126 The Stock Market Crash—And After 
of the invention of synthetic rubber derived from 
the common goldenrod is a triumph of organized 
research. Even at its comparatively high cost this 
invention of rubber would have checked the exactions 
of the foreign rubber monopolists and defeated the 
British plan for restriction of rubber output had it 
been brought out when Mr. Hoover, then Secretary 
of Commerce, was inveighing against their monop- 
oly. Mr. Edison’s researches with the object of 
further cheapening synthetic rabber are in process; 
in this his great staff may yet achieve another tri- 
umph that will be reflected in added economies and 
higher values of securities of the rubber industry. 
The life of Edison really links the past, when 
science was scarcely appreciated, to the present when 
it is almost idolized. He was the first conspicuous 
professional inventor. The chief significance of this 
recent celebration of Edison by the world is not in 
his own singular contribution to progress, but in 
the extent of the appreciation of invention by the 
public. 
This change, most of which has occurred since 
the war, and a great part of which has occurred 
during the time when prices doubled during the long 
bull market, is reflected in the congestion and recon- 
gestion in the Patent Office. Under Mr. Hoover, 
when he was Secretary of Commerce, the Patent 
Office had been reorganized in order to catch up with 
its work. But by the end of the fiscal year 1928- 
1929, the Commissioner of Patents reported that 
the “number of cases now awaiting action (103,236)