The independent. [volume] (Lincoln, Neb.) 1902-1907, 1905-12-21
66s NebraskA Independent
Letters From The People
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. @#sa#@@@@8@@na

equations afforded" Is is possible invention
has been for the purpose OF "affording new occu-
pations," that people so love work that they in
vent methods to work just for the fun of it?
l thought invention meant the elimination of labor
l replaced the stage coach and the wagon
freighter because these crude methods could no
longer compete. / thought the loom supplanted
the hand weaver, and precipitated a mob for it's
destruction, not because 1t made more work for
the weavers, but because it put them out of bust
ness. But 1t seems / have lived to this day to
learn that / am wrong. Mr.. H. B. Maxwell OF
Chicago is my teacher. But If this is what is the
matter with us--if invention has made SO many
new occupations that we have to fight like
hyenas for them-I am in favor of going back
to when we didn't have SO much to do, and still
lived.
The adoption of every new machine of
course, has been on the grounds of it's economy
in the elimination of labor, and new occupations,
in the sense of more occupations in proportion
to service, is simply proposterous. But our
whole industrial system has come to be honey
combed with uneconomic occupatons,-that is
to say occupations wholly unnecessary under
sane system of industry that would eliminate
wasted energy and the wastes OF indirection.
Take one occupation alone-the commercial
travellers
Here is an intelligent and energetic class of
men of the greatest efficiency whose occupation
removed from the schemes and intrigues neces
sary to the competitive system, would seem to
indicate that the people are SO absolutely in
this army of drummers constantly in the field
to urge them of their necessities.
Census bulletin No. $50 gives the total pro-
duct OF our manufactures at $4,000 ,883, 1862
Many manufacturers estimate the costs of dis
posing of their products, including Advertising
at per cent. AT this rate the more than thirteen
billion dollar product yields the enormous
of more than $650,000,000. But the finished pro-
duct of many establishments become the raw ma
teria of others. The finished product of the
respective establishment must be disposed of
through commercial statesmen to establish
ments that it as material entering
into their finished products. Five per cent of
this must be added to the above, which makes
grand total of nearly $S75,000,O00 as the sum
annually wasted in advertising and an army
of $4,000 drummers
But, at this enormous expense, the manu-
facturers product is merely contracted for Ivy
the wholesalers, from whom to the reati dealer
is duplication, often many times, of the same
expense aside from jobber's and other profits,
and yet it has not reached the consumer. The
further along the line it goes the greater are
these expenses and the greater the percentage
of profit until finally when the consumer is
reached all this cost has mounted up until it is
often many times the original or factory cost of
the product.
Fully one-third of all labor under the
petitive system, Is dissipated in the wastes Of
indirection; labor that would be turned into pro-
ductive energy and to the shortening of the labor
time of ALL under cooperative industry.
G. e. OBENCHAIN