"SOME CRANKS I HAVE MET" - THOMAS A. EDISON
j\ Chat <with the Wizard of Menlo Park About the
Impossible and Ridiculous Devices } yon %^hicft'^H^{ls}}
- I *\u25a0 HIS is great weather for cranks; they in-
I cubatc in the summer time/ you know."
B The curtains were all pulled down in
the long, high ceilingcd library, and elec
tric fans purred in different parts of the room, but
Thomas A. Edi:>on pressed his hand to his brow
.and gave a little half sigh; half puff, as if extremely
.i-arm, when hefmade this remark. Then he pointed
•lo a large wire mail basket in one corner of his desk.
"Within the next two months," he said, "that will
be almost full every morning of letters giving me
.ideas which will revolutionize the world. All the
•\u25a0trange thir.qs that have occurred to strange human
ity, in all parts ot the country, during these incubat
ing months I will hear "about. I will be offered in
each case the opportunity of a lifetime to win fame
" ... , " ,j t ii i '\u25a0'\u25a0\u25a0! i - *
and fortune. All in the world I will have to do is to
work out the idea. Easy, simple — according to my cor
respondents; a mere matter of a few hours. That's
the harvest of this ideal hot weather I shall reap.
"I can't afford the time to let them in for a talk
any more. 1 had to stop their visits some time ago.
I found th.it. they really look up sO per cent of my
time. But one in all the hundreds I have seen had
anything that at all approached the practical. The
rest were all alike, acted alike, looked alike.
; "My crank was always cadaverous, he had long
liair and invariably some eccentricity — dissymmetry
of the central office as a rule.
"Throughout the year I average 10 letters a month
on perpetual motion alone, and in the last three years
I have received 5,000 letters from airship and aero
plane inventors trying to get me to work out their
impossible ideas. In every case and on whatever
idea the letter is always an elaborate one, a screed
that has taken several hours of manual labor, at least,
to produce. Instead of spending the time that way
my crank might have gone to work with a jackknife
and some glue and with half the effort demonstrated
\u25a0
to his own satisfaction the impossibility of his scheme.
He always seems to want- to get something with a
lead pencil. Invariably he wants somebody else to do
ithc work for him.
"Oh, yes, I read all the letters. I read very fast.
For instance, I can read a novel in two hours and
then tell my wife more about it than she knows after
she has read it all day. And, say, here's something
occurs to me:
"The real egg of Columbus of education is learn
ing to read properly. We really. leave out the most
important thing in a common school education. We
leach children to read like this: 'On May the sth the
wagon was sent to Morristown, N. ].'"
. Mr. Edison held a large catalogue before him in
approved .fourth reader fashion. Each word he slowly
and painstakingly articulated. Then with a gesture
of impatience he tossed the book to one side.
One Had a Good Idea
"A single glance at 'a line would have been suffi
cient to inform the reader about what happened to
the wagon on May 5. The art of reading a whole
line at once is easy to acquire. It should be taught in
the public schools. Then children would read with
pleasure and would teach themselves rapidly as they
grow older. You might almost call me a crank on
this subject. But I have more than an idea.
"As I say, "l -never saw but one crank who really
had anything worth anything. He had a mechanical
movement that was really wonderful. But I couldn't
make any use of it. The rest of them had the kind
of. junk that lumbers up the patent office. I think
that I have been inflicted with every kind of perpetual
motion scheme ever dreamed of. ". In the minds of the
inventors there was never any v doubt of the solution
of that problem. A wheel here"— Mr. Edison made
as large a circle as his right arm would allow— "and
a little hub over there and' there you are. Easy, isn't
it?" The inventor spread out his hands,, gave a little
shrug of his shoulders to accentuate, if possible,, the
extreme simplicity of the whole thing.
"They utilize water, air, oil, wood, stone, almost
anything you can think of for bases. -They solve the
question by means of ball bearings; they apparently
overcome all friction; they arrive at conclusions that
allow a certain amount of friction; they get around
a big obstacle in hundreds of adroit ways — on paper.
Not one of. them is any good. It is but a waste of
time to listen to them or 1 to read about them. But
what am I going to do?
"They come at me with all sorts of ideas for the
utilization of power they claim to be able to get
power for in ocean waves. One fellow sent me a spe
cial delivery letter wanting to make an appointment
to show, me how he could -make a ' dynamo run a
motor. After -the motor was started he proposed
running the dynamo with it and thus get power for
nothing. All- sorts of magnetic engines, wireless in
ventions, or, better, ideas, and various new forms of
chemical processes are eagerly brought to me to be
worked out. There's nothing in any of them. One
somewhat advertised attempt, that of using centrifu
gal force as a motive power for an airship, is laugh
able. Centrifugal force is a state. The inventor
might just as well put a mince pic in liis craft and
expect to propel it as the whcclMyith which he says
he can develop his wonderful force.
"But he is a confident chap, the crank. You can't;
say much or do much to shake him of the:firm belief
that he has accomplished something marvelous. A
man called on me'sometimc. ago : fn3m Bogota. He
was the representative of. an* inventor, there who had
equipped him with a 'ss,ooo letter of credit; and sent
him up here to astonish- people with! 'a belt tightening
device, which he believed was revolutionary. It was;
my painful, duty, to inform this agent that since the":
carHest memory of manHhis same device. had been in;
general use. It took a long while, 'however," for jhinv
to be convinced and give up ; his efforts and return to
Bogota. %
' "That is what b'ecomes. ; of\aVgo9d^rMnyvj6f^tlie;
cranks I have met- They go back to
tively. I suppose when they, get there ;i they yoet: to;
work thinking up new ideas, laying, plans.'for- other
invasionsof real workers', time. 'SomeTof 'them, how
ever, get to-the ears :of men with" money, and, r given;
the fact that theirldea; is r so ; - far practical that : its
model mayb e made to do' a; certain;; showy, piece ;of
work, eventually see/the radio; this or electro' that; or
the magnetic 'something else, whatever they call it,
company really in existence! If they happen to get
hold of the" real: first 'class- promoter, or farmers'
friend, they will at least have a, gaudy collection of
literature and engraved stock certificates to paste in
their scrapbook when the.final blowup comes. This
has got to come, you know, .'because their inventions
or ideas are' not at all practical in the first place and
can't under any circumstances be worked out suc
cessfully. "•; \u25a0,'. ? --V-.-'vs /: •
Wall- Street Easy -
"The easy marks in Wall street are" their, special
prey. I can't includcin that classa lot of theolder
heads of banking houses or : brokerage» firms, but you
would be surprised at the number of men engaged,
in high finance there who ; barely it. It is gen
erally the newcomer to whom they make a plea and
who, takes the chance with them of , acquiring a for
tune. This newcomer is the transient of Wall street.
He has mado a stake in ,some other part of the coun
try and is here to play the big game with the big
players. Very few of His sort ever win. And only
one phase of the poetic justice :of his 'cleaning* is the
inventor crank.
. "The, farmers' friends make, much 'capital out of
my crank, especially if his 'invention is very radical.
They manufacture one' or two machines that" will; look'
good and that with some assistance will work a little,
and they flood the country with literature advertising
this great achievement, what it is going to mean to
the world, what it is going to mean to those who get
in on the ground floor, then giving simple but explicit
directions for sending, money through the mail. These
people sail within a thirty-second of an inch of Sing
Sing, most of the. time and some of them slip and
get there.
"This sort of 'business will always be, more or less.
Postoffice authorities can minimize it, but they can't
absolutely stop it. Every young man must have a
certain amount of experience with things of this char
acter. /All the government can do is to see' that he
gets it in the least expensive way..
"It : took me 40— : no, 30— no, 25 years to get my
experience. I got into all kinds of trouble because I
paid no attention to business.
"The only way I know of telling the good from the
bad in the; matter of inventions advertised for sale is
to insist on thorough tests. These are in many cases
easily 'simulated. Wonderful sources of power may
be really hidden batteries and electrical connections.
It is very often difficult, extremely , difficult, to recog
nize an old element in a new dress.- It is very readily
taken for a. new element.
A Question of Ownership
tt\ VVANT to put .a hypothetical question to . you, '
\u25a0 • said the pretty; girl, after the man had picked out
Lhe most comfortable chair in the room and had seated
himself; therein. "It is as long and as complicated as
some of the questions propounded by lawyers in
criminal .trials, but I think you will be able to follow
i ts ; in tricacies.
, "Suppose you were a woman — me, for. example —
and -suppose two other women visited you the same
evening. The}' were strangers to each other and came
and went separately. • Suppose that after they had
gone you noticed an umbrella which had been left, pre
sumably by one of your, callers. Suppose the next
morning -iCliss A 'telephoned you and^asTcediif she had
left. her umbrella at your house;; that she: had left it
some place, she couldn't just remember where, but she
believed it was, at ybur ; house: Was:it? You said it
was, and- Miss A said she would send :a boy right
aroundito get it; shehad; just learned that :she would
have to leave the city for 'quite a while and Avould
you kindly-give the'-boy the umbrella?
"Suppose the boy came and your, gave . him the
umbrella,: and, then a; .little; later Miss^B came rushing
in; and; asked ; for her umbrella, which she had left at
your house the night before— her umbrella, mind you!
the; very/one you had just sent to* Miss 1 -A, i but which
Miss-rB swore she; could- positively/ prove . to : be hers,
you'd , be in : something of. a pickle :by that; .time,
woudn't you? -;. ' ,
"WeJ!, ; supposV that ; to :lear the matter up you
rushed;- around : to \ Miss ' A's',"! -hoping! to recover the
umbrella, >b*ut found ': that -both ; she. and the umbrella
had /already ;; gone, v Then \u25a0* you rushed \u25a0 around ' home
again;- to;find' Mi^s * pacing- up and down your ; room
The i San Francisco Sunday oaJl
:?."I:: ?."I : have" air iend who .takes a-little financial inter
est in every invention of a possible practical nature
that is brought to his notice.. He wins* an average
of once in 10 times. What he loses in the other rihv
times .does not amount to his winnings, so I thiru
his. is a pretty good plan. Of course he is careful m
looking out for himself in the way of contracts and \u25a0
things like that, and then he wouldn't take a flyer on
a perpetual^motion solution. He gets as expert advice
as possible^on all occasions, too.
"But the general public does not scatter its eggs
like this friend of mine. A man who can halfway
prove his dream can get out gilt edged stock certifi
cates and sell them by the hundreds. The backer ol .
the crank's invention, if he be not a very clever pro
moter and versed in all the ways of putting the articli
on the market. in the most attractive style, is certain
to lose all his investment in very quick order. The ;
mere fact that he is willing to take a chance at another
man's game argues for his easiness in the eyes of the
money hunting man with an idea.
. "The only real work being done is by the profes
sional inventors- of the country and by the engineer* .
\u25a0\u25a0' \u25a0 . ' ..*.*? " \u25a0\u25a0 \u25a0 V
My Crank 'Was Always Cadaverous
He Had Long Hair and Invariably Some
Eccentricity
in charge of various projects. In fact, in the engi
neers*, clubs in the great cities of the United States
you may find all the men, outside of the chemical and
electrical inventors, who are doing all the big work
being done in this country. There's nothing in th"«
•world that can beat New England Yankees inventing
small automatic machines. This genius is bore In
them. In a great many ways I consider them tha
most remarkable inventors in the world.
"I don't believe I've ever had many cranks come to
me from that part of the country. They make men
of good sound sense up there. Tha authors of tha
letters that I'm going to begin to get as soon as this
incubating season is over I can't say as much of. I
think they have exaggerated kinks in some of tha
folds of their brains. I am just as sure as anythina
that I'm going to get the same old windmill storaga
power idea that I have received every fall as long as
I can remember.".
"From what part of the country do the most
cranks come?" I asked as the inventor motioned foi
the boy to turn on an extra electric fan.
"Kansas," he replied. "They seem to flourish with
the grasshoppers."
wondering what on earth she should ever do, becatm
it was. beginning to rain cat 3 and dogs and. she had .
dozens of places to go to that day and would ce^^"
tainly get soaked to the skin and maybe catch hei
death of cold because she had no umbrella; because
you—you, the careless monster— had given hers zwzj
to somebody who hadn't the shadow of a right to Itj
you'd feel pretty desperate by that time, wouldn't
you?
' * "Well, suppose that to relieve the situation still
further you offered to replace Miss B*s umbrella
The substitution wasn't your own umbrella, but.oni
that another friend had left at your house a short
while before, a most excellent umbrella, best of sili
and a beautiful handle; much better, no doubt, thaa
the one Miss B had lost. Would that be fair? Would
you' 1 , have a moral right to square yourself with ont
person by giving her the insikrella. that had been lef!
at ; your house by somebody else?"
"Right!" exclaimed the # young man. "W^T. * c **
tainly. An umbrella is common property. The courtj
have decided that, df'a man leaves an umbrella anj \
place he has no right to expect ever to see it, again.*
"Oh,' I am so glad," murmured the pretty girl.
"But what is the end of all this; hypothetical in
quisition?" asked the man. "What is it leading up to?*
_\u25a0\u25a0 "Ohf nothing," said the girl. "Let's talk aboui
something else." '
_, They did, talk about something else for three hour*
When the fnan started home he said:
" "Oh, by the way, < where's my umbrella? I left i^«4
here the. other night, didn't I?"'
"You did," said : the girl sweetly. "It* was youi
umbrella that > I took to square l myself ' with Miss B."