NOT GUILTY
July 16, 1944
It is a very human trait when anything happens which interrupts our normal routine of life, to try to fix the blame on some one thing. For instance, when this War came along and interfered with our normal habits, people naturally looked around for something on which to pin the blame, and some of them picked the internal combustion engine -- probably because it was then the backbone of Germany’s Blitz warfare.
The press has stressed the importance of this type of engine in modern warfare. I have mentioned the fact that our knowledge of its use and our production experience in making devices connected with it, have been a most important factor in helping win the War.
When we speak of the internal combustion engine we are not only referring to its military use in tanks, Ducks, pursuit planes and bombers, we are also including peacetime trucks, tractors, busses, air liners, motor boats and automobiles. Since we are all familiar with the automobile, let us take a look at its peacetime application. There were about 30,000,000 automobiles and trucks in this country when the War started. And the making and using of these was one of our largest industries -- in fact, one out of every ten people were engaged in this business. The factories that made these cars, busses and trucks were only a small part of this business. It was also 90% of the oil business, 80% of the rubber and 75% of the plate glass, and smaller per cents of many others, not to mention the filling stations, sales and service, as well as tourists’ cabins and hotels. It was a cross-section of all American industry and was in evidence in every town and community.
But the automobile did more than create jobs and an industry. It created individual transportation. It has offered a means of taking the city man to the country and vice versa. It has linked the North with the South and East with the West -- it has unified America. Beginning as a luxury and means of recreation, it has become practically a necessity to every American home for business or pleasure.
Like all new things, it has in some cases been misused. A gangster robbing a bank is misusing the automobile when he makes his get-away. We know there are automobile accidents but insurance statistics tell us we are as safe in our car as in our home. The use of automotive vehicles in War is a matter of necessity; however, the automobile was not developed for War. Men have always used the tools of Peace as weapons of War. The plant that makes explosives for War is busy in Peace making fertilizer and blasting powder. Steel can make buildings and bridges as well as bayonets, and the airplane carried passengers years before it carried bombs. The fleet that evacuated the English at Dunkirk was partially made up of pleasure craft and the work boats of fishermen.
The internal combustion engine did not cause this War any more than the airplane or any other scientific development. War has been the chief business of certain types of men since the time of earliest recorded history.
The French people celebrated Bastille Day last week and it is interesting to note that the Bastille was an unused fort originally built to protect Paris from the Germans. If people weren’t using tanks and airplanes they were using spears and battle-axes and before that -- clubs. The question is this, should the millions of people on this earth be deprived, for all time, of conveniences, comfort and health, because a dozen men want to use these same things to conquer Mankind? Why can’t we find a way to pick out these aggressors and deal with them before they start the Wars?
I don’t believe any one of us need go to work or return home in a horse-drawn buggy because Hitler uses an automobile as a staff car. I am sure we need not discard the possibilities of air travel in the future because the Japs used airplanes to bomb Pearl Harbor, nor will we throw away the radio sets because Herr Goebbels uses it for propaganda.
Science is a tool of civilization. We deplore its use as a weapon. If in the generations to come we can continue to uncover facts, there is the possibility that the resulting knowledge will eventually make war obsolete. Maybe Intelligence can some day really find out how to control the Instinct to fight.
Victory is now on the horizon, and with Victory will come the opportunity to again explore the New Frontiers -- the opportunity to return to the Main Road again, the Road that has brought us so far in the past -- the Road that leads to the brightest and most hopeful future in the history of the World.
