The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1917-09-01
Giving Credit

Townes R. Leigh, writing in the Cincinnati
Enquirer, takes exception to the current notion
that the Germans have been supreme in inven-
ton and science. He adduces long list of in
ventons that were produced by Englishmen and
Americans, and then asks why Germany should
be hailed as the leader of the scientific world.
Germany had advertised herself so extensively,
he holds, that the whole world has accepted her
claims without subjecting them to close scrutiny.
His argument follows:
During the last few months l have heard the
Germans arraigned as blatant, boorish, barbaric,
yet in nearly every case the speakers suffixed to
their invectives such an expression as: "But
when it comes to brains you will have to hand it
to them; they have made science"
Why hand it to them? What epoch-making
invention discovery is of German origin, except
a stamp on which is inscribed Made in Ger
many?" The steam engine has been called the
greatest of all inventions. 1t broke the shackles
from slaves; it mingled the marts of the world;
it made neighbors of the antipodes Newcomer,
native of Devonshire, obtained the patent for
the first partially successful steam engine; Watt.
Scotchnan, perfected it, Cuynet, Murdoch and
Trevithick brought forward the locomotive, not
on German soil; Stephenson, an Englishnan, was
the first to apply the locomotive steam engines
to railways for passenger traffic; France, Eng
land and America applied it to navigation.
The telegraph, which brings US the daily his-
tory OF the world was invented by an American,
Professor Morse, who also suggested the Atlantic
cable, which was subsequently laid by that Amer
lean merchant-scientists, Cyrus Field, assisted in
"mooring the new world alongside of the old" by
Lord Kelvin the prince of physicians, British
subject Graham Bell, the chief inventor of the
telephone, was born in Scotland and grew to fame
in America. A young Italian, Marconi, gave
wireless telegraphy to the world.
Cyrus Mccormick, native of West Virginia,
produced the reaping machine which harvests the
forth the threshing machine; thus was famine
banished. Ely Whitney, of Massachusetts, par
entage, invented the cotton gin; Hargraves an
Englishman made the spinning jenny; Ark
wright, also English. supplied its deficiency with
his famous spinning frame; the Englishman Kay
introduced the fly shuttle in weaving; Brunei,
who devised the knitting machine, and Cart
wright, inventor of the power loom, were British
subjects Thus was the world clothed.
Although Germany is militaristic and wor-
ships at the shrine of Mars, what votive offering
has she made to the God of war? It was not
she who contributed gunpowder, smokeless pow
der, percussion cap, nitroglycerlne, guncotton,
dynamite, torpedo, shrapnel, automotic cannon
magazine rifle, breech-loading gun, Calling gun,
revolver, Maxim silencer, hamnleress gun, gun
boat, ironclad batteries or ship armor plate, re-
volving tufret, submarine or arplane.
Germany did not produce the first aniline dye, |
rubber, liquid cases. gas engine, water
gas, thermometer, barometer, piano forte, barbed
wire, cut nails plate glass, circular saw, cable
electric car, sleeping car air brake, bicycle, auto
mobile, pneumatic tire, sewing machine, type
writer, calculating machine cash register, steel
writing pen, etc., ad infinitun