The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1911-12-16
THUS THE WORLD
MOVES ON

Returning from Europe, where he had
been spending his first real vacation in
twenty years, Thomas A. Edison, the
other day made the prediction that 1t is
only question of time, when the airship
will supplant the steamship as a swift,
safe and practical medium Of trans
oceanic travel. AS rejecting the marked
change that has occurred within recent
years in the popular belief in mans abil-
ity to accomplish the seemingly impos-
sible, it is significant that no one dis
sents from the wizards" picture of our
future means of locomorion.
Yesterday such prophecy would have
been laughed to scorn; today we not on
ly accept it as within the realm of prob
ability but look ahead to the day when
the big leviathan of the air will replace,
not only the steamship, but the railroad
as we'll, for all forms of transportation.
For the well meaning clergymen and
church people who denounced Ben Frank
lin from their pulpits as a usurper of
the Divine prerogative, because he show
ed his fellow countrymen how, by means
OF lightning rod they could protect
their lives and their property, we have
nothing but pity.
Thomas Jefferson tells in his memoirs
OF one of his neighbors who was 'agin"
the public schools because, when e,cIy-
body gets so they can read and write,
nobody will want to work" Bishop Ber-
kelly thanked God there was not a print
ing press in all Virginia, because print
ing presses printed mostly lies and their
business was to deceive the people,"
Eyan broad ~,
declared the introduction of railroads
would ruin England by driving the
stages out of the business and killing
the demand for horses Peter Cooper,
builder of the frs locomotive operated
in the United States was made the laugh
ing stock of the whole countryside, be-
cause in a ten mile race with an old
grey horse near Baltimore, his boiler
sprang a leak and the horse won. Rob-
ert Fulton was declared a fraud by the
boatmen of the Hudson river, who doubt
ed his ability to make the "Clermont"
navigate its waters by steam and with
out the use of sails. Arkwright who in
vented the spinning frame which revo-
lutioni~ed the weaving business of the \
world was mobbed and jacquard, whose
loom is still the worlds standard came
near being thrown into the river by an
angry crowd of fabric workers who fear
ed his machine.
The invention of Elias Howes sewing
machine caused riots in New York and
a Pennsylvania woman said of Samuel f.
B. Morse's telegraph which the fnan-
ciers of Wall Street believed impracti-
cal and refused to finance; Il suppose
out the whole world knowing all about
it. Alexander Graham Bells telephone
was said to be toy until the Emperor
Dom Pedro finding it in corner of the
Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia,
pronounced it one of the marvels of the
age. Edison was thought to be possess
ed of a mild form of dementia when he
announced that by injecting electricity
into the carbon fi!ament of lamp from
which the air had been removed he had
discovered the secret of what is today the
worlds universal illuminant Patrick
B. Delany excited the same popular mis-
givings among the unscientifc with mis-
multipleX, by which six messages were
transmitted simultaneously over a sin
gle wire and taxed our Imagination to
matte telegraphy by which he sends 100
words a minute over one wire. Finally |
when Marconi, the beardless youth from
Bologna showed US how without the use
of any wires at all, it was possible to
communicate over sea, we admitted that |
there was nothing left to chAnense .ul
credulity.
Thus the world has moved on. Each |
step has broadened our perspective,
strengthened our confidence and added |
to our length of days, our po!se, peace, |
power and joy. No longer do we denounce |
any one or decry his invention. Rather
have we got to that poin in our evolu-
ton where we believe the apparently i'm
possible IS attainable and that mankind |
Is at last master not only of his own |
destiny but of that of generations yet |
unborn.