Los Angeles herald., 1910-01-11
LABORCOMING TO
ITS OWN--EDlSON
INVENTOR SEES BETTER DAY
FOR WORKERS
EIGHT HOURS ENOUGH FOR TOLL
ERs, HE ASSERTS
SsVant Predicts That Producers of
Future Will Live as Well as
Does the Capitalist
of Today

NEW YORK, Jan. 1o.-The World
says:
Thomas A. Edison, looking into the
future, thinks the prospect of the la
boring man is a particularly bright
one.
In 200 years, by the cheapening of
commodities, the ordinary laborer will
live as well as a man does now with
$4,000 annual income. Automatic
machinery and scientific agriculture
will bring about this result" Mr. Edi-
son says, in the current issue of the
Independent. Not individualism, but
social labor, will dominate the fu-
ture; you can't have individual ma
chimes and every man working by him
self. Industry will constantly become
more social and interdependent. There
will be no manual labor in the fac
tories of the future The men in them
will be merely superintendent, watch
ing the machinery to see that it works
right.
Eight Hours of Brain Work
"The work day, 1 believe, will be
eight hours. Every man needs that
much work to keep him out of mis-
chief and to keep him happy. But it
will be work with the brain, something
that men will be interested in, and
done in wholesome, pleasant surround
ings. Less and less man will be used
as an engine, or as a horse, ana his
brain will be employed to benefit him
self and his fellows.
"The clothes of the future will be so
cheap that every young woman will
be able to follow the fashions prompt
ly, and there will be plenty of fashions.
Communication with other worlds
has been suggested. l 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 fundamental mistake
that our railroads were built on
four foot nine inch gauge instead of
a six foot gauge, which we will prob
ably have to come to yet.
Aeroplane of the Future
"The aeroplane of the futGra viii. I
think, have to be on the belieopter
principle. A successfli sir machine
must be able to dsry the Winds il
Wright's aeroplar7 '.st cue-twentseth
of it's surface the ulrt would nor af-
feet it. The helicCater principle is the
only way to rise 10vg atmospheric
conditions. By increa54ls he T5i0eity
of propeller revolution the ize of the
machine can be diminisl md thereby
we vanquish the hostilit. of the wind.
helicopter could have foot-size planes
distributed on a 100 to 150-foot circle
and controlled from the center by
wires
Chemical food has been worked out
pretty well by Emil Fischer and his,
students, but it won't be a commercia.
proposition. You can't beat the farm
as a laboratory, commercially speak
ing. If we should dry up like Mars
and couldn't raise vegetables on the
earth. we might turn to a chemical diet
Society will 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 important is to get the full value
out of fuel. The wastefulness of our
present methods of combustion is tre-
mendous.
There is not as much power in a
ton of 40 per cent dynamite as there
is in ton of coal
Everything in nature would burn
up if it were not for the fact that
nearly everything except coal is al
ready burned up. Iron would burn and
make a good fuel-if in a very fine
powder-but it has already been con-
sIRned in Natures furnace.
1--WE may discover the germ of get
ting all the power from fuel tomorrow,
and then again it may take long time
to find out.
ITO get rid of friction in our ma
chimes is one of the future problems.
The only machine without friction that
we know is the world, and it moves in
the reSistleSs ether"