Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-01-15

N N'NN
~ mobile show and buy the most expensive
car on exhibition.
1t would take much more money to buy
the most valuable animal exhibited at FASH
ionable horse show. c. X. G. Billings paid
$50, 600 for Lou Dillon, or more than enough
to buy seven of the finest cars In Convention
Hall.
Lou Dillon is living creature, with all the
potentialties of life within her. An auto
mobile is merely a machine. The horse can
cooperate with man and do her share of in
telligent work. The machine can do nothing
OF its own voliton II is dead and inert, un-
less man has his hand on the throttle. 1t
acts as if 1t were alive but all its stimulation
of life comes from the action of the brain
that made it and the hand that manipulates
the valves and levers
The machine commands admiration. Its
silent power, as 1t moves over the pave
ments, is awe-nspiring. Its ability to climb
the hills and burn it's way over the roads as
fire runs through stubble makes mere man
envious Of its ability to cover great distances.
But the motorcar is only one of the many
products of the human brain 1t existed in
a mans mind before II was materlalized II
has made new business where none existed
before, and this business is so extensive that
the men engaged in 1t here have spent s5S,OOO
this week in advertising IL in The local papers
There are other machines as marvellous
as the automobile. The linotype machine,
used in setting the type for every large news
paper in the country is almost automatic
in its operations, and 1t is sometimes called
intelligent. but 1t has no more intelligence
than the man who sits at its keyboard. The
machine itself did not know enough to ad-
just the expansion and contraction of the
casting the type, and the metal pot would
crack and put the machine out of commission
until 1t was repaired. A man had to come
to the help of the machine. He devised a
way of heating the metal by electricity ap-
piled in the center of the mass, so adjusted
as to distribute the warmth uniformly. And
in order to prevent the overheating he mr.
ranged an automatic switch which will turn
on the heat when IT falls below fixed mini
mum and turn it off when the maximum, ten
degrees greater, is reached.
"In Franklins day" said machinist who
was adjusting one of the electrically heated
metal pots electricity was untamed. Now
we've got it eating off our hands"
No one should exhaust his capacity for
wonder over the things that men have done
with inert metal and the forces of nature.
Man has wrought greater tnarvels with him
self. Fifty years ago no one who looked upon
a certain sckly asthmatic. narrow -chested,
near-sighted little boy would have expected
him to become one of the most vigorous men
of his time, both physically and intellectually.
But Theodore Roosevelt that boy. He re-
members being carried from one place to
another by his parents. who hoped to find
some spot where he could breathe. His sight
was so poor that he went stumbling about
until it was accidentally discovered, when he
1S years old. that he needed glasses. He
decided to remake the weak body with which
he had been born. He succeeded so we'll that
1t is doubtful If any man of his years in the
country is more vigorous able to stand up
under a harder physical or mental strain.
What Roosevelt has done with his body is
more wonderful than anything that inventors
have done with steel, BY grim determina-
tion and resoute effort he fitted himself to
live the life which he wanted to live.
Alexander H. Stephens, afflicted with bodily
infrmities that he could not overcome, re-
fused to permit them TO overcome him. He
became one of the ablest statesmen of his
day and one of the most powerful leaders
of his party.
Francis Parkman refused to permit his fail
ing sight to prevent him from completing a
monumental work on American history.
Robert Louis Stevenson, dying for years
from an incurabe disease, remained captain
of his soul and forced his feeble hands to
respond to his indomitable will. and Lincoln,
handicapped as few boys are now handi-
capped persisted in his determination to
know things until he had mastered all the
books in the sparsely settled country for 20
miles around.
He did not say "Ah, what's the use. never
can amount to anything because l amt got
no chance"
He did not look around for some one to
own opportunities, and when the time of trial
came the nation found a man ready to it's
hand qualified to stand the strain put upon
his honor. his patriotism and his statesman
ship.
The will to do and to dare marks the differ
ence between a man and a machine, and be-
tween the man who does things and the man
who complains because he has no chance.
An automobile may be worth $1,000 and a
trotting horse may sell for $4,000, But who
can measure the value of man?
II Edison were put up on the block at auc-
ton, what would he bring at a forced sale?
Grant, the tanner, did not seem to be worth
much TO any one. but Grant, the compeller OF
victory, was worth billions TO the nation.
The value OF a machine depends on the use
man can make Of 1t, The value of man
the raw materials of nature and other men.
and no bear market can prevent him from
making himself worth as much as he chooses.