Evening star., 1936-11-24
PLEADING j. 5.
INVENTORS NAMED
Secret Committee Selects
Honor Roll Announced at
Patent Celebration.
BY THOMAS \. HENRY.


: Patent Celebration.
BY THOMAS n. HENRY.
Whitney, Morse, Goodyear. Nc
Cormick, Howe, Fulton, Westinghouse,
Bell, Edison, Hall, Wright, Mergen-
thaler-
These IL Americans took the slow,
candleNt, doddering old world OF 1900
and by their brain magic made 1t over
into a place grander and stranger
than men before them had dared to
picture heaven.
Thousands of others helped in the
century's miraculous apocalypse, but
; these men were the greatest. 1t was
the consensus OF Q secret committee
Of u, who picked the honor roll for
the centennial of the American patent
system, which was celebrated here
yesterday. The list was announced at
the closing banquet at the Mayfiower
last night.
The committee selected the men in
the light of the significance Of their
committee knew any other member,
except the chairman, Thomas Midg-
ley, jr., who also was chairman of the
Centennial Committee.
Poor and Ridiculed.
With hardly an exception these
inventors were poor, obscure and ridi-
culed., Some of them died as poor
as when they started. Others finally
attained to great wealth and honor.
Eli Whitney, 176S-1812, invented
the cotton gin. He was directly
responsible for the great agricultural
expansion Of the South, Egypt and
India. His invention was absolutely
essential to the great textile industry
gof the North and of England.
Morse Started as Artist.
Samuel F. B. Morse, 1791-l872, was
an artist upon whom triumph had
begun to pail when he happened to
drop into a popular lecture on elec-
thicity and turned his thoughts to
the transmission of sounds by wire.
He invented the electric telegraph,
which annihilated distance.
A feature of the banquet was the
receipt from the original Baltimore
& Ohio station in Baltimore OF
Morse's original message, What hath
God wrought?"
Charles Goodyear, 1800-l860 was
a clerk in a Connecticut hardware
store with a mania for rubber. His
debts mounted, his family went hum
cry, his health broke while he expert
mented. He found the vulcanization
process upon which is based practi-
cally every use Of rubber today. He
was the father Of the rubber age, "
Invented Mechanical Reaper.
Cyrus Hall Mccormick, 1809-l894,
labored garnering wheat on q Vir-
ginia farm as boy. His father was
an impractical man who had known
a lifetime Of failure while he tried
vainly to devise a mechanical reaper.
The boy did the job and revolutionized
agriculture.
Robert Fulton, l765-1815, who used
TO sail paper boats on Rock Greek with
Joel Barlow and the rest of the brain
trust Of Jefferson's day. He made the
first commercially successful steam
boat.
Alexander Graham Bell, 1s47-1s22.
. steacher Of the deaf, who invented the
telephone. One March day in 1875
Bell spoke into a crude mouthpiece in
Boston workshop: "Mr. Watson,
come here. want you" Those words
Travelled by wire across the room, and
thus was oonsummated one Of the
outstanding miracles of history.
Dream Inspired Invention.
Elias Howe, jr., 1s19-1867. sick, hun
cry Boston machinist, who had q
feverish dream one night that cam
nibals were chasing him and that
their spears had holes in the heads.
= He applied the idea to make the first
practical sewing machine.
Thomas Alva Edison, 1847-l931,
railway telegraph operator, whose
genius gave the world the electric
light and the phonograph and scores
of other mechanisms which are a
part of daily life. A dramatic epi-
sode at the banquet last night was
when the voice of the dead inventor
. was heard in a wartime speech pre-
served by his own invention.
George Westinghouse, 1846-1914,
Civil War steamboat engineer, who
invented the air brake and thus made
possible the expansion Of railroads
and the rapid conquest of conti-
nent.
Wilbur Wright, 1867-1912, bicycle
mechanic, who on December II, 1903,
startled an unbelieving world with
the first airplane flight.
ottoman Mergenthaler, 1854-1899,
German immigrant and apprentice in
. q Washington instrument shop, who
invented the linotype and thus made
possible the modern newspaper
Charles Martin Hall, 1863-19l4, the
son of village minister who, while
poor college student in 1885, first
found method to manufacture
aluminium and thus made one OF the
worlds most abundant minerals .
servant Of man.
Honored guests at the banquet last
night were 20 representative living
inventors, some Of whom may have
made contributions as outstanding as
any of those on the honor roll, the
full significance of which Is not yet
appreciated. They were Harold e.
Balsiger, Howard M. Barber, Howard
L. Bender, Martin c. Dellinger. Ca
mile Dreyfus, Montague H. Duval,
Carleton Ellis, Fred G. Folberth, John
r. Gammeter, Norman p. Harsh
berger, Russell A. Hetzler, Joseph Led
0yinko Tropk NKonL N