Of course he
took out the patent in his name. Men always do
that. Who was it that invented the mower and
the reaper? According to Mr. McCormick's
confidential communication, so recently published, it
was a West Virginia woman, who, after his father
and he had failed altogether in making a reaper
and gave it up, took a lot of shears and nailed
them together on the edge of a board, with one
shaft of each pair loose, and then wired them so
that when she pulled the wire one way it closed
them, and when she pulled the wire the other
way it opened them, and there she had the principle
of the mowing-machine. If you look at a
mowing-machine, you will see it is nothing but
a lot of shears. If a woman can invent a mowing-
machine, if a woman can invent a Jacquard loom,
if a woman can invent a cotton-gin, if a woman can
invent a trolley switch--as she did and made the
trolleys possible; if a woman can invent, as Mr.
Carnegie said, the great iron squeezers that laid
the foundation of all the steel millions of the
United States, ``we men'' can invent anything
under the stars! I say that for the encouragement
of the men.
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