Producers of automobiles, even, did not immediately adopt the real spirit and practice the true principle of co-operation. They formed an association with that purpose, but in the first meetings they approached the matter of genuine co-operation like a man walking in his bare feet on ground strewn with broken glass. They kept up the practice of secretiveness; each man was afraid to “put the other man wise,” still clinging to the ancient practice of hiding his light under a bushel—an impulse founded on that same semi-savage selfishness of primitive man which impelled him to hug to his hairy breast the shin bone of his “kill,” while eyeing his fellow man with fear, hatred and distrust. Gradually, through the influence of minds more original, independent and far seeing, the glacial reserve was thawed out, and automobile producers began practicing co-operation in its unrestricted, untrammelled form. With the genial, warming rays of co-operation turned on the industry, problems of vast quantity production at remarkably low cost, easy and rapid assembling, inexpensive maintenance, and the vexatious problems of freight movements to bring in raw material and take out the finished product for distribution, became no longer work, but fascinating play. Thus does co-operation make an elysium of the workshop, turn the darkness of gloom into the light of day, and give grounds for the belief that if the millennium ever comes, co-operation will be the vehicle it will be transported in. At one stage of the American automobile industry, the European cars displayed a strength and sturdiness so superior to ours that our manufacturers nearly despaired. This was another crisis of many in the industry. But co-operation enabled the cause to be found and the crisis to be met. The European manufacturers knew why their cars stood up better than ours, but they wouldn’t tell. This was the same old dog-in-the-manger that has helped to make the world’s progress slow. So our manufacturers, co-operating, went to work and found out for themselves. Tungsten, vanadium and chromium spelled the reason. The Europeans had been using these and other alloys, and with scientific heat treatment had been producing a special steel, and keeping it strictly to themselves. Trust the peeking, inquisitorial, persistent “Yankee” to find out when he once gets well started on the scent. And when there are a lot of them, all peering and peeking about, what chance has the poor European? But it is to be doubted if one “Yankee” could have “tumbled” to chrome steel. It took a combination of them to do it. They didn’t discover the secret until they were banded together by co-operation. Co-operation contributed to the general adoption by the motor industry of the automatic machining of parts. What that meant in economic production was the saving of millions in cost of construction, which in turn got the automobile down to the level of the common people’s price.