The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1898-04-02

money-seelSing inventors, his strong
personality was long remembered in
the offices Of investors. From this Bit
ter struggle with skeptics a more sem
sitive man would have retired with de-
feat, but he won. Not all at once, but
he gained step by STEP always deserv-
ing more than he achieved. When this
hardest work was done and the manu-
facture of the machines was begun on
small scale, his arrangement was
that Sholes should receive twelve thou
sand dollars year. Four years went
by, it is said, and virtually all the IN
ventor received was frequent dis
| couraging report. At last Densmore
induced the weary inventor to accept
twelve thousand dollars for all that
was due and for all his rights
Densmore was kind in his own rough
way to the inventor He invited him
to New York for pleasure and kept him
wretched by public quarrels with walt
ers, conductors, policemen and every
| body with whom they had anything to
| do. Densmore now lived in the east,
and his income from the machine was
said to be more than sixty thousand
dollars a year. Sholes, having had
several hemorrhages, went to Colorado
| for two winters, and Densmore bore
| the expense of a winter in Florida.
When Sholes completed an improve
ment to the machine Densmore de-
| manded it as a right and got 1T. When
Sholes' family and friends ragged, the
inventor defended the gift as a matter
of conscience. He urged that to sell
| the improvement to others would in
jure the business of those who had ac-
quired the original machine, and that
they had just claim on any improve
ment which Sholes might invent.
While there were no written condi-
lions, it was understood that Sholes
would be taken care of.
At last the inventor retired perma-
nently to his bed. Not that he was
wholly unable to move about, but he
had theory. Every person, he sad,
was endowed with a, certain amount or
energy If he dissipated it in physical
exercised he shortened his life. He
proposed to conserve his energy by liv-
ing almost prone. His bed was
workshop. With the occasional aid of a
machinist, he undertook the construc-
| llOn OIL d new hlIlu VI WI ltiiiSo
He made several models, and one that
pleased him. Densmore kept his eye
on it, ridiculed it, then demanded 1T.
He urged that but for him the first
machine would never have been a sue
cess, and that he had done we'll by the
| inventor He would make no written
terms, but he would deal fairly II any
thing should come of it, which he could
not believe.
AS his sons had an interest in the
new machine Sholes refused. This en-
ragged Densmore, who threatened a
fight in the patent office and in the
courts. His letters were savage and
but for the ridicule, which touched the
inventors pride, Sholes might have
eluded the vigilance of the sons and
won.
Perhaps the life of this inventor is
not exceptional. 1t is a commonplace
that the inventor is often compelled to
1 surrender all his rights for COMPARE
lively small amount before the inven-
ton reaches the stage of manufacture.
But it is certain that but for the
strange influence of Densmore, but for
the shrinking of the sensitive inventor
from everything violent, Sholes might
have retained a sufficient interest in
his own creation to have become mil
| lionaire.
The possession of great wealth did
not change the habits or manners of
Densmore He was an ultra vegetari-
an and lived mainly on apples, and did
not hesitate to rebuke entire strangers
in public restaurant for eating meat.
He died soon after the death of Sholes,
leaving large fortune. The little left
by the inventor was not the product of
his invention. Yet he had accom-
plished what men had tried to do for
nearly two hundred years in vain.
The first attempts had in view the con-
struction of a machine by which the
blind could write. 1t was about forty
years ago that the idea of a machine
to dsplace the pen was formed, but all
the models were defective until La
than Sholes turned his genius to the
problem. He made no fewer than
three machines on different principles.
This invention has effected a wonderful
change in office work, has made the
briefs of lawyers and the manuscripts
of writer's more 1egible and has made
an occupation for tens of thousands of
young women. The man who did it re-
ceived the smallest of the benefits
New York Sun.