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Show THE AMERICAN WAY WHAT MADE WjL AMERICA GREAT rT;' j - By George Peck, f UXliJ An Englishman in writing to Louis Ruthenburg, president of Servel, Inc., expressed his perplexity per-plexity as to whether American prosperity is mostly the result of our Free Enterprise System and the wisdom of our Founding Found-ing Fathers, or is due to the natural nat-ural blessings of our size, fertility fertil-ity and resources. This British friend is not the first to have posed this question. He probably will not be the last. But Louis Ruthenburg gave him an answer that should dispose of the questioning for all time it should completely satisfy the skeptical that were it not for the Free Enterprise System, despite our great natural resources, this nation would not have attained the highest standard of living in world history. I pass Mr. Ruthen-burg's Ruthen-burg's reply on to the readers of this column, and from here on to the end of the article, it is he speaking: The question as to the fundamental funda-mental sources of our high material ma-terial living standard in this country is, of course, debatable and in a matter where so many imponderables and variables are involved, most of us believe what we want to believe. I can't refrain, re-frain, however, from suggesting in support of my own views that people living in other great land areas blessed with great natural resources, have existed for hundreds hun-dreds of years and continue to exist under deplorably low liv- ing standards. I am thinking specifically of China, India and Russia. Of course, many cooperating factors supplemented and implemented imple-mented the philosophy upon which our culture, was founded. Generally speaking, the settlers of the thirteen colonies were r people of unusual courage, and resourcefulness; otherwise they would not have migrated into a wilderness nor survived under the hardships they encountered. Again, it was a happy coincidence coinci-dence that the year 1776 marked, mark-ed, not only the founding of this nation, but the budding of the industrial revolution and the ex pression of economic liberalism in the work of Adam Smith. One element that grew out of the great inventions of the industrial in-dustrial revolution was steam railway transportation, without which this country never could have been developed as a single and well-integrated land area. The steam railways became an integral and important part of our economy, whereas they have always been a more superficial factor imposed upon the older countries of Europe. To illustrate . how important the railways have been as a factor fac-tor in developing this country, I remind you that the Whiskey Rebellion, which was a pretty serious business in its day, grew basically out of a transportation difficulty. The pioneer farmers in Western Pennsylvania wanted to market their grain in the cities on the eastern sea-ooard. sea-ooard. The only form in which tncy could economically transport trans-port their grain was whiskey, and when a high tax was impost ed upon that commodity, they raised a row. I freely admit that many fac-firs fac-firs have been involved in the growth and prosperity of this country, but I maintain that these forces could not have been fully effective without a philoo-phy philoo-phy of government that was characterized by a maximum de-n-ce of individual" freedom-and by compelling incentives. |