14 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND WAGES 
standards as inclusive as possible, while, on the other hand, 
the employers resisted any effort to have a semi-skilled 
machine operator receive the same rates of pay as a skilled 
craftsman. As a consequence, there has been constant 
controversy during the past twenty years as to the defini- 
tion of skilled crafts and the scope of application of their 
wage standards. 
The significance and wide extent of the changes thus 
taking place, or the effects of mechanical methods in 
eliminating skilled craftsmen, were forcibly expressed by 
Mr. John Frey, of the Molders’ Union, writing in The 
American Federationist as early as May, 1916, as follows : 
Of late, this separation of craft knowledge and craft skill 
has actually taken place in an ever widening area and with 
an ever increasing acceleration. Its process is shown in the 
two main forms which it has been taking. The first of these 
is the introduction of machinery and the standardization of 
tools, materials, products and processes, which makes produc- 
tion possible on a large scale and the specialization of the 
workmen. Each workman under such circumstances needs 
and can exercise only a little craft knowledge and a little 
craft skill. But he is still a craftsman, tho only a narrow 
one and subject to much competition from below. The sec- 
ond form, more insidious and more dangerous than the first, 
but to the significance of which most of us have not yet 
become aroused, is the gathering up of all this scattered 
craft knowledge, systematizing it and concentrating it in 
the hands of the employer and then doling it out again only 
in the form of minute instructions, giving to each worker 
only the knowledge needed for the mechanical performance 
of a particular relatively minute task. This process it is 
evident separates skill and knowledge even in their narrow 
relationship. When it is completed the worker is no longer 
1 “Modern Industry and Craft Skill,” by John P. Frey in American 
Federationist, May 1916, pp. 365-6, as contained in ‘Readings in Trade Union- 
ism,” by David J. Saposs, pp. 283-4.