The Invention Board - Symbol of America's Future

This Is a Prophecy — That the Mobilization of the Inventive Genius of Industrial America Initiates a Period of Zest for Creating New Things That in Vision Is An American “Age of Pericles.”

NECESSITY, better known as the mother of invention, has called her sons as an aid to soothe the troubled world-mind.

The inventor works for peace — his greatest war triumphs have been Industry’s greatest prizes.

America will find through her call to invention a Nation Spirit, as France found it in Art, and Germany has found it in Kultur. Peace and progress are but little half-sisters of Invention. They come after Invention, never before it.

“Hutch,” said the “Old Man,” — for so he is known through the antonomastic habit of those who work with him — “Hutch,” and the light of assurance and prophecy came into Edison’s eyes, “we’re the biggest nation on earth, and I tell you we ought to have the biggest, damnedest navy in the world. There’s no reason why we should be second to any nation. We don’t want war, we want peace; but we ought to be in a position to see that no one interferes with our desire for peace.”

And then the “Old Man,” “Hutch” tells me, having uttered these sentiments, which to tender souls may seem very vigorous, turned abruptly and went back to his twenty-hour-a-day job of enabling America to produce her aniline dyes without regard to where war happens to raise its hoary head — a very practical kind of peace work.

“Hutch,” in scientific and naval circles, in the patent office, the technical magazines, the government reports and even to the Queen of England, who once gave him a medal, is Miller Reese Hutchison, chief engineer of that city known as the Edison Manufacturing Plant and Laboratories, and personal representative of Thomas A. Edison. To “Hutch,” this unassuming and modest scientist who is even less inclined to talk than Edison himself, the “Old Man” had relegated the task of setting forth his views as to what the new Board of Invention and Development that has been called to the aid of the Navy Department means.

In the first place, it is more or less essential to clear up certain misunderstandings about this innovation of having a board of inventors and civilian experts assist the regular navy authorities.

Such men as Colonel W. C. Church, the editor of “The Army and Navy Journal,” have looked at the suggestion of the formation of this board with little favor, for they believe that the navy needs bolstering up in other and more important lines. Others have seen in it an invocation to the war spirit, through turning the attention of some of America’s most conspicuous and able citizens to the manufacture and invention of weapons of destruction.

The Board of Invention will interfere with no other line of naval development, and it is the opinion of Edison himself that it will make more for peace and the inventions of peace than any other single movement.

As Mr. Edison’s personal representative it was Mr. Hutchison himself who arranged the meeting between Secretary Daniels and the great inventor. A very modest man is this same Mr. Hutchison, refusing to speak at all of his own inventions or his refusal to go on the board himself, and even requesting that the naked facts of “Who’s Who,” with its long list of honors, be omitted in commenting on what he had to say.

“All over the country,” said Mr. Hutchison, “men are working at inventions of all kinds. Necessarily, the main tendency of this feverish activity at present is to produce means of defence for the country. The Board of Invention will have to do simply with that division of the body politic, and will in no way interfere with the work or the plans of the navy.

“As I understand the matter of the proposed Board of Experts:

“First. When ideas are submitted by civilians or personnel of the navy, such communications will be addressed to the Secretary of the Navy.

“Second. The Secretary will turn these suggestions over to the Naval Board, consisting of an officer of rank, having a staff of experts selected from the personnel of the navy. This officer in charge will in turn turn the suggestions over to such of his aids as are competent to separate the chaff from the wheat, and who will make such recommendations to their chief as they see fit and proper.

“Third. If the staff is impressed with an idea as being logical and highly desirable, it will so advise their chief. He will then confer with such of them as are best qualified for expert opinion, or will communicate with such other officers of the navy as may be qualified to advise the naval head of the board.

“Fourth. If it is the consensus of opinion that the idea presented is of value, and if the Naval Board desires advice from any of the experts of the consulting board, such expert as is best qualified to pass on the feasibility of the idea, or give expert opinion regarding it, is communicated with by the head of the Naval Board.

“Fifth. When this expert, or these experts, receive a request from the head of the Naval Board for an opinion as to the feasibility of the idea and suggestions as to whether or not, in their estimation, it would pay to investigate the matter further experimentally, he or they will so advise the head of the board, without entering into any long-winded discussion as to the pros and cons. An affirmative answer from such an expert will then justify the Naval Board in turning the proposed invention over to the laboratory head, who will in turn assign such man or men as he may have on his corps of assistants to work the idea up with a view of embodying it for use by the navy into a concrete, practical apparatus.

“As I see it, the Board of Experts will not be a board at all, but simply a number of highly qualified specialists in their particular lines who, by reason of their intimate knowledge of the various arts and sciences, will give the government the benefit of the experience and knowledge gained by simply passing on and suggesting lines of research concerning new ideas presented. I do not see that this will entail very much work on the part of members of the board of consulting engineers (whichever they may be called). Neither do I think that they should be called upon to spend a great deal of time on each subject. They serve in the same capacity as a specialist in stomach troubles serves when called in for consultation.

“Before an invention is turned down by the Naval Board, unless it is a foolish suggestion and on the face of it a waste of time for further consideration, the Secretary of the Navy should be advised that same is being turned down and the reasons briefly stated. He will then be able to consult with such experts as he may deem qualified to give him a personal opinion. This to act as a check on the Naval Board.

“Similarly, when the Naval Board approves of and desires to further investigate, by experimentation, after the civilian board of experts has favorably passed on the proposition, the matter should be submitted to the Secretary, with the reasons briefly stated as to why the matter is to be investigated further.

“I therefore do not feel that the experts appointed by the engineering societies should be detail men at all. They should be men of very large calibre, with great breadth of vision and keen insight, rather than of accurate detail knowledge of and long actual working experience on given subjects. Naturally, a man who is fitted to go on such a board must have had long detailed experience with a subject regarding which he is supposed to be an expert, but he should have arrived at the point where he is no longer called upon to do detail work, but because of knowledge gained by such long experience and study he is qualified as an adviser.

“The plans to have the present adequate and very able Naval Board look over every invention and when in doubt simply refer to a member of the consulting board.”

“The need of such an experimental station is absolute. Even the little laboratory at Annapolis, with its sixty thousand dollar appropriation, has saved the government hundreds of thousands of dollars. Here in Orange, in this very building, we spend four hundred thousand dollars a year on laboratory work. The United States government should have a laboratory and a laboratory appropriation befitting the nation and the people. Not only would that be a great benefit in developing a defence, but think of the industrial possibilities; for, after all, invention is a thing of peace and not of war, and almost every great Invention that has been brought about in war times has been afterward developed in such a way as to bring about an industrial revolution.

“Take the case of the Monitor; that was supposed to be a purely warlike invention, born of the necessity to destroy the Merrimac, and yet the connection between the Monitor and Harveyized steel and the great development of the steel industry to-day is direct.

“With the war just a year old, there have already been many evidences of invention contributions to the industrial progress of the country. Mr. Edison is now manufacturing aniline oil from which dyes are made, not in large quantities, but up to a year ago nobody thought of this country doing it at all.”

“I understand that you are also making carbolic acid, Mr. Hutchison; how about that?”

“That is a specific case in point,” answered Mr. Hutchison, “and shows the value of developing the spirit of invention.”

“When the war broke out we were notified from England and Germany that we would not be able to get any more carbolic acid. We had to have it for our records, and Mr. Edison went to work and in seventeen days he was producing carbolic acid, by a secret process, which had never before been manufactured commercially in this country. Inasmuch as the navy had to have carbolic acid also, we agreed to furnish them all they wanted, and have already contracted for four hundred thousand pounds at 56 cents a pound, which is the cost of manufacture. In the market those who had saved up some were asking the government a dollar a pound, but Mr. Edison’s belief is that it is a citizen’s duty in time of stress to stand by his country to the limit.

“It may be interesting to know that carbolic acid is extracted from coal-tar in England and Germany, but especially in England, where the coal tar in the gas mains is very rich in carbolic. It is also made from benzol. Benzol is absorbed from the coal smoke as a by-product of coke ovens. Now we are working not only to produce carbolic acid but benzol and toluol, which is found in benzol. Benzol is necessary for the production of perfumes and of pharmaceutical compounds, the production of saccharine, and in causing illuminating gas to give the white light, which otherwise would be a smoky yellow. It is also used as a substitute for gasolene for motor purposes, and mixed with toluol it produces a non-carbonizing fuel, and is non-freezing under ordinary circumstances.

“For years the Germans have been manufacturing carbolic acid out of benzol, and have had a law prohibiting the erection of a by-product coke oven without an absorber for taking over the benzol and toluol. That is the reason why Germany is now provided with munitions and fuel for submarines, etc. To-day you cannot buy a pound of coal in Germany. The coal is all used to produce benzol and toluol, and the by-product (coke) is now sold to the people instead of coal. All the German locomotives have been changed to coke burners.

“From this very same process, and these very same chemicals, Germany is able to hold her own in the production of explosives. Picric acid, the well known substance used in the manufacture of high explosives, is made from carbolic acid; and from toluol, tri-nitro toluol, a safer and better explosive, is made.

“When the war put a ban on the exportation of carbolic acid from England, and prevented its exportation from Germany, Mr. Edison was caught, as we used carbolic in quantity, as I have said, in the manufacture of our phonograph records. So Mr. Edison purchased all the benzol he could find in the market, about sixty thousand gallons, and invented a process to make carbolic acid, after finding it impossible to get any information on the subject, and in less than three weeks he had a plant installed and running and turning out two hundred and fifty pounds of pure crystal white carbolic per day. Its capacity has been greatly increased since then.

“But soon he ran out of benzol. Then he erected absorbers at several steel mills where they make coke for the manufacture of steel. To-day he is making all the carbolic we need and all the United States army and navy need.

“In the United States there are sixty-eight hundred by-product coke ovens that throw away annually twenty-nine million six hundred thousand gallons of benzol. The price of benzol per gallon has varied all the way from twelve cents to three dollars during the past thirty-five years, yet with a properly and comprehensively constructed absorption plant it should be absorbed and refined at a total cost of about six cents per gallon, including fixed charges, etc. It costs much more in our hastily constructed temporary absorbers.

“Coming to the aniline dyes, Mr. Edison, as soon as the war broke, was beset by the cloth manufacturers to produce aniline oil from which aniline dyes are made. He has finished a small plant and is about to put into operation a larger one on which he has been working. His point of view is that while he is interested more in other things, and has a great many calls on his time, it is his duty to work on these things, and that I think will be the spirit of the entire Board of Invention.”

I went from Edison and Hutchison to Nikola Tesla.

These are days when the opinions of the foreign born citizens are of unusual interest and the foreign born inventor would seem to single himself out for conspicuous attention. Nikola Tesla was born in Austrian Croatia in 1857, and he speaks with the weight of the man who invented the modern principle of the rotary magnetic field, embodied in the transmission of power from Niagara Falls. Strangely, too, he speaks forcibly of the waste that awaits invention’s magic wand to rise to useful life.

Thoughtful and hopeful he sat in the lounge room of the Waldorf the other night and talked:

“That America, the greatest inventive country in the world—in fact, when you look back, you can truthfully say the greatest inventive country in the history of the world—should have an official or semi-official inventive board, or board of inventors associated with the government, is one of the finest signs of the times and one of the most hopeful.

“It is not merely a matter of exploitation, although exploitation has many uses other than those that insure immediate and direct benefits. France’s exploitation of her art, scientifically done, has other and finer uses than merely bringing to France millions of dollars every year. Switzerland, like a beautiful woman, living purely on the tourist tribute—without agriculture or industries—on the money of those who come from all over the world to see her marvellous beauty, has through the exploitation of her beauty given her people a solidarity.

“While before the world we saw France inharmonious and disjointed, the celerity with which the nation has settled into unanimity and furnished an army that is not second to even the German army in efficiency and oneness, is due to the fact that the race has had long and frequently recurring periods of what might be called psychological homogeneity.

“Invention is in the air in America, and while I am a very strong advocate of peace and abhor the idea of ever seeing this country become a militaristic nation, I am glad to see a movement inaugurated that will bring the civilian inventor in touch with the defence of the nation—that will bring him in touch with the government, which means all of the people, and thereby lead, I believe, to the development of a nation spirit, something in which we have been lacking, and which we need, especially in these times when there is such flux and counter-flux of political, social and economic ideas.

“Bismarck, who had many sides, and who is only thought of as the man of iron and blood, said that it would set the world back a thousand years if this country should ever become a military nation.

“It was not the size of this country that he was thinking of, nor yet of its millions of people, but of its resources. Russia, too, is a big nation, but there is no comparison, for this country, with its great resources and the character of its people, breathes invention. And because it is so big, because it has such wonderful possibilities and its character among nations is so vital to the peace and progress of the world, it must be made impregnable that it may be kept a peace nation and a power among nations for peace. Such a country is naturally a tempting prize, and what we think or believe must not stop us from making her secure.

“It is not inventions for warlike purposes alone that will be fostered by the creation of a board of inventions. The spirit of the government itself changes when it embarks on a move such as the one contemplated. Think of it — there are to-day in America over 250,000 amateur wireless operators, mostly young men, experimenting in their own way with a practical invention that only a short time ago was laughed at as an impossibility. There are a quarter of a million possible inventors. Who knows what may come out of that great self-educating school when they grow up or in the years to come?

“Take the matter of the automobile — it is not only a convenience and a pleasure, but it is a great school for millions of citizens. Men who would never think of learning the rudiments of electricity and mechanics are now, as part of their daily routine, called on to exercise judgment on what would once have been considered highly technical and difficult matters. The probable result will be that the next generation will consider it an essential part of education to be able to drive a motor and understand it, just as essential in fact as the ability to read and write.

“It isn’t a war spirit that will dominate invention, but a peace spirit. We do not want war; but if we prepare for a defence we may seem to European nations to be following in their footsteps. But if the soul of our movement is the optimism of America, it will not be warlike. Instead of industry gaining through the by-products of warlike invention, it will gain directly because out of the encouragement of invention will come the cure of America’s greatest evil—extravagance and waste.

“It is to do away with this great waste that I am turning my own mind just now. Think of it, the United States Steel Company alone loses fifty million dollars a year through waste; I am working on an invention now that will check this, and I believe that the young and inventive mind of America has no greater problem than the stoppage of waste, no more encouraging problem, for it is one to which the capitalist will give his aid. We all know, and I have had my own personal disappointing experiences, that the revolutionary invention that disturbs large investments has a hard row to hoe. But the stoppage of waste means encouragement from every one, capitalist and public alike.”