Wheels of Progress (ca 1927)

[Music] you've heard of the Golden Horn of Plenty traditional symbol of prosperity and of good things bestowed upon mankind well these are the wheels which carry the horn of plenty wheels which take it to the places where the good things are bond and bring it back full and overflowing we take our American comforts and conveniences pretty much for granted in our homes we are surrounded by 20th century miracles miracles which are not exclusively American but which are here so commonplace that they are seldom regarded as miracles anymore dinner's ready come and get it everyone to say yes Jimmy we'll have some manners here if you don't mind no matter Jimmy we forgot your food prayer yes sir Barbie thank you for the food and by loving care oh yes it's all pretty commonplace in America isn't it the comfortable homes we live in the cars parked at the door the bikes and mechanical gadgets of all kinds schools where every child has a right to expect an education satisfying recreation for everybody leisure time in which to enjoy Americans you are in luck of course you've worked for it you've made the land hum with the song of your toil but people in other lands and in other times have work too worked hard to eke out a mere existence why have we been so remarkably successful why have we been able to make this land of ours so productive nature's been pretty lavish of course we've lived under a governmental system the first on earth to make each man the captain of his soul we've had enterprise our great inheritance from ambitious and freedom-loving forbearance all these are parts of the American mural parts of the reason for our golden horn of plenty but look further why a car like this that a man of average means can afford to own if every American had to build his own automobile with materials of his own gathering and with tools of his own contriving there would be very few automobiles in the land where would an individual get the steel to mold into this beautiful looking body where the vast presses to shape it where is the raw rubber to make these tires the tough fabric to weave with it these things are as widely scattered as the four winds or they were until wheels brought them together the magic of our modern horn of plenty is the magic of mobility the magic of the greatest interchange of goods and of services which the world has ever known [Music] pick the farm machinery which helps to make our soil the most productive on earth this tractor contains quantities of steel which came from the iron ore of the Mesabi Range in northern Minnesota that or came hundreds of miles by rail and by boat to the mills along the fringes of the Great Lakes it was refined with the use of coal and limestone and other elements which were brought great distances hundreds of types of raw materials and of semi-finished materials and fabricated parts have to be brought together into a single factory before such a complex mechanism as a tractor or a Reaper or a threshing machine can be put together each great factory such as this makes use of countless car loads of materials during the course of the year turns out thousands upon thousands of pieces of machinery machinery which is sent to every corner of America and to the four corners of the world for that matter where farmers need it too till the soil efficiently machinery sent at a price which nearly every farmer can afford because it is manufactured by the American mass production method the method which mass transportation made possible [Music] the variety of raw materials which we make use of in our modern civilization is seemingly limitless and the great quantities of them which have to be shipped over vast distances are almost beyond belief consider the billions upon billions of bushels of grain which are grown in America every year wheat corn rice barley oats brains which are the staff of life these billions of bushels have to be transported to elevators stored until they are required by processing plants shipped and reshift until they have been made into flour and bread and breakfast food and deliver to your hometown your store your pantry shelf livestock millions of head marketed in an average year transported many of them several times before they reach their final destination your dining room table transported to feeding areas to stockyards to processing plants there has meat in refrigerator cars through your butchers cooler and thence to you products of the forest billions of board feet of lumber a year lumber brought to the mill as giant logs sawed into all shapes and sizes delivered to the thousands of factories which make products out of wood set down in your front yard as building material or in your living room as furniture countless products to enrich your living products of the mind many of them seldom thought of by the average American in the gigantic quantities which are produced and consumed each year products like sulfur and salt as well as steel and aluminum and LED and coal and copper products moving always moving so that they may be put to your service oil the black gold of our machine age oil to lubricate your car to heat your home to drive the wheels of Industry oil to make gasoline and kerosene synthetic rubber useful products almost innumerable oil which must be transported before it can be of any use to most people things which are brought from distant lands across the sea coffee and tea tin and rubber spices and silk things in never-ending succession which we bring in from the four corners of the earth things which we send abroad in exchange for the items we import cotton and grain minerals machinery and fabricated items of every description this great movement pattern which is the foundation of our 20th century prosperity is symbolized by the ingenious machines which man has created especially here in America to keep goods moving the Giants of the rails the trucks for coordinated rail truck service the huge ships and the vast facilities for interchange between one method of transport and another one recent development makes possible the shipment of a hundred or more loaded freight cars on a specially constructed boat called a sea train this spectacular and useful device eliminates the necessity of loading and reloading from car to bolt and back again at port city's entire freight cars are picked up by the giant machinery stored on tracks within the hold of the ship until they are removed by similar machinery at their port of destination here the cars are again placed on Rails and speeded to their final unloading points another example of the American inventive mind and business enterprise working to provide America with the greatest transportation system in the world the backbone of this transportation system is the railroad the experience of a century during which mass transportation has helped to change the face of the nation has proven beyond a doubt that the great bulk of the nation's Goods can be moved more efficiently more swiftly more dependably on rails than it can by any other system of transport ever devised the significance of railroads will increase in the years ahead American business is growing by leaps and bounds railroads are almost the only form of mass transportation which can offer an important reserve of hauling capacity to meet the growing demands of American industry and commerce railroads have been building for the future during the past few years billions of dollars have been spent on America's rail line The Rock Island lines have been in the forefront of this building program during the past decade this railroad has rebuilt and modernized plant and structure more thoroughly than most of the nation's major lines this program of planned progress has placed the Rock Island in position to give a service to shippers and travelers which is unsurpassed [Music] Rock Island occupies a strategic position on the railroad map of the nation its lines serve 14 of the most productive and diversified states in the Union 8,000 miles of modern steel rails are in its network this is a fabulous empire this Rock Island Wonderland which stretches westward from Chicago st. Louis and Memphis to the mountains of the West and through its friendly connections on to the Pacific coast it reaches from the Twin Cities of the North Star State to the Gulf ports of Houston Texas City and Galveston of the Lone Star State it is an empire dotted with grape and growing cities where much of the nation's business is done it is an empire of very vast receipts and of broad rich valleys we're growing things above it is an empire of progress and opportunity unsurpassed since 1852 The Rock Island has been helping industry to grow and expand in this area there are still hundreds and hundreds of available industrial sites which offer the finest advantages of good transportation adequate power supply and skilled labor throughout that Empire The Rock Island now operates one of the finest railroads in the world heavy steel rail superbly laid and ballasted makes it a truly velvet Highway but it is a tough Highway to able to take the punishing weight of thousands of tons of freight speeding along at mile a minute clip modern bridges have been built to handle these tremendous lows spectacular in rock island's bridge program is this great structure over the Cimarron in western Kansas its building was one of the outstanding feats of railroad it's construction together with crack relocation grade elimination and curve reduction aided greatly in speeding up transcontinental freight and passenger schedules thus making Rock Island the preferred route between east and west [Music] all Rock Island main lines are genuine Speedway's curves and grades have been reduced to a minimum over these super highways of steel rocket crates and rocket passenger trains travel with speed with safety with dependability far in excess of anything mass transportation view of new short years ago improvements in would empower of course have been spectacular the modern diesel electric locomotives adopted by the rock island shortly after its first introduction has all but replaced the old Iron Horse along with improved steam locomotives which still have their place on modern railroads diesels give the rock Alan the capacity to move tremendous quantities of the nation's goods with a dispatch which is truly revolutionary a vast fleet of new and the continually reconditioned freight cars of all types is part of the equipment reservoir of the modern rock island the most modern devices for traffic control ensure the Swift safe and dependable movement of rock island trains on the busiest sections of the line centralized traffic control is in operation this system eliminates countless delays in the dispatching of trains enabling one man to see at a glance and to control the movement of all trains in his control area a movement of a hand and he is thrown electrically a switch which may be many miles distant from him this enables a train to take another track without delay centralized traffic control actually makes one track to the work of two two tracks the work of four it assures a continuous maximum flow of traffic in either direction with the utmost of safety [Music] classification yards which are miracles of automatic operation are another Rock Island development designed to accelerate the speed with which Freight is handled whole cuts of cars like this move over the hump and are sorted in a matter of minutes so that they may be made up into trains for various destinations in these yards the cars move entirely by force of gravity their movement is controlled by skilled tower men whose control boards move distance switches they also actuate pneumatic retarders to regulate the speed of the cars so perfect is the control which each operator has over the cars in his section of the arc that they move with velvet smooth there are appointed positions and take their place in the string with never a bump or a jar [Music] you you classification yards like this save our sometimes days in the movement of freight Rock Island service standards have kept pace with the physical development of the rail rocket Freight is handled with the utmost dispatch from the moment the railroad receives it until it reaches its final destination in the handling of packaged freight or in the loading and unloading of whole cars the emphasis is increasingly on mechanical methods on ways which will save time save cost for the shipper mobility is the most vital ingredient in American system of mass production American railroads like the planned progress rock island are making it possible for us to expand the horizons of American business and to bring the good things of life to more and more people the Golden Horn of Plenty moves on wheels and grazes on rock islands wheels of progress this emblem stands for progress and wherever you see it whenever you see it you see a badge of service who shippers everywhere [Music]