Page:Onward Sweep of the Machine Process (ca 1917).pdf/4

2 through the mountains; no street cars clang; and no trucks rumble along loaded with the necessities of life. Transportation is done by horse teams. Everything is done on a small scale. Most stores are small mixed stores, about the size of the country grocery of modern times.

A Change.

But while everything is going on so slowly, and the people are living quietly, there comes the invention of machinery. Someone, for example, saw it was easier to turn a rock with a bar than by hand. He began to figure whether or not that couldn't be used to a larger degree in different walks of life. The idea spread out and like wildfire it seems to be apparent most everywhere at once. Instead of the old horse-back methods, stages, and the slow transportation, trains are beginning to run and the factory whistle blows.

Instead of making shoes by hand the machine comes in to do the greater part of the work. And, to use the illustration we started with, Mr. Jones, having a trifle more cleverness than his rival, installs some machinery. He rubs his hands with delight on finding that with the machine he won't need more than half of the men he now employs. The machines in his factory, he lays off fifty of his men, because he can now get as much work done by fifty as before by a hundred hands. Also he can make his shoes cheaper than can that other fellow, Smith. He can put down the price of shoes and still be able to pay for all the machinery he has bought. So he sells his shoes at a lower price, and gains more customers. Smith sees this, begins to scratch his head, and finally decides that in order to keep up in competition he also has got to install machinery. So Smith buys some machines and lays off about half of his men also.

Mr. Jones and Mr. Smith both have now installed machinery, which, put together, displaces one hundred men. With fifty men each they are able to make just as many