Morgan County Democrat. (McConnelsville, Ohio) 1886-1943, 1940-02-29
Page Five

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would go out, the radio would be
silenced, and all the machinery of
industry as well as that of COM.
merce would cease to move AS has
been. well and wisely said, if you
take from the world all that. genius
has given. ''all the inches would be
empty, all the walls would become
naked, meaning and connection
would fall from words of poetry
and fiction, music would go back to
common air, and all the forms Of
subtle and enchanting art would
lose proportion, to become the un-
meaning waste and shattered spoil
of thoughtless chance
1t would be useless to attempt to
enumerate all the things that Edi-
son did for mankind. His greatest
contribution was the invention of
the electric light,-the incandescent
lamp. With that one act he did
more to change the course of our
civilization than has any other man
who ever lived in the tide of
time He not only lighted our
halls, our homes, our streets, and
our highways, but he gave us the
spark that fires the gas that makes
the motor machine possible
He ushered in the electric age,
and the motor age as we'll. He
made possible the automobile, the
X-ray, the airplane, the submarine,
the moving picture, and the radio.
He gave us new system of over
land transportation, taught us to
navigate the air, and enabled us to
roam with safety on the bottom of
the seas. He eliminated time and
space and aided us to see through
objects that were formerly suppos-
ed to exclude all light.
He made possible mass produc-
tion through new industrial ma
chinery, and gave us that great
multiplicity of electrical appliances
that add to the comforts and con-
business establishment. He made
necessities luxuries, and 1uxuries
necessities, and enabled us to elec-
trify the farm homes of America
and to lift from the shoulders OF
burdened humanity the great
weight of drudgery under which
farm men and women have stIug-
gled since the beginning of time
He tapped source of wealth
richer than the diamond mines OF
Golconda, more valuable than all
the oil fields and all the gold and
diamond mines of the modern and
ancient world-a wealth that is in
exhaustible, and one that will last
as long as rains fall and rivers flow
to the sea.
There is enough hydroelectric
power in our navigable streams
alone, that throughout uncounted
centuries has been running waste
and wanton to the sea- to electrify
every home in America, including
every farm home, and then have
enough left to supply every COM
mercial establishment, if not ev-
cry industry throughout the land.
His monument is in every home
that turns an electric switch: his
epitaph is written on every heart
that beats in gratitude for the SER
vices he gave. He needs no POM
pous memorial to commemorate his
life. He needs no monument save
the eternal and indestructible sub
stance of his own greatness to COM
mend him to the consideration Of
all coming ages His name will
live as long as this nation shall en-
dure, and his fame will reach to
the remotest times in which civiliz-
ed man shall dwell upon the eartn.
Someone has said that
They are the truly great who, as
the centuries slowly pass, are found
by each succeeding race near to
the heart of human love
Centuries may come and go, en-
pires may flourish and pass away,
republics may rise and fall, but the
work of Edison will endure.
When the monuments to lesser
men shal have perished with the
lapse of time; when this Republic
shall have run its course and taken
it's place among the dead nations
of the past; when in the distant
lapse of ages yet to come, errant
wanderers from distant lands shall
stand before the crumbling COL
umns of this Capitol and look down
across the ruins of the District of
Columbia, the name of Thomas A.
Edison will remain, unscarred by
the wreck of ages and undimmed
by the floods of time.