The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1931-11-30
The End of EIdOrado

Inc remarkable prosperity of the United States
has been due to the fact that we have been able TO
develop successive series of highly profitable indus
tries
First came the fur trade, the rum and slave trade
tobacco raising, the rice and indigo culture and the
origins of agriculture. These served to carry the
colonies to relative prosperity.
About the time that our federal Constitution
was adopted Samuel Slater brought the cotton textile
industry from England. Railroad building, the con-
quest of the frontier and discovery of gold followed
its heels.
Then came the new iron. and steel industry. based
on the inventive genius of Bessemer and Kelly the oil
industry from Drake to Rockefeller the building of
transcontinental railroads. the beginning of great
mergers, and the advantages of arge-scale industry
The final stage came with the introduction of in
dustrial chemistry from Germany the remarkable ex
panson Of communication facilties-telegraph tele-
phone radio, and the growth of the automobile and
rubber industries.
These were accompanied by the age of skyscrapers
and other vast enterprises in the building and en-
cheering industries and by the rise of banking con-
troll of industry and commerce
The present depression is in part result of the
unduly concentrated absorption of the social income
and in part manifestation of the end of the period
There may be no and vast worlds for
American industry and invention to conquer. Such
is the contention of S. McClatchie in an article on
"1ndustrialism Near Journeys End" in the North
American Review
Mr.. McClatchie points out that there have been
some seven great problems which have challenged
American industrialism:
Cd The introduction of machines and the pro-
Ufci If 1ohN
ton of the empire of machines.
CD The improvement of transportation from the
pack the back OF the fur-trader to the airplane
pilot, who crosses the continent in eleven hours.
90 The perfection of the communication of in
formation from the pony mail messenger to telephone
and radio-telephony across the Atlantic.
"a The provision of cheap fuel and of diverse
materials and compounds from aluminium to bakelite
CD The efficient preservation and distribution of
food.
co Housing.
Cd Entertainment and recreation, which has be-
come an organized commercial enterprise chiefly since
the days of P T. Barnum
We at Journeys end" in most of these in
dustries Electric refrigeration in homes still has
considerable future. Teevsion may provide enter
tainment for the rich minority some years ahead The
aiplane may be considerably improved and exploited
more thoroughly, but it never play the part that
the automobile has in giving an almost explosive
squirt to American industry.
Housing is the only field of major industrial opera
ton where something on grand scale still might be
accomplished:
mo traveller from Europe can fail to be impressed
by the unspeakable uglness of American habitatons
Aside from few dwellings of the we'll TODD, they
bear the unmistakable mark of makeshft. It is the
makeshft of the transient, the exploiter, and the
gold-seeker
Nowhere in all America is there to be found the
smugness of English village, the artistry of the
Bavarian highland town, the fitness of the Swiss
chalet What could be more worth while than to
build ourselves a paradise of powered homes? Our
pioneering days are over 1t time we settled down
to live"
Whether agrees with the latter suggestion
NlcClatchie has proved his point that now are in
a period without precedent If there is anything
more to conquer, it is the problem of sane living.
The mad chase for wealth by leaps and bounds
over expanses of industrial evolution now is in
the hands of the historian not the industrialist.