FIGHTING THE INSECTS 



"By George!" said McGee. "I would willingly pay a high price 

 for sitting at the table with him." 



I told all this to Hammond the next day, and he said, "Doctor, 

 in view of the high standing of these men, I will reduce the price 

 of introductions to, say, twenty-five dollars per." 



As I have mentioned Hammond's name, I may as well tell 

 one other story about him. Years later I was a guest at an 

 engineers' dinner in Washington. Hammond was the principal 

 speaker. His subject was "The Engineer in Politics," and he 

 played up all the qualifications of the engineer — how he is the 

 real man in big affairs, and how, of all citizens, his judgment 

 is the best. Therefore, the engineer, for the good of the country, 

 should go into politics and take a most active part. It was a good 

 speech, and Hammond sat down probably well satisfied. At all 

 events, the rest of us liked the speech extremely. 



The man who followed him was Franklin K. Lane, then 

 Secretary of the Interior, a delightful man and a famous after- 

 dinner speaker. He smiled broadly at his audience, and said 

 that he had been very much impressed by Mr. Hammond's 

 speech, and was inclined to agree with him. 



"But," he said, "back in my brain I think that, if I remember, 

 the last time that I heard of an engineer going into politics, he 

 wound up in jail!" 



Of course the Jameson Raid was fresh in our memories, and 

 we all yelled with delight. 



While there can be no doubt that this permanent secretaryship 

 was a good thing for me personally, in ways that I have already 

 pointed out, it must also have been beneficial to applied en- 

 tomology, since it brought an entomologist into intimate asso- 

 ciation with workers in other branches of science, who were 

 more highly esteemed by people at large, and it helped to show 



[224] 



