THE STORY OF ALFRED NOBEL

once each year to a handful of measurement of the world comes a period of sudden fame as they receive from the busy nation of Sweden the great Nobel prizes but strangely enough little is known about the man who gives these great cash awards for Alfred Nobel celebrated for the Peace Prize by some is called one of the creators of modern warfare thus to one of the most dramatic and mysterious puzzles that has ever lain hidden behind the scenes of the universe the life of Alfred Nobel but listen to his own story one morning near 1866 I find myself on the eve of a tremendous discovery I had given my youth in the effort to find something that would tame nitroglycerin one of the most perilous substances known to man it had killed my brother Emil but stubbornly I worked on laying what if I could find the way to harness nitroglycerin I would give mankind one of its greatest treasures one tiny flask full of this yellow oily liquid contains enough power to blow this laboratory off the planet nitroglycerin a hundred times I tried to combine it with a hundred different substances with powder with sawdust with silica and even with cotton and a hundred times I had failed but a man is in danger when dangerous work becomes too familiar my fingers were cold and suddenly then something caught my attention the fluid was slowly soaking into the fine powdered white clay that had been used to pack the flask perhaps here was the missing link and now I could turn power greater than the Thunderbolt into the hands of man so the name for it i took from the greek word for par i called it dynamite Eureka I have found it the world is mine and I was right everywhere markets awaited my new explosive industry blasting railway tunnels through ancient mountains freeing logs from entanglements everywhere my new discovery work to aid mankind money poured into my hands and everywhere praise for the successful inventor praise to the noted mr. Alfred Nobel honors from every nation the world's acclaim and triumphs official recognition that will please the vanity of any man there is something about a medal from France the legion of honor yet that high place in my career was the beginning of one of the most dreadful days of my life even as i stood receiving the congratulations of the officials an unknown person was entering that building and entering my life I was happy accepting the good things as my do but relentlessly a woman whom I afterwards found had rid of the ceremony in the newspapers waited to bar my path she was unknown to me I couldn't see why a woman in mourning clothes should stop me and begged me to visit her son she was a stranger and women in black were numerous in the days of the franco-prussian war she seemed to suffer from an inward grief but what had I to do with her son here however was the offer of a mild adventure that suited my mood and I agreed to go with her I'd seen these warehouses being used for emergency hospitals terrace was full of them in 1872 I'd made my war donations of course but I never personally entered such a building I was more and more bewildered but in that samba place there was no chance to withdraw and there was a question growing in my mind so I decided to follow this self-appointed guide this was no ordinary hospital but one of those seldom mentioned institutions where must be placed the cases that may not be seen by the world and still with that look of RNA on her tragic face the woman handed me a medal tell me that her greatest wish was to see a man like Alfred Nobel presented to her son I began to feel the woman was unbalanced but there was no way out and through the years of my life I shall remember this are like a terrible dream I entered that dark room my son a drug thing named beyond resemblance to a human a creature that must remain hidden away from all another kind of middle for another kind of hero but why me I asked her what have I done and he'll reply my son was the handsomest strongest boy in his regiment he became this from the wars that made men like you rich but she was wrong I am not to blame dynamite was not created for war nevertheless these things cannot go on I have only spoken about peace now I will seek a way to conquer war but in the years that followed death began to call me and I had little time it told me that when the hand of that dial reached 10 points more I should be a dead man but I worked on for I believe that only through terror with the nation ceased to declare new Wars to make war more terrible now I toss real weapons more frightful weapons to the world I sought new ways of creating terror but I had helped man to murder not to peace I must begin all over again in the years of my life for running out like sand through a glass when I left my laboratories it was to go before all men and try to persuade them to accept the ideals of international Accord they listened to me with the complacent sympathy of well-to-do people they applauded me with complacent courtesy but every are the beat of my 40 heart was sending the hands of the dial higher higher higher I have attempted to destroy war with Tara and I have failed now death has come to destroy me with all my work unfinished and it still goes on millions following the drum than the bugle into battle too late all my labor wasted for too many years I was wrong for fear can never end war fear is the stuff from which war is manufactured the answer is not fear but love for unless the road to peace leads from the conference table and not from the plains of war these new machines of death will lead mankind to destroy itself the result can only be mutual extermination so I will leave my millions to humanity itself physics and chemistry medicine science literature down through the centuries I will send my wealth to men i will never live to know for however dark the years ahead the cause of peace must not pass from this earth and thus each year we receive a message from one who has been dead for a generation and a modern mechanized world still asks the question where is the man who is being sought by the spirit of alfred nobel you