Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-10-20
by WILLIAM H. MEADoWCRoFT,

BY WILLIAM III. MEADOWCROFT,
| Confidential Secretary to Thomas A, Edison
| and His Associate Since 1881.
TOMORROW. october 81. will wit
ness an event unique in history
In many countries people OF
Il high and low degree will gather
together to celebrate the victo-
| ries of peace-time warrior who, by his
conquests in the field of science. has
probably made a greater impress on life
today than has any other one living
| person. Soldiers and statesmen strug-
! gle over military and political bounda-
| ries and sometimes succeed in shifting
| them few miles one way or another.
! But within the span of one lifetime
| this man has shifted the whole horizon
of civilization.
There are hundreds of thousands of
people in the world today the whole
course of whose destiny has been. di-
rectly or indirectly. determined by him
where they shall live. how they shall
live. whom they shall love and marry.
1t has been calculated that his genius
has either provided for or influenced
the support of one out of every 10 peo-
pie in the United States alone. Indeed,
it would be hard to find person in
any up-to-date country whose life has
not been touched. has not been made
easier and more pleasant than 1t would
otherwise have been, by this wonder
worker. A modern genu of the lamp,
he has bestowed increditable gifts on
our generation.
EdisOn's Notable Achievement.
I refer, of course. to Thomas A. Edi-
son, and the international celebration
tomorrow of the fiftieth anniversary of
his most useful invention, the incan-
descent light bulb. But though tomor
row will see the formal jubilee of this
Edison achievement and many speeches
will be mde in honor of its inventor. the
rejoicings and the expressions of graft
tude will not cease when the last speech
is made and the last flag waved. The
jubilee will go ON every day of every
week. for the hourly existence of every
one of us is a series of Edison celebra-
tons From the time we Jump out of
bed in the morning and turn on the
radio for our setting-up exercises. to the
last act of our waking day-Switching
of the light beside our beds-our safety.
our comfort and many of our activities
are influenced by what he has invented
or the improvements he has made In
the inventions of others.
Though such startling success has
crowned Edison'S later work, his first
experiment of which we haze any rec
ord was a rather ignominious failure,
according to his sister.
AS child. she tells us. the little boy
watched with interest and close atten-
ton the vigil of the family hens hatch
ing out their broods. Evidently he de-
cided that the method was capable of
improvement. for one day his mother
discovered him in the hen house, sitting
on a box full of eggs which he had COL
lected. Needless to say, this well meant
effort to hang up time record came
to an abrupt conclusion.
Reaches Turning Point in Life.
Other experiments during his boy
hood and early manhood were more sue
cessful from technical point of view,
but did not, for one reason or another,
bring him financial success. The turn
ing point In the young mans fortunes
did not come until one August morning
in 1869, when he was % years old. On