Edison Portland Cement - 9
For more than forty years Edison was avowedly an inventor for purely commercial
purposes; but within the last two years he decided to retire from that field so far as new
inventions were concerned, and to devote himself to scientific research and experiment in
the leisure hours that might remain after continuing to improve his existing devices. But
although the poured cement house was planned during the commercial period, the spirit
in which it was conceived arose out of an earnest desire to place within the reach of the
wage-earner an opportunity to better his physical, pecuniary, and mental conditions in so
far as that could be done through the medium of hygienic and beautiful homes at
moderate rentals. From the first Edison has declared that it was not his intention to
benefit pecuniarily through the exploitation of this project. Having actually demonstrated
the practicability and feasibility of his plans, he will allow responsible concerns to carry
them into practice under such limitations as may be necessary to sustain the basic object,
but without any payment to him except for the actual expense incurred. The hypercritical
may cavil and say that, as a manufacturer of cement, Edison will be benefited. True, but
as ANY good Portland cement can be used, and no restrictions as to source of supply are
enforced, he, or rather his company, will be merely one of many possible purveyors.
This invention is practically a gift to the workingmen of the world and their families. The
net result will be that those who care to avail themselves of the privilege may, sooner or
later, forsake the crowded apartment or tenement and be comfortably housed in sanitary,
substantial, and roomy homes fitted with modern conveniences, and beautified by artistic
decorations, with no outlay for insurance or repairs; no dread of fire, and all at a rental
which Edison believes will be not more, but probably less than, $10 per month in any city
of the United States. While his achievement in its present status will bring about
substantial and immediate benefits to wage-earners, his thoughts have already travelled
some years ahead in the formulation of a still further beneficial project looking toward
the individual ownership of these houses on a basis startling in its practical possibilities.
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