MASTERING THE WORLD WITH MACHINES
Mastering the World With Machines Vast Army of Unemployed Being Recruited as Industrial Revolution Sweeps United States SEVEN YEARS ago John M. Clark, writing in the Vale Review of tlie...
...We now face an acute unemployed problem which becomes more grave every day...
...The railroad* are coining profits by speeding up thier employes...
...The decline in total wage* since 1920 when the railroads paid out $3,681,801,198 amount* to $819,701,585 or more than 22...
...He tap...
...Plymouth, Mass...
...Complete as we thought the industrial system was in this country before the World War the past decade shows that enormously more values are being sweated out of labor...
...The remorseless economic forces at work take no heed of old creeds and cries and slogans...
...As old methods have been scrapped in industry old ideas regarding labor policies, forms of organization and old programs will have to give way to new ones...
...The bankers will not steal the mine...
...Will they remember the next time they appeal to the Civil Liberties Union for help bow greatly their tactics hurt the difficult struggle for civil liberties hi America...
...Machinery is displacing workers...
...As this is written a letter comes from the owner of mining property in Colorado worth a million dollars, a reader who retains his interest in the labor movement but who cannot renew his subscription...
...aP** Maligned &ofe*Mions 'V thing that I am learning as I gc about America Bdanger of condemning men by occupations...
...The chain store system is becoming a marked feature in tlie business of retailing, small business men and shopkeepers being pressed to the wall...
...It is...
...The *1928 figure represents a drop of 80,543 compared with the previous year...
...How in this struggle against bigotry it cannot be laid that the recent agreement between Mussolini and tat Pope gives any help at all...
...The committee made some financial contributions to the Labor World during the camplgn, but experience has shown that the time tt not yet ripe for it The fault does not lie with the comrade...
...About 60 per cent are out of work here...
...Tammany will be Taaunany whoever is chosen as leader...
...There are about 10,000 unemployed.'" West Frankfort, 111...
...After paying cash dividend* which generally mean* a return of many hundred percent on the original investment it is storing away hundreds of millions in surplus profits...
...Nearly a hundred telegraph operators employed in one brokerage house struck in protest against the installation of telegraph printing machines...
...It was Indeed a sorry exhibition of bigotry that some section* of the country gave...
...it takes it out'and concentrates it "i m Wall street...
...By com¦ l*ilai»i horse racing is a Sunday school pastime...
...With one machine three operators now turn out 160,000 cigarettes in a day and the old hand workers and their union on the East Side have disappeared...
...Workers are being displaced at the American Window Glass factory due to a new process of drawing out the glass in sheets direct from the tank...
...BP~ *•1 to claim perfection, for these 'professions...
...The electrical mechanism is so complete that only five workers are engaged on each shift for all the operations, from the bunkering of the coal and filling the ovens to loading the coke into railway wagons...
...From these reports we gather what workers are observing of the remorseless march of the machine in their respective localities...
...WmM Street Ami Horse Racing "Mm whole country is hit by the Wall street gambling ¦Maria...
...We have reached a turning point in labor and industrial history...
...It has lillle rclrtion to the real value of an<* no relation at p.H to the effort to abolish y***J>¦ Gambling in mrrgin should be prohibited by f*» Just as surely as the Louisiana lottery...
...New Kensington, Pa...
...Hansom e in Bronx March 29 On Friday...
...In the United States the millions of workers are at the mercy of the industrial revolution so far as employment is concerned...
...Unemployment is increasing...
...Kco¦fllliii iilly not even defenders of capitalism can defend fafamarginal trading...
...The building trades are in bad shape as far as employment is concerned...
...with an increasing population, there are fewer persons in factories...
...Fall River, Mats...
...They want to purchase it at their own price and that price will not repay the owner what he put into it...
...in its furious race for mass production the machines seem to have begun eliminating workers faster than new tasks can be found for them, however long they wait...
...They know that it will come to them at their own terms...
...It is true that this former publication had a very large circulation and did a vast amount of good in awakening interest in the Socialist movement, but what has become of the movement in those states where it had the largest circulation...
...Waterloo, Iowa...
...Tickets may be purchased at the theatre or at the office of the Rand School, V Yaot 15th street...
...There are a great many common laborers out of work...
...The employing class needs no immigration'to recruit an army of surplus workers...
...The performance is to be given for the benefit of the Community Progressive Women's Union, affiliated with the American Federation of Labor...
...Chains are combining into super-chains and small proprietors are seeking jobs as wage workers...
...With the exception of 1929 each year showed a lower average than 1923...
...In 1928 the employes received 46.3c out of the gross dollar compared with 47.6c in 1927 and 47.9c in 1923...
...On the other hand, consider the two States of Wisconsin and New York...
...We have been on starvation, especially common labor and the buildng trades...
...It does not put money into prodactlve enterprise...
...Thus the small capitalist is being crushed by the mighty power of the masters oi mass production...
...He cannot work the mine and he cannot sell it for its value...
...A decreasing number of workers are employed, the surplus of workless men is increased, most of the extra values are taken by the owners of industry, and the pressure against the workers' standard of living becomes more acute...
...Machinery is fast displacing workers in the mills and factories...
...We have two free soup houses...
...Automatic electro-pneumatic systems of freight-car control arc eliminating switchmen...
...j^OOKTNG for a steady job...
...Regularly the eaDege treasurer was instructed to pay a certain pro' awllop of their salaries to their broker...
...Plenty of steady dividends for the owning class guaranteed by increasing profit, sure...
...Christopher, 111...
...Not exactly a record to give one confidence in the next Tammany leader or Mayoralty candidate whom the ex-Governor may back, ftonmany is not something to be reformed but to be The Concordat 4mi Religious Liberty ' ? friend from Texas recently told me how during flM heat of the last campaign, night after night be would turn on his radio only to hear as he tuned in on station after station an endless repetition of "Jesus— ta* Pope—Prohibition—the Catholic Church...
...Unemployment is increasing in the iron pipe snd textile industries...
...I found stu•Mt* who had nothing to say about the tariff and •*tle interest one way or another in the power trust d*tog zealously to defend marginal gambling on .the ground that it gave the poor man a chance to make ,*ei*an-up...
...Machinery is displacing workers in the metal trades...
...On Broadway is an exhibit of a cigarette-making machine...
...Marshalltown, Iowa...
...Unioiitown, Pa...
...At Ij*** borsc racing improves the breed of horses...
...He needs capital and bankers control it...
...Switchmen and hrakemen are eliminated...
...Not only doe* the industry as a whole make a very bad showing, but irregularity and uncertainty of employment are the rule among practically all of the establishments covered...
...NEW YORK WORKER* HIT Here in New York City this week the machine ts thrust upon our attention...
...The number of railroad worker* averaged 2,022,832 in 1920 but feU to 1,681,527 in 1921 and 1,645.283 in 1922, the year of the shop strike...
...Eleven men used to operate trains in the New York subways ; now, with automatic controls, one motorman and one guard composed the crew...
...The Socialist Press— A Critcism and Answer by Editor (Cntiaaeo tnm par* «) » think it warrants some comment...
...One cigarette maker made 2.200 cigarettes in a day...
...Yssr in snd year out it is the best organized and in jaat elections it aspired to national recognition as , new and reformed agency of government...
...In that year the total was $3,043,161,163...
...Industry expanded over greater areas of the nation...
...But with all this prosperity it apparently feels no obligation to guarantee its employes 52 weeks of wage* a year...
...Cigar making machines are ruining the cigar-makers" union...
...We quote from Walter Meakin's recent book, "The New Industrial Revolution," regarding the coke industry: "From the published technical information about the latest plants, opened in the spring of 1928, one gathers that, whereas before the war a typical group of ovens would produce between 700 and 800 tons of coke a day...
...The 'talkies' have alarmed the musicians* union into raising a million-dollar defense fund, but it is safe to predict that most of them will lose their jobs in the next few vears...
...Everything looks discouraging for 1929...
...He cannot get credit because the bankers want the property...
...For every, year, except 1926, more than half the plants gave less than 85% of full-time employment...
...They do not have to...
...For 1928 the average was 1,879,770...
...At the same time we realize the need of an exclusively elementary propaganda paper, something of the type of The Appeal to Reason, but avoiding its most glaring mistakes...
...Winston-Salem...
...Yet these same rioters demand of the state and from the unions the liberty they deny their own former comrades...
...A professor in an Ohio college told me of a group of professors in another college, not his own, who ¦ad formed a pool to play the market...
...It is winning out, partly thanks to the loyal and intelligent, support of the Colorado Federation of Labor which has urged its members to buy coal from this company and so encourage a sincere attempt to redeem at least one Colorado coal mine from a condition of smoldering civil war by a real step toward honest industrial democracy...
...What a mockery it is to talk to them about "self help" when facing such a tragedy...
...In the liner California, three white-garbed firemen, presiding over gauges, replace 120 stokers...
...should like to ."ay a good word for the service I ^ph* fa being rendered today by social workers who in 3?** communities are in advance of the old line labor r*~" in their intelligent support of old age pensions ^* Other welfare legislation...
...And the New Tammany aader him was a myth...
...On trains and everywhere where men confregate one hears stories of the marvelous profits of a*h bootblack or that elevator boy...
...An Honest Coal Company And in Colorado The history of the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company in Colorado has during the last few months been one of the finest things in America...
...Bat these things are a matter of tolerance rather than •fright said the agreement between church and state ran* wholly contrary, to what we understand by rcligtou* liberty...
...Norwich, Conn...
...8. bureau of labor statistics analysis of monthly employment "The automobile industry.'' says the report, "show* the greatest instability of employment of, any- of the industries so far analysed by the bureau in its series of studies on this subject...
...Here follow some of these reports: ;, ' ^ y Salem, Mass...
...Machinery is displacing workers...
...The new industrial revolution brings problems as grave to the labor movement as the shifting of economic power from independent to trust control did during the last two decades of the nineteenth century...
...Des Moines, Iowa...
...History has shown that the two States mentioned have better withstood the disintegrating influences that have affected the whole labor movement in this country than any other States...
...A recent letter from Powers Hapgood to me heartily endorses the spirit of the plan and its working out in the mine where he himself found a Job...
...Railroad worker* is 1928 avenged $1704 for the year'* work...
...who publish the Work] but in certain conditions peculiar to the United Stater but which are not permanent...
...g to the oldest...
...The commission'* figures show total railroad wages reduced from $2,952,717,174 in 1927 to 32.862,099,608 in 1928, a drop of more than 390,000.000 or about 3...
...Communists And Free Speech A second meeting of Trotskyites at the New York Labor Temple was the object at a violent attempt by Stallnltes to break it up...
...Granite City, III...
...There is much unemployment among the leather workers...
...March 2*th, at the Tremont Educational Forum, Marios Hansome, AM., instructor of sociology at the Rand School, will lecture on: "The Social Impulse in Modem Literature and Drama...
...The decline in 1929 registers over 2,0OO.OC0 and all recent counts of factory workers show a greater output with not only relatively, but absolutely, fewer men...
...One SP* make a splendid denunciation of the preachers of country and in the midst of it be interrupted by gg'a'emory of more than one upstanding man who in S*M that difficult place has proved himself a stal- ¦ friend of civil liberty and the emancipation of the . ¦J^***** professors, as I have had occasion to remark HP*1 this, average high, at least by comparison, in BP understanding...
...Workers are turned adrift to shift for themselves while a fortunate few remain at work producing extra values for the ease and comfort of an idle owning class...
...Following the tragedy of the last coal strike Miss Josephine Roche, at great cost to herself, acquired the majority control of the company...
...Mechanical robots are rapidly replacing brains and muscles and skill...
...Coal loading machines and conveyors are being rapidly increased by the Old Ben Coal Corporation...
...Thai these conditions are passing is evident and we are reviewing some of them or the first page of this issue —EDITOR Of THE NEW LEADER...
...Railroads Lop 190,000,000 Off Payrolls in 1928 A slash in the railroad wage bill accomplished by the laying off of thousands of railroad worker* accounted for 84% of the 3108,000,000 profit gain secured by railroad owners in 1928, according to interstate commerce commission wage statistics...
...About 12.000 musicians displaced by the "talkies"' announce a parade to call attention to their plight...
...There were 150.000 fewer railroad employes in 1928 than in 1923...
...The educational work In these two States was more sound and fundamental and lacking in the lurid sensationalism of The Appeal to Reason...
...For these plants the percentage of full-time employment in the year* 1923, 1926 and 1928 was: Percent of Full-time in Michigan Auto Plant* Plant No...
...President Powers of the Commercial Telegraphers' Union declares that the operators of the new machines receive $30 less per week than what was paid under the union scale...
...In 1920 wage* absorbed 59.6c out of each dollar of railroad revenue...
...It is evident that if all immigration is shut off the labor market will lie flooded with idle workers and it is folly to look to that expedient as a source of relief...
...Usually I should think them |P**e liberal than the majority of the students, though Squeals are by no means the most conservative class » community...
...Nevertheless we invite Al's eulogists to consider that he picked Olvaney as he originally picked Walker and as he picked the Public Service Commission which his successor may jat have to investigate officially...
...The monthly magazine of the American Federation of Labor...
...TIMELY TOPICS By Norman Thomas j, Trouble* -mrgflNT is probably not the worst city political * machine in the United States...
...That is the impression gained from a 17...
...1625 compared-with $1602 Jm 1927 and $1556 in 1923...
...It appears from Mussaltofi own speech and from other apparently authoritative statements that non-Catholics in Italy will still total* to ba married by dvUceremonies without going wMfstoat and ttutt tfcay **cd gat their children excused ftooi compulsory Catholic instruction in the schools...
...20 82.9 80.1 56.8 The automobile industry is considered the very foundation of current prosperity...
...Hamilton, Ohio...
...All industries are laying off men...
...As he puts it, he is "broke...
...One example from the German revolution "Inay be cited as typical...
...The trade unions face the burning issues of the shorter workday, insurance for the unemployed, organization of the unorganized basic industries, and increasing social control of industry leading to nationalization for the welfare of all...
...In the old era of inventions new machines created new wants and new occupations...
...In the former the movement bad an excellent dally and a movement in charge of Socialists of many years experience...
...There is considerable unemployment in the building industry...
...Still less Eg* * retraction of criticisms that I have heretofore . °n the failure of preachers, professors and social **Mrs to give us the leadership they profess to It is a recognition of the truth that in this E*aPB of social apathy, general Babbitry and the stock :-T***ˆt mania we should be worse off than we are if some members of professions not generally popular with Socialists and labor unionists were not doing a job far better than that with which they are commonly credited...
...The American Fcdcrutioiiist for March, carries other data reported from all sections of the country by local organizers...
...The fifteen workers engaged on the three shifts are thus able, solely by controlling machines and conveyors, to perform all the operations necessary in, say, 120 ovens, for producing and disputing of 600,000 tons of coke a year...
...Machinery is displacing workers...
...Since 1923 speed-up tactic* have been steadily reducing the number of railroad worker* until in 1928 the average number on the payrolls waa oely 1.680,187 or about the number employed la 1921...
...The merchants of Granite City, Madison and Venice are slowly going out of business on account of the Commonwealth Steel Company supplying their employes with merchandise : this company also supplies them automobiles and homes, thus keeping them under their wing...
...Florence, Ala...
...We think that every issue will warrant this view of The New Leader...
...Among the 78 plants only two showed 1928 employment Stability of more than 95%, 10 showed 90%, 15 between 80% and 85%, while 30 plants gave their working forces less than 80% of full-time employment...
...NEW LABOR POLICIES URGENT The 6-hour day and the 5-day week as important, but with only about ten per cent of the workers organized the realization of these aims within a decade is not bright...
...Invention is eliminating lal>or al an unprecedented rate, and it is the man over forty who is licing hit the hardest...
...jt is quite true that in the present Tammany row e—rth stands for the more decent element in opposition to district leaders who think that he and some of Us friends are too high hat and who have no more patronage to expect from him...
...New York City...
...as outwardly respectable figurehead without real character 0r real strength...
...That surplus is being recruited by the new machines, standardization, and mass production...
...MACHINES DISPLACE WORKERS We-turn to the latest study of machines, a book by Stuart Chase, which shows that the period of saturation is rapidly approaching...
...Unemployment is increasing in the building trades, woolen mills, tack and rivet factories...
...The lectures are followed bj questions and discussions from the floor All are welcome, and are urged to brins their friends who may be interested...
...Mastering the World With Machines Vast Army of Unemployed Being Recruited as Industrial Revolution Sweeps United States SEVEN YEARS ago John M. Clark, writing in the Vale Review of tlie increasing mastery of our lives by machinery, declared that it threatens control of our own destiny...
...The records of 20 plants located in Michigan, where more than 60% of the auto workers are employed, afford a fair picture of the situation...
...It is driving man, lashing him onward at a racking pace towards sonje goal which he camiot even foresee, let alone chouse for himself...
...Don't try the automobile industry...
...Midnight Show in Harlem For Progressive Union All Socialists and their friends are cordially invited to attend a gals midnight show at the Alhambra Theatre, 12flth street and Seventh avenue, on Kednesday, March 37th...
...one skilled man in a tower directs the process...
...with thirty or forty workers engaged on each shift, a daily output of from 1,700 to 1,800 tons is now obtained from fewer ovens, which are much higher, narrower, and coke more rapidly...
...Our idea has been, and we think that we have in some measure realized it, to publish a paper in which our readers, who range from the uninstructed sympathizer to the veteran Socialist, will find something that will interest each...
...88.5 93.1 84.3 13 91.2 83.0 82.1 14 80.2 83.6 76.7 15 72.0 64.7 76.4 16 83.8 77.8 73.3 17 71.7 88.7 72.1 18 79.0 62.4 «6.7 19 80.8 94.0 64.8...
...For the million and a half railroad workers paid on an hourly basis, however, 1938 earnings averaged only...
...Toledo, Ohio...
...The bureau computed the percentage of full-time employment secured by worker* in 78 plant* for the year* 1923 to 1928...
...A few items from the Chase book reveal something of, the industrial revolution that is taking place...
...Psychologically a country mad with the gamwhig mania is incapable of thinking soundly and conauwstively about social progress, emancipation of the ;,.w«ihlng class or anything else worth while...
...1923 1926 1928 1 80.1% 86.7% 90.5% 2 83.0 85.2 - 90.4 3 S5.6 S8.7 89.6 4 87.4 90.4 88.1 5 88.0 90.7 - 89.0 i 88.9 62.V 88.9 7 85.2 87.1 87.0 8 85.8 86.8 86.2 9 88.5 85.9 86.9 10 85.4 85.7 85.5 11 65.3 81.9 84.7 12...
...When it to acclaimed enthusiastically by Roman Cathofica in America it inevitably raises the question: "what do you understand by religious liberty...
...Small shops and stores recruited more members of the lower middle class while in the older centers small capitalists sow their holdings swallowed up by the great corporations...
...In plain American language jadg* Olvaney as leader of Tammany Hall was a a. Neither the old district leaders nor Al Smith's Iampn'"ff friends had any reason to love the Judge...
...This compares with $1677 m 1937, $161$ in 1923 and $1818 in 1920...
...If you akould find yourselves in a more or less permanent majority in America would you try to do what has been •one to Italy or would you stick to that religious liberty which you advocate now that you are a minority ?" - It cannot be said that quotations from the Popes of the past are very reassuring...
...Unemployment is increasing...
...Every new town and city helped to consume the increasing output gushing from the new machines...
...There arc more people on the streets looking for work than the writer lias ever seen in forty years...
...That to characteristic of the capitalist system and will continue so until the workers have sufficient organised strength to make their needs a first charge on industry...
...This revolution has come to Germany and it is in its initial stages in England and other nations...
...Sooner or later the break will come- as surely as it •a*** in Florida real estate and more people will be '.Ja...
...Lake Charles, La...
...It tepieaaat* an mere—* of about 5.3% over 1923 but a decrease of mora than 6% since 1920...
...It is the Tammany of the pSjjat weight Mayor in New York's recent history Bsder whom waste, corruption and inefficiency have .ware like sunflowers in Kansas...
...i But steady wages for the workers who produce the goods apparently aren't considered so important...
...More people are out of work...
...Shops are laying off men and the retail clerks are being let out because of dull business...
...This reorganised company has had to face terrible pressure from unfriendly competitors and from suspicious banks...
...now suddenly, since the war...
...ROBOT REVOLUTION ABROAD A note of encouragement is sounded in only a few of the reports from which these excerpts are taken...
...These figures mean that the railroad worker'* proportion of the railroad dollar has steadily decreased...
...Leader Stack 5 Steady No Steady Auto Jobs Figures Show Unemployment Is General...
...The answer tt obvious to every Socialist...
...In the past year or two...
...Since 1923 the railroad* have reduced their annual wage bill by 3181,061555...
...With weekly wage* averaging about $32.75 they could only count on about 42 pay check* for the year., or average annual earning* of about 81328 instead of the 31700 due them for full-time work...
...the dial system will have superseded every one...
...In the struggle against bigotry in America it is not only Baptists and Methodist* but Catholics who have to make their position ¦lata on this question of genuine religious liberty...
...Meanwhile the grow revenue of the railroad* has increased...
...Nickel turnstiles have cut the number of platform men from 1,500 to 470...
...Indirectly the cigar industry here is affected by the use of machinery in other localities...
...Workers are being displaced to some extent by machinery, particularly in the machine plant here...
...For a hundred years every census tabulated an increasing mnnber of persons employed in factories...
...Steady work is one thing the pig auto maker* don't produce...
...Idle One-Fourth Of the Time The report shows that in 1928 workers in the automobile industry averaged only 80.8% of full-time employment...
...Worchester, Mass...
...It is coining profits un-' equalled In history...
...Unemployment is increasing here...
...The Boston and Maine Railroad has a freight-handling mcclianism to take care of a million freight cars a year...
...N. C. "Machinery is notably displacing workers in the tobacco and cigarette industries and musicians in the ^movietones...
...There will not be a switchboard girl for local calls in Washington by 1930...
...Phoenix, Ariz...
...Since the end of the World War machinery and the engineer in industry have been achieving a new industrial revolution...
...Anniston, Ala...
...It was fortunately not the factor which elected Herbert Hoover for President but ft was strong enough to give every decent man a desire to stand up for fair tratment of every sort of nonProtestants...
...jS"at an effort to pass a final judgment...
...We think that it is absurd to compare The New Leader to the Weekly People, as such a comparison only establishes a contrast and we certainly do not cater to a "classic clientele" and ignore the need or the more elementary type of propaganda...
...The beet of them are 3»*BB,*iy trying to make their jobs unnecessary...
...therefore, a matter of national importance when the Infer of Tammany Hall suddenly resigns and a sucea*or must be chosen...
...The stage of saturation is now I»einc: reached...
...Mineral Wells, Texas...
...The same is true in New York, where the party had an excellent weekly in the old Worker...
...It should be remembered that the National Campaign Committtee endeavored to help the Labor World of California to expand into a national weekly of Um more exclusive elementary type...
...She at once recognized the union and set up a genuine scheme of workers' cooperation In the management of the industry...
...Unemployment insurance is more important than ever and through a measure of this sort the German workers have been able in part to cope* with this vicious phase of the new capitalism...
Vol. 8 • March 1929 • No. 10
