WHO IS THE RICHEST MAN?

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 105, 31 October 1923, Page 4

WHO IS THE RICHEST MAN?

Mr. Henry Ford may be the richest man 111 the world, but there is one respect in which the financial supremacy belongs to Mr. T. A. Edison. According to computations made by a New York paper the brain of the famous inventor has a hard cash market value of 15,000,000,000 dollars. To be more precise, that sum represents the present investment, in America alone, in industries which are entirely based on Mr. Edison's inventions or which have been, materially stimulated by them. The list is headed by electric railways, sei down for 6,500,000,000 dollars. This item is followed by electric lighting and power 5,000,000,000 dollars; moving pictures' 1,250,000,000 dollars; and telephones 1,000,000,000 dollars. It may be objected that Mr. Edison did not invent the telephone, for instance. But he did invent '.the carbon transmitter, without which the telephone would not have been commercially practicable on a large scale. The number of persons employed in these more or less Edisonian industries is estimated at 1,500,000, with an annual wage and salary account of 1,664,000,000 dollars. More than 1500 patents have been taken out in America in Mr. Edison's name.