Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1898-02-15
Elisha Gray IN Want.

Prof. Elisha Gray, the inventor OF the
telephone, and the owner OF Il brain
which has been the means OF making
milliunuircs Of twenty men, Is spending
the evening Of his evontful life in pow
erty, says the New York Herald. This
genius. who is one OF tho three great
est inventors of the country. finds him
self poor man of Sixty three and in
the very shadow OF the palaces Of
some of the men who have Toasted from
the products of his brains he IL now
froced to live in Il humble house, the
half VI whose rooms and table is shared
by day boarders, who pay the reguit-
ton price of the weekly meal ticket.
He can sit In his place In Highland
Park, Ills, and call the names OF
score of powers In tho world of fin
ance who have caught him In a corner,
found him without a penny and fooled
him into selling his patents for n song.
The pitiful lament of his latter days Is
that he did not have n conscrvator APP
pointed when he had money He now
fears he may die without n cent.
Prof. Gray knows his falling better
than any one else. He has been up and
down. He has madg fortunes and
spent them. He has never had any
considerable amount of money that he
did not think II was enough to last
forever. He admits that II never oc-
CURED to him to be- scientist for
return gave the fame. He once spent
year in devising plan for an inn
provcmcnt in the work of the tele-
phone. The improvement was grabbed
up on sight. 1t brought him check
for $50. 900.
He thought this was enough to last
him the balance of his llfe He ordered
his wife and family to pack the trunks.
They sailed for Europe the next week.
There was nothing too good or expen-
sive for them to buy. They brought
home pictures. statuary and art treas
ures and the home was decorated like
the palace of a king.
This session of extravaganza was
followed by one OF extreme want. The
professor became filled with an idea
that 1t would he practicable to send
autograph messages by telegraph. The
| plan took so much Of his time that he
forgot to pay the grocer and the
butcher. The barn on his homestead
| became his study. He borrowed all
| the money he could get his friends to
| loan him. This went for wires. bat
teries and machinery. He became so
| filed with the scheme on his mind
that time and again he was carried
| by his station in his trips to Chicago
| for material. He lived like man in
a perpetual dream. The men that
knew him knew that something great
| was to transpire. They waited.
Prof. Gray is getting to the point
where he will sell for a song. II has
| come to the point where boarders have
been taken in the home to help meet
the bills. He has lost his buoyancy
of spirit and has descended to the plane
of an ordinary grinder for an ordin-
| AIRY salary. The big shop which was
erected for his use has practically
been abandond. The fires in the plant
are smokeless, and. pent up in his
little study. which has been shorn of
pictures bought in the golden days, he
has been compelled To abandon his
plans of science for sciences sake. and
is now trying to recoup his fortunes by
working in the most commonplace
Inns. He spent the last year in i'm
proving n bicycle lamp.
Tho Improvement was quickly COB
bled up by man who had money
and paid cash-the smallest possible
fraction ofsits actual worth.