Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla (40 page)

Interested for reasons of priority in obtaining Edison’s grasshopper wireless patent (dating from the 1880s), Fessenden sought a job with GE in 1902 to inaugurate construction of a wireless transmitting station at Brant Rock, Massachusetts. Although he stayed friendly with Edison and looked after his wayward son, Tom Junior, who had been caught passing bad checks, Fessenden was unsuccessful in obtaining Edison’s key wireless patent; the Menlo Park wizard had sold it to Marconi for $60,000.
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Legal entanglements were expensive, but Tesla felt that he had no choice but to protect as many fundamental aspects of his system as he was able to. How else could he prove to Morgan that his work in the field really was the basis of the systems that were succeeding?

In June 1900, Reginald Fessenden had applied for a patent on tuned circuits. The following month, Tesla filed for one as well. It was a matter of public record that Fessenden’s application preceded Tesla’s. What was at
issue was whether or not Fessenden had compiled his invention from Tesla’s earlier experiments. Although Fessenden claimed that he had conceived the idea in 1898, Tesla pointed out that Fessenden was (1) unable to provide documentation of this earlier date; (2) he did not create a working model of his apparatus; and (3) the machine had not been used commercially.

Whereas Fessenden’s application was rudimentary, Tesla’s delineated clearly a multiplicity of goals, for example, (1) operating distant apparatus; (2) controlling signals by using two or more idiosyncratic electrical frequencies; (3) producing a plurality of distinctive impulses onto a receiving apparatus comprising a manifold number of circuits; and (4) creating a combination transmitter-receiver arrangement set up to respond to a succession of impulses released in a given order. Whereas Fessenden could date his theoretical conceptualizations to, perhaps, 1898, Tesla dated the onset of his work to 1889 and provided his numerous publications as evidence. With specific reference to the operation of “tuned circuits,” the inventor displayed his fully working telautomaton, which he introduced to the world in 1898. Without Tesla’s AC oscillators, Fessenden’s machinery could not operate. Unless he had lived in a hermitage, it would have been impossible for Fessenden to have conceived his invention without utilizing Tesla’s attainments. Parker W. Page questioned his client for hours; Tesla’s testimony would run seventy-two typewritten pages.

Throughout mid-April the testimony continued, and after Tesla was finished, his twenty-nine-year-old manager, George Scherff, took the stand. Scherff, who was living at Wardenclyffe by this time, was able to substantiate that Tesla’s tuned circuits and long-distance wireless experiments were first conducted in his presence in 1895, when he began working for Tesla at his laboratory at 33-35 South Fifth Avenue (before it burned to the ground). Scherff remembered the inventor transmitting wireless impulses from the Houston Street lab to the roof of the Hotel Gerlach, which was one or two miles away.
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Fritz Lowenstein, just a year younger than Scherff, followed. Having returned from Europe in February and newly married, Lowenstein had gained reemployment with Tesla at Wardenclyffe. In a heavy German accent, Lowenstein thoroughly described the nature of the confidential experiments at Colorado Springs. “Mr. Tesla explained to me,” Lowenstein stated, “that the chief feature of a practical wireless telegraph system was the secrecy, immunity and selectivity; at the same time he explained to me how two oscillations are secured from one oscillating apparatus…When I came to Mr. Tesla,” the college-educated engineer revealed, “I didn’t understand anything at all about it, but he soon showed me the great value [of] tuned circuits, and then I understood what tuning was.”
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Dear Mr.Scherff,

Mr. Page has just told me that my opponent’s attorney has admitted my priority…[Mr. Fessenden] must be disappointed of course, and I am sorry for him although you know he has written some articles which are not very nice…My honor as the originator of the principle is assured.
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Tesla may have won the case, but he was not about to celebrate. Foremost among his priorities was his wish to keep the details of the litigation secret. The last thing he wanted was publicity, for the transcripts of the trial revealed many technicalities that would aid his competition in numerous ways. In the short run, the inventor succeeded in protecting important aspects of his wireless scheme; but in the long run the testimony became an important source text for Fessenden, who now had a legal basis for fashioning a plethora of second-order patents. By the time of his death, Fessenden had compiled an astounding five hundred patents, which was nearly as many as Tom Edison. Obviously, this work also aided Lowenstein, who became a wireless expert valuable to different members of the new crop of engineers who were rapidly emerging.

While the tower itself is very picturesque, it is the wonders hidden underneath it that excite the curiosity of the little [hamlet]. In the centre of [the] base, there is a wooden affair very much like the companionway on an ocean steamer. Carefully guarded, no one except Mr. Tesla’s own men have been allowed as much as the briefest peep…

Mr. Scherff…told an inquirer that the [shaft entrance] led to a small drainage passage built for the purpose of keeping the ground about the tower dry; [but] the villagers tell a different story.

They declare that it leads to a well-like excavation as deep as the tower is high, with walls of masonwork and a circular stairway leading to the bottom. From there, they say. the entire ground below has been honeycombed with subterranean [tunnels that extend in all directions].

They tell with awe how Mr. Tesla, on his weekly visits…spends as much time in the underground passages as he does on the tower or in the handsome laboratory where the power plant for the world telegraph has been installed.

N
EW
Y
ORK
T
IMES
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J
ust as Tesla had created a notebook for his experiments in Colorado, he also compiled a daily log of activities at Wardenclyffe. His records for 1902 reveal little activity for the first third of the year except for the month of March. Extended note taking really began again in May and continued uninterruptedly until July 1903. Each week, Tesla watched the tower attain a new height as he experimented by measuring the capacitance of his apparatus and constructing a prototype planet to calculate “his theory of current propagation through the Earth.” On this sizable metal sphere, the inventor would transmit varying frequencies to measure the voltage, wavelength, and velocity of the transmitted energy
and also assess various nodal points, such as along the equator and at the pole opposite the point of generation.
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In February 1902, along with Stanford White, Tesla entertained Prince Henry of Prussia who had come to New York to retrieve a royal yacht that had been built in America. The brother of Kaiser Wilhelm, it had been Prince Henry who had assisted in the performance of the inventor’s famous experiments under Tesla’s name in Berlin six years earlier. The yacht was being christened by Alice Roosevelt, daughter of the president.
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In June out at Wardenclyffe, “two grey-haired East Hampton pilgrims drop[ped] in on their way to a Spring retreat.”
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Kate’s eyes glowed as she broke off from Robert and Nikola to approach the tower and feel it with her own hands. A radiant warmth flowed through her being as she watched the lanky engineer converse with her husband.

By September, the transmitter had reached its full elevation of 180 feet. Exhausted of funds, with still the dome to place on top, the inventor had no choice but to wind down activities and lay off most of the workers. Tesla had sold his last major asset, a $35,000 land holding, but even that could not keep the operation fully afloat. Nevertheless, with this new source of revenue, he procured enough funds to keep a skeleton crew, cover Scherff’s and his own lodging, and pay for a chef from the Waldorf to come out at regular intervals. Tesla also took this time to photograph the interior operations of his entire plant. These pictures not only included reproductions of all his machinery but also contained a representative sample of the myriad different types of radio tubes that the inventor had designed. They numbered nearly a thousand.
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The
Port Jefferson Echo
reported “War between Marconi and Tesla” in their headlines in 1902. According to the paper, the United States Marconi Company had purchased land west of Bridgehampton and was planning on constructing its own competing 185-foot tower, with New York City connections to Western Union. “It should become the most important wireless center in the country.” Whereas Marconi was going to send his signals through the air, the paper said, Tesla plans, through his “500-foot deep” shaft, to send messages through the earth as well. Though the hollow was 120 feet, the gist of the report was accurate.

Having first sent an emissary, Marconi himself hired a horse and buggy one rainy morning to go out to Wardenclyffe to meet with Tesla and see the operation with his own eyes.
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Marconi’s limitations became apparent in conversation, and this gave Tesla the courage to return to see Morgan. He had stayed out of Morgan’s way for nearly a year, but now it was clear to the inventor that once his partner realized the work accomplished with so little funds at hand, he would reconsider his position and agree to resume investment. All the inventor had to do was change the man’s mind.

On September 5, Tesla wrote the financier to inform him that the
foreign patents had been assigned to the company. The letter explained clearly that his wireless system ensured privacy and had the ability to create a virtually infinite number of separate channels that were dependent not only on particular combinations of differing frequencies but also on “their order of succession.” In essence, the inventor had explained to Morgan the concepts inherent in such devices as the protected channels on cable TV, digital recording, and the wireless telephone scrambler.

In the letter, Tesla explained that he was forced to increase the power of his apparatus because of “bold appropriations” of his equipment (Marconi’s piracy), but his
mea culpa
also betrayed paranoid tendencies, even though he was attempting reconciliation: “The only way to fully protect myself was to develop apparatus of such power as to enable me to control effectively the vibrations throughout the globe. Now, if I had received this necessity earlier, I would have gone to Niagara, and with the capital you have so generously advanced, I could have accomplished this easily. But unfortunately my plans were already made and I could not change. I endeavored once to explain this to you, much to my sorrow, as I impressed you wrongly. Nothing remained then but to do the best I could under the circumstances.”

Morgan’s response was utter astonishment. Tesla had not only reiterated the breach of contract but had also revealed a striking flaw in his plan. Whereas he would have to haul in continuing truckloads of coal to provide the energy required to fire up his transmitter on Long Island, if he had set up operations at Niagara, there would have been easy access to unlimited amounts of power, and thus the operation would have been considerably less expensive to initiate. Furthermore, there was a standing offer by Rankine and his associates to provide power at the Falls for little or no cost, thereby reducing potential expenses even more. Nevertheless, Tesla incredibly informs Morgan that even on Long Island he could outdo the power of the giant cataract.

“By straining every part of my machinery to the utmost,” Tesla wrote, “I shall be able to reach…a rate of energy delivery of 10 millions of horse power.” This production, he proclaimed, would be equal to “more than twice that of the entire Falls of Niagara. Thus the waves generated by my transmitter will be the greatest spontaneous manifestation of energy on Earth…the strongest effect produced at a point diametrically opposite the transmitter which in this instance is situated a few hundred miles off the western coast of Australia.”

Whether or not this statement was true, it was counterproductive to divulge this. (Most likely Tesla is discussing the production of a single massive burst of electrical energy rather than a continuous, never-ending flow. In either case, having spent a year in the outbacks of Colorado, the
bon vivant was not about to give up his lifestyle at the elegant Waldorf for another lonely excursion to the dreary location near Buffalo.) Neurotically impelled , the inventor was stirred to impress the financial magnate when all Morgan wanted was to signal ocean liners and send Morse code to Europe.

Later in the letter the inventor did address this more modest task of broadcasting simple messages. Over transmission lines, dispatches from New York Telegraph & Cable could be delivered to Wardenclyffe, where they could then be distributed to Europe by means of wireless to a central receiving station.

Since your departure, Mr. Morgan, I have had time to reflect…[on] the importance and scope of your work, and I now see that you are no longer a man, but as a principle and that every spark of your vitality must be preserved for the good of your fellowmen. I have therefore given up the hope that you might aid me in establishing a manufacturing plant which would enable me to reap the fruit of my labors of many years. But some ideas which I have not simply conceived—but worked out—are of such great consequence that I honestly believe them to deserve your attention…

I have no greater desire than to prove myself worthy of your confidence, and that to have had relations, however distant, with so great and noble man as you will ever be for me one of the most gratifying experiences and most highly prized recollections of my life.

Yours most devotedly,
N. Tesla
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Perhaps it was the finale or the inventor’s rank or maybe the realization of the value of the fundamental patents that continued to flow into his office, but for whatever reason, Morgan was moved to the point of allowing another meeting—as long as it was expressly understood that the liaison would still be kept unpublicized.
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Tesla’s plan was to seek new investors by selling bonds and capitalizing the company at $10 million. What he did not realize was that his silent partner wanted to maintain his 51 percent control over the patents, take in “about
of the securities,” and also be reimbursed for his initial investment.
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In other words, whereas Tesla required about an additional $150,000 to complete the tower, pay off his debts, construct the receiving equipment, and so on, the Wall Street hydra wanted his money back in full, wanted to maintain his large share of the concern, wanted the inventor to raise the funds on his own, and wanted no one to know of his connection to the project! If Tesla were to agree to all that, they would have a deal.

Kate gazed out her window at the changing colors of the leaves as she went over the Thanksgiving menu with Agnes.

“Do you think he’ll come, Momma?”

“Of course he will.”

“He didn’t last year.”

“Mr. Tesla was not himself,” Katharine stated matter-of-factly. Sitting by a fizzling Edison lightbulb, she penned an urgent notice and hired a special messenger to deliver it.

Tesla was working on his list of prospective investors when a loud banging at his door interrupted him. “Sorry, sir, it is important.”

The inventor grabbed the letter and ripped it open. Thoughts of accident and death flashed through his brain as he reflected upon his relationship with the Johnsons and his inability to deal with them now. He wrote back:

Some day I will tell you just what I think of people who mark their letters “important” or send dispatches at night.

You know I would travel 1000 miles to have such a great treat as one of Mrs. Filipov’s dinners, but this Thanksgiving day I have a great many hard nuts to crack and I will pass it in quiet meditation. The rest of the holidays I propose to pass in the same good company.

Never mind my absence in body. It is no consequence. I am with you in spirit.

With love to all and Agnes in particular,

Nikola
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With this painful letter, Tesla succeeded in transferring some of his anguish to his friends. Not only would he not attend the November holiday feast; he would also not partake of the Christmas festivities. Unable to escape himself or dig his way out of the deep hole he was in, he passed the time cranking out ways to enlist new investors.

When Katharine realized the depth of the inventor’s despair, she became alarmed. The emptiness at such an important occasion was almost too much to bear. “Agnes, please write Mr. Tesla once again and tell him that he may stop by at any time that he likes, and forever long he wants.”

“Don’t you think he knows what he is doing,” Robert interrupted. “He needs to be by himself right now.”

“Don’t tell me what he needs!” Kate exploded, her Irish temper flaring. “Do it,” she commanded her daughter. Robert moved quietly into the living room to read a book of poems.

As Agnes sat down to write, a peculiar dark and twisted expression passed over her mother’s face. Kate retired to her boudoir to sit there in her gloom. Tesla wrote, “My dear Agnes,” back two days after the new year.
“I have no time but plenty of love and friendship for all of you. I would like very much to see you, but it is impossible. Even kings are beginning to infringe my patent rights, and I must restrain myself.”
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Katharine could take solace in the fact that her platonic aficionado had used the word
love
twice in two letters. In his own peculiar way, he had transformed the pain of his career to their linkage, and in that sense, he had reached out, as never before, but it was by withdrawing, and this made her love him more.