The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1919-10-16
STRETCHING FORTH
MECHANICAL ARMS
HUMAN BURDEN BEARERS BE-
CONE DIRECTORS OF LNTELLI.
GENCE, HANDLING MACHINERY

printed, says the Christian Science
Monitor. excavation is under way for
a new school building, to constitute
a unit in the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology group. 1t is to cover
rather a large area, yet few laborers
are In sight. In the old days b pit
would be crowded with pick-and-
shovel men. Now there is only a
rather small steam digger. With a
man to keep the steam up. a man to
guide the scoop, and a helper or two,
this ungainly machine is doing all the
work, and the hole grows rapidly.
One who remembers the old c0ndi-
tons can only marvel at the number
Of men relieved of the necessity of
toiling all day in mud and water,
merely to prepare hat hole for struc-
tural foundations. Yet the laborers
are doubtless doing easier work at
better wages than ever they could
have enjoyed if the mechanical arm
had not been stretched forth to han
die this ever-recurring job of digging
a hole.
There is nothing particularly novel
in this use of machinery. The nov
city Is in its application. For that,
undeniably, the stress of war has
been in a measure responsible. Need
to perform great and arduaus tasks
speedily, the relative lack of men for
the heavier and coarser kinds of
work. then brought into common use
and repute inventions which had
been languishing for lack of inten-
sive demand.
Tasks of minutiae, of exacting skill,
Of such perfect synchronization as
almost to suggest a mechanical
thought-process, had long ago been
turned over to machinery as a mat
ter of course. But machinery for the
broad, ungainly. rough-edged activi-
lies involved in digging holes and
trenches, in carrying and handling
heavy material, in sorting, lifting and
piling freight and manufactured ar
ticles, in loading and unloading cars
and vessels, was resorted to more
tardily, and is only now being per-
fected.
In fact. industry in the United
States has not yet intellectually
accepted mechanical aid for all such
tasks. 1t is in the transition stage.
some jobs are handled by machinery,
some by hand labor; on given jobs,
man-power is still being combined
with machinery, despite the fact that
machinery might better be intrusted
with all branches of the work.
Wherever big work is to be done,
men are coming to see that it can
p~roftably be done in a big way. That
means by lavish expenditure of me-
chanical devicA, and a Outstanding
of men as the Guiding aud Erecting
agency. Thus those who, a brief gen.
GRAFTON ago, were laborers, needing
hardly to think at all in order to
meet every requirement of their kind
OF service, are now factors of guild
ance and direction. finding Il play for
trained thinking at every turn. need
ing judgment. quicknes of sigh. and
perception, enjoying even a measure
of the inner satisfaction sdct as an
artisan or a craftsman always feels
in skillful work we'll turned.
Even the brawny fellow at the lev
ers of a steam shovel commands a
wide range between awkwardness
and dizziness; his levers move in ex-
actly the same way for each: it is
the levers backed by his quick sight
and good judgment, and his expert
ence with past efforts. that keep the
numbering scoop at the end of his
mechanical arm dancing, swinging.
and grinding. through yards ana
and yards of space, with d precision
that can be measured in inches.
Wherever ability for thinking is
negligible, men are now being elilni-
mated. To keep a line of men :,ass-
ing punches of bananas from the hold
Of a fruit steamer to the railroad
cars or trucks that are to taxi thea
away from the pier is now deemed
sheer waste of man-power. Irstead.
a device of the endless chain variety
conveys the punches: only men
enough are retained to load TIE
punches upon it and to place them
as they are delivered upon the re-
spective vehicles.
Where packages of baggage and OF
freight were once moved about the