St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1892-01-01
FLOUR CITY EVENTS.
Roger S. Pease Talks Enter
tainingly About His Glass
Discovery.
He Scouts at the Notion That
the Mckinley Act Helped
Him.
Liquor Cases Cause at Least
One Man to Tangle Him
self Badly.
Reports in Figures From Many
Reports in Figures From Many
Offices Regarding a Year's
Work.

$50 y0n represent the GLOBE. dc
you'' said Roger S. Pease, the inventor
of glass making devices, when APP
preached by GLOBE man yesterday.
NV ell. you fellows had an Article some
time ago about my glass making appli-
anceS that has been copied all over the
country. The last paper saw it in was
the New York World. i have been
watching it going the rounds of the
papers. and have had good deal of
fun noticing the different comments
made Oh it. Some papers have COM
mented Oh these inventions of mine as
one of the direct results and benefits
! of the Mckinley bill; others call them a
! free trade argument; still others have
found connection between them and
Bellamy'S Looking Backward Thanks
to you, am one of the best advertised
men III the country now"
And do you ascribe these inventions
| 10 the beneficent workings of the Nc
kinley tariff law, Mr.. Pease?'
do |? Why, have been working at
this thing for over twenty years. For
nineteen years | was mere visionary
inventive crank. Now have got some
thing, the people are willing to admit |
am not such crank after all. And do
not thank Maj. Mckinley for the recog-
milton, eitner.'
Mr.. Pease has just returned from a
trip to the East and the South in the in
terest of his inventions for simplifying
the making of plate glass, glass bottles,
etc., which were described at length in
| the columns of the GLOBE about a month
ago. He has been having conferences
! rrlo nIr,
of the country, and has received many
ment of Il plant from several places.
while w as in New York l met Nj
Humphreys, of the Mississippi glass
works, of st. Louis. lie made me a
very good offer to establish glass plant
in st. Louis for the utilization of my in.
ventiOnS. | have just come from New
Albany, Ind, where the plant of the
| De PAW brothers is located That is
the biggest plate glass making eStab-
ltShment in this country. | spent ten
days there going through their works,
and ! found them making glass as it has
been made for the last $50 years. lean
put in my inventions there to good adj
vantage. They have ninety-two pots
going all the time. so you can see that
it is something of an institution. They
have seen my plans and have examined
my explanations of the new process,
and they admit everything that claim
for 1t. AS say, can get good terms
| for putting in my plant down there. but
do not want to. This is Minneap-
| oils enterprise. Both of my partners,
| CORTLAND Babcock and Mr.. EVarts, are
Minneapolis men, and are large prop
erty owners in Minneapolis. They want
to see Minneapolis get the benefit of this
industry"
But Mr.. PeaSe is not so very kindly
disposed toward some of the Minneap-
oils people. When his patents were first
mentioned in the newspapers, Mime
apoliS evening paper took pains to say
that Mr.. Pease'S name could not be
found in a Minneapolis directory for
four years back, and that no one in
Minneapolis knew who or what he was.
He has lived in Minneapolis for twenty
one years, and he does not take it kindly
to have it said of him that no one knows
who he is and that h does not live in
Minneapolis.
"Of course" said he yesterday. "my
name does not appear in any recent di-
rectory. L do not want it there. live
in Rose township. and L live there for a
purpose. l have had to for six years.
l have been living under cover. My
laboratory is out there. l could not live
| in the city and let everyone know what
| was working on. Even out there
| had have to drive the.agents of glass
makers from my door at the point of a
gum"
do you intend putting up plant
here in Minneapolis. MIR. Pease?'
Eyes, II Minneapolis wants it. ]
do not want to force this on
Minneapolis. though, if it is not
wanted here. l do not intend to
be backcapped. l am not the kind of
| begging after location. We do not
have to. The beauty of this scheme of
mine is that it IS entirely new We dc
not use anything that has been used in
glass making. We can go out on a rail-
| road where there is sand, put up plant
and make money. / am independent.
These inventions of mine will revou-
tionize the glass-making business. We
start at the beginning. All we need for
success is sand and railroad. We can
get those in good many places. Once
we have them. we can make polished
plate glass for 10 cents square foot,
where 1t costs rs cents square foot
now. SO. you see. we do not have to
depend on the Mckinley bill either.
There are four cities in Minnesota that
eau be made excellent glass; aking
centers. They are st. Paul. Minneapo-
lis, Saltwater and Red Wing. These
places have all the sand we want, and
of an excellent quality. Under the
high bridge, on Smith avenue, in ST.
Paul there is vein of sand III feet
thick, and as good sand for glass max
ing as can be found anywhere in the
world"
Mr.. Pease does not look much like the
usual visionary inventor who starves on
from day to day until his invention is
completed and then sees some one else
steal the profits of his labor just as he
is ready to drop into the grave. Mr..
PeaSe looks well fed and wears a silk
hat. He mentioned incidentally, as one
of the trials of an inventors life, that he
had built one machine that cost him
$4,000 only to sell it for 500 as old iron.
He has regular jail out in Rose town
ship where he works. He wants it un-
derstood that the plant out there, which
cost $780, 600, is in nc sense manufactur-
| ing plant. 1t is merely laboratory
When he has an idea he goes out there
to experiment.
Mr.. Pease is an old glassmaker. He
was one of the two men who turned out
the first pane of polished plate glass
ever made in this country. 1t was made
at LenoX, Mass. He is we'll known
among the glassmakers of the country
so well known as an expert that he vii
have hand i'll the preparation of the
census report on the glassmaking indus.
try. Joseph ID. Weeks, the superin
tendent of that department of the cen
sus, has asked him to prepare the mat
ter.