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no man dreamed of fifty years ago. The ore docks along Lake Erie is another example. Thousands of men used to be employed to coal the ore boats with shovels and wheelbarrows. Go there now, John, and see cars of coal run down an inclined plane to a platform. Watch the great steel hooks grasp the loaded car and platform, lift them both high in air, turning the car upside down and dumping the coal in less than five minutes into the ship. Watch car after car run down hill on to the platform and unloaded in a few minutes and then think what this means for thousands of human beings who have been displaced by machinery.
Machinery that will do these things should be a blessing and not a curse. Let us analyze and find the reason why the workers must suffer in spite of the increasing power to produce wealth.
We will start with our last four words, "power to produce wealth." This power resides in the blood, muscles, tissues and genius of the workers. It includes brain and muscle, for a weak-minded man is not a good worker. Before we had much machinery we depended on millions of human beings spending this labor power of their bodies in producing wealth. The workers sold it by the week or month to those who owned factories, mines, shops or other means of employment. But as men have learned that producing-power of much greater service can be secured from machinery, every effort has been made to invent machinery. So that today the power residing in the bodies and brains of workingmen has been transferred to machinery with an enormous increase in power. Every machine today represents so many hundreds or thousands of man-power. We measure the power of boilers by horse power. We should measure machine power by man-power, or by the number of men displaced.
Machines vs. Men.
Now if the power is transferred from men to machinery it means that so much labor power is not needed and so many workers are left on the market while machinery is doing the work. This process has been going on for more than a century and is still at work. Machine power produces more with less time than labor power does. So machinery is preferred to men. The machines work while
