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The article profiles American inventor and businessman Thomas Alva Edison. It discusses his contributions to the light and power industry, his reputation as the world's greatest inventor, and his belief that time will come when mankind will draw electrical energy on a large scale directly from the sun. His views on the evolution of electrical invention and discovery are highlighted.

The article discusses the demise of free-lance inventors and the emergence of corporate inventors as the dominant force for innovation. According to the author, the trend toward the corporate inventor was initiated by Thomas Alva Edison. The author adds that Edison was keenly aware of his limitations and established a research laboratory which led to the emergence of the first corporate inventors such as John W. Lawson.

The article profiles Samuel Insull, an electric utilities magnate in the U.S. He was born in London, England and attended school in Reading until he was 14 years old. Because of poverty, he only took up the study of shorthand and typewriting and fortunately took a position in his hometown. After that, he became the London agent of inventor Thomas A. Edison. His association with Edison resulted to the development of the electrical industry in the U.S.

An introduction is presented in which the editors discuss various reports within the issue on topics including the railroad rate decision of the American Interstate Commerce Commission, the Leeds and Northrup manufacturing company's employee plan, and an interview with inventor Thomas A. Edison.

In the course of his long wanderings the Drifter not unnaturally ran across Thomas A. Edison on more than one occasion. The last time he called upon him he found him so deaf that communication had to he by means of a pad and pencil, but the kindliness of the man was in evidence then as always. Down to his last day there was something childlike and charming about him. He had too, the inventor's belief in the complete success of each and every invention. Several stories of Edison's earlier life have stuck in the Drifter's memory. He remembers how Edison proposed to his first wife. He had been courting her in the parlor of a mid-Victorian boarding-house and there seemed to be no other place where they could meet. Again and again Edison came only to find the parlor full of the other boarders.

Presents several letters to the editor. Comments on the advertisement of the Hotel Delmonico; Controversy over the patent use of electric light inventor Thomas Edison's name; Campaign to amend the city charter of Cleveland, Ohio.

It would have been a treat indeed to get close enough to the recent Adirondack party of notables to do a little eavesdropping, and discover what common interests so oddly assorted a trio as John Burroughs, Henry Ford, and Thomas Edison could find as food for conversation. Not that Burroughs is garrulous in any sense, but he is so well worth listening to when he does open his lips that you could hardly place him where every one else in his neighborhood would not turn to him for mental refreshment. Even in that era Burroughs was an author, and well known. Besides his "Notes on Walt Whitman," his "Wake Robin," which he loves best of all his products, was turned off in the odd hours when his Treasury duties did not crowd him too severely.

The article presents speeches by notable people on issues related to business. Inventor and scientist Thomas A. Edison said that a 36-year-old man is just beginning to get down to business, while Julius H. Barnes, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, discussed the need for the U.S. to secure in its own markets an equal chance to the products of its own high wages. The speeches by German Foreign Minister Herr Stresemann and Dennison Manufacturing Co. president Henry S. Dennison are also provided.

The article presents a quotation by U.S. inventor Thomas A. Edison on being an inventor.