Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 59, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 March 1917 — Manifold Uses of Electricity. [ARTICLE]

Manifold Uses of Electricity.

flahdly as old as a grown man,.the electrical industry— including railways, telephones and telegraphs—has already Invested >8,125,000,000 in the. business of America. Its utility companies alone pay Uncle Sam >200,000,000 every year for taxes —seven out of every ten use it in some form every day. It is unmistakably the most vital factor to-day in America's prosperity. Its resources are boundless. As Secretary of the Interior Lane expresses it, there is enough hydroelectric energy running to waste to equal the dally labor ot 1,800,000,000 men or 30 times our adult population. This strange power, only recently harnessed, that has actually revolutionized life and* promises more radical reformation in the future —what is it? Mysterious, yet dependable; powerful enough to drive ponderous machinery, yet gentle enough to warm the baby’s bottle; almost omnipotent, yet the best trained of servants; omnipresent, yet invisible—what a paradox is this inanimr-te yet living thing we call Electricity for lack of a better name! Many people living to-day remember those practical electrlclcss days when electricity was used only for a few telegraph lines, and knowledge of its action and of Its laws was exceedingly primitive. . Today Berlin radios New Jersey. Every part of the earth and ocean is now within the wireless telegraph nmge. The next logical step was the wireless ’phone. It is there already. Washington recently tolked to Paris and a few days later to Honolulu—--5,000 miles away. Voices ’vere distinctly heard over this vast span of air. These illustrations are typical of electrical progress in every phase of life to-day. One stastician now figures 608 practical uses of electricity; another finds 70 uses of electricity on an automobile. In the home, upon the farm, in the factory—everywhere, the world is fast becoming electrified. Of the 20,500,000 homes in the United States one-fourth are already lighted by electricity. At the present rate of transfers from steam to electric drive, we are told that three-fourth of all America’s industry will be electrified inside of five years!—From Leslie’s.