Evening star., 1924-04-17
SUPERPOWER: A NEW ERA
BY WILL p. KENNEDY
No. 4-What Superpower Means to thu, Laboring Man

The superpower age will see the
workingman getting more of the
comforts and conveniences of life for
himself and his family. In it he will
be released for higher grade of
activity, becoming more of brain
worker and less of physical bur-
den bearer.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, associate
justice of the United States Supreme
Court, has well said: ITO gather the
streams from waste and to draw
from them energy, labor without
brains, and so to save mankind from
toll that it can be spared, is to sup
ply what next to intellect is the very
foundation of all our achievements
and all our welfare"
The factor that has been primarily
responsible for the tremendous
changes of the last century and with
out which modern civilization could
not exist is mechanical power. The
degree to which we substitute such
power for manual labor will largely
determine the rate of our industrial
and social progress To bring about
this substitution, and in the process
TO economic in the use of our sources
of power. to organize production, and
TO provide the necessary safeguards
for the producer and the consumer, is
one of the major problems We have
before us.
Days Of Hand Labor.
The story of the application of
power to labor goes back to the time
when everything was done by hand
and the conveniences and comforts
of every one were determined by
the amount OF goods that part OF the
community engaged in labor could
turn out. 1t is fundamental that the
prosperity OF a community or OF a
country as a whole is in direct pro-
norton to its productivene"s; where
production is restricted a rev prosper
while the people as a whole suffer.
Superpower will multirlv this coun-
try's productiyeness and the people
as whole must inevitably benefit.
There VIII be increased opportuni-
ties for employment. but better than
that the l'boring man will have an
opportunity to do more important
work, for which he will receive a
ht"-her average of pay, while the
prices of necessities. such as food and
clothing. will be reduced on account
of the greater volume produced.
The workm9n's family today viii
not be satisfied by the best that could
be had by any one in the handcraft
are. Remember il is only about $50
years since we turned from purely
h ndcraft to mechanical power. Many
Of ue have learned rom our grand
parents by personal recollection of
the days when all the weaving was
homes, and IL was not until we got
power that IL was possible to bring
those looms together into factories.
So one of the first benefits that
came with the development of me-
chanical power was an increase in
the amount of products-the goods
that could be divided up among the
people. 1t is not by any means GER
tain that the condition of labor was
materially changed at the start be-
cause the laborer went from the cot
tage to the crowded condition of the
factory Bat industry has expanded
and labor has been organized. The
Improvement of conditions under
which labor is performed and the
amount of product labor gets is
constantly increasing and is bound to
increase in proportion TO the extent
we use power in industry as a sub
stitute for pure mechanical labor.
Superpower will conserve human
labor. 1t will enable one man to do
the work that previously required
from two to twenty men, and to do il
better. The kind of manual labor
that is being superseded by super
power is that which is the most
wearing on the person who does it,
II is the sheer brute force that me-
chanical labor is taking care of The
substitution of labor-saving machin-
cry and devices and the skill with
which the American workman has
been able to get more and better