power: its significance and needs. 
9 
activities. Just as steam power opened up the coal fields of the 
world and freed the employment of power from the geographic 
restrictions inherent in the use of the pressure of falling water, so 
electricity reinstates water power on terms of equality with coal, 
offers the means for the transmission of energy devoid of bulk, and 
affords a readiness of subdivision and ease of application that con- 
siderably enlarges its range of applications . 1 
Thus the third and current stage in the growth of power utiliza- 
tion, and that is to say, of industrialism, is marked by the introduc- 
tion of wafer power on terms of parity with coal, by the establish- 
ment of facilities for extracting energy from coal at the mines and 
transmitting it to the points of use, and by the development of means 
for greatly facilitating the range of service that energy may be 
called upon to render. It will be observed that although the three 
lines of advantage have been open for some years, the first has met 
with but partial acceptance, the second has been entirely ignored, 
while only the third has enjoyed any considerable measure of service. 
This status of affairs, of course, is the outcome of commercial selec- 
tion, but it is desirable to examine whether industrialism can continue 
to grow in adequate measure without utilizing more fully and com- 
prehensively the opportunities held out by electricity. 
RELATION OF POWER TO TRANSPORTATION. 
The United States places special emphasis upon the use of power. 
With national prosperity, abundance of resource wealth, and dearth 
of labor, American industrial enterprise has naturally turned to 
the creation of labor-saving machinery and provided for its efficient 
employment through the medium of standardized volume-production. 
Thus the fabric of American industrialism is colored by the machine 
process and the large-scale operation to a degree not equalled else- 
where in the world ; while mechanical appliances and mechanical serv- 
ice have reached out into domestic life in a pervasive manner. These 
conditions have created and sustained a scale of living without 
parallel amongst other nations. To support this situation, this 
country consumes nearly half of the world’s output of coal and over 
half of the total production of petroleum, not to mention the em- 
ployment of water power, natural gas, and minor sources of power . 2 
1 The advantages of electricity arise from the fact that this strange and even mysterious 
manifestation of energy is virtually energy itself — not energy locked up in a material 
condition and subject to the laws and limitations of matter, but energy, the capacity to 
do work, freed from substantial form. 
2 Of the coal and oil consumed, only about two-thirds goes into the production of 
motive power, although much of the service outside this field is closely related, such as 
the production of heat, light, and chemical work. Before the war the consumption of 
coal in this country was between one-third and one-half of the world’s total ; the pro- 
portion is now approaching one-half. 
