Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-05-12
WHAT INVENTION HAS DONE.
The Poor Man More Benefited by L.
Than the Rich.

From Mr.. ID. III. Warmers address to the Inventors
Association.
We talk about the great armies of Eu-
rope. and We have a standing army more
wonderful and more benefcent and more
obedient to will. 1t is the army of harvest
ers, which. in divisions and brigades, on
the great farms. and in squads and files
on the smaller. stands always ready for
action, and at the sound of the harvest
horn. Beginning at the south and proceed
ing northward. it moves in a military line
of battle. extending over thousand miles.
in front of it are the waving grain fields:
behind 1t lie the scattered bundles. No
army of living men could be organized or
sustained or kept ready and obedient for
SUCH work as this. IL this army of machines
were swept out of existence the grain
fields would perish ungathered. calamity
incOnceivable. Yet all this has been ac-
complished by the combined efforts of the
inventor and business man.
what shall L say OF all that great host
of textile machines. some of which, with
quick steel fingers. knit ten thousand
stitches a minute. and shape garments as
if with Instinct, with intelligence: of looms
that weave unattended and ornament the
web with small nap adorn it with fig
ures and flowers of the brightness of a
garden. The shops are full of these ma
chimes. and the wonderful machinery I'M
erringly selects from the wilderness of va
ried. colored shades, threads and inter-
weaves them into pictures of fruits or
flowers, and all the shapes that the artist s
eye can conceive. The shops all over the
manufacturing portions Of this country
are full of these The skill of the machine
surpasses in accuracy and in nicely of ac-
ton the most skilled fingers of the best
trained workman. the innumerable and
subtle fingers. which from the warp of
sun beams and wool of showers, weave the
green and fower-decked carpet of the
spring time. are no more deft or busy than
the fingers OF steel which the inventor has
created, and which work daily in all our
factories, untiring and uncomplaining will
ing and obedient. Their work fills the stores
and markets with soft fabrics, with gauzy
lace, with brilliant-hued carpets and with
all that luxury and necessity demand. and
In abundance. They descend to the houses
of the poor and have transformed luxuries
into articles Of common use. Three hun
dred years ago knitted silk stockings were
and now you can buy them for 81 pair
In fact. machinery has done more for the
poor man than for the rich who could al
ways be supplied-patient hands and in
Vulnerable toll for them: but until the in
ventor and his help-mate. the business
man, stimulated by the beneficent patent
system, had come into the field, the poor
toiled for the rich and nobody toiled for
the poor. Now the machines work for
them and the rich alike For less labor
the poor have more, great Improvement
on old conditions when the poor went bare
footed and half clad. Now shoes and stock
ings are waiting for the humblest lad.
The primal curse of labor and drudgerv
never began to be lifted before Invented
machinery was produced for the benefit
Of mankind. And with what labor, what
care and what anxious thought all this has
been brought forth. The history of very
many of the inventions now in common use
and which have become almost necessities
would, if written. seem as strange as fiction
In of the mnStV Parent
issued by Commissioner Holt is the story
of the invention of hard rubber. GOODYEAR
had labored for years, he had spent every
dollar which he possessed and all the monav
of those who had faith in the idea. hut thai
was exhausted. His family were reduced To
want; the potatoes in his little garden were
dug half grown to satisfy the cravings of
hunger of himself and his wife and chill
dren. One day he stood with the soft baIl
of rubber, mixed with sulphur and overcome
by rush of despair, he flung the ball into
the open fireplace and as he watched IT
simmering on the Goals, the impulse of
changing mood led him to rescue it The
heat had accomplished the work and he
stood holding in his hands the achievement
OF his lifetime; there only remained 70
be ascertained by easy experiment the
amount of heat which was required The
same outline of painful effort disappoint
ment. failure and ultimate success. might
be told of hundreds of others and there
nave been thousands who have labored and
suffered in the same cause without achiev-
ing success, other than that of LAYING the
foundation for those who should come after
them with better fortune.