Ralph Nader: It was all but the proverbial knapsack. I hitchhiked to Washington with one suitcase. I stayed overnight for three nights in the YMCA and then got a room in a boarding house. The plan simply was to build enough power in Washington, by getting to the media on the issue, columnists, getting to members of Congress to start congressional hearings to regulate the auto industry for safety. To say to the auto companies — who were wallowing in stylistic pornography over engineering integrity — those were the periods of real stagnation that was being watched very carefully by some people in Japan and Western Europe – to get them moving. To push them to produce better, safer cars. So it was a conscious effort.