Prescient Edison

Eleven years ago the general manager of Thomas A. Edison, Inc.'s electric storage battery factory, George E. Stringfellow. yelled into Edison's less deaf ear: "Mr. Edison, would you be willing to continue as consultant for the battery company after you passed to the Great Beyond." Said Edison: "You are crazy." Shouted Stringfellow: ''It might work. You invented this battery, and in your mind there is information about it that no one else has. Will you let the stall give you written questions about the battery every Saturday afternoon before you go home? You could bring the answers in in writing on Monday morning.''

Edison did this for two years. General Manager Stringfellow kept the memoranda in a black loose-leaf notebook.

Recently Mr. Stringfellow and his fellow executives were troubled. The Edison battery functions because, when iron oxide and nickel hydrate (suitably packed in a battery box) are charged with electricity, a chemical reaction is set up which enables the battery to discharge itself in any vehicle or spot where its pent-up energy may be needed. The iron used in the batteries comes from Sweden because Swedish iron is unusually free from impurities, but traces of nickel were found however in a $40,000 shipment of Swedish iron which recently reached the Edison factory at West Orange. Dared the company take the chance that this impure iron would cause defective batteries? There was no pure iron available for use. A council of war was called. The minutes of the meeting as reported to the press by the publicity-wise firm:

Mr. Stringfellow: ''How would you like Thomas A. Edison to make the decision?"

Out of a safe came the sacrosanct loose-leaf relic. Mr. Stringfellow flipped through the finger-marked pages, read an 11-year-old question: "If there is any nickel in iron, does it adversely affect the life of the cell?"

The immortal Edison's answer: "No harm."

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