Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1918-10-13
BUSINESS IN AMERICA
Coordination of Transportation, Labor and Fuel.
Among the Vital Wartime Problems.
by WILL II. KENNEDY,
OF The Star Staff !.

KENNEDY, !
tar Staff
during the next few years the rule
has been laid down that before locat-
ing any new plants. or extensions Of
OLD plants, anywhere in the United
States. the projectors are required to
consult with the general director of
distribution of the fuel administration
with regard to the possibility of OBJ
tanning adequate fuel supplies. This
is by way of relief for both the rail-
road administration as regards trans
portation and the fuel administration
as regards the production and dis
trlbution of coal.
Industrial Centers Built Up.
For thirty years or more business
has been growing big, with railroads
IN such keen competition that indus
trial centers have been made larger
through favored freight rates: until
the hepburn law gave the Interstate
commerce Commission grip on the
situation. Financiers have made for
tunes by combining a number of
small! plants to make one large one
small plants that thirty years ago
supplied the local needs of various
communities over the country have
been driven out of business by trade
competition and preferential rates,
and the result has brought about such
local congestion as pictured above.
Man power has been drawn from
the farms and rural communities to
work these monster factories and
stil further longest the seaboard
cities.
With men by the thousands drawn
from the ranks of producers into the
a rr11H Of I,
the gigantic munitions and other war
work plants demanding help and
more help the old law of supply and
demand has again been put in force
Capital has had to bid for labor. In
crease after increase has been de-
pay TO: artisans of every kind is on a
higher scale than ever before.
The pendulum must swing back, the
business councils say. After the war
the returning soldiers and the men
released from the munitions plants
will be bidding for the joos. There
is no question that there will be jobs
a-plenty. in the rebuilding of all GEN.
trail Europe. battered down for more
than four years by the greatest en-
gines of destruction that could be
devised, and with the nations of the
greatest trade war in history. Eu
ropean labor has always been cheaper
than American labor. and if the
United States is to be a successful
competitor with European countries
for world trade the cost of labor will
play an important part in the COM
petition.
Every Home Is Affected.
This is one of the knottiest tangles
in the general business situation. 1t
snarls itself about each workingman
because it directly affects every home
in the country. The business plan
ners realize that they must regu-
late manufacture and it's component
parts--materialS and labor-so as to
give this country every possible ad-
vantage in what is certain to be u
tremendous International struggle for
world trade-without seriously low
ering the standards or living that
have become fixed. If it is inevita Bile
that the wages and salaries now being
paid must be lowered it must be made
possible for each wage-earner to buy
more with what he receives not only
in the necessities of life, but some
of the comforts as well
A possible way to do this-and some
very able thinkers are supporting the
.proposition-is to loWer the unit cost
%. production by employment Of Ia
bor-saving devices and the still fur
Their Capitalization of manufacture
and selling in such way as to dis
tribute costs over the greatest pos
Sible output.
A more radical step. away from the
Industrial Capitalization system. the
big unit system, that has been de-
veloping, is proposed by G. e. NC
Chord member of the Interstate COM
wage commission and recently APP
pointed by the President as one OF
the umpires of the National War La
Dor Board. He knows the railroad
business from the broad viewpoint
and the labor situation with the same
wide sweep of vision.
Manufactures for the Country.
Commissioner McChord advocates
wider diffusion of the manufacturing
industries and the local supply OF
the necessities of life. He points out
that it costs more to do business IN
the city than in the country, and That
| it costs the operative more to i've IN
the city than in the country. He says:
try than in the city would enable the
workmen to secure more comforts OF
life. clothe their families better and
educate them more adequately. II the
factory is located near the raw prod
uct, there is saving in Transportation
cost Which wy NC "
70 make this diffusion of industry
practical it is proposed to adjust
freight rates so as to give the small
mills equality of opportunity with the
large industrial plants to market their
products.
One of the WAYS that offer an i'm
portant economic saving is to es-
tablish the manufacturingic concerns in
! immediate proximity to the raw ma
terials or fuel, so as to prevent as
far as possible the cross-hauling by
the railroads through congested ter
ritory as now done. Cotton offers an
excellent example of this. Cotton is
grown in the southeast-Alabama.
Georgia, Texas, Florida, South Caro-
lima, etc.,-but it has been hauled to
| New England to be made into cloth.
and from there hauled all over the
world to be worn as clothing. The
ufacturing plants. The same scheme
is proposed for all Industries.
1t is part of the program that steel
and iron shall not be hauled from
| Alabama, for instance, to be made
! into munitions at Bridgeport, Conn.,,
, built nearer the source of raw ma
terial and outside of the congested
| district.
Still another suggested economy OF
production and conservation of ma
lures gift which has already been
put in practice by Great Britain is
! forbidding the use Of certain by-prod-
| uct coal under the boilers. The eco
F.; nomic plan is to coke this coal in
| by-product ovens at the mouth of the
mine, thus getting the valuable by
! products without the lost haul 1t is
/: planned also that the coal should be
sent to gas plants so that the people
| III ~ hx,