The evening world. Newspaper, May 10, 1919, Page 13

sion, Nor was he enthusiastic avout gas- cline as the exploeive propelling SATURDAY, MAY 10, 1919 In 1909 Thomas A. Edison Prophesied 10 Years Ahead Development of Airplane In 1919 His Prophecies Have Come True! TEN YEARS FLYING MAC JINES Will Be Used to Carry Mai.s, Will Fly 100 Miles an Hour, Will Be Here in Big Numbers, Will Be Big Factor in War. Prophecy of THOS. A. EDISON In August, 1909. N August, 1909, Thomas A. Edison said to a reporter with reference to three important air navigation developments of that time: “Fine business; keep on. In ten years at most you will have flying machines that will be truly wonderful.” Herbert Latham had fallen into the English Channel in an attempt to fly trom Dover, England, to Calais, France. Bleriot, a French aviator, had successfully flown from Calais to Dover. One of the Wright brothers hac, broken all air records by remaining aloft in a flying machine, with a passenger, for 72 minutes and 40 seconds. These achievements had, in a ward, knocked the world cold. ‘The reporter went to Edison to talk to him about the, at that time, atmost mirsculous developments of the attempts of man to soar above the earth in manmade machines heavier than alr. What Edison said proves at @ prophet may not be without honor even in his own country. To- day, less than ten years after the interview, the flight of a heavier than alr machine across the Atlantic Ocean is a certainty. One of the big Pines now plumed for the flight from the new world to the old will prob ably complete the voyage. If not, another will do so later, Edison, at the time of the interview, admitting that he had ena flying machine that was a fail- Pa ure, did not particularly indorse the type which is now accepted as tho ideal machine-driven gasoline bird. He thought thete should be a re- volving serics of planes to mount the machine into the air and handle {t there, but he believed in the. pro- | pelier principle for forward propul- | worked once power; he tnclined to picric acid. He announced, however, that the time | wis coming when small planes, no! matter what the propulsive power; might be, would carry mail In the United States and that the carriers would Move at a speed of 100 mil an hour, ‘The reporter wrote, a his interview with Edlvon: | “He projects his mind to Fort Myer and the English Channel.” i Plymouth, the objective of the ni planoy w started from Rockaway | lest Thureday, ts on t 2ngiish Chan- | uel, Fort Myer is not an ideal launel ing place for the type of aeroplane which started on the transutlantle voyage, but Mr. Edison did not have in his mind at that period the wero- plane which starts its Might from the! water, He visualized the tand start. | ing and landing plane which was be- | ing perfected by the Wrights and which, with Curtiss flying, inspired by the prize offered by the Pulitzer nows- papers, negotiated the first long dis- tance flight In the United states—from | Albany to New York. | ‘The late i. H. Harriman aud, three | years before this interview, broken railroad speed records from the Pacific to the Atlantic by covering the dis- tance in @ special train in 71 hours and 27 minutes, The reporter asked Wdison what Mr, Harriman would probably do ten years hence—the same | being now—if he wanted to »eak that | record. “He would probably take a flying! machine,” said Edison, “and come home in thirty hours. He could do! it, The flying machine is going to! ve used for passenger business, | ‘rainy will continue to carry the; bulk of tho traffic, but ten years from | now, if @ man wants to go in @ hurry | and can pay the price, he will go| through the air, Nor will he be in! any more danger than if he were travelling on # train, He may be killed, Just as one may be killed on a} railroad, but he will be in no great danger, We now put fenders on utreot cars to prevent them from kill- | te > Frank Baum, Who Found American Fairies Like Those in ‘‘Alice in Wonderland’’ And Made Himself Immortal to American Children | Discovered the Enchanted “Land of Oz” and Its Tin Woodman, Wogglebug, Glass Cat, Tik-Tok, and Other} Whimsical Brain Creatures Which, Though Their Creator Has Died, Will Live On and On in the Hearts of Kiddies Who Read the Books He Put Them In. By, Marguerite Mooers Marshall Copyrgnt, 1WiY, vy Toe Prem Vubiiehing Co Tho New York Brenitg Work.) HE Maker of Falries is dead. 7 His other name ts I. Frank Baum, who set a country laugh- ing seventeen years ago with “Tho Wizard of On,” and followed it up with a dozen charming fairy - dooks of the myth- fecal kingdom to which, by means of a Kansas clone, he had trans- ported little Doro- ale and her pet calf, Imogen. In land of Oz she met the Glass Cat, the Crooked Magician, the Glant Por- cupine, the Tin Woodman, the Yellow Hen, the Woegiebug and many other enchanting beings “The American Lewis Carrol!” Baum has been called. He wee born in the State of New York, and al- thougi? he was living in Los Angeles cy- thy at the time of his death and made his first success In Chicago, It was for the children of Now York that he wished to make trie his dearest dream—a Children's Theatre, He did succeed in giving a charming group KAuiKo —_—s THe SHAGGY MAN” AND BuTron-eRmcHT THE SCARE CRO AND THE WOODEN +oORSE. rylogues” at the Hudson ‘The- | atre, and he had thousands of ‘fri in this city “Tam almost sure,” he writes mod- jeatly in the preface to “Tik-Tok of Oz." “that I have as many friends among the children of America as any story writer allve; and this, of course, makes very proud and me happy.” And in “The Tin Wood- man of Oz," which appeared only last year, he says “My books are intended for ali those whose hearts are young, no matter what their ages be.” In these two |there is @ picture of the happy rela- |tions existing between his public and jthe “Royal Historian of Oz. The Oz books, all of which are pub- lished by The Reilly and Britton Com- pany of Chicago, include, in their “The Land of Oz," “Ozma of Dorothy and the Wizard in “The Patch s of Oz" and “ Woo ot 02." “Ozma of On" Dorethy Gule and her friends, after many adventure the beautiful Queen of Ev, t dom next to Oz, and her ten c |who had been sold by their cruel father to the King of the Nomes and lad been turned by him into orna- ments for his palace, ‘The King pramises Dorothy to let them go [f she and those with her detect them among all the other bric- a-brac in his palace—a task well-nigh impossible, After eleven vain guesses each member of Dorothy's party is turned into an ornament. Dorothy herself escapes this fate, since she | Buasses Correctly that a purple china kitten is one of the enchanted chil- dren. Finally, saved the day. $Uiting under | of Oz," “Tik-Tok of Oz," “Thi | crow of ¢ Rinkitini in O} | Lost Pr | 3 the tale of how has heard him talking about his en- |chantment methods, and all wuceses are correct Then brings to life the Tin Woodman and his army, the Scarecrow, the Queen Ozm Dorothy's purty, chanted by the wicked King. In his rage he tries to hold them prisoners, but once more Billina comes to the rescue. At her sugges- tion the Scarecrow pulls from his pocket two of Billina's own eggu— rank poison Nomes—and hurls them into the face of the King. While terrified he ie blinded and sentences | wondertu! | takes off his magic nis powor is at an end. The book is full of charming whim- sicalities, One of its most amusing characters is the Hungry Tiger, who wears a pink ribbon on his tail and is always hungry. When Dorothy asks him why he doesn’t eat he says it's no use as he always gets bungry again, And he has an appetite for all sorts of living creatures, from @ chipmunk to fat babies. “Fat Babies" he muses. ‘Don't they sound delicious? But I've never eaten upy, became my conscience teite me it Is wrong. If I had no con- aclonce I would probably eat the ba- bies and then get bungry again, which would mean that I had sacri- floed the poor babies for nothing, No; hungry I was born, and bungry I whall dio, But I'l) not have any cruel deeds on my conscience to be sorry for, Iam @ good beast, perhaps, but @ disgracefully bad tl, a Some of the old poople, but an en- tirely new set of thrilling adventures, are in “Dhe Tin Woodman of Oz" In- stead of Dorothy, the human child-—- or as the Tin Woodman calls him, “the meat person"—who zoos adven- turing is @ little boy, Woot the Wan- derer, With the Tin Woodman and our old friend, the ScArecrow, he sets out to find and rescue the Woodtnan’s old sweetheart, Nimmee-Amee, who has been made a alave by a wicked witch. ‘The first land through which they | pass is Loonville, inhabited by rub- ber balloon folk, who every now and | then explode and must nave their) punctures mended and be blown up once more. ‘Then they visit Mra. Yoop, the wicked giantess of Yoop Castle. Shoe is a regular Circe for transform- ing her victims,,by Yookoohoo magic, into animals Her canary was once Delt, and Billina, the yellow hen, | the Rainbow, the | Wanderer has been made a littls green | throne of the King of the Nomes, she | Monkey, the Scarecrow has becomo Jescupe the beast by means of the oF Oz the lovely Polychrome, daughter of In no time Woot the @ bear and the Tin Man a Un owl. her | They evcape by stealing her magic she also | apron. In the wood they first meet with little | 4 jaguar who wants to eat them, but of Ox and the others of | Who is appeased by a magic brenktas: who have been en- | of scrambled eggs and toust. Little Woot, however, im attempting to} magic apron which he still wears, sinks Into the ground and wakes up| a crowd of indignant dragons. Luckily, when they are just on the | verge of catching him, he remem-/ bers the apron and pops up through | Dorothy |the earth ax speedily aa he popped THE GNOME KING down. The three companions travel on, encountering Tommy Kwikstep, an impossible little hoy who loved to run errands and therefore’ was given twenty legs by a witch; also ® farm girl, Jinjur, with a quick temper and fields of cream-puffs, chocolate caramels and macaroons. Finally, Princess Ozma of Oz and Dorothy find the poor creatures and restore them to their original shap After other interesting but leas pe! ous chapters in their bistory they each the home of Nimmeo-Amee, which t» surrounded by a wall of solid air wix fect thick and a mile high. ‘The pilgrims enter it through @ rabbit burrough, after Polychrome has magically made them tiny, but they find Nimmee-Ameo happily mar- ried, and not too glad to see them. fairies never dle. THE TIN Woooma With the conclusion of a violent shower Polychrome hurries back to her rainbow home, and the others go their sevéral ways after being en- tertained at the court of Ox. “Do you bel in fairtes”? Peter Pan used to ask The Maker of Fulries is dead. But he would be the first to tell, bis young and old child-friends that SATURDAY, Though They Carter, Head of Girls’ Four Years of War. | in Brussels during more than foor which they were subjected. And their pranks, almost under the noses “A favorite game of the children of Bruanels was called ‘Nach P: #6 rter, “I have seen a iit tle six-year-old put a carrot or some other vegetable in bie hat in erude imitation of a German helmet end advance in the goose-step style ull Beiginn children have seen the Ger- mans use, Suddenly all the other children in the game would shout ‘Nach Paris’ and the ‘German’ would back up until he was out of sight, still using the same goose-step, Of course, even the littlest children had « fair idea of what it would have meant had any of the Germans caught them at this sort of game “Tho role of the ‘German’ in this amo naturally was not popular Usually it was assigned to the — TPE AEN REE S| PUMPKIN N ano ; ° FHE TIN SOLDIERL ing pedestrians, and in the same manner we shall equip flying ma- viewed Edison in 1909 asked the in- chinea with a safety device by means ventor if he Yelieved the invention f which they will slowly descend to and development of the flying ma- ne ground in the event of any acci- chine would have an effect on civill- nt to the machinery, ‘The flying zation that might justly be compared chine necd not be especigily dan- with the invention and development serous to human life, and will not of the steam engine, Edison thought be” a minute before he answered, and it In respect of making the landing would seem, in the Nght of what he of a flying machine absolutely safe said, that, cloudily, perhaps, on his TMison talked ahead of his time, Per- mind, there was a vision of the bat- Laps Ms inventive genius, so mar-jtlefields of France and the back ously instinctive ay to the growth areas, with bombing machines flying cf air navigation, might eaable him over them and of London and Paris fo formulate, at almost any moment terrorized by great shells of explo- . device which would cause a dis- | sives dropped from machines two abled plane to flutter to the ground m In the alr, ke a bird, ‘The aeroplane stil} “I don't know,” he commented, comes down only as the operator and slowly. “The possibilities of the ft tne machinery may be able to work ing machine are too great for me to be in mentai and meciauical symputiy, ewe that T comprehc The ‘Wee inspired reporter who inter- effect of the flying machine upon civ eenitessimae Uzation may largely depend upon what the flying machine can do in war, sible to conduct wars, Up to this time we have gone on making the ar- mor plate that no projectile could Pierce and following it with the pro- fectile that plate, That can't go on forever. The time is coming when a means of at- tack will be discovered that cannot ve resisted. “I am not sure the fying machine }:8 not going to constitute that means of attack, If so It will be the greatest |discovery, so far as its effects upon civilization are concerned, in the his- tory of the world. It will end war, for there can be no war when there is no means or defeam, Tw ualivas would come trooping into The Hague so rap- “Some duy it ix going to be impose | could plerce any armor | idly that Carnegie would have to build Jan addition to the Peace Temple.” Edison, at the time of the interview, having the inventor's concentrauon of mind, did not say, although sub- consciously he may have known, that although one side in war may per- fect air machines of appullingly de- structive effect, the other side may | nullify the effect by the production of more destructive elements, Germany was uniformly successful in the war long as it had air supertority; Germany began to loss ground when the Allies were able to put up as many air machines as Germany possessed. And Edison was not quite sure about | the ultimate 8 of th as H type of heavier than air wchine satisfied with what he does neve airplane | ables us, with one of our senses, to He re do view of the tact that las years ago he #0 closely approximated conditions as they are to-day, as to air navigation, it may be interest- ing to read what he sadd then rela- tive to what might be a part of our lives ten years from now. He was asked if the inventive age would de velop, gathering speed as it goes on. “It will go on,” he said. “We ha Just begun to discover things, Whi we ‘know is only the smallest atum of what there Is to know. Oh, we know nothing—nothing, Forces are in operation all round us of which we have no knowledge. We have but five senses, If a force happens to be- come translated into 4 form that en- become aware of it, we become con- scious of the existence of the force. Just think what vive we do not two more senses! None of us would know this world if we were to cume back here in 100 years. Invention 1s going to bring about such changes as the mind can hardly conecive, And invention and discovery are going to go on forever.” — Evolution and Progress. POTTING moonshine distilleries is S one of the latest uses to which acroplanes have. been put in the South, Havre, the French port, was origi- nally Le Havre de Notre Dame de Grace (the Harbor of Our lay of Mercy), afterward shortened to Havre de Grace than tan! wo might tind if ye ehoukd develop! These conturies ago tho masoos had | city’s water supply. ‘tele ates eee ee emg gn scarcely tasted sugar, while for the rich it was the rarest of luxuries, it Was even esteemed as a medicine. To-day sugar is universally regarded As & noo ty for happiness (f not for health, Europe's largest automatic tele- phone exchange has been opened at Leeds, England. No fewer than 26,000 wires enter the building. ‘The exchange 1s equipped for 6,800 sub- scribers and will ultimately have ca- pacity for 15,000, New York City has planted on the Ashokan watershed about 1,500,000 evergreen trees of different species, Their present value is about $1,000,- 000, but every year makes them much | more valuable as conservators of the Belgium's Heroic Childrens Kept Right on Playing | Their Games Reflected Tragedy of War, Rid | the German Oppressor, and Often Were P. in Face of Constant Danger, Reports | Coprright, 1918, ty the Press Publishing Oc (The New York Hveuine Workd). 5 N Belgium's darkest hours, her children played. Their games at tf | took on & note of bitterness or premature cynicism that was t] Bat they never stopped, even when the penalty might have been ‘The survival of the spirit of these children of a race of heroes im face of oppression from military conquerors of their country, im face of hunger, destitution and the menace of bullets and afrplane b was described to-day by Miss ©. L. Carter, who was head of a girls’ Many times Miss Carter has wept at the pathetic attempts of @ | childten to keep alive their spirit of fun tn spite of the cruel restrictions spite of herself at the manner in which they made the MAY 10, 1919 Were Starving, School in Brussels D years of war, many times she had to laugh emy the butt of their German masters. amatiest woakest otild in crowd. 4 “Many Belgian children helped) the manufacture of shells In and other secret meeting They frequently kept dolls and toys at thelr sides, and during, reapites from thelr sterner u they tried to play. They did know |t was pathetic. , Nil “Of course the war was in many of the children's games, favorite among the girls was make themselves up as Red © nursée and = minister to ‘wounded soldiers,’ “All thin went on in the tage constant danger. I have not “ quently seen little children, killed: stray bullets in the midst of games, and the airplanes o were always a menace. Much time it was a problem to find & to play. The schoolyards and grounds were far from safe. M of the playing had to be done doors, Aside from the other gers of war-time occupation, . Germans took every ces squelch the instinct for play the children of Belgium, “Many children dropped exh during the gam: They did know why, nor did their comp bat their elders did. [t was hunger—virtually starvation, occurred eyen among the of very well-to-do familie: “The children tn many cases too Httle to understand what hurger really was, They coul@ Fomember any other conditions Whe these cases of collapse red— and they were far from Ingr the victims would be removed eared for to the best of our while the play went on. Thee! without knowing why, came to stand that certain of their nu Would drop out of the games. conditions failed to stifle the to play. “A certain joyousness of spirit, exuberance, usually js needed genuine play. For more than years little except tear, hatred sorrow was planted in the hearts Belgian children by the G Yet they played. “War restrictions have not pressed the Ingtinct to play. It ists 45 strongly as ever. What needed now, not only in Belgium throughout the world, is a united @ fort to find norma! expression for For play ls a natural function childhood, and it must receive development.” It whould be interesting, im light of Miss Carter's experiences i war-time Brussels, to watch thé sian generation that will be nated by these present childhood ie roes. One bas confidence in the ture of @ nation whose little child never forget how to laugh, even fathers, brothers and other were taken away from them by ¢ mysterious thing called War, whose ypirit was unbroken by military rule. . Mise Carter is here as « speaker fore the Now York Regional Con# ence on Minimum Standards of © Welfure, which closes to-day at Washington Irving High School. foremost leaders in child welfare " both in this country and Burepe i attending the conference, whose |Ject is to attain minimum jot play, study, labor and health children all over the world, and all to provide wpecial attention f child who is neglected or dell The conference is being held the auspices of the Children’s of the Department of Labor at ington, whose chief, Miss Lathrop, has just completed an sive study of conditions ‘thi the various nations of Europe this country, Regional confe! being held in New York, Boston, Cleveland, San Fran other cities, and there will be eral gathering in Atlantic June 1, Distinguished delegates to ference have been sent by Engtand, France, ttely, Seabia } or ”. wee y. aay