OCR Text |
Show Vindicating An Idea Shortly after the close of. the civil war a young inventor, just past 21, e.i-jeavored e.i-jeavored to interest old Commodor .-Vanderbilt .-Vanderbilt in a new brake for railroad trains, to be operated by compressed air. After listening with impatience to the proposition, the Commodore asked whether the enventor really means "hat he could stop a rushing train with nothing but air. He was answer-id answer-id in the affirmative. "Then get out of here," he said, "I iave no time to waste on fools". The young inventor was George Westinghouse, who shortly afterwards perfected his air brake and alter many discouragements succeeded in placing it on the market. To make his triumph complete, the first big order for the new Westing-house Westing-house air brake came from Commodore Vanderbilt. This invention and others made Westinghouse a fortune and when he 'Jied in 1914 he was rated among the wealthly men of America, the use of his air brake having becoin-o almost universal. His early struggles were typical of many other young men with a'l ida and nothing else, but he wa? more fortunate than most of them. He did ultimately reap the rewards of his genius, while many inventors, through lack of business ability, are defrauded cut of theirs. |