Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 205, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 September 1918 — MEETING THE EMERGENCY [ARTICLE]

MEETING THE EMERGENCY

By VIVIAN M. MOSES

Of The Vigilante!

When H. G. Wells called the present war the war of machines he had in mind the vast quantities of engines of war used at the front—the ordnance, both large and small, the bomb-mor-tars and mine-throwers, gas-projectors, airplanes and tanks employed in the actual fighting. But there is another sense in which this is the war of machines even more truly than that in which the great British novelist used the term; for on the machines in the shops and factories of the allied nations depends an allied victory—on the machines and the men who drive them. As has been the case with each of her allies, the United States since it entered the war has had to increase stupendously the output of its machine shops. This result is being accomplished by the erection of new plants, bf the enlargement and Increase in facilities of the shops already engaged in the production of war products, and by the conversion to this purpose of plants previously engaged in other work. The problem of multiplying the shops to work in Is a comparatively simple one; more difficult is the problem of supplying the skilled workmen to fill these shops. Obviously we cannot quadruple our skilled workmen by the old methods of apprenticeship and training fast enough to meet the nation’s needs. The old method has been found Wanting. It consisted in taking the raw, unskilled laborer into the shop, starting him at the simplest work that could be found, and letting him fight his way slowly and painfully to the status of a trained mechanic. It was a method which wasted the three precious elements, time, material and man-power. o New Way Was Found. The training accomplished by private and public vocational and technical schools brings far better results, but produces too small a quantity of skilled mechanics to meet the emergency. France found a new way. Great Britain has adopted it._ And now America must get in line —is already getting in line, in fact, with gratifying results. For the new method is swift, is sure, is comparatively cheap. It turns the grocer boy or the school teacher into a skilled mechanic with equal facility. It is the method of the shop training school. Shop training schools are now main-

tained by most of the larger metal* working plants engaged In manufacture of war products. They are spaces set aside for this purpose alone, and equipped with machines of every type used in the shops proper. An expert mechanic especially selected for his aptitude for this work is in charge in each of these shops, and under him other skilled mechanics act as teachers. Here are received the raw or undertrained applicants for work. They are assigned to the types of work to which they best seem fitted, and quickly and practically instructed in this work at the very machines which they will have to operate in the main shops. They work with the materials and on the actual orders upon which the shop is engaged and the product of their labors becomes a part of the output of the shop. They are paid a fair hourly wage as learners, and this wage Increases as the skill of the learner enables him to Increase his output. The Results obtained in these shop training schools are almost beyond belief. The ideal conditions under which a raw man is taught to handle his machine enable him to become a skilled mechanic in a small fraction of the -time formerly consumed in the old method under which he picked up knowledge bit by bit in the shop from such other workmen as had time to help him. Mechanics Are Needed. For example, here, in a New England shop, is a grocer’s man, after a week’s training, operating his milling machine effectively, and reading the blue-print related to his work. Here, in an Ohio shop, are three girls formerly employed in a department store; they are now operating heavy handturret lathes on work requiring great precision; and the length of their training required variously from three to ten days. “Here is a particularly capable woman," says an expert from one of the greatest American war factories, visiting another shop (speaking, of one who was probably a teacher). "How long have you been here?" he asks this product of the shop training school. “I came yesterday,” replies the woman, who is working a great turret-lathe. America needs skilled mechanics, and needs them greatly. The shop training schools will supply this need, quickly and efficiently. To the employer they offer the surest method of. supplying the trained operators without which hiis machines cannot turn. To the Individual seeking employment or willing to take a place in the swelling ranks of those providing the sinews of war for the American government,* the shop training schools provide the opportunity for becoming, without undergoing # long period of training or probation, skilled mechanics, worthy of and receiving the wondrously high rates qf payment which trained labor is commanding.