144 BULLETIN 102, VOL. 1, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



American industrialism differs from the industrialism of other 

 nations in two respects; it places unusual emphasis upon the em- 

 ployment of power and it couples an advanced industrial develop- 

 ment, which means a high standard of living, with a vast expanse ol 

 territory. 



Each of these conditions imposes a special demand upon trans- 

 portation, and the two combined have given rise to transportation 

 difficulties that are threatening to throttle the economic life of the 

 country. 



If unrelieved the situation will entail a deterioration in the stand- 

 ard of living.^ The effects of a lowered living scale so caused will 

 not fall evenly the country over, but may be expected to be selective 

 to the disadvantage of unfavored sections, with the setting up of 

 economic discord and sectional dissension in the place of national 

 unity. 



The issue can not be adequately met by furthering the develop- 

 ment of the railways alone, for already this type of carrier has 

 been pushed to such a point of overdevelopment as to constitute a 

 critical weakness in the economic structure of the country. The 

 source of the disqualification lies not merely in the sheer magnitude 

 of the responsibility which the railways support, but also in their 

 notably inferior elasticity in respect to industrial expansion as com- 

 pared with the processes of manufacture. The power supply is the 

 chief single contributor to both conditions of default. It not only 

 comprises, mainly in the form of coal, more than one-third of the 

 total freight of the country, but the dependence upon freight-hauled 

 fuel on the part of an expanding industrial activity places an over- 

 Aveight of burden upon transportation by virtue of the fact that 

 coal, raw materials, and finished products represent three additional 

 units of haulage to be reckoned with for every added unit of pro- 

 duction.2 Hence the logical way to correct the transportation unfit- 

 ness of this country is to attack the matter through improvement in 

 power usage. 



Three principles of transportation underlie industrial growth, and 

 industrial activities in general conform to their prescriptions as a 

 matter of course. These factors are represented in (1) the employ- 

 ment of suitable facilities for the task of transportation, (2) the 

 advance elimination of superfluous weight, and (3) the full utiliza- 

 tion of the material transported. These conditions are seen to be 

 the merest common sense; illustrations of conformity with them 

 are on every hand; in the matter of power alone they have been 

 utterly disregarded. In the working out of these principles, national 

 experience has shown (1) that a transportation system of country- 



1 The situation, as a matter of fact, is already displaying its ability in that direction. 



2 See pages 106, 107 for the necessary qualifications. 



