Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-02-21
BACKGROUND OF EVENTS
BY PAUL Y. COLLINS.

old as she looks, but that means with
out either stimulation or lipstick and
rouge.
Few men who have led a temperate,
normal life are broken in one score Of
years of labor; most men are Just get
ting their pace at 40 years. but they
will have stumbled often enough to have
learned to be wary of the road. 1t Is
only the man who after two decades
of experience has learned nothing, or
has not demonstrated increased efficien-
cy over that of his apprentice years,
that may ever be judged to have be-
come so set in his stupidity that he may
be discarded with his accumulation of
inefaciency. Others will have so pro-
crossed in the 20 years of experience
that, even II they are physically weaker
than the youth, their greater knowledge
of their tasks or their problems Offset
the physical lack. Most men at 40 are
actually stronger and healthier than
boys of TO- President Roosevelt is an
may accumulate in the years.
On February II, Secretary of
Labor James J. Davis, who boasts
justly of being skilled iron molder, was
making an address at the opening of a
new foundry at Ambridge, Pa.
In that speech, he discussed the evo-
luton OF industry through modern ma
chinery displacing old practices. He
told OF new methods of production of
iron and steel and copper He said:
We must gladly acclaim every device
that lifts the load from human backs
and saves their lives from danger. But
we must strive our utmost to open new
industries as fast as we speed up the
old ones. The great inventor of the
future will be one who invents not
single new machine. but whole new
industry. The scientist must strive to
search out new human wants and de-
sires, which 1t will take new industries
to supply. Thus far our energies have
gone into speeding up the older in
dustries. The new day we face calls for
whole new industries, with the jobs they
hold out to those displaced from the
old ones.
Just to show you how real this
danger is, If we do not do something
10 meet 1T, let me quote you a few
flgures. The railroads of this country
are handling a greater volume of
transportation than ever before, but
they. are doing it with $4,000 fewer
employees than they used to need"
The speaker might have elaborated
that fact by contrasting the freight
engine of 40 years ago which strained
to pull 20 loaded freight cars. With
the same crew today. but with a mod
ern gigantic engine, that train is now
40 loaded freight cars and it climbs
over mountains. Six times the load,
no increase in man power!
Half a century ago it required four
hours OF labor to raise bushel of
wheat. 20 years ago it required only
ten minutes labor per bushel, and to-
day. with a combined harvester and
thresher perhaps it might be said that
the loaf Is ready to bake before the
farmer has had time to climb the fence
after sowing, he said.
Secretary Davis added: "In copper
shelters they are increasing their out
put enormously with but third of the
workers once needed. One single ma
chine now turns out all the glass car
boys the country can use. where. for
merly 700 men were needed to do this
work.
so it runs through every industry.
Science and invention are getting out
more products with fewer workers"
y X + X
/. In former days, when business was
done by individuals, workman could
set up little shop for himself by the
time he had reached 80 years. Today
the development of chain stores and
huge manufacturing corporations has
knocked out or crippled small enter
prises so that the individual mechanic
cannot do business on his. own account,
but he must continue at wages for the
great organizations. The introduction,
therefore, of new kinds Of work, such
as automobile repair shops and tour
lists hotels, only partially solves the
problem. Under the dictatorship of
Fascist italy an employer is forbidden
to discharge an old employee without
permission of the government. Is there
not danger even in America of the de-
velopment Of Socialistic or Fascist
theories Of too 43ch Government in