The era of greatest material development in this country has been that in the period represented by the last quarter century. This is shown in the fact that our national wealth during that period has increased in a ratio unparalleled in any previous period of time. Only a little reflection will show that same period to be that period in which the value and benefits of co-operation in business as a whole were realized and taken advantage of. The principle of co-operation has been known since man learned to reason. It was applied in the building of the tower of Babel and of the Pyramids. The foundation of it was a fact that man early in his evolution from the cave stage discovered—a simple fact plainly demonstrated, when primitive human beings found that one man could not lift a battering-ram, but that twenty men could make of it an instrument with terrifying powers of destruction. An aspect of co-operation that was slow in imposing itself on the understanding of the business world was that if a man conceived a new idea, and he concealed it from others, he was not only depriving others of its benefits, but himself as well. In locking the door on his idea, he locked himself in. He did not reflect that the world rests on a foundation of co-operation; that nature is co-operative; that without co-ordination between the planets in space, the cosmic void would not continue to be occupied; that co-operation is the invisible chain linking together the world, sun, moon and stars, and without the binding twine of co-operation they would fall apart like the stalks from the sheaf when unbound. Almost every valuable lesson might be learned from nature if we knew and fully understood her laws, and co-operation is one of the most potent of these laws. But it took man a long time to learn even the rudiments of this law of co-operation—that it supplied a force of a hundred horsepower where one horsepower was used before; that its moral influence was tremendous, and that it was to business what the steam radiator, internal combustion, or the electric storage battery was to the horseless carriage—a means of propulsion, a driving force, an agency of high power to produce progression. There can be no question that the automobile industry had, in the era in which fate decreed it should make its debut, favorable conditions. Not only did this era happen to be the era of a better understanding of the science and value of advertising, but also the era in which a better understanding has been gained of the principle and value of co-operation. Standardization in the automobile industry, as has been said herein, was an important factor in popularizing the motor car. But how could standardization have been brought about without co-operation?