The Indianapolis journal., 1902-08-23
INDUSTRIAL AND BUSINESS
ORGANIZATION

1t was unfortunate that the newspaper to
which the title of organ of calamity may
be applied should have called attention
to the fact that organization in industry
and business means the introduction of
devices 70 save labor, since there is not a
man firm in this city doing any kind of
business or producing any kind of goods
who does not make of as much labor
saving machinery as possible. Years ago,
when labor-saving machinery of the
simplest character began to be used, work
men conspired to destroy it on the ground
that it would take the work away from
men. For years, in Great Britain, the in
PRODUCTION of the simplest machinery driven
by power in the manufacture of cloth
caused mobs which destroyed factories and
machines and took the lives of the men
who attempted to use them. That was more
than hundred years ago, but since that
time most people have learned that machin-
cry in production does not turn workpeople
to idleness. but so cheapens production and
increases consumption that employment is
afforded at higher compensation. Only
those whose dreary vocation 1T is to preach
calamity now regard the organization
which comes of machinery and the redistri-
button of human labor as an evil. Even
in this matter the organ of calamity is
condemned by its own preaching. 1t was the
first to introduce the typesetting machine.
and now it's mechanical outfit embraces
every device by which more costly human
labor can be dispensed with. No extensive
trust. by combining several plants to re-
duce the cost of production, has done or
can do as much to reduce the number of
men employed in the different branches OF
| its business as the modern and fully
| equipped newspaper plant. Does this mean
that fewer men are employed to bring out
the newspaper of to-day than that of fifteen
years ago? BY no means. The pay roll is
much larger, and the aggregate of weekly
| payments is larger because the business
has increased, new departments have been
created. and much larger and better news
papers are furnished the public at lower
cost. The higher the organization in any
branch of industry by putting machines
where they take the place of human
muscle, the higher the wages, and really
| the greater the number of people en-
| ployed. The great steel trust employs many
more men than did all the plants it has
combined, and it has thrice increased the
wages of employees without being asked to
| do So
If the newspaper which has been the
purveyor OF calamity 10! these many years
should undertake to carry out its own
| theory about the organization of industry
it would be obliged to dispose of it's power
presses and introduce a score of hand
presses, while the old type cases and the
old form Of typesetting would take the
place of its machines. 1t would employ.
to do the present work. three times as
many men, who would be compelled TO work
for one-third the wages now paid, or. If
the present scale of wages were paid the
publication of the paper would cost so much
that only a few well-to-do people could
read the tale OF woe every morning. The
modern newspaper. because of its expan-
sion, pays many more men in its different
departments than it did years ago before
the more important ahor-saving machinery
was introduced. II may be said that nc
branch OF business has afforded the promo
ters of trusts more encouraging example
than the equipment of the modern news
paper