PAPER 4

.The engineer's place in the political scene,

It can be said that the engineer is a technician, and as such becomes a specialist, who is usually unable to cope with the highly generalized political affairs ever before us today. History can bear witness to this fact, since few engineers have chosen politics as a career, Herbert Hoover being the only engineer President of the United States. What then is the rightful place of the engineer in the political scene ? Should he confine himself to a position as adviser on highly technical matters, or should he engage in active politics ? In this paper I will deal with only a segment of what I consider the political arena which we, as engineers, have avoided like the plague.