Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla (41 page)

Thomas Commerford Martin may have had mixed feelings about having supported so vigorously a man he knew had infringed on Tesla’s patents, but Martin had warned Tesla nearly five years earlier that whereas Marconi was succeeding on the physical plane, Tesla appeared to advance mostly in theory. A social gadfly, Martin had also upped his prestige considerably by hosting the gala Marconi affair, and he continued to elevate his standing among the upper echelon of the electrical community.
Harper’s
decided to do a feature on him, and Edison was becoming amenable to the idea of allowing him to write his biography.
¹²
As a precursor to the new venture, the editor prepared for the weekly a short piece on the “volcanic lifetime of a master who has produced a patent every fortnight for over thirty years.”

An “Edison Man” remains an Edison man to the end of the chapter, and is proud of the stamp left upon his career by the great spirit with whom trials and triumphs have been shared…[Although] Edison has always been surrounded by a willing host of workers, [he] has always held easily his leadership among them. This is by no means true of other[s]…Some powerful thinkers, whether from instinctive distrust or unavowed jealousy, endeavor to hammer out their conceptions in lonely struggle, and names could be mentioned here of electrical inventors whose curse seems to be this sterile seclusion. In Edison’s case, the sunny, kindly temperament of the man makes for friendship.
¹³

Martin was almost certainly talking about Tesla here, and in so doing, he highlighted ponderous debilities in the inventor’s personality. Tesla could be inordinately withdrawn, private, “distrustful,” an elitest, and yet envious of others, unable to share in the development of his ideas lest he would have to share credit. Later in this article, Martin wrote that “a great many first-class inventors are sharply concentrated along one line,” while Edison had “many irons in the fire.” As versatile and incredibly prolific as Tesla was, he stuck, until the end of his days, to the single monumental Wardenclyffe idea when any aspect of the grand plan, in and of itself, would have been a revolutionary accomplishment.

Underneath it all, however, Martin was, without doubt, the one individual who had accomplished the most toward explicating the wondrous achievements of the sequestered genius, and his connection to Tesla would remain sacred to him for the duration of his life. Martin took the opportunity to let Tesla know this when he gave the inventor an updated version of the collected works.

“Many thanks for the book,” Tesla wrote his old-time friend. “It was a pleasure to read the dedication which tells me that your heart is true to Nikola.”
¹⁴
This occasion served to break the ice again, and the two resumed their friendship, albeit not with the same intensity as before.

In a dreadful predicament, the inventor was beginning to stare down a canyon of doom, writing his letters now in pencil, abandoning the certainty of the pen.

Ever since I was a boy I was desirous of drawing on the Bank of England. Can you blame me? I confess my low commercial interests dominate me…Will you please give me a list of people almost as prominent and influential as the Johnsons who desire to get into high society. I will send them my letter.

Nikola Busted
¹⁵

Forced to approach both the Johnsons and his manager, George Scherff, for funds, both lent him thousands over the next few years.
¹⁶
Simultaneously, he returned to former enthusiasts such as Mrs. Dodge and Mrs. Winslow, and new investors, such as Mrs. Schwarz, wife of toy store owner F. A. O. Schwarz.
¹⁷
The price for investment was $175 for each share.

With his back to the wall, he approached again his Wall Street benefactor. “Will you now let me go from door to door to humiliate myself to solicit funds from some jew or promoter and have him participate in that gratitude which I have for you?,” he wrote Morgan. “I am tired of speaking to pusillanimous people who become scared when I ask them to invest $5000 and get the diarrhoea when I call for ten.”
¹⁸

“It is a mighty fine tower,” said one good farmer…last week. “The breeze up there is something grand of a Summer evening, and you can see the Sound and all the steamers that go by. We are tired, though, trying to figure out why he put it here instead of Coney Island.”
¹⁹

Although operations were suspended, there were many avenues the inventor would explore in his attempts to complete the vision. One of his first decisions was to comply with George Scherff’s plan to become more pragmatic. Throughout the balance of the year and much of 1903, Tesla
began to manufacture oscillators and continue development of his fluorescent lamps. Revenues began to trickle in, and by midyear he had compiled enough savings to hire back a half-dozen workers and pay for the cupola, which was placed at the apex of the spire.
²⁰
Over fifty feet in diameter, ten feet tall, and weighing fifty-five tons, this iron-and-steel crown, with its specially designed multitude of nodal points, would serve the purpose of storing electrical charges and distributing them either through the air or down the metal column and into the hollow. The cupola was linked to four large condensers behind the laboratory, which also served the purpose of storing electrical energy, and these in turn were coupled with “an elaborate
apparatus” which had the ability to provide “every imaginable regulation…in the control of energy.”

At the base of the edifice, deep below the earth, along the descending spiral staircase, was a network of catacombs that extended out like spokes of a wheel. Sixteen of them contained iron pipes which protruded from the central shaft to a distance of three hundred feet. The expense for these “terrestrial grippers” was notable, as Tesla had to design “special machines to push the pipes, one after the other” deep into the earth’s interior.
²¹
Also in the well were four stone-lined tunnels, each of which gradually rose back to the surface. Large enough for a man to crawl through, they emerged like isolated, igloo-shaped brick ovens three hundred feet from the base of the tower.

Although the exact reason for the burrows has not been determined, their necessity was probably multifaceted. Tesla had increased the length of the aerial by over a hundred feet by extending the shaft into the earth. Simultaneously, he was able to more easily transmit energy through the ground with this arrangement. It is possible that he also planned to resonate the aquifer which was situated slightly below the bottom of the well. The insulated passageways which climbed back to the surface may have been safety valves, which would have allowed excess pressure to escape. They also provided an alternative way to access the base. Tesla may have planned to fill other shafts with salt water or liquid nitrogen to augment transmission. There may have also been other reasons for their construction.
²²

Just as the inventor prepared to test his new equipment, creditors began to encroach more vigorously and Tesla was never able to put the final fireproof protective outer facing on the cupola and tower. To Westinghouse he owed nearly $30,000,
²³
the phone company was billing him for the telephone poles and lines which they erected to connect him with civilization,
²⁴
and James Warden was suing for taxes owed on the land.
²⁵
With the exigency of time inexorably pressing down, the inventor worked furiously to link his transmitter to the power source and test its potentialities.

Throughout the early part of 1903 the engineer “performed many measurements of ground resistance and insulation resistance of the tower. He even considered temperature [increases] caused by ground losses, differences when salty water was spread around the base, weather conditions and time of day.”
²⁶

In the last week of July, just days before men came to cart away part of his equipment, the inventor fashioned a way to couple his behemoth and fire it up. As pressures reached their maximum with the cupola fully charged, a dull thunder rumbled from the site, alerting the hamlet that something was about to happen.

Strange Light at Tesla’s Tower

From the top of Mr. Tesla’s lattice work tower on the north shore of Long Island, there was a vivid display of light several nights last week. This phenomena [
sic
] provoked the curiosity of the few people who live near by, but the proprietor of the Wardencliffe [
sic
] plant declined to explain the spectacle when inquiries were addressed to him.
²⁷

Tesla’s mushroom-shaped citadel spewed forth a pyrotechnic eruption that could be gleaned not only by those who lived nearby but also by the populace inhabitating the shores of Connecticut, across Long Island Sound. But by the end of July the tower fell silent, never to raise its radio cry again.

It was a foggy morning when the Westinghouse crew appeared with their horse-drawn wagon and court order granting them permission to cart away the heavier equipment. The gargantuan edifice loomed as a specter of what could be, its head still obscured by the low-hanging clouds. Except for a guard, George Scherff, and a handyman, the entire crew was let go. His dream now hobbled, the sullen wizard crept back to the city to weep alone in his Waldorf suite.

July 14, 1903

Dear Sir:

I have received your letter…and in reply would say that I should not feel disposed at present to make any further advances.

Yours truly,
J. Pierpont Morgan
¹

M
r. Boldt removed his monocle from his top vest pocket and eyed the man suspiciously. The foreigner was sweating profusely from the August heat. “Niko Tezlê,” he said in a heavy accent as he handed the hotel manager a crinkled envelope.

Momentarily sidetracked by a spot of dust, Boldt retrieved the document to inspect Tesla’s letterhead. “You may go up,” he said disdainfully as he slammed his hand down on the clangor to call a bellhop.

The man entered what appeared to him to be a palatial suite. “Jovan, so good of you to come,” the venerated engineer said in his native tongue. “You must find Uncle Petar. It is a matter of utmost urgency.”

“He may be in Bosnia.”

“Then go there.” Tesla handed the man a round trip boat ticket, a communique sealed with wax, and a billfold of spending money. “I am depending on you.”
²

Tesla’s three sisters, Angelina Trbojevich, Milka Glumicic and Marica Kosanovic, their husbands, all Serbian priests, and all of their children sat in the rectory to listen to the spell-binding account the courier brought of Niko’s laboratory and world telegraphy tower. “Its head reaches up to the clouds,” Jovan said, spreading his arms to their full extent, “and some day it will send messages to the whole world—right here to this town.” Jovan’s cousins gasped in amazement as he passed around a photograph taken just
three months earlier by Dickenson D. Alley, the photographer also responsible for the Colorado pictures.
³

“How will we know when a message is sent?”

“Everyone will have a little device, the size of”—Jovan looked around the room and spotted a prayer book—“the size of this book, with a wire attached which you will stick into the ground to receive the message!”

Two first cousins, Nicholas Trbojevich and Sava Kosanovic, both just emerging from boyhood, listened intently. Fully captivated by such news from America, Nicholas announced proudly, “Some day I will be an inventor too.” Sava, destined forty years later to be Yugoslavia’s first ambassador to America, smiled back and nodded in agreement.

Uncle Petar stepped from the room to open the dispatch in private. Niko had told his uncle that the Panic had hit him hard, that he was out of funds. He would have to close down the World Telegraphy Center if assistance was not received immediately. He asked Petar to go to a local bank and borrow funds using shares in Wardenclyffe as collateral. The bank, of course, would not comply,
⁴
so Petar called a meeting with family elders for a pooling of resources. They then returned to Belgrade, where the transfer of funds could be accomplished. “You wish Niko well for us,” Petar said, grasping Jovan with both arms. Tesla received the money by the end of the month, but it was really only enough to keep a door open for the balance of the year.

September 13, 1903

Dear Mr. Morgan,

Many years I was at your door with this invention, but I did not go in thinking it would be useless…My last undertaking has returned more that two dozen times the original investment and this in strong hands should do better still.

Help me to complete this work and you will see.

Yours most faithfully,
N. Tesla
⁵

Altering his schedule, the inventor began visiting the lab only on weekends. Having thought the matter through, he abandoned the idea of meeting with small-time investors and placed his efforts in two separate directions. He would step up the manufacture of the oscillators and enlist other tycoons.
⁶
With the money from his relatives, Tesla was able to hire back a few workers. Operations, however, were just about nil, and the rest of the crew were angry about not being paid.

“You know, of course,” he told Scherff, “that when this panic came, a great many manufacturers simply dismissed their men. Our employees should understand that I have tried to treat them generously in the hardest
times this country has known, and they should be grateful instead of impatient. Although the panic is practically over, there is still a general feeling of apprehension on the street. However, I have a few irons in the fire, and at any moment, I may come up with the solution which confronts me. I am more than ever assured that nothing can prevent my ultimate success.”
⁷

Tesla’s first stop was the home of John Jacob Astor. Taking with him Alley’s new dramatic glossies, the inventor tried his best to reignite the flame. Astor, who was earning approximately $3 million per annum, was nevertheless not a frivolous man. Most of his money these days was being spent on his yacht, the
Nourmahal.
Whereas Tesla had had an ally in Astor’s wife, the marriage was now in decline, with Ava spending most of her time in Europe with her two small children and her husband, Jack, continuing his practice of straying at home.
⁸
“While wishing you all possible luck,” Astor wrote the inventor, “do not care to go into the company myself.”
⁹

Deciding that there were other fish in the sea worth hooking, Tesla compiled a list of the biggest ones and worked with a graphic designer to produce a flashy mailer. Known as the “Tesla Manifesto,” the pamphlet boldly announced the expectations of his world telegraphy enterprise.
¹⁰

Folded into a maroon vellum binder, the brochure contained lavish prints of the Colorado Station and also the imposing laboratory and tower at Wardenclyffe, a list of relevant patents, past and future accomplishments, a statement of his availability to be hired as a consultant, and a declaration of the breadth and scope of his plan, all of this surrounded by a scalloped design of pen-and-ink drawings of his many other inventions. Atop the new magnifying transmitter, drawn as part of the frame in fancy cursive, were the following words: “Electrical Oscillator Activity Ten Million Horsepower.” People on his list included numerous moguls, each worth anywhere between $20 and $200 million, just about all personally known by the inventor.

“Luka,” Tesla wrote to Robert Johnson, “Rockefeller and Harriman are now taking up every moment of my time, but I think I shall get through with them very shortly.”
¹¹
Written partly in jest, this letter was not far from the truth, for Tesla was becoming more successful in penetrating a number of other wealthy enclaves.

An Interview with Wizard Edison

“Do you believe, [Mr. Edison] with Tesla that we should be able to talk around the world one of these days?”

“No, I do not look for developments in that line. The wonderful thing that will be more and more developed is wireless telegraphy. Marconi is all right and is bound sooner or later to perfect his system.
¹²

With Edison leading the charges against his credibility, Tesla was placed in a delicate situation. The public at large had yet to know of the Morgan connection, and yet Tesla had to inform potential investors of his interest. Due to animosities that Morgan still held for Harriman, a contract with him was out of the question, but there were still many other financiers to consider.

On October 12, 1903, Tesla met with Thomas Fortune Ryan. A stalwart, corpulent man five years Tesla’s senior, Ryan, whose real middle name was Falkner, had gotten his start as a dry-goods clerk in Baltimore. His break came after he moved to Wall Street, where he became a stockbroker and investor in large financial institutions. By 1905 his position had grown so extensively that he gained control of nearly $1.4 billion, which was equivalent to almost half of the entire public debt of the United States. Almost one-third of this figure stemmed from his acquisition of the controlling shares of Equitable Life Assurance Society,
¹³
and this came about a little over a year after his initial meeting with Tesla. In and of itself, the connection would appear to be incidental; however, it was Tesla who arranged for a meeting between Ryan and Morgan in attempts to iron out an amenable agreement, and it is well known that Morgan was the secret power behind the famous Equitable Life insurance scandal which erupted in 1905.

Aside from the handful of diamonds he perpetually fondled in his palm, Ryan’s other assets included control over Mutual Life and Washington Life Insurance, New York City Railway, American Tobacco, Morton Trust, Metropolitan Securities, and Mercantile Trust. Ryan also sat on the board of a dozen other insurance, banking, rail, and utility concerns.
¹⁴
He also owned an immense estate covering hundreds of acres north of the city, near Monticello, where he had erected a $500,000 mansion. From this retreat, his wife, Mrs. T. F. Ryan made a name for herself as a philanthropist, founding a theological institution, erecting “a magnificent Catholic Church [and] a public hospital, [purchasing] fire company equipment, and [making] scores of minor contributions for the good of the village.”
¹⁵

Known for his “striking [proficiency] of systematic organization…decisive action, secrecy and the art of using great power behind the throne,” Ryan’s most effective gift was his persuasive ability. “Mr. Ryan makes his headquarters in the Morton Trust Company’s office, where he is Vice-President. He does not bar the door like John D. Rockefeller…Any caller gets to his secretary and very often to the inner room. There is none of the gruffness that so characterizes Mr. Morgan…Mr. Ryan is suavely silent…He never does and never says an important thing without consulting lawyers…Yet he always is polite, and never shows anger.”
¹⁶

Tesla had calculated that he required approximately $100,000 to complete his project, so his plan was to enlist “ten subscribers at $10,000 each.”

“What is the use of going to so many people,” Ryan suggested, staring at the contents of the vellum binder. “I shall take one-fourth. Where do I sign?”
¹⁷

Obviously, this was a great opportunity, but it was not a simple matter of just signing a paper. Tesla had to go back to Morgan to confer, and $25,000 would still leave him way short of his goal. “Would you consider underwriting the entire $100,000?”

“That’s a possibility.”

“Let me speak to my partner about your generous offer and get back to you.”

“Is it anyone that I know?” Ryan inquired.

“I am under orders to keep his name confidential.”

“We are talking about a significant amount of money, Mr. Tesla. I want to know who I am going into business with.”

“It is Pierpont Morgan,” the inventor said cryptically.

“Morgan! Well, then, you couldn’t be in better hands.”

Tesla wrote Morgan on the following day to arrange a meeting. “Mr. Ryan is a great admirer and a loyal friend of yours and for this reason as well as on account of his ability, I am very anxious to enlist his cooperation. I have told him that $100,000 would be sufficient to reach the first commercial results, which will pave the way to other greater successes. Knowing your generous spirit, I have told Mr. Ryan that any terms you may decide upon will be satisfactory to me.”
¹⁸

For Thanksgiving, Tesla joined the Johnsons. He had good news to report. Just back from a two-month stint in Europe, Robert and Kate were eager to describe their meeting with Queen Elena of Italy. Having been decorated by King Humbert in 1895 for his work on the international copyright, Robert was received by the widowed queen as a distinguished personage. He read to her and the queen mother a selection from his most recent book of poems.
¹⁹
They also stayed a few extra weeks to witness the jubilee at the Vatican, celebrating twenty-five years of the reign of Pope Leo XIII.

“Mr. Tesla, do I detect a gleam in your eye?” Kate inquired.

“You’re not about to become one of the detested wealthy elite, are you?” Robert teased.

“My dear Luka, I do not want you to despise millionaires, as I am hard at work to become one. My stocks have gone up considerably this week.”

“Morgan?” Katharine whispered hopefully.

“Fortune Ryan,” Tesla said, taking out a bank note to display proudly. He would receive a total of $10,000 from the financier. “If it continues for a few weeks like this, the globe will be girdled soon. Now Kate, where’s that turkey?”
²⁰

At this time, Morgan met with Ryan. Obviously, the Tesla deal did not go through. The question is, why?

Every indication suggests that the meeting went well. Ryan had been described by Wheeler (one of Morgan’s harshest critics) as “a most adroit, suave and noiseless man,”
²¹
and this makes some sense, for a few years later it would become evident that Ryan was, in essence, a Morgan puppet.

In 1899, Henry Hyde passed away. He had been controller of the half-billion-dollar Equitable Life Assurance Society, “comprising the scrapings of the poor.”
²²
Fifty-one percent of the company was left to his son James, who was twenty-three at the time. A rather eccentric and naive millionaire, James charged the company for petty extravagances, such as importing barbers from France and placing his personal chefs at all of his favorite restaurants. The muckrakers were unable to tolerate the extravagent lifestyle of James, especially after it was learned that on January 31, 1905, he had spent $200,000 on a Louis XV costume ball at Sherry’s. They demanded his resignation.

No doubt, ever since Hyde’s father had passed on, Morgan had had his eye on the company, but because of the Northern Pacific debacle, he had to proceed cautiously. It is plausible to consider that at the meeting concerning the Tesla project Morgan might have suggested that Ryan’s money could be better spent in a different area. Whatever he said, it appears to have been stated in such a way as to not completely turn off Ryan, as he did invest and maintain interest in the enterprise from the years 1903 to 1906, although he never paid Tesla more than the initial modest subscription.