Smyrna times., 1896-10-14
UNPATENTED INVENTIONS.
For the Smyrna Times.
The Best go Unpatented.

INC DeSt 90 Onpatented.
For the Smyrna Times
Strange as it may appear, the best
inventions that the world knows of to-
day have never been covered by a
Caveat in any Patent Office.
The steam Engine is a notable exam
pie of this in its entirety although
special appliances for its better eff
ficiency have from time to time been
protected, a seemingly so by letters
patent, but the principle underlying
the steam engine of whatever type has
from its first inception been a free for
all boon to whoever choose to con-
struct one. The generation and ap-
plicatiOn Of Electricity is another in
stance of the development of vast pe-
cuniary gain rapidly being taken up
as free gift.
DIR. Jenner's discovery of vaccina-
tion came as benedictiOn to the hu-
man race and as free as the winds.
The wOndOrOus X rays in applied
surgery came bounding into the world
in the cradle of freedom but alas too
late to save the life of Garfield. We
all know the story of that event, how
the beloved President OF a great Re
public striken down by the bullet of
an assassin lay for weeks in the shadow
of the patent Office, its shelves bulging
with the best ideas of thousands of in
ventOrs, not one of which had the
ability to lay its finger on the ball that
was slowly bringing to an end the
Presidents life.
How much there was in the skilled
efforts of his physicians to admire when
1t became known that they had located
the puss cavity of the bullet and with
what marvellous dexterity silver tube
had been introduced to it and it became
only question of time for the ball to
become encysted and Garfield saved
from death. Finally how it became
known that the entire portion of the
spinal column had been shattered and
the doctors entirely unconscious of it,
had been using their best skill on a
portion of the body a foot away. Here
Is seen the value of the unpatented X
rays or the mechanism that produces
them.
How many thousands of dollars have
been willingly spent on less useful
things to patents that the most that
can be said in praise of them are
Monuments of folly"
A good thing is truth as old as the
hills and always patentable..
Take the cotton crop of the South
upward of 100000 bales a year, and
the most useful implements in the
saving of this enormous quantity re-
mains and always will-unpatented.
No, it is not by any means the cotton
gin, creditable as it is, to the thought
that directed and the brain that con-
ceived the process. Nor is it the
powerful hydraulic press that can con-
tract in twinkling huge bale of the
fibre into package hardly larger than
biscuit. 1t is the thumb and fore
finger of the Uncle Neds of the South
as slowly making their way along the
rows they discriminate between the
ripe and unripe cotton bolls. This
ability to discriminate is past the com
pass of any machine to do. They may
and do, reach out their gaunt met
talic fingers and pluck all alike, but
this at once is fatal to the quality and
the unpatented thumb and fore-fnger
of the field hand is as yet the best
thing out
Take 8 well dressed lady sailing
down the street, magnificent as a ship,
what a world of ideas has been brought
into requisiton to bring out in all their
beauty the contour of exquisite lines:
how light, cool and airy are those
balloon sleeves showing as they do the
effective work of the corsets in reduc-
ing to parasOl point the tapering
waist, but no patent covers this full
and lean embodiment.
Take again the source from which a
nation draws its supposed arterial
blood-cOntemporary politics.
How little thought or effort is there
made to patent the good things given
to humanity? If you can conceive an
allegorical figure appearing on the
earth, beautifully radiant, in one hand
extended a globe is held, in the other
a cleaning sword is poised aloft-that
is the Single Tax cutting away at the
unearned increment of land values.
How many Silver men can name off
hand the Governors of five states yet
in plain contradiction to the Gresham
law of coinage, undertake to tell the
world that the intrinsic value of silver
is equal to gold and as yet the splendid
theory remains unpatented.
How many gold men is the country
producing that for the life of them are
unable to tell how much sugar it takes
to sweeten a quart of goose berries
that their wives serve at lunch, under
taking to instruct able bank officers
how the flow of gold can be regulated
at will, and what is worse, a gaping
crowd believes them, forgetting entirely
to go to the patent Office and protect
ideas that are of such momentous i'm
portance to what Mr.. Bryan next to
Dear Friends the common peO-
pie.
JAMES B. SCOTT.