For automobile enterprises that took the wrong road and got mired in the mud of mechanical and management difficulties and financial complications were, most of them, lifted out of the slough by men who knew the right road and were better drivers. Had the automobile developed mechanically to near-perfection a score of years before it did, not only would the people as a mass not have been ready for it, but it is doubtful if business at that period had developed to the point of efficiency where it could recognize the possibilities latent in the motor car as a money-making machine. Where money is, the best brains go. Capital is timid. But brains and capital want only to be shown. Some of the most successful motor cars and motor car companies of today were deeply mired in financial difficulties a decade ago, but were pried and towed out and made great successes by new brains and new capital administered by a new set of men. Nor was the industry immune from the bane of all invention industries—the patent right. The man who gave it the most trouble was the man whose name is far up toward the head of the list of men who were responsible for the inventive ideas involved in the motive feature of the automobile—Selden. He kept the industry in a ferment for ten years or more, whether designedly or not, through his patent, the mere existence of which tended toward restraining its development by discouraging inventive expansion, and ceasing to exercise the depressing effects of a wet blanket on automobile growth only when the influence of his patent was neutralized by an adverse court decision. The earlier commercialism of the automobile was characterized by many extravagances in expansive plans, high financing and even recklessness, not only on the part of manufacturers, but buyers of automobiles as well. In getting the price down to a figure which is not excessive, the manufacturers removed the cause which militated most against popularization of the invention and provided one of the reasons for opposition to it by many people. To pay the prices which originally prevailed, men mortgaged their homes and women sold their diamonds and went bankrupt on the upkeep of the car. Manufacturers expanded too lavishly, overcapitalized, and attempted great stockjobbing consolidations, while incompetent officers were paid excessive salaries, until conservative financiers entered a protest and the banks called a halt. The abuses which were co-existent with one of the eras of the automobile’s development caused the industry to be regarded by a class of the people as a luxurious outlaw and a menace to the well-being of the country. Vice-President Fairbanks raised his voice to protest against the new manifestation of human nature’s appetite for joy and comfort. James A. Patten declared a Kansas City bank held fifty-two mortgages on as many automobiles, and that that sort of loaning was going to be stopped.