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Show . jl Indestructible'' Plant Has Burned. I When the model ' firc-nroof" i plant of Thomas .. IMlson at Went Man-re, N. J-. burnd down a few weeks ago Edison said. "Ii we'd only had steel BUhM and wire glass -i n . 1 other fire-proof materials, thi plant would have been saved.'' In short, he passed Judgment nn all fire-proof buildings and found them wanting whenever there is any wood In them. The ordinary ' lire lighter. who draws S100 a month, more or less, say there Is no .such thin,- .is ;i u n -proof building, build-ing, as long as there Is wood In it Thomas A. Edison has had to ad ml they arc right ami he is wrong. His buildings were not fireproof They would not be fireproof It they had iron sash and fin glass, unless .-ill th.- wooden furniture was thrown out When Prometheus risked having his heart eaten out by the eagle In 1 order to bring lire to man. he bequeathed be-queathed something to human kind which man has been unable to con- I trol. The city ordinances are very loot In "fire-proof" buildings The fire at West Orange probably will serve one useful end Thomas a Edison has never had the problem prob-lem Of tire-proof buildings brought home to him With such force before. be-fore. Ho doubtless will spend considerable con-siderable of his wonderful energy In perfecting a lire-proof structure The stor of Thomas A. Edison always brings admiration, but none of his ;u hievemshti have ever brought forth as much admiration ns the Story of his actions when hir-plant hir-plant was burning. Before the fire was out In? went to his room and egan drawing plans for a new plant He is aearlng his thro, score years and ten mark, yet he goes after his work with the enthusiasm en-thusiasm of youth. He Is not planning to retire, Edison will die w il h his boots on MRS EDISON, TOO, PI AYs HEROIC PART. It was a wonderful story of optimism op-timism and determination such as only a much younger man might be expected to have which Mrs. Thomas Edison told in relating the eondu t of her husband during and Immediately following the recent destruction Of his great electrical plant It was none the less a story of her own optimism and helpfulness helpful-ness to her genius husband in a t me jwhen destruction comes along to erase the work of long and laborious la-borious years In fact Mrs. Edison played a heroic he-roic part in the drama of wreck and loss and death which made up the burning of the plant at West Orange, N. J , a few nights ago. It w i- she who directed the saving of the valuable books and notes and man) scientific treasures contained in the Inventor's laboratory and library, and it was she who calmed her husband and helped him to rest to that he might immediately take up the work of planning and rebuilding re-building the plant. ' When the flames commenced leaping from one building to another an-other it struck me ns though everything every-thing was doomed to go,' said Mrs Edison, on the afternoon following the night of the fire "I thought of Mr, Edison's treasured works in his laboratory. I knew the loss of those things meant the loss of everything so dear to him. I asued him if he was not going to order that those things be- taken out and from the path of flames. " 'No, I don't want to save those things,' he said. 'What I wanted saved most particularly of all were his old notebooks, which contained so much valued material " Tf those things don't mean much to you. they are Worth much to me,' I told him. We were surrounded sur-rounded by a number of the most di voted employes a man ever had. 'What shatl we do?' they begged. I said. 'Save everything in the library." li-brary." They all pitched in. and In a few minutes had everything out, including th? entire library of several sev-eral thousand books, "Mr. Edison came back from the fire shortly after midnight Then he went to his room and busied himself all night with plans for new buildings. At f o clock he decided de-cided to go to bed. He never sleeps more than two or three minutes min-utes at a time, and in a few minutes min-utes was up again SHE CALMED HER HI BND AT EIRE. "lie wanted to rush down to the factory and get busy with his men. I begged him not to go down Then 1 telephoned to the office and told them to replace to their natural positions po-sitions all the books and other office of-fice belongings which had been re-moved, re-moved, I wanted even thing in BUCh condition that it would appear natural when Mr. Edison went to his office All the time he was Insistent In-sistent upon going down, but I calmed him down and kept him here. "At 10 o'clock they telephoned from the office that evervthlng wtis straightened out and for him to come down. But at that time he was all tied up with reports and plans, BO I did not tell him. At 1 o'clock li- went to Sleep. He is up In his room now, and he will not be disturbed dis-turbed for anything In the world." During the relation of hor Btory Mrs. Edison betrayed no emotion over the loss, whi h has been estimated esti-mated at more than $4,000,000. This picture Hi extraordinary optimism op-timism and determination throws new lii:ht 'ii the quality of the genius which has Startled the world with the number and significance of its inventions. Through the smoke of great loss the "wizard" saw brightest of all a model plant improved im-proved upon by his destructive experience. ex-perience. While the tire was still adding loss to loss, the 67-year-old inventor was busy drawing up tho plans for the new plant. "I'm thinking about what I am going to do tomorrow," he said "Of course, this was a great demon- THOMAS A. EDISON in different poses and two lire scenes where tires destroyed de-stroyed "lire proof" buildings. build-ings. stration of concrete, of which most of the buildings were built, but I do not generally condin t such expensive ex-pensive experiments. There was insurance on some of the wooden buildings, put on without my knowledge, but on most of the bUlldinga there was no outside insurance in-surance Many years ago I abandoned aban-doned in old mill. The Insurance Companies refused to insure It They thought the moral risk was too great. I said to myself that they would n-v.-r gel another chance to Insinuate that any one milit burn down a building to get the insurance. insur-ance. "If we'd only had steel sashes and frames in the windows of th concrete buildings, wire glass, et the concrete buildings wouldi. have gone. Henry Ford says that he has steel sashes and I know that nearly all tho modern concrete buildings have them. That Is what we ought to have had. and ou may be sure I'll order these steel sashes tomorrow, and the wood in our concrete buildings will go. "We shall find a place for most of our employes at once, or as soon as we can. We shall split the work up outside and use part of the battery bat-tery building, which was not harmed. "Xo, tho fire will not Interfere with my experiments. The place where I spend my money was not destroyed, but the place where I make It was." he said, referring to the fact that his laboratory was saved. Last June Commissioner Adam- da lax w ith their fire laws in this country coun-try as compared with the laws in Europe. There every precaution is taken against Ore while In America every possible risk Is taken. The average city ordinance classes many buildings as fire-proof while In reality they are only slow-burning slow-burning buildings, j That has been proven In several lig New York fires. The most emphatic em-phatic proof was at Edison's model ' plant. Heat from tho wooden tashes, wooden floors, wooden furniture fur-niture ana even wooden partitions, which some cities allow in "firc-proof" "firc-proof" buildings, melt tho concrete and steel and the flames leap rjSt through the roof and onto the next llt i plant. City ordinances do not require that fire-proof buildings be equlp'pi d e with fire escapes. Such buildings rarely prove death traps be mse tho tenants usually have time to escape. Yet many livis ave been MM son of the New York Fire Department Depart-ment brought suit acainst a prop-city prop-city owner, considered responsible for a fire, for pu ment of the estimated esti-mated cost of extinguishing the fire, this to be considered as a test suit. The suit, which was decided unfavorably unfa-vorably to the city, was carried to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Su-preme Court, which has ordered the payment to the Fire Department of f 1,500 bv the Greenwood Cemetery Corporation, owners of a factory building in which occurred a fire which Commissioner Adamson estimated esti-mated cost tho deportment that amount in extinguishing it. Tho action ac-tion was based upon the contention lhat the corporation was to blame for the spread of the fire beyond the basement Of the building, because be-cause it had ignored an order of the bureau of Fire Prevention to install automat!.- sprinklers. The decision way concurred in unanimously by all the Judges, who found "no dif- I Acuity in holding that the defendant's defend-ant's failure to obey the orders of the Flro Commissioners was both culpable and negligent," This actioh is believed to be tho first of thin character ever brought in America, and to establish the power of the city, under certain sections sec-tions of the charter, to recover tho cost of extinguishing fires due to '."willful and cuplable negligence" of owners oi buildings in which fires occur; and the Commissioner has announced his intention to forco payment of this kind In the future. Such negligence i annot, of com se, bo proved in the majority of cases In this case the defendant was practically prac-tically violating the law In that he foiled to follow Ii -ally authorised Instructions to install sprinklers. Where no ordinance or instruction has been violated, however, the existence ex-istence of "willful or culpable negligence" neg-ligence" would probably be questioned ques-tioned by a jury and even by a J udge. flw?r The City Charter also provides W I that in case of fire resulting from Wm I SU0b negligence "or c riminal intent I or design" tb" parties responsible shall "be liable in a civil action for iR the payment of any and all damages Ik to persons or property, the result sisW' of such fire." A claim based on this Kfc clause would probably stand a bet- H ter chance with a jury, on the gen- K& eral feeling that, as between an In-dividual In-dividual and a corporation, municl- pal or other, the individual should Hro always be favored (Question: If E& the damaged property is insured. H could the insurance company col- lect from the party responsible?) Il In Germany practically the same iH$ rule holds, but with the very im- Hr portant difference that the owner 'Bff ,, its where lire originates is jHBI held guilty until he proves his In-nocence. In-nocence. There aro very few lirea in Germany. 'LbbM |
