without unnecessary agitation and public disturbances, are buried by their own weight or are killed by their own virus, leaving behind them purified business conditions?

Certainly no monopolies in the world have such sure foundations as the ones of which I am speaking, and history shows that, if they be abused in their exercise and thereby become obnoxious, they individually die a natural death, leaving the institution which created them for the public good, quite intact.

Let us now pause to state two facts and to ask two questions concerning them, which further questions also need not be now answered in words:

First-In 1873 the balance between our exports and our imports was a balance against us of one hundred and twenty million dollars, and on June 30, 1899, the balance was five hundred and thirty million dollars in our favor.

Has not the encouragement of our patent system been a prime factor in bringing about this marvelous change?

Second-Our inventors have been taxed by fees for the support of the patent office in an excess over the expenditures allowed by Congress for that office, with this result, that there now remains in the federal treasury a balance of these fees, as of December 31, 1898, of $4,972,976.34, and the Congress continues. to treat that department most niggardly, and unintelligent and uninformed people are carping at its work.

The question, which I leave unanswered, as to this plain statement of facts, may be stated in a homely manner thus:

Has not Congress and some of our courts and some of the associations of our people, in a very midnight of darkness of information and thought, made staggering blows, blindly and insanely attempting to kill the goose which has laid most of our golden eggs?

The first patent law under the constitutional provision cited was enacted by Congress in 1790. Up to 1836, tinctured somewhat by the old theory of a roval prerogative and grant, the practice was for an inventor to petition and for the officers of the government to pay attention simply to the form of the grant. So patents were then issued.

Although, to some esthetic minds and to some wild theorists and to some associations, it is obnoxious to say that the hope of reward or gain (either in money matters or in the manner of living) is the main incentive to human endeavor, it plainly remains that our history from 1790 to 1836 shows that perfunctory performances under the constitutional provision which I have cited, did not meet its purposes. In 1836 the patent laws were

revised, the patent office was organized, a corps of skilled examiners as to what, in the world, was really new and useful was installed, and provisions of law were added by Congress, which were intended to give to real' inventors real monopolies.

The nations of the earth are very slowly following the example set by us in 1836. England, though tardy, was the first to follow our example in organizing a corps of examiners as to what was new and useful in her realm. She still lacks the wisdom to give to her inventors some prima facie exclusive property rights.

Germany, with great severity as to details, is now traveling on our lines as to inventions, and is about, in this regard, where we were in 1870, at the time of the second revision of our patent laws.

What is the monopoly which an inventor obtains under our laws? This question I shall answer briefly.

The constitutional provision gives him an exclusive right for a limited period. Our court of last resort, the supreme court of the United States, has said in an unbroken line of unanimous decisions, as to which there has been no modification, that, under the Constitution and under the acts of Congress, letters patent for inventions confer upon the recipient of the grant three monopolies, namely, one to make, another to use, and still another to sell. The recipient of the grant, that is, the person or persons to whom the patent may issue, has, under the plain meaning of our laws, the right, for seventeen years, to own, retain, and control his invention, even if he put it in a corner closet behind a Yale lock, or he may "farm out" the same upon such conditions and terms, as to the proper use of his invention in manufacturing, as to the character of the output produced, in whole or in part, by his invention, as to the location where his invention may be used, and as to the prices which shall be charged for that which involves his invention, just as to him may seem. meet and profitable. I am not unmindful of recent decisions in federal courts of inferior jurisdiction, which seem to militate, upon their face, against the broad propositions just made. It remains, however, in my opinion, that he who, in this country, has made an invention which has been properly patented, may, for seventeen years, either retain it to himself or "farm it out" upon such terms and conditions as to making, as to using, and as to selling as he may elect, so long as his election shall not be contrary to some great and general public purpose.

Such is the nature of the grant, such is the constitutional provision upon which it is based, and I feel safe in saying that, for the purpose of promoting progress in science, in arts, and in our

civilization, this form of monopoly will remain until after the provisions of our national Constitution preserving the right of trial by jury, preventing the deprivation of property except "by due process of law," and prohibiting enactments by State legislatures impairing the obligations of contracts, shall have been worn worse than threadbare.

My further words will be few, and they will relate to the industrial effects of our patent system.

We have received beautiful theories from the savants of other countries, but the practical inventions have been made in this country, and with this result, as to which I challenge contradiction, that in ninety per cent of the artificial and useful products of the world, the Yankee to-day produces, as compared with all other human beings, a better article, at a less cost of production, and he still pays the highest wages. This result, nay, this fact, may possibly in some part be due to tariff laws or to monetary regulations, but I do not believe it, and I do believe that it is the sole result of the encouragement of our patent laws.

It should also now be specifically remarked that, as conceded by all competent writers and economists, the principal reason why greater wages are paid in the United States than anywhere in the world is the fact that, by virtue of the encouragement of our patent system, minor improvements, relating frequently to the smallest details of processes, methods, and machines, have enabled us to reduce the cost of production and to improve the character of the article produced beyond that which producers in any other nation have yet been able successfully to accomplish. And I pause to say that, in view of this plain and prominent fact, any disposition to discourage the patenting of what are sometimes ironically called trifling improvements, and a disposition to annul patents therefor, if the improvement be, in the broadest sense of the terms, new and useful, should be affirmatively and earnestly opposed as being more threatening than any condition of war or any results of war can be.

I venture the statement that more than seventy per cent of the blades in the pocket-knives in this great audience were made and tempered in this country, shipped abroad, stamped, encased in handles and boxes, and reshipped to this country. I forbear to comment upon this fact.

Looking backward through the years of authentic history, we find "the quarry slave scourged, at night, to his dungeon." We find the Oriental, bound, as it were by the queue of his hair to the pole of unintelligent labor, and, in modern times, we find women, both in the domains of England and in continental