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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIII. No. 1374 



whicla they have been specifically organized, 

 but also in a broader way as affecting state 

 and national issues. At the best, however, 

 these individual organizations are concerned, 

 for the most part, with service to the indi- 

 vidual, and while not confined to such, these 

 societies have been able to work in a broad 

 way for the public welfare only through com- 

 bined organization of some kind. All think- 

 ing engineers are aware of the inefficient 

 manner in which much of the engineering 

 and industi-ial features of our government, 

 city, state and national, are conducted, and the 

 experience of our local engineering societies 

 in working for a better and more economical 

 policy in the conduct of these affairs in cities, 

 as well as the success that has attended such 

 organizations, as the Engineering Council, in 

 trying to assist on questions of broader scope 

 aU lead to the belief that a Federated Engi- 

 neering Society, which can speak for all engi- 

 neers in the important affairs concerning 

 which we are justified in si)eaking, must be 

 productive of beneficial results. It is almost 

 axiomatic that in a nation such as ours where 

 industry is the great factor of our existence 

 these statements must be true. Industry is 

 the life of our nation, and engineering is the 

 backbone of industry. Surely if any class of 

 men have a right, or better still, a duty, to 

 band themselves together for the betterment 

 of the fundamental industrial principles of 

 our nation, engineers, using the term in a 

 broad sense, have full justification for so do- 

 ing. These are matters of common knowledge 

 to all engineers and scarcely need to be de- 

 fended or explained. 



There is, however, a much greater and 

 deeper reason in my opinion why we have 

 need for a society of this kind. We are all 

 prone to think that tlie problems of our day 

 and date ai-e x)eculiar and unlike any that 

 have gone before. As a matter of fact, his- 

 tory teaches us just the contrary and a super- 

 ficial examination of any of the great civili- 

 zations that have preceeded us will show that 

 basicly they differ very little from the one that 

 we now enjoy. The great fundamental prin- 

 ciple of all civilizations is division of labor; 



at once the most effective tool that man has 

 ever devised, it is at the same time the cause 

 of his greatest difficulties. Because, wkerevei 

 division of labor is employed, coordinated 

 effort necessarily follows. We know of no 

 civilizations buUt up by a single individual, 

 though Eobinson Crusoe is reported to have 

 made a very good effort. Nor do we know of 

 civilizations that were built up by a limited 

 number of persons. Basicly, civilization is 

 possible only where there is a wide use of 

 division of labor accompanied by coordinated 

 effort. But with coordinated effort comes 

 always the difficult problem of awarding fairly 

 and justly the fruits of labor, and from the 

 beginning of time men have wrestled unsuc- 

 cessfully with the problem of " what is mine 

 and what is thine." As far back as we can 

 read history we find industrial codes aimed at 

 the solution of this difficult problem. The 

 Mosaic code, based on a much more ancient 

 Egyptian code, the remarkable code of Hamu- 

 rabi and a still more ancient code recently 

 discovered, all bear witness that this problem 

 is very ancient indeed and has always been the 

 one gi-eat problem incident to the use of 

 division of labor and the building up of a 

 civilization. The solutions offered by these 

 ancient codes are for the most part of a legal 

 character, often very arbitrary and intended 

 more as a means of keeping the i)eace ratlier 

 than as a solution of the problem on the 

 ground of merit and justice. And to a large 

 extent we have inherited these viewpoints in 

 our modern industrial codes. 



Wherein does modern industry differ from 

 these ancient civilizations? The advent of 

 the modern machine era and the extension 

 of the iise of scientific methods have carried 

 division of labor to a degree undreamed of by 

 our ancestors a few hundred years ago. If 

 the ancient civilizations were complex ours is 

 infinitely more so and the difficulty of defining 

 " what is mine and what is thine " has in- 

 creased many fold. 



And the solutions, we have been offered 

 for this problem are many and curious. The 

 advocates of single tax, prohibition and 

 women's rights, of various kinds of tariff. 



