The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-10-30

Commissioner Wright, of the national
Bureau of Labor. has had more experience
in the collection and tabulation of statistics
relative TO industries than any man in this
country. He does not find statistical data
to establish a theory, but presents the sta
tistics and leaves others to draw their con-
illusions. In his recent investigation of the
effect of machinery upon production and
labor he has made comparison of the
hours Of hand labor and Of machine labor,
and the cost of both in the production Of
nearly seven hundred different articles All
CT these comparisons are made plain. For
example, to make one hundred pairs of
mems boots by hand 2,225 hours of labor
were required at cost Of &56.25. or more
than $3.50 a pair, while the same quantity
can be made by the use of machinery in
2s6 hours at a labor cost of s74.39. One thou
sand yards Of body brussels carpet took
.4047 hours for its manufacture at cost of
$40 when made by hand, but when ma
chinery was applied the work was done in
500 hours at a cost of $91.25. To rule one
hundred reams of paper took one man 4,SOo
hours, costing $500; now two persons with
a machine can do the work in less than
three hours, and at cost of less than a
dollar
These are simply illustrations of the re-
duction in the cost of production since the
introduction Of machinery. The first result
of this cheapening of production by ma
chinery has been an immense fall in the
0FT he row 1afa nj
to the finished product labor is the great
item of cost now as ever, but the labor pro-
duces much more that prices have fallen
in proportion to the cost of production. Six
ty years ago shoes were something of a
luxury; now few people are SO poor in a
State like Indiana that they must go with
out them. The machine has revolutionized
the production of shoes. At half the price
of sixty years ago men, women and chill
dren wear them where half of them went
barefoot years ago.
The natural assumption would be that
such dispensing with labor would compel a
lower grade of wages. Such is not the
case. Men making shoes not only receive
about twice as much wages now as sixty
years ago, Out THEIR wages VIII purchase
many more of what, during the earlier
period. were regarded as luxuries, because
their high labor cost put them beyond the
reach of wage carriers. In the onward
march of civilization many new industries
have grown up which have absorbed armies
of workers. Now and then writer foresees
a time when there will be no labor for a
large part of those who want it, but there
are no indications that their fears will be
realized any more than the prediction of
Macaulay to the effect that when New Eng
land should be as populous as the cotton
manufacturing districts of England the la
borers with half a breakfast and half "a
dinner would prove the weakness of a po-
litical system which is based upon universal
suffrage. For No considerable period has
any fraction of the people in any part of
this country reached the distressing limit
of half meals.
Years ago wage earners in factories
fought the Introduction of the most ele-
mentary machinery but to-day the inteli-
gent leaders in labor organizations for the
most part regard the machine as an ally.
1t has already reduced the hours of labor
in factories from fifteen or sixteen to ten
and nine The general movement is now in
favor of eight hours, and the basis of the
agitation in that direction is that labor
saving machinery makes it possible-that
a shorter day is the logical outcome of
the machine which enables the worker to
produce with it three or four times as much
as he could by hand.