"The first of these factors is admissions. For a college, it is admission as a student. For a corporation, it is admission as an employee. In each case we present the qualifications of the following at college age: Thomas Edison, Michael Faraday, Nicholai Tesla, James Watt, Heinrich Hertz, Kepler, Copernicus, Galileo, and Henry Ford. The admissibility of this group of the world's scientific and the inventive leaders is shown here." Baker pointed to a minute dab of red on the chart.
"Gentlemen of the Committee," he said, "would you advise me to support with a million-dollar grant an institution that would close its doors to minds like those of Edison and Faraday?"
The roar of surf seemed to fill the committee room as Landrus banged in vain on the table. Photographers' flashes lit the scene with spurts of lightning. Wily was on his feet screaming, and Baker thought he heard the word, "Fraud!" repeated numerous times. Landrus was finally heard, "The room will be cleared at the next outburst!"
Baker wondered if he ever did carry out such a threat.
But Wily prevailed. "No such question was ever asked," he cried. "My organization was never asked the ridiculous question of whether or not it would admit these men. Of course we would admit them if they were known to us!"
"I should like to answer the gentleman's objection," Baker said to Landrus.
The senator nodded reluctantly.
"We did not, of course, present these men by name. That would have been too obvious. We presented them in terms of their qualifications at the age of college entrance. You see how many would have been turned down. How many, therefore, who are the intellectual equals of these men are also being turned down? Dr. Wily says they would be admitted if they were known. But of course they could not be known at the start of their careers!"
Baker turned the chart and quickly substituted another. "The second standard is that of creativeness. We simply asked the applicants to describe ten or more new ideas of speculations entertained by each member of the staff during the past year. When we received this information, we did not even read the descriptions; we merely plotted the degree of response. As you see, the institution represented by Sample A does not consider itself long on speculative ideas."