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AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS

INSTITUTED 1852


TRANSACTIONS

Paper No. 1178


ADDRESS AT THE 42D ANNUAL CONVENTION,
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, JUNE 21ST, 1910.

BY JOHN A. BENSEL, PRESIDENT, AM. SOC. C. E.




I know that to some of my audience a satisfactory address at a summer
convention would be like that which many people regard as a satisfactory
sermon--something soothing and convincing, to the effect that you are
not as other men are, but better. While I appreciate very fully,
however, the honor of being able to address you, I am going to look
trouble in the face in an effort to convince you that, in spite of great
individual achievements, engineers are behind other professional men in
professional spirit, and particularly in collective effort.

Whether this, if true, is due to our extreme youth as a profession, or
our extreme age, is dependent upon the point of view; but I think it is
a fact that will be admitted by all that engineers have not as yet done
much for their profession, even if they have done considerable for the
world at large.

Looking backward, our calling may properly be considered the oldest in
the world. It is older, in fact, than history itself, for man did not
begin to separate from the main part of animal creation, until he began
to direct the sources of power in Nature for the benefit, if not always
for the improvement, of his particular kind. In Bible history, we find
early mention of the first builder of a pontoon. This creditable
performance is especially noted, and the name of the party principally
concerned prominently mentioned. The same thing cannot be said of the
unsuccessful attempt at the building of the first sky-scraper, for here
the architect, with unusual modesty, has not given history his name,
this omission being possibly due to the fact that the building was
unsuccessful. If an engineer was employed on this particular
undertaking, the architect had, even at that early stage of his
profession, learned the lesson of keeping all except his own end of the
work in the background.

The distinctive naming of our profession does not seem, however, to go
back any farther than the period of 1761, when that Father of the
Profession, John Smeaton, first made use of the term, "engineer," and
later, "civil engineer," applying it both to others and to himself, as
descriptive of a certain class of men working along professional lines
now existing and described by that term.

Remarkable progress has certainly been made in actual achievements since
that time, and I know of nothing more impressive than to contemplate the
tremendous changes that have been made in the material world by the
achievements of engineers, particularly in the last hundred years. This
was forcibly impressed upon me a short time ago, while in the company of
the late Charles Haswell, then the oldest member of this Society, who,
seeing one of the recently built men-of-war coming up the harbor,
remarked that he had designed the first steamship for the United States
Navy. The evolution of this intricate mass of mechanism, which, from the
very beginning of its departure from the sailing type of vessel, has
taken place entirely within the working period of one man's life, is as
graphic a showing of engineering activity as I think can be found.

Our activities are forcibly shown in many other lines of invention and
in the utilization of the forces of Nature, particularly in the
development of this country. We, although young in years, have become
the greatest railroad builders in history, and have put into use
mechanical machines like the harvester, the sewing machine, the
telephone, the wireless telegraph, and almost numberless applications of
electricity. Ships have been built of late years greatly departing from
those immediately preceding them, so that at the present time they might
be compared to floating cities with nearly all a city's conveniences and
comforts. We have done away with the former isolation of the largest
city in the country, and have made it a part of the main land by the
building of tunnels and bridges. In all our work it might be said that
we are hastening, with feverish energy, from one problem to another,
for the so-called purpose of saving time, or for the enjoyment of some
new sensation; and we have also made possible the creation of that which
might be deemed of doubtful benefit to the human race, that huge
conglomerate, the modern city.

There has been no hesitancy in grappling with the problems of Nature by
engineers, but they seem to be diffident and neglectful of human nature
in their calculations, leaving it out of their equations, greatly to
their own detriment and the world's loss. We can say that matters
outside of the known are not our concern, and we can look with pride at
our individual achievements, and of course, if this satisfies, there is
nothing more to be said. But it is because I feel that engineers of
to-day are not satisfied with their position, that I wonder whether we
have either fulfilled our obligations to the community, or secured
proper recognition from it; whether, in fact, the engineer can become
the force that he should be, until he brings something into his
equations besides frozen figures, however diverting an occupation this
may be.

One may wonder whether this state of affairs is caused from a fear of
injecting uncertain elements into our calculations, or whether it is our
education or training which makes us conservative to the point of
operating to our own disadvantage. We may read the requirements of our
membership and learn from them that in our accomplishments we are not to
be measured as skilled artisans, but the fact remains that, to a great
extent, society at large does so rate us, and it would seem that we must
ourselves be responsible for this state of affairs. Our colleges and
technical schools are partly to blame for the existence of this idea, on
account of the different degrees which they give. We have a degree of
civil engineer, regarded in its narrowest sense, of mining engineer,
mechanical engineer, electrical engineer, and by necessity it would seem
as if we should shortly add some particular title to designate the
engineer who flies. In reality there should be but two classes of
engineers, and the distinction should be drawn only between civil
engineers and military engineers. As a matter of fact, fate and
inclination determine the specialty that a man takes up after his
preliminary training, and so far as the degrees are concerned, the only
one that has any right to carry weight, because it is a measure of
accomplishment, is that which is granted by this Society to its
corporate members. The schools, in their general mix-up of titles,
certainly befog the public mind. It is as if the medical schools, for
instance, should issue degrees at graduation for brain doctors, stomach
doctors, eye and ear doctors, etc. Very wisely, it seems to me, the
medical profession and the legal profession, with histories far older
than ours, and with as wide variations in practice as we have, leave the
variations in name to the individual taste of the practitioner, in a
manner which we would do well to copy. The Society itself has adopted
very broad lines in admission to membership, classing as civil engineers
all who are properly such; and there is good reason for the serious
consideration of the term at this time, as we cannot fail to recognize a
tendency in State and other governments to legislate as to the right to
practice engineering. It was owing to the introduction of a bill
limiting and prescribing the right to practice in the State of New York,
that a committee was recently appointed to look into this matter and
report to the Society. This report will be before you for action at this
meeting.

As to the manner in which engineers individually perform their work, no
criticism would properly lie, and in fact it is fortunate that our work
speaks for itself, for, as a body, we say nothing. We are no longer,
however, found working for the greater part of the time on the outskirts
of civilization, and it becomes necessary, therefore, for us to change
with changing conditions, and to use our Society not only for the
benefit of the profession as a whole, but for the benefit of the members
individually. Whether one of our first steps in this direction should be
along legislative lines is for you to determine. For myself, having been
confronted with legislation recently attempted in New York, I am
convinced that we shall have legislation affecting our members, and this
legislation should properly be moulded by some responsible body like our
own Society. If we do not take the matter up ourselves it is likely to
be taken up by other associations, and from past experience, it would
seem as though it might be carried on along lines that would tend to
ridicule our desire for professional standing.

The Society is to be congratulated on its present satisfactory status.
The reports show a very satisfactory financial condition, and you may
note a continuing increase in membership that is extremely gratifying.
This, after having nearly doubled in the last seven years, still shows
no sign of diminishing in its rate of increase. It may be said, also,
that we have in the Society an excellent publishing house, where the
members have an opportunity to secure technical papers published in the
highest style of the art. We have in general in the officers, a number
of men, who, within the prescribed limits, labor for the benefit of the
members, but we also have constitutional limitations to the activity of
our governing body, so that the voice of the Society is never heard, or,
at least, might be compared to that still, small voice we call
"conscience," which is not audible outside of the body that possesses
it.

Now, in these days, when the statement that two and two make four is
accepted from its latest originator as a newly discovered truth, a
little extension of our mathematics, to take into our estimate people as
well as things, is what we principally need, and it would be a good
thing, regarded either from the point of view of what the world needs or
the more selfish view of our own particular gains. At the present time
it would seem as though our world had thrown away the old gods without
taking hold of any new ones. Private ownership as it formerly existed is
no longer recognized; individual action in almost any large field is
to-day hampered and curtailed in a manner undreamed of twenty years ago.
In fact, our whole scheme of government seems to be passing from the
representative form on which it was founded, to some new form as yet
undetermined. Whether all this is, in our opinion, for good or for evil,
is of no particular concern. The matter that concerns us is, that we
have left our old moorings, and that, to secure new ones, new limits are
to be set to the activities of men along lines which concern us, and
that, therefore, it is necessary that those who by education and
training are best fitted to consider facts and not desires, should guide
society as much as possible along its new lines. I consider that we as a
profession are particularly trained to do this by our consideration of
facts as they exist, and I think it will be recognized by all that we
are not in our work or activities bound by any precedent, even if we do
learn all that we can from the past; and that we are by nature and
training of a cool and calculating disposition, which is surely a thing
that is needed in this time of many suggested experiments.

To be effective, however, we must be cohesive, and thus be able to take
our part not as the led, but as leaders, convincing the people, if
possible, that all the ills of our social system cannot be cured by
remedies which neglect the forces of creation, and that the best doctors
for our troubles are not necessarily those whose sympathies are most
audibly expressed.

In the recent discoveries of science our ideas as to the forces of
Nature must be greatly enlarged and our theories amplified. Recent
discovery of radium and radio-active substances shows at least that much
of our old knowledge needs re-writing along the lines of our greater
knowledge of to-day.

With this increase of knowledge it would seem as though those who devote
their lives to the exploitation of natural forces should take a position
in the future even more prominent than in the past, and it will
undoubtedly become our function to help the world to that ideal state
described by our greatest living poet of action, when he speaks of the
time to come, as follows:

    "And no one shall work for money,
      And no one shall work for fame;
    But each for the joy of working,
      And each in his separate star;
    Shall draw the thing as he sees it,
      For the God of the things as they are."