[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 10 (Wednesday, February 11, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H431-H432]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       BLACK HISTORY RECOGNITION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gilchrest). Under a previous order of 
the House, the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) is 
recognized for 5 minutes.

[[Page H432]]

  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, continuing on with regard to the 
contributions made to America by black inventors, Granville T. Woods 
developed over 20 patents for engineering the railroad industry, 
including batteries, I might add, electric brakes and telephone 
transmitters.
  January Ernst Matzelinger in 1889 invented an automatic shoe machine. 
This was part of a process of putting together shoes. Before his 
invention, shoes cost three or four times as much. This is something 
Americans forget. Back before this Matzelinger, a black American, 
invented this process, shoes were so expensive that most Americans did 
not even own a pair of shoes, or, if they did, they owned one pair of 
shoes in their entire life.
  We all know about George Washington Carver. He, of course, is well-
known to school children throughout the United States for his great 
scientific integrity and the work he did, especially in the 
investigation of food processing and peanuts and the paint industry. We 
know he made enormous contributions. But there are many, many more 
black Americans besides George Washington Carver who deserve this 
credit.
  For example, more closely to home, James West joined Bell Labs in the 
late 1950's and was responsible for over 100 patents on microphones and 
other electronic devices.
  Dr. Patricia Bath in the 1990's, and here she is one of the big 
supporters, I might add now, and has been making the rounds in Congress 
supporting a strong patent system, she is an African-American female 
physician who earned a patent for a medical device she developed for a 
technique of removing cataracts from people's eyes.
  So all of these inventors benefited from the wisdom of our Founding 
Fathers when they put in our government and in our Constitution laws 
protecting people's creativity and patent rights. But they also, these 
individuals, in return, using those rights that were guaranteed them, 
made enormous contributions to the well-being of the United States of 
America.

                              {time}  2115

  A great statesman and, of course, President of the United States, 
Abraham Lincoln, of course, was probably the most well-respected among 
the African-American community because he did do so much to free the 
slaves, brought that issue of the stain of our Nation to our people, 
and we find that after our Civil War were able to remove that stain.
  Abraham Lincoln was one of the greatest supporters of America's 
patent system. He himself had a patent for floating boats that had gone 
up on sandbars, and he said, and I quote, ``The patent system added the 
fuel of interest to the fire of genius,'' and not only did he give land 
away to people who wanted to settle the West and free the slaves, but 
he was a strong believer in patent rights.
  Now recently, we have seen 26 Noble Laureates join us who are trying 
to protect the patent rights from changes they are trying to make now 
join us, and what is interesting, one of the people who played such an 
important part in the organization of those Noble Laureates and played 
such an important part in strengthening and keeping strong America's 
patent system is a black professor named James Chandler, who is the 
president of the National Intellectual Property Law Institute right 
here in Washington, D.C., and he has been a champion of this issue 
because he realizes that it is technological progress that does permit 
the quality of life of all people to rise, and that black Americans who 
have been left out in so many cases of the economic well-being of our 
country, need America to continue to be the leading world economic and 
technological power. When Professor Chandler speaks, I can tell my 
colleagues he is one of the great spokesmen for American technology 
today.
  So as we honor the African-American community in talking about 
African-American history and black history and honor people such as 
Lincoln, let us not forget the black inventors who I think have made 
such an enormous contribution to our well-being and never been given 
the proper credit that they are due because often we are focusing on 
other elements and maybe more political elements of what caused this to 
change or that to change, but in this case the genius of black America 
has done so much for the American people that it deserves recognition 
when we talk about black history.
  So I am very, very proud to be a part of this honoring black history, 
and I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his observations.

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