In 1886 Atkinson invented an improved kitchen stove known as the "Aladdin cooker,"[3] a slow-cooking device that used a minimal power input, akin to the principle employed by the modern crock pot.

Growing weary of compromise, he began raising money to pay for rifles and ammunition to support the insurgent guerrilla force of John Brown.

[8] As a vice president of that organization, Atkinson wrote to the United States Department of War for a list of soldiers serving in the Philippines so that he might send them his privately published pamphlets.

Failing to receive a reply, Atkinson announced to the press that he was sending copies to Generals Lawton, Miller, and Otis, Admiral Dewey, correspondent J. F. Bass, and to Jacob Shurman and Dean Worcestrer on the Philippine Commission.

Atkinson seemed to enjoy the infamy, and he effusively and sarcastically thanked the Administration for calling national attention to his essays and increasing their demand in every state in the union.

[4] For nearly four decades, Atkinson was actively engaged in the distribution of brochures of which he was the author on banking, competition, cotton manufacture, economic legislation, fire prevention, industrial education, the money question, and the tariff.

In addition to his 1899 series of pamphlets, broadcast over the United States, which he entitled "The Anti-Imperialist:"[3] Most of us are, I believe, what are called "self-made men," although I never use that term without recalling the funny outburst of my late friend, Dr. Francis Lieber, when I used it in his presence.