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Show Post-War Period In U. S. to Be an 'Age of Wonders' After -War Years Will See Astonishing Changes in Ways of Living. Mr. and Mrs. Average American of the post-war era probably will find themselves living in a world full of comforts, com-forts, conveniences and gadgets gad-gets that at a present day view have a decidedly Jules Verne flavor. They may own a home that was erected from the ground up in eight hours and is just as stable as one which before the war required six months to build. The home will have conveniences undreamed of even for comfort-loving Americans. Ameri-cans. They probably will drive a modestly priced automobile that runs 35 miles on a gallon of gasoline gaso-line and will negotiate terrain and hills formerly suitable only for the time-honored mountain goat. If they live on a farm they probably proba-bly will have an amazing vehicle that can be used to plough, harrow, milk and round up the cows. When vacation time comes around they may fly over to Cairo or down to Buenos Aires for the week-end. Or they may even make an around-the-world trip during the head of the family's traditional "two weeks off with pay." These are not fancies conjured from a Lewis Carroll (who authored "Alice In Wonderland") imagination. imagina-tion. They are practical potentialities potentiali-ties which industrial experts already are forecasting as the logical peacetime peace-time application of armament developments." de-velopments." War is a forceful spur to the progress prog-ress of industrial science and invention. in-vention. Under its duress there is no time for the cautiously slow experiments ex-periments which mark the reception recep-tion accorded new inventions and discoveries in years of peace. New methods, new materials are accepted accept-ed overnight and are tested in the acid furnaces of combat. The tragedy trag-edy of modern warfare is an anachronism anach-ronism of progress. Distance Annihilated. There is no better illustration of this than the advancement made by aviation as a result of World War I. The airplane represented new potentialities po-tentialities of speed and destruction and as such was seized upon as a weapon of offense by the Allies and their enemies alike. In the short period pe-riod of four years aviation made an advance that would have required a quarter of a century in normal times. Today, the same situation magnified magni-fied ten times over obtains. Only recently, Glenn Martin, the noted aircraft designer, announced plans for a 125-ton behemoth of the air capable of transporting 50,000 pounds of equipment at speeds of 200 to 230 miles an hour to be built after the war. This plane, said Mr. Martin, will be "as big as a 30-room house." Meanwhile, another company compa-ny is reported to have already completed com-pleted the wooden dummy of a ship that will dwarf the Martin monster a 160-ton model which could move whole battalions across the continent conti-nent overnight. Already in use are new methods of construction which lighten aircraft air-craft by hundreds of pounds and so tremendously increase their passenger passen-ger and freight carrying ability. Naturally, Nat-urally, these planes are at present only in military form. When Peace Comes. However, when peace comes these Gdliaths of the clouds will be interpreted in-terpreted in terms of pleasure and convenience for a travel-loving nation. na-tion. The almost unbelievable speed This is a modern version of beating swords into ploughshares: converting con-verting the army's miracle car, the "Jeep," into an agricultural vehicle of many uses. Who knows, but that some future day Old Bossy, down in the south pasture, will be herded by means of such a jeep? |
