EDISON'S ENTERPRISE. ADVERTISED NEWS OF BATTLE BY TELEGRAPH.

Otago Witness, Issue 2356, 20 April 1899, Page 56

EDISON'S ENTERPRISE. ADVERTISED NEWS OF BATTLE BY TELEGRAPH.

Give this boy all the papers he wants on ! 'credit. • „ ." W. F. S. . On the wall of the Edison laboratory in grange," N. J.', ' the ' aboVe " curious sentence I (is framed. The writing _is crabbed arid, fifche gaper on which the words are written is regarded .with veneration by everyone fin-the laboratory, because it was one of-the tthirigs that led Thomas A. Edison to become an -inventor. 1 ' Naturally, there is an interesting tale "behind it, and the other day Mr Edison J Itold it to' an old friend who called upon j jhim to talk over the days of his youth, j Here are the facts as he remembered '|them :' — . j " During the war I used to sell papers on the railroad between Detroit and Port Huron. Many of the towns along the way Jhad no local newsdealers, and the people (used to come down to the station every day and buy the papers of the train boy. 'I used to get around to the newspaper before daylight every day, and so, ?from loafing around the composing room, »I.got to know several of the printers. We j«ised to laugh and joke with one another, «nd we became pretty good friends. ;• " One morning I went into the office as Visual and found everyone in a state of exiritement. Instead of joking, the printers •/were running about getting the takes or .jputting them in the formes, and the makejip .men were standing on tip-toe around jfche stones justifying the type with a nertvousness which they did not usually show, j fl asked several what was the matter, but! they paid no attention to ir»e. I couldn't , understand it. Finally I grabbed one fel- j low by the apron as he started for the j .stone and yelled at him to tell me what I ifche trouble was. He jerked away in a moment and said — , -" ' Don't bother me, boy. Battle of Shiloh! Ten thousand killed!' Then he .rushed down the room, his heelless slippers slapping the floor as he went. . "So a battle had been fought. Well, I Jinew what that meant. It meant that the Jjaper was putting out an extra edition of ! ,war news and that it would be late. I ! yalked downstairs slowly without think- ' ing very deeply of the subject, when sud- j Vlenly the realisation of the magnitude of i .the affair rushed over me. and I stopped .on the landing with a jerk. "Ten thousand men killed ! Why, the news would create a storm of excitement. wonder the printers hurried. I jumped "downstairs three steps at a time and rushed around to the telegraph office. I knew the. operator at that station and I [had an idea. " 'Hello ! ' he said. "'Hello,' said I. 'I want to send a jtelegram.' "'Well write it out,' said he. " ' But.' I said, ' this can't be written. iYou will have to fix it for me. Here's the T>oint — Ten thousand men have been killed at a place called Shiloh. It will be 5n the paper this morning, and everj-bodv ■will want it. Now, will you telegraph these words to all the stations alone the line, and get the operators tc paste them up— 'Battle of Shiloh fought. Ten thousand killed.' If you will do it I will give you a morning paper every day for three months. ''He agreed to do it, and J knew that if he kept his promise I would have customers enough waiting for me along the line. Then I went over and saw the fel'Jow who gave out tho papers to the carriers every day. I said to him, 'I'll take 1000 papers this morning ! ' Ho fairly gasped at me. \ "'You'll take 1000 papers! Well, you rail' lay down 30dol right now. And you •wil' be lucky if you get 500. Papers will be scare to-day.' "Well, that staggered me. They had always trusted me Defore that, but I suppose the size of the pile and the news of the battle made him stop short. He had

• no jurisdiction, except in a small way, I suppose. But I was completely discouraged. Someone else would get the benefit of my advertising. I walked away in the early morning, wondering why some things never seem to work out right. { " I passed around by the door of the I editorial office, which was pure luck, for i I did not notice where I was walking. It gave me a thought. Upstairs the editor of the paper probably was at work on his leader. At that time the editor of the Detroit Free Press was W. F. Storey, a fear- ' less writer and a good newspaper man, but a martinet of the most cross-grained school. His associates approached him at i ordinary times with fear and trembling, j and now, with the rush of the morning j on him, he probably- would be worse than n b=?.r.

" But he was my last hope, so I went up the stairs. and knocked at his dooi. I got no answer, but I could see a light inside so I knocked again. No answer. Then I opened the door. He was sitting at a desk on the opposite side of the room. His back was toward me, and he was scribbling away for dear life. "' Mr Storey ! " I said. I received no answer. '".'Mi 1 -Storey !'. l said again, louder this time. He paid not the slightest attention to me. Apparently I did not exist, as far as he was concerned. " But I had made up my mind what to say to him as I came upstairs, and I intended to say it, sc I walked over and around the desk and stood directly opposite to him. He did not look up. " ' Mr Storey,' I said as firmly as I could, 'lam a newspaper boy. I sell your papers on the trains up to Port Huron. The battle of Shiloh has been fought and I have advertised it all along the line. Now they won't trust me for a lot of papers. What will I do about it?' "He. never said a word; he never even looked up. He simply reached for a blank sheet of paper and wrote — ' Give this • boy all the papers he wants on credit. — W.F.S.' £„ "Then he went on with his leader-writ-ing and paid no more attention to me ; not even when I thanked him. " I showed the note to the delivery man, who simply whistled, but gave me the papers willingly now. I got them on tc the train, and we got away in time after all. " Now, it is curious how these things stick in one's memory. I can remember very well the crowd that waited at the first place we stopped. The people were terribly excited. They wanted those papers faster than I could give them out. There were so many waiting that I could not serve them all by the time the train pulled out. It gave me another idea. I raised the price to 10 cents when we reached the next place, and I sold them as fast as I could at that.

" I got rid of some hundreds of papers ac the first three or four places. Further on several men offered me 25 cents, and they were so eager that I made the fatal mistake of getting down among them. Well, you never saw such a mob. They knocked me about shamefully, and I had to fight my way back to the* train in time to get on before it pulled out. Then it grew worse as Aye went farther on, for you see the day was advancing and more people were up tc hear the news, and the thought that the train might pull out at any moment always made them crazy to be waited on. Those telegrams did their work well. 'Why, when we milled into Port Huron two-thirds of my stock were gone.

" I did not have to take advantage of the situation and raise the price. They put it up for me. Men thrust 25 cents, 50-cent notes, dollars and two dollars into my face and my pockets and dragged papers away from me. Some of them would get a paper and then have to fight for it afterward. It was fiendish, and they still kept it up after the papers were all gone, and I stood there with my hands and pockets full of money.

I "Well, when I pulled myself together I and pinned up the rents so I could go into town and counted my money, I found I , was about 150dol .ahead on the day. I went back and paid my bill at tho* paper I office, and the money, well, I did things with that, too. But what was more to the point, I saw that all that happened had really- resulted from those telegrams. , " I thought if the telegraph would do such a wonderful thing, there must be something in it worth studying. I did study it, and that practically is what led me into tho business of inventing.'' — Boston Globe.