MINER BECOMES CROESUS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 26 November 1925, Page 7

MINER BECOMES CROESUS.

FORTUNE OF 20,000,000 DOLLARS. INVENTOR’S HARD EIGHT. 'i he last harrier in a path to a 20,000,000-dollar fortune a path strewed with the memories ox privation and strife —lias just been swept aside lor ticorge Campbell Carson, a .Min Francisco inventor, miner and seli-styled :-desert rut." A decision of tile I’nited States Supreme Court favouring Carson against one of America’s largest copper companies made of him a modern Croesus and a figure more amazing in fact than anv .creation of fiction.

The act of the land’s highest tribunal placed the old miner in possession of the fruits of his inventive genius, and meant a flurry iu the copper market that attracted world-wide interest. The case involves the largest patent judgment ever awarded in the United States, and terminated a battle waged by America’s most noted lawyers, including George AY. AVickersham, Elihu Root and Frank AY. Hitchcock. Nearly 750,000 dollars has been expended in the long court fight. Carson, who is 59 years old, has been confined to the University of California Hospital in San Francisco for a week, and it was there that he was first told of his final victory.

He accepted the news with a smile, but little evident emotion. “I knew it was going that way,” was his confident comment.

It was a denial by the Supreme Court of a writ of certiorari to the American Smelting and Refining Company, one of the 15 defendants, that was contained in the last decision. This left the copper interests without a single further recourse, and the aged miner had only to •top out and collect the judgments awarded him previously by the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for patent infringements. ROYALTIES TOTAL MILLIONS. Through this ruling Carson is entitled to royalties of 5,000,000 dollars from the American Smelting and Refining Company, ancl among the 14 other defendants are the Anaconda Copper Company of Montana, the PhelpsDodge Company, the Nevada Consolidated Company and the United Verde Company. Judgments have already been awarded in the other suits, and the other corporations can only hope for the same decision as meted out in the case of the American Smelting and Refining Company. 'Three San Francisco patent lawyers represented Carson, and the corporations were advised by three private lawyers of national prominence. AVhen the case was carried into the United States Supreme Court; —typifying in importance the House of Lords in England—Carson’s counsel associated themselves with Mr AVickersham. former Attorney-General of the United States, and with Mr Hitchcock. The defendant obtained Elihu Root, and his defeat is one of the few which this eminent attorney has known in his long career.

It was in Denver back in 1905 that Carson, then’ a struggling metallurgist, invented a copper reduction process which was to. revolutionise the type of ore smelting in America. Bv the time his patents were awarded the process ways already in widespread use with no gain to the inventor. Carson wandered through the country, following his chemical experiments, earning money as a miner and living much of the time in cheap boarding houses.

He fruitlessly attempted for years to seek redress in the courts. Three years ago, in Seattle, he was defeated when his case was ordered to be thrown out of the courts. Then he interested Rudolph Sp re eke Is, the San Francisco millionaire, who has strong sympathies with lost causes of the working man. Carson also interested another San Francisco capitalist, Robery Hayes Smith, and they both saw the merit of Carson’s intentions and backed him to the limit.

Carson knows inst what he will do with the 20,000,000 dollars. “All my life I have been interested in science,” he said, while recuperating in the San Francisco University Hospital. “Now I will have enough resources to conduct original research work in physics. J liojie I shall be able to add something to human knowledge in this branch of science. There have been several thousand women who seem to want to help me spend my. wealth. Since the first decision in my favour was given in February. I have been the recipient of a mass of mail from ‘devoted’ females. But they are wasting their time. I do not care how beautiful they are. I have been a bachelor ami hope to superintend the rest of mv life.

“The appeals have even poured in from charitable institutions. The total asked of me from this source would, if given, have been sufficient to break me. even though I had the 20.000,000 dollars right now. “I know that my award will he a terrific drain upon the copper corporations. but if they are fair I shall accede to a generous course of payments upon the judgments.”