Frontiers of the Future (A Screen Editorial With Lowell Thomas) 1937

[Music] hello everybody this is LEL Thomas and I to ask one or two questions which you twoo have probably asked and then I intend to answer them America for 300 years has been the land of promise for the rest of the world the land of New Frontiers new opportunities for all today the job of building this nation geographically is completed there are no New Frontiers within our borders so here are my questions and yours to what New Horizons can we look now where are tomorrow's opportunities what's ahead in America for you for your children it is not a difficult assignment to answer these questions the frontiers of the future are not on any map they are in the minds of men and in the test tubes and Laboratories of the great Industries we have built up here in America but now what's ahead of us many of us have had our doubts there are those who say today that opportunities have ceased to exist things are finished we have everything and not enough there can be no more progress almost 100 years ago in the old patent office in Washington the commissioner of patents was just as pessimistic as anyone you have ever heard the advancement of our Arts from year to year taxes our credulity and seems to prage the arrival of that period when human improvements must end in other words in 1844 the commissioner was about ready to shut up the patent office and go home believing that everything had been invented that industrial progress in America had already come to an end he didn't know that within 2 years he would be signing a patent on a method of Vulcanizing rubber from which there was destined to spring up hundreds of new Industries and jobs by the thousands that were made possible through this one idea no the pessimists of that day never dreamed of the marbles that would soon follow their predictions they overlooked one all important fact that we should know so well that is as long as there is a problem to be solved or a desire to be met American Ingenuity will not rest today industry in this country is spending over $200 million a year to improve old products and develop new products which mean new Industries new jobs they are working constantly to solve problems and find ways to give us what we want better things for less money in any one of thousands of test tubes of today there may be a million job opportunities for tomorrow 15 years after commissioner ellsworth's gloomy predictions Edwin Drake surprised Skeptics by pumping petroleum out of the hills of Pennsylvania for years the oil men cursed gasoline it was a Troublesome byproduct and they dumped millions of gallons of it into the rivers and streams then science discovered that gasoline was Liquid horsepower you know what has happened since oil and gasoline we demand today furnishes employment to millions of people and these are only two products obtained from crude petroleum which was industrially worthless until American technicians changed a barrel of oil into an Aladdin's lamp which can produce an endless variety of valuable products look at just a few things created by scientific research in Laboratories operated by the oil companies of America byproducts of petroleum from which have sprung up entirely new Industries face cream for the ladies special tasteless waxes for certain kinds of candies wax for sealing letters soap fertilizers for the farmers Coke ink streets and high ways and on this Frontier opportunities have hardly been touched but let's get out of the oil business and find out what's going on in other fields I've been around a lot and talked with some of these research men and they won't make predictions because they deal only in facts but they're on their way to new ideas new things that will astonish us when they are announced for instance one research man said recently there is one research that has been going on for a long time to find out why we can see through glass you say it's transparent but that's merely an adjective not a reason Engineers think they know what friction is but actually they can't yet tell you what it is any more than they can tell you what electricity is in one big research laboratory they're trying to find out what makes grass green and the answer to that question may keep us industrially busy for years with automobile engines we've just really started the indication is that someday they will give us 300 M to the gallon and as for electric lights well so many improvements will come that'll make today's lighting look like the Tallow candle age we have discovered how to manufacture your rubber from coal Limestone salt and water from a product of cotton we are spinning a filament finer than that of the silkor worm out of air water and coal we produce a fertilizer for which Americans formerly had to travel thousands of miles in Coal we have found the colors of the rainbow and the perfumes of Nature's sweetest flowers chemistry is creating new and more comfortable homes giving you finer and yet vastly cheaper Motorcars better clothes purer food and Sounder Health today just one great Chemical Company is the farmer's biggest single customer it buys annually 6,500,000 lb of cotton the yield from 100,000 acres 700,000 lb of cotton seed oil 36 million lb of cotton linters 36 million bushels of corn 38,000 tons of wood pulp 40 million gallons of molasses 6,500,000 lb of turpentine and rosin and 23 million PBS of vegetable oils these purchases in the aggregate represent the yield of over 4 million Acres of farmlands which would more than cover the whole state of New Jersey and the chemical age is just Dawning already industry is making airplane propellers with sour milk as an ingredient roads from cotton and artificial leather from the same material the time may come when the American Farmer will grow a crop of automobile engines or rocking chairs these few things my friends are only a hint of what American industry holds in the future and remember every every time one of these infant Industries clicks with the public gives you what you want prestol a new industry is created with new jobs and new payrolls here are just a few Lusty infants unbreakable Optical lenses for your glasses television gasoline from seasand rubies from Peach pits sponges from wood and cotton artificial wool from cheese but not with the holes vinegar from Coke and Limestone waste gases from the factory converted into antifreeze for your car sheep have been raised on chemicals from the laboratory plants grown without soil from cotton sour milk form Malahide and carbolic acid all scramble together in the laboratory come noisess gears costume jewelry fountain pens Billard balls telephone parts and many other Plastics of beauty and utility so maybe the moon is made of green cheese and even if it isn't the explorers of the Research Laboratories could probably find a way to do it one thing is certain it is these research activities sponsored by American industry that have brought us this far and will continue to create further progress for us and the industrial scientist and Engineers are the pioneers of present day America the creators of progress of new Industries and new jobs train your in the Laboratories of American industry to see what's ahead it's a bewildering future all right not because there are no New Frontiers but progress [Music]