Evening star., 1938-01-09
3O,OOO,OOO American Families
Are Served by 400 Slaves
Mechanical Power Has Freed People From Drude.
cry and Provided Comforts Unknown
in the Past
in the Past.
BY THOMAS r. HENRY,

by IHOMAS X. HENRY.
VERY one Of Americas 10000 900
families Is served by more than
IL 400 slaves.
That Is, 1t is having work done for it
which. even century ago, would have re-
ouired the ceaseless labor of that many
human beings. This power is washing its
clothes, heating its houses, singing and
dancing for its entertainment, cooking its
food. lighting its streets, transporting it
from place to place, doing most Of It's
manual labor. Upon it Is built American
civilization, which, however much it is
taken for granted as part Of the natural
order Of things by those who form a part
OF 1t, is not so inevitable after all.
At its annual meeting last month the
American Association for the Advance
ment Of Science started to take stock of
America. The Nations power resources
were surveyed by DR.. A. A. Potter of Purdue
University and he found the average
American, in respect to the services rem
dered him, very right individual indeed
AL the great civilizations Of the past have
been built up on slave labor-that is, on
somebody working for somebody else with
out pay. A civilization is an expression of
energy. Work must be done to trect its
buildings. construct its roads, raise its
crops. About the only power man has
known anything abou. and been able to
utilize has been man power 1t has been
woefully expensive and inefficient power
Power Used for Comfort.
Power must be used to change nature
more in keeping with human comfort For
example. it is desirable to be cool in sum-
mer. One way Of doing it is by tanning.
A pharoah of ancient Egypt could accom-
plish this by having a slave stand behind
him and wave a palm leaf fan all day and
all night The slave constituted an in
vestment In energy. 1t wasn't very salts
factory utilization Of energy for the slave
got tired now and then and the pharaoh
sweated He probably needed four or five
slaves to keep him even reasonably COOL
In order to keep them he had to feed,
clothe and shelter them, however badly
The modern American can be famed
al day and all night with an electric fan
for few cents-certainly for less than
hundredth part what it would have cost
the pharaoh. And the Job is done much
more efficiently.
Probably one of George Washngtons
slaves at Mount Vernon did nothing else
except keep the house heated in winter.
There had to be wood fires in every room
Wood had to be chopped to the proper
lengths and the fires watched continu-
ously. It was not satisfactory heat at
that. Aside from the fuel it cost George
Washington the food, clothes and shelter
Of at least one man. Sometimes he prob
ably let the fires go out.
The modern American with an oil or
gas furnace gets all this, still exclusive OF
fuel, for twentieth the cost Of feeding and
housing one slave and the fire never goes
out.
Probably one slave woman at Mount
Vernon did very little else than the family
washing. The electric washing machine
does the same in fraction Of the time and
at very small fraction Of the cost.
10 Horsepower Per Capita.
Says DR.. Potter: Present estimates are
that the power available in this country is
In excess Of l,330,0000 900 horsepower, or
more than 10 horsepower per capita Of our
population. This Is the equivalent of more
than 400 human slaves for each of the
S0,000,000 families in this country, and
yet this enormous power is at our disposal
1ithol1t tha tfv, ~ cA11i,,r
beings at the auction block. Power-driven
machines, in the short interval of little
more than century, by transferring re-
lance from animate to inanimate energy,
have revolutionized the whole environ
ment of human life.
Past civilizations rested upon human
slavery. Leisure was afforded to the few
by the hard labor Of the many. Now hu-
man slavery is not only illegal, but it is
absolutely impractical because Of the high
cost of human labor compared with me-
chanical power. A mechanical horse
power, costing $40 to $50 year, substi-
tutes for 10 to IS human slaves. A
y. power-driven machine can operate continu-
ously day after day, whereas a slave can
not. Property rights In human beings
have lost their value"
About q billion Of these slaves are back
on the farm. As DR.. Potter calculates, me-
chanical power represents about 56 per cent
Of the power used on American farms,
while a per cent is supplied by $4,000, 900
horses and mules. More than q million
American farms now are electrified Over
10000 900 horsepower are available to turn
the wheels of American industry and the
American worker has twice as much power
at his command as the British worker and
more than hall as much again as the
French worker
Increased In 80 Years
The power in American industry, Mr..
Potter said, has increased over 800 per cent
. In the last 30 years, during which period
the volume Of production has doubled and
wages have increased four-fold. BY in.
creasing the amount that each worker can
produce. power -driven machinery has made