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ADDRESS OF PROF. DR. W. SCHERMERHORN AT THE FAREWELL 
BANQUET OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF 
PHOTOGRAMMETRY, 15 SEPTEMBER 1952. 
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
“As a representative of the group which organized The Hague Congress 
of 1948, it is an honor and a pleasure for me to give some comments on this 
Washington-world Congress on Photogrammetry. 
First of all, you will keep in mind that I am, just as in 1948 in The Hague, 
only the speaker of the group and that, as many of you know quite well, the 
job itself was done in 1948 by my friend, Scherpbier. 
If I now try to compare both important events in photogrammetry, we 
have first, the difference in size. For comparison, it would be useful to put The 
Hague Congress in an American plotting instrument such as the Kelsh Plotter, 
and apply to it the enlargement necessary in the Kelsh. Then we could perhaps 
discuss the American C-factor of both Congresses. 
Although those among you who attended the meeting in 1951 of the 
American Society of Photogrammetry perhaps will remember that I, at that 
time, strongly rejected the use of that not-very-exact expression. I have to 
admit that I now find myself sometimes using this C-factor. It seems to be 
typically American; that is to say, easy to use and practicable. 
Besides this, I believe that the determination of the standard deviation in 
the efficiency of this Washington Congress would not be more exact than its 
C-factor, taken from the air. I believe the moment of the observation during 
the various lectures in relation to the influence of the use we made of the pre 
ceding nights and days is too important. We do not know all the correlation- 
factors between lectures, technical tours, expositions, etc. We can, therefore, 
better stop this effort to apply the theory of photogrammetry to this World 
Congress of photogrammetry and simply make the statement, without much 
theorizing, just as with the C-factor: ‘It was a great success’. 
If I now try to make a few more serious remarks, we see the greatest dif 
ference between The Hague and the Washington Congresses in the appearance 
of Commission VII, Photo-Interpretation. 
The introduction of this technical Commission by the ISP is a token of 
the recognition of the importance of the aerial photograph as a highly im 
portant tool in the hands of all those who are involved in some way in eco 
nomic development programs and their execution. 
The proposal for this addition of a new Commission VII came from our 
U.S.A. friends. The idea originated here in Washington, in the Capital of this 
powerful country, which political leaders understood earlier and deeper than 
others the severe requirements of an improvement of the economic conditions 
and purchasing power of what we call “underdeveloped countries”. (Are we 
not all of us, in one way or another, underdeveloped?) 
The American leaders understood that the technical development itself 
makes it impossible to keep the poor masses of the people sleeping. The people 
are awakening through the means that the Western World has put into their 
hands. They are, through their leaders, educated by ourselves, aware of better