Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1915-07-06
THE LINOTYPE.
History Of Machines Used to Set Type
for The ENQUIRER.

for Tho Enquirer.
Sargon. king Of Chaldea, had IL
brary. The books were baked clay.
The imprints on them, beautiful and
minute, were made with bronze punch
es while the material was soft.
That was 1000 years ago.
King Sargon became forgotten.
Chaldea became forgotten. Europe
became great.
Columbus was born. 1t was $500
years after King Sargon. Books still
were being written by hand.
Columbus was growing into a lad
when the first effective improvement
came. 1t was in 1854. Then Johann
Gutenberg made the first book with
movable type.
Men had printed for ages. They
had even printed in colors, from wood
blocks and with other devices. The
greatness Of Gutenberg's achievement
was not in printing, but in the success
full use Of separate type. In that mo-
ment the human spirit found means
Of expression; and knowledge possess
ed till then by the few, was given to
all.
Columbus found the New World.
Spain lost it, then France, then Eng
land. The young Republic flung its
banners of states across the Appala-
chians. Printing still was almost as
laborious as in Gtutenberg's day. The
printing press did not accompany the
pioneer.
Our Civil war came. It's news was
set by hand as Gutenberg had set his
first book. The compositor reached
into his case Of type for each letter
separately, and separately dropped 1t
into place to spell each word. To set
a page no larger than an ordinary
book the compositor's hand had to
move one-half mile.
1t was 1886, four hundred and thir-
ty-two years after Gutenberg's first
type was set, before the printer was
emancipated from this painful useless
labor. In that year there appeared
the first copy Of a newspaper whose
type had been composed not by hand,
but by an instrument.
The newspaper was the New York
Tribune. The instrument was the
linotype.
That was only thirty years ago. To-
day newspapers composed on the lino-
type greet the sun in its flight around
the world. They are in Africa, north
and south. They are in Siberia, In
dia and China, Japan and the Philip
pines, Hawaii, even the Ladrone is
lands Of the far Pacific know the lino-
type. They tell the news in Alaska.
They print it in Spanish and Portu-
guese under the snow-helmeted An
des. and thousand miles up the ANA
aZon river.
1t is an achievement Of our gener-
alton and typical Of it. Thomas A.
Edison says it is one of the ten Won
ders Of the world.
1t is not a 'type-setting" machine.
1t has not a piece Of type in it. 1t
makes its own type-a new letter ev-
cry time; and every time 1t forms a
sentence it does twenty-three separate
and intricate things.
To tell how this complex. marvel
Gus instrument was devised, improved
and made perfect is to tell story Of
courage rather than mere inventive
ingenuity.
The original device did not have
even the germ of the linotype in it..
1t failed again and again. 1t sue
ceeded in nothing save in impoverish-
ing all who had anything to do with
it. Put it planted in their brains and
spirits a dream.
They raised more money. They en-
gagged Ottmar Mergenthaler, then
working as a mechanic in a Baltimore
shop.
From that time on the story is the
story Of improvement after improve
ments that refused obstinatcly for all
their wonderful ingenuity, to produce
a successful machine. More than one
great invention or discovery, beset
with such difficulties. has been aban-
doned in despair, to lie idle and for
gotten for years or even generations,
till new men found new courage to
take it up again. This invention, for
tunately, had men behind it who
would not give up. They stayed. They
heartened each other, and they heart
ened the inventor, ever and again.
Ever and again they refilled the ever
treasury.
Today, perfected to a degree that
would not have consid-
cred possible. there are 10000 limo
types working around the world
Exchange.