The river press. [volume] (Fort Benton, Mont.) 1880-current, 1881-04-20
TO re FARMERS OF MONTANA.

The farmers and stock-men Of the United
States rill have to meet the latest attempt
or rather success Of monopoly with vigor,
for its shafts are leFeled at them directly and
solely. The manufacture Of barbed wire has
been restricted to one Massachusetts firm by
pieceof judicial legerdemain, which savors
strongly Of subtraction, division and silence
il the reasons which animated the decision
Of Judge BIodgett Upon what hair-sp]it-
ting technIca1ity the decision was made, the
following vii show:
s'The testimony as to the state Of the art
showed that fence-Wire, and Wire-fences, and
wires composed of tive or more strands laid
Or twisted together, were old at the time
Hunt and GlIdaen entered the field, and that
fences, long before Hunts invention, had
been armed wit spikes or other projecting
points for the nIlfa,ose Of making them more
effective barriers. The use Of pickets, spikes,
or area ratings. df roken glass on the top
shf walls would co1Le under a similar head
but the most that could be said Of them would
be that they narrowed the field for the exer-
else Of inventive faculty and limited the
range of the patents. AS to the question Of
patentability, device to be patented must,
of course, be the result of inventive genius,
and not mere mechanical adaptation of old
things to new uses. It was, however, ex-
ceedingly difficult to draw the dividing line
between the two. If barbed wire had ever
been applied to any other use it would not
have required inventive skill TO afterwards
apply il to fences but there was no evidence
that such had been the case. It required in
vention to devise and produce q wire that
could be applied to fences. In the absence
of other test, court had assumed that the
fact of the acceptance Of new device or
combination by the public, and putting it into
extensive use, is evidence that it was the pro-
duct of invention. In other words, utility
was suggestive of originality"
The absurdity of decision affecting un-
favorably one third of the population of the
United States, and our greatest interest, and
only beneftjng one man, on such flmy
grounds is evident. The American farmer is
compelled to use il, for the high price Of
lumber and its perishab1e nature precludes
it for this purpose, and in these Western tree
less countries the necessity for the barbed
wire is absolute. In 1880, $4,000 miles
of wire fence was built, and will probably by
the close Of the present year reach
100000 miles. When one manufacturer
imposes a royalty Of Is or 90 per cent
on all this vast production: and when
the vast possibilities implied ii the use uf
barbed wire are likely to run up. into half q
million Of miles il the next four years, this
barbed wire monopoly will prove itself the
greatest Of them all. The royalty is $50 per
mile, and last year amounted to So, 100000
Two and half millions per year from an
industry now in its infancy, not as legitimate
profit on the cost of manufacture, but exact
ed as tribute to ingenuity, shows palmer
than anything the nature Of the monopoly
and the terrible tax exacted from American
farmers.
1t is well to reward inventive genius, and
such should be stimulated by every reasona-
bic incentive But to exact tribute of three
or four millions q year is not reward to the
inventor, but brazen-faced robbery Of the
consumer, and is plain travesty on the pat
ent laws and shows q necessity for concerted
action on the part Of our farmers and mer-
chants with that just inaugurated by the
merchants and artisans Of the East against
The encroaehment, and for The suppression of
al such shams and schemes.
The farmers Of Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri,
illinois and Kansas arc organizing for the
purpose Of contesting the validity of the de-
,ision, and they should have the assistance
md support Of the entire agricultural COM
RS of Montana should organize at once; or