davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1905-10-08

were arrested on q conspiracy charge
growing out Of the freight rebate. The
case looked black until Mr.. Dodd found
an old statute under which it was pos
sible to take it out Of local jurisdie-
tion and carry it to higher court. This
Dodd was retained as general solicitor
Of the company. ). =
Whom, three years ago, the highest
tribunal in the land allo " R F sl
filed dream Of wealth which had been
deferred from youth to old age. Many
years before among the seekers after
fortune who focked to the northwest
was Frank Eaton, a mine protector and
explorer, who was then in the prime Of
his life. Close to the shores Of Vernil-
lion lake there was strip Of 800 acres
in which his keen eye discerned rich
ness in ore. He succeeded in obtaining
a title to the land, but another miner,
Thomas F. Hyde, had taken possession
"squatter sovereignty"
There began a long wait, which
heightened out into years before the
rival claims could be brought up. Then
began succession Of suits, decisions
and reversals during which the oppo-
nent Of Eaton became the Midway Land
company instead Of Thomas Hyde, and
in which the secretary Of the interior
once decided that none Of the claim
ants had any right.
Eaton had no money and no influence
and at the same time bowling mob
waited around the local land office to
lay claim to the valuable holding as
soon as 1t was officially declared vacant
He found somebody who would take
up his claim on q contingent Zee
There was a technicality which pre-
vented the official announcement and
upon which his case was again carried
up. The next time the issue was sharply
drawn and the grim persiistency with
nearly two decades was rewarded by 8
complete and final decision In his ia
The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1905-10-08

w$ HERE Is little to support the Osler
theory In the annals of million
aires. One of these, who has made
Il fortunes on two continents, de-
clares that men are in their ap-
premiership until they reach the age
Of 40, and that a business man is not
ripe until he is ten years older than
that. Some Of the richest Of our fnan-
ciers did not reach success until they
were between IS and 40, while SCIENCE
literature and art furnish many similar
instances.
Samuel Sloan, the aged railway finan-
eier, admits that the turning point and
until he was 40. Up to that time he
had been only mildly successful fnan-
cially, altho he had won a reputation
as business man. He made his start
In an importing house as clerk and
worked for the same firm for twenty
years. He never fa1tered in his devo-
ton to his house, and they rewarded
it by advancing him steadily step by
step until he drew a comfortable sal
He was elected to fill a state position
at Albany, where he was when he was
put into the railroad business.
81 never had discovered any special
inclination for this line of work in my
self,' he says, "but they were rear
ranging the board of directors Of the
Hudson River railroad, and Governor
Morgan, who had known me as bust.
ness man for about twenty years, con.
sidered me suitable man to be elected
SO, as q business man was chosen.'
!. !. j.
At this time James Boorman had pro.
iscted and built single track road
from the metropolis north on the east
bank of the Hudson, but it was poorly
at its northerly end, practically bank
rupt when Mr.. Sloan recognized the
great opportunity for Hudson rive
railway. He invested the bulk Of hi
savings in the Stock at II cents on tn,
dollar.
That was the turning point in m,
The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1905-10-08
Waste Hardwood.,s Value

All tho worlds woodcutters might be
millionaires if they knew how to gather
up the twelve baskets Of industrial
crumbs as does q distil1ing plant in a
Michigan town. This establishment has
a capacity Of ninety cords Of hardwood
a day, the wood consumed being slabs,
crooked logs, treetops, and Other. hard
wood offal from logging and numbering
operations. From one cord Of this ma.
terial there is made ten gallons Of wood
alcohol, 981a per cent being pure; 200
pounds Of acetate Of line, quicklime
being added for this purpose, and fifty
bushels Of charcoal. Every product OF
the wood except the charcoal passes of
in the form Of gas and is reduced by
disiillation. Some irreducible gas and
a little tar product are used as fuel.
Nothing is lost. The alcohol is worth
go cents gallon. The acetate Of lime
is worth 2 cents pound, and the char
coal is worth 10 cents bushel. The
value Of the lime used is worth not over
one-fourth Of the value Of the acetate.
The value Of the final product Of the
cord Of refuse wood is, therefore, not
far from $14. The process is not ex-
pensive. The plant, running at full ca
pacity, will. turn out q product daily
worth Sl ,260 from material that has but
little commercial value in its crude
form.
The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1905-10-08
Plumbing Schools

The latest addition to New York IS
technical institutions of learning is a
training school for apprentices to the
plumbing trade. Men and boys attend
both day and night classes. It is
claimed that a complete course Of in
struction may be acquired in couple
Of months by diligent application.
Many of the youthful pupils are re-
cruited from the ranks Of journeymen
expedite commercial education. The
management Of this school announces
that its graduates are eligible for ad-
mission to the labor union as we'll as to
membership in the Master Plumbers
Association.
The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1905-10-08

1HsHRU all the information that has
been given to the public Of Edi-
son s personality, I seem to have
II traced literary inaccuracy-an
emphasis Of the STOPPING shout
ders, the neglgee attire, the distracted
manner, the untrimmed hair, the sudden
flash Of genius in the eye, the inroads
Of mysterious acids on his clothes. He
has been pushed to the center Of the
world g stage as dramatic character,
the wizard Of that most Incompetent
sible chamber of magic-the laboratory.
I wish to make a logical study of the
man, to trace the combination Of
ness that have been neglected in gen.
eral surveys Of this inventor who has
been placed in the foremost rank of
the scientific world, among such men
as Koch, Haeckel, Loebb and Roentgen.
+ !. j.
confess that I approached him
with something akin to the feeling a
child has for a conjuror.
native idlers like great painters, or
great novelists, or great statesmen, but
when it comes to tracing an magma
tion that has turned ghostly traditions
into commercial commonplace facts
well, it's different. Say what you will,
Edison has harnessed his imagination
to supernatural imps, and, driving them
in thru one door Of his laboratory, has
sent them out again at the other end
literally reformed and even amusing
demons.
No doubt there are scientists, chem
lists, mechanics and mathematicians in
the Edison works that by the very
force Of their uncompromising training
consider the great inventor as a dream
or, but that is exactly the amazing won
der Of him which no knowledge Of ex-
act science can explain.
Take the dreamer out Of man and you
destroy the divining instinct Of life,
man and his maker. The miracles of
Edison g discoveries are to the scientist
desperately reasonable, and to label
his exact experiments as mere vapor-
ings from dreamland enrages him. Still,
say what he will, the inception Of al
most any new invention has appeared
first to the inventor in most visionary
stage Of development.
Take Edison's own story Of the new
storage battery which he has Just com
Pleted, and Of which he told me much
In detail-it was based upon the in
ventor's high esteem for the prolific
promises there are in nature, for, as he
said, he could not conceive that ma.
ture 30 generous in all her favors had
Deen mean enough to limit a storage
battery to lead and acids Maybe it
Is because he had always been so pune.
ttlllously chivalrous and just to her in
his laboratory, that nature has re-
,warded him by lifting her veil to him
so often. ~
4 !. !.
q Wireless telegraphy had been confide6
to, him by nature twenty years ago, hi
told me, when the Lehigh Valley roaG
successfully used it in their freight de
partment service. At that time he
flashed a message from earth to a kite
two miles in the air above. Just al
that time he was in tremendous favor
with Dame Nature, and she gave him
an idea for the incandescent lamp
which .obliterated for time; his in.
terest in wireless biography. r~sy...
AFTER the lamp came experimental.
improvements in automatic telegraphy
The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1905-10-08

Among the men who came into for
tune late in life was Samuel @. T.
Dodd, who, as the 'tfather Of trusts, !"
has been identified with the Rockefeller
interests. His success followed long
years Of law work for which he had
laid down certain lines for himself at
the time when petroleum was discov.
cred. This was in 1859, and it was, at
that time that Dodd began practicing
law. The rush caused many Of the
lawyers in that section to devote them
selves to land practice and land itiga-
ton. Mr.. Dodd looked far enough ahead
to see that with the larger development
must come the organization Of corpora
lions, and he devoted himself princi-
pally to corporation and equity law.
+ f.
It was not long before he was con-
sidered an expert in his branch, but 1t
was in the late 70's, and after he was
40, that his opportunity came. 1t was
case to which he was called in consul
tation In which the directors Of the
Standard Oil company and the directors
Of the Pennsylvania and other roads
The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1905-10-08

Gated chemical action like q battery
That's why it has taken time to make
sure.
"Yoq know it happens sometime,
suffer from ennui,o he said, with q
semi-comic regret in his voice, which
set us all laughing, because Edison is
an tnexhaustible working battery him
self. uWell, when get ono Of these
spells l generally go into things pretty
thoroly, and altho was sure that a
storage battery could be made (because
mean as to confne herself to lead bat
tery(, the important question in my
mind was to know just exactly what
was required Of that battery. So had
q complete census Of vehicles taken in
New York, report Of the congestion
and the average speed. I saw at once
that IT storage battery could be
made there would be use for it. OF
course the question Of reducing weight
disposed Of the lead battery. I knew
that some new combination Of chemis-
try eliminating lead must be found. So
I began experimenting for long time
with no result Then ono day there
came Just a nibble just little bit OF
something; then that disappeared and
for long time j;1.,a got n4thing Stu Z
along 3 but no '' RESULT T. felt 'G psssssr
sure that Nature held the secret and
that it WASH It her fault. IT'S me- I
said to myself mot Nature that's
wrong And so it was for at last !
got it negative and positive without
lead. But after that 80 delicate and
mysterious is chemical. action that con.
ditions would alter and make every
with them after we first put them out
in New York. Couldn't understand IL
till we found out that instead Of using
distilled water the drivers unable to
find any had gone to drug stores and
purchased carbonio water tho gases Of
which partly destroyed the action Of
the rest. There !. is X; no knowing what -: 7
reduce it to half its present size but
poses. -
"The photograph at least 70 COM
ssoh, mol The phonograph 10 q uss-
full thing and it wonderful to see
what pleasure 1t has givenj II 10 the
poor mans music but we are expert
menting, improving, discovering new
things all the time in it.
And that is just the secret Of Edi.
son Is success; he never reaches the final
word Of discovery. His imagination Is
always Turing him into bypaths that no
one suspects. In addition to his bet
ter-known patents granted in connec-
ton with the development Of the cleo
trio lamp, the telegraph, telephone, the
I ore-milling machinery and storage bat-
teries his inventions include vote res
corders, typewriters, electric pens, vocal
engines addressing, machines methods
Of preserving fruit, castiron manufac-
ture, wiredrawing, electric locomotive
engines, addressing machines, the maxi
ing Of plate glass, compressed air APP
{ paratus and many others.
: All this shows clearly that 1t is not
8 so much the result Of wizards magic
: as it is plain, ceaseless genius for work
s the imaginative audacity Of a ooet and
!. hard-headed business which combine te
j, make the man Edison.
|. ~ -Pendennis.
The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1905-10-08

ting an advertisement in the paper for
the sale Of Ia, 900 acres Of land in Cham
paign county, which he had been au-
thorized to dispose Of by an eastern
frienr. That was in April Of 1860. By
1870 he had accumulated a great for
tune. : { -s'.-
+ + +
Levi P. Morton was past 35 when he
failed in his first large business ven
ture. He had started to earn his own
living by clerking in store when he
was IS. He got together little capital
and opened a small store in Hanover.
When he was 81 he sold out and went to
New York, where he opened dry goods
house. In few years he failed and
it was not until the early days Of the
civil war that he began to make money.
He had opened a little bank, which In
creased in business until at the out
break Of the war he began to lend
money to the government. He was 40
years old when he had made enough
money to pay his creditors, which he
did by inviting them to a banquet and
putting under each ones plate check
The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1905-10-08
The "Sea Gipsies !"

In the archipelago Of Mergut, OF the
coast Of lower Burma, Asia, live tina
Hsea gipsies." Instead Of carts they
own covered boats, in which with their
families, dogs, cats, chickens and pets
The float about on the sea and wander
from island to island. By day they
tiers; but every night they put back to
the shore. IF the weather is bad at
sea they land with their dogs and then
poach, catching porcupines, squirrels,
armadilloes, hog deer and the like, Of
which they make sayory stews, as
American gipsies do.
The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1905-10-08
Wonders of Farm Machinery

Ono Of these separators, needing but
one man, to give it oil, threshes 5000
bushels Of wheat and from 5000 to
5000 bushels Of oats in day.
!. !. +
The revolution Of farming, however,
began with the grain binder, which rap
idly harvests, the machine thereby In
creasing the acreage which the farmer
can grow. Thru the advent Of the. self
binder came the steam thresher, the
grain drill, the gang plow, and many
other invaluable weapons Of agr1cul-
tural warfare. The binder cuts swath
with intelligence, cutting the grain,
binding it into sheaves, and carrying
the bundles into piles, which are after
ward put into shocks.
For the farmer Of the Pacific coast,
where the stalks are stiff, there is
combined machine which cuts of the
heads Of the stems, runs them into q
threshing machine where they are
threshed, cleaned and sacked, and the
sacks deposited on the ground Such q
machine cuts swath eighteen, feet
thirty horses. A larger machine, cut
ting a swath forty-tWo feet wide and
pulled by traction engine, cuts,
threshes and cleans the grain from over
100 acres day.
i. i
A farmers friend indeed is the gaso-
1ene engine, which requires only few
attachments in order to pump water
shell corn, grind feed, saw wood, run
the feed cutter and do AN unlimited
amount Of things which are hard to do
by hand
a farm truck which draws pillow
Professor Zinther thinks, may be the
next innovation. He says that Il q gas
olene engine could be put on truck so
that it could perform the work Of the
fields and also do the numerous jobs
about the farm. it would be strong
competitor with horses for farm work
The Hman with the hoeo can ruffle
a little strip Of old world soil and be 8
poor peasant forever; the man will
the machine reaps rich harvests from
farms Of 10000 acres each, fills hi,
granaries with gold and exports, as die
Uncle Sam in 100, $3.50, 100000 worth
Of grain q veal.
The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1905-10-08

operating at high speeds, when nature
drew his attention to the audible sounds
produced by the vibration Of a stylus
struments. To this he applied his
knowledge eof acoustics and the teie-
phone mechanics, with the result that
he produced the monograph. And so 1t
seems to have been with him all along
the line. Instead of feeling, as wizards
dangerous, awesome specter to be with
stood and feared, he has seen her beau
ties, approached her with confidence,
and found that she holds only the most
endearing principles for humanity at
large.
Edison is not wizard, he is a sturdy.
sunny souled, hard-headed son OF OHIO;
He was what all great Americans OF
the present day reveal expenditures aa1 .oms
times, because it has been forced upon
him, fall into an outward semblanee Of
the fctional scientist, the man Of alb
straction and silent mystery, but get
him among old friends, and he will tell
better stories and listen to cid ones as
as ordinary hearty human beings,
Because Edison is prophet, chosen
to advance. the. power Of his fellow
men over hindering exactitudss, scarce
ly warrants that we picture him with
any theatrical exaggerations. However,
this dramatic flavor has been so liber-
ally mixed with the solid commercial
results of the Edison factory at Orange,
N: j.. that it is as a pretty tinsel veil
adjoining the business aspect Of every
thing there. Literally, perhaps, it is
inevitable, because the main force, the
impelling power, the indefinite magic Of
definite outcomes and incomes at the
Nlx@1
prophetic imagination of Thomas A.
Edison, the inventor Of its marvels.
i.
It is O. place Of magical things,
achieved by imaginative prescience.
I met at the works, in spite Of their
exact reasoning, their scientific expert
ence and even their experimental eau
tion, take Edison away and there would
be no more wonderwork forthcoming
there.
Edison himself expressed the idea this
W Tpy;t "NG man. an Of mathematical "a aanaS;aa
that amounted to much. He hasn't the
Imagination to do it. I don't know
anything about mathematics-can It
even do proportion-but I can hire all
the good mathematicians need.o And
he might have added, 'but I can It hire
men with logical imagination.
Edison will be exactly SO years old
next February; he is still a yo11ng man. Ia
played his life.
In the laboratory buildings, where all
experimental labor is done exclusively,
there are only a little over a hundred
men employed; in the adjoining, fac
tory, where the photograph and the
moving picture machines are made,
there are, over $500 EMPLOYEES in the
season.
!. +
Of Edison 8 imagination is over all, and
yet the secrets are open to any tech
nical observer, because there is really
no scientific question about them Edison
would not fearlessly answer, since it is
, not the natural evolution of expert
mental changes that counts, so much as
The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1905-10-08
What Electricity Will Do

/" Steam massed people but electricity
is dispensing them, = says Sociologist 3.
A.. Ross in an independent article on
/" When the mechanic comes to think
nothing Of living ten miles from his
work the slum will vanish and the city
will difuse itself into the country. Al
ready telephones, free mail delivery
and interurban trolley lines are revolu-
tionizing the farmers life. The sleeve
of intercourse is polishing away rusti-
city, and ere long the comic papers will
have one butt the less. The clodhop-
per and the cobble-trotter types are
both doomed. = 5s
The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1905-10-08

checkrowed and is cultivated in both
directions, two rows at a time, clearing
away all the weeds while the farmer
enjoys the summer breezes from his
hammock seat behind the team.
bnder has peen e q Wheh cuts G and
binds the corn stalks into bundles, one
row at time, and carries them into
piles ready to put into shocks. The
corn shocker has circular, revolving
platform upon which the stalks are
gathered. AS the machine advances the
platform rotates until the shock Of ten
hills or more has been accumulated; the
team is then stopped, the top tied, the
saGs snd p 1e@ on e a ground III N
vertical position. The corn binder,
with one man and team and three
shockers, harvests from seven to nine
acres per day.
Fifty years Of inventive search after
a machine that would pick corn, vic
tory has been won in a corn picker
that plucks ears which are husked and
delivered into 9 wagon passing along
beside the machine, while the stalks are
left in the field. It takes quick man
to gather q load Of ears by hand IN half half
a day, while the machine fills its load
in half and hour.
Hay and wheat are racing for second
place in the point Of value, and last
year the two together equaled the corr
crop. Fifty million acres are sown with
grass, most Of it cut with mowers
massed together with hay rakes Of the
modern side delivery type, carried into
the barn by a hay loader, and depos
tied in the NOW with the automatic hay
fork towhich is harnessed team. One
farm using these modern instruments
put into the NOV 40 tons Of. hay be
tween and 0 clock in the afternoon
In. the huge middle west wheat king
doms to all the large farms belong
steam threshing outfit, which consists
burning engine, driving self-feedinl
separator, that viii take grain as fas
and thresh clean and sack the grain
registering by means Of an automatic
grain weigher every bushel threshed
and its wind, taeker, which blows Thu
straw fifty feet away and builds goot
stack Without man 8 attention.
The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1905-10-08

MA ACHINERY and the man, sings
mn Prof. G. J. Zintheo Of the Iowa
iVH State college, at ,Ames, who
uA avows that when the man is
farmer, machinery is his making;
that tools Of tillage are his insignia Of
victory, and that, while a large measure
Of credit for Uncle Sam IS position as
the worlds most prosperous farmer is
due the fertile soil and boundless plains
whereof he is lord, first praise belongs
to the geniuses Hwho have developed
modern farm implements and have sup
piled our farmers with tools by which
they have been able to produce ! more or 3
sun, thereby enabling them to sell their
products in the open markets Of the
world in competition with the poorly
paid laborers Of Russia and India. .
Agriculture Mason and Dixon's line
between prosperity and poverty is ma
chinery.
Making and using farm machinery
more freely than any one else, Uncle
Sam has been able to pay the high price
for labor caused by the competition Of
manufa cturers, happily has shorn farm
life Of much drudgery and hard work
ness into an intelligent pursuit.
improvements in machinery have dis
tanced the rise in wages and caused
steady decline in the cost Of produc-
ton; they have enabled the eastern
farmer to adopt intensive farming, the
windmill pumping the water for the
dairy-the centrifugal separator skim
ming the milk or wind power running
the churn. Likewise for the westerner
they have made it possible to plant and
SOW vast stretches despite the slender
labor supply at his command.
i. i.
Fastener and westerner together an.
nually buy $1oO,O00,000 worth Of ma.
chinery and own as the total value of
farming implements $76l ,26l, 900, an
average Of *$133 per farm and 80 cents
4 an acre of agricultural land.
Uncle Sans largest crop is in corn
which neared $500, 100000 bushels in
1904, exceeding in value 81 900, 100000
and an impossible output save with
modern corn tools. A corn planter sets
out the corn, opening up furrow and
dropping at regular intervals three ker.
nels in ever hill. The field is thus