In the following autumn I was made to understand that my address in Boston had made a bad impression, and that it had offended the feelings of some _big_ men who were interested in the electrical industries. I could not help seeing the glaring hint that the new “Department of Electrical Engineering at Columbia College” was to suffer from the fact that one of its two instructors was accused of an unpardonable “electrical heresy.” The great and mighty person who broached this matter to me suggested that perhaps the easiest way out of this difficulty was my resignation. “Very well,” said I, “I will certainly resign if the trustees of Columbia College, who appointed me, find me guilty of a scientific heresy.” The trustees never heard of this incident, but my colleague Crocker did, and he said in his characteristic manner: “There are many persons to-day who would not hesitate to burn the witch of Salem, but no persons of that kind are on the board of trustees of Columbia College.” Crocker was a Cape Cod man and he had a very soft spot for the witch of Salem. The notion among many captains of industry that the electrical science was in its infancy, and that it worked by the rule of thumb, made it possible to launch an opposition of that kind against the introduction of the alternating current system of electrical distribution of power. Tesla’s alternating current motor and Bradley’s rotary transformer for changing alternating currents into direct were available at that time. The electrical art was ready then to do many of the things which it is doing to-day so well, if it had not been for the opposition of people who were afraid that they would have to scrap some of their direct current apparatus and the plants for manufacturing it, if the alternating current system received any support. A most un-American mental attitude! It was clear to every impartial and intelligent expert that the two systems supplemented each other in a most admirable manner, and that the advancement of one would also advance the other. Men like Elihu Thomson and my colleague Crocker knew that, but ignorance and false notions prevailed in the early nineties, because the captains of electrical industries paid small attention to highly trained electrical scientists. That explains why in those days the barbarous steel cables were still employed to drag cars along Third Avenue, New York, and why in 1893 I saw the preparatory work on Columbus Avenue, New York, for installing additional barbarous steel ropes to drag street-cars. But, fortunately, electrical traction came to the rescue of Columbus Avenue.