Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-02-18

Ing not for greater iaachines nor for bet
ter Methods hut for men personality
counts for more in America than perfcc-
lion OF mc.no1' IN S'sEg ,' ah1"Srng, i , To-
individual power. The man Is stiIl mas
! ter of the machine.
| TT GAS been shouted in the market-placC
i that this is the age of the machine. The
horse has yielded to the motorcar. The cleo
! trio engine is discharging the stoRer The
tractor throws mems hands from the plow
! Meantime, systems are being built, systems
so cunningly devised that men become almost
! equal to machines. At the end of certain
! Greek plays n god used to descend from a
machine. Today the machine has been cle-
waited to the dignity of a god.
Not that this would be so terrible even II
| It were true After all, men are needed to
invent machines and men are needed to oper-
ate them. If worse came to worst. It would
still be possible that man ruled, and was not
ruled by, machinery. The facts are better
still. This is not an age of machinery.
Within the past eight months there have
appeared on the market at least five, perhaps
five times five, new talking machines Their
merits need not be considered, but compari-
son of the price of these talking machines
and the price of records is illuminating. 1t
is possible to buy a machine for five dollars
And single record may still cost as high as
eight dollars. Why?
Simply because the American people are
willing to give all the plunder of earth to a
personality, to an individual, to q clear
human voice which will take it away from
the machine. 1t Is true that in our amuse-
ment the machine plays a part-the phono-
graph, the moving picture, the player piano.
But the greater truth is that even in these
mechanical contributions to our life, the thing
4.
ing touch of personality. That is why, in
cidentally, it would be so hard to Prussianize
America.
Charles NJ. Schwab told the Aldine Club
that he had tucked away in the Bethehems
a plant at least half again as great as that
of the Krupps, in Essen Germany If there
is machine or I. method which will produce
profits that machine or method will be in
stalled at Bethlehem as soon as Mr. Schwab
hears Of it. Yet the point of Mr.. Schwab's
address was not that his methods and his
machinery were valuable, but that he had
cheerfully and of his own accord given the
sum of 100000 to the vice president of the
company as n bonus for work done. Another
assistant had received $1,OOO,0O0 in addition
TO an enormous salary, because his work, his
personal endeuvor and accomplishment had
been worth that much. The machinery had
done its work The method had been without
fault. Yet the driving force of one man was
worth S1,0000OO.
Within the last two months two moving
picture manufacturers have changed their
organizations in order to place in control the
featured actresses of their films. The film
is a mechanical product. 1t Is impossible to
pay more than twenty-five cents for the priv
ilege of seeirg the best film in this city.
And the very facts that thousands of films
are made and that thousands of copies are
mechanically reproduced from each negative,
have contributed to the value of the few in
dividuals who could stamp their personality
on the revolving film and project their indi-
viduality to the spectators.
1t is not hard to see just how this emphasis
on personality affects the economic and po-
litical life of the nation For us the man is
still the thing. Every scheme for economic
improvement or for political change has to
come up squarely against the unshakable
prejudice which the people of the United
States have in favor of human beings, both
exceptional and ordinary Our intense ad-
miration for the exceptional man and woman
is bar to sociaistic propaganda, because
we worship, sometimes extravagantly the
success they win. on the other hand, the
trust in average human beings is a successful
bar against the less desirable forms of our
new mania for efficiency
Efficiency, it has been pointed out, is no
more to be reverenced than abracadabra un-
less there is something very definite some
thing much more important than money
making, toward which efficiency tends. 1t
may be added that efficiency, unless it is the
product of individual purpose, is futile. The
charge has been denied that certain methods
of efficiency wear men out in a brief time;
but the denial is not enough Before any
system roots itself in American soil it will
have to prove that it releases the forces of
the workers for higher and better things. 1t
will be of very little profit to the nation that
it can make three times as many turning
lathes in a given time as any other country
can make if the price has to be paid with the
freedom of the workers soul.
So far this country has kept hold of itself.
1t has manufactured things and has kept
things in their proper proportion to persons.
In great industrial age the leaders have
called only for more men of power, of brain
and of personality. That attitude must con-
tinue. In the midst of our prosalc preoccu-
patton with objects we can afford to be
poetical, when human lives are at stake, and
still say: "Glory to Man, for Man is the
master of all thngs"