THE NEW INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 228 
also been described with special emphasis on the changes in 
the attitude of industrial leaders toward new principles and 
theories as to adjusting wages.! At the risk of repetition, 
it may be recalled, however, that the two most revolu- 
tionary changes in industrial thinking along these lines con- 
sisted of the assumptions: (1) that rates of pay of indus- 
trial workers might be indefinitely advanced provided 
labor and other costs of production were not increased or 
profit margins reduced to the danger point, and (2), that 
high wages were an essential part of a program which had 
for its object the establishment and maintenance of indus- 
‘rial prosperity. 
Some discussion has also been necessary as to other 
causes of our remarkable gains in industrial efficiency, but 
this has been very limited. On this point, Dr. E. Dana 
Durand, Professor Paul H. Douglas, and Professor R. G. 
Tugwell have made exceedingly valuable contributions, and 
have pointed out the fundamental and secondary causes 
which have been at work.2 The whole movement has also 
been most soundly and effectively summarized by Mr. 
Woodlief Thomas of the Division of Research and Statis- 
lics of the Federal Reserve Board, in a paper submitted 
at the meeting of the American Economic Association in 
Washington in December. 1927. In this connection he 
sa1d +3 
Our vast and diversified natural resources have played an 
important role in this nation’s industrial development. It 
t See Chapter V. 
2 See E. Dana Durand, “Commerce Year Book, 1926,” pp. 13-24; Fifteenth 
Annual Report of the Secretary of Commerce, 1927, pp. XXVII- XXXIV; Rex- 
ford Guy Tugwell, “Industry’s Coming of Age,” Harcourt, Brace & Co., New 
York, 1927; and Paul H. Douglas, “Proceedings of the American Academy of 
Political Science in the City of New York,” XII (July, 1927), “The Modern 
Technique of Mass Production and Its Relation to Wages.” 
8 Woodlief Thomas, “The Economic Significance of the Increased Efficiency 
nf American Industry,” The American Economic Review, Vol. XVIII, No. 1— 
Supplement (March, 1928), pp. 122-138: Pub. by the American Economic Asso- 
fi1ation