The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1920-03-11
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
Paper Read at Chauauqua Circle Sunday February 20th
ard Presented on Behalf of Class ID"
By L. J. W.

natural resources was not available, there
was little or no appeal to energy, enterprise,
initiative, ingenuity, administrative and fnan-
ciering abilities precisely the qualities which
in single century have created the bewil-
dering wealth of America.
The cheap power, however, which Watt
gave to the world stimulated invention so
that the productiveness of labor in the field
of manufacture was multiplied ten, twenty,
fifty, and hundred fold or more Thus
there was a new and rapid creation of port
able wealth which was of vast significance
Thus the industrial revolution introduced
the capitalistic system or era, and created
the new problem of wealth. blessing or
curse?
Different races kept the peace admir-
ably so long as they were separated by
ditions of transportation and communication
have reduced the world to neighborhood
and have multiplied contacts, and industrial
competitor is increasing international friction
and jealousy.
Thus the industrial revolution is Great
ing new race problem brothers or enc
mics. And industrial depressions, contrary
to what might be expected operates as a
powerful stimulus to the production of ma
chinery, and especially to the invention of
that which will have greater labor-displac-
ing power. Every financial panic is sure to
be followed by large number of labor-sav-
ing inventions. Another stimulus to the in
crease of machinery is the strike. Every
time an employer is thus embarrassed he has
an added incentive to procure iron and steel
workers which never throw up their jobs.
Strikes, therefore, stimulate the invention of
automatic machines.
One boy now produces wire screening
for which the manufacturer was formerly
dependent OH 200 men. In rurr1nal times
with machine products increasing two or
three times as fast as home consumption, en-
larging foreign markets becomes a vital
necessity.
Wherever manufactured products 20,
there is desire awakened on the part of the
people to increase their wealth by manufac-
turing for themselves. Japan's manufactured
exports have increased many fold in the last
quarter of century. China has her cities
whose tall chimneys remind one of Pittsburg
India is establishing factories equipped with
the best machinery. Manufacturing has be-
gun in South America, and will receive a
powerful impulse from the Isthmus canal
The agricultural people of Europe, South
Africa, Australia and Canada, are all be-
ginning to manufacture. If competition con-
tinues to be the accepted law of industry, the
time will doubtless come when it can be said
of each one of these people: "Its manu-
featuring plant is far greater than is needed
to supply the demand, yet it is constantly
being enlarged, and there is no way of pre-
venting the enlargement"
The pith of my contention is, that
while the production of machinery can and
does respond to the increasing demands of
enlarging markets. it cannot, under selfish
competition, be limited to that demand, nor,
can its increase be stopped when demand
ceases to increase and begins to shrink.
Economists have assured us that while
the introduction of machinery temporarily
: displaces labor, it ultimately creates more
labor than it at first displaces. This opinion
was based on the experience of Great Britain
when she was the work shop of the world
, and had practically unlimited market, but
, the situation radically changed when other
) nations became manufacturing competitors.
7 1t has been demonstrated that under certain
: conditions machinery does displace vastly
l more labor than it creates, and again, ma
chinery which costs many men their employ
ment often creates no demand whatever for
l labor except that involved in its own con-
: struction. In one of the great factories of
Chicago, mechanic invented lathe at
tachment which increased the effectiveness
t of the workman tenfold or more, and as
l result, nine out of every ten workmen in
that department lost their jobs. 1t was the
l irony of fate that the inventor himself was
one of the victims of the new economy. He