If f • f- EFAYOUR, Digitized by the Internet Arcliive in 2007 witii funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/celebrationofbegOOnatiricli Proceedings and Addresses CELEBRATION OF THE • -BEGINNING • • • • • OF THE • • • SECOND CENTURY OF THE American Patent System AT Washington City, D. C. April 8, 9, 10, 1891. PUBLISHED BY THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. WASHINGTON, D. C: Press of Gedney & Roberts Co. 1892. Copyright, 1892, by the Executive Committee of the Patent Centennial Celebration, Geo. C. Maynard, Acting Chairman, J. Elfreth Watkins, Secretary. TABLE OF CONTENTS. Proceedings and Addresses, Patent Centennial Celebration. PAGE History of Movement 3 Organization, IvIST of Committees, etc 11 Proceedings at the Meetings, Reception at the Patent Office, and Excursion to Mount Vernon 21 Address by Hon. Benjamin Harrison, President of the United States, opening the Congress 23 Formation of the National, Association of Inventors and Manufacturers 37 Banquets of the Board of Trade and of the Washington Civiiv Engineers 39 Addresses Dei^ivered at the Congress 43 RESOI^uTions passed by the Executive Committee upon the death of Hon. John Lynch, Chairman of that Committee 485 Subscribers to the Guarantee Fund 487 IvisT OF Members of the Congress 488 Newspaper Comment upon the Cei,ebration 499 Index 523 Addresses Delivered at the Congress. BY Hon. CharIvES Ei«ioT Mitcheli., Commissioner of Patents. — " Birth and Growth of the American Patent System " 43 Hon. O. H, PI.ATT, U. S. Senator. — "Invention and Advancement," 57 Hon. Carroi^i, D. Wright, Commissioner of Labor. — ** The Rela- tion of Invention to Labor" 77 Hon. SamueIv BiyATCHFORD, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. — "A Century of Patent Law" iii Hon. Robert S. Tayi,or.— "The Epoch Making Inventions of America" 121 Hon. JohnW. Daniei., U. S. Senator.— "The New South as an Outgrowth of Invention and the American Patent Law " 129 Hon. A. R. Spofford, Librarian U. S. Congress. — "The Copyright System of the United States : its Origin and its Growth " 145 Octave Chanute, President of the American Society of Civil En- gineers. — "The Effect of Invention upon the Railroad and other means of Inter-Communication " 161 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS. Thomas Gray, Professor of Dynamic Engineering, Rose Polytechnic Institute, Terra Haute. — *'The Inventors of the Telegraph and Telephone" i75 Col. F. A. SERI.Y, Principal Examiner U. S. Patent Office.— " Inter- national Protection of Industrial Property" 199 Edward Atkinson, of Massachusetts. — "Invention in its Effects upon Household Economy" 217 S. P. LangI/EY, Secretary Smithsonian Institution, Presiding at Ses- sion afternoon of April 9, 1891 235 WiLWAM P. Trowbridge, Professor of Engineering School of Mines, Columbia College.— "The Effect of Technological Schools upon the Progress of Invention " 239 Robert H. Thurston, Director and Professor of Mechanical Engi- neering, Sibley College, Cornell University. — "The Invention of the Steam Engine" 251 Cyrus F. Brackett, Henry Professor of Physics, College of New Jersey, Princeton. — " The Effect of Invention upon the Progress of Electrical Science" 287 Major C1.ARENCE E. DutTON, Ordnance Department, U. S. A. — "The Influence of Invention upon the Implements and Munitions of Modern Warfare " 293 F. W. Ci^ARKE, Chief Chemist U. S. Geological Survey.— "The Relations of Abstract Scientific Research to Practical In- vention " 303 J. M. Toner, M. D., of Washington, at Mount Vernon. — "Washing- ton as an Inventor and Promoter of the Useful Arts" 313 Hon. Benjamin Butterworth, of Ohio, U. S. House of Represent- atives. — "The Effect of our Patent System on the Material Development of the United States " 381 Hon. Wm. T. Harris, Commissioner of Education. — "The Relation of Invention to the Communication of Intelligence by News- paper and Book" 393 Otis T. Mason, Curator in the U. S. National Museum.— "The Birth of Invention" 403 Dr. John S. Bii,i.ings, Curator, U. S. Army Medical Museum.— "American Invention and Discoveries in Medicine, Surgery, and Practical Sanitation " 413 Addresses at the Banquet of the Board of Trade. Washington, D. C, BY Hon. M. M. Parker, President Board of Trade. —Address of Wel- come 423 Hon. John M. Hari^an, Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.—" The Supreme Court of the United States as Related to the American Patent System 425 Hon. John W. Nobi^e, Secretary of the Interior.— "The Future of the American Patent System " 426 Hon. Chari.es Foster, Secretary of the Treasury. — " American Patents from a Financial Standpoint" 432 Hon. W. H. H. Mii,i,ER, Attorney General. — " Relation of Patents to the Law" (letter) 433 TABLE OF CONTENTS. v Geii. Lewis A. Grant, Assistant Secretary of War. — " American Patents in the Army " 434 Hon. J. R. Soi^EY, Assistant Secretary of the Navy. — "American Patents in the Navy " = 439 Hon. S. A. WhitFieIvD, Assistant Postmaster General. — "American Patents in the Postal Service " 441 Hon. Benjamin ButTERWORTh, Secretary World's Columbian Ex- position. —"American Patents at the World's Exposition " 444 Hon. Richard Pope, Commissioner of Patents Dominion of Canada. "The Canadian Patent Office " 450 Papers upon U. S. Patent Office Topics. Robert W. Fenwick, of Washington, D. C. — "The Old and the New Patent Office" 453 W. C. Dodge, of Washington, D. C— "The Origin, Nature and Effect of Patents" 473 James L. Ewen, of Washington, D. C— "The Minor Inventions of the Century" 481 Proceedings of the Congress HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT. The celebration of the beginning of the Second Century of the American Patent System was the outgrowth of a spon- taneous desire to recognize publicly the benefits which that system has conferred upon our Nation and upon the world. This movement took practical shape when, at the last of several meetings, duly advertised in the papers, held at the Arlington Hotel, November ii, 1890, of which Mr. Robt. W. Fenwick was Chairman and Mr. James T. Dubois was Secre- tary, the Chairman was * * empowered to appoint a committee of seven to make arrangements for the celebration, ' ' having in view the successful accomplishment of two purposes, to wit: I St. The celebration in an appropriate manner of the begin- ning of the Second Century of the American Patent System by the reading of scientific and historical papers by eminent citi- zens of the United States, and other exercises. 2d. The formation of a National Association of Inventors and Manufacturers of Patented Articles. The following gentlemen were then chosen members of the Central Committee : JOHN W. BABSON, Chief of Issue and Gazette Div., U. S. Pat. Office. BRAINARD H. WARNER, President, Columbia National Bank. Prof. OTIS T. MASON, Curator, U. S. National Museum. MYRON M. PARKER, President, Washington Board of Trade. Hon. JOHN LYNCH, President, Potomac Terra Cotta Co. MARVIN C. STONE, Manufacturer of Novelties. J. ELFRETH WATKINS, Curator, U. S. National Museum. To which were added the Chairman (Robt. W. Fenwick), and Secretary Qames T. Dubois), of the public meetings. Extracts from the newspapers relating to the movement will be found in the Appendix. At the first meeting of the Central Committee, held Decem- ber ist, 1 89 1, John W. Babson was chosen Chairman, and J. Elfreth Watkins, Secretary. 4 HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT. It having been decided to issue an address to the public which should embody the objects and aims of the Celebration, the following, "Circular No. i," was prepared and given to the press for publication. Several thousand copies were sub- sequently printed and distributed throughout the country. To THE Inventors of America and the Manufacturers OF Inventions. The completion of the First Century of the American Patent System marks so important an epoch in the history of the Nation that it is eminently proper that the beginning of the second shall not pass unnoticed. The centennial anniversaries of other important national events have been celebrated in a manner worthy of a people proud of their country and its growth. Surely the system that has aided the agriculturist in the field, the mechanic in the shop, and the toiler in the mine ; that has stimulated in- vention and helped every branch of ^podern industry, has played no small part in a history so full of the triumphs of human achievement. Believing that the American inventor and manufacturer of inventions will regard it a privilege as well as a duty to co- operate in making due recognition of these facts, it is proposed to hold a celebration at the National Capital in April, 1891, which shall in a fitting manner commemorate the important event and place on record the Nation's appreciation of the labors of those whose ingenuity, patience and tireless effort have exercised such a potent influence in accelerating the prosperous growth of the Nation, and in aiding the progress of our civilization. The necessity for a National Association of Inventors organ- ized for mutual benefit has been frequently discussed in the technical and other journals. No time could be more oppor- tune for the formation of such an association than when men from every part of the country meet to celebrate so important an anniversary. Surely the occasion is most inspiring. All inventors and manufacturers and others interested are requested to cooperate with this Committee in the purpose HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT 5 above set forth. Correspondence appertaining thereto should be addressed to J. Bi^FRETH W ATKINS, Secretary, U. S. National Museum, Washington, D. C. This circular elicited many favorable comments from the public press, and inventors and manufacturers of patented articles expressed by letter their desire to cooperate in the movement. On the 1 6th of February the following circular was mailed to such persons who it was thought would be interested in the formation of a National Association of Inventors and Manu- facturers: Office of the Executive Committee FOR THE CELEBRATION OF THE BEGINNING OF THE SECOND CENTURY OF THE AMERICAN PATENT SYSTEM BY INVENTORS AND MANUFACTURERS OF PATENTED INVENTIONS. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE : „ ^ 8ii G Street N. W., Hon. John I,ynch, Chairman. WASHINGTON, D. C. J. Elfreth Watkins, Secreiarj/. J. w. babson, February i6th, 1891. Geo. C. Maynard, Marvin C. Stone. Dear Sir : Your attention is invited to the accompanying circulars relating to the Patent Celebration to be held in Washington on the 8th, 9th and loth of April next, which it is hoped you will attend. It is proposed on that occasion to organize a permanent National Association of Inventors and Manufacturers of Pat- ented Articles for the purpose of securing cooperation in all proper matters tending to the improvement of the American Patent System. At this time, when social and economic questions of the gravest importance fill the public mind, the influence of judi- cious organized effort can be beneficially exerted to remedy existing defects and to provide against danger in the future. 6 HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT You are earnestly requested to unite in the formation of this Association, and to contribute your personal assistance and cooperation to that end. The annual report of the Commissioner of Patents to Con- gress, bearing date January ist, 1891, again calls attention to the well-known need for more office room, lack of sufficient examining force and inadequate pay of every Patent Office official. The Commissioner remarks that ' ' the pace kept up in the Patent Office now, as in all recent years, is inconsistent with that high degree of care which the patent system calls for," and that '*a patent should evidence such painstaking care in examination that upon its face it should warrant a pre- liminary injunction, and there can be little doubt that the con- tinuance of the 'American ' examination system depends upon so conducting examinations into the novelty of alleged inven- tions as to make the seal of the Patent Office create a powerful, if not a conclusive, presumption that the patent is valid." The Commissioner further reports that during the past year the Patent Office has earned a surplus over every expense of the Office of $241,074.92, and that the total balance now in the Treasury of the United States is $3,872,745.24, and adds that the statement that the inventors of the country cannot under- stand why the government takes their money and then fails to provide necessary facilities. The prime reason of this state of affairs is that the inventors of the country have never brought concerted effiart to bear upon their representatives in Congress to the end that proper laws should be enacted, nor have they properly supported the government officials in their attempts to secure adequate office space and means to facilitate the carrying out of present regulations. Many of the most prominent Inventors and Manufacturers in the country have expressed decided opinions to the effect that concerted effi)rt at this time, on the part of those most inter- ested, may be the means of effecting such improvements in the patent system as shall secure to every owner and user of a patented invention the just and speedy enforcement of his rights. The Executive Committee of the Patent Celebration, de- siring to cooperate with persons interested in the organization HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT J of the proposed Association, have provided a suitable place for its deliberations, and will arrange the program to accommodate those who desire to take part both in the Celebration exercises and in the business meetings of the Association. An expression of your views upon the subject is requested. If you find yourself unable to attend the meetings, you are in- vited to bring such matters as you desire before the Association by letter. Correspondence may be addressed to J. K. Watkins, Secretary. N. B. — If you desire to address the Association upon any subject, please furnish the committee with an abstract of ad- dress, and state length of time to be consumed in delivery, in order that the preliminary organization may have information to govern them in arranging the program for meetings. Ths President Accepts the Invitation to Preside. The following letter addressed to the President of the United States, inviting him to preside at the first meeting of the Con- gress on April 8th, elicited a favorable reply : Washington, January 24., 1891. The President: On the eighth, ninth, and tenth of April next there will take place in this city a National Celebration of the Beginning of the Second Century of the American Patent System. This is being organized by the Inventors and Manu- facturers of the whole country, and it is expected that thou- sands of representative men of these classes, from every part of the United States, will attend the meetings. A number of prominent men have promised to deliver addresses upon this occasion, and the topics to be discussed, as you will see by the enclosed provisional list, relate to the history of the Patent System, its effect upon the progress of invention and its relations to industrial and social progress in every direction. It is deemed eminently fitting that the President of the United States should be asked to be present at the opening of this Celebration, which is a tribute from the citizens of the United States to the long-continued efficiency of one of the branches of the general government. As Chairman of the 8 HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT. Executive Committee, in behalf of all interested in the success of the movement, I have the honor to invite you to take the chair at the first meeting, on the afternoon of Tuesday, the eighth of April. Respectfully, John IvYNCH, Chairman of Executive Committee. Invitations were also extended through the Executive Com- mittee to the oflScials of the various foreign patent bureaus to attend the celebration. The following is the form of invitation : Cki^ebration of thk Beginning of the Second Century OF THE American Patent System at Washington, U. S. A., April 8, 9, 10, 1891. Sir : I have the honor to inform you that arrangements have been made to celebrate, in an appropriate manner, the begin- ning of the second century of the American Patent System, in the city of Washington on the 8th, 9th and loth of April next. This celebration is being organized by American Inventors and Manufacturers, and it is expected that thousands of repre- sentative men of these classes from every part of the United States will attend the meetings. Prominent statesmen, jurists, engineers and political econo- mists will deliver addresses upon topics relating to the history of our patent system, its effects upon the progress of invention, and its relations to industrial and social progress in every direction. You are requested to unite with these citizens of the United States in this celebration, which is their tribute to the long continued efi&ciency of one of the branches of the general Government. In behalf of all interested in the success of the movement, I have the honor to invite you and such citizens as you may de- sire to accompany you to take part in this celebration. Very respectfully yours, (Signed) John I^ynch, Chairman of the Executive Committee. (Signed) J. E. Watkins, Secretary of the Executive Committee. HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT. 9 A number of the replies to the invitations are published below. The following is the form of the invitation that was sent to inventors and others whose presence at the Celebration seemed desirable. CE1.KBRAT10N OF THE Beginning of the Second Century OF THE American Patent System by Inventors and Manufacturers of Patented Inventions, in THE City of Washington, April 8, 9, 10, 189 1. Dear Sir : You are cordially invited to become a member of the Congress of Inventors and Manufacturers of Inventions, to be held in the City of Washington, April 8, 9, 10, 1891, to celebrate the beginning of the Second Century of the American Patent System, which marks so important an epoch in the history of the Nation. The centennial anniversaries of other important National events have been celebrated in a manner worthy of a people proud of their country and its growth. Not less worthy of commendation is the system which has aided the agriculturist in the field, the mechanic in the shop, and the toiler in the mine ; and has stimulated invention in every department of modern industry. In the belief that American Inventors and Manufacturers will regard it a privilege as well as a duty to cooperate in the movement, definite steps have been taken to hold this celebra- tion, which shall in a fitting manner commemorate the import- ant event and place on record the Nation's appreciation of the labors of those whose ingenuity, patience and tireless effort have exercised such a potent influence in accelerating the prosperous growth of the Nation, and in aiding the progress of our civilization. It is expected that one of the outgrowths of this Congress will be a National Association of Inventors and Manufacturers of Inventions, the necessity for which Association has fre- quently been discussed. No time could be more opportune for the organization of such a society. lO HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT. It is earnestly hoped that you will take part in this celebra- tion. If you desire to accept this invitation, you are requested to sign your name to the enclosed blank, and to forward it, accom- panied by a fee of five dollars, to Col. A. T. Britton, President American Security and Trust Co. , and Treasurer Patent Cele- bration Fund, 1419 G street n. w. This action will constitute you a member of the Patent Cen- tennial Congress and will entitle you to attend the public meetings (admission to which will be by ticket), as well as the proposed excursion to Mount Vernon on the anniversary of the signing of the first American Patent Law by Washington. Each member will receive all the publications of the Con- gress, which are expected to consist of two or more hand- somely printed volumes which shall contain the addresses delivered at the celebration by the eminent statesmen and political economists whose names appear upon the programme, together with a series of biographies of the great American inventors. These volumes will contain the most valuable contributions to the history of invention and the American Patent System ever published. In behalf of the Executive Committee. J. E. Watkins, Secretary. To. Regulations governing the preliminary arrangements for the Celebration were adopted by the Central Committee and published early in February, substantially as follows : HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT II ORGANIZATION, LIST OF COMMITTEES, DUTIES, Etc. The Advisory Committee. A first act was to secure the earnest cooperation of men prominent in ofi&cial positions, high in literary and scientific attainments, and actively interested in the welfare and growth of our country, to give support to this undertaking. The letters placed on file from the gentlemen named below, selected as an Advisory Committee, were of the most inspiring character and express the warmest sympathy with the movement : Hon. H. M. TBIvLBR, Chairman, Committee on Patents, U. S. Senate. Hon. O. H. PIvATT and Hon. GBORGB GRAY, Members of Committee on Patents, U. S. Senate. Hon. BBNJAMIN BUTTBRWORTH, Chairman, Committee on Patents, House of Representatives. Hon. H. B. PAINB, Bx-Commissioner of Patents. Hon. BLIvIS SPBAR, Bx-Commissioner of Patents. Hon. B. M. MARBIvB, Bx-Commissioner of Patents. Hon. M. V. MONTGOMBRY, Bx-Commissioner of Patents. Coiv. F. A. SBBIvY, Principal Examiner, U. S. Patent Office. J. B. MARVIN, Chief of Draughtsman's Division, U. S. Patent Office. Prof. A. GRAHAM BBLL. Prof. S. P. IvANGLBY, Secretary, Smithsonian Institution. Dr. G. BROWN GOODB. Assistant Secretary in Charge, U. S. National Museum. Major JOHN W. POWBIvL, Director, U. S. Geological Survey. Prof. T. C. MBNDBNHALL, Superintendent, U. S. Coast and Geodetic Surve5\ Hon. a. R. SPOFFORD, Librarian of Congress. Hon. BDWARD WILLITS, Assistant Secretary ©f Agrculture. Coiv. A. T. BRIXTON, President, American Security and Trust Co. Dr. J. C. WBIvLING, President, Columbian University. REV. J. HAVENS RICHARDS, President, Georgetown Uni versity. T. B. WAGGAMAN, Trustee, Catholic University of America. Rev. J. B. RANKIN, President, Howard University. REV. BYRON SUNDBRIvAND. Hon. THOMAS WILSON, Smithsonian Institution. Hon. jambs BUCHANAN and Hon. GBORGB D. TILL- MAN, Members of Committee on Patents, House of Rep- resentatives. 12 HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT. Hon. CHARLES ELIOT MITCHELL, Commissioner of Patents. Hon. ROBERT J. FISHER, Assistant Commissioner of Patents. Coiv. MARSHALL MCDONALD, Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries. Hon. CARROLL D. WRIGHT, Commissioner of Labor. Gen. a. W. GREELY, Chief Signal Officer, U. S. A. Gen. M. C. MEIGS, U. S. A.* Commodore WM. M. FOLGER, U. S. A. Surgeon JOHN S. BILLINGS, Army Medical Museum. Captain R. W. MEADE, U. S. N. Generai. W. S. ROSECRANS, Register, U. S. Treasury. Dr. F. O. ST. CLAIR, Chief of Consular Bureau, Depart- ment of State. Hon. J. W. DOUGLASS, Commissioner, District of Columbia. Hon. J. W. ROSS, Commissioner, District of Columbia. Col. H. M. ROBERT, Commissioner, District of Columbia. Hon. M. G. emery. President, Second National Bank. J. M. TONER, M. D. GEORGE C. MAYNARD. Hon. SIMON WOLF. A. L. BARBER, President, Barber Asphalt Co. CROSBY S. NOYES, Editor, Evening Star. Hon. BERIAH WILKINS, Daily Post. GEN. H. V. BOYNTON. CHAS. A. ELLIOT. A. D. ANDERSON, Secretary, Board of Trade. Coi.. WM. M. MEREDITH, Chief, Bureau Engraving and Printing. The Executive Committee. By resolution of the Central Committee the Executive Com- mittee is charged * ' with the duty of arranging the program for the celebration ' ' ; and all other committees are directed to "report to and receive their instructions from the Executive Committee"; *' no indebtedness shall be incurred, except by the authority of the Executive Committee, and no expendi- tures shall be made from the funds collected for the purposes of the celebration except upon vouchers approved by said committee." * Gen. M. C. Meigs was elected chainnan of this committee at its first meeting, and served in that capacity at each subsequent meeting. HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT. 13 The chairman of each sub-committee will be ex-officio a member of the Executive Committee when matters pertaining exclusively to his committee are under consideration. The Executive Committee will determine the time and place or places for holding the public meetings, and the character of the literary exercises and entertainments afforded the mem- bers of the convention ; and also have the general oversight and arrangement of all affairs pertaining to the celebration. It will prepare and issue to the public and distribute to in- dividuals, in the best possible way, such circulars, letters and invitations as will secure a full attendance of those persons whose cooperation is desired. It will cause to be printed and bound the volumes of the papers read at the literar}^ sessions of the Congress, together with such portions of the proceedings of the business sessions as may be determined upon, and will forward to each member of the convention, who has paid a membership fee of jSve dol- lars, one copy thereof. It will provide tickets of admission to the literary and busi- ness sessions of the convention, and to all entertainments and receptions, and determine the regulations under which they shall be distributed. All sub-committees will report to the Executive Committee at least once a week (on Tuesday evening), and oftener if necessary, at the rooms at No. 811 G street, which will be open daily from 9 A. m. to 5 p. m. until the close of the con- vention. Sub-committees can hold their meetings in these rooms by giving notice to the Secretary. Hon. JOHN LYNCH, Chairman. J. ELFRETH WATKINS, Secretary. MARVIN C. STONE. JOHN W. BABSON. GEORGE C. MAYNARD. 14 HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT. Thk Committee on I,iterature. The Committee on I^iterature will designate what subjects shall be discussed at the public exercises and will provide the persons to deliver the addresses, and will receive, examine and prepare for publication, or other proper disposition, such addi- tional addresses or papers as ma^y be offered. Dr. G. brown GOODB, Chairman. Hon. AINSWORTH R. SPOFFORD. lylvBWBLLYN DHANE. The Finance Committee. The Finance Committee will be charged with the duty of ob- taining the necessary funds for the expenses of the celebration, giving suitable acknowledgment to all persons contributing. All funds when collected will be paid over to Col. A. T. Brit- ton, Treasurer. The character and value of the papers to be read before the Congress by the eminent gentlemen who have volunteered to prepare them being such that their preservation is desired, it has been determined to publish them in book form, together with such portions of the proceedings of the Association as may be determined upon. These will make one or more volumes of 400 pages. Bach subscriber will be entitled to a copy, together with a ticket of admission to all public meet- ings of the Congress, and to all excursions, entertainments and receptions, upon the payment of a fee of five dollars. From these fees it is expected that a large revenue will be derived, and that the first receipts will be available sufficiently early to so far provide for current expenses that twenty per cent, only of the subscriptions will be called for before March 31st. Subsequent calls will be determined by the receipts of fees. No more calls will be made than are necessary to meet exi- gencies. Whatever funds accumulating from membership fees remain on hand after the expenses of the convention are paid HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT 15 will be returned to the subscribers to the guarantee fund, and pro rata to the amount paid in. JOSEPH K. McCAMMON, Chairman, 1420 F street. Hon. W. W. DUDLEY, Pacific Building. REGINALD FENDALIv, 344 D street. H. V. PARSELIv, 458 Pennsylvania avenue. JAMES T. DUBOIS, 715 Eleventh street. GEO. C. MAYNARD, 1409 New York avenue. JOHN C. POOR, 411 Tenth street. CHAS. E. FOSTER, 931 ^ street. JAMES H. GRID LEY, Pacific Building. Hon. WM. McMICHAEL, Mills Building, N. Y. CHARLES C. LISTER, Drexel Building, Phila. Hon. J. W. WHELPLEY, 300 East Capitol street. WHARTON Mcknight, 44 Penn. avenue, Pittsburg, Pa. M. I. WELLER, 326 Pennsylvania avenue, S. E. MUNN & CO., New York, N. Y. Capt. GEO. E. LEMON, 615 Fifteenth street N. W. Committee on Public Comfort. This committee will negotiate for quarters, either at hotels or private houses, for persons desiring them, and will invite and obtain the names, addresses and rates of such householders as will furnish accommodations for visitors. They will keep a list of obtainable accommodations at headquarters, 811 G street northwest, from which information can be given to those who apply in person or by letter, and will take such other steps as will, in their opinion, insure the comfort of the guests. W. C. DODGE, Chairman. W. G. HENDERSON, F. E. TASKER, J. H. whitaker, henry calver, W. H. FINCKEL, NELSON J. DITTO, E. T. FENWICK, A. M. SMITH, L. W. SINSABAUGH, R. S. LACEY, T. J. JOHNSON, JAMES A. ASHLEY, BENJAMIN POOLE, HENRY H. BLISS, J. L. EWIN, JAMES F. DUHAMEL, A. H. EVANS, G. H. HOWARD, C. J. GOOCH, M. E. GREGG. i6 HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT. The Reception Committee. Upon the Reception Committee will devolve the duty of receiving and extending proper courtesies to distinguished guests during their stay, and the providing of sub-committees to be in attendance at receptions and entertainments, and, as may be necessary, at the sessions of the Convention. WM. CRANCH McINTIRE, Chairman. DeWITT C. LAWRENCE, Vice -Chairman. a. a. wilson, marcellus bailey, M. W. GALT, L. P. WRIGHT, Hon. THOMAS WILSON, JAMES P. WILLETT, Dr. WM. B. FRENCH, O. C. GREEN, Dr. G. W. HARRIS, ROBERT BOYD, JOHN KEYWORTH, L. J. DAVIS, J. J. HALSTED, R. G. Du BOIS, M. W. BEVERIDGE, JNO. A. BAKER, GEORGE E. LEMON, R. G. DYRENFORTH, G. T. HOWARD, H. SEMKEN, GEO. W. COCHRAN, W. H. COLLINS, W. B. COOLEY, HENRY SHERWOOD, FRANK R. WILLIAMS, H. S. EVERETT, H. L. CRANFORD, T. M. GALE, T. H. ALEXANDER, CLEM. W. HOWARD, H. O. TOWLES, Dr. D. S. LAMB, GEO. B. WILLIAMS, J. J. HARROVER, H. A. SEYMOUR, JNO. F. WAGGAMAN, PHILIP T. DODGE, WM. F. MATTINGLY, JAMES F. BARBOUR, FRANK HUME, CHARLES EARLY, GEO. M. LOCKWOOD, JNO. PAUL JONES, R. H. VOORHEES, E. E. ELLIS, EUGENE PETERS, OCTAVIUS KNIGHT, R. D. S. TYLER, C. A. SNOW, LLOYD B. WIGHT, W. T. FITZGERALD, W. D. CABELL, E. G. DAVIS, B. LEWIS BLACKFORD, GEO. W. CASILEAR, EDWIN LAMASURE, D. P. LIEBHARDT, E. M. DAWSON, FRED. BRACKETT, JOHN TWEEDALE, Prof. HARRY KING, W. V. COX, A. HOWARD CLARK, WALTER HOUGH, Dr. THOMAS TAYLOR, PHILIP WALKER, MAGNUS S. THOMPSON, N. S. FAWCETTE, HENRY W. RAYMOND, Coi,. F. G. BUTTERFIELD, MARTIN B. BAILEY, E. A. DICK, THOS. S. HOPKINS, JAS. W. WHITE, J. LOWRIE BELL, ARNOLD B. JOHNSON, W. J. HOFFMAN, JAMES A. RUTHERFORD. HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT. 17 Committee on Transportation. This committee will by interviews and correspondence en- deavor to secure reduced railroad and steamboat rates from all points in the United States to this city, for the members of the Congress and their friends who accompany them. They will also be charged with the duty of making the necessary arrange- ments for the excursion to Mount Vernon. Coi,. W. B. THOMPSON, Chairman. JAMES L. TAYLOR, GEORGE W. BOYD, W. P. CAMPBELL, C. C. DUNCANSON, S. M. BRYAN, Lieut. CHAS C. ALLIBONE, C. C. SCULL, CHARLES R. BISHOP, CapT. W. T. ROESSLE, CapT. a. a. THOMAS, MORRELL MAREAN, Coi.. JOS. C. McKIBBEN. The Committee on Halls. This committee will be charged with the duty of obtaining a hall for the principal place of meeting for the convention, and such other halls as may be needed for special or overflow meetings, and seeing that they are properly arranged and sup- plied with the requisite attendants and conveniences. M. D. helm, Chairman. F. W. PRATT, W. H. RAPLEY, W. X. STEVENS, B. R. CATLIN, t. j. w. robertson, w. h. singleton, hervey s. knight, f. a. lehmann, \vm. e. boulter, F. C. SOMES, WARREN H. ORCUTT, AUGUST PETERSON, GEO. S. PRINDLE, EUGENE W. JOHNSON, H. H. DOUBLEDAY, W. P. KENNEDY, J. NOTA McGILL, H. N. LOW. The Committee on Badges and Medals. This committee shall cause designs for badges and medals and the cost thereof to be submitted to the Executive Com- mittee for approval, and, when authorized, secure and deliver i8 HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT. the same to the chairman of the several committees or officers for appropriate distribution. SCHUYLER DURYBB, Chairman. V. D. STOCKBRIDGB, W. A. BARTLBTT, ALBX. S. STBWART, P. G. RUSSBLL, G. P. WHITTLBSBY, J. R. LITTBLL, C. H. FOWLBR, W. H. DOOIvlTTLB, F. L. BROWNB, IvIvOYD B. WIGHT, A. S. BROWNB, WALIvACB GRBBNB. P. MAURO, Dr. F. W. RITTBR, C. ly. STURTBVANT. COMMITTKE ON PrBSS. The Committee on Press will make arrangements for the collection and dissemination of news, and for the accommoda- tion of the Press, extending to them all necessary facilities. S. H. KAUFFMANN, Chairman, Evening Star. F. A. RICHARDSON, Baltimore Sun. RICHARD NIXON, N. O. Times. H. W. SPOFFORD, Scranton Republican. W. B. STBVBNS, St. Louis Globe-Democrat. F. A. G. HANDY, Chicago Tribune. O. O. STBAIvBY, Louisville Courier-Journal. M. G. SBCKBNDORF, N. Y. Tribune. JUI,BS GUTHRIDGB, N. Y. Herald. PAUL WOLFF, Staats-Zeitung . W. G. STBRRBTT, Galveston News. RICHARP WBIGHTMAN, Age-Herald, Birmingham, Ala. O. P. AUSTIN, Press News Association. B. B. WIGHT, Boston Journal. B. C. HOWLAND, Philadelphia Press. LOUIS J. LANG, N. Y.^ Press. FRANK HATTON, Post. D. R. McKBB, Associated Press. H. V. BOYNTON, Commercial Gazette. JBROMB J. WILBBR, Associated Press. J. H. SOULE), Sunday Herald. BDWARD W. BRADY, Critic. JOHN M. CARSON, Philadelphia Ledger. JOHN McBLROY, National Tribune. W. L. CROUNSB, N. Y. World. W. B. CURTIS, Chicago News. P. V. DeGRAW, United Press. B. G. DUNNBLL, N. Y. Times. J. J. NOAH, Kansas City Times. LUTHER B. LITTLE, St. Paul Pioneer Press. DsB. RANDOLPH KEIM, Philadelphia Inquirer. WILLIAM C. FOX. HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT. 19 Committee on Music. The Committee on Music will be charged with the duty of providing such instrumental and vocal music as may be deter- mined upon for the sessions of the convention, excursions, receptions and parades, subject to the approval of the Execu- tive Committee. W. R. IvAPHAM, Chairman. W. D. McFARIyAND, W. R. B. ATKINSON, H. O. SIMONS, J. C. PENNIB, J. R. BDSON, J. R. NOTTINGHAM, GEORGE R. BYINGTON, F. D. JOHNS, L. S. BACON, FRANK L. MIDDLETON. F. H. HOUGH, WILIv E. DYRE, FRANK Iv. DYER, H. J. ENNIS. Committee on Carriages. The Committee on Carriages will make arrangements with the livery stables to provide sufficient and suitable carriages for the use of the members of the convention while in the city at reasonable and uniform rates, to be furnished upon tele- phonic call of the committee or a request by its authority. A representative of the committee will be on duty at head- quarters, 811 G street, during the time of the convention. O. E. DUFFY, Chairman. A. E. H. JOHNSON, ALLEN S. PATTISON, HENRY ORTH, HERBERT E. PECK, CHAS. S. JONES, W. E. AUGHINBAUGH, W. N. MOORE, GEORGE W. STOKES, HARRY F. SLOCUM, FREDERICK A. HOLTON, ' SHIPLEY BRASHEARS, WALTER ALLEN, CHAS. J. STOCKMAN, JAMES L. SKIDMORE. EDSON S. DENSMORE, Committee on Parade and Military Organizations. Returning from the excursion to Mount Vernon on Friday, April loth, by invitation of the Secretary of the Navy the boat will land at the Navy Yard, and an opportunity will be given the inventors and their friends to inspect the ordnance shops, after which a military parade from that point through the city is contemplated. The Secretary of War has already given 20 HISTORY OF THE MOVEMENT. favorable consideration to the matter, and it is expected that the Regular Army and the District National Guard and the High School Cadets will participate. The arrangements are under the charge of the following committee : Gen. AIvBHRT ORDWAY, Chairman. GEN. CECIL CLAY, Maj. W. C. McINTIRE. Coi.. W. G. MOORE, Maj. T. M. GALE. F. N. LANE. Committee on Banquet. If it be determined to hold a banquet during or at the close of the Convention, the arrangements therefor will be placed in the hands of the following committee, who will make due announcement of the time, place, etc. : LAWRENCE GARDNER, Chairman. A. B. BROWNE, RHESA G. DUBOIS, WALTER JOHNSON, FRED. W. PRATT, JOHN JOY EDSON, H. L. BISCOE, JOHN W. BOTELER, WM. J. STEPHENSON, JOHN C. EDWARDS, R. G. MONROE, WM. R. SINGLETON. E. W. ANDERSON, C. S. WHITMAN, A. A. CONNOLLY. Special Committee for the Reception of Foreign Officials and Guests. As it is desirable to pay special attention to official and other foreign guests who may be present in response to invita- tions sent to the Patent Offices, Societies, and distinguished citizens of other countries, that duty has been devolved upon a special committee, consisting of Gen. CYRUS BUSSEY, Chairman. Hon. ROBERT P. PORTER, EUGENE M. JOHNSON, A. S. SOLOMONS, ANTHONY POLLOCK, Hon. THOMAS WILSON, HENRY ORTH, Hon. N. L. FROTHINGHAM, LOUIS BAGGER, EDWIN B. HAY, GUSTAV BISSING, ALVA S. TABOR, FRANCIS R. FAVER, Jr. Gen. L. T. MICHENOR, JOSE M. YZNAGA, M. L. MORRIS, WILLIAM H. BECK, JOSE) J. RODRIGUEZ. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. FIRST MEETING. The Congress of Inventors and Manufacturers of Inventions to celebrate the Beginning of the Second Century of the American Patent System convened at the Academy of Music (formerly Lincoln Music Hall) in Washington, D. C, Wednesday, April 8, 1 891, at 2:30 p. m. The first meeting was presided over by the President of the United States, and among other distin- guished guests upon the stage were Hon. John W. Noble, Secretary of the Interior ; Hon. John Wanamaker, Postmaster- General ; Prof. S. P. Langley, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution ; General Cyrus Bussey, Assistant Secretary of the Interior ; Hon. Edwin Willits, Assistant Secretary of Agri- culture ; Senators O. H. Piatt and J. W. Daniel ; Hon. John H. Pope, Minister of Agriculture, Canada ; Mr. Wm. J. Lynch, Cashier, and Mr. J. McCabe, Chief Examiner of the Patent Office, Ottawa, Canada; Hon. Charles E. Mitchell, Commissioner of Patents ; Hon. Carroll D. Wright, Commis- sioner of Labor ; Mr. E. W. Halford, and the Commissioners of the District of Columbia. The boxes were occupied by Prof. Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, Hon. Gardiner G. Hubbard, and their families. Mrs. Amanda Vail, the widow of Alfred Vail, who designed and constructed the first complete magneto- electric telegraph instrument, and who was associated with Prof. Morse in the invention of the electric telegraph, was an honored guest upon the stage. In the audience were seated many distinguished inventors, among them being Dr. Gat- ling, General Berdan, George W. Maynard (son of Dr. Edward Maynard), inventor of guns, rifles and ammunition ; Frederick E. Sickles, inventor of the Sickles engine cut-off and the steam steering apparatus ; E. Berliner, of telephone and phonograph fame ; D. G. Weems, inventor of the fast-speed electrical loco- motive and railway ; Colonel Price, of Scran ton, Pa., inventor 22 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. of appliances to utilize coal dust ; Thomas Shaw, of Phila- delphia, inventor of apparatus to purify and regulate the ventilation of coal mines ; John Y. Smith, of Doylestown, Pa., whose patented air-brakes are in use on many European rail- ways. There were also many other distinguished men present who have aided in the world's progress by their inventive genius. After an overture by the orchestra, Hon. John Lynch, Chair- man of the Executive Committee of the Patent Celebration, announced the following officers of the * * Congress of Inventors and Manufacturers of the United States assembled to celebrate the Beginning of the Second Century of the American Patent System"— President — The President of the United States. Vice-Presidents — Hon. John W. Noble, Secretary of the In- terior ; Hon. Frederick Fraley, President National Board of Trade ; Prof Samuel P. I^angley, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and Prof. Alexander Graham Bell, Washington, D. C. Honorary Vice-Presidents — General Russell A. Alger, De- troit, Mich.; Prof. W. A. Anthony, Manchester, Conn., Presi- dent of the Institute of Electrical Engineers ; John Birkinbine, Philadelphia, President of the Institute of Mining Engineers ; Mr. Justice Bradley, United States Supreme Court ; Hon. B. K. Bruce, Washington, D. C; Charles F. Brush, Cleveland, Ohio ; General Thomas I,. Casey, Chief of Engineers, U. S. A. ; Octave Chanute, Chicago, President of the American Society of Civil Engineers ; George W. Childs, editor and publisher, Philadelphia; Thomas A. Edison, Menlo Park, N. J.; Norvin Green, President of the Western Union Telegraph Company, New York ; Hon. Abram S. Hewitt, New York ; Hon. Gardiner G. Hubbard, President National Geographical So- ciety, Washington, D. C. ; Hon. John Jay, President of the American Historical Association ; Charles F. Mayer, President of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, Baltimore; Prof. T. C. Mendenhall, Washington, D. C; Oberlin Smith, President of the Society of Mechanical Engineers, Bridgeton, N. J. ; Elihu Thomson, L,ynn, Mass.; Frank Thomson, Esq., PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 23 Pennsylvania Railroad Company, Philadelphia, and Joseph M. Wilson, Philadelphia, President of the Franklin Institute. The President being introduced by Chairman Lynch, ad- dressed the Congress, as follows : Opening Address by the President op the United States. My fellow-citizens, members of this first convention of In- ventors and Manufacturers, assembled to observe the Centennial of the Patent System of the United States : My connection with this meeting must necessarily be very brief, and may seem to be quite formal. Other engagements will prevent the enjoyment by me of the treat that is in store for you in the ad- dresses which will be delivered by the distinguished men whose names are upon the programme. I can only by my presence here, and these few introductory words, opening and constitut- ing this Congress, express my appreciation of the importance of this occasion, and my hope that your gathering may be pro- motive of those branches of science and art in which you are respectively interested. It distinctly marked, I think, a great step in the progress of civilization when the law took notice of property in the fruit of the mind. (Applause.) Ownership in the clumsy device which savage hands fash- ioned from wood and stone, was obvious to the savage mind ; but it required a long period to bring the public to a realization of the fact that it was quite as essential that invention, taking shapes useful to men, should be recognized and secured as property. That is the work of the patent system as it has been established in this country. It cannot be doubted by any, I think, that the security of property in inventions has been highly promotive of the advance our country has made in the arts and sciences. (Applause.) Nothing more stimu- lates effort than security in the results of effort. (Applause.) Rev. Byron Sunderland, Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, then invoked the divine blessing upon the delibera- tions of the Congress, and gave thanks to the Supreme Being 24 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. for the benefits whicli have accrued to the world * ' through the genius of men, inspired from on high." After the invocation the President placed the Congress in charge of the first Vice-President, Hon. John W. Noble, Secre- tary of the Interior, who introduced Hon. Charles K. Mitchell, U. S. Commissioner of Patents, to address the Congress on **The Birth and Growth of the American Patent System."* This address was followed by Senator O. H. Piatt, of Con- necticut, whose theme was * * Invention and Advancement, ' ' a scholarly production, which was received with applause. "The Relation of Invention to Labor," was discussed by Hon. Carroll D. Wright, Commissioner of Labor. During this address the Justices of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice Fuller, entered in a body amid applause and were shown to seats upon the stage. This courtesy to their distinguished colleague, Hon. Samuel Blatchford, who was the next speaker, was a most pleasing incident of the celebration. The Executive and Legislative branches of the government had already paid their tribute to the long continued efiiciency of the American Patent System, and this action by the repre- sentatives of the highest judicial branch was only needed to render the recognition complete. Justice Blatchford, who enjoys a high reputation as a jurist versed in patent law, then addressed the Congress on "A Cen- tury of Patent Law." The last address of the afternoon was delivered by Hon. Robert S. Taylor, of Fort Wayne, Indiana, upon "The Kpoch- Making Inventions of America," and upon its conclusion the meeting was adjourned until 7:30 p. m. SECOND MEETING. The second meeting was called to order at 7:30 p. m., Wed- nesday, April 8, 1891, by Hon. John W. Noble, Secretary of the Interior, who delivered a timely address, wherein he *The addresses are published in full, and, as far as practicable, in the order in which they were delivered. See index. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 25 referred to the growth of the Interior Department, the import- ance of the Patent Ofl&ce, the necessity for increasing its facil- ities, and spoke enthusiastically of its future usefulness as a factor of civilization. Secretary Noble then presented Hon, John W. Daniel, U. S. Senator from Virginia, who spoke of ' ' The New South as an Outgrowth of Invention and the American Patent Law," his remarks being received with applause. The programme concluded with a paper from Hon. Bdwin Willits, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, on ' * The Relation of Invention to Agriculture." Thk Reception at the Patent Office. After adjournment, the members of the Congress and the ladies accompanying them repaired to the Patent Office to attend the reception tendered in their honor by the Secretary of the Interior and the Commissioner of Patents. The invita- tion, which was accepted by several thousand persons, read as follows : * * Congress of Inventors and Manufacturers of Patented Inven- tions for the Celebration of the beginning of the Second Century of the American Patent System. ' ' The Executive Committee requests the presence of your- self and ladies at a reception by the Secretary of the Interior and Commissioner of Patents in honor of inventors and manu- facturers, at the Patent Office Building, Washington, Wednes- day, April 8th, 1891, at 9:30 p. m. ''John Lynch, George C. Maynard, " J. W. Babson, Marvin C. Stone, "J. K. Watkins. *' Present this card at the Seventh-street entrance." The scene in the interior of the Patent Office was a brilliant one. The walls of the broad corridor on the F street side of the building were hung with flags, among which were intro- 26 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. duced countless electric lights. The rotunda in which the receiving party stood was ablaze with light and color. At the opposite end of the corridor, the large space behind the columns was furnished with rugs and divans as a resting place for those who did not desire to participate in the promenade. Mr. Wm. Cranch Mclntire made the introductions to Secretary Noble, who in turn presented each guest to Mrs. Noble and the receiving party, consisting of Commissioner and Mrs. Mitchell, Mrs. Frothingham, wife of the Assistant Commis- sioner of Patents ; Mrs. layman, wife of the Civil Service Com- missioner ; the Misses Halstead, the Misses Mclntire, Mrs. Woodruff, of New York ; Mrs. George Bartlett and Mrs. T. S. Bishop, of New Britain, Conn., and others. Among the guests present were Assistant Commissioner Frothingham, Mr. Robert Mitchell, Mrs. Coston, Mrs. Ran- dolph Keim, Miss Sarah C. Deen, of Reading ; Prof, and Mrs. A. Graham Bell, Dr. TeunisS. Hamlin, Dr. and Mrs. G. Brown Goode, Senator Manderson, Postmaster- General Wanamaker, Gen. Berdan, Gen. Butterfield, Hon. Robert P. Porter, Super- intendent of the Census ; Maj. J. W. Powell, Hon. John H. Oberly, Mr. William C. Fox, Mr. B. H. Fox, Prof. W. D. Cabell, with a number of young ladies ; Prof, and Mrs. Wood- ward, Mr. and Mrs. William Lapham, Dr. Luce, Mrs. Kuehling*, Mrs. H. L. King, Mr. and Mrs. Byrne, Dr. Gatling, Mr. Mat- thew G. Emery, Mr. H. E. Ogden, Dr. J. B. Hamilton, Surgeon General, Marine Hospital Service ; Col. E. B. Hay, Rev. Dr. Corey, Senator Daniel, Commissioner Lyman, Mr. and Mrs. Powell, Hon. Carroll D. Wright, Mr. O. L. Pruden, Mr. Sevellon A. Brown, Mr. F. W. Smith, Mr. F. W. Flowers, Maj. Benjamin F. Pike, Mr. Thomas S. Chappell, Mr. J. G. Howland, Mr. W. D. Swan, Mr. O. B. Brown, Maj. J. P. Sanger, Mr. J. N. Morrison, Capt. W. S. Patten, Mr. A. C. Towner, Mr. William R. Lapham, Mr. William R. Ryan, Mr. James J. McDonald, Mr. Henry G. Potter, Mr. Edmond Mallet, Mr. Manning M. Rose, Mr. H. H. Bates, Mr. Roger Welles, Mr. William Burke, Mr. W. G. Perry, Miss C. M. Richter, Mr. R. M. Layden, Mrs. D. W. Lewis, Mr. Charles P. Lincoln, Mr. W. W. Barker, Dr. M. F. Gallaher, Mr. Frank H. Allen, Mr. and Mrs. A. H. Clark, Mr. Geo. C. Maynard, Mr. and Mrs. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 27 Marvin C. Stone, Hon. John lyynch, Prof, and Mrs. J. Elfreth Watkins and Miss Ruth Hannah, Mr. William B. Shaw, Mr. John W. Babson, Mr. B. R. Tyler, Mr. J. W. Jayne, Mr. George M. Holtzman, Mr. Frank R. Williams, Mr. John Hyde, Mr. Wiliam C. Hunt, and nearly every official connected with the Interior and the other Departments of the government. THIRD PUBLIC MEETING. Hon. Frederick Fraley, President of the National Board of Trade and of the American Philosophical Society, who was expected to preside over the third public meeting, held at 2 p. M., Thursday, April 9th, 1891, was deterred from this duty by illness. His place was filled by Mr. Oberlin Smith, Past President of the Society of Mechanical Engineers, and Honor- ary Vice-President of the Congress. Hon. Benjamin Butter worth, who was announced to address the Congress on "The Effect of Our Patent System on the Material Development of the United States, ' ' was unavoidably delayed in Chicago, rendering a change in the programme necessary. Hon. A. R. Spofford, lyibrarian of Congress, who has ad- ministered the affairs of our great national library for twenty- seven years, then read the first paper of the session, entitled * * The Copyright System of the United States : its Origin and its Growth." Owing to the illness of Prof. Octave Chanute, President of the American Society of Civil Engineers, his paper, next in order upon the programme, * * The Effect of Invention upon the Railroad and Other Means of Intercommunication," was read by Prof. J. Howard Gore, of the Columbian University, Wash- ington. ' ' The Inventors of the Telegraph and the Telephone ' ' was the title of an address delivered by Prof. Thomas Gray, of Rose Polytechnic Institute, Terre Haute, Indiana. This ad- dress attracted additional attention from the fact that Professor Gray is the author of the articles on the ' ' Telegraph ' ' and 28 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. '"Telephone" in the last edition of the Encyclopaedia Britan- nica. A further coincidence in connection with this address was the presence in the audience of Mrs. Alfred Vail, widow 6f one of the inventors of the telegraph ; Prof. Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, and Mr. Bmilie Berliner, of telephone fame. Col. F. A. Seely, a Principal Examiner in the Patent Office, contributed a paper on * ' International Protection of Industrial Property." The fact that Colonel Seely had only recently been called upon to represent the United States in a conference relating to International Patent Laws at Madrid, Spain, made it possible for him to utilize the results of these deliberations in his discussion of this important subject. The last paper of the afternoon session, '' Invention in its Effect upon Household Economy," prepared by Dr. Edward Atkinson, of Boston, Massachusetts, who was unable to be present, was read by Prof. G. K. Gilbert, of the United States Geological Survey. The theory of this address was, that we pay many penalties for the progress of invention, but these penalties are being gradually removed by further improve- ments in the same line. The meeting then adjourned until 7:30 p. m., April 9th, 1891. FOURTH PUBLIC MEETING. Prof. S. P. Langley, Secretary of the Smithsonian Insti-* tution, presided over the fourth public meeting, which was called to order at 7:30 p. m., April 9th. He delivered a short address, and called attention to the fact that the Smithsonian Institution in its early days was the inheritor of many of the treasures of the Patent Office. The presiding officer then introduced Prof William P. Trowbridge, of the School of Mines, Columbia College, New York, who spoke of the " Effect of Technological Schools upon the Progress of Invention," his remarks being frequently ap- plauded. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 29 Dr. Robert H. Thurston, Director of Sibley College, Cornell University, New York, followed Professor Trowbridge with an able address on ** The Invention of the Steam Engine," replete with interesting facts and conclusions regarding steam. The third paper of the evening, * ' The Effect of Invention upon the Progress of Electrical Science," was read by Prof. Cyrus F. Brackett, of Princeton College. The fact that Pro- fessor Brackett occupies the chair founded to commemorate the life work of Professor Henry, the great discoverer of the laws of electro-magnetism, rendered his selection to speak upon this subject peculiarly appropriate. Maj. Clarence E. Dutton, of the Ordnance Department, U. S. A., who was to address the Congress on " The Influence of Invention upon the Implements and Munitions of Modem Warfare, ' * being unavoidably absent in Mexico, his paper was read by Capt. Rogers Birnie, U. S. A. The last address of the evening was delivered by Prof. F. W. Clarke, Chief Chemist of the U. S. Geological Survey, on * ' The Relations of Abstract Scientific Research to Practical Invention, with Special Reference to Chemistry and Physics." The meeting then adjourned. 30 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. ANNIVERSARY DAY. EXCURSION TO MOUNT VKRNON. One hundred and one years ago — upon April lo, 1791, the first American Patent I^aw, '*An Act to Promote the Progress of the Useful Arts," was signed by George Washington. It was therefore especially appropriate that this annversary should be celebrated by an excursion to Washington's tomb, at Mount Vernon. At 11 a. m. the steamer Excelsior left her wharf, carrying six hundred people. The Naval Band from Annapolis accompanied the excursionists by permission of the Secretary of the Navy, a courtesy which was greatly appre- ciated. On arriving at Mount Vernon the Annapolis Band headed the procession, and a solemn march was made up the hill to the tomb, where, with uncovered heads, the visitors viewed the crypt containing the marble sarcophagus of Wash- ington. The excursionists then proceeded to the lawn in front of the mansion, where the large group was photographed ; the mansion house and its interesting historical relics were then visited and examined, after which Dr. J. M. Toner, the orator of the day, was introduced by Mr. Watkins, Secretary of the Executive Committee, who said : ' ' It seems eminently proper that upon this important anni- versary you should be addressed by one, a large portion of whose long life has been devoted to preserving the history of the Father of our Country. As a son of Virginia, standing upon this historic ground, it is indeed an honor to be per- mitted to introduce the orator of the day, Dr. Toner, of Wash- ington. ' ' Dr. Toner then delivered an address upon ' * Washington as an Inventor and Promoter of Useful Arts." Upon the conclusion of the exercises the party proceeded to the steamboat, where a felicitous address was delivered on the return trip by ex- Commissioner of Patents Hon. Benjamin Butterworth, upon * * The Influence of the Patent System on the Prosperity of the Country. ' ' At the close of Mr. Butter- worth's stirring address, the Canadian Commissioner of Patents PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 31 spoke briefly, congratulating the government and the various committees on the success of the celebration, and the inventors of the United States upon their patent system and individual achievements. He further stated that Canada was trying to model her patent system after that of the United States, this remark being received with gratifying applause. The excursionists reached Washington at 4 p. m., and imme- diately repaired to the Executive Mansion to witness the mili- tary parade in the White I^ot, and to attend the reception tendered them by the President. The Military Parade and Reception at the White House. A special and impressive feature of the Centennial Celebra- tion was the military review and parade in honor of the visitors. This imposing spectacle occurred in the White I^ot, south of the Executive Mansion, where the military was reviewed by the President, all the U. S. troops from the Arsenal and Fort Myer, the militia of the District of Columbia, and the High School Cadets being in line. The Third Artillery Band, the National Guard Band and the Naval Academy Band and Drum Corps furnished the music. After being reviewed by the President, the companies continued their march along Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol. The battalion of six companies of the High School Cadets was one of the most interesting parts of the parade, their precision in marching being especially com- mended by the visitors. The military display was pronounced by competent judges to be perfect in every detail, the discipline manifested being worthy of special mention. With the President upon the reviewing stand were a number of prominent inventors, army and navy officers and government officials. After the review the members of the Congress pro- ceeded in a body to the White House, where they were formally presented to the President by Hon. John Lynch, Chairman of the Executive Committee. This was a most pleasant feature in the programme of entertainment, and the courtesy was greatly appreciated by the visitors. 32 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. FIFTH PUBLIC MEETING. In opening the fifth and last public meeting of the Congress, Friday, April loth, at 8 p. m., Hon. John Lynch, the Chairman of the Executive Committee, introduced the presiding officer in the following words : **I have the pleasure of introducing as President of this concluding session of the Congress a man of world-wide fame, whose name is at this moment literally ringing throughout the civilized world, Professor Alexander Graham Bell." Professor Bell, upon taking the chair, delivered a thoughtful and interesting address. The first regular address of the evening was delivered by Hon. William T. Harris, Commissioner of Education, on "The Relation of Invention to the Communication of Intelligence and the Diffusion of Knowledge by Newspaper and Book." This was followed by a paper on * * The Birth of Invention, ' ' by Prof. Otis T. Mason, Curator of the Department of Ethnology, U. S. National Museum, showing the growth of inventive ideas. "American Inventions and Discoveries in Medicine, Surgery and Practical Sanitation ' ' was the title of the last paper, which was read by Dr. J. S. Billings, Curator, U. S. Army Medical Museum. Secretary J. Elfreth Watkins then read a number of tele- grams and communications from the officials of European Patent Offices and several scientific societies. Among them were the following : Office of thk Prksidknt of the Imperiai, German Patent Office, Berlin, March 23, 1891. Honored Sir : I have the honor to herewith respectfully acknowledge the receipt of your valued communication of the 2d instant. It is with great interest that I see from it the worthy manner in which the citizens of the United States of America intend to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the day on which the patent system was established. Allow me to express to you my congratulations upon this resolution, no less, however, upon the manner in which you hope to carry it out. It is with great propriety that you and those seconding your efforts in the arrangement of the celebration point to the im- PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 33 portant part which the patent system has had in the growth, development and prosperity of your home industries. Did nothing else speak for the high value of the patent law, the one circumstance would be of sufficient proof that the American people, as a whole, are bringing to the celebration the heartiest sympathy, and that you will have the honor and the pleasure to greet as participants men of science as well as those of practical experience, whose names are held in high honor far beyond the boundaries of your own land. I join with you in recognizing in the protection of inven- tion a practical means of increasing the prosperity of the people, and praise with you the deed which was performed one hundred years ago, and rejoice with you at the fruits which have obtained to your citizens, and with them the cultured nations of the earth, to the nurturing of inventive genius in America. With these sentiments I beg you to consider me, though not present, as with you on the 8th of April and the following days, and look upon me as a participant in the celebration. I greatly regret that circumstances will prevent my leaving Berlin at this time, where official matters require my attention, and further, the conclusion of arrangements necessary for a journey at this time would be impossible, even if the time necessary for them was shorter than it is. I beg you to accept these lines as an expression of my most hearty thanks for your remembrance of me and to excuse my absence. With the assurance of my most respectful considera- tion, I have the honor to remain Your most obedient servant, BOJANOWSKI, Hon. John Lynch, etc. President. Frankfort-on-Main, Germany, April 10, 1891. Secretary of the Patent Centenary Celebration, Washington, D. C. : The undersigned beg to congratulate the United States upon the beginning of the second century of the American patent system which has contributed so much to the develop- ment and promotion of electrical science and art. Electro Technical Society, Frankfort-on-Main . 34 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 25, Southampton Buii^dings, Chancery I,ank, London, W. C, 19th March, 1891. Sir : I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 2d inst., and in reply to ask you to be good enough to convey to the chairman of the Executive Committee my best thanks for the courteous invitation to attend the cele- bration of the beginning of the second century of the American patent system, and at the same time to express to him my re- gret that it will not be possible for me to be absent from England at the date fixed for holding the celebration. I have the honor to be, sir. Your obedident servant, H. Reader Lack, J. EivERETH Watkins, Esqre. Comptroller- General. Bureau Fe;de)ral DE I.A PrOPRIE;T1§: lNTEI.IvECTUEl.IyE, Berne, le 18 May, 1891. To the Hon. John Lynch, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Celebration of the Beginning of the Second Century of the Am^erican Patent System, Washi7igton, U. S. Dear Sir : In expressing to you our thanks for the invita- tion with which you have honored us, we are compelled to de- cline it on account of the distance from Washington. With our best wishes for the full success of the celebration of the beginning of the second century of the American patent system, we have the honor to be, my dear sir, with assurances of high regard, Bureau F^jdi^raIvDE i^a Proprie^t^ Inteli.ectueli.e I,E DiRECTEUR, HalLER. Den K0NGE1.1GE NoRSKE Regerings, Departement for det Indre, departement-schefen. Christiania, den 18 April, 1891. Sir : While having the honor to offer my thanks for the in- vitation received to take part in the celebration in Washington, on the 8th, 9th and loth inst., of the beginning of the second PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 35 century of the American patent system, I regret very much to be prevented by circumstances from uniting in this cele- bration. I am, sir, respectfully yours, W. KONOW. To Hon. John Lynch, Washington. The Swedish Commissioner of Patents sent the following cablegram from Stockholm : * * On your Centennial the Royal Patent Ofl&ce sends cordial greetings, with best wishes for continued success. ' ' The French Commissioner of Patents recognized the import- ance of the occasion, and sent cordial greetings. The reading of these communications having been com- pleted the following resolution was offered by H. T. Simons, of Ohio : Resolved, That the thanks of this Congress of Inventors and Manufacturers of Patented Inventions here assembled be ex- tended to the President of the United States, the members of the Cabinet and the Judges of the United States Supreme Court for their honored presence at our meetings ; to the learned and distinguished gentlemen who presided over and addressed the Congress of Inventors at the several public meetings ; to the Hon. John W. Noble, Secretary of the In- terior ; Hon. Charles K. Mitchell, Commissioner of Patents, and the ladies assisting them in the brilliant reception tendered this Congress at the Patent Office ; to the Washington Centen- nial Committee for the enjoyable excursion to Mount Vernon and the magnificent military review ; to Hon. John Lynch and Professor J. E. Watkins, for their arduous labors in behalf of the Congress of Inventors and Centennial Celebration ; to the Executive Committee, the several sub-committees, and the citizens of Washington for their kind and courteous efforts for our comfort and entertainment, and finally to the several news- papers and reporters for their fair and honorable reports of the proceedings of our meetings. The resolution was unanimously adopted amid applause, and Professor Bell then declared the Congress adjourned for one hundred years. 36 PATENT CENTENNIAL BADGES. Badges worn by Committees, Members and Guests DURING THE Patent Centenniai. Cei^ebration. The following badges were worn by committees, members and guests during the celebration : BADGES. COMMITTEES. BOWS. Ribbons. 1. Central Purple Gold Gold 2. Advisory Gold Purple Purple 3. Executive Red Red Red 4. Literature Blue White White 5. Finance White Red Red 6. Public Comfort Red White White 7. Reception White White White 8. Transportation Blue Blue Blue 9. Halls Red Blue Blue 10. Badges and Medals Blue Red Red 11. Press — Gold White White 12. Music White Blue Blue 13. Carriages Purple White White 14. Parade and Military Organizations, Purple Purple Purple 15. Banquet White Purple Purple 16. Members (Button). Blue Red White 17. Guests '' White Red Blue 18. Foreign Reception *' Gold Gold Gold 19. National Committee '' U.S. flag Red White 20. Auxiliary State Committee * ' Red White White A handsome medal of jiure aluminum bearing the seal of the patent ofi5ce and the inscription ' ' Patent Centennial Celebra- tion, Washington, April 10, 1891," was one of the souvenirs of the celebration. NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF INVENTORS. 37 Thk National Association of Inventors and Manu- facturers. The expectation that one of the outcomes of the celebration would be the establishment of an association of inventors and manufacturers of patented inventions was realized. The first meeting of the National Committee from the different States, and representing various industries, met according to call in Parlor 10 of Willards Hotel at 10 A. M. on Wednesday, April 8. Hon. Gardiner G. Hubbard, of Washington, was chosen Chairman and J. Elfreth Watkins, Secretary. A sub-committee was appointed, to whom was referred the question of the advisability of establishing an association. This committee was requested to examine all of the corre- spondence relating to the formation of an association which had been received by the Executive Committee of the Patent Celebration, with directions to report at a general meeting to be held at 10 A. m. the following day. At the meeting on Thursday morning this sub-committee made a brief report. The questions as to the advisability of forming an associa- tion at once, or of leaving the matter in the hands of a com- mittee to get into touch with inventors and manufacturers throughout the country before definite steps were taken, were earnestly and thoroughly discussed. As those who favored the former course were in the ma- jority, the committee was requested to submit a form of con- stitution and by-laws to the meeting which was to be held on Friday, on the steamboat en route for Mount Vernon. As the committee to whom the matter was referred was unable to complete its deliberations in time, no meeting was held until 6 p. m. on Friday, April 10, at Lincoln Hall, when a constitution and by-laws were adopted. 38 NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF INVENTORS. Officers. At the meeting of the members of the American Association of Inventors and Manufacturers held after the adjournment of the Congress at Lincoln Hall, at lo p. M. on Friday, April loth, 1 89 1, the following officers were elected for the ensuing year : President— Tt^. R. J. GATLING, of Hartford, Connecticut. First Vice-President— GARDINER G. HUBBARD, of Washington, D.C. Second Vice-President— THOMAS SHAW, of Philadelphia, Pa. Third Vice-President— Fkof. W. A. ANTHONY, of Manchester, Conn. Fourth Vice-President— Bni^JAMlN BUTTERWORTH, of Cincinnati, O. Secretary—]. ELFRETH WATKINS, of Washington, D. C. Treasurer— MARVIN C. STONE, of Washington, D. C. The following Board of Directors ' ' were separately voted for ' ' and unanimously elected to serve during the periods prescribed by the Constitution : CHAS. F. BRUSH, Cleveland, Ohio. OTIS T. MASON, Washington, D. C. R. B. MUNGER, Birmingham, Ala. F. E. SICKI.es, Kansas City, Mo. JOHN Y. SMITH, Doylestown, Pa. OBERLIN SMITH, Bridgeton, N. J. D. M. SMYTH, Northwood, N. H. ROBERT H. THURSTON, Ithaca, N. Y. DAVID G. WEEMS, Baltimore, Md. BOARD OF TRADE BANQUET. 39 The Banquet op the Washington Board of Trade. The closing feature of the Congress, and one which will be remembered with pleasure by the participants, was the banquet given on Friday evening, April loth, by the Washington Board of Trade at the Arlington Hotel, to celebrate at one and the same time the centenary of the American Patent System and that of the District of Columbia. The company numbered over two hundred guests, comprising members of the Cabinet and other distinguished government officials, noted men who attended the Patent Centennial celebration, besides many prominent and representative citizens of the District. The spacious dining-hall was tastefully decorated and the table was artistically arranged with flowers. In the menu, decorations, and general appointments the banquet was a memorable one, even in Washington, where the art of giving dinners has grown to be a science. At each plate was placed a menu card artistic in design, bearing a representation of the genius of invention and containing the seal of the Patent Office in gold. Menu. Blue Points Clear Turtle Soup Anchovies Olives Radishes Striped Bass, a la Chambord Cucumbers Bermuda Potatoes Chicken Croquettes Green Peas Filet of Beef, with Mushrooms Asparagus Lobster, a la Newbourg Punch, Lalla Rookh Grouse, Roasted Lettuce and Tomato Salad Currant Jelly Ice Cream Napolitaine Fancy Cakes. Coffee Cigars. Wines: Haut Sauteme Sherry Claret G. H. Mumm's Extra Dry 40 BOARD OF TRADE BANQUET. The banquet will be long remembered on account of the distinguished men present, every department of the govern- ment being represented, and for the character of the speeches delivered. The beauties of the city of Washington and the great benefits of the patent system were exploited in eloquent words by those who responded to the toasts. Mr. Myron M. Parker, President of the Board of Trade, presided. By his side was Justice Harlan of the Supreme Court, and near him were Hon. Charles Foster, Secretary of the Treasury ; Hon. John W. Noble, Secretary of the Interior ; Hon. Lewis A. Grant, Assistant Secretary of War ; Hon. J. R. Soley, Assistant Secretary of the Navy ; Hon. S. A. Whit- field, First Assistant Postmaster- General ; Hon. C. K. Mitchell, Commissioner of Patents; Hon. Benj. Butterworth, ex- Com- missioner, and Mr. K. D. Anderson, Secretary Board of Trade. At the close of the dinner President Parker delivered an address of welcome, which, with such of the responses to the following toasts as have direct reference to the American patent system, will be found in the subsequent pages. I. Address of Welcome, Mr. M. M. Parker, President Board of Trade. 2. The President of the United States. 3. The Supreme Court of the United States, Mr. Justice Har- lan. 4. The Future of the American Patent System, Hon. John W. Noble, Secretary of the Interior. 5. American Patents from the Financial Standpoint, Hon. Charles Foster, Secretary of the Treasury. 6. The Relation of Patents to the Law, Hon. W. H. H. Miller, Attorney-General. 7. The Centenary of Wash- ington City, T. W. Noyes, Esq., editor Evening Star 8. The District of Columbia, Hon. John W. Douglass, President Board of District Commissioners. 9. American Patents from an In- ternational Standpoint, Hon. F. O. St. Clair, Department of State. 10. The Capital of the Foremost Republic, Hon. J. L. M. Curry. 11. American Patents in the Army, General Lewis A. Grant, Assistant Secretary of War. 12. Washington, the Educational Centre of America, Rt. Rev. Bishop Keane. 13. American Patents in the Navy, Hon. J. R. Soley, Assistant Secretary of the Navy. 14. The First Century of the American Patent System, Hon. C. E. Mitchell, Commissioner of Patents. 15. American Patents in the Postal Service, Hon. S. A. Whitfield, First Assistant Postmaster-General. 16. Ameri- BOARD OF TRADE BANQUET. 41 can Patents in Agriculture, Hon. Edwin Willits, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture. 17. American Patents at the World's Exposition, Hon. Benjamin Butterworth, Secretary World's Columbian Exposition. Ths Guests. The following is a partial list of those present at the ban- quet : Hon. Charles Foster, Secretary of the Treasury ; Hon. John W. Noble, Secretary of the Interior ; Hon. Lewis A. Grant, Assistant Secretary of War ; Hon. James R. Soley, Assistant Secretary of the Navy ; Hon. Charles E. Mitchell, Commis- sioner of Patents ; Bishop Keane, Hon. J. L- M. Curry, Arch- bishop Ireland, Dr. Gatling, Hon. A. M. Soteldo, Prof. Harry King, M. D. Leggett, Hon Richard Pope, Commissioner of Patents Dominion of Canada ; Hon. W. J. Lynch, Cashier Commissioner, and Hon. Thos. McCabe, Chief Examiner of the Canadian Patent Office ; District Commissioners Douglass, Ross and Robert, Ethan Allen, Prof. Henry Morton, H. E. Parsons, Henry W. Smith, W. H. Bagley, C. F. Z. Caracristi, E. W. Halford, C. C. Chase, Marshal D. M. Ransdell, Con- troller of the Currency E. S. Lacey, H. B. F. Macfarland, C. M. Hendley, W. E. Aughinbaugh, D. B. Ainger, E. M. Daw- son, J. G, Beckham, M. B. Harlow, E. E. Downham, Hon. W. H. Amoux and Capt. P. H. McLaughlin, Prof. Alexander Graham Bell, Dr. J. M. Toner, Dr. John S. Billings, Prof. Cyrus W. Brackett, ex-Representative Butterworth, Prof. F. W. Clarke, Maj. C. E. Dutton, Prof. Thomas Gray, Col. F. A. Seely, Hon. Robert S. Taylor, Prof. R. H. Thurston, Prof. W. P. Trowbridge, Hon. Carroll D. Wright, Commissioner of Labor, and Hon. W. T. Harris, Commissioner of Education. Of the Central Committee: Messrs. J. W. Babson, B. H. Warner, O. T. Mason, George C. Maynard, M. C. Stone, J. E. Watkins, John Lynch, J. T. Dubois and R. W. Fenwick. Of the National Committee : John H. Bartlett, Mendes Cohen, T. N. Ely, G. G. Hubbard, R. J. Howard, W. J. John- son, J. A. Price, Oberlin Smith, George F. Simonds, D. M. Smyth, D. J. Weems, Eli Whitney and George Westinghouse. Chairmen of the local committees : Schuyler Duryee, Hon. Cyrus Bussey, Lawrence Gardner, W. C. Mclntire, W. B. 42 ENGINEERS' BANQUET. Thompson, J. K. McCammon, M. D. Helm, W. R. Lapham, O. B. DufFey and S. H. Kauffmann. Of the Advisory Committee : Hon George Gray, H. B. Paine, Bllis Spear, Prof. J.W. Powell, Col. Marshall McDonald, Dr. J. C. Welling, Rev. J. B. Rankin, N. L. Frothingham, Dr. G. Brown Goode, M. V. Montgomery and Thomas Wilson. In addition to the above about two hundred and fifty mem- bers of the Board of Trade participated in the banquet. The Bngineers' Banquet. On Thursday evening, April 9th, the Washington and Balti- more members of the American Society of Civil Bngineers gave a banquet at Welcker's Hotel. It was originally intended as a compliment to Prof. Octave Chanute, the President of the Society of Civil Bngineers, who was unfortunately prevented by illness from delivering his address at the patent celebration. The members of the Society attending the banquet were : Horatio G. Wright, Mendes Cohen, William S. Rosecrans, Henry T. Douglas, Francis H. Hambleton, Andrew Rose- water, John A. Partridge, Channing M. Bolton, Bernard R. Green, Alonzo T. Mosman, Henry ly. Marindin, David B. Mc- Comb, Mordecai T. Bndicott, Frederick H. Smith, Herbert M. Wilson, James I,. Lusk, Julien A. Hall, George B. Hazlehurst, Conway B. Hunt, Francis R. Fava, Jr., Charles B. Ball, J. Blfreth Watkins, Owen L. Ingalls and David S. Carll. As invited guests there were present Oberlin Smith, Past President of the American Society of Mechanical Bngineers, and Prof. R. H. Thurston, of Cornell University. A permanent organization for the purpose of occasional social meetings was effected by the election of Bernard R. Green, of Washington, D. C, as President, and Charles B. Ball as Secretary, for one year. The Loan Bxhibition. In connection with the regular programme of the Congress a loan collection was installed in the lecture hall of the National Museum, where machines of antique design, models, early in- ventions and patents were inspected and studied by many visitors, drawn to Washington by their interest in the Patent Centennial. A description of this collection in detail will be found in the Appendix. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 43 BIRTH AND GROWTH OF THE AMERICAN PATENT SYSTEM. By Hon. Charles Eliot Mitchell, Commissioner of Patents. The patent system had its birth in a statute against monop- olies. That statute was enacted by a British parliament to restrain the British throne. From the earliest times the right to grant exclusive privileges had been asserted as a royal prerogative. Sometimes the power had been exercised benefi- cently. With vastly more frequency it was employed to bring in revenue to the royal coffers. More and more, as the sov- ereign struggled to govern without the aid of parliament, the power was abused and perverted until, in the days of Elizabeth, monopolies were conferred upon favorites of the court, extend- ing to the most ordinary articles of commerce and consumption. In aid of these illegal monopolies arbitrary powers of search were granted, and heavy penalties were inflicted upon English merchants for engaging in occupations which had been of common right for centuries. Of course such tyranny could not continue, and in the year 1623 the famous statute of James was enacted, destroying all illegal monopolies by a single stroke, and declaring that in future all patents should be to inventors of new manufactures, and to them only for a limited time. It is to this statute that legal writers ascribe the modern patent system. It is true that the statute of James was declaratory of the common law, as it was understood by the judges ; it is true that after its enactment the king's pleasure was still, in theory, the source whence the grant proceeded ; it is true that subse- quent monarchs chafed under its restrictions, and at times even trampled them under foot ; but, nevertheless, in a large way and in a very vital sense, the patent system had its birth in the remedial statute of 1623. In an hour of moral and political exaltation England had declared that odious monopolies 44 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. should cease, and that patents for inventions should be granted. That declaration has been law to the present hour. And it should never be forgotten by the friends of industrial progress that the same great statute which restored the free- dom of established industries to m9nopoly-ridden England, created also the modern patent system and placed it upon an enduring basis in justice and public policy. But although the patent system is ascribed to the statute of 1623, its administration was long pervaded by a spirit hostile to inventors. The benefactor of the public had to crawl before the king as a suppliant for favor. If his cringing was suc- cessful his patent was granted, but he was dismissed with the poor privilege of proving the novelty of his invention as best he could. The patent was not even prima facie evidence that the patentee had made an invention. When it came into court it was construed in a technical spirit, a spirit which assumed everything in favor of the crown and nothing in favor of the subject, and it is hardly too much to say that some of the earlier decisions in patent causes betray a temper that would have better befitted a permit to sell gunpowder in the streets of London. It is Coryton, the law-writer, who tells us that to the patentee alone "no margin was conceded for possible error. An unapt title to his invention, an ill-judged word in his description, an incautious experiment, the least disclosure of his secret before letters were sealed, and his privileges are at an end." In view of this judicial hostility, which robbed the law of its beneficence and transformed the statute into an ambuscade, it is no wonder that for one hundred and fifty years scarcely more than one thousand patents were granted. It could make but little difference whether patents were denied, or having been granted were denied protection. But a more enlightened sentiment developed. Watt had harnessed machinery to steam and Arkwright had harnessed spinning to machinery. The patent to Watt, granted in 1769, had been extended by an act of Parliament in 1775 and had run unscathed the gauntlet of the judges. Patents were granted with increasing frequency, and the useful arts received PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 45 a might}^ impetus. Powerful infringers sought to trample upon the rights of patentees, and law-suits followed that were fierce as battlefields. Judges began to regard inventors not as mere recipients of royal favor, but as public benefactors worthy of the world's great prizes. Then came those days, memorable in judicial annals, when jurists who were in touch with human progress discussed anew the relationship of the inventor to the public, and, as if they had foregleams of the new industrial era, laid down those broader and more generous principles which have become the foundation and framework of the patent law. The statute of James followed the Mayflower across the ocean. In the year 1641 the General Court of Massachu- setts Bay granted a patent to Samuel Winslow for a method of making salt, and prohibited others ' ' from making this article except in a manner different from his." In 1646 a patent was granted to Joseph Jenks for ' ' an engine for the more speedy cutting of grass," the invention substituting for the short and clumsy English scythe a long slender blade supported by a rib along its back, a construction easily recognized as that of the modern scythe. The invention seems also to have extended to machinery for scythe-making. The name of Joseph Jenks — how inconsiderable the place which it occupies in colonial history ! The antiquarian stum- bles upon it and makes a memorandum in his note-book, while the student of events that thrill and startle passes it without a thought or utterance. Nevertheless, a deep human interest invests it, and more and more it shall attract attention. Nor do we honor him the less because the mowing machine and the reaper have eclipsed in brilliancy his humble achievement, as there in the early wilderness he appeals to the General Court for protection, so that, as he quaintly says, ''his study and cost may not be in vayne or lost." The colony of Connecticut was far-sighted and liberal in encouraging inventors. Between 1663 and 1785 many acts were passed granting exclusive privileges in inventions relat- ing to nearly all branches of industry practiced in the colony. Indeed, Connecticut passed a general law, which appeared in the revision of 1672, declaring that "there shall be no monopoly granted or allowed amongst us of but such inven- 46 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. tions as shall be adjudged profitable to the country, and for such time as the General Court shall deem meet." This statute, by implication, held out inducements to inventors, and it is reasonable to associate with its enactment, a hundred years before the Revolutionary War, the fact that the people of Con- necticut have taken out more patents per capita from year to year, down to the present time, than those of any other State. In 1785 Maryland granted protection to James Rumsey for making and selling "new invented boats" on a model made by him ; also, in 1787 to Oliver Evans for making and selling "two machines for the use of merchant mills," and "one other machine, denominated a steam carriage," the right of recovery against infringers being upon condition that the grantee should not * * be proven not to be the original inventor. ' ' It will be noticed that this proviso reversed the burden of proof, as it stood under the English law, making the grant evidence of novelty unless the contrary should be shown as matter of defense. In 1787 New York granted to John Fitch "the sole right and advantage of making and employing for a limited time the steamboat by him lately invented." During the next year New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware granted to the same John Fitch the exclusive privilege ' * to navigate their waters with vessels propelled by steam." I have thus alluded to some of the patents granted before the adoption of the Federal Constitution, because they show how deep-seated was the understanding, wherever the law of England had been inherited, that it was a just and beneficent exercise of the power of governments to protect inventions by patents for limited periods. I have done so, too, because the spectacle of John Fitch and James Rumsey and Oliver Evans applying to the several States for the limited protection which they could furnish will prepare us to expect that the constitu- tional convention will not overlook the subject in the midst of its important duties. We shall also expect to find that when a patent system common to all the States has been developed it will follow in the line of American precedent, and to a corre- sponding extent depart from the English sj^stem, by causing an examination before the patent is granted, in analogy to the PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 47 legislative methods practiced by the colonial and State assemblies. The constitutional convention in Philadelphia had been in session nearly three months before its attention was directed to patents and copyrights. On the i6th of August, 1787, Madison submitted for the consideration of the Committee on Detail two propositions for powers to be exercised by Congress, one of them * ' to secure to literary authors their copyrights for a limited time ; ' ' the other ' * to encourage by premiums and pro- visions the advancement of useful knowledge and discoveries. ' ' On the same day similar provisions were submitted by Charles Pinckney, one of them "to grant patents for useful inven- tions, ' ' another, * * to secure to authors exclusive rights for a certain time." On the 31st of August such propositions as had not been acted upon were referred to a committee composed of one member from each State, and on the 5th of September this committee recommended that Congress have the power "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the ex- clusive rights to their respective writings and discoveries." In the final revision this clause became paragraph 8 of section 8 of Article I of the Federal Constitution. Wise and illustrious men were they, those Constitution framers, but they had no conception of the importance of what they did, when, just before the curtain fell upon their labors, they decreed that the exclusive rights of inventors should be secured. They thought they were applying finishing strokes and touches to an edifice which was otherwise complete, when they were really at work upon its broad foundations. For who is bold enough to say that the Constitution could have overspread a continent if the growth of invention and of inventive achievement had not kept pace with territorial ex- pansion. It is invention which has brought the Pacific Ocean to the Alleghanies. It is invention which, fostered by a single sentence of their immortal work, has made it possible for the flag of one republic to carry more than forty symbolic stars. On the 23d of June, soon after the first Congress assembled in New York, Benjamin Huntington, of Connecticut, reported a bill to carry into effect the constitutional powers for promot- 48 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. ing the progress of science and the useful arts. In this bill, for the first time in history, appeared the idea of a general law- providing affirmatively for the granting of letters patent. For some reason, which does not appear, its consideration was postponed until the next session. On the 4th day of January, 1790, Congress having again assembled, a committee was ap- pointed to report upon unfinished business brought over from the previous session. Before this committee could report. President Washington, clad in a broadcloth suit, made by Col. Jeremiah Wadsworth, of Hartford, addressed for the first time the assembled Houses of Congress. In that address he said : ' ' I cannot forbear intimating to you the expediency of giving effectual encouragement, as well to the introduction of new and useful inventions from abroad as to the exertions of skill and genius at home." Three days later the committee which had been appointed made a report, in which they said : " It also appears that there was postponed for further consideration until this session a bill to promote science and the useful arts. ' ' This bill was thereupon referred to a committee consisting of Edward Burke, of South Carolina ; Benjamin Huntington, of Connecticut, and Lambert Cadwallader, of New Jersey, who made a report on the i6th day of February, 1790. The bill thus reported, after discussion and amendment, was duly passed, and receiving the signature of the President, April 10, became the celebrated statute of 1 790. The enactment of that statute this audience, unprecedented in its character in all history, now joyfully celebrates. The law of 1790 was brief and simple. The applicant was required to describe his invention, but no claim or oath was called for. No discrimination was made between citizen and alien. A drawing was to be furnished and, in certain cases, a model also. In two respects the statute embodied a radical departure from English methods. It required an ex- amination, and it made the patent prima facie evidence that the invention was truly described and the patentee the first inventor. The Secretary of State, the Secretary of War and the Attorney-General were to determine in each case whether a patent should be granted. From April to July they awaited a successful applicant. He comes at last, and three Cabinet PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 49 officers — Jefferson, Knox and Randolph — sitting in solemn dignity, determine that Samuel Hopkins is entitled to a patent for his new method of making pot and pearl ashes. Does any one say that the office then discharged was un- worthy of such a tribunal ? Let him then remember that that patent of July 31, 1790, was the first of four hundred and fifty thousand patents. I^t him ask himself what adequate reason exists for the wizzard-like transformations of a century, except- ing the stimulus afforded by patent legislation. Let him com- pare the saddle and the pillion with the parlor car, the tallow- dip with the electric light, the post-boy with the lightning mail, the telegraph and the speaking telephone. Let him make a corresponding comparison in every department of life, along every line of development, and he will see in the signing of that patent to Samuel Hopkins an act of historic grandeur. Fifty-seven patents in all were granted under the statute of 1790, one of them being to our old friend John Fitch, whom we have met in the State assemblies. On October 24, 1791, we find James Rumsey presenting a petition to Congress that the act of 1790 might be amended and rendered more effective. A year later, November 7, 1792, he presented another petition, this time praying for the revision of the act. It is familiar to all that a new act was passed on the 21st of February, 1793 ; but it is a fact not usually known that Mr. Williamson, of North Carolina, chairman of the committee having the measure in charge, in advocating the principles of the bill said that it was ' ' an imitation of the patent system of Great Britain, and that its provisions were such as would circumscribe the duties of the presiding officer within very narrow limits." An oath was required to the application, and the patent was still to be prima facie evidence ; the fees were increased to thirty dollars, aliens were cut off from receiving patents, provision was made for determining the rights of com- peting applicants by arbitration, the assignability of inventions was recognized and provided for, and the duty of granting patents was conferred upon the Secretary of State alone. It would give me pleasure to speak with some detail of the history of the patent office between 1793 and 1836. But the patent system, and not the patent office, is my subject, and I 50 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. must pass on to consider the great act of 1836, remarking, meanwhile, that in 1800 the right of obtaining patents was partially restored to foreigners, and in 181 9 power was con- ferred upon the circuit courts to prevent the violation of the rights of authors and inventors by granting injunctions accord- ing to the principles and practice of courts of equity. The act of 1836 created an epoch. An eminent statesman has pronounced it the most important event from the Constitu- tion to the civil war. I^ess than 10,000 patents preceded it ; more than 450,000 have followed in its train. Under it the Patent Office was established ; under it the first Commissioner of Patents was appointed, and hardl}'^ had the approving sig- nature of Andrew Jackson been affixed before the walls of yonder Doric temple, already completed in design, began to rise. The most important change brought about by the act of 1836 was the restoration of the examination system and the establishment of an examining corps of experts. The English system, developed on executive lines, relegated all investiga- tion to the courts ; the American plan, developed on legislative lines, made the investigation precede the grant. The law of 1790 followed the American trend developed in the colonies, and Jefferson and his associates formed an examining board. Then came the act of 1793, which avowedty imitated the English system, and permitted a patent to be issued to any one who should allege that he had made an invention and should make oath that he believed himself to be the true in- ventor. Its workings are described in 1837 by Mr. Ellsworth, the first Commissioner under the new act. ' ' The Patent Office," said he, "only examined names and dates, and granted all applications presented in proper form. Of course duplicates and triplicates were issued for the same invention. The rights of parties were referred to legal tribunals, and in the meantime spurious claims were selling throughout the United States." The act of 1836 restored the American system. The Patent Office was vested with quasi -judicial as well as with executive functions, the patent being adjudicated upon in advance, and possessing, as soon as it was granted, the attributes of a patent PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 51 which under the old system had been tested by expensive liti- gation. The importance to inventors of the system of prelim- inary examination has been declared to be inestimable. It places at the service of the humblest inventors the services of trained experts in law and mechanics. It makes the patent something more than ^n assertion of right, something more than a challenge to the world to show that the patentee was not the true inventor. It bears testimony that it has been compared with prior patents and publications, domestic and foreign, and with all that has been done in the United States, so far as known, and that the device or process claimed is what it professes to be — a new departure in the arts. Thus the patent acquires an immediate commercial value — a value which is enhanced just in proportion as means are supplied by the government for making an inquiry as complete and exhaustive as it is in human powder to make it. Another important feature of the act of 1836 was the distinc- tion drawn between the description of the invention and the claim. It would be a mistake, however, to ascribe the first appearance of the claim to the act of 1836. Its history shows that it was evolved in practice before it emerged in law. The first American patent which contained anything like a claim, so far as the restored records of the Patent Office indicate, was that of Isaiah Jennings, November 20, 1807, for manufacturing thimbles for sails of ships. In the Franklin Journal for 1828 appears an article prepared by Dr. Jones, then Superintendent of the Patent Office, which contains the suggestion that, although it is perfectly proper to describe an entire machine, ' ' after doing this the applicant should distinctly set forth what he claims as new, and this is best done in a paragraph at the end of the specification." The requirement of a claim added greatly to the value of patents. It set definite walls and fences about the rights of the patentee, which were not less effective because they were in- corporeal. A fruitful source of contention was done away with, and the chances lessened of being obliged to resort to the courts of law. Time will not allow me to dwell upon the other changes wrought by the act of 1836, but I must introduce its author 52 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. and champion, that *' unaccredited hero," John Ruggles, Sen- ator from Maine. Elected to the Senate in 1835, he signalized the beginning of his senatorial career by his conspicuous serv- ice as chairman of the committee in charge of the new measure, which he seems to have largely originated as well as cham- pioned. He received substantial aid from Henry L. Ellsworth, afterward the first Commissioner of Patents ; and, if tradition is to be relied upon, Charles M. Keller, afterward a renowned advocate in patent causes, rendered invaluable assistance. Subsequent laws, passed in 1837 ^^^ 1839, provided that where the patentee had made his claims too broad, through inadvertence, accident or mistake, he might file a disclaimer of the excess of claim, to become in efiect a part of the original specification, and also prevented the forfeiture of the right to a patent by any use or sale of the newly-invented article prior to application, unless such prior use or sale covered a period of more than two years. The latter provision gave the inventor an opportunity to actually use his invention for a sufficient period to demonstrate its practicability and usefulness before applying for a patent. In 1842 the patenting of ornamental designs was authorized. In 1861 the term of a patent was extended from fourteen years to seventeen, and the right to obtain an extension, which had been conferred by an act of 1838, was abolished. In 1870 the patent law was revised, but the revision was in the nature of a consolidation of the statutes then in force. When the laws of the United States were gen- erally revised in 1875 the act of 1870 was re-enacted without substantial change. All the statutes since the law of 1836 have been in substan- tial accord with the policy inaugurated by that act, and have had for their object to carry that policy into efiect, with such modifications as experience has shown to be necessary. In 1790 three patents were granted ; in 1890 the number was twenty-six thousand two hundred and ninety-two. In 1790 the receipts were about $15 ; in 1890 they were $1,340,372.60, an excess over all expenses of $241,094.72. In 1790 the work could only have required the infrequent services of a single clerk ; in 1890 the number of employes, including the examin- ing, clerical and laboring force, was five hundred and ninety men and women. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 53 In order to distribute and dispatch the work the ofl&ce is divided into thirty examining divisions, and inventions are divided according to subject-matter into two hundred classes and four thousand two hundred and ninety-five sub-classes. All applications as they are received are assigned to the assist- ant who has in charge the proper sub-class of invention. It is only by careful classification and division of labor that it is possible to conduct successfully the enormous amount of work which now, at the close of the century, is devolved upon the Patent Ofiice. The growth of the patent system has been brought about by the friendly laws which I have mentioned exercising their influence for the most part in four different channels : 1. The patent system has stimulated inventive thought. Benjamin Franklin, a man of science, stood by the side of the old hand lever printing press for a generation, and left it where it was left three centuries before by Guttenberg. It remained for Hoe and other inventors, who worked under the stimulus of the patent laws and patented their inventions, to produce that marvelous machine for disseminating knowledge that has made the world a university. A century ago the apprentice learned the skill and secrets of his craft and jogged along con- tented with his acquirements. To-day no workman expects to leave his craft or calling without lifting it to a higher plane and providing it with better instrumentalities. A new power of achievement has come into human thinking. Men of all callings seem to have acquired the faculty, and no explanation of the change is plausible which ignores the stimulating influ- ence of a century of patent law. 2. The patent system has stimulated men to transform their thinking into things. It is a long and toilsome road from the first fugitive suggestion, through failure and discouragement and temporary defeat, to an invention in a form perfected. If men were not induced by the rewards of a patent system to cling to their new ideas through all the vicissitudes of an in- ventor's experience their hands would drop in discouragement. The story of the lost arts has never been told, even by Wendell Phillips, and decades and centuries of possible progress have been wrapped up in inventions which have dawned upon the human consciousness only to disappear and be forgotten. 54 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 3. The patent system encourages men to disclose their in- ventions. The duty of men to disclose their discoveries is one which, if it exists at all, has never been recognized. It is not so, however, when patent laws prevail, and for a hundred years men have hastened to share with the public their newly ac- quired ideas because of the invitation contained in the patent system, and the phenomenon of rediscovery is now a very rare experience. 4. The patent system enables inventors to make their efforts fruitful, and saves them from the folly of misdirected labor. The Ofl&cial Gazette of the Patent Ofl&ce publishes to the world the claims and one or more drawings of each patent. Each number of the Gazette may be likened to a series of maps, exhibiting that borderland adjacent to the illimitable unknown upon which the sun of human invention has shed its radiance, while clocks and watches have registered a week of time. In- ventors need not and do not, as formerly, delve in exhausted mines. It is a gratifying feature of this centennial era that the patent system is now at peace with all the world. Voices are heard in favor of amendatory statutes, opinions differ as to methods of administration, but no audible utterance, the wide- world over, challenges the policy of patent laws. In 1868 Count Bismarck in Germany and Lord Stanley in England declared, the former that patent laws should be abolished, the latter that he was ready to vote against them. But the Cen- tennial Exposition at Philadelphia, that second declaration of independence, startled the nation with its splendid demonstra- tion of the results of a liberal policy toward inventors. Sir William Thompson, in reporting upon the Centennial Expo- sition, said: *'If England does not amend its patent laws America will speedily become the nursery of useful inventions for the world." Mr. Hulse, the English judge of textiles at the Exposition, in reporting to Parliament, said : ''The extra- ordinary extent of ingenuity and invention existing in the United States, and manifested throughout the Exposition, I attribute to the natural aptitude of the people, fostered and stimulated by an admirable patent law system." Similar reports were made by the representatives of other nations. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 55 The effect of these reports was speedily manifest. England, which had been discussing seriously whether or not the patent system should be abolished, passed a new act in 1883 upon a basis more liberal and popular in its character. Germany revised its law in 1877, and in a further and more radical revision, to take effect in October, 1891, European traditions have been largely disregarded, and to a considerable extent the American system has been imitated ; and Switzerland, long cited as a state prospering without a patent system, in 1887 threw aside all its ancient traditions and enacted a wise and generous patent law. It is true that in our country con- gressional indifference has thwarted every forward movement in recent years, but nowhere in the popular mind does there seem to be a spirit hostile to the inventor's recompense. The demonstrations everywhere of the usefulness and importance of patent laws have been so overwhelming, and upon such a conspicuous scale, that upon no other subject relating to the internal policy of nations is there such profound repose. Let us hope that the United States, whose place in the van- guard of progress is so largely due to its great inventors, may not now, through indifference to its patent system, fall back in the procession of the nations. Let us hope that an aroused public sentiment, set in motion by this celebration of the achievements of a century, may demand for the patent system, and for the oiBfice which administers its functions, just recog- nition of its mighty influence and of its rights and needs as it enters upon the second century of its usefulness. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 57 INVENTION AND ADVANCEMENT. By Hon. O. H. Pi.att, Lly.D., of Connecticut, U. S. Sbnator. Neither the genius of Irving nor the exquisite acting of Jeflfer- son was required to give the legend of Sleepy Hollow a lasting hold upon the popular heart. It was not wholly the miracu- lous flavor in the story of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus that preserved that early Christian myth. In all such tales the mutual astonishment of the awakened sleeper and the wonder- ing beholders is largely due to the fact that the changes which have occurred during the lethargic sleep are suddenly and sharply forced upon the attention. But in all of them it is the domestic, the political, or the social revolution that is thus outlined. The legend in which the awaking dazed sleeper and the bewildered witnesses shall realize and feel the material, intel- lectual, and humanitarian development of the last century has yet to be given shape and skillful touch. The marvel is tran- scendent, but the story will never be wrought. Genius cannot describe nor the public mind appreciate what of human prog- ress has occurred, what of human development has taken place in the United States during the last hundred years. I know of no place where it may be more fitly illustrated or more sharply fofced on the attention than in this city of Washing- ton. Imagine, if you can, an individual who witnessed the laying of the corner-stone of the Capitol, now nearly one hun- dred years ago, to have been suddenly withdrawn from the associations of men, and with the scenes of that day vivid in his mind permitted to stand again upon the spot graced by the completed building, but which to him had been a rural waste. We would appear to him like the inhabitants of a new world, while he would seem as strange a being to us as a visitor 58 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. from some other planet. The Potomac flowing as before, the outline of the hills, the dip of the valley, the sun and the sky above would be the only features of what to him was the scene of yesterday. The city, with its noble avenues, its architectural structures, and the residences of its people, would have grown as if by magic in a night. These things he might with wonder dimly comprehend. But the steam- boat on the river would startle him as the ships of Columbus startled the natives whom they approached. The wavy lines of black smoke and white vapor escaping from chimneys and steam -pipes would be as incomprehensible and awesome as the aurora borealis. The incoming and outgoing locomotives with their trains ; street railroads and vehicles moving thereon apparently without propulsive force ; the tick of the telegraph, transmitting thought from the ends of the earth ; the voice of man sounding through half the continent in his ears, would be as truly miraculous to him as the raising of Lazarus from the dead. The light that illumines our nightly darkness to him would be as truly a miracle as was to Moses that bush which burned with fire and was not consumed. He would find the people engaged in occupations and pursuits of which he had no knowledge. Machinery would have no meaning to him ; the thought of his fellow- men and their language in large part would be incomprehen- sible. Doubtless he would regard us all as crazy, and would probably repeat to himself the old familiar nursery rhyme, as true now as in his childhood : There was a mad man, And he had a mad wife, And the children were mad beside ;' So on a mad horse, They all of them got, And madly away did ride. As the miraculous change began to dawn upon his mind, and he began by degrees to understand that it was real — that he had returned after an absence of a hundred years, and that during the centur>^ a thousand years of growth and develop- ment and increase of human knowledge and comfort and PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 59 happiness had occurred — his first question of the bystanders would be; '*What has done all this? Is this enchantment? What magician has transformed nature and changed man- kind ? What force, what power has been at work ? " And the answer, if truly given, would be, "The spirit of invention has accomplished this ; the creative faculty in man hath wrought these wonders." How little we have realized the progress of the century; how silent its footsteps have been, and how little we have stopped to analyze or appreciate its cause. How barren of suggestion are the standard works on political economy and sociology as to the real underlying cause of the great trans- formation. Change, improvement, advancement have come to be so large a part of our history that we should the rather wonder if they ceased to go forward with accelerated motion. We are satisfied with nothing else. The world would be slow and dull and intolerable to us if in every decade we did not outstrip the performance of a century. We seem to care as little about the cause of it all as we do about sunlight and air, and health and strength. We enjoy it as our right. We write and speak of the incidents of progress, the new phases of our existence, of visible results, and magnify them in our minds above the invisible force which has produced the results. Away out in the busy world, if my thought shall ever reach it, men will receive my statement, that invention is to be accredited with this great progress, with a sceptical sneer. But you who are workers in the field, who are planning and devising methods by which still greater progress is to be achieved, will understand me. Books without number have been written, showing how man emerged from savagery to barbarism, from barbarism to civili- zation. The whole world has been explored for relics by which to measure the progress of man on the long and toilsome way from his prehistoric condition to the period of civilization. Audiences gather to hear it explained, and go away satisfied that the weapon, the tool, or the implement dug up from its buried resting place unerringly proves how much progress mankind had made at the time it was used. Science divides the periods of human progress into ages, and calls them the stone age, the 6o PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. iron age, the bronze age, but has failed to comprehend that there is another age, the age in which we are living — the machine age. The first tool that man invented that he might more easily satisfy his wants does not more truly mark his ad- vancement than does the invention of the marvelous devices and contrivances by which his comfort and happiness are a thousandfold multiplied in the present time. Savagery, barba- rism, civilization — have we reached the end of human growth and development ? Shall we not the rather understand that a new name must be given to the condition of human society upon which we are about to enter, if w^e have not already entered it ; that we are reaching or have reached in our progress the age of spirituality. I do not use the word in its religious sense, but as meaning that, in the future of human achievement, mind is to triumph over matter, brain over muscle ; that man is entering that period in which he is to subjugate all forces of nature and make them his servants. Time will not permit me to paint the picture of our progress in detail ; a few striking outlines must sufiice. I must leave realistic touches to others. Nor can I closely analyze causes ; I can merely suggest and generalize. The establishment of constitutional liberty, the granting of patents for inventions, and the introduction and use of Webster's Spelliiig Book were practically coincident with the opening of the century, the closing of which we celebrate. Freedom, invention, popular intelligence were thus inaugu- rated. Who can fail to appreciate their intimate relation ? During the century and a-half that preceded the year 1791 we had only succeeded in obtaining a permanent lodgment on the continent. We occupied only what has been called the selvedge of a great country. Our growth and progress had been slow. When the patent system was established we were less than four millions of people, differing little in character, ability, and pursuits from the men who settled at Jamestown and Plymouth. To-day we are more than sixty- three millions, so different in character and civilization that the traces of the Cavalier and Puritan are scarcely discernible. Then our westernmost States were Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky, and Georgia ; now the line of Commonwealths is unbroken PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 6l from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Then the Mississippi River marked the western boundary of our possessions, and we had just passed an ordinance for the government of the unoccupied territory northwest of the Ohio River ; now we are asking the nations of the world to join us in the Columbian Exposition on the shores of L,ake Michigan. Our coal mines, with a present out-put of more than one hundred and thirty million tons per annum, were then practically unknown ; our iron mines, with a present annual production of fourteen million tons of ore, were mainly un worked. The railroad was undreamed of; now our railroad trackage would encompass the earth six and one-half times. The steamboat was but an expectation ; now we are using six thousand with an aggregate carrying capacity of two million tons. The telegraph then lay in the realm of the miraculous ; to-day our telegraphic wires would reach from the earth to the moon, return to earth and again to the moon, with enough spare wire to girdle the earth three times. We had in those days about nineteen hundred miles of post- routes, over which the mail was carried at intervals and deposited in about seventy-five offices ; now our post-routes cover more than four hundred and twenty -five thousand miles, and our post-offices number more than sixty thousand. The mail matter carried during the past year weighed more than one hundred and eighty-two thousand tons, and the persons engaged in carrying it (not including * * free-delivery ' ' carriers) traveled three hundred and twenty-seven million miles. Then we had a depreciated and really worthless currency, little of private wealth, and no public credit. Our sound currency now exceeds two billions ofdollars ; our national credit stands highest among the nations of the earth; and the aggregate wealth of our people is estimated to be more than sixty billions of dollars. Then a few weekly, semi-weekly or tri-weekly newspapers, scarcely larger than a sheet of foolscap, supplied and satisfied the popular demand for news. There were no reporters or editors then. These words are new, as are the professions they signify. It was the "printer" whom the public knew in connection with the newspapers of those days. The entire newspaper publication of 1791 is now surpassed in the weakest of our Territories ; and a single newspaper of our 62 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. day, The New York World, has circulated nearly six hundred thousand copies in a single day, requiring for their printing ninety-four tons of paper. Manufactures, except in the household, were practically unknown. There were no "mechanics" in the meaning of the word as now used. Men knew how to sow and plow, hoe and chop, reap and mow and cradle, break flax and hackle it, thrash with the flail, winnow with the blanket or fan, and to shell corn by hand ; the women knew how to spin, card, weave, and knit. Mechanical knowledge was monopolized by the blacksmith, the carpenter, the millwright, and the village tinker. Production was a toilsome, weary matter, limited by the capacity for muscular endurance. In the absence of reli- able statistics we only know that in 1790 the value of our manufactures was but a few millions of dollars, the larger part of which consisted of linen and woolen cloth made in households. The value of our manufactured products in 1880 was between five and six billions. Statistics for 1890 are not at hand, but the sum total of our manufactured products within the census year can hardly be less than eight billions. But I must for- bear; our material advancement surpasses the wildest dream of the most vivid imagination. Neither philosopher nor mad man could have predicted it. It is incomprehensible; the mind does not and cannot grasp it. We know that it is great; we try to realize it as in our feeble way we try to comprehend the infinite. If you would in a measure form a conception of how large a factor invention has been in this progress, try to imagine what our social, financial, educational, and commercial condition would be with an absolute ignorance of how steam and elec- tricity can be used in the daily production of things for our sus- tenance and comfort; with an absolute ignorance of the steam- boat, the railroad, the telegraph, the telephone, the modern printing press, and the machinery in common daily use. Men who acknowledge that the development of invention and na- tional progress have kept even pace in all that makes the people great and happy are yet slow to comprehend that in- vention has contributed in any large degree to such progress. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 63 To satisfy the doubts of such, a little careful thought is needed. We may well inquire what it is that marks the superiority of our people. And to answer this we need to read the lesson which history teaches — that the people which has known most of the laws of nature, and has had with that knowledge the greatest capacity to apply natural forces in economic production, has always attained the highest point in human development. Human superiority consists in superior capacity to know and superior ability to do. If I understand how it is that invention has promoted the progress of our people, it is because it has enabled them to know more, and has given them the power to do more than any other people. Invention needs a new definition ; it has outgrown that given in the dictionary; we must inquire what it really is. To say that it is merely the act of * ' finding out, ' ' the ' ' hitting upon," the "coming upon" something new, feebly expresses the meaning of the word. A recent law writer* more happily conveys to our mind its real force. He says : ' * Invention means the finding out, the contriving, the creating of some- thing which did not exist, and which can be made useful and advantageous in the pursuits of life, or which can add to the enjoyment of mankind." Mr. Justice Matthews felicitously expressed the same idea when he said it was * ' that intuitive faculty of the mind put forth in the search for new results or new methods, creatiiig what had not before existed, or bringing to light what had lain hidden from vision." We must understand that to invent is to create, and that the thing created must be beneficial to mankind. We are wont to say that we live in an environment of invention — ^that every- thing we touch, taste, handle, or see, is the result of an inven- tion. We might more properly say that we live in a new crea- tion. Literally, the old things have passed away and all things have become new. Human society is full of creators. For- merly we ascribed creative faculty or force to the Divine Being alone ; our commonest thought of God was that He was the Infinite Creator. We said as we gazed on the forms, animate *Prof. W. C. Robinson, 64 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. and inanimate, which surrounded us and which we believed contributed to our happiness, " Behold the expressed thought of the Creator — God! " and we were lost in wonder, love, and praise. Now, when we look upon the wondrous contrivances and inventions everywhere contributing to our life wants and adding to our life enjoyments, we are forced to exclaim: " Be- hold the expressed thought of the creator — man! " Inventions have given us a new and higher idea of the capacity of man. We begin to see how nearly he is related to Divinity ; we have found a new meaning in the phrase, ' ' So God created man in His own image." Shakespeare's words — the highest and noblest uninspired estimate of man seem real to us at last — * * How infinite in faculty * * * * in apprehension, how like a god." I^et me illustrate. Men have often wondered and adored the Infinite Creator as they have dwelt upon the words — ''And God said, ' lyCt there be light,' and there was light." But the hours are not all light ; there is the night and darkness as well as the day and light. Now, if you will think as you come to this place this evening how the thought of man has trans- formed black coal and viewless electricity into the agents which light your pathway, you will feel it scarcely irreverent to exclaim : ' 'And man said, ' I^t there be light, ' and there was light." If you will let your mind dwell steadily on the development during the century of the creative faculty in man, you will discover one prominent reason for the advancement of man- kind. You will see that the creative faculty is no longer limited to a few great souls, but that it is possessed by the many. You will see that the gap between the scientific dis- coverer and the practical workman is slowly but surely being closed. When we survey the field of invention our eyes rest inevitably on the figure of Watt. He stands out before us as the great leader in the inventive world. We give him highest place among those who have wrought for mankind. We put him above Alexander and Napoleon. They were destroyers ; he was a creator; they devoured; he developed the world's capacity to produce. But do we realize that many greater than Watt are here ? There are thousands of men in our PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 65 midst whose praises are never sung, who pursue their intense work quietly and unnoticed, for whom the world erects no pedestal of fame, but each of whom knows more of the nature and power and adaptation of steam than Watt ever dreamed of. We sing the praises of Morse ; we write him down among our greatest ; we give him a conspicuous niche in our temple of fame ; the world pays tribute to his greatness, to his creative skill; he will go down in history as the first man who by his invention made it possible to crowd into a day's time transac- tions which would otherwise require a month's time for their accomplishment; who enabled everj'- man who can buy a penny paper to behold as in a moving panorama the events transpiring throughout the whole world. But many greater than Morse are with us. There are thousands of girls in our country who know more of the laws of electricity, and better how to apply their knowledge of these laws in the transmis- sion of human thought, than ever Morse imagined. Such men, such inventors, famous by right in the world's history, were after all but prospectors, locating the rich mine of human in- vention. They thought out, or by accident discovered, a limited possibility in the application of new forces to the sup- ply of human wants. Then the world's thought became focused like a great burning lense on that possibility, and other men wrought the possible into the actual. Thus it is with every invention. Watt, in a crude way, was the first to use that force which we call steam to move engines and machines, and for that he will ever stand in the first rank of inventors. But will you tell me who first used that greater force which we call electricity, and which some day will supersede steam as a motor power and add to the number of the marvels of our civilization ? For aught I know he may sit before me, but to me he is unknown. In that he first made application of that more subtle and potential force of nature in the working out of productive results bene- ficial to mankind, he is doubtless a greater inventor than Watt ; but the world has no crown for him. And why ? Possibly, because man has so advanced in capacity to know and do that the achievement of to-da}' must outrank the achieve- ments of the past in order to confer great distinction on the 66 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. doer; possibly, because there are now so many capable ones seeking the same result that the discovery of the germinal idea is no longer the work of one man. So we see that each invention, great or small, by its own inherent force and power wonderfully stimulates and increases the inventive or creative faculty of man. Reduction to prac- tice requires knowledge and skill equal to that of the man who conceives the idea, and the use of the invention necessitates knowledge akin to that of the inventor. The woman who uses the sewing machine must have knowledge in kind, at least, if not in degree, equal to that of Howe. The field laborer who uses the harvester must know as much of the operation, if not of the principle, of the machine as McCor- mick. What an advancement in average human knowledge this signifies in the country where we live and move and have our being among inventions ! And if, as Bacon said, knowl- edge is power, how greatly have we advanced in power! Another thought in this line. Our library shelves are filled with books, written to prove the ennobling influence of the fine arts upon mankind. Painting, sculpture, and music are lauded because they educate and refine society, because they improve and elevate men and women, and advance them in the scale of being. But, is the contemplation of a painting more inspiring than the intelligent study of an engine ? Is a statue more beautiful than a machine ? The one copies nature, the other compels nature ; in the one there is repose and in- action, the other is instinct with life and energy. Are the waves of song more rythmic than the undulations which fall on the ear from the movement of myriad inventions ? The one touches sentiment, the other sings to us of human peace and plenty. Again. There are books without number which tell us how man grows by the contemplation of nature, of the subtle influence exercised upon the character of man by the scenes in which he dwells, by mountain and forest, by brook and river and ocean, by clear sky and fleecy clouds, by the rare tints of sunset and dawn, by breaking billow and roaring blasts. All this has been portrayed since books were first written — by poet, philosopher, and moralist alike. But who PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 67 has written, who shall write, of that greater and subtler molding influence exercised upon the character of man by his subjection of the forces of nature to become his ministering spirits ? Compare the man who muses on nature, who drinks in the influence of the mountain from afar, with the man who pierces that mountain to make a highway for the distribution of the world's products, or digs out from their dungeon the imprisoned metals, to be wrought into implements for his use, and tell me which man grows most or best. Which is the more a man, he who gazes with awe on the dark storm-cloud and sees in the lightning only the manifestation of the wrath of an angry God, or he who subdues the lightning and makes it his servant, and sends it to and fro on missions of mercy and sympathy to his fellow-man ? Thus far I have spoken of the indirect influence of inven- tion on the progress of mankind, on human advancement. Let me for a moment be more specific and direct. Man is ever wanting something. He may be said to be the creature who wants ; and the greater his attainment the more numer- ous his wants. The man who wants least in the world is of the least use to the world. Sometimes we call this craving, unceasing want of man, aspiration. Our fathers called it the pursuit of happiness, and declared it an ''inalienable right." Whatever we may call it, this is true : The more numerous and complex the wants of man (provided they are not born of vicious desire) and the more easily they are satisfied, the better, abler, happier, and nobler mankind becomes. Every human want involves production ; something must be pro- duced to satisfy it, and production is useless and objectless except to satisfy human wants. Man's first want is to appease hunger and quench thirst; his next, to be protected from the extremes of cold and heat. If these are all, we call him a savage, and production stands at its minimum. With every step of advancement toward 'civilization and spirituality his wants multiply, and production must increase. His com- fort and happiness, his present and future, depend upon the ease with which he can obtain wherewith to satisfy and gratify these wants. 68 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. Now, the true problem of invention — its only purpose and object, indeed — is, first, to enable man to satisfy his present wants with less of effort and cost than before ; and, second, to create in him the new wants incident to his higher plane of existence, and the means of supplying those wants, so that as the years go on man can have more of comfort with less of per- sonal effort than ever before. If this does not constitute human advancement, I do not know what does. Is it true that invention does this? It is the test by which the patentability of every invention is tried. It is the test applied by the inventor, the Patent Office, the courts, to deter- mine whether the machine, or process, or product is really an invention. The machine or process must be * ' new and use- ful," (what pregnant words) ; that is, it must produce things adapted to the existence and comfort of man, cheaper and bet- ter than they can be produced by any known process. If the invention be of a new product, the same law defines and limits it. The new product must be "useful; " it must be one that man can use, and, from its use, be benefited. If the inventor does not believe this capability resides in his invention, he abandons his effort. If the Commissioner of Patents cannot find this quality in the supposed invention, he rejects it. If courts cannot discover this essential characteristic, they say it is not entitled to be called property. That man must be blind and deaf and dull to the degree of stupidity who does not see that in this country during the last century inventions have laid their magic fingers upon every means and source of pro- duction, have improved and cheapened every product, have multiplied new products until now our entire population has more of comfort and less of want, more of happiness and less of misery, more of pleasure and less of pain, than any people that now exists or has ever existed — and all these with less of weary, wearing toil, with less of anxiety and less of hardship. When and why we began to count the world's life by cen- turies, as men count human life by years, we hardly know. There are years in almost every individual life during which a man's character, habits, and effort undergo radical change — some forceful cause makes him a new man. So in a short PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 69 hundred years the spirit of invention has changed the current of human thought and purpose and enterprise in our country — it has made a new world. The America of to-day is radically different from the America of 1791. We call our improvement the development of Christian civilization ; and I would not for a moment forget nor disparage the great influence of Christian- ity in molding our institutions and directing our pursuits. But what kind of a Christian civilization would it be with the spirit of invention still dormant ? Improved printing presses, telegraphs, and the means of rapid communication have given us a different Christianity, and taught us the lessons of the Master more correctly. The religious polemics of a former century interest men no longer. Reasoning Of providence, fore-knowledge, will and fate, Fixed fate, free-will, fore-knowledge absolute, is as obsolete now as the argument to prove witchcraft a reality and of satanic origin. Men no longer wander in the mazes of abstract speculation ; they seek for practical truths and practical results. The clergyman who should preach the sermon of a hundred years ago would speak to empty pews. The present religion is one that seeks to better man's physical and social condition. We care less for doctrine, and more for human improvement ; and we have come at last to dwell with intense satisfaction upon the thought that our Saviour went about "doing good." Thus we see how the inventive spirit of the age has been working this change ; how the very essence of an invention is to do good to man, to minister to the comfort, the happiness, and the higher intelligence of the people; how it works hand in hand with the spirit of a true religion. For the first time in the history of the world we seem to be making real headway against superstition and bigotry. We no longer count the mysterious as miraculous. What seemed miraculous has in our day too often come to be commonplace to let us sit down in wonder before it. For the first time we have come to learn that true rivalry in manly achievement is the struggle to accomplish most for the benefit of mankind, and that the only real hap- piness consists in enabling others to become happy. ^o PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. Nor is the change in the method and system of our educa- tion less radical than that in religious thought and effort. The college president of a hundred years ago would bring financial ruin to any college in a twelve-month. We more and more demand that our children shall study the present, and that their expansive powers shall not be imprisoned in the dun- geons of a dead past. Roman and Grecian manners, customs, literature and art are no longer the only models upon which we seek to develop the character of our sons. They must be fitted to explore the storehouse of nature and to bring out therefrom unseen treasures for a true enrichment of their fellows. Nothing more strikingly illustrates this change than the public demand for scientific, industrial, and manual training schools. Consider for a moment how impossible such schools would have been when our Constitution was framed, and how their felt necessity is now changing all our educational methods. No education is complete to-day that does not fit the student to deal with the great problems of applied science, the solution of which is still more to enrich and bless mankind. Education is not finished now in the college or professional school; it goes on in the workshop, in the laboratory, by the lathe, in the field, in the mine, in the forest, wherever and so long as man is called upon to wrestle with these great problems. And how intense life has become in consequence ! Slow and toilsome processes of thought are now no longer possible by the side of the swiftly -moving machine ; thought has been wedded to intui- tion. Evidence is not wanting that invention and discovery have resulted in lengthening the average of human life. But whether this be so or not, if we count life by its action and experience and what we gain in it and by it, our term of life has been wonderfully lengthened. The change in human enterprise may be illustrated by con- trasting what were once the Seven Wonders of the world with the seven wonders of American invention. The old wonders of the world were : The Pyramids, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Phidian Statue of Jupiter, the Mausoleum, the Temple of Diana at Ephesus, the Colossus of Rhodes, and the Pharos of Alexandria. Two were tombs of kings, one was the playground of a petted queen ; one was the habitat of the PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 71 world's darkest superstition ; one the shrine of a heathen god ; another was a crude attempt to produce a work of art solely to excite wonder, and one only, the light-house at Alexandria, was of the slightest benefit to mankind. They were erected mainly by tyrants ; most of them by the unrequited toil of degraded and enslaved laborers. In them was neither im- provement nor advancement for the people. Let me enumerate the seven wonders of American inven- tion : The cotton-gin ; the adaptation of steam to methods of transportation ; the application of electricity in business pur- suits ; the harvester ; the modern printing press ; the ocean cable, and the sewing machine. How wonderful in concep- tion, in construction, in purpose, these great inventions ; how they dwarf the Pyramids and all the wonders of antiquity ; what a train of blessings each brought with its entrance into social life ; how wide, direct, and far-reaching their benefits! Kach was the herald of a social revoluion ; each was a human benefactor ; each was a new Goddess of Liberty ; each was a great emancipator of man from the bondage of labor ; each was a new teacher come upon earth ; each was a moral force. I should not do justice to this subject if I omitted to speak of one thing, which, however, it will hardly be thought necessary in this gathering to urge as a defence of the patent system. Our patent system needs no defence. When our fathers asserted constitutional authority for Congress to pro- mote the useful arts, by granting to inventors for a limited time the exclusive control of their inventions, they builded better than they knew. But it may be said that without the stimulus afforded by the prospective reward of the inventor this development of invention would never have occurred — that the inventor is spurred and lured on by the expectation of a fortune. I do not deny that every inventor expects and hopes for pecuniary gain to be derived from his invention, and that if there were no gain the spirit of invention might be checked. It is right that the man who benefits mankind should be rewarded. Our instinct of justice revolts at the short-sighted policy which has ever sought to stifle inventions, and we rejoice at the liberal policy founded upon the good judgment of mankind vv^hich has sought to encourage them. 72 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. The world has nothing but contempt for the Emperor Tibe- rius who, when approached by a skillful workman who had discovered the secret of making glass malleable, inquired of him whether he alone possessed the secret, and upon being assured that he was the only one, ordered his head to be struck off immediately, lest his invention should prove injurious to the workers in gold, silver, and other metals. I deny, however, that the hope of pecuniary gain is the only motive of inven- tion, or indeed the most powerful motive. Two others, at least, are more potent : The insatiable desire of man to see the invisible, to touch the intangible, to know the unknown, to conquer the unconquered, is one ; to benefit the human race is the other. The prospect of money reward alone would never absorb and concentrate and intensify the faculties of the inventor. He is an enthusiast. I,ike prophet and poet, he seems possessed by a semi-madness. A passion to accomplish and achieve what seems impossible takes hold of him. He is a philanthropist, too ; the desire to furnish his fellow-men with something new and useful absorbs him. There are men sitting before me, no doubt, whose waking and sleeping hours are given to the exploration of new fields, that they may discover, control, and apply new forces ; who are striving to bring forth inventions more wonderful and beneficial than the world has yet known. Ask them, and see if they do not tell you that I am right, and if they do not scout the idea that the pecuniary profit which they may derive from their invention is the only, or indeed the principal, motive that impels them. If they can but discover the germs of new inventions which are to cheapen production, which are to minister to the present and prospective wants of mankind, they will be satisfied with their life-work and feel that they are entitled to a place among the world's great doers, though others shall enter in and reap more abundantly the money reward. There never yet was a true invention from which the public did not reap infinitely greater pecuniary reward than the inventor. However selfish his purpose may be, it is an inevitable law of invention that it holds greater benefits in store for the masses than for the inventor. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 73 I must not fail to notice at this point a more or less preva- lent idea that the result of invention is to enrich the few at the expense of the many — that capital is assisted while labor is injured. I have little patience with this belief. It is the wail of the pessimist rather than the opinion of the intelligent. Men who give utterance to it forget that in social economy man always builds on the ruins of the past. The first effect of every useful invention is to destroy capital. In the inventive realm the fittest only survives. No invention answers its pur- pose that does not either supersede the old methods of produc- tion or bring forth a new product. If some new motive power should be discovered which would enable us to produce those things which men must have for their sustenance and happiness better and more cheaply than water power, air power, steam power, and electrical power, the capital thus invested would be gradually but surely destroyed ; whereas all experience teaches us that there would be no injury to labor — there would simply be a readjustment of labor and an increased demand for it. There would be a demand for more intelligent labor, more skillful labor, more brain labor, as well as a greater demand in new fields for what we term muscular labor. An illustration or two conclusively proves this. In the beginning of the century there w^ere no railroads ; all trans- portation was by wagons, carts, horses, and oxen. The rail- roads of the country last year, in railroad parlance, moved sixty-eight billion tons of freight one mile. To have accom- plished the same work would have required more horses than there are in the United States, and two-thirds of the able- bodied men of the country to drive them. But all the horses in the country were needed for other work — work which, except for the railroads, would not have been done. With the introduction of the railroad the men who had driven horses found that their services were in demand at prices which teamsters never expected to receive. There would be no such carrying trade as we now have if it had not been developed by the railroads. People who think that invention lessens the demand for labor should remember that millions of people find profitable employment in localities where Indians would now be hunting the buffalo were it not 74 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS, for the inventions which go to make up that vast system of railroads, which is itself one great conglomerate ma- chine acting with the precision of mechanical law. They should remember, too, that to operate the railroads of this country nearly a million persons are employed to fill places that have been created by the railroad, in which intelligence and skill of a high order are required. They should take account, too, of the men who have worked in mines and forests, who have built furnaces and mills, who have produced the rails for one hundred and sixty thousand miles of railroad track, and the necessary equipment of loco- motives and cars ; of the men who have leveled and graded the roads — who have pierced the mountains and filled up the valleys ; of the men who have found employment in supplying all these laborers and artisans with food and comforts and luxuries. That man is sadly deficient in the intelligence of the age who cannot see that every true invention greatly increases the demand for labor, improves the quality of labor, and thereby enhances its price. About thirty-five years ago men discovered a natural pro- duct unknown before ; they called it petroleum. Invention seized upon it and began to work it into useful forms for the production of useful results and to supply unquestioned needs. It was a timely discovery. Without it, we can hardly conceive how it would be possible to light the homes of our people. In every stage of its treatment invention has been called into use. By the aid of those inventions the crude article has been resolved into more than one hundred and fifty separate products, each one of which has its commercial designation, its beneficial use — many of them supplying wants unfelt and unknown before. All this has created an army of workmen engaged in employments unheard and unthought of but for the discovery, and for the inventions which have so multifari- ously utilized the product. What labor has been displaced or injured thereby ? So with every invention since the creation of man. Not one of them but has made life more to be desired by the toiler ; not one but has made his station more honorable, his environment more agreeable. I count it one of the chief benefits of our unrivaled inventions that labor in PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 75 the United States has become more intelligent, more skillful, and therefore commands the highest price. I count the advancement of our laborers as the chief wealth of our people. A people may have gold and not be rich, may have lands and be indigent ; but a people with intelligence and skill and energy is truly rich and truly great. It is brain power that constitutes real wealth. The old poet of the sixteenth centur}^ who sang, * ' My mind to me a kingdom is, ' ' had a better conception of the true nature of wealth than the man who counts only the millionaire as the wealthy man. One other thought I commend to the pessimist. If, as he believes, invention has augmented and concentrated capital and clothed it with power which is used to the public detri- ment, it has also made possible the organization and associa- tion of labor. Without the railroad, the telegraph, and the press, associated labor could not exist ; without these children of invention, no labor combination or organization would ex- tend beyond the city or town in which it was organized. By adding to the intelligence of the masses, by the opportunity which it gives for association, invention has wonderfully increased the power of the masses. The laborer is no longer an isolated toiler. Invention has clothed him with strength as a garment. God grant that he may use it wisely. We stand in the doorway of a new century. What of the future ? Has invention reached its zenith ; has man attained his highest development ; has he already reached the goal of human progress ; can he advance no farther ? I ask these questions because I firmly believe that the limit of human invention is also the limit of human advancement; that he who writes the history of invention will write the history of mankind; that if invention has already done its perfect work, man is all he can ever hope to be in this life. For one, I cannot entertain the gloomy thought that we have come to that century in the world's life in which new and grander achievements are impossible. For one, I am persuaded that we have but just entered the era of improvement ; that at no period in his existence has man been so well equipped, so well fitted by his ability, knowledge, and high resolve, to grapple with the problems of life and to make new conquests 76 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. in the field of invention. Invention is a prolific mother ; every inventive triumph stimulates new effort. Man never is and never will be content with success, and the great secrets of nature are as yet largely undiscovered. Though we seem to have accomplished much, we really know but little. Who knows what electricity is ? Who understands the properties of any material substance ? Who has solved the mysteries of the atom and the germ ? Who knows what forces men have passed by in their search for motive power ? Who has even catalogued the forces of nature ? What wondrous possibilities are yet locked in her storehouse ? But, after all, the real wonder of the earth is man ; never so wonderful as when he boldly challenges nature to unlock her doors and reveal her mys- teries that he may use them for the improvement and advance- ment of his kind. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS, 77 THK RELATION OF INVENTION TO,I.ABOR. By Hon. Carroi,i. D. Wright, of Massachusetts, Commissioner of Labor. The lines of industrial history are dimly drawn. The writers of civil history have been too thoroughly engrossed with political events and with wars to give much attention to the development of the industries of different peoples. Here and there a paragraph or a page may give some hint of the state of the industrial arts during different periods and in different countries ; but the necessity of giving connected and extended accounts of industrial progress has not yet seemed to possess them. The beginning of the history is, of course, as nebulous as the beginning of all history. It runs back into the ages, beyond tradition, even, for we cannot conceive of the first step in civilization having been taken without the assistance of the industrial arts. When the Greek could find no trace of his own origin, it is unreasonable to suppose that the historian can give the origin of those arts which have been potent in developing civilization. The history of the develop- ment of the mechanic arts must be largely the history of civilization ; at least each reflects the history of the other, for it is true that as advancing civilization has begotten higher and finer types of production, the higher type of artisan has been the productive element in social progress. It is im- possible, with this condition of things historically, to treat of the relation of invention to labor, or, more broadly, of the influ- ence which invention has had upon labor during the earlier historical stages. The civil historian finds it convenient to make three g^eat divisions of history — ancient, medieval, and modern. The historian of the industrial arts can make use of but the first and the last of these periods, the two great divisions, ancient and modern — the ancient extending almost to our own time, the 78 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. modern finding its birth in that wonderful period of invention practically beginning with the year 1760. We are, then, actu- ally living in the early generations of the modern history of manufactures, for the whole ancient period saw but little change and but little invention, beyond the few contrivances by which people met their simple wants. Certainly invention had not been prolific in processes of production. The period of ancient history, as defined, has not even ceased for a great proportion of the inhabitants of the world. The grand divisions which the archaeologist finds essential are far more applicable to manufactures than those of the civil historian. He takes three great ages — the stone age, the bronze age, and the iron age — and these divisions more accu- rately mark the progress of manufactures, for in them we find the peculiar changes which mark the growth of the inventive genius of the world. The limits of these ages, however, are not found to be contemporaneous, so far as beginning and end- ing are concerned, for while the stone age may have ended in one country and the bronze age been evolved from it, the stone age may have lingered for centuries longer in another country, or the bronze age may have continued far beyond the birth of the iron age among an adjacent people, or it may have been omitted because of the conquest of a people still living in the stone age by a people who had reached the iron age. These great distinctions of ages, which the archaeologist finds so convenient, are not continuous steps in the development of natural history, except in a philosophical sense. Logically they are true divisions, and so far as nearly all the peoples of the world are concerned they are true divisions chronologically. The history of civilization is not that of successive steps, ex- cept as we view great cycles of time ; so the various industrial systems which have prevailed in the world — the slave system, the feudal system, and the wage system — are not successive universally, but only successive in individual nations. Even in the case of special nations, one or the other of these systems may have been omitted through the circumstances growing out of conquest, or, it may be, treaty, though in the growth or evolution of industrial events the steps are quite regular. The natural division of industrial history really involves two great PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONC^RESS. 79 features — hand-production and machine-production. Hand- production prevailed until the last half of the eighteenth cen- tury, and, as already remarked, inventive genius had not been applied in this direction, except in the simplest way. During the last half of the eighteenth century the history of machine- production, or of the age of mechanical invention, really began ; it is with this age that I have to deal, for it is only since invention has been applied to productive processes that it has had any specific influence upon the labor of man, either in an economic or an ethical sense. The age of invention found its birth in the development of spinning and weaving, and as these two arts lay at the very foundation of the industrial arts of the ancients, so they are the basic arts of the modern system of industry. Until the decade of years beginning with 1760, the machines in use for weaving, as well as for spinning, were nearly as simple as those in use among the ancients. The principles adopted by the ancients, of course, are those still in force. The processes of spinning and weaving were generally performed under the same roof, the weaver continually pressing upon the spinner for a suppl}'- of weft or warp ; but the weaver's own family could not respond with a sufficient quantity, and he had much difficulty in collecting it from neighboring spinsters. The first influence of invention, paradoxical as it may seem, aggra- vated this difficulty by a device for facilitating the progress of weaving. This occurred by the use of the fly-shuttle, invented in 1738, by one John Kay, by which device one man alone was enabled to weave the widest cloth, while prior to Kay's invention two persons were required. One can readily see how this increased the difficulty of obtaining a supply of yarn ; for the one-thread wheel, though turning from morning till night in thousands of cottages, could not keep pace either with the weaver's shuttle or with the demand of the merchant. In the same year, 1738, John Wyatt invented an elementary me- chanical contrivance whereby he expected that a single pair of hands could spin twenty, a hundred, or, on a perfected me- chanical construction, even one thousand threads. This inven- vention of Wyatt's, patented by royal letters-patent in 1738, in the name of Lewis Paul, really embodied the method of spin- 8o PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. ning by rollers, for Wyatt's specification describes the very principle of spinning by rollers which distinguished the spin- ning machine brought into use thirty years later by Sir Richard Arkwright, and which was universally adopted, and of which Sir Richard is generally supposed, even at the present day, to have been the inventor. Wyatt did not succeed, either in making his fortune, or in introducing his machine into use. He lacked the pecuniary means, and could not hold out long enough to realize the success his genius merited ; but, more than all, as often happens with many advanced inventions — inventions made in advance of the times — he lacked the time and attendant circumstances, with all their subtle influences, which accompanied the train of inventions relating to spinning and weaving which came into use a generation or so after Wyatt's time. His invention slumbered for thirty years, until it was rediscovered, or, what is just as probable, until its prin- ciples came accidentally to the knowledge of Arkwright, who, previous to 1769, had been a barber at Preston. These primi- tive efforts — that of John Kay, in the invention of the fly- shuttle, and that of John Wyatt, in the invention of spinning machines where rollers were used — formed the germs from which sprang that great line of inventions which has revolu- tionized industry, and whose influence upon labor has been so widely marked in every direction. The invention of the spinning jenny came just in time to have its usefulness adopted. One day while a spinner of Eng- land was at work with his single wheel, in what poetry has called a * ' cottage, ' ' but what history denominates a ' ' hut, ' ' sur- rounded by his children, they accidentally overturned the wheel, and while it lay on the earthen floor in a horizontal position, the wheel, which was revolving at the time it was overturned, continued to revolve, and of course the spindle revolved through the power conveyed to it. This little accident suggested to the intelligence of James Hargreaves the idea that a spindle could be run in a position perpendicular to the motive-power, as well as horizontal, and that the same power might be carried to two or more spindles. He therefore set himself to work and constructed, between 1764 and 1767, a crude machine, subse- quently called a spinning jenny, which had several spindles PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 8 1 driven by cords or belts from the same wheel. He was thus en- abled to multiply his production of yarn. This result brought him increased wages, and made him the envy of his neighbors, who, fearing that the machine would ultimately affect them injuriously, became excited, broke into Hargreave's house, and destroyed not only the machine but nearly all of his furniture. The inventor was so severely persecuted that he left his native county and went to Nottingham, at which place he was fur- nished with means and was enabled to perfect his invention, taking out royal letters-patent in 1770. But the year previous, 1769, Richard Arkwright, of whom I have spoken, took out a patent for his invention of spinning by rollers. These two men, therefore, can be called contemporaneous inventors, and, so far as practical results are concerned, the original inventors who gave to the world the birth of the age of invention. The mule-spinning machine, which Samuel Crompton in- vented in 1776, was a combination of the principles of the jenny and the water-frame of Arkwright, and entirely super- ceded the use of the jenny ; but the machines of Hargreaves and Arkwright broke down the barrier which had so long obstructed the advance of the cotton manufacture, and the breaking down of this barrier inaugurated the factory system, which really dates from their period. In 1785 Dr. Edward Cartwright invented the first power- loom. This was improved upon by various inventors till 1806, when power-looms began to be used in factories. Prior to this invention all the yarn spun by power-machines had been woven into cotton by hand-loom weavers, and of course the introduction of the power-loom caused a repetition of the scenes of riot which followed the introduction of the spinning machine. The power-loom closed the catalogue of inventions necessary to the inauguration of the era of mechanical supremacy. To give in detail an account of the invention of the great processes in all departments which have affected civilization or which have constituted, or marked, practical epochs in indus- trial evolution, is not my province. Others who speak to you will give you this information. But the influence upon the labor of man, of the age which was born when the spinning and weaving machinery of England was perfected, constitutes 82 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. a theme to which I am called upon to address myself. This influence has V^een great, and has been felt along two principal lines or directions, those of economics and of ethics. Eco- nomically speaking, the influence has been felt in two directions also, but in diametrically opposite ways. These ways are what are called, in popular speech, " the displacement of labor " and "the expansion of labor." By the displacement of labor is meant what would be expressed more specifically by another term, the contraction of labor ; that is, where a machine has been invented by which one man can do the work, with the aid of the machine, of several men working without its aid ; and by the expansion of labor is meant where, through inven- tion, more men are called into remunerative employment than would have been employed had not such invention been made. In considering these economic bearings or influences of inventions, we must deal with labor abstractly, while under the ethical influence we not only deal with labor abstractly, but with man as a social and a political factor. This, of course, leads at once to the remark that the ethical influence, or the ethics of the question, becomes the most prominent feature of any treatment of the relation of invention to labor. Before touching this, however, I desire to call your attention to some of the more marked economic disturbances which have taken place. Thk D1SPI.ACEMENT OR Contraction of Labor. The facts relative to the so-called displacement of muscular labor by machinery have been drawn from the First Annual Report of the U. S. Commissioner of Labor. That labor-saving machinery, so-called, but which more properly should be called labor-making or labor-assisting machinery, often displaces labor so far as men, individually, are concerned, and temporarily, cannot successfully be denied. All men of sound minds admit the permanent good effects of inventions ; but the permanent good effects do not prevent the temporary displacement, which displacement, so far as the labor displaced is concerned, assists in crippling the consuming power of the community in which it takes place. It is, of course, exceedingly difficult to secure positive information PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 83 illustrating a point so thoroughly apparent ; yet from the source I have named a sufficient amount of information can be drawn to show clearly and positively the influence of inven- tions in bringing about what is called displacement. In the manufacture of agricultural implements new machin- ery, during the past fifteen or twenty years, has, in the opinion of some of the best manufacturers of such implements, displaced fully fifty per cent, of the muscular labor formerly employed, as, for instance, hammers and dies have done away with the most particular labor on a plow. In one of the most extensive establishments engaged in the manufacture of agricultural implements in one of the Western States it is found that 600 men, with the use of machinery, are now doing the work that would require 2,145 men, without the aid of machinery, to perform ; that is to say, there has been in this particular establishment a loss of labor to 1,545 men, the proportion of loss being as 3.57 to i. In the manufacture of small arms, where one man, by manual labor, was formerly able to "turn " and " fit " one stock for a musket in one day of ten hours, three men now, by a division of labor and the use of power machinery, will turn out and fit from 125 to 150 stocks in ten hours. By this statement it is seen that one man individually turns out and fits the equivalent of 42 to 50 stocks in 10 hours, as against one stock in the same length of time under former conditions. In this particular calling, then, there is a displacement of 44 to 49 men in one operation. I^ooking to a cruder industry, that of brick -making, improved devices have displaced 10 per cent, of labor, while in making fire-brick 40 per cent, of the labor formerly em- ployed is now dispensed with, and yet in many brick -making concerns no displacement whatever has taken place. The manufacture of boots and shoes ofiers some very wonderful facts in this connection. In one large and long- established manufactory in one of the Eastern States the proprietors testify that it would require 500 persons, working by hand processes and in the old way in the shops by the roadside, to make as many women's boots and shoes as 100 persons now make with the aid of machinery and by congre- gated labor, a contraction of 80 per cent, in this particular 84 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. case. In another division of the same industry the number of men required to produce a given quantity of boots and shoes has been reduced one-half, while, in still another locality, and on another quality of boots, being entirely for women's wear, where formerly a first-class workman could turn out six pairs in one week, he will now turn out eighteen pairs. A well-known firm in the West engaged in the manufacture of boots and shoes finds that it would take 120 persons, working by hand, to produce the amount of work done in its factory by 60 employes, and that the hand-work would not compare in workmanship and appearance by 50 per cent. By the use of Goodyears' sewing machine for turned shoes one man will sew 250 pairs in one day. It would require eight men, working by hand, to sew the same number in the same time. By the use of a heel-shaver or trimmer one man will trim 300 pairs of shoes a day, while formerly three men would have been required to do the same work ; and with the McKay machine one operator will handle 300 pairs of shoes in one day, while without the machine he could handle but five pairs in the same time. So, in nailing on heels, one man, with the aid of machinery, can heel 300 pairs of shoes per day, while five men would have to work all day to accomplish this by hand. A large Philadelphia house, which makes boys and children's shoes entirely, has learned that the introduction of new machinery within the past thirty years has displaced about six times the amount of hand-labor formerly required, and that the cost of the product has been reduced one- half. The broom industry, which would not seem to offer a large field for speculation in reference to displacement, has felt the influence of invention, for the broom sewing machine facilitates the work to such an extent that each machine displaces three men. A large broom-manufacturing concern which a few years ago employed seventeen skilled men to manufacture 500 dozen brooms per week, now, with nine men, aided by invention, turns out 1,200 dozen brooms weekly ; so in this case, while the force is reduced nearly one-half, the quantity of product is more than doubled. To look at a carriage or a wagon, one would not suppose that in its manufacture machinery could perform very much of PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 85 an office, and yet a foreman of fifty years' experience has in- formed me that the length of time it took a given number of skilled workmen, working entirely by hand, to produce a carriage of a certain style and quality was equal to thirty -five days of one man's labor, while now one man produces sub- stantially the same style of carriage in twelve days. Machin- ery has been employed in making the parts necessary to the construction of a carriage or a wagon, and thus has simplified the work and reduced the time essential for the production of the completed product. In the manufacture of carpets there has been a displacement, taking all the processes together, of from ten to twenty times the number of persons now necessary. In the spinning of carpet material alone it would take, by the old methods, from seventy-five to one hundred times the number of operatives now employed to turn out the same amount of work, while in weaving there would be required at least ten times the present number. A carpet-measuring machine has been invented which brushes and measures the product at the same time, and by its use one operator will accomplish what formerly required fifteen men. Very many people would say 4;hat in the manufacture of clothing there has been no improvement, except so far as the use of the sewing machine has facilitated the manufacture ; yet in the ready-made clothing trade, where cutting was for- merly done by hand, much of it is now done by the use of dies, many thicknesses of the same size and style being cut at one operation. So in cutting out hats and caps with improved cutters, one man is enabled to cut out a great many thicknesses at the same time, and he does six times the amount of work with such devices as could formerly be done by one man in the old way. While the age of machinery began with improvements for the manufacture of textiles, so the manufacture of textiles, and especially cotton goods, ofiers perhaps as striking an illustra- tion as any of the apparent displacement of labor. With a hand-loom a weaver used to weave from sixty to eighty picks per minute in weaving a cloth of good quality, with twenty threads of twist to each one-quarter square inch. With a 86 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. power loom he now weaves one hundred and eighty picks per minute of the same kind of cloth. Even in power machinery, a weaver formerly tended but one loom. Now one weaver minds all the way from two to ten looms, according to the grade of goods. In a large establishment in New Hampshire, improved machinery, even within ten years, has reduced mus- cular labor 50 per cent, in the production of the same quality of goods. This, of course, is true in other localities given to the manufacture of cotton goods. In another line labor has been displaced to such an extent that one-third the number of operatives formerly required is now in employment. In the days of the single-spindle hand- wheel, one spinner, working fifty-six hours continuously, could spin five hanks of number thirty-two twist. At the present time, with one pair of self- acting mule-spinning machines, having 2,124 spindles, one spinner, with the assistance of two small boys, can produce 55,098 hanks of number thirty-two twist in the same time. It is quite generally agreed that there has been a displacement, taking all processes of cotton manufacture into consideration, in the proportion of three to one. The average number of spindles per operative in the cotton mills of this country in 1831 was 25.2 ; it is now over 72, an increase of more than 185 per cent. ; and along with this increase of the number of spin- dles per operative there has been an increase of product per operative of over 145 per cent., so far as spinning alone is con- cerned. In weaving in the olden time, in this country, a fair adult hand-loom weaver wove from forty-two to forty-eight yards of common shirting per week. Now a weaver, tending six power-looms in a cotton factory, will produce 1,500 yards in a single week. Marvelous as these facts appear, when we examine the influence of invention as applied in the newspaper publishing business we perceive the magic of inventive genius. One of the latest quadruple-stereotype perfecting presses manufactured by R. Hoe & Co., of New York, has an aggregate running capacity of 48,000 eight-page papers per hour ; that is to say, one of these perfected presses, run by one pressman and four skilled laborers, will print, cut at the top, fold, paste and count (with supplement inserted if desired) 48,000 eight-page PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 87 papers in one hour. To do the press-work alone for this number of papers would take, on the old plan, a man and a boy working ten hours per day one hundred days. A paper now published in the morning, printed, folded, cut and pasted before breakfast, would, before the edition was completed under the old system, become a quarterly. And so illustrations might be accumulated in very many directions — in the manufacture of furniture, in the glass industry, in leather-making, in sawing lumber, in the manu- facture of machines and machinery, in the production of metals and metallic goods, of all kinds, or of woodenware, in the manufacture of musical instruments, in mining, in the oil industry, in the manufacture of paper, in pottery, in the production of railroad supplies, in the manufacture of rubber boots, of saws, of silk goods, of soap, of tobacco, of trunks, in building vessels, in making wine, and in the production of woolen goods. It is impossible to arrive at an accurate statement as to the number of persons it would require under the old system to produce the goods made by the present industrial system with the aid of invention and power-machinery. Any computation would be a rough estimate. In some branches of work such a rough estimate would indicate that each employe at the present represents, on an average, fifty employes under the old system. In many other branches the estimate would involve the employment of one now where three were employed. I^ooking at this question without any desire to be mathematic- ally accurate, it is fair to say, perhaps, that it would require from 50,000,000 to 100,000,000 persons in this country, work- ing under the old system, to produce the goods made and do the work performed by the workers of to-day with the aid of machinery. This computation may, of course, be very wide of the truth, but any computation is equally startling, and when it is considered that in spinning alone 1,100 threads are easily spun now at one time where one was spun under the old system, no estimate can be successfully disputed. All these facts and illustrations simply show that there has been, economically speaking, a great displacement of labor by the use of inventions ; power machinerj^ has come in as a 88 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. magical assistant to the power of muscle and mind, and it is this side of the question that usually causes alarm. As in the early day, when Hargreaves and Arkwright were struggling to supply the weaver with a sufficient quantity of yarn, and the spinners looked only to the immediate effect upon them- selves, so now, no good answer can be made to the man who finds his labor a superfluity in a market overstocked with labor. Enlightenment has taught the wage-receiver some of the advantages of the introduction of inventions as his assistants, but he is not yet fully instructed as to their influ- ence in all directions. He does see the displacement ; he does see the difficulty of turning his hand to other employment or of finding employment in the same direction. These are tangible influences which present themselves squarely in the face of the man involved, and to him no philosophical, eco- nomic or ethical answer is sufficient. It is therefore impossible to treat of the influence of inventions, so far as the displace- ment of labor is concerned, as one of the leading influences, on the individual basis. We must take labor, as I have said, abstractly. So, having shown the powerful influence of the use of ingenious devices in the displacement or contraction of labor, as such, it is proper to show how such devices have influenced the expansion of labor or created employments and opportunities for employment which did not exist before their inception and application. Thk Expansion of I,abor. As incredible as the facts I have given might appear to one who has not studied them, the ability to crystalize in individual cases and show the fairly exact displacement of labor exists. An examination of the opposite influence of inventions, that of the expansion or creation of employments not before exist- ing, reveals a more encouraging state or condition of things, but one in which the statistician can make but very little head- way. The influences under the expansion of labor have vari- ous ramifications. The people at large, and especially those who work for wages, have experienced these influences in several directions, and contemporaneous with the introduction and use of inventions, the chief economic influence being in PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 89 the direction of expansion, the other influences being more thoroughly ethical, and these should be considered under that broad title. The science of statistics helps us in some respects in studying the expansive power of inventions, and especially in the direction of great staples used as raw material in manu- facturing processes and in the increase of the number of people employed relative to the number of the population. If there has been a great increase in the consumption per capita of great staples for manufacturing purposes, there must have been a corresponding expansion of labor necessary for the produc- tion of goods in like directions. Taking up some of the lead- ing staples, the facts show that the per capita consumption of cotton in this country in 1830 was 5.9 pounds ; in 1880, 13.91 pounds, while in 1890 the per capita consumption had increased to nearly 19 pounds. These figures are for cotton consumed in our own country, and clearly and positively indicate that the labor necessary for such consumption has been kept up to the standard, if not beyond the standard, of the olden time — I mean as to the number of people employed. In iron the in- crease has been as great proportionately. In 1870 the per capita consumption of iron in the United States was 105.64 pounds, in 1880 it had arisen to 204.99 pounds, and in 1890 to 283.38. While processes in manufacturing iron have been im- proved, and labor displaced to a certain extent by such pro- cesses, this great increase in the consumption of iron is a most encouraging fact, and proves that there has been an offset to the displacement. The consumption of steel shows like results. In 1880 it was 46 pounds per capita, and in 1890, 144 pounds. The application of iron and steel in all direc- tions, in the building trades, as well as in the mechanic arts, in great engineering undertakings, and in a multitude of directions, only indicates that labor must be actively em- ployed, or such extensions could not take place. But a more conclusive offset to the displacement of labor, considered abstractly, is shown by the statistics of persons engaged in all occupations. From i860 to 1880, a period of twenty years, and the most prolific period in this country of inventions, and therefore of the most intensified influence in all directions of their introduction, the population increased 59.51 per cent., 90 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. while during the same period the number of persons employed in all occupations-r-manufacturing, agriculture, domestic serv- ice, everything — increased 109.87 per cent. In the decade of years, 1870 to 1880, the population increased 30.08 per cent., while the number of persons in all occupations increased 39 per cent. An analysis of these statements shows that the in- crease of the number of those engaged in manufacturing, mechanical, and mining industries, those in which the influ- ence of inventions is most keenly felt, for the period from i860 to 1880, was 92.28 per cent., as against 59.51 per cent, increase in the total population. If statistics could be as forcibly applied to show the new occupations brought into existence by inventions, I believe the result would be still more emphatic. If we could examine scientifically the num- ber of created occupations, the claim that inventions have displaced labor on the whole would be conclusively and emphatically refuted. Taking some of the great industries that now exist, and which did not exist prior to the inventions which made them, we must acknowledge the power of the answer. In telegraphy thousands and thousands of people are employed where no one has ever been displaced. The construction of the lines, the manufacture of the instruments, the operation of the lines — all these divisions and sub-divisions of a great industry have brought thousands of intelligent men and women into remunerative employment where no one had ever been employed before. The telephone has only added to this accumulation and expansion, and the whole field of electricity, in providing for the employment of many thousands of skilled workers, has not trenched upon the privileges of the past. Electro-plating, a modern device, has not only added wonderfully to the employed list by its direct influence, but indirectly by the introduction of a class of goods which can be secured by all persons. Silverware is no longer the luxury of the rich. Through the invention of electro-plating, excellent ware, with most artistic design, can be found in almost every habitation in America. The application of electro-plating to nickel furnished a subsidiary industry to that of electro-plating generally, and nickel-plating had not been known half a dozen years before more than thirty PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 91 thousand people were employed in the industry, where no one had ever been employed prior to the invention. The railroads offer another grand illustration of the expan- sion of labor. It now requires three-quarters of a million of people to operate our railroads, and this means a population of nearly four millions, or one-sixteenth of the whole population of the country. The displacement of the stage-coach and the stage-driver was nothing compared to the expansion of labor which the railroad systems of the country have created. The construction of the road-bed and its equipment constantly involve the employment of thousands and thousands of mechanics, while the operation of the roads themselves, as I have said, secures employment to more than three-quarters of a million of people. All this work of the railroads has not, in all probability, displaced a single coachman ; on the other hand, it has created the demand for drivers and workers with horses and wagons through the great expansion of the express business, of cab-driving, of connecting lines and in other directions, which could not have taken place under the old stage-coach regime. When the sewing machine was invented it was thought that the sewing girl's day was over. So it was in a certain respect. She can now earn more money with less physical exhaustion than under the old system. Abominably poor as are the results of her efforts now, they are far better than they would have been without this invention. But as a means of the expansion of labor the sewing machine is a striking illustration. It has displaced no one ; it has increased demand, and it has been the means of establishing great workshops to supply the thousands of machines that are sold throughout the world. The inventions of Goodyear, whereby rubber gum could be so treated as to be made into articles of wearing apparel, have resulted in the establishment of great industries as new creations. We need not in this place consider the great benefits through the use of water-proof clothing. The mere fact that great industries have arisen where none existed before is sufficient for our purpose. I might take up much time in simply accumulating illustrations showing the ex- pansive force of inventions in the direction of creating new 92 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. opportunities for remunerative employment. The facts I have given show conclusively that displacement has been more than offset by expansion. Yet, if the question be asked, Has the wage-earner received his just and equitable share of the eco- nomic benefits derived from the introduction of machinery? the answer must be, No. I mean by this his relative share, compared with that going to capital. In the struggle for supremacy, in the great countries devoted to mechanical production it probably has been impossible for him to share equitably in such benefits. Notwithstanding this, his share has been enormous, and the gain to him such as to change his whole relation to society and the state, such changes affecting his moral position. It is certainly true — and the statement is simply cumulative evidence of the truth of the view that expansion of labor through inventions has been equal or superior to any displace- ment that has taken place — that in those countries given to the development and use of machinery there is found the greatest proportion of employed persons, and that in those countries where machinery has been developed to little or no purpose poverty reigns, ignorance is the prevailing condition, and civilization consequently far in the rear. The Ethicai, Influknck of Inventions. According to Mr. Herbert Spencer, ethics comprehends the laws of right living ; and that, beyond the conduct commonly approved or reprobated as right or wrong, it includes all con- duct which furthers or hinders, in direct or in indirect ways, the welfare of self or others ; that justice, which formulates the range of conduct and limitations to conduct hence arising, is at once the most important division of ethics ; that it has to define the equitable relations among individuals who limit one another's spheres of action by co-existing, and who achieve their ends by cooperation ; and that, beyond justice between man and man, justice between each man and the aggregate of men has to be dealt with by it. This constitutes a very broad definition of ethics, and the propositions laid down by Mr. Spencer, taken by themselves, are such as no moral philosopher can for a moment reject, nor PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 93 should they be rejected by economists, for a moment's reflec- tion upon their bearing shows conclusively that material pros- perity is best subserved by their incorporation as chapters in the laws of trade, commerce, and production. So the relation of the wage receiver to his fellow-man and to society becomes ethical, purely so ; but it is certainly ethico-economical, and his wages, the standard of his living ; his working time, the cost of his living ; his education, his interest in religious and liter- ary matters, in art, and in all that adorns life, are features surrounding him which must be contemplated from the ethical point of view. This thought is all the more emphatic when it is considered that invention has brought with it a new school of ethics. It is the type and representative of the civilization of this period, because it embodies, so far as physics and eco- nomics are concerned, the concentrated, clearly wrought-out thought of the age. Books may represent thought ; machinery or invention is the embodiment of thought. From an intel- lectual point of view, then, it becomes perfectly legitimate to speak of the ethical influence of inventions, and no considera- tion of the relation of inventions to labor would be complete without showing in a more deeply philosophical sense the ethical influence upon the individual laborer. We are living at the beginning of the age of mind, as illus- trated by the results of inventive genius. It is the age of intellect, of brain — for brain is king, and machinery is the king's prime minister. Wealth of mind and wealth of purse may struggle for the mastery, but the former usually wins, and gives the crown to the Huxleys, Darwins, Tyndalls, Proctors, Woolseys, and Drapers, rather than to the men who accumu- late great fortunes. It is natural and logical that under such a sovereignty inventions should not only typify the progress of the race, but that they should also have a clearly marked influ- ence upon the morals of peoples, a mixed influence, to be sure, as men are what we call good or evil, but on the whole with the good vastly predominant. The philosopher of the pessimistic school usually finds in the economic influence of inventions a great displacement of labor or back- work, and he calls the attention of the thinkers of the present day to the supposed glories of the past. He 94 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. calls up for consideration what he designates the peaceful and happy days of labor under the domestic system ; he sees in the growing importance of inventions what he is pleased to call the destruction of the individuality of men and their retrogres- sion to mere puppets, without the intelligence of the machinery he deplores ; he sees in the division of labor what is to him a sure corollary of invention, the degradation of labor, the dwarf- ing and narrowing of the mind, and the complete subjugation of all manly qualities ; he fails to comprehend work as any- thing more than mere manual labor, the expenditure of muscle, and never realizes that work means employment — occupation — the means by which all sane people secure happiness for them- selves and for those whom they love, and that whatever is done in the name of service to mankind is work, and that the work which calls out the highest faculties of the worker, whether of endeavor or aspiration, is for him the highest employment. He also fails to comprehend, or, at least, he overlooks the fact, that under the domestic system of labor displaced by invention the most demoralizing conditions prevailed. He finds some- thing exceedingly poetic in the idea of the weaver of old Kng- land, before the spinning machinery was invented, working at his loom in his cottage, with his family about him, some card- ing, others spinning the wool or the cotton for the weaver, and so falls into the idyllic sentiment that the domestic system surpassed the present. This idyllic sentiment has done much to create false impressions as to the results or influence of inventions. Goldsmith's Auburn and Crabbe's Village do not reflect the truest picture of their country's home life under the domestic system of labor, for the domestic laborer's home, instead of being the poetic one, was very far from the character poetry has given it. Huddled together in his hut, not a cot- tage, the weaver's family lived and worked, without comfort, convenience, good air, good food, and without much intelli- gence. Drunkenness and theft made each home the scene of crime and want and disorder. Superstition ruled, and envy swayed the workers. If the members of a family, endowed with more virtue and intelligence than the common herd, tried to so conduct themselves as to secure at least self-respect, they were either abused or ostracized by their neighbors. The PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 95 ignorance under the old system added to the squalor of the homes under it, and what all these elements failed to produce in making the hut an actual den was faithfully performed, in too many instances, by the swine of the family. The reports of the Poor I^aws Commissioners of England are truer expo- nents of conditions than poetry, and show more faithfully the demoralizing agency of pauperism and of all the other evils which were so prolific under the hand-system of work. The influence of invention at this particular time in the history of mankind is usually overlooked by the philosopher with a pessimistic turn of mind, and he also overlooks the fact that if there is any one thing in individuals that this age insists upon more than any preceding age, it is work — employ- ment of some kind. Once it was enough to be good ; now one must prove himself valuable or he becomes, if not an actual, a social and a moral tramp. St. Paul said: "To him that worketh, reward is reckoned not of grace, but of debt." Yet when a man is employed to the extent of the support of him- self and his own, the reward must be reckoned of grace ; and he is capable of a better and purer religion, for a poverty-stricken people cannot well be a religious people. Ethics and pure religion most assuredly have much to do with everything that affects the conduct of life ; they constitute the art of living well, not merely of dying well, and they are the science of being and of doing. The aim of the modem Christ would be to raise the whole platform of society, says an ethical writer * of our day. The modern Christ would not try to make the poor contented with a lot in which they cannot be much better than savages or brutes, and he would not content himself with denouncing sin as merely spiritual evil. On the other hand, he would go into the economic causes of sin and destroy the flower by cutting at the very roots, which are poverty and ignorance ; and the lowest, the most harmful and the most expensive ignorance of to-day is ignorance of work — the want of some technical knowledge which enables a man to earn his own living outside of penal institutions. Poverty and pure religion cannot exist among the same people, for such a religion cannot prevail unless the people are engaged in that * Dr. C. C. Everett. 96 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS, class of employment which tends to broaden all their faculties, to awaken not only their sense of duty to their kind, but also to develop their love of beauty, of art, and of all that adorns and ennobles life ; and such employment cannot be maintained without the vitalizing use of inventions as the enduring, working and perfect embodiment of human ingenuity. We are hardly aware of the silent working influence of machinery upon the morals of the world ; it is recognized in this thought I have outlined, that poverty and religion are not now, as once, twin virtues. Christianity only prevails in industrious communities. The people of America, with all their faults and foibles, are more religious in the truest sense than any other people ; and this, I am sure, is because amongst a democratic people, where there is no hereditary wealth, every man works to earn a living, or has worked, or is the son of parents who have worked, the notion of labor therefore being presented to the mind on every side as the necessary, natural and honest condition of human existence. A wealthy man even thinks he owes it to public opinion to devote his leisure to some kind of industrial or commercial pursuit, or to public business. He would think himself in bad repute if he employed his life solely in living {a). This idea of life or of active living is stimulated by all the elements which make up the essential characteristics of our period. Professor Kverett, of the Harvard Divinity School, in an admirable paper entitled * ' The new Ethics, ' ' gives an excel- lent illustration of this truth. "The time has been," he says, ' ' when poverty was felt to be to some extent a mark of sanctity. Your tramp would lack little of being regarded, if not as a saint, at least as a very good representative of one. Poverty was regarded as, in a double sense, a means of grace. The poor themselves were not far from the Kingdom of Heaven ; at the same time they furnished one of the readiest means of salvation to their rich neighbors. It was the poor who carried the souls of the rich to heaven. Thus poverty was to be comforted and solaced. It was to be in some way ameliorated. The poor were at any event to be kept alive. But the idea of doing away with poverty would have been a. Democracy in America, by De Tocqueville. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 97 considered if not sacrilegious, at least hardly desirable. This life of poverty was, indeed, the ideal life." This ideal life of poverty continued to be the leading thought so long as the domestic system of labor prevailed. The age of machinery, of invention, of active mental competition, as set over against purely muscular competition, has changed this whole state of things; for now it is considered that poverty is not the blessing, but the curse of society, and the whole social effort is not so much to ameliorate as to abolish it. Charity, instead of being regarded as the ideal virtue, is, at least under its old form, regarded as a weakness, if not as a vice. To help men, we must now help them to help themselves. We must give work — employment, mental or muscular occupation, and in it find not the cure-all, not the panacea for all of the evils that threaten society, but a great uplifting influence, which in time will become a panacea for some of the evils ; but in order to have this great influence induce the very best conditions for the reception and growth and home of a high state of morals, the prerequisite of religious advancement, the employment or work should be of the very highest grade. If the lowest grade of employment leads to self-respect, and the dignity and repose even, which come of self-support (a proposition which cannot be denied), how ennobling must be that employment which not only stimulates the highest faculties, but also excites admiration for the perfect and love for the beautiful ! A man cannot superintend the movements of a complicated piece of machinery and not feel this silent working influence, and, maybe, become the better for his experience. His mind intui- tively takes on the harmony of action and finds itself running in tune to something which represents embodied thought. Any man witnessing the operations of the wonderful mechanism of the needle machine feels a continued influence from his ob- servations. There is something peculiarly educational in the very presence of the working of mechanical powers. The witnessing of the automatic movements of a machine stimu- lates thought, and, coupled with necessity or desire, makes the beholder not only the inventor of other movements, but also brings him to a higher respect for the inventions of the world and creates in him a mental activity which places him on a 98 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. higher standard than that on which he lived prior to his invention. In the first steam engines a boy was constantly employed to open and shut alternately the communication between the boiler and the cylinder, according as the pistons either ascended or descended. One of these boys, who, like most boys, loved to play with his companions, observed that by tying a string from the handle of a valve which opened this communication to another part of the machine, the valve would open and shut without his assistance and leave him at liberty to divert himself with his fellows. Probably there was a displacement of labor, for one of the greatest improvements that has been made upon the steam engine since it was first invented was the discovery of a boy who wanted to save his own labor. And so it has been that very many of the machines made use of in manufactures have been invented by workmen who, being employed in some simple operation, have turned their thoughts toward finding out easier and readier methods of performing it (b). These things stimulate industry, and, as I have said, indus- try and poverty are not hand-maidens ; and so as poverty is lessened, good morals thrive. If labor — employment of the mind — is an essential to good morals, then the highest kind of employment — that requiring the most application, the best intellectual effort — means the best religion and the best morals. If it were not so, then the continued employment at the crudest muscular labor would be the best for mankind. But the condition I have named, I take courage to assert, is super- induced eventually by the employment of so-called labor-saving machinery and the division of labor, and the reverse of this condition is superinduced by the continued and exhausting application of much muscle and the use of little intellect. In the early history of political economy we find that prog- ress was supposed to be the result of the division of labor ; to-day it is very often the b^le noir of a class of philosophers who do not look beyond the apparent displacement of muscular labor by the use of improved machinery. These philosophers make out a most excellent prima facie case, as I have shown by the facts cited relative to the displacement or contraction of b. Adam Smith : Wealth of Nations. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 99 labor. The error lies in taking the prima facie case for the conclusive evidence, which is found in joining the facts per- taining to the expansion of labor. Now the optimist sees in the division of labor what may well be called the emancipation of labor, and instead of the dwarfing of minds, the undue stim- ulation of industrial enterprises and moral retrogression, he sees the fuller development, in every direction, of minds, of industries, of moral relations ; and he sees in the clouds created by the modern philosophers the warm showers which will sprout the germs of the solution of some of the vexed questions of labor. Communism, which means the destruction of labor, cannot co-exist with machinery. It must be true that without machinery the world would retrograde to superstition and con- sequent irreligion, and that without machinery the ingenuity of man must assume its old place among the unused faculties of the mind. These truths, or what to my mind are truths, are easily and conclusively illustrated by many every-day observations. In some of the Spanish localities of New Mexico the plow of to- day is the bent stick of the Egyptians ; but as the railroad cuts through the land and through the ignorance of New Mexico, it straightens out the plows as it straightens out the streets of that country — by the sheer influence of parallel lines. When a railroad is run through a straggling town, with houses thrown together as a child leaves its toys upon the floor, the first thing is to set it to streets running parallel with and at right angles to the railroad. The whistle of the locomotive has shrieked out a vast amount of civilization during the past fifty or sixty years, for with its shriek and as its cinders fell to the ground, the spelling-book and the New Testament have been lodged as fixtures in the new country. All such illustrations are common-place, indeed, but they are necessary in a discussion of the influence of inventions upon labor. The division of labor has grown finer and finer as machinery has grown more and more essential to the production of goods. The consequence is that trades are hardly essential now, and the mechanic of a generation ago feels grieved because the artisan of to-day is not obliged to spend from three to seven lOO PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. years in learning a trade, and thereby be robbed to a great extent of the results of his labor. The apprentice boy, if bright, could learn his trade in less than the time required, but he could not become a journeyman until he had been pro- nounced such by the time spent at learning a trade ; and after he had become skillful his wages were exploited to the extent of his skill, and he was obliged to contribute more in the way of actual earnings than he received. But this was not the worst. Finding that he was robbed by the system, he finally undertook to earn no more than he was paid, and so acquired habits of unthrift which would follow him through life. The apprentice boy has disappeared from the industrial world, but the old-school workman, instead of glorying in the fact that he has disappeared and that the time has come, or is coming, when the years spent in learning a trade are considered as partially lost time, feels the absence of the apprentice as a menace. But the intelligent workman, I am happy to know, has changed his views in this respect, and finds that through manual train- ing and the results of the trade school, a boy can utilize his whole time, and as soon as accomplished or equipped in his trade, can command the wages legitimately his due ; and the boy who has had the experience of good training schools has the advantage over the old apprentice, for he discovers that instead of one trade at which he can secure a living, he may seek remunerative employment through his handy skill in other trades when the chosen one does not furnish sufficient employment. This enables the world to go on in the diversity of employment or development, or the versatility of talent, which is the secret of that future distribution of labor so much to be desired before the full results of the readjustment of industrial forces from the domestic system to the age of machinerj'^ shall be complete. With this diversity of employment will come still shorter hours of labor and, consequently, increased opportunities for mental and moral improvement. This age has already brought greatly increased wages, a greatly reduced working time and a largely reduced cost of the principal articles of consumption. I cannot analyze in the space and time allotted me the deductions of statistics which emphatically prove these things ; PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. lOi nor is it essential. Such statistics exist. Wages have been increased, and one illustration must suffice, and I will draw this illustration from the cotton industry of this country, the first to feel the effects of invention. The ratio of wages for 1828 and 1880, in producing common cotton cloth, was as 2.62 in the former year to 4.84 in the latter year, while in the cost of production the ratio was reversed, it being as 6.77 in 1828 to 3.31 in 1880. The hours of labor have been reduced from twelve or thirteen per day in the same industry to nine and one-half in England and ten generally in this country. An examination of statistical tables will convince anyone that for most divisions of labor in cotton factories wages have very nearly doubled during the past sixty years, not only in Great Britain but in this country, and an examination of the wage statistics of very many industries shows the same results with, however, a varying percentage of increase. As to production, the facts given in the earlier part of this address must suffice. There can be no question in regard to this feature of the influence of inventions. With inventions there came the discussions and agitations of England for the amelioration of the condition of operatives, resulting in less hours of labor, machinery guarded against accident and all the beneficent laws for the elevation of the British factory workers to the plane of men and women. This work is still incomplete, but is progressive. The inevitable result of machinery to enable man to secure a livelihood in less time than of old is grand in itself if none other had been secured. But this is not so much the effect of legislation as of changed conditions brought about bj^ the use of inventions. It must be considered that as the time required to earn a living grows shorter civilization grows up, and that that system which demands of a man all his time, or a great portion of it, for the earning of mere subsistence is demoralizing in all respects. It cannot be successfully denied that the direct influence of inventions has been felt in these three ways I have just outlined — the increase in wages (and I mean by this the increase in actual earnings in a given time), the reduction of working time, and the decreased cost of articles of consump- tion, whereby wages are made more efficient. I02 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. Another exceedingly important influence which has grown from the division of labor by the use of machinery in produc- tion relates to the length of life and to the means of comfort- able living. We are told that in the good old times so many sick or feeble people were not seen as now. This is true, because they died. The feeble could not live under the old conditions ; only the most robust and sturdiest physical natures could survive, and none others were seen. To-day the presence of feeble men and women of advancing years does not show degeneracy of the race ; they must be looked upon as a living glory of our civilization, which enables them to exist. It shows elevation of the race, and that now, under the conditions of life, the result of all the various inventions which look to the comfortable existence of people, the com- paratively feeble cannot only live, but can, if they choose, support themselves in a great measure, for feeble and dainty hands can perform work to which, in the good old time, only a giant would have been assigned. I need not specify the lines on which invention has perfected or established these conditions. They are too familiar to every one. In warm and comfortable clothing, in water-proof material, in heating and lighting, in a thousand ways, invention has carried with it comfortable conditions, increased health and an increased longevity ; for now the average life is at least ten per cent, higher than in the olden time. The beauty, the art, the enthusiasm, which belong to good morals can only grow to the wage receiver with a high order of employment and the division of labor, and with a high order of employment not only for profit, but for recreation — for art even. The age of inventions, or periods given to the development and practical adaptation of natural laws, raises all people coming under their influence to a higher intellectual level, to a more comprehensive understanding of the world's great march of progress. L,ow grades of labor are constantly giving place to educated labor. The man who used to do the most detestable form of work is being displaced by the professional who superintends some device brought into use by invention, and the constant promotion of luxuries to the grade of necessaries of life also PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 103 marks the forward steps of civilization and positively demands the fullest play of the ingenuity of man to place them within reach. By invention, what were luxuries to one class are now the necessaries of life to a class that might be considered below the first. The manufacturer often finds that he is obliged to sell for old metal the grand mechanical construction of a decade ago. Old successes are constantly giving place to the new, which make old mechanical perfections bungling in our present sight, and they must be destroyed to give place to the new. An examination carried on in any direction demonstrates the proposition that all progress, every step in advance, is over apparent destruction, and, like every pioneer who has ever startled the world with his discoveries and by them benefitted his kind, is over the graves of men individu- ally or over their aspirations. Ignorance in men, as well as the men of ignorance, is in the way of progress, and must give way to intelligence. As space and time have been overcome, inordinate differences in values have been overcome ; the markets of the world have been equalized, sectional resources have become cosmopolitan in their character, as peoples of all the world have become acquainted. All these influences have disarranged trade, up- set old principles ; and we of the present time are living in a transition period of readjustment, or rather adjustment, that is like the early days of convalescence from fever — painful from lingering weakness, but joyous in the full knowledge of prog- ress. In this adjustment individuals go down. The divine plan to perfect all the creations which make up the universe takes no notice of individuals, and is apparently profligate of human life ; but goes on with the work, crushing if need be, killing if it must, but always polishing, always purifying, always perfecting. The wheel of progress rolls on, destroying the old as it rolls, crushing out ignorance ; but it rolls all the time, and man is often obliged to give way before it, as the old machine is thrown aside for the new. Educated labor, as the pioneer, must step over human graves, over buried ambitions and lost opportunities ; the law is infallible, even if in our short-sight- edness we call it cruel. I04 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. All the benefits of the division of labor and the application of invention, like the reduction of working time, corresponding increase of wages, the decreased cost of production, etc., are benefits particularly marked during the past century, and they have given to man a wonderfully enhanced power to command what rulers a century ago, with all the appointments of war and the adjuncts of unlimited exchequers, could not command. The individual profits, as well as his kind, which claims the reward of improved conditions. We can hardly realize that there should have ever been a time when a linen sheet was worth thirty -two days of common labor, and when a gridiron cost from four to twelve days labor. Nor can we fully com- prehend the moral influence which has come in other directions. It is hard to understand that even within the memory of men now living the first change in the way of speed in transporta- tion or in the interchange of intelligence came to the world. Prior to the generation which precedes the present the fastest time that could be made was through the speed of man, or of horses, or of sailing vessels, except, perhaps, in the occasional transmission of intelligence by signals. So, as oddly as the purely economic changes seem to us, they strike with much less marvel then the reflection that Cyrus, when he had turned the river Euphrates from its channel and captured the city of Babylon, could inform his associates at home of his feat as quicklj^ as could Washington the American Congress of the defeat of Cornwallis ; or that Alexander after the battle at Arbela could send the news of his great victory for civilization to his capital in the same time it took Jackson to inform the Government of the United States that the British army had surrendered to him at New Orleans, and so won the already granted peace for this country. It has been reserved for the age of machinery, and for ma- chinery itself, to cure the difficulties in the way of national and grand movements which beset the governments existing back of this epoch, and now the great engineering enterprises of the day are being developed, and are thus solving the prob- lem of how to relieve congested cities and of how to give to the wage-worker, who must save time as between his lodging and his work, the benefits of healthful surroundings in the country. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 105 Rapid transit, through the application of electricity to street cars in the city of Boston within a few months, has added one- half hour of the day to the workingman's available time. This is the influence of invention, and a moral influence, for it betters his condition, helps him to a higher plane, facilitates social intercourse, and in every way gives him better oppor- tunities for enjoying all that belongs to his environment. These grand movements are the movements of great com- munities, but by inventive skill, by the application of ingenuity, the gain to the individual has been exceedingly marked, and perhaps in a more specific way than to communities at large. To create is the province of the Omnipotent. The second great attribute, through the agencies established by Omnipo- tence, is to develop, and this allies man to his Creator. Can such a thought be illustrated by figures ? Most surely ; for educated labor, with applied natural forces, has developed a pound of cotton costing 13 cents into muslin which sells for 80 cents ; into chintz which sells for $4. It has developed 75 cents' worth of common iron ore into $5 worth of bar iron, $10 worth of horse shoes, $180 worth of table knives, $6,800 worth of fine needles, $29,480 worth of shirt buttons, $200,000 worth of watch springs, $400,000 worth of hair springs, and $2,500,000 worth of pallet arbors {c). Intelligent, skilled labor, with its product of mind has accomplished this, and the individual, as well as the state, has profited by the development. Under such development a common man can ride to his work or upon his travels in palaces that would have been the envy of kings, and he can send the word of his arrival with a flash. He has learned that the wants of a free people increase as fast as there are means of supply, and that ''contentment with one's lot is "the virtue of the subjects of a despotically governed and ** non-progressive state, and self-denial the virtue of a poor ' ' and unprosperous people ; ' ' and he has learned, too, that the ranks of the skilled and intelligent workmen are not thinned by the workhouse and the penitentiary, but that the ranks of ignorant labor are prolific in stocking such institutions. He will learn in the future that diversity of employment, and the consequent practical versatility of his talents, will enable him {f) Technical Education. By Geo. Woods, LIv.D., Pittsburg, 1874. io6 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. to secure the essentials of life in a few hours, and that he can swell his income by artistic employment upon articles which may now be denied him. The inevitable result, it seems to me to be, is, that while we shall alwaj^s have the unfortunate with us, made so from a variety of causes, all this will be palliated to a large degree by the capacity to use inventions to not only employ one's time, when enfeebled, upon profitable work, but also to bring with such employment corresponding joy. The common man has learned furthermore, or he will learn, that the sacredness of private property lies in the fundamental principle or interest of self-preservation — in fact, that private property finds its institution in this instinct ; for property is the means by which not only is self preserved, but by which species may be perpetuated. His experience with inventions teaches him this, and that from a rude instrument of toil he has become an intelligent exponent of hidden laws ; that he is not simply an animal, wanting an animal's contentment, but that he is something more, and wants the contentment which belongs to the best environments. To accomplish these things it is desirable to increase his ability to consume, and this is done by improving his physical and moral conditions. So the nearer we get to the point where a man shall have control of mechanical powers, thereby simplifying muscular motions, the quicker will his physical condition be improved — not his mere muscular strength developed, but his sound physical condi- tion — for the higher w411 be the efficiency of his mere muscular labor, and it is certainly true that the higher physical condition begets the better moral condition. Every machine that is invented marks some progress in a useful art ; it accomplishes some useful end not before attained, or it does some old work better and cheaper. It makes more valuable the day's work of an operative. * ' The man who rides the mowing machine all day should get more than the man who swings the scythe, and the weaver in the cotton mill should get more than a weaver at a hand loom, partly because labor is a unit as well as capital, partly because some machinery must be very skillfully, and all of it very carefully, used, and partly because so much more grass is cut and so much more PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 107 cloth is made. The advantage of machinery should not belong exclusively to capital," and civilization must see to it that the advantages of inventions are equitably adjusted. The argument that the use of machinery brings into indus- trial work an ignorant class of workers is often made by men who see in machinery the arch enemy of the mechanic. The argument is entirely baseless. There is no more ignorance in the world on account of inventions, but by their perfections an ignorant class can often do perfectly what an intelligent class used to bungle over, and at the same time the intelligence of the ignorant is raised. The ignorant laborer of to-day is, in all that makes up condition, more than the peer of the skilled workman of a few generations ago ; and the fact that as the country increases in wealth, the numbers employed in miscel- laneous industries and what Mr. Wells calls incorporeal func- tions ; that is, artists, teachers, and others who minister to taste and comfort in a way that can hardly be called material, increase disproportionately to those engaged in the production of the great staples, answers the idea that inventions foster ignorance in production. Inventions have, indeed, superin- duced the congregation of ignorant laborers, and thereby given the appearance of creating ignorant labor. Phillips Bevan, of England, writing in 1877 of the industrial classes of his country, remarked that ''few people are aware of the immense development of the last twenty-five years found in the condition for the better of English operatives especially, whether in a monetary, social, educational, sanitary or legisla- tive light. It is very doubtful whether the bulk of workingmen themselves take heed of the strides they have made, or of how little they have to lament that the * good old times ' are past and gone ; ' ' and Mr. Bevan might have added that in most of the directions named by him invention had been the cause, for it was not until the factory system was thoroughly fixed as the industrial system of England that the Parliament of England began to make changes looking to the education of the masses. What a commentary is this hardly won development upon the fantastical and pernicious sentiment with which the pessi- mistic philosopher calls up ages and conditions from which it is the greatest of blessings that we have been wholly delivered. io8 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. In art directions the development has been as great as in the purely mechanical field, for, by the aid of mechanical powers, the work of our artisans is rapidly making the taste of the people artistic, for trained and inventive skill, as exhibited in machiner}^ puts art into wood and metal, showing ' * the high- est discipline of the mental faculties, the direction and the subordination of all its manifestations for some clearly-defined purpose." Kvery step marks some progress in industrial art. The stove manufacturer, in order to meet the demands of the common people, in the production of his goods must secure the services of an artist, that the design of the kitchen or the parlor stove shall not offend the artistic eye. The ethical influence of the more modern system has been marked indeed, and especially in our own country, for the American workman demands, as a necessity, the culture to be gained by reading, music, and the lyceum, and from his moral and educational standpoint he participates in the government, and has raised from his ranks some of our very best and most revered Chief Magistrates, State and National ; and he will demand in the future general admission to the ranks of the aristocracy of mind, where his name even now occupies so bright a place. The development resulting from the influence of inventions has reached the economic side of industry, and this economic side, as it is better understood by our workingmen, will bring about truer and happier industrial relations. At present the manufacturing world is often disturbed by a succession of strikes and labor controversies. Do not, I beg you, make the mistake of assigning the cause of such strikes and contro- versies to retrogression, or to supposed increasing antagonism, or to any anarchistic desire to destroy or in any way abridge the grand results of the past developments. On the other hand, think for a moment that the man who works for wages has been taught to realize the conditions of a higher civiliza- tion ; has been taught to appreciate, understand and desire still greater mental, moral and social progress. He has been taught, and through invention enabled, to enjoy art and music and literature, to understand that he is one of the sovereigns of the land, that he is a political and a moral factor ; PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 109 and with all this he finds he still keeps the position of a wage receiver in enterprises in which his skill, as well as his hand, is a necessity. The honest and the intelligent workman, so far as he is engaged in the controversies of the day, is the conservator of all the required forces of industry, but he seeks in this conversation to become more closely allied to the factor of capital, which without him is dead material. He begins to see that while he has outgrown, through the aid of inventions, the purely phj^siological relation which labor bears to produc- tion ; that is, the position of the animal, he now furnishes the developed mental qualities of the man, and, seeing this, he sees that he vitalizes the material side of production, which is capital. He therefore asks that he may become more closely associated with capital in the great productive enterprises of the day, and also secure a more just share of the benefits arising from the use of machinery than now falls to him. How a new system shall be established, with perfect justice to capital and to labor, recognizing the moral forces at work contemporaneously with the industrial, is the problem of the age. I feel so sure that this problem will be solved on the broadest business basis through the practical application of the moral principles of cooperative work that I have little anxiety for the industrial future of the country. I know no one element can come in as a panacea for ills, but I feel morally certain that a combination of elements can be so applied, and will be so applied, as to relieve industry of the present apparent warfare. Progress has been so rapid that we fail to see the intelligence underlying the industrial contro- versies. Ignorance, selfishness and, maybe, dishonesty are all interwoven with intelligence, and sometimes so closely that it seems as if the unhappy conditions subordinated those of intelligence, and this leads many to think that mechanical development has reached such a point that it is safe, and they have the courage to declare that we have arrived at the end of the regime of machinery ; so, indeed, we have, but it is the first end, and not the end they would have it, which to them means retrogression. The development must go on. The future of the achievements of inventive genius in the mechani- cal, chemical, and other sciences is bright indeed, and holds no PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS, out to humanity its best boons and most munificent endow- ments, not only in moral and industrial directions, but in a better, and a greater, and a more equal diffusion of wealth, and all that wealth means. Machinery is young ; in fact, is only the forerunner of great undiscovered wonders which will make the inventions of the past seem like toys thrown away as childhood steps into manliness through growth, through strength, and through perfection, which in itself is weakness as compared with the perfection of the invisible power, the manifestation of whose presence constantly reminds us that the future holds the golden age, and not the past. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. Ill A CENTURY OF PATENT I^AW. By Hon. Samuei, BIvATchford, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. I have been requested by the committee which has charge of the ceremonies of this celebration of the beginning of the second century of the American patent system, to address you on the subject of '*A Century of Patent Law." As we derive the principles of our statutory and administra- tive patent law from England, it seems proper to regard the subject as covering English patent law, to a certain extent. Prior to the English statute of 21 James I, chapter 3, passed in 1623, entitled "An act concerning monopolies and dispensa- tions with penal laws and the forfeiture thereof, ' ' commonly called * * the Statute of Monopolies, ' ' it was customary for the King, by virtue of his prerogative, to grant exclusive privi- leges or monopolies to individuals according to his pleasure, and not because of any invention or discovery which the indi- vidual had made, or had been the first to introduce into the kingdom. To such an extent was this carried, that Edward III granted to two persons a patent of privilege for the sole making of "the Philosopher's Stone;" and, by subsequent sovereigns, patents were granted for the sole manufacture of playing cards, and for an exclusive right to sell various necessaries of life. By the Statute of Monopolies, all monopolies were abolished as contrary to law, excepting grants to the first inventor of any manner of new manufacture, of the sole privilege of work- ing or making the same. The statute did not bring such grants into existence, but excepted them out of the grants of monopolies, and left them to depend upon the common law for their legality. James I, in 16 10, had made a public declaration that all grants of monopolies and of the benefit of any penal laws, or 112 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. of power to dispense with the law, or to compound for the for- feiture, v/ere contrary to the laws of the kingdom, and had commanded that no suitor should presume to move the King for matters of that nature. Section i of the Statute of Monopolies declared that all monopolies theretofore granted, or thereafter to be granted, for the sole making or using of anything should be void. Sec- tion 6 of the act provided that the inhibition should not extend to a patent of privilege ' ' of the sole working or making of any manner of new manufactures within this realm to the true and first inventor" thereof, which others at the time of making the grant * ' shall not use, so as also they be not contrary to the law, nor mischievous to the State, by raising prices of commodities at home, or hurt of trade, or generally incon- venient, ' ' their duration to be for twenty-one years from their date, in respect to patents theretofore granted for more than twenty-one years, and to be for fourteen years or under in respect to patents thereafter to be granted. For many years after the passing of this statute, the arts and manufactures continued in a low state in England, and few of the inventions patented were of any value. Until the reign of George III, the law reports are almost entirely silent re- specting patent privileges ; and almost the only case reported during that period is that of Edgeberry and Stephens (2 Salkeld, 447), where it was held, construing the statute of 21 James I, that '*if the invention be new in England a patent may be granted, though the thing was practiced beyond the sea before ; for the statute speaks of new manufactures within this realm, so that if they be new here it is within the statute ; for the act intended to encourage new devices useful to the kingdom, and whether learned by travel or by study it is the same thing. ' ' Since that decision it has been the uniform practice in Eng- land to grant letters patent to a person who introduces an invention not used before within the kingdom ; and Parlia- ment has repeatedly recognized the principle, by granting exclusive privileges to such introducers. The first case of importance respecting a patent was an action of scire facias brought against Sir Richard Arkwright {The King v. Arkwright^ i Webster ^ 60) to repeal his patent PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 113 for an invention of a machine for preparing material for spin- ning, which action was tried in June, 1785. About ten years afterwards the important cases of Boulion and Watt v. Bull (2 Hen. Black, 463) and Hornblower v. Boulton and Watt (8 Term R.y 95) in regard to the great in- vention of James Watt in steam engines were tried, in which the patent law was much discussed and many of its difficulties and obscurities were cleared away. In the second of the above cases the patent granted to Watt in 1769 was held by the Court of King's Bench to be valid. Since that time the issue of patents for inventions has increased steadily, the inter- ests involved in them have assumed immeasurable importance and magnitude, and the principles of law applicable to them have been developed and applied by judicial decisions of the highest value. A few words may be added in regard to the invention of James Watt, which substantially created the steam engine and gave to it that usefulness and efficiency, the further develop- ment of which has revolutionized the trade and manufactures of the world. Watt was a Scotchman. He was born in 1736 and died in 18 19. He learned the business of a philosophical instiniment maker in London, and at the age of twenty-one became mathematical instrument maker to the University of Glasgow. At that time the most advanced type of steam engine was that of Newcomen, which was applied only to the pumping of water for draining mines ; but it was so clumsy and wasteful of fuel that it was very little used. In 1764, Watt's attention was particularly directed to it. In New- comen 's engine the cylinder had a vertical position under one end of the beam, and was open at the top. Steam at a pressure scarcely greater than that of the atmosphere was admitted at the lower end of the cylinder, under the piston, and the piston was pulled up by a counterpoise at the other end of the beam. Communication with the boiler was then shut off, and the steam in the cylinder was condensed by injecting a jet of cold water. The pressure of the air on top of the piston then forced it down, and the counterpoise was raised ; and the injection water and condensed steam were drawn out of the cylinder by a pipe. 114 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. The observation of Watt was, that the alternate heating and cooling of the cylinder caused the engine to work slowly and with an excessive consumption of steam. The metal having been chilled by contact with the condensed steam and the cold injection water, it required the use of a large quantity of steam to heat the chilled surfaces before the cylinder could be filled and the piston rise again. As in almost all efficient mechanical operations, there had to be a reconciliation of antagonisms ; and, as in almost all important inventions, the genius was invested in first recognizing the existence of the antagonisms, and in then devising a method of reconciliation. Watt saw that the temperature of the condensed steam ought to be as low as possible, or the vacuum would not be good, and, to use his own words, '' that the cylinder should be always as hot as the steam which entered it." In 1765 the idea occurred to him that if the steam were to be condensed in a vessel distinct from the cylinder, it would be practicable to obtain a low tempera- ture of condensation, and still keep up the temperature of the cylinder. For that purpose, he provided a separate vessel into which the steam from the cylinder entered, which vessel was to be kept cold either by injecting cold water into it or by letting cold water fall over the outside of it, and so a vacuum could be maintained in a separate vessel. Thus the steam which passed over from the cylinder would be con- densed, the pressure in the cylinder would be as low as the pressure in the condenser, and the temperature of the metal of the cylinder and piston would be kept up, since no cold injec- tion water would come in contact with them. On putting the apparatus to a test, it operated as was expected ; and, to main- tain the vacuum in the separate condenser, Watt added an air-pump to remove the condensed steam and injection water, with any air that might gather in the condenser. He added several subsidiary inventions, such as more tightly packing the piston ; closing the upper end of the cylinder ; enclosing the piston with a steam-tight stufiing-box on top of the cylinder ; causing steam instead of air to press on top of the piston ; casing the cylinder in a non-conducting material ; and introducing a steam-jacket between the cylinder and an outer shell. All these features were specified in his first patent, which was obtained in January, 1769. * PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 1 15 By an act of Parliament, passed in 1775, that patent was continued for twenty-five years, and Watt, in connection with Matthew Boulton, who owned some engineering works at Bir- mingham, entered upon the manufacture of steam engines. At first the only application of the engine was to pumping water from mines, but Watt soon made other inventions to fit the engine for other uses, and took out further patents in 1781, 1782 and 1784. These inventions covered the method of con- verting the reciprocating motion of the piston into a rotary motion, so that ordinary machinery could be driven ; making the engine double-acting by putting both ends of the cylinder in communication, alternately, with the boiler and the con- denser instead of only one end ; introducing the system of the expansive working of the steam, instead of admitting it through the whole stroke of the piston ; and the well-known parallel motion. Watt's principal patent was sustained by the courts of Eng- land, and he enjoyed the fruits of it until it expired in the year 1800. To his great invention we owe the development of the steam engine as used now for traffic and transportation by water and land ; for, without it, there could be no practical or efficient steam engine. The statutes which now regelate the granting of patents in England are those of August 25, 1883, (46 & 47 Vict. ch. 57), and December 24, 1888, (51 & 52 Vict. ch. 50). It is not necessary that a person should be a British subject to apply for a patent. The application must state that the applicant is in possession of an invention, of which he claims to be the true and first inventor. The word "inventor" in these statutes covers an introducer. It is declared by the act of 1883 that the word "invention" means "any manner of new manu- facture, the subject of letters-patent and grant of privilege," within section 6 of the act of 21 James I, chapter 3, and includes an alleged invention. There must be either a pro- visional or a complete specification. If there is only a pro- visional specification, there must be a complete specification within nine months after the application. There is a limited examination, which extends only to an inquiry whether the nature of the invention has been fairly described, and whether ii6 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. the application, specification, and drawings, if any, are in due form, and whether the title sufiiciently indicates the subject- matter of the invention. The acceptance of the complete specification is to be advertised, and any person may, within two months thereafter, give notice at the Patent Ofiice that he opposes the grant of the patent on the ground that the appli- cant obtained the invention from him or from a person of whom he is the legal representative, or on the ground that the invention was patented in Kngland on an application of prior date, or on the ground that the complete specification describes or claims an invention other than that described in the pro- visional specification, and that such other invention forms the subject of an application made by the opponent in the interval between the making of the two specifications. The patent is to be granted for fourteen years, but is to cease if certain fees are not paid within specified times. Disclaimers and amend- ments of specifications are provided for, but no amendment is allowable which would make the specification, as amended, claim an invention substantially larger than, or substantially different from, the invention claimed by the specification as it stood before amendment. At least six months before the time limited for the expiration of the patent, the patentee may apply for an extension, which may be granted on a favorable report from the judicial committee of the Privy Council, for a further term not exceeding seven, or, in exceptional cases, fourteen years ; and a patent may be vacated by a court on certain specified grounds. Let us pass now to the patent statutes of the United States. The Constitution, in article i, section 8, declares that the Congress shall have power to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing, for limited times, to inventors the exclusive right to their discoveries. The first act of Congress on the subject was that of April ID, 1790, entitled "An act to promote the progress of useful arts." This provided for the granting of a patent to the inventor or discoverer of any ' ' useful art, manufacture, engine, machine, or device, or any improvement therein, not before known or used." A written specification, with drawings, and, if admissible, a model, was required. No examination as to PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 117 the novelty of the invention was provided for. On an appli- cation made to a judge of a District Court within one year after the grant of a patent, if it was obtained surreptitiously or upon false suggestion, or if it should appear that the patentee was not the first or true inventor or discoverer, the judge might repeal the patent. Further acts in regard to patents were passed in 1793, 1794, 1800, and 1832. On July 4, 1836, an act was passed reorganizing the patent system and repealing all prior acts. By that act patents were to be granted for fourteen years, with the privilege of an extension by the Commissioner, in a proper case, for seven years more. It was required that the applicant should have discovered or invented a new and useful art, machine, manufac- ture, or composition of matter, or a new and useful improve- ment thereon, not known or used by others before his discovery or invention, and not, at the time of the application, in public use or on sale, with his consent or allowance, as the inventor or discoverer. He was required to deliver a written descrip- tion of his invention or discovery, and of the manner and process of making, constructing, using, and compounding the same, in such full, clear, and exact terms, avoiding unnecessary prolixity, as to enable any person skilled in the art or science to which it appertained, or with which it was most nearly connected, to make, construct, compound, and use the same ; and, in case of a machine, to explain fully the principle and the several modes in which he had contemplated the applica- tion of that principle or character by which it might be distinguished from other inventions ; and particularly to specify and point out the part, improvement, or combination, which he claimed as his own invention or discovery. Drawings were provided for, and specimens of ingredients of a composi- tion of matter, and a model of machinery, where admissible. A system of examination was instituted, and the patent was to issue if it should not appear to the Commissioner that the alleged invention or discovery had been invented or discovered by any other person in this country, prior to the alleged inven- tion or discovery by the applicant, or that it had been patented, or described in any printed publication, in this or any foreign Ii8 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. country, or had been in public use or on sale with the appli- cant's consent or allowance, prior to the application, and if the Commissioner should deem it to be sufficiently useful and important. On the refusal of a patent, an appeal was provided for to a board of three examiners. An interference with another pending application, or with an unexpired patent, could be declared with an appeal to a like board. In case a patent should be inoperative or invalid by reason of a defective or insufficient description or specification, or by reason of the patentee claiming in the specification as his own invention more than he should have a right to claim as new, if the error arose by inadvertency, accident or mistake, and without any fraudulent or deceptive intention, the Commissioner, on the surrender of the patent, could cause a new patent to be issued to the inventor for the same invention, for the residue of the period then unexpired for which the original patent was granted, in accordance with the patentee's corrected descrip- tion and specification. This was called **a reissue." Pro- vision was made for special defenses in actions for damages for infringement, and for giving to the plain tifi" thirty days' notice before the trial, of the defense of prior use ; also for a remedy by bill in equity in the case of two interfering patents, or of the refusal to grant a patent on the ground of its interference with a previous unexpired patent. Equity jurisdiction by the Circuit Courts of the United States was created, with the power of granting injunctions against infringement. An ex- tension of a patent for seven years was provided for, on its appearing that the patentee, without neglect or fault on his part, had failed to obtain reasonable remuneration. The foregoing features of the patent system were sub- stantially reenacted in the act of July 8, 1870, the provisions of which are embodied in the Revised Statutes ; but by statute a patent is now granted for only seventeen years, and no pro- vision is made for an extension. In the administration of the patent laws by the courts of the United States, the proper rights of inventors have been firmly maintained, while the abuses which crept in, in consequence of improper reissues of patents, have been corrected. Patents for important and meritorious inventions have been sustained, PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 119 notably in the case of Morse's telegraph, which was held valid in the case of O'Reilly v. Morse, (15 Howard, 62), the opinion being delivered by Chief Justice Taney. Samuel F. B. Morse was a historical painter, and had gone to Europe in 1829 to perfect himself in his art. In October, 1832, on board the packet-ship "Sully," on her passage from Havre, in France, to New York, he conceived the invention which he afterward patented. Before he landed in the United States he sketched the form of an instrument for an electro- magnetic telegraph, and arranged and noted down a system of signs, composed of a combination of dots and spaces to repre- sent figures, which were to indicate words to be found in a telegraphic dictionary, where each word was to have its number. He also conceived and drew out the mode of apply- ing the electric or galvanic current so as to mark signs by the chemical effects. He persevered in his invention, and by the forepart of the year 1836 he had constructed an instrument which marked down intelligibly telegraphic signs, and demon- strated by actual operation its capacity to accomplish his purpose. Further experiments were made, and in the latter part of September, 1837, a caveat was drawn up and in the fol- lowing month was filed in the Patent OfiSce. In February, 1838, a new instrument was exhibited by Professor Morse in the Franklin Institute at Philadelphia, where it operated with success through a circuit of ten miles of wire ; and a committee of the Institute made a report of its success. It was then re- moved to the city of Washington, and publicly exhibited in the hall of the House of Representatives. On the 3d of March, 1843, Congress appropriated $30,000 to test the capacity and usefulness of the telegraph by constructing a line, under the superintendence of Professor Morse, between the cities of Washington and Baltimore, which was done in the year 1844. The United States patent having been granted to him on June 20, 1840, it was reissued in January, 1846, and came before the Supreme Court of the United States at its December term, 1853. It was sustained after a vigorous opposition. The principle on which the patent laws are based is to give an inventor an exclusive right, for a limited time, in considera- tion of his fully disclosing his invention, so that it may be I20 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. made and used by the public after the limited term shall have expired. Under this stimulus there has come into existence the briliant succession of inventions which have contributed so greatly to the progress of science and the arts, and to the material welfare of nations and individuals. In this career our own country has played no small part, and it is quite certain that in the future American inventors will do their full share toward illustrating the beneficent operation of the patent laws, and that when, a hundred years hence, there shall be another centennial celebration like the one through which we are now passing, there will have occurred no diminution of the im- portance and value of American inventions. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. I2l THE EPOCH-MAKING INVENTIONS OF AMERICA. By Hon. Robert S. Tayi^or, of Indiana. The real and enduring wealth of the world is its thoughts. It is the capacity to originate, communicate and preserve thoughts that makes civilization possible. Some great thoughts are like jewels — precious for their beauty ; some are like seeds — ^precious for their fruits ; some are like mines — jdelding treasures of wealth to the world long after their discovery. It is with the thoughts of the inventor that we have to do to-day, and with those productions of his thought which are of such scope and character that they can fitly be called epoch- making inventions. That phrase was itself a happy invention on the part of the committee — vividly descriptive of those creations of the inventor's brain which enter so widely and intimately into the lives of men and the course of events that they divide history into epochs. It would matter little to the world that one man went bare- foot all the year. But if all the world had been going barefoot and one tender-footed man should invent shoes, and all other men, seeing how comfortable they were, should take to wearing them, the race would enter upon a new epoch in its history, for which it would owe thanks to the inventive thought of one man. The sum of human happiness is made up of little things af- fecting the life of individuals. All existence is an adjustment of forces. It requires only a slight readjustment to produce a new existence. It is estimated that a fall of eighteen degrees in the average temperature upon the earth's surface would bring on a glacial period. The addition of one daily comfort, the taking away of one item of daily drudgery, is enough to give a new complexion to life. To do that for all men in one particular is to make an epoch. 122 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. It wants now just a year of a century since there flashed across the mind of a young Georgia school teacher the thought that a machine could be made which would separate the cotton fibre from the seed by the action of saw teeth. I do not know that the circumstances which attended the birth of this idea in the brain of Eli Whitney have been preserved. It would be of dramatic interest to know, if we could, in what wakeful hour of night, or receptive mood of day, there came into the mind of one man the revelation of a thought so simple in itself, and yet so big with blessing to the world. If he could have foreseen at that moment in one prophetic glance all the consequences that would flow from it, he would have fallen down and turned his face away from the brightness of his own invention, as Moses turned his face from the glory of the I,ord in the holy mountain. It was the beginning of the epoch of cheap cotton cloth. It was a distinct step in the evolution of the race. It marked an advance in industry, trade, comfort, health and morals. It touched the whole world like a new element in sunshine. Forty-six years later Klias Howe patented his sewing machine. It would be foreign to my topic to discuss the claims of rival inventors, and I take Mr. Howe as the repre- sentative of the group of inventors, who, in quick succession, brought out the various inventions which have emancipated human fingers from the most monotonous, wearisome and slavish of all forms of labor. It is too soon yet to estimate the full efiect of the sewing machine upon human life and destiny. It ushered in an epoch of cheap clothes, which means better clothes for the masses — more warmth, more cleanliness, more comfort. It is entirely true to say that the cotton gin and the sewing machine together have given the human body an improved skin. But the indirect conse- quences of the invention of the sewing machine reach furthest beyond our ken — time was when half the human race were occupied chiefly in making clothes. When the machines took that avocation away from them they turned to other employ- ments. The invasion of all occupations by women, and the sweeping changes which have taken place in their relations to the law, and society, and business, can be ascribed in large PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 123 measure to the sewing machine. Where the end will be needs a bold man to say. Robert Fulton once said that the three men who had con- ferred the greatest good upon their fellows were Arkwright, Watt and Whitney. Speaking for the time when he lived I should be disposed to name him as the fourth. For what one other cause has so metamorphosed life in all of its interests — its business, its pleasures, its peace, its war, its society, its traffic — as the application of steam to transportation and travel ? It has made the w^orld so small that a man can go round it at his leisure four times a year. At the same time, measured by what we can see of it, and find on it and get from it, steam travel has made it ten times as large as it was to our fore- fathers. Whither the great journey onward and upward which the race has begun on its steamboats and steamers will take us, is beyond conjecture. The epoch of travel has only begun. It means not merely the running to and fro of men, and inter- change of commodities, but the opening of a training school wherein all mankind are pupils. To-day the armies of men who are making and managing the steam machinery used for traUvSportation are the brainiest, widest-awake great body of men in the world. To that large extent to which the business makes the man, this business makes the best men. Of course, the invention of Fulton was the barest beginning of this great epoch. But it is quite true that as the Clermont awkwardly steamed her way up the Hudson on her trial trip the border of a new age came into view, as the border of the new continent greeted the vision of Columbus three hundred years before. The discovery was made. To enumerate the inventors who have developed and perfected it would be as impossible as to enumerate the navigators and pioneers who completed the conquest of the New World. Nor am I unmindful of the fact that the railroad and its locomotive are not conceded to the American inventor. But these are only an evolution from their aquatic congener. All life begins in the sea. And very like the evolution of birds from fishes was the evolution of the Chicago L,imited from a paddle-wheel steamboat. 124 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. To recognize adequately in this connection the individual merits of inventors in this great field is impossible. But every one who has crossed the sea ought to pay tribute to the memory of Ericsson, and those of us who are here from distant homes, remembering how comfortably and safely we came, can afford a word of thanks to Pullman and Westinghouse. It was entirely natural that in the progress of man's con- quest over the forces of nature he should attack last the most mysterious, powerful and uncontrollable of them all — electricity. And it must ever be a source of pride to Ameri- cans that since Franklin drew the first submissive spark from heaven his countrymen have been foremost in this great field of discovery. Electricity had had the faculty of speech in a thundering and unintelligible way long enough before Professor Morse's day. But to him was reserved the task of teaching it to write. With the invention of the telegraph the world entered upon a novel epoch. In the nature of things human progress is for the most part a course of improvement in known processes. But here was a new process. In this respect there was noth- ing preceding to be compared with it except the invention of the steam engine. To the breath of iBre and muscles of iron which that gave the world, this added the nerves of the body politic, which to-day radiate from their ganglionic centers in the great cities to every part of the world. By these organs of sensation society feels the shock of a massacre at New Orleans as instantly as a man feels a burn on his hand, and by the same channels an impulsive government calls home its minister as a man strikes at an insect which has stung him. Next day the same messengers convey to the world the digni- fied utterances of a government so great and strong that it can afford not to get angry. The revolutions in commerce, which the telegraph intro- duced, were of themselves sufficient to mark an epoch in history. But there is a deeper significance in the universality of information and action which it makes possible. Supple- mented by the daily newspapers, the telegraph advises the whole world every morning of all that happened on the planet the day before. All public men and public bodies discharge PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 125 their duties in the concentrated light of universal observation. Every notable event is followed immediately by criticism and discussion, and by some judgment of the general intelligence upon the merits of the case. And there is thus developed a force in society — a governing force — which knows neither form of government or lines of jurisdiction, but which power- fully affects the affairs of men. It is the force of enlightened, unified, world-wide public opinion. In the production of the electric light the genius of man has come nearer to creation than in any other achievement. When the Almighty said * ' Let there be light ' ' and there was light, it was, as I believe, electric light. I have no doubt that the light of the sun and all the self-luminous stars is produced by electricity transformed by processes substantially identical with those that produce lightning in our clouds and arc light upon our streets. This epoch of artificial sunlight distributed in fragments has so recently burst upon us that we have hardly yet recov- ered from its first dazzling effects. But we may be sure that it is the beginning of an age of increasing enjoyment for man- kind. It is one of the revolutions that will not go backwards. The human eye once charmed by a better light is never con- tent to return to a poorer. The electric light was the result of the work of a great many students and inventors through a long period of time. I know of no other invention to which so many persons have con- tributed. But we are justly proud of the fact that in the successful practical solution of the problem, our countrymen, Charles F. Brush and Thomas A. Edison, were clearly the pioneers — one in the field of arc lighting and the other in the incandescent light. It is incredible to think that it is little more than a decade since their inventions came into public use, so universal have they become. When the Master said to those who stood about Him, "Which of you by taking thought can add a cubit to his stature ? " no one held up his hand. But Professor Bell by taking thought has added, not a cubit, but miles to the length of our tongues and our ears. I think this is the most gratify- ing of all inventions. I can make no personal use of the 126 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. telegraph. I go about a dynamo filled with wonder and admiration, but mindful not to become too familiar with it. But to have in my house an instrument which is ears and mouth for everybody, and which enables me to hold conversa- tion with all my neighbors from my own back hall, gives me a sense of personal triumph over the impediments of matter and space every time I use it. Time fails me to speak of the epoch of news which was made possible by Hoe's cylinder press, or the epoch of vertical growth in American cities which began with the Otis elevator, or the epoch of farming by machinery which began, I may say, with McCormick's reaper, and which opens the era of cheap and abundant food. One more invention, recent, bright and beautiful, shall close this category. It is the typewriter — the sewing machine of thought — which takes up with nimble fingers the drudgery of writing as that of sewing, and clothes our ideas as that clothes our bodies. It introduces the epoch of legible manu- script, with all the saving of time, labor and profanity which that implies. All that I have said points to one final thought. We look backward over a century of unparalleled progress. To this so many causes have contributed that it is impossible to measure exactly the effect of each. It is natural that we should think most of those that spring from political freedom, which, in- deed, it is not easy to over-rate. But the essentials of human happiness are not found in mere form of government. Per- sonal liberty, a fair chance in the race of life, under the pro- tection of equal laws, are all that is fundamental. The wants of man — the animal, to be fed, clothed and housed ; the higher wants of the man — homo, to learn, read, think, travel, com- municate and receive — it is in the amplest supply of these to the largest number of individuals that the greatest sum total of human happiness is to be found. And in these this age and this country surpass all others. We do not often stop to think how or whence our blessings come. We accept them with a dim sense of gratitude to some- body or something as a flower smiles its thanks to the sun- shine. But in the light of the reflections which this occasion PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 127 suggests we can realize faintly how vast is the obligation which we owe to the inventors of America. Not a garment that we wear, not a meal that we eat, not a paper that we read, not a tool that we use, not a journey that we take but makes us debtor to some American inventor's thought. Measured by what we can learn, see, do and enjoy in a lifetime, we live longer than Methuselah, we are wiser than Solomon, richer than Croesus, and greater than Alexander. Archimides has found his fulcrum ; it is the brain of the inventor. We can realize too, to-day, how wise the fathers were be- yond anything they could have known in providing in the Constitution for the encouragement and reward of invention. On twenty-two words — only twenty-two words — in that great Charter the American patent system rests. What other twenty-two words ever spoken or penned have borne such fruit of blessing for mankind ? PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 129 THE NEW SOUTH AS AN OUTGROWTH OF INVEN- TION AND THE AMERICAN PATENT LAW. By Hon. John W. Daniki., Iv.Iv.D., of Virginia, U. S. Senator. I deem it great honor to stand in this presence and to unite in paying tribute to the inventive genius of our country- men. You, Mr. Secretary, are to be congratulated upon the admirable exhibit of the Bureau of Patents — under your charge. It fulfills our democratic-republican conceptions of good government in every aspect. It records great achieve- ments of mind ; it indicates our wonderful progress ; it is utili- tarian in a high degree, and it is more than self-supporting. But the reach of its usefulness far transcends the lines of its economic administration, and its dignity is not to be measured by figures. The Romans of old assigned the highest place in the Elysian fields to him who had improved human life by the invention of arts, and surely our own race — the most inventive of men, and our own country the most inventive of nations — will not refuse the highest honors to those creative minds which have con- tributed so much to make it the foremost of mankind. ** The West Indies," says Eord Bacon, "had never been discovered without the discovery of the mariner's needle." All America is therefore an evolution of invention, and the in- ventor must be hailed as one who cried in the wilderness before the coming of the Great Columbus. The inventive faculties are stimulated by mechanical pur- suits. The North was early impelled to such pursuits by its hard climate and rugged soil. The development of its inven- tive faculties was instantaneous and progressive — greater than the like development in the South, which by favoring condi- tions of soil and climate was attracted to agriculture and the proprietorship of land. Connecticut, Massachusetts, Penn- I30 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. sylvania, New York, Rhode Island — these were the States that led, and won first honors. If you ask me the cause of the Northern victory in the Civil War, I would look beyond the smoke of battle and point to its inventors, mechanics and manufacturers. For through them it accumulated its preponderating wealth, numbers and material forces. The Southern people, however, have taken deep interest in the promotion of arts and sciences. They have applauded the achievements of Northern mechanical genius ; they are not themselves deficient in inventive gifts, and many Southern names are companions in the list of inventors. Amongst them are Sibley, of lyOuisiana, and his conical tent ; Gatling, of North Carolina, and his terrific gun ; McCormick, of Virginia, and his reaper and mower ; Gibbs, of Virginia, and his sewing machine ; Janney, of Virginia, and his car coupler ; Gorrie, of lyouisiana, and his ice machine ; McComb, of lyouisiana, with his '' arrow " cotton tie ; Gaynor, of Kentucky, and his fire telegraph ; Stone, of Missouri, and his grain roller-mill ; Remberts, of Texas, with his roller cotton compress ; Clarke, of the same State, with his envelope machine, and Campbell, with his cotton picker ; Bonsack, of Virginia, with his cigarette machine ; Coffee, of Virginia, with his tobacco stemmer ; Stevens, of Florida, with his fruit wrapper ; I^aw, of Georgia, with his cotton planter ; Avery, of Kentucky, with his plow sulky. Watt & Starke, of Virginia, with their plows — these are some of the names that greet us in our history ; Rumsey with his steamboat ; Maury with his map of the sea, which has made his name the synonym of benefactor to the navigator and to commerce ; McDonald, of our own day, with his fish ladders and hatcheries filling our streams with fish. These, from scores of Southern names, should remind us that the South has not been an idler in the vineyard. And when we read in the annals of the Patent Ofiice that some three thousand patents were issued in 1890 to Southern inventors, we must, realize that the South vies in generous rivalry in every branch of intellectual achievement. Worthy it is of mention that the first native born American woman to get a patent was Agdalena S. Goodman, of Florida, PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 131 for improvement in broom brushes. Were I to follow this suggestive fact a speech might be made on the inventions of women. They are varied — varying from straw hats to horse- shoes, and from deep-sea telescopes to sewing machine attach- ments. Woman's intuitions are proverbial ; when she turns them to mechanical invention the possibilities of achievement surpass the scope of prophecy. Many notable events of progress have occurred on Southern soil. James Rumsey, a native of Maryland and a Virginian by adoption, exhibited to Washington here on the Potomac in 1784 the model of a boat for navigating rivers against the current by the force of the stream acting on setting poles, and in 1 789, the same year that Fitch made his experimental trip on the Delaware, Rumsey exhibited his steamer here on the Potomac, propelled by an engine and mechanism of his own invention. Both Fitch and Rumsey received patents for their inven- tions. The conception of the steamboat seems to have oc- curred to them simultaneously, but Fitch's experiment was a little prior in time. Rumsey 's patents were allowed by New York, Missouri and Virginia, and also by England, France and Holland. Benjamin Franklin was a member of the Rumsey Society, of Philadelphia, formed to aid him in his inventions. In 1792 he made a successful trip in England on the Thames, and in 1839 Congress voted to his son, James Rumsey, a gold medal, "commemorative of his father's services and high agency in giving to the world the benefit of the steam- boat." The first great American canal was proposed by Washington. It was begun in 1785 and was finished to Westham in 1789, and afterwards carried as far as I^exington and Buchanan at immense cost. Finally, in recent years it was superseded by a railroad. The first telegraph line in the United States was established between Baltimore and Washington in 1844, and about the same time and place appeared the first electric locomotive. The South was in the front rank of railroad projection and construction. Amongst the earliest experiments with a steam 132 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. locomotive on a railroad in this country were those made by Peter Cooper on the Baltimore and Ohio in 1829 and 1830, contemporaneous with Stevenson's work on the Liverpool and Manchester, in England. About the same time at Honesdale, Penn., the ** Stourbridge Lion," a locomotive engine imported from England, was making a trial trip on a mine railroad con- structed of strap iron. This event occurred August 8, 1829, and was probably the first of its kind in the Western Hemis- phere. Horatio Allen, who superintended the experiment, was living in 1888, and gave an account of it in a letter which appears in the proceedings of the National Museum for that year. But the South Carolina Railroad, from Charleston to Hamburg, was the first road commenced in this country with a view to the use of steam. It was chartered in 1825, begun in 1830, completed in 1833. For it was constructed the first loco- motive ; it was the first steam road that carried the United States mail, and when completed, in October, 1833, it was the longest railroad in the world. The South Carolina Colony, as early as 169 1, passed an act to encourage the making of engines for propagating * ' the staples of this Province," and in 171 7 an act "for encouraging the making of potash and saltpeter." And in 1784 it passed a regular patent law for the encouragement of the arts and sci- ences giving inventors exclusive benefit of their labors for fourteen years. The early settlers of the South — and they were the pioneers of our race in the United States — brought with them some knowledge of the useful arts and manufactures from the mother country, and while they were building block houses to defend against the savages, their rude establishments of industry were rising in the wilderness. With Captain Newport there came to the Colony of Virginia in 1608, twelve years before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, a number of citizens to make glass, and others to make tar, pitch and soap-ashes. A mile from Jamestown was estab- lished the first manufactory in the United States — a factory for making glass bottles. A saw-mill, driven by water and used for cutting wainscoating and boards, soon followed this infant industry. Ere long boat-building began, salt works PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 133 were established, and skillful vine-growers planted a vineyard in 1620. In 1623 the Virginia Legislature required settlers to plant mulberry trees, in order to raise silk-worms and produce silk ; and, as the story goes, Charles II wore at his coronation in 1 65 1 a robe and hose of Virginia silk, the art of weaving having been introduced into England in 1620. In 1 62 1 " the first cultivation of cotton in the United States deserves commemoration. This year the seeds were planted as an experiment, and their plentiful coming up was at that early day a subject of interest in America and England." So writes George Bancroft, the historian. Not less notable is the fact that the first works for smelting in America were set up in 16 19 on Falling creek, a tributary of the James river, which enters it some seven miles below Richmond. Here the brown ore was found lying on the surface, and good progress was made toward completing the works under Mr. John Berkley, who was in charge of them. But before the consummation Berkley and all his workmen were slain and the works destroyed in the Indian massacre of March 22, 1622. It is curious to note that about the same time that the Indians were scalping the pioneer iron-makers in Virginia an ignorant mob in England destroyed the works of Lord Edward Dudley, for smelting ore with pit coal by a new process of his in- vention. Savagery and ignorance go together. McMasters, in his history of the people of the United States, ascribes to Thomas Jefferson the glory of the American patent system, and declares that he inspired it and took so deep an interest in its workings that he is entitled to be called its founder. This view consists with the traditions of the Patent Office. Certain it is that the subject was congenial to the practical scientific mind of Mr. Jefferson, and certain it is that he took deep interest in the development of the system and in all that concerns the useful arts and scientific methods. Amongst the powers conferred upon Congress by the Federal Constitution is the power ' ' to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." In this provision was compromised the con- tention on the one hand that authors and inventors had a 134 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. property right in all copies of their works, and the adverse contention that they had no rights whatever entitled to legal protection in such copies. Jefferson thoroughly expounded this subject in his correspondence, showing that authors and inventors have an equity to protection for a reasonable time, but that inventions are not property. " It would be curious," he said, ' ' if an idea — the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain — could of natural right be deemed an exclusive and stable property." " Nature," he said, "made ideas like fire, expansible over all space without lessening their density at any one point ; and like the air in which we breathe, move and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or ex- clusive appropriation." Again, **He who receives an idea from me receives instruction himself without lessening mine ; as he who lights his taper at mine receives light without dark- ening me." On such clear perceptions rests our Constitution and our patent system, and they have universal respect because of the equity and justice that underlies them in granting ** ex- clusive rights for limited times." In the Federal Convention which framed the Constitution, James Madison of Virginia and Charles Pinckney of South Carolina suggested the provisions as to copyright and patent- right which resulted in the formulation of the constitutional clause which I have quoted. The author of the identical language is not known, but it emanated from the Committee on Style, of which Dr. Johnson was chairman. The first act of Congress on the subject was reported by Mr. Burke of South Carolina on the loth of April, 1790, from a committee of which he, Mr. Huntingdon of Connecticut, and Mr. Cadwalader of New Jersey were members. The first American patent was issued on July 31, 1790, and bears the signatures of George Washington, the President of the United States ; Thomas Jefferson, the Secretary of State, and Edmund Randolph, the Attorney- General. The reorganization of the Patent Office occurred in 1836, under the administration of Andrew Jack- son, a Southern President. What mighty strides have been made within the century past is attested by the records. Only three patents were issued in 1790, thirty-three in r79i, and eleven in 1792, that is forty-seven in three years; and only PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 135 twelve within the first fifty years. Now more than these are issued in one year ; and in the year 1890 over 26,000 were issued for every variety of invention and improvement. And within a single century the United States, surpassing all the older nations, has taken the foremost rank and risen to ' ' the highest heaven of invention." It is from the soil that all men gain their sustenance, and as a people who long made its tillage their chief vocation, the South is first indebted to those who have ameliorated the methods of its cultivation. The ancients plowed with a crooked stick — the crotch of a tree. The plows of the colonists in America were made wholly of wood, and it was only in the last century that they were tipped with iron. Farmers were slow to welcome improvements, and even con- tended that cast-iron plows poisoned the ground, produced weeds and spoiled the crops. The first cast-iron plow seen in this country was after the War of the Revolution. It was imported from Holland, and was the invention of James Small of Berwickshire. Again Thomas Jefferson comes to the front. He was the first American to study and improve the plow, inventing a new form of mould-board and fixing its curvature to avoid friction. His son-in-law. Colonel Randolph, invented a hill-side plow. Soon the field was entered by many in- ventors ; and in 18 16 eleven patents had been issued to citizens of New York, eight to Maryland, three to Connecti- cut, two to Virginia, one to Kentucky, and one to New Jersey. There are now over 2,000 establishments in the United States for manufacturing agricultural implements. They employ over 40,000 hands, their product is worth over $68,000,000 ; there are 200,000,000 acres of ground plowed, requiring the service of over 2,000,000 teams for eighty days during the year. Harrows, rakes, cultivators, diggers, reapers and mow- ers in bewildering array arise before us, and farming has become a fine art, requiring as much brain and method for success as any of the learned professions, and our agricultural machinery is sent all over the world, its superiority being acknowledged. To all the great inventors the South is as much indebted as is any other portion of the civilized globe for the blessings 136 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. and comforts which they have conferred on mankind. To Watt and the steam engine, to George Stephenson and his locomotive, to Morse and the electric telegraph, to Edison, the wizard, and all of his electrical and other inventions, to Bell and his telephone, to Howe, to Singer, Willcox and Gibbs, and Weed and their sewing machines, to Hoe and his printing press, to Fulton and Fitch and Rumsey and their steamboat, to Davy and the safety lamp, to Westinghouse and his air-brake, and Pullman and his sleeper — each and all of these should be remembered as benefactors of the world. But if I were asked to designate the two inventors to whom the South is perhaps more peculiarly indebted than to others, I would answer with the names of Kli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton-gin, and Henry Bessemer, the inventor of the modern process for making steel. The invention of Henry Bessemer consists in the process of eliminating carbon and silicon from iron by passing a stream of oxygen through the melted mass. This converts it into steel. He also constructed the machinery for accomplish- ing this result of exquisite adaptation to its purposes. A Bessemer converter, weighing with its contents twenty or thirty tons, is moved on its axis by the touch of a hand and receives thereby a blast so powerful that every particle of the metallic mass within is heated to the highest temperature, and by the infusion of oxygen is turned into ingots of steel. Twenty-two Bessemer works had been established in this country in 1884. Rolling mills at Chicago produced the first steel rails by this process in 1865. Now great steel works are starting up in many directions. Since 1880 Rhode Island and Vermont have abandoned steel-making, and three Southern States have begun it ; that is, Alabama, Virginia and West Virginia. The trend is southward. It is this cheap steel that is upsetting the values of the great land-holdings of the British nobility, and is pouring into the lap of commerce the crops of the South and West. The "Age of Steel " dates from the success of Bessemer. A Southern iron master — William Kelly, of Eddyville, Kentucky — preceded Bessemer in the discovery of the pneu- matic principle of the Bessemer process, and successfully PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 137 antagonized him in claiming priorty of invention in a contest in the Patent Oj05ce. But Bessemer, with the aid of Robert Mushet, was more successful in the application of his principle to the production of steel, and the machinery was successful from the first in its operations. In 1793 Kli Whitney, a young school teacher from Massa- chusetts, located in Georgia, and was the guest of Mrs. Greene, widow of General Nathaniel Greene, of Revolutionary fame. She got into trouble about her tambour frame. He fixed it. Conversation one day turned on the separation of cotton from the seed. "Send for Mr. Whitney," she said, ** he can make anything." Whitney studied the subject, and the cotton-gin was the result. This instrument could be worked by a man or woman, and could clean more cotton in a single day than could be done by a person in several months by hand. It had an enormous effect upon the development of cotton planting in the South and of cotton manufactures in the North. Five English inventors — Kay, who invented the fly shuttle ; Hargreaves, who, watching his wife at the spinning-wheel in his cottage, took the hint from her nimble fingers and invented a machine to which he gave her name, the " Spinning Jenny " ; Richard Arkwright, the inventor of the water frame ; Samuel Cromp- ton, of the spinning mule, and Edmund Cartwright, of the power loom — these five inventors had laid the foundation of cotton manufacture as one of the greatest of the world's in- dustries. *'For this industry has," as Towle writes, " in a century created the English Manchester out of a stragglmg rural hamlet and Liverpool out of an obscure fishing village, and has transformed the English County of Lancaster from a dreary and barren waste into a noisy network of dense busy towns and crowded factories. ' ' Now came Eli Whitney, giving to Southern agriculture the one machine needed to give cotton its imperial position amongst the great products of the world, and feeding New England with the staple of manufacture out of which arose splendid prosperity. In 1787 the first American cotton mills were erected (in Massachusetts), but so slow was progress that in 1807 only fifteen mills (chiefly in Rhode Island) were in operation, with about 8,000 spindles, producing some 300,000 pounds of cotton 138 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. yarn a year. In 1807 came the embargo and non-importation act, under the second administration of Jefferson. Within less than two years nearly $4,000,000 were invested in cotton mills, 4,000 persons employed, the number of spindles doubled, and arrangements made for increasing them from 8,000 to 80,000. An impetus was given to New England's manufactures which has known '*no retiring ebb." The vast importance of these and kindred inventions to the South cannot be estimated until we remember what a wonderful land it is, and how richly nature has endowed it with the ele- ments of wealth. We call it the South, but its southernmost point is 1,700 miles north of the Equator. It is a part of our northern continent. It lies wholly in the temperate zone, and while its suns are warm enough to stimulate the fruits of nature and the energies of man, they are not so hot as to parch the one or to enervate the other. It is washed for over 2,000 miles by the Atlantic ocean. It is intersected by the Father of Waters and by many rivers. It produces all the cereals and grasses to perfection, and an infinite variety of fruits, from the apple to the banana, and from the peach and apricot to the orange and lemon. It is a land of com and oil and wine, and milk and honey ; it is a land of rice and sugar and cotton and tobacco ; it is a land of coal and iron, and of green pastures and virgin forests. The value of the raw cotton that we sent abroad in 1890 was $250,000,000 ; a hundred million more than the value of all the breadstuffs we export ; a hundred millions more than all the manufactured products we export ; a hundred millions more than all the meat and dairy products we export ; eight times more than all the cattle, sheep and hogs we export. It is the chief item of our foreign trade. It secures to us the balance in our favor. It is the under-pinning of our financial system, that keeps our gold with us and sustains the value of our investments. There is not a nation on the earth that does not clothe itself with cotton. There is no nation that can vie with us in its production, and the South is the only part of our country that produces it. The inventor has given a new value (estimated at $2.50 per acre) to the cotton field. For seventy years the seed were PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 139 thrown away ; now they are turned into oil and oil-cakes, and are the basis of an industry valued at $50,000,000. Cotton seed mills are operating in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, I/Ouisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. Two Virginians, Digges of Albemarle as far back as 1820, and Glowes of Hamilton in 1825, invented oil presses, and seemed to discern the future use of cotton seed. Now there are inventions by the score of presses and processes for their utilization. Cotton, iron, wool, wood and the various clays are the most important raw materials of manufacture. In all these the South abounds. It is a mass of coal and iron. The great Appalachian range, stretching 700 miles and penetrating the very heart of the South, contains every variety of bituminous, block, splint and cannel coals. Here is forty times as much in sight as is accessible to economic production in Great Britain. The coal field is covered with virgin forests of white, black, Spanish chestnut and best oak, yellow poplar, yellow pine and walnut. It is stored also with iron ore and limestone. Kdward Atkinson has expressed the opinion that you can stand on the summit of the Great Smoky mountain in this range and behold the situs of the future iron-center of the world. Iron is the king metal as cotton is the king vegetable fiber. Solon was right. When Croesus boasted of his golden treas- ures, he said : " If another comes that hath better iron than you he will be master of all this gold." The epochs of the world have been marked by the weapons and utensils of its inhabitants. First, the stone age, when they were of stone and flint or wood or bone. Then the bronze age, w^en they were of a metal composed of copper and tin. Then came the iron age, and now, since the Bes- semer process has been inaugurated, the age of steel. Myriad are its uses : baby toys and ironclad navies, cannon balls and knitting needles, railroad tracks and surgical instruments, bridges and houses and fortifications, locks and keys and buttons, the steam engine and the delicate watch, the nail, the axe, the saw, the plow, the pen, the sword. The United States is the greatest consumer of iron and steel in the world. We make 35 and use 40 per cent, of the world's I40 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. product. In eleven years Great Britain's product decreased from 45 to 33 per cent., while ours increased from 16 to over 30 per cent. There are vast bodies of Bessemer ore at the South out of which Bessemer pig can be made at ten dollars per ton. Carroll D. Wright, Esq., the Commissioner of Labor, com- pared the cost of making iron from the ore at twenty-five Northern furnaces and at twenty -five Southern furnaces. The highest cost at the Northern furnaces was $15.78 per ton, the lowest $12.42, the average $13.97 At the South the highest cost was $12.91, the lowest $8.55, the average $10.75, an average difference of $3.22 per ton. The last decade of Southern progress has indeed been a revelation and a revolution. Northern brains and capital have freely mingled with our own, and every season empha- sizes the truth of Judge Kelly's prophecy that the South is the coming El Dorado of American adventure. There are southern cities to-day with ten, twenty or thirty thousand inhabitants, which a few years ago were scarce a local habitation or a name. Witness Anniston, with 1,000 in 1880 and 10,000 in 1890; Birmingham, with 3,000 in 1880 and 26,000 in 1890. Chatta- nooga sprang from a village to a city of 30,000, and Roanoke from a way station to a cit}^ of near 20,000. It is estimated that within the decade $800,000,000 has been expended on southern railroads. Its railway mileage has increased from 20,000 to 40,000 miles, and it is now construct- ing more mileage than all the rest of the country. Its coal output within the same period has increased from 6,000,000 to 20,000,000 tons, and its product of pig iron from 390,000 to nearly 2,000,000 tons. Its cotton mills have in- creased from 160, with 660,000 spindles, to 355 with over 2,000,000 spindles. Its live stock has increased in value from $390,000,000 to near $600,000,000, and its agricultural pro- ducts from $600,000,000 to nearly $1,000,000,000. We are sending coal and pig iron to Pennsylvania, making cars for New England railroads, making woolen goods for Northern markets, shipping cotton goods to New England, and producing a variety of manufactures which it would take a dictionary to catalogue, but they range from egg-crates to PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 141 iron bridges, from a tooth-pick to a locomotive, from paper bags to the armor of ironclad battle-ships. The Superintendent of the Census, R. P. Porter, Esq., has kindly furnished me with these advance figures of the coal product : Comparative Statement of Product of Coal for the Southern States, Tenth and Eleventh Census. Tenth Census. Eleventh Census. (Short Tons.) (Short Tons.) Alabama 323>972 3.572,983 Arkansas 14,778 279,584 Georgia 154,644 226, 156 Kentucky 946, 288 i , 933, 643 Maryland 2,228,917 2, 939, 715 Missouri 556,304 2,557,823 North Carolina 350 Tennessee 495 , 1 3 1 1,925,689 Virginia 45,896 865,786 West Virginia 1,839,845 6,180,757 Total 6,606,125 20,482,136 Not less eloquent are the figures from the same source that show comparatively the product of the mineral industries of the whole United States in 1870, and those of the Central Southern States in 1890. Mineral Industries. Production of the Production of the United States in Central Southern 1870. States in 1890. Tons. Tons. Bituminous coal 15,000,000 17,772,945 Iron ore 3, 163,839 2,917,529 Pig iron 2,052,821 1,780,909 Thus we are now nearly up to the mark of the entire pro- duction of iron in the United States in 1870 ; and in coal are now nearly 3,000,000 of tons ahead of its entire product then. 142 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. This item of the foreign trade of the United States is scarce less instructive. From July i, 1890, to January i, 1891, there was an increase in our foreign exports of $7,000,000, but from the South of $8,000,000 — that is, a decrease of $1,000,000 from the whole country but for the Southern increase. The most striking item was the increase at Newport News, Va., of $4,736,000 as compared with $2,387,209 for the corresponding period of the previous year, a gain of nearly 100 per cent. In such facts as these the stars of empire gleam. In 1893 the navies of the world will assemble in Hampton Roads, off Norfolk, Newport News and Fortress Monroe, preparatory to the grand review at New York inaugurating the Exposition at Chicago. They will there behold the seat of a coming commerce and industrial movement that will tell a tale of progress in the next census as wonderful as any page in the history of the New South. The commanding position of Great Britain amongst modern nations is vastly due to the fact that it has drawn the raw materials of its factories from all quarters of the globe, giving employment to skilled artisans at home, and at once sustaining its commerce and enriching its merchants and manufacturers. When it had lost the brightest of its crown jewels by the obstinacy of George III, and Burgoyne and Cornwallis had surrendered America, British inventors and mechanics were developing machines which restored the prestige lost by arms at Saratoga and York town. The Northern and Eastern States have copied upon the English models, and the raw materials produced by the South have vastly aided them — being first carried North to their factories, and then returned South in manufactured articles. The secret of the great economic change that has come over the South lies in a nutshell — it possesses the richest and most diversified supply of the staple raw materials — it has begun on a vast scale to manufacture them where they can be manu- factured cheapest — that is, at the mine and in the field and forest that produces them. It will henceforth give employ- ment to millions of skilled artisans. It will henceforth employ only the most improved methods of production. Its industries will be more diversified than those of any other people. Under PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 143 its genial skies, on the banks of its many rivers, beside its wide-stretched cotton and grain fields and orchards and pas- tures, in its noble forests, and at the mouths of mines that pour forth inexhaustible treasures will rise teeming cities, and in its broad ports the merchantmen of the world will assemble its fleets of commerce. In the great work of renovation and advancement the inventor will lead. The inventor of an idea is the discoverer of a special providence, and he who knows how to use it ** hitches his wagon to a star." The world has grown wise enough to know that with every invention that saves labor luxury is laid at the feet of the toiler, and skillfiil hands and brains are released from menial tasks for others more exalted. Ignorant mobs will no longer break the shuttles of a Kay, or drive the smelters from the coal pits of a Dudley. The inventor has redeemed us from the curse of poverty, dissipated the mysteries of humbug, and destroyed the monopoly of knowledge. He has torn down the idol in the temple and driven the false god from the grove and the moun- tain. He has tamed the spirit of the savage with his power, and inspired the spirit of Christ with his benefactions. He has compelled peace by making war too terrible to tamper with. He has instituted fraternity by bringing distant ones in con- verse and in contact. He has established the union of mankind by disclosing the unity of the universe. The oceans which he has mapped, the waves which he has bestridden, the lands which he has woven and banded together with steel, the winds whose coming and going he has foretold, and whose whispers he has interpreted ; the very stars whose secrets he has read, and the lightnings which he has made to utter speech, to illumine darkness, and to bear burdens — all these proclaim him as earth's true conqueror and man's best friend. Ere long I trust a great National Hall of Sciences will rise here at the Capital to display the mechanical achievements of American genius, and I would that Washington might teem with the statues of inventors. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 145 THE COPYRIGHT SYSTEM OF THE UNITED STATES— ITS ORIGIN AND ITS GROWTH. By Hon. Ainsworth R. Spofford, LI^.D., Librarian U.S. Congress. "The chief glory of every people," says Dr. Samuel John- son, ' * arises from its authors. ' ' The history and present condition of the law of literary property in the United States possesses both for writers and readers a commanding interest. Amid all uncertainties which have beset the proper protection of the rights of authors, and the sometimes conflicting decis- ions of the courts thereupon, the fact that this protection has always been recognized as due stands prominently out. And its foundation appears to be broader and deeper in this country than in any other, since it is distinctly laid in the Constitution of the government itself. That instrument declares that ' ' the Congress shall have power to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. ' ' Upon this broad and salutary provision are founded all the statutes regulating copyright in books, from the earliest act signed by George Washington, in 1790, to the most recent legislation of the last Congress enacting international copy- right. To James Madison belongs the honor of having first offered, on the 1 8th of August, 1787, in the Federal Convention which framed the Constitution, a provision for this, among other powers, as ' ' proper to be added to those of the general legis- lature," namely: **to secure to literary authors their copy- rights for a limited time." Mr. Pinckney of South Carolina submitted other proposed grants of power to Congress, among which was this : "To secure to authors exclusive rights for a certain time." These were coupled, in each case, with an independent proposition empowering Congress to grant patents 146 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. for useful inventions. All the propositions were referred to the "committee of detail," who formulated the desired pro- visions into the clause ultimately adopted in the Constitution, and previously cited. This ultimate provision amalgamated what were two independent propositions, as drawn by their authors, into one, doubtless for the sake of greater economy of words, in an instrument remarkable for its condensed style and plain, perspicuous language. It is a very notable fact that the United States of America was the first nation that ever embodied the principle of pro- tection to the rights of authors in its fundamental law. Thus anchored in the Constitution itself, this principle has been further recognized by repeated acts of Congress, aimed in all cases at giving it full practical effect. No right is ever com- plete without a remedy ; and our National I^egislature has very properly guarded the conceded rights of authors by pro- visions of law, designed to secure to them an exclusive privi- lege in the benefits to be derived during the term prescribed, and enforcing these rights by ample penalties. The first copyright act was passed early in the first Con- gress, and received the presidential approval of Washington on the 31st of May, 1790. By its provisions the term of dura- tion of each copyright was limited to fourteen years, with a further right of renewal for fourteen years longer, provided the author were living at the expiration of the first term. If it is asked why the authors of the Constitution gave to Con- gress no plenary power, which might have authorized a grant of copyright in perpetuity, the answer is, that in this, as in many other provisions of the Constitution, British precedent had a great, if not a controlling influence. Copyright in England, by virtue of the statute of Anne, passed in 1710 (the first British copyright act), was limited to fourteen years, with right of renewal, by a living author, of only fourteen years more ; and this was in full force in 1787, when our Constitu- tion was framed. Prior to the British statute of 17 10, authors had only what is called a common law right to their writings ; and however good such a right might be, so long as they held them in manuscript, the protection to printed books was extremely uncertain and precarious. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 147 It has been held, indeed, that all copyright laws, so far from maintaining an exclusive property right to authors, do in effect deny it (at least in the sense of a natural right), by explicitly limiting the term of exclusive ownership, which might otherwise be held (as in other property) to be perpetual, or during the lifetime of the owner. But there is a radical distinction between the products of the brain, when put in the concrete form of books and multiplied by the art of printing, and the land or other property which is held by common law tenure. Society views the absolute or exclusive property in books or inventions as a monopoly. While a monopoly may be justified for a reasonable number of years, on the obvious ground of securing to their originators the pecuniary benefit of their own ideas, a perpetual monopoly is generally regarded as odious and unjust. Hence society says to the author or inventor: "Put your ideas into material form, and we will guarantee you th^ exclusive right to multiply and sell your books or your machines for a term long enough to secure a fair reward to you and to your children ; after that period we want your monopoly, with its individual benefits, to cease in favor of the greatest good of all." If this appears unfair to authors, who contribute so greatly to the instruction and the advancement of mankind, it is to be considered that a per- petual copyright would (i) largely enhance the cost of books, which should be most widely diffused for the public benefit, prolonging the enhanced cost indefinitely beyond the author's lifetime ; (2) it would benefit by a special privilege, pro- longed without limit, a class of book manufacturers or pub- lishers who act as middle-men between the author and the public, and who own, in most cases, the entire property in the works of authors deceased, and which they did not originate ; (3) it would amount in a few centuries to so vast a sum, taxed upon the community who buy books, that the publishers of Shakespeare's works, for example, who under perpetual copy- right could alone print the poet's writings, would have reaped colossal fortunes unequaled by any private wealth yet amassed in the world. If it is said that copyright, thus limited, is a purely arbi- trary right, it may be answered that all legal provisions are 148 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. arbitrary. That which is an absolute or natural right, so long as held in idea or in manuscript, becomes, when given to the world in multiplied copies, the creature of law. The most that authors can fairly claim is a sufficiently prolonged exclu- sive right to guarantee them for a lifetime the just reward of their labors, with, perhaps, a reversion for their immediate heirs. That such exclusive rights should run to their remotest posterity, or, a fortiori, to mere merchants or artificers who had no hand whatever in the creation of the intellectual work thus protected, would be manifestly unjust. The judicial tribunals, both in England and America, have held that copy- right laws do not affirm an existing right, but create a right, with special privileges not before existing, and also with special limitations. To return to the provisions of the earliest copyright enact- ment of 1790 — granting the exclusive privilege of printing his work to the author or his assigns for 14-1-14, or twenty - eight years in all : it prohibited all others from printing, pub- lishing or selling the same work, under penalty of forfeiture of every copy to the author or proprietor, and the further penalty of fifty cents for every printed sheet found in possession of the offender or exposed to sale. This latter pecuniary penalty was found in practice to entail the payment of damages to such heavy amounts that they could not be enforced in many cases, and the law was changed to provide for the awarding of such damages, for violation of copyright, as may be recovered on trial of the case. The act further required (i) entry of the title, before publica- tion, in the office of the Clerk of the United States District Court in the State where the author or proprietor resided ; (2) an entry fee of sixty cents for recording, and sixty cents for a copy of the record, or $1.20 in all ; (3) an advertisement of the copy of record of each title, by author or proprietor, in some news- paper for the space of four weeks ; (4) the deposit of a copy of each publication in the office of the Secretary of State at Washington within six months from date of issue. This remained the law, with slight amendment, until 1831, when a new copyright act extended the duration of copyright from fourteen to twenty-eight years for the original, or first PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 149 term, with right of renewal to the author (now first extended to his widow or children, in case of his decease) for fourteen additional years, making forty -two years in all. By the same act the privilege of copyright was extended to cover musical compositions, as it had been earlier extended (in 1802) to include designs, engravings, and etchings. Copy- right was further extended in 1856 to dramatic compositions, and in 1865 to photographs and negatives thereof. In 1870 a new copyright code, to take the place of all existing and scattered statutes, was enacted, and there were added to the lawful subjects of copyright, paintings, drawings, chromos, statues, statuary, and models or designs intended to be per- fected as works of the fine arts. And finally, by act of March 3, 1891, the benefits of copyright were extended so as to embrace foreign authors, coupled with securing to American authors full copyright in such foreign countries as may extend copyright privileges to Americans. The law of copyright, as codified by act of July 8, 1870, made an epoch in the copyright system of the United States. It transferred the entire registry of books and other publica- tions, under copyright law, to the city of Washington, and made the I^ibrarian of Congress sole register of copyrights, instead of the clerks of the District Courts of the United States. Manifold reasons existed for this radical change, and those which were most influential with Congress in making it were the following : I. The transfer of the copyright records to Washington it was foreseen would concentrate and simplify the business, and this was a cardinal point. Prior to 1870 there were between forty and fifty separate and distinct authorities for issuing copyrights. The American people were annually put to much trouble and expense to find out where to apply, in the compli- cated system of District Courts, several of them frequently in a single State, to enter titles for publication. They were required to make entry in the district where the applicant resided, and this was frequently a matter of doubt, involving special inquiry. Moreover, they were required to go to the expense and trouble of transmitting a copy of the work, after publication, to the District clerk, and another copy to the I50 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. lyibrary of Congress. If both copies were mailed to Washing- ton at once, this double duty would be diminished by half. Next, the books would be received at Washington while fresh from the press, instead of, as formerly, several months after issue, or not at all. Then the copyright records would be con- stantly at hand, where the publications to which they relate were deposited. This would simplify and facilitate reference to the greatest possible degree. In the then existing compli- cated system, a person seeking to establish the validity of a copyright must sometimes go to two or three widely separated localities to verify the various points of evidence, and would perhaps fail at last from the very imperfect manner in which the law regarding copyright entries and deposits was executed. How much less is the time and trouble required to transact the business through the mails, instead of dispatching a special messenger with each title for entry and each book for deposit, it needs but a moment's consideration to perceive. Out of the many thousands of authors and proprietors of copyrights in the United States, it i& probable that less than two hundred resided in the immediate vicinity of a District clerk's office. The unnecessary delays and expenses, therefore, in the regis- try and deposit of copyright publications, were clearly much greater under the once existing system than under a uniform system of registry at Washington, as in the parallel case of patents, which have been registered in one central office at the seat of government from the beginning. 2. The advantage of securing to our national library a com- plete collection of all American copyright publications can scarcely be over-estimated. If such a law as that enacted in 1870 had been enforced since the beginning of the government, we should now have in the lyibrary of Congress a complete representation of the product of the American mind in every department of science and literature. Many publications which are printed in small editions, or which become " out of print" from the many accidents which continually destroy books, would owe to such a library their sole chance of preser- vation. We ought to have one comprehensive library in the country, and that belonging to the nation, whose aim it should be to preserve the books which other libraries have not the room nor the means to procure. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 151 3. This consideration assumes additional weight when it is remembered that the Library of Congress is freely open to the public throughout the year, and is rapidly becoming the great reference library of the country, resorted to not only by Con- gress and the residents of Washington, but by students and writers from all parts of the Union, in search of references and authorities not elsewhere to be found. Its complete catalogue system lends an additional value to its stores. The advantage of having all American publications thoroughly catalogued and accessible upon inquiry is one which it may require some reflection fully to appreciate, but which would be an invaluable aid to thousands. Its effect would be to build up at Washing- ton a truly national library, approximately complete and freely open to all the people. 4. It was urged with reason that the proposed reform of the unsatisfactory methods of recording and perfecting copy- rights would take away the objections so freely brought against the law. It was complained of by authors and pub- lishers (and upon valid grounds) that they were put to much trouble and some expense to secure a privilege of uncertain value. There were so many points required to be complied with to perfect a copyright title, and these points were so subject to the mistakes and omissions of many officials con- cerned, as well as to those of the author or proprietor, that it might be said of most copyrights taken out that they rested under a cloud, which an ingenious or unscrupulous person might take advantage of to invalidate them. In the first place, the deposit of a copy of the publication in the office of the clerk of the District Court was frequently neglected, and this omission invalidated the copyright. Secondly, the records of the District clerk's office were often so imperfectly kept as to show no deposit of the publication even when made, and this might invalidate the copyright. Thirdly, the transmission of a second copy to the Library of Congress was very frequently neglected, as is shown in the fact that more than one thousand requisitions for publications, whose proprietors had not com- plied with the law, had been issued in a single year ; and in each of these instances the copyright was void until the law was complied with. And what motive had the publishers to 152 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS, use more zeal in complying with the law and transmitting copies of their publications through the District clerks to the Patent Office, when they saw that the books were thenceforth lost and buried, so that not even their authors, or the owners of the copyrights could find them again ? 5. The proposed change, it was urged, would be a great economy for the government. It saved the Patent Office the trouble, expense and room of providing for a great library of material which it could not use and did not want. It left its officers and its space free to be concentrated upon the great and rapidly-growing inventive art of the country. A copy- right is not an invention or a patent ; it is a contribution to literature. It is not material, but intellectual, and has no natural relation to a department which is charged with the care of the mechanic arts ; and it belongs rather to a national library system than to any other department of the civil service. The responsibility of caring for it would be an incident to the similar labors already devolved upon the Librarian of Congress ; and the receipts from copyright cer- tificates would much more than pay its expense, thus leaving the treasury the gainer by the change. These considerations prevailed with Congress to effect the amendment in copyright registration referred to. The Com- missioner of Patents, then Hon. Samuel S. Fisher, gave his hearty cooperation to the measure, and the Hon. Thomas A. Jenckes of Rhode Island, chairman of the Committee on Patents, which had charge of the whole matter, lent the resources of his active and vigilant mind to formulating the law, to answering objections, and to carrying the measure through Congress. By the enactment of the statute of 1870 all the defects in the methods of registration and deposit of copies were obviated. The original records of copyright in all the States were trans- ferred to Washington, and all records of copyright entry were thenceforward kept in the office of the lyibrarian of Congress. All questions as to literary property, involving a search of records to determine points of validity, such as priority of entry, names of actual owners, transfers or assignments, timely deposit of the required copies, etc., could be determined PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 153 upon inquiry at a single office of record. These inquiries are extremely numerous, and obviously very important, involving frequently large interests in valuable publications in which litigation to establish the rights of authors, publishers or infringers has been commenced or threatened. By the full records of copyright entries thus preserved, moreover, the Library of Congress (which is the property of the nation) has been enabled to secure what was before unattainable, namely, an approximately complete collection of all American books, etc., protected by copyright, since the legislation referred to went into effect. The system has been found in practice to give general satisfaction ; the manner of securing copyright has been made plain and easy to all, the office of record being now a matter of public notoriety ; and the test of experience during twenty years has established the system so thoroughly that none would be found to favor a return to the former methods. Th^ Act of 1870 provided for the removal of the collection of copyright books and other publications from the over- crowded Patent Office to the Library of Congress. These publications were the accumulations of about eighty years, received from the United States District Clerks' offices by the Department of State and at the Patent Office, under the old law. By request of the Commissioner of Patents all the law books and a large number of technical works were reserved at the Department of the Interior. The residue, when removed to the Capitol, were found to number 23,070 volumes, a much smaller number than had been anticipated, in view of the length of time during which the copy tax had been in opera- tion. But the observance of the acts requiring deposits of copyright publications with the Clerks of the United States District Courts had been very defective (no penalty being pro- vided for non-compliance), and, moreover, the Patent Office had failed to receive from the offices of original deposit large numbers of publications which should have been sent to Wash- ington. From one of the oldest States in the Union not a single book had been sent in evidence of copyright. The books, however, which were added to the Congressional Library, although consisting largely of school books and the 154 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. minor literature of the last half century, comprised many valuable additions to the collection of American books, which it should be the aim of a National Library to render complete. Among them were the earliest editions of the works of many well-known writers, now out of print and scarce. The first book ever entered for copyright privileges under the laws of the United States was * * The Philadelphia Spelling Book, " which was registered in the Clerk's Office of the District of Pennsylvania, June 9, 1790, by John Barry as author. The spelling book w^as a fit introduction to the long series of books since produced to further the diffiision of knowledge among men. The second book entered was "The American Geogra- phy," by Jedediah Morse, entered in the District of Massachu- setts on July 10, 1790, a copy of which is preserved in the Library of Congress. The earliest book entered in the State of New York was on the 30th of April, 1791, and it was entitled "The Young Gentleman's and Lady's Assistant, b}^ Donald Fraser, Schoolmaster." It should not be inferred, from the foregoing recital, that no copyrights were granted in America prior to the act put in operation by the general government in 1 790 ; on the contrary, Massachusetts and Connecticut had both, through their legis- latures, granted copyrights to authors for a term running to twenty-one years. This was in 1783 ; and in the same year Mr. Madison offered a resolution in the Congress of the Con- federation (which had no legislative powers) recommending to the several States to pass acts securing copyrights to authors for the term of fourteen years. In 1785 Virginia, acting in accordance with this recommendation, passed a copyright law, and New York and New Jersey, in 1786, followed with statutory provisions securing a fourteen years' copyright to authors. But none of these various copyright enactments could operate to secure any protection to authors beyond the limits of the State in which they lived. It was necessarily reserved to a government embracing all the States within its paramount constitutional functions to give such protection to authors as should avail them throughout the United States. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. I55 Objection has occasionally, thoug^h rarely, been made to what is known as the copy-tax, by which two copies of each publica- tion must be deposited in the National Library. This require- ment rests upon two valid grounds: (i) The preservation of copies of everything protected by copyright is necessary in the interest of authors and publishers, in evidence of copyright, and in aid of identification in connection with the record of title ; (2) the library of the government (which is that of the whole people) should possess and permanently preserve a complete collection of the products of the American press, so far as secured by copy- right. The government makes no unreasonable exaction in say- ing to authors and publishers : "The nation gives you exclusive right to make and sell your publication, without limit of quantity, for forty-two years ; give the nation in return two copies, one for the use and reference of Congress and the public in the National Library, the other for preservation in the copyright archives, in perpetual evidence of your right." In view of the valuable monopoly conceded by the public, does not the government in effect give far more than a quid pro quo for the copy-tax ? Of course it would not be equitable to exact even one copy of publications not secured by copyright (the daily newspapers, for example), in which case the government gives nothing and gets nothing ; but the exaction of actually protected publications, while it is unfelt by publishers, is so clearly in the interest of the public intelligence, as well as of authors and pub- lishers themselves, that no valid objection to it appears to exist. In Great Britain five copies of every book protected by copyright are required for five different libraries, which appears somewhat unreasonable. Regarding the right of renewal of the term of copyright, it is a significant fact that it is availed of in comparatively few instances, compared with the whole body of publications. Multitudes of books are published which not only never reach a second edition, but the sale of which does not exhaust more than a small part of the copies printed of the first. In these cases the right of renewal is waived and suffered to lapse, from defect of commercial value in the work protected. In many other cases the right of renewal expires before the author or his assigns bethink them of the privi- lege secured to them under the law. It results that more than 156 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. nine-tenths, probably, of all books published are free to any one to print, without reward or royalty to their authors, after a very few years have elapsed. On the other hand, the exclusive right in some publications of considerable commercial value is kept alive far beyond the forty-two years included in the original and the renewal term, by entry of new editions of the work, and securing copyright on the same. While this method may not protect any of the original work from republication by others, it enables the publishers of the copyright edition to advertise such unauthorized reprints as imperfect, and without the author's or editor's latest revision or additions. The whole number of entries of copyright in the United States since we became a nation considerably exceeds three-quarters of a million. This is no place for detailed statistics of the extensive and steadily growing copyright business of the country. It may, however, be of interest to give the aggregate number of titles of publications entered for copyright in each year since the trans- fer of the entire records to Washington in 1870 : 1870 5,600 1877 15758 1884 26,893 1871 12,688 1878 15,798 1885 28,410 1872 14,164 1879 18,125 1886 31,241 1873 15,352 1880 20,686 1887 35,083 1874 16,283 1881 21,075 1888 38,225 1875 14,364 1882 22,918 1889 40,777 1876 14,882 1883 25,273 1890 42,758 Total 476,353 The reduced number of copyrights registered in 1875 and years immediately following was due to the transfer to the Patent Office, by Act of June 18, 1874, of the registration of all labels and prints illustrative of articles of manufacture. These had been, from the beginning of the government, entered as copyrights, thus en- cumbering the records with a great mass of so-called publications which have no relation whatever to literary copyright, but belong to the mechanic arts. The number of these entries was about 5,000 annually, and, notwithstanding their withdrawal, the increase in the aggregate of other publications has been so large as to exhibit the greatly advanced progress in the publishing activities of the country above recorded. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 157 It will readily be seen that this great number of copyrights (now about twice as large as the annual average registry of patents) does not represent books alone. Many thousands of entries are periodicals claiming copyright protection, in which case they are required by law to make entry of every separate issue. These include a multitude of weekly journals, literary, scientific, religious, pictorial, technical, commercial, agricultural, sporting, dramatic, etc., among which are a number in foreign languages. The entries of periodicals also embrace nearly all the leading monthly and quarterly magazines and reviews, with many devoted to specialties — as metaphysics, sociology, law, theology, art, finance, education, and the arts and sciences generally. An- other large class of copyright entries (and the largest next to books and periodicals) is musical compositions, numbering re- cently some 8,000 publications yearly. Much of this property is valuable, and it is nearly all protected by entry of copyright, coming from all parts of the Union. There is also a large and constantly increasing number of works of graphic art, comprising engravings, photographs, photogravures, chromos, lithographs, etchings, prints, and drawings, for which copyright is entered. The steady accumulation of hundreds of thousands of these vari- ous pictorial illustrations will enable the government at no distant day, without a dollar of expense, to make an exhibit of the prog- ress of the arts of design in America, which will be interesting and instructive in a high degree. An art gallery of ample dimen- sions for this purpose is provided for in the new National Library building, now rapidly rising on Capitol Hill. It remains to consider briefly the principles and practice of what is known as international copyright. Perhaps there is no argument for copyright at all in the pro- ductions of the intellect which is not good for its extension to all countries. The basis of copyright is that all useful labor is worthy of a recompense ; but since all human thought when put into material or merchantable form becomes, in a certain sense, public property, the laws of all countries recognize and protect the original owners, or their assigns to whom they may convey the right, in an exclusive privilege for limited terms only. Literary property therefore is not a natural right, but a conventional one. The author's right to his manuscript is, 158 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. indeed, absolute, and the law will protect him in it as fully as it will guard any other property. But when once put in type and multiplied through the printing-press, his claim to an exclusive right has to be guarded by a special statute, otherwise it is held to be abandoned (like the articles in any newspaper) to the public. This special protection is furnished in all civilized countries by copyright law. What we call " copyright " is an exclusive right to multiply copies of any publication for sale. Domestic copyright, which is all we have hitherto had in this country, is limited to the United States. International copyright, which has now been enacted, extends the right of American authors to foreign countries, and recognizes a parallel right of foreign authors in our own. There is nothing in the constitutional provision which restrains Congress from granting copyright to other than American citizens. Patent right, coming under the same clause of the Constitution, has been extended to foreigners. Out of about 20,000 patents annually issued, about 1,000 (or 5 per cent.) are issued to foreigners, while American patents are similarly protected abroad. If we have international patent right, why not international copyright? The grant of power is the same ; both patent right and copyright are for a limited time ; both rights during this time are exclusive ; and both rest upon the broad ground of the promotion of science and the useful arts. If copyright is justifiable at all, if authors are to be secured a reward for their labors, they claim that all who use them should contribute equally to this result. The principle of copyright once admitted, it cannot logically be con- fined to State lines or national boundaries. There appears to be no middle ground between the doctrine of common property in all productions of the intellect — which leads us to communism by the shortest road — and the admission that copyright is due, while its limited term lasts, from all who use the works of an author, wherever found. Accordingly, international copyright has become the policy of nearly all civilized nations. The term of copyright is longer in most countries than in the United States, ranging from the life of the author and seven years beyond, in England, to a life term and fifty years additional in France and Spain. Copyright is thus made a life tenure and something more in all countries except PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 159 our own, where its utmost limit is forty-two years. This may perhaps be held to represent a fair average lifetime, reckoned from the age of intellectual maturity. There have not been want- ing advocates for a perpetual copyright, to run to the author and his heirs and assigns forever. This was urged before the British Copyright Commission in 1878 by leading British publishers, but the term of copyright is hitherto, in all nations, limited by law. Only brief allusion can be made to the most recent (and in some respects most important) advance step which has been taken in copyright legislation in the United States. This act of Congress, providing for international copyright on pre- scribed conditions, was signed by the President on the 3d of March, 1891, and is aimed at securing reciprocal protection to American and foreign authors in the respective countries which may comply with its provisions. There is here no room to sketch the hitherto vain attempts to secure to authors, here and abroad, an international protection to their writings. Suffice it to say that a union of interests was at last effected, whereby authors, publishers and manufacturers are supposed to have secured some measure of protection, not before enjoyed, to their varied interests. The measure is largely experimental, and the satisfaction felt over its passage into law is tempered by doubt in various quarters as to the justice, or liberality, or actual benefit to authors of its provisions. What is to be said of a statute which was denounced by some Senators as a long step backward toward barbarism, and hailed by others as a great landmark in the progress of civilization ? The main features added to the existing law of copyright by this act, taking effect July i, 1891, are these : 1. All limitation of the privilege of copyright to citizens and residents of the United States is repealed. 2. Foreigners applying for copyright are to pay fees of $1 for record or $1.50 for certificate of copyright, instead of 50 cents for record or $1 for certificate. 3. Importation of books, photographs, chromos or lithographs entered here for copyright is prohibited, except two copies of any book for use and not for sale. 4. The two copies of books, photographs, chromos or litho- graphs deposited with the Librarian of Congress must be printed i6o PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. from type set, or plates, etc., made in the United States. It fol- lows that all foreign works protected by American copyright must be wholly manufactured in this country. 5. The copyright privilege is restricted to citizens or subjects of nations permitting the benefit of copyright to Americans on substantially the same terms as their own citizens, or of nations who have international agreements providing for reciprocity in the grant of copyright, to which the United States may at its pleasure become a party. 6. The benefit of copyright in the United States is not to take effect as to any foreigner until the actual existence of either of the conditions just recited, in the case of the nation to which he belongs, shall have been made known by a proclamation of the President of the United States. There are some doubtful questions involved in the interpreta- tion of the act, which is not free from ambiguity, and which must wait for their solution upon the construction placed upon it by the judicial tribunals. Meanwhile, authors and publishers should await the results of such measure of international copyright as has been achieved, doing what they may to guard their interests, while the experiment is being fairly tried. A measure which was regarded as worth so many years effort to secure should be worth a little patience on the part of those who have secured it. In conclusion, the writers of America, with the steady and rapid growth of the art of making books, have come more and more to appreciate the value of their preservation, in complete and unbroken series, in the library of the government, the appro- priate conservator of the nation's literature. Inclusive and not exclusive, as this library is wisely made by law, so far as copy- right works are concerned, it preserves with impartial care the illustrious and the obscure. In its archives all sciences and all schools of opinion meet and mingle. In the beautiful and ample repository, now being erected and dedicated to literature and art through the liberality of Congress, the intellectual wealth of the past and the present age will be handed down to the ages that are to follow. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. i6i THE EFFECT OF INVENTION UPON THE RAIL- ROAD AND OTHER MEANS OF INTERCOM- MUNICATION. By Octave Chanutb, of Ii^wnois, President of the American Society of Civii, Engineers. A century ago, Washington being then President of the United States, the art of transportation, both by land and by water, was practically still in the same stage of development, as measured by speed of transit as well as by cost, which had prevailed for the preceding eighteen hundred years, or since the establishment of the Roman Empire. Upon the sea there had been, it is true, considerable increase in the size of vessels, and some changes in the mode of their rigging, especially since the length of the voyages had been increased by the discovery of America ; but the sail was still the sole means of propelling ships, and the speeds attained were little, if anj^ greater than those in antiquity. An average progress of one hundred miles per day, under varying con- ditions of wind, was considered satisfactory, and the quickest passages between New York and Liverpool were performed in twenty days, or at the rate of 176 miles per day. Upon the land there had been, since the days of the Roman Empire, many fashions in carriages, but the common road was still the principal way traveled, and the horse was the power chiefly used in transporting passengers and freight. There were canals, it is true, but the average speeds were only two to three miles per hour, and the charges were from six to ten cents per ton per mile. Upon the turnpikes the maximum speed for mail coaches was from eight to ten miles per hour, and a fair day's travel at that period of time may be stated as averaging about 100 miles in twenty-four hours. Extraordinary performances might attain to twice that speed. Thus, upon his disastrous return from Moscow the first Napoleon, anxious to reach his capital in the shortest possible time, rode in his traveling and sleeping carriage from Smorgoni to Paris, a distance of 1,000 miles, between the 5th and loth of i62 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. December, 1812, and this speed of say 200 miles a day may be considered as the utmost that man, with unlimited resources at his command, could then accomplish on a thousand miles journey. Freight rates by wagon were twenty-seven cents a ton a mile between London and Leeds, and thirty cents a ton a mile be- tween Liverpool and Manchester. All this has been changed by one mighty invention, bringing in its train a multitude of other inventions. Steam came into the world to transform into mechanical energy and speed the light and heat of past ages, stored in the coal during the car- boniferous period ; and applications to various means of trans- port soon followed, so that to-day a fair day's journey for a steamship may be stated at 400 miles, and runs of 500 miles in twenty-four hours are not uncommon, while the distance of 1,000 miles, traveled by Napoleon in five days, can now be done by rail in twenty-four hours without the necessity of becoming an emperor to accomplish the feat. Indeed, one of the most remarkable characteristics of the improvements which have occurred in methods of transporta- tion within a century is the fact, that they have chiefly bene- fited the mass of the people. So that the man in moderate circumstances now travels as rapidly and as cheaply as the wealthy, and that enormous economies have been accomplished in the transportation of freight and in the exchange of com- modities. All this, clearly, has been entirely the effect of invention. Improvement has followed upon improvement, because inven- tion has been more active and successful than at any period in the world's history. It would take much too long to pass in review, even in the most cursory manner, the various steps through which this era of invention has passed ; but now, practically, one hundred years after the commercial acceptance of the steam engine by the industrial world, it seems a good time to inquire, in a gen- eral way, what has thus far been accomplished and what the future may have in store for us. It will be remembered that Fulton built the first commer- cially successful steamboat in 1807, and that the "Savannah " PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 163 was the first steamship to cross the ocean in 181Q. In those days, and for many years thereafter, the speeds of steam vessels were small, and the consumption of fuel was great, say four to ten pounds per horse-power per hour. Invention has since been busy with the marine engine, and advancing step by step it has now reduced the coal consumption to one and three-quarter pounds per horse-power per hour, while the speed has been increased 50 per cent. As stated by W. C. Church, the biographer of Ericsson, it is now possible to carry across the Atlantic 2,200 tons of freight with 800 tons of coal, where it was in 1870 only possible to carry 800 tons of freight with 2,200 tons of coal. This is the result, it need scarcely be said, of the substitu- tion of the screw-propeller for the paddle-wheel, of surface condensation, of high steam pressures, and double, triple and now quadruple expansion ; each of them a successive step resulting in such growth, that steamers now plow every sea, and their aggregate tonnage is nearly as large as that of the sailing vessels. The following table, compiled from data published in con- nection with the large model of the globe at the Paris Exposi- tion of 1889, exhibits the estimated number of sailing vessels and steamships now belonging to the various nations of the world : Marine of Principal Nations. country saii^ing vessei^. steamships. No. Tonnage. No. Tonnage. England 14,030 4,510,000 4,870 6,592,000 United States.... 5,900 1,975,000 400 532,000 France 2,050 363,000 430 722,000 Norway 3,660 1,345,000 270 150,000 Sweden 1,910 390,000 370 149,000 Germany 2,190 796,000 540 628,000 Italy 2,700 782,000 180 243,000 Spain 1,410 262,000 340 388,000 Russia 2,150 464,000 220 159,000 Holland 910 261,000 160 198,000 Greece 1,380 279,000 Austria no 143,000 Denmark 910 261,000 170 125,000 Other countries.. 3,040 740,000 650 597,000 1 64 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. It is a source of regret that the United States has not main- tained upon the sea the rank which it occupied earlier in the century. It is now the second in sailing vessels and the fourth as to steamships among the nations of the earth. Many reasons have been assigned for this state of affairs, chief among which are probably our navigation laws and the higher scale of wages which prevails in this country, while vessels engaged in the ocean trade have to compete with all nations. It is just possible that some labor-saving inventions, ap- plicable to steamship service, may diminish the relative im- portance of the wages upon the aggregate cost, and eventually enable us to occupy upon the sea the same position in the world's advance, that the railway has given us upon the land. The RAII.WAY. In discussing the effect of invention upon the railroad, it may be interesting to allude to its early history, which is now being forgotten. It seems to be popularly supposed that the railway dates no further back than the lyiverpool and Manchester Railway in 1829. This, to be sure, was the first great success and com- mercial recognition, but railways, like most human inventions, had previously gone through a process of experiment, evolu- tion and improvement, which prepared the way for the final result. Tramways had been used in operating coal mines in Eng- land for many years. They were crude structures, generally laid with cast-iron plates or rails about three feet long, and worked by horse-power. Trevithic built a fairly good locomotive in 1804, but the road was not strong enough to carry it, and it was speedily abandoned. Stephenson built his first locomotive in 18 14, and he gradually improved upon its construction in subsequent locomotives placed upon the coal tramway with which he was connected, until an opportunity was offered of embodying his skill and experience in the three locomotives furnished to the Stockton and Darlington Railway, of which he became the engineer. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS., 165 This was practically the first line built for public use and intended to convey freight and passengers. It was twelve miles long, and its opening, September 27, 1825, marks the beginning of the present railway era. Although it was a great advance upon what had been done before, its construction was still crude and left plenty of room for subsequent invention. About half of the track was laid with cast-iron rails, and the remainder with wrought-iron rails, weighing twenty-eight pounds to the yard*. These were of the ** fish-bellied " pattern, being two inches in depth at the joints, where they rested upon chairs, and three and one-quarter inches deep in the middle or bellied part ; the top of the rail being two and one-quarter inches broad, with the flange three- quarters of an inch thick. I remember seeing rails of this pattern still in use on a side track at East Albany in 1851, it having been the impression at an early day among engineers that the best results were to be obtained with rails, by following the practice which pre- vailed for cast-iron girders. For some years the Stockton and Darlington Railroad was worked in a mixed sort of way, by both horses and locomo- tives. The latter ran at speeds of four to six miles per hour, although occasional performances of twelve to fourteen miles per hour are recorded, and it was not till 1829, when at the public competition of locomotives for the I^iverpool and Man- chester Railway, the "Rocket," built by Stephenson, attained a speed of twenty-nine miles per hour, and the * ' Novelty, ' ' by Ericsson, ran at twenty-eight miles per hour, that the merits of steam for railway propulsion became fully recognized, and that the active nations of the world began commercially the construction and operation of railways. This commercial movement at once enormously stimulated invention, and a host of ingenious men took up the various problems connected with the railways. Experiment and im- provement rapidly followed each other, and a large number of inventions and devices were introduced in all departments, including the track, the motive power, the rolling stock, and the organization. Indeed, these devices and inventions were so numerous, that many which were fairly good have since been eliminated. 1 66 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. Thus Messrs. Zerah Colburn and Alexander L. Holley, in their report upon the "Permanent Way of European Rail- ways," in 1858, described and figured no less than sixteen systems of English track as the principal types of what had been tried, and of these but three have survived. For the sleepers or ties, stone blocks were used and found too rigid ; timber was laid, both as longitudinal stringers and as cross-ties, and many forms of cast-iron sleepers had been experimented with before any cross-tie system, whether of wood or of metal, became universally accepted. For rails, after the ''fish-bellied," came the strap rail and its attendant snake heads. Then followed the edge rail, whether double-headed or with a flat foot, the inverted " U " rail, the ** saddle-backed " rail bearing directly upon the ballast, and a whole host of compound rails in several pieces, together with an almost endless variety of joints, from the cast-iron chair to the fish-plate, until the present time, when the double-headed rail still obtains favor in Europe, while the foot rail is uniformly used in this country ; there being in all countries considerably less diversity of practice than there was in 1858. In locomotives almost numberless experiments have been tried, and yet the improvement has been rather one of degree than of kind. Stephenson's "Rocket" owed its superiority over all predecessors to the simultaneous introduction in its construction of the multitubular boiler, and of the steam exhaust up the chimney to create draft over the fire ; and these are still the distinctive features of modern locomotives. These engines are, to be sure, much heavier, more simple, and especially much more economical than their original pro- totype, but the speeds are not considerably greater than were obtained within the first few years of the railway era. In rolling stock, a long series of successive inventions has largely added to the comfort of passengers, and to the useful freight load in proportion to the weight of the car ; while in the organization, improvements in the methods of handling business, among which may be mentioned signals and the application of the telegraph, have very largely increased the efliciency and diminished the cost. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 167 And since the telegraph has been mentioned, further refer- ence may be made to the marvelous development of electrical science and its applications within the railroad era. A century ago Franklin had shown the dependence of certain phenomena upon electricity, but it was still a scientific toy confined to laboratory experiments. As soon, however, as Morse, Henry, Vail and Wheatstone harnessed it to conveying thought, in 1845, it became the adjunct and indispensable companion of the railway, and the telegraph line found its home upon the railroad right of way. lyater on came the telephone and the domestic uses of elec- trictity about our homes, in which it has proved such a nimble and effective servant, until these latter days when it has been pressed into service to convey power as well as intelligence, and is now applied to the running of motors for hundreds of purposes, and to the supplying of light and heat. Probably the most remarkable growth among these purposes has been for street railroads, of which nearly 3,000 miles have been opened in the United States during the last five years, which are operated by electric motors. These have been found so much more rapid, economical and capable of overcoming gradients than those operated by animal power, that the day seems not very distant when the horse will be superseded on the street railway line, just as he has been on the general trafl&c railway. Allusion may also briefly be made to the effect of the rail- road upon the art of bridge building. A century ago such structures were comparatively few in number, and a span of one hundred feet was considered a long one. Masonry was the recognized material with which to build, but the necessities of the railroad brought about an evolution, first with wood and then with iron construction, which resulted last year in the opening of the Forth Bridge, the greatest present achievement in this art, with two channel spans each 1,710 feet in the clear, and a clear headway of 150 feet under the bridge. Whether these tremendous spans are to remain the limit, or whether man will spin an iron web across still greater dis- tances, will mainly depend upon the railroad necessities of the future, for it is only the concentrated traffic of the railway which will warrant such very expensive structures. 1 68 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. Now, let us inquire as to what extent the various nations of the earth have availed of the railway. Progress in civilization may fairly be said to be dependent upon the facilities for men to get about, upon their opportunity for intercourse with other men and nations, not only in order to supply their mutual needs cheaply, but to learn from each other their wants, their discoveries and their inventions. Prior to the invention of the steamer and of the railway such opportunities were but few, so that there have been ages in the world, that of the crusades for instance, where war itself was not a wholly unmixed evil, in consequence of the beneficial new ideas which it introduced among men. In order to arrive at the railway mileage of the world I have started from a table published in the last issue of "Poor's Railroad Manual," which furnishes the statistics up to the close of the year 1888. These are the latest data available, and they have been compared with a similar statement pub- lished in * * Archiv fur Kisenbahmweser ' ' covering the same date, which shows 804 miles more than Poor's table. From these tables, knowing the annual rate of recent in- crease, which was 63,941 miles for the four years from 1884 to 1888 (say 16,000 miles a year), and allowing for decreasing or increasing activity in the various countries, as chronicled in the daily and the technical press, I think it is possible to make an estimate which shall approximate closely to the actual facts on the ist of January, 1891. Such a statement, believed to be pretty nearly correct, will be found in the sub- joined table. Estimated Raii^road Mii^kage;, January, 1891. r,^„«fr^ Knd 1888 Increase Estimated ^/^i"^^^^ tj^«„1oH«« tion^per Country. j^.^^g 2 years. 1891 Miles. ^°f°i"°- Population. ^^^^^ ^^ "^^^- railway ^ United States i55,8oi 10,724 166,525 3.3,200 62,600,000 376 Canada 12,764 1,236 14,000 2,660 5,300,000 378 Mexico 4,168 632 4,800 770 11,000,000 2,292 Central America... 1,900 200 2,100 420 8,100,000 3,857 North America 174,633 12,792 187,425 37,050 87,000,000 464 South America 13,850 2,150 16,000 2,880 32,000,000 2,000 Europe 132,836 8,164 141,000 64,860 347,000,000 2,461 Asia 17,618 2,382 20,000 4,200 789,000,000 39,450 Africa 5,152 848 6,000 960 197,000,000 32,833 Australia 10,409 2,591 13,000 2,340 38,000,000 2,933 Totals 354.498 28,927 383,425 112,290 1,490,000,000 3,886 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 169 From this it seems to appear that there are at the present time 383,425 miles of railroad in the world, operated by 112,290 locomotives, without including street lines in cities, at mines or in connection with various industrial enterprises. Of these, 187,425 miles, or nearly one-half, are in North America, and the latter, if placed end to end, would reach around the earth seven and one-half times, without counting the double, triple or quadruple tracks, or the sidings. The total mileage of the globe would encompass it fifteen and one-half times, and would reach more than one and a-half times to the moon (237,840 miles), if there were only supporting ground to lay the track upon. It is estimated that there are 112,290 locomotives, and as a fair average will give them about 500 horse-power each, they are seen to be equivalent to no less than 56,145,000 horses. It will be noticed how tardy some of the oldest nations have been in availing of this improved means of inter-communica- tion. The 789,000,000 inhabitants of Asia, for instance, have but 20,000 miles of railway, this being chiefl}^ in British India. If the whole world were as well provided for in this respect as North America, where there are 2,154 miles of rail- road for each million inhabitants, there would be on this earth more than 3,000,000 miles in the aggregate, or eight times the present mileage. There is therefore still a good deal for the railway builders and organizers to do, and foreign fields may yet be opened to the energy of Europeans and North Americans, should some of the Asiatic nations, like China, for instance, enter upon an epoch of railroad construction, or have the good fortune, like India, to fall into strong hands. Perhaps the latter country exhibits more than any other the beneficial effects of railway construction. Before the British conquest it was very poor, torn by internal strifes and subject to periodical famines. Now it is successfully exporting wheat in competition with the United States and Russia, and it is also supplanting China in the production of tea, a fact as yet but little appreciated ; while in the meantime, wages, though still low, have more than doubled within the century. lyo PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. In Africa there are 6,000 miles. We have all been following with deep interest the various journeys of Mr. Stanley across this continent. Bach of them occupied nearly three years of tremendous effort, and the thought that the actual distance traversed from coast to coast could have been gone over by rail- road in three or four days, may cause us to realize the economy of labor and of time which has been brought into the world by the effects of invention on the railroad. It is almost impossible to estimate in money, even approxi- mately, what has been the economical effect upon the world. There have been so many concurrent causes in the increase of wealth that it seems impracticable to isolate any one of them. We may, however, gain some idea by estimating what the present volume of traffic would cost at prices prevailing a cen- tury or less ago, and for this purpose we may select the United States. It has been said that the cost of freight hauling was 27 and 30 cents a ton a mile in England. In this country it used to be 20 cents a ton a mile between New York and Buffalo before the opening of the canal, and within thirty-five years it was 29 cents a ton a mile across the plains from the Missouri River to Denver. In order to avoid all possible cavil as to the cost being diminished by increased volume of traffic, we will assume a freight rate of 16 cents a ton a mile, which corresponds to the hauling of a ton of goods on a turnpike twenty-five miles per day at an average cost of $4.00. For passenger rates we will assume that a century ago they were 10 cents per mile. Now, the freight traffic of the railroads of the United States in 1889 was equal to 68,604,012,396 tons miles, and the passenger business was 11,965,726,015 passen- gers one mile. If we carry these out at the assumed prices, and deduct from the account (in which the miscellaneous earn- ings are included at the same figure on both sides to make it complete) the actual amounts collected by the railroads from the people in 1889, we have the following balance sheet : PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. VfX Nationai. Balance Sheet with Raii^roads, 1889. 68,604,012,396 ton miles of freight, @ i6c §10,976,641,983 11,965,726,015 passenger miles, @ loc 1,196,572,601 Miscellaneous earnings 66, 685 , 396 Total earnings at prices of 1791 $12,239,899,980 lyess freight earnings, 1889 $666,530,653 Less passenger earnings, 1889... 259,640,807 Less miscellaneous earn' gs, 1889. 66,685,396 992,856,856 Estimated national saving $11,247,043,124 Which is more for one year than the entire cost of our rail- roads, as represented by their stock, bonded debts, liabilities and current amounts, v\^hich in 1889 aggregated a sum of $9,931,453,146. So that the annual saving to the nation, over the prices prevailing in 1791, seems to be greater than the whole capital invested in railroads, if we assume the possi- bility of the volume of traffic having been the same. This assumption is, of course, a fallacy, because the prices prevailing a century ago would have been largely prohibitory, and the volume of traffic would be much smaller, yet this estimated national saving may bring some comfort to the citizens who think that the rapidly-vanishing railroad rates do not go down fast enough, and who say that these corporations are impoverishing the people. We may also gain some idea as to how greatly the improved means of inter-communication have benefited other countries which have availed of them, by considering the vastly-increased scale of national expenditures which prevail among them, as compared with their national expenses a century ago. Some of them, indeed, are now enabled to keep a considerable portion of their working population in idleness, in their standing armies, and yet the comfort and prosperity of the remainder is far greater than that of their people a hundred years ago, while among those nations in Asia and Africa which have failed to avail of the new methods of transportation, wages are still very low, and occasional famines still prevail. But man is still unsatisfied with what has been accomplished, and all over the civilized world invention is still trying to im- 172 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. prove means of transport. The sea, the land, the air, are being- experimented upon to gain higher speeds or more economical modes of transit. It may be perhaps doubted whether greater cheapness will be attained than with the steamer or the railroad, but it is believed that greater speeds are possible in the near future. On the sea the great transatlantic steamers have^ attained within the past two years speeds of twenty and twenty -one knots per hour ; while various experimenters hope to get, with novel means of propulsion, the fabulous speed of thirty to forty miles per hour. Upon the land inventors calmly talk of superseding the present maximum railroad speed of 70 miles an hour with velocities of 120 to 150 miles per hour. Recent developments in electrical science have given good hopes for this, and both European and American inventors are experimenting. Among the latter may be mentioned the ' ' Weems Electric ' ' system, by which speeds of 115 miles per hour have already been attained on a most imperfect track ; the "Williams Porte- Electric ' ' system, of attracting forward at high velocities, a rail- road car forming a magnetic core, through a series of helices or coils charged with an electric current, and the ' ' Chemin de Fer Glissant ' ' system or water borne railroad cars which was exhibited at the Paris Exposition of 1889. Allusion may be made to the "bicycle locomotive," with which it is claimed that far greater speed can be obtained than with the engines in general use ; the principal object of in- ventors in every case seeming to be to gain higher velocities than those which have hitherto been found practicable. In the air, man gazes at the birds and longs to imitate them. I know personally of eight or ten perfectly sane men in the United States, in England, in France, in Australia, and in Egypt, who are experimenting with flying machines — not dirigible balloons, with which a measure of success has already been accomplished, although only low velocities are to be expected from them, but real flying machines, depending like the birds upon the reactions of the air for their support. Of these experimenters, probably the best equipped is Mr. Maxim, the inventor of an electric light and of the automatic PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 173 macliine gun, who made the remarkable statement last No- vember, in a letter to the New York Times, that his experi- ments show that as much as 133 pounds may be sustained in the air by the expenditure of one horse-power ; that he has succeeded in making a motor which will develop one horse- power for every six pounds of weight, and that a speed of 100 miles per hour would seem to be attainable. If his,experiments, which are now being carried on in Eng- land on a large and skillful scale, succeed as he hopes, or if some other of the many inventors who are working on the problem hits upon the right combination, there seems to be no reason why man may not emulate eventually the flight of the swallow, whose speed is computed at 150 miles per hour, or that of the swifter martin, which is said to flash through the ^ir at the rate of 200 miles per hour. v: PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 175 THK INVENTORS OF THE TEI.EGRAPH AND TEI.EPHONE. By Thomas Gray, C. B., F. R. S. B., Professor oi^ Dynamic Bn- GiNEERiNG, Rose Poi the signs are to be produced at the receiving station. Thi| was first accomplished on an extensive scale and at greaf; distances by means of electricity. Methods of transmitting sounds, or even speech, to moderate distances by means of tubes and by means of what we now call string or mechanical tele- phones have, however, been known for several centuries. Methods of conveying intelligence to a distance have been known and used from very early times. Fires seem to have been the earliest means employed for giving signals, and we find such signs referred to in the writings of the Prophet Jere- miah, of Eschylus, of Polynius and others. Schottus, in his * ' Technica Curiosa, ' ' proposes the application of the telescope to view posts erected on an eminence at a distant station, and on which signs were to be placed. The Marquis of Worcester, in his " Century of Inventions," enumerates a day and a nigh^ telegraph ; and Kessler, in his *' Concealed Arts,*' proposes to 176 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. cut out letters in boards and make them visible at a distance by placing them over the end of a cask in which a light is burning, the letters or other characters being exposed in proper succession any message can be transmitted. One of the earliest telegraphs of which we have now a direct representative was the flag signals introduced about the middle of the seventeenth century by the Duke of York (afterwards James II of England), who was at that time admiral of the English fleet. This was the beginning of the flag telegraph still used for communicating between ships at sea ; originally intro- duced for the purpose of directing the manoeuvres of the fleet. In 1684 Dr. Robert Hook communicated to the Royal Society of lyondon a proposal for a telegraph. In this method the signs were to consist of bodies of different shapes placed on high poles in an exposed position. Some years afterwards a similar method was proposed to the Academy of Sciences bj^ M. Amon- tons, a French natural philosopher. In 1767 Mr. R. E- Edge- worth proposed to telegraph b}^ means of the arms of a wind- mill, the positions of the arms of the mill to be used to indicate the signals. In 1784 the same author proposes to make the signals indicate numbers, and to interpret by means of vocabu- laries of numbered words. In 1794 the semaphore telegraph of M. Chappe was adopted by the French government. This telegraph consisted of a high post and two bars of timber, the middle of one pivoted to one end of the other, and the free end of this second bar pivoted to the top of the post, so that the whole of the motions could take place in a vertical plane. The positions, relative to the vertical or horizontal, of the two arms indicated the signal. These and other modifications of the semaphore have been at various times used, and are still used on railways for train signals. The chief interest of these early telegraphs, a great many forms of which might be enumerated, is in illustrating the fact that some means of corTveying intelligence to a distance quickly and without a messenger has, from the earliest times, been recognized as of great importance. It is well also to keep before us the things that have been done in earlier times when we attempt to judge of the advances which have been made by modern invention. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 177 The telegraph of to-day is almost entirely electrical, and in its present form it is of comparatively recent growth. It may be well, however, in this branch also to glance briefly at the early history of the subject. To begin with what we may call the fable period, we find in the year 161 7 an allusion in one of Strada's " Prolusiones Academicse " to the belief that there existed a sympathy between needles which had been touched by a species of loadstone, which caused them always to set parallel to each other if the}^ were free to take up such positions. Two such needles it was said, could be used to convey intelligence to any distance, because if they were pivoted on cards marked with letters or words and the card properly placed, so that corresponding letters occupied similar positions, when one needle was made to point to any letter or mark the other needle would immediately point to the corre- sponding mark on its card. The same belief is referred to by Galileo in one of his dialogues in 1632, and again by the Abbe Barthelemy in a work entitled * ' Voyage du Jeune Anacharsis, ' ' published in 1788. So far this may be said to be mere fable, but it gives an idea of what were then looked upon as possibili- ties in magnetism, and we can hardly help comparing with these ideas some almost equally extraordinary ones which are occasionally expressed at the present day with respect to electricity. The discovery of Stephen Gray, in 1729, that the electrical influence could be conveyed to a distance by means of an insu- lated wire, is probably the first of direct influence in connec- tion with telegraphy. As a result of this discovery, and the investigations which followed it, we find a considerable number of proposals to use electrical forces for the transmission of intelligence. The first of these of which there is any record was made by Charles Morrison, of Renfrew, Scotland, in a letter to Scot's Magazine, written in 1753, and signed "CM." As many insulated wires as there were characters to be signaled were to be erected between the two stations. At the receiving station the ends of the different wires were to be connected to a series of balls, underneath which the characters, printed on light pieces of paper, were to be placed. If any one of the wires became electrified by the distant end being put in contact 1 78 PROCEEDINGS OF -'^T^E* CONGRESS. with the source of electricity, the character under the ball on t;^e end of it would be attracted and thus indicate the signal. An interesting modification was suggested in the same letter, namely, to replace the balls by. a series of bells of different pitch, arranged, in' stch a way -that when the wires became eleotrified they would discharge into the bells and cause them t^ sbund : ,*. . ..' . '''the electric spark, breaking on bells of difietent size, will inform his correspondent by the sound what wir^ have been touched;,* and thus, by some practice they may c6me td understand, the language of the chimes in whole words wkkout being put to the trouble of noting down every letter.'* A/^itailar telegraph was invented in 1767 by Joseph Bozolus, a Jesuit and a lecturer on natural philosophy in Rome. (See a Latin poem, entitled * * Mariani Parthenii Blectrocorum, " in VI Libros^ Roma, 1767, p. 34). In 1774 a telegraph on the same principle was established by Le Sage. In this system each wire term- inated in a pith-ball electroscope, and the signals were read in accordance with the indications of these electroscopes, of which twenty-four were used. This telegraph was improved upon by Lomond in 1787, one wire only being used, and a code of signals forming the means of interpretation. A similar proposal was made by Betancourt in the same year and again by Cavallo in 1795. The latter proposed to use combinations of sparks as a code of signals. In 1794 Reizen proposed to cut letters out of tinfoil, leaving a series of short interruptions of the tinfoil at short distances apart, so that a discharge of electricity around the tinfoil would illuminate the letter by a series of sparks. This method of producing illumin- ated patterns is still a common class-room experiment in physi- cal lectures. The next to propose the use cf static electricity for telegraphic purposes seems to have been Ronalds, of Ham- mersmith, in 1 8 16. In this telegraph the letters were printed oiiAa disk which was mounted on the seconds arbor of a clock. One of the clocks was placed at the sending and the receiving stations, and arranged to bring corresponding letters simul- taneously opposite a small window in the dial of the clock. When the proper letter was exposed a signal was sent by means of a pith-ball telegraph. This telegraph was more com- plicated than several which have been mentioned above, and required two clocks going synchronously. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 179 In the year 1767 an important observation was made by Sulzer. He found that when two plates of different metals were placed one above and the other below the tongue, a peculiar sensation and taste was felt when the metals touched each other outside the tongue. Sulzer failed to find the expla- nation of this phenomenon, and no further advance was made until the well-known frog experiments of Galvani gave fresh impetus to the subject. The discoveries of Voka and the invention of the voltaic pile shortly followed. In the same year (1800) an attempt to close the circuit of a voltaic battery by means of a drop of water led Nicholson and Carlisle to the discovery that water is decomposed by the galvanic current. This gave rise to the galvanic or electrolysis telegraphs ot Sommering, Coxe and Sharpe, and is the basis of all the chemical printing and copying telegraphs which have in more redent times been produced. Sommering' s telegraph was in- vented in 1809, and was similar in principle to that of Morrison, except that the decomposition of water and consequent accumu- lation of gas in a series of tubes gave the necessary indications. To call attention, it was proposed in connection with the tele- graph to liberate an alarm bj^ means of an accumulation of gas. Professor Coxe, of Pennsylvania, described a similar telegraph in 18 10, and proposed to use either the decomposition of water or of metallic salts. Mr. J. R. Sharpe proposed a voltaic telegraph in 18 13, and exhibited it before the Lords of the Admiralty, ' * who spoke approvingly of it, but added, that as war was over and money scarce, they could not carry it into effect." (See Repertory of Arts, Second Series, Vol. XXIX, P- 23). Perhaps the most important electrical discovery in its influ- ence on telegraphy was made by Romagnesi, of Trente, in 1805, but received little attention and no development until it was rediscovered by Oersted in 18 19. This was the discovery that a wire conveying an electric current is capable of deflecting a magnetic needle. In the following year Schweigger discovered that the deflecting force was increased when he wound the wire several times round the needle. These two discoveries formed the foundation for the construction of the galvanoscopes and galvanometers since so much used in connection with electrical l8o PROCEEDINGS Oh THE CONGRESS. appliances and measurements. One of the most extensive applications has been to telegraphy. Galvanoscopic, or, as they have been more commonly called, needle telegraphs resulted very shortly from these discoveries. In this field of invention we find, prominent among the early workers, the distinguished names of Ampere, Gauss and Weber. Ampere proposed a multiple wire telegraph with galvanoscope indicators in 1820. A modification of Ampere's telegraph was carried out by Ritchie, and afterwards exhibited in Edinburgh by Alexander. In this telegraph thirty wires were used, twenty-six for the letters of the alphabet, three for signs of punctuation and one for the end of a word. The gal- vanoscope needles each carried a small screen which in its normal position covered the letter, but which, on the passage of a current through the wire, was drawn aside exposing the letter to view. The transmitting keys were arranged like the keys of a piano-forte. With the exception of the use of gal- vanic instead of static electricity this telegraph was not much in advance of the proposal of Morrison. A single circuit tele- graph was invented in the year 1828 by Tribaoillet, who also used a galvanoscope as the indicator. In 1832 a five-needle telegraph was invented by Schilling, who also used a single needle and single circuit telegraph, using reverse currents and combinations of signals for an alpha- bet. Models of this telegraph were made and exhibited before the Emperor Alexander and others, but Schilling unfortunately died before any practical result was attained. In 1833 Schill- ing's telegraph was developed to some extent by Gauss and Weber, who used it for experimental purposes. The chief modification introduced by these experimenters was the sub- stitution of induced currents, produced by the motion of a coil of wire surrounding a bar magnet, for the galvanic currents used by Schilling. The following translation of a part of a report of the magnetic observations of these physicists given in Poggandorf's Annalen, 32, p. 568, is quoted from "Sabine's Electric Telegraph," ''There is, in connection with these arrangements, a great and until now in its way novel project, for which we are indebted to Professor Weber. This gentle- man erected during the past year a double-wire line over the PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS, i8i houses of the town (Gottingen) from the Physical Cabinet to the Observatory, and lately a continuation from the latter building to the Magnetic Observatory ; thus an immense gal- vanic chain (line) is formed, in which the galvanic current, the two mtiltipliers at the ends being included, has to travel a distance of nearly 9,000 (Prussian) feet. The line wire is mostly of copper, of that known in commerce as 'No. 3,' of which one metre weighs eight grammes. The wire of the multipliers in the Magnetic Observatory of copper, 'No. 14,' silvered, and of which one gramme measures 2.6 metres. This arrangement promises to offer opportunities for a number of interesting experiments. We regard, not without admira- tion, how a single pair of plates, brought into contact at the further end, instantaneously communicates a movement to the magnetic bar, which is deflected at once for over a thousand divisions of the scale. ' ' And further on in the same report : " The ease and certainty with which the manipulator has the direction of the current, and therefore the movement of the magnetic needle, in his command, by means of the communi- cator, had a year ago suggested experiments of an application to telegraphic signaling, which, with whole words and even short sentences, completely succeeded. There is no doubt that it would be possible to arrange an uninterrupted telegraph communication in the same way between two places at a con- siderable number of miles distance from each other. ' ' The method of producing the currents in Gauss and Weber's experiments was an application of the important discoveries of Faraday and Henry in the induction of currents by currents and by magnets, which have since borne so very important fruit in the field of dynamo-electric machinery. On the recommendation of Gauss this telegraph was taken up by Steinheil, who following their example also used induced currents. The important contributions of Steinheil were the discovery of the earth circuit, made while attempting to use the rails of a railway as telegraphic conductors ; the invention of a telegraphic alphabet and a recording telegraph. Of these the discovery of the earth circuit, made in 1837, has proved of great value. An interesting description of Steinheil' s tele- graph, together with illustrations of the magneto-electric and 1 82 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. recording apparatus used on the line erected in 1837, between Munich and Bogenhausen, will be found in Sturgeon's ''Annals of Electricity," (Vol. III). This account, written by Steinheil himself, shows that he had at that time an excellent apprecia- tion both of the mechanical and electrical properties which a good practical electric telegraph should have, and also that he was well versed in the knowledge then existing of electrical science. The relative merits of scopic, acoustic and recording telegraphs are discussed, and the advantages, which experience has since brought into prominence, of the acoustic telegraph is- pointed out. A very good discussion of the most economical method of arranging signals for a telegraphic alphabet wdll also be found in this paper. Schilling's telegraph, which we have just seen, was the model on which Gauss and Weber's and, therefore, also Steinheil's telegraphs were based, was, as we shall see presently, also#the basis of Cooke's, and of Cooke and Wheatstone's needle tele- graphs. Previous to the date which we have now reached (1837) ^.n- other epoch-making discovery had been made, which has had great influence on telegraphy. This was the discovery of the magnetizing influence of the current. The discovery of Oersted was followed up by Ampere in a long series of researches, in which, among other things, he established the mutual attrac- tions and repulsions of wires carr5dng currents, the fact that the voltaic element itself acts on a magnet like any other part of the circuit, and that a spiral of wire forming part of a circuit would magnetize steel needles. In the same year M. Arago found that a wire conveying an electric current attracted iron filings, and in 1824 the law of the variation of magnetic force with varying distance from the wire was investigated by Bar- low. In 1825, Sturgeon found that a bar of soft iron was ren- dered temporarily magnetic if surrounded by a helix of wire through which an electric current was passing. In the year 1827, Ohm propounded his celebrated law of the conduction of currents. In 183 1, Faraday in England, and Henry in America, discovered the induction of currents by currents and by mag* nets. We see from these leading facts that in the twelve years succeeding Oersted's discovery the knowledge of electricity and PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 1 83 of magnetism in the directions important for telegraphic appli- cation was very great, and we shall see that it quickly bore fruit. Schilling's telegraph was exhibited at a meeting of German naturalists held at Bonn in 1835, and was there seen by Prof. Muncke, of Heidelberg, who, after his return to Heidelberg, made models of the telegraph and exhibited them in his class- room. These models were seen by Cooke in the early part of 1836, and gave him the idea of introducing the electric tele- graph in England. Cooke immediately set to work to construct a telegraph on a similar plan, and worked out a three-needle system of signals, which has been to some extent confounded with the five-needle telegraph afterwards patented and intro- duced by him in conjunction with Wheatstone. While arrang- ing for experiments on the I^ondon and Manchester Railway, Cooke was introduced to Wheatstone, and afterwards consulted him as to difficulties he had met with in his experiments. A partnership soon followed, which led Wheatstone to devote considerable attention to the subject. The result has been the production of a considerable variety of telegraphic apparatus of great value and ingenuity. Steinheil was anticipated in the idea of making the electric telegraph self-recording by Morse, of New York, who, accord- ing to a considerable amount of evidence brought forward by Morse himself, thought out some arrangement as early as 1832. Exactly what Morse's first ideas were seems somewhat doubtful, and he did nothing till 1835, when he made a rough model of an electro-magnetic recording telegraph. This telegraph con- sisted essentially of a pendulum, which carried a marking pencil on its lower end, and which could be deflected by an electro-magnet. The deflections of x^he pendulum were re- corded on a band of paper, which was moved forward by clock- work under the pendulum, and simple combinations of deflec- tions were to represent numbers. The interpretation of the message was to be made by means of a telegraphic dictionary, in which the words, phrases or sentences were to be numbered. There was no hint at this time of the alphabet with which we are now so familiar as the ' * Morse Code ' ' or the ' ' Morse Alphabet." This alphabet now almost universally used and 1 84 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. which has probably done more than anything else towards perpetuating the name of Morse, being that which perpetuates the name " Morse System," was not invented by Morse but by Vail, who was associated with him in the development of the tele- graph. The dictionary of numbered words proposed by Morse was proposed by Kdgeworth in 1794 in connection with his semaphore telegraph. The model made in 1835 shows little mechanical i^genuit3^ The method of transmitting the signals, which was by means of type moved through a contact-making device, was somewhat crude and much less convenient than the simple make-and-break circuit devices of several previous workers, and the electro-magnet used to deflect the pendulum showed almost complete ignorance of the principles then known of electro-magnetism. The chief points of interest in connec- tion with the early history of the Morse telegraph lie in the proposal to use electro-magnetism as the motive force to move the recording pendulum and the idea of making the telegraph self-recording. Morse made positive claims to have been the first to do both of these, and it seems proper that his claim should be examined. After the discovery of Sturgeon in electro-magnetism became known among scientific men the subject was taken up by Pro- fessor Henry, who was then teaching ph3^sics in Albany Academy. An account of part of Henry's experiments was pubHshed in *'Silliman's American Journal of Science" for January, April and July, 1851. The following, among other things, were subjects of investi- gation in these experiments : The laws which govern the mag- netizing effect of a helix under varying conditions as to num- ber of turns in the helix, nature or arrangement of the battery, and length of the external circuit. The carrying power of magnets having different kinds of winding and different lengths of wire in the coils. The construction of an electro- magnetic engine. The transmission of power to a distance by means of his electro-magnetic engine. Among the applica- tions were the closing of a distant electric circuit by means of the armature of an electro magnet, the coils of which were in- cluded in another circuit passing through an operating or transmitting station, and the transmission of signals to a dis- PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 185 tance by causing the armature of an electro-magnet to strike a bell each time a current was sent through the coils of the mag- net from the transmitting station. The latter of these applica- tions was illustrated by means of a model apparatus included in a long circuit of wire taken several times round one of the rooms in Albany Academy. The following claims made in this connection by Professor Henry are well founded, and de- serve quotation : *' I. Previous to my investigations the means of developing magnetism in soft iron were imperfectly understood, and the electro-magnet which then existed was inapplicable to the transmission of power to a distance. ' ' ** 2. I was the first to prove, by actual experiment, that in order to develop magnetic power at a distance a galvanic bat- tery of ' intensity ' must be employed to project the current through the long conductor, and that a magnet surrounded by many turns of one long wire must be used to receive this cur- rent." "3. I was the first to actually magnetize a piece of soft iron at a distance, and to call attention to the fact of the applica- bility of my experiments to the telegraph." "4. I was the first to actually sound a bell at a distance by means of the electro-magnet. ' ' V 5. The principles I had developed were applied by Dr. Gale to render Morse's machine effective at a distance." It is to Henry, undoubtedly, that is due the credit not only of first pointing out the application of electro-magnetism to telegraphy, but also of supplying the requisite knowledge of how to make magnets suitable for the transmission of signals through long distances, which rendered the practical applica- tion possible at that time. Besides this, we see that Henry actually constructed an experimental line and made the first electro-magnetic sounder, which consisted of a receiving mag- net with a polarized armature, one end of which was attracted by the magnet and the other end made to sound a bell. Again, in the method of closing one circuit by means of a magnet in another circuit, we have the electro-magnetic relay, afterwards reinvented by Morse and others, and now very widely used on long telegraph circuits both for closing "local circuits" and for "translation." 1 86 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. The credit of inventing the electro-magnetic telegraph was claimed by and has usuall}^ been, popularly at least, given to Morse. There has been some dispute as to who first suggested the idea, it having arisen out of a conversation among the passengers on board the ship Sully during a passage from France to New York in 1832. Dr. Jackson, of Boston, claimed to have been the originator of the idea, and it seems not un- likely that information which he is said to have given with reference to the early experimental telegraphs then being worked on and exhibited in various parts of Europe did orig- inate the idea. It is not clear, however, that the use of the electro-magnet was suggested by Jackson, and there is sufficient evidence to show that Morse had had opportunities of seeing a . copy of Sturgeon's magnet in Professor Dana's laboratory in New York. The magnet made by Morse was itself almost an exact copy of this, and it w^as only after failure with it that he appealed to Dr. Gale for assistance. Dr. Gale gave the necessary information and supplied the materials for making the change, afterwards informing Morse that he had learned how to ar- range such an apparatus from the writings of Professor Henry. Probably the idea of using an electro-magnet was original with Morse. He didn't know of Henry's work or, indeed, anything about the subject beyond the few experiments in which he had seen Sturgeon's magnet used, and would naturally turn to that means of obtaining motive force. It is not necessary, however, when giving Morse due credit for his originality to ignore the fact that, although unknown to him, the scientific part of the invention had already been worked out by Henry, and besides that, through Dr. Gale, Morse actually made use of Henry's discoveries before he succeeded in making his scheme practica- ble. Morse afterwards objected to Henry's claims, which were brought before the public by enforced testimony in the law courts, and not by any individual motion on Henry's part. The public have lauded Morse and have paid him liberally for the little he actually did, while it was with great difficulty that Congress could be persuaded to make a petty allowance to Henry's family, although he had been for many years a public servant, and besides had probably added more than any other man to the scientific reputation of the United States. Many PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 187 people think that scientific men ought not to patent their dis- coveries. Which is the better known name, Henry or Morse ? Would not Henry have gained both in popularity and in scien- tific reputation if he had patented and made the public pay liberally for his discoveries ? From the brief sketch just given it will be seen that in look- ing over the history of the early endeavors to produce a telegraph many ideas have been brought forward as to codes of signals, alphabets, telegraphic dictionaries, methods of calling attention by alarm apparatus, methods of arranging and oper- ating the circuits, and so on, that only required an efficient motive force to render them practical and reliable sj^stems. In looking over the subject, therefore, we are forced to the conclu- sion that the telegraph was not the invention of any man, but the result of a gradual growth towards which many minds, some of them the ablest the scientific world has known, have contributed. , We have now reached a stage in the history of this subject when inventors may be said to have had the fundamental prin- ciples of the subject, as it now. stands, before them and we have simply to look for developments. These developments have been great and of a very varied character. It is impossible in this address to do more than sketch a few of their leading features. As alread}'- stated the telegraph of Schilling, through a model exhibited bj^ Professor Muncke, of Heidelberg, gave the idea of an electric telegraph to Cooke in the year 1836. It appears, also, that Wheatstone was aware of these early ex- periments, and had himself paid some attention to the subject. His experiments on the velocity of electricity, made in 1834, are sufficient to show that he was at that time aware that sig- nals could be produced at the end of long circuits of wire by electrical means. The joint work of Cooke and Wheatstone led, within a few years, to considerable improvements in the needle telegraphs. The various forms of needle telegraph used by them, resulting in the final adoption of the single- needle system, for a long time extensively used in England, were passed over in a few years. Various modifications of the needle telegraph were, somewhat later, patented by the I88 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. brothers H. and B. Highton, including an interesting form in which the current was passed through a strip of gold leaf placed in front of the pole of a magnet. Bach time the current passed the gold leaf was deflected, and thus served in place of an index needle. A patent was granted to Wheatstone and Cooke in 1 840 for improvements in giving signals and sounding alarms at distant places by means of electric currents. In this patent the first form of the letter showing, dial or A, B, C telegraph, as it has been variously called, is described. Improvements were sub- sequently made in this apparatus by Wheatstone, and several modifications have been made by other inventors, of which the best known are Brequet's, Froment's, Siemens' Chester's, Kramer's, Siemens and Halske's, and Hamblet's. The first apparatus devised by Wheatstone was actuated by voltaic electricity, but in the later forms magneto-electricity was applied. One or other of these methods have been used in the other forms of apparatus for the same purpose. Wheat- stone also worked on a type-printing telegraph, which was a modification of his A, B, C instrument, but it never came into practical use. Probably the greatest achievement of Wheat- stone, judged at least by its practical results, was his auto- matic recording telegraph, which is so largely used for press and other long despatches in Bngland, and which has attained to marvelous speeds for a mechanical recorder. Morse's telegraph first came before the Patent Office in the form of a caveat filed by him on the third of October, 1837. The following inventions were specified : First, a system of signs by which numbers, and consequently words and sentences, are signified ; second, a set of type, adapted to regulate and com- municate the signs, with rules in which to set up the type ; third, an apparatus called the port rule, for regulating the movement of the type rules, which rules, by means of the type, regulate the times and the intervals of the passage of electricity ; fourth, a register, which records the signs perma- nently ; fifth, a dictionary, or vocabulary of words, numbered and adapted to this system of telegraph ; sixth, modes of laying conductors to preserve them from injury. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 189 This caveat gives a good idea of the invention by Morse of the recording telegraph previous to his partnership with Vail. The partnership was agreed upon in September, 1837, and according to it Mr. Vail undertook to construct at his own ex- pense and exhibit before a committee of Congress one of the telegraphs "of the plan and invention of Morse;*' that he should give his time and personal services to the work, and assume the expense of exhibiting the apparatus and of procur- ing patents in the United States. In consideration, Vail was to receive one-fourth of all the rights in the invention in the United States. Provision was also made for securing to Vail an interest in any foreign patents which he might furnish the means to obtain.* A large amount of documentary evidence bearing on the development of the telegraph exists in the possession of Mr. Vail's family, and in the National Museum at Washington. From this evidence there seems no doubt but that Morse assumed and has been accorded very much more than his share of the credit of the invention of the telegraph as it is now known. The patents taken out in Morse's name included many important improvements which were entirely due to Vail, and for which Morse promised to give him credit, a promise which was never publicly redeemed. The alphabet now used was, as I have already said, worked out by Vail, who, it appears, first began its formation by an attempt to classify the letters of the alphabet according to frequency of occurrence, with the view of giving to these letters the simplest signs. After working on this for some time, it occurred to him that valuable information might be obtained in a printing ofi&ce, and a visit to an adjacent newspaper office showed him the whole problem solved in the printers' type tray. The alphabet which he afterwards formed is still used in this country and also, with some simplifications, as the European and international code. The modification of the recording apparatus from the vertical pendulum and recording pencil to the compact instrument with a horizontal lever and metallic stylus, marking by indentation, used on the first telegraphic line between Washington and Baltimore, was also due to Vail. * See F. L. Pope in the Century Magazine ^ Vol. XXXV, p. 924 et seq. I90 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. Many other things might be mentioned to show that in the early stages of this invention, which has marked so wide a step in our modern civilization, the name of Vail deserves a promi- nent place. It is very unfortunate that his own modesty^ together with his confidence in Morse's promises to do him justice, prevented the matter from being publicly ventilated during the lifetime of the inventors. After several unsuccessful attempts to induce Congress to assume the expense of building a line of sufficient length to practically test the proposals of Morse, an appropriation of $30,000 was made in March, 1843, for the purpose of building a line from Washington to Baltimore. This line was completed and successfully opened on the 24th of May, 1844. The system practically introduced with the opening of this line, modified in some of its mechanical details, has continued to be the principal one used, and is the basis of most of the recording telegraphs in all countries. One important modification should, however, be mentioned, that is the wide use of the click of the armature for reading the message in preference to the recorder. This is a. return to the electro-magnetic acoustic telegraph of Henry. It gives one of the simplest possible receiving instruments, and, as was long ago pointed out by Steinheil, possesses the great ad- vantage that it leaves the eyes of the operator disengaged. Of other forms of telegraphic apparatus, the most important are the type-printing telegraph. Among the early inventors of these we find Vail, who invented a type-printing telegraph as early as 1837, ^^^ Wheatstone ; but the first instrument practi- cally used was invented in 1846 by Royal K. House, of Ver- mont. This instrument was used for some time in the United States, and was brought to a considerable degree of perfection. It worked on the step-by-step principle and was patented in 1846. Another type-printing telegraph of great ingenuity was invented by D. B. Hughes, of Kentucky. This apparatus embodies many of the features of the apparatus used at present in this country, which is a modification of Hughes's instrument due to Mr. Phelps. The Hughes instrument is still largely used in France and to some extent in other European countries^ The Hughes patents in this country were purchased in 1856 by the American Telegraph Company, and the apparatus has PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 191 undergone successive modification at the hands of Mr. Phelps, tending towards simplification, accuracy of working, and in- creased speed. One of the latest modifications is known as the Phelps's Electro-Motor Telegraph, in which the mechanism is driven by means of an electro-motor which, running at a high 5peed, allows the trains of clock-work to be short and light. The principle here used is the synchronous movement of a trans- mitting shaft on the transmitter and the type-wheel of the receiver. Synchronism is obtained by a governor, and con- tinuous rapid motion is kept up. The letter printed is regu- lated by the position of the transmitting shaft when the circuit is closed, this position being under the control of the operator. Phelps is also the inventor of stock telegraphs and private line printing telegraphs, and, besides his, similar instruments have been invented by Laws, Calahan, Gray and others. These instruments work on the step-by-step principle and all of them are beautiful specimens of mechanism and scientific ingenuity. Another system of recording telegraph messages requires notice — that is the chemical method.- We have seen that very early in telegraphic history the decomposition of liquids and of solutions of salts were made the basis of telegraphs. It was soon found that a ribbon of paper or cloth saturated with cer- tain chemicals could be very readily marked by the passage through them of the electric current. One of Morse's first plans appears to have been a chemical telegraph, but that, I believe, was never worked out. The first patent for such a telegraph was given in England to Edward Davy in 1838, but the system never came into practical use. It was complicated in construction and required four line wires. One interesting feature was the use of an electro-magnetic escapement for mov- ing the paper, an idea which had occurred to Cooke and to Wheatstone some years earlier. The first successful chemical telegraph was due to Bain of Edinburgh, and was patented in 1846. In this system it was proposed to transmit the message by an automatic transmitter, using a punched slip of paper.to regulate the contacts. Some difiiculties with the mechanical operation of preparing the necessary stencil slips prevented this being very successfully used, but the chemical record was used for some years both in England and America. With the 192 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. apparatus now available for transmission, very high speeds can be attained by this method of recording the signals. The chemical method of recording has been mostly used for copying or autographic telegraphs, and of these a considerable number have been devised. The automatic method of trans- mission has been brought to a high state of perfection. Among others who have worked at the subject are Wheatstone, Sie- mens and Halske, Garnier, Humaston, lyittle, Edison, Park, Thomson. The next important step in telegraphy was the employment of one line-wire to convey more than one message at the same time. A solution of the problem of sending two messages, one in each direction, was attempted by Gintl of Vienna, in 1853,, and in the following year by Frischen and by Siemens and Halske. These methods were not very successful, but they were mechanically sufficient for the purpose. They, however, left an important item out of the account, namely, the elec- trostatic capacity of the line. The proper solution of the difficulty was given by J. B. Steams of Boston, in 1871, who solved the problem completely, so far at least as land lines were concerned. The same principle is sufficient for all pur- poses, but some important modifications in detail are necessary for submarine cables. These modifications were successfully made by Muirhead of London, and at the present time duplex working is an ordinary accomplishment. The chief workers in this field were Frischen, Siemens and Halske, Stark, Bd- lund, Gintl, Nystroin Preece, Fur Nedden, Farmer, Maron, Winter, Steams and Muirhead. Next the problem of sending two messages in each direction was worked out. This involves the additional problem of the simultaneous sending of two messages in the same direction. The solution of this problem was attempted by J. B. Stark, of Vienna, in 1855, and during the following ten years it was worked at by Bosscha, Kramer, Maron, Schaak, Schreder^ Wartman, and others. The first to obtain success was Kdison, in 1874 ; and his method, with'some modifications, is still used. Systems of quadruplex were also invented by Gerrit Smith of the Western Union Company, in 1875 and 1876, and a modifi- cation of Kdison' s method was made by Prescott and Smith. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 193 Smith's 1876 method is known as the Western Union Company's Standard Quadruplex. * A system of multiple transmission was devised by M. G. Farmer, of Salem, in 1852, in which, by a commutation ar- rangement, the line-wire was put successively in contact with a number of local circuits. A similar system was exhibited by Meyer at the Vienna Exposition in 1873, and an improved form was introduced a few years ago by Delany, which is in use in several countries. These systems are of use if the line- wire is capable of doing more work than any one of the stations is capable of supplying, and may be likened to one of the main wires from the central to a district telephone exchange, with this exception — that all the correspondence goes on simul- taneously, and there need be no difficulty as to precedence. Distinctive from these is the harmonic telegraphs of Klisha Gray, Kdison, and Bell. In this system, which has been most completely worked out by Gray, any number of messages may be sent simultaneously, without reference to speed of trans- mission. In principle, the method consists in causing each of a number of vibrating reeds at one end to produce pulsations of the current flowing through the line, which have the same period as the vibrations of the reed. A corresponding set of reeds at the receiving end of the line are arranged so as to be acted on electro-magnetically by the current. Each of these receiving reeds will, providing the periods of the different reeds forming any one set are incommensurable, respond only to the pulsations of its own natural period, and hence only to the vibrations of the corresponding reed at the sending end. The continuity of these vibrations may be broken up by means of a sending key, and thus a message transmitted in the ordinary * ' Morse ' ' alphabet. The autographic or writing telegraphic apparatus, which has been developed of recent years, is of great interest, both from the fact that the handwriting of the sender is reproduced in fac-simile, and from the great ingenuity of the apparatus em- ployed. The writing telegraph of Cowper and the telautograph of Elisha Gray are good examples of this mode of transmitting messages. 194 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. In Cowper's system two rectangular components of the motion of the pen are made to vary the resistance, and con- sequently the current, in two line wires. These currents act on two electro-magnets at the receiving station, and the arma- tures of the electro-magnets are arranged to produce two rect- angular components of the motion of the receiving pen. Bands of paper are kept moving at approximately the same rate under each of these pens, and hence the characters traced by the motions of the transmitting pen are reproduced with considerable accuracy by the receiving pen in consequence of the varying positions of the armatures of the receiving magnets, caused by the variations of the current. In Gray's apparatus two rectangular components of the motion of the transmitting pen send pulsatory currents into the line- wire. These pulsatory currents cause corresponding movements of the armatures of two receiving magnets, which are made to move the receiving pen in the direction, in corresponding directions, and through proportionate distances. Separate electro-magnetic arrange- ments lift the pen off the paper between the words and at the end of the lines, and allow the receiving pen to be moved back- wards or forwards without marking the paper. Still another electro-magnetic arrangement is used to move the paper forward between the lines. Anything that can be made with a pen — such as a sketch or drawing — can be telegraphed in this way. The whole apparatus is exceedingly ingenious, but much too extensive and complicated to admit of clear description here. Although the mere extension of telegraphs from land to sub- marine lines can hardlj^ be called an invention, yet very many new problems presented themselves for solution in this exten- sion. Many of these problems were of a more purely scientific character than those presented in the developments which had been in progress, and consequently tested the knowledge then existing of the laws of electricity much more severely. It was very soon discovere(f, for example, that the rate at which signals could be transmitted, and the battery power or other electro- motive force necessary to effect the transmission, did not, as in land lines, depend almost entirely on the size and length of the conductors used. The electrostatic capacity of the line imme- diately began to play an important part, and signals were found PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 195 not to be transmitted so instantaneously as they were on exist- ing land lines. Again, there was no opportunity of using relays, so as to effectively shorten the longer lines, and the in- vestigations of Thomson led him to point out that the rate of signaling would be inversely as the square of the length. Such difficulties as these, combined with the very evident dif- ficulties involved in manufacturing and submerging a cable in deep water, were, to say the least, discouraging. Experiments on short lengths in the English Channel and elsewhere proving successful, faith in the possibility of longer cables grew, and very soon, through the enterprise of a few American and Eng- lish business and scientific men, an attempt was made to lay a cable across the Atlantic. The history of that undertaking and its various failures are almost common knowledge, but perseverance conquered all the difficulties, and to-day no one thinks of the probability of failure when a long cable is pro- posed. The laying of long cables brought out the fact that, as had been anticipated, existing telegraphic apparatus was not of great enough sensibility to render moderately rapid signaling possible. This difficulty was almost immediately met by the mirror galvanoscopic receiver of Thomson, followed some years later by his siphon recorder, which is undoubtedly by far the most sensitive recording telegraph known. Improved methods of working cables soon followed, among which, in the early days, probably the most notable is the introduction of condensers between the ends of the cable and the earth by Varley. The successful duplexing of cables by Muirhead has already been referred to, but it is somewhat curious to note that although the electricians interested in cable working were familiar, as early as 1856 and perhaps earlier, with the difficulty which had prevented success on land lines, no one seems to have thought of applying the remedy. As early as 1858 a patent was taken ont by Thomson, in which he proposed to overcome the difficulty of duplexing a cable by a mechanical arrangement for varying the compensating currents at the same rate that the signaling current varies. He has since said that he did not propose the use of condensers, because a means of producing a sufficiently good model cable was not then known. 196 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. Such a model cable was not available for nearly twenty years after the above date, and was finally produced by making prac- tically a copy of the actual cable, using tinfoil strips for the conductor insulated from an earth plate by means of thin paraf- fined paper, so as to give electrostatic capacity. The invention of the telephone constitutes one of the greatest advances that have been made in telegraphic communication. This is an acoustic telegraph, which has the very important merit that the audible signals are spoken words, and hence the instruments can be used by any one who can hear and speak and who understands the language in which the message is. transmitted. It is well known that sound is transmitted through the air from the source to the hearer by waves of condensation and rarefaction, which affect the drum of the ear. Wheatstone, as- early as 1831, showed that these waves could be transmitted from one place to another, at a moderate distance, through wooden rods and afterward conveyed to the ear by the vibra- tions given to the air by the end of the rod. Similarly, vibrations given to one diaphragm can be conveyed to another, at a con- siderable distance, by connecting the two diaphragms together by a stretched cord or wire. This appears to have been known for several centuries in the central districts of India, and a similar apparatus was described by Hook in 1667. A similar apparatus is now used and known as the mechanical telephone^ To cause the vibrations of one diaphragm to produce corre- sponding vibrations in another diaphragm, at a distance, through the agency of an electric current, was the problem of the electric telephone. The first to propose this seems to have been Charles Bourseul, who, in 1854, suggested the use of two plates — one at the transmitting station, which, by the varying pressure of the air due to the sound waves, would open and close an electric circuit ; while the other was to be acted on at the receiving station by an electro-magnet, through which the coils of the electric current passed. The varying strength of the electro- magnet, due to the rapid succession of currents, was thus to be taken advantage of to give the proper succession of impulses to the receiving diaphragm. In 1861 Philip Reis, of Fried- richsdorf, proposed, in a lecture delivered before the Physical Society of Frankfort, to use an instrument, which he called a PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 197 telephone, for the reproduction at a distance of music and human speech. The apparatus consisted of a stretched mem- brane forming part of one side of a box, into which, by means of a mouthpiece, the sounds could be directed. This mem- brane was made to open and close an electric circuit at each vibration. At the receiving end an electro-magnet, consisting of a thin rod of iron surrounded by a coil, was placed. The successive interruptions and closings of this electric current was, in accordance with a discovery made by Dr. Page, of Salem, Mass., in 1837, to produce sounds of the same pitch as those of the sound directed into the box of the transmitter. This method failed for speech, for the simple reason that speech has more characteristics than pitch ; and it was only partially successful for musical sounds, from its inability to produce* with any approach to accuracy, the necessary variations of loudness and quality. To produce not only the frequency of vibration, but also the loudness and quality of the sounds evidently required a trans- mitter and a receiver which did not depend for its action on simple interruption of the current, but which varied it in an undulating manner, similar to the variations of pressure to which the diaphragm receiving the sound vibrations was sub- jected due to the sound waves. Such an apparatus of a very perfect type was produced by Graham Bell in 1876, who, in the descriptions of his apparatus given in his patent specifications and elsewhere, shows that he thoroughly understood what had to be done. We all know from actual experience that the in- strument which he produced did it. Since the publication of Bell's invention a great many modifications have been pro- duced. Most of them have, however, been held to embody the same essential principle as that of Bell, the variation being simply one of mechanical arrangement. One field of investiga- tion has, however, been fruitful of improvement. In the original patent of Bell, and also in a caveat filed almost simul- taneously by Blisha Gray, it is pointed out that the variations of the current may be produced by causing the vibrations of the diaphragm to vary the resistance of the circuit. This idea has proved of great value in increasing the loudness of the sounds given out by the Bell telephone when used as a receiver. A great many forms of these ' ' microphone ' ' transmitters have 198 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. been invented. Among those who have made important con- tributions we may mention Berliner, Blake, Bdison, Gower, Gray, Hughes and Hunnings. Another form of telephone has been proposed by Professor Dolbear. In this telephone system one diaphragm of the receiver is made to foim one plate of an electric condenser, and the varying electric force on this plate, due to the fluctuations •of the charge, causes it to vibrate in response to the varying electro-motive force produced by the transmitter. This con- denser telephone can evidently be used either as a transmitter or as a receiver, and, as Dolbear has pointed out, may be ren- dered sensitive by keeping one plate of the condenser at a high potential. Another interesting discovery in this subject should be mentioned, namely, the transmission of speech from one place to another by means of beams of light or radiant heat. This was based originally on the discovery by May and Smith of the variation of the electric resistance of selenium when ex- posed to light or radiant heat. Many other substances have «ince been found to have the same property in a greater or less ■degree. The experiments of Bell and Sumner Tainter have shown that if a beam of light be reflected from a thin mirror, and, by means of lenses or otherwise, made to pass as a parallel beam from the transmitter to the receiving station, and there received on a bar or series of bars, or a coil of a sub- stance having the properties of selenium, the resistance of this substance will be afiected by vibration of the mirror. If, then, the mirror be used as a transmitting diaphragm, like that of a telephone transmitter, words spoken to the mirror will be repeated by a telephone, in the circuit of which the selenium is placed and through which an electric current is kept flowing. In this address an attempt has been made to sketch very briefly the development of the application of electricity to the transmission of intelligence. Many important applications (as, for example, fire-alarms and railway signal systems, etc.) have not been referred to, and a host of important contributors have, as a matter of necessity, been entirely ignored. To go into detail, and do justice to every one who has contributed to the present state of the electric telegraph was an impossi- bility and has not been attempted. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 199 INTBRNATIONAI, PROTECTION OF INDUSTRIAI^. PROPERTY. By F. a. Seely, a. M., of Pennsyi^vania, Principai. Examiner. U. S. Patent Office. The convenient phrase Industrial Property, recently natu- ralized into our language, comes to us from the French, who are more apt than we in finding terms to express generic ideas. It does not include all property employed in industry, but only incorporeal property related to production and trade, and has its analogue in the phrase Literary and Artistic Property. The latter includes the property of the author and artist in the pro- ductions of their labor and genius ; such, in fact, as we usually define by the term copyright. Industrial property includes a wide field of incorporeal rights, such as are embraced in mechanical and design patents and trade-marks, including many for which the English language scarcely has names. The phrase Good-Will is made with us to cover a number of rights constituting a sort of property, for which the French have specific names and a place in their jurisprudence. For an occasion like this I shall not attempt to traverse sa wide a field as implied by the title assigned to me. The general acquiescence of the commercial world in the sentiment that the name and trade-mark of a manufacturer are his prop- erty under the law of nations, long proclaimed in Europe, makes their international protection comparatively easy. It has been accomplished by treaty stipulations in many in- stances, in others it has been conceded without question as a common law right. In few cases, except where shameless piracy of trade-marks is countenanced by a corrupt trade morality, is there serious difiiculty in securing their protection. There are some differences in definition yet to be adjusted, some minor obstacles to be removed, but commerce is wielding its mighty influence to bring the nations of the world into constantly closer relationships, 'and to throw down the barriers 200 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. that civilization and Christianity have found hitherto insupera- ble. Everything leads to the belief that before long the inter- national character of this kind of property will be completely recognized and full protection accorded to it in all commercial nations. Dismissing, therefore, this branch of the subject, I shall consider briefly the history of International Protection for Mechanical Inventions and its present aspect from an American standpoint. The world was very slow in coming to the notion of Indus- trial Property. No trace of it exists in ancient laws or customs. Athens could reward with a laurel crown the originator of a new idea in art, but could not conceive that he possessed any rights in its exercise. In Sparta industry was scorned as the lot of the slave, whose rights were systematically crushed. In Rome the laborer had neither rights nor property, and in the systems of law derived from Rome there is no recognition of the rights of inventors or artisans. During the dark period of the Middle Ages many industries flourished, but under the restrictions of the feudal system, and the more oppressive tyranny of trade corporations, the personal rights of the arti- san were lost sight of. When even the right to work was a privilege, accorded by favor and hampered by arbitrary and cruel regulations, the notion of a property-right in an inven- tion, or an improvement in the arts, or a trade-mark, was inconceivable. Under the fixed rule of the Guilds the introduction of a new improvement was next to impossible, and the marks affixed to merchandise to indicate its origin were property in about the same sense that the brand and chains of a convict are his. They served to point out the producer of merchandise in order that if it failed to come up to the required standard the harsh and irrational penalties which the times permitted might be visited upon the proper victim. It is not till the darkness of the Middle Ages has passed, and the more reasonable ideas of modern times are gleaming in the horizon, that the notion is evolved of remuneration to the inventor of a new and useful art. Under the Tudors in Kngland, among other privileges that flowed from royal favor, the exclusive right was sometimes accorded to exercise within PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 201 the realm the entire industry in which the beneficiary had made a useful improvement. Such privileges, going by grace rather than as of right, were allied to the mass of other privi- leges and monopolies which were slowly crushing the life from ^English industry. Two years after the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock the first step in the history of the world was taken to- wards the recognition of Industrial Property by the enactment of the law of monopolies ofjames I, which abolished privileges wrhile reserving to the Crown the right to grant patents to the authors of new and useful inventions. It would be a mistake to assume that the sentiment expressed in this law recognized a right of property in an invention. The patents granted under it still flowed from royal favor. They were less arbitrary than the privileges which preceded them, since they were granted for limited times, and the monopolies they created were re- stricted to the enjoyment of the new invention of which they were the object. For this reason they ceased to be an obstacle to industry, but became the reward of the inventor, and laid the foundation for the vast industrial supremacy Great Britain has so long enjoyed. A hundred and forty years later, by a decree of I^ouis XV, December 24, 1762, a similar step was taken in France. The preamble to this decree recites that the privileges conferred for the purpose of compensating inventors had failed of their ob- ject, because, being accorded for unlimited time, they had be- come rather an hereditary patrimony than a personal reward to the inventor. Their term was therefore fixed at fifteen years. This legislation, like all before it, recognized no rights of the inventor, but left the concession to the caprice of power, and its exercise subject to the malicious opposition of the corpora- tions. The first step toward the acknowledgment of the rights of inventors in France was in an edict of the same king, March 12, 1776, of which the philosophic Turgot was the author, and which recognized these rights as natural and common. * ' God, ' * said this edict, * ' in giving to man needs, and in making neces- sary to him the recourse of labor, has made the right to labor the property of every man ; and this property is the first, the most sacred, and the most imprescriptible of all rights." This 202 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. concession of the rights of labor was a wonderful one for the old regime in France ; but feudalism still reared its head, and the conditions growing out of its arrogant claims, and the arbi- trary power of the trade corporations, were an insuperable ob- stacle to the complete enfranchisement of industry. Not many years were to elapse, but a new light was to flash over Europe from a source scarcely conceivable at that time. We may confidently claim that the Constitution of the United States, in giving to Congress the power to secure to authors and inventors for a limited time the exclusive right to their respect- ive writings and discoveries, was the first practical and effective step in the history of the world for the recognition of property in inventions. The act of April lo, 1790, quickly followed, enforcing the provision of the Constitution and establishing for the United States the rights of the inventor. It is conceivable that this feature of the Constitution may have been suggested in part by the French edict of 1776 ; but it is certain that France was prompt to welcome back the principle ; and in the law of Jan- uarj^ 7, 1 791, the National Assembly provided for the protec- tion of new inventions. The preamble of this law is a noble statement of what is true in principle and wise in policy. It runs thus : ''The National Assembly, considering that every new idea^ whose manifestation or development may become useful to so- ciety, belongs to him who has conceived it, and that not to re- gard an industrial invention as the property of its author would be to attack the essential rights of man ; considering at the same time how much the lack of a positive and authentic dec- laration of this truth may have contributed till now to discour- age French industry by occasioning the emigration of numerous distinguished artists, and by causing to pass out of the country a great number of new inventions from which this Empire ought to have drawn the first advantages ; considering finally that all the principles of justice, of public order, and of national inter- est, imperatively command that it determine for the future the opinion of French citizens with regard to this class of property by a law which consecrates and protects it, decrees — " PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 203 The law which followed, firmly establishing the principle of property in inventions, survived in France through all her po- litical changes for the next half century, being superseded b}^ a new law in 1 844. Meanwhile nearly all the countries of Con- tinental Europe had enacted patent laws ; and the principle, originating in the mutterings of discontent that led to the Rev- olution in England, carried to its full extent as the logical se- quence of American independence, and finding its foothold in Continental Europe during the feverish intellectual and politi- cal conditions of the French Revolution, has become the com- mon heritage of the civilized world. Those who declaim against patent rights as grinding monop- olies for the oppression of the artisan may possibly learn from this history that in the economics of modem life the patent sys- tem is the first fruit of the protest of labor against enthroned and ancient privilege. It is the offspring of revolution and the very reverse of monopoly. It was created on the demand of the common people simultaneously with the overthrow of monopo- lies and with the establishment of civil and religious freedom. It is a perpetual token of the concession made to the rights of labor by power and privilege. In its last analysis the right in- volved in a patent is the right to work and to the legitimate rewards of intelligent industry ; and we wonder why the world so long refused it recognition, or that, as its nature has been better understood, opposition to it should have been maintained. But nothing dies harder than error and prejudice, and indus- trial freedom was only to be secured at the cost of such revolu- tions on both continents as have established other human rights by the overthrow of thrones and the dismemberment of empires. There is always room for dispute about the efi&cacy of dif- ferent systems for the protection of the inventor and for the encouragement of industry, but the truth of the declaration solemnly made in France a century ago grows ever clearer, until it is hard to find an intelligent person to dispute it, that ' * not to regard an industrial invention as the property of its author is to attack the essential rights of man." The establishment among European nations of the idea of property in inventions, and of its protection by law, was at last achieved. It was a step magnificent in what it embodied, and 204 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. its results upon industry, commerce and social life have passed all computation. But the new conditions which it created quickly proved that the limited protection accorded by national laws failed to a great degree of its purpose. The swift and con- stant intercommunication of ideas, to which national frontiers were no barrier, carried the improvements in the arts made in any nation to the confines of the civilized world, and for these improvements, beyond the limits of his own nation, the inventor had no rights that other nations would respect. An invention patented in one country was denied protection in others, and thus, while it contributed to promote the industries of all, pro- tection was accorded to its inventor in only one, and was, therefore, disproportionate to the benefits the world derived from it. Such a state of things is repugnant to human sense of justice. The same conception of the rights of the inventor that had found expression in the constitutions of the United States and of the French republic forced thinking men to the conclusion that the rights in question could not be bounded by geographic lines, but that the protection of the inventor should be co- extensive with the benefits he has conferred upon mankind. Hence the idea of international protection. How far the earlier patent laws fell short of recognizing the rights of alien inventors may be seen by a brief inspection of the successive statutes of the United States. The act of 1790 grants patents without restriction to ''any person ;" but this thoughtless liberality was restricted by the act of 1 793, by which patents were granted only to * * any person being a citizen of the United States, ' ' thus cutting off the alien from the privilege. The pendulum had swung too far, for it could not but be seen that in a new country inviting immigration the prospective citizen ought to enjoy the same rights as the citizen in this respect ; and in the first section of the act of 1800 all rights respecting patents were given to aliens who had resided two years in the country, conditioned upon an oath that the invention had not been known or used in this or in any foreign country. In this act the pendulum appears to have swung too far the other way, since under it two years residence in the country, without intention to remain PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 205 or to become a citizen, gave the alien inventor all the rights of the citizen. But this continued the law until 1832, when it was further amended so as to give the privilege of a patent to the alien who at the time of petitioning was a resident of the United States, and had declared his intention to become a citizen, a condition which practically survives in the existing law for caveats. This act guarded against abuse by providing that the patent should be forfeited if the inventor failed to become a citizen within the earliest period possible for him. It is noticeable that as yet there is no indication of protecting foreign inventors, only those of citizens of the United States and alien residents, and the inventions of the rest of the world are left free to appropriation by all who chose to employ them, while a prior foreign patent is made a bar to a patent in this country. In 1836 the barriers to granting patents to aliens were thrown down. Any person might now receive a patent, as under the act of 1790, but with the remarkable provision that, while the fee in an application to be paid by a citizen or resident alien was but thirty dollars, the fee to be paid by foreigners generally was fixed at three hundred dollars, and that to be paid by Brit- ish subjects was five hundred dollars. This was reciprocity with a vengeance ; but these invidious distinctions remained in the law until they were completely wiped out by the act of 186 1. Under the act of 1836 a prior patent or printed publication in a foreign country constituted a bar to the grant of a patent in the United States, but this bar was removed by the sixth section of the act of 1839. Since that act, and since the re- moval in 1 86 1 of discriminating fees, the benefits of the patent law of the United States have been freely open to all the world. Our law gives to all men of all nations the same privileges, and recognizes to the fullest extent the international character of property in inventions. In this respect, as in the original com- plete recognition of the rights of the inventor, the United States may claim to have led the world and to be leading it still. Had the nations of Europe in the development of their patent systems been led to adopt similar wise and liberal principles, the difficulties that now environ international protection could never have been experienced. The features of these systems 2o6 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. which stand in the way of complete reciprocity are now to be considered. The patent systems of European nations have not been framed upon the same model, but their clearly defined purpose is to promote the useful arts by rewarding the inventor of a new im- provement, in securing to him the exclusive enjoyment of his invention for a limited term. Agreeing in this general prin- ciple, they differ widely in details of procedure and in their exactions of the inventor and patentee. Among the most im- portant differences are those between systems which require and those which dispense with preliminary examinations into nov- elty, between those which grant the patent to the first appli- cant on the assumption that he is the inventor, and those which require of the applicant evidence that he in good faith be- lieves himself to be the first inventor, and between those which publish as incidental to the application, and those in which publication is only incidental to the grant. Since in theory the patent under all laws goes to the inventor, little difficulty would arise in affording international protection if the practice were made to conform to the theory of law, and no patent granted except on showing by his own oath, or otherwise, that the person filing the application was the true inventor of that for which he seeks protection. It is out of this defect in prac- tice, and the provision in the laws of many nations that the grant of a patent for an invention already published is void, that the difficulty in securing international protection arises, since it results that an inventor, having first patented his in- vention at home, is excluded by virtue of official publication in his own country from securing protection abroad, while any other person may anticipate the true inventor by depositing an application in another country, and so secure to himself the protection not justly his. Systems like these fail of their avowed object, and stimulate industry by the encouragement of piracy. They date from a period when no nation cared for the rights of the alien, when the recognized standard of trade mo- rality sanctioned the refusal in one country of protection to the incorporeal rights of the citizens of another, and when the in- ternational protection of industrial property was not dreamed of. And now, when broader views prevail of the rights of aliens. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 207 the narrow ideas embodied in laws long outgrown form the obstacle to the accomplishment of the object desired. These laws are sustained by the same spirit of conservatism in which, in all ages, every ancient evil has intrenched itself. The laws of the leading patent-granting nations of Europe — England, France and Germany — may be taken as the type of all. In the two latter the patent is refused or void if a prior publication has been made of the invention anywhere. In England, if prior publication has occurred within the realm. Considered with relation to the United States these conditions are practically identical, and cut off the American inventor from protection after the grant of his patent at home. Neither nation requires an oath of invention, and the American inventor is, therefore, helpless against the unscrupulous person who, having acquired knowledge of his invention, may, during the pendency of his application at home, take steps to secure a patent abroad. This is the American aspect of the conditions which, in these and other countries, bear so hard upon the alien, and which the ingenuity of inventors and the craft of statesmanship have sought for many years to remove. The question how to protect the true inventor simultaneously in all countries has baffled those who could not see clearly that the only difficulty arises from narrow and ungenerous laws, the repeal of which by common consent would resolve the whole problem. In this state of things it has been necessary to con- sider how the result may be accomplished under existing laws. Protection has been secured by the difficult and often hazardous process of depositing applications on the same day in all the States in which protection is desired, whereby the legal bar of .antecedent publication is avoided in all. The United States patentee modifies this arrangement by filing his application in the countries of Europe on the same day upon which his patent is granted at home. This serves two purposes, it avoids vitiating his foreign patent by reason of a prior publication here, and it avoids the consequences of an unfortunate feature of our law, which abridges his domestic patent by reason of a prior patent abroad. This system, though ingenious, is costly 2o8 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. and liable to failure through a variety of accidents, but it is the best hitherto devised under present conditions. It seems possible to find some way acceptable to all commer- cial nations, and harmonious with all patent systems, by which a plain and easy road could be opened to the international protection of the inventor without resort to tricks, and not subject to accident or unreasonable expense. It may be that the statesmanship of the Old World has by some defect of vision failed to see the way out of the difficulty which lies directly under its eyes. It is at least remarkable that with the consensus of Europe that publication of an invention must be a bar to the grant of a subsequent patent in another country, or vitiate one if obtained, it has not occurred to their wisdom that absolute relief would be afforded if (by a slight modification of their laws) they would provide that such publication shall not be a bar to the true inventor if made in pursuance of the laws of his own country, and incidental to protection there. Without entering into details it would seem that, if there is an honest purpose to protect the inventor, so much of a concession should be made to him, with such limitations as to time and otherwise as might seem just, but on the whole relieving him of the hard conditions under which he forfeits his rights abroad by virtue of obedience to the law at home. Such action by the various nations would lay the foundation for true reciprocity. If it would be an assimilation to the law of the United States it is because that law, far in advance of those of Europe, already recognizes the international principle. If to this amendment were added another, to the effect that patents granted in the different countries should be independent of each other in respect to their duration, a point in which our own law is still at fault, international protection would be practically accom-. plished. The features of some patent laws, involving the pay- ment of dues and the working of the invention to keep the patent in force, may be disregarded so long as they subject the alien to no unequal burden beyond what conies from his re- moteness, a difficulty that neither laws nor treaties can remedy. To the average American intellect such a proposition appears equitable, logical, straightforward, and adapted to its end. But PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 209 it has not so appeared to those who have heretofore attempted to solve the question by international compacts. The outcome of efforts hitherto made in this direction in America and Europe is to be found in two notable schemes, recently brought to the attention of the people of the United States. The first of these is the International Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, framed in Paris in 1880, and signed by plenipotentiaries of many American and Euro- pean powers in 1883. This Convention forms the basis for the International Union for the Protection of Industrial Property, of which the United States became a member in 1887. Having been drafted by a committee appointed by the French Government, it necessarily embodies French ideas. It was earnestly discussed by delegates from various powers ; but, the United States being represented by one of our Ministers at a foreign court, who had no particular knowledge of the subject, the peculiar features of our law were not brought to the atten- tion of the conference. The treaty was adopted with slight modifications of the original draft. Its vital point is the provis- ion of a limited period (called a period of priority) within which an inventor, having first filed an application for a patent at home, may secure protection in other countries without having his rights vitiated by reason of the publication of the invention in his own country, or even by the grant of a patent for the same invention to a third party during the period. This is a long step toward international protection, but signally defective in principle, and from our aspect of it a practical failure. It is not the deposit of an application in one country that vitiates a subsequent patent in another, but the publication conse- quent on such deposit. And it would seem to have been the practical course to make the period of priority run from the publication, which follows deposit at a greater or less interval, but is always the act fatal to the subsequent patent abroad, rather than from the deposit, which has no such fatal character. In respect to countries where the interval is .short between de- posit and publication the arrangement is effective ; but where, as here, the two events are unrelated in time, and months or years may elapse between them, this period of priority, well conceived as it is, is practicall}^ without value. It is too late 2IO PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS, now to determine whether the provisions of the fourth article of the Convention of Paris might not have been modified if the features of American law had been brought to the attention of the conference of 1880. Unfortunately this was not attempted. The Convention of Paris in providing that a person who has filed an application for patent in one of the contracting States is entitled, by virtue of such deposit, to priority of right in any other State, provided he file his application there within the prescribed interval, assumes that the grant of a patent neces- sarily follows the deposit of the application. It ignores the examination into novelty required by our law, and for that reason is incompatible with it. Therefore, without scrutiny of the details of that Convention, many of which are wise and free from objection, and according to it its full meed of praise for the exalted purpose it embodies, it must be said of it that it fails of its purpose through its omission to recognize the wide difierences in patent systems. Further than this, by its establishment of a period of priority dating from deposit rather than from publication, it has created a source of danger to patents for the first six months of their existence. The British patentee cannot know until seven months of the life of his patent have passed, but that some American inventor may file in the British Patent Ofiice an application for the same invention, and, by virtue of an earlier application in the United States, cause the existing British patent to be annulled. This is no imaginary source of danger, as is shown by the history of a case published in the Illustrated Official Journal oi the British Patent Office, January 22, 1890. It appears that Main, an American, having filed an application in the United States April 18, 1887, made an application in Great Britain, November 18, 1887, the very last day of the period of priority. The grant of a patent to him was opposed on the ground of a prior patent, to wit, No. 8262, of June 8, 1887, already five months in existence. Under the provisions of the Convention of Paris, and of section 103 of the Patent Act made in pursuance thereof. Main demanded to have his application dated back to April i8th, the date of his application in the United States. This was allowed by the Comptroller, who was sustained on appeal by Sir Richard Webster, Attorney PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 211 General, the prior British patdit being thereby rendered void. An ambuscade of this character would be impossible if the period of priority, whether long or short, were made to run from the official publication. The proposition of the United States to amend the Conven- tion in this respedl was earnestly contended for by our dele- gates in the Madrid Conference of 1890. Objections to it were not so much to the principle it embodied, as on account of the difficulty of changing existing laws, which in several countries had already been modified to accord with the terms of the Convention. The United States delegates were not prepared with an answer to this objection, and they could only hope by an intelligent presentation of their proposition, and by bring- ing it to the attention of the governments and peoples of the other States, that through its equity and logical consistency and practical character it might, in course of time, be more favorably entertained. The second projedl for the international protedlion of inven- tions is contained in the draft of a treaty agreed upon in the International American Conference, held in this city last year. This draft was reported to the Conference on March 3, 1890, and adopted without discussion. It is unfortunate that, in a Con- gress assembled at this capital to consider a subjedl like this, pains should not have been taken to become acquainted with the United States patent law before formulating the terms of a treaty. Had this been done, it might have been possible to frame a series of articles consistent with our law, and at the same time acceptable to the other American nations. The report presented by the Committee on Copj^right, Trade- Marks and Patents is full of exalted sentiment respecting the rights represented by these terms, and their just claim to inter- national prote<5lion. The treaties recommended for adoption concerning these three subjects were the same that had been agreed upon in an International Congress at Montevideo, in which all the South American States but three took part. They are presumably acceptable to most of the South American nations ; but that upon patents, with which alone we are now concerned, is very far from agreement with the laws of this country, and must be wholly unacceptable to our people. 212 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. The first article provides that any person having a patent in one of the contracting States shall enjo}^ in all the others all the rights of inventor, provided he shall, within a year, cause his patent to be registered in such States. When it is con- sidered that, with scarcely an exception, the governments of South America grant patents without inquiry into novelty ; and further, that in the United States the registration of a patent granted abroad is an unknown thing, it will be seen how widely at variance this proposition is with our S3^stem. The third article provides that questions regarding priority of invention shall be settled according to the date of applica- tion for the respective patents in the countries where they were granted. This ignores the principle at the foundation of the. United States patent system, that patents shall be granted to the first inventor, and the elaborate system of interference pro- cedure, by which contests for priority are determined. The fourth article prohibits the grant of patents for inven- tions or discoveries already made public, either in any of the contracting States or elsewhere. This is as v\^idely at variance with the United States law as are the first and third articles, since under our law a printed publication at home or abroad is no bar to a patent to the inventor who is able to show that he made the invention before the date of the publication, and has not abandoned it. Those who look for a complete realization of the idea of in- ternational protection for inventions must deeply regret the failure of the American nations to profit by the magnificent opportunity afibrded them by the International American Con- gress at Washington. It can be no exaggeration to say that a week's work of the United States Patent Office is more than a year's work of the patent ofi&ces of all the other American republics combined, and that a system, the evolution of a century of experience, and the most potent factor in the un- rivaled industrial progress of this country, was entitled at least to be recognized in a congress of that character convened at its capital. But with this regret comes the hope that as the American nations draw closer together in the bonds of com- mercial intercourse to which sentiment invites, and which wise statesmanship fosters, the opportunities may not be far distant PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 213 when this subject shall be renewed with clearer light, and with better assurance of results advantageous to all the nations con- cerned. What has been practically accomplished aside from these two projects may not be overlooked. Complete international protection exists between us and our nearest neighbor, the Dominion of Canada, by virtue of no treaty or concession, but by the enactment of laws in that country as liberal towards the alien as they need to be, and in some respects more judicious than ours. Any person, citizen or alien, may secure a patent in Canada, provided the invention has not been in public use or on sale in the country, with the consent of its author, for more than one year prior to the application. A prior foreign patent is no bar if the application is filed in the Dominion within one year from its grant, a wise restriction which we might profitably adopt, since our law as it stands creates conditions sometimes prejudicial to vested rights of our own citizens. The Canadian statute differs from ours in many par- ticulars, but the two are so nearly assimilated in respect to the rights of aliens that through them the ideal of international protection has been nearly accomplished. Our liberal and progressive sister republic, Venezuela, permits the true inventor to secure a patent after having first obtained protection in his own country, and permits public use of the invention in the country for two years before application for patent. The little realm of Hawaii has bodily adopted our law ; and so we have the nucleus for an International Union of four self-legislating governments, created by no formal convention, but called into existence by the recognition in each of the rights of the inventor, and the refusal to limit those rights on account of acts done in order to secure protection under the laws of another country, provided he avail himself of his privileges within a reasonable time. To this list should be added Sweden, whose law, imitating our own in many respects, gives a foreign in- ventor a limited time after the grant of his home patent during which he may file his application in the kingdom. Nor is this all. A year ago, when the Conference at Madrid refused the American proposition, the delegates from this country did not believe that the last word had been said. 214 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. Their demand was so fair and logical that it could not fail to impress itself on thoughtful minds. And now comes the news that the most powerful empire of Europe, which up to this time has refused to accede to the International Convention because not in harmony with her laws, is contemplating an amendment to them that will amount on her part to an acceptance of that proposition. A commission of the Reichstag has reported in favor of an amendment, which will give to inventors belonging to nations which give corresponding privileges to German sub- jects the right to file applications for patent in the empire within three months from the date of the official publication of the description of the invention in the country of origin, without fear of having their German patents invalidated by reason of such publication.* Since we already grant that privilege to German subjects, we are prepared to step in and reap the ad- vantage of the proposed legislation the moment it is in force. This step on the part of Germany is not dictated by senti- ment, but by rigid policy. It carries further the principle em- bodied years ago in her treaty with Austria-Hungar)^, which was for the mutual advantage of the people of both empires. It profiers to the other nations of Europe a privilege hereto- fore denied them, provided they can grant the reciprocal privi- lege; and will almost compel these nations to concede to Germany what they could so easily refuse to us. It puts Germany in line with the United States in the demand we made upon Europe in the Madrid Conference, but in a better position, since Germany has something to give in return which we had not. The adoption of this amendment to the German law will put a new face on the whole subject of international protection of inventions; and it is not unreasonable to expect that when delegates from the United States shall renew our proposition at Brussels in 1893, it will meet with more favor than at Madrid ; and at no distant day the truth may repeat itself, that the stone refused by the builders has become the head of the corner. In considering the prospects of international protection for patent rights in harmony with American ideas, the thought constantly intrudes whether our liberality to the alien has not *This law went into effect in Germany, October i, 1891. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 215 been excessive. Those who have sought in conference with the representatives of other nations to secure some concession advantageous to American inventors have been met by the demand, * ' What can you give in return ? ' ' We have nothing to give, since for many years we have lavished everything on the alien, in placing him on precisely the same footing as the citizen in the Patent Ofl&ce and in the courts. But diplomatic agreements are seldom anything but bargains. They are affairs of barter, in which each party strives to secure the best for himself. In this market those fare best who are able to give real value in exchange for what they desire. Those who have nothing to give are apt to get nothing in return. Our liberal legislation, in throwing wide open our doors to the in- ventors of every nation, had its origin in the doctrine embodied in the Constitution that the useful arts are encouraged by the protection of inventors, and in the belief that the just reward of the inventor should not be withheld from him, though he chance to be an alien. This theory of our law is the only sound theory of international protection. But many a noble theory has worked badly in practice ; and so, while we have been promoting industrial progress at home by beneficent laws, protecting alike the citizen and the alien, we have been un- able to secure for our own citizens in foreign lands the rights we have so freely conceded. The golden rule, admirable and exquisite in its simplicity, fails by its very simplicity of appli- cation to the complex affairs of diplomacy. The first duty of a government is to its own citizens, and while we act with all beneficence toward the people of other States, our own people have the right to demand that this beneficence shall not be exercised to their injury. International protection is not to be attained, it is rather hindered, by unlimited concession on the part of a single gov- ernment. If ever reached it must be through mutual conces- sions from all. In the progress of the world toward this result the United States, with our present liberal legislation, can be little else than a spectator. We may proudly point to the results of our system, and invite the world to imitate it, but we cannot purchase concessipn, because we have no longer any thing to give in return. We can scarcely take steps backward, 2l6 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. though it is plain we should stand better if we could recover some of our squandered privileges. But in our attitude of watchful spectator we can take careful note of the timid steps by which the nations of the world by slow degrees are drawing nearer to our position. Such mutual concessions as other governments may make towards the pro- tection of the true inventor, by amelioration of the hard laws which have robbed him of his rights, are all steps leading them nearer to the principles of the American system. As such steps are taken it must be the part of American diplomacy to secure to American inventors the benefits they may confer. From our vantage point, far in advance of the other nations of the world, we may watch their rivalries, their contentions^ their reciprocal demands and proffers ; may note the mutual concessions, each bringing them nearer to us, by which sooner or later they attain to harmonious and profitable relations^ until universal comity shall have been reached ; in which, and in every advantage realized in the course of its achievement^ we shall be prepared to share. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 217 INVENTION IN ITS EFFECTS UPON HOUSEHOLD ECONOMY. By Edward Atkinson, Ph.D., LL.D., of Massachusetts. THE HOUSE ITSELF. Upon first putting pen to paper in order to describe the effect of invention upon the household I have at once become av.-are that what can be said within the limit of time permitted, must be a mere brief which might well be extended into a volume. When that volume had been completed it would be more of a record of what we have not accomplished than of what has 3'et been done to render the art of living simple and sincere, to the end that true life may be developed in the dwelling place and that the bodies of which life makes use for a few years may be fitly housed. There are now, perhaps, proportionately more houses in which people dwell in greater or less numbers — tenement houses for instance — than there formerly were. How many homes are there, relatively to our numbers, as compared to former days ? Let us not boast overmuch. In dealing with this subject I must perforce be governed by my own environment, therefore my obser\^ations must be limited by what I have seen and what I know of New England. From what better standpoint, one may ask, could observ^aticns have been made ? Has not the Yankee always been striving to invent an easier, if not a better method of doing everything under the sun ? In what respect has progress been made in establishing homes In the land during the century of patents ? Let us first consider the mere aspect of the house. Until a very recent period the century has been one of decad- ence, and we have but just now entered upon a period of true renaissance. This decadence may be almost wholly attributed to the progress of invention ; yet invention must be justified because it had made it easier to build a house than it was formerly. It has also made it easier for many people to become 21 8 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. householders. But has not invention for a long period almost destroyed the beauty of the house itself? What could have been more simple and sincere, and more consistent with all the surroundings than the old farm house, which took the place of the log cabin and may have been developed from it. The house was well placed, facing the south, under the shel- ter of great trees ; it was framed in solid oak ; low studded ; the timbers showing everywhere in their true places; it was ventilated by way of the great chimneys, in which cheerful fires gave warmth and light to the very life itself. Again, witness the pleasant aspect of the village dwelling, with its gable end upon the street, the doorway opening upon a pleasant yard, the gambrel roof well framed and solid, holding living rooms within, and not mere attics, the whole house of solid frame work, closed walls, well filled. Each of these dwellings was a true development, in a section where timber was abundant, where solid wooden walls are warmer and dryer than brick or stone ; and where true archi- tects would have been born, by whom a school of architecture might have been established which should have been wholly consistent with the climate, the soil and the building material of the country, except for progress in invention. Again, bring into view the houses, aye, the homes of the gentry of old time. The old Colonial type was an example of true architecture in the highest sense, although hardly any one then claimed the title of architect. There Were builders and craftsmen in those days who knew their trade, and although they assumed not to be artists, yet the artists of the present day are copying their designs, and in this period of renaissance are giving the eye a restful sense of almost unconscious relief from the crazy roof of mustard and pepper-pot design, set ofi^ by jig- saw decorations, with which sham houses have in later days been covered ; roofs made of open boarding full of leaky valleys, sheathed with slates which may keep out water, but surely let in all the heat of the summer sun. To whom can this period of decadence in household art and architecture be attributed, if not to the pestilent inventor of the buzz-saw ? PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 219 Who made it so easy to destroy good, solid timber and to erect hollow shams of basket-like structure, of bad form, badly roofed, badly worked in what is miscalled decoration, in which fire and vermin may go anywhere at their own free will ! Who but the innumerable inventors of wood-working machinery ? To whom it is nevertheless due that many of us can get a house to live in of anj^ kind ; for they have made shelter less costly and have given a sort of home to multitudes who might have had none except single rooms covered in with mud or logs. Yet for these inventions have we not paid for a century a fearful price ? A word of warning here to the people of the great South- land. You have the world's supply of hard wood timber upon your mountains — the country's supply of hard pine, yellow pine and ash upon your plains. Why copy, as you are doing in many places, all the faults of northern types of house from which we are just emerging by way of what I have called a re- naissance in domestic architecture. The climate and conditions of the Northern States require compact houses, chimneys enclosed within, powerful heating furnaces as distinguished from the warming apparatus required in the more moderate winters of the South. Why not develop the Southern type of open construction, the true Southern dwelling with open ways between the living rooms, the sleep- ing rooms, and the dining room, the kitchen and laundry ? Wh not develop the Spanish and Moorish type of quadrangle en- closing the patio or courtyard ? Why not adopt the thick, solid, flat roof, which is almost universal in the hot countries of Europe ? Cover it, if you please, with a pent house or second- ary roof of picturesque form, to keep the heat from the true roof, thus making it a pleasant, shady resort in Summer. This secondary roof is not closed in at the ends, and merely attached to the frame of the house proper. This whole roof space on the true flat roof and under the pent house may be clear, for the very reason that the Southern chimney should not be en- closed within the house. What better play space for children in hot or wet weather ? One may well envy the upbuilders of the new town and cities of the great Southland, because they can, if they will, avoid all the blunders which we have made in our hap-hazard growth 220 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. in the North and our hasty growth in the West ; our Southern friends may now find men who will make use of all the varied contour lines of hill and valley in laying out the town. They can now find architects capable of inventing houses which may be built of timber in such a way as to make them seem to have grown where they are. They can find men who can also combine clay tiles and steel in solid and incombustible structures in the more crowded towns or cities, as the Moors built with cohesive tiles in Spain many centuries ago. In this mode of construction, structural steel may now be combined so as to bind tiles and steel together in simple forms. Far better thus, than to copy the brick, stone and iron shams of our great Northern and Western cities, which serve only as screens for the products of the buzz-saw which are put together within in cellular form, plastered over with lime putty worked up in such a way as to hide but not to conceal the sham. The apparent motive being to secure com- plete destruction by fire from the smallest cause. When the next centenary of invention is celebrated, the greater part of the inventions in house building which have been applied in the past hundred years will have ceased to en- cumber the face of the land. Their places will have been taken by the products of many inventions, which are just beginning to be applied. I may venture to name a few of them : Cohesive tiles of fire clay. Terra cotta lumber. Structural steel in combination with light and porous con- cretes in the construction of floors. Plaster board. Adamant and other kinds of adhesive plastering. Inside walls finished with lime plastering laid on metallic lathing without concealed spaces behind. Vulcanized timber. Incombustible paints and varnishes. Wood pulp mouldings and covering for roofs. Vitrified brick — moulded brick and various kinds of marble work for inside walls, stairways and the like. It may well be remembered that if skill and intelligence be applied to the framing and disposal of heavy timber and plank, a better house can be built from these materials where wood PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 221 is abundant at less cost than the common basket-work of joists combined with thin boards on walls and roof. Wood is the best of all non-conductors of heat which can be used for building. A house made of three-inch plank laid on suitable timbers and posts set wide apart, roof as well as wall, will be cooler in summer, warmer in winter, and dr>^er all the time than any house that can be built of stone, brick, or iron, except at an excessive cost for double or vaulted walls. Such a house is but an evolution of the log cabin of the mountain section of the Land of the Sky ; its further evolution offers a wide field for the inventions of the architect, the builder, and the artist. This is but a transition period in house building. From the age of mud walls, tents of skin, and cobbled walls of stone, we have passed, or are passing, through the age of light wood and plaster and shams of stone, perhaps through a temporary stage of iron, of which some of the worst and most hazardous forms have been devised, to the age of clay ; for the present the clay may be combined with structural steel ; perhaps this period may end in the use of clay only, either baked into bricks, tiles, or porous blocks, or clay converted into the lightest kind of metal — alluminum. So much for the house itself. HOUSE FITTINGS. To the matter of fixtures not much time or space can be given. The application of modem tools and machinery has not been inconsistent with the greatest progress in effectiveness and in artistic design. Locks, hinges, door handles, window fastenings, and all other fittings, both low-priced and high- priced as well, are, in their best forms, most conspicuous exam- ples of true improvement, in which the inventors and manufac- turers of this country have taken the leading and most conspic- uous part. WATKR SUPPLY AND DRAINAGE. During the century the change from the ' ' Old oaken (bac- terial) bucket that hangs by the (contaminated) well has given place to various methods of supplying water by the use of ves- sels or pipes that will not decay, from sources of supply that may not become contaminated. But the progress in drainage 222 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. and in the removal of sewage has not keep pace with this more abundant supply of water ; hence there is hardly a more import- ant field for future invention than in these directions. The drainage of the cellar and of the soil about the house may now be readily accomplished through the invention of tile drains and of cheap and durable earthen tiles for their construction. In the matter of sewage more remains to be accomplished than has yet been done. The two sources of danger are kitchen grease and foecal matter. It is probable that the re- moval of foecal matter by the application of heat will take the place of wet methods of carrying it off" mixed with water in a manner most liable to contaminate the surroundings of the house. Already methods of reducing foecal matter to innocu- ous ashes have been invented by Fuller, Warren & Co. and others, which are being applied in many factories and school- houses in suitable places outside the main buildings and with complete success. The washing of greasy pots, pans, and dishes may perhaps be made much safer by substituting some of the antiseptic products of petroleum for soap in the process of scouring as well as by doing away with a great part of the waste of grease by a complete revolution in the whole practice of domestic cooking. IvIGHTING. In nothing has there been greater progress than in the trans- mission of the light of day from without, or in the production of artificial light within the house. Limiting the consideration of this subject to the isolated dwellings which are out of reach of illuminating gas or elec- tric lights, in which category will be found by far the greater number of houses. Therefore, taking no note of the marvels of invention in re- spect to gas and electricity, a few words may be given to matches, glass and lamps. Nothing remains to be done in the direction of reducing the cost of '' striking a lighV although there is yet a wide field .for making the process safer than it now is. No branch of industry has been more fully promoted by in- vention than the making of glass, and there is no occupation which presents a more complete example of the rule, that in all arts to which invention and improved processes are applied the PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 223 cost of labor is diminished while the rate of wages rises and the price of the product is reduced. Thus, although the progress of the glass manufacture has been obstructed by high duties on many of the materials which are used, as well as upon the finished products of like kind im- ported from foreign countries, yet such are our many advant- ages in the quality of the sand which is converted into glass, and in the abundance of food from which the large amount of physical force or potential energy that is called for in this pur- suit is derived, that we have accomplished much in the im- provement in quality as well as in the reduction in cost. In that monumental volume, No. XX of the census of 1880 upon wages and prices, compiled by Mr. Joseph D. Weeks, it appears that in one of the principal glass works of Pennsyl- vania the following changes had occurred, the wages of every class of operatives had advanced between i860 and 1880, yet more as compared with 1851. The average earnings of all classes in 1861 were $1.23 per day, in 1880 they were $1.62. The absolute cost of labor per amount of product had been di- minished although the percentum of labor in the product had increased. But, through economy of fuel and other applica- tions of invention, it had become possible to reduce the prices of given sets of glass bowls, goblets, wine glasses and tumblers from $18 in i860 to $3.50 in 1880. (See pages 87, 88, Vol. XX, Census 1880.) The changes have not been as great or as conspicuous in the matter of window glass, but since 1866, the year of conspicuous paper money inflation, the cost of labor per box of fifty feet has been diminished from $1.75 in paper to $1.10 in gold, while the price to consumers of the same quantity has been reduced from $5.50 to $2.75. This extraordinary volume, containing the results of able and scientific research, is full of most instructive examples and proofs of the rule that I lAve presented, to wit : In propor- tion to the application of science and invention to the arts of pro- duction the price of labor is augmented^ the rates of wages risCy the cost of labor is diminished ^ and the price of the product is reduced. This volume also gives the most conclusive proof of the inherent power of an intelligent people to keep on in their material progress, in spite of civil war, of the debasement of 224 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. the currency, and of the obstruction of bad methods of taxation by which free commerce with the world is restricted, and by which labor is diverted from its most profitable course : the home market for the surplus products of the field, the forest, the factory, and the mine being by the same obstructive policy prevented from expanding. In the matter of artificial light it maj^ be held that while the introduction of illuminating gas and electric linghting have increased the quantity and greatly facilitated the distribution of light, neither invention has to any extent reduced the cost, "but on the contrary, by increasing the demand for light every- where these inventions have doubtless increased the general expenditure. On the other hand the discovery of petroleum, the applica- tion of invention to its preparation and distribution and the invention of innumerable varieties of lamps, have reduced the cost of household lighting both absolutely and relativelj^ to the end that there is now nothing so cheap in the household as an abundance of light. Yet there are inventions hardly yet known which remove almost the last vestige of hazard from the kerosene oil lamp burning a reasonably high standard oil, doing away also under ordinary care with smoke and smell, while another invention promises to remove all the odor from kerosene oil and to raise the flashing point to 500 or 600° F. FURNISHING. Strong and durable as the furniture of the house was a century ago, not much can be said for its comfort. Time will not suffice to deal with the application of invention to the art of furnishing, in which the artist and the skilled mechanic have done so much. Suffice it that the Centennial Exhibition of 1876 gave a greater impetus in this direction than in almost any other, and it is from that event our greatest progress may be dated.* * Note. —I may venture at this point to render the credit to Professor John D. Runkle, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which is his due. He had the sagacity to discover in the Russian method of manual instruction the germ of the system of manual training which is now^ becoming an integral part of common school instruction all over our land. He applied and developed it in the manual workshops of the Institute of Technology in Boston, and from that first object lesson the •conception has spread everywhere. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 225 HEATING AND COOKING. We now come to the two most important processes of house- hold economy, in which it may almost be affirmed that the progress of invention has been backward. In the matter of the combustion of fuel we may measure our ignorance by the height of our chimnej^s and the strength of our drafts. It would be out of place to deal with the crude methods of combustion in the conversion of coal into power. The ten- dency toward gaseous fuel is very marked and may ultimately lead to much greater economy. In dealing with the household art of applying heat to the conversion of crude food material into nutritious food, the posi- tion may now be taken that any method of combustion that requires the draft of a chimney and any stove that requires a chimney flue is almost unfit to be used. In the art of nutrition we have given our attention almost wholly to the nutrition of the soil, the plant, and of the beast ; but until within a very few years we have wholly overlooked or neglected the nutrition of man. Taking advantage of this neglect by the true scientist, the venal masters of scientific perversion have exhausted the art of decep- tion in compounding quack medicines for the cure of ailments which are sometimes imaginary, but which when they exist are mainly due to ignorance and incapacity in the art of cooking. The brick oven and the open fire of a century ago required time and close attention, but the results of the work under the direction of a good housewife were wholesome, nutritious, and appetizing. The introduction of iron stoves and ranges and of anthracite coal have taken the life out of the house, out of the air, and out of the food as well. It is only within a very few years that any attention has been given even to chemical physiology ; as yet hardly any progress has been made in bringing the lessons derived from science ap- plied to nutrition into the form of an art which may be easily mastered. I have been led to the study of this matter through the de- velopment of the fact by the compilation of statistics, that even 226 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. in this land of abundance one-half or more of the income of about 90 per cent, of the population is expended in the mere purchase of food material. Add to this the time, the attention, the discomfort, and the waste of energy which are spent in the conversion of good ma- terial into food of which the average quality is bad and we begin to have some comprehension of a field which is almost unoccupied, and in which science and invention have yet to work most beneficent results. Had I undertaken to deal with this branch of invention in the household arts for mere purposes of personal profit, it would be unsuitable to treat this matter at this time. But since my purpose and my present practice is to devote the income that I may derive from my own crude inventions to the further devel- opment of the science of nutrition, I may devote the remainder of this treatise to this branch of the subject. Without the aid of Mrs. Ellen H. Richards, of the Massa- chusetts Institute of Technology, and of Prof Wm. O. Atwater, of the Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C, I should have been unable to deal with this branch of the subject in the way in which I shall present it. I may also quote from the standard authorities, Sir Henry Thompson, Sir Lyon Play fair, Prof. Voit, Dr. Pavey, and others, without again referring to them by name. The sole condition on which the application of heat to the conversion of food material into cooked food without constant watching is that a measured heat shall be under complete con- trol. The two rules for cooking are as follows : I. Take some heat of the top of a lamp and put it into a box. II. Take one part of gumption and one part of food, mix to- gether, put them into the box with the heat ; the heat will do the work. These rules cannot be applied in the use of any iron stove or oven heated by the combustion of coal under a strong draft Cooking on such stoves calls for constant attention, and for the discomfort due to close proximity to the stove. If meats are subjected to a high heat in the effort to cook them quickly in an oven, or by any process except broiling, PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 227 which requires great skill, the fats are dissociated or ' ' cracked, ' ' as it is termed, the volatile portion is diffused, bearing away the finest flavor, and the remainder of the fat is left in an uiidi- gestible condition, in which it fails to be assimilated. In fact the process of cooking is a fine process of chemical conversion and when we put appliances which are not suitable to the process into the hands of incapable persons who are en- tirely ignorant of the theory, we have no right to expect to get any better results than those with which we are all too familiar. It would be unsuitable both to the occasion and for myself to describe the processes which I propose to substitute for those which are commonly practiced. I will only give the objective point of my researches and a statement of what has already been accomplished ; much more remains to be done. The proportions of the nutrients which are necessary to the effectual support of a man at moderate work, according to the American standard, are as follows : Protein or nitrogenous material 125 grains. Fats 125 Carbo-hydrates or starchy material 450 * ' 700 Disregarding fractions a little over one pound (adv.) of starchy food and a little over a quarter of a pound each of fat and of protein. Professor Atwater has converted these nutrients into calories or units of heat. These chemical elements of nutrition, Vv^ith the mineral elements which will be found on almost all varieties of food, must supply the working man who is engaged in mod- erate work with 3,520 units of heat per day : a less supply sufl&ces for women. The variations which may be made for hard work or for sedentary work, or for sex, are few in number and may be readily defined by percents of variation. If we add for unavoidable waste about 10 per cent., the unit of nutrition for a man at moderate work is 4,000 calories per day. This potential energy will be yielded from the nutrients which are contained therein by certain measurable quantities of vegetable and animal food consumed in about the usual pro- portions. The proportions of animal and vegetable food may vary according to the special appetite and digestive powers of 228 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. each person, but dealing in a broad and general way, such is the standard or unit of daily nutrition. In the purchase of food material at the retail prices in cities and towns, grain, flour and vegetables may be considered as constants in price each season or year according to the crop, the prices of animal food as variable according to kind and quality. Lists of prices having been prepared, the following course is now within the power of any intelligent person to adopt. If a dietary be made up for thirty da3^s, for the consumption of the tougher and cheaper parts of meat and of the cheaper kinds of fish, with the right proportion of bread, grain vegeta- bles and sugar the cost of food per thousand calories in Boston at the present time will not exceed three and a-half cents. A man requiring 4,000 calories may therefore purchase a day's full supply for 14 cents, or at the rate of 98 cents per week. A woman occupied in sewing, teaching, or in attendance in a shop may purchase 3,400 calories, which is in excess of ordinary need, at 12 cents per day or at 84 cents per week. These tough portions of meat may be made as tender as the choicest cuts by the application of moderate heat for a sufficient length of time, and are in every respect as nutritious. If the consumer wishes to purchase the medium cuts of meat and to enjoy a greater variety, the expenditure may be in- creased to 5 cents per thousand calories or 20 cents a day — $1.40 per week for men : 17)^ cents a day, $1.23 per week for women, the addition being spent on meat and fish. If the consumer wishes to purchase the choicer cuts of meat, the best quality of poultry and fish, together with a more ample supply of milk, butter and sugar, the price per thousand calories may be advanced to seven cents. At this standard the cost per day for men will be 28 cents or $1.96 per week ; for women, 24)^ cents per day or $1.72 per week. Any expenditure beyond this last standard of seven cents per thousand calories will be either an absolute waste or for absolute luxury. This daily unit of nutrition for one person can now be cooked in the best manner in the crockery vessels in which it may be served, in a cooking pail of my invention, with the heat derived from any common kerosene hand lamp or from PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 229 any common gas burner over which the pail may be suspended, and while the housewife sleepeth the lamp will do its work. Multiples of this ration may be cooked in a portable oven of my invention, either by baking, roasting, simmering, stewing and braising, or in imitation of broiling and frying, at the rate of forty to fifty pounds per day in a series of four charges to the oven, with the heat that may be taken from the top of the chimney of a common kerosene oil lamp with a circular wick of one and a-half inches in diameter, consuming one quart of oil in the eight hours required for work. The work may be done anywhere. Therefore the kitchen and its chimney, the iron stove or range, and the miscellaneous collection of iron pots and pans Inay, so far as the process of cooking is concerned, be wholly displaced. The room can then be put to a better use if the heating of the room itself and the water for circulation about the house be relegated to the heat- ing furnace in the cellar in winter and to a small special water heater in summer. I venture to conclude this treatise with the suggestion that the agricultural experiment stations of the United States which are now being so well developed under the general supervision of the Secretary of Agriculture, and under the special super- vision of Prof. W. O. Atwater, should not be limited wholly to the nutrition of the soil, the plant, and of the beast. They will not be complete until a Cooking Laboratory is attached to each, in which the science of the nutrition of man may be developed, to the end that it may become a part of the common knowledge of the whole people, and that the simple rules, of which I have given some examples, may be incorpo- rated in the arithmetics used in the common schools in place of some of the logical puzzles which perplex our children without educating them. At present I can claim for these computations only theoretic accuracy. Arrangements have been made by myself for the beginning of laboratory practice from which a more definite direction may be given in this almost unoccupied field of ap- plied science. A few words more upon the general topic. The progress of society and the progress in household economy, like progress 230 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. in the mechanism of the factory, appear to follow one and the same rule; each beginning in the arduous simplicity of earlier days, each evolving new ways and means of combination by way of new inventions and discoveries, leading up to the ut- most complexity, accompanied, however, by greater abundance. Yet this complexity is but a prophecy of more effective sim- plicit}^ in the fullness of time. Both in society and in the household we seem now to be in the transition period of ex- treme complexity. We are compelled to think more of living and less of life. We possess more comfort, but do not enjoy it, because it in- volves more care. We have many more servants and much less help. We can spare more time, but we get less leisure. We pay for more amusement and are less amused. We may read more books but we do less thinking. We strive to be independent, while we become more and more dependent. We condemn legislators, yet w^e constantly appeal for more legis- lation. We admit that the progress of humanity can only come in the development of the individual character. Then we take up all sorts of fanciful fads, which would sink the individual in the collective mass. We boast of our power to manage our own affairs, yet we appeal to Congress to force us to take up unprofitable occupations at the cost of our neigh- bors. The laborer is proud of his liberty, yet calls upon the Legislature to restrict the use or his time. We ask not to be led into temptation, then we pass laws which convert that which is not criminal in itself into a legal crime. We try to earn all the money of the best kind that we can get, and we call upon the Government to coin a poor kind, and to pass a law to enable us to force our creditors to take it. On Sundays we praise the Lord who has made of one blood all the nations of the earth, and on the week days we ask Congress to forbid tfs to exchange services with our brothers in blood of other races. We preach the gospel of peace, good will and plenty among the nations, while each nation builds iron, steel and nickel-clad vessels of war for the next inventor to render use- less and innocuous. To w^hom do we owe all this complexity ? Again to the pes- tilent inventor. Who but the inventor of the turbine wheel PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 231 brought masses of people into the narrow valley of the river below the fall ? Who but the inventor of the steam engine and of illuminating gas made it so necessary for the workman to live near his work that we have generated the slums out of that crowded condition promoted by these very inventions? Who but the inventor of the vertical railway, which we call an elevator, placed household over household in disregard of the separate home ? All this is but transition. Next appears the inventor who sends speech and light and power over wide areas ; the inventor who, like the one who devised the multiplex telegraph, sends the rapid car at higher speed above the slow-moving carriages on the street below. But now comes his peer, who, adopting the Irishman's receipt for making a cannon, takes a round hole and puts an under- ground tunnel of iron and concrete outside of it, and who, bor- ing through sand and clay and rock, wnll carr>^ the multitude from the crowded streets of the city to the wide area of the suburbs. Again comes the inventor who, converting hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon into fuel gas, w^ill presently furnish heat at little cost wherever small pipes can be laid, in which this kind of gas can be forced under high pressure over long distances. In every direction we make progress by invention which destroys great volumes of capital previously accumulated at great cost, thus diminishing the relative share in every service which the capitalist may take over to himself, w^hile increasing both abso- lutely and relatively that which may rightly fall to the indus- trious and intelligent workman. There is nothing constant but change, and throughout all these changes we witness progress toward that objective point when the family will again become the unit of society ; when a good subsistence and a suitable"" shelter will be so readily at- tained by men of common intelligence, rectitude, and industry that it will no longer pay to become rich, and leisure will be found in the diligent and intelligent use of time. I venture again to call attention to the sequence of events. The collective or factory system of industry was practically unknown until the development of the modem water-wheel, the application of steam to power and illuminating gas to 232 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. lightning. These inventions brought about a change from separate household industry to this collective method, accom- panied by an extreme subdivision of labor. It was a step in moral as well as in material progress, although in its earlier stages it was subject to many abuses. It may have reached its highest point in its application to the pursuits of this country, yet, if we analyze the occupations of the people as given in the census of 1880, we shall find that if we put into the cate- gory of the operatives in our great factories all who are occu- pied in the textile arts, the iron and steel works and machine shops, the clothing, boot and shoe factories, and all other mis- cellaneous occupations, which can be conducted in the best way by great subdivision of labor, and by bringing great masses of people into single buildings, we barely reach ten per cent of all who are occupied for gain. There are, of course, great masses occupied under analogous conditions, but in col- lective pursuits like the railway service, the building trades and others individual aptitude and intelligence count for as much or more as the mere manual or mechanical aptitude which is so necessary in a factory. Great factories are conspicuous by their very mass. They appeal to the imagination and may sometimes mislead. Again, the construction of the railways into undeveloped territory has scattered the population occupied in agriculture under conditions, which, in some respects, are as adverse to the development of men as the massing of crowds in cities. These are the penalties which we pay for invention, and they have occupied a century in their development. May it not be prob- able that in the progress of invention other new forces, to which I have referred — power, light, speech and heat, carried over wide areas and placed at the control of the household on the tap of a button, may bring about a return to household indus- try of the highest type under the least arduous conditions of life perhaps wholly free from the monotony of the great fac- tory ; distributing the urban population and doing away with the causes of the slums, so far as those causes may be found in external influences rather than in the individual character or want of character in those who rest contented in the slums. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 233 Again, the intensive system of fanning, the adoption of the silo, the application of improved methods in dealing with all the products of the field, are leading to the treatment of land as a laboratory rather than as a mine ; thus bringing together into neighborhoods that part of the population which has been too widely scattered, also closer to the factory population which has been too much concentrated. If such may be the prophecy to him whose vision leads him to visionary and optimistic views, then we may call upon the inventor of the future and of the present to continue on his way undoing the work of his predecessors by doing it better. We may bid God-speed especially to the inventors of warlike implements of destruction, perhaps the only method of over- coming the ignorance and stupidity of mankind. That igno- rance and stupidity finds its most extreme expression in the construction of great vessels of war, especially by European countries such as Italy and Germany, where the weight of tax- ation is already depriving great masses of the population even of the measure of food which is absolutely necessary to the maintenance of life. The long list of the iron and steel-clad vessels of war belonging to these nations may be taken as the tokens of the barbarism of that system which forbids mutual service among the States which comprise what are called the civilized sections of the globe. In that provision of the Constitution of the United States which assures the utmost liberty in mutual service among the States of this Union we have found the closest bond. Since slavery destroyed itself by aggressive warfare we have ceased to require an army except for police services, and when the in- ventor of the most effective gun shall render approach to any of our harbors by armed vessels as impossible as the fear of such approach would be ridiculous, if also we are then as free to ex- change services and products with other nations as we are among our own States, the true century of good will, peace, and plenty will have been fairly entered upon. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 235 ADDRESS OF S. P. I^ANGIvEY, I.I..D., SECRKTARY OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, Vice-President of the Congress, Presiding at the Session on THE Afternoon of Aprii< 9th, 1891. If this Centennial is a memorable occasion in the history of discovery it is so also in that of science, which time out of mind has been so intimately related to it. It is possibly to this that I owe the honor of being here to assure you of the especial interest which is felt in this gathering by the scientific men of Washington, who form perhaps a greater body of professional discoverers than there is in any other city of the country. Nearly a half a century ago Congress transferred from the shelves of the Patent OflSce to the Smithsonian, the very few objects of curiosity the government then possessed, and these have since grown into great groups of illustrations of the history of man's thought, as displayed in discovery and inven- tion — groups which are among the most interesting of the collections of the National Museum. I hope all here will find opportunity to see them, but I allude to these in connection with this centennial occasion, only to notice a suggestion they give of general application to the history of discovery, for so long as man is a tool- using animal, nearly every inventor is still engaged in making a tool or machine of some sort, and the history of the very first tool that was made, may have a bearing on the present of inven- tion, and even throw some light on its future. We have all seen an Indian axe-head which has been made of stone, by rubbing one piece on another, and looked on it per- haps as the most primitive of tools. This, however, was not the first tool, but an improvement on something still ruder, for you may see in these Smithsonian collections, roughly -broken stones which were made by primitive man before the art of rubbing one on another was invented, and which antedate this comparatively modem form by perhaps hundreds of thousands 236 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. of years. The thing to note in this connection is, that it took man probably over a hundred thousand years to make this, his first invention — if we can call it one — and that possibly millions of years, but probably a period longer at any rate than the whole progress of world-wide discovery since, was spent by the inven- tive minds of all united mankind in evolving the one idea, that by rubbing one stone on another you can get a cutting edge. It seems incredible that invention could ever have worked as slowly as that ; yet it did so, and only after myriads of years brought about the polished stone age. Now, we observe, not so much how inventions grow, as how the rate of discovery grows ; when we find that the next great improvement was evolved in a time short, compared with the first ; for instead of myriads of years, inventive thought had so gained in quickness that it took *' only " a few thousand years to make the next invention, which was that of a tool of bronze. But the third stage, the development of the tool of iron, shows a yet further quickening of the rate of thought, for this stage began only a few centuries ago, and yet has been thought out, with its immensely greater developments, in a fraction of the former time ; in centuries, that is, instead of thousands of years, and not, we must observe, merely because there are more inventors, but because the inventive mind itself is be- coming of finer and prompter quality. If this short history — this philosophy teaching by ex- amples — means anything, we can now, I think, predict that whether the fourth stage on which we are entering, is to be the age of aluminum, or whatever else ; that the requisite in- ventions will be made, the problems worked out, and perhaps the material face of the civilized world altered, largely in our own lifetimes. It has been said that even less than a hundred years ago, if the most powerful and enlightened potentate on earth wished to travel faster on the land or sea, or to send a message quicker than was done in the days of the patriarchs, he could not do it ; for if Abraham had mounted his messenger on his best steed, the united wealth, and power, and knowledge of the world, toward the end of the last century, could have only furnished a possibly swifter horse than his, and could have done no more. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 237 Of the important conquests over time and space, which have "been made in the past six thousand years, most have come, then, in the life-time of living men. I have myself long personally known the man who competed with Stevenson for the prize for the first locomotive, and am privileged to count among my friends, in the inventor of the telephone, one still a young man. With this incessant achievement, and this increasing rate of progress on the inventor's part, what can we deny to the pos- sibilities of even the coming decade ? It would be rash to predict what these all may be, butl de- sire to express my personal conviction that one at least, which has been the mere dream of enthusiasts in the past, is soon to become a reality, and to venture the statement that the air may probably be made to support engine-driven flying machines, heavier than the air itself, before the expiration of the present century. I will detain you no longer from listening to the distinguished speakers who are to address you, but only say that in view of this fabulously increasing rate and value of reproduction, you, as inventors, are certainly taxable with no overestimate of your true importance, if you believe yourselves becoming each day, more and more the real creators of the changes which make this nation materially great, and entitle you of right to the place of honored guests, and to the welcome all extend to you in its Capital. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 239 THE EFFECT OF TECHNOLOGICAIv SCHOOLS UPON THE PROGRESS OF INVENTION. By W. p. Trowbridge, Ph.D., LL.D., of New York, Professor OF Engineering Schooi. of Mines, Coi^umbia Coi,i,ege. The place now occupied by technical schools in the general system of higher education may be regarded as a direct result of the advance of knowledge, in the natural sciences, which has so signally marked the successive years of the century which now draws to a close. Living in the midst of the grand developments in material progress at the present day, we can fully appreciate the extent to which these developments are due to the applications of scientific discoveries only by contrasting the state of knowl- edge at the beginning of the century with that of our own times : and by tracing the changes which have brought about the rise and growth of the new fields of education represented by technical schools, and the reciprocal effects of these institu- tions in promoting scientific research and the applications of science to useful purposes. One hundred years ago natural science was in a condition of the greatest speculative crudity. During the century preced- ing — Newton, Leibnitz, Bernoulli, DesCartes, d'Alembert and others had formulated most of the fundamental propositions in the mathematical and mechanical sciences, very much as they are understood and accepted at the present time, but the appli- cation of dynamical laws and general theorems to practical purposes, in the arts and manufactures, had hardly yet been systematically attempted. Teachers of chemistry in the Uni- versities accepted the old Phlogistic theory as late as 1780 and 1790, when Priestly, Watt, Boulton, Smeaton, and others were accustomed to meet together in Birmingham as members of the * ' Lunar Society ' ' to discuss matters relating to the progress of the natural sciences and their useful applications. 240 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. The Lunar Society may be said to have represented more truly, during its twenty-five years of existence, the state of those natural sciences which have a special bearing on material and useful applications, and the extent to which such applica- tions had been carried, than any association then in existence. Among its members were to be found distinguished inventors^ manufacturers, iron-masters, engineers, chemists, physicians, and philosophers, all of whom seemed as much interested in improvements in the arts and industries as in purely scientific discovery. The Society held monthly meetings in Birmingham at the time of full moon, these times being selected in order that the members might have the benefit of moonlight in returning to their homes. The discussions, which were preceded by a gen- erous dinner, extended informally far into the night, and al- though no records of the discussions were kept, yet from letters of the members, which have been preserved, this Society seemed to have been a true exponent of the condition of knowledge, at that time, as far as it related to material developments. Priestly had but recently made his remarkable discoveries of oxygen, hydrogen, carbonic acid and other gases, but explained these discoveries to the members of the Society on the old theory which had been held for one hundred years, and main- tained that the gases which he had found were different kinds of air from which an imponderable substance — Phlogiston — had been eliminated or evolved. Neither he nor his greatly- interested associates in the Society had at the time any true con- ception of the nature of chemical combinations, and although the discoveries of Priestly led to the otherthrow, by Lavoiser and others, of the Phlogistic theory and the establishment of the true nature of chemical action before the end of the century, yet Priestly himself remained until his death, in Pennsylvania in the year 1804, a firm believer in this absurd theory, which had been so long taught and accepted, and which if now main- tained would be received, not with incredulity, but derision. Not less remarkable, as it now appears to us, is the fact that another member of the Lunar Society, the distinguished in- ventor of the steam engine, then engaged near Birmingham with his partner, Boulton, in the construction of engines, could PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 241 be furnished by men of science with no other theoretical basis for the explanation of the action of steam than that heat, the source of the power which his engines were transforming into useful work, was a material substance ; a belief maintained by the great mathematician of that age, La Place, up to the time of his death, in the year 1827. The true theory of this important branch of physics was not finally established and universally accepted until about the year 1845, after Joule had definitely demonstrated that heat is a form of kinetic energy, by determining the exact and invariable dynamical relations which govern the reciprocal transmuta- tions between this physical agent and ordinary forms of work or energy. The new science of Thermodynamics, based upon these dis- coveries, soon became reduced to mathematical analysis, revolu- tionizing all the physical sciences and leading directly to the establishment of the important principles of the correlation of forces, or the conservation of energy, and finally in more recent times to the recognition of the fact that electricity is also a form of energy subject to exact dynamical laws which, like those of heat, have become developed into a mathematical science. The otherthrow of the Phlogistic theory about the beginning of the century, attended by the introduction of the true science of chemistry, and the definite foundation of the new science of heat, with its far-reaching consequences, are the two great events which mark the last one hundred years of scientific progress. Previous to the introduction of the steam engine by Watt mills were dependent upon water or wind power, and were necessarily few in number. Hand labor in the fabrication of implements and the preparation of useful material was the main resource. Ocean and river commerce were dependent upon the winds, and a knowledge of masonry, carpentry and hydraulics were the chief acquirements of the engineer. In the Universities, although science was taught, yet its domain was limited, and the instruction given was merely an incident in the education leading to degrees in the professions of law, medicine and theology. 242 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. A spirit of experimental inquiry had, however, been awakened, which was destined to spread and continue with increasing activity, and which under the later impetus given to scientific thought by the discoveries of the laws of heat and the science of energy, led to the establishment of new sciences, new professions and new fields of labor and invention. Scientific discoveries were quickly taken up and brought to useful purposes, and in colleges and universities it became recognized, though reluctantly, and not without much contro- versy that the broad domain of scientific progress was not only giving rise to new learned professions, but that special bodies of teachers, special departments, and even special institutions of learning, with independent faculties, were required to meet the demands of a new education. Thus originated, in this country at least, the technical schools, which in one form or another are now found connected with most of our great educational institutions, and often exist as true and independent seats of learning, having the full power of conferring technical degrees. A new principle or motive has thus been introduced in higher education, which recognizes professions that demand not only profound learning in the mathematical and natural sciences, but knowledge and skill in their useful applications. Academic, as well as popular honors, are now considered to be due to him who makes a scientific discovery useful as well as to him who makes a useful scientific discovery. The technical schools are thus not only departments of re- search in science, but, in their teachings, the exponents of material progress. They are sought by a large number of young men who finally enter upon vocations intimately connected with engi- neering and industrial enterprises, and who contribute directly, in many ways, to the diffusion of scientific knowledge among the people. These are the conditions now existing, under which we have to consider more particularly the effect which technical schools have upon material progress or the progress of invention. One important feature of these institutions is, that the in- struction given aims not only to acquaint the student with the PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 243 fundamental laws of science by systematic demonstrations and explanations, but also with the methods and the limits of the applications of those laws to useful purposes. Teaching is illustrated by examples drawn from practice, or by the examination and discussion of hypothetical problems, chosen with special reference to practical applications. The student is constantly reminded of the fact, that while no successful device or combination, of whatever character, can violate the fundamental laws of science and of nature, yet there is a vast difference between a theoretical conception and its practical and useful realization ; that the circumstances and conditions of use are of no less importance than fundamental principles. The training of the drawing-room and the exercises in the mechanical, chemical, physical and electric laboratories are de- signed to give not only a mastery of the principles of drawing, of mechanism, and of chemistry and physics, and thus furnish a broad foundation in scientific learning, but also to cultivate discrimination and judgment, by which errors in practice are to be avoided and time and money saved, which might otherwise be expended in costly or fruitless experiments or constructions. Technical schools exert a primary and important influence also in developing and enlarging the fields of applied science, not only by investigation and research, but by stimulating and encouraging the applications of new discoveries to the arts and manufactures ; by reducing such applications to laws and general principles, and by contributing to the maintenance of scientific scocieties and scientific publications devoted to the dif- fusion of the knowledge gained by practice and experience. One hundred years ago important inventions like those of Watt were submitted to a few learned men only, who alone could tmderstand or appreciate their significance. To-day the sci- entific press scatters far and near, in language easily compre- hended, a knowledge of all new discoveries and new devices ; and critics are found in the work-shop, on the farm, and in the household, who are able intelligently to discuss the subjects thus brought before them ; and if an invention successfully passes the ordeal of such discussions, it may be said to be fairly entitled to favorable attention. 244 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. The age in which we live is thus intensely practical and ex- cites the inventive spirit ; and they who are deceived by what is false in pretended applications of science, are generally mis- led on account of inexcusable ignorance and a failure to in- form themselves through ordinary and accessible channels of knowledge. To technical schools is to be credited in no small degree this diffusion of exact scientific knowledge in its appli- cations to the arts and industries, and in promoting and quick- ening popular comprehension of the principles which form the basis of all progress. The cultivation of certain arts of manipulation and of experi- mental research, which is carried to the highest degree in technical schools, deserves mention, inasmuch as these arts are often not only essential requisites to successful inventions, but furnish the only means for their perfect illustration and expla- nation. Among these arts are instrumental drawing, methods of chemical analysis, and the use of testing instruments and ap- paratus in engineering physical and electrical investigations ; all of which not only contribute to the formation of habits of exactness in professional work, but suggest ideas which might not otherwise have presented themselves. Few persons understand, for example, the value of the art of instrumental drawing. A correct drawing is generally re- garded as a kind of language which conveys definite ideas from one person to another ; but it is not so universally understood that the drawing-board, to the designer or inventor, is more than a tablet for the presentation or record of his ideas by a peculiar sign language ; that it is a most efficient instructor, assisting the imagination and furnishing new ideas, or new proportions, as the work of designing progresses. As a ready and complete vocabulary in written or spoken language not only furnishes a great variety of shades of expression, but sug- gests appropriate illustrations and even new thoughts, so does the drawing-board in the hands of a skillful designer prompt new combinations, new proportions, and often different modes of treatment of a practical problem. A complete knowledge of the methods of making proper measurements and tests, by which is to be investigated the practicability or usefulness of a supposed discovery, or process, PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 245 in any of the branches of applied Physics, Mechanics or Chem- istry, is best obtained by practice and experience in the labo- ratories of the technical schools. These laboratories are in fact the only resource of the inventor in cases where private laboratories are not available, or where tests and experiments require apparatus and appliances which are found only in the equipments devoted to research and investigation furnished by educational institutions. Graduates of technical schools in this country in large and increasing numbers go out to the various communities, carry- ing with them the broad and thorough acquirements in theo- retical and practical knowledge which they have gained, and the facilities in drawing, analysis, testing and measurement attained in their laboratory practice, and become teachers in their professions, diffusing sound principles of science in its applications to every art, manufacture and industry. While it is impossible, except in a very general way, to esti- mate the important influences of technical schools in all these respects, yet these influences are universally recognized as familiarizing the public mind with the true agencies of material progress, and as furnishing to inventors, continually, new points of departure for future improvements. The knowledge thus acquired and diffused tends also ta cultivate definite and true distinctions between what is old, or unpatentable, and what is new ; and also a discriminating^ judgment in regard to what is practicable and useful. That the Patent Ofiice of the government recognizes the value of this new education is evident from the fact, that of the one hundred and fifty -seven assistant examiners one-third are graduates of technical schools. These are employed to a great extent in the divisions which cover the largest industries, suck as steam engineering, chemical applications and manufactures, metallurgy', and the manufacture of textile fabrics ; where in each a wide range of knowledge in the applied sciences is re- quired. Another important field of usefulness for technical training, in connection with inventions, is in the drawing up of specifica- tions and claims to accompany applications for patents, and also in legal practice connected with patent cases. The inventor 246 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. needs both legal and technical advice in preparing his claims and specifications, and his rights are apt to be endangered or sacrificed if such advice is not well founded. It is here that questions of ' * equivalent devices, " of " novelty, ' ' and of ' ' use- fulness" should be profoundly considered. Although such questions, in case of litigation, must be finally decided by the Courts, yet vast expenditures in the aggregate, both of time and money, depend on a correct analysis of an invention and a proper statement of the specifications and claims of the inventor. This involves the competence and technical acquirements of the solicitor or agent ; and there is no doubt that this branch of pro- fessional practice has been placed upon a more certain and se- cure basis of late years through the influence and teachings of our technical schools. In cases of patent litigation, expert testimony has become a necessity. Questions of fact involved are not, as in other cases which come before the courts and juries, matters of observation merely, but depend often upon a proper interpretation of ob- served phenomena in a realm of knowledge which often lies beyond the comprehension of unskilled or ordinary witnesses. On account of the great extent of the various fields of art and industry which offer opportunities for new and useful discover- ies or inventions, the Courts are obliged to avail themselves of the knowledge of special witnesses, who from their education and training are presumed to be competent to make explana- tions, to give sound advice, or to express opinions based upon the infallible laws of science and nature. Expert witnesses often take a partisan view of their positions it is true, and con- sider themselves in duty bound to try to win the cases on which they are engaged. While this is an evil, the tendency of which is to bring all such expert testimony into contempt, yet the discrimination of the Courts is a corrective influence through which the truth is finally established. Among the important influences arising from the more gen- eral dissemination of exact knowledge in the applied sciences through technical schools, is to be considered also the ability of the public to detect and reject what, for an invention, is falsely claimed or pretended. The utility of an invention is a question of practical demonstration ; and while many valuable PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 247 discoveries or devices undoubtedly fail to be brought into use for want of means to procure thorough and exhaustive tests, yet many on the other hand absorb large sums of money in fruitless trials, when a simple scientific investigation would at a comparatively small cost have demonstrated their commercial or industrial inutility. If the history of the scrap-heaps of our machine shops could be written there would be a startling exhibit of money wasted in such unnecessary^ experiments. It is true that without trials of some sort there could be no progress, but there is a vast differ- ence between experiments based upon sound principles and reasonable probabilities of success, and those undertaken upon scientific fallacies. It is precisely here in the distinction of what is possible and probable in the use of an invention, and what is impossible or extremely improbable, that exact tech- nical knowledge lends its powerful aid, saving money on the one hand or promoting what is useful on the other. When those who have superabundant means are induced to aid in costly experimental trials of an invention, success or failure is to them a matter of small moment, but to those who are persuaded to risk their small savings in the success of a patent the matter is more serious, and their greatest safety lies in the increase and diffuson of popular scientific knowledge. Perhaps at no time during the progress of invention has the necessity of safe-guards against unsound projects been greater than at present. The marvelous successes, financially, of a few patents during late years, while stimulating the inventive spirit, have also tended to create widespread desire among certain classes in all communities to invest, in what, in a certain sense, may be called the "patent lottery." An announcement of a discovery of a new source of power, or of methods by which known sources of power may be economized to a degree beyond all present belief or expectation, and the arts of progress thus practically revolutionized, is one which is sure to command the attention and to enlist the aid of persons, here and there, who know just enough of the laws of energy to make them easy victims, but who with a little better knowledge might have saved themselves and others from serious pecuniary loss. At one time it is the bi-sulphide of carbon engine, which is to save 248 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. two-thirds of the coal now used by the steam engine. An inventor imagines that the vapor of sulphide of carbon if inter- posed as a working fluid between the steam boiler and the con- denser will in some undefined way increase enormously the power derived from the combustion of a given amount of coal in the boiler. He induces a few friends to aid him in an ex- perimental trial, which is apparently highly satisfactory ; a company is formed with an immense capital, the stock, under an inflated scheme, sells at high prices ; a few make money by the sale of the stock, but the many stockholders suffer the loss of their investments. At another time it is discovered by some genius that naptha mixed with steam at the nozzle of a steam pipe and directed upon incandescent fuel furnishes a brilliant combustion and a high temperature, and the discoverer becomes possessed with the idea that the steam is burned — that he has found a process for burning water. A cheap apparatus for showing the phenomena is exhibited ; extravagant possibilities are claimed for the inven- tion and the inventor proceeds to sell ' ' territories, ' ' realizing a handsome fortune. And although he may possibly honestly believe in his invention, through ignorance, yet, like the other, it fails to produce the enormous results claimed for it. A complete revolution in the propulsion of vessels in naviga- tion is another prolific theme. An inventor imagines that the great secret of economy and speed lies in jet propulsion. A new idea is propounded, that a very small jet of water driven by pressure at a high velocity from the stern of a vessel is the long looked-for, but hitherto unrecognized, secret of obtaining at the same time great velocity and economy. The "ocean greyhounds" are to be sent across the Atlantic in thirty hours, being propelled by a jet of water a few inches in diameter, forced at a high velocity from the sterns of the ships. These are not ideal cases, but are unfortunately taken from real life — from actual occurrences during the last decade. The money lost and the time lost in costly attempts to demon- strate what could have been proved to have been fallacious might have been saved to those who were misled, if they had been willing to listen to a few plain, simple explanations of the laws of applied science in the first instance. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 249 The new science of energy, to which reference has been made, has not only furnished clear and definite ideas of the relations to each other of the various sources of power in nature, but has defined the limits, respectively, of their useful and economical applications, and the most elementary scientific discussion of such cases as are above given, illustrative of efforts to find new and extraordinary sources of power or methods hitherto unknown of applying to useful work those sources of power which are known, would have been sufficient to have shown the fallacies under which the attempts were conceived and executed. Important inventions leading to widespread improvements in the arts or to new industries do not come by chance, or as sud- den inspirations, but are in almost every instance the result of long and exhaustive researches by men whose thorough famil- iarity with their subjects enables them to see clearly the way to improvements. Almost all important and successful inventions which have found their way into general use and acceptance have been the products of well-balanced and thoughtful minds, capable of patient, laborious investigation, and have been prompted mainly by the hope or sentiment of giving something useful to mankind. This sentiment has characterized the labors of the men in this country whose names make up a long roll of illustrious inven- tors, and whose works have not only contributed largely to the national prosperity, but have exalted the national reputation. These are not the men who proclaim in advance the great value of their devices, and endeavor to reap rich profits before the utility of their discoveries has been demonstrated ; but on the contrary, among the names composing the long list of pub- lic benefactors, whose inventions have given substantial benefits to millions, are found those of men who have received little re- ward for their personal sacrifices, when a grateful people would have been glad to have showered upon them both pecuniary benefits and public honors. So rapid is the progress at the present day of both practical and scientific discovery that there is a universal consciousness of the existence of a sort of intellectual vis viva in practical and theoretical science, which, reversing the law of material or 250 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. kinetic energy, seems to increase in proportion to the resistances which have been overcome. Theory and practice have become thoroughly united, the deductions of the former being instantly brought into use by the latter, while both contemplate fqr the future greater achievements based upon the strong foundations of the past and present. Electrical, Physical, and Chemical Laboratories were never more active in leading the way for the Engineer, the Metallur- gist, and the Manufacturer to follow in the tide of industrial and manufacturing progress ; and never before has there been a time when so many young men, splendidly equipped for the work before them, have been added yearly to the ranks of sci- entific workers. The field of invention thus grows larger and its aims higher. As one branch of practical knowledge becomes in a degree ex- hausted to the inventor another springs up to take its place. In this great and continued movement every man is a bene- factor who contributes to that kind of useful knowledge, whether it be theoretical or practical, which increases the conveniences and comforts of living for the great masses of the human race, and through the infiuences which he thus helps to create, lifts them up to higher planes of intellectual and social life. With all such workers Technical Schools arejn full sympathy and active alliance. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESS. 251 THE INVENTION OF THE STEAM ENGINE. By Robert H. Thurston, A. M., LL. D., Dr. Eng'g of New York, Director and Professor of Mechanicai. Engineering, Sib- I.EY Coi.i