The Black Hills union and western stock review. [volume] (Rapid City, S.D.) 1904-19??, 1911-03-17
society.

| tile industries alone, because that
branch of manufacturing was the
oldes and one of the greatest, as it
Is today, and because it illustrates
perhaps better than any other the
progress Of principles, rather than
the influence of special causes, parti-
cularly through this twenty year per-
iod OF which l am writing.
Textile Industries OF the United
Year, 1850; number of plants g.
027; average capital, $4,000; pro-
duct average, s70,5o0; average mum
Der Of employees, IS.
Year 1870: number OF plants A.
700; average capital $62,5OO; pro-
duct average, $10S,600; average
number of employees, 81
Year. 1880; No. of plants, 401S;
average capital, 100000; product
average. $4,000; average number
Of employees, SO.
In these few figures all the indus
trial history OF that great period
may be found epitomied. The num-
as the volume for product increased,
was contracted. The leadership OF
the trade, and therefore the making
Of prices, was taking by the houses
OF larger capital. The average CAPT
tai employed In the trade doubled in
twenty years. The output also
doubled, for the average factory.
The number OF employees on the 9TH
er hand, increased but half. Better
machinery, more efficient control
over the workers, more drastic indus
trial discipline, fiercer Industrial
competition for individual work, did
their destiny-appointed task
Here one begins to see on this
broad canvas, but a faint outline, the
tracing of the picture of America
today. The chains began to tighten.
Men who had grown to comfortable
wealth in the long period of small
factories, scattered in dustries, and
free and easy industrial democracy,
began to gather together into indus
trial groups. Little industries were
rolled together into big industries
the capital of the factory expanded,
doubling on an average in the decade
At the same time by more intense
methods of carrying on the trades.
the number of employees needed to
produce a given value of products
was cut down.
Let me turn for a moment to in
troduce slight record of that in
1ustry, which has done more perhaps
han any other industry to bring
about the creation of the class of
which l write-the idle rich. l have
nc. dwelt upon it in the beginnings
Of American industry, for it was
scarcely existent. I refer to the
ron and steel industry.
In 1860 there were in this coun-
try only 420 plants manufacturing
wrought, forged, and rolled iron
they used an average of $4,000
Of capital apiece, produced products
worth $4,000 each, and employed
an average of 55 men. In 1885,
twenty years later-there were l.
a05 iron and steel plants-includin
blast furnaces and rolling mills with
IN average capital of S23O,0OO, aver
age products of s296,OOO, and an av-
erage roll of Ia men. Here the evo-
luton Of an industry from the small
scattered plants to the concentrated,
efficient, powerful combine" is un-
mistakable. In this twenty-year per-
iod the value of products trebled
while the average number of workers
more than doubled. The wealth.
producing capacity of each worker
increased from SLABS to s2,O15.
If the tendency toward monopoly
was striking in the twenty years
- Jill LOW " IOou, WudL may one
say of the twenty years that follow
ed? In the iron and steel trade, the
1,0O5 plants of 1880, with an aver
age production of 100000 each, be-
came 668, with an average produce
ton of s1,203,5OO in 1900. The av-
erage number Of employees per plant
rose from 141 to 333. In the cotton
mills the average number of employ
ees in each mill rose during the
same period from 1875 to 257.
Here Is the birthplace of the idle
rich. Hundreds OF men who had
owned small manufacturing plants
sold them out at large profits in the
| first ten years of this era and retired
to live on the proceeds. The firm
gave way to the corporation. Indus
tries that had for generations been
family affairs were suddenly capital
lied in the form of stocks and bonds
1 a ND hA