[Farmall] In Rust We Trust

[Kay Allen]

This is great.  I'd like to use it in our tractor club newsletter and prefer
to cite the source.  Do you happen to know where it was published?

Thanks.

-----Original Message-----
From: farmall-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com
[mailto:farmall-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com]On Behalf Of Frank DeWitt
Sent: Monday, November 07, 2005 8:46 AM
To: Farmall/IHC mailing list
Subject: [Farmall] In Rust We Trust

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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HONOR GOD
SERVE PEOPLE
DEVELOP EXCELLENCE
GROW PROFITABLE
FOLLOWING BIBLICAL PRINCIPLES

    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