Mr. Ripley quickly showed us an electric machine for beating eggs, and then asked us to go upstairs to the bedroom. There he quickly took off his coat and lay down on the bed.

"Imagine that I am asleep."

Without any effort we painted in our imagination the restful picture entitled, "Papa Sleeps."

"But now it is morning. It is time to rise. Oh, oh, oh!" He rose and yawned quite naturally.

"Pay attention to this lamp. I turn on the electricity, and while I, stretching and yawning, take off my pyjamas, the lamp shines on my body. But this is no ordinary lamp. It is an artificial sun, which gives a normal tan. There are ten minutes at my disposal. I rise from my bed and walk up to this gymnastic apparatus. Here I turn on another quartz lamp and, continuing to be tanned while lying in the sun, I begin my gymnastics. People don't like to do gymnastics in the morning. Our firm took that into consideration. Therefore, you don't have to make any movements. You only put these belts around you and turn on the electricity. The apparatus massages you in the most conscientious manner. However, according to the physicians, it is harmful to do this for more than five minutes. But man, gentlemen, is far from being a perfect instrument. He might forget to look at his watch and to turn off the electricity. The apparatus will not let him forget. It will stop its activity of its own volition, and it will do so precisely in five minutes."

We had more than once met with this type of phenomenon in American technique. It is called "foolproof"—protection from the fool. High technique distrusts man, has no faith in his resourcefulness. Wherever possible it tries to protect itself from errors native to a living creature. The term which was invented to describe it is cruel, ruthless—foolproof —protection from the fool! At the construction of the largest hydroelectric station in the world, Boulder Dam, we saw a crane which lowered wagon-loads of materials into a deep ravine. It is easy to imagine all the complexity and danger of such an operation. It is sufficient merely to confuse the electric buttons that regulate this apparatus to cause a catastrophe. But there can be no mistake. In the steering booth where the mechanic sits there is only one button. The machine does everything on its own. It will never come to work in a state of inebriety. It is always composed, and its resourcefulness is beyond all praise.

Mr. Ripley continued to show us more and more new electric wonders of his little house. Here were an electric razor and the latest model vacuum cleaner and a washing machine and a special ironing press, which has taken the place of the electric iron, that anachronism of the twentieth century. When from under a smoothly polished table he pulled an electric sewing machine, we were already worn out. If at that moment Mr. Ripley would have led us into the yard and, turning to the house, had said: "Stand, little house, with your back to New York, with your front facing me," and the little house, like the little hut on hen's legs, would have fulfilled this request with the aid of electricity, we would not have been much surprised.

It is time to tell who this Mr. Ripley is. He is in charge of the publicity department of the General Electric Company. Translated into Russian, publicity means advertising, yet this is too simple an explanation. Publicity is a much broader concept. In American life it plays a role perhaps no less important than that of technique itself.

We have come to associate with American publicity the vociferousness of barkers, countless placards, premiums, gleaming electric signs, and so forth. There is, of course, that kind of advertising in America. However, this method of uninterruptedly stunning the consumer is used only by manufacturers of cigarettes, chewing gum, alcohol, or that cooling drink, Coca-Cola.

Mr. Ripley's little house is not an advertising house. It is a scientific house. Here the grey-haired gentleman, day in and day out, month in and month out, calculates the cost of exploiting this or that electric appliance. By the side of each, one of them hangs a meter. Mr. Ripley carries on experiments and tests the new machines from the point of view of economy. Then he writes a book. He is an author. And in that book there are no chauvinistic cries to the effect that the products of General Electric are better than the products of Westinghouse. On the contrary, when we asked Mr. Ripley whether Westinghouse refrigerators are good, he told us that they are very good. In his book he explains how convenient it is to use electricity in everyday life, and proves with the aid of authentic figures that electricity is cheaper than gas, oil, and coal. In his book there is precise information about the cost of an electric stove per hour, per day, per week, and per month. In conclusion he informs you that the exploitation of the entire electric house costs seven dollars a week. He knows well that this is the best method of persuading the consumer.

Contemporary American technique is incomparably higher than American social conditions—that of a capitalist society. While that technique produces ideal things which make life easier, social conditions do not let the American earn enough money to buy these things.

Deferred payment is the foundation of American trade. All things in the home of an American are bought on the instalment system:" the stove on which he cooks, the furniture on which he sits, the vacuum cleaner with which he cleans his rooms, the house itself in which he lives—everything is acquired on the instalment system. For all this he must pay money over a score of years. Essentially, neither the house nor the furniture nor the wonderful gadgets of an almost ideal life belong to him. The law is very strict. If out of a hundred payments he makes ninety-nine and does not have enough money to make the hundredth payment, the thing he is paying for will be taken away. For the vast majority, property is a fiction. Everything, even the bed on which this desperate optimist and enthusiastic defender of property sleeps, belongs not to him but to the industrial company or to the bank. It is enough for a. man to lose his job, and the very next day he begins to understand clearly that he is no kind of proprietor at all, but the most ordinary slave, like a Negro, only white in colour.

Yet it is impossible to refrain from buying.

A polite ringing of the door-bell and in the room appears an utter stranger. Without wasting time on any introductory speeches, the visitor says:

"I have come here to place a new electric stove in your kitchen."

"But I already have a gas stove," replies the astonished proprietor of the little house, the washing machine, and the standardized furniture, which he must still pay for over many years.

"The electric stove is much better and more economical. However, I'm not going to argue with you. I will install it and I shall return in a month. If you don't like it, I will take it away. But if you like it, the terms are very easy: twenty-five dollars the first month, and then . . ."

He installs the stove. In a month the master of the house has had time to assure himself that the stove is really remarkable. He is already accustomed to it and cannot part with it. He signs a new agreement and begins to feel as rich as Rockefeller.

You will agree that this is much more convincing than an electric sign.

It would seem that in the life of the average American—or, in other words, of the American who has a job—there must come the moment when he will pay up all his debts and really become a proprietor. But that is not so easy. His automobile has become old. The firm offers him a new excellent model. The firm takes the old machine back for a hundred dollars, and for the remaining five hundred it gives him wonderfully easy terms: the first month so many dollars, and then .. .