Father of a Thousand Inventions

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 86, 2 July 1927, Page 24

Father of a Thousand Inventions

Aim American Rival to Edison

LIFE for the housewife is one long, restful romp, compared with what it used to be. At least so the men say, and to prove it they point to the multiplicity of modern inventions and devices for making housework easy. One of the pioneer inventors in this line, we are told, was Ethan I. Dodds, who has since become a close competitor of Edison in the number of his patents. In 25 years Ethan I. Dodds has put 1,800 patents to his credit. That is at the rate of 72 a year or one and two-fifths a week or one every fifth day. Yet when lie was 21 years old. he could not read. He does hot read with great ease to-day. Yet, on the other hand, he gets the whole secret of a blue-print at a single glance. He has been for 30 years one of the wheel-horses of American mechanical engineering. He was the righthand man of George Westinghouse, a giant in industrialism. E. H. Harriman built for him a laboratory alongside his own home at Central Valley, New' York, in order that he might be at the call of the financier by day or by night. It was Dodds who made for Harriman the plans for the electrification of the Erie’s entrance into New York, a work that was perforce abandoned when Harriman’s death withdrew the financial prop from the railroad that Jay Gould had buried under a mountain of debt. “Old Man” Flannery, of Pittsburgh, the greatest chain and bolt maker of his day, relied upon him. Dodds proposed to make all-steel sleeping-cars for the Pullman company that should be longer than any other steel car ever built. The technicians protested. “The cars that Dodds wants to build,” they said, “would rumble like an empty boiler rolling down-hill. They W'ould sag in the middle. They would warp and bend.”

Robert Lincoln, son of Abraham Lincoln, was then president of the Pullman company. “We will build them,” he said. “Dodds says he can do it, and I know Dodds.” An interviewer goes through a routine of questions, but the underlying thought is to prime the pump—to get the interviewed talking about himself. Thus it "was gathered that Dodds was born in IS7S, and is married and has four children and lives at Central Valley, New York. “And of what university are you a graduate, Mr. Dodds?” He began to grin again. After a moment he explained in his soft, gentle drawl, that he was n&t a graduate of any university. In fact, he had a tended college only one week in his life. At the end of that time—this was in the

days when college presidents attes personally to such chores—of the little school sent for asked him to go away. . % “We can not do anything tor - Dodds,” said the president. “Yon'.' ! wasting your time——and ours.** ' The man who has 1,80-J paten,, his credit, and who has had trs*,,' i over only one of them, said the I" | dent was quite right. A stnfijjJ 4 his sort would have been a auw Then the whole story came. g e 4 the son of the village miller and keeper at New Galilee. PennsvW" : His father owned a small coaW' j too. in which the several hoys oK i family worked afternoons and sA days. Ethan I. was maybe nine}? j old, very red-headed and frgS when he was first sent into theti [ to push out the little waggon, ; coal. When Ethan was 17 or IS he I a freight-train for Pittsburgh andt ' for the Westinghouse works. The*’ morning he was at work there' ; blacksmith's helper. One day George Westinghouse in the blacksmith’s shop, to or? something made. He drew a wiggles on a sheet of paper and', helper understood them. -More tK that, the helper took a pencil a few unrelated strokes on the sW “Like that ?” he asked. And it A just what the owner of the jfc wanted. Ethan was given an boy’s place in the drafting room t began to copy designs. Eventnifct was promoted to the boss's own dtr ing room. George Westinghouse so*, times did not see the shops for on end. Then he might get to before daylight and work t night. One morning he came in ate o’clock to find his protege, the e blacksmith’s helper, in possession - the place. In reply to questions. Doit explainedjhat as it was a bad monfe he had I>een obliged to come early, was this trifling incident that',, aroused Westinghouse’s interest ai decided the career of Dodds. -