CHAPTER XXIV
GENIUS IS OFTEN ERRATIC
The fourth radio talk on the life, character and accomplishments of theworld's foremost inventor proved to be the most interesting of theseries. Fairview had heard of these entertainments and so many peoplehad asked Bill and Gus if they might attend, the boys became aware thatthe modest little living-room of the Brown home would not hold half ofthem. They, therefore, decided to let the radio be heard in the townhall, if a few citizens would pay the rent for the evening.
This was readily arranged, but when the suggestion was made that anadmission be charged, the boys refused. This was their treat all round,even to transferring their aerial to the hall between its cupola and amast at the other end of the roof, put up by the ever willing Mr. Grierwho could not do too much to further the boys' interests.
Early in the evening the hall was filled to overflowing, and ushers wereappointed to seat the crowd. Naturally there was much chattering andscraping of feet until suddenly a strain of music, an orchestralselection, began to come out of the horn and there was instant quiet.After its conclusion came the voice:
"This is our last lecture on Edison. Following this will be given aseries on Marconi, the inventor of the wireless.
"As I have told you, Mr. Thomas Alva Edison's leap to fortune was suddenand spectacular, as have been most of his accomplishments since. Thosewho do really great things along the lines of physical improvement, orconcerning the inception of large enterprises are apt to startle thepublic and to surprise thoughtful people almost as though someimpossible thing had been achieved.
"From a mere salaried operator to forty thousand dollars in a lump sumfor expert work was quite a jump.
"The forty thousand dollars, however, did not turn Mr. Edison's head ashas been the effect of sudden wealth on many a good-sized but smallerminded man.
"He used it as a fund to start a plant and hire expert men to experimentand work out the inventions which came to him so fast in his ceaselesswork and study. He could get along with as little sleep as Napoleon issaid to have required when a mighty battle was on. Edison could lie downon a settee or table and sleep just as the Little Corporal did evenwhile cannon were booming all around him.
"There was something Napoleonic, also, about Edison's intensity ofapplication and his masterfulness in his gigantic undertakings. Ifgenius is the ability to take great pains, Thomas A. Edison is thegreatest genius in the world to-day--if not in all history.
"Sometimes, as Napoleon did with his chief generals before a decisiveengagement, Edison would shut himself up with his confidentialcoworkers. Sometimes he and they would neither eat nor sleep till theyhad fought out a problem of greater importance to the world than evenNapoleon's crossing the Alps or the decisive battle of Austerlitz. But,though he began to work on a large scale, young Edison's financialfacilities were of the crudest and simplest.
"Almost all of his men were on piece-work, and he allowed them to makegood salaries. He never cut them down, although their pay was very highas they became more and more expert.
"Instead of _books_ he kept _hooks_--two of them. All the bills he owedhe jabbed on one hook, and stuck mems of what was due him on the other.If he had no tickers ready to deliver when an account came due, he gavehis note for the amount required.
"Then as one bill after another fell due, a bank messenger came with anotice of protest pinned to the note, demanding a dollar and a quarterextra for protest fees besides principal and interest. Whereupon hewould go to New York and borrow more funds, or pay the note on the spotif he happened to have money enough on hand. He kept up this expensiveway of doing business for two years, but his credit was perfectly good.Every dealer he patronized was glad to furnish him with what he wanted,and some expressed admiration for his new method of paying bills.
"But, to save his own time, Edison had to hire a bookkeeper whoseinefficiency made him regret for a while the change in his way of doingbusiness. He tells of one of his experiences with this accountant:
"'After the first three months I told him to go through his books andsee how much we had made.
"Three thousand dollars!" he told me after studying a while. So, tocelebrate this, I gave a dinner to several of the staff.
"'Two days after that he came to tell me he had made a big mistake, forwe had _lost_ five hundred dollars. Several days later he came roundagain and tried to prove to me that we had made seven thousand dollarsin the three months!'
"This was so disconcerting that the inventor decided to changebookkeepers, but he never 'counted his chickens before they werehatched.' In other words, he did not believe that he had made anythingtill he had paid all his bills and had his money safe in the bank.
"Mr. Edison once made the remark that when Jay Gould got possession ofthe Western Union Telegraph Company, no further progress in telegraphywas possible, because Gould took no pride in building up. All he caredfor was money, only money.
"The opposite was true of Edison. While he had decided to invent onlythat which was of commercial value, it was not on account of the moneybut because that which millions of people will buy is of the greatestvalue to the world.
"After he stopped telegraphing, Edison turned his mind to manyinventions. It is not generally known that the first successful, widelysold typewriter was perfected by him.
"This typewriter proved a difficult thing to make commercial. Thealignment of the letters was very bad. One letter would be one-sixteenthof an inch above the others, and all the letters wanted to wander out ofline. He worked on it till the machine gave fair results. The typewriterhe got into commercial shape is now known as the Remington.
"It is not hard to understand that Mr. Edison invented the AmericanDistrict Messenger call-box system, which has been superseded by thetelephone, but very few people know when they are eating caramels andother sticky confectionery that wax or paraffin paper was invented byEdison. Also the tasimeter, an instrument so delicate that it measuresthe heat of the most distant star, Arcturus. One of the few vacationsMr. Edison allowed himself was when he traveled to the Rocky Mountainsto witness a total eclipse of the sun and experiment on certain starswith his tasimeter, and this very clearly shows that Mr. Edison is asmuch interested in the advancement of science as in matters purelycommercial."