IT IS A PLEASURE to participate for a few moments in this tribute to Mr. Heinz from his employees throughout the world. His association with me in service during the war and many times since, when I have summoned him from his business to undertake public service, gives me a right to be in spirit amongst those who join in this occasion.
It is also a satisfaction to engage for a moment in the anniversary of the establishment which has a record of over 60 years of continuous industrial peace. This long history is proof that there is common ground of mutual interest and humane relations between employer and employee, for this concern could not have weathered all these years of shifting currents in good times and bad times had it been otherwise.
And year by year do we realize more of our responsibilities in the human relations within industry. Mechanization is so distinctive of our modern civilization that even as a mechanical conception we often tend to forget that the most wonderful and powerful machine in the world is the men and women themselves. It is the human being from which achievement is won far more than the tool.
However astonishing may be the increase in usefulness of machines as they grow in size and ingenuity, their improvement is little as compared with the enlarged effectiveness of organized intelligence and cooperation when men pool their efforts to achieve a common end. Man's conquest of machines is less spectacular than his conquest of his own will.
To build up and preserve unbroken a cooperative spirit between a great group of employers and employees for two long generations is a cheering proof of the possibilities of human nature. The secret of it is more important to mankind than any secret of trade or any new invention.
Fortunately, there is nothing mysterious about it, nothing patentable or exclusive, nothing that is not free to be used by all. The key to it is as old as the religions we profess. Its origins and its power lie in generations of education and scientific research, in the benignant forces of mutual good will, the spirit of mutual helpfulness, the virtues of patience and toleration and understanding. This spirit of accommodation has won all of the ultimate victories in history. Wars between nations, wars between groups within nations, industrial conflicts, all end in what appears to be victory for one of the contenders, but the real victory arrives only after the battle has been forgotten and when the human nature of both sides meets in cheerful agreement upon a common solution.
Industrial conflict is the greatest waste in industry. It not only delays production and diminishes it, but its most hurtful results are inflicted upon the lives and spirits of men and women. We can measure its productive losses in unmade goods and unearned dollars, but incalculable is its needless toll of suffering.
Moreover, the purpose of industry is only in part to create objects, articles, and services which satisfy physical needs. This is an essential function, but the higher purpose of industry is to provide satisfactions of life to human beings not alone in its products but in the work of production itself. Unless industry makes living men and women and children happier in their work, unless it gives opportunity and creative satisfactions in the job itself, it cannot excuse its failure by pleading that at least it has kept them alive. Man learned the art of staying alive long before he learned the art of mechanics. The machine must build him a better life, not alone in time of leisure but in joy of work, than he knew before. I have every faith that in the broad view it is doing so, not only in its products and relief from sweat, but that it increasingly enlarges man's satisfactions in his toil.
I congratulate you most heartily upon the part that you have all played in the task of subordinating the mechanism of industry to the well-being of the men and women who operate it. This experience may not be universal. If it were, the world would be wealthier in spirit by the incalculable enrichments of human happiness.
Note: The President spoke at 8:30 p.m. from his office in the White House in connection with the H. J. Heinz International Radio Banquet commemorating the company's 61 continuous years of industrial peace. His remarks were broadcast to dinners of Heinz employees throughout the United States, and in Canada, Great Britain, Spain, South Africa, and Australia. The principal dinner was held in Pittsburgh, Pa., where the Heinz employees dedicated a new theatre and recreation building.
In his opening remarks, the President referred to Howard Heinz, president of the H. J. Heinz Company.
Herbert Hoover, Remarks to the H. J. Heinz International Radio Banquet. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/212305
