The Bon Homme County independent. [volume] (Tabor, S.D.) 1904-1913, 1911-08-10
EUROPE IN INVENTION.
Why She IL in Advance of the Proverb
ially Clever Yankee,


Everybody Is familiar with the
claim that American inventors. engin-
GERS and manufacturers lead the
world" says Engineering News. "a
vast amount Of Boosting has been done
about American ingenuity and origin
ality and enterprise. IL this claim were
well founded, 1t would be indeed matter
for national pride; and a quarter Of a
century ago such a claim had a good
OF fields of invention and manufacture
In which the pioneer work was done by
Americans and in which the statistics
Of exports still testify to our high
standing.
But" continues the Engineering
News. when one views the whole field
of engineering and industry, and par
ticularly the progress of the past Is
years. Il is rather humiiating to con-
fess that instead Of being in the lead.
the United States are tagging for in
the rear.
"Take for example the advances
made in iron and steel metallurgy dur
ing the past Is years. Some original
contributions have been made to the
art by American inventors In that
time. of course. but the great advan.
ces which have been made have almost
all originated abroad. We are today
something like five years behind Ger
many in iron and steel metallurgy, and
such innovations as are being intro
duced by our iron and steel manufac-
turers are most Of them merely follow
ing the lead set by foreigners years
ago
1--WE do not believe this is because
American engineers are any less in
genious or original than those OF Eu-
rope. though they may indeed be de-
icient in training and scientific edu-
cation compared with those of Ger
many We believe the main cause is
the wholesale consolidation which has
taken place in American industry. A
huge organization is too clumsy to take
up the development OF an original idea
With the market closely controlled and
profits assured by following standard
methods. those who control our trusts
do not want the bother of developing
anything new
instances metallurgy only by way OF
illustration. There are plenty of other
fields of industry where exactly the
same condition exists. Americans ara
building the same machines and using
the same methods as dozen years ago.
and the real advances in the art are
being made by European inventors and
manufacturers.
Those 'effete nations Of Europe &C.
tually appear to take certain pride
in doing new things that are worth
while. Original work by engineers and
designers Is encouraged and rewarded.
In some cases American manufacturers
take up these foreign inventions after
they have been developed on the other
side of the water, and after four or
five years, the new improvement begins
to be introduced here. IT other cases
q dozen years or more elapse before
any American has enterprise enough
to introduce here what has been proved
to be excellent on the other side "a the
ocean.
'It would be easy to cite so or 100
important inventions Of the past quar-
ter century which have originated in
Europe
"A notable illustration of this lack Of
originality in present day American
industry Is the development of the in
ternal combustion engine. There Is no
doubt that the application Of this type
of prime mover to a wide range of
uses has been the most important de-
velopment In mechanical engineering
OF the past 25 years; but the original
work in this field has almost all been
done abroad. We have merely copied
the European inventions. OF course,
there are some few meritorious details
of design which have been worked out
by Americans, but nearly all the really
notable advances In the field Of gas
and oil engines from the beginning have
been made In Europe"