Exhibition Addresses. , 141 



contract for an honest and useful purpose is made and is maintained. 

 This is tlie American system. Under its protection great inventions 

 liave been born, and liave tliriven. It has given to the world the 

 steamboat, the telegraph, the sewing machine, the hard and the soft 

 rubber. It has reconstructed the loom, the reaping machine and the 

 locomotive. It has trained up each trunk of invention until it has 

 become a graceful tree with many branches, adorned with the fruits 

 of many improvements and useful niodifications. It has won from 

 the older homes of the mechanic arts their richest trophies ; and like 

 Columbus, who " found a new world for Castile and Leon," it has 

 created new arts, in which our nation has neither competitor nor 

 peer. Without the protection of our patent laws, no such exhibition 

 as this would have been possible. By far the greater number of the 

 inventions which now crowd the shelves of the patent office would be 

 missing. No doubt many weaklings would thus have been spared a 

 contact with a cold and unfeeling world ; but many vigorous children, 

 that have come to a robust manhood, would have perished long since 

 for want of sustenance. Men will not take the risk of introducing new 

 inventions, of educating the public in their use, of overcoming opposi- 

 tion and prejudice, unless they can be assured of reasonable protection 

 in their work until their capital has made return. They will not 

 sow that others may reap, and, when the land is ready for theharvest^ 

 come forth with greater capital and more laborers, and thrust aside 

 the pioneer who has borne the burden and heat of the plowing and 

 cultivating. For the proper administration of such a system as I 

 liave attempted to sketch, it is manifest that much skill and honesty 

 are needed in the patent office, in all its departments. Speaking for 

 the gentlemen associated with me, I believe them to be both skillful 

 and honest. They pass in review many valuable interests. They are 

 attended by a body of skillful practitioners. They are beset by an 

 array of eager inventors. If in the examination of twenty thousand 

 applications they made no errors, they would deserve statues of gold. 

 That they make no more, and that in all these years and in all their 

 number well-founded charges of corruption have been few and far 

 between, is a strong tribute to tlieir integrity and ability. On behalf 

 of this great American bureau of invention, I bring you greeting 

 to-night ; on behalf of the one hundred thousand American inventors 

 whom it represents, I bespeak for ityour cordial support and sympathv. 



