New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-02-01
Doesn't Patent Ideas
of Employees, Says
Traction Official.
HIS INVENTIONS
ADD TO INCOME
Resents Intimations from
Counsel for Thompson
Committee.

Bainbridge Colby, counsel for tho
Thompson legislative committee,
sought to establish yesterday that the
inventions Of employees Of the Inter
borough Rapid Transit Company which
are submitted to Frank Hedley. vice
president and general manager, are
taken by tho latter and patented in
his name.
Under the lawyers sharp questions,
many Of which the transit man, red
faced from suppressed indignation, an
swered grudgingly, ne told Of his
sources Of income, which averages at
least $4,000 annually.
81 do not think | am paid enough, d
Mr.. Hedley told the committee.
Us it not fact" asked Mr. Colby
late in the afternoon, that everything
good that comes to your Office that
has been invented or perfected by an
employe is taken by Eedley and Doyle
and promptly patented by them?"
J. 5. Doyle is superintendent of the
Interborough's car equipment depart
ment
NO" replied the witness. Il resent
that question"
you might well resent IT," the law
yer returned. "if II did not seem 70 be
a fact that only one or two inventions
worth while which are in use by the
Interborough came from nll their
thousands Of skilled employees, while
you, as vice-president and general
manager, have been successful in hav-
ing accepted at least twenty patents,
which have psid and are paying yor
thousands Of dollars annually"
Mr. Hedley Indignant
Mr Hedley was indignant
whether man in our employ
makes 81 q day or $40 day, he re-
celves a square deal II he has some
thing worth while which may make
transportation safer or reduce ex-
penses." he said. No applications for
patents had ever been made by him at
Washington with his name attached
unless he had been part inventor, he
declared.
Mr.. Colby indicated that his exam
ination was not to be merely perfume
tory. The Interborough, declared He'd
lev. accepted all his patent devices and
did not pay him cent for them. lie
admitted. however, that he had re-
ceived special awards for safety and
expense saving devices. The Railway
Improvement Company took his inven-
tons and placed them on the market,
he said. They were privileged 70 sell
them to any company but the Inter
borough.
In 1903. Hedley said, the INTERIOR
ough paid him $1,000 outright for
device for scraping ice and sleet from
the third rail of the elevated railway.
An invention which saves the company
$500. 900 a year, which he perfected,
he asserted, was a coasting clock, an
electric meter which showed the
amount Of power consumed and the
distance coasted by motormen. Prizes
we're given fo- train operators who
averaged the greatest coasting dis
tances. 1t took him twelve years 20
perfect it, Hedley said, and for each
one in use he receives $3.50 year, or
an annual income Of about $4,000.
For inventing corrugated ends for car
platforms, called anti-climbers and d.
signed 20 keep trains from telescoping
in a wreck, the Interborough directors
voted their vice-president an award Of
$40 for every car SO equipped. Forty
other railways, including the Hudson &
Manhattan and the Pennsylvania Rail
road. use them, Mr.. Hedley testified.
His Pleasure Is Inventing.
After listening TO the narration OF the
income from his inventions, Mr.. Colby
Continued on page Q, column