Evening star., 1927-11-15
BACKGROUND OF EVENTS
BY PAUL Y. COLLINS.

| lenses of Cook, who deceived many
into believing that he, too. had "ar.
rived" Now Cook is in the peniten-
| tiary as fraud and user of the mails
for false pretenses.
r
| Not only in discovery have the ex-
plorers had to face an inappreciative
| world, but equally bitter has been the
fate of great inventors. 1t took Morse
but few months to work out his in
vention of telegraphy, but several
years to interest the public and gain
paltry congressional appropriation of
$50, 900 to erect his demonstration line
between Washington and Baltimore.
Only the intimate friends of DR.. Sam
uel Pierpont Langley ever knew the
chagrin he felt over the ridicule
heaped upon his experimental airplane
Yet it flew; it had the germ of the prin-
ciple only a little later developed by
the Wright brothers. And how punv
has been the reward of those brothers
who first made practical the dream of
Darius Green. Within 25 years. their
invention was deciding the fate of the
whole world in war which threatened
humiliation of liberty and civilization.
| and today the airplane is entering
upon the greatest evolution in world
commerce ever known. Has the world
paid it's lawful toll to the inventors.
Why did not the airplane reward the
Wrights as generously as the automo
bile has done some of its late manu-
facturers?
After Alexander Graham Bell had
invented the telephone he refused an
offer of a generous salary to serve as
consulting engineer to the telephone
company, because he preferred to he
uninterrupted in further scientific re-
search. What is wealth to a pure
scientist?
Eli Whitney, Northerner. invented
the cotton gin and was harassed into
complete disgust by infringers and
an ungrateful public, although Ma
caulay, the great English historian.
said of him, What Peter the Great
did to make Russia dominant, Eli
Whitney's invention of the cotton gin
has more than equaled in its relation
to the power and progress of the
United States"
When the gin was invented. little
over n century ago. there were 10000
spindles employed in cotton manufac-
ture-all in New England. In 1910
there were more than $4,000 900 spin.
dies, and manufacturing of cotton
gave employment to 5000 900 persons.
inclusive of the cotton raisers. SINH
lar experiences of woe befell Har-
greaves and Paul. inventors of cotton
carders. and Arkwright and Crompton.
inventors of the cotton Jenny" and
the mule"
Still more unfortunate, from a ma.
terial standpoint. are those highbrow
martyrs to pure science
Faraday discovered induction. with
which Gramme, Siemens and Edison
created generators. Volta had already
in his electric cell first produced a
continuous electric current. How
much reward did he get from the cleo
trio age of today? Clerk Maxwell
demonstrated by higher mathematics
that there must be long invisible
waves in the ether. But of what good
is the pure science" of something in
visible? Hertz partly answered that
by producing such waves in his lab
Oratory: but not until Marconi had
harnessed them and set them at work
carrying messages. without wires. was
the world aware OF the practical worth
of MaXwell's mathematics. How many
similar instances might be cited of
VIC uCDt we owe 10 lIlt
pure scientist" who is left in OBJ
scurity and often I'm penury,
Especially in a republic like ours
and it is proverbial that republics
are ungrateful'-is the fate of the
explorer and the adventurous pioneer
OF science precarious! Here is no pub
lie reward of affiuence; there are no
pensions for initiatory brains and
courage in civil life.
How can we patent "pure science?"
How can we ennoble new ideas which
are destined to ennoble civilization?
An attempt to express such a senti-
ment was made last evening when the
National Geographic Society awarded
the Hubbard Medal to Col. Charles A.
Lindbergh for his brave and lone
crossing Of the ocean by air. But the
airplane has become a commonplace.
within the lifetime of its producers.
II has multiplied the days OF our
generation by the time that Ii saves.
for time is what our lives are made
of. For centuries. men had struggled
over ice fields to reach the Pole: with
an airplane Byrd goes straight to it
and returns the same day. And Or.
vile Wright sat on the platform. last
evening. while few In the vast audi
ence realized that without him and