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<br />AN EQUATION <br />Jordan Crouch, Vic,e President <br />First National Bank of Nevada <br />Reno, Nevada <br /> <br /> <br />Not long ago, a group of European visitors came to the United States <br />to inspect American business methods -- its treatment of the average Ameri- <br />can worker, and why the standard of living here was so high compared to the <br />rest of the world. After spending many weeks here they returned to Europe. <br />One of the men, a clergyman, wrote to his American friends right after his <br />return home and this is how he ended his letter. "The one thing that is needed <br />to insure our survival as free men is proof of our ability to find a solution to <br />the problems of the human being - in modern industrial society. Certainly, <br />you in America haven't found all of the answers yet. But, you are so much <br />further along than anybody else--so much turther along than any of us here <br />realize. Why then in Heaven's name don't you ever talk about these really <br />important things that you are doing." <br /> <br />Principally, it takes two things, and this is the equation, to make a <br />country great - materials and standard of living. One is a plentiful supply of <br />raw products, the other is mass production. To be sure, there are other items, <br />but these two are basic. So, while coming across country a few days ago, 1 <br />read a statement that was reassuring as far as our raw products are concerned. <br /> <br />A rather pessimistic fellow recently got after the late great inventor, <br />Charles Kettering, whom, as you know, stands alone in the automotive invention <br />field today, having designed the self-starter, the high-compression engine, and <br />many of the discoveries of the modern automobile of today. This pessimist was <br />worried about using up the natural resourc,es of the country -- about exhausting <br />the soil and creating a food shortage. Inventor Kettering pointed out to him that <br />the horse population had dropped about 18 ~illion in the last twenty-five years <br />and observed that for every horse we didn't have to feed, we could feed four <br />and one-half human beings. Kettering adm'itted this was tough on the horse, <br />but he concluded that we could feed ZOO million without farming a single addi- <br />tional acre. <br /> <br />The same man was worried about ,the depletion of our coal, oil and <br />petroleum. Inventor Kettering was still un,moved. He gave some figures to <br />think about, Only 5% of the coal haa been t,aken from our mines, he said. We <br />still have 900/0 of our petroleum in the ground, and 90% of our natural gas. We <br />have all our shale oil and out in Colorado, he observed, there is one rock that <br />contains six or seven times as much oil as we have ever used. <br /> <br />- 8 - <br /> <br /> <br />Kettering is the kind of man on whom one can rely, on facts such as <br />these and these are reassuring facts. We ~re short on some things but the <br />most important we are still in plentiful supply. <br />