2 
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES 
in the cost of living. In general terms, therefore, it may 
be said that the war period practically constituted an inter- 
regnum in the development of principles and standards of 
wage determination. The only exception to this situation 
was the special emphasis placed on the so-called “living- 
wage” principle by the National War Labor Board. It was 
required to do this by the Presidential Proclamation cre- 
ating the Board, in which the recognition of the living-wage 
standard was made mandatory upon its deliberations. 
After the Armistice the pre-war wage agitation was 
renewed with unprecedented vigor. The ardor for the 
recognition of advanced wage principles and theories was 
also further intensified by certain programs for industrial 
democracy which were an outgrowth of the wartime move- 
ment for a wider expansion of democracy. Altho ad- 
vanced conceptions were advocated, and in many cases 
sanctioned, there were no radical changes in theory or 
practise actually developed until after the industrial and 
financial breakdown of 1920-1921, and the resultant period 
of depression. 
It was the effort to revive the prostrated industry and 
trade of the country that finally led to the new economic 
régime through which the country has been passing since 
the year 1923. Up to the beginning of that year, a policy 
of wage deflation and general reduction in costs had been 
adopted in the attempt to revivify trade and industry and 
place the country again on a prosperous basis. This pro- 
cedure was unsuccessful. It was then supplanted by a 
radical change in constructive attitude. A new industrial 
revolution was inaugurated in the United States which 
finally became the marvel of the civilized world. In its 
significance it has outrivalled the eighteenth century indus- 
trial revolution in Great Britain, when steam power was 
first applied to new mechanical inventions, the factory