American Maker (1960, sound)

foreign [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] of all things Americans are we are makers with our strengths and our minds and spirit We Gather we form and we fashion makers and Shapers and put it togetherers we start young finding out early in life what it's like to feel something grow and Take Shape beneath our hands we start young and we stay young modeling with careful Pride the things we expect to endure for ourselves and for others we build for use and we build in fun joining eyes and hands and brains into knowing teams that bring great dreams to life we build for the day and we build for the morals for our children for their children and for the future of America look to the land and look to the Sea wherever you may look in this world you're apt to find something that got there because some American found a good way to put it together a longer higher Bridge across a wider span of water foreign ER missile driven into space Reaching Across the oceans and reaching for other worlds as makers of today and Shapers for tomorrow we Americans seem to share an inborn understanding of how to go about making the things we want whether we're reaching for the moon hobbying in the home doing our part on a convenience to be enjoyed or preparing a tasty tidbit where all of us makers all of our different ways of making to the differing tastes of others are not also very different after all we make by moving materials getting what we need in the right place to work with it good we make by removing material getting rid of what isn't needed foreign [Music] just so we make by adding material to material we make by combining and then by applying our Finishing Touches and by testing and testing again to make sure what is finished meets with our own approval and earns the customers liking for what is done [Music] [Applause] with our craftsmanship and our conscientious control we build for utility and for eye appeal and for satisfaction at every step of the way [Music] that's the way we make things make them right and make them to the user's satisfaction [Music] with youthful enthusiasm we make things with pride and into whatever we make we try to Model A satisfying usefulness and some measure of beauty [Music] oncoming attractive useful products well made more and more products acceptable to the more and more exacting demands of more and more Americans [Music] all in our own personal choices of colors models sizes Styles price ranges and types better made more dependable more nearly trouble-free than products made in any such quantities anywhere else in the world all a part of the beauty produced so bountifully for you and for me by our American makers [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you foreign there was a time when many of our needs had to be imported from other countries but now American needs can be filled by Americans American desires met by products American made the American way and by makers American the American Maker Works for tomorrow as well as today and he has a host of new products in store for us some of them ready for immediate viewing some of them are visible in the nearer distance While others yet remain a dream of the future all of them on their way to us oncoming attractive useful products automatic highways with cars and buses that drive themselves [Music] [Applause] compact new cars [Music] [Applause] foreign powered transistorized TV that is really portable panel TV to hang on the wall like a picture all these and more and more [Music] we Americans have always been makers and in the beginning we had to be when America was young we learned how to make the things we needed because there was no other way to get them we worked with our hands and our hands served us well at the blacksmith's Forge and The Potter's Wheel we learned honest craftsmanship at the spinning wheel in the loom we studied patience [Music] and the greatest patience most of us Learned was the patience to see to it that what we were making was good then looking again to make sure what we had made would serve and serve well in early America men with the skills to do the things that needed doing were few in number [Music] Craftsman we had but each could make only enough for his own family and for perhaps a few of his neighbors we had little but we knew much of want of shortages of make do or do without of even the Necessities there wasn't enough to go around as our numbers increased and are once multiplied easier quicker better ways of doing things had to be found [Music] young we were youngest in the family of Nations when a Yankee Craftsman named Eli Whitney showed us how to do something about it something that never in all the world had been done before already a famous man as inventor of the labor-saving cotton gin Eli Whitney had been given a contract by Congress to produce 10 000 muskets now his time was almost up Mr Whitney we gave you a contract for 10 000 finished pieces what do you mean by bringing us all these bits and parts gentlemen I am offering you something far more valuable than muskets I am offering my country a new method of producing on a mass scale you see it takes years to train a Workman to produce a completed article from start to finish but it takes only a few days to train him to do a single part of the job the solution gentlemen is to divide the labor divide and specialize one man to make one part one to make another each to do what each can do best ridiculous simple possible Parts made by different people will never fit together they will sir I will if each part is made exactly like every other then each of these pieces are made by a separate man exactly Eli Whitney didn't have a word for it but we call it interchangeability interchangeability of parts a Yankee Craftsman had laid down the basic principle of modern mass production fine and specialize one man to make one part one to make another each to do what each can do best a new method of dividing the labor to let the American maker work more quickly and efficiently meet the ever-increasing demand for more Goods producing on a scale the world never before had known the seed of mass production had been planted but even so we still had far to go before we could begin to reap the Harvest our tools were simple and for power we had only our own muscles or the force of falling water and maybe a turn from the wind and then the next great forward stride for the American maker came with the coming of a new source of Mighty power unlimited new power to multiply thousands of times the productive energy of every man and create a revolution in the tools to be used tools to extend the power and fineness of his hands high speed tools to turn to bore to drill to Mill tools to plane to shape to slot to grind to forge to form with an accuracy in a Precision impossible to the finest of handcraft tools that hold the work you're working on tools that hold the tool you're working with with all the wonderful tools that have been invented to help the American maker get more from his day's work and more for it every bigger better and faster tool has given new abilities to the man who uses it advancing from simple hand tools to Great electric driven complex machines [Music] as more and more of us join American teams there are more and more others of us who are investing hard-earned savings to help buy the newer and better and bigger tools we now need [Music] to supply the conveniences for modern living the products we create and build grow ever more complex today's automobile for example may call for as many as 14 000 parts and each part must be as precise as thousands of pairs of hands and eyes and thousands of human brains can make it if the final product is to be just about trouble free no one plant or a single Factory can make all the many kinds of Parts it takes thousands of separate suppliers and in every supplier plant each man and woman must work with a feeling of responsibility toward the eventual owner of what it is he's helping to make on the conscientious contributions of every single one of them depend the success and reliability of what is made by others and the satisfaction of all the others who use them the fundamental freedom of America is our freedom of choice all of us want our choices in whatever we buy our personal choices of color of model of trim of engine transmission or steering as well as of radios of heaters air conditioning accessories and a host of other special options for convenience safety comfort and appearance on a single four-door sedan there are seven million possible combinations that may be asked for by any one owner the makers could be called upon to build for years without ever turning out exactly the same car twice the owner's choice for this chassis among many other options is for a red body [Music] the first show of color is in the wheels while the body of the right shade must be on its way already from the body plant a quarter of a mile off foreign all the many parts accessories and special equipment must meet at their rendezvous the call is for individual choices for custom service on a mass production basis and the response must be a fine accomplishment of meeting individual needs and personal tastes in terms of millions of individuals modern assembly is timing and teamwork as well as organization and every year to make way for changed models everything may have to be re-timed re-teamed and reorganized with new tools new assembly line fixtures and new working procedures and just as all the parts that must fit together must be there at the right time from thousands of plants all over the country so from all over the country and all over the world come the people who put them together for other people in thousands of different places giant teams of working people all fitting together tens of thousands of people all different different inability in degree of interest in each day's varying enthusiasm for the job differing in understanding and in their pride of workmanship different in age in skill in length of experience and in the way you feel from day to day presenting human problems which are challenges to Quality Control the best of us may occasionally make a mistake the best of tools may call for adjustment so in the All-American Game of making things for ourselves and others there must be catchers as well as pictures the inspector's job is to catch any slip and eliminate it from the finished product the performance you get out of whatever you buy the long time you can use and enjoy it the pride you can take in it depend not only on the engineers who design it and the men who make it but also on the painstaking conscientious vigilance of the quality control inspector who checks and double checks all along the way [Music] [Applause] so the way we Americans do it quality in the things we buy is designed in built-in and inspected in from start to finish and to help them make sure quality is built in and checked in new devices are continually being developed this machine automatically checks Dimensions to a ten thousandth of an inch a part deliberately made too small is put into the machine as a test of its efficiency out it goes when products were simpler years ago inspectors were few and far between but in these days with more complicated things to put together inspectors are many and inspectors are important and even after our product has passed all the factory tests it still must meet the approval of the conscientious dealer who sells it for in his turn the reliable dealer places his own pledge of quality on everything he sells he knows that the user finally depends on the Dealer's own fidelity the man who sells any final product shares with its maker the credit and shares with its maker the responsibility for its performance and for the owner's satisfaction in the quality relay the dealer is the final qualifier [Music] [Applause] [Music] no other people anywhere have achieved more for themselves and for the rest of us than the thousands upon thousands of hard-working American men and women the millions who pull their skills and talents to produce the things we need and want and we who enjoy whatever they have made for us do well to be thinking of what they are giving us oh yes we know they work for their pay for their food and for the needs of their wives and the wants of their young ones but also they make for the joy of making things right whatever the whims of our choice and the twists of our tastes so as we ease into our necessities [Music] as we Nestle into our comforts [Music] as we relish our conveniences it is well for us to remember that all these have come from the roots of the Maker's mind are the fruits of the Maker's labors foreign that is the job that is being done for all of us by the American maker producing by the Millions for the Millions to make life in America more enjoyable for us all the grand job of the American Baker thank you [Music] foreign foreign