power: its significance and needs. 
11 
one of the knottiest problems in the whole advance of American in- 
dustrialism has been involved in the necessity for providing the 
requisite capacity on the side of transportation. The problem is seri- 
ous enough at best. But when the item of power in the form of 
freight-hauled coal is added, the requirement calling for additional 
elasticity in the mechanism of transportation is almost doubled a 
second time, and the situation becomes well-nigh impossible to meet. 
So long as power is provided by means of freighted coal in its present 
heavy proportion, the transportation of the country is bound to cause 
serious trouble, if not to break down, during every period of sudden 
industrial expansion. 
The relations of balance, as given above, are not in strict accord 
with statistical figures. Various other factors come in to qualify 
the figures, and incidentally to complicate the issue beyond the reach 
of simple analysis. Nevertheless the contrast noted is indicative of 
the general situation. The requisite degree of elasticity has not been 
attainable for transportation, and the lack of it has become increas- 
ingly conspicuous with the growth of the industrial order. The 
tendency has been to provide a surplus of slack in lieu of elasticity 
by r maintaining facilities of transportation in excess of normal re- 
quirements. Such a condition constitutes a standing invitation to 
inefficiency and wastefulness, tending in the long run to nullify the 
potential advantage of readiness for industrial expansion, and hence 
is forecast for failure when put to the test. With industrialism less 
mature and less aggressive, these matters were less conspicuous, but 
their untoward propensities under present conditions of growth are 
becoming steadily more pronounced . 1 
Thus transportation is the neck of industry through which all 
of its materials enter and emerge. Upon the size and flexibility of 
this throat depends the rate at which industry can grow. Pressure 
here acts as a throttle; if severe, there results congestion, choking, 
even strangulation. Transportation, then, is crucial. Either we 
must pay unremitting attention to facilitating transportation by 
every means available, or else be prepared to see industry retarded 
1 The current situation in the United States does not differ fundamentally from that 
abroad, although the consequences have not appeared in equal measure in the two in- 
stances. The disparity is one of degree ; but the unusual weight falling upon trans- 
portation in the economics of American industrialism has turned this difference into high 
significance. The outcome appears in present conditions : the United States has been 
building a bulky and cumbersome fuel requirement, incapable of sustained growth, ready 
to fail under influence of rapid industrial expansion, and due to display its weakness, 
on the first occasion in the breakdown of organized transportation. This is not to be 
regarded as offered in specific explanation for the trouble that this country is now 
experiencing as an incident in the war situation. As a matter of fact, the present work 
was projected over a year ago and the summation of conditions set forth above was 
outlined at that time. Its purpose in respect to present difficulties is in the direction 
of diagnosing an organic weakness which rendered the country peculiarly susceptible to 
attack by the disrupting influences now so unconcernedly borne on the basis of a passing 
trouble. 
