Part XXVIII
4 But in its coming,
5 Industrialization was first applied as we have seen to producer instrumentation, and latterly only to the consumer. And within the latter category we saw that it was first applied
6 to the mobilization of U.S.A, man, not for mobility’s sake, but for potential ability to adjust to the flux of Industrialization’s dynamic impact, first upon the world at large.
7 Over concentration upon this first occurring mobilization characteristic has obscured the fact however that Industrialization must ultimately impact upon that largest of man’s individual mechanical extensions—his home;—the extension that will make feasible his settling upon mountain top or in any valley of delight at will.
8 This ultimate engagement of Industrialization has started but from the inside out.
9 That is, it has first chosen to implement the household with industrial accessories. Finally, it will engage even large units of the whole,—whole, bathrooms, kitchens, atmospheric and power control units,—in the end engaging the encompassing shells.
10 This trend is to be seen in the figures of ‘‘general’’ builders’ contracts for dwellings. In 1900, only about ten percent of the general contract costs went to any items strictly of the industrial category, stoves, furnace, lighting, bathrooms.
11 This figure constantly rose in proportion to the whole—to eighteen per cent by 1917, to twenty-five per cent in the twenties, and is recently in the vicinity of fifty per cent of the whole, which promises complete Industrialization, within the reasonably near future. The technique of mass producing airplanes for the present war phase will emerge as the technique of delivering your house by parachute or the equivalent in expedition.
12 The coming Industrialization of housing is implicit in,—and as usual unpremeditatedly,—■ the hydra-like outgrowth and separation of the C.I.O. out of the older craft unionism and in the growth of the industrial organization built firmly on universal rather than idiosyncratic service. Whether this particular C.I.O. union or another which takes up its trend will carry the labor situation to a stage adaptably synchronizing housing with general Industrialization is inconsequential.
13 But it may safely be posited that craft unionism is on the way out and industrial on the way in—all the way.
14 Building as a true industry is,—until that time arrives,—dead
15 Newtonianly ‘‘static.’’
16 It is a reasonable supposition that with the coming
17 of Industrialization of housing
18 its ramifications
19 far greater volumetrically and time-wise than transportation’s,
20 will more than absorb any surplus of potential workers.
21 This happy event,—
22 granted as occurring in any measure,—has been retarded to a considerable degree as we have earlier discovered
23 by lack of bigness in imagination,—dwarf cultivated by the Publicitors;—on the part of designers,
24 economists, and industrialists sufficient to appreciate the richness and beauty potential to life involved in the concept of the mechanical extension of man.
25 Thus an inferiority complex towards other men each fearing the others’ ability so extended to get satisfaction out of life and recontributively to grow, without cost to one another and without trespassing upon each other has curtailed
26 what a contemporary poet has designated as ‘‘that holiest of ghosts man may ever know—the creative imagination.’’