Science: Photomaton

"The average inventor has a hard life and it is a rare instance for him to reap the rewards of his invention as I have done." So said one Anatol Josepho of New York last week, a few moments after pocketing a slip of paper upon which were written the idyllic figures $1,000,000. His invention was a "quarter-in-the-slot" machine. Out of it comes, not gum or hairpins, but a strip of eight sepia photographs, each 2 in. x 1½ in., showing the quarter-dropper in whatever eight poses it has pleased him to strike. The pictures are photographed direct upon sensitized paper. To make a strip of eight pictures requires only eight minutes. A syndicate of men successful enough to know a real gold brick when they see one—including onetime Ambassador to Turkey Henry Morgenthau, President James G. Harbord of the Radio Corp. of America, John T. Underwood (typewriters), onetime Vice President Raymond B. Small of the Postum Cereal Co.—had bought Inventor Josepho's device outright, also retaining him as technical adviser and vice president of their company, Photomaton Inc. Soon street sheiks, titian cashiers, small-scale honeymooners and spreeing butter-and-eggers will start raining quarters into Vanity Fair's newest coffers, to make sure what they look like. In six months, 280,000 people have patronized the first Photomaton studio, on Broadway, including Governor Smith, who played there for an hour, and Cinema Tsar Will H. Hays. Business may get bad for passport artists and proprietors of half-moon parlors. Photomaton Inc. looks for lively trade from police departments, commutation ticket offices, license bureaus—wherever quick recording and identification are needed. Meantime Inventor Jo-sepho, who is a Socialist only three years removed from penniless Russian immigrancy, will act consistently. Half of his million he will devote to general charity; half "to helping my brother inventors to similar success."