OLEAN TIMES HERALD Friday, March 3, 1950; p. 13 FRUSTRATED GENIUS DEGREELESS INVENTOR LACKS CO-OPERATION OF FORMAL PROFESSIONALS Monday, March 6, 1950; p. 9
LAFAYETTE JOURNAL AND COURIER Saturday, March 11, 1950; p. 10 'FRUSTRATED GENIUS' LACKS CO-OPERATION OF FORMAL PROFESSIONALS THE SHREVEPORT TIMES Sunday, March 12, 1950; p. 8 INVENTOR JACQUE FRESCO IS 'JACK-OF-ALL-TRADES' GLADEWATER DAILY MIRROR Monday, March 13, 1950; p. 3 FRUSTRATED GENIUS
ROCKLAND COUNTY JOURNAL Tuesday, March 14, 1950; p. 7 FRUSTRATED GENIUS
LOGAN DAILY NEWS Thursday, March 23, 1950; p. 4 FRUSTRATED GENIUS
MINIOTA HERALD Thursday, March 30, 1950; p. 4 INVENTIONS BY THE HUNDRED FRESCO STILL GOING STRONG BALDUR GAZETTE Thursday, March 30, 1950; p. 5 INVENTIONS BY THE HUNDRED FRESCO STILL GOING STRONG GLENBORO GAZETTE Thursday, April 13, 1950; p. 5 INVENTIONS BY THE HUNDRED FRESCO STILL GOING STRONG by Tamara Andreeva CENTRAL PRESS CORESPONDENT
One of inventor Jacque
Fresco's earliest childhood recollections is being tanned by his father
for gathering garter snakes for his scientific experiments and storing
them in the bathroom. Yet, years later, these early childhood snake
observations resulted in Fresco's designing an escalator of
revolutionary design.
His family hoped to make a sign painter out of him and apprenticed him to his uncle, who, believing in starting form the beginning, kept the lad six months just sweeping the shop. After that he mentioned jocosely that Fresco's next job would be painting the Brooklyn Bridge. Young Fresco walked out the back door and disappeared for two months. After that his family resigned itself to the idea that young Jacque would grow up a ne're-do-well and left him to his own devices. At school, Jacque's teachers were just beginning to get the same idea, but he was at least 20 years ahead of his schoolmates and occasionaly of the teaching personnel. While other boys were still working out simple problems of arithmetic, Fresco dabbled in higher mathematics. While other boys were mostly interested in playing baseball on a vacant lot, Fresco startled his family with explosions from his little chemical set. Look At Models Sometimes he would not appear in school for several weeks, and the truant officer always came back without Fresco. On every check-up visit, Fresco would ask the truant officer to look at some miniature plane models he had been building while playing hooky from school. Among these was an advanced model of a plane carrier with a Ferris wheel arrangement to carry smaller craft; a true replica of the Spirit of St. Louis, and a torpedo carrier. He also produced a whaleback battleship of advanced design. Instead of taking Fresco to task, the truant officer would usually end up by taking him to an airplane show and once they went to see the Graf Zeppelin after which the official again discreetly disappeared for a couple months, leaving Fresco to his scientific dreaming. Fresco began experimenting with fluorescence and static electricity. At 16 he tried to prove that high frequency waves were connected with fluorescence. He rigged up a loud police siren and directed its sound at some crystals. He never had a chance to prove his point because neighbors complained, and his father's heavy palm once more descended. Yet today scientists know that high frequency waves do activate fluorescence. In Doll Factory For all his imaginative approach Fresco could not find a job that would feed him in New York. Temporarily he worked in a doll factory, but visions of thousands of dismembered dolls gave him the willies, and he fled to Florida where he lived like a beachcomber and spent all his free time studying. He studied Alexis de Sachnovsky's advanced automotive designs, read avidly from writing of Charles Fort. The writings are enough to startle anybody's imagination; unusual through true facts such as authenticated stories of the heavens raining fish, or red and blue sand. He delved into semantics, higher mathematics, chemistry, literature, and physics. Meanwhile, he made a living by catching poisonous snakes in the everglades and selling them to circuses at 25 cents a foot. As an experiment he fried and ate some. But he says he preferred alligator tail – it tasted something like pork. Fresco's questing road led him to Los Angeles, but again his talent lay dormant until World War II struck. He began inauspiciously by scouring garbage cans as a buck private. But even that setback did not keep him from dreaming and designing. Now his dreams crystallized as aircraft of unusual design. In the meantime he was one of the most unmilitary-looking soldiers the Army ever saw. He wore his corporal stripes upside down. Somehow his shoes always got unlaced, and his tie was awry. Deciding that he was a psycho, his superior officer sent him to the post psychiatrist. Doctor Helps After a heart to heart talk, the psychiatrist realized that there was noting wrong with Fresco; it was simply that his talents were "misfiled." Through the doctor's intercedence, Fresco was transferred to the design laboratories at Wright Field. At once a marked change took place. Garbage cans left behind, Fresco became cheerful, animated, neat and confident. He paid more attention to military ritual. From his prolific drafting boards poured design after design that startled even the military experts in that particular type of logistics. Long before they appeared as standard designs of leading aircraft plants, Fresco had foreseen such developments as the flying wing, the dual rotation props, the washout wingtips and pusher airplanes. He also invented a "variable camber" wing, patent for which he gave to Uncle Sam. He produced as many as 40 designs in a day, and he did not slacken speed when he went to work for one of the major aircraft plants in the west. Here, however, his old trouble occurred. He was shelved in the rungs of office hierarchy. Although his advanced ideas were hot, there were older engineers on the payroll and so Fresco's ideas had to wait. It was upsetting to Fresco because frequently before a model was finished on paper he could foresee its unsafe features. He would warn the engineers about them. No one would listen to him. And if anyone listened, they resented his advice. Predictions Came True In two cases, his predictions came true when planes of which he spoke as unsafe, cracked up, costing several lives. About one of those prophesied crashes Fresco became so worked up, he even drew colored pictures of the anticipated crash and pinned them on the bulletin board in the hall. After that he followed the only logical course open–he quit. On the way to Hawaii and forgetfulness, he read in the paper about the very crash he had been predicting. From Hawaii he went to the South Seas to relax. But his nature would not permit him rest. Even while basking in the Tahiti sun, he would draw in the sand pictures of advanced plane models. The place soon bored him and he hurried to California. By that time he was deeply interested in electronics and designed innumerable gadgets, from complicated medical gear to a "sonic sink" which would wash dishes by stirring soapy water with sound.
He designed household articles, such as a vacuum cleaner to run
automatically under the floor, and suck in dust through tiny holes; an
ultraviolet lamp for nurseries to kill germs and give light. Because he
was broke he sold all rights to an invention almost as quickly as he
designed one.
May Aid Limbs His experiments with static electricity resulted in his designing an electronic tube which he believes can be used in cure for paralyzed limbs. His thought is that just as a galvanized rubber comb will deflect the flow of water from a faucet, so the electricity in his tube would deflect the flow of blood through the paralyzed part in any direction desired, thus creating improved circulation and eventually effecting a cure. From this he went on to experiment with static electricity and live tissue. By influencing a patch of penicillin with static electricity he was able to make it grow in all kinds of patterns, from stars to polka dots. His very logical conclusion is that possibly growth of cancerous tissue could also be controlled and directed in the same fashion, making it more accessible for the surgeon's work. The only unfortunate part about Fresco's investigation is that he holds no formal degrees and stuffy medics shy from endorsing his research. Yet many of them as well as many practicing scientists gather in Fresco's home or come to him for practical advice or solution of some problem which somehow Fresco can always find without benefit of formal education. Fresco is only 33, so his story is only beginning. How far he will go will depend on how much high professionals will agree to recognizing him in the cause of science. |