Stories of Great Inventors | Page 9

cotton gin.
Slaves grew more and more valuable.
For negroes can endure the heat of the cotton fields.
But white men can not.
The planters of the South bought more and more slaves.
So slavery grew stronger because of the cotton gin.
Several states made contracts with Mr. Whitney.
They agreed to pay him certain sums of money.
But South Carolina broke her contract.
All these things made Mr. Whitney sick at heart.
He said that he had tried hard to do right by every one.
And it stung him to the very soul to be treated like a swindler or a
villain.
The people of Georgia tried to prove that somebody in Switzerland had
invented the cotton gin.

Tennessee broke its contract.
There were high-minded men who tried to help Mr. Whitney.
They were able to do only a little for him.
In 1803, Mr. Miller died.
Mr. Whitney was then left to fight his battles alone.
Things grew a little brighter as time went on.
Mr. Whitney received some money on his invention.
But the greater part of it had to be spent in lawsuits.
A suit was begun in the United States Court.
But the time of his patent was almost out.
He had made six journeys to Georgia.
One gentleman said that he never knew another man so persevering.
In 1798, Mr. Whitney made a contract with the government of the
United States.
By this contract he was to manufacture fire-arms.
He established his factory near New Haven.
The place is now called Whitneyville.
It is a beautiful place.
A waterfall furnished the power to run his machinery.
Here Mr. Whitney worked hard.
He had machinery to make.

He had to teach his own workmen.
For eight years he worked to fill this contract.
He arose as soon as day appeared.
Look in any part of the factory you might, you would see something
which he, himself had done.
He improved many tools.
He made better guns than had ever been made.
So that for these things, too, our country is indebted to Mr. Whitney.
In 1812, he made new contracts.
Another war with England began in that year.
Mr. Whitney's guns never failed to be all right.
Other men took contracts of the same kind.
But their guns were failures.
Mr. Calhoun, the Secretary of War, said to Mr. Whitney, "You are
saving your country seventy-five thousand dollars a year."
This was by his improvements in fire-arms.
Mr. Whitney tried to get the government to extend the time of the
patent upon the cotton-gin.
But this was refused.
That did not seem very grateful, did it?
Robert Fulton, the inventor of the first steamboat, was his friend.

They had many troubles in common.
Mr. Whitney's last days were his happiest days.
Such patience, perseverance, and skill must count in the long run.
His factory made him quite a rich man.
Some of the southern states showed their gratitude.
In 1817, Mr. Whitney married Miss Edwards of Connecticut.
He had a son and three daughters.
The people of New Haven respected him.
They gave him great honor.
He died on January 8, 1825.
The little cotton-gin had done a great work.
The sunny South was covered with beautiful plantations.
The cotton fields shone in the sunlight.
[Illustration]
Riches were beginning to fill the pockets of the planters.
Only one blight remained upon the land.
This was the dreadful system of slavery.
And that, too, has been destroyed.
We wish that Mr. Whitney might see the South of to-day.
He did not live to know how great a curse slavery might be.

He did not foresee that his cotton-gin might help to cause a great war.
Yet the blue and the gray fought and died.
The blood of many a hero stained a southern field.
All this that the cotton-pickers might be free!
All this that our country might be truly "the land of the free and the
home of the brave!"

[Illustration: S.F.B. MORSE.]

SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE.
If everything were now as it was in 1791, what a queer place this world
of ours would be to us!
A hundred years ago!
Suppose we imagine ourselves living in the year 1800.
The railroads then were very few and poor.
"Fulton's Folly," the first steamboat, had not yet frightened the sailors
in New York Harbor, with its long line of black smoke.
Lighting by means of gas was yet unknown.
Electric lights were not even dreamed of.
Even kerosene, which we think makes so poor a light, was then unused.
So there are many, many things, common and useful to us now, which
were unknown to the world in 1800.

You have heard of the giant, Steam.
There is yet another giant which God has placed in the world