[Farmall] In Rust We Trust

[Frank DeWitt]

We are a rich country because we turn little boys who love tractors into 
grown-up men who make things work better.



In Rust We Trust: Men and Boys and the Wealth of their Toys

By Jennifer Roback Morse

Oct 31, 2005

I could never be a Leftist because the Left seems to hate two things that I 
love: men and American business.

Male-bashing has developed into a full-blown art-form in this country. And 
strangely enough, the male-bashing is often accompanied by the presumption 
that men and women are the same in every significant way. No one seems to 
notice the logical conclusion: if men are bad, and women and men are the 
same, ergo, women must be bad. But never mind. I love the men and boys in 
my life, precisely because of the ways in which they differ from me. And 
many aspects of American business are distinctly "guy things."  I love 
these parts of American business too.

These two things, American men and American business came together for me 
last weekend. My husband and I had a few blessed child-free hours, so we 
went on a date. We went to the Antique Gas and Steam Engine fair, held two 
week-ends a year on the grounds of the Museum of the same name, here in 
Vista, California. Male and female difference number one: My husband went 
to look at the antique steam engines. I went to look at my husband, and a 
whole lot of other guys, in their natural habitat.

What kind of machines are we talking about?  Everything from huge 
steam-driven turbines, large enough to power a city street, to a dinky 
little engine that runs a butter-churning machine. This museum is a 
combination of technological history, and Americana. Old gentlemen in 
blue-striped engineer outfits drove steam-propelled tractors around the 
grounds, blowing their whistles at imaginary obstacles. Other guys showed 
off antique farm machinery, that they had restored from a pile of rust. 
(The theme of this year's fair was, I kid you not, "In Rust, We Trust.")
Still others worked in a replica of a blacksmith's shop, demonstrating the 
fine points of the blacksmith's craft.

Strolling through the streets of this antique tractor fair, you could see 
continual improvements in technology.
Old-fashioned wringer washing machines were on display. You could imagine 
how welcome a gas-powered agitator would be to a hard-working farm family, 
accustomed to washing and wringing their clothes by hand. You could see the 
improvements in farm implements, as a tractor took the place of a horse 
pulling a plow. Then the ordinary tractor made possible a whole series of 
more specialized attachments: a disk, a thresher, a combine.

And how did all these improvements come about?  If you just read the 
history books, you might think it was a series of small miracles that led 
from the horse-drawn plow to the modern air-conditioned tractor, equipped 
with TV and computer. In the nineteenth century, close to 80% of America 
worked in agriculture. Today's tractors allow a mere 8% of the population 
to plow the whole Mid West and feed America and much of the world.  But 
looking around the grounds of this antique tractor museum, I believe I 
could see how those miracles took place.

My husband truly loves these old machines. Each old engine prompted a story 
about how some old farmer must have figured out this or that about how to 
make something or other work better. My husband got excited as he explained 
to me that once you had figured out how to make a steam engine work, you 
could use that same engine for many purposes.
You could use a drive belt to connect the engine to your washing machine, 
or to a saw mill. And he knew people of his grandfather's generation, who 
had done just that.  They took the engine they normally used around the 
farmhouse, up into the woods when they had lumber to mill.

As I watched my husband and the other guys, looking at antique engines with 
love in their eyes, I realized those men weren't just looking at old rusty 
machines. Every man there was filled with admiration for the men who made 
those machines, admiration for the lives they lived and the lives they made 
possible. These were once little boys who loved their toy trains and 
tractors and cars. They grew up to be men who make things happen, who look 
for a better way, and who figure out, one step at a time, easier and 
cheaper and safer ways to do things. These are men who honor the past, not 
by preserving it, but by building on it, improving it.

I am convinced that men like these are the key to understanding the secret 
of American wealth. This is how all the little miracles of innovation took 
place. Because they owned their little farms and had the right to any 
improvements they made, American men had every incentive to find better 
ways and to share their knowledge with others. These men take pride in the 
fact that they can confront reality on reality's terms. They are 
accountable to reality in a way that no talking head or academic can truly 
be. Even when I was an academic myself, and even now when I am surrounded 
by talking heads, I love being married to an engineer. He keeps me grounded.

The American way is about small business and individual initiative. Our 
country's system of private property and personal innovation harnesses the 
unique gifts of men and places those gifts at the service of the common 
good. We are a rich country because we turn little boys who love tractors 
into grown-up men who make things work better.

   +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
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    Frank DeWitt              |  mailto:frank at lbpinc.com
    Mechanical Design      |  Phone:  585 624 3052
    LBP  INC.                   |  Fax     585 624 1038
    2365 Cox Rd.              |     N 42.9130  W 
77.5164|
    Bloomfield NY 14469   |Web   http://www.lbpinc.com


    
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