THE AMERICAN WORKMAN.

BY THOMAS I. KIDD.

[Thomas I. Kidd, fifth vice-president American Federation of Labor; born Edinburgh, Scotland, and educated in the schools of that city; became identified with the labor movement in America shortly after his arrival in this country, and was general secretary of the Amalgamated Woodworkers from Aug. 5, 1890, to Jan. 1, 1905; has been editor of the International Woodworker since 1891.]

In fifty years the working power, the exerted energy, of the nations of christendom has more than doubled. That of Europe has increased fourfold. That of the United States tenfold. All signs point toward the United States as the country which for the next half century must sustain and surpass this enormous increase of the world's productivity.

The last half century's great increase in the working energy of the world was due mainly to the development of steam. In the adoption of modern machinery this country surpassed the world in promptness and in the productive consequences. Its expansion in applied energy was greater than that of all Europe put together.

Students of industrial evolution attribute the waxing pre-eminence of the United States in all lines of productivity, first, to its freedom from overpopulation; second, its favorable system of government and society; third, the superiority of its workmen and its facilities-the latter including raw material, fuel, transportation, and mechanical appliances. Ten years ago, figuring on the accepted basis by which there should not be more than fifty people to every 100 productive acres, seven European countries were overpopulated-viz.: England, Scotland, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Italy, and Switzerland.

The American workman himself may fairly be regarded as the principal factor in the surpassing excellence of his country's manual and manufacturing performances, since he is chiefly responsible for the existing industrial system, a powerful influence in the governmental attitude toward labor, the operator and in many cases the author of the best of

modern machinery, and, in the last analysis, the director and governor of that energy which makes things.

Fifty years ago the United States held lowest rank among the four great textile manufacturing nations. To-day it has almost equaled Great Britain and surpassed all the others. In the making of hardware this country has excelled, in the quantity and value of its output, all the other nations except England. It makes one third of the hardware used in the world, although it consumes not more than one seventh.

The superiority of the American workman to all others is not longer a doubtful proposition even in England, where both prejudice and rivalry help to put every claim of American pre-eminence in the category of brag. But when it is said that the American workman is the best the world has known, it should be understood that his unequaled excellence as a class is what is meant. There are individual mechanics and artisans in different countries of Europe who have not been surpassed in skill and ingenuity by the workmen of any country. Yet in summing up their productive abilities, who have not been surpassed in skill or influences for the betterment of their class, they are outnumbered and outweighed by their peers in the United States.

In cataloguing the points of excellence of the American workman over his English contemporary, the first should be, perhaps, the superior volume of his output, whether manual or mechanical. It has been estimated that, in purely manual efficiency, the American workingmen, as compared with the English, produce in the ratio of three to two as to quantity. In the United States the productive volume of man run machinery is almost two to one as compared with England, and from this probably accurate estimate it has been inferred that the American mechanic is twice as effective, with the same machine, as his British rival.

In order to be perfectly just, however, it must be stated that the English workingman is to a great extent handicapped by his own established and accepted system of labor regulations, and that his true ability, whether individually or collectively, can hardly be gauged by his performances. For almost half a century the workingmen of England have ac

cepted and acted upon the theory that the less work they did the more work there would remain to do, so that in reckoning their efficiency by the results it should be borne in mind that most of them do as little work as may be compatible with holding their places in shop or factory.

The hostility which European workmen have inveterately and continuously shown to modern machinery is another potent cause of the disparity between the mechanical output of American factories and that of England especially. In one instance a manufacturer installed six machines to be attended by one man, but the English labor union compelled him to employ one man for each machine. In another case a machine capable of increasing the factory output 25 per cent was emplaced. But the union ruled that it should not be permitted to run more than 75 per cent of its capacity.

It would not be accurate, therefore, to finally measure the skill or intelligence of the foreigner by the quantity of his output, though the wisdom or folly of his labor system may be nearly appreciated by the fact that he earns less than his American rival in the same craft and that the factories of the United States successfully compete with his employer in the shadow of the English factory. The foreign workman in his home shop and factory has been an obstructionist rather than a promoter of the quantity phase of effectiveness. The result is that man for man the workers of the old countries have not produced on an average more than two thirds of the output of the Americans in the same lines, and about half as much as the operators of American machinery in similar industries.

Investigation has shown, however, that the questions of piecework, minimum labor rules, and hostility to machinery set aside, the English workman at home is not as effective as his brother in this country. The proportion of illiteracy among foreign workmen is 40 per cent greater than it is among the workmen of the United States, and, it is argued by many observers, that this alone is sufficient explanation of the superiority of our workmen. There is probably a better explanation to be found in the well known physical inferiority of the foreigners, especially the French and English toilers, and some recent British writers on this subject attrib