POWER : ITS SIGNIFICANCE AND NEEDS. 1 
By Chester G. Gilbert and Joseph E. Pogue, 
Of the Division of Mineral Technology, United States National Museum. 
INFLUENCE OF POWER UPON CIVILIZATION. 
In the struggle for existence man has attained superiority through 
a facility for turning the forces of nature to account. In modern 
life the expression of this facility is industrialism — the cooperative 
employment of mechanical power for useful work; the delegation 
of service to machines energized by coal, oil, and water power; the 
organized gaining of a livelihood. Mankind is therefore depend- 
ent upon industrialism and industrialism is contingent upon a 
supply of power. 2 Power represents the substitution of mechanical 
energy for human energy, of mechanical work for human labor. 
Modern nations expend far more energy than the combined mus- 
cular ability of their populations and beasts of burden. The margin 
is covered by the employment of mechanical energy in the form of 
power. To accomplish the work done annually in the United States, 
or at least the equivalent in such kind as men could perform, would 
require the labor of three billion 3 hard-working slaves. The use 
of power gives to each man, woman, and child in this country the 
service equivalent of 30 servants. 3 Modern civilization arises from 
this organized employment of mechanical energy. 4 
1 A contribution to the solution of the transportation problem. 
2 Industry requires raw materials, power, and labor, and is activated by business enter- 
prise. The factors concerned in the supply of raw materials and power are no less im- 
portant than the human elements of labor and business enterprise, though the former 
have thus far received attention far short of their deserts. The fact that the reserves 
of raw materials are decreasing and the conventional sources of power are shifting, 
while both the potential supply of labor and the scope of business enterprise are enlarg- 
ing, make for a situation in which raw materials and power must come in for consider- 
able attention. It is with this prospect in mind that the present series of papers (parts 
4, 5, and 6 of Bulletin 102) have been written. 
8 These figures are very rough, based on an assumed power utilization of 150,000,000 
horsepower (which may be fairly wide of the mark) and the equivalence of 20 man- 
power for 1 horsepower. As a matter of fact, this country has no adequate record of 
its total power consumption. The conventional man-power equivalent of 1 horsepower 
is 10, but taking into account the fact that man-power can not be sustained, the ratio 
of 20 to 1 is chosen as representing a fairer comparison. 
4 “ The power of Greece, whereby she achieved such great things in all directions of 
human progress, was largely based on the work done by the servile class. On the average 
each Greek freeman, each Greek family, had five helots whom we think of not at all 
when we speak of the Greeks, and yet these were the men who supplied a great part 
of the Greek energy. In Britain, we may say, each family has more than 20 helots to 
supply energy, requiring no food and feeling nothing of the wear and tear and hope- 
lessness of a servile life.” (James Fairgrieve, Geography and World Power, 1917, p. 316.) 
