Faith in the Future
Story★★★★In resigned from the United States Patent Office because, as he said in his letter of resignation, which is still on file in the Hall of Archives at Washington, “there is no future in the Patent Office; all the great inventions have been accomplished.” Since that foolish man, who had little faith in the future, resigned, we have discovered the steam engine, the Diesel engine, the jet propulsion engine, the telphone, motion pictures, radio, radar, sub- marines, airships, insulin, sulpha drugs, penicillin, and atomic power.
In 1886 a government official in Washington announced that all the canals and railroads had been built and that there would be no further progress in transportation in the United States. At the time that statement was made Thomas Edison was thirty-nine years of age, Henry Ford was twenty-three, Steinmetz was twenty-one, Orville Wright was fifteen, Marconi was twelve, and Einstein was seven. In 1899 a great newspaper came out with an article stating that it had had its research workers go carefully into the matter of the “horseless carriage,” and while it might be a “toy for the wealthy to play with,” it would never come into common use and certainly would never approximate the popularity and usefulness of the bi- cycle.
This is a thought to give us a good many smiles, if not laughs. Few of us will ever again be as pessimistic and as lacking in faith in the future as those three statements indicate that some in the past were. We shall not lack faith because we of this age have seen so many miracles. We have unbounded faith in the future because we have seen so much happen in the last quarter of a century.
We can believe in anything. We have faith in the future, and that is a great asset. Down in Washington, as I was walking with Supreme Court Justice Frank Murphy one day, we passed the Hall of Archives.
He pointed out to me a statue of a young girl sitting in a chair, leafing through a great book that was on her lap. The statue was bronze. I do not know the name of the sculptor; I do not even know whether it was a great statue. I do not know these things because there was an inscription carved on the granite pedestal of that bronze statue which hit me forcibly, and this is how it read:
The point
In 1838, a Patent Office official resigned claiming all great inventions were done. Since then: steam engine, telephone, radio, radar, penicillin, atomic power emerged. In 1899, a newspaper said the horseless carriage would never replace bicycles. Faith in the future is essential to progress and innovation.