The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1930-05-31
Ford Rivals Lenin in Russia

The striking phase about contemporaneous Russia is
the mania there for establishing mass production in field
and factory on a successful basis. It Is an obsession with
Ivan. It accounts for the purchase Of factories In this
country and taking the equipment overseas and setting
1t up in the land of the ~soviets; for the invitation to
Tom Campbell to come over from Montana and show how
vast acreages could be successfully 1armed to grain: for
the consultation Of American financial experts in GER
tain budget operations involving outlay on a big scale;
for much buying Of labor-saving machinery-especially
farming devices-in this country.
A curious feature about all this is that soviet Russia
is developing other idols than the ennbalrned Lenin in his
open sarcophagus outside the Kremlin walls. One Of
these is a noted American, none other than Henry Ford.
AL Russia is concentrating in study of this remarkable
captain Of industry, because Russia feels that In his sue
cess there may be the secret Of its own industrial de-
~velopment.
A writer in the current issue of the Golden Book Mag
azdne, for instance. discloses that more than q million
copies Of Henry Fords autobiography have been sold in
Russia recently. He adds this remarkable sentence:
There were many instances where whole villages met
to hear chapters Of the books read aloud"
There Is . singular appeal to that statement, somehow:
and the state Of mind that 1t reveals may In the end turn
out to be one OF the most important tendencies Of the
day in all Of Europe. whenever you ponder on the fu-
ture. you might bear in mind that fact about Russia and
Henry Fords autobiography.
The Russian village is as unlike the American vii
lage Is anything that can be imagined. A Russian movie
picture director. coming to Hollywood to try his hand at
movies in the American style. recently revealed that his
movie company, going on location in q Russian village
not long ago. nearly caused a wholesale panic simply be-
cause the cameramen all wore gloves. The superstitious
villagers, he said, believed that the cameramen were de-
mons from the underworld, and wore gloves to conceal the
fact that they had hooks where their hands ought to be!
In that anecdote, then, you have an insight into the
outlook of the Russian village. Remembering that, is It
not striking. beyond words, to picture these same Rus
sian villagers so ready to believe in hook handed demons
from the kingdom Of darkness, sitting in circles to hear
the local wise men read chapters Of the life story of
Henry Ford? Could the old and the new come into more
amazing contrast?
It Is no accident that the Russians have set up Ford
as a major prophet. The whole nation is striving. with
inredible pains and turmoil. to get into step Will, the
modern era: why should not its ignorant villagers select
as their idol the man whose career and achievements
typdfy the modern era 10 perfectly?
These Russians have hit on = truth that we usually
overlook. In the modern use Of machinery-the kind Of
use exemplfied by Ford. though he is not its only expo
nent by any means-there lie potentiauties of simply
enormous significance. No matter how imperfectly these
potentialities have been realized 50 far, It is nevertheless
true that they have given humanity an incompatible
weapon for IT, age-long fight against misery and want.