Exhibition Addresses. 139 



to prove itself worthy of the public patronage. It simply declares 

 that if it be good it shall not be stolen ; but if it be useless nobody 

 will want to steal it. But of all those who enter upon any occupa- 

 tion of life, how many succeed and how many fail ? How many 

 young men have entered the bar, and have failed to take rank with 

 Evarts, O'Conor or Brady ? How many have launched their bark^ 

 laden with mercantile ventures, and have been stranded, while 

 Claflin and Stewart have been sailing into port ? How many 

 have been moved to " start a paper," who have lived as long 

 but not to as much purpose as Raymond, Bennett or Greeley ? I 

 suppose that nine failures to one success is a very fair proportion for 

 the professions of the world, including that of the inventor; or, at 

 all events, I do not suppose that the failures among inventors are 

 more numerous than among every other class of workingmen. As 

 to property in inventions, I shall not stop to discuss it. That a man 

 having, by long experiment, by patient thought, by brilliant genius^ 

 by the expenditure of time and of means, conceived and brought to 

 perfection and embodiment some new idea — having created some 

 new substance, put in motion some new machine, put some old force 

 to new work, or given to some new force a field for labor, is not enti- 

 tled to call this which he has done his own and to set his price upon 

 it, need not, I think, be argued before honest men. If we owe 

 nothing to the men who have made this century so illustrious by 

 their great conceptions, then we owe nothing to anybody, and repu- 

 diation ought to be the watchword of the age. We do owe them 

 much — not merely a debt of sentimental gratitude, but a debt paya- 

 ble in cash, which shall lift them above want, and place them upon 

 such a pinnacle of happiness that the world shall say : " Thus shall it 

 be done unto the man whom the nation delighted to honor !" How 

 shall we give pecuniary consideration for inventions ? There are 

 two ways in which this might be done. One is by the purchase, for 

 cash, by the government, of all inventions, for the use of the nation. 

 This plan is met, at the outset, by the impossibility of determining 

 the value. Every inventor supposes himself to have a fortune in 

 every conception that he puts into wood and iron. Stealing tremb- 

 lingly and furtively up the steps of the patent ofiice, with his model 

 carefully concealed under his coat, lest some sharper shall see it and 

 rob him of his darling thought, he hopes to come down those steps 

 with the precious parchment that shall insure him a present compe- 

 tency and that shall enrich his children. I should think if Jie 



