THE SURPLUS PEOPLE 



from old industrial centres nearer to raw material and to 

 consumers. 



Some of these causes are so well known as to make it 

 unprofitable to do more than barely suggest them, but 

 others have not been generally studied in the light of 

 causes of future domestic emigration. For instance, it 

 is often claimed that invention and labor - saving ma- 

 chinery create a demand for as many new workmen as 

 they displace. Grant that this is so, and we do not sat- 

 isfactorily answer the question as to what is to become of 

 the men and women who lose their means of livelihood. 

 Some of them are readily absorbed into the new indus- 

 tries, but by no means all. One hundred printers may 

 be suddenly thrown out of work in a given community 

 by the advent of type-setting machines. They cannot all 

 turn immediately to employment in a bicycle or automo- 

 bile factory. The displaced printers may be in Kansas 

 City and the new factories in Baltimore. Besides, it is 

 the young mechanic, with no trade and habits to un- 

 learn, who is in most demand for the new industry. 



These conditions make life constantly harder for those 

 best equipped with experience and most likely to be pos- 

 sessed of a little capital in the shape of a home or sav- 

 ings-bank deposit that is, the middle-aged. So it hap- 

 pens that the ingenious machine which may lighten the 

 cost of an article of common necessity, and by so cheap- 

 ening production even cause the enlargement of a factory 

 and enhance the prosperity of a given local community, 

 almost inevitably creates recruits for the Army of the 

 Half -employed. This process has been going on rapidly 

 during the past generation, and made thousands of peo- 

 ple discontented and apprehensive hence, ripe for some 



