THE SOURCES OF WEALTH.
| The diagram below shows very clearly the rich men of the world, and the source of their wealth: | The cry nowadays is that there are no chancesfor accumulating wealth as did these people—in some ways this isright. Three of the avenues to wealth are pretty well closed: Taking each up in turn we find |
| 1st. Natural Wealth. Secured by Mining, Drilling and Digging. Examples: John D. Rockefeller, Henry H. Rogers, Barney Barnato, and many others. | First. Mines and Oil Wells are becoming scarcer every year, and there are fewwhich remain undiscovered. |
| 2nd. Real Estate. Advances in value as by buying lots in a growing city and takingadvantage of its growth. Examples: Hetty Green, The Vanderbilts, Russell Sage, and many others. | Second. Real Estate takes an inside knowledge of conditions, which none but men who give the subject deep study can hope to acquire. |
| 3rd. Transportation. Steam Railways, Electric Railways, and Steamboat lines. Examples: The Goulds, Thomas J. Ryan, E. H. Harriman. | Third. Transportation requires big capital, and the small investor on the"outside" has no chance whatsoever. |
| 4th. Patents. Inventions on articles in use in the manufactures, the arts, the home. Examples: Carnegie, Edison, Schwab, Maxim, Krupp, Westinghouse, Pullman, Bell, Welsbach, Singer, Hewitt, McCormick, Acheson, Colt, Marconi, Bessemer, and thousands of others. | Fourth. PATENTS ARE TO-DAY THE GREATEST SOURCE OF WEALTH. "Genius, that power which dazzles mortal eyes, Is oft but perseverance in disguise." |
CHAPTER IV.
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.