I never saw so many automobiles and parts of automobiles in all my life. It was interesting to look at whole rooms piled high with auto carriage frames or auto motors, or auto tops or auto bodies. I never imagined that there were so many processes through which all parts of a machine have to be put to perfect them, or that literally thousands of men do some one little thing to every machine turned out. We stood and gazed at men who were polishing the lacquered sides of automobile bodies with their thumbs, dipping them in oil and so rubbing down certain rough places; or at others hovering over automobile motors attached in rows to gasoline tanks and being driven at an enormous rate of speed for days at a time without ever stopping, to test their durability and speed capacity. It was interesting to see these test men listening carefully for any untoward sound or flash, however slight, which might indicate an error. We pay very little, comparatively, for what we buy, considering the amount of time spent by thousands in supplying our idlest wants.
And there were other chambers where small steel, or brass, or copper parts were being turned out by the thousand, men hovering over giant machines so intricate in their motions that I was quite lost and could only develop a headache thinking about them afterward. Actually, life loses itself at every turn for the individual in just such a maze. You gaze, but you never see more than a very little of what is going on about you. If we could see not only all the processes that are at work simultaneously everywhere, supplying us with what we use here, but in addition, only a fraction—that nearest us—of the mechanics and physics of the universe, what a stricken state would we be in! Actually, unless we were protected by lack of capacity for comprehension, I should think one might go mad. The thunder, the speed, the light, the shuttle flashes of all the process—how they would confuse and perhaps terrify! For try as we will, without a tremendous enlargement of the reasoning faculty, we can never comprehend. Vast, amazing processes cover or encircle us at every turn, and we never know. Like the blind we walk, our hands out before us, feeling our way. Like moths we turn about the auto-genetic flame of human mystery and never learn—until we are burned, and not then—not even a little.
After inspecting the factory we came into the presence of the man who had built up all this enterprise. He was relatively undersized, quite stocky, with a round, dumpling-like body, and a big, round head which looked as though it might contain a very solid mass of useful brains. He had the air of one who has met thousands, a diplomatic, cordial, experienced man of wealth. I sensed his body and his mind to be in no very healthy condition, however, and he looked quite sickly and preoccupied. He had a habit, I observed, contracted no doubt through years of meditation and introspection, of folding both arms over his stout chest, and then lifting one or the other forearm and supporting his head with it, as though it might fall over too far if he did not. He had grey-blue eyes, the eyes of the thinker and organizer, and like all strong men, a certain poise and ease very reassuring, I should think, to anyone compelled or desiring to converse with him.
The story he told us of how he came to build the first automobile (in America) was most interesting.
Franklin had seemed to be greatly interested to discover whether as an Indiana pioneer this man had borrowed the all-important idea of transmission from either Daimler or Panhard, two Europeans, who in the early stages of the automobile had solved this problem for themselves in slightly different ways, or whether he had worked out for himself an entirely independent scheme of transmission and control. Franklin went after him on this, but he could get nothing very satisfactory. The man, affable and courteous, explained in a roundabout way that he had made use of two clutches, and then toward the end of the interview, when Franklin remarked, “You know, of course, that the idea of transmission was worked out some time before 1893” (the year Haynes built his first car), he replied, “You have to give those fellows credit for a great deal”—a very indefinite answer, as you see.
But to me the man was fascinating as a man, and I was pleased to hear him explain anything he would.
“I was already interested in gas and steam engines and motors of this type,” he said, “and I just couldn’t keep out of it.”
“In other words, you put an old idea into a new form,” I suggested.
“Yes—just that.”
“Tell me—who bought your first car?” I inquired.