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Show ) George Westinghouse THE late George Westinghouse was, up to the day of his death, one of the foremost men of " this country; about the finest model for young Americans to fashion their lines after. They can, not all be great inventors, but all can emulate the spirit which was the moving spring of the great man's life, which was that In this land no I I American youth needs aught except a clear mind, a healthy body and indomitable pluck and industry in-dustry to win. The story is repeated in all the newspapers how old Cornelius Vanderbilt insulted him when he explained that he could regulate a speeding train by compressed air. Ho got even with the old man when, later, Vanderbilt sent him an Invitation Invi-tation to call at his of fice, Westinghouse sent the word back toUhg -wfofipG his place of business busi-ness was, wJWerey5ils office hours and if Mr. VanderbilfipIeaK$ to pall he would give him a few momen$vJof hsime-tfUit Vanderbilt was notspjucn tp be,.blamed3as pitied. He was absolutely abso-lutely pracftul he l$xrhot a speck of imagination, he had no ed ' i and read little. He doubtless doubt-less had rira e effects of cyclones, but the thought that ue jompressed air of a cyclone, If harnessed, could be made a potent force to serve man, was naturally beyond his comprehension. Vanderbilt had doubtless seen an oak that had been shivered by a thunderbolt, but had neve dreamed that the agent which had performed that work could ever be tamed and made a servant of man. Mr. Westinghouse knew what the cyclone could do, and sfit about to run down, catch and subdue to servitude that force. That accomplished he turned to the other agents which Omnipotence employs to do His work. So he went on from one to another industrial force to change what had always been held as supernatural to practical form, for the uses of men. Last Sunday certain maudlin sympathizer crossed the river from Sacramento to encourage encour-age the sturdy company of mendicants camped there to continue to live on the bread of charity. It would have been far better for them to have told them the story of George Westinghouse, how he started as poor as any of them, and in thirty years made it possible for 500,000 men and women wo-men to find profitable work. That he did It because be-cause he had the pluck to try and the persistency to keep trying. A nation made up of such men as he, would, in a little time reduce the forces of the universe to obey man's control; to harness them and change them to Genii to serve mankind, to banish poverty from the earth and make gods of men. |