In 1958, Fred Koch, the founder of the Midwestern oil and cattle ranching empire that would become Koch Industries, became a charter member of the John Birch Society, the fiercely anti-communist organization whose members believed Soviet influence was infecting all aspects of American society. The Birchers attempted to place their weight on “the political scales…as fast and as far” as they could, but their movement was quickly sidelined to the ideological fringe. Two of Fred’s four sons, Charles and David, have carried forward the conservative torch, and they have succeeded where their father and his allies failed. Their father’s company, meanwhile, has grown into a multibillion-dollar conglomerate that is the second-largest private corporation in the country.

Though the Koch surname has become synonymous with political spending, the family’s philanthropylarge in size, and is not preferable from the standpoint of efforts to reduce the size of the entire image reading apparatus.
When the image reading apparatus itself is moved for shipment or the like, the movable components, including the scanning unit and the mirror unit, are usually fastened in position against movement to avoid damage or malfunctioning which would otherwise tend to occur if the movable components were loose and moved by vibrations or shocks. The movable components are generally fastened by screws that are inserted, from outside of an apparatus housing, through holes defined in the apparatus housing into threaded holes defined in the movable components.
Since the movable components are spaced from the inner surface of the housing, it is difficult to thread the screws into the