Scientific Research and Invention 133 
power cheaply. The farms and small towns were 
part of the vast American hinterland, isolated, 
bucolic, remote from the currents of progress. Civi- 
lization was based on power, but it was distinctly 
urban. Up to twenty years ago the burden of the 
world’s work had, it is true, been largely shifted 
from the backs of men to machines by power gen- 
erated by the burning of fuel or the force of water- 
falls. Then came mobile electric transmission. 
Along with it came the speeding of transportation 
of men and materials on railroads and by means of 
automobiles. A vast accession of usable power, 
accelerating every business transaction and means of 
human intercourse, is now being distributed at the 
point where it can be used most economically. It 
is spread more evenly over the land, relieving 
congestion in one place, remedying sparseness in 
another. 
Distributable electric power travels with lightning 
speed. Qualities by which it quickens decentralizing 
tendencies in our industries are defined by Owen D. 
Young, as mobility, divisibility, applicability, and 
reliability. President Glenn Frank, of the Univer- 
sity of Wisconsin, contrasts its advantages with 
steam ‘power in these words: “In a machine civiliza- 
tion created by steam power, the worker must go to 
the power; but in a machine civilization created by 
electric power, the power can be taken to the 
worker.” 
The late Guy E. Tripp, Chairman of the Board 
of the Westinghouse Electric Company, was one of