On our way from Enosburgh, we stopped for the night with the family of Brother William White. Brother C. A. White, his son, introduced to us the matter of his Combined Patent Washer and Wringer, and wished counsel. As I had written against our people engaging in patent rights, he wished to know just how I viewed his patent. I freely told him what I did not mean in what I had written, and also what I did mean. I did not mean that it was wrong to have anything to do with patent rights, for this is almost impossible, as very many things with which we have to do daily are patented. Neither did I wish to convey the idea that it was wrong to patent, manufacture, and sell any article worthy of being patented. I did mean to be understood that it is wrong for our people to suffer themselves to be so imposed upon, deceived, and cheated by those men who go about the country selling the right of territory for this or that machine or article. Many of these are of no value, as they are no real improvement. And those who are engaged in their sale, are, with few exceptions, a class of deceivers. (1T 664.1) MC VC

And, again, some of our own people have engaged in the sale of patented wares which they had reason to believe were not what they represented them to be. That so many of our people, some of them after being fully warned, will still suffer themselves to be deceived by the false statements of these vendors of patent rights, seems astonishing. Some patents are really valuable, and a few have made well on them. But it is my opinion that where one dollar has been gained, one hundred dollars have been lost. No reliance whatever can be placed on these patent-right pledges. And the fact that those engaged in them are, with few exceptions, downright deceivers and liars, makes it hard for an honest man, who has a worthy article, to obtain the credit and patronage due him. (1T 664.2) MC VC