Edison as I know him, by Henry Ford, in collaboration with Samuel Crowther.

EDISON As I KNow HIM

Edison has a wonderfully imaginative mind and
also a most remarkable memory. Yet all of his
talents would never have brought anything big
into the world had he not had within him that
driving force which pushes him on continuously
and regardless of everything until he has finished
that which he started out to do. He will not recognize even the possibility of defeat. He believes
that unflinching, unremitting work will accomn
plish anything. It was this genius for hard work
that fired me as a lad and made Mr. Edison my
hero, and all these years of knowing him have
only strengthened the hold that he had gained
on me long before I ever met him.
I often think how pleasant an experience has
befallen me, in that my boyhood's hero became
my later manhood's friend. It is a circumstance
that in the nature of things cannot occur very
often.
After that first meeting in 1896, I saw him
again two or three years later in his laboratory
in West Orange, New Jersey, where he had
moved from Menlo Park. I had the thought of
finding a storage battery which would give
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