Evening star., 1925-03-21

terror department to the Commerce
department suggests the possible sale
or the present block-Square property
bounded by Seventh and Ninth, f
and street, and the erection of a
structure of adequate proportions In
new location.
Representative Sol Bloom of New
York and a group of business asso-
crates proposed last year to buy the
present property for approximately
So,ooU,U0U and to use it for depart
ment store purposes. The New York
Congressman put his offer in the form
or bill, which has never been acted
upon.
1t is understood he will press action
on the bill, inasmuch as President
Coolidge has accepted the recon-
mendation of the Brown reorganiza-
tlon committee for the attachment of
the Office to the Commerce Depart
ment In order to better protect the
interests OF patentees in other lands
and to secure several additional ad-
vantages. Mr.. Bloom will return to
Washington from New York tomor-
row.
A number of sites have been sug-
Sested for new structure, tentative
plans for which are said to have been
draWn by Government architects. One
or these is on Government property
on pennsylvania avenue between the
White House and the Capitol, but
nearer the Capitol than the White
House.
Was Jefferson's Hobby.
Inc Coolidge order making the
transfer recalls some choice morsels
OF history connected with this time
honored institution. The Patent Of
Thomas Jefferson when he was head
OF the State Department. it was au-
thorlZed by an act in 1890 and made
q part of the Department of State
and became the particular pride Of
the blond-haired Virginian. In TACT,
Jefferson did a great deal of the work
or the Patent Office in the early days
and encouraged inventors and expert
menters as much as his other duties
allowed
After examining personally every
patent application, Jefferson usually
summoned Edmund Randolph of Vir-
ginia, Attorney General in the Wash
ington Cabinet, and Henry Knox of
Massachusetts, Secretary of War,
who, with himself, were constituted
a tribunal to pass on such matters.
Three Granted First Year.
IL Was JeHeTSOH 5 lCed tnat the
usefulness of an invention rather
than its novelty should count, and
the result was that very few in
ventors who fiocked to Washington
on the announcement that an office
had been established met with sue
cess. During the first year of opera
ton the committee passed three ap-
plications definitely intended to get
living; no luxuries were az that time
tolerated.
These three were devices for max
ing pot and pearl ashes" (the first),
for manufacturing candles" the
flour and meal tthe third)- This was
the sum total of acceptances the first
year. All other ideas offered were re-
jected as impractical or unimportant
or were put over for further consid-
Grafton.
The principal author of the Dec
laration of independence soon ran
afoul of the clamorous inventors,
each one of whom believed his device
to be more beneficial to the public
than machines for making candles,
flour and pot and pearl ashes. So in
sistent did the applicants become
that in 1898 the law was made more
liberal, but it was many years, and
after the death of Jefferson, before
the Patent Offlce business became at
tractive to any considerable number
of citizens.
Banned "PerpetuaI Notion"
Necessarily. followed the expert
ments of Sir Isaac Newton and others
with gravity and allied subjects,
many ideas were advanced for getting
results without doing real work. The
1902 Patent Office report, for instance,
2. machine for raising water" JEFF
ferson was now President and James
Madison his Secretary of State. 1t
may have been jefferson or Madison
or somebody else who penned an en-
tightening commentary in parenthesis
after the title of the application, viz,
"i!, a perpetual motion.i"'
1t may be remarked, coming down
to the present, that the office has