THE NEW INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION 237

order to keep previous forces fully employed, a tremendous
increase in the demand for commodities and services was
necessary. If this expansion in demand did not go forward
 in accordance with the elimination of industrial
workers, new and supplementary industries and services
must needs be developed to absorb the workers displaced
in the older industries. Otherwise any decline in production
 would be quickly followed by an unemployement
crisis. If, also, there was no growing demand from the
establishment or expansion of newer industries and services,
 the crisis would quickly become more acute. A relatively
 small retardation in industrial demand, such as
occurred during the winter of 1927-1928, which was in
no way comparable with the drastic curtailment of output
in the years 1920-1921, almost immediately found expression
 in a serious unemployment problem. This condition
of affairs was all the more remarkable for the reason that
those who retained their work enjoyed larger money and
real wages and shorter hours than had ever before obtained
in industry.

D1SPLACEMENTS AND UNEMPLOYMENT

The most authoritative sources estimated that from the
year 1923 up to the middle of 1927, all workers displaced
by the new technique in industry were rapidly absorbed
into other lines of employment.! There was some difference
 in the estimates of the number of wage-earners which
were thus displaced, but the calculation made by Mr. E. S.
Gregg, Statistician of the Western Electric Company, of
more than 1.000.000 men having been dropped from agri-1

 See statement of Labor Bureau, Inc.; also article by E. S. Gregg, Chief
Statistician of Western Electric Company, Inc., in Nation's Business, April,
1928, “What Puts Men Out of Work”; also article by Professor Sumner H.
Slichter, New Republic, Feb. 8, 1928, “The Price of Industrial Progress’; and
oy Professor Irving Fisher, in Magazine of Wall Street for April 7. 1928.
“Full Emplovment: Prosperitv’s Problem **