Invention

Right here let me lock a switch at which not a few people are apt to switch off and be banked. Some may think, “Well, at least that machine capitalist is entitled to his profits; he surely is an inventor.”

A grave error. Look into the history of our inventors, and you will see that those who really profited by their genius are so few that you can count them on the fingers of your hands, and have fingers to spare.

The capitalists either take advantage of the inventor’s stress and buy his invention for a song; the inventor believes he can make his haul with his next invention; but before that is perfected, he is as poor as before, and the same advantage is again taken of him; until finally, his brain power being exhausted, he sinks into a pauper’s grave, leaving the fruit of his genius for private capitalists to grow rich on; or the capitalist simply steals the invention and gets his courts to decide against the inventor.

From Eli Whitney down, that is the treatment the inventor, as a rule, receives from the capitalist class.

Such a case, illustrative of the whole situation, happened recently. The Bonsack Machine Co. discovered that its employees made numerous inventions, and it decided to appropriate them wholesale. To this end, it locked out its men, and demanded of all applicants for work that they sign a contract whereby, in “consideration of employment” they assign to the company all their rights in whatever invention they may make during the term of their employment.

One of these employees, who had signed such a contract, informed the company one day that he thought he could invent a machine by which cigarettes could be held closed by crimping at the ends, instead of pasting. This was a valuable idea; and he was told to go ahead. For six months he worked at this invention and perfected it; and, having during all that time received not a cent in wages or otherwise from the company, he patented his invention himself.

The company immediately brought suit against him in the federal courts, claiming that the invention was its property; and the federal court decided in favor of the company, thus robbing the inventor of his time, his money, of the fruit of his genius, and of his unquestionable rights.

“Shame?” Say not “Shame!” He who himself applies the torch to his own house has no cause to cry “Shame!” when the flames consume it. Say rather, “Natural!”, and smiting your own breasts, say, “Ours the fault!” Having elected into power the Democratic, Republican, Free Trade, Protection, Silver or Gold platforms of the capitalist class, the working class has none but itself to blame if the official lackeys of that class turn against the working class the public powers put into their hands.

The capitalist owner of the machine shop that sends the circular did not make the invention.