Carefully prepared catalogues, stationery, printed matters, follow-up letters, etc., should be used. Consult a specialist about these matters.
"The world always listens to a man with a will in him."
CHAPTER XIII.
DISCOURAGEMENTS AND DANGERS
When to-day's difficulties overshadow yesterday's triumphs and obscure the bright visions of tomorrow—
When plans upset, and whole years of effort seem to crystallize into a single hour of concentrated bitterness—
When little annoyances eat into the mind's very quick, and corrode the power to view things calmly—
When the jolts of misfortune threaten to jar loose the judgment from its moorings—
Remember that in every business, in every career, there are valleys to cross, as well as hills to scale, that every mountain range of hope is broken by chasms of discouragement through which run torrent streams of despair!
To quit in the chasms is to fail. See always in your mind's eye those sunny summits of success!
Don't quit in the chasm! Keep on!"—System.
A careful study of the histories of great inventors and inventions impresses the student most forcibly with the glaring fact that while the field of invention offers, and has paid, fabulously large rewards to the fortunate genius who invents or discovers some really new device or idea, it also is a field full of discouragements, dangers and heart-breaking delays, disappointments and unfulfilled hopes, to say nothing of time and energy utterly wasted by misguided zeal and misdirected effort. We need to look at the matter from all angles, and study to avoid the pitfalls and dangers history unerringly points out to us, as well as learn thoroughly the lesson so dearly bought for us by the noble men and women in the army of inventors who have gone before.
The following table shows the startlingly large totals of Patents and Re-issues issued by the United States Government since the year 1837, up to last year, 1908:
| 1837 | 435 | 1855 | 2013 | 1873 | 12864 | 1891 | 23244 |
| 1838 | 520 | 1856 | 2505 | 1874 | 13599 | 1892 | 23559 |
| 1839 | 425 | 1857 | 2896 | 1875 | 14837 | 1893 | 23769 |
| 1840 | 473 | 1858 | 3710 | 1876 | 15595 | 1894 | 20867 |
| 1841 | 495 | 1859 | 4538 | 1877 | 14187 | 1895 | 22057 |
| 1842 | 517 | 1860 | 4819 | 1878 | 13444 | 1896 | 23373 |
| 1843 | 519 | 1861 | 3340 | 1879 | 13213 | 1897 | 23794 |
| 1844 | 497 | 1862 | 3521 | 1880 | 13947 | 1898 | 22267 |
| 1845 | 503 | 1863 | 4170 | 1881 | 16584 | 1899 | 25527 |
| 1846 | 638 | 1864 | 5020 | 1882 | 19267 | 1900 | 26499 |
| 1847 | 569 | 1865 | 6616 | 1883 | 22383 | 1901 | 27373 |
| 1848 | 653 | 1866 | 9450 | 1884 | 20413 | 1902 | 27886 |
| 1849 | 1077 | 1867 | 13015 | 1885 | 24233 | 1903 | 31699 |
| 1850 | 993 | 1868 | 13378 | 1886 | 22508 | 1904 | 30934 |
| 1851 | 872 | 1869 | 13986 | 1887 | 21477 | 1905 | 30399 |
| 1852 | 1019 | 1870 | 13321 | 1888 | 20506 | 1906 | 31965 |
| 1853 | 961 | 1871 | 13033 | 1889 | 24158 | 1907 | 36620 |
| 1854 | 1844 | 1872 | 13590 | 1890 | 26292 | 1908 | 32757 |
The United States Government has issued, approximately, 900,000 PATENTS. When we compare the number of patents that have proven to be commercial successes (in other words, money-makers), how pitifully small the list is by comparison! How many "blasted hopes," vanishing "air castles"; how much poverty, how many wrecked homes, how many suicides (but why prolong this list?) are represented by those Letters Patent that did not win! Why did they fail? The seal was just as red, the ribbon just as blue, they cost just as much, the drawings were just as clear—then why did they fail?
For one, any or all of the following reasons:
- 1. The claims were weak.
- 2. The invention would not work.
- 3. The cost of manufacture was too great.
- 4. The idea was feebly patentable, but not sufficiently new or novel.
- 5. There was no demand for it.
- 6. The big fellows froze it out!