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We are pleased to observe that the independent press, understanding the unmistakable intention of the late article on the above subject in the Washington Union, follows our example, and administers to the author a fitting rebuke for the gratuitous insult conveyed to the meritorious inventors of our country, and the effort to eventually wrest from them the noble building to whose erection they have contributed so largely. A writer in the Washington States, in the conrse of a communication in answer to the gentleman who wrote the nrticle, says :— " The building has the right name now, and it should not be changed; especially as inventive genius, patentees, and inventors have contributed largely towards its erection. The Patent Office is nearly a self-sustaining institution, and would be quite so if Congress would only modify the law, as at present required. Its name, at least, should stand the same as long as the arts, sciences and agriculture flourish, or American liberty stands, as there is no department of the government of half the importance to the people at large as is the Patent Office acd the Patent Office Reports. To this every Member of Congress can attest, by the great demand for the Reports by their constituents. As to the Interior Department, of which the writer referred to speaks so highly, there is no one who disagrees with him. It is a department of great utility to the country, and no one should wish to rob it of an iota of its great power and good influence, especially under the able, judicious, and honest management of its present chief. But a building for this great department, it is believed, should be erected separate from the Patent Office— one that would amply accommodate its numerous bureaus, and one equal in every respect to the magnitude of its business." The Washington Star is no less earnest in its denunciation of this attempt to divert the building from its original and legitimate design, and in answer to the Union, makes the following appropriate remarks :— "The Union seems to regard the name of ' Patent Office' as too insignificant to be applied to so noble a structure. OH the contrary, we think the name suggestive of the grand, lofty, and ennobling ; and that no building can rise, even in imagination, as too splendid to enshrine the model machinery of inventors—true benefactors of mankind. The press on which it prints its ideas of the insignificant ' Patent Office,' should teach it to be grateful to the genius that gives it the facilities it possesses—the rollers that ink its type, the type itself, its news by telegraph, the gas that turns night into day in its office, in fact, almost everything it enjoys should admonish it to look with admiration and even awe on the god-like productions of genius. Inventors, as. a portion of the productive utilitarian classes, are the true nobility of our land. By them, and for them, governments are instituted. The name ' Patent Office' indeed adds dignity to the building, because it suggests and embodies the power and might of American genius, progress and sovereignty. It is in a Patent Office that the American people can best be seen and appreciated, for there is embodied much indeed of their mind—of that which distinguishes them from all other nations."
