Inventors & Backers

There was a wistful air about the first International Patent Exposition, in Chicago last week. Inventors have notorious difficulty in getting money to exploit their devices. Banks will not make loans without established security. Financiers, in general, will not bother with strange new gadgets. It was with hope that volume and diversity would attract money that the inventors worked up their exposition. Some 3,000 men and women put their wares on display.

The name of Maj.-General George Owen Squier, retired chief signal officer of the U. S. Army, stood out from the list of exhibitors. In his baggage of accomplishments are these devices depending upon abstruse physics: the sine wave systems of telegraphy, multiplex telegraphy and telephony, tree telegraphy and telephony, broadcasting over power and telephone lines by radio frequency currents (wired radio). General Squier's exhibit at Chicago was an unexpected non sequitur to his previous work. It was a woman's powder compact, rigged with a strap for wrist wear. A tiny handle pulled out a small drawer wherein reposed powder, puff and mirror.

Other inventions included: a four-sided safety razor; non-slipping suspender buckles; a combination of submarine, hydro-airplane and armored tank.

Wistful inventors searched for money interest in the inquisitive eyes of exposition. If there were any over-the-counter sales of devices, they escaped attention. Nonetheless hope persisted of another Jonathan Ogden Armour passing by. The late Mr. Armour, as every inventor knows, liked to take fliers. One such was a process for "cracking" oil, worked out by Jesse and Carbon Petroleum Dubbs. When the Armour fortune faded, profits from that old gamble on Mr. Armour's part re-enriched his widow, enabled her again to live beautifully (FORTUNE, April).

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