If it wasn't for the word hope this would be a dreary world for the
fellow who plans and builds in the future. It rises and falls in every
human breast. Some have an over abundance, and others lack in not having
enough. It arouses buoyancy and encouragement to see one who reaches
toward hope and almost succeeds but doesn't get quite a firm enough grip
to fasten the goal securely before he has to let go; but no matter how
hard the fall, or how often, he's up and trying again. Discouragement or
complete failure never causes a faltering step or gets time to fester
with despondency before keener activity revives the energy and the
shattered hope is rehabilitated and again swells the breast so full
there is nothing to do but try again. Bless the hopeful man or woman.
Some can't stand the fall, they go down clear to the bottom. Defeat and
despondency chain them fast.
In the year 1896 when Bryan was preparing his famous oration "The Crown
of Gold" that was so ably delivered and well received and which was the
leading factor in opening up the road for him to the White House, I
commenced scheming and planning on patentable ideas. Nineteen years of
hard thinking has brought no visible financial returns and so far the
patent attorney is the only one who has received toll. I never entered
the field thinking I had any latent ingenuity like Edison, Westinghouse,
Ford and many others; but I had hopes, as long as I could pay the
attorney and the filing fee of the patent office.
My first application for a patent was an adjustable track wrench that
met complete failure after a year's pendency. I thought I had a good,
practical, economical, and convenient wrench, but after the said period
of time elapsed my attorney informed me it was rejected by the chief
examiner on account of prior similar claims already patented. Of course
you must not get confused and wonder why he didn't tell me this before I
filed the application. If he had the self-explanatory portion of the
scheme loses its self respect and puts the attorney in a bad financial
light, which I would dislike to do. However, the discouraging news was
so cool and saddening at this first attempt that it froze my ingenuity a
decade and a quarter, and then hope rose again and I called once more on
the dormant faculty and changed attorneys.
After due diligence had persevered and I had stood the condemnation of
my wife, who said I was getting absent-minded and hard of hearing, I
sent in my application duly witnessed and sworn to, along with the
necessary stipend that makes the wheels buzz in the attorney's head and
swells that seven millions of profit accrued in the patent office from a
good many fellows like myself. Nice to help swell this big profit for
some day when this accumulation becomes large enough our wise custodians
of this fund may transfer it like ordinary Town Council men do when one
fund gets too far ahead and pay off the national debt. My second
application was an improved index and a device of meritable convenience
over present ones, so I thought. It has been pending two years after
failing ten times before the chief examiner, who doesn't seem to have
the courtesy to allow it.
While the invention was safe and secure in the government vault, I was
rash enough to go into another irrational period and get out a computing
device for the busy coal man to aid him in rapid accurate calculations
and do away with the old time method of having coal swell so sixteen
hundred pounds was a ton; not really a long ton but a short ton. This
wonderful invention hatched in the brain of an ordinary man, lingered in
Washington one year and a half, and was then rejected. I wouldn't care
for having it rejected, but I'd like to have the rejectors use a milder
word, one that doesn't rankle so much and stir up the mean things in
you.
Well, here are two great inventions for the betterment of the race
denied, and from the way the attorney wrote in his last tribute of love
to me, the third is hanging over the precipice and is ready to fall
among its ancestors.
I had hopes when I invested in the last two ideas, my total
expenditures, including postage on a voluminous amount of
correspondence, was $141.28, and this is how I disbursed the interest on
that amount:--I calculated conservatively that the two inventions would
net me $50,000. Here she goes! To my father-in-law, for giving away his
daughter to me, for which I have never paid, $1,000.00; to two
sisters-in-law that favored my suit, $1,000.00 each; to a brother-in-law
that did the square thing by me, $1,000.00; to my oldest brother, who
continually hammered me when I was young and smaller than he, $1,000.00;
to a younger brother, whom I could hammer, $1,000.00; to my four
sisters, $1,000.00 each. Ten thousand of the iron men at work. The next
$20,000 I put at interest in Colorado, where it is easy to get a ten per
cent rate. This would bring me in $2,000.00 a year to live on, and by
being frugal I might be able to smoke a five cent cigar occasionally and
let the corn cob pipe have a chance to dry up some of its nicotine. The
next $10,000 went to old people who have nearly reached the summit of
their lives, but on account of the feebleness of their limbs, poor
eyesight and a meagre pocketbook, the final ascent overtaxes their small
reserve of strength and with want and sacrifice being in the majority
they can't quite make it. To these aged and needy people I would give
$500.00 cash. This amount would render their last days comfortable, free
from worry and care. That helps twenty old couples, forty people that
are worthy and needy. The remaining $10,000 goes from my pocket in ready
cash to people met every day, people whose countenances have rigidly
printed thereon a silent appeal for sympathy and help. A meal to the man
suffering from the pangs of hunger; $50.00 to a woman making her living
over a washboard and fighting a losing fight against poverty to rear her
brood; $100.00 for a present and a Christmas tree to poor little
children who never have the pleasure of unwrapping a doll or any kind of
a toy; $5.00 to a laboring man looking for work; $10.00 on a
subscription list to help a poor widow bury her boy; $25.00 to the man
in the pulpit preaching straight from the shoulder; $10.00 for a
railroad ticket to take a girl home who expected work in the city but
didn't find it. And so goes the remaining $10,000, here a little and
there a little. I think I could gladden more hearts with this last
$10,000 than the great man who spent millions in libraries and free
reading rooms throughout the country. With all due respect to him, the
man in overalls and the girl who must work are the ones who need
literature the worst, but the struggle for existence is so keen they
haven't time to read books and they feel humiliated and unwelcome in
their everyday garb mingling with the better dressed people. The
well-groomed man and woman of today, in a large sense, doesn't apply any
too closely the ethics of the Galilean and would rather not mingle with
the less fortunate people, so the conclusive thesis is there is no
congeniality between the two and the primary object of helping the
fellow who needed it most is a failure. But alas, the $50,000 is still
behind the capitalist and must wait for hope to rise again.
Not feeling satisfied but that there was plenty of loose coin waiting to
flow to me, I took up the pleasant but unprofitable part avocation of
composing songs. I had a Washington music firm write the music,
copyright the songs in my name, do the advertising, and remit one-half
the proceeds to me semi-annually January 31st and July 31st. I was very
careful to set out specifically the remitting part in our contract. Each
song had its own peculiarity and sentiment to touch the public pulse,
which so far has been untouchable. The first song, "A Tear Drop Always
Glistened in His Eye," was to fasten itself on the hearts of the people
like "Annie Laurie." "When the Silver Moon Light Sparkles on the Lake"
made its bow to the public; I hoped lovers with emotion would go wild
over it and would know a good thing when they heard it. If they had such
a feeling the emoluments failed to show it. The third song, "Anna, My
Anna," was short and jerky for the happy-go-lucky class of people that
fell so in love with "Casey Jones." But it seems this class wouldn't
respond either, and leaves me with the entire stock on hand with an
expenditure of $90.00 trying to get the people to sing. I find them more
unresponsive than the preacher when he says let everybody sing, and a
few who gave their best years in the Lord's service lift up their
cracked voices in earnest endeavor to lead the sheep, and the sheep,
lambs and all go astray. My share of the profits has been ten one cent
postage stamps, just the ordinary kind, the common kind you can get from
every postoffice in the country. And the trio which failed to receive
public recognition I laid away where moths and rust doth not decrease
their earning power and neither do thieves molest them. Three more hopes
decently but sadly buried.
There is also intertwined and resting sweetly in slumberland 175 shares
of Cracker Engle Gold Mine Stock at twenty cents per share and twelve
years accrued interest. I had the customary notice before I bought that
the stock would advance rapidly in price and if I invested without
hesitation and without investigation I would have the benefit of the
first and early advance. I hearkened to the alluring honey literature
and sent a U. S. money order, something whose face value couldn't be
questioned. I wanted to be absolutely sure I'd get the stock. I got it
all right. I have such faith in that stock that I can go anywhere and
leave it behind unlocked doors and it never strays away.
A home boy succeeded in getting a patent on an improved table. He
incorporated under the laws where Wilson was governor and then invited
capital for manufacturing purposes. He styled his invention "The Great
Western Improvement Company" and sold seventeen shares at the flat sum
of $5.00. I learned a little from the crack at the Cracker Eagle and did
not fly so high and only took the $5.00 worth. It's comical now, to me,
how the inventor and promoter explained how his table was superior to
the common ordinary everyday table that's been in use so long. It had a
hollow holding receptacle in the center and he said after the meal had
been stowed away and nothing was left but the dishes and flies, the
housewife could, if she felt so disposed, elevate a handle and the
soiled dishes would disappear and the table would have an inviting
appearance. He said it was especially fine when conversation had been
brisk and company or peddlers were seen coming; all that was necessary
was the quick jerk of the ever-ready handle and down out of sight went
the dishes, flies, napkins, and everything untidy and untasty. I was
looking for votes when this investment was made and while the votes may
not have had an equal value I let it go at that and put away the stock
for my grandchildren. Another share of stock in the Campbells' Farming
Association at a cost of $5.00 brings my get rich quick investments to a
finis. The only other stock I ever had was bank stock. I invested
$1,500.00 in a State Bank in Nebraska. I didn't lose on this deal but
the money would have paid better on a straight five per cent rate.
Nothing would have done me more good and brought a keener satisfaction
than to have had a nice remuneration from some investment that I have
made. My wife called me what the bible says she shouldn't so many times
that it seems to look like I am really a bigger one than she said I was,
and if I could have changed her mind by laying before her eyes a nice
portly check for $5,000.00 or $10,000.00 it would have been such an
agreeable surprise not only to her but to myself that we both would have
enjoyed it, and especially myself if I could have pulled it over. But if
hope don't come again I will have to let that excellent pleasure be like
Mathewson's speedy one and fade away.
A lad of the average type at twenty-one has a great deal of stored up
energy; he has the muscle bank and the brain bank from which to get his
necessary resources, and a great many lads think Dad is a back number
and he sees where the old gentleman was short on gray matter, and all
advice is lost on this sort of boys. I was never conceited this way, in
fact I think somebody else got nearly all the gall that should have been
mine. If a fellow holds his own in these days, no matter what party is
in power, Democratic or Republican, you need your full allowance of
gall. The lad that thinks that the governor's gray matter is not as
profuse as it should be, but he, through some unknown force, grabbed all
that was coming to him and part of dad's might read the following verse
and the conclusive portion of this chapter and apply it from a stand
point of ordinary horse sense:
When Johnnie Jones was twenty-one
He said my farming life is done,
I'll pack my duds and say Good Bye
And to the city I will hie.
I'll show the ones who think they're it
That Johnnie Jones has got the grit
To make a name that will be felt
Like Astor, Gould or Roosevelt.
It makes the pain come home when you look back from fifty and realize
that a man at twenty-one is a darn big fool, at thirty still a fool, at
thirty-five a little foolish, and at forty he still has some, at
forty-five wisdom breaks in gently, and at fifty he stands on the
threshold of learning ready to apply and absorb, and at sixty he's a
valuable asset to his community and country.