White Pine news weekly mining review. [volume] (East Ely, Nev.) 1910-1920, 1911-05-07
MERGENTHALER LINOTYPE MACHINE.
PASSES TWENTY-HRST BIRTHDAY.
The Type Setting Invention That Has RevoIutionized
the Printing and Publishing Business and Made
Possible the Great Metropolitan Newspapers

The Mergenthaler linotype. thai
wonderful mach na which put this
article into type for printing. Naf
twenty-one years old Saturday. Ii
the newspaper men and printers
were not too busy to do anything
but work, they might have celebrate
ed the day as a great holiday, with
thanksgivings and burnt offerings
and libations; for without this ma
chine the newspapers of today could
not exist.
The linotype was not born, Min
erca-like, from any Jovian brow, but
as ii stands today is the product OF
the minds of the many master
mechanics who have added improve
ment after improvement, until the
PROJECTIONS and the perversities OF
the machine make it seem a body OF
metal endowed with a human heart
and brain.
The idea Upon which the linotype
was perfected was, however, the con-
ception of Ottmar M~ergenthaler,
whose name the machine bears. and
whose heirs collect a royalty of fifty
dollars upon every machine sold.
This idea took shape in 1888, the
first Mergenthaler machine was built
in 1885, and the second one latter In
the same year. Machines of the tpye
of the second model were used in
many newspaper and job printing
Offices, but there was yet something
lacking. In 1890 the shortcomings
of the older machine were recognized
and Mr.. M%ergenthaler perfected and
patented a machine which embodied
all the essential principles of the
linotype of today. That patent was
granted on April g., 1890, and there
fore the linotype is twenty-one years
old-old enough to vote.
The difference between the ma
chine of 1885 and the machine of
1890 was SO radical that the real
reign of the Mergenthaler may be
said to date from the introduction
OF the latter type. Since that time
1t is true that thousands of improve
ments have been patented and ap-
piled to the machine, but none of
them has radically interfered with
the principles of the patent of 1890.
Perhaps other improvements will
yet be intellectually some inven-
tive genius ought to devise a sys-
tenn of balancing the casting lever
so they every operator would not
hang a tin bucket of type metal
pigs on the lever of even the new
est machine in the shop. But that is
n bit of technique.
The real reason why the linotype
seaped into universal favor as soon
as 1t was perfected in 1890 was that
ii vas the first practical machine to
offer a substitute for the slow and
laborious process of setting type by
hand. Scores of inventors had tried
for years, with more or less success.
% construct a type-setting machine.
The reason Mergenthaler succeeded
where so many had failed was that
he discarded the idea of setting type
and substituted for it the idea of
casting type. a line at a time.
The first machine was fitted with
a number of vertical, movable bars,
into each of which was cut the dies
of all the letters of the alphabet,
small letters and capitals, the
figures, characters and other signs
used in printing. By touching a key
on a keyboard, like that of a type