Babies on the Assembly Line (1943)

From the July 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

The following is from the Daily Mirror, April 29th, 1943:

“New York, Wednesday.

“Babies on the assembly line—washed, given a clean nappie, dressed, doctored, and fed at speed as they pass in an ever-moving, never-ending procession through a £250,000 streamlined nursery—this is the newest plan of Henry J. Kaiser, record-breaking shipbuilder.

Kaiser and his lieutenants were to-day poring over blueprints of this gigantic “Kaiser Victory Nursery,” which is being built to care for the babies of the mothers employed in his shipyards at Portland, Oregon.

He expects that the nursery will be completed within fifty-nine days and ready for occupation by 1,500 babies.”

“In addition to being the biggest nursery in the world,” Kaiser said to-day, “it will be run as efficiently as my ship-assembly centres.”

Pass Along, Please !

“A mother will dump her baby in the reception hall on the way to work. Baby will then be wheeled past a line of experts, who will examine his mouth and eyes, wash, him, change his napkin and so on, without a moment’s interruption. Baby will then pass into the restaurant for feeding, on to a room for play, and then into a cot for his nap.”

Kaiser visualises babies passing through the departments in an endless stream day and night, for the nursery will care also for the children of many women night workers.”

At last ! after everything else has been successfully mechanised; only domestic industry remained in the same position it has been for a thousand years.

Now the children of the workers (not those of the capitalists), tiny tots, are placed on the conveyor belt for highspeed “attention.” This is the sort of “security” and “improvement” offered by those who hold that capitalism can be reformed into something better. Where are those Conservative speakers of yesteryear who brought tears to the eyes of their hearers by their mournful dirges on the break-up of family life under Socialism?

Horatio.