Evening star., 1934-08-20

SOOU U,UUUUVU IOI lIllS year.
Operating expenses Oncluding only
the cost of fuel, purchased power.
salaries and wages and maintenance OF
plants and distribution systems) took q
similar jump, the approximate total
in 1894 being S815, 600, 900 as against
81 ,553. 90 900 this fiscal year.
These increased expenditures can
not have but helped our national
prosperity Take. for instance, the
undoubted effect upon the fuel indus
tries. In 1884 we used IS, ,52l ,970 tons
of Goals. 1871 900 gallons of oils and
by-products, and 90. .302 900 900 cubic
feet of natural and manufactured
gases, the last two classifications being
used either as fuel for steam plants
or for internal combustion engines.
The estimated relative figures OF this
year of 1864. 80 years later, are
5l,585,188 tons Of Goals. 12.205. 100
gallons of fuel oils and 294 ,973, 500 900
cubic feet Of gases.
Our transmission lines, including
the vast national network of copper
piping which now Is the foundation Of
our distributive and productive sys-
tenn (see map in yesterdays Sunday
STAR have increased In these past
80 years from a mileage of $50. 900 to
an estimated mileage of $50, 900; we
now have facilities for high-tension
transmission reaching in or near to
every village or hamlet or farm or
home in America
Upon New Threshold.
Yes. a decidedly satisfactory prog
ress; but still we stand only upon the
threshold of our ultimate develop
ment. For our mechanical and human
engineers still envision vistas Of new
employment for-power.
Men always will dream dreams.
Watt dreamed one-and produced the
steam engine Edison dreamed and
produced the dynamo; then Aladdin's
lamp. Forty years ago men were
dreaming dreams of today; they
thought it would be Utopia then even
as the dreamers of today look toward
their conception of the Utopia Of the
future.
Forty years ago, in 1924, Robert w.
Bruere, writing in the magazine
Survey Graphic, prophesied the his
tory OF these past four decades:
I'VE are on the threshold of q
technical revolution" he wrote.
Through high-voltage transmission
lines the mechanical engineers are
harnessing the rivers and the coal
seams to electrical generators having
the capacity of hundreds of thousands
of horses. They are gathering the
stored energy of the sun into reser-
voirs of power that compare with the
isolated steam engine as a modified
Nation compared with the Minute
Man. The forces for good and evil
latent in Giant Power surpass those
ushered in when Watts engine har-
messed coal to the looms of Eng
land.
The dominant purpose Of the me-
chanical engineer has been the in
crease of material wealth; the primary
concern of social worker and edu-
Gator, of health builder and civic
leader. of industrial hygienist and
labor organizer, Of the human engineer
by whatever name he Is called, is the
conservation and enrichment of
life.
Men Of Vision.
Whether the new technical revolu-
ton, heralded by Giant Power. shall
proceed without the evil concomitants
of It's predecessors depends very
largely upon the resoluteness Of the
social professions in winning accept
ance for these standards of health,
education and spiritual freedom as
basic; their capacity to achieve a
working alliance with the mechanical
engineers.
For engineers are far visioned.
They are dreamers Of dreams. Most
of the great inventions upon which
the possibility of Giant Power rests
were only recently little points Of
light in the cropping imaginations Of
men whom even their professional
colleagues regarded as impractical
visionarieS, as they once regarded
Langley. inventor of the aeroplane.
But the engineers have developed a
technique for the conversion of their
dreams into realities. They have
made their dreaming pay and are no
longer ashamed Of it.
They are no longer afraid Of mis-
takes and abortive experiments, be-
cause they know that it is only through
the process of trial and error, guided
by the logic Of mathematical induction,
that dreams can be brought into
conjunction with their appropriate
substantial embodiments."
And as we look over the progress
Of our past three decades, We have to
say. Yes. sir!"
Mechanical engineers visioned the
Giant Power" of today. Social en-
gineers visioned our national welfare,
prosperity, happiness of today. Giant
Power made the other possible. But
humanity, Its willingness to achieve,
made Giant Power possible.
And there you are.
The next article in this series by Mr..
Kelly will appear in The Star to-