The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1914-06-02
THE WIZARD ERA

~ worlds TAR at Phlladelphla,
and saw there for the first
time the typewriter-that is, the ma
chine. / had seen the attachment be-
fore. We did not have the type
writing machine nor the type-writ
ing girl in our offices thirty years
ago. Today we could not get along
without either Of them, they have
added so much to the happiness of
mankind, and occasionally a domes-
tic problem to our civilization. Some
one is getting rich making the ma
chine, but shall we for that reason
go back to the old long hand? We
couldn't run the world as we run it
now if we did our correspondence in
the old-fashioned way.
/ saw also at Philadelphia print
tive telephone, and when | heard the
human voice for the first time over
the phone it seemed to me like q
message from another world. OF
course | had seen a toy telephone
before-tin cans on the ends of a
string strung across the street to a
neighbor boy-for the boys of my
generation helped the scientists in
vent the telephone just as the boys
of the present day are displaying
much skill in the development of
wireless telegraphy. But | never seen
the real thing before visiting the ex-
position. In few years the tele-
phones were strung all over the
prairies of the West. The farmers
hitched the telephone wires on to the
barbed-wire fence, and talked over
| the fence, using the barbs for pune
tuation marks. Many men have be-
come very wealthy making electri-
cal devices, but is that sufficient
reason for throwing the phone out
of your home and turning off the
electric light?
| As recently as 1890 the street cars
/ in the cities of Minnesota were drawn
/ by horses and mules. The cars were
little, short, dinkey-bob things, and
when the storms of winter were in
/ the faces of the mules, they would
turn around, stick their heads in the
car and hold joint-debate with the
conductor. Then came a genius with
the fire of heaven and applied it to
tho r,f c+, Tho c4a+
compelled the owning company to put
vestibules on both ends of the cars.
Now we have bigger and better cars,
passengers are protected from the in
clement weather, the cars are NOV
/ ing more rapidly, and we are all hap
pier than we were before, yet out
of it all have come many millionaires
and as many problems. But shall we
go back to the mule to get rid of the
millionaire, or shall we worry along
] in our present company as best we
can?
4 A generation ago one might have
seen freight trains half a mile long,
crossing the prairies Of Minnesota,
with the mercury forty below zero
in the winter time, and brakemen
running down the spinal column of
the train TO put on the brakes in the
old-fashioned way. 1t was one of the
wonders of the world that they didn't
freeze to death before they got back
to the caboose. Then genius gave
to the world the air-brake and the
automatic coupler. The legislatures
of the several states and the Con-
gress of the Union compelled the rail-
way companies within limited time
to make their cars all of uniform
height and adopt these new devices.
Now the brakeman carries a flag or
a light, the engineer does the rest,
and we are not killing so many rail-
who invented the safety devices have
made many millions. Shall we return
to the old system OF killing and
manning our fellowmen 10 avoid a
problem incident 10 such progress,
or shall we cheerfully accept this
new and better civilization, claiming
its happiness as our own, and max
ing the solution Of its problems the
first and sweetest part Of our daily
toll?
/ The photograph is one Of the most
startling Of modern inventions and a