Edison Enters Heaven

So deaf that his intimates must shout close to his ear, so old that diet and digestion are matters of hourly concern to him, so famed that his stalest bromides on national questions can command national attention and respect (see p. 16), Inventor Thomas Alva Edison, 83, continued last week a living though not a lively man, plodding on with life's-end work in his Fort Myers, Fla., winter laboratory. Whether or not he lives to accomplish his latest work--finding a new source of rubber--he had lived to see a semi-official national celebration of his first great work--last summer's Golden Jubilee of Light (TIME, May 27).

Just what were Inventor Edison's inmost thoughts about that celebration, or about his whole career and the fruits thereof and the uses to which they have been put, the public may not know. But last week Inventor Edison and the public could read in the Nation (pinko-liberal weekly) a fantasy by James Rorty, Irish-American free lancer, entitled "The Inventor Enters Heaven," which took for its point of departure a ten-minute interval of darkness and silence all over the U. S. in tribute to a deceased Inventor whom none could fail to recognize.

Excerpt: ". . . Suddenly the lights snapped on ... and now the ether vibrated with the earth-girdling bellow of the greatest radio hook-up in history. The eulogistic phrases were familiar; so was the toneless voice of an Ex-President of the United States for whom the great inventor remembered voting. But he could hear now, since death had stripped him of his protective infirmity. Muttering sadly to himself, the old man pressed his fingers to his ears."

The scene shifts to the gates of Heaven. "Something in the pyramidal, stepped-back style of the heavenly architecture struck the inventor as familiar. . . . Familiar, too, were the banners swung high above the streets of gold and bearing the inscription: 'Forward, Heaven. Business Is Good. Keep It Good.'

". . . 'That's the Celestial Rotary Chorus,' explained Saint Peter. 'They're rehearsing their welcoming song for you. Listen!' ... It was the song which George M. Cohan had composed for the celebration of Light's Golden Jubilee ..." *

Remarks the inventor: " 'The voices seem--well, perhaps a little light.' 'Of course,' answered the saint. 'That's the Rotarians. Boy sopranos. Always have been and always will be. Time without end. God knows I've heard enough of them.' "

Further excerpts: ". . . The old inventor had spread the tail of his frock coat like a sail and was in full flight toward the abyss of night. 'Do you mean to say,' shouted the saint as he caught up with him, 'that you actually don't want to enter heaven?'

"The inventor turned and stared at him. 'I'll see you in hell first. ... Do you suppose I enjoyed seeing my life-work made trivial and ridiculous? I was an inventor --it was my passion to use the tools of science for the service of mankind. I gave the world light--good light, cheap light. Is it my fault if they used it to outrage the beauty and peace of the night. --to make a cheap bazaar out of every street and avenue, selling one another cigarettes and chewing gum at the rate of a million candlepower a minute? I gave them the phonograph, so that every man, woman and child might know the glory of great music and great speech; so that the great singer, the great instrumentalist, might have all future generations of men for his audience. So I thought and dreamed. Yet today I am afraid there is less music in the heart and mind of the common man than ever before in history. I gave them the motion picture. At first I thought it was a toy. Then, too late, I saw that it was the medium of a new art. For by that time it had become merely a new racket for the pants-makers, and millions of minds were being trivialized and anaesthetized by that endless flicker of falseness and venality. How much of my work was actually applied to the service of a sane humanity? How much of it was cheapened and perverted by the greed of men, the mechanical greed of money to make more money? My work was honest work. I never cared for money--never thought about it. You imply that my work helped to fill that vulgar adolescent heaven of yours. I deny it. At any rate, it's your heaven, not mine. I want none of it.' "

* Composer Cohan's words (copyright by L. L losburgh Music Co., Manhattan):

What a fame, what a fame, what an aim, what an aim,

To live for mankind, to give for mankind.

All the joys of living, all he's got he's giving,

Work away, work away, night and day, never play,

Yet thoughtful and kind

If America needed a king on a throne--

Mister Edison sits on a throne of his own.

Ok say can you see

By the light that he gives you and me

What a man he is, what a grand old "WIZ"

Moping, groping in the dark, without him we would be,

There's a light tonight that's shining.

It's his light so bright that's shining

O'er the land of the free,

And the lands o'er the sea.

Oh he lights the way--Mister Thomas A. Edison

Miracle man.

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