Milford chronicle., 1949-09-16
MAN AS A MACHINE

MAN AS A MACHINE
A good healthy man, working full g.
hour day, can produce about L. "A horsepower |
continuously. This is equivalent to carrying
396 bags of cement up 100-foot hill in 8
hours. (What man can do it?) Yet this
amount of work is equal to the total heat OF
only 1/3 pint of fuel oil-says F. G. Shoe
maker, consulting engineer of G. Ms De-
troit Diesel Engine Division. One gallon of
fuel in a Diesel engine equals eight men
working for 8 hours, or about &c per man
per day for fuel. Liquid hydrocarbons areI
the most concentrated form of power now
available. Two-thirds of the fuel the engine
burns is oxygen which is distributed free in
the air all over the earth. BY contrast, food
for man runs about $1.00 per pound for solid
fuel SIS per AS quart for liquid fuel. AS an
engine, man weighs about 700 pounds per
h. p. 1t is easy to see that strong back is a
very inefficient source of power and that
manpower is highly expensive. However,
man as machine, does have some points in
his favor. He is a complete, self-contained,
totally enclosed power plant, available in a
variety of sizes and reproducible in quantity.
He is relatively long-lived, has most major
components in duplicate, is weatherproof,
amphibiOus, runs on wide variety of fuels,
has Enthusiastically controlled temperature,
circulating fluid heat, evaporative cooling,
sealed fabricated bearings, audio and optical
direction and range finders sound and sight
recording, audio and visual communication,
and he is equipped with brain controls. 1t is
this last iten-brain control-that gives
man his unique advantage over other forms
of power. 1t is this factor which permits him
to govern and coordinate the effort of more
efficient wOrk-producing machines. 1t is the
ever-increasing use of new machines and
power sources to do mans work that has rails
ed the American standard of living to the
highest on earth.
NxoNxE
IN RESTRAINT OF TRADE
One of the best editorials yet written on
the problem of labor monopoly recently ap-
pearedin the Toledo Blade. 1t said, Beyond
any evident union restrictive practices which
might be aimed at or result in limiting out
put, hiking COSTS and restraining competi-
tlon, there is perplexing question inherent
in industry-wide bargaining. "a premise of
such bargaining is that all companies with
which union deals are able to afford about
the same labor rates. Thus, when big union
wins substantial concessions from the top
producer in an industry, it generally de-
mands similar concessions from that COM
pany's competitors, big and little. And yet
many of these smaller companies, which ma
these demands and still face the future with
some measure of financial confidence. In
dustry-wide bargaining, therefore, can really
become tool not only for increasing the
unions power, but for increasing the power
of larger companies within an industry
since such bargaining tends to squeeze ou
smaller competitors. President Truman re
Gently declared that, year in and year out
monopoly remains the biggest threat to th
countrys way of life I" He could hav
well been more specific and said that tn
source of this threat is by no means confne,
to business quarters. The Senate Bankin,
and Currency Committee recently conducte
S, broad inquiry into monopoltics labor prac
tices. A long list of witnesses were heard
and overwhelming evidence to the effect tina
J labor constitutes the most serious monopol
now existing was piled up. Appropriate leg
lslation must be the next step.
WILL YOU JOIN?
The National Board of Fire Underwri
? ers reports that estimated monthly fire losse
dropped to a new low for the year in JUL
7 Even so, the destruction during that mont
was just under $50,000,000. For the frs
seven months of the year, our fire losst
were about nine per cent less than in til
: same period in 1948. Yet the total was nea
7 ly $400,000,000. What this means is thu
u some encouraging progress has been mac
: in fire prevention, but the waste is still di
= gracefully high and an enormous amount
= work must be done in the future if it is
: be effectively curbed A part of the reductic
in loss was undoubtedly due to the fact th
. material and commodity prices are low,