Evening star., 1942-07-19
Genius in Variety
Ton War Technicians Study in Contrasts
By Richard l.. Stokes.

broidered handkerchiefs. Having put
himself through business college, he
gravitated at first into office jobs. but
repeatedly obeyed his instinct for the
workbench by changing from white
collar to overalls, at less pay.
At 25 he was shop foreman of the
Metzger Motor Car Co, but was fired
because some one thought he was putting
on airs He walked the streets Of Detroit
for three months, looking vainly for
Wor,-. and was reduced to pawnlng his
hat for 35 cents in order to buy meal.
Next Gay the Hudson Motor Car Co.
offered him a very messy, greasy job
at 20 cents an hour. 1t was accepted
This led to an offer of $500 a month
from the Maxwell Co. in Tarrytown. Mr.
Keller borrowed $50 and came East.
When General Motors bid $3.50 month
for his services he took it. The pay
was smaller but the prospects we're bet
ter. There. indeed, he first encountered
the man who was to determine his fu-
ture cource, the late Walter P. Chrysler.
MI. Keller rose to be manufacturing
vice president of Chevrolet and general
manager of the General Motors Cana
dian branch.
Made Automobile History.
Mr. Chrysler had cult General Motors
to found the corporation still bearing
his name. In 1928. he acquired Dodge
Brothers, and Mr.. Keller, in response to
telegram took charge of the new divi-
sion. He was soon president of Dodge
and manufacturing vice president of
Chrysler. His record made automobile
history, and he was groomed for the
companys top job, He was chosen as
president in 1885 while his patron be-
came board chairman. When Mr.. Chry-
sler died in 1910 the corporation voted
to discontinue this office. Mr.. Keller
remained without rivalry as chief execu-
tive.
It was on June 9, 1910. that Mr.. Keller
asked Gen. Knudsen where he could get
a model of the medium tank, and was
told: AT the Rock Island Arsenal in
Illinois" Three days later Mr.. Keller
returned with his production experts
from Rock Island with 1876 pounds of
blueprints. In short order they built a
model of wood, and within few weeks
contract was signed under which
Chrysler agreed to build and equip a
plant for the Government, and to build
28-ton tanks. Hundreds, If not thou
sands, of these ponde-ous vehicles have
been completed and many of them
have seen active duty abroad, notably in
Africa
The Detroit Tank Arsenal. largest in
the country, is the corporations most
dramatic contribution to the war pro-
gram, but absorbs only one-tenth of its
resources, now 100 per cent in military
production. At the Chrysler, Dodge, De
Soto and Plymouth plants $1,000 en-
ployes are making cars and trucks for the
Army, antiaircraft cannon, gun bar
rels, field kitchens, bomb fuses, shells,
cartridges, aluminium forgings for mo-
tors, bomber fuselages and wings, air.
plane landing gears and other items
which are military secrets. On the way
is a new 2,000-horsepower aircraft
engine.
For 1912 the automotiye industry has
assumed war contracts totaling $4,000
| 900 900, of which $4,000 900 900 are held
| by General Motors alone. AS spokesman
for this giant undertaking the company
| put forward no Hercules of production,
but the manager of its research labora-
tories, Dr. Charles Franklin Kettering.
a shy and retiring scholar who is one
of the countrys legendary inventors.
Because of recurrent failures of eye
sight, he was % years old before he
was graduated as an electrical engineer
at Ohio State University. In the mean
time he had supported himself as a
farm laborer, school teacher and trouble
shooter for telephone company. On
winning the coveted diploma, he is said
to have thrown it away because he dis
liked its suggestion that his education
was over.
Many Notable Inventions.
Outstanding among his hundreds OF
important inventions are the first electric
cash register; and ignition system which
extended the range of an automobile
from 300 to 1000 miles on single set OF
dry cells; the self starter, which doubled
potential users of motorcars by making
them available to women drivers; and
the two-cycle Diesel engine, which revo-
lutionized the manufacture of locomo-
tives, as we'll as power equipment for
naval craft of many kinds and for num-
erous Army vehicles.
Second to General Motors in volume
of war contracts is the General Electric
Co. of Schenectady N. Y, which expects
this year to produce 100000 00(
worth of equipment for the Army, Navy
and Maritime Commission. Its presi-
dent, since November, 1899, has beer
Charles E. Wilson, Sunday school super.
intendent and prizefight addict who be.
gan work as an office boy at SO week
and still regards as the happiest of hi!
life the day on which he was raised te
So. He was able to run home and tel
his widowed mother that she no Longer
had to work.
Mr.. Wilson was born SIS years ago ir
lower New York City. When he was
years old his father, bookbinder dice
as result of injuries suffered from
being crushed in a mob at the opening
of Brooklyn Bridge. Charles was the
only surviving child. He quit school II
the seventh grade to take job as. office
boy with the Sprague Electric Co. o.
New York, which some years later wa
absorbed by General Electric. He con.
tinued his education at night school
, studying accounting, stenography ane
shop practice.
. An advantage of beginning with {