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Show ERE OF INVENTION For more than 100 years there have been dreamy-eyed men in make-shirt shops tinkering away at something they thought the world could use. But a centenary celebration offers of-fers a convenient vantage point for perspective. Thus, last week the ceremonies attendant on the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the United States patent system were properly elaborate. High over Washington a transport plane circled. From it, a radio voice called to 1,000 diners the roll of honor of American's "Twelve Greatest Inventors." The voice listed : Alexander G. Bell, the telephone; Thomas A. Edison, electric light and phonograph; Robert Fulton, first commercial commer-cial steamboat; Charles Goodyear, vulcanization process for rubber; Charles M. Hall, aluminum manufacture; Elias Howe, first practical sewing machine; Cyrus H. McCormick, first practical reaper; Ottomar Mergenthaler, the linotype; Samuel F. B. Morse, the electric telegraph; George Westing-house, Westing-house, the airbrake; Wilbur Wright, the airplane; and Eli Whitney, the cotton gin. That was the past. What of the future? Rocket trips to moon? Atomic energy put to work? Television? Synthetic; food? The registers of the U. S. patent office have inscribed! more than two million patents in the first 100 years. The next 100 years offer tantalizing possibilities. "Men as yet un-! born will be on the role of honor in 2036. j It may be that some of the inventions will be bizarre, almost al-most purposeless as to utility. Others will be, as they have been in the past, of revolutionary quality, transforming industry in-dustry and having profound effects on our social and economic econo-mic system. But it is certain that when the second centenary of the patent office is celebrated, ft will be much like the first in that it will be primarily a tribute to Yankee inventiveness, to the ingenious spirit of Americans who have given so much : to their country and to the world. - o i |