Leighton expressed lack of confidence in this procedure, which had carried over from the war. When disorderly reconversion had forced the automotive people out of aircraft production, “The Field” had determined to establish a great engineering division at Dayton, and to undertake its own design. After the government wizards had dreamed up their pet projects, a manufacturer would do the rest. Leighton argued that this procedure just divided the responsibility for a development between the government and the industry. “The government,” he remarked, “will claim all the credit for everything that turns out well, and will hang the contractor for all mistakes, especially its own.” That, he insisted, was not the road to success. “The only way to get progress,” he added, “is to put a good engineer in a tight place where he will have to fight to survive. When it’s ‘root, hog, or die,’” he concluded, “they always do the impossible.” A run over to Detroit brought us to the Packard Motor Car Company, and another kind of setup. Here was one of the few remaining automotive companies with a continuing interest in aviation. This had probably resulted from the fact that Col. Jesse G. Vincent, a Packard vice-president, had been one of the designers of the original Liberty, and Capt. Lionel Woolson, Packard experimental engineer, still retained his interest in aircraft. The company felt that much of the aviation experimental work could be used in the automotive engines and was willing to continue to participate as a public service. In another emergency, in which the automotive industry must again convert to aircraft production, they could do a better job at it, against a background of continuing experience with aviation. The one drawback to this picture was the air-cooled engine; Packard could hardly be expected to show much enthusiasm for this. Meanwhile, there was another consideration involved in continuing the automotive industry on a stand-by basis with respect to aircraft. “Automobile prices,” Leighton explained, “demand low-cost volume production, a requirement that is just incompatible with the high-quality, high-precision production required in aircraft. When your automobile breaks down,” he added, quoting the old darky of the ancient wheeze, “why there yo’ is. But when yo’ airplane engine quits, where is yo’?” And now as we moved on to Buffalo, Leighton gave me a quick preview of the Curtiss Airplane and Motor Company. Here was one of the “old-line” aircraft organizations. Though it had bid in the Army air-cooled radial project, now called the “Curtiss Radial 1454,” its heart lay in the liquid-cooled development. The Curtiss D-12 was now one of the best in the world; both the Army and the Navy were using it in fair quantities. Curtiss, he thought, was one of the smartest engine builders in the country—sometimes he had wondered if they weren’t a little too smart for their own good.