The Hartford republican., 1911-05-19


Of twenty of the nation's largest cor
porations held i'm New York, the 9th
or day II was a matter OF comment
that of whose present, twelve wore
farmers boys.
When the youngser at home on
the farm gets ''the blues" and fan
cies that there is no longer the chance
that there usedt o be to rise above the
monotony and drudgery of tiller
Of the soil, he can think of these
twelve captains Of industry who start
ed as he Is starting and remember
that when they were boys there were
times when they too imagined that
1t was a hopeless ambition to aspire
to win their way 70 the front in
the city.
He wants to remember that the
farm has evolved some of the worlds
greatest men and some of its most
conspicuously useful ones and that
with the increasing activities of the
nation In all directions there is now,
more than ever, room at the top for
the exceptional man.
In the contemplation of the STIR
ring achievements of the farmers
boy, past and present, IL he has mag
ination he will find helpful irspira-
ton, when the day seems dark and
the future full of gloom. Let him re-
collect-as the world surely does
that 1t was the farm that gave us
Abraham Lincoln, one of the worlds
most majestic figures; that gave us
Andrew Jackson, Millard Fillmore, the
martyred Garfield, Horace Greeley, Sir
Isaac Newton and the brilliant Car
lyle. 1t was a farmers son-En Whit
ney, who created the cotton gin,
which laid the foundation for THE
growth of ths cotton industry, now
worth s9OO,o0O,009 year to the Uni
ted States and farmers boy-Esias
Howe who emancipated womanhood
from the slavery of the kneedle by
invening the sewing machine
Long before Robert Fulton sailed
his steamboat, the Cler-mont up the
Hudson, John Fitch, the ingenious
product of a Pennsylvania farm de-
monstrated that boat could be pro-
PEELED by steam by equipping a skiff
with an engine and sailing his craft
UP the Delaware with its aid, An
other brainy farmers boy-Oliver Ev-
ans-sometlmes called the Watt of
America-was the first to built and
operate a locomotive in the Unit
ed States. Cyrus Mccormick, inventor
of the reaper, the whirl of which is to
day heard round the earsh. was the
modest SON Of an ordinary Illinois
farmer The first machine to make
tacks was the creation of a Massa-
chusetts farm lad.--Thomas Blanchard
and the device shat furnished the
world with the modern screw was
the work of poor Vermont genious
Thomas Harvey, quiet. thought
full farmers son. To the resourceful-
ness of an Ohio farm oy-Charles
F. Brush-who invented the dynamo,
the world Is indebted for its present
day great industrials and power plants
that give employment to millions of
hands. Thomas A. Edison, most bril-
liant of the worlds Inventors, spon--
sor for the electric light, the phono-
graph and a hundred other devices,
was the son of poor farm laborer.
Patrick B. Delany. inventor of the
multiplex, the Delaney relay, the
telep0st automatic telegraph and a
hundred other telegraph and cable
improvements grew up on a New En-
land farm. From a Wisconsin farm
came c. l.. Sholes, the inventor of
the typewriter, which revolutionized
the business methods of the world.
X. M. Trner. inventor of the accus-
ton. the photograph and the inter
ior telephone bearing his name, now
universally usedw hen not engaged on
his fathers Indiana farm used to
hire himsef out to neighboring far
mers at rs cents day seeding corn
at which he was acclaimed an expert.
Where service is the only credenti-
al that commands recognition and
a mans ability must square with his
responsibility, the 'tfarmsr's boy
who has hearkensd to the call Of
the big city will be found to-day in
the front rank of the worlds ussful
workers in every large city on the
face ofthe earth. He makes good and
the world needs him.