Show MENS TRUCT10N VV V V AIDED MATERIALLY I Services of an Old Doorkeeper at fer the Capital WITHOUT A REWARD I V BUT PATEIOT STILL eediJ Other Men Have Received Credit Oter for His Wort I HV I The Man That Taught the Art of Making Bullets Jiovr Bores in Visitors Vis-itors to the Agricultural Depart Aient Shorred the Method of Casting Cast-ing GunsHis Schemes for Helping Help-ing in Ocean Travel Jnvel Perhaps the most remarkable character char-acter in Washington 13 a man who sits at the front entrance of the department depart-ment of agriculture and pulls the door open with a string to admit visitors His name is William H Ward and In a way he is an historical personage Nearly all of the bullets fired by Union soldier during the civil war were turned out from machines of his invention inven-tion The same i true of most of the bombshells used in that memorable conflict his method of molding them from molten lead being adopted by the government Uncle Sam disregarded his patents utilized his ideas at a saving sav-ing of many millions of dollars and never paid him a cent So now in his old age after vainly seeking redress from Congress he Is doorkeeper in the department which as a matter of fact he actually founded fiftyone years ago says the Washington Star j t The story is a simple one In 1856 I Mr Ward brought to Washington a I contrivance of his own invention I was the first machine for making bullets bul-lets from cold lead Up to that time bullets had been molded from melted lead by hand This old fashioned process pro-cess was very slow and expensive rifle projectiles thus made costing rather more than a cent apiece The machine turned them out at the rate of 160 a minute transforming one ton of lead into bullets for 195 I was absolutely absolute-ly automatic requiring no attention after being started There was no waste of material whatever whereas by melting from 12 to 15 per cent of the metal was lost Bullets could be turned ounces out of any V weight up to two ouncesUSED I USED DURING THE WAR Mr Ward offered his machine to the war department but the government refused to buy it Five years later the war broke out Uncle Sam then availed himself of all improvements in arms and materials of warfare without regard re-gard to patents The exigency of the occasion was a sufficient warrant and nobody could resist the nations paramount para-mount authority The chief of ordnance nance built a number of bulletmaking machines after the model patented by Ward The inventor was referred to Congress for redress For twenty years his claim has been before the national legislature but he has never got a cent IBis I-Bis for his relief have been passed repeatedly by House and Senate though never by both houses during the same Congress I V Nobody has ever attempted to deny the justice of the claim With his machines the government made more than a Trillion and a half of bullets during the war The saving thus act ac-t complished was enormous I was an immense advantage also to be able to manufacture projectiles rapidly y But for Mr Wards Invention many thousands thou-sands of hands would have been employed em-ployed to do the work of molding bullets bul-lets Each machine on the other hand could turn out a continuous shower of leaden missiles at the rate of nearly 10000 an hour or a million and a half a week running night and day The bullets were formed from reels of lead wire Each movement of the machine cut off enough metal for one bullet which was shaped by a punch entering a die On the retrograde movement oft of-t the punch the die opened and the bullet dropped outBALANCED I out-BALANCED BULLETS I For purposes of observation Mr Ward i I was present at two or three of the battles I bat-tles of the Crimean war He noticed that the bullets flew wilda fact largely large-ly owing t irregularities in the weight I and density of the projectiles Machine Ma-chine made bullets on the cdntrary are all exactly alike and what ordance experts would call their balance is perfect From a fixed rifle barrel and equal charges of powder several of them can actually be fired into a hole of their own diameter at a distance of 300 yards A Mr Ward expresses i such accurate marksmanship will shoot bumble bees off of thistle heads I goes without saying that in these days of rapidfire weapons which expend immense quantities of ammunition the bullet making machine is far more valuable l val-uable and even necessary than it was thirty years ago I i Th only money that Mr Ward ever got out of his invention was obtained from foreign governments t whom he sold his machines They paid him for them honestly and are using them today to-day During the rebellion some of the machines thus purchased were util ized for manufacturing great quantities of bullets for the Confederate armies This however was an event that could not have been contemplated by the inventor in-ventor The latter owned another patent pat-ent at the same time for making bombshells bomb-shells of molten iron This proce 1 was also used by Uncle Sam to his great advantage ad-vantage Nevertheless not a penny has ever been paid to the owner as a recompense recom-pense for the infringement of his rights I STRANGE INVENTIONS Mr Ward has not given up inventing yet He ha some very astonishing schemes which he has refrained from patenting his intention being to carry them out when he gets enough money for his bullets from the government I will be time enough then to secure his proprietary rights One of these ideas is a process for telegraphing without a wire The inventor says that he can send a message around the world without with-out any wire or any other connection By the aid of his method the secretary of the navy could sit in his office at Washington and communicate directly V with any United States ship in mid ocean in any part of the world The ad fvantage of such a system in the conduct con-duct of naval operations would be enormous enor-mous certainly Mr Ward has a new type of marine engine which will so he says carry a steamship across the Atlantic in less than four days consuming only as much fuel as is ordinarily required for one days voyaging I furnishes three and a half times the power of the beet engine now known at a quarter of the cost occupying onefifth of the space and using onehalf of the steam A vessel i ves-sel thus equipped could take on board a cargo of early products of the southern south-ern states on one day and deliver the fruit or what not at northern ports the next day in much fresher condition than i Is practicable with the piesemt comparatively com-paratively slow transportation I would be very much quicker than rail A Ward engine of 1000 horsepower can be built for 5000 whereas an ordinary recipro eatIng engn of that calibre costs 50000 Another Idea of this inventors is for stock cars of a new and Ingenious pattern pat-tern in which cattle may be nearly a comfortable in transport a if browsIng brows-Ing on the ranch Each beast is provided pro-vided with a comfortable stall with plenty of water and food in the shape of flaxseed cake In winter while en i rodte across the continent the con i < a veyance Is kept warm by steam from the locomotive The cake which is the residue from flaxseed pressed for oil is the stuff that Is fed to cattle in England to give the peculiar flavor of the famous London beef The animals ani-mals thus shipped feeding and resting all the way will arrive In as good condition con-dition as when they started I would not be necessary to fatten them up and get them into good condition for killing kill-ing after their arrival and in this way much money would be saved V WHAT HE CLAIMS Mr Ward claims that he made the electric telegraph a success at it beginning be-ginning The first line was established between Washington and Baltimore At the start the wires were laid eighteen eigh-teen inches underground encased in lead pipe They would not work Morse went In great agitation toWard geat agtton Ward who was at that time employed in the patent office This was In 1844 He said that the telegraph was a fail ure Ward said simply Hang up the wires Morse at once accepted the suggestion and the wires were strung on poles In the fashion which holds to this day Ward also suggested that glass insulators would be needed and for that purpose beer and porter bot tIes were utilized Quantities of these were and Washington obtained from hotels in Baltimore Mr Ward asserts that he performed a equally important service with respect re-spect to the first Atlantic cable He declared in advance that the recording Instrument would not work because a current of electricity strong enough to produce mechanical action at a distance dis-tance of 2000 miles would melt the wire Preliminary experiments proved that he was correct As a result the stock of the cable company dropped almost to nothing Four of the direc tors drew out and sold their Interest In the enterprise for what they could get For the time it was believed that the great enterprise could not be carried to a successful Issue the obstacle beIng be-ing apparently insurmountable But Ward suggested that a alphabet could be sent over a wire across the ocean or around the world for that matter by means of sparks This plan he said was accepted as a solution of the difficulty and made the cable practicable TO CAST GUNS HOLLOW In 1842 Mr Ward was employed in the Washington arsenal He observed that in proving the guns many of them burst Having been meanwhile trans ferred to the patent office he published in a scientific journal some suggestions for a new process by which guns that would be much stronger might be cast hollow instead of making them solid and boring them out afterward This Idea which he could not patent because be-cause he was an employee of the patent office was adopted by Rodman who got fame by it The early locomotives had only one pair of driving wheels Engines so built would slip on the rails if there was a night frost Ward sug gested that the way to get over the = difficulty was to double up the drivers So then Baldwin built the first locomotive with two pairs buit driv mg wheels and there Jj was no further furter difficulty I Is a fact that in a sense Mr Ward did actually found the department of agriculture In 1843 Ellsworth the then commissioner of patents will go down to history as the founder but Ward did the work He bought the seed intend ed for distribution distributon and put them up in packages for mailing From that small smal in beginning t which the grew inventor toe great is now Department employed as doorkeeper pulling the string for ever visitor while he still meditates sti medittes with undiminished wih undiminishe enthusiasm upon the schemes whch are to make upn rich when he gets his bullet get bulet money from the government and is able to carry them out car |