Transcript
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{word} = hard to understand, might be this
(This is Number 3 on a series of lectures by Professor Rosenstock-Huessy, Dartmouth College, on "What Future for the Profession?" January 27th, 1960, in Aspen, Colorado.)
[tape interruption]
It's just a year ago that I delivered a speech in Germany, in Frankfurt, in the famous Paul's Cathedral, which has now become a secular auditorium and -- on the fate of the underdeveloped countries. The debate went on the ways by which the exporting countries could mitigate the shock administered to these underdeveloped countries when you industrialize them, because the tragic first effect on these countries is unemployment. It is the other way around -- from what you would expect. When you build new factories, suddenly the home industries go to pieces in these countries, and there are millions of people unemployed. It happens in India at this moment. And I was -- as a matter of fact asked to found a school to train employees of the big corporations to deal humanely with these underprivileged groups.
I wouldn't do it, because the people wanted to put me in a big -- into a big city, and I said, "I have to live with these men in the country, where I can imitate to a certain extent the conditions which they will find in the world outside there." It's ridiculous to have them in a big house -- apartment house in what was to be Berlin. And they are now spending one million and-a-half dollars for building fountains, and bathrooms, et cetera, and all the amenities for these people when they should teach them to live without these amenities.
What do these countries humanly expect? As I said, they ex- -- don't expect dentists, or an engineer, or a doctor. But they expect an expert or professional man with all that this implies. And I think, if you allow me today to draw your -- draw a picture of what people see into us from the foreign countries, it will help us perhaps to recuperate our own standards.
The -- when I was in Los Angeles this last spring, there was -- they arrested a millionaire, a boy who claimed to be -- playboy who claimed to be the owner of $44 million, and also had the ripe age of 40 years. And he called the cop who arrested him for -- reckless driving, "peasant": "You peasant can't arrest me," he said.
Now the word "peasant" in the mouth of these upper 400 is a -- certainly a very offensive use of the word, very insulting. And it's meant to be. "Peasant." Of
course, it had originally the same ring in the ears of man as today the term "worker" has. The term "peasan-" -- "peasant" in the old language meant a man who works the land, paisant. And there was nothing derogatory about it at all.
And I invite you for a moment to equate three classes of the laboring population in our history: the peasant who works the land; the worker who works on machines; and the artisan, the craftsman who does in his craft -- guilds and crafts makes our shoes, or our saddle, or our -- the plumber, or whatever we still have left as remnants of the old organization of the arts and crafts. He had three names for the same mass of people: the laboring people, on -- in the land, the peasant; in the cities of old, the old urban population, the craftsman or the artisan; and today we have in these de-localized factories that -- who -- which can be anywhere, from a mountain peak to the bottom of the sea, a worker. We do not equate these three groups. You play one up against the other. You speak of the founding states on one-hand side, the agricultural group, and the -- the workers in the cities. I think the time is past where you can indulge in this separation. Or -- ideologically, the farming revolution, the agricultural revolution is such that this is now an industry. And the people who work in agriculture are workers. And the sooner we unify again the -- the vocabulary, I think the better it will be for our understanding of what happens when people get jobs, and are occupied by a leading group who create the potential, who guide people into these channels of fruitful work.
The -- I am going to show you that three times in Europe--and in an abbreviated form, in here, this country--which has taken over in 150 years what had been done in 5,000 years in the Old World, that three times leadership of a technical and spiritual nature has been asserted, and that people--like the iron files around a magnet, or like the -- the figures in the sand of {Flanne-} -- these musical figures whom you may have -- whom -- which you have seen in music--have danced after the fiddle of these leading groups. There are three such groups: today it's the engineer; in the Middle Ages it was the artists, the architect who built the cathedral, the painter who painted the -- the -- the chapel. He needed craftsmen around him. All kind of them. Take -- think only of the woodwork needed for the Sistine Chapel. Stucco, everything else. The ladders, the scaffold that had to be furnished. So he -- the inspired leader was the artist in the Middle Ages. It is today the engineer. And in the old days, when the forests were stretching out between every settlement in order to keep the neighboring community from interfering, when the wolves were around in the common -- in the common woodlot still, and the wild animals, it was the hermit--as we shall see immediately--who persuaded the nomadic -- nomadic tribes to settle. Men like St. Patrick in Ireland and such -- many such more people. You have in Europe still the tradition of St. Gall, or St. {Trigolet}, or St. Columban, who founded in the midst of the woods first an hermitage, and showed that you could
live without being killed in these lonely places.
As you know, today we -- we are stuck with an ideology that divides the world into capital and labor. It is one of the most nonsensical divisions I've ever seen, because labor is the first capital of an industrialist. I just -- has to ask you whom can--here, our friend Martin--send to Wisconsin. If he has not a man in whom he can confide while he has the influ- -- a flu, he can shut down. {He can}, you see. And the man whom he can send--let's take Mr. {Bronson}--he has to have confidence in -- and he cannot pay for this confidence. If you have a Monteur, a -- how do you call it? a man who -- who -- installation man, you see, and you send him elsewhere, just to -- install an electric -- electric equipment in a -- in a farm, the man is part and parcel of the enter- -- enterprise. If in the absence of the boss, he doesn't -- you see, is not taking care of the interest of the boss, the firm breaks down.
The same is with any expansion of any industrial plant. If you want to duplicate your plant, and will have -- wish to have a branch settlement, the first people you -- you send there must be identifiable with your own interests. They must have your interests at heart. And for this you can -- there is no payment, you see. The -- the daily payment which you pay them has nothing to do with this intricate process, that this man, you can be sure, will have your interests at heart, and will not plot with the man to whom he delivers the goods, you see, how to cheat you in your final bill, you see, for the hours he has worked, or for the percentage he has allowed this man, or whatever it is.
And there is no -- the labor in this sense, as far as expansion goes, of a firm, and as far as branch offices go, and as far, therefore, as propagation goes, in the sense as we have children -- in the sense that we, you see, may have to multiply, in the sense that the head of a firm has to have people who in his place can multiply his efforts, that's an unpayable proposition. It's -- the stock, the stem, the -- the--how would you call it?--the heart of any firm is that group of people who are able to multiply the effort, who are propagating the -- the work of the firm. And there is no payment for them, because they are the business. That is the business. And nothing else is the business.
I can tell you the story of -- the greatest electrical concern in Germany is Siemens. You may have heard of the name. The man who first invented telegraphy, you see, and laid the first under- -- oversea -- unders- -- oceanic cable. Now this firm is still flourishing. And during the last World War, they went -- they had always to flee from the bombs. And so after one bomb raid, they left Berlin and went into the Alsace, near Strasbourg. Then they -- at the end of the war, they came back into the heart of Germany, in the -- Franconia in North Bavaria. And when I met them in 1952, they had again branched out into a settlement of
refugees from the East. You know, there have been 13 or 14 million people displaced in Europe. Just Ger -- Germans of the eastern territories, the so -- they abound everywhere. And Siemens felt he should give these people a chance, so he moved into one of these camps and established a -- a factory right there, where they had in -- lived in their barracks.
Now I moved there with a group of people; I had taught adult education at that time; it was 1952. And so we lived with these people a whole week. And it's just -- was a town -- so-called, I mean, a barrack town of perhaps 4,000 men. What I'm driving at is the following thing. That the old master who had come from Berlin and then gone to the Alsace, and then to -- up to northern Bavaria, and now was in this corner between Bavaria and Austria, where we -- where we stayed, said, "If you ask me how we survived, it is only through these eight to 10 people who represented the core of the business," you see. "They went on, and they are irreplaceable. If we hadn't had them, we couldn't have done anything. We -- these eight men now have apprenticed all these refugees who have been -- hadn't been anything but -- you know, electricians. And already the results are so astounding that we have less breakage here in this new camp town than we had in Berlin. There we had -- a certain product, we always had to figure on a 7 and-a-half percent loss; and now we have here reduced it to 4 percent, which is quite in- -- unheard-of. Because these people are so eager that we could train them from afresh. And this old group had of course so much experience by starting four times within five years all over again, that we have here a very wonderful, going concern."
What I'm driving at -- let me -- this is -- it is totally overlooked in the dayto-day, on all social questions, that the real relation is between the engineer and his for- -- the foreman, and the workers whom he can lead, whom he can instruct, whom he can guide. The whole up-building of banks, and corporations, and -- it's all very nice, but if there are not such -- some such people, you see, who can go and start -- open a new workshop, no -- no businessman, no salesman can do anything. He is quite incapable of -- of replacing this which is -- goes on like children, as an inheritance. Where this foreman comes from, you see, that's very mysterious, you see. Sometimes from -- from time immemorial.
Give you an example of this. My nephew and my sister fled from Germany, when Hitler came, into England. She had been a social worker and was very much in -- hated by the pimps, because she had to look out for the prostitutes. And so she was in great danger of life, and she was a widow. And so -- she took her little boy of 13, went with him to England, and apprenticed him to a carpenter. And -- but a carpenter of a higher degree, the man who makes the forms for the founder -- the foundry, you know. The casts. And they are wooden forms, you see, but then of course the casting is in metal. And you will know that this is
the most -- this heart of any -- of any machine shop, the -- the foundry, the casting is the great problem.
And so he learned this trade. And he came to this -- they came to this country four years later -- five years later--I'm not quite sure now, but about that time--and they went to Chicago. And my -- this nephew of mine immediately got a position in a foundry because the old Swede who had done this for 40 years in this place had reached the age -- the man was 70, and wanted to retire. And here was this boy of 18, and there was nobody in America who had been trained. The Swede had brought his -- his skill, you see, from the old country, and here, my nephew, brought it from England.
And I thought it was a remarkable story that the -- the -- then lacuna, the gap, you see, was filled by two people who came just from the blue sky, you see. Because this country had not made any provisions for somebody who had, you see, to do this. And this -- since this is -- this is in very many districts of work still here the case, with the piano worker, and other -- in- -- instrument workers, that you just write a postal card to some -- in the old country: "Send me such an apprentice." Well, you see it here with the ski instructors -- ski instructors from Austria.
I met such a man yesterday. You see, he's allowed as a specialized worker without -- you see, without immigration visa, he is allowed to work here, because the unions have made this exception that where a job cannot be filled by people in -- people trained in this country, they waive their -- their right, you see, of protest and -- and prohibition, and the man may come in. And this boy from the Tyrol just enjoyed this privilege that he had learned something, you see, especially, which you cannot have, except it has been produced, so to speak, from time immemorial by a process of training, and education, you see, and schooling that has gone on through generations.
You may know that Johann Sebastian Bach lived -- came from a family in which they had made music for 200 years. The whole family always, every Sunday, you see, they had composed and sung. So it was not a miracle that Johann Sebastian Bach, you see, became the greatest composer of the -- the modern times, because he was the heir of many, many little riv- -- rivulets, and brooks, and torrents of musical training.
In this country, this is very -- overlooked because of the whole situation of the immigrant. But you still have it in these examples. And I thought I -- I may offer you this to show you that this nephew of mine, or this ski instructor of the Arlberg just has to be accepted as he is. And it's -- would be too late now to arrange for such a man in the moment of emergency. Which goes to show that
there are going on many miraculous processes, { } on a higher plane, the fact that the bomb had been prepared and developed for 40 -- 50 years in Europe by the physicists. And in 1940, when Mr. Einstein wrote his famous book -- letter to President Roosevelt that we might produce a bomb, you see, we had to draw on all kind of efforts that went back for centuries in -- training in physics, and thinking in physics. and that couldn't be done now on the spur of the moment with all the millions.
What I am trying to say is that capital and labor is not the relation of importance, but it is the leadership of the inventor, the scientists, and the engineer on the one-hand side, and people who are plastic enough, and obedient enough, and willing enough so that they will do -- carry out the orders of this {leading staff}. It's just as you have to have a technician perhaps who works for you, and a secretary.
Three times this re-organization of the whole of society under the leadership of a spiritual leader has taken place. You may say that from 500 of our era to 1000 or 1100, the lands of Europe were cleared. What you know here of -- of this country too, the clearing of the land, is a very slow and long process. And I've just seen it gone -- going on in Yucatan. It's always a great problem to move people out of their dense, little groups and disperse them so that all good land is really taken under cultivation, and that wherever you can cultivate the land, it is done. That takes great discipline. It takes great faith to live in the prairies, you see, not to see any neighbor for two miles around, and to plant -- build your house there, and to have your little shady place there. You just go to the -- through the prairies and you know how these people -- what a courage it takes, and what an act of faith to live in these places.
Now this dispersal of the so-called peasant, and this courage to settle, and to say, "I stay here" --. I just read the story of a man who stayed in the -- in the sandstorms of North Dakota, although his grandfather had a good place in Kentucky, where no such sandstorms, you see, were to be feared. And he said, "No, I will not go back to Kentucky. I will live it down." And he did. And he survived. He was written up in Life, I think, the other day, this man's story.
The -- the fir- -- the first quality which you and I now take for granted, which the religious leadership of the monks and the hermits gave to the nomadic -- Germanic tribes -- or by any other tribe, is settlement. What is settlement? It's a loyalty to the soil, that although you might have some better land around the next corner, you do your duty by this piece of land, you see, and you till it, although somebody else has more fertile land. Otherwise you cannot explain how the whole world has been peopled. Why -- are there Eskimos, you see? It's very strange that there is a loyalty to the land. In any one country, you'll find people side by side in
good land, and in bad land. From your rather primitive college psychology, you would have to conclude that the people on the badlands would have to march down on the people in the good lands, throw them -- eject them, you see, and kill them, and settle in their stead. Not at all. You find in France, you find in Germany, you find in Italy people living side by side in the worst of swampland, let us say, you see, or good land, and in rock land, and up -- uphill, and neighbors living down in the valley, you see, and having the good land. And they are at peace.
You now -- now it may -- you may -- do not think sufficiently what a miracle there had to be performed, in teaching people the loyalty to their property. This dismissal of all comparison and of all unrest, and to say, "This is your God-given place," and it is wor- -- you may make a better living if you devote your effort, you see, to this badland than when jealousy or -- than to fall for jealousy and envy and only think that your brother has a better piece. Of course that's the story of Can and -- Cain and Abel, from the very beginning in the Bible.
The hermit of -- you only know now in this country from fairy tales. Mr. Schweitzer has acted the same role in our time, to a certain extent, when he went to Lamborene. And I think it is more important to know that this man put up with the wilderness and the solitude, you see, after having been one of the most sophisticated, you see, experts in art and music, and in theology, than to think of his endeavors of curing these natives. Other people have done this, you see. There are many missionaries who have done just as good work, and perhaps more effective work than Mr. Schweitzer. I think the greatness of his soul is in this, that he -- that he could stand it, go it alone, and take a piece of land in the wilder- -- wilds of Africa, and say, "This is my plot, this is my share," you see.
And this is the old attitude of the hermit. When the old Coptic monks founded the first monasteries, they were visited by a bishop. And they asked -- he asked, the man, "Why do you settle not next to the Nile where you have water whenever you like it? Here you have to go -- 10 hours just to get your drink -- your daily drink of water."
"Yes," said the man. "That's why we went here, because we want to prove that the land is the Lord's everywhere. We -- you have worshiped the gods of the Nile -- {apparently} because we have said that these were special gods, and the desert was for Satan. But we know that God created the whole earth, and we as monks have to teach the people, the faithful, you see, that God is everywhere. And if I hadn't to carry my water," he literally said, "every day for 10 hours, I would not prove anything. I have to show that I am not looking for the amenities, for -- having a more easy life. But that this place, where I live, is just as sanctified as the place -- city of Alexandria or Cairo."
That's a true story. And you all know that in -- the first thousand years of our era have been filled with monastic settlements all over the place. We take this for granted; and in this country, of course, it hasn't played such a role. But the hermit of our fairy tales is the man who proved to the people that you can have peace of mind and a -- a real existence in the wilderness among the animals. When the raven and the lions speak, you see, to St. Anthony in the -- in the legend, you see, it is -- just means that he has the nerve to face the unknown and to live in a place that before had only served as a boundary, as a wall against the enemy. The old woods or forest meant something impenetrable. It served as a fortification. It is the first primitive fortress of man, you see. You have a clearing, and then you leave the land, you see, as best as you can, as a wilderness so that the neighbor cannot come to -- upon you without your noticing it in time. The Indians, of course, lived in this manner here, cultivating, so to speak, the inaccessibility of their -- of their villages.
This took them -- when you can say that in the time of the Crusades--that is, in 1100, when the medieval cities sprang up by the thousands--the land had become one peaceful entity, as here the prairies have been taken up. In Germ- -- in Europe, the woodlands, the forests in the high mountains, even, had been given up and had been shot through with settlements wherever this was possible. And the peasant then was under the leadership -- the spiritual leadership and influence of the hermit, and later of the abbot and his monks. The hermit usually was the first man. It's a relation, between hermit and monk, a little bit like -- like invent- -- like physicist and engineer. You will have an engineer in groups, as a staff, you see, in a factory, and the physicists will stand alone. But you must start the history of mankind in -- as a history of our work, as we have worked, with the hermit, because he was the outstanding example of this moral courage, you see, to go it alone.
The second phase is the builder of the medieval city. And there again, you must not think of the people who build the -- the living quarters, the slums, so to -- the primitive houses of the individual knight, or worker, or merchant, or goldsmith. But the cathedral of such a city, of course, the -- the city's church was the center of attention. And the man who built this cathedral, you see, set the tone for everything that was done.
Now the loyalty to the soil is the achievement of the relation between the monks and the peasant. The loyalty to the building-up of the cathedral over a hundred or 200 years, this immense time span which was needed, you see, to finish any one of these old buildings, is the cement, the spiritual cement between the artisan and the artist. The architect who planned the -- the great cathedrals of Chartres, or Strasbourg, or -- all the famous cathedrals of the Middle Ages in Europe, where men -- had the boldness to design and draw something whose
achievement wa- -- would only be seen by their great grand- -- grandchildren --. In a time when people died very young, at the age of 30 or 40, the mortality was tremendous, it meant even more than today that you plan something for 200 years. If you read the history of all the medieval building -- cities, that's their story, that the -- you start the cathedral at 1180, and it's finished in 1430. And sometimes it wasn't finished at all.
The -- there are -- have been 5,000 cities founded in the Middle Ages. You must compare the founding of cities of the Middle Ages a little bit to the founding of factories of today. That is congruous, so to speak. And there are many cities that remain unfinished. There is a S- -- little town in Switzerland that was founded in 1280. It has only two streets. Sun Street and Shadow Street, they were called. And they -- they never went any further. And this was the idea of a city; you still can admire it, when you go there, as an unfinished business, as a -- as a town that hasn't come off, you see.
But on the other hand, ghost town and boom town is unknown in Europe in those days. And all the waste we have incurred in this country with boom and ghost town, you see, doesn't exist. A c- -- town once founded in Europe remains. There just isn't, except in the destruction of war, any such rhythm of boom and ghost. And you perhaps can appreciate that this is of great advantage, that it shows a dedication to purpose, you see, and a seriousness of purpose which is -- goes far beyond the Gold Rush in this country, and the Silver Rush in Colorado.
And I invite you to consider this very seriously. If I was -- had to live in New York at this moment, I would be panicky, and I would give up in New York and would say, "It has no future." Either, it will be bombed--then it has no future, you see; or the people will have to move to the suburbs, you see, and they'll die from commuting.
And therefore out of New York. Has no future. Now if I would say too, I would be -- I would be duplicated by many other people. Still there must be hope that some people are such desperate New Yorkers that they stick it out. This stick-to-it-ness is the essence of the medieval city builder. Just as the stick-to-itness was the -- that what the peasant had to learn and become, from a happy warrior, you see, of a Sioux tribe or -- a peasant was this attitude that this was a God-given task that he had to fulfill, you see, sun -- rain, or shine. The same is true about these cities. The -- what my boy -- nephew lehr- -- learned as a carpenter, that came down from centuries, you see, of work. And the -- what these people at Siemens were able to -- to teach these refugees in the barrack, this mastery, that is a skill that they had learned from several generations.
And what you are at this moment earning in this country, and which is
the reason why America went to war for the salvation of Europe--twice--without knowing why it -- they should, here in this country as you know: "We do not know what this war is all about, but we may be sure we'll soon find out" was the song of the American soldier of the First World War. And -- and the -- if you want to find out why the United States had to do such a foolish thing and -- to go twice to -- to war for Europe's sake, it is because these ways of life of the peasant, and of the craftsman have come to this country from Europe. That's the only reason. But it's a sufficient reason.
Because we shall see immediately, the third way of life has developed another quality. What we appreciate in the workers of today, the industrial workers, is their solidarity, their teamwork. We could not master the cranes, and the -- and the derricks, and the mine -- mines, you see, if we hadn't solidarity among free men. In former thousands of years, the -- the mines were only worked by slaves, because you could not get a free man into a mine. That's forgotten today, that it is a miracle that you have Mr. Lewis's United Mine Workers of America. The -- miner can only survive by this absolute solidarity. They are in danger of life down below the earth. You just saw this -- this calamity in South Africa the other day. Now these 3- or 400 men trapped down there, you see--they are like people on a boat, of course, you see--the solidarity of a common danger makes them -- welds them together, and the whole power of Mr. MacDonald over his steelworkers, or Mr. Petrillo of his -- over his musicians comes from the instinctive feeling that they have to show solidarity, or they are lost.
Where you have for the peasant the loyalty to the soil, and where you have to the -- to the -- for the craftsman the slow process, the patience of finishing, you see, the cathedral, or any other part of the town in a lifelong devotion to work, you have with the worker a -- quite a different moral quality developed: this solidarity. And this millionaire who calls the policeman in Los Angeles a -- a peasant, you see, just shows that he is the scum of mankind, and certainly should be put -- I don't know where--where the sea is at its deep -- deepest--that he just doesn't know any of these three qualities of the human soul, that work develops: stick-to-it-ness to the place, you see, stick-to-it-ness to the purpose, and stick-to-itness to the group within which you work.
These three virtues have been developed under the leadership of hermits and monks. And that's why to this day you find the Irish devoted to his clergy, because Ireland was foremost in the -- in this development. The gratitude for the peasant to the priestly leadership is not yet at an end. You ca- -- you have a hard time here to understand the -- the reason why the French Canadians, or why the Irish, or why the Italians, even, are so devoted to their Church. It is because the Church has communi- -- -cated to them not just their Sunday religion, but their
weekday attitude. And as long as you do not understand this, all the talk that goes on in this country about religion will amount to the -- only to the 2,000 sects in Johannesburg, or the 300 sects in Los Angeles. It will just be foolish, you see. What people want is much more than a few words. They want a way of life, of course. And the -- as you know, of the Pentecostal sects, that's an attempt today to introduce this feeling of solidarity in the spirit to these unskilled workers in this country, which is our problem here.
I just met a boy -- came -- a boy came to me for Christmas, joined one of these Pentecostal sects, who was an un- -- he is an unskilled worker in Los Angeles. He is a yard man, serving at a derrick, you see. And the only thing he has is this feeling that this group in this little church, you see, is his own flesh and blood, so to speak.
The leaders--if you allow me for one moment--of these three groups: the hermit, the artist, and the engineer represent--all three--a relation to the whole of creation, which was new, which was changing man --. Long before the man who followed the hermit and had admired him, understood what it was all about, his example already moved him to do something, to come to this man into the woods, and act as -- like him. The engineer in the same sense, of course, is a miracle worker today. Don't think that he is any less a miracle worker in the eyes of the unskilled worker than the free hermit was in the old days. You think that -- very often at least, that the hermit used a kind of spiritual witchcraft or superstition, and that the engineer is all -- that's all scientific. Yes, but for the man who hasn't gone to school, this so-called scientific business is just as much witchcraft and magic, of course, you see, than it was for the simple peasant to follow the -- the man -- the hermit into the woods, which never before had served any useful purpose, which you tried to avoid, where you didn't want to go, because it was so sinister in there -- in any society. My -- you may believe that nine-tenths of the people are superstitious. They do not penetrate into the -- the -- the wer- -- wild, you see. They take it for granted.
And I think nobody is more superstitious than modern man, after he has gone to high school. Because he believes in the latest fad. He believes that the next invention is better than the previous invention. He forgets everything that has existed before. The forgetfulness of modern man is -- is the -- would be quite un-understandable for a man who has lev- -- lived as a peasant or as a craftsman, because any training of these people, you see, was -- had to do with length of time, with -- with tradition, with inherited skill.
I have seen a staircase -- a wooden staircase, a spiral staircase in Germany built by a man over 50 years. It was built in the 17th century. And this man, it was his honor to devote his lifetime to this very skillful and very beautiful, you
see, spiral staircase in this palace in Wrzburg, in Bavaria, in Franconia. He thought nothing of it. He thought it was much preferable to build one thing all his life, you see, than to -- to be a wage-earning slave, and -- and produce 500 items per diem.
I think if you come to -- consider the issue seriously, it would be hard for you to decide whether it is better to produce 5,000 screws a day, you see, or to build one spiral staircase in your lifetime. Certainly you cannot decide this, one way or the other with any -- with any good -- I mean, with any proof. Because I really think I would not like to produce 5,000 screws a day. Would you? It just is not a good life. And yet, people are talked into this, in believing that they are terribly progressive to have a steelworker who makes 5,000 screws a day, and the next day 6,000 screws. I don't see any -- anything in it. Why should he make 6,000? And next day, 7,000.
So this is all very doubtful. As long as you believe in the certain -- in this one type of leadership--and we have today technical progress--you can make -- you believe that it is better to produce 6,000 screws, you see, than to build one staircase, but --.
(Well, it's just a means to an end, though.)
Well, if it is, then he doesn't make any screws. He just is busy; he's just occupied. The man who made the staircase certainly -- did not this -- not as a me- -- means to an end. It was an end in its- -- in itself. So you said it, I mean. It may be that this is just a --. But there are still some people in this country, I thin, who like to do good work. I hope so.
I just have -- I should have brought this -- this -- this magazine with me. It's called Good Work. Began to appear -- this very month, and I have to contribute an article to it within the next fortnight. And so I'm preparing myself for this article right here and now.
I think it is worth your while to think of the mass of the people living in these three times 500 years in their terminology. It is very -- quite important that you should use the word "artisan," because its connection with the term "artist" is very important. The artist in the Middle Ages, you see, was nothing but a glorified artisan, you see, an outstanding artisan who gave his name to his work. The usual work is anonymous of an artisan. You go to a goldsmith, you see, you don't care who does it, you see. But if you have an artist goldsmith, like Benvenuto Cellini, whose famous -- life, you see, is famous as an art- -- then a Renaissance hero, then you call him an artist.
But it is very bad that we separate today the artist, and the hermit, and the engineer from the people he intended to draw after him. This draw, this drawing power, this magnetizing power, you see, this spearhead--what you call a leader, you see, of your friend Charles {Sweet}, you see--is today in most of our discussions not seen, and underrated. These people today in -- all -- the imagination of the peop- -- of the learning student, or pupil are thought to be individuals. Here is a hermit, here is an artist, here is an inventor, per se. You cannot understand the functioning of a society if you do not see that every one of them invites thousands of people, you see, to perform tasks around this -- his being a hermit in the woods, you see, and clearing the -- the -- this forest and settling around him, and you -- and defying the dangers of the forest, and the wild animals there, and the ghosts, and the fairies, and all the stories of giants, and dwarves, you see, and the snakes, and the serpents, et cetera.
All these are then centers of a field of force, as you may perhaps fittingly call this. And this is true of the scientist, too. Never think of a scientist or an inventor per se. He cannot function in a society unless there are around him, you see, moving atoms which want to perform and conform to the demand, you see. You invent something. Where are you if you don't find the working man who then will be satisfied to make these 5,000 screws?
And we have managed to -- to convince -- you say, "It's means to an end." No, it's a much deeper worship of engineering, of the genius of industry, you see. The industrial workers, the farmer's son who goes to the city and enters the factory is under the spell of the orthodoxy of this action, that the whole society shall be transformed into industrial society in which the -- there -- is --. Scientific discovery, you see, com- -- dictates production. What we live in -- what is industry? Industry is production of goods based on scientific research. That's the true meaning of "industry." That is, it is not handed over form father to son by tradition. You don't make a table the way your grandfather made the table. But you make the table because--look at all this new furniture, you see--this -- this has gone through a process of abstraction, a process of, you see, complete distanc- -- out-distancing yourself from their tradition, you see, and look at the thing --. Look at the chairs in your rooms, you see. I mean. They are very typical, you see, deviating from anything that has been called a "chair" for thousands of years of mankind. You know these chairs, I mean. And -- and that can only be explained by the engineering genius, who suddenly considered the problem of gravity, you see, and of our fannies from quite a new aspect. And now we sit down in these chairs, you see, in an absolutely different manner from anything you have -- you are doing right now, in this old-fashioned chair.
Industry is production seen through scientific abstraction. And that is the difference from -- from the old ways of -- of the guilds and crafts, for example.
And it's stretching out in -- of course, into every way of life every day more.
If you could -- for one moment telescope these last 1500 years of the Christian era, and identify the hermit, the inventor, and the artist and what they have done to the community--set up a standard of production which hasn't existed before--you would also be o- -- able to draw together, or -- not to identify, but to unify, the power to settle, the loyalty to stick it out, the power to stay at one purpose of work, you see, for more than your own lifetime, and the power of solidarity, the power of teamwork.
And just as faith, love, and hope are three virtues which you cannot subdivide, which go with each other, and which it is -- would be vicious to sep- -- -regate, in exactly the same way I feel the -- the western man--this so-called "western civilization" of which the -- I am nauseated; I can't even hear the word, I mean. I'll kill the man who uses the term "culture," and I'll kill him twice if he uses the term "civilization." And this -- are dead words to me, to tell you the truth. I'm neither a cultural, nor a civilized man. But I do hope that I inherited from the peasants, and from the artisans, and from the workers of the last 1500 years the qualities which allow me to stand before you, and to teach you something. And this would be much -- a much more American way of looking at things than these highfalutin terms, "civilization" and "culture." Throw them out of the window. They are articles of import that will never sound right in an American mouth.
I -- I -- it is infamous -- that this is just -- said. And it has -- conquered in the last 30 years everybody. And I am not civilized, and I'm not cultured. I tell you this. But I am -- proud if my -- farmer neighbor thinks that I am taking good care of my horses, and I am very proud, you see, if my house after 25 years--I built it myself--is still standing up, and looks -- not as a slum, but has -- has the same quality of -- that it had in the beginning. That's craftsmanship. It hasn't to take -- doesn't take a specialist. Still it means just this assiduity, or effort, you see, that you don't let -- things run -- run, you see, down, that you keep it up. This upkeep is -- is the virtue, you see, of the medieval artisan, that the thing is as good tomorrow as it was yesterday.
And the worker--that is, this teamwork, we can't do -- both things alone. You may call it "good neighborhood," but it is much more. It is this -- replaceability, exchangeability, you see, that when -- when -- one man can't do it, 10 men will do it. You have a -- fire, you have a storm, you have any catastrophe, it's the solidarity which is very well developed in this country, not just in labor unions. The worker is, I think, the American -- prototype of the American pioneer, because he has this -- this teamwork at heart. You cannot wonder, then, that in America it is more easily understood the tem- -- the seduction, the -- the in-
centives, the -- the enthusiasm for invention, it's the latest. And it has come to this country, you see, of course, with full force, because industry and the settlement of America are contemporary.
But I invite you to give some honor to the qualities created beforehand. And at this moment--this is the deep crisis, I think, of the United States--with the destruction worked in Europe, spiritually, this country has more consciously than ever to take over the virtues of the -- apprenticing in the crafts, and the virtue of the stick-to-it-ness of the settler. For the first time, the terms "peasant" and "craftsman" must acquire, so to speak, a native view in America. This is the -- I think the -- the process that has taken place, that America no longer can just stare at, but you have also to take over what was a natural, so to speak, which hadn't -- which you could regulate by writing a postcard to England and saying, "Send me a man who can make the forms for the foundry," you see. This postal card you no longer can write. And there are no folk dances in Croatia which you can take over. It has all been done.
So now you -- we have to be complete in our own right in this -- on this continent. And here is, I think, the professional man who must act as a catalyst. Your group can be conscious of this, you see. Most people are too much in a hurry.
But all the professions--take medicine, you see--which still 30 years ago -- no, 50 years ago, medicine--as different from dentistry--was better in Europe than it was in the United States. It's no longer true. It is certainly -- simply is now the truth that medicine is better handled in the United States than it is in Europe. But for this very reason, the intern, you see, is a typical product of the medieval guild and craft system. The medical profession is a guild. And all the battles of Mr. {Fishbein}, and all the strange things that have gone on in the medical profession in the last 30 years you can only explain by the instinctive feeling of the old guard of doctors, you see, that they must remain a guild {and craft}. They mustn't open their doors, you see, so they haven't built up a sufficient number, as you know -- of replacements. They haven't enlarged their medical schools. It is hard to understand when you see the need, and when you see that American students are -- go to these poor European countries and study medicine there, you see. But that's the old craft -- guild and craft tradition, you see. You can only -- you will only -- they answer oth- -- always by the AMA, "We can only provide sufficient material, sufficient teaching, you see, for a certain number."
And here you see: one part of the problem of the working community is that the traditions are limited -- -ing, that you have to abide by what can be handed over through the century in a personal manner.
And so the medical profession itself is a medieval, so to speak, institution, you see, in the sense that it is -- comes from a time before industry took over, you see. In the -- medical profession, you had to apprentice people. And we still do. I don't know how it is in dentistry. Would you call this an apprentice system, too?
(It's similar to medicine.)
Wie?
(It's very similar to medicine.)
Ah. Well, I don't know enough about it. But it certainly is true about the -- all the engineering { }. It's not enough to -- to have a chemist. You -- you have to have somebody who had worked in a workshop. And -- well, it's in architecture. Wherever you look, you find these traces, that --. What I -- would like to stress is that the thing is topsy-turvy, in a little way. The -- it is today the highest profession, like the medical or the architectural, which needs the apprentice system. Down at the bottom, where you think of arts and crafts, you see, you have the unskilled worker, and you have a -- a very short train- -- semi-skilled worker. It is in the highest positions where you have a -- need apprenticeship today.
So life at this moment is in a -- reorganized in the United States in such a way that the medieval principle of master, and fellow, and apprentice, you see, interpenetrates now the highest layers of our productive groups, you see. Take Mr. Nixon, you see. It has finally leaked out, the simple fact, that you have to be apprenticed to the presidentship. You can't have it without experience. And the whole story of Mr. Nixon has nothing to do with Mr. Nixon. Believe me, he is a nondescript person, and that's probably why it works. He had to land it, and he's prepared now. And that's his whole advantage over Mr. Kennedy. And that's a fact, that people feel that it is better to have somebody who knows a little bit about government, you see, than just a man who has a pretty wife.
This is very serious. This country {just simply} has to learn that it has to learn. This is the d- -- most difficult lesson to learn, you see: to learn that we have to learn. And therefore, I think in -- 1960 marks a change in the Constitution of the United States. Because it just means that the vice-president is considered from now on--it will always be this way--an apprentice to the presidency. That's a great change of the last 10 years.
And now comes the -- something that may interest you; it's a law of life, that all great reforms start at the top and go down to the bottom. In -- in complute -- complete contradiction to the gospel of the common man, nothing ever
happens down below that hasn't happened first on the top. If you go to the peasants of Europe and look at their -- at their dresses, you think they are peasants' dresses. Not at all. They are the dresses of the court of the 16th century, you see. And they came down gradually into the valleys and there they were kept and retained, while the people in the city went on to different dresses. Anything you find in Europe today which you worship as folklore is highfalutin, you see. The fairy tales that the peasants now tell, once were told at the court of Louis Quatorze, of Louis XIV. And they entertained the king. You just have to think of the "Arabian Nights," which is ki- -- the kings' story.
So one of the phantom -- doctrines of the Enlightenment has been that you go to the -- to {Emile}, and to Adam and Eve in order to find what -- what is eternal. Things have always gone down from the top to the bottom. And Mr. Nixon starts a whole new story in America: the story of skill in government, of acquired skill, which you cannot have just by being elected, you see, but which you have to acquire. And you just think of poor Stevenson, who hasn't been able to acquire any skill in the last eight years. He's a much better man, I'm sure, than Mr. Nixon, between you and me. You see, but he hasn't learned the trade in the last eight years, and that's why I can't vote for Mr. Stevenson. Because I want to have -- as I go to a dentist who is a good dentist, I want to go to a president who -- who has learned the trade.
So -- I invite you only to see the great things happening this moment in America. America is implanting on its own soil these two previous stages, you see, of life. Endless dedication to purpose, here. You de- -- expa- -- expect it from the intern. He's just a little, token payment of the medical profession, you see, to this devotion. It's not devotion to duty. It's a devotion to perfection; this is something different, you see. It's the -- devotion to duty is a phrase you find here in the military code. But this indifference to the time element makes the man who does something grand. It is -- the brothers Wright would have never invented flying if they had had a deadline, you see. Modern man dies with -- from his deadlines. That's why there is no great art in this country, because here the authors, the writers all write for deadline. For the Atlantic Monthly, or for the -- Life, you see, they have a deadline. So, dead they are. It's all manufactured.
Now the difference between manufacturing by work, you see, and industry, and by the arts and crafts is simply this different relation to time. In -- in -- in the manufacturing process, you know when this has to be there. And of course, we are very grateful that the -- the goods can be delivered. But there are goods that cannot be produced if they are produced with a deadline.
I learned this in a remarkable manner in a factory. The Mercedes-Benz people, who make the -- the -- the best German automobile -- pardon me?
(You said you wanted { }.)
Ja, good. When I -- I went -- after the First World War, I had a -- was conscience-stricken, and I gave up my scholarship. And I offered my services to this -- the people there, because they were -- there was a general strike, and their 18,000 workers were -- were idle. And it was always -- of course with the -- from the loss of the war, was a great upheaval. The government was -- had fallen down, and so on. And we had no government, so it was anarchy. And so the -- I offered my services to the president of this factory, and we began to -- to write -- publish a factory paper. And this factory paper, by the way, had a -- in its first issue had a -- dealt with casting and the foundry, and the problems of the relation between the woodwork of the -- and the metal-work in the foundry. This was -- were the topics, which we cultivated. It was a very -- a factory paper very different from what you see in this country, with its family news.
And I learned from this -- man -- the -- my boss was an engineer. And he would have liked to be an artist, but he couldn't afford it. So he had become engineer, and he had -- developed this beautiful car. And he -- I asked him when the next issue was due. He said, "We'll see; when it is ready."
And he had -- for three years, we published this paper without any deadline. And he said, "I'll never allow you to bring out this paper un- -- unless it is finished. And we can't afford -- I, as president of this company, to say anything that either in style, or in representation, or in -- in -- in illustration isn't perfect. And I shall not commit myself to come out with this periodical on October 1st, when I'm not ready. If it comes out in -- in the midst of November, it's just as well."
And so I learned a great lesson of perfection. Within the factory system, it can exist, you see, the -- the -- this factory paper is very famous today. It is the only one that's been done in real, good taste, you see. And -- because it had no deadline. And I learned this--I didn't know it at that time, that -- that I could experience such a wonderful thing in -- within industry, in the midst of it, at the heart of it, and that the man could distinguish between delivery of a car that this is on standard {type}, you see, and saying a word that it wasn't mature to his own workmen. He had great respect for this -- you see, for this give-and-take between his workers and himself. And being an engineer and not a -- not a salesman, the -- he produced a paper that was completely different from anything the modern salesman produces, I mean.
I think the -- the factory papers in this country are just oddities, I mean. They are -- they are imitating Madison Avenue. They -- they advertise the factory to the workers. And I think the workers despise this. But I can tell you that our
paper was bound by every worker at home, and was treated like one of the classics and the Bible. And they would not eat their -- their -- their -- their -- their -- their--how do you call it?--their sandwich, you see, while they were reading this paper, from fear of besmudging this -- the pages. That's how they treated this paper. And I -- I'm sorry. I should have brought an example, because you won't believe me that it can be done.
But by establishing this great respect for this paper, of course, we achieved also our end, you see, because these people didn't treat this as news, didn't treat this as -- like The Denver Post, or the Aspen -- what is it called?
(Flag.)
Wie?
(The Aspen Flag.)
Ja. Well, this was -- a great honor, that they were taken into the confidence, and that something was said to them in the same style and dignity as Mr. { } would have us talk to the executives here at the seminar. There was absolutely no talking down. It is not -- would -- never once did we talk down to the workers. I have always found that when you when you take them up, a reasonable man who has had experience in life can understand all the important things you have to say. I don't think that this, what I have said here to you, is more -- is too complicated for a workman of 50, is it? I don't think.
And it's important truth, and it's difficult truth, in a way, you see, if you aren't seriously minded, if you do not draw on the -- the lessons of your own life, isn't that true? But as soon as you wake up to what you have wanted to do, and doing, you can follow.
So this is the infinity of time, of the perfectionist, which we -- we have to save today, or there will be no medicine, and there will be no architecture, certainly, you see. And wherever you look where the performance isn't perfect, it comes from this hurry, from this idea that the man must survive his -- his -- his work. It's the other way around. The work must survive the man.
And here, this loyalty is threatened aga- -- also, and it will have to reconquered in a new way. We have -- we are homeless, we are wanderers between two worlds. We -- our children, you see, see us move around. And it is very difficult to homestead today. And becomes more difficult for anybody living in a big city, you see. But obviously, it's a task. The fact that we -- we -- that we have to move so freely can I think only be answered to by saying, "The United States are
our home." That is, you have to treat all of the United States as one big city. And the loyalty must be to the whole of it, you see, and I think we'll -- we'll have to bank all the dif- -- distinctions between countryside and city. You have city and countryside interpenetrating each other today, don't they? I mean, you go to Los Angeles, and you can hardly know whether you are in the country or whether you are in the city. It's just all one. Have you been there? That's the -- the great impression I had there, you see. We no longer can -- distinguish so easily between village and -- and city.
Now therefore, I -- mean to say we are not rid of this loyalty; we are not through with the necessity, you see, of { } for this -- this country and its forests. The whole problem of conservation comes up here. And I -- I'm sure -- to you, as -- as professional men, I don't have to say much about the -- the task of conservation, I mean. What this all entails for the -- for the soil, and the land, and -- here, for the people in it, too. I mean, an attitude, you see, that you do not throw away your wastepaper in the woods, where you have camped, you see. That is the peasants' attitude, you see, his loyalty to the -- to the given ground on which he is allowed to stand, which is part of his own health, and part of his own soul. And in this sense, I think we also have made great progress. You know that conservation is not older than 50 years now, and -- in this country. It was unheard-of before. And farmers threw away their old farm like a -- like a sponge, you see, and took up a new land. And -- and so we have gone from waste to waste, in this respect. But it's coming home now with a vengeance to us. And of course we are threatened in a certain way with erosion, and --.
I may conclude this with a pun which I think is not a pun. I do think that what man does to his environment, to the marble--what the sculptor does -- Michelangelo to his marble as an artist--or what you do to your -- to the ground, where you throw your tin cans away, and don't care where they land, always is a reflection on ourselves and vice versa. Man is what he does to his environment, and the environment is what the man is. The trend, therefore, that -- which I purpose is that we are threatened today not just by soil erosion, but by soul erosion. And this is completely parallel. And when I look at my young people in the colleges, they are -- { } corroded. That is, nothing is important. The -- the whole mask they have to wear is that "I don't care," "It doesn't matter," you see, "How do I know?" These are the three sentences that you hear here a million times among all these poor, poor children. And they -- the -- the television does its rest. I mean. The soul is just as much corrosible or corrosive as the soil. And one reflects the other.
Soil conservation and soul conservation are really two things of the same type. You cannot do to your neighbor, and you cannot do to the land, you see, without doing to yourself. And I invite you not to look at conservation as
something we do to the land, but as a development of these old settlers' qualities, which have also enabled the first settlers of this country to clear the land, and to till the soil. And you come to a New England village, you still see Europe at work. Today a -- a westerner will think New England is all -- it's very oldfashioned, indeed; it is Europe. But the wisdom -- of our creator I think always consists in this: that you can't take the second step before you have taken the first step. This country had to be settled not from California, but from the eastern seaboard side, in order to first transplant at least some inklings of the old ways of Europe, you see, of the Middle Ages. So that there is still the stripes, and fields, the layout of the commons, you see, and the old way. Then you could go on from there West, you see, and develop the new methods of taking up land in a much bigger way.
But I think these 150 years of New England development are at this moment the pivot around which the invasion of the old virtues, you see, must occur into the new areas of the West, here. This loyalty to the soil, and this conservationism, so to speak; and the craftsmanship of the intern, of the medical man; and the solidarity of the whole society that is able to show teamwork for a new task every day: these are the three virtues that have been developed. And so they have been developed under leadership.
Don't think then of the hermit, and the artist, and the inventor as a lonely wolf as you hear so often, or as intellectual--which is the worst insult I think you can do to any man who has something to say or to do in advance of his time. If he is an intellectual, burn him at stake. But if he is a -- a man who hears the grass grow, or who scents where the -- where the -- people have to turn, you see, he's nothing but the first who does something, hoping that the others will follow.
And this relationship of the individual to the mass can be understood not when you speak of capital and labor. I think -- we should not use these terms in the United States. They are articles of import from Mr. Marx, and from Mr. Ricardo, and from Mr. Adam Smith, and they have grown on -- on European soil. In America, this opposition has never existed. The pioneer was all in one. He was a jack of all trades; he was a settler; and he was a craftsman in a -- in a small way, you see. And he was, of course -- he needed teamwork, and he needed the help of his neighbor to get up -- up his roof. And he was an inventor and a scientist. And if time was -- at least the lady at the house would like beauty and would like seams- -- would be a good seamstress, and would do some arts- -- artistic work, would do some painting.
I came to the -- from the Rocky Mountain School home yesterday, very much impressed with the paintings done by the children of the school. They had decorated the whole dining room, you see, with the most beautiful flower
samples. And so this sense of beauty, even in a pioneer community of course, has always existed. And it has always been the -- { } of individual taste of the artist. You can't do art by -- by -- by Hearst.
And the hermit, this is simply always the prototype--again -- of the pioneer--who had the guts to stick his neck out and to come here forth -- forward, be it to -- prospector of gold. Don't think that the hermit is -- is the man doing nothing. He had to live, too. Whether it was on wild honey, or berries, or whatever. And he had to build himself a hut. And don't think of the hermit as a idiot, as most people now think of religious people anyway. You see: the saints are just underprivileged mentally. They are overprivileged, mentally, I assure you. They were greater geniuses than -- their contemporaries.
And unfortunately they -- we no longer call the inventors and the artists "saints." But with -- Monsieur Gaugin was as much a saint as Saint Augustine. And -- going to the South Sea, you see. And -- it would be much better if we could found terms that would unify our tradition. But I had to -- had to -- ask you to undertake this very difficult task of identifying three terminologies, you see, and seeing that the expert and the professional man is wound up with all these three virtues. And that he cannot communicate to his -- the people, en masse, his special knowledge of dentistry, or his special knowledge of architecture. But he can very well imbue them with the spirit that allows him to be a good dentist, or be a good architect, you see.
These three virtues of loyalty, of stick-to-it-ness, you see, of endless patience, of perfectionism--whatever you give it, this word--and of teamwork -- these three virtues any professorial -- professional man can exude. And this is what the people in the new countries, you see, need to receive. They have to have the example and the -- the faith in a group of men who change with honor, who will do different things every day as scientific progress commands, that -- who have these three things, you see: the memory of faithful devotion, to -- to -- to their work, you see, this perfectionism, that you even improve while you are working on your -- on your work, you see. You do not -- just carry out a pattern, you see. But you are so dedicated that while you are working, you learn from your work how to improve it. This stick-to-it-ness, the better offer of the king of Siam must not lure you away before the task is finished. You have to do it. And the team spirit. And if we could develop such a -- such a -- awareness, and such a consciousness in the professorial group in this country, the real religion of the western world could be -- become -- could become an article of export.
[tape interruption]
(You mentioned that in 1960, or in the present day, that we are beginning
to realize in this com- -- country, that at least in our political life, we must have apprenticeships, so to speak, become -- qualified for -- for offices, as well as for elective offices, as well as -- non-elective, or appointed offices. {Earl} and I were talking along the same lines, when we came out: don't you think that our original founding fathers had this actually in mind? The people that originally directed the destinies of this country were qualified, trained people, and they endeavored to qualify and to train others. Where did we lose it, and how? Where did we lose these principles on which this country was based?)
With Jackson. Jackson. With Jackson, spoils system. 1839.
(In other words --.)
When the good people -- the so-called good families were thrown out, you see. The break between John Quincy Adams and Jackson is the break in this. That was the end of Europe in America. You read -- you read Feni- -- you wouldn't believe it, but there -- Fenimore Cooper, the famous man of the -- of the Leather- -- what is it? The Last Mohican, has a number of essays written in the '30s about this -- this -- this turning point in democracy. Full of insight, and -- and knowing exactly what was happening, and -- and warning. And saying this -- we will not -- cannot afford to -- to go this way.
(Well, why did it come about? Did the people --?)
Because of the {Irish}, you see, the opening up of the West. These tremendous stretches of land, you see, seemed so simple, you see. You just pushed a button, and -- and new people came. And just -- you must think that the 48 states, and now 50, are the greatest adventure of reiteration in history, you see, you -- that you could -- say, "I know how to found a state." First it's a territory; then it's a state. It will be -- you allow homesteading, you see. You -- you know this famous picture where they went homesteading in Oklahoma, I mean, just tearing up the ribbon which held them back. Well, if you repeat this, and repeat this, you see, you come to the conclusion that life is very simple, that you know the answers, that you know how to settle, that you know how to found a state. And it's an amazing performance. If -- in hundred -- in 150 years, the country has, you see -- the whole continent has been settled according to a very simple pattern. Six by six miles is a township; at least it is with us. I don't know. Straight lines--we talked about it yesterday, as you see--and you didn't wonder enough about these vertical lines that formed the boundaries between Utah and -- and Colorado, and between Kansas and Colorado. Just one vertical or -- we talked about it, vertical line. Well, it is incredible to any European, you see, that people submitted to this abstraction of geometry, you see, that they -- they could pattern this country in this rhythm, you see, this system of -- of the -- first-grade
classroom in arithmetic: 2 and 2 is 4; and 6 -- that 6 by 6 is a town. You see, it just isn't. You think it's there all the time.
I told you about Union Village. We have -- we share with our next township a village, you see, a hamlet. That is, half is in their town, and -- half in ours, and the quarreling is no end, you see, because -- who -- where do they go, you see, and who builds -- who builds the school, and et cetera, et cetera. And -- but this all was -- done in a hurry, and on paper. and in Washington, you just drew a line, and there -- there it happened, you see. It had to be decided overnight. And it was just incredible. But it will never happen again.
And you must never forget that the people who came here were all Europeans. I mean, I -- you can neglect the -- the -- the Chinese and Japanese for this purpose; they haven't played a decisive role. These Europeans of course were already skilled people. Most of them had learned something, you see, had done something. So you -- you forwent the necessity of training these people. And I think that is the -- well, with the Jackson era, you see, you -- you bet on the immigrant. Half of them perishes; the other half, however, bring skills, you see, which did -- do not have to be provided for in this country. And there you see this -- this going underground of the professions and of the skills, you see. They are not seen, so to speak, and yet they are in the luggage on the ship, you see, which comes over. But they are not -- not stated.
But this is -- seems to me -- I always -- very simple things. Take one picture. Abraham Lincoln was elected president by the German vote. That's not in your textbooks, but it is true. At that time, you see, in '48, the -- the revolution in Germany had lost out. There was a very reactionary government. And year after year, the '48ers flocked to this country. You have heard the name "48ers" I am sure. And -- they founded Wisconsin. I have- -- don't have to tell you this. And there was even danger for one moment that the language -- the polit- -- language of Wisconsin would be German -- of the official language.
Well, but what does this all mean? I know the lives of many of these Wisconsin settlers, you see, and also on some of them who went back to Europe, by the way. And the numbers were just incredible. But what happened? The greatest -- the feature I want to draw your attention to is the following:
When the Civil War broke out, these same Germans who landed in droves--300,000 a year, 400,000 a year, all young men usually, you see, more than women--went to the colors before they even had settled in Wisconsin. I explained this to you. It shows that they brought with them a -- a power of service and sacrifice from the old country which had never been developed by any patriotism in this country. It wasn't the little schoolhouse, and it wasn't here, the
Baptist Church, that they didn't -- you see, fill them with this patriotism. But it was their vision of America which they brought from the other side of the river -- of the ocean. And the Civil War has been won by the volunteers who from aboard ship donned uniform, and served in the Union rank. Why did they? They knew that if Negroes could be slaves, they, the immigrants, could al- -- also be treated as second-rate citizens. as we are now, today through your wonderful McCarran law, you see. A hundred years later, the -- the old-timers in this country have conquered. They have done what the Germans feared. The German -- immigrants feared at that time that the law that was before the Senate in 1856, of the Know-Nothing Party, would conquer -- it said in so many words: a man cannot vote in the first 25 years of his life in this country. You see. That was -- the main content of the law. Some other things, too.
Now you have this law, in disguise. But we have now second-rate citizenship. But now the country is settled, and so you, so to speak, could afford it. But at that moment, it was thrown out, because -- they were needed as soldiers.
But soldiering is already the fruit of belonging, and of membership. And this membership then was a quality which these people had acquired in another world, you see, in which this tradition, this western tradition had prevailed. And you cannot separate America from the Old World for this very reason, because the Congregationalists, the Presbyterians, they all learned what it was to be a Presbyterian, Congregationalist in Europe, and then came to this country in order to be able to live it more fully, and to -- to carry out these dreams, you see, and these principles. You just have to take Roger Williams and Rhode Island, or what -- who -- what have you -- whom have you.
So you understand. This -- in 1829, the old families were driven out of government. And they knew, you see. They had this complete awareness of the complicated government and this division in the three branches of government prove this, you see, that what Hamilton and Washington did was to -- not to allow the mere mass man to rule. That's the wisdom of our Constitution, this tripartition, you see, of the judiciary, the executive, and the legislative branch. But in 1829, the executive became the object of the legislative branch, by the spoils system, you see.
And at this moment, we are repairing this, you see. Now we are in reverse; the executive branch at this moment is stronger than the legislative branch. That's why I feel we are now undergoing a reversal of the -- you see, { } -- oh, pardon me. Only we have to be -- we have to create a more pertinent vocabulary. As long as this country uses "culture," "civilization," "capitalism," "socialism," they are all un-American terms. They aren't gro- -- home-grown. They have nothing to do with the situation here. What we need is, you see, the
relationship of leadership in these groups, you see.
What I told you of this man in the community, "I've lived here all my life," you see, well, that's an important fact. Where do you find this mentioned in any book, you see, on political theory? And yet this one man, he is min- -- one, you see, a minority of one, with God, is always in the majority. And as long as the country has such a grand old man, it can be saved. But I -- I never hear in a course of -- of political science it mentioned that Mr. -- a man like Mr. Stimson, you see, or Mr. Cordell Hull, or the old father of -- Henry Wal- -- Wallace, who was the best secretary of agriculture whom we ever had, that these old men have saved the -- this country. They have because of their quality.
It's very funny. You see, when I came to this country, I -- I was interested in writing my own ticket, and the people said, "You teach what you -- what you like." And I felt, { }, then I'll throw out all the European courses here in my department. And I'll try to speak to the Americans in the American way. And it's very funny, but I was the first man to teach American philosophy in -- in our college, you see, as such. And to talk about sports, and about football, you see, as a serious business, as -- as doing something to the soul of -- of this country. You -- you must have listened to -- Sir, I don't know where -- which courses you took with me.
({ }.)
But I have always felt that I defend the soul of America, you see, against this -- this patina, this -- this makeshi- -- makeup, you see, of European -- European lipstick.
And that's why we -- we -- we founded this Camp William James, in order to defend the American tradition of this country.
But I feel that -- it is a great misfortune that for example, the AMA has kept only a -- you see, in -- from -- to medicine. The professorial problem -- the -- the professional problem is -- is -- you should have in common with the other professions. The whole apprentice problem, for example. You see, that's nothing to be debated only in a -- in one -- by one profession or in one profession. It's a much more general question, you see: how a man is made a member of a profession, you see, how he serves up, and how he is entitled to it.
(This -- section when you started out, you -- kind of outlined what other -- the undeveloped countries are begging for, and asking for in professional help, to develop them -- their countries and areas, and this is what is expected, this is what they want --.)
And what they must become. They can only participate with glory and -- and satisfaction in this process, if they inherit these qualities that form this leadership, because that will make them into living people.
You come to India, you see. All these trends of India I meet in this country, are strangely ignorant of the tragedy of India, of the caste system, that there are still 55 million untouchables. They always ignore these -- these {mujis} in this country, I mean. You -- find this fad, "Buddhism is wonderful." It's not wonderful at all. It has breaken -- it's a terrible country, India. Really pagan. And yet the Brahmin is still a Brahmin. Mr. Nehru would not be able to govern India if he didn't happen to be two things: an Oxford graduate, and a Brahmin. And he unites the two things, you see. And that's why he governs India. Not for any personal virtue. But they, you see, he belongs to the ruling class of the old tradition, and he belongs to the ruling class of last hundred years. So that's the ruler.
And why does nobody say this, here? They all think he's wonderful, you see. He's an abomination. And he's an -- undecided, weak individual, you see. You just read his Glimpses of History, and you -- you just make it {cross} of the stupidity of his mind, and the -- of the indecision of the man. All Hindus have this indecidedness, you see, living in a -- in these many worlds. They have never created the -- the consciousness of one world of God's creation, you see. That's why the natural scientist of the West is a Christian, because he believes that God created Heaven and earth. The Hindus believe that one god created Heaven, and one god created earth. And that's why you have -- can have untouchables. He created, you see, one kind of people, and one -- another god created another kind of people. That's still working in India.
Paganism is a real thing, my dear man, is a real heresy. It is not -- jumps in lightly, and say, you -- it makes no difference whether we are westerners or -- pagans. It's a different -- completely different life. Everything looks different. They can't haven any science, because if you move away, you move into another world. Other laws pertain there. The -- the idea of the unity of the world is strictly a religious connotation. It's faith in one God, reflected in His creation.
So these people -- if they can learn these -- you see, this loyalty to achievement, you see, and this identity with anybody who is in the same predicament, this solidarity, and if they could learn this sticking it out, instead of with their indifference, sitting in the sun, you see, and getting -- not even killing a cow or fly for that matter, you see, you would move them into the range of -- of our marching body of -- of -- well, I call it "the body of Christ." You can just call it "the body politic." Only through the professional group will they become part and parcel of our world. At this moment, they are still outside. You may like them, you may {like} their books, and your fears, and your expec- -- our expecta-
tions, and --. We are not marching together with them at all.
(In other words, we have today, we have to have that inheritance --.)
You have to.
(And if other people are to be up to date, they can't just start {and want -- want everything}; they have to inherit the whole.)
Let -- if I -- the ladies allow me, I'll give you a flagrant example of how difficult the whole task, and how dangerous. European engineers were asked to build a tremendous power plant in India. And it took 1500 experts and steelworkers from the -- from the electrician to the -- up to the designer, and leading engineer, to bring to pass. And they stayed there three years. but they couldn't help each other. They were separated from their families. There was a -- I think I must mention this mitigating circumstance. First thing they did was a brothel. And that was of course the unforgivable sin for the Hindus. And all the benefits they brought to the country by bringing the electricity, you see, was completely destroyed by this -- additional -- additional little item.
Well, that happens everywhere of course now at this moment in one form or another. The vices and the virtue -- the vices are more easily introduced than the virtues.