THE MOTOR CONTEST 7 



diplomatic manager of an experimental department, trained 

 as a salesman; the untechnical publicity man; the mechanical 

 engineer and the chief inspector of one concern; the shop super- 

 intendent of another, and the Canadian sales-manager in 

 another case. An intensely interested gallery follows every 

 move. The head of a great company meets fifty subordinates 

 on the field. In one short day he progresses from vast igno- 

 rance of even the commonest terms to a masterly grasp of the 

 stupendous opportunity pictured by this brief contest. A 

 veteran builder proclaims his impatience with a contest that 

 pays him nothing for the expense and worry, yet down in his 

 heart he knows he could not be kept out. A bluff man, risen 

 from the rank of salesman to the leadership of an immense 

 concern, is deep in conversation with an eager young officer 

 who has brought an old company in the states a new lease of 

 life. At some lull an eavesdropper finds them betting a hat 

 on the result of the contest. The next moment they plunge 

 into a discussion of what manufacturers can do to prevent the 

 impending shortage of skilled labor, which must cripple us as a 

 manufacturing nation. Astride a water tank, and losing no 

 detail of the proceedings, is the dapper, rosy-faced man who 

 rules one of the largest thresher companies with an iron hand. 

 In a buggy that seems strangely out of place follows an elderly, 

 mild-mannered man who has brought his new engine to the 

 motor contest to give it a tryout such as he is unable to give 

 it at the factory. 



The professor of mechanical engineering rubs elbows with 

 professors of agricultural engineering. The superintendent 

 of motive power in a great railway system exchanges views on 

 traction dynamometers with the inventor of the ones used in 

 the contest. In a sociable group are government represen- 

 tatives from Russia, Canada, and the United States, and a half 

 dozen non-competing manufacturers from the world-at-large. 

 There are scores of men building steam and gas tractors; sta- 

 tionary gas engine builders whose mouths water at the dream of 



