Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1943-12-13

I AM in favor of brave new world. Ger
i tainly for the tremendous human and
economic sacrifices which we are making dur
ing the war effort, it would be nice if we
could get some reasonable dividends.
William James once said:
There are two types of men, the tender
minded and the tough minded"
1t behooves us with financial and economic
responsibilities to be tough minded in this era
of fuzzy thinking and inflated hoping. II
behooves US TO make an adult Of loose and
wishful thinking.
Can we go back to normally? Well, that
is an interesting question. Warren G. Hard
ing got himself good job on the basis of
coming that word. If by normally my good
friend Henry Wallace means a return TO a
fixed or frozen set of circumstances such as
existed at any past date, then you and | must
agree with him and say, of course we can't
60 back.
Ours has been an evolving, changing, dy-
manic, growing economic society, and we will
never go back to any previously existing static
pattern. However, to my mind, normally
means something else.
To my mind normally means the main
high road which we have followed and which
leads to the future promise of American life
and from which we have taken a detour dur
ing the war.
We have taken a detour because our
economic objective is no longer for the dura-
ton to produce high living standards for our
people. Our emergency wartime objective
instead is to produce dead and manned Ger
mans and Japanese, and l say we should
regard this as detour. We should abandon
the detour when the job has been successfully
accomplished and then should get back on the
main highway.
If that is normalcy am for it. A dy-
manic normally is based on change and i'm
provement-based on the benefits of science
and invention and engineerng-not on
static decaying, decadent normally.
INCIDENTALLY, my friends, on the ques-
ton of decadence, we were hearing good
deal from some of the social critics of business
in the decade of the sos about the decadent
state of the national economy
! think since | spoke here two years ago.
we have observed renewed evidence of the
vitality Of the American system. In spite of
all the manhandling and irritating in spite
of excessive taxes and prolonged development
of internal class warfare, in a time of national
crisis it came through and delivered the goods
become decadent or decayed.
1t demonstrated it had in II the vital prn-
cpes of change and adjustment and growth,
and it indicated TO my mind at least, that the
system based on the initiative and enterprise
of millions of workers and managers is more
flexible and more productive than collectivst
systems run bureaucratically from the top.
Now we see these bureaucratic systems
at work all throughout the world. Some of
them are our enemies and some Of them are
our wartime associates, and it is significant
that they are leaning on US through lend
lease.
Accordingly, If out of this lend-lease ex-
pertinent we get nothing else back, let's at
least get back confidence in OUR SYSTEM
which has met the test and shown it is still
vital and growing and has the capacity for
progress
In planning-in making your plans for
your business and other businesses, you can't
plan in vacuum You can't remove your
fragment from the total economic system and
make logical plans. You could not do that in
normal times and certainly you can't do it in
these days when the future of civilization is
still in doubt, with a race taking place be-
tween civilization and chaos.
1t is the time for all of us TO do some
tough-minded thinking and some courageous
fact facing, and it is high time for all Of US to
stop the frivolous habit of Judging men by
easy labels
IN NEW YORK liberal nowadays is a
fellow who wants to see George Sokolsky
or Pegler shot at sunrise. When | was in
school l used to be taught that liberal de-
manded the right Of free speech, even for
those of different orders and an industrialist
friend Of mine once said that liberal is a
fellow who is liberal with the truth.
Now the soapboxers get up on the rostrum
and say that the business man and fnancier
are reactionaries That is an inaccurate de-
scrption. The modern industriaist who spends
millions each year on research is not re-
dictionary. He is investing in change and is
engaged therefore in changing our habits of
life and developing new ideas and products.
Thus he is a progressive influence in our
national life. And every industrialist who is