OCR Text |
Show Miscellany Edison's Latest Views. Interviewed by a reprcsontatlvo of tho Indopondent, Thomas A, Edison gave his latost viowB on many timoly topics. Of moat intorost, of course, are his opinions on inventions and scientific scien-tific subjects. Tho Interview as it appears ap-pears lu tho latost Issue of tho Independent Inde-pendent is in part as follows: What Is the trend of lnvontlon? Application Ap-plication of electricity to ail moving thlnjjs. Tho moat significant invention of 13137 Manufacture of ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen. What work of your own during tho past year is most Important? Perfection of the recording of muslo by tho new disk phonograph. "What of tho flying machine! Iton't know. Wnat of netting off expletives by wireless? wire-less? It has been of no value, oxe'opt for military murder. Is radium to bo harnessed? It's driving driv-ing a clock In Paris. Radium, so far, has only u scientific valuo. No ono can predict. pre-dict. There arc enormoun possibilities. What of now Bources of power? Sun engines of considerable power, twontv to thirty horsepower, are working In Africa nnd Arizona. There are many invontoro working on the problem. Burning coal at tho mouth of tno mine, converting tho power Into olooUiclty and trunomlttlng the power over long distances hun already al-ready beon nut Into effect In Nova Scotia and in England. Forming producer gn by sotting tho vein of coal on fire and using tho gao in gas engines hau not, to my knowledge, been applied. It la In my opinion possible, especially when coal advances ad-vances In price. The nmallor and deeper veins, from which it Is Impossible to extract ex-tract tho coal without groat expenso, could bo worked in this way. Tho unavailable un-available coal In these volns la enormous. Tapping internal heat of the earth is out of tho question until coal gots more expensive. ex-pensive. Ho.w soon will ships be driven by now power? Until wo find a practical method of converting combustlblo mattor dlroct-ly dlroct-ly Into electricity, steamboats will continue con-tinue to bo driven by steam and lntornal combustion motors. Is communication with possible Inhabitants In-habitants of other worlds In sight? Have no opinion. Is not individualistic lnvontlon haphazard hap-hazard and often comparatively useless: e. g., tho folding bed? 4 Tho Inventor In-ventor tries to moot tho demand of a cra7.y civilisation. Folding beds aro primarily pri-marily duo to tho operation of tho trade union trust, who have raised wages by forco, work one-third less time and do about ono-thlrd of tho work they honestly hon-estly should do, and then go on a strike one-fifth of the time. This raises tho cost of houses; moro people have to be crowded therein to make It pay, and thus arises the demand for folding beds. Dirty streets are duo to tho use of uncleanly beasts as motors; conjsorvatlvencu3 of peoplo In not adopting modern motors, such as tho nllont, cleanly oloctrlc truck and carriage; tho fnlluro to pave well and keop clean the roads leading Into tho city and politicians. Aro not Hoclal machines displacing Individual In-dividual machines; o. g., the public laundry laun-dry agalnBt tho domestic washing ma-chino? ma-chino? The individual washing machine will hold Its own for awhllo. Electric-driven Electric-driven washing machinery suitable for tho small houso Is rapidly coming Into use, and the labor is reduced almost to nothing. Does not invention follow social opportunity op-portunity and need; cannot society now ordain Its lnvontlons? Socloty Is never proparcd to receive any Invention. Every now thing Is resisted, and It takes years for tho Inventor to get people to listen to him and years moro before It can be Introduced, and when It is Introduced our beautiful laws and court procedure are used by predatory commercialism to ruin tho Inventor. They don't leave him even onough to start a now Invention. Would you recommend that the United States government establish a cabinet department of inventions? I do not believe the government should do anything but regulate the activities of its people, give them a free swing, and see that every man Is protected In that which he produces. Panama Is an example. ex-ample. In this case ths right man was selected; he wa3 given a free swing Suppose Sup-pose the wrong man had boon selected, and ho was hampered by red tape and politicians, then Panama would not bo used as an example. A department of inventions is not wanted. What is wanted want-ed is that the methods of court procedure bo changed and tho court3 realize that tho man who makes Inventions, by tho very naturo of things, cannot be a business busi-ness man, familiar with Its merciless code; and they should take this into consideration con-sideration and protect him. Would you suggest the incentive of special spe-cial honor to governmental Inventors, as a ribbon, together with monetary roward? Tho lncentivo of most of tho practical In-vontors In-vontors Is to get onough money to keep their families well and to mako more inventions. in-ventions. A ribbon from tho government Is to many who have a streak of vanity also an Incentive. But tho main Incentive Incen-tive is to got monoy to mako moro inventions. in-ventions. Might not a. staff of governmental inventors in-ventors profitably work on safeguarding machinery? It doesn't need a government staff of Inventors to Invent devices to prevent people getting killed by machinery: it wants plain, unmistakable unmistak-able laws on tho subject, and a commission commis-sion to sco tho laws are carried out. Do you agreo with Roger W. Babson that capital and labor are Irreconcilable foes? Thero should bo no Irreconcilability Irrec-oncilability betwoen capital and labor. It's between capital dishonestly acquired and labor. Labor Is not well Informed and henco lta classes all capital alike. The fruits of one generation of labor be-como be-como tho capital of tho next generation. If they fought thl3 capital they would bo fighting tho savings of the grandfathers, grand-fathers, saved for their benefit. This would bo absurd. What they are really fighting Is tho savings of their forbears, which gots Into othor hands by chicanery and fraud and superior cunning. Tins not invention put It in tho power of labor, or any small group of those-dis-contenled with preGent conditions, to checkmate, If not wreck, our civilization? civiliza-tion? " We shall always havo this troublo until our school system discards traditionary methods of teaching the child, and turns out young men thoroughly thorough-ly familiar with their natural environment environ-ment and with a capacity for sound thinking. (The following Is 2dr. Edison's more informal yet porhaps even moro Interesting Interest-ing conversation:) ' T can't nnswor questions like these offhand right off the bat. Wlwt Is tho trend of invention well, electricity hut what Is the most significant Invention of the past year? Do you mean In this country? Or the world? The world. Well. It would tako mo fifteen minutes Just to answer that. There are a dozen inventions: I would have to look thorn up. think them over and flguro out which ono looked the most promising. These othor questions are economic I am not an economics man. L am a mechanical Inventor. In-ventor. It Is a complicated question, a deep study, about economics. And It ought to be studied with cclcntlflc moth-ods moth-ods to get us anywhere. Our politicians and legislators generally don't know anything any-thing about It. "Here Is something In the paper this morning about the effect of the new money bill. Two leading bankers mako two diametrically opposing statements about It. One says It will contract credit nnd tho other says It will expand credit. Now, both can't bo right. Ono must be right and the othor must be wrong. But no one can tell us actually who Is right. Economic questions Involvo thousands of complicated factors which contribute to a certain result. It takes a lot of brain power and a lot of scientific data to solve these quostrons. In the first place, they ought to be studied scientifically, the smc way wo go about discovering the so-called secrets of nature. "Things aro wrong enough, and to right them wo need two remedies. One J to develop the convolutions in man's brain. tho?c colls Inside with which he does his thinking. Wo have gradually developed de-veloped what we have In there, and If ve could develop about two convolutions nor we would be nblo to grasp and polve oar social problems. Tho other remedy Is education. Education of the right sort In early childhood. You can't do anything any-thing with a grown man. You can't do anything or prodlct anything about a woman, olthor, bocauso sho is all Instinct and emotion. But take a child four years old and Its rnlnd Is plastic, and whatever you put In thero will always stay. Teach a child of lour that tho moon Is made of green cheese, and though you give him a thorough scientific education afterward, after-ward, there will always be. at tho bottom bot-tom of his mind, a feeling that tho moon is somehow possibly made of green cheese. Sco now religious beliefs Implanted Im-planted in childhood stay with tho adult in spite of everything. Monlessorl has the right Idea. It Is necessary to take thorn young and to teach morality and character, char-acter, to fix Ideas In those plastic minds so thnt It will be Impossible for them to think wrong or do wrong. What wo want to do In thb world Is to eradicate tho crooks, high and low, and to do hat wc must begin eoly and prevent them from going crooked at tho starL "Learning ought to bo made easy and pleasant. It can bo done with the aid of moving pictures. I could toll anyone a great deal about a dynamo and It would bo hard for him to understand; but I could show overythlng In a few pictures so that a child would understand under-stand and would nover forgot. "Now. the Socialists. If thoy amount to anything, must lmprovo their pro-grammc-or what Is generally accepted as their programme- They can't hope- to reduce re-duce all mankind to a dead level, They can't figure to abolish capital, which Is the accumulated results of labor, mental and physical, of all the ages, and Is called wealth, wealth of all the ages. They can't Ignoro tho men who do tho thinking and the guiding, tho great executive mlnd6 to whom socloty owes most of what it has. Two men sUirt two factories, with tho snmo resources, on opposite sides of a street. One goes bankrupt, the other succeeds. Arc those men equal 7 Or here is a man who gocn Into a shipyard and without Increasing the hours of labor or making anyone work harder, manages it so that throe ships Instead of two are built In a year. This he has done without with-out calling for any moro exertion on tho part of the men ond without increasing their number. Didn't ho create extra value and Isn't ho entitled to extra reward? re-ward? Such men are not In tho class of parasites or market manipulators or stock jugglers. Socialism. If it ever arrives, must provldo unlimited incentive for Its executivo minds and Its creators. The motive that I havo for Inventing Is, I guess, like the motive of the billiard player, who always wants to do a Httlo bettor to add to his record. Under present pres-ent conditions I use the reasonable profit which I derive from one invention to make experiments looking toward another Invention. In-vention. If Socialism gavo mo tho means to continue Inventing, I would invent; but If It fallorl to do so, or began to tie me, down. I would quit. "Machinery has changed things In our society and It will change thorn a great deal more. Tho man and tlie machine act and Interact. The time Is coming when the machine will do all the work and man will Just set It to work. Wo will feed the raw material in one end and will seo our shoes, clothes and everything every-thing else we need come out o ha other end. It's the JacQuard card system that will do all this. That r.ug on tho floor was woven that way, tho pattern and everything fixed in advanco; the loom had to follow the order und commandment of tho card The general use of such automatic auto-matic machinery will bo forced by the actlcs of radical labor, and at first tho working people will suffer, but In the end they will be benefited. They are shortsighted. short-sighted. Thoso nt tho bottom are as fhortslghtcd as thoso at the top. But vou can excuso them on account of conditions con-ditions and flguro out that some day bet ter conditions will produce better human results." |