New Britain herald., 1930-10-20

vival from the ages of clutter. This is the Book of the Machine" Is she is hot or cold, or dyspeptic or at loss for word. she goes to that book. and it tells her which button to press
 No such mechanical life as this, ever happened yet, of course. This is merely Forster's imaginative pie ture of the machine age carried to perfection. But, he takes pains to lpoint out that it ends in the com plete cessation of life for the mass Of mankind.
 Matching Forster in his pessi- mism one finds other critics of this present order in the pulpit and the press. Here is d minister, Rev. Henry P. Frost. declaring:
 ' Tn this age of the machine. the shadow of the F'rankenstein mon- ster. that we have made, falls across the upward reaching pathway of the race. We are all classified, stan- dardized, regimented; while our hu- man life and individuality are not SatlShed and developed.
 And here is the disturbing diag- nosis of no less competent an ob- server than Sir Philip Gibbs that we must
 Either kill off all scientists and inventors or completely reform mans moral and intellectual nature. Surely, this is a fearful picture | indeed!
 .'Second. of course, comes the brave battalion, the supporters of the status quo in the machine age. They are dressed in bright scarlet and gold braid. Henry Ford marches at their head. and behind him comes Charles A. Beard and others. MT. Ford insists. and naturally, for who has protited more by the machine age than he
 The way to liberty. the way to equality of opportunity lies through power. The machne is only an in- cident. The function of the ma chine is to liberate man from brute burdens, to liberate his spiritual powers. Machinery is accomplish ing in this world what man has fail ed to do by preaching, propaganda or the written word, ushering in the United States of the World
 And Mir. Beard answers us that a decline of western civilization is simply unthinkable. We are differ ent from Rome, Greece, Egypt, and other agricultural civilizations which eventually decayed. Little wonder. then, that the Concord sage, Ralph Waldo Emerson, facing the prospect of this present scientific era back in the last century insisted: I have never known man as rich as all men ought to be.today.
 Third, and naturally, we must in- clude in our picture what l choose to call here the Fence Rail Philoso- phers' They sit on the high fence beside life's road today and watch the, world go by. They are not down in the muck and mire, the grime and smoke of this industria era, like most of us. Perhaps, there tribute to our point of view. In this group one will find such observers today as Harry Elmer Barnes, John Dewey and Henry Adams.
 These, then, are the prophets ot pessimsm, optimism and doubt to- day. But let's not take sides with any one of these until we have taken al least one fleeting look at the pro- gress of the machine and the man behind it in the last hundred years and mere.
 Some economists would have il that steam culture has helped te treble the population of the world Certainly the worlds population has grown enormously from 700,000.00C in 17S9 to 2,000,o00,00o in 1925. Il has brought agricultural folk in from the farms to the city. It has stimulated colonization and world empire. More mill workers have ne cessitated more food producers. San itation. medical care, railroads steamships, these all have helped And some would have it that the steam engine was at the bottom ol it all. But I wonder, l wonder if Coo hasn't been at work inside the pro, cess too!
 The smoke will be rising from tens of thousands factories in Amer. ica this week. And millions of dol lars will be paid in wares to mer behind machines. Always man has wanted money. But, before steam he could get along without it better All previous cultures valued goods more than gold. A Yankee farmer ir the old days with wife and daugh- , ters at home and sons in the fielC } could get along very well. without much money. For he was in posi- ton to feed and clothe his family without it. Not so today!
 Few men and women, even mod. ern farmers, can get along now without cash. Millions of us neither make or sell anything that we car eat or wear. We should not be sur l prised then at the enthronement oi money in our machine made civili. zation since it has a life-Sustainine power today that it did not have 30 60 and 100 years ago. We canno . fend for ourselves as did our ances. tors on these New England farms For vast multitudes the machine jot means money! And money means life! And lack of money accounts I suspect-for more suicides thar even broken hearts!
 Admit all this, and still I sa, , that man isheither better, nor wors, , off than he was before. Is it neces , sarily a more evil thing to be at the , mercy of the weekly check in tht factory pay roll than to be, as man! of our ancestors were in the older days, at the mercy of the tides ant seasons, the Black Death and ths Lord of the Manor, the Pig Sty ant 1 1 thn dn not heliaIe if