Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 125, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 November 1904 — The Passing of the Pen. [ARTICLE]

The Passing of the Pen.

“The typewriter lias destroyed the golden ftfture that we foresaw for our business,” 6aid a manufacturer of pens, “if the typewriter's field of usefulness lieeps on enlarging there will scarcely be an y need of pens 50 years hence.” 1 The m.-iIP sighed. “YVhen’l entered the pen trade in mv boyhol 01 ! seemed,” lie said, “that this, abov a all trades, was the one destined to (Trend. In my dreams I saw the v| ll0 le world, educated at last, writing w| tb pens of my make. Then the typeyfNlJ' came. I sneered at it In the i)t-f Infttag, I called it a toy. But "'HI do everything a pen will do. * 1 make out bills and checks*, at lress envelopes of every shape, mn :e entries in all sorts of books. YY’ 1 penmpkers are beginning to suffer f m the typewriters advent. Our busin. s8 t instead of enlarging healthily, 8 shrinking a little like a man whom consumption has attacked. We are sht ‘thg down. YVe are laying off hands. D lB easy to see that the dav w j|j co m< when pens will only hi used for pc correspondence and for the signatu re -’