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But things did not go off as planned. As chairman of the Conference the New Deal imported an engineer from Palo Alto, Professor Emeritus William Frederick Durand of Stanford University. That famed expert in aerodynamics made a brilliant beginning by addressing the guests, without the aid of any translators, in English, French, German and Spanish, all of which he speaks fluently. This tour de force was enjoyed by the 650 foreign delegates who showed up. These included : Germany's Herr Doktor Julius Dorpmuller, the pudgy head of the Reich rail roads who was President of the second World Power Conference in Berlin six years ago; Japan's beaming Professor Masawo Kamo, who has a flair for oratory in broken English accompanied by dra matic gestures; Britain's horsey-looking Evelyn Hugh Boscawen, Viscount Falmouth, Governor of the Imperial College of Science & Technology and Alderman of London; Sir Harold Hartley, round-faced research director of the London Midland & Scottish Railway; Sir Archibald Page, smart technician who is head of the County of London Electric Supply Co.; Mrs. Gertrude Ruth Ziani de Ferranti, widow of England's famed electrical inventor; France's Minister of Public Works Armand Galliot who is particularly interested in an automobile that will burn anthracite coal; Utility Tycoon Gustave Mercier whose poker-faced wit made power men merry; Holland's young Professor James Van Staveren with curly brown shovel-shaped beard; India's Rai Dahaden Agarwal and his wife Mme Kapoorsundri Agarwal in her embroidered shawl; Lithuania's Jurgis Ciurlys, director of machines of the Lithuanian State Rail ways; Poland's eminent Dr. S. J. Zowski- Zwierzchowski of Warsaw Polytechnic Institute.
First trouble was that, instead of 2,000 only a half of that number appeared. Nor was the 1936 convention quite as non-political as promised.
Fires of ill-feeling were kindled when Maurice P. Davidson and Tenement Housing Commissioner Langdon W. Post, as spokesmen for New York's utility-hating Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. and Superintendent Ezra Frederick Scattergood of the Los Angeles municipal power plant made speeches declaring that the only hope of getting reasonable utility rates was to start public plants in competition. For this breach of promise, half a dozen U. S. utility men refused to participate in the discussions. Floyd Carlisle of Niagara Hudson Power subsequently took occasion to declare that in spite of its municipal plant, Los Angeles had neither as high electric consumption nor as low rates as the average U. S. city. Hottest reply came from Britain's John C. Dalton. associate of Sir Archibald Page, who referred to Engineer Davidson's speech as "tirade"' and indignantly declared "Let us at all costs keep the politicians away from this business of ours."