Missouri Valley times. [volume] (Missouri Valley, Iowa) 1874-1931, 1911-08-31
EDISON HOPES to-
SOLVE SECRET OF
DEFEATING DEATH
Wizard Hints That SCIENTIFIC
Experiments May Reveal
Way to Restore Life.

Paris. Special: That the human BE-
ing is only higher kind of phono-
graph was one of the views expressed
by Thomas A. Edison in q talk at the
Hotel Majestic, while he waited for
his friend. Mr.. Monnat, of the Clax-
ton company, who is acting as the
inventors guide about Europe. The
conversation jumped from Shake
speare to musical glasses and later
to DR.. Carrots recent surgical marvels
performed at the Rockefeller institute.
DIR Carrel has succeeded in graft
ing the leg of dog, which had been
cut off and kept in cold storage back
onto an animal SO that the grated leg.
became normal again." said MIR. Edi
son. Such a successful experiment
inspires the imagination; 1t prompts
one to ask If the greast question of con-
sc1ousness after death may not event
ually be solved in some such manner"
May Solve Death Secrets.
Mr.. Edison, as is we'll known, is q
materialist. He is am agnostic. but his
mind is always kept open to convic-
ton.
III some day the scientists arrive at
point where the human body, after
life is extinct can be thus preserved
and after an indefinite time through
the TRANSMISSION of life giving blood OF
fluid be brought back to resume its
normal functions. who can say that
we may not learn definitely il there is
consciousness after death?" he asked
AT present, however. man must be
regarded as an intricate mechanism,
cial environments Each individual
does the best he can in the circum-
stances surrounding him. The degree
of moral responsibility one may pos
sess depends on accidents of nature. II
a man is born WITH face that lacks
i<r, Ia
picking pockets or INDUCING in othel
ingenuities of crime, since nature has
unkindly deprived him of the normal
balance he is entitled to. In other
words, we work we'll or i'll as ma
chine. according to the degree of per-
lection with which we are turned out
OF natures workshop.
Asylums Are Storehouses.
"Our prisons and asylums are con-
scauently only storehouses where a
deficient human machine or phono-
graph is locked up out of harms way.
Civilization must have machines that
work properly to achieve the grand
results of development, which I be-
lieve are the fruits of the future mind"
MIR. Edison went on to compare the
mental development of savages and
Caucasians, but he was soon talking
of Paris as the paradise of women's
finery, which led him to express doubt
as to civilizations entire freedom from
the fetch worship of geegaws char
acteristic of the Fiji islanders and
other sayages.
The Rue de la PaiX is one of the
streets of Paris which Edison avoids.
Its innumerable vanity shops" dis
please him with their displays. He
objects to members of his family wear
ing jewels, having persuaded them
that every jewel is link binding them
to Hottentot standards, where the fe-
male attains Importance in proportion
to the pounds of ornaments she can
carry about her body. Edison believes
not only in the simple life but in the
pearls remained in their oyster shells
society would not only be happier but
there would be fewer suicides among
desperate heads of families who live
beyond their income to supply their
families with expensive superfiuities.
Some Places Avoided.
As a consequence of IIdison's mater
ialistic views, many of Paris most ia
nous monuments receive from him
only cursory attention.
When / see great cathedral like
Notre Dame" he said, Il think of what
the enormous expenditure of money 1t
represents would have meant to the
people of that day if it had been de-
voted to the needs of education. Edu-
cation is year by year making the false
distinctions of class in Europe thing
of the effete past. ] welcome the re-
volt against traditional opinion in Eng
land which threatens its old time So
cial structure, the house of lords. Mere
hereditary institutions must go, but
reforms are nearer accomplished by
wholesale measures, such as shown by
the present turn of English politics.
Il compare all such reforms to the
slow turn of a heavy bulk such as the
Mauretania. Everything takes time,
and the fact that the Americans do not
realize this is one of our defects. one
| of ON, La 1lSaS from common SenSe -