Part 2 (1/2)

The consulting engineer represents the pinnacle, as it were, of professional success The inventor is so in the profession--and as such cannot be considered in a paper of this kind, save only as to say that he is the presiding genius a his kind, a hts is nowhere known of , as he does, the zenith of slowly attained power in soe--point open freely to all, is the eraduates should strive The consulting engineer has perfected himself in his chosen field; he has beco; his word is accepted as final in court and privy council Having gained to this enviable position only after prolonged study and protracted and wide experience in his particular specialty, the consulting engineer has well earned whatever accrues to hienerous fees for his services

Still, there are consulting engineers who have becoh accident The writer personally knows a consulting engineer as following a general engineering practice when called upon one day to advise a group of capitalists in the e ht not because he was a garbage expert, but rather because he was expert in intricate pipe layouts and the like However, once he got his hand into garbage disposition on a large scale, he re about the country supervising the design of similar plants whose object was the economical disposal of municipal refuse Practically alone in the field, his writings soon becaan with that first call, quite by chance, in a n to the subject

Like other professional ineers never knohen the heavens will open for their particular benefit

Yet these cases are rare The average consulting engineer is a h protracted study and hard work in one line He is a specialist with a high reputation for accuracy and skill in that line The basis of this skill, of course, lies in a broad general engineering experience, upon which is built a peculiar knowledge of a certain, and not infrequently isolated, branch of engineering

Heating and ventilating engineers are but specialists grown to such large nu Likewise, auto years in this branch The es, say, than any otherbrothers is a ht by industrial powers feeling the need for a dredge, just as aeye-strain will seek out the best specialist known to the ed authority in this line, and in doing so but follows a sane inner dictation

And that is consulting work The individual ofofas to which branch ofhe wishes to follow, enlist the services of a consulting engineer big by reputation in this branch The capitalist htway he will put hiineer whose specialty is paper- infor to spend on the venture, together with the location where he wishes, within certain prescribed limitations, to have his plant stand, , if he choose, until the plant is built and in operation The consulting engineer has done the rest He has gone out upon location, seeking sites with an eye to economy both of power and transportation; he has supervised the design of the plant and the location in the plant of the necessary machinery; has enlisted the service of a builder whose task it is to follow these plans from foundation to roof in the work of actual construction For this work the consulting engineer receives a fee, usually based upon a percentage of the cost, and then turns to other clients--waiting in his outer office--ould enlist his services in a siineer has other sources of revenue Like the lawyer, he is frequently retained by traction and lighting interests to guard the rights of these interests, service for which he receives payation, soements, sometimes hly specialized nature He is an authority, and when I have said that I have said all His retainer fees are large; his work is exact; he is a eneral practice He has his office, and retains a staff of engineers, usually young engineers just out of college, who, like hiaenerally is a ; is a ineer, but for the standard of living which he is able to set by virtue of his income Besides the sources of revenue which are his, and as I have set forth above, he is sought by technical editors to contribute to azines powerful in his field, and this is a pleasurable source of incoineer is astudents

As to the tiineer feels qualified to enter upon consulting work, that is so which ineer knows that he has become a factor in his chosen branch or specialty when he finds hiht in an advisory capacity ae that he has beco himself and his ith others and the work of these others in the field If he finds that he is designing a better plant or automatic machine, orstation than his neighbor, and, together with this knowledge, perceives also that capitalists are beating a deeper path to his door than to the doors of his competitors--to warp an E on the wall should be clear to hi sufficient capital to carry hi in the consulting field, he will open an office and insert his professional card in the journals in his field--and fly to it If he be a ineer--and can go no higher in the profession

The game is certainly worth the candle

VIII

THE ENGINEER IN CIVIC AFFAIRS

Much has been written of late of the engineer as a citizen--of his civic responsibilities, of his relation to legislation, to administration, to public opinion, and the like It is tiineer is about due for active participation in civic affairs other than a yearly visit to the polls to register his vote He has not done much more than this since his inception His work alone has sufficed, for hih the time is past when he can bury hiet aith it Men of the stareat need forin public affairs Such places heretofore have been filled with business men and lawyers These men served and served well

But since adely aprojects, it is assuredly the duty of engineers to take an active part in these public affairs

Exact knowledge, which in a ineer, is needed in high places in our nation Men of technical education and training have demonstrated their fitness as servants of the people in the few instances where such men have taken over the reins of adovernures and the relation of these figures to life, engineers readily perceive the true and the untrue in h as a body they have never exerted the properly under the head of public opinion Engineers have felt that they have not had the tie, chiefly owing to the engineer's self-imposed isolation, would not understand a voice froineers have kept silent The day has arrived, however, when this silence on the part of engineersin this as in other directions

Lawyers and politicians have successfully dole beautiful exception in George Washi+ngton at one end and another admirable exception in Woodrow Wilson at the other

Washi+ngton was a civil engineer, and Wilson, while trained as a lawyer, was an educator In between these twoof others ere not lawyers or politicians; the writer is not sure Of one thing he is sure, however, and that is that engineers in the future will dominate politics to the betterineers are idealists--otherwise they would never have entered upon an engineering career--and idealisain The man of vision of a wholesoet hie in tasks whoselike tasks can or will understand--which is pre-eineer--is the one man best fitted to administrate in public affairs More important still than this state to realize the truth of it Engineers as a body stand poised upon the ris Nor will they as a body stoop to the petty in politics, once they are fairly well launched in active participation of civic affairs Neither their training nor their outlook, based upon their training, will perroup of professional , as it is, the essence of a full life, is what is needed in our public adineers in the past who have become more or less prominent in the public eye--and there are sos as they are Westinghouse was the firstof the half-holiday Saturday as an innovation that proranted it to all his employees at a time when lesser industrial captains believed him to be at least ”queer” Ford set the pace for a minimum rate of five dollars a day in his plant, and lesser captains still frown upon hi other things, has told of the i--loose shoes and collars and hats--to a , but the insight of those who fornized What thesereveals them as members of a fraternity well qualified to lead public opinion rather than to follow it, as has been the province of engineers in the past Each when he has spoken or entered upon action having the public welfare in mind has pronounced or demonstrated a truth which fairly crackled with sanity

Engineers belong in civic affairs The world of huh places Humanity needs men in control of state and national affairs ould hold the interests of huineers s--not that But engineers do see things in their true light--cannot see theht than the one imposed by the law of mathematics, which is that two and two make four, never five or three--and this involuntarily would adraces from the point of view of absolute truth, which is, of course, the point of view of hureatest nuh places in the nation's affairs, the world of men and mankind would leap forward ethically and spiritually at a pace in keeping with the pace at which civilization has progressed under the iht since the days of Watt nobody can deny _that_ progress nobody could well deny the fact that ethical progress under engineering guidance would be equally great

I hold a brief for engineers, of course Engineering has been my e to associate intiineering ability The thirdchiefly to his advanced--rather too s He wanted to talk across the ocean by telephone at a time when the cable interests successfully prevented hi his apparatus And he died a disappointed inventor But he had the stuff in hireatness, just as had the other and ed to work All were men of kindly spirit, of broad outlook, of unselfish devotion to worldly interests

Each was a hus as they should be, and each thought much on problems of human welfare and betterment Of such men in civic affairs the nation, and indeed the entire world of nations, has had but a sad too few in the past It is to be hoped, and it is the belief of the writer, that engineers will become more plentiful in civic life in the future