“It must be remembered that all modern industry has been operating under this ancient price system, and that if it operates successfully it must make a monetary profit. But if industry is to make a profit under conditions of competition and the continuous development of improved processes; it must continually cut down the costs of production; and it has been found that the best way of reducing these internal costs of production is by means of large scale quantity output with processes automatic as can be devised. Thus, under the price system, the requirement to cut internal costs to the minimum results in increasing mechanization and a tendency toward ever-decreasing man hours of employment.”

We will give you but a few of the illustrations in the articles of the results of this continually increasing mechanization of our industries, and the ever-decreasing need of manpower.

“Machines recently installed now produce from 2,500 to 2,600 cigarettes a minute, compared with the previous maximum of 500 to 600 cigarettes a minute. Obviously, the tobacco company using these new machines cuts production costs markedly; but the important factor is that it permanently eliminates employment.”

“In the incandescent lamp manufacture, one man is doing today in one hour as much as it took him 9,000 hours to do only so short a time past as 1914.”

“A photograph could be taken in a modern steel rolling mill showing the plant in operation without a human being on the floor. There are many examples of large plants that could run continuously were the demand sufficient, with only a few operators at the controls.”

“A machine is already developed and waiting for a public works market that, with two men operating it per shift, or six men for each twenty-four hours, can tear up an old road or street, lay foundations for pavement, and put on the pavement sixty feet wide, at the rate of eight miles a day.”

With this machine in use in every state, and it soon will be, of what value will be the proposed Public Works