SUCCESSFUL INVENTORS
"Lives of great men all remind us,
We can make our lives sublime,
And departing, leave behind us,
Footprints on the sands of time."--Longfellow.
The long list of famous patentees with their inventions which a
previous chapter contains is an eloquent testimonial to the fact that
fame, fortune and an undying place in history will be given to anyone
fortunate enough to conceive and work out a new idea which inures to
the benefit of mankind. While these famous inventors have been
devising and exploiting inventions of wide scope and large calibre
there have been an army of small inventors which should be equally as
famous and whose inventions will, probably, on the average, return
larger proportionate profits to their owners than have a great many of
the prominent ones already listed. The writer has in mind small
inventions, such as, for instance, Mrs. Pott's Sad Iron; the De Long
Hook and Eye; the Gillette Safety Razor; Enterprise Meat Chopper;
Junoform Bust Form; Push-point Pencil; Bromo Seltzer; Morrow Coaster
Brake; Brass Tips for Boys' Shoes; Mennen's Talcum Powder; Rubber Tips
for Lead Pencils; Bundy Time Clock; President Suspenders; Pianola;
Castoria; Angelus; O'Sullivan's Rubber Heel; Macey's Sectional
Bookcases; Red Dwarf Ink Pencil; 1900 Washing Machine; Tyden Table
Lock, and the thousands of similar small inventions, practically all
of which are bringing or have brought enormous fortunes to their
owners and developers.
King C. Gillette has become a wealthy man from the royalties and
profits on his safety razor. While safety razors had been on the
market for years, it took Gillette to bring out a better one, patent
it, and make his fortune. The inventor of the President Suspender is
said to have collected over fifty thousand dollars last year in
royalties on the sales of over two hundred thousand dozen pairs of his
suspenders. Miss Wolfe, the inventor of the Junoform Bust Form, it was
remarked recently, would attain wealth from her royalties. Mrs. Potts
is reputed to have collected over half a million dollars from
royalties from the patents on her sad iron.
It is also said that the Selden Gas Engine royalties exceed ten
million dollars in amount. It is stated that McCormick, the inventor
of a Cream Separator, has an annual income from his patents of over
thirty thousand dollars. It is said that the inventor of the new-style
"pay-as-you-enter" street car will receive a large royalty on every
car of that style used in the United States. They are at present
coming into use on the metropolitan street car lines. Everybody is
familiar with the enormous fortune made by Pullman with his palace car
patents.
NOTES.
It is related that when George Westinghouse called on Commodore
Vanderbilt to endeavor to interest him in his air-brake, Vanderbilt
said to him: "Do you mean to tell me that you can stop a train of cars
by wind?" and when informed that in effect that was what was
contemplated, remarked that he had no time for fools. Sometime
afterward when, through the support of Andrew Carnegie and several
others, a successful test of the brake had been made, Westinghouse had
the satisfaction, according to the story, of replying to Vanderbilt's
request for a conference, "I have no time to waste on fools."
* * * * *
Ottmar Mergenthaler worked twenty years on the development of his
linotype machine, and ten years thereafter in perfecting it. The
Mergenthaler Linotype Company has paid out twenty millions of dollars
in dividends in fourteen years. The romance of the invention of the
linotype brings out in glaring letters PERSISTENCE, as Edward Mott
Woolley states in "System," of September, 1908, in an article
describing the development of the linotype machine.
* * * * *
It is related of Oscar Hammerstein, the well-known theatrical
proprietor, that when he was fifteen years old he landed from a
steamer at the Battery in New York, after running away from his German
home. He was without money or friends, or any place to go. He got a
job in a cigar factory at $2.00 per week. Making cigars by hand seemed
to him a poor way of doing it, so he began experimenting on his own
account, and four years later he had a machine to do the work. He sold
this machine for $6,000 cash, and immediately started on a new one,
which in place of selling outright he had manufactured on a royalty
basis. It is said that he has received over $250,000 in cash from his
royalties. Yet today Hammerstein is not known by his inventions, but
by the big theatrical enterprises which have earned or lost other
fortunes for him at various times.
* * * * *
In the struggle of Charles Goodyear to manufacture a rubber compound
that should fulfil mercantile needs is presented a striking, if rather
familiar example of what eternal persistence will finally accomplish,
and of how it may be assisted by what we call "luck." When he was
twenty-one Goodyear entered a rubber house in Philadelphia and began
experimenting in India rubber. By chance one day a little rubber mixed
with sulphur fell on a stove, and he at once realized what might be
accomplished by what is now known as vulcanization. To carry on his
experiments he was required to pawn the school-books of his children
to raise money. However, he kept everlastingly at it, and was rewarded
with a number of international prizes and decorated by several foreign
rulers. His name has gone down to fame as one of the successful
inventors of the world. The Goodyear Rubber Company bears his name.
* * * * *
The public today is familiar with the record of Thomas A. Edison, who
is considered the greatest inventor the world has ever known. The new
book which has recently come out, "The Life of Thomas A. Edison," is
well worth purchasing and reading. The public press reported he had
won his infringement suits and that the "Moving Picture" trust or
combination agreed to pay him royalties running into a sum of seven
figures.
* * * * *
George Ade, the "funny man," is independent financially from the
royalties paid him on his copyrights.
* * * * *
The story of the De Long Hook and Eye Company is the history of
an infinitesimal start with an enormous present size.
* * * * *
Sir Henry Bessemer is said to have been paid $10,000,000 in royalties
on his steel process.
* * * * *
Emerson, a Baltimore druggist, made a number of fortunes from his
invention of Bromo-Seltzer. Likewise Mennen, of talcum powder fame,
whose face and name are known all over the world.
* * * * *
Landis, a Franklin county (Pa.) man, sold his "Straw Stacker" patents,
it is said, for $50,000 cash,--practically all profit.
* * * * *
This list, if complete, would fill volumes, but it would be a
story with the same ending in each and every case.
* * * * *
A careful study of the reason why all the above patents have proved to
be so successful emphasizes the fact that inventors, to succeed,
_must not lose sight of the Six Cardinal Tests enumerated elsewhere
in this volume_.
[Illustration: Press and Pen
REMIND US OF INVENTIONS THAT HAVE BROUGHT FAME AND WEALTH]