Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1917-03-14
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
SERVANT.
Used on the Farm, in the Country
Home, Church, School House
and Store.

There was time when light in "a
mouse was supplied by flaring torch
supported by bracket on the wall;
when each man carried his own
street light with him; when MESA
ges were carried by men on horse or
afoot; when the quickest and most
luxurious form of travel was the
stage-coach, and when nearly all
work was done by hand.
Within the last few years a. new
servant has appeared to do all this
work and much more not mentioned
above. The name of this new SER
want is electricity" 1t lights our
houses with bright, clean and safe
light; our streets are lined with damp
posts which make them as safe at
night as in the day time. If we
want to talk to someone a hundred
miles away we use the telephone or
the telegraph. Street cars, interur-
bans, eveFraiTroad trains, pulled by
electricity, carry us further in an
hour than the stage could have done
in a, day. And work,-there is
scarcely task which cannot be done
by electricity, not only in the BUSH
ness and manufacturing world, but
in the city and country home as we'll.
! A few years ago electricity was
the servant of the few who lived in
cities. This was because electric
generating machinery was not in its
present improved state, and be-
cause it was, and still is for that
matter, very expensive to transmit
electric current over long distances
In other words people who live close
together in the comparatively small
area OF the city can all be supplied
with current from one central station
at reasonable cost; whereas it is
enormously expensive to extend
transmission lines five or ten miles
into the country in order to serve per-
haps fifteen or twenty customers in
an area as large as that covered by
the city. And yet the services Of
electricity are needed as much, il
mot more, on the farm, in the coun-
TRY home, church. schoolhouse and
store, as in the city.
I 1t is this need, and the practical
fdifficulties in the way of supplying
lit, which turned mans inventive
tgenius toward a solution of the prob
lem. And the solution, as in the case
Of, most great problems, was in itself
rather .simple,-not the building of
new and complicated machinery to
drive current further at a lower cost,
but the application of the known
principles of generating and hand
ling electric current to the develop
ment of small generating plants of a
Il size suitable for supplying electricity
on the farm and in the church or
store, and at a cost easily within the
reach of every progressive farmer
Years of experimental work by some
OF our sbest engineers have produced
plants of this type which are thor
oughly dependable.
| Now the result of this is that cleo
| tricity is at last the really universal
servant. In the country home,
church. school. community house,
store. club and camp, as we'll as in
the city, electric lamps pour out their
| flood OF pure light from handsome
modern fixtures. The day of the coal
! oil lamp is over Not only the farm
house itself but every part of all the
other buildings on the place Is light
ed safely and conveniently.
And light is only part of the SO,
vice that electricity Is ready to rem
der. In the home the vacuum sweep
err, the electric iron, toaster, coffee
percolator, fan and washing machine
are at the service of the housewife
An automatic electric pump furnishes
hot and cold running water to all
parts of the house at all times. In
the dairy the milking machine, the
cream separator and the churn are
electrically driven. The tanning
mill, the corn grinder, the grind
stone and many other pieces of light
farm machinery are turned by small
motors.
The comfort, the convenience of
electric service will have the same
effect in the country home as they
have had in the city. This service
will give people more leisure, more
opportunity to read, to keep in
touch with all that is going on in the
world about them. 1t will make their
living easier and better. And If it can
do these things for all of us, 1t will
indeed have proved itself the best
of servants.
Theo NJ Halvorsen, OF DEBORAH,
dealer in Delco lights. will be pleas
ed to give any information on cleo
ltric lights for the farm home.