The Washington herald., 1912-01-07
d. IAMEs B. aIoRRow.

BY JAMES b. MORROW.
Thes.'guesses' Of Emile Berliner, put
ting them tandem. just az he made.
them, were Ike this; A telephone trans
mltter-without II Bells Invention wouio
have been Of uncertain value; talking
machine. now sold the world over;
milk campaign that has become inter
national, and, finally, q theory oaiiy
being demonstrated. that revolving GYM
ders are the best for the motors OF aero
planes.
aSsuesses," Mr.. Berljner calls them.
Science and finance. however. know them
by other names. The transmitter prac-
ticaIized the telephone. II was no guess,
but a concrete achievement In electricity.
The talking machine required seven
years Of experimental labor. Guesses
are hit or miss, and the guesser, miss
ing, hastily passes along to something
else. Emile Berliner sticks TO his text.
The milk campaign has jumped the At
lantic ocean, and Is marching AROUND
in Europe. A little grave, and later
child near unto death, caused a father TO
investigate the almost Herodian massa-
ere of infants and by projection the oy-
ing annually of many thousands OF men
and women
Before the wrights astonished the
country with public exhibitions Of their
flying machines at Fort Myer, across the
Potomac, in sight of Washington, two
motors. with revolving cylinders, were
being tested in Mr.. Berliner's labora-
tory. When other men are sightess ne
has vision. He guessed that the nrst
mechanical need of an aeroplane was an
economy of room and weight Inc
great records In the air have been made
with motors OF the Berliner type. Scarce
ly larger than the top Of a sewing ma
chine. they cost $500 apiece, are self
cooling, are without fly wheels OF course
and weigh but three pounds TO the
horsepower.
Supernatural Eyes and Brains.
Science describes Mr.. Berliner as being
an eminent American inventor. Instead.
IT might say that he is a human dynamo,
with supernatural eyes and brains. Also
in some regret. perhaps. that he is wholly
self-taught and was once a clerk In a
clothing store. and then a salesman on the
road. While learned men are showing
by mathematical formula that particu-
lar thing cannot be done, Emile Berliner
does it-and gets rich.
Thus while grammarians and rhetori-
clans and professors of English-technical
men-are microscoping words and SEN
tences, Mark Twain, river pilot writes
'Iunocepts Abroad" William Dean How
ellis a prfnter. writes The Rise of Silas
I.apham;" Lew Wallace, a lawyer with
common school education, writes Ben
Hur." and Edward N Westcott, banker
IN broken health. writes David Harum.
II they had stopped TO measure all by
rule. knowing the rule, which, luckily
they did not, they would have gone no
further.
They lust sat down and wrote. As F.
Hopkinson Smith, who never took an
art lesson in his life. just sits down and
paints and gets 1900 for a picture. Ber-
liner, understanding the general laws OF
electricity and mechanics, Just sits down
and inveuts and shows, between tasks.
that cows milk is more destructive to
human life than were the wars OF Ma
poIeon, including the hideous return from
the frozen steppes of Russia. And ply
siclans. he declares, are In loose league
with dairymen and milk dealers.
It was in his library that DR.. Ernest c.
Schroeder, the famous veterinarian and
authority on contagious and infectious
diseases, gave publicity to his discovery,
now accepted everywhere. that milk as
Il comes from the udder OF COW having
bovine tuberculosis is not infected. The
hair-on the sides of the COW is, however,
because OF the excreta on the stable floor,
and thus the bacilli during the process
Of milking, falls into the pail containing
the milk and children and adults die in
consequence.
That sound could be sent along wire
was shown anew. as some assert, in the
year 1876 Berliner. speaking imperfect
English. vas twenty-five years old and
was clerking In a clothing store at Wash
ington. He had arrived in this country
from Hanover, Germany, in $50. having
stopped going In school at the age OF
fourteen. The commercial potentialities
Of the telephone were apparent to him
at a time when almost every one else,
except Prof. Bell and his associates, re-
garded It as a toy and as a unique and
useless contraptiOn.
A Very Great InventIOn.
The transmitter, however. was imper-
feet. Ones voice had to be raised to
scream IL heard. Even then, the person
at the other end OF the wire got the
sound uncertainty and sometimes not at
all. The Berliner invention produced dis
tinct articulation. Without it. long dis
tance telephoning would have been inn
possible. So much for an immigrant,
rather new to the country, but having
a talent for mechanics and a smatteriRg
of physics which he obtained from books.
The rest may be attributed to optics, OF
slCiIl IN seeing a thing ahead Of any one
else. CuOE1gf
a gray man of sixty, easily negotiable
at less than fifty. spoke Of his early
American experiences. Doubtless, though
he did not say so, he travelled in the
steerage. Nor did ! ask him, much as
] wanted to.
II came direct to washington on land
ing" he said. We were seated in the
library Of one OF the best houses at the
National CAPITAL. For a time, 1 clerked.
Then went to New York. where taught
German, kept books, and painted land
scapes and what-not as backgrounds to
enlarged tintype portraits. oh, yes; and
I peddled glue. Presently I became a
commercial traveller, selling up and down
the Mississippi River, between New Or
leans and ST. Paul. Once, in England,
lady asked me IL 1 knew our Western
country. She wanted stories, I suppose.
about grizzly bears, buffaloes, and In
dians.
.saOh, surely I said. I was q drum
mer from Lake Superior to the Gulf of
Mexico
piled. I did not know you were sol
der
aReturnins to New York. got place
in FahIbergss laboratory. called myself
an assistant, but I really washed bottles
for s. a week. II was not long before /
was analyzing sugar. In the meantime
I was studying phyEicE. While keeping
books at a feed store my old employer In
WastIngtO1 offered me q situation. The
next year, IsH, I Invented the micro
Dhone. or loose contact telephone trans