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(GENTLE ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)
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If we retrace the steps
by which America went
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from a wilderness to a giant of technology,
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there are less than 50 years
from the homesteader growing food
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on the 160 acres
the government had given him
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to mammoth factories processing food
for this nation and other nations.
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Less than half a century
from a village on the prairie
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to the first city of the plains,
the phenomenon of Chicago.
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(DRAMATIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)
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Chicago suffers from the curse
of a violent legend.
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If you ask anyone to give you a history
of the city off the top of his head,
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he's likely to remember the fire
of the 1870s and tell you
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that it started with a cow kicking over a lamp.
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After that, I think he'd be vague
and imply the city was rebuilt
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as a stage set to accommodate
the gang wars of Al Capone.
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Anybody alive in the 1920s,
an Englishman certainly,
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would remember Big Bill Thompson,
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who was the mayor who announced
to a stunned globe
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that if King George V ever dared
to appear in Chicago,
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"I will punch him in the nose."
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Well, King George never obliged
because it was well understood,
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even in court circles,
that Mayor Thompson presided
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over an immense melting pot of immigrants.
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He was simply asserting
the Midwesterners' conviction
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that he's as good
as any Englishman, if not better.
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More recently, the world has had this
clownish yet brutal view of Chicago
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confirmed by the ugly riots
that defamed the city
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in the Democratic convention of 1968.
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But Chicago was prone
to violence from the beginning.
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This is a rigid preconception to say the least,
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like remembering London
only for the Black Death,
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the abdication of Edward VIII
and the nocturnal habits of Jack the Ripper.
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Chicago was a thousand miles inland
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and for countless centuries
was known only to the Indians.
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And then it was a fur-trading post
for French trappers.
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It lies on the shore of a great lake,
the first of four,
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linked with canals to give clear access
all the way from the Atlantic
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1500 miles to the shore of Lake Michigan.
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Navigation stopped there because of a sandbar
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between the bend
in the Chicago River and the lake.
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In 1833, they cut through it,
and Chicago had a harbour.
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Eight years later, in 1841,
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the first bumper crop on the prairie was carried
by steamboats, brigs and schooners
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off to New York and even London.
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In only nine years, Chicago had gone
from a squatter settlement of 200 souls
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to the largest grain market in the world.
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(TRADERS SHOUT)
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Chicago is not only the reception centre
for the prairie's livestock and crops
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but the stock exchange
of the American farmer.
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(TRADERS SHOUT)
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This daily hullabaloo
of bidding at high noon
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will be reported a few hours later
over thousands of radio stations
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in a few laconic phrases.
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Wheat, up one point.
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Corn, down three-eighths.
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Soybeans, steady.
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After the Civil War, more ships
cruised into Chicago
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than into the six busiest
coastal ports of America combined.
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Lake and river traffic alone
would not have made Chicago
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the mammoth among inland cities.
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It was the freight train that made Chicago
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the ideal junction between
the harvest of the encircling prairie
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and people,
thousands of miles in all directions,
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who would eat and use it.
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Because Chicago was where it was,
when it was, the middle of the prairie,
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that's why it became the biggest
railroad centre in the world,
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the hub whose spokes
reached out in all directions
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and magnetised not only business
but businessmen.
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It has been host to more than half
the presidential nominating conventions
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of both parties.
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Once the cowboy had a pipeline
for his cattle to the East and Europe,
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he no longer sold his herds
along the way for hides.
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He poured them
into the Chicago stockyards
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as raw material to sell to the highest
bidder in an international market.
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(FIRST MAN) Yah, yah, yah, yah!
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(SECOND MAN) Yah! Yah!
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- Let 'em in.
- Let me look at these heifers.
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- Where are them cattle from?
- Southern Illinois.
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- Southern Illinois? Where?
- South of Galesburg.
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They're too light. How much?
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- They're going a way over 90.
- You ain't bid yet?
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- On 31.
- God, they're better heifers than that.
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- They look a little full.
- I'll give you that.
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Look at the quality. They're fat heifers.
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- Wanna go 31 and a quarter?
- No.
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- How much?
- $32.
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What the hell are you talking about, $32?
You wanna go one and a half?
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- No, 175 for a load of heifers.
- Weigh the cattle!
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All right. What number?
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Raw crops and animals on the hoof
were hurtled in here
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and slaughtered, packaged and transformed.
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A cow can come into Chicago as a cow
and go out as a steak or a tennis racquet.
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Down the years,
Americans have tended to believe
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that any big change
in technology is a good thing
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and is going to benefit everybody.
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But this sudden, new transcontinental
transport system,
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which the first railroad men built
as much for money as for use,
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transformed the colonial idea
of the small farmer
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as the almost sacred norm of American life.
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Jefferson called the farmer
God's finest creation.
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He was thinking of a man who farmed
a few acres with his own hands.
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But not all the small farmers in the world
could satisfy the giant maw of Chicago.
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The farmers' livelihood, it now appeared,
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was rooted in a false
18th-century assumption
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about the basic American farm.
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The Founding Fathers, remember,
had never left the East.
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Their idea of an expanding agriculture
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was Virginia or Massachusetts
going on for ever.
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Parcels of land happily alternating
pasture with woods and little rivers,
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all assigned according
to a rational, neat 18th-century plan
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in firm little rectangles,
exactly one-quarter square-mile each.
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But the prairie was not like that.
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One man's 160 acres might have
the luck of a creek and a few shade trees.
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But another man's 160,000 acres
might be barren of all shade and water.
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A lot of families who went to the Midwest
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with high hopes of self-sufficiency
got badly bruised,
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not least thousands of homesteaders
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whose quarter square-mile
was too arid or too tough to work
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or was bought out by a railroad
financed by government subsidies.
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The government had given with
one hand and taken away with both.
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As a bitter rhyme of the day had it,
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"In God we trusted,
in Kansas we busted."
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If farming was to prosper
in the heart of the continent,
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it would have to turn into an industry.
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As usual,
the machines appeared to do it.
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William Ogden, first Mayor of Chicago,
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invited a young Virginian named
Cyrus McCormick to come west
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and mass-produce a mechanical
reaper he'd been demonstrating.
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This is it, the McCormick reaper.
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Before McCormick, they cut wheat
by hand with a scythe and cradle.
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This machine did the work of five men
with obviously less fatigue.
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And so, with dramatic suddenness,
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Pennsylvania and Ohio
were no longer the big wheat states.
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The bread basket moved a thousand
miles west into the prairie here,
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which was a lucky thing, because
the population of the United States
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went in 40 years
from 13 millions to 60 millions.
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And this machine guaranteed
that they would be fed.
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And after the reaper,
there came in tumbling succession
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the automatic wire binder,
and the twin binder,
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the threshing machine, the combine,
mechanical corn planters,
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corn cutters, huskers, shellers,
the cream separator,
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the potato planter, the hay dryer.
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America discovered
several decades before Europe
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that the land was a gorgeous deposit
of raw material,
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ready for mass cultivation, shipping,
processing and packaging.
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This is a far cry
from the original American ideal
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of the sturdy, independent small farmer
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who made all his own
farming and building implements,
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who made tallow for candles,
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raised a few crops
for the sustenance of his own family,
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and tapped the trees for the family sugar.
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Yet, by a familiar human contradiction,
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the faster this ideal faded,
the more it was mooned over.
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Millions of Americans bought
reproductions of pictures like this,
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and the coloured prints of Currier and Ives,
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in the hope of asserting
as the sacred fact of American life
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what was already becoming a memory,
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the idea of America as a continent
without cities,
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a far-flung republic of yeoman farmers.
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But the resources of America
were as far-flung as its geography.
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In other landscapes that had never
seen a pig or an ear of corn,
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other fortunes lay
not above the ground but under it.
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Traces of gold were found
in the Colorado Rockies.
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And a year later, there was a city
with a hotel and a jeweller's store.
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Lumber sold in Denver
for $100 per thousand feet
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and sugar and coffee for their weight
in the only going currency.
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Gold dust.
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In Nevada, scratching gold miners
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cursed the black stuff
they found mixed in with the gold
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until they had it assayed
and discovered that the black stuff
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was silver of unbelievable richness.
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A campsite of a few hundred miners
could turn in three years
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into a city of 35,000 with five newspapers
and gas lighting on the streets.
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In fact, America was spawning cities
like rabbits.
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They grew wherever the railroad loaded produce
or unloaded food and necessities.
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The old settlers were content,
they used to say,
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with bare floors, Windsor chairs
and cowhide boots.
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The young wanted
what didn't grow on the prairie.
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They wanted heat and light and news,
and conveniences, and even entertainment.
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There were inventors ready
to pipe all these into them.
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When Samuel Morse flicked the switch
that passed the first telegraph,
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somebody said,
"Now Maine can talk to Florida."
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Up in snug Boston,
Ralph Waldo Emerson said,
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"Yes, but has Maine
anything to say to Florida?"
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Well, New York and Chicago had lots to say,
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and to Denver and San Francisco
and the whistle-stops in between.
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And just as the railroad
and the McCormick reaper combined
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to spark a mass-production system
for the farmer,
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so there was one man more than any other
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who was inspired to mass-produce
conveniences for remote towns
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that either had to improvise them
or had never heard of them.
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This man was Thomas Alva Edison,
born in 1847 in a small town in Ohio.
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The extent of his education was three
months in a public elementary school.
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At 12, he was a railroad newsboy,
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and at 15, a telegraph operator
in various cities.
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He'd evidently been born with an itch
to take things apart and see how they ticked.
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At 19, he took out his first patent,
which was for an electrical vote recorder.
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Within a year or two,
he was working on a telephone.
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He knew what New York
would want to say to San Francisco,
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so he invented the stock ticker.
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So this is his what? His workshop?
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Not really.
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This is something that in the 1870s
not even the universities had,
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not even the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology.
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This is the first
scientific research laboratory.
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You see, Edison was not a tinkerer.
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And he was not a pure scientist, so-called,
who disdained practical utility.
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His genius was of a quite different order.
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How to make a scientific principle
workable as a universal convenience.
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If Edison had invented gravity,
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he'd wonder how gravity helped
the farmer and the grocer.
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Not the fine workmanship of a Swiss watch.
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00:16:31,518 --> 00:16:33,349
How do you make a dollar watch?
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This illustrates his ordeal
with the incandescent lamp.
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When on to something,
he was a monster of persistence
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and drove his skilled workers,
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expecting from them the same sleeplessness
that he imposed on himself.
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In the 1870s, the universal form
of lighting was gas.
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The arc light had been developed
in various expensive and clumsy forms.
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00:16:56,478 --> 00:17:00,073
But what Edison wanted was
a cheap filament in a small bulb
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to provide light
for the ordinary householder.
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Now, that was like ordering up
a cheap family spaceship.
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They tried all sorts of conductors:
Metal, iridium, chromium.
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Platinum, at $7 an ounce.
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And they overheated, they needed
enormous current, they oxidised.
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Edison started his trial of endless
forms of materials, fibres, papers.
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Hemp and bark and cork. And... lemon peel.
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00:17:26,718 --> 00:17:31,917
And in desperation, saw the whiskers
on the beard of a friend. Took that.
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00:17:32,078 --> 00:17:35,957
What he still needed was a tiny,
tough, high-resistance filament
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that would burn in a vacuum.
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One day, he saw a shred
of sewing cotton, carbonised it,
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mounted it on electrodes, pumped out
the air to a millionth of an atmosphere
233
00:17:48,398 --> 00:17:54,109
and then started to feed the power
with this series of Bunsen batteries,
234
00:17:54,158 --> 00:17:56,388
increasing the current as he went.
235
00:17:56,398 --> 00:18:01,950
Didn't overheat. Stayed cool and alive
for over 45 hours.
236
00:18:02,158 --> 00:18:05,230
The problem was solved.
Next day, cardboard worked.
237
00:18:05,318 --> 00:18:09,027
Then, after a trial
of 6,000 vegetable fibres,
238
00:18:09,638 --> 00:18:15,747
he eventually found a Japanese
bamboo that lasted a thousand hours.
239
00:18:15,878 --> 00:18:20,235
And for the first time,
the world was lit with electricity.
240
00:18:22,238 --> 00:18:26,709
Edison's creation of the permanent
electric light swept the headlines.
241
00:18:26,558 --> 00:18:29,994
Everybody cheered.
But the manufacturers were leery.
242
00:18:30,398 --> 00:18:32,753
Mrs Vanderbilt, the Fifth Avenue hostess,
243
00:18:32,798 --> 00:18:36,677
went into hysteria when two crossed
lines started a fire.
244
00:18:37,118 --> 00:18:38,915
The cities dragged their feet.
245
00:18:39,038 --> 00:18:43,714
Factories, even ranches, installed
his lighting plant. And theatres.
246
00:18:43,838 --> 00:18:46,272
It's an attractive thing about Edison.
247
00:18:46,238 --> 00:18:49,071
He assumed total responsibility for his product.
248
00:18:49,118 --> 00:18:54,511
He was present at the first performance
of "Iolanthe" to be lit by electricity.
249
00:18:54,878 --> 00:18:57,950
After the interval,
the lights began to dim, go red.
250
00:18:58,238 --> 00:19:01,548
Edison dashed to the cellar,
stripped off his clothes,
251
00:19:01,598 --> 00:19:04,829
started shovelling coal in
to maintain the steam pressure
252
00:19:04,958 --> 00:19:08,917
right through a banquet
that had been given in his honour.
253
00:19:09,278 --> 00:19:12,987
He had great pride in this electrical thing,
but on the way to it
254
00:19:13,118 --> 00:19:17,270
he had 30 or 40 ideas in his head
and he blitzkrieged the government
255
00:19:17,438 --> 00:19:19,827
with more than a thousand patents.
256
00:19:19,838 --> 00:19:24,468
He would come into the lab in the morning,
take out scraps of paper,
257
00:19:24,638 --> 00:19:28,790
drawings as primitive as this,
which looks like a comic-strip joke.
258
00:19:28,838 --> 00:19:32,513
To an assistant, Kruesi,
"Make this, Edison."
259
00:19:32,678 --> 00:19:34,634
Kruesi said, "What will it do?"
260
00:19:35,078 --> 00:19:38,229
Edison said, "It will talk back," and it did.
261
00:19:38,198 --> 00:19:42,237
And here it is, the most simple,
revolutionary discovery,
262
00:19:42,518 --> 00:19:47,672
that a steady needle
embossing in depth on tin foil
263
00:19:47,798 --> 00:19:51,552
the reverberations of a human voice,
Edison's speaking phonograph.
264
00:19:51,638 --> 00:19:56,075
This was the first sentence
that he ever recorded.
265
00:20:00,278 --> 00:20:04,317
(COOKE SHOUTS) Hello, hello.
Mary had a little lamb,
266
00:20:04,318 --> 00:20:06,878
its fleece was white as snow,
267
00:20:07,198 --> 00:20:09,837
and everywhere that Mary went,
268
00:20:09,598 --> 00:20:11,953
the lamb was sure to go.
269
00:20:17,638 --> 00:20:20,198
Put it back. Unlock the needle.
270
00:20:27,238 --> 00:20:29,433
And lock it again.
271
00:20:30,118 --> 00:20:32,757
And play it back.
272
00:20:33,478 --> 00:20:36,993
(SLURRED) Hello, hello.
Mary had a little lamb,
273
00:20:36,838 --> 00:20:39,796
(FADING) its fleece was white as snow,
274
00:20:40,198 --> 00:20:42,871
and everywhere that Mary went,
275
00:20:43,078 --> 00:20:46,070
the lamb was sure to go.
276
00:20:47,398 --> 00:20:51,073
Well, it's hard to believe now but after that,
277
00:20:51,238 --> 00:20:55,754
everything from Beethoven
to "Iolanthe" could be heard at home,
278
00:20:55,558 --> 00:20:59,312
from California to Maine
and from Maine to the Baltic.
279
00:21:00,718 --> 00:21:03,391
In 35 years after the Civil War,
280
00:21:03,598 --> 00:21:08,274
the United States Patent Office
granted over half a million patents.
281
00:21:08,398 --> 00:21:12,835
Alexander Graham Bell produced
the miracle of the telephone,
282
00:21:13,158 --> 00:21:16,753
George Eastman, the handy family camera,
283
00:21:16,998 --> 00:21:21,549
a unique marvel that was known
in all languages as simply a Kodak.
284
00:21:22,118 --> 00:21:25,315
The home sewing machine. The typewriter.
285
00:21:25,438 --> 00:21:31,752
Inventions that changed for ordinary
people the ways of work and pleasure.
286
00:21:32,158 --> 00:21:36,470
But just before this golden age
of the liberating gadget,
287
00:21:36,478 --> 00:21:40,630
something happened on good
farmland in an eastern state
288
00:21:40,798 --> 00:21:45,588
that transformed this country from
a farming republic to an industrial giant.
289
00:21:46,078 --> 00:21:49,832
It began here, by a river in the Alleghenies.
290
00:21:49,838 --> 00:21:54,434
For years, perhaps centuries, farmers,
especially in this part of the country -
291
00:21:54,638 --> 00:21:56,310
this is Pennsylvania -
292
00:21:56,558 --> 00:22:00,267
found their streams muddied
by a kind of black glue.
293
00:22:00,398 --> 00:22:03,868
It turned up with good soil.
First they cursed it.
294
00:22:03,758 --> 00:22:08,957
Then on a tip from the Indians,
they bottled it and sold it as medicine.
295
00:22:09,038 --> 00:22:12,917
Here it is. It says, "Genuine petroleum,
296
00:22:13,358 --> 00:22:17,749
"non-genuine without
the signature of Samuel Keer."
297
00:22:18,718 --> 00:22:22,188
Now, this was touted far and wide
as a guaranteed cure
298
00:22:22,558 --> 00:22:29,270
for asthma, rheumatism, gout, tuberculosis,
cancer and fallen arches.
299
00:22:29,278 --> 00:22:35,831
There is indisputable evidence that it was
a sovereign remedy for constipation.
300
00:22:35,998 --> 00:22:40,992
A man then discovered it made pretty
good though smelly lighting fluid.
301
00:22:41,278 --> 00:22:43,428
After that came a distillation process
302
00:22:43,198 --> 00:22:47,828
which produced a purer,
odourless liquid, kerosene.
303
00:22:47,998 --> 00:22:51,229
Then in 1859 came the bonanza.
304
00:22:51,838 --> 00:22:55,433
A man near by here,
in Titusville, Pennsylvania,
305
00:22:55,198 --> 00:22:57,837
did what convinced neighbours he was crazy.
306
00:22:58,078 --> 00:23:00,148
He was a man named Drake.
307
00:23:00,478 --> 00:23:04,153
And he was the first man
deliberately to drill for oil.
308
00:23:04,318 --> 00:23:08,231
He got a man who used to dig salt wells
309
00:23:08,438 --> 00:23:12,875
to sink a shaft 70 feet
by a steam-drill process,
310
00:23:12,758 --> 00:23:17,388
and it spouted
the first petroleum well in history.
311
00:23:17,598 --> 00:23:20,237
Everybody and his cousin
was out with a shovel
312
00:23:20,478 --> 00:23:22,708
or a drill and a moving platform,
313
00:23:22,878 --> 00:23:25,676
and oil towns sprouted like weeds.
314
00:23:25,758 --> 00:23:30,627
Within 30 years, in a sprawling mess
of towns almost in sight of this spot,
315
00:23:30,998 --> 00:23:34,877
they were producing
31 million barrels in a single year.
316
00:23:37,238 --> 00:23:40,833
But in the beginning, it was desperate,
small-scale stuff,
317
00:23:41,078 --> 00:23:46,152
every man for himself, make a quick pile
in the traditional American way.
318
00:23:47,278 --> 00:23:49,348
If you discovered a new resource,
319
00:23:49,198 --> 00:23:53,077
a turpentine forest, a seam of coal,
a gusher of oil,
320
00:23:53,518 --> 00:23:57,511
you worked it to exhaustion,
ravaged the land, and moved on.
321
00:23:57,358 --> 00:24:01,271
And most of these bustling,
breakneck towns produced their fill,
322
00:24:01,678 --> 00:24:07,947
gave out, and then, like this one,
went back to the grass and the wind.
323
00:24:08,158 --> 00:24:11,673
What the oil business needed
was organisation.
324
00:24:13,878 --> 00:24:18,906
Entire now the organiser in the person
of a prim, methodical young man
325
00:24:19,278 --> 00:24:21,348
from Cleveland, Ohio,
326
00:24:21,678 --> 00:24:24,590
a smart young bookkeeper
who had saved his pennies
327
00:24:24,558 --> 00:24:27,868
and become a junior partner
in a produce-commission firm.
328
00:24:29,038 --> 00:24:33,156
One day, a bunch of money men in Cleveland
who had confidence in him
329
00:24:33,478 --> 00:24:39,348
sent him off here to Pennsylvania to examine
the long-range possibilities of these gushers.
330
00:24:39,558 --> 00:24:42,709
He went back to Cleveland
and delivered his report,
331
00:24:42,838 --> 00:24:46,467
with its firm conclusion
there was no future in it.
332
00:24:46,678 --> 00:24:50,387
His name was John Davison Rockefeller.
333
00:24:51,478 --> 00:24:54,117
He changed his mind when it was pointed out
334
00:24:54,358 --> 00:24:58,636
that this black glue was not
necessarily an end in itself.
335
00:24:58,678 --> 00:25:00,873
It was still oil for lighting.
336
00:25:01,078 --> 00:25:05,469
Rockefeller guessed it might soon
become oil for heating, steamships,
337
00:25:05,398 --> 00:25:07,548
for lubrication.
338
00:25:07,798 --> 00:25:10,596
When a man proposed
that they build a refinery -
339
00:25:10,678 --> 00:25:13,033
and the word itself was quite new then -
340
00:25:13,558 --> 00:25:16,675
Rockefeller took a look at his savings
341
00:25:16,918 --> 00:25:22,709
and he put in what for him
was a substantial sum, $5,000.
342
00:25:22,678 --> 00:25:25,636
Then he got richer men to build more refineries,
343
00:25:25,558 --> 00:25:29,028
and since his habits were
more austere than theirs,
344
00:25:29,398 --> 00:25:32,435
in time he absorbed them.
345
00:25:32,758 --> 00:25:36,068
And then he sat back
and he dreamed a dream.
346
00:25:36,118 --> 00:25:40,270
Why not make his business
in Cleveland the biggest in Ohio?
347
00:25:40,438 --> 00:25:42,827
The biggest in the Midwest? In America!
348
00:25:42,838 --> 00:25:44,794
Why not the world?
349
00:25:45,238 --> 00:25:49,026
When he was 30, he formed
the Standard Oil Company of Ohio
350
00:25:49,078 --> 00:25:51,467
and bought 25 refineries.
351
00:25:53,118 --> 00:25:58,317
He built a monopoly by means
both genteel and ruthless.
352
00:25:58,878 --> 00:26:03,156
And it was rudely hinted
that he had in the palm of his hand
353
00:26:03,198 --> 00:26:07,953
the best state legislatures
and United States senators
354
00:26:07,998 --> 00:26:10,956
that money could buy.
355
00:26:11,358 --> 00:26:14,430
He got the railroads
to give him special low rates
356
00:26:14,518 --> 00:26:17,715
because of the colossal business
he could throw their way.
357
00:26:17,598 --> 00:26:22,114
As a further inducement,
they secretly guaranteed him a bonus
358
00:26:22,398 --> 00:26:26,152
from the regular rates that scores
of small producers had to pay.
359
00:26:26,238 --> 00:26:30,709
It is very lucrative work if you can get it.
360
00:26:30,838 --> 00:26:36,037
When this arrangement leaked,
it provoked a national outcry.
361
00:26:40,918 --> 00:26:46,868
Rockefeller rode out this scandal
by simply sitting back and taking ease.
362
00:26:47,158 --> 00:26:52,357
He was only 33.
He owned 90% of all the refineries,
363
00:26:52,398 --> 00:26:56,437
all the main pipelines,
and all the oil cars, the wagons,
364
00:26:56,518 --> 00:26:58,554
of the Pennsylvania railroad.
365
00:26:58,918 --> 00:27:03,469
Within a few years,
he was the first billionaire in history.
366
00:27:03,518 --> 00:27:07,352
Now, this is his bedroom in New York
and it's not very imperial.
367
00:27:07,358 --> 00:27:10,555
It's not the bedroom
of the young, frugal Rockefeller
368
00:27:10,718 --> 00:27:13,949
but of the old, frugal Rockefeller, because...
369
00:27:14,078 --> 00:27:18,356
he lived all his life much more simply
than most stockbrokers.
370
00:27:18,878 --> 00:27:21,756
And then at 60, penitence set in.
371
00:27:21,758 --> 00:27:27,754
You know, the Victorians had a huge
capacity to rationalise their energy
372
00:27:27,998 --> 00:27:30,193
as the engine of God.
373
00:27:30,398 --> 00:27:33,470
And as happened with nearly
all these money barons,
374
00:27:33,278 --> 00:27:36,031
the coming on of arthritis convinced them
375
00:27:36,158 --> 00:27:41,312
that they'd made this money
for the public good, then they disbursed it.
376
00:27:42,558 --> 00:27:46,153
Rockefeller, through a foundation
created in his own name,
377
00:27:46,398 --> 00:27:51,074
gave 530 millions
for worldwide medical research.
378
00:27:51,158 --> 00:27:54,867
And, I must say,
he's the only philanthropist I can think of
379
00:27:55,078 --> 00:28:00,710
who gave away his fortune
with absolutely no strings binding its use.
380
00:28:02,038 --> 00:28:06,475
He was photographed everywhere
to prove that even Rockefeller
381
00:28:06,518 --> 00:28:11,592
was as mortal as the rest of us,
and that though he was a kind of monarch,
382
00:28:11,838 --> 00:28:15,228
he had the common touch.
383
00:28:18,278 --> 00:28:21,156
(CROWD LAUGHS)
384
00:28:23,198 --> 00:28:29,194
We all unite in wishing them
the very best all their lives long.
385
00:28:30,398 --> 00:28:35,677
And we thank you all for giving us
the five dollars, each one five dollars,
386
00:28:35,678 --> 00:28:38,033
but we haven't seen the five yet!
387
00:28:39,158 --> 00:28:45,597
When Rockefeller died at the age of 98,
it was as if an emperor had gone.
388
00:28:46,358 --> 00:28:48,633
There were not many men like Rockefeller,
389
00:28:48,758 --> 00:28:54,355
but enough of them to constitute a cabal,
a national, continental power
390
00:28:54,518 --> 00:28:59,672
that overshadowed the elected power
of the presidents of the United States.
391
00:28:59,838 --> 00:29:04,753
There was Henry Clay Frick,
who turned coke into gold.
392
00:29:04,918 --> 00:29:10,038
EH Harriman collected railroads
the way other men collect stamps.
393
00:29:11,158 --> 00:29:16,107
There was JP Morgan,
whose specialty was money itself.
394
00:29:16,118 --> 00:29:18,951
We are in the library of another man,
395
00:29:18,998 --> 00:29:20,954
Andrew Carnegie,
396
00:29:21,398 --> 00:29:26,995
who had three specialties:
Steel, making money and giving it away.
397
00:29:27,158 --> 00:29:31,993
And maybe this is as good a place
as any to bring up the intriguing topic
398
00:29:31,958 --> 00:29:35,951
of the making and uses of money.
399
00:29:36,278 --> 00:29:38,872
Now, I can appreciate
400
00:29:38,678 --> 00:29:42,830
that the ways in which these tycoons
controlled a continent's resources
401
00:29:42,998 --> 00:29:45,466
were both subtle and masterly,
402
00:29:45,878 --> 00:29:50,349
from taking the stuff out of the ground -
the iron or the oil -
403
00:29:50,678 --> 00:29:54,034
to forming holding companies
that controlled its worth.
404
00:29:54,038 --> 00:29:57,428
But I won't pretend
to understand this expertise,
405
00:29:57,398 --> 00:30:01,994
because if I did,
I'd probably have a packet myself.
406
00:30:03,158 --> 00:30:08,994
But it has come to seem to me
that the gift of money-making
407
00:30:09,398 --> 00:30:13,027
is something that resides
in a single lobe of the human brain.
408
00:30:13,238 --> 00:30:18,437
Now, this is probably bad neurology
and sheer envy on my part.
409
00:30:18,518 --> 00:30:23,512
But I think it is an aptitude
like cabinetmaking, playing chess,
410
00:30:23,798 --> 00:30:27,427
speaking foreign languages,
that has nothing to do with intelligence.
411
00:30:27,638 --> 00:30:33,474
Harold Nicolson once said he knew a man
who spoke 16 languages with total fluency
412
00:30:33,398 --> 00:30:39,030
and could say nothing sensible in any of them,
including his own.
413
00:30:39,158 --> 00:30:44,676
But what moneyed people do with their money
is something that fascinates us all.
414
00:30:44,918 --> 00:30:50,948
It's through them that we live out
our fantasies of admiration and envy.
415
00:30:53,598 --> 00:30:56,590
How about Andrew Carnegie?
416
00:30:56,638 --> 00:31:02,156
He was the son of a poor weaver,
born in this cottage in Scotland
417
00:31:02,398 --> 00:31:06,789
at a time of such depression
that in the revolutionary year of 1848
418
00:31:06,718 --> 00:31:09,186
the family took off for America
419
00:31:09,598 --> 00:31:13,352
and for a squalid house
in a grimy town called Pittsburgh.
420
00:31:13,438 --> 00:31:15,315
The father went back to weaving.
421
00:31:15,358 --> 00:31:17,952
The mother went back
to stitching shoe leather.
422
00:31:18,238 --> 00:31:20,468
Not much of a new world for them.
423
00:31:20,598 --> 00:31:25,194
Their 12-year-old boy was as shiny
as an apple and as lively as a squirrel.
424
00:31:25,398 --> 00:31:28,788
He went hopping up the golden ladder
rung by rung,
425
00:31:28,758 --> 00:31:33,274
from bobbin boy to telegraph
messenger to railroad clerk,
426
00:31:33,558 --> 00:31:37,790
superintendent, director,
until iron entered into his career,
427
00:31:37,878 --> 00:31:41,314
if not his soul, and finally steel.
428
00:31:41,718 --> 00:31:46,348
At the turn of the century, he wrote
an article which ended with the phrase,
429
00:31:46,518 --> 00:31:49,112
"Farewell, then, Age of Iron.
430
00:31:48,918 --> 00:31:51,148
"All hail, King Steel."
431
00:32:10,638 --> 00:32:13,357
He was really proclaiming his own coronation.
432
00:32:13,558 --> 00:32:18,188
He foresaw before anybody
the infinite possibilities of steel -
433
00:32:18,358 --> 00:32:21,555
from bridge-building to steamships
to knives and forks.
434
00:32:21,718 --> 00:32:23,470
Make steel and make it cheap
435
00:32:23,638 --> 00:32:28,075
and you could own the industrial
empire of the new century.
436
00:32:27,958 --> 00:32:30,518
Once you've got the fortune, what then?
437
00:32:30,958 --> 00:32:35,793
Well, Carnegie, to me, exemplifies
a truth about American money men
438
00:32:35,758 --> 00:32:38,192
that many people fail to grasp.
439
00:32:38,638 --> 00:32:42,233
The chase and the kill
are more fun than the prize,
440
00:32:42,478 --> 00:32:46,312
which you then give away.
Carnegie had a philosophy about it.
441
00:32:46,318 --> 00:32:50,197
He retired at the age of 65 to Scotland,
442
00:32:50,158 --> 00:32:53,992
bought an ancient castle
in the Highlands, where we now are,
443
00:32:54,478 --> 00:33:00,155
and he wrote a best-selling sermon
called "The Gospel of Wealth".
444
00:33:00,238 --> 00:33:03,389
"A kept dollar is a stinking fish.
445
00:33:03,598 --> 00:33:08,467
"The man who dies rich dies thus disgraced."
446
00:33:08,398 --> 00:33:11,231
We're at this organ
because this is how he started
447
00:33:11,278 --> 00:33:14,714
to disembarrass himself of his huge fortune.
448
00:33:15,118 --> 00:33:18,633
This was before the government
saved you the embarrassment
449
00:33:18,958 --> 00:33:20,869
by taking it anyway.
450
00:33:20,878 --> 00:33:25,429
Once a Scottish Presbyterian church
had asked him for a pipe organ.
451
00:33:25,678 --> 00:33:27,908
He provided it and the word got around.
452
00:33:28,078 --> 00:33:33,914
Within 40 years, he gave all around the world
over 7,000 pipe organs.
453
00:33:33,838 --> 00:33:37,831
Because as a boy he'd had
the first apprentice's card
454
00:33:38,158 --> 00:33:40,877
to a free public library in Pennsylvania,
455
00:33:41,038 --> 00:33:45,554
he gratefully presented
over 3,000 public libraries
456
00:33:45,838 --> 00:33:50,434
in America, Britain, Europe, Africa, Fiji.
457
00:33:50,638 --> 00:33:57,555
Of the $400 million he made,
350 went to public benefactions,
458
00:33:57,358 --> 00:33:59,349
20 to an endowment for peace
459
00:33:59,758 --> 00:34:04,309
and the remaining 30 million
to pension off former presidents' widows
460
00:34:04,558 --> 00:34:08,949
and tenants and crofters and servants
and innumerable old friends,
461
00:34:08,878 --> 00:34:14,157
including a lifetime annual pension
to "my dear friend,
462
00:34:14,638 --> 00:34:17,027
"David Lloyd George".
463
00:34:17,518 --> 00:34:20,430
"The man who dies rich dies disgraced."
464
00:34:20,398 --> 00:34:23,868
Well, I guess by his lights he was not disgraced.
465
00:34:24,238 --> 00:34:26,752
He left to his widow and daughter
466
00:34:27,118 --> 00:34:29,871
a trust fund to keep them
in considerable comfort,
467
00:34:29,998 --> 00:34:31,875
but only through their lifetime.
468
00:34:31,918 --> 00:34:35,957
He believed that the most evil
possible use of money
469
00:34:36,238 --> 00:34:38,388
was to leave it to your own family.
470
00:34:38,158 --> 00:34:45,428
"I would as soon," he wrote, "I would as soon
leave my son a curse as the almighty dollar."
471
00:34:46,758 --> 00:34:50,148
(BAGPIPE PLAYS)
472
00:34:56,838 --> 00:35:00,672
As he looked out over this splendid
and remote landscape,
473
00:35:00,678 --> 00:35:04,307
he liked to think of himself
as a simple Scottish laird
474
00:35:04,518 --> 00:35:07,078
who had given to America more than he took.
475
00:35:07,318 --> 00:35:09,513
It wasn't a bad place to be
476
00:35:09,718 --> 00:35:14,792
when his steelworkers were shooting it out
with hired strike breakers.
477
00:35:14,958 --> 00:35:19,236
While this went on in Pennsylvania,
he was stung by the suggestion
478
00:35:19,278 --> 00:35:23,635
of a United States senator
that he was skulking in his castle.
479
00:35:24,038 --> 00:35:28,350
For he was one of those Victorian types,
personally kind and pious,
480
00:35:28,238 --> 00:35:30,798
professionally merciless.
481
00:35:32,998 --> 00:35:36,593
But his feeling against inherited wealth
was genuine enough.
482
00:35:36,358 --> 00:35:40,112
The people he most despised
were the pack of self-aggrandisers,
483
00:35:40,678 --> 00:35:42,873
the sons and daughters of new fortunes
484
00:35:42,598 --> 00:35:46,591
in coke, tin, copper, iron, streetcars, railroads,
485
00:35:46,918 --> 00:35:49,273
on the other side of the Atlantic,
486
00:35:49,318 --> 00:35:54,950
who wanted only to flaunt their wealth
in some private Versailles.
487
00:35:55,078 --> 00:35:58,115
They found it here
on the rocky coast of New England
488
00:35:58,438 --> 00:36:00,349
at Newport, Rhode Island.
489
00:36:00,358 --> 00:36:04,556
It had once been a haven for religious
dissenters out of Massachusetts,
490
00:36:05,158 --> 00:36:08,946
and later a capital port of the slave trade.
491
00:36:08,998 --> 00:36:14,026
100 years after the declaration
that all men are created equal,
492
00:36:14,278 --> 00:36:17,190
there began to gather here a colony of the rich
493
00:36:17,158 --> 00:36:22,551
determined to show that some Americans
were conspicuously more equal than others.
494
00:36:23,758 --> 00:36:27,034
They became, in a manner of speaking,
dukes and princes
495
00:36:27,118 --> 00:36:28,756
by buying or reproducing
496
00:36:29,038 --> 00:36:33,031
the trappings of the old dukes
and princes of France and Italy.
497
00:36:33,118 --> 00:36:36,349
And to display their trophies,
they built summer houses
498
00:36:36,478 --> 00:36:40,027
of the appropriate style and scale.
499
00:36:40,398 --> 00:36:42,036
If you needed a bloodline,
500
00:36:41,838 --> 00:36:46,036
Tiffany's of New York would improvise
a suitable coat of arms.
501
00:36:46,438 --> 00:36:49,475
By a typical affectation of the day,
these families built
502
00:36:49,798 --> 00:36:53,268
what they always called summer cottages.
503
00:36:56,838 --> 00:36:59,830
This is the cottage of the Vanderbilts.
504
00:37:16,518 --> 00:37:19,749
The Vanderbilts could
well afford such a cottage.
505
00:37:19,878 --> 00:37:23,393
Their original fortune derived
from a ferry-boat captain
506
00:37:23,718 --> 00:37:29,668
who went into steamships and railroads,
died and left his son $94 million,
507
00:37:29,958 --> 00:37:32,392
which the son doubled in ten years.
508
00:37:32,358 --> 00:37:36,590
This house was built by his son
and daughter-in-law,
509
00:37:36,678 --> 00:37:43,151
who spent a mere two million on the house
and nine on the furnishings.
510
00:37:43,398 --> 00:37:47,357
They opened it on a hot August night in 1892
511
00:37:47,718 --> 00:37:51,188
with a ball held in such a room
512
00:37:51,078 --> 00:37:56,789
as few people
have ever danced in before or since.
513
00:38:07,718 --> 00:38:13,953
This baroque splendour produced
its own baroque style of boredom.
514
00:38:14,918 --> 00:38:19,594
On a famous night, this room glittered
with the uniforms of a British regiment
515
00:38:19,718 --> 00:38:22,278
and the decorations of the diplomatic corps.
516
00:38:22,598 --> 00:38:25,749
There were no soldiers or diplomats present.
517
00:38:25,958 --> 00:38:30,429
They were an army of actors,
hired by a devoted wife,
518
00:38:30,318 --> 00:38:32,468
whose husband had gone quietly mad
519
00:38:32,718 --> 00:38:36,028
and believed himself
to be the Prince of Wales.
520
00:38:54,318 --> 00:38:59,676
There was a beautiful and candid girl
who was once asked by a Frenchman
521
00:39:00,078 --> 00:39:02,546
what really went on in Newport.
522
00:39:02,478 --> 00:39:06,949
"Nothing," she said, "but gaiety and grief."
523
00:39:23,438 --> 00:39:28,466
These houses were open for usually
only about seven weeks in the summer.
524
00:39:28,718 --> 00:39:32,631
But during that period,
these people packed a royal lifetime
525
00:39:32,558 --> 00:39:37,757
in formal picnics and luncheons
and dinners and polo and yachting
526
00:39:37,838 --> 00:39:39,556
and fancy-dress balls
527
00:39:39,758 --> 00:39:45,754
and the preliminaries to marrying
another Newporter or a foreign title.
528
00:39:45,998 --> 00:39:49,707
Somebody figured that 500
of the plutocrats' daughters
529
00:39:49,838 --> 00:39:54,912
were, so to speak, passed over
to European dukes and counts
530
00:39:55,118 --> 00:40:01,671
whose noble houses required the ballast
of the sound American dollar.
531
00:40:01,838 --> 00:40:05,467
In this house, Consuelo,
Mrs Vanderbilt's daughter,
532
00:40:05,678 --> 00:40:07,634
became engaged to the Duke of Marlborough.
533
00:40:07,598 --> 00:40:13,548
The subsequent wedding blazed like a comet
over the New York season.
534
00:40:13,838 --> 00:40:19,788
Now, it could cost up to $200,000
to throw a fancy-dress ball.
535
00:40:20,078 --> 00:40:23,787
And there was a lady
who set aside, each summer,
536
00:40:23,918 --> 00:40:29,709
$10,000 for what she itemised as
"mistakes in my clothes".
537
00:40:30,638 --> 00:40:35,473
When the brother-in-law
of Tsar Nicholas II came here,
538
00:40:35,918 --> 00:40:38,716
he said he had never even imagined
such luxury.
539
00:40:38,798 --> 00:40:41,676
He'd never seen horses bedded down
540
00:40:41,678 --> 00:40:44,715
on linen sheets stamped
with the family monogram.
541
00:40:45,038 --> 00:40:49,429
And he had probably never seen
a man fling a Persian carpet
542
00:40:49,358 --> 00:40:52,316
on his lawn and order his army of gardeners
543
00:40:52,718 --> 00:40:56,791
to reproduce the intricacies
of the pattern and the colour
544
00:40:57,038 --> 00:40:59,347
in a mosaic of flowerbeds.
545
00:40:59,438 --> 00:41:02,475
There was a dinner at which the centrepiece
546
00:41:02,798 --> 00:41:08,077
was a long, thin sandbox
implanted with tiny pails and shovels
547
00:41:08,078 --> 00:41:12,515
of sterling silver, and the guests were
invited on a given signal
548
00:41:12,878 --> 00:41:17,998
to dig for favours
of rubies, sapphires and diamonds.
549
00:41:19,838 --> 00:41:23,387
Well, it was a bad time
for such goings-on to be advertised
550
00:41:23,638 --> 00:41:26,311
as they were in the national press.
551
00:41:26,518 --> 00:41:29,191
It was a time of deep depression.
552
00:41:32,478 --> 00:41:37,347
While the Newport millionaires dug for rubies
with their sterling-silver shovels,
553
00:41:37,358 --> 00:41:44,309
miners dug for coal and children
bent over sewing machines 16 hours a day.
554
00:41:44,478 --> 00:41:46,708
Industry had produced something
555
00:41:46,878 --> 00:41:50,268
that was originally supposed
never to happen in America:
556
00:41:50,558 --> 00:41:53,470
A permanent factory population.
557
00:41:53,438 --> 00:41:59,149
It began to see itself as the slave
of the trusts and the money barons.
558
00:41:59,398 --> 00:42:04,188
There was wide unemployment
and ugly protest in the cities,
559
00:42:04,198 --> 00:42:07,634
riots and strikes, a sweatshop march,
560
00:42:08,038 --> 00:42:11,951
a coalminers' strike,
a national railroad strike,
561
00:42:12,038 --> 00:42:15,872
aggravated by armies of strike breakers,
562
00:42:15,878 --> 00:42:19,473
and broken usually by federal troops.
563
00:42:21,158 --> 00:42:24,787
But it was out on the prairie
that the people felt most cheated.
564
00:42:24,998 --> 00:42:29,867
They had gone out to realise
the dream of free men and free soil.
565
00:42:30,278 --> 00:42:34,271
They had been conned,
first by the railroads and their land grants,
566
00:42:34,598 --> 00:42:37,271
then by the farm machines and their makers.
567
00:42:36,998 --> 00:42:41,753
For the price of those beautiful machines
was a mortgage on the land.
568
00:42:41,958 --> 00:42:47,430
Thanks to their productivity, the value
of the dollar trebled in 20 years.
569
00:42:48,558 --> 00:42:52,233
The homesteaders were now
in hock to the money-makers
570
00:42:52,398 --> 00:42:56,277
who had beguiled them
into feeding two continents.
571
00:42:56,358 --> 00:43:02,149
In an angry time, America usually finds,
not always for her own good,
572
00:43:02,118 --> 00:43:03,949
an angry man.
573
00:43:04,038 --> 00:43:07,713
It found him in the 1890s in Lincoln, Nebraska,
574
00:43:07,878 --> 00:43:12,269
in the heart of the prairie -
Williams Jennings Bryan,
575
00:43:12,678 --> 00:43:15,431
a handsome, farm-bred boy from Illinois,
576
00:43:15,558 --> 00:43:17,867
a fairly unsuccessful lawyer,
577
00:43:17,958 --> 00:43:22,315
who got into Congress with the help
of the railroads and liquor interests.
578
00:43:22,758 --> 00:43:26,751
That was an odd irony,
because he came to champion
579
00:43:26,598 --> 00:43:30,989
the defeated farmers against just such men.
580
00:43:31,398 --> 00:43:34,674
But Bryan had one consummate talent.
581
00:43:34,758 --> 00:43:39,786
He was the best, the most persuasive
breast-beater in the nation.
582
00:43:39,998 --> 00:43:42,193
He had a voice of bronze
583
00:43:42,398 --> 00:43:48,473
and with it, he expressed all the most brazen
beliefs of the pious, cheated farmers.
584
00:43:48,638 --> 00:43:51,835
To roaring audiences of them he would say,
585
00:43:51,998 --> 00:43:55,513
"The farmer who goes forth
in the morning and toils all day
586
00:43:55,358 --> 00:43:59,431
"is as much of a businessman
as the man who goes upon the board
587
00:43:59,678 --> 00:44:02,875
"and bets upon the price of grain."
588
00:44:03,038 --> 00:44:05,996
He was Baptist-bred,
Anglo-Saxon to the bone,
589
00:44:06,398 --> 00:44:08,593
the new Moses of the Middle West.
590
00:44:08,798 --> 00:44:11,471
The East, he called the enemy country,
591
00:44:11,678 --> 00:44:14,795
the home of the gold standard
and the money changers.
592
00:44:14,558 --> 00:44:18,517
To Bryan, truth lay only in holy scripture.
593
00:44:18,878 --> 00:44:20,709
Scripture consisted of two books -
594
00:44:20,798 --> 00:44:24,507
the Bible and the Constitution
of the United States.
595
00:44:24,638 --> 00:44:28,426
The Bible talked about driving
the money changers from the Temple.
596
00:44:28,958 --> 00:44:32,951
And the Bible spoke truer
than John D Rockefeller.
597
00:44:32,798 --> 00:44:37,314
The Founding Fathers laid it down
that the basis of a sound national currency
598
00:44:37,598 --> 00:44:40,158
was gold AND silver.
599
00:44:40,478 --> 00:44:45,313
And the Founding Fathers knew better
than Carnegie or Morgan.
600
00:44:45,278 --> 00:44:49,669
So... he had a solution
that was godsent for the prairie.
601
00:44:50,078 --> 00:44:53,150
What could be simpler when
you're short of money than to make it?
602
00:44:52,958 --> 00:45:00,034
So abolish this accursed single gold standard
and allow the free coinage of silver.
603
00:45:00,158 --> 00:45:04,117
And silver, to Bryan, became holy water.
604
00:45:05,438 --> 00:45:09,989
And the Democrats rushed to their
convention in 1896 and bathed in it.
605
00:45:10,238 --> 00:45:14,914
Bryan swept the convention
and the Democratic presidential nomination
606
00:45:15,038 --> 00:45:16,630
with a single speech,
607
00:45:16,958 --> 00:45:20,633
the last two sentences of which
rolled around the nation.
608
00:45:20,798 --> 00:45:27,317
It ended, "You shall not press down
upon the brow of labour
609
00:45:27,518 --> 00:45:29,395
"this crown of thorns.
610
00:45:29,438 --> 00:45:35,149
"You shall not crucify mankind
upon a cross of gold."
611
00:45:35,678 --> 00:45:39,466
Well, it took the nation
but it didn't quite take all the votes.
612
00:45:39,518 --> 00:45:43,306
The prairie went for him,
but the railroad tycoons and the steelmen
613
00:45:43,838 --> 00:45:48,673
and the oil companies were assessed
hundreds of thousands of dollars
614
00:45:48,638 --> 00:45:50,833
to subscribe to his defeat.
615
00:45:51,038 --> 00:45:54,917
And yet that night in Chicago
was his first great triumph.
616
00:45:54,878 --> 00:45:57,790
He appalled, of course,
the Eastern money interests.
617
00:45:58,238 --> 00:46:04,711
But in most other places it was almost compulsory
to call him the Great Commoner.
618
00:46:04,958 --> 00:46:10,237
And yet that first great triumph in Chicago
was really also his last.
619
00:46:10,318 --> 00:46:13,867
The silver crusade collapsed
within a few years,
620
00:46:14,158 --> 00:46:17,867
when they extracted gold from low-grade ore.
621
00:46:17,998 --> 00:46:23,072
But there was more to the killing off
of Williams Jennings Bryan than that.
622
00:46:23,198 --> 00:46:26,349
Quite simply, he went on speaking
for the lonely farmer
623
00:46:26,558 --> 00:46:30,551
when three Americans in four lived in cities.
624
00:46:30,398 --> 00:46:35,995
He lived on for 30 years
and he ran for the Presidency twice again,
625
00:46:36,158 --> 00:46:38,035
and lost both times.
626
00:46:38,558 --> 00:46:43,916
He wound up in a much-publicised trial
in a small Tennessee town,
627
00:46:43,838 --> 00:46:46,636
prosecuting a young schoolteacher
named Scopes
628
00:46:46,718 --> 00:46:49,835
for teaching the theory of evolution.
629
00:46:50,078 --> 00:46:54,913
So, you see, to the end, he was
the advocate of rural America,
630
00:46:55,358 --> 00:46:58,509
its habits, its bigotries, its nostalgias,
631
00:46:58,238 --> 00:47:03,631
and the bitterest of its lost causes,
a republic of yeoman farmers.
632
00:47:03,998 --> 00:47:09,118
Just as his silver crusade was
bypassed by a scientific process,
633
00:47:09,278 --> 00:47:13,988
so his rude Old Testament idea
of the dignity of man
634
00:47:14,078 --> 00:47:17,673
was defeated by the awesome figure
of Charles Darwin.
635
00:47:19,358 --> 00:47:22,395
By the way,
the State Legislature of Tennessee
636
00:47:22,238 --> 00:47:26,516
only in 1968 abolished its anti-evolution law,
637
00:47:27,038 --> 00:47:32,635
and decided that man,
even a small farmer, was a mammal.
638
00:47:32,798 --> 00:47:39,431
But by the turn of the century, the small farmer
was beginning to be a primitive relic
639
00:47:39,518 --> 00:47:44,387
of a nation that was given over
to the combine, to the grain exchange,
640
00:47:44,318 --> 00:47:46,548
to the assembly line, to the factories.
641
00:47:46,718 --> 00:47:50,108
And for better or worse, to the cities.