LETTER FROM AMERICA

you akron ohio USA August twenty-ninth dear Freda it is late at night most everybody's gone home but before I leave I'm going to write you a letter gonna work all night Carl no just writing a letter to my sister back in your country thought you wrote her the other night I did but this is a special leather you know doctor I was listening to the radio the other night and I heard the man say the only thing most people in other countries know about this country they hear from our enemies why don't you people who live here in America and who have friends and relatives over there right and tell them the truth about America that's a good idea more people should do that yes I I think so too I'll see you in the morning how good night good night doctor hmm let me see yesterday was my birthday 50 years old do you realize it has been more than 30 years since I saw you as I look back Freda certain events in my life stand out very clearly I remember just there you look for my left home you were eight then because I was 18 you brought me your brown it's muffler when I was packing I didn't want to take it but you wanted me to thank you critique you thank you the next thing I knew out is that seeing the crowded ship is just a blur oh but I was sick but I remember my first sight of the Statue of Liberty I was thrilled to pieces even though I didn't know what Liberty really meant yet then I was in America none of the rags none of the sharp pinched faces of hunger I had left behind I thought it was sunday everyone seemed on the holiday and boy amia the next time you hear anybody say those Americans there's is always the biggest and the tallest shall remember this they may be bragging but they're probably not exaggerating I've seen a lot of this country since and I know now that well let me put it this ray do you recollect the time I was flowing and you came out there help how hard that was and then you said ah what do you think heaven is like oh I don't know what do you think I think it is a big cool wood filled with wild strawberries and you can pick as many as you want to what do you think it is like I don't know could take you I don't know no I didn't know that heaven was then but could take you I know now it's living in America yes it's as simple as that and it's that wonderful but you know I think you have to have lived someplace else before you fully realize it anyway I landed here in Akron you remember our cousin Rudy was here he got me a job with your rubber company where he worked in become pounding room it was hard dirty work but I was used to hard dirty work for I came from we didn't know any other kind so I was surprised the first time I heard one of the men complaining right out loud truly if our government wasn't so rotten they step in and tell these guys how to run this business yeah what do they care about the working man what did he mean that kranski what does he ever mean for calling to government wrotham de please get him huh no in this country that's free speech how's Rudy we don't want what he said doing the government regulating everybody that's what we left behind this is the new way of life then he had not to be allowed to talk like that that is too much free speech that's lunchtime let's go look Carl that's where you and Karofsky both make your mistakes what do you mean you could say to a fella like Trotsky right now do you believe in American freedom and he'd say you bet your life he'd be ready to fight for it but he hears someone say that government all his deputy and do so and so he starts repeating it like a parrot never stopping to think that what he's yelling for would be knocking one of the props right out from under us that tried it would so you come along and you say he had not to be allowed to say such things that's too much free speech and when you do that Carl you are taking a socket another one of our freedoms see Albert earthy I didn't mean it like that of course you didn't but you understand don't you that any time you start to fool around with any one of our freedoms you're liable to mess up the whole works I seen that Coach Anna was my first lesson in through democracy but I had a lot more to learn heard about the new machine no machine make no mixer coming in do all the work for us good good see how good your thinking is when you're out of a job that's what machine Julia he's always saying that that's the trouble with these slick talkers like they found out in the old country what they say sounds so fossil and yet new machines keep coming in and crusty still has his job as knee so you can imagine how confused i was a green kid anyway the new giant mixing machine erised it was called de banbury after the inventor this was the first one our company was working with them to get the bugs out of it they said you know I looked several times when nobody was around and I never saw a single bug in it it anyway this one machine did in two minutes but used to take 25 and save the workers one of the dirtiest most disagreeable jobs in the factory but you naturally want to know what about the workers who used to work in this room other jobs just seemed to come along for them for the most part better ones I've and into tire building made possible because more builders for needed but that was only the beginning the Banbury was so good we ordered nine more today we have 21 of them using more people than ever but you should see the difference gone are the old times none too healthy dirt and back-breaking human throw jury the machines mean more workers and better working conditions and that's not all think could be jobs created for other workers all over the country because the other rubber companies wanted these machines to more work for minors iron ore miners and coal miners freighters by land and water iron puddlers and boundary men machinist engineers grease monkeys Electrical Workers builders of all kinds it takes 15 different firms from as many parts of the country to produce one of these banbury mixers and that my little sister is the answer to the clan skis of this world look at me calling you my little sister somehow I've got to get it into my head that that little girl is now a woman grown ashy really look all grown up and married to a fine man give my best love to mark and to those two deaf children Robert and Lil is why even if it's bigger now than you were then I saw you like a my mama oh yes I don't believe it the things she says in the letter do you Father well I don't teach us that in school do not be food democracy is a failure everything you hear from America it's nice I don't know what to believe go on mama yeah I want to make very clear the difference between old-world picture of the workers and American may be the best way to shore children would be like in their Commission the cartoon chunks I wish I could be there to describe assure them the European picture in too many places is this a workman with his hands turns out let us say a hundred nails the day the American picture a workman with a machine turns out 10,000 nails day the first workman earns a dollar a day so that makes his nails cost a dollar a hundred the American earns ten dollars today but because of his machine his nails cost only a dollar a thousand machines cut down costs so that means more business because more people can buy more things now watch when pork eat a peasant goes to buy nails it takes his whole day's wages for just a hungry but the efficient American worker can buy ten times that meant even his dollar and have nine dollars left over for other things this picture is important two days it's important to make nails cheaper so more people can buy more nails and build more things it's important to make things cheaper and more abundant to make bread cheaper and shoes cheaper and homes cheaper and not umma beals cheaper that's what keeps raising our standard of living it's important to improve working conditions to to take the door jury out of human labor because in America it's the people who count not like in Europe or they say the people are made for the state in America the state was made for the people and people would need to be happy that is the picture I want you to keep in mind it is the only country I know in the world where the pursuit of happiness is one of the written rights in the founding of its government the pursuit habits oh my dear nephew my darling niece if you will but used intelligence I know you have if you will but look back if it'll recognize a great truth for something like 60 centuries people have lived on this earth in all that time in every country save one most of them have never had enough to eat one civilization after another the Egyptian Greek d roman all went down in sandals the last century the French were dying like flies from hunger then this was the Irish right now today millions are starving to death all over Europe and most of Asia why is it them there is one spot on earth where men have found a way that cured salmon I have men died of starvation for 60 centuries but one land America eats abundantly freighted men break their backs for 6,000 years till one place America is yellow power from nature to do the work in less than a hundred years Americans have built a way of life incredibly Richard infinitely more worth living surpassing all the imaginings of all the people of all the centuries that have gone before how can the enemies of our democracy explain all that AVI or you can find things wrong with it sure a lot of things we are doing something about them too but in spite of all its shortcomings there is no way that can touch the American be and it will keep on getting better all the time if we don't let anybody mess around as I say I didn't learn all these things at once it was while I was in the tire building department I saw what they meant by individual initiative freedom of choice I had been in the factory several years I'd had my choice of work and the way I wanted to earn my pay in the compounding room I had worked by today entire building act was on piece rate and doing all right then one day the informant called me Oh Carl well how's it going okay bill you see how I was even learning American slang to have you ever thought of applying for the squadron yes but there wouldn't be making the kind of money I get here yeah it's less money in a three-year grind but you'd learn every department in the plan then what I don't know how as mr. Litchfield says nobody promotes anybody here all we can do is expose them to the opportunity I think you've got stuff in you but I'm not promising you a thing think it over if you want and let me know okay bill I will and thanks it's all right can you imagine that happening in one of those countries what the government tells you just what work you can do and tell your employer what he can pay you to make a long story short I brenton a squadron for the next three years I got around more than the conveyor belt I calendar stock repped beads bagged tires your tires or don't ask me what all I was learning why this is called the land of opportunity I found that could take part-time study at the goodyear industrial university i went on from that to special night classes at akron you think of a university being maintained by a city so that the children of its workers can be prepared for even better lives and their parents have had after work one day i was going home with cousin Lucy but then he drove me out to his place in goodyear heights Rudy was Foreman in his department now with a car nice home a nice little family you never saw a fellow more contented having to seem to pour into his life like a authority after dinner I found myself in the kitchen Rudy always helps Millie with you dishes and I thought I'd just sit out there and talk to them that's what I thought done anythin for Carl honey ok I don't need to help here Oh to heck he doesn't here to try that around you he'll never learn any younger besides it's like the squadron it's good to know all departments yeah really but I won't need this experience very well yet that ain't the way I heard it how is Mary I'll fine Thank You Millie but that is a long way off Rudy there is a funny one today what Oh Millie doesn't want to hear shops doc Joe say Millie knows more about the place in Al Cummington well at lunch today there is this new guy who wanted to know where the boss's office was and I said rich Boston he said mr. good year that's a good year Charlie yeah he said he's the owner isn't he he wanted to see him did you tell him he was a half of his years too late something like that and then he wanted to know where who is the owner anyway gosh I I didn't know what to tell him I knew there was more than one but who are they well there's three of them right here in this kitchen no Rudy I mean what you mean us you have some shares haven't you but yeah but not enough to make me one of the owners all but you're part owner I'm part owner Millie's part owner a lot of the plant people are people like earning Palmer the tire inspector Tommy the stock hustler red McCluskey the washer man Nick Philippa passers whatever his name is the third shift in the pits doc borsuk in the chem lab office help too Brownlee's Dora stenographer Maxine the receptionist but a great number of them thousands of them are outside the plant you know Barney who runs the drive-in out on market he's one mr. hammers the man at the bank professor Ross of the you mr. Loudin the farmer where we get our butter names and mrs. Bixler the dressmaker that's right and miss ebersole married charles piano teacher those are the shareholders the owners part of the forty or fifty thousand teachers doctors businessmen farmers all over the country the people who put up the capital that runs the company even as you and I Rudy that makes us sound like capitalists we are capitalist american-style in this country anybody who puts up the money to run any business with the capitalist for what do you know of course some put up more some put up list it's a matter of degree but you and me a lot of people that put up their money are our workers most of them but then Rudy what is the difference between capital and labor oh there isn't any really exempt what's all the fuss about well I Timmy what goes on here speaking of fuss now there goes a prime example we fell he's an Indian daddy-o he would known Indian if he saw one just like some folks don't know capital when they see it you can see capital you see it every day remember when we put in the new band berries yeah well every one of them is a hundred capital to the tune of better than a hundred thousand bucks and seven or eight hundred dollars a month to keep each one going kind of a high-priced tool but that's capital of work son and furnishing work for twenty two men each on four shifts every tire billing machine is so much capital and a thousand dollars or so of peace brother that's a lot of capital at work to say nothing of wear and tear depreciation of insurance that's all capital to about 90 bucks worth of peace a month everywhere you look all the machines are capital the factory buildings the land the material we worked with the finished product even the different conveyors around the place we have over two million dollars invested and conveyors alone taking the load off the workers backs yes this is all capital working right along with the worker whether you use these machines personally or not you're part of the factory they're the capital it works that makes it possible for you to work I've often thought what if you had to put up your share of all that capital before you could have a job well suppose you just had to bring your own tools hydras reaping out that's right but you're not because its capital an American free enterprise that got us our jobs the things we have a home like this in what other country in the world will you find a working man whose wife has a stove device without matches hot and cold water brought right into her kitchen and in the same room a place to keep her food cold and fresh over here we take that all for granted like we take our liberties for granted why car I'm tired just protecting my capital investment well he did ask me yeah now he'll go catch your young Indian I'll put him to bed well more I'll sure have a try at it I stop without matches did you hear that Robert mm-hmm it must be wonderful having homes like that and a chance to work and live like that mama what are freed surprised what three super free enterprise what is it well he'll say it's hard to describe something you've only heard about maybe the latter oh yeah then one day opportunity called me to the department where I hope to work the rest of my life so thankful I am I had prepared myself for it Carl I've got a new job for you oh yes sir I just got a call from research they want a man from the squadron who knows both compounding and curing and some tire building here okay or who do I see dr. Densmore yeah dr. Dinsmore asked me to tell you what to do I better warn you maybe this is a job you won't want that's the trouble of this department we get a highly trained man and put him at the most monotonous work in the world it's like looking for a needle in the haystack with the no guarantee that there's any needle layer most of the time there isn't but when you find one mr. it's worth it all over here we have some samples we want you to cure them up directions are on the chop then we'll run tests will do the same thing tomorrow the next day and the day after we've been at it now off and on for over three years what is it it doesn't snap like jungle Robert it isn't that stuff didn't come out of a tree came out of a test to synthetic or I've heard the rumors the most expensive rubber you ever saw trouble is it doesn't brother or why bother with it there when the real thing is so much cheaper it is now but you never know let's get that first test on as the days passed and weeks the work grew on me I have to be transferred to the Department permanent I didn't know then that I was getting into a history in the making it was only a little part but the world knows it now not just our company not even our industry alone but a comparative handful of men from labs like ours in the rubber companies oil companies and chemical companies competing with each other but United when a common enemy appeared they finally did it Hitler took longer and never did get a practical synthetic proving once again that taking a man by the neck and saying now you discover synthetic rubber for the earthen bomb doesn't get the results like free men in a free enterprise and in a freely competitive system I have been added a good many years now part time and cooperation with product development I've seen the cord tire come I remember how they kidded us about their first Akron to Boston run but that pioneering paved the way for the Giants 14 18 and 24 wheelers now rolling from coast to coast the airplane tire that made the big ships possible rubber tractor tires that have revolutionized the grapple chiral America multiplying two crops that make Americans the best fed people on this earth oversized balloon tires doing things heretofore called impossible getting bigger and tougher I've seen these rubber mastodons building a better America moving tons of equipment and a cushion of air and a purely vegetable product but even more important while they were working to make them better we are working to make them cheaper there's a car for every five people in the United States you could take everybody in America for a ride at once in the Russia for every five riders 750 we'd have to walk don't tell me that beats the American rate yes oh yes Mary how pretty soon had the kids come home yet as well no no I'm just finishing up here i'll be home directly what do you mean at my age i will you reach 50 you're just in your prime a man or a company an anniversary is interesting time do you remember when the research lab open mr. Litchfield had a sign for the breeding he best is yet to come so that goes for me too or the company okay there will make it for everybody yes see a pretty sure by in writing this letter so that you may perhaps get a new understanding of America I know one thing some of the newer crowd think it is smart to be cynical to make light of the great principles that brought us where we are today not realizing that when they do they are playing right into the hands of those who would destroy our way of life there's a sign on my wall unlike it hangs in every office and there every works with any plant it reads protect our good name if it is important to protect the name of a leader in the major industry how much more important it should be to protect a good name of a leader among nations my love for you you