwomen greater
than ever existed in the days when
sewing was done by hand.
1t seems like the repetition of a
mere truism to state that the cheap
ening of manufactured products by
the Invention of improved machinery
has brought fifty men into employ
ment for everyone it has thrown out
but there are some truisms which
will bear, and which demand, occas
ional reiteration. We have noticed
during the past few weeks that there
is tendency among the public speak
who are instructing the people il
matters pertaining to industrial econ
omy to attribute the present depress
ion, at least SO far as it concerns the
great army of the unemployed, to the
introduction of labor-savine
machinery.
1t does not come within ou
province, nor have we any intention
of entering into discussion of the
political question of the hour; blu
when We see the ghost of this forme
bugbear resurrected from its proper
oblivion and shaken in the face O
our Intelligent artisan classes of to
day, we feel that our duty as jour
nal devoted to the interests of tn
industrial arts calls for the utteranc
of strong word of protest and en-
phatic denial. To raise again til
cry that machinery is displacin
labor" as was done by a noted put
lie speaker in recent address, is
those unreasoning impulses whic
once caused a mob of cotton spinner
to break into the house where MI
Whitney was conducting his earl
experiments and wreck his half CON
pleted cotton gin. OF course "m'
chinery is displacing labor" this
exactly what it was intended to d.
but for one toiler that it displaces
brings in ten, nay, hundred other
who are doing the work better, wit
less fatigue, in shorter hours and fc
an average wage which is greater
itself and far greater In the amour
of food, shelter and clothing which
can buy than in any other period (
the worlds history.
Whatever local or temporary bare
ship the Introduction of improve
machinery may work, its ultimat
effect is to vastly enlarge the fields {
labor, continually opening up me-
avenues of employment. For OIL
class of work that it suspends
creates dozen others. 1t may /
said that Indirectly the inventor
the greatest of all employers of labo
1t is to the joint cooperation of il
vention, capital and labor in the pa
that we owe the existence of thol
vast industries which have carrie
our country forward to its preser
proud position in the world of mani
facture and commerce.
The interests of machinery an
labor are so Identical that il may b
said without e4aggeration that u
vast Improvement in the condition
the working classes which has take