For the Better Economic Life; C. H. Greenewalt

Peasantry on the farm was not banished by reform or edict, but by the iron plow, the reaper, and the tractor. The 12-hour shift and the six-day week could not have disappeared from the scene through laws or social up heaval. It was modern machinery, developed by research, that made it possible for the American workman of 1950 to produce many times as much goods as the workman of 1850. The automobile, pre-eminently a product of research, has widened and enriched lives in a manner impossible to achieve through legislation. At every hand, it is plain that the improvements leading to advancement have their origin in invention and development. There is no alter native. Ideas formed in a man's mind, after it has been trained and sharpened by education and experience, are the basis [47 ] of successful research. Without the creative brain of the scientist, all investment in research is worthless. American scientific laboratories are the best equipped in the world.

Yet continued progress will be insured only if the rights of the individual to exercise freely his initiative are re established and jealously guarded. American research prospered by providing rewards for success; the inventive genius of the nation was kept alive by adding to it what Lincoln called "the fuel of incentive." Further, the integrity of American research was kept in violate; the research worker was spared the necessity of finding "political" conclusions as the goal of his investi gations. In this atmosphere of free inquiry and of freedom of the individual to enjoy the fruits of his labor, science here flourished. Elsewhere in the world, it has suffered serious setbacks. The German scientist, once a leader, found under Hitler that he was falling behind. Specified results at a specified time could not be guaranteed, no matter how urgent or peremptory the orders. The Russian scientist under com munism has learned that his findings must satisfy the offi cial view, regardless of the facts. The British scientist under socialism has seen the rewards of his enterprise virtually confiscated by taxation.

Without freedom, scientific research and the progress in its wake will falter in the United States, as has hap pened elsewhere. The individual must be assured the freedom of incentive. The university scientist must have freedom of inquiry, of discussion, and of publication. [ 48] And sponsors of industrial research, such as American companies, must have the freedom and incentive to win as well as to lose-the freedom to grow and expand, as is necessary to fulfill their responsibilities. The means to carry on future research will be forthcoming only as long as it can pay its way. When it can no longer do so, it will stop, and the retro gression process begin. In that event, a well-known prin ciple would again be proved: A hoop rolling downhill moves faster than one going up. [49 ] LIBERALISM STANDS FOR FREEDOM b'l Jowner phelan THE story about the Grand Inquisitor in Dostoevsky's novel, The Brothers Karamazov, pictures Christ as appear ing in the streets of Seville during the Spanish Inquisition just as a large number of heretics had been burned at the stake. The 'Grand Inquisitor arrested Christ, visited him in his cell, and said: Thou wouldst go into the world . . . with some promise of freedom which men ... cannot even understand, which they fear and dread-for nothing has ever been more insupportable for a man and a human society than freedom. But seest Thou these stones in this parched and barren wilderness? Tum them into bread, and mankind will run after Thee like a Hock of sheep, grateful and obedient. ... But Thou wouldst not deprive man of freedom and didst reject the offer, thinking, what is that freedom worth, if obedience is bought with bread? Thou didst reply that man lives not by bread alone.~ The Grand Inquisitor was a good man, devoted to the public welfare. But he believed in an authoritarian con cept of life and he regarded Christ as a dangerous agitator.