Montana labor news., 1933-02-09
@
AND THE
TIMES
IcontInued from Page onel

speed that makes it impossible for
human skill and strength to compete
against. In other words, plumbers,
painters, carpenters, paper-hangers,
brieklayers, all trades connected in any
way with building may be swept aside
as a cyclone sweeps before it a pile #
straw.
In 1898 the Trust became conspic-
uous for the first time. It gobbled
up the corporations as the corporations
had the partnerships, and having
everything its own way cheapened pro-
duetion by eliminating competition
and then through the exercise Of
monopolistic tactics compelled the
people to pay more for the cheapened
product than they had originally paid
for the product when the cost of pro-
duction vas much higher. In other
words the people, as always, were the
goats, and in a final back-to-the-wal
fight the Interstate Commerce Act,
the Sherman Antitrust law and
other remedial measures pulled one or
two of the Trusts teeth and made it
possible for business, which was still
expanding at home and abroad to pull
US out of the slump.
Today's depression, the ablest econ
omists tell us, began not in 1929 but
in 1910 when labor was high-priced and
scarce and the employers everywhere
called in the scientist and inventor and
these two brought forth the automatic
processes, which improving every day,
are not only eliminating the common
laborer and the skilled laborer but
even the "boss" who for centuries has
had the pleasure of telling the other
fellow what to do.
And is there a way out today? Ger
tainly. What is it? Make the ma
chine work for all and not for a few.
Tax the machine, yiz:-the owner or
user of the machine in an amount at
least equal to fifty per cent of the
saving it accomplishes, and use this
sum in an unemployment fund.
That's merely a suggestion-take
it for what it's worth, but do some
thing that will save the human being,
the alleged residence of the immortal
soul from the all too imminent scrap
heap.
T%echnocracy claims that the only
real social change since the world be-
gan occurred when man-power a
subordinated to machine power. The
ox-cart age, democracy calls the time
when the man-power available was
the source of a nations wealth and
Strength, when population was the
measure of power.
In this day and age we know that
mechanical power is the source Of
material wealth and that the nation
which depends upon man-power alone
is weak, indeed. We know that pro-
duction has catapulted to unimagined
proportions, that our debts are in
creasing, u employment decreasing
and a large percentage of our people
becoming mendicants through sheer
necessity. Considering these facts
and they are incontrovertible, is it un-
reasonable to say that we do
need a change in our social structure
and that a failure to get it points to
destruction?
During the World War tremendous
power plants were constructed to speed
up production; c%leverness of scientist
and inventor, chemist and engineer
was utilized in the installation of au-
tomato processes that would cheaper
the overhead and increase the capacity
of those who sell to satisfy the de-
mand and the very men who + spon-
soring t~echnocraey realized that some
thing would have to be done to har-
monte this gigantic mechanism with
the needs and requirements of modern
society or eventually there must be a
smash.
Concluded next week.