TURNING FROM THE CITY 



and successive steps in industrialization. This 

 same technical genius was applied also to farm 

 operations which required laborious effort by 

 men and work animals. That this development 

 itself progressed rapidly is demonstrated by 

 the fact that while in 1810 the effort of nearly 

 every person was required to produce enough 

 food to sustain the population, in 1910 the 

 efforts of one-third of the people were sufficient 

 to provide food for the nation and export vast 

 quantities to other countries. 



While the nation continued to grow rapidly 

 in population and sought to apply to ordinary 

 practices the newer labor-saving devices, all 

 was well. It was inevitable, however, that the 

 great industrial machine should become over- 

 developed, at least temporarily. Instead of 

 machinery being a servant of mankind it 

 became an octopus that could not be checked. 

 Individual initiative, the wellspring of earlier 

 developments in the process, became atrophied. 

 There came about such a high degree of speciali- 

 zation in human effort as to make men dependent 

 upon others for work to do. Consequently, even 

 a slight throwing out of gear of the machine 

 created unemployment, which reduced buying 

 power for the machine-made products and 

 started a vicious downward spiral accompanied 

 by every form of economic distress. 



5 



