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UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE UNITED STATES 
47 
one man a whole day to make forty electric light bulbs. The next 
year came a machine that made 73,000 bulbs in 24 hours. Each of 
these machines threw 992 men out of work. In the boot and shoe 
industry 100 machines take the place of 25,000 men. : 
. Mr. Montague. Would you correct that situation by prohibiting 
mvention? 
Mr. Grex. How is that? 
Mr. MonTacue. You would not suppress invention that brought. 
about the simplification of making bulbs? 
Mr. Green. Certainly not; no. 
Mr. MONTAGUE. Some gentleman asked a while ago if we should 
not stop that. 
Mr. Green. Oh, no. Labor is not opposed to the introduction of 
mechanical devices; but what we ask is that we shall share in the 
benefits that come from the introduction of mechanical devices and 
that the Government and society shall help the men who pay the 
greatest price because of the introduction of these mechanical devices. 
Mr. Montague. I agree with you about that, but one of the gen- 
tleman of the committee suggested carefully considering the question 
of suppressing invention. 
Mr. GrReeN. I did not hear that. 
Mr. CeLLer. Would it not be a partial remedy to time the intro- 
duction of these labor-saving devices to await a period when these 
men Je are to be displaced can find other jobs and other employ~ 
ment? 
Mr. Green. Well we may reach that problem, but labor has not 
asked that that be dealt with at this time. We can not compass the 
whole issue by developing these mechanical difficulties. 
Mr. Cerrer. Has not that been done by some large employers of 
labor in one or two industries? 
Mr. Green. Well, one or two have experimented in that direction, 
but they are, as a rule, altruistic employers. The general run of em- 
ployers have not done so. 
In the boot and shoe industry 100 machines take the place of 
25,000 men. In the manufacture of razor blades, one man can now 
turn out 32,000 blades in the same time needed for 500 in 1913. In 
automobile factories similar changes have taken place. In a middle 
western State to-day, a huge machine turns out completed auto- 
mobile frames almost untouched by human hand. About 200 men 
are needed to supervise this vast machine, and they turn out between 
7,000 and 9,000 frames a day. Compare this with a well known 
automobile plant in Central Europe where the same number of men 
are making automobile frames by older methods. They turn out 35 
frames a day. In steel blast furnaces 7 men now do the work of 60 
in casting pig iron, and even in the last two years, since 1927, the 
improvements in technical processes have reduced the necessary work 
force in the Bessemer process by 24 per cent. In machine shops, 
one man with a “gang” of semiautomatic machines replaces 25 
skilled mechanics, Thirty workers with 10 machines can now do 
the work of 240 in the Sun Tube Corporation machine shop. A new 
machine installed by the de Forrest Radio Co., will turn out 2,000 
subes an hour with 3 operatives as against 150 tubes from the old 
machine with 40 operators. 
118%08—20—u¢FRr 11-nu-dqd