Page:Walter Renton Ingalls - Wealth and Income of the American People (1924).pdf/54

32 These figures give us quantitative expressions of what happened, as we know from our other knowledge of the events. Under the stimulus of rising prices, induced by the demand of the people of Europe who could not feed themselves, and blessed by favorable climatic conditions our farmers increased greatly their production. They were able to do this with substantially the same man power, which has changed but little during the last 10 years. This was easily possible, for as I have pointed out, there is more elasticity in the productivity of the agricultural worker than perhaps in any other class. So it was also in the production of metals. That industry more than any other is mechanicalized for mass-production and with but little addition to the man power it was possible to increase output greatly and swiftly. This was the achievement of the engineers, who with their methods and machines more than offset the ever increasing slackening of labor.

In manufacturing it is doubtful whether we made any increase in our application of labor. What we really did was to apply our man-power to different kinds of work. Thus, we made an enormous transfer of men from ordinary industries to shipbuilding, the construction of automobiles, and the manufacture of ammunition and military equipment. A good deal of this labor was sold to Europe, but more was expended for wasteful purposes in this country. Out of a substantially stationary production of cotton and wool we made clothing for Europe instead of for ourselves. We built ships and automobiles instead of houses. This is shown in the statistics for those industries and is reflected in the diminished production of lumber and stone.