The Edison phonograph monthly (Jan-Dec 1912)

10 Edison Phonograph Mdnthly, Feb., 1912 Joseph Dutton Hero In the wild scramble for dollars we seem to narrow our perspective of life until it includes merely — self. It is, therefore, refreshing and inspiring to hear of the noble and unselfish devotion of Brother Joseph Dutton, to the lepers of Kalawao, on the island of Molokai, in Hawaii. Born at Stowe, Vt., April 1843, he and his family fell in with the westward tide of humanity and drifted to Wisconsin. Here he worked in a book store and newspaper office until he joined the Union Army in which he attained the rank of major. He held a government appointment in Memphis, Tenn., after the war, and it was here that he consecrated his life to religious service. He turned at first to an Episcopal Cathedral, but later became a Roman Catholic. Two years spent with the Trappists at Gethseman, Ky., failed to satisfy the hunger of his soul and he went to the Convent of the Redemptionist at New Orleans. Here occurred the second great turning point in this remarkable life for Bro. Joseph heard of Father Damien and his great work in caring for the lepers of Hawaii. The appeal was overwhelming and he started at once upon a journey to his place of voluntary exile. He found Father Damien infected with the terrible disease and was soon in full charge of the entire lepers' colony. That was about twenty-five years ago. Today the Baldwin Home — for that is the name of the colony — is a community of cheerful, happy people, living under the most modern conditions which it is possible for this great souled genius to devise. Realizing that happiness is better than medicine, Bro. Joseph has organized a baseball team and installed an Edison Home Phonograph and now has over 200 Records. He is enthusiastic over the Edison as a means of keeping his patients cheerful and happy, regretting only that lack of friends prevents his acquiring a greater stock of Records. Truly this man is a hero of a higher type than those who receive the world's applause. It is one thing to perform a conspicuous act of bravery and it is another and a far better thing to give one's life to the service of these unfortunates. Hawaii is far distant, but the great soul of Joseph Dutton is very near. Annette Kellerman, erstwhile mermaid, who has temporarily forsaken the Finny Folk to become a dancer, uses a Phonograph as an orchestra, when practicing at home. Thomas A. Edison Thomas A. Edison has been taking a vacation, his first of length in two decades. He wanted to see the new industrial Europe. So he left to lieutenants the care of his factory on the edge of the Orange Mountains, and went to get his own information. Perhaps that doesn't sound exactly like a vacation. That is because the world of us common folks have not the Edison mind. A fine piece of machinery deteriorates more rapidly in idleness than at speed; a fine mind rusts in sloth and sharpens in employment; but both machine and mind need scientific oiling as they work. Edison didn't put his mind in cold storage and stop thinking just because he was going on a pleasure trip. Instead the change quickened delightfully the very faculties that he wanted to rest. And, after all, wasn't that rest itself, for into what odd and diverting channels must not the big Edison ideas have run as the changing scenes before the eye carried changing impulses to the brain? A few flashes both of his thoughts and his actions were mirrored back at intervals by the dispatches which followed the progress of his motor-car through cities that honored him, and laboratories that interested him. He admired outspokenly the planning German brain, referred to the smoke-stacks as his "patron saints," admitted he was not able to admire the art of the old masters, but at the same time defended himself from the accusation that he was too utilitarian to appreciate fine paintings and fine music. "I beMeve in the art of the present," he said. "I believe modern art keeps pace with modern thinking. It deals not with saints but with people, their sufferings and their problems." And in music he prefers Wagner. Not a purely utilitarian mind after all, you see, in this man who has labored a lifetime with the useful sciences. Nor has the whir of dynamos stilled either his inquiries or his speculations in that fascinating realm of philosophy where we consider ourselves, the road we travel, and why. "It is undeniable," he told a fellow traveler one evening as they watched the flow of continental humanity past their vantage point in the garden of a famous hotel, "that the great quest of humanity is happiness. But was the world created to be happy? How many are truly happy? I've studied people in all classes and conditions, and everywhere I have found, when you get below the surface, that it is mostly the insincere individual who says, 'I am happy.'