Fritz Medal

The Scene: Engineering Societies' Building, Manhattan.

The Time: One evening last week.

John R. Freeman of Providence, consulting engineer and expert on hydraulics, sketched the career of a fellow engineer, witnessed the affection of other engineers for this particular member. Ralph Budd, President of the Great Northern R. R.. lauded the laying out of that road, the planning and organization of the Panama Canal. Roland S. Morris, onetime (1917-21) U. S. Ambassador to Japan, extolled the administration of the Trans-Siberian Railway during the War. Then French, Chinese and Japanese Ambassadors, Mr. Chief Justice Taft, Elihu Root. Robert Lansing and many another had sent complimentary telegrams, letters.

Finally, the modest, patient subject of two hours of eulogizing, John Frank Stevens of Manhattan, civil engineer, received in his hand the John Fritz* Gold Medal, highest award of the four U. S. national engineering societies--civil, mechanical, electrical, mining-and-metallurgical-- for specific achievement in the profession.

Bearing a distinction enjoyed only by figures such as George Westinghouse, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas A. Edison, General Goethals, Orville Wright, Guglielmo Marconi, Ambrose Swazey (TIME, Feb. 25. 1924), Mr. Stevens arose to deprecate, to give thanks. He briefly ran over his life--a start in Maine, no technical training, the acquisition of knowledge through observation. He concluded: "There is not a man who ever worked for me whom I cannot now call my friend. That is my greatest triumph."

*The John Fritz Medal was established in 1902 in honor.of John Fritz, famed iron and steel manufacturer, is awarded annually for important achievements in science or industry.