Omaha daily bee., 1910-02-20
GLORIOUS HINES FOR IOILERS
Tom Edison Paints a Golden Prospect
for Workers I'm the
Future.

Thomas A. Edison, looking into the flu
ture, thinks the prospect OF the laborlng
man isNa particularly brigh one.
In 200 years, by the cheapenlng of COM
moditles, the ordinary laborer will live as
we'll as a man does now with $20O, 900 an
nual income. Automatic machinery and
scientific agriculture viii bring about this
result Mr.. Edison says. MOT individual
ism, but social labor will dominate the flu
ture; you can't have Individual machines
and every man working by himself. In
dustry will constantly become more social
and interdependent. There will be no man
ual labor in the factories of the future.
The men in themS will be merely superin-
tendents, watching the machinery to see
that 1t works right.
THE work day, / believe. will be eight
hours. Every man needs that much work
to keep him out Of mischief and to keep
him happy. But it will be work with the
brain, something that men will be inter
ested in, and done in wholesome. pleasant
surroundings. Less and less man will be
used as an engine or as a horse, and his
brain will be employed to beRefit himself
and his fellows.
9TH clothes Of the future will be SO
cheap that every young woman viii DE able
to follow the fashions promptly, and there
will be plenty of fashions.
Accommodation with other worlds has
been suggested. 1 think we had better
stick to this world and find out something
about It before we call up our neighbors.
They might make us ashamed OF ourselves.
THE monorail does not appeal to me-. 1t
was a Fundamental mistake that our rail-
roads were built on a four-foot nine-inch
gauge instead OF a six-foot gauge, which
we will probably have to come to yet.
THE ~aeroplane OF the future WILL ]
think have to be on the helicopter prih-
ciple. A successful air machinet must be
able to defy the winds. II Wright's aero
plane had one-twentieth OF It's surface the
wind would not affect II. The h~elicopter
principle is the only way to escape atmos-
pherlc conditions. BY increasing the We
locity OF propeller revolutions the size of
the machine can be diminished and thereby
we ~vanauish the hostility of the wind. A
hellcopter could have foot size planes dis
tributed on a 100 to 150-foot circle and con-
troiled from the center by wires.
Chemical food has been worked out
pretty well by Emil Fischer and his stu
dents, but il won't be a commercial propo-
sition. YoA can't beat the farm as a lab
oratOry. commercially speaking. II We
should dry up like Mars and couldn't raise
vegetables on the earth. we might turn to
a chemical diet.
Society viii have TO stop this whisky
business, which Is like throwing sand In
the bearings OF a steam engine.
Among the many problems which await
solution In the future one OF the most Inn
portant is to get the full value out OF fuel
The wastefulness Of our present methods
Of combustion is tremendous.
There is not as much power in a ton OF
20 per cent dynamite as there is in a ton
OF coal.
Everything in nature would burn up II
It were not for the fact that nearly every
thing except coal is already burned up.
iron would burn ana make a good fuel
y IN a very fine p6wder~but It has ALREADY
been consumed In natures furnace.
I'VE may discover the germ OF gettine
All the power from fuel tomorrow, and
then again II may take a long time to fine
out.
ITO get rid OF friction in our machines
Is one Of the future problems. The only
machine without friction that we know OF
Is the world. and Il moves IN the resist
less ether."-New York independent.
II