The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-01-18
BY OTIS PEABODY SWIFT
United Press Stan Correspondent

United Press Stan Correspondent
NEW YORK, Jan. "a Plant
No. ? Of Technocracy's organization
IS quiet. spacious room overlook
ing a scene Of feverish industry in
mid-Manhattan.
Here craftsmen and calculators
are completing a new group of
charts and statistics to be an
nounced shortly, intended to show
how the age Of power, under proper
control, further can eliminate hu-
man toll.
Preliminary calculations indicate
the figures may prove sensational.
but in the laboratory quiet of plant
No. 2, one senses none of this He
sees only the stopped, silent men,
figuring carefully, drawing lines
across endless charts.
Inspection of this working plant
was permitted only on condition
that its address be kept secret. 1t
is an iron-clad rule Of democracy
that no stranger shall be admitted
there.
Twenty Men at Work
On an upper floor of a skyscraper
it is reached first by express eleva-
tor, and then by an obscure stair
way leading to an isolated section
OF the building.
None of the thousands who work
in other offices of the skyScraper is
aware that the building houses the
Technocracy laboratories. None rec
ognizes the figure of Howard Scott
on his regular visits to inspect the
progress of the week.
The plant itself consists of but
one room. twenty-five by forty feet.
Twenty great drafting tables are
the only furniture.
Twenty men in shirt sleeves bend
over these tables, working, with
slide rule and calculating machines,
on final checks, corrections and re-
visions of the large charts spread
out there.
Energy Survey Is Made
These are charts of the energy
survey of North America a project
which has created 800 such charts
in the last ten years; which calls
for 5000 charts depicting every en-
ergy activity Of the continent. The
charts themselves are racked
against one of the walls.
That's all our machinery says
Dial Hitchcock, supervisor Of re-
search under Scott. we use green
sheets of metric cross section paper,
forty-eight by thirty inches, bought
in rolls. We have used hundreds
of feet this fall The paper manu-
facturers tell us we are the worlds
largest consumers.
I'VE use slide rules, calculating
machines, lettering pens and styli
We buy waterproof ink by the pint.
!. But the real handspring of the
project is the research worker. 1t
takes twelve or eighteen such
workers to feed facts up to each
Of these tables.
Workers Are I'm the Field"
Fright now the workers are out
in the field-at the Columbia uni
versity library, the Engineering So
ciety building library the library
of the Society of Automotive En-
Understanding government re-
ports, corporation reports, figures
Of various foundations; every
source of data, collected by all
manner of bodies, which shows the
trends of physical growth. These
facts are brought in here, collated
integrated, analysed, corrected for
variation. And, then, the chart is
drawn.
I'VE carry the project no
further. Our interest is only in
obtaining the final fact. Developed
through pure research. We have
found, as you know, that those
facts point inevitably to the neceS-
sity of an early denomination of
our present social structure with
a view to adapting it to the ply
steal facts of this high energy era
THE next dispatch will tell about
the work of technocracy's CONT
v,av,faI no,,,.,,stfao