THE CITIES OF THE FUTURE - TWO VIEWS
CHASE, STUART
THE CITIES OF THE FUTURE TWO VIEW By Stuart Chase £ AM not sa expert on city pawning or unzntcsaal probiesns, Ae e prophet re* euiree no technical gnslaVattaai. but only a (ancient amount of...
...The speech in its turn was prompted by an article that appeared in the English "New Leader" under trie heading "Dismissals at Cadbury...
...Third—Whether we save our dties by intelligent planning, or continue somehow to exist in their ever more awful canyons, the ehancea are always bright that some fine morning a swarm of bombing planes win appear above the skyscraper tops, laugh heartily at the feeble efforts of our anti-aircraft guns, and by a few Judicious tons of explosives, poison gases and, shall we say...
...He is a trustee of Bournvillc Village and a fellow cf the Royal Economic Society...
...Bach of these three eventualities is capable of indefinite expansion...
...It is quite the thing far younger intelligentsia to flea te'Sj Connecticut hills...
...If eeoap ers keep on giving away then* rlgaW...
...The two above papers including a number of other Journals under their wing, either absorbed into the same sheet as have been the Morning Leader and the Westminster Gazette or still on Independently as are some local papers, the whole making up the third largest chain in England...
...And there are at present quite a large group of alumni at various colleges, Including those who hold the Ferris scholarships at Cambridge, two of them...
...I think of my rural experiences, at at dull and dfsdfPing effects of farm iw> tine, of long and losing warfare wtthSb implacable elements, of the vulgar aaaV ardlzation of thought and action watt life on the farm or in the small ana Implies, of the lack of contact wan St main streams of culture, of the aahw neas and greed of those "rugged an> vldualists" tn the back-woods...
...If (very well...
...This is almost platitudlnously true of every overturn from the days of the supremacy of Athens to the recent victory of the British Labor Party...
...Long before the heralds of the dawn of a "new", "enlightened" or "welfare" capitalism had begun to sing their hosannahs on the American scene, the Cadbury's had built a beautiful model housing village for its workers at Bourmillc, England...
...so long as we shun crowds qua trover Fortunately...
...failure...
...Though not so well known in the United States, Cadbury cocoa and chocolate are household terms in England...
...What progress has been made has been largely due to the fact that these few hsve been able to win the majority over to acceptance of their forward ideas...
...I should say that he has better chances of leading a full, rich life here than in any other American milieu...
...I do not deny the pitiful fact of the dismissals, and I am very acutely conscious of the boss psvcholoct latent in the individualistic attitnil* nf a rmioinnc asBBaat that lays so much stress on the Individual existence...
...You sense It at a summer concert st the Stadium, as Hoogstraten picks up his baton and the high-sailing moon looks down on s mighty audience silenced by the* magic aft Seat an .an...
...And closely linked with the educational activities are the Youth Club, which organizes an the games for the boys, apart from the school games, provides a social club, and miscellaneous holiday activities such as travel and camping, and all the musical and leisure time organisations...
...these are signs and Man of the City That Might Be...
...but only a (ancient amount of braes, I might poeslbiy qualify la ibis categoay...
...the great city which-Is to come in for' the most Intensive extermination...
...Carbon monoride h> between...
...liability to unforeseen explosions, and so forth, A special engineering committee of the Surveyor's Institution has just been studying underground conditions in London following a series of disastrous and utterly unloosed for explosions...
...But I sushi » they are usually within communal g> tanoe of Megalopolis.'* Very well, then, let me eonfan Iks I like crowds, that my nerves at a better shape under the rmrf thaBSPM the Third avenue elevated than asg the horrid sounds of slaughter as wholesale cruelty which fin the eat nary farmyard...
...Two half-days a week are taken In school, in paid time by an between the ages of 14 and 18, with an extra year for office workers...
...Vienna, A New Athene I X am aware that I am dealing aau3 mass material...
...b£*|S paint: crowd-things...
...The business is essentially capitalistic, the ownership of the capital is power, and however benevolent, however progressive, the workers have no voice In their own destiny, they are stBk the pawns of big business...
...Of course, you will say, there Is more culture with size and to admit that the else, because New York is the largest city in the world...
...In America there are awaB** the obvious first steps, such as hawaw> accomplished at Cadburys...
...Increasingly the gases are compressed beneath a crust of solid stone, brick and asphalt "The closing of these outlets results either In the accumulation of gaseous mixtures in abandoned sewers, subsoil cavities or chambers, or gas may penetrate laterally into adjoining vaults or basements...
...And a very full education Is given, which aims at passing a large number of the students through university entrance examinations, and which includes athletic activities and the support of various school games...
...I cannot even go further and describe its manifold activities, such as the admrntatration of the Boeke trust the capital returned to the factory by one of the family who Joined the Communist Party...
...They have to compete to exist even at the expense of their employees...
...No more than Rome »%1 a a> delist New Ydrk be built tn s as But, at any rate, the materials sre* hand...
...iSPHi And that is why I call Cadbsrp...
...A good deal of the article was a journalistic attempt to paint a hirid picture of hysterical women who fainted when they received thep- dismissals, and- a curious appeal to the religiously minded to note the failure of Quakerism...
...The City That Might Be...
...We have the technical knowledge to do it the engineering ability, and even, for some areas, the specific plans already on paper...
...This latter organization has very far-reaching power...
...Where The Workers Have No Voice All of these welfare activities, and many more besides, such as concerts, fairs, athletic meetings, are under the jurisdiction of the employees' organizations, the Athletic Club or the Workers' Council...
...Actual ignition may occur through the use of a naked light or from a spark produced by the short-circuiting of an electric fitting...
...Look »t at pictures of these surging masses of easing people celebrating May Day, as the spacious beauty of the buildings sd up for workers by their govtraanB, Recall thst s few short years ago Than was on her knees before her conaaawg snd that now she stands up straighlsei shining, and you hsve the Ides of was could be done with our New York U— "How Charming The Chy" If, as Stuart Chase so keenly peak out, some curb could be put upon lb greed of the landlord snd the specsntlve real estate man...
...or academies of music...
...Cambridge...
...And being after all only a small unit in the industrial system (for of what account are 20,000 amongst 11,000,000), they cannot take a, comprehensive view of the employment situation...
...Cadbury is a graduate of Kings College...
...I trust no one thinks that I am Baeft provincial enough to chirp with aaw Walker...
...Be will go down fighting with an the enormous power at bis command against any daastic or fundamental changes which, while they will make s city livable, can hardly fall to endanger, If not positively destroy, his towering structure of values...
...I win ssy'l), If there were enough Socialists...
...By McAlister Coleman STO ART CHASES article gives one mightily to think, as does his last book...
...Oases from the clouds sad gases from the increasingly Imprisoned depths...
...Which does not mean, of course, that we must needs think the same as Stuart...
...Is to confuse culture with sie and to admit that the good life has Its price...
...to at a* but the whole system is artificial, aw the final and much more liiiiiittaatew is unlikely to be taken...
...There are educational facilities far an ages of the employee*, for neers and for office workers...
...i There have always been very extensive and up-to-date welfare plans at Bournrule...
...In respect to the last I shall have to refer you to such authorities as the Honorable J. M. Kanworthy, and the recent reports on poison gases published by the International Bed Cross...
...If you like, than Is afforded by any other spot on this continent...
...There is a particular significance for American toothers...
...In respect to the first I have myself collected many eeasnple* of what I term the technological teauousness of the great city...
...itics...
...High up shone the towers and spires of an enchanted city floating upon the mist, pyramids and domes glistening in the early sun, vast walls studded with golden windows, spellbound and incredible...
...It Is astonishing how charming Si city looks, most of the time...
...Chases...
...The Leaders In "Welfare" Capitalism It la against such a widespread background of activity with a very pronounced liberal bias, aad with such' a vary Inclusive record of sincere service to the community, that we have to place their industrial activities...
...It finds that automobiles and trucks sre now putting a strain on road surfaces, and the terrain thereunder which "the underground pipes and services were never constructed to bear...
...It was Athens it the tax of Pericles, it was Renaissance Passat, and now it seems to be in the aaahj again in Socialist Vienna...
...may appear that they win ultlaiaaaViTB everything away, but they siilana Sf done so...
...The es**S* win never give sway his final eoeteetBW til he becomes a Socialist, and If SBf* the final goal, why not make that " aim today...
...Another line of activity has been In the ownership of liberal newspapers, publishing today two of them, the Dairy News In the morning and the Star In the evening, In both London and Manchester...
...t The Cadbury experiment in the field of "model" relations with their employees makes them of special interest to Socialists and workingclass groups...
...And we must not forget' the activities of the ladles of the family either, my grandmother being internationally known In women's affairs, especially in peace work, and having been on the City Council of Birmingham for some years, and still active on many committees...
...yellow fever cultures, dropped at strategic' points, put an end to our hopes, or to our miseries, as the case may be, and that quite fnally...
...That is Just yet aa Mr...
...my grandfather was only on the Council for a short time and had a national rather than a local reputation, while my father was first elected as a councilor in ltl 1 and only retired'last year from the Aldermanle ranks...
...Pipes and mains grow ever thicker, the load from the road above grows ever heavier, and the vitally essential cushion of earth between grows ever scantier...
...Its size has something to do with this...
...I have ateenUy barn making an attempt to gat the masailisi age into some sort of focus, and one of the major sspeclt of this probtsm a what the buBon and a haaT of horsepower, now Meat hi the modern world, has done and proposes to do, to the great city...
...Sane of Use mors impatient have suggested that the employees of Chicago's major industry, each with his pineapple, might he drafted into the service, but I fear such suggestions are hardly In order...
...The City That Iflgta a has been...
...Long before there was a national scheme of Insurance there were health, accident, widows aad orphans, and other policies...
...such as Raskin College, Oxford...
...Just why have a body af employers who are acknowled»¦* *« km head, trying, in all sincerity, to create ideal industrial conditions...
...I must forsake the accepted role of the Socialist as the prophet of gloom snd assume a more optimistic view of Megalopolis and Its dwellers...
...Under my grandfather and his brother the business grew so rapidly that they had to seek even larger premises, and looked for a country spot to build a new plant and develop a Oarden City at the same time...
...Birmingham, or other colleges...
...Little Old New York h fSt enough for me...
...In respect to the second, the republic Is swarming with city planners, standing on so many cubic yards af blue prints, and only too ready to tell you precisely what ought to be done...
...Cadbury...
...eat* All those things that are features arS» existing system at Bourvtlle, aad aaw dally those on a contributory, a* a philanthropic basis, seem to me very a> slrable, and to be sought ia the a* state...
...the sort of skS murals that an alive artist like a*, man Robinson, tor *v»ttmls...
...As the basement and Its Inhabitants take their skyward way, it is often difficult to determine which ignition system was the inciting cause...
...They fall under such general headings as congestion, noise, dust, the exclusion of ultra violet rays, the vicious circle of subways, delivery costs, the esse with which vital arteries, including water, gas, electric power, telephone communication, waste disposal, may be severed...
...In the next war It is...
...aswaad—By means of an aroused pubhe opinion at which there are few signs to data—ttkls conceivable that In the case of certain dties, at lisil ggfi sitlr measures of co-ordination and planning will be introduced, fundamental enough in nature really to adapt the city to pleasurable human living...
...The whole trend of the argument being that even the Cadbury s. though well known benevolent employers, had failed to provide for those who were working for them...
...One can find anything be wants there, and against sweetness and light the critic of the city will pose such ugliness and wretchedness as the world has never before seen...
...My great-great-grandfather and my great-grandfather were both Chairman of the City Commissioners hefore the regular City Council came into being...
...He has just completed a year of graduate work at the University of Pennsylvania, training for a directorship in Cadbury Bros...
...If I could, compulsory reading for sll Socialists...
...long before there were old age pensions, there ware pensions drawing on the pension fund to which they had contributed while at work...
...As I see it, we bare three eventualities before us: First—Megalopolis can continue its present mm se of becoming more and more congested, hectic, and biologically alien to an ordered human life—its vast transportation systems pumping us back and forth from ''places where we would rather not live to places where we would rather not work"—until a saturation point, aad possibly something in the nature of a tragic breakdown Is reached...
...then...
...For the last forty years, the plant has been at Bonnvllle...
...And most important of all in the educational field, there Is a day continuation school, for the boys and girls, who leave school at 14 years old in England and start to work...
...The village is typical of the many activities of the family outside the mere identity of chocolate making...
...And X aa aV aware that our sensitive latter-day at ists affect to abhor the crowd aarM escape from It by velveting their xajE in the boudoir or the suburban boauS There Is a good market for stgua stuff...
...Foxcroft...
...Men snd Machines...
...In the religious field they have been fairly prominent in the Society of Friends, and tn the Free | Church Ctouncll movement to bring the churches together...
...By George W. Cadbury T'HIS article is the reincarnation of a speech I gave some time ago under the above title...
...Iron and steel mains suffer serious deterioration from fatigue due to vibration and from changes in temperature...
...HI-, for example, where I once spent six months, but rather as a dwelling place of light with more freedom and tolerance, more sense of ultimate values, more urbanity in the best sense of that word, more opportunity to lesd the good life...
...And amongst nonessentials I include the work of the council, through Its tribunal, la controlling sll discipline, In advising an wages, In determining the apportionment of hours, and a real freedom of criticism, which is wen used...
...And in Industry as in every other sphere, the work of the family leads the field in it* liberalism, and its sincere effort to stake the world a more tolerable place to live in...
...which I would make...
...And it is Because of the exigencies of this wasteful competitive system that Cadburys are a failure...
...I have yet to hear them tell, bowever, how to get around the landlords...
...I cannot go into an the details of the constitution of the Works Council here...
...I can't speak of Paris, because I've never been there...
...I am excited, stash It is not good enough, and yet withal Its seventy times seven faults, is se aaS better than—well, let's not drag m Baton or Philadelphia or Chicago or la Angeles...
...But the advent of new machinery more than took care of the Increase in the volume of the business, and the firm has not been able to keep all Its men, and keen Its nricaa at m. competitive level...
...Politically they have been very active...
...To be sure, there would be no sve> night transformation of Megalopoai Ufa Utopia...
...That la what I want to talk about but first of an I had better Introduce myself, and explain to those who have not been in angi^nrf Just who Cadburys are, aad what they are trying to d Who The Cadburys Are Cadburys make chocolate and cocoa, they've been doing It* for 100 years, ever since my great-great-grandfather started to grind cocoa beans in the basement of his store on Bull street, Birmingham...
...Ltd., are known the world over as the "most enlightened employers in the world...
...But this, it seems to me...
...or London...
...During his short stay in this country, he lias interested himself in the work of the Philadelphia Socialists...
...But not all of us believe in hell, even the plausible Chase variety...
...Forthurwwn...
...He has worked in his factory for a year and is a member of the General U^orkers Union, as well as of the Cambridge University Labor Party...
...the distinguished architect, is confident of Just this sort of thing happening in the ease af New York...
...it controls practically an the non-essential activities tn the factory...
...Let us assume, as we must, that for generations to come there will be an almost overwhelming majority of us who are dead, though apparently alive...
...The business grew so rspldly that my great-grandfather bought a small factory and concentrated on the cocoa business, in tact he gave the shop away as a dowry with one of his daughters to a family, the Barrows, who have now developed It Into the largest grocery store In the city...
...But nobody as yet has found a way to reckon with the private landlord and his colossal pyramid of values, duly capitalised on congestion...
...M a winter evening when tha ehuM darken along the sheer, aS strength of the aew batahaaaTffi Forties, and you recognise that aa* 3 is saying something a bit dJSensMjgS what has ever before been salt It world...
...It Is astonishing how charming the country looks sometimes...
...And many ethers who are serving as magistrates or on Infant welfare committees...
...Vacations, holiday trips, free medical service, sporting events and a "voice'' in their working conditions, ell features of the vaunted "new" capitalism, have been the rule at Cadbury's for many years...
...Already the city has its BtomaS of beauty and liberation of the ajtriGaV yond any contemporary comparison...
...The management have the final voice, they have a veto on all the Works Council decides, though it must be recorded that they have never used It, and this is no real democracy...
...It at Wy»4aaal sMlmerge yourself into the oantai of a Second avenue crowd aa a'ww rhinlT and watch the Ptnostk g Mark's parade his purple basse...
...For my part...
...And I do net aw SB much can be done towards retseahan) Megalopolis closer to our hearts' asst...
...But my point Is that there was a vision of The City That Might Be...
...Benevolent Capitalism ¦ ** A Danger To Progress , 'And besides their failure to be afa* Uve outside the province of their it is doubtful to what extent such ae,«f tension of benevolent capitalism ne* aids the progress of a new sods...
...To be sure, disillusion was soon to follow contact with the "heat-shocked, clamormaddened nerves of the city" and all the rest of the things which Stuart Chase condemns Megsaepolis for...
...There are doctors aad Banana ht the plant, there are convalescent homes in the country and by the shore...
...soon to be a director of the corporation, which controls the third largest chain of British newspapers, comes forth to declare the Cadbury's are "failures.'' In this article young Cadbury tells of his conversion from benevolent capitalism to Socialism...
...They have always stood tor the progressive side of education, housing, health and other movements, and my father a a member of the Labor Party- And it was largely due to the efforts of toy uncle In the cause of the Cradly Health chain makers that Trade Boards were instituted In England at the hftrming of this century...
...The City That Might Be What chance has an alive person in this gaseous hell of Mr...
...The swelling turbines at saajT house by the Bast Rivet, the Sjaff players in Van Courtlaad Paaj, a. workers at a May Day Meeting as Oarden -at...
...They have probably real progress, as evidence of wMa%,jjBW fact that only a fifth of their tSmMM unionized, despite the enconragaWO the management, such sehetata *»JE have instituted are only Justified *j the same time, the instigators sre ajSf tag for a aaw social order, R» co-operative commonwealth that is a cherty the system of the futurd...
...Upon this point all military experts of any Intelligence seem singularly unanimous...
...VeWen would say...
...And in the dismissals of employees recorded In the article I referred to at the beginning, we have the most conspicuous example of the breakdown of the whole system...
...Why have they failed, and where have they failed...
...If the .worker Is to be really secure there must be co-ordination between all the industries that may employ him, and he must have some say tn the level of efficiency that can be accepted as best for the mass of people aa a whole...
...Sinclair Lewis's '•Dodsworth," returning to New York after a long stay abroad, was thrilled, and rightly so, I believe, by his sight of the sky-line...
...There are and have ben so few really alive men and women...
...Proper Inspection is impossible under modern traffic conditions...
...I am as anxious as anyone to Increase efficiency, and productivity, IS It must not control our methods at attribution of wealth, and, that mesas I must be under the control of the asf* the control of those who are most vatS interested...
...If there am enough live men and women crossminded enough to put an end tela) absurdities of our present municipal yd...
...Aad PS Is to reahse his own real needs, awapM scheme that creates the lnostaa cess, without the substance of % tar dine progress...
...But the whole problem is a much more fundamental one than the difficulties of an emotional or liystarUal excitement over the dimi«mi af a group of women...
...It has no voice in the ultimate problems of policy, no voice in the labour or employment policy of the board of directors...
...But If they are assumed to at* part of the capitalist order of tatatt* they are made to appear as paBBwBw in a system that is as unstable as ezf a hereditary system can be, that Sat are dangers to real progress...
...It has been the deliberate policy of the firm to try to give continuous employment to the men and women it employs...
...I would gladly accept this challenge and say that proportionately New York has more of tha, good things to offer its inhabitants than any other city In the United States, and that oddly enough...
...And it is in the beholding of this vision that the alive Inhabitant of New York finds some recompense for all the dirt and heat and bustle and sordtdness of a profit-centric civilization...
...Meanwhile the steady removal of trees and open spaces of loose earth takes away the natural outlets through which gases may harmlessly escape...
...If a completely sotarielg tern is what' we want then wBSJB mutt have ultimate control...
...In his Tamiment article he gave us what Norman Thomas called a "hell-fire Sunday morning sermon...
...It has attempted to keep the proportion of men and boys so regulated that they provided for a boy to enter the factory at 14 and stay until be retired at 60...
...Now George IV...
...But I want to draw attention again to the fact that the council Is limited to those features that I can non-essential...
...In such a city as Washington, planned a century ago with aa eye to living rather than rent collecting, the chances of introducing the necessary adjustments are, of course, fai brighter than sa such a city as Nee Tea...
...This would not neceaterfly bold for all great dttea, but Clarence SteJ...
...WHY CADBURYS ARE FAILURES— by One of Them The Foremost Example of The New "Welfare" Capitalism Found Wanting by Heir to Share In Great Corporation CADBURY BROS...
...surrounded by the Garden Village, and yet well within the Birmingham city limits...
...You have a glimpse of It when you look beneath the Washington Arch on a soft twilight of Autumn up the glistening sweep of the avenue with the lights blinking on and the traffic flowing, dark and mys terious in two swift streams...
...In the first place, I am Incorrigibly city-born and bred, and although at various tunes I have lived in tha country and In small towns, I have invariably returned to New York with a lifting zest I do not see It as a place of harrassed, morbid and moribund yokels, such as Springfield...
Vol. 8 • July 1929 • No. 26
