Henry Ford and Grass-roots America by Reynold M. Wik (review)

REVIEWS 227 andit wasDebswhowonthehighest percentage of votes evercastfor a Socialist presidential candidate. Bergerstands out neitherasa dramaticleadernor asan originalthinker.In Germany, for example, he wouldsimply haveserved in the ranksasonemoreSocialist politician.In America,however,Milwaukee's predominantly foreign-born population affordedhim an opportunity to build an unusually strong power-base withinthenationalparty.Miller hasgivenus a succinct andusefulbiographical study. Contraryto herclaim,however, Debs, not Berger,stillremainsthe 'patronsaint'of AmericanDemocraticSocialism. GRAHAM ADAMS, JR Mount AllisonUniversity HenryFordandGrass-roots America. Pm,,'No•.r• M. WIK.AnnArbor,University of MichiganPress, i972. Pp.xx, 2•6, illus.$IO.OO. Professor Wik's bookprovides the usefulfunctionof callingattentionto the fact that HenryFordwasthemostpopularpublicfigurefor rural andsmalltown AmericansbetweenI915 and I9e9. Writing as a traditional narrative historian,Professor Wik chronicles Ford'sgrowingpopularityin chapters like 'The Automobile Altersthe Rural Scence,' 'BarnyardInventorsand the Model r,' 'Henry Ford'sTractorsand Agriculture,'and 'Farmers'Faith in Henry Ford.' Althoughwe knowthat Fordhatedthe drudgeryof farm life andfledto the cityasan adolescent, Professor Wik believes that the loveaffair of grass-roots Americawith Ford wasbasedin largepart on the people's sense of Ford'slove for them, for the small town, for the farm. While he is critical of Ford's antiSemitism , his hostilitytowardthe Farm Cooperative movementin the i9eos, and the New Deal in the I93os,Professor Wik's basicattitude toward Ford is sympathetic and friendly.In the chapters, 'Ford, Science, and Rural Ecology,' and 'Ford and the Little Red Schoolhouse,' he praisesFord's commitmentto keepingAmerican agriculturehealthyand his attempt to reform American education. One assumes, therefore,that Professor Wik, like Ford and the folk who admiredhim in the I9eos , is not awareof the economic and socialimplications of Ford'sapplicationof the cult of efficiency to agriculture.Ford hated the cityand itsmodernlife styles of musicand sex.But to makeit possible for one farmer to do the work of four meant that the farmer's children had no choice but to go to the cityin search of jobs.Ford,especially in the i93os,wantedto mechanize southern agriculture, believing that suchmechanization wouldauto.maticallyincrease humanhappiness. One wonders howhe wouldreactto what hashappened to Detroitand the othermajorcitiesin thecountryasmillions of blackagriculturalworkershavebeendriven off the land in the Southby mechanization into these urban centres. Professor Wik, therefore,inadvertentlyhas calledattentionto the terrible ironythat Ford'shopeof stabilizing rural andsmalltown Americaagainst the threatof urbancultureby mechanizing agriculture hasworkedto destroy the stability of that rural culture.And we areleft with thequestion of howFord, 228 THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW with somanyof hiscontemporaries andsomanyhistorians, couldhavebeenso blindto themeaning of mechanization. In a neglected book,Voicesin the Valley: Myth-Making andFolk Belie[in theShapingo[ theMiddle West(•964) FrankR. Kramerarguedthat many farmers in themiddleof thenineteenth-century weredefining theirrelationship to the land in mechanical metaphors. They had no sense of rootedness and, therefore,a homestead in Ohio, definedasa productive machine,easilycould beexchanged for a homestead in Illinoisor Iowa. If Kramerisright,histheory provides an answer to theparadoxof whysomanyAmericans havetalkedlike Jeffersonians and actedlike Hamiltonians.His theorymay alsoprovidethe answer whichProfessor Wik doesnot giveof why Fordwassopopularin the •92os.JohnWilliam Ward, in hisessay 'The Meaningof Lindbergh's Flight' (American Quarterly, •958), suggested that the great public response to the flight wasbecause Lindberghsymbolized a synthesis of the rural pastand the mechanicalfuture. Cultural historians, however,mustconsider the possibility that for mostAmericans the mechanical futurealwayshasbeena part of the rural pastand that the rural pastalwayshasbeenpart of the mechanical future . Indeed,giventhe commitment to the logicof continualeconomic growth that sets moderncivilization apartfrommediaeval civilization, canmodemmen express a philosophy of rural rootedness in anyotherwaythan Ford'spassionatepreservation of antiques in a museum? DAVID W. NOBLE Universityo[ Minnesota Dear MissEm: GeneralEichelberger's War in the Pacific,•94••945. Edited by JAYLUVAAS. Westport,Conn.,Greenwood Publishing, •972. Pp. xiv, 32•, maps,illus.$••.5o. In World War • the war in the PacificwasverylargelyunderAmericancontrol . Shortlyafter Pearl Harbor the area wasdividedinto two theaters:one, primarilynaval,underAdmiralNimitz; the otherunderGeneralMacArthurbothreporting to the us JointChiefsof Staff.Based initiallyin Australia, MacArthur 's Southwest Pacific Area extended northward to include most of the Solomons, New Guinea,theBismarck Archipelago, theNetherlands Indies,and the Philippines. In additionto us forces, MacArthur had underhiscommand an AustralianarmyaswellasDutchandotherforces, but ranhistheatre,much to the resentment of the Australians, as thoughit waspurelyAmerican.His staffwasalmostentirelyAmericanand thoughhe namedan Australian,General Sir ThomasBlamey,as commander of allied land forces,he managedby variousdevices to keepcontrolof all majoroperations in Americanhands. The Australians were not the onlyonesto resentMacArthur'shandlingof his theatre.Many of MacArthur'sseniorAmericancommanders...