The independent-reporter. [volume] (Skowhegan, Me.) 1909-1955, 1923-06-14

AROUND the southern LID OF SOutn Am
erica, making the Cape. The old
time sea-faring man was wont to
narrate of the time which he made
Cape Horn" There was no other
way to compass the journey. A few
years ago President Wilson sitting at
his desk In his Office at the White
House touched button, and at that
touch forty tons of dynamite broke
the Gamboa Dixie in the Panama Can
al, and Gatun Lake flowed into Guile
bra Cut. and Cape Horn was left
memory.
Again, little over one hundred
years ago Robert Fulton launched his
first steamboat upon the Hudson Riv-
er. l wonder IL you have ever read
the accounts of that launching? Full
ton was called fool and as a kind
of compliment to him his boat was
named "Fulton's Folly" Well, here
we are at the launching. The banks
of the Hudson were lined with jeer-
ing. sneering crowds which blew on
noisy instruments and made homely
faces in derision. But suddenly the
wheels of the pioneer craft began to
revolve and volumes Of black smoke
poured out the big clumsy funnel, and
the water @bubbled-and then the
crowds stopped their homely' com
ments and waved their hats in glee
and wonderment! 1t was a slow
going old side-wheel affair, capable
of making the marvellous time of two
miles an hour. II you were to start
In Fultons boat from New York to
Liverpool tomorrow morning, at the
end of 80 days-proyided you were
still on top of the water-S'ou would
then be some weeks this side of Liv-
erpool.
But what change in even fifty
years.
Take the lost Lusitania-peopied by
a city of 5000 souls. one sixth of
mile in length, with tunnels large
enough to admit Of the passing of an
electric car, with telephone service,
electric elevators, 5000 electric lights,
requiring 200 miles of wire-a vast
floating mansion and capable OF, cross
ing from New York; to Liverpool,
5000 miles, in four and one-half days.
Still again, So years ago there was
flashed over wires for the first time
an electric message, message that
was TO determine for all time the use
fulness of the telegraph. That sim
pie message summed up in these four
expressive words the astounded in
quiry of hundred years ago: What
hath God wrought" ..
Loss than 30 years ago Marconi
sent his first wireless. message, an
invention that has saved thousands
upon thousands of lives in great mari
time disasters. Today these messages
are flashed from continent to contin-
emit, while in every nook and corner
OF the land young followers of Mar
conf have set up wireless stations OF
their own, and through hundreds OF
miles of space they catch the mes
sages of song and story and human
disaster.
Only AZ years ago the wonder of
wonders" the first telephone. was ex-
hibited at the Centennial Exposition
In Philadelphia. Today nearly 49,
GOO, 900 Offices and homes have been
brought into speaking connection with
one another thru one system alone.
Time and distance In business and
social activities have practically been
annihilated.
Less than so years ago the first
incandescent lamp, the little electric
bulb which now turns darkest night
into lightest day, came from the brain
Of Thomas Alvah Edison.
think It was something like 300
years ago that Hans Leppershay. a
Dutch optician, invented the tele-
scope. But in the last so years won
derfnl improvements have been made
upon the telescope until within very
few years enormous instruments have
been constructed, and then have been
carried by means of newly built road
hsds to great heights of land, pointed
at the blue space above. and the very
stars and planets of the heavens, hi
therto unexplored, have been compel
led to give up their secrets. Photo
graphic reproductions of these discov-
cries are marvellous beyond belief
I heard the builder of one of these
instruments explain its making. and
saw the photographs taken Of the
moon through 100000 miles Of space.
I could look down the sides of the
craters OF It's extinct volcanoes, could
climb in imagination its treeless hills,
and could cross the far expansc OF
It's parched and sterile plains.
One day George Westinghouse wit
messed collision between two trains
caused by the ineffectiveness Of hand
brakes. He turned his inventive
mind to the solution of quicker
stopping of trains. Soprofound was
his study of the whole problem that
his associates called him Crazy
George" At last the details Of
great invention worked themselves
out in his mind. He laid his plans
before Commodore Vanderbilt who
then owned the New York Central.
The Commodore made at least one
great mistake in his life. Said he,
at the conclusion of the interview.
II have no time to waste with fools"
But Cray George" persisted. In
October, 1868, the first experiment
with compressed air-brakes was made
and today no train pulls into any
railroad station in America that isn't
equipped with this invention that has
'revolutionized the railroad business
Upon the dome of the new Hall Of
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