Evening star., 1933-02-09
BY WILLIAM FIELDING OGBURN.
Research Director, the Presidents Committee
on Recent Social Trends
written for the Associated Press)

1 Research Director, the Presidents Committee
on Recent Social Trends
written for the Associated Press)
The rapid growth of machines is a
characteristic of modern life. Steam,
electric and gasoline power applied to
machines have produced cities, rail-
roads, factories and are changing rural
| life
The automobile has aided the growth
Of suburbs, affected the life in villages,
increased the burden of our courts, al
! most wrecked the railroads, consolidated
churches and schools, rendered nearly
negligible the boundary lines of coun-
ties, increased touring, affected hotel
life, reduced the number of household
servants, modified home life, changed
Sunday recreation, aided criminals
and modified cur manners and morals.
Social Changes Lag.
But these social changes follow and
do not precede the chronological
changes. There is a delay-a lag.
The machine killed millions and
manned tens Of millions before acci-
dent prevention and wcrkmen's COM
pensation were developed. The tin can
has helped to bring woman suffrage,
yet there remains the ideology that
woman's place is in the home.
The automobile and the telephone
have produced the metropolitan region,
which is still, however, without an ade-
quate government.
The boundaries of counties were laid
out in accordance with how far horse
could travel and at time when wealth
| was In farms; these boundaries still
persist with an antiquated government
| inadequate to meet their social needs in
the age of cities and the automobile.
| Steam took the household industries
and placed them in factories and the
| family has never made satisfactory ad-
| justment
1t thus comes about that our great
social institutions such as industry.
government, the family and the church
are tagging behind the changes which
have taken place in our chronological
Development
The changes in our society are oc-
curing at unequal rates of speed. It
is as though the parts of watch were
changing, some rapidly and others
slowly, and the watch wasn't keeping
good time; for society is interrelated
like watch rather than like a chain.
A change in industry affects edu-
cation, international relations, the
family, the growth of cities. govern
ment.
Speeds Are Unequal.
| Most of our social problems are
due to the fact that the parts of our
interrelated civilization are not chang
ing at equal rates of speed.
Technology is playing the tune to
which most Of our social life and in
stitutions are dancing
The situation has become so bad
that 1t has been recommended that
all invention and scientific discovery
be stopped until the rest OF society
can catch up.
Thus the men whose jobs have been
taken away from them by machines
would like to see all the labor sewing
devices stopped.
This is the basis of the popularity
Of technocracy.
But the answer is not the stopping
Of mechanical invention, but the
speeding up of social invcntion-un-
employment insNEAnce, city managers,
marital clinics &c. The machines
are running ahc.d Of us.
We must either slow up the changes
that are coming too fast or speed up
those that are coming too slowly. In
most cases, especially where machines
have already been put to use, there
is no chance to undo the work already
done.
Nothing is left in such cases but
to speed up the social changes.