LABOR SAVING MACHINERY.

LABOR SAVING MACHINERY.

One result of the great world war, brought about by the stringency in the labor market and the difficulty in securing men to do the work, is the great increase in the use of laborsaving machinery, in all branches of industry. J. A. Jensen, Supervisor of the Water Department of Minneapolis, Minn., in a paper read before the Minnesota Section of the American Water Works Association, treats of the subject interestingly. We publish excerpts from his paper in another column. In one case that he cites, an air compressor and operator, with two plug drills and two men, replaced twenty men with hand drills in working on a limestone ledge, trenching for pipe. In laying steel pipe, the same compressor with ten boiler-makers and their necessary equipment of rivetting and caulking hammers, etc., carried on the work of a whole company of similar skilled labor equipped only with hand tools. In service work an auto runabout truck replaced three single-horse rigs and six men. This same condition is true of nearly all lines of water works practice, as it is in almost every branch of trade. As the man power of the nation is drawn away, the inventors’ wits become sharpened and they are compelled by circumstances to perfect labor-saving devices to replace the men who have “beaten their pruning hooks into swords.”

One result of the great world war, brought about by the stringency in the labor market and the difficulty in securing men to do the work, is the great increase in the use of laborsaving machinery, in all branches of industry. J. A. Jensen, Supervisor of the Water Department of Minneapolis, Minn., in a paper read before the Minnesota Section of the American Water Works Association, treats of the subject interestingly. We publish excerpts from his paper in another column. In one case that he cites, an air compressor and operator, with two plug drills and two men, replaced twenty men with hand drills in working on a limestone ledge, trenching for pipe. In laying steel pipe, the same compressor with ten boiler-makers and their necessary equipment of rivetting and caulking hammers, etc., carried on the work of a whole company of similar skilled labor equipped only with hand tools. In service work an auto runabout truck replaced three single-horse rigs and six men. This same condition is true of nearly all lines of water works practice, as it is in almost every branch of trade. As the man power of the nation is drawn away, the inventors’ wits become sharpened and they are compelled by circumstances to perfect labor-saving devices to replace the men who have “beaten their pruning hooks into swords.”