The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1919-02-27

AMI, FLA, If1UnoDAl' rEAS -, > Wv
the mouse freed from his harness
might stand on his little hind legs
and with his front foot point the d.
rection taken by the steam roller.
The editor sits quite happy mag
lining himself to be the great moving
force of government, thinks he is 1t,
when he is only telling about 1t.
And in his daily correspondence
through letters that come from thou
sand of readers, he studies other hui
man mice like himself, hitched to
false hypothesis.
He drops into the waste basket or
returns politely thousands of poems"
that are neither poetry nor English,
and are barren of an idea. While he
is young he writes letter to each
very bad poet, gently advising the
writer to give up poetry. Grown old
er, he knows that the rejected poet
has said to himself, "That editor is
q fool and doesn't know poetry" And
then he sends back the poem with
lying little slip of paper saying he
is sorry the newspaper is SO crowded.
Thousands of such writer's Of poe
try so to the village graveyard, quite
convinced that an unrecognized Milton
is being buried. They are mistaken.
Others letters come from men that
have plan for settling world prob
lens, sometimes labor, more often
EVERYTHING. They have never
had chance to interest Mr.. Rookie
Teller or Mr.. Carnegie. And poor
creatures, they sincerely believe that
their information, and plan would set
tie the worlds problems, which can
only be settled by thousands of years
of development. They die, unhappy.
believing that the world he's refused
to listen to one that offered salvation.
**#%
Then there are the inventors;
among them, Of course, some carry to
the grave ideas of the highest value,
never recognized Some are like the
Englishman who went to the great
convention of British steel and iron
! makers to offer new process for
making steel. He read his paper and
the convention decided to strike it
from the record in order not to make
that convention ridiculous. The man
whose paper and whose idea they
struck contemptuously from their rec
ord was the inventor of the Bessem-
er process, now used everywhere,
that has earned thousands of millions
of dollars.
That was convention of mice re.
fusing to listen to the steam roller.
But, ordinarily, the inventor is mis-.
taken when he believes tnat his last
resting place will contain an unrec.
lognized Fulton, Edison or Papin.
Papin, if you don't happen to re,
member it, is the Frenchman who in.
vented the steam engine and pub
lished description of it thirty years
before the birth Of Watt, the Scotch
engineer, who invented the condens.
ing engine, and is called the inven.
(tor in England. The British and
French need not quarrel about the
invention, however, for other steam
engines were made long before eth.
er of them, including Hero's little
turbine apparatus, made one hundred
and thirty years before the birth of
Christ. 1t takes some time to devel.
OPP an invention fully. Steam pro.
PEELED toy boat in Greece more than
two thousand years before Fulton
was born. Don't be discouraged II
your ideas are accepted slowly.
! $**A
Back once more from Papin and
Watt to the mouse in the picture. He
looks foolish enough, but at least he