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PLAYER SECTON
NEW
YORK, NOVEMBER
24, 1917
The Increasing Scarcity of Male Workers Caused By War Conditions Has
Compelled Many Player Manufacturers to Turn to Female Labor in Order to
Secure Adequate Help, and the Experiment Is Working Out Very Successfully
There is not likely to be much disagreement
over the assertion that labor conditions in the
United States are a subject for serious consid-
eration. Putting aside for a moment the fact
that strikes are increasing in number in many
industries, and that their underlying causes are
being only too often discovered to rest on de-
liberate disloyalty, their remains the quite dif-
ferent but equally disturbing fact that the na-
tion's military requirements have already eaten
deeply into the ranks of skilled labor, and will
do so even more deeply before the year is out.
Along with this condition conies one of wholly
different nature, though dependent on it. Labor
is getting high wages, and these wages are on
the increase steadily, although much of this in-
crease, if not all, is just now being absorbed by
the artificially high prices of provisions. How-
ever it may be, labor is doing well just now
and is investing in war loans. But when Amer-
ican labor invests in war loans this is because
it has other money to spare. There is not yet
any reason to suppose that the American people
are sufficiently concerned over the war to re-
gard Liberty Loans as a first consideration.
Nor is it likely that this people will ever have
to stint themselves materially for any such a
purpose. The national wealth is too great.
The dual condition here mentioned—whole-
sale shortage in productive power combined with
retail readiness to buy largely—is being felt in
other trades than ours. But it is peculiarly ir-
ritating in our trade. And because this is so,
one may be pardoned for directing attention to
the possibility of taking steps to utilize our
available man-power to better advantage. .For
that is what it must come to. Unless, in a
word, we can keep up production in face of a
shortage of men, by training unskilled labor, or
by other devices, the output of our factories will
be seriously diminished.
Naturally the thinking men of our business
would like to see ways out of these present and
prospective complications, for even now, when
the drafting of man-power is only begun, and
disaffection in labor circles has hardly touched
us, we find it hard to keep up our output, and
we shall find it still harder a year from now.
Is it not plain, then, that we should begin to
consider possible substitutions for the present
forms of labor and for the present method of
manipulating the man power available to us?
Female Labor
The employment of women raises many ques-
tions of no little gravity. But it is doubtful
whether any of these touch matters of essen-
tial importance. The substitution of female for
male labor may present technical difficulties; it
may even lead to quarrels with male labor. But
if the war continues for a long time the atti-
tude of labor itself is likely to be profoundly
modified. The complainants, anyhow, are usual-
ly the men over thirty years of age. In any
case, however, the question of how far women
may profitably and efficiently be substituted for
men is one of great interest and importance;
and one which is likely to become increasingly
important as time goes on. If the attitude of
male labor towards reforms is aggressive 01
hostile the consequences may be unpleasant;
but nothing can stop the march of progress
from inefficiency towards efficiency. If the em-
ployment of female labor turns out to be a
step towards efficiency, that step will be taken
and taken permanently.
Our Experience
The player business is fortunate in having al-
ready the experience, uniformly happy, of em-
ploying women to do some important, in fact
essential, parts of the manufacture of player
actions. In all player factories women are now
being employed to make pneumatics and glue
up pouch boards, to assemble valves and to in-
spect small finished parts. In some factories,
women are being employed to operate small ma-
chine tools, especially those whose action is
wholly or partly automatic; that is to say,
which merely have to be stopped, started and
fed. There is not the slightest reason why
women should not become expert assemblers of
bellows and top action, expert testers and expert
final inspectors of finished pneumatic work in
the piano. The only pneumatic work they are
not likely to attempt is the heavy mill work
and this refers only to the handling of the larger
pieces when the lumber comes in for the first
sawing. Given adequately protected tools, with
work to handle which is within the limits of
their physical powers, and women can be just
as expert as men ever were. Indeed, in many
cases, they will be found just as much superior
as they were long ago found to be in pneumatic
making and valve work.
The Clothes Question
It is not necessary to suppose that women
must be broken in to wearing male clothes; or
anything like that. The girls who work the
machine tools, lathes, millers, screw-cutters, etc.,
making shell-cases for the army in England,
wear, by regulation, a cap fitting well down
over the head and entirely covering all the hair;
with an apron covering the body from neck to
ankles, with long sleeves buttoned at the wrist
and without the slightest trace of string, ribbon
or clasp to catch anywhere. They are ade-
quately protected and can wear their ordinary
clothes underneath the working outfit. The idea
o; dressing up women in something like a cross
between pajamas and a gunny-sack in the prac-
tical work of organizing female labor in the
factory might as well be put aside.
Advantages
It is found on inquiry that "pneumatic girls"
in ordinary circumstances make, on piece-work,
from $12 to $15 per week. The work is far
pleasanter than store or office occupations, is
less exhausting, and less servile. It is only nec-
essary to announce that a new occupation is
open to women, which they can learn readily,
and which pays well to ambitious workers. A
crowd of applications will follow immediately.
Women are dexterous in all work that requires
rapid fingering, light touch and close attention
to detail. They are not great as originators,
usually, but they are first-class detail-workers,
neat, attentive and conscientious.
The proposition has, of course, its difficulties.
There are various State regulations in different
communities regulating the labor of women, and
the task of training a large force is not easy.
But if such branches of the manufacture, as
assembling, testing and inspection, as well as
machining of small parts, be thrown open on
terms as favorable as those which now pertain
to pneumatic making, there will be no difficulty
in getting enough applicants to enable one to
pick and choose.
The discipline of a factory run in this way is
superior to the ordinary, the wage question is
less explosive, and the output usually steadier.
In all the circumstances, the employment of
female labor would seem to be both desirable
and needful.
CHASE BROS. PLAYER GRAND READY
Latest Addition to the Chase-Hackley Piano
Co.'s Line Includes De Luxe Player Grand
MUSKEGON, MICH., November 19.—The Chase-
Hackley Piano Co., this city, is now prepared to
place on the market the latest and most inter-
esting addition to the company's line, the Chase
Bros. De Luxe player grand, a fine instrument
in every particular, fully up to the Chase-Hack-
ley standard, and which has been produced in
answer to a logical demand. The De Luxe
player grand has been in process of development
for some time past, but the company did not
announce it until an exhaustive series of experi-
ments had proven its qualities,