26 MY AMERICAN FRIENDS

conditions of Industrial America. Industrial
depression, already advanced in 1930, was
quickening inquiry into the question, "«What will
the community do with the ever-increasing amount
of work-free time which the progressive applica-
tion of science to industry is bringing about, and
of which the present phenomenon of unemploy-
ment is a foretaste ? " I had often heard the same
question asked at home, and indeed taken some
small part myself in asking it, but this was the
first time I had come into contact with a national
movement whose leaders were alive to the gravity
of the problem and intent upon grappling with
its enormous difficulties. Obviously, I had much
to gain, both in knowledge and inspiration, from
further contact with the work of the Association.
Accordingly when its leaders asked me to give
wider hearing to the ideas I had ventilated at their
Conference I did not hesitate to give an affirmative
answer. The consequence was that I undertook
the longest of my American tours, and the most
instructive. It occupied nine months of 1931—
1932, and took me into forty-two of the forty-eight
States of the American Union, brought me into
contact everywhere with interesting groups of men
and women, and revealed to me aspects of Ameri-
can life of which I had previously known little,
either from reading books about America, or from
personal experience. A glance at the map which
accompanies this book will show (he reader the
area over which I travelled and the cities I visited*