[alarm clock]
SCHMIDT: That's an impersonal sound made by an indispensable, impersonal
machine. But you respond to it in a very personal way. You get out of bed. You respond to it in a hurry because you know that one hour after you hear that sound, you will hear a sound like this.[train whistle]
SCHMIDT: And when you hear a sound like that, you are supposed to be in the
vicinity of noises like these.[machine sounds]
SCHMIDT: You are a factory worker in a large industrial community. You live in
an apartment building in the sooty heart of the big city. You have lived there for ten years, but you don't know the people across the hallway from you. You've worked in the same factory for ten years, but you have never seen your employer. You don't even know where he lives and you don't care. But you do know and care about this.[traffic sounds]
00:01:00SCHMIDT: Miles and miles of buses, trucks, trollies and automobiles. An obstacle
course of steel, concrete and carbon monoxide that leaves each day a casualty list of utterly wasted hours. It's an impersonal life, punctuated by impersonal sounds and the rubbing of strange elbows. These are but a few of the irritations which impose themselves on a life lived in a highly industrial community. There are exceptions. But whether you are the exception or the rule, think about this for a moment. What do you think if someone should tell you there is an industrial community where everyone is an exception?[organ music]
SCHMIDT: This community is not an experimental utopia. It started nearly a
century ago in the wake of the retreating Indian, and grew slowly, steadily. It 00:02:00is now as thoroughly dominated by industry as any community in the United States. The alarm clocks, the factory whistles and machines are all there, but the men who respond to them are different. They own their homes and their window sills are not covered with soot. They know their neighbors and their employers. They went to school with him, they call him by his first name. Listen now to the story of this community as told by the people who live there.[organ music]
NARRATOR: The Wisconsin College of the Air presents the "Profile of West Bend,"
the third documentary story in a recorded series about the people who live in the cities and towns of our state. And here is your narrator-producer Carl Schmidt.SCHMIDT: Traveling north from Madison to Beaver Dam, and east on Highway 33 past
the Horicon Marsh to the Milwaukee River, we found the biggest little city in 00:03:00Wisconsin. That's what they call it. And you can't very well dispute that claim, because if you don't live there, you haven't the authority to dispute it. And if you do live there, you're inclined to make the claim yourself. What motivates a claim like that? Well, the reasons can be as intangible as the smiles on people's faces, or as tangible as a brick chimney. The answers are hard to find, and harder still to express in words. Listen closely to the people of West Bend talking about their community. Tune your ear to their inflections, to how they speak as well as what they speak.[organ music]
BUCKLIN: I have been here in West Bend almost fifty years. After I had been in
West Bend a few months, I thought that this was the place where I wanted to 00:04:00live. Now why was it? I had once sensed a feeling of amity, we'll say, good fellowship, and I think through fifty years of experience I have never seen it subside. I have talked with people all along the line ever since I have been here, and I found that the people who would come here as young folks have the same feeling that I had fifty years ago. Now, there must be something to it.[organ music]
SCHMIDT: There must be something to it. That statement by Judge F. W. Bucklin,
whose name was mentioned more than any other as a man to talk with when you want to learn about West Bend. There are many things to it, we learned, and most of 00:05:00them begin with this.[factory whistle]
PICK: It is the industries of West Bend that employ the people that make the
products that the industry sells, that brings in the money to pay the people, so that they can spend it to raise their families, to buy the food and clothes that keeps the merchants busy. The money that builds the churches and schools, and builds the parks, and paves the streets, comes from the people industry employs. The payrolls from industry in West Bend runs to approximately eight million dollars a year; a very, very large percentage of that is poured directly into the city of West Bend through some medium or other. That's what makes West Bend tick. 00:06:00SCHMIDT: The tangible elements of prosperity in a small, highly industrialized
community. A community supporting and supported by nearly twenty manufacturing industries, employing more than twenty-eight hundred people out of a total of about eight thousand. The man you heard just a moment ago was Carl Pick, president of the Pick Industries, one of the men responsible for West Bend's industrial prominence. Industry is a calculated thing; it doesn't come by chance. It has to build on something that already exists. It doesn't make something out of nothing. West Bend grew from a river and a road; the road was between Milwaukee and Fond du Lac, and West Bend was the halfway mark, a natural stopping-off place. The river, the Milwaukee, was a small one, but it furnished enough power for sawmills and gristmills. Then the railroads came, making distant raw material available and bringing German settlers, trained in manual 00:07:00skills and possessing careful, painstaking business practices. These were the things that started West Bend on its way to industrialization.[organ music]
SCHMIDT: One of the dominant influences in West Bend's history is today almost
completely submerged. You may detect a little nostalgia, a little sadness in this statement by Michael Gehl, the mayor of West Bend.GEHL: In 1904, when I came over here, most everybody on the street, in the
factories, and all over, talked German. You don't hear--hardly hear any of it anymore now.SCHMIDT: Now you only notice the German influence in a few colloquial
expressions, or when you read the names in the telephone directory. Or if you visit the Enger-Kress Company, they will tell you the first leather workers came directly from Stuttgart. At the West Bend Aluminum Company, they will tell you how the first pots and pans fashioned in West Bend were made of aluminum 00:08:00imported from Germany.[organ music]
SCHMIDT: They told us with a chuckle that West Bend leaves nothing to be
desired, unless you have some noncombustible garbage to get rid of. Then they said you turn to Barton. Innocently, we asked if Barton was a dump, and the chuckles grew to a laugh. The laugh's motivation was revealed when we talked with Tony Staral, clerk of the Village of Barton and clerk of Washington County. Here he is, telling of the exchange of public services between West Bend and Barton.STARAL: They burn our combustible garbage in their incinerator. However, on the
other hand we do something for the city of West Bend. We furnish the finest dump in this area for their noncombustible garbage.SCHMIDT: One might think that a village of nine hundred people, close enough to
West Bend to share garbage disposal facilities, would dissolve its government 00:09:00and join West Bend. Here is what Mayor Gehl said about it.GEHL: West Bend would like to have Barton. Of course, they have a separate
municipality up there, and they like it, and they eventually probably will come in.SCHMIDT: The Bartonians like things as they are. Or as Tony Staral puts it:
STARAL: Why should we get mad, as long as we get along so well together according?
SCHMIDT: A more tangible reason concerns taxes.
STARAL: I think as far as taxes go, it would be a little cheaper. We do have a
rate of about nine dollars less than the city of West Bend, and our assessment is based on the same schedule.SCHMIDT: That's a situation you can find in hundreds of communities across the
United States, a small town nestling on the fringe of a larger one, maintaining a separate identity because of lower taxes. But pride is just as important as tax savings, especially in Barton, for Barton is older than West Bend. The younger town grew faster, perhaps because it lies on more level ground more favorable to building factories. Nobody seems to know exactly, and nobody is 00:10:00going to bother about the reasons for disproportionate growth, as long as that growth takes place in harmony.[barbershop quartet rehearsing harmony]
SCHMIDT: When you use the word "harmony" in West Bend, you may be talking about
labor management relations, West Bend-Barton relations, or just plain relations, or just plain harmony. The Barbershop quartet is the most prevalent type of musical organization in West Bend. The quartet is a practical little group. It doesn't require a director, and nobody has to have an outstanding voice. All you 00:11:00have to do is harmonize-- and they are used to that, whether they are singing, working, or just walking down the street. It is one of those intangible things that makes a good community. Dr. E. L. Burnhardt, city health officer, expressed it this way.BURNHARDT: When you live in West Bend, you are not living in West Bend alone.
You have your friends, and practically everyone in West Bend is your friend, with your exceptions.[barbershop quartet singing]
SCHMIDT: America is a nation of national pastimes. Only in a community of first
and second generation immigrants will you ordinarily find unusual forms of recreation. If certain sports are emphasized more in one community than in another, the difference is generally caused by geography. Geography has afforded 00:12:00West Bend a lake: Big Cedar Lake, big enough for sailing. Besides sailboats, Big Cedar contains a healthy population of walleyed pike, which refuse to strike. Hence, West Bend probably contains more frustrated pike fishermen than any town in Wisconsin. Compensating for the reluctant pike are the hungry trout planted in streams near town by the Conservation Department. The rolling wooded hills near West Bend furnish excellent cover for small game and golf balls. The sixth hole at the West Bend Country Club is famous and infamous; a challenge to a good golfer and a nemesis to an ordinary human being. A man who tackles it frequently, judging by the vividness of his description, is Dave Ross.ROSS: For example, if we take number six, which I guess is the [unintelligible]
on most people who play out there. If your drive is two hundred and fifty yards, you are all right, that is if it is straight and it is far out. On your second 00:13:00shot, you approach a high bunker. And on the right of you there is a woods, and on the left there is a woods. If you can clear this bunker with a long straight second wood shot, incidentally the hole is close to six hundred yards long, you are in a good position for your third shot. Now, the third shot revolves a woods to the right and a woods to the left and a woods in front of you. So besides having to hit a straight ball, you also have to hit a ball that is neither too long nor too short. By this time, if you are on the green in three, you can pick up your ball and take a par and not worry about it because nobody will call you on it.[organ music]
SCHMIDT: Industry, looming as large as it does in West Bend, can be expected to
have its effect on nearly every phase of community life, especially government. Perhaps the most important effect is this one pointed out 00:14:00by Clyde Schloemer, former mayor of West Bend.SCHLOEMER: The part I enjoyed most about my experience with industry and
business when I was mayor was the fact that having good, progressive industries in town brings in a lot of people who are well-educated, and who are community-minded, and it gives a reservoir of intelligent citizenship, from which to make a selection for good constructive municipal service.SCHMIDT: But before industrialization can take place, Mr. Schloemer implied, the
government must adopt a positive policy.SCHLOEMER: I think West Bend was one of the few communities that assessed
industry on a formula basis, based on their income tax report. We did it feeling that some fair ratio ought to be established between assessing factories, and 00:15:00assessing homes, and assessing business places. And it ought to be fair, so that industries' share of the taxes would be in proportion to what it should be, and without any penalty being imposed.SCHMIDT: This brand of practical cooperation is not restricted to leaders in
government and industry. It depends upon a feeling of responsibility that springs from everyone. This is how Mr. Schloemer explained it.SCHLOEMER: I have found in the eight years that I was around here as mayor, most
everyone realized in West Bend that you can't have a progressive city, and a growing city, unless you have good progressive industry and it's everybody's responsibility to make the town a healthy place for industry to locate.[organ music]
00:16:00SCHMIDT: We are in the machine shop now at the Vocational School at West Bend.
Would you give me your name, sir?CHRISTIANSON: My name is Herb Christianson. I am an instructor here in the
industrial classes.SCHMIDT: Could you tell us some of the operations that we are seeing around
here? I presume these are students in Vocational School, is that right?CHRISTIANSON: Yes, these are machine shop apprentices, also farm mechanics, air
mechanics taking welding. The machines now in use are lathes, milling machines, chafers, filers, grinders, also hack saws and welders. They are under a contract with the Industrial Commission of the state, and also with the employer. The employer must see to it that they have the program that they must have to become a machinist, a welder or a toolmaker, the thing that they set out to do. Now then, this training program in the Vocational School, together with the training they get from the employer, will give them the training they need to become the 00:17:00full-fledged tool- and die-maker or machinist that they set out to become.SCHMIDT: We went through the machine shop and talked with an aircraft mechanic,
who flew missions on a B26 in the ETO. He is now taking a welding course and working with the Air Service Control. We asked him: what happened when you got out of service, did you immediately come back to Vocational School here?MECHANIC: No, I started in the University of Wisconsin and had a little accident
with my knee, so I had to start working. And then I got married, and then I got down here at the Air Service Control.SCHMIDT: What exactly do you plan on doing after you finish your Vocational
program here?MECHANIC: Well, I am going to stick with Air Service Control. It is a good
organization, and I am going to try to go with them right on through.SCHMIDT: The Vocational School, with its extensive apprentice training program,
is one of industry's most valuable assets in West Bend, because it pares many years off the bridge between skilled and unskilled labor. And, it assures a highly efficient labor force. Typical of the people who comprise the nucleus of 00:18:00skilled labor is a man we met in West Bend's largest factory. Here at the West Bend Aluminum Company now, we are talking with Mr. Ben Heiding. Mr. Heiding, could you tell us what your job is here?HEIDING: I am a die setter.
SCHMIDT: How long have you lived in West Bend?
HEIDING: I have been in West Bend now about seventeen years.
SCHMIDT: Where did you come from?
HEIDING: My home is up at Stanley, Wisconsin, in Chippewa County.
SCHMIDT: What brought you down here?
HEIDING: I come down here just during the Depression, got a job here, and
started working here and been here ever since.SCHMIDT: Mr. Heiding, we would like to talk to you a bit, too, about the labor
situation in West Bend. Tell us a little bit about what unions are active here. For instance, what union are you connected with?HEIDING: Connected with the UAW-AF of L.
SCHMIDT: Could you give us your opinion of what labor management relations are
here in West Bend? Just what you think they are, are they good, are they poor, fair? 00:19:00HEIDING: I think they are very good in West Bend.
SCHMIDT: What are some of the reasons for that, in your opinion?
HEIDING: I think it is cooperation from both sides.
SCHMIDT: And both sides cooperate, because they have good reasons for wanting to
cooperate. One excellent reason for labor's cooperation is job security. Here is what Mr. Heiding told us about unemployment.HEIDING: The unemployment in this town is very small. We have working two shifts
here at this time, two 47 1/2 hour shifts a week, and I am sure that's near a record anywhere in the country.SCHMIDT: That remarkable freedom from unemployment dates back as far as you care
to trace West Bend history. It even includes the Great Depression of the thirties. Remember that Ben Heiding came here during the Depression to get a job. Here is Mayor Mike Gehl's recollection of the Depression years.GEHL: Even at that time there weren't any factory close-ups altogether. They
00:20:00mostly all worked shorter hours, but they all gave their help enough employment so that they could keep on.SCHMIDT: Mayor Gehl was referring to one of West Bend's most important
characteristics. Judge Bucklin also stressed it.BUCKLIN: Some industries were affected adversely at different times from what
others were, and there seemed to be always one or two that could take up the slack and keep going. The eggs were not all in one basket.SCHMIDT: Diversification.
UNIDENTIFIED: Basically our products consist of personal leather goods...
SCHMIDT: Diversification.
UNIDENTIFIED: We make aluminum cooking utensils, aluminum giftware, copper
giftware, stainless steel utensils and some carbon steel items.SCHMIDT: Diversification.
UNIDENTIFIED: Farm implements consisting of forage harvesters, unloading
equipments, silo fillers, and hammermills.SCHMIDT: Diversification.
UNIDENTIFIED: We have just developed an animal [unintelligible] which does for
00:21:00the animal what a good cleaning does for yourself. It is a strange thing, but they kinda lean into it when it, when you come along with a cleaner. In fact, we have pictures of cows that wanted to break out of the stall so as to get close to the cleaner.SCHMIDT: Diversification through imagination. To these products add elevators,
and beer, woolen goods, washing machines and pancake syrup, cheese boxes, caskets, and concrete blocks. Diversification. Almost a synonym for West Bend industry. They are proud of it, and they are thankful for it. Not only does it exist among the various industries, but through special effort within specific industries.MALZAHN: When the seasonal requirements for certain products are over with, the
seasonal demand for other types of products come in to fill the production void, 00:22:00so to speak.SCHMIDT: Walter Malzahn, executive vice president of the West Bend Aluminum
Company. But in spite of these efforts, West Bend would probably have a certain amount of transient, unstable labor, except for one very unusual characteristic, described here by Steve O'Meara, president of the Chamber of Commerce.O'MEARA: The seasonal workers that come to work in industry and fall and stay
through the winter, and then go back to the farms in the spring, take the place of what ordinarily would be marginal workers, and workers that would be floaters and wouldn't hold a steady job in any community.[organ music]
SCHMIDT: West Bend industry has another unique characteristic, or should we say
unique blessing, because perhaps it is even more important than diversification 00:23:00in making West Bend a good community to live in. It is heard so often, in so many conversations that it stands out from one's memory like a cameo--it stands by itself without extraneous comment. This is how we heard it from the people of West Bend.CITIZEN: To a large extent, practically all of the industries are home-owned and
managed by local people, who were born and raised in this area.[organ music]
CITIZEN: One of the reasons, I believe, that West Bend has been so outstanding
industrially, is due to the fact that all of these industries in West Bend have been started in West Bend by individuals living here.[organ music]
CITIZEN: They started from scratch and felt their way.
[organ music]
CITIZEN: Most all of the industries of West Bend are owned by local capital.
00:24:00[organ music]
CITIZEN: The people know each other well. People that work in the factories know
the people who manage the business. They went to school together; they grew up in the community; they played baseball and other sports together.[organ music]
CITIZEN: They don't say "hello, Mayor," they call and they say "hello, Mike" and
that is true all over the town, no matter how big a man is here or how well thought of he is, they call them by their first name here.[organ music]
CITIZEN: Where an industry starts in a small way, why, the proprietor works
along with the men that are hired. There is a community of interest, which is pretty hard to defeat.[organ music]
SCHMIDT: You hear it wherever you go in West Bend--home ownership, local
00:25:00capital. You hear of harmony and cooperation, and you see it manifested in the personalities of the people you meet. You hear of harmony, and you hear the harmony itself. You hear of job security, and you see the cheerful pleasant homes, owned by people confident in the stability of their incomes. You hear the cold statistics telling of West Bend's high degree of industrialization, but around you is the warm revelation of small town friendliness. West Bend combines the conveniences of a large city with a soul satisfying closeness to man and nature, that only a small community can provide. In the words of Dr. Burnhardt, it is "a city with a garden around the outside, and no matter where you live in West Bend, the biggest little city in Wisconsin, you know that the garden is only a few minutes away."[organ music]
00:26:00ANNOUNCER: This has been the "Profile of West Bend," the third documentary in a
recorded series entitled "Wisconsin Communities." Our special thanks to George Hess, Fred Baxter, and Steve O'Meara, all of West Bend, for their assistance in the preparation of this program. Production and narration was by Carl Schmidt, with technical assistance by Ben Rosse. The script was written by Les Nelson, with music provided by Patricia Hazard. This is the Wisconsin College of the Air.