CHAPTER XI

CONSTRUCTIVE REMEDIES NFEDED

The need of constructive measures, not only to prevent
a catastrophe of unemployment, but to deal with it effectively
 should it occur, thus became clearly apparent. Detached
 students as well as those directly connected with
industry and the organized labor movement had gradually
become keenly alive to the problem. Secretary Davis, in
addressing the Machine Engineers’ Beneficial Association
n the early part of 1928, stated:

Growing lines of job-seekers created by ingenious laborsaving
 machinery must be considered along with the marvels
of efficiency and comfort this mechanical progress has
brought about.
Some of our joy over the great inventive genius of our
masters has been turning to grief as we witness yearly the
growing lines of job-seekers, trained men, middle-aged men
of experience, who have been forced from their trades and
vocation by labor-saving machinery.
It seems that this phase of industrial proficiency bids fair
to exact too heavy a toll in the years to come, unless we get
busy and invent new industries for the fellow whom the
machine shunts aside.

About the same time, President Green, of the American
Federation of Labor, in addressing the students of the
University of Michigan. said:

In the survey made of this situation we are impressed by
the fact that, while we could not interfere with industrial
progress and scientific advancement, we will be confronted
with the problem of displacement in a most acute form.

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