INVENTIONS
“What was your next invention?” I inquired.
“An automatic telegraph recorder—a machine which enabled me to record dispatches at leisure, and send them off as fast as needed.”
“How did you come to hit upon that?”
“Well, at the time, I was in such straits that I had to walk from Memphis to Louisville. At the Louisville station they offered me a place. I had perfected a style of handwriting which would allow me to take legibly from the wire, long hand, forty-seven and even fifty-four words a minute, but I was only a moderately rapid sender. I had to do something to help me on that side, and so I thought out that little device.”
Later I discovered an article by one of his biographers, in which a paragraph referring to this Louisville period, says:—
“True to his dominant instincts, he was not long in gathering around him a laboratory, printing-office, and machine shop. He took press reports during his whole stay, including on one occasion, the Presidential message, by Andrew Johnson, and this at one sitting, from 3.30 p.m. to 4.30 a.m.
“He then paragraphed the matter he had received over the wires, so that printers had exactly three lines each, thus enabling them to set up a column in two or three minutes’ time. For this, he was allowed all the exchanges he desired, and the Louisville press gave him a dinner.”
“How did you manage to attract public attention to your ability?” I questioned.
“I didn’t manage,” said the Wizard. “Some things I did created comment. A device that I invented in 1868, which utilized one sub-marine cable for two circuits, caused considerable talk, and the Franklin telegraph office of Boston gave me a position.”
It is related of this, Mr. Edison’s first trip East, that he came with no ready money and in a rather dilapidated condition. His colleagues were tempted by his “hayseed” appearance to “salt” him, as professional slang terms the process of giving a receiver matter faster than he can record it. For this purpose, the new man was assigned to a wire manipulated by a New York operator famous for his speed. But there was no fun at all. Notwithstanding the fact that the New Yorker was in the game and was doing his most speedy clip, Edison wrote out the long message accurately, and, when he realized the situation, was soon firing taunts over the wire at the sender’s slowness.
“Had you patented many things up to the time of your coming East?” I queried.
“Nothing,” said the inventor, ruminatively. “I received my first patent in 1869.”
“For what?”
“A machine for recording votes, and designed to be used in the State Legislature.”
“I didn’t know such machines were in use,” I ventured.
“They ar’n’t,” he answered, with a merry twinkle. “The better it worked, the more impossible it was; the sacred right of the minority, you know,—couldn’t filibuster if they used it,—didn’t use it.”
“Oh!”
“Yes, it was an ingenious thing. Votes were clearly pointed and shown on a roll of paper, by a small machine attached to the desk of each member. I was made to learn that such an innovation was out of the question, but it taught me something.”
“And that was?”
“To be sure of the practical need of, and demand for, a machine, before expending time and energy on it.”
“Is that one of your maxims of success?”
“It is. It is a good rule to give people something they want, and they will pay money to get it.”