By way of an interpolation, it may here be remarked that these tire figures show that there is one problem in the automobile industry that the engineers still have to solve, and that is to produce a wheel that will give satisfactory service without requiring a pneumatic rubber tire. LITTLE ORIGINAL CAPITAL INVESTED. The remarkable thing about the automobile industry is that, in comparison with its present magnitude, there has been but little original capital invested in it. Today the industry represents a large investment, to be sure, but the bulk of it is made up of profits on the original small investment. Companies started with small original capitals, made money, and used some of it to enlarge plants and increase outputs, until today we have the gigantic institutions that some of these companies are. The automobile industry has been and is one of the most convincing of modern proofs of the efficacy of the science of investment in operation. During the first few years of experimenting, before the engineers produced a car that would run in a reasonably satisfactory manner, the industry offered investors only what might have been called the inventor’s chance. These years were followed by a short period devoted to determining whether there was a market for the automobile. During the time of experimenting and determining the market the average person could not be expected to become very enthusiastic over an investment in the industry. The average person has not clear vision in matters of this kind, and, lacking vision, he can not bring imagination to his aid. And in those early days it required clear vision, good imagination and exceptional ability to reason from probability to fact to see the coming greatness of the automobile industry. A few courageous men had this vision and this ability, and to them is due all credit for the establishing of the industry. In time others might have done it, but these men did it. The making and marketing of automobiles that would run had but fairly begun when their popularity became so manifest that even an average person could see that the automobile industry was bound to become great and profitable. Here, then, was an opportunity for scientific investment that was prodigious in possibilities. Those who were intelligent enough to see it and progressive and courageous enough to avail themselves of it, and did so, today form another set of rich men. DIFFICULTY IN GETTING CAPITAL. The industry had great difficulty in getting capital. It was a new line, a new venture. Bankers and other “conservatives” could see nothing in it. They used their pet weapon of crying “speculation”, “hazard”, “risk”, and so on, to keep people from investing in it, and, of course, did not invest in it themselves, or aid it in any way to get started.