country are natural; the advantages of the city are
human ; when both are fused, as they are being fused,
the cities lose in large degree their justification for
existence. When they bring their best to the country,
their work is done.

Cities, in the sense of central assembling places for
manufacture and commerce, may continue to exist;
but people will live outside them. Wherever people
can carry with them the advantages which the city has
produced, they move out of the city. And that is the
natural, necessary movement ; for you cannot, carry the
country into the city, it cannot be done; or if it could
be done, the city would be destroyed in the process.
But you can carry the city into the country, without
destroying the country, but even improving it.

So while it is clear that cities are to pass, let us not
regard them as a sad blunder; they were a school for
the race. They taught us something. They filled their
place and did their work of education. But an end
comes to every phase of education, and it seems clear
that an end is coming to this also.



428



Use Is Better Than Economy



IT IS rather a strange arrangement of nature that
only the most precious values can be wasted. You
can waste time, you can waste labor, you can waste
material and that is about all. You cannot waste
money. You can misuse money, but you cannot waste
it; it is still somewhere. You can waste your own
opportunity to use it for benefit, but that is all. Which
would seem to put money in at least the second class.

Time, energy and material are worth more than
money, because they cannot be purchased by money.
Not one hour of yesterday, nor one hour of today can
be bought back. Not one ounce of energy can be
bought back. Material wasted,, is wasted beyond re-
covery. These things are in the front rank of values.
They are the precious elements .out of which all wealth
is made.

It is worth noting that, these precious values are
not of human creation. We have done a great deal
with our human intelligence and energy, we have ac-
complished much by the manipulation of natural mate-
rial and forces, but the severely modifying fact remains
that ourselves and all we have worked with, and the
very intelligence we have worked by, w r ere not our own
creation. So, while mankind may be pleased, and even
thankful, .jt ill becomes it to be boastful.

All our values were given us. Mind-values, power-
values, material-values were all here. And we. the
human race, have simply been cutting our eye-teeth on
some of the elementary problems. The tree makes
apples, mankind makes engines and philosophies the
tree cannot boast itself to be very original and power-
ful ; it does what it was given power to do.

Hut mankind always has promise of being per-
mitted to do still greater things. If trees bore difYerent
and finer apples every succeeding year, we should say.
"Well, there is progress in the apple kingdom, and



FORD IDEALS



some day those apple trees are going to develop into
beings of wonderful powers." But we don't see that.
We see, however, mankind putting out different and
better fruits age by age, and even helping the tree
bear better apples, and the bush better berries ; and
therefore we say, "Well, there will come a time when
this wonderfully endowed and protected race of beings
will work in some finer material than steel, and by
some finer force than electricity or gasoline explosions.
Its present progress has every sign of being only
preparation."

The waste which we practice upon the original
store of wealth is always repairing itself. That is to
say, the time we waste is wasted for us, not for Time
somewhere the unused hours and days return to
original source where there are neither days nor hours,
nor yet Time, but endless duration. Hours and days
are doled out to us as small coin to see how we will
use them.

It is the same everywhere. \Vasted material is re-
placed ; the earth never ceases making what we need
and is prepared to fill future needs of which we have
not now the slightest fore-knowledge. If men waste
energy, it is lost to them as individuals the great
reservoir of energy on which all life draws is not
exhausted.

Therefore the great word of life is Use.

Some would say Economy. Not so. The word
economy represents a half-idea born of fear. Its his-
tory is something like this : the great and tragic fact
of waste is brought home to the mind by some circum-
stance, usually of a most materialistic kind ; or there
comes a violent reaction against .extravagance for
even nature rebels against our unwise courses (which
is the reason why so many people break down from
"overwork,'' which is not overwork at all) ; and as a
sudden revulsion against it all. the mind catches hold
of the idea of "economy." It flies from a greater evil
to a lesser one ; it does not make the full journey from
error to truth.

Economy is the rule of half-alive minds. There
can be no doubt that it is better than waste, neither



430



USE IS BETTER THAN ECONOMY

can there be any doubt that it is not as good as Use.

People who pride themselves on their economy
sometimes bristle when it is attacked, as if one of the
virtues had been denounced. It is principally in the
interests of the economizers that this attitude is taken.
For if there is anything more pitiable on earth than a
poor, pinched mind spending the rich days and months
pinching at a few pieces of metal, or paring the outer
necessities of life to the very quick if there is any-
thing more pitiable, where is it?

Obviously, a practice that so pinches the mind is a
wrong one. We all know economical people who seem
to be niggardly even about the amount of air they
breathe and the amount of appreciation they will allow
themselves to give anything. They are all shriveled
up.

Indeed, economy is waste: it is waste of the juices
of life, the sap of living. For there are two kinds of
waste : that of the prodigal who throws his substance
away in riotous living, and that of the sluggard who
allows his substance to rot from non-use. In the
precious things of life the strict economizer is in dan-
ger of being classed with the sluggard.

The beauty of the principle of Use is that it obtains
all the advantages of economy and at the same time
gives healthy expression to all the instincts of which
wastefulness is the diseased symptom. Most people's
extravagance is a reaction from severe suppression of
expenditure. Most people's economy is a reaction
from extravagance.

Under the principle of Use the expansive experience
of expenditure is obtained, as well as the self-control
and economic discipline of "economizing.''

Everything was given us to use. There is no evil
from which we suffer that did not come about through
misuse. There is no function which human beings can
fulfill that is not good. P>ut we have all about us the
spectacle of whole nations having to make laws against
things, not bad fundamentally, but bad in their mis-
use. The worst possible sin we can commit against the
things of our common life is to misuse them. "Misuse"
is the wider term. \Ye like to sav "waste," but waste is

431



FORD IDEALS

only one phase of misuse. All waste is misuse; all
misuse is waste.

It is possible even to overemphasize the savings
habit. It is proper and desirable that everyone have a
margin; it is really wasteful not to have one, if you
can have one. But it can be overdone.

We teach children to save their money. As an at-
tempt to counteract thoughtless and selfish expenditure,
it has its value ; but it is not positive ; it doesn't lead the
child out into safe and useful avenues of self-expression
or self-expenditure.

To teach a child to invest is better. Most men are
saving a few dollars who, if they would invest those few
dollars, first in themselves, and then in some useful
work, would find it easier to save because they would
have more to save.

Young men ought to be investing instead of sav-
ing. They ought to be investing in themselves to in-
crease their creative value ; after they have brought
themselves to their peak of usefulness, then will be
time enough to think of laying aside, as a fixed policy,
a certain substantial share of income.

You are not "saving" when you are preventing your-
self from becoming more productive. You are really
taking out of your ultimate capital ; you are reducing
yourself in value as one of nature's investments.

The principle of Use is the main guide-post. Use is
positive, active, life-giving. Use is alive. Use adds
to the sum of good. Start out on that principle. You
will have just as much materially, but you will have a
great deal more mentally and spiritually. Investment is
the prerequisite of returns. Investment is in the old-
fashioned term, "putting out to use."



432



Interest Robbery in Bonus Loan



THE word "bonus" is frequently heard these days in
connection with the men who fought for our
country in the Great War. And wherever it is heard,
there will be found two opinions upon it. Perhaps
everybody, those who are for it and those who are
against it, feels that at best it is a makeshift, that the
granting of a bonus will not do much for the soldier
after all, and that it will constitute no permanent good
for him. The principal element, is the spiritual : to re-
fuse the bonus is felt to be ingratitude, and this is to
be avoided as an evil spirit. But at the same time
no one will be found to say that to grant the bonus, a
mere $10 or $15 for every month of service, is an ade-
quate show of gratitude. It doesn't discharge the debt.
Heaven help us if we measure our gratitude to our
soldiers by the amount of any bonus.

So there are the two points : the bonus pays nothing.
It is a small and temporary aid to men who may be in
need of ready money by reason of unemployment, but
who would prefer a return of their rightful work in the
world to anything else we could do for them.

The American Soldier, the boy who left shop and
store and office and school, taking a year or two out of
his life to settle the military question overseas, should
not be placed in a false light in all this discussion. He
is not asking for charity. He would not take charity.
He should not be used in argument or plea as if he
were asking or expecting charity.

But he has a right to expect that after having done
what we asked him to do, we shall give him the oppor-
tunity to regain the place he left, and shall leave noth-
ing wanting in our etlort to restore him to the same
degree of competence which he had before.

That is one of the really black blots on our whole
war organization. \\e had a splendid organization lor
the handling of copper, for example. We had many



433



FORD IDEALS



men ready to leap in and offer their services where it
was a matter of rounding up war supplies. Our war
government, with its price fixers and its general manip-
ulators of "understandings" here and there, was cer-
tainly an amazing institution. But when it came to
cleaning up the ruck and riot of war, there wasn't one
to help. They had all resigned. There is no profit in
teaching a blind soldier a trade. There is no profit in
helping to salvage the human wreckage of the war.
There is no profit in taking the armless and the legless
and the shell-shocked and helping to restore them again.
And so our famous "war government" is not on the
job. It is out looking for other worlds to conquer.
And about the only thing we hear is complaints about
the mistakes and lacks of the restorative program, and
urges for the bonus.

The soldier has a right to complain, although to his
credit be it said that he is not complaining for himself
so much as for his wounded "buddy" who isn't getting
the chance he ought to have. And he also has a right to
reflect that the so-called "bonus" is a mighty little thing
after all.

In one state where it is proposed to pay the soldiers
a bonus, no soldier will receive more than $300, yet the
state will expend about $30,000,000 in paying the
amounts, and an additional $54,000,000 for interest on
the bonds which it had to issue in order to raise the
bonus money. There is the matter of $150 to $300
for the soldier, and a matter of $54,000,000 for the
money-lenders. Indeed, whatever bonus the soldier
gets, he will pay for over and over again in his taxes.

Now, if the people of that state should go down into
their pockets and by a self-imposed assessment of about
$10 a head, raise a fund to present to their soldiers as a
special gift to tide them over a tough time, there would
be something tremendously human and moving about
that. But the trouble is that bonuses have not even
that much sentiment. They are first politics, then they
are debts, and the only people who really benefit are the
money-lenders. They get their "bonus" regularly for
30 years afterward.

If a bonus, no matter how small it was, came as a



434



INTEREST ROBBERY IN BONUS LOAN

wreath of victory; if it were really the conscious act of
the people in showing their appreciation, that would be
quite another thing. But all it amounts to nowadays
is the sale of interest-bearing bonds.

If a state really wants to do something for the
soldiers, why does it not give them the interest f If
the state would arrange to give the soldiers the interest
on the projected bonus loans, the soldiers would get
nearly twice as much, and the state would save the en-
tire principal.

To give its soldiers $30,000,000 the state in question
is going to give the money-lenders $5 1,000,000 ; a total
of $84,000,000 in all to finance the giving away of
$30,000,000. If the state would give its soldiers the
interest, $54,000,000, it would save the principal, or
$30,000,000. And the soldiers would get nearly twice
as much.

If a state can pay interest to the banks, it can pay
interest to the men it ought to help.

Now the soldier himself does not regard our sys-
tem as a very good one, when it works out that way.
He is not impressed with the wisdom of a system that
mortgages a state for 30 years in a great sum, and still
doesn't do much for the soldier.

.If the bonus really set the soldier up for life, if it
established him in his place as a professional man, com-
mercial man, mechanic or farmer, if the bonus settled
anything at all, it might be worth any state's effort to
do" it.

But what does a scrawny $150 to $.'500 do for a
man? It is totally inadequate as a testimonial of the
state's gratitude ; it is totally inadequate to the establish-
ment of the soldier in his place in the world.

When you give a soldier $300 and a banker $540
interest for the privilege, it would seem much wiser as
well as much kinder to give the soldier the $510 in-
terest and save the $300. thus costing the state only $"240
when measured by the other plan. And, it" the state
wanted to go as far as it goes under the bond plan.
let the soldier have the $300 and the $5 10 too. $S 10. and
let the state pay both interest and principal to herself.

The best bonus that can be given the soldier is a

435



FORD IDEALS



place to work where he can snap his finger at bonuses,
and a state to live in where the money-lenders have not
the deciding voice about everything.

Money is the least valuable of all the commodities,
yet it brings the highest price ; and though we have the
manufacture of it in our^own hands as a nation, yet it
is the scarcest of all the things we make. The control-
lers of money were able to smooth the way for the sol-
dier when they wanted him to fight ; they seem
strangely helpless to smooth the way for him now that
he only wants to work.

There is doubtless a duty and a debt to those who, in
response to our call, suffered loss, of whatever kind the
loss may be. Certainly there is an element of fairness
in the consideration that the man who stayed at home
and had a year or two advantage over the man who
went, should not thus put the soldier at a disadvantage.
The breaks of war were many ; they must be repaired
where possible ; many of the breaks can never be re-
paired. But can it be done in this slip-shod, half-
hearted borrowing which profits nobody but the lender ?
If a state desires to give its soldiers $30,000,000, let it
tax its people for that amount, instead of taxing its
people for $84,000,000 in order to expend $30,000,000.

The soldier himself would be of that opinion. .



436



On Being Fit for the

New Era



IT HAS become common and almost boresome to say
that we are on the threshold of a new era. It ought
to be one of the most startling announcements that any-
one could make or hear. But it has always been true
that great changes have come over the human race,
never to be noticed until, a century after, some observ-
ing soul has said, "That was a great period back there
one hundred years ago." We understand gunshots and
wars and industrial failures and depression, but the
real changes of which these are the passing signs, go
mostly over our heads.

The trouble is we don't realize that the "new era'' is
going to mean something to us something different
than we have supposed. We think everything is going
to be lovely and that the world is to be humored along
in its old ways.

In short, when it is said that we are entering a new
era it is accepted as meaning that now, at last, things
are going to be very nearly what we lazily wanted them
to be.

We have been using the phrase for comfort, when
really it is challenge.

If it were said that tomorrow we are to wake up on
another continent to make our lives over again, it would
not be regarded as a very soothing sort of statement.
We should find it hard to lie back in our chairs and
say, "Well, times are going to be all right again." The
knowledge that we were to begin anew, under unknown
conditions, would keep us awake and alert.

You remember how it was when you went to school.
It was great to be promoted, but the "next grade'' was
never viewed with ease of mind. That "next grade"
loomed up before you with its unknown tests and tasks,
and your mind was set to grapple with something
bigger than you had yet encountered.

437



FORD IDEALS

Well, something like that should be our feeling when
we contemplate the fact that we are entering upon a
"new era." It is the next grade. We are not going
back to retravel familiar ground, we are entering upon
a new continent with new tests and new tasks. The past
is past in a double sense now ; not only is the Time that
made it, gone ; but the temper and principles out of
which it was built are gone too.

All the mature generations of today have grown up
in the era of their own fathers. There were improve-
ments upon their fathers' times, of course, but the gen-
eral period was the same. Sires and sons were in the
same "grade," so to speak, one nearer the beginning of
the "term/' the other nearer the end. The sons have
now come to the end of the "term." The road ahead is
untraveled. The conditions to be passed are new.

Just why this comes about as it does, no one knows.
It would be useless to guess. Something has been
switched off, and something else has been switched on.
The time that was, is not ; the time that is to be, begins.
One course of lessons has been finished, the doors of the
next "grade" open.

There seems to be a difference, however. In school,
there is an examination. The standard you maintain
in your examination determines your fitness to leave
the lower graded In the present change that is reversed ;
examinations will determine whether we are fit to enter
the higher grade the new era. It is quite possible that
in matters of character a man stays on the lower plane
until he is ready to enter the higher plane ; but when the
new era is fully arrived there will not be vestiges ot the
old era left all the people will be New Era People who
have shown themselves fit to be promoted. The others
will have vanished as worn-out and unprogressive races
have always vanished.

You see, therefore, that it is more than an eloquent
flourish of words to say that "we are on the threshold
of a new era.'' It is as startling to the individual as was
the announcement of the new conscription law in 1017.
The question for every individual is. What will it mean
to me? Am I fit to be one of the New Era People?

438



ON BEING FIT FOR THE NEW ERA

Am I going to pass the examination requirements into
the new time?

The test is going to be made all down the line, but it
is going to begin at what we call the "top." There will
always be leaders. Even in anarchic Russia they have
leaders very hard leaders, too. Leaders are necessary
and have a special part to play and bear an extra degree
of responsibility. We say leaders are at the "top," pre-
sumably because they ought to be found at the head of
the column. And that is where the testing and weeding
out is to commence.

It is in process now. We are not speaking of some-
thing that will begin next year ; we are speaking of what
has silently overshadowed the world for several years.
It is a Day of Judgment for the leaders of the old era.
If they cannot pass their examinations, if their faces
are not toward the future, if their hearts are not more
devoted to righteousness than to the preservation of
some old and respected iniquity, they fail. They dis-
appear. New leaders take their places.

Look where you will in railroading, in banking, in
manufacturing, in commerce, in teaching or preaching,
in making newspapers, in farming everywhere the
New Era is crowding in and is crowding out those who
are against its coming. It is not merely a matter of
new and better ways of doing things, but a new and
better spirit and purpose in doing them. There have
been New Era People in the world for some time, but
they have been rated as "fools" ; now their day is
come.

This is news worth while for the young fellow. It
is genuine news. He has been hearing for a long
time past that opportunity was pretty well sewed up.
Indeed, certain labor leaders have written and preached
that no one has any right to expect to improve his
condition in the world, that "the laboring class'' con
stituted an iron-bound caste out of which it was prac-
tically impossible for anyone to break.

Of course, no one ever breaks out of "the labor-
ing class" unless he turns gambler or sonic other sort
of financial criminal. Honest men stay in "the labor-
ing class" all their lives. Rut this is what the false

439



FORD IDEALS



teachers mean : that a man need not hope to rise to
his own level of ambition and ability in the laboring
class, and that is false. This is the New Era, and
New Era People are in demand to fill the places of
old era leaders who failed in their examinations ; and
the present time is the most glorious period to be young
and ambitious. There wasn't much chance during the
last years of the old era, that is why it closed so quick-
ly. But it is morning again and a new day is full of
opportunity.

The only "hold overs" from the old era are the
qualities which gave it its worth. They are the old-
fashioned virtues of honesty, industry and courage.
They are just as necessary now as in the first year
after the Independence of the United States or the
first year after the Civil War. In fact, they are never
out of date. Many people seem to think that the New
Era is merely another chance for them to work their
old games, cheating the laws of value, the laws of
work, and every other good law. Not at all. The
old era died of these old games, and died in discred-
itable circumstances, too.

Rewards will not be less but greater in the New
Era. New Era People are going to produce as much
or more, but they are going to have a larger share in
it, they will live broader lives. The world is going to
continue practical always practical even more prac-
tical than before, because the world was not practical
while it tried to break the laws of value, and work,
and justice. Some people had the notion that in the
New Era we were to sit down under the trees and spin
beautiful theories. No ; we are going to spin beauti-
ful realities on the loom of more and better work.



440



Much Nonsense in Titles



RECENTLY a financier made a speech in which
he said a few plain things about the effect of
titles in business. He was of the opinion that it was
being very much overdone. He thought he observed
harmful effects on industrial and business organiza-
tions by this method of decoration, and he seemed to
feel that something ought to be done about, it.

It is a refreshing sign of the times that a business