INVENTION AS A FACTOR OF AMERICAN 

 NATIONAL WEALTH. 



BY W. C. DODGE. 



[W. C. Dodge, economist; has been a close student of the history of invention and 

 of the effect of patents on industry and has investigated the subject more thoroughly 

 perhaps than any other man in the United States. He has embodied the resuUs of 

 his investigations in several articles for magazines and reviews. The one presented 

 herewith is published by special arrangement with Cassier's magazine.] 



Much has been said and written of late in regard to the 

 increase of America's foreign trade, and expansion has been 

 urged mainly on the ground that it will furnish new markets 

 and increase foreign trade. It is not the writer's object to 

 discuss that question, but instead to show briefly what it is 

 that has increased America's productive capacity, the part 

 that the patent system of the country and its resulting inven- 

 tions have had in that increase, and that in future dependence 

 must, more than ever, be placed upon inventions for ability to 

 compete for the trade of the world. 



To do justice to this subject would require far more space 

 than can be given here, for the history of inventions and the 

 part they have played in the prosperity and growth of the 

 United States would be to write the history of the country. 

 Indeed, the history of invention is the history of civilization, 

 for together they have marched down the ages, and will so 

 continue to do while time lasts or man exists. 



The writer knows of no better way to illustrate the bene- 

 ficial effects of the patent system in the United States than 

 by a brief review of the growth and prosperity of the country, 

 and the part that patented inventions have had in that 

 growth and prosperity. Going back but a little over a cen- 

 tury, we find the United States consisting of the original 

 thirteen states, with a population of less than 4,000,000 peo- 

 ple, living in sparse settlements scattered along the Atlantic 

 seaboard, the most western of which scarcely reached half vjjxy 

 to the Mississippi river. Moreover, it must be borne in mind 



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