e laws of
nature change waste material into valuable by-products and big
dividends, that it is up to society to experiment a little with its
social junk pile and see what a little of the right kind of chemistry
will do to the waste material to be found therein.

I can distinctly remember when the big blast furnaces around this
man's town were cussed right along for dumping slag and cinders into
the local river as waste material. The aborigines and other natives
hereabouts used to form committees to call on our old college friend,
Andy Carnegie, and tell him about it. Andy, of course, felt badly,
but used to come back with a "What's biting you people, anyway?
Nobody can eat this slag, can they?" He had to put his waste
somewhere, so why not use the rivers? Along about this time, however,
in blows a Dutch boy named Schwab, he studies the question of slag
and other waste material and its utilization; and now said slag is
converted into high grade cement, price, $15 per ton, f. o. b. cars,
Pittsburgh, Pa.

Ditto the juice from the oil refineries which polluted the rivers
when I was a kid. At present writing this former waste material that
used to wring hectic curses from all the river water-users from
Pittsburgh to Cairo is changed into thirty-two separate compounds;
and yet some people actually think that John D. stole his coin when
the truth of the matter is that he simply hired a guy to study out
plans for the utilization of waste and then beat the other stiffs to
it before they were next.

Same way with the slaughter houses. When Charley Murphy was wiping
his beezer on the bar towel and asking, "Wot'll youse guys have
next?" most every town had an unlovely spot known as the
slaughter-house district, and property was valued in an increasing
ratio based on its distance therefrom. Because why? Foul-smelling
waste. But along comes P. Armour, Esq., studies the waste question
and says to the slaughter-house stiffs, "Gimme the leavings and other
things you throw away and I'll not only put Chicago on the map, but
I'll likewise build one of the loveliest trusts that ever allowed a
fourth-rate lawyer to bust into public life by the attacking of the
same."

Well, that's what's wrong with this Osborne party. While he lets
other ginks browse aroun