Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-08-18
Machine Age Is Justified

opportunity for fine relations. for what
we cali culture.
There is at work In our industrial life
q passion for universal human well
being, the building up and preservation
OF health. the development of apprecia-
ton of what is good and worthy. There
is growing In all our industrial commu-
mites larger liberation, an effort to
create the machinery for cooperation
and expression. In y'quarters these
ambitions have been largely realized.
but it is slow busineSs-Slow business to
change the point of view Of workers as
well as of employers, to establish conf
dence, willingness to cooperate where
there has been general suspicion. and
not only willingness, but even a desire,
10 fight
Slowly we are WORKING out of this,
and anybody who takes account Of the
civilizs ton that is growing up In the
United States must take account of
these things. That is, our civilization
is not. as M. Caillaux seems to think,
devoted purely TO sanitation, motor cars,
radio and movie entertainment All
our workers do not use their leisure in
q restless effort 10 get away from them
selves. The picture he draws comes
from a bad-mannered. noisy, highly
conspicuous few.
Many More Plentiful.
Thousands upon thousands of people
in the United States are, for the first
time In their hard lives, finding them
selves with the money TO get some of
the material satisfactions of life. 1t is
not strange that for a period they
should feel that these are enough The
majority know better. The victims
themselves learn better. A great. steady
mass in this country lead lives based
on something besides material satisfac-
ton. Our workers are not dumb, driven
cattle, though there are dumb. driven
cattle among them. Their employers
are not slave drivers, though there are
slave drivers among them.
When you hear leader of American
industry like Owen d. Young telling his
colleagues that America must furnish a
cultural wage as well as one insuring
physical welIbeing. you know something
is at work. Let US admit that it is 60
ing TO take long to bring it to anything
like full fruition-tl1e seeds are there
The question is. are these seeds healthy
enough. are they widely enough scat
Tered, is their cultivation going to be
thorough enough to run out the seeds
Of destruction that M. Caillaux sees in
our civilization, and which unquestion-
ably are there?
Life n Series Of Experiments.
Seeds of destruction are everywhere,
and always have been. Let us say that
there are such seeds in M Caillaux him
self. aS well as in his beloved France
They are In every one Of us and in every
nation. But men and the governments
OF the world, If they are intelligent,
know that life is series Of experiments,
OF failures, OF constant correction.
American civilization as we see 1t is a
mixed benefit; but it is not, as M. Call
laux intimates, simply a civilization
pulled with string There is con-
Sciousness Of our dangers, indeed, pos
sfbly there never In the history of the
world was franker recognition of ma
tional weakness than we have now, a
more persistent pointing Of them out, a
wider spread, more intelligent. determi-
nation to conquer them through steady
development Of the idealistic purposes,
the humanitarian ends which are the
very life blood of the best that we have
today in the United States.