The Washington times., 1931-09-18
True to Type
AS HENRY FORD SEES
THE REAL PROFIT
r. .. OF LIFE
Nv GILBERT SEH.DES-

eightieth anniversary of newspaper, with small fore
! cast of life in the next eight years
Mr.. Ford is determined to be sensible, intelligent and
tough-minded. -
'1t is only man that progresses" he says. "His
cOmpIishments to this present those Of a being
plainly possessed of infinite possibilities but as plainly
stutfying them. After ALL the only profit of life
Is life ITSELF and believe that the coming eight years
win successful in passing around the real
profit Of lfe The newest thing in the world is the
human being And the greatest changes are to be
hooked for in him."
Men-Not Fords
So Mr. Ford links himself with Haldane and Millkan
in believing that the biological sciences will become the
center of interest in place of the physical Sciences that
will have to know of and less, perhaps of
machinery, in the next four generations MIR. Ford
thinks that character and conscence) have not kept
pace with intellectual developments; he thinks that our
economic machine will have to be redesigned to make
it do what have said it could do. This means, funda
mentally, that cannot on saying our present sys-
tenn provides work and happiness for ALL all the time
and as for the best in the best of all possible worlds
cannot go on unless intend to make good our
words.
The wonder to me is that people do not wonder more
about what our descendants will want out of life We
60 cheerfuy assuming that SO from people
will still want skyscrapers, elaborate apartments movie
cathedras faster motor hot dog stands and
more money to spend all these things. We assume
also that people have always wanted these things
their equivalents, and that they universally wanted
always, everywhere forever.
Who Is Human?
It gives pleasure to read about graft and corrupt
magistrates and insurance scandals in the time OF the
Caesars, because reassured that human nature
cannot change. But when talk of human nature we
leave out the Chinese, of whose nature we know little
and the Japanese who until recently at least loved honor
more than life and proved it by suicide; leave out
the saints, philosophers the scientists the artists and
the arsocrats-hat is to say the people by whom
we Judge human nature at it's besbecause they do not
fit into scheme.
Suppose human beings decided entirely new
series of obectves Let say they determined to have
more health and less money; play and less power;
conversation and less entertainment Suppose that
the yachtdea no longer inspired the prosperous man.
who decided to retire and grow flowers in small way
suppose the man-abouttown ideal longer influenced
the undergraduates of all ages Suppose that instead
of killing themselves in order to live at the center of
many unmportant things people decided to make them
selves the center of few things they really liked
TreasonabIe Though hts
/ All these things you would say, could only
social change little important than the change
from theater parties to backgammon parties The fact
is that real change in human wants would upset every
manufacturer and three political parties It is
almost treason in the United States to think of time
! when people will not want to rapidly and
fortably from place to place will throw out their
radios because they prefer to walk in the moonlight along
the banks of unpolluted streams.
The basis of American life in the past eighty years
has been unlimited wants with exceptionally high
proportion of satisfaction This is what call human
nature But the basis of French peasant life has been
wanting very few things with, perhaps, even higher
proportion of wants satisfied What would happen if
America changed to the French system?
About twenty years ago the books on social uplift
full of phrases about the dreadful wantessness
of the poor" with the suggestion that the poor ought
to want many things: comforts, sanitatons, and
the like The uplifters have had their way: the
want everything, and now and then they get it. Yet
there should have been parallel complaint about the
equally wantfulness of the rich and the moderately
rich and the would-be rich. 1t perfectly natural
covetOusness built the vast production of America
urged on by the brave science of advertising and
craftsmanship. 1t included good things and tawdry
things and at times offensive things
Yachts and Cars for All
For time we had the impression that the poor are
starving because the rich have yachts then the idea
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