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24 their diminished rate of working was with impaired efficiency, as is reflected by the decrease in the percentage of zinc extraction.”

Everywhere, of course, engineers and managers strove to the utmost to offset the ravages of labor, and in many cases the improvements in ways of doing things that they accomplished compensated in part for what labor was wasting. Thus, the U. S. Steel Corporation raised its steel production per man per year from 50 tons in 1914 to 61 tons in 1916, but fell off to 58 tons in 1918. In its mines the output of iron ore rose from about 2,000 tons in 1913 to about 2,500 in 1916-17. In automobile truck manufacturing the following record of the White Motor Co. is picturesque.

Factory value Average num- Average weekly Trucks per

of product ber of men wage man per year 1914 $9,023,172 2,202 $15.03 1.924 1915 21,040,078 3,758 16.51 2.460 1916 17,053,311 3,611 17.34 2.082 1917 22,448,927 4,341 20.94 2.040 1918 30,925,748 4,844 27.07 2.720 1919 35,525,417 5,475 31.73 2.766 1920 50,246,448 6,600 37.87 3.017

Due to this greater productivity per man, for which the man was not responsible, the company was able to hold average truck prices close to 10 per cent above the 1914 figures.

Even in the building industry it was found possible, here and there, to circumvent the impairment in the efficiency of labor. Thus, the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. built 281 three-room to five-room houses for its men. The first 146 houses cost $3,420 each. The remaining 135 cost only $2,107 each. The lower cost