The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1916-08-24
The Problem of Efficiency
tJames r Finlay)

and ranks among the foremost mining
engineers OF the country.
If were to try to do what ! fear
you may expect me to do, namely, to
discuss the various technical improve
ments In the art of mining which have
come forward In the past few years,
could do little fore than recite long
list of them. Moreover, / should prob
ably be trying to talk about some
thing that your graduating students
know better than | do. Nevertheless
shall try to be technical. Perhaps
may succeed in drawing your attention
to some Of the most practical Of sub
jects that your graduates will face at
once and will continue to face all their
lives.
This school Is engaged In the busi-
ness of preparing young men for the
industrial career known as mining. At
occurs to me that 1t may be interest
some of the major conditions under
which an Industrial career Is carried
on. wish to call your attention to
the proportion of things in the worlds
affairs; how important power driven
industry Is, how 1t gives rise to indus
trial corporations, and how large a
part these corporations play In our
everyday life and particularly in the
mining business, and how success In
the business of mining depends so
largely upon knowing how to deal
with them, And through all this
should like to convey the impression
that after all there is nothing so val
liable as good mind properly trained.
The essence Of modern industry Is
just this: A man equipped with his
muscles and his brain develops about
one-twelfth of horse power and he
can use it for perhaps eight hours
day. You pay him for doing this say,
SO. The same amount of mechanical
energy can be purchased In Industrial
communities for less than one cent.
these days when you hire a man you
are paying not particularly for his
muscular energy, because II you were
buying ENERGY you could buy 400
times as much in another form for the
price you pay your laborer. You pay
your laborer for using his brain to
direct not only his own muscular en-
ergy but the mechanical energy, SO
vastly cheap, that can be supplied to
him through machines.
In mining l see nothing to separate
1t widely from other forms of indus
try. The mere fact that the miner digs
material out of the crust of the earth
does not make his methods essential
ly different from those of the man who
makes use of materials already lying
on the surface, The problem of the
mining industry today is the problem
of applying the greatest amount Of
mechanical energy that can be used
effectively by unit Of human energy.
Having stated the thing this way,
we come at once to the important fact
that this problem is the problem of
corporate effort and not of individual
effort. The energy from a power plant
can not possibly be utilized by a sin
gle person; nor can 1t be built, or the
machines II in manufactured, by in
divlduals. Power driven industry even
In its crudest form implies collective
effort. To take an example from the
history of mining, when the gold hunt
ers first came to Colorado, or more
certainly when they first went to Cali
fornia, they used no machinery. They
ers, and wheelbarrows but not steam
engines So long as they worked that
way each man could work effectively
by himself and in the placer days OF
California nothing was heard of cor
porations. The gold was produced by
nameless swarm of Independent
workers. But when they began to OPP
crate lode mines, in which steam en-
gines must be employed for pumping
hosting and stamping, that was an
enterprise calling for number of en-
ployes; It took collective effort, II
produced the corporation Immediately.
The same kind of illustration can be
found in any other industry that uses
mechanical power Thus in transpor-
tation, so long as it was a question
merely of pack animals or wagons, the
individual unit was nearly. II not quite,
as effective as a corporate unit. One
man with his team could haul as
cheaply as a company managing ten
men with ten teams. Not so when
they came to use steam. or any other
form of power for transportation.
Your locomotive needs a roadbed and
rails; 1t must have care. The thing
needed collective effort and capital.
1t is well to remember that II this
country had remained in the indus
trial status of the time when the
Declaration Of Independence was made
we might by now have had our popu-
lation of a hundred million people, but
practically the only corporations we
would have known about would have
been the central government, the 4S
states, innumerable counties and cit
les, and also religious corporations,