European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - November 21, 1973, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Critic Rothschild psychosurgery on the gospel of Detroit Detroit by Robert Sherrill 1. General motors reported $2.16 billion total profit in its last annual report but the roof of its Lordstown Plant still leaks. 2. Chrysler recently signed a contract with the United Auto workers which would among other things for the first time allow the Union to Monitor the Facto Ries for filth and hazards give workers every third saturday off if they behave themselves and for the first time allow the Union to get involved in what Are honestly called humanization experiments to up Grade Assembly line conditions. The Union hailed these pitifully meager advances As a terrific break through but even that much was brought about not by Wise negotiations so much As by chaotic pressures turnover at some plants is so great that to maintain a work Force of 100,000 Chrysler had to hire 44,000 new hands in one recent year. 3. After More than half a Century of what everybody was told were great technological advances the Auto Industry according to recent tests by the environmental Protection Agency still Cranks out 120 models that at 57 Miles an hour give Les than 10 Miles to the gallon. Does there seem to be a bit of seedy Musty backwardness in those three items the business world is full of such stuff. So much in fact that we accept it As Normal and fail to pay enough attention when a special part reaches a Point of critical decay. Too late perhaps the Auto Industry now receives psychosurgery at the hands of Emma Rothschild though she does a magnificent Job and with an abundance of British irony and scholarly Cool. Without spilling a drop of blood fortunately for the Industry has Little enough to spare she lays it All open in her Book Paradise lost the decline of the Auto Industrial age random House.  is the daughter of lord Victor Rothschild a British think Tanker is a Cousin of the banking House rothschilds took a Bachelor s degree from Oxford in 1967 at the age of 19, did graduate work at m.i.t., and has written for such outfits Robert Sherrill. Washington reporter or the nation wrote this article Jor the new York times. As the London sunday times and the new York review of books. One of those in the Auto Industry whom she interviewed for this Book later described her to me As  he s in for a Jolt when he reads Para Dise lost but in a Way i can see from her writing where he might get that first impression. There is an orderliness and ele Gance Here that is deceptive it s almost quaint a kind of i am now going to Tell you Why Auto executives think the Way they do. I am now telling you Why they think the Way they do. I have now told you Why and this is the import of it style that is usually associated with 19th Century German philosophers. Some times too she contemplates her topic with such intensity that she repeats herself. But extra orderliness and repetition of themes Are in Rothschild s hands not Only charming and persuasive but highly prac tical they permit her to cram All sorts of complexities and sly extravagances into a simple Mold and permit the Reader to enjoy her endless examples of psychoses of advertising departments that in Des pair turn to Lap Robes to sell the 1973 Cadillac without fearing that he will for get the Point she set out to make. You will cheat both yourself and Rothschild if you take Paradise lost Only for what it at first appears to be a sober sociological study it is much livelier and Richer than that almost cinematic and one can hear in the background the mindless wheezing and clanking and gurgling of some great Industrial tragicomedy like Alec guinness s the Man in the White suit or Chaplin s  the relative importance of work and machine time she writes was show clearly by the Ford motor company in a lavish Book Ford at fifty published for the company s anniversary in 1953. A Cen tenfold explains How a car is Assem bled 73 drawings show a car moving through an Assembly Plant from floor pan at 9 hours 24 minutes to test drive 0 hours 0 minutes the signs pro claiming Assembly time Are Large and bold and dominate the picture. At each stage of production tiny workers Are dwarfed by Serene the line and the Over sized Ford cars As they add for example deck lid weather strip at 4 hours 52 minutes " she is a Prodigy of the lat firing under statement and the throwaway line the Only major postwar automotive Advance applied seriously by the . Auto Industry is the Wankel rotary engine a German invention first developed efficiently in Japan and studied in America by a . Division which specialized in aerospace  what Rothschild uncovers at the top of the Auto Industry is what you might find inside the Skull of a 13th-Century Monk old faiths petrified and rattling around like agates. And that says Rothschild is Why the Gates of Eden Are closed forever to the Auto executives. They Are apparently in capable of surrendering their Faith in out dated Ford ism and Sloan ism one Equa Ting the worker with a machine the other seeing the customer Only As a fickle and easy Mark for gew Gaws. The work and the work alone controls us said Ford the founder. But his work America s smallest state showed up As number one in traffic safety a Survey by the High Way users federation revealed. Little Rhode Island showed that it was doing the Best Job of All the states when it came to keeping Down the annual traffic fatality rates. Its Only rival was the District of Columbia. The report by the Highway group said that the recently is sued compilation of motor vehicle death rate statistics for 1972 showed that Rhode Island was far below the National average for Highway carnage any Way those rates Are measured. The mileage death rate traffic deaths per 100 million vehicle Miles for the entire nation last year was 4.53, but in Rhode is land it was 2.5. The registration death rate traffic fatalities per 100,000 motor vehicles for the nation was 4.66, the report showed. For Rhode Island it was2.2. The population death rate traffic fatalities per 100,000 population was 27.2 for the nation or More than twice the figure for Rhode Island which stood at Only 12.6. In this category the District of Columbia did still better with9.7. Home of the larger states had far worse traffic death rates. For example Montana s mile age death rate led the nation at 7.3 or far above the National average and nearly three times the rate of Rhode Island. Wyoming s population death rate was a grim 57.1. This meant that the Chance of being killed in a traffic crash in Wyoming were More than four times greater than in Rhode is land. There Are a wide variety of reasons for such disparity in traffic death rates safety experts say. The Rhode Island annual Highway safety work program for 1973 says improved High ways More thorough motor vehicle inspections and safer cars Are probable factors other fac tors Are the expanded activities of local communities in the pro motion of safety and Law enforce  a smallest state has lowest death rate Rhode Island had one fourth As Many traffic fatalities per 100,000 population As Wyoming n.j.2.8 Dei 3.8 my 3.7 2.5 "wash.d.c. District of Columbia also had an excellent record for traffic safety traffic deaths per 100 my turn Miles h 0to2.8 1h12.9 to 4.5 we a to 6.0 Over 6.0 Erth 19 to Evke Cai Lei sex no so be Frt pc Evv but Clarl Thul an d i p or Hipa pc the Hij w sir ii Pim Roj Ca Asifo Icil sex St by and Lein be Page 14 the stars and stripes wednesday no is child vere not convinced though he paid a revolutionary $5 a Day As Early As i the Assembly line was deadly Mono s and degrading. It was also How efficient enough to allow Ford to cutting prices. He produced a touring 0 years ago that sold for the equiv f $700 in today s Money and these Lent machines rolled Forth in such piers and with such popularity that Auto executives envisioned them Jyring the face of the  lore Ford ism went quite that far a religiosity gripped the Auto world. Al 31oan of general motors believed that s inexpensive standardized car was for getting the first time customer Way to make Auto owners Trade inlay and keep trading in was to Ige the style and contours and colors the gadgetry every year. Moreover Vas the Only was to Fli Flam an an Rice increase. Those two isms flooding production frazzle dazzle change the Church of it was founded. For a time it was an i Sously creative Church and had no pm winning converts. Auto own grew seven times faster than the i population during the 1920 s. Be the Church of Rome the Church of it easily persuaded rulers and Princi Les to pay tribute. On its behalf the iral government spent $60 billion for ingest single Public works program in by the 42,500-mile interstate High system. On its behalf neighbourhoods fitted to disembowelment and cities being buried under Concrete and As the heart of los Angeles if that is contradiction in terms is 60 per cent i and parking areas. Its votaries be legion there Are in the United states As Many mechanics As doctors Andiss. A then the consuming Public Begalle Faith. Ivan t that autos weren t still useful All some doctors believe one of every suicides Are committed in Auto Cra but that they have such pestilential effects. Although the average Auto is 3d 22 hours a Day still the streets Are led with them the air foul with their just the Trade in mania became a con Drain on an already drained family let. Where was the Paradise Detroit promised h the Market already nearing the sat on Point Many sour Consumers began piping foreign idols imports now at least 10 per cent of the Market workers catching the consumer s 1, increasingly committed the Sacri of absenteeism. And yet Detroit s Auto Itri lists once envied for their in Veness but now paralysed by fear and Ember 21, 1973 inertia still depended on the old time Reli Gion to pull them through. If it had worked in 1933, Why not 1973? to Cut costs they accelerated the Assem Bly line. The infamous Lordstown line which had moved 60 impalas an hour now moved 110 vegas. And when workers growled they got the same old Creed in the face. Joseph Godfrey of . ". There is no such thing As Monotony on the Assem Bly line. If we can occupy a Man for 60 minutes we be got that right but it in t exactly paying off. In its first two years on the Market 95 per cent of All vegas . S answer to German and japanese Small car Competition were re called for defects ranging from wheels that fell off to dashboards that burst into flames. It was advertised As the Little car that does everything  with Sloan ism still dominant no Little car can remain Little or simple or cheap very Long. As for the Mammoth cars Auto engineers Are unashamedly ducking into the Henry Ford museum in Dearborn to study half Century old pneumatic bumpers for possible adoption. And so the once mighty Detroit its feet locked in Concrete begins to sink. Some Auto executives talk candidly of going Down the  Rothschild sees a pos sible analogy Here with the great textile and rail empires of England in the last Century to which that nation had committed itself too deeply and from whose decline it never fully recovered. If Detroit does survive it May be As a spinoff of the mess it has helped create. If the plague of Center City traffic becomes so intense that regular cars Are banned you can look for an outpouring of . Or Detroit May take Over the manufacturing of mass transit vehicles. Why do you think the Highway lobby allowed con Gress for the first time to Mark some of the Highway Trust fund for Urban transit still one More possibility. At the conclusion of his Paradise lost Milton says of Adam and eve s prospects some natural tears they Dropp a but wiped the soon. The world was All before them where to choose their place of rest and Providence their guide. The Auto makers like our first parents have their eyes on that great world out there too for Providence has guided the to Many millions of innocents abroad who Haven t yet heard the gospel of  s it writes Rothschild what scope for growth Indonesia three vehicles forever thousand people Taiwan six per thousand the poor Heathen. Over 1.5 million Miles of soft top reported even the Federal Highway system is Only 85 per cent paved says president of the Highway users Assn. 70% of the nation s 563,000 Bridges were built before 1935. 3.7 million Miles of roads roads 45% paved More than 90% of America s roads were built before 1956. Appeal issued for a National commitment to improve the nation s primary and secondary roads and streets. Federal support Hiral support m mates roads pays Hess than a blocks less than half of the nation s 3.7 million Miles of roads Are paved says the president of the Highway users Assn. In an Appeal for More Federal funds. The rest of our roads Are gravel or dirt said d. Grant Mickle who also was Deputy administrator of the Federal High Way administration under presi Dent John f. Kennedy dirt in the dry season that is and mud when it  there s a tremendous need for Roadway improvements financed by both Federal and state dollars said Mickle. We hear legitimate complaints about potholes or Sharp curves and they should receive attention. But one of the strongest remind ers of How far we have yet to go is this statistic Only 45 per cent of America s roads have any paving on them. Even the Feder Al Aid system is Only 85 per cent  in addition to the unpaved roads there Are the once modern highways that became obsolete As traffic and Speed soared beyond the capacity of the roads. Of course the gasoline shortage May alleviate some of these problems. More than 90 per cent of our roads were built before 1956," said Mickle and most of these clearly predate the Era of mod Ern Highway engineering and the recent quantum jumps in traffic  another concern of the High Way users is the fact that 70 per cent of the nation s 563,000 Bridges were built before 1935. More than 88,000 of these Are considered critically deficient by the Federal Highway administration. Obviously there s plenty to do just improving the roads we already have said Mickle. Ederal support for Amer Ica s roads pays less than a Quarter of All Highway related costs statistics show. In 1971, the Federal outlay was $4.7 billion or 22 per cent of the $21.2 billion spent throughout the nation for highways. This rises to about 36 per cent after sub rating state and local funds for Bond retirement maintenance and other purposes. A the stars and stripes Page 15