The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1896-09-30
case the BIyanlte assaults on property
and confidence are beaten back .orush-
iugly.
THE SHOE WOULD NEVER %.
So Practical Men Told the inventor 80 !.
Sewing Machine.
(Shoe and Leather Ranorto,

(Shoe and Leather Reporter
Gordon Mckay, with whom .boe
manufacturers were once better 40.
quainted than now, was recently
honored with the degree of Master q
Arts by Harvard College.
When Mr.. Mckay sought TO bring hi.
sewing machine into use, he was told py
all practical shoemakers that the Thread
must I'LL the hole" This was at once
seen to be impossible, for in this ma.
ohlne the needle must draw the thread
through the hole, and when the needle
was no longer in the hole, of course the
thread could not fill 1t. It was then
that Mr.. Mckay said: "If 1t is true
the thread must fill. then the machine
(which was then finished inyention).
is so much scrap. /"
1t was here that r. Il. Mathies again
showed that wonderful quickness of per-
ception which had played SO important
part in the improvements that finally
made the machine practical SUCCESS.
Heeding not the fact that experts were
against him, he said: Gone experiment.
10 better than q thousand expert opin-
ions. Try it. So pair of shoes was
made, each sewed with the same thread,
one with the smallest needle possible,
and the other with needle ridicuously
iarge-and being worn BY Mr.. Mathies,
in TWO weeks the shoes sewed with the
small needle ripped, while the others
ana then served as q welt to sew on a
tap which was worn out and renewed.
The sewing never failed. It is on this
discovery that the whole business of
Mckay machine sewed shoes rests to-
DAY, and there are probably 100, 900, 000
pairs of them made each year.
An amusing anecdote relating to this
feature In the shoe may not be out Of
place. When these shoes had been al
shoes In the army, by order OF General
Melgs some cases were sent to the Ar
senal at Philadelphia on contract.
Colonel Crossman gave them to an in
apector who bad heen long in the shoe
department making army shoes. He ex
amined them and soon discovered the
thread did not I'LL the holes, and so 70.
ported that they were worthless. New
ertheless, under orders from General
Meigs, they were accepted and given out
to the army. In few months Colonel
Crossnan informed MIR. Mckay that he
heard the shoes were falling in the army,
and that he had sent his inspector to look
into 1t. The inspector returned with the
report that the shoes that failed were
"hand made.
Col. Crossman then, to make an end
OF the doubt cast on machine shoes, sent
the Same inspeotor-who, by the way,
was the same one who first reported
against the shoes because the thread did
not I'LL the hole--to go through all the
hospitals, and see every man and get
report from all who had worn the ma
chine shoe. The report was made, COW
ering one ream of FOOLS cap. Each man u
name, regiment, etc., were given, and
the words he used, as far as possible.
There were over two Thousand soldiers,
statements in the report, and the inspec-
tor concluded his report by saying: 81
have executed the work given me, and 1
must say have not heard of machine
shoe that has ripped. Neverth eless, I
know machine shoe cannot be good,
because the thread does not fill the hole. =
1t is probable that nine in ten of the
shoe manufacturers who will read this
article are of the same opinion of the
inspector.