THE AMERICAN ROAD

[Music] the old road was not only a road it was a way life slow and often rough [Music] if you lived way out in the country 15 or 20 miles away from the railroad station you had to get up before dawn to catch the 9:30 train you harnessed up the reliable horse for the next two hours the carriage went creaking down the old familiar road while the countryside moves slowly past if you were leaving the farm for good to go to the city you had mixed feelings on that long ride to the station it's not easy to pull up roots and start a new kind of life [Music] you saw the faces of old friends as you passed the house waving goodbye and you fell sad at leaving them but you saw to how old and tired they looked worn out by hard work walked on the land a woman looked fifty before she was thirty-five with all she had to do in a way he were glad you were leaving you passed the old schoolhouse where you John as a kid and you remember the long miles you've walked morning after morning to get there that final run to get inside before the bell stopped clanging she passed the doctor's buggy drawn up in front of someone's house you'd remember the terrible night your mother lay upstairs in the bedroom sick in the long hours of waiting for the doctor to come the roads were bad that night when he finally arrived there was nothing he could do anymore after that you never saw the doctors buggy without wondering if he'd gotten there in time you passed the church - but you knew you were not leaving God behind he would be with you in the uncertain days that lay ahead still there were good times to remember as well as bad and by the time you reach the station you wondered if you were making a mistake some people might call you a darn fool to leave a fine farm and go running off to the city where it was noisy and dirty full of pickpockets and swindlers and women who painted their faces [Music] but there were things you want to couldn't get done on a farm if you were interested in machinery for instance or wanted to tinker with engines that ran on gasoline the country was no place for you you had to go where other men were doing this kind of thing train was late of course you could have slept another half hour [Music] you stood and look down the empty tracks waiting somewhere out there beyond the horizon lay the city where your destiny waited the people who lived in the city stayed in the city they walked the hard pavements to left PAP if a person were well-heeled he took a cab if the nickel was all he could afford he took a streetcar and got there an hour later [Applause] the fastest thing in town was the fire engine [Music] in the good old summertime the streets got hot as arms and vegetables and people wilted under the Blazing Sun and the kids were hard boiled everybody cancer dance welted and longed to get away from the clanking Thunder of the elevated chains and the clatter of wagon wheels on cobblestones far uptown lay the ballpark and if you went for a long boat ride down the bay you finally arrived at an amusement park whether we're roller coasters [Music] shoot the shoots camels to ride and a real beach for a kid could get to swim in the ocean but it took the better part of a day to get there and back so you settle for the nearest fire hydrant on your block bicycles were all the rage on Sunday afternoons you could peddle out past the city limits and see real trees and grass and hear a bird sing that was fun as long as your legs held out you could go wherever you wanted right up to the end of the road that is a few miles out of town the paving ended and from then on bicycling was no pleasure a lot of people accepted the end of the road and ten back but the bicycle wheels had a greater destiny in Detroit a man named Henry Ford who had left the farm and come to the city to tinker with machinery was making what he called quadricycle it looked like a buggy when he'd had no shafts for a horse to be harnessed to I was going to come from the gas Legion he'd made himself he did everything himself working nights and holding down a daytime job with the Detroit illuminating town it took a long while to make this machine but Henry Ford stuck to it finally was ready one was his night he pushed it out for its first trial run [Music] [Music] [Applause] up and down the dark empty streets ran a little quadricycle past the sleeping houses your strike and unreal with it the shape of things to count if anybody had waked up and looked out the window he probably would have thought he was still dreaming at night history was made the street was never the same again it didn't happen overnight the was rough for those early cars on the American Road we should pause to remember and admire not only the adventurous men who kept on making automobiles but the reckless few who had courage enough to drive them some people thought that the sail wagon had a more promising future than the automobile built like a nice boat on wheels it could hit over 50 miles an hour if the wheels stayed on of course it took a land going say little operators and on a public road it really stopped traffic while people were still letting the wind blow them in various directions men like Henry Ford were putting their faith in the gasoline engine he built a big one and put it in the racing car called a 999 it was a huge heavy monster and it spent most of his time in the shop getting tuned up nobody at the time probably realized it but the 999 had a prophetic look this was no horseless carriage it was long and low and powerful built for speed in a crude but unmistakable way it forecasts the shape of cars to come on October 25th 1902 Barney Oldfield set a world record in the 999 he drove it a mile a minute and this phrase ushered in a new era cars now became a more and more frequent site particularly in cities by 1903 there were more than a thousand automobile manufacturers in the United States and in that year the Ford Motor Company was founded the first payroll didn't take much bookkeeping the first car of the new little company was called a Model A it had a two cylinder eight horsepower engine it could go 30 miles an hour it sold for eight hundred and fifty dollars a lot of money in those days and its owners were chiefly in the upper brackets it was smart and fashionably designed with a door in the rear like a pony card the crank from the side a good safety measure designed to prevent the cranker from being not flat and run over the car started prematurely everybody admired it but only the more daring could be persuaded to ride in any kind of a motorcar [Music] [Music] the farmer was a forgotten man during this early period he saw occasional cars go by on the rough roads but these strange mechanical contraptions seemed out of place in the country they were for city people not for him he kept on grooming his old reliable horse and waited and suddenly one day it appeared it was called the Model T it had a four-cylinder 20 horsepower engine and a planetary gear that defied the laws of science maybe it didn't look classy but it could take a beating on rough country roads and still get you there it was a farmer's car built by a farmer there was only one thing wrong with it it cost 850 dollars millions of citizens looked at the Model T in licked their chops there it was a car of their dreams but they couldn't afford it back in Detroit Henry Ford wondered how he could bring the price of the Model T down to where everybody could buy it he figured that the more cars he made and sold the cheaper he could sell each one and he went to work on this idea in those days each car was built from the frame up on stationary wooden horses there was a different crew for each car the same crew stayed on a car until it was finished that meant duplication of effort and a lot of time wasted so they tried moving the men from car to car each man had a special job to do and as soon as he finished it he moved on to the next car did the same thing there that was better but it still took 12 and a half hours to assemble each Model T Henry Ford watched it for a while and he had an inspiration instead of moving the men past the cars why not move the cars past the men so on one hot August morning they tried it that way a husky young fella put a rope over his shoulder and Henry Ford called let's go and at that very moment as the workmen began to fasten the parts onto the slowly moving car the assembly line was born a technique that was to revolutionize mass production all over the world once they found that the idea would work they began to improve it refine it they rolled the chassis down a single line of track pushing it from crew to crew and the more expert they became at this new method the faster the cars came off the assembly line and the price of the Model T began to drop they tried the same ideal all the various parts of the car and created what were called sub assemblies each man on the line became a specialist he did one thing and he did it perfectly and passed the work along to the next man minute-by-minute production was winning the battle against waste of time and wasted effort parts were fed to the workmen by gravity slides so they wouldn't have to stop and wait for new parts then they put the pass on moving conveyor belts this was a great step forward because now they could regulate the flow of work and keep it moving at a constant rate of speed and the conveyor belts grew longer and more complex as they move their work from place to place in the huge shops they became fantastic masterpieces of planning and engineering but the battle against wasted time and wasted effort was being won [Music] the cars began coming off the assembly line at the rate of one every 40 seconds and what Henry Ford it foreseen happened mass production and the assembly line drove the price of the Model T down from eight hundred and fifty to three hundred dollars now everybody could have won [Music] what a wonderful feeling it was to own your own car the Sunday afternoon Drive became a national pastime off you went to visit uncle Obadiah with the car bouncing along like a boat in a choppy sea jolting your teeth out every time it hit a bump [Music] mom would keep saying Papa don't drive so fast and when you suddenly met another car coming the other way on those narrow roads old boy that was a thrill it's good you're here right up on him [Music] at first just being able to drive a car was enough but pretty soon the novelty wore off and people began to get angry at the bad roads so they started to make the roads better in every state all across the nation man and machines went to work [Music] [Applause] [Music] the rusted mud gave place to smooth ribbons of pavement wide enough for two cars to pass each other and the roads became longer they pushed out in every direction in down every road round the Model T panting and quivering all was eager to go father and now an interesting thing began to happen people from the cities began riding out into the country and people from the farms began going to the city and whole sections of the population began to get acquainted with each other for the first time no road maps in those days [Music] [Applause] if you got lost the kindly natives would give you directions so complicated you couldn't find your way home with a compass [Music] everything was on the road apiece if you got lost to state lost everywhere you looked you saw the Model T it became a part of the American scene it took the housewife to market it brought the doctor to his patients in time to save their lives [Music] it saved time and speeded up business [Music] filling stations sprang up by the thousand and a whole new industry in gas and oil was created not only did it save time it gave the average citizen a wonderful new way to spend the time he saved now for the first time Americans were able to travel inexpensively across their own country in their own cars and see the grandeur of their inheritance they could visit the great national parks which had been created for the people which so few people had ever had an opportunity to see [Music] now the whole family could get away from the noise in the heat of the city people could go camping over a weekend and be back to work Monday morning with renewed energy [Music] they could go to the mountains or if they preferred the beach than Faithful tin Lizzie would carry them to the Seas edge [Music] there were many new images in the people's minds now things they have seen along the American Road wonderful things they would never have been able to see it all without the motorcar [Music] there was a new look in people's faces a look of discovery of wonderment of pleasure a new world had been opened up for them [Music] the nation took the Model T to its heart people called it a flipper made jokes about it loved it they said it could go anywhere except in society [Music] Hollywood comedians had a field day with it [Music] the Model T was more than a motorcar it was the symbol of an industrial revolution for mass production and the assembly line were now able to bring the price down on all sorts of product and put them within everyone's reach mass production also created thousands of new skills new jobs at higher wages and under this powerful stimulus the nation's economy expanded enormously what about the man who was chiefly responsible for all this what was he like [Music] let's take a look at the family album [Music] here he is at his home fairlane walking with his wife Clara through the garden laughing with a friend over a cartoon of himself on the ice-covered pond with his grandchildren here he is back on the land tinkering with one of the old steam engines he was always wondering how he could take the burden of work from the back of a farmer and put it onto the machine maybe it was at times like this that the idea of a tractor came to it the tractor was the realization of one of his oldest dreams [Music] areas in his office having a conference the man was $5.00 day startled the industrial world this is a family scene son Edsel starting out with some friends on a transcontinental trip getting a big send-off a drive like this was quite an adventure in those days he liked to dance country dances a grandchild henry ford ii showing his grandchild a baby bird with mrs. Edsel Ford watching still the farmer teaching his grandchildren henry ii and benson ford to love the soil on anniversaries and other state occasions he'd get out the old quadricycle and drive it round Fairlane with his wife Clara what memories it must have brought back [Music] sometimes he like to go camping with some of his old friends the bidded man is John Burroughs the naturalist on the right is Harvey Firestone he still knew how to swing an axe had his own ideas about cooking - that's Edison in the background vigorous men with vigorous minds and healthy appetites they used to have a saying you can take the boy out of the country but you can't take the country out of the boy whatever he did Henry Ford always kept a certain rustic simplicity a rugged quality that nothing could alter or soften Burroughs had always looked down his beard at Model T called it a noisy device that frightened the birds but finally even Burroughs overcame his prejudices [Music] [Applause] man behind the legend these are men whose ideas changed our way of life and made it better [Music] [Applause] father and son they walk side-by-side reviewing the past planning the future together up quickly at all it happened in less than 25 years Henry Ford he personified the American credo of individualism and freedom of enterprise he will long be remembered as the American Road became better the cars that drove along it began to change they became larger and heavier lower and longer the highway had become an extension of the city street and people began to demand boulevard comfort and luxury and their transportation balloon tires and shock absorbers took the roughness out of driving interiors were the risks some even had a crystal bars to hold a single elegant flower Henry Ford saw the trend began making the Lincoln one of the finest and most luxurious cars in the world alongside of such grandeur the old model t began to look more and more like a country cousin the times have changed and the car that have changed the moon was no longer needed Henry Ford decided to stop producing it in Maine millionth Model T came out of the plant and the assembly line closed down forever on the world's most famous car from then on the old flivver began to disappear from the roads as old cars were turned in they were taken back to the plant there they were scrapped their steel was salvaged for use in the new models [Music] once in a while a car would balk at the mouth of the furnace as though in a last effort to save itself the Model T died hard [Music] although the Model T began to fade from the American scene the impetus and the new direction that gave to our way of life did not stop there it gathered momentum that carried us through the gay twenties [Applause] even the grim depression of the thirties could not stop the powerful forces that have been seen motion [Music] [Applause] [Applause] the lessons learned from the assembly line and mass production helped us to win a long and terrible war [Music] [Applause] [Music] nothing has been able to stop us we have kept on working kept on building and today this is how the American Road looks the whole nation has become Swift and mobile flowing along over a great network of highways more than three million miles long and constantly growing the American Road is listed itself high above the muddy ruts of 50 years ago [Music] the road has bridged the gulf between city and country their ways of life of mingled and both share the fruits of progress equally machines have taken the burden of work from the back of the farmer no longer do the women on the farms grow old before their time and the people of the cities have been able to move out into quiet communities full of Sun and fresh air that seemed almost like living in the country the old country schoolhouse is vanished and the energy of the children is no longer wasted in walking miles to get there the workers today no longer has to live close to the plant that employs his homes in Pleasant surroundings and he drives to work every car on the American Road every new building the towers against the sky is a sign of our progress towards a better way of life but perhaps the most wonderful thing about the American Road is the freedom that gives us you've only to get in your car and start driving to feel it the American Road what Bank nificent vistas open up before us as we travel along it we have come a long way since the quadricycle and the Model T in 50 short years our whole way of life has changed we have accomplished much but the achievements to come will dwarf our own the American Road stretches ahead of us always towards a new horizon we are all traveling along that road all moving forward towards an even better tomorrow [Music] [Applause] [Music]