Asking Dennis

[Rick Rowlands]

This community has a TON of available labor, yet they are out of work.  Obviously labor alone is not the only ingredient in the recipe for prosperity. 

That $600,000 that was subscribed to the Ohio Oil Cloth Co. in 1900 is the equivalent of $15.2 million dollars today.  Just think of it, fifteen mil invested by local people in 24 hours!  Far cry from now when to get that much money we have to go begging the government for it.

[Towntalk]

There should be an historical marker there.

Thanks for the information.

[irishbobcat]

The area is right across the street from the Struthers Waste Water Treatment Plant......

Probably the same way it was years ago.....

Still woods....a  ravine.....trees.......never developed......

[Towntalk]

Great, we're on the same page.

By the way Dennis, you mentioned a location in Struthers regarding Panthers from a previous thread. What's that area like today?

[irishbobcat]

And I don't discount that private owners invested in this area...

[Towntalk]

I don't discount the role of labor because without people willing to go into the mills and coal mines they wouldn't have survived, but again, they didn't invest the cold hard cash to build the factories.

Had it not been for the people I mentioned, this area would still be farming country just as it was before the Civil War.

[irishbobcat]

Apparently labor had nothing to do with growth in Youngstown either......

[Towntalk]

Apparently the Tod's; Wick's; Arms; Andrews's; and Brown's had nothing to do with Youngstown's growth during the period referenced in the article.

[Dan Moadus]

 

Labor is what made business grow......

It is always fascinating to me, the emphasis the left puts on labor. With statements like Dennis made above they imply that "labor" is the most important element in the business equation. I heard that countless times when I worked in the mills and at Lordstown. Those who subscribe to this fail to understand what first must take place before labor even becomes a factor.

Think of what must go into creating a plant such as the Lordstown plant. The cost of the property, the building, its equipment and tooling. And that's not to mention the cost of all the design and testing that goes into a car. Then imagine the management and timing necessary to bring all the parts and have them ready at the right place and time to actually assemble a car. This doesn't even take into account the necessity of moving all these vehicles to every town in America, or the marketing and sales efforts.

Dennis's simple statement, "Labor is what made business grow" is virtually meaningless. It amounts to nothing more than the obvious statement, "Someone must assemble Lordstowns cars". The insidiousness of the left's insistence that "labor" is key, is correct to the extent that it is true that if no one could be found to work in our plants, nothing would get built, and nothing would become of all the investments of the businessman.

But here lies the difference. If magically, the entire Lordstown plant including all its stock and equipment would disappear, and we were left with 4,000 people standing around in a field, what chance would they have of building a car, versus what would happen if suddenly every assembly employee would disappear?  It is a safe bet that in the first instance the stranded employees would quickly see the impossibility of them ever building a car in that field, while in the latter, a completely new workforce would be hired and car building could resume within a month or two.

In the end, it can be said that "labor" is the least important part of the equation, because the innovator or the inventor would still do well if no labor was available. If Henry Ford couldn't find laborers to work for him, he still would have built cars, and he would have had one himself. He probably could have made a good living hand building and selling them to rich people. His decision to devise a way to employ labor efficiently was a gift to the working man, not the other way around.

[Towntalk]

As I said, what we read in the history books isn't always the whole story. None of them describe such local areas as the "Grinder District" and the local "Tenderloin" where many of the workers lived in abject poverty.

[irishbobcat]

[ Labor is in demand in Youngstown, especially men who are familiar with the building trades. Carpenters, masons, and bricklayers can command good wages, and the demand is far greater than the supply.—Pittsburgh Dispatch."



[/quote]

Labor is what made business grow......

[Towntalk]

Dennis, to be fair I just received another book that describe the working conditions in the local steel mills leading up to the 1916 steel strike and they were to say the least horrorable.

Source:

Hearings Before The Committee on Immigration and Naturalization
United States House of Representatives – 64th Congress – First Session
January 20 – 21, 1916 - Pgs. 4-7

What is stated there certainly doesn't shine a good light on the local blue bloods.

[Towntalk]

Dennis you keep talking against "Big Business". This 1900 article describes how "Big Business" made Youngstown one of the most prosperous cities in Ohio.
If you had been running for governor back then would you be as quick to attack "Big Business" as you are today?
By the way, these things happened when Republicans were in charge of this district.

"Of the general wave of prosperity to be found all over the country, Youngstown is enjoying a particularly large share. The sale of local plants to the trusts a couple of years ago by local capital resulted in a large sum of money coming into the town, which overloaded the banks until even yet they have more money on deposit than they can well handle."

"A prominent banker said that Youngstown had money enough to invest in any good enterprise that could be brought out, and also stated that of the $4,000,000 invested in new enterprises or in extensions of old, over half of that sum was subscribed by local men. Only a few weeks ago the capital of the Ohio Oil Cloth factory at Youngstown was increased from $200,000 to $600,000, and the entire amount subscribed inside of twenty-four hours after the books were opened, all by local investors."

"The largest building operations have been in residences, of which it is figured that 600 have been erected in the last year, the cost running from $2,000 to $3,000 each. More are now under way or planned, and one real estate agent said that if he had them, he could rent or sell 500 more moderate-priced houses. Labor is in demand in Youngstown, especially men who are familiar with the building trades. Carpenters, masons, and bricklayers can command good wages, and the demand is far greater than the supply.—Pittsburgh Dispatch."