Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-06-23
EDISON.
What Correspondent Says of the Wiz
ard and His Plans

What a Correspondent Says of the Wiz
ard and His Plans.
Again is public attention drawn sharply
to Thomas A. Edison through the suit for
100000, which Walter X. Freeman, late
of Racine, Wis, has brought againt him.
Freeman claims 70 be the original inventor
of the incandescent lamp, and that Edison
stole it from him. But the dispatches
have told you the story. l went down to
Llewellyn Park, where the great inventor
works and lives, to tell him about it the
other day, and received his sweeping de-
NAL. Llewellyn Park is half an hours
ride from New York, and there is not
ivelier place in New Jersey. 1t is part
of West Orange, and you know the Oranges
are famous for their picturesque scenery,
beautiful homes and domestic scandals.
Edison has enormous laboratories. The
main one is three stories high, $50 feet
long and 80 feet wide. Then there are
four smaller ones of one story 100 feet long
and 80 feet wide. 1t is not easy to see the
Wizard. He is much engrossed in his
work, and no end of people try to see him
whom he hasn't time to see. But he was
willing to talk about Freemans claims
and evidently about other things.
Edison's smooth, boyish face is begin
ming to have lines in it, but when he
laughs he looks like youth. His shock
of straight, unruly hair is fast growing
gray, and his waistcoats are larger than
they used to be. He always wears Prince
Albert coat.
81 am working pretty hard" said he
"upon the talking doll. The first ones
were not success. They spoke only
twenty-five words and not very distinctly.
The new doll will be far better. 1t will
speak $50 words so plainly that you
would not know but that child was talk
ing. Then, too, it will sing, laugh and
cry"
Edison is most extraordinary worker.
He told me that ten years ago he did not
have 81 900 to his name. Now he is said
to be worth 100000 at a conservative
estimate. Yet he works as hard as ever.
Il lind feel best with about four hours
Sleep" he said. when am engaged in
some problem work ntinuously. Some
times l don't leave the laboratory for two
weeks at a time. Whenever l feel tired
lie down for an hour. can go to sleep
at any time or place. Often 1 just lean
up against the wall and take a nap of half
an hour. Nothing so rests me as noise.
When | heard that they were going to
build boiler factory over there it made
me happy. l often go over there for a
rest and a snooze."
Imagine man going to sleep in boiler
factory
Edison selects men to work with him
who are capable of great strains like him
SELF But none can equal him. He is re-
lentless during this working stage. He
has no mercy for his men. At Menlo
Park he used to kill them by the dozens,
SO his present employees say. But then he
pays them like princes and sometimes they
have nothing to do for weeks.
The reporter asked Mr.. Edison if it was
true that he had invented machine by
the aid of which man in New York
would be able to see everything that his
wife was doing in Paris.
81 don't know" said Mr.. Edison laugh
ing, "that would be real benefit to hui
mainly. The women certainly would pro-
test. But, speaking seriously, am at
work on an invention which will allow a
man in Wall street not only to telephone
to friend in the Central Park, but to see
that friend while talking telephonically
with him. This invention would be use
full and practical, and | see no reason why
it should not soon become reality. /
In reproducing images at distance. 1t
would be ridiculous to dream of seeing
any one between New York and Paris.
The round form of the earth, if there were
no other difficulty in the way, would make
the thing impossible"
Speaking of the monograph, the re-
porter asked if it had reached its highest
degree of perfection.
"Almost, l think" said Mr.. Edison, sin
the last instruments turned out of my
workshops. You must know that the
ordinary monograph employed in COM
merce does not begin to compare with the
latest machines that / use in my private
experiments. With the latter | can OBJ
tam sound powerful enough to reproduce
phrases of a speech that can be heard
perfectly by large audience. NV last
ameliorations were with the aspirate
sounds, which are the weak points of the
graphophone. For seven months worked
from Is to 20 hours day upon the single
sound 'specia.' | would say to the instru-
ment 'specia, and it would always say
'pecia,' and | couldn't make it say any
thing else. 1t was enough to make me
crazy. But / stuck to it until | succeeded,
and now you can read 1000 words of a
newspaper at the rate of $50 words
minute, and the instrument will repeat
them to you without an omission. You
can imagine the difficulty of the task that
l accomplished when tell you that the
impressions made upon the cylinder are
not more than one-millionth part of an
inch in depth, and are completely invisi-
bic even with the aid of microscope"
"And what new discoveries will be made
in electricity"
''Ah, that would be difficult to say. We
may some day come upon one of the great
secrets of nature. | am always on the
lookout for something which will help me
to solve the problem of navigating the air.
have worked hard upon this subject, but
l am very much discouraged We may
find something new before that comes, but
that will come"
Mr.. Edison further stated that the great
development of electricity will come when
we find more economical method of pro-
ducing it. During his trip across the
ocean last year he remained for hours on
deck looking at the waves, and he said it
made him wild when he saw so much force
going to waste. "But one of these days"
he continued, "we will chain all that
the Falls Of Niagara as well as the winds
and that will be the millennium of cleo
tricity."