THE WAR PERIOD—AN INTERREGNUM 51 
conditions. Employers were no less desirous to free them- 
selves from the control of governmental agencies, and to 
prepare for the period of reconstruction and severe read- 
justments which they saw clearly ahead of them. 
As a matter of fact, however, there were many under- 
lying tendencies that the war had developed, which were 
to have a constraining influence on wages in the future. 
The advantage in industry of mass production and coop- 
erative efficiency had been made apparent. It had been 
demonstrated that with proper cooperation between capital 
and labor, industrial output could be wonderfully acceler- 
ated and increased, and altho wage rates per hour or day 
might be higher, the actual labor costs in terms of units 
of product under these new conditions might be lower. 
To many industrial and labor leaders, the war experience 
afforded the basis of a vision of what might be accom- 
plished in the future under proper leadership and with a 
real spirit of cooperation. 
Government control of industry, the constant pressure 
for increased production, as well as the physical examina- 
tions under the Selective Service Law, had also made 
impressions upon the public mind as to the human and 
social evils of the low wage scales prevailing prior to the 
conflict.r Both from the standpoint of proper national 
defense and from that of realizing the highest productive 
efficiency of industry, the war had shown that earnings of 
industrial workers, especially those in the lowest scale, must 
be adequate for physical needs and healthful living require- 
ments. The supreme effort to make “the world safe for 
democracy” had also brought with it the accompanying 
demand for “democracy in industry,” which meant, in 
addition to a share in industrial management and control, 
1 United States Provost Marshal—Second Report to the Secretary of War 
on the Operation of the Selective Service System to December 20, 1918. 
Washington, Government Printing Office, 1919: pp. 154-157.