The
petition seemed reasonable. The very low tariff paid by the
manufacturers could have no perceptible effect upon the price of
articles, and the extension would provide a competence for a worthy
family who had claims upon the gratitude of the nation, if not upon
its justice. The manufacturers generally favored the extension, since
the patent protected them, in the deranged condition of our currency,
from the competition of the foreign manufacturer, who pays low wages
and enjoys a sound currency. The extension of the patent would have
harmed no one, and would have been an advantage to the general
interests of the trade. The son of the inventor, too, in whose name
the petition was offered, had spent his whole life in assisting his
father, and had a fair claim upon the consideration of Congress. But
the same unscrupulous and remorseless men who had plundered poor
Goodyear living, hastened to Washington to oppose the petition of his
family. A cry of "monopoly" was raised in the newspapers to which they
had access. The presence in Washington of Mrs. Goodyear, one of the
most retiring of women, and of her son, a singularly modest young man,
who were aided by one friend and one professional agent, was denounced
as "a powerful lobby, male and female," who, having despoiled the
public of "twenty millions," were boring Congress for a grant of
twenty millions more,--all to be wrung from an India-rubber-consuming
public.
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