The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1909-08-17
WHAT EDISON THINKS OF
~HEROPLANES

night the ocean cables and the land
wires silently carried wonderful stories
of the air. latham had fallen into
the English Channel again, n of the
Wright brothers had broken a worlds
record by remaining alOft with a pas
senger 70 minutes and 40 seconds;
$4,000 had been paid to Blerfot tor
flying from Calais to Dover. And When
the came out Wednesday
morning all the world marveled.
So did all the world marvel When
S~tephenson's Rocket drew the flrst
train of cars. The Maryland farmers
crowded around the putting wonder.
Who had ever seen such a sight be-
fore? No one. 1t was an absolutely
new spectacle on the face of the
earth. Eight miles an hour and not
a leg muscle moved to make the
miles. Yet not a farmer who saw the
creeping coaches. or a man who read
about them, dreamed Of the railroad
as it is today. They could not picture
whole continents net-WOrked with
rails, and the ten-car flyer that
plunges into the tunnel of night and
away was beyond their horizon.
That's the way of the world. For
the most part it lacks imagination. 1t
sees only that which is. Granting that
Adam and Eve ever lived. probab1y
they thought their first child was al
NAV L ~ IAo q
But Edison has imagination. The
electric light blazed in his brain long
before the time when the stupldest
man could turn the button or switch
and make it blaze for him. And.
therefore, it was to Edison that a
representative of The Post went to
ask these questions: Z
srWhat is the meaning of all the
columns about aviation in his morn
ing's newspapers? Is n world, with
out realizing it, passing into one OF its
most wonderful eras? Notwithstanding
all our chatter about flying machines
are we not a great deal like the Mary
land who chartered about the
Rocket? And has the widest imagin-
alton even Appropriated what is to
Gomez"
Face to Face With Aerial Navigation.
Edison. when the question was
asked, was working around a model OF
a cement house that he will soon begin
pouring by the million. Perhaps that
explained hisO first remark and the
smile that accompanied 1t.
"a flying machine he said, 'is not
exactly in my line. I am keeping more
closely to the earth;" and he lowered
a hand toward the floor and waved it
horizontally Il never wOrke on a
flying machine but once, and that was
years ago.
But, we are face to a with aerial
navigation" he continued, face to
face with it or a scale Of which we
have never dreamed. In ten years fly
ing machines will be used to carry the
mails. They'll carry passengers, too.
They will go at a speed of 100 miles
an hour. There is no doubt of it. Any
thing, within a can be accom-
pliShed. The commercially successful
flying machine is within reason. ASK
me II man can ever jump from the
No it is not within reason.
But the flying machine-thats differ
ent. It's got to come.
st never saw an invention develop
more rapidly. I wish mine would come
that Way-mine come hard. Some way
or other, I feel that the very fact that
the flying machine is coming so easily
is proof that the present experiment.
ers with the aeroplane are on the
wrong track. Years ago I knew a
wise old man in the steel business
who told me that whenever he reach
ed the conclusion that "a very hard
piece of steel, for instance, was the
proper thing to use for a certain pur-
O he instantly tried to do the thing
he wanted to do with a soft piece o.
steel. My own experience has tended
to confirm his conclusion-that the
easy way to do a thing is always the
wrong way. And I have observed
everywhere in nature that the most
valuable thing is that which requires
the most work to produce. The best
cotton is the hardest to raise, the best
wheat the most difficult to groW-and
SO on"
Edison was no longer smiling-ex-
cept at intervals. For the most part he
was as serious as a man can be. He
was seated at a large table in the huge
room in which he works at his labor
atory at West Orange, N. J. Other men
would call it their office. 1t didn't look
like an office. 1t was as big as the
ground floor of an ordinary house.
The inside Of the roof was the ceiling.
h afternoon SUI fell across a 3-foot
globe that stood near a window. Near
1t was a perfect model Of the cement
house that he believes will solve the
housing problem. and solve it forever.
Over in another corne was his desk.
liz Gritso;cxa of ao.o-lonas