The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1894-05-18
WHAT INVENTION HAS DONE.
The Poor Man More Benefited by 1t Than
the Rich.

the Rich.
[B. 81. Warmers Address to the Inventors
Association]
We talk about the great armies of
Europe, aud we have standing army
more wonderful and more beneficent and
more obedient to will. 1t is the army of
harvesters, 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 proceeding northward, it
moves in military line of battle, ex-
tending over thousand miles. In
front OF it are the waving grain fields;
behind it lie the scattered bundles. No
army of living men could be organized or
sustained or kept ready and obedienU for
such work as this If this army of ma
chimes were swept out of existence the
grain fields would perish ungathered,
a calamity inconceivable. Yet all this
has been accomplished by the combined
efforts of the inventor and business
man.
What shall say of all that great host
of textile machines. some of which. with
quick steel fingers, knit ten thousand
stitches minute, and shape garments
as if with instinct, with intelligence;
of looms that weave unattended and
ornament the web with small nap or
adorn it with figures and flowers of the
brightness of a garden. The shops are
full of these machines, and the wonder
full machinery unerringly selects from
the wilderness of varied colored theads,
threads and interweaves them into pic
lures of fruits or flowers, and all the
shapes that the artists eye can conceive.
The shops all over the manufacturing
portions of this country are full of
these. The skill gof the machine sur
passes in accuracysand in nicely of action
the most skilled fingers of the best
trained workman. The innumerable and
subtle fingers, which from the wrrp of
sun beams and woof of showers, weave
the green and fower-decked carpet of
the springtime are no more deft and
rusty than the fingers of steel which the
inventor has created, and which work
daily In all our factories, untiring and
accomplishing, willing 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
They descend to the houses
of the poor and have transformed lux
uries into articles of commt n use. Three
hundred years ago knitted silk stockings
were considered fit present for Queen
Elizabeth and now you can buy them
for SO pair. In fact machinery has
done more for the poor man for than the
rich. who could always be supplied -
patient hands and innumerable toll for
them; but until the inventor and his
help-mate, the business man, stimulated
by the benefcent 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
are waiting for the hum blest
lad.
The primal curse of labor and drudge
cry never began to be lifted before in
vented 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 inven-
tions now in common use and which
have become almost necessities, would.
if written, seem as strange as fiction. In
one of the musty Patent Office reports
issued by Commissioner Holt is the story
Of the invention of hard rubber. Good |
year had labored for years, he had spent
every dollar which he possessed and all |
the money of those who had faith in the
idea, but that was exhausted. His |
family were reduced to want; the po-
tatoes in his little garden were dug half |
grown to satisfy the cravings of hunger
of himself ard his wife and children. |
One day he stood with the soft ball of |
ru bber, mixed with sulphur and over
come by rush of despair, he flung the |
ball into the open fireplace, and as he |
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 life time; |
there My remained to be ascertained |
by easy experiment the amount of heat |
which was required. The same outline |
Of painful effort, disappointment failure |
and ultimate success, might be told of |
hundreds of others and there have been |
thousands who have labored and suffered |
II the same cause without achieving |
success, other than that of laying the |
foundation for those who should come |
after them with better fortune.