Goodwin's weekly : a thinking paper for thinking people. [volume], August 27, 1910, Image 1

About Goodwin's weekly : a thinking paper for thinking people. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1902-1919

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Goodwin's Weekly I
VOL. XVII SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, AUGUST 27, 1910 No. 19 9
The Glory Of Mechanics
T is said that when Daniel Webster finished his
J course at Dartsmouth, he was not in first-class
standing on some lines of scholarship, and
i though he was given a diploma, it was accom
panied by a half-lecture by one of the faculty,
. In which emphasis was given to some of his short-
? comings; whereupon young Webster handed back
his diploma with the remark that he did not need
it, at the same time giving the faculty notice that
tbey would hear from him sometime, and they
did.
When Gerardus Post Herrick left Princeton
with his diploma, some years ago, he went with a
fixed resolution "to do something that will make
folks sit up and take notice," and he has done it.
And we take it that no man ever accomplished much
1 fn this world who did not, in his youth, determine
that before he finished his work, he would "be
heard from" or "would make folks sit up and
take notice." Herrick's mind naturally ran to
( mechanics, but his first work after leaving the
University was to study law, that from a legal
standpoint he might always be right, and that
his mind might be broadened and exalted by the
study. Then he went to work to create a rotary
steam engine. The men who have tried the same
thing are numbered by thousands, those who have
tried and failed. Herrick made repeated failures,
but continued to try. After one conspicuous fail
ure, Professor Pryor, who holds the chair of ex
perimental engineering at the Stevens Institute
at Hoboken, took Herrick aside and in the kind
liest way possible tried to make him understand
that he was doing something very, very foolish,
and advised him that if he was determined to
waste his time, to try mumble-peg or something
else. Herrick made still more failures, but at
I length he was able to show that same great engi
neer a little machine only 25 inches high, 17
Inches wide and 21 inches long, that was, without
much noise, running at the rate of 1,000 revolu
tions per minute, which ran right along for more
than six months, all the time delivering an en
ergy of over 22 horsepower, which answers every
domand; which is at last a perfect rotary steam
engine, and which experts claim could save to the
Lucitania or Mauritania 1,000 tons of coal on one
voyage across the Atlantic. The whole descrip
tion is given in the Technical World Magazine,
and those curious may read the interesting story
o? how the mighty triumph was achieved.
Our purpose in referring to it is to call at
tention to a fact which the world at large seldom
! considers, which is, that the great changes which
have revolutionized the world in the last cen
tury are due to repeated triumphs in mechanics.
J Mark some of them as they have taken form.
Last year was the centennial anniversary of that
day when Fulton turned the steam on the engine
o? his little craft in the lower Hudson, and its
! deep respirations were notices that henceforth the
world's rivers and oceans should be made the
bearers of ships that would no longer depend upon
the winds, for power, and against which the
ocean's fiercest storms would rave and roar in
vain, and through which commerce would be
magnified in volume, until the zones would lose
their distinctions and all the produqts of- all the
world would be at man's dally dema ; until the
1 nations would be brought close together and the
lawless seas be reduced to ferries.
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A little later this same grim Genii was brought
into service on land and sent out to cross rivers
and valleys, to climb mountains and spurn with
irrepressible speed the hot stretches of the world's
deserts, and to make the rounding of the earth
merely a pleasure excursion of six weeks dura
tion. Then came the cotton gin by Whitney, the
spinning loom by Cartright, and the world's peo
ple put on better apparel and the sources of
wealth were multiplied indefinitely. Thun came
an endless multitude of labor-saving machines, to
more than double the working forces of the
earth.
Later still a new miracle was performed, so
wonderful that the world at first scouted it, and
the dream of the inspired man of three hundred
years ago materialized; "a girdle was put round
about the earth In forty minutes," m and mon on
different continents, as it were, talked with each
other as face to face.
Then came still another miratfe and men now
can talk into a machine and a century hence,
when the man has long been dust, the machine can
be appealed to and it will give back the voice
in the old tones, and what was intangible at first,
at last will become tangible, after its author has
long disappeared from among the children of men.
Then as though the command of the Infinite,
"Let there bo light!" had been repeated, a new
light appeared, a new light and a new power,
and when the light is kindled it is as John saw
the New Jerusalem, "There is no night there."
Then as Macbeth's witches proclaimed that,
"The greatest is behind," there came a wonder
of wonders, a new Genii that on invisible
wings goes out a real messenger of the gods, out
against night and storm; out into the path
less realms of ether and like the great angel, with
one foot upon the sea and one upon the dry land,
carries messages of cities overthrown by earth
quake and by fire, of ships making an unequal
fight for life against the storm, of ships on fire;
of battles raug between contending armies; of
kings and wise men called by death, picking up
the whole world's history day by day and pro
claiming it to listening millions, and giving vague
promises that soon the gods will walk and talk
with men.
And these are but a few of the triumphs which
mechanics have given to men in a century.
Does any one ask how all this has been made
possible; the answer is plain: Man has been, in
a lowly way, imitating his "Creator. In the old
days when "the gods had made mad" the men of
the southern states of this Republic, that the
mighty tragedy which was to grind slavery to
atoms should be precipitated; a southern states
man declared that true enlightenment was to
have a servile race do the work of a people;
that the white race was to make the laws, fill the
professions and fight the battles, and he Inti
mated that "no greasy mechanics" were desired,
in the South.
And yet every star that shone above; the
blazing sun; the seas with their currents in per
petual motion; the solid earth with Its valleys and
hills, with its rivers and glaciers in flow; with
the phenomenon of how the waters of the deep
seas are made, through the rains, to feed the
springs In the hills; the foliage, the flowers and
the fruits; all were even then proclaiming to mt i
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that the very chiefest glories of the Infinite him- H
self, were the glories of His mechanics; thecrea- H
tlons of worlds; the setting' of suns in space and H
calling around them systems of worlds; the light- H
ing of constellations; the forming of atoms, out H
of atoms making worlds; the preparations of H
worlds for races that were to have no existence, H
save In the mind of God, for ages to come; the H
awful machinery which was to be sufficient to H
keep uncounted worlds in motion without jar, for H
all the eternity before them; the planting in H
chaos the seeds of the fruits that millions of H
years thereafter were to support human andani- H
mal life; the creation of man himself and of H
woman whom from the first was to awaken adora- H
tion and give ambition to the soul of man, that he H
might have the inspiration to work, that he H
might lay his trophies at her feet; these .were a H
few of the signs that were given to man to assure H
him that if he would make a lasting name, one of H
the surest methods would, be to imitate his Ore- H
ator, and from the elements given him to work H
upon, produce something wnioh would help his H
fellow man, bring him more comforts and bless- H
ings, and in the contemplation of which his heart H
would be softened; his soul exalted, to make him H
more considerate of men less fortunate than him- H
self, and that would give him new humbleness, H
and a deeper reverence for the God that is over H
Things Political
THE REPUBLICANS in half a dozen states
are so torn into factions this year that the H
Democracy have more substantial hopes of H
a triumph in November than they have counted H
upon before for seventeen years. The ostensible H
wrangle of the Republicans Is defined by the terms H
standpatters and insurgents, though mixed with H
It is much personal animosity. H
With such men as Garfield and Pinchot the H
masses trace the way back right or wrong to H
Theodore Roosevelt. At least that is the eastern H
impression. In California what is called the in- H
surgent movement is when traced to its source, H
hostility to the Southern Pacific railroad. This is H
an animosity which dates back to before the time H
when the old Central Pacific company sup- H
pressed practically confiscated the Sacramento H
Union, filled the legislature with its supporters, H
and pretty nearly dictated legislation and the
decisions of the courts, and laid heavy hands fl
upon such business men as could not be con- H
trolled. Hence the contest in that state is purely 'H
local, no matter what pretensions may be urged. ,H
In Kansas and Iowa the insurgent movement fl
which seems to be urged against Speaker Cannon H
in particular, has two grievances which are con- H
tinually urged. One is that the speaker is arbl- fl
trary, unjust and tyrannical, the other that the
new tariff Is not a tariff downward in places
where it should be.
In New York, to judge by the proceedings in
the late convention, the wrangle was little more H
than a test whether the state should or should '
not endorse Col. Roosevelt. 1H
These differences all along the line are what U
give the Democracy hope. fl
We predict that no matter what the election H
may result in, no one will be satisfied, for the
reason that the sentiment of the whole nation, In H
both the great parties Is that something In the LB
Government Is radically wrong and no inspired M