marked the beginning of a distinct revolution in the art of making shoes by machinery. Matzeliger realized this, and attempted to capitalize it by organizing a stock company to market his invention; but his plans were frustrated through failing health and lack of business experience, and shortly thereafter, at the age of 36, he passed away.

He had done his work, however, under the keen eye of the shrewd Yankees, and these were quick to see the immense commercial importance of the step he had accomplished. One of these bought the patent and all of the stock that he could find of the company organized by Matzeliger. This fortunate purchase laid the foundation for the organization of the United Shoe Machinery Company, the largest and richest corporation of the kind in the world. (See, in Munsey's Magazine of August, 1912, on page 722, biographical sketch of Mr. Sidney Winslow, millionaire head of the United Shoe Machinery Company.)

Some idea may be had of the magnitude of this giant industry, which is thus shown to have grown directly out of the inventions of a young colored man, by recalling the fact that the corporation represents the consolidation of forty-one different smaller companies, that its factories cover twenty-one acres of ground, that it gives employment daily to 4,200 persons, that its working capital is quoted at $20,860,000, and that it controls more than 300 patents representing improvements in the machines it produces. From an article published in the Lynn (Mass.) News, of October 3, 1889, it appears that the United Shoe Machinery Company, above mentioned, established at Lynn a school, the only one of its kind in the world, where boys are taught exclusively to operate the Matzeliger type of machine; that a class of about 200 boys and young men are graduated from this school annually and sent out to various parts of the world to instruct others in the art of handling this machine.

Some years before his death Matzeliger became a member of a white church in Lynn, called the North Congregational Society, and bequeathed to this church some of the stock of the company he had organized. Years afterward this church became heavily involved in debt, and remembering the stock that had been left to it by this colored member, found, upon inquiry, that it had become very valuable through the importance of the patent under the management of the large company then controlling it. The church sold the stock and realized from the sale more than enough to pay off the entire debt of the church, amounting to $10,860. With the canceled mortgage as one incentive, this church held a special service of thanks one Sunday morning, on which occasion a life-sized portrait of their benefactor looked down from the platform on the immense congregation below, while a young white lady, a member of the church, read an interesting eulogy of the deceased and the pastor, Rev. A. J. Covell, preached an eloquent sermon on the text found in Romans 13:8—"Owe no man anything but to love one another." Let us cherish the hope that the spirit and the significance of that occasion sank deep in the hearts of those present.

There are those who have tried to deny to our race the share that is ours in the glory of Matzeliger's achievements. These declare that he had no Negro blood in his veins; but the proof against this assertion is irrefutable. Through correspondence with the mayor of Lynn, a certified copy of the death certificate issued on the occasion of Matzeliger's death has been obtained, and this document designates him a "mulatto."

Others have tried the same thing with reference to Granville T. Woods, a too kind biographer, writing of him in the Cosmopolitan in April, 1895, stating that he had no Negro blood in him. But those who knew Mr. Woods personally will readily acquit him of the charge of any such ethnological errancy.

Another effort to detract from Matzeliger's fame comes up in the criticism that his machine was