Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1915-08-02
UNCLE SAM AND THE
INVENTOR.
By Frederic ]. Haskin.

The announcement by Secretary OF
the Navy Daniels of the appointment
Of a naval advisory board. composed OF
linen who have done things" In the
world of invention. has once more CEN
tered attention upon the fact that the
limited States is the leading nation or
the world with respect to inventive in
genuity.
1t is not an empty boast that Yankee
skill" leads the world. but fact easily
proved, as a glance at the records OF
the patent offices of this and other coun-
tries will soon show. The United
States. with a patent system less than
a century old. issued its one-millionth
patent August s. 1911. France, our
nearest competitor. has issued only a
little more than half this number.
while Great Britain. Germany and the
other European countries have still
fewer patented inventions.
| The war abroad has, of course. seri-
ously impaired the business of creating
and patenting new devices in practical
| ly all the countries Of Europe. while
| it has only stimulated Americans to
greater efforts. The average number
of patents issued daily at the present
|
there are apparently no bounds to be
placed upon the creative genius of
the American inventor. for no sooner
| is one device finished, patented and
placed on the market than some one
devises something just little better
and new patent is issued.
In this connection it Is rather anus
ing to note that there Is on file at the
patent Office In Washington the
letter of the superintendent Of the
patent office.
Thought Nothing written in
Was Left to Patent. i ins his ' posi-
ton because there was nothing more
left to patent" This man. who had
never dreamed of the telephone or tel
egraph, the automobile or the aero
plane, the electric light or moving
pictures-this man who would have
considered that a person who spoke of
sending messages through the air
was a hopeless lunatic, and that he
who imagined that a gun could shoot
a dozen miles with accuracy sufficient
to hit a target only a few feet square
should be incarcerated lest he harm
his neighbors. voluntarily gave up his
lucrative post rather than defraud the
government. One has only to glance
at the epochal inventions of the last
century to see how much the world
can and probably will change before
2015.
And it is because American genius
and American creative ability have al
ways been in the forefront of these
changes that the Secretary of the Navy
decided to form his advisory board, APP
pointing thereto men whose names are
household words and whose inventions
are familiar to every one.
Thomas A. Edison. admittedly the
foremost inventor in the world, will
head the board, and 1t is assuredly
ton that his brain will evolve some
machinery of warfare which will be
comparable in destructive energy to
the constructive force exercised by the
incandescent lamp, the moving picture
camera and the many other inventions
which bear the name of the American
wizard. The word Edison has been one
to conjure with in times Of peace; it is
the opinion of Secretary Daniels that
it will be no less powerful In time of
war.
Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor
Of the telephone. Is another inventor
slated for a position upon the naval
advisory board. and it 10 necessary only
to consider of what tremendous ad-
vantage the control of wireless tele-
phonics would be to a nation at war to
realize the probable sphere of Bells
activities. Wireless telegraphy has
practically relegated the old-fashioned
system of signaling between warships
to the scrap heap. The perfection of
the wireless teI, hone would entirely
do away with 4 nal flags. save for
decorative purL &.s, and the COM
mander of feet would have all the
units of his armada directly under his
control and subject to his slightest
wish. Wireless biography is rapid.
sut wireless telephony would be in
Simultaneous.
Others who have been mentioned for