The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1914-11-20
Old MdsteD
ELY WHITNEY
BY c. c. G.
In GOOdUin'S ueekiy

the ten will be unable to answer.
But he should have place close
up to the head of the class among
the Industrial chiefs of the 10th cen
fury.
He was born in Westborough,
Mass. December, 1865. He gradual
ed from Yale in 1892 and went to
Georgia to teach school. After a
while his health broke down and the
window of the great revolutionary
general, Nathaniel Greene, pers lad
ed him to make her house his home.
From the days of the first civiliza-
ton of men cotton had been the most
universally used article of clothing
among men and women. The trouble
had been not to weave the fibre into
clothing but to sparate the fibre from
the seed. So serious was this that to
separate a pound of clean cotton
from the seed without waste was a
days work,
The Planters of the south We're as
poor as the farmers of the north and
the war had left them all in debt.
Several planters were one day dis
cussing the difficulty of separating
cotton from the seed. They we're
that day dining with Mrs. Greene.
At last she said: Gentlemen, apply
to my young friend, Mr.. Whitney;
he can make anything" At the time
Whitney had never seen a cotton
pod. But he found one and studied
it. Others had tried to separate the
seed from the cotton. He decided
to try to separate the cooton from
the seed. He had to make his own
tools, draw his own wire, make his
own frame-to absolutely create the
whole thing.
The usual troubles followed him.
His machine was stolen in the night
and soon several appeared on the
market.
His patents were contested and the
juries always decided against him.
Georgia never would pay him any,
thing but South Carolina voted him
$4,000 and North Carolina gave him
a percentage on the cotton ginned.
Congress refused to renew his
patents.
But the miracle the machine per-
formed can be estimated ''y the fact
that whereas before his invention the
cotton export of the United States
was but eighty-one bags in 1890, it
was advanced to millions of bales ten
years later and cotton suddenly be-
came king.
Whitney later made a great i'm
provement in fire arms and made a
fortune from that invention. Whit
ney died in New Haven on the Sth
day of January, 1925.
1t is hard to imagine what q bless
ing his invention of the cotton gin
was. 1t cheapened the clothing of
millions and tens of millions of peo-
pie rs per cent in a few brief years.
What had been hating, insignifi-
cant labor become almost at once one
OF the worlds greatest industries and
increased the comfort of mankind
immensely
1t made the sale of cotton one of
the chief revenues of half our states.
1t gave the country a new standing
and credit among the nations and the
southern states new power in the
counsels of the republic.
1t was but a simple invention but
it solved problem that the world
had tried in vain to solve for more
than thirty centuries.
1t made cotton seed which had
been a great vexation a nuisance by
its abundance until another genius,
found way of making it source
of sufficient revenue great enough
to meet all the expense of cotton
raising, leaving the clean fibre all
revenue.
In the same way the separating of
rice from its hull had been q hind
rance to its cultivation through all
time, until a man from the north
went down to the rice fields, ex-
amined the plant and noted the diff
ficulty, then sent north for simple
threshing machine, fed the rice straw
into it even as wheat is fed and found
1t worked on rice just as well as
on wheat. And now rice is being
planted over vast areas and soon.
If we have not already, we will pro-
duce more than enough for home con-
sumption.
The lesson Of 1t all is,--and Lu-
thur Burbank emphasizes the fact
that when the American farmer per-
fectS himself in his work tho TTnitod