“Well, now, Dr. Nagle. You say remuneration. All right, we’ll use the word remuneration. But it is obvious at once that if you wish to place the magnitude of the remuneration in direct proportion to the magnitude of the discovery, there rapidly appears a point at which it is ridiculous to allow a single individual to control or realize the rewards of certain discoveries which will be of the utmost magnitude. Do you not agree that this is so, Dr. Nagle?”
Mart shrugged and smiled and said nothing. He glanced at the watch on his wrist, hoping he had not misestimated the time at his disposal.
Baird hesitated, waiting for Mart to make a statement which could be interrupted and shouted down. But Mart remained silent.
“Will you tell our audience, then, exactly how you view your own present, controversial discoveries in the light of our present Patent System?”
“I will,” said Mart quietly, “if you will allow me to finish my statements without interrupting before I am through. If I am interrupted again, I will allow the audience to make its own decision as to why I am not permitted to state my case.”
Baird grew red in the face, and it looked as if he were going to explode. Just in time, he glanced at the ever-present cameras.
Mart let his breath out slowly. He had been right. The cameras were the one check that would keep Baird in line. The commentator’s bottled up rage would scarcely permit him to interrupt now.
Through thin lips and blazing eyes directed toward Mart, and momentarily out of range of the camera, he said. “Please continue — Dr. Nagle.”
Mart looked directly into the glistening, opaque eyes that were like some stupid inquisitors out of space. “We have built our nation,” he said slowly, “on the principle, among others, of just rewards for conscientious labor. The correctness of this principle can be determined quite easily by comparison of our society with those based on other principles which require that both the man and his labor belong to the community.
“In the beginning, it was easy to make our labor principles work. A man staked out a farm and produced his crops and traded with his neighbors. Afterwards, there came to be so many kinds of labor that it was difficult to evaluate one in terms of an other, with a just remuneration for all.