New-York tribune., 1922-07-19
Edison Query-Victim Avenges
Self by asking Wisard a fesv
Siunlps Him Right OFF With One About Ford fon
President and Finds Business Has Had Jazz Com
plant; Radio Absolved Of Blame for Rainy Spell

hurry to make lot of money. If he
corldn'. become millionaire in fiji
teen minutes he wasn't satisfied.
Jazz business. that's what it is.
jazz business.
Q.-Dom't you think that ,uas just
q temporary condition arising out Of
the ,par, and not Fundamental
A.-No, indeed. ii was fundamen-
tai. 1t was the basis upon which
American manufacturers went ;nto
business. Put MS little as you can
in, get as nrch. as you can out;
but it's changing now, We're begin
Ming to see that It doesn't pay for
one thing, and then there is more
available money. The American
manufacturer is beginning 10 wake
up.
Another funny thing about the
English. They'll tak9 something
we've got here and they'Il wait
years before they adapt it to their
own uses. They wait to sec how it
works out. Radio, for instance. We
have radio everywhere now; it'll be
years before it is rs commonly used
in England They take their own
time.
You're from The Tribune. re-
member the days. when Whitelaw
Reid was in Cincinnati. was
old green eye shade That brings an
odd incident TO my mind, 1t was the
night OF Idncolns assassination. 1t
just goes to show how the work of a
telegraph operator becomes in time
entirely mechanical. Messages had
been coming through from Washing
ton telling us that Lincoln had been
shetland not a man in the Office
knew about it, although we were
taking them and sending them to all
the offices. One of the boys came in
and said: "There's big crowd down
town and lot of excitement Lin
coins been shot" 1t was not until
then that I realized the purport of
the messages ! had been receiving.
None of the others had caught their
significance. Their minds were on
something else, always. Their girls,
probably. Mine was on some ap-
paratus or other I was interested in.
1t seemed to be time to go. William
H. Meadowcroft, Mr. Edison's old
friend and confidential adviser, who
was chaperoning the interview, made
some tentative motions, indicating that
we had been kindly treated, and all
that, but there was limit. But this
was too interesting to let go. We said
hastily:
Q.-TEis is the anniversary of your
tnVentiom Of the phonograph, isn't it,
Mr.. Edison?
Ayes. 1t is forty-five years now
since | got the idea which brought
the phonograph into being. There
was story about that in "The
World" this morning. A young wom-
an did it. 1t was remarkably good
story, too. Far better than I ex-
pected. 1t was accurate. Women
are not usually accurate. I find, But
this one was very good. I was sur
prised to find how accurate her storv
was.
Mr.. Meadowcroft suggested plainly
that the interview was at an end. We
scrambled frantically for one more
question. We thought it was a good
one. 1t had come to US as an inspira-
Won; we were proud to have thought
it up:
Q.-Some people think that the in
crease IN the use of rodio is respon-
osble for all these thunder storms qDe
have been haUing this summer, Mr..
Edison. What is your opinion as to
that?
An Nothing to do with it! That's
absurd! 1t would be like sticking a
pm IN Mount Everest. We arc get
ting conceited with our inven-
tlons, If we think we can compare
our efforts to nature
The wizard Of Orange smiled broad
~, and we were glad we had been
cowardly enough to fix that last in
spiration on "some people,"
thunderstorm that came near to drown.
ing us as we left the Barclay Street
ferry was not due to radio
And we sincerely hope that Mr. Edi.
son finds this transcript accurate
Goodness knows we've tried hard to put
down exactly what he answered to our
feeble effort at questionnairing him