MECHANISED NATION

Evening Star, Issue 20984, 24 December 1931, Page 14

MECHANISED NATION

1 " AMERICA'S CIVILISATION

The recent announcement of the Census Bureau that there were approximately 12,563,000 radios in the United States as on April 1, 1930, probably confirmed many European and certain native critics of this country in the belief that this is irretrievably a material and “ thing-minded ” nation, says the 1 New York Times.’ The Census Bureau, moreover, placed the listeners at approximately 50,000,000, or 41 per cent, of the population. Involuntary listeners are not included in the figures. If the Census Bureau eventually includes other mechanical devices and household conveniences in its voluminous statistics, the mechanisation and materialism of the nation may come in for still further discussion. For the figures from various sources on the number of such things in use arc such as to warm the hearts of the disciples of mechanical progress as a test of civilisation, and might even cause a glow to producers even in hours of economic depression. And there is much food for thought for the historian and social philosopher. The automobile, for example, is usually pointed out as the most revolutionary and typical factor of our era. Now, within a scant generation of the introduction of the “ horseless carriage,” there are, according to the Automobile Chamber of Commerce, some 26,523,779 of them registered in the nation—annihilating space, calling ever for bigger and better roads, and in general making possible a new dimension to the life of yesterday’. The figures revealed, incredible as it may seem, that there were several millions more automobiles than telephones—which were numbered as 20,068,023, according to the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. The figures available wore for the beginning of 1930 in telephones, and for the end of the year on automobiles. , The number of homes wired for electricity keeps pace with these, being placed at 20,500,000. How far America has come from tho days of the covered wagon was revealed by the survey of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs two or three years ago. That survey disclosed that 68.3 per cent, of all the homes in the United States were now equipped with bathtubs, which helps to bear out the claim that the American consumption of soap per capita is the highest in the world. Other household conveniences run well into the millions. The number of electrical refrigerators in use at the begijining of this year was placed at 2,625,000; electrical sewing machines at 3,300,000; electrical washing machines at 7,185,000; and vacuum cleaners at 9.086.000, according to estimates of ‘ Electrical Merchandising.’ And of gas ranges, which probably were even more welcome to the harried housewife than the washing machine, there arc about 15.000. As for fountain pens, clocks, watches, phonographs—even the ranks of far-flung statistics wither. For getting away from all this world of things, there arc, besides the ttfentyv odd millions of motor cars, a round million of inboard motor boats and approximately 400,000 of the outboard variety. So that by still more things the escape from things is made possible. Which may or may not point a moral.