Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla (43 page)

January 13, 1904

My dear Sir,

In reply to your note I regret to say that I should not be willing to advance any further amounts of money as I have already told you. Of course I wish you every success in your undertaking.

Yours truly,
J. Pierpont Morgan

Close to making deals with other investors but hampered by his relationship to Morgan, Tesla was particularly upuset that his partner replied on the same day his own letter was sent. Surmising that Morgan was not even considering the situation, Tesla became enraged. For the first time he dropped all pretense and told Morgan what he really thought of him.

January 14, 1904

Dear Mr. Morgan,

You wish me success! It is in your hands, how can you wish it?

We start on a proposition, everything duly calculated; it is financially frail. You engage in impossible operations, you make me pay double, yes, make me wait 10 months for machinery. On top of that you produce a panic. When, after putting in all I could scrape together, I come to show you that I have done the best that could be done, you fire me out like an office boy and roar so that you are heard six blocks away: Not a cent; it is spread all over town. I am discredited, the laughing stock of my enemies.

It is just 14 months that the construction work on my plant was stopped…Three months more with a good force of men would have completed it and now it would be paying $10,000 a day. More than this, I would have secured contracts from governments for a number of similar plants…

Now, when I have practically removed all obstacles skillfully put in my way and need only a little more to save a great property, which would pay you 10 million dollars as surely as one cent, you refuse to help in a trouble brought on by your own doings.

Tesla suggests in the balance of the letter that a subscription of $25,000 would enable him to start up operations of the production of oscillators and the fluorescent light and that eventually, “in a slow and painful way,” he would be able to obtain the necessary funds to complete the tower.

I am anxious to succeed on your account as mine. What a dreadful thing it would be to have the papers come with your name in red letters [
A MORGAN DEAL DEFAULTS
]. It would be telegraphed all over the globe. You may not care for it Mr. Morgan. Men are like flies to you. But I would have to work 5 years to repair the damage, if repairable at all. I have told you all. Please do not write to refuse. I am pained enough as it is.

Yours sorrowfully,
N. Tesla
⁴²

Having received no response, Tesla shot off another letter the following week:

January 22, 1904

…Are you going to leave me in a hole?!!

I have made a thousand powerful enemies on your account, because I have told them that I value one of your shoestrings more than all of them…

In a hundred years from now, this country would give much for the first honors of transmitting power without wires. It must be done by my methods and apparatus and I should be aided to do it first myself.

April 1, 1904

…Will you aid me to complete this great work?

April 2, 1904

Have you ever read the book of Job? If you will put my mind in place of his body you will find my suffering accurately described. I have put all the money I could scrape together in this plant. With $50,000 more it is completed, and I have an immortal crown and an immense fortune.

Unable to understand why the Ryan deal went sour, Tesla nevertheless deduced that it had been Morgan’s doing. Retaliating in any overt way would have been suicide. And although Tesla had self-destructive tendencies, breaching a contract with J. Pierpont Morgan being one example, the inventor wanted desperately to succeed. His goal was not so much to line his own pockets, although surely he sought to get rich from the invention, but rather to help society. Tesla was well aware of his potential role in reshaping the course of human events.

Seeing no other choice, he brashly decided, in early 1904, not to hide the Morgan connection anymore but rather to publicize it and to maintain the front that everything was okay. To one of his worried investors, William Rankine of the Niagara Falls project, he wrote on April 10, “Doubt the light
of the sun, doubt the brightness of the stars, but do not doubt the existence of the Nikola Tesla Company.”
⁴³
Landing Morgan in the first instance had been a feather in his cap. Now the bon vivant decided to exploit the connection and also brazenly rebel against a man who seemed bent on sinking his ship. In quintessential Teslaic fashion, he published a spectacular article simultaneously in
Scientific American
and
Electrical World
&
Engineer.
In it he outlined his work to date and plans for the future, adorning the piece with breathtaking photographs of his transmission stations in Colorado Springs and Wardenclyffe.

The results attained by me have made my scheme of “World Telegraphy” easily realizable. It constitutes a radical and fruitful departure from what has been done heretofore. It involve[s] the employment of a number of plants each of [which] will be preferably located near some important center of civilization and the news it receives through any channel will be flashed to all points of the globe. A cheap and simple [pocket-sized] device, may then be set up somewhere on sea or land, and it will record the world’s news or such special messages as may be intended for it. Thus the entire earth will be converted into a huge brain, as it were, capable of response in every one of its parts. Since a single plant of but one hundred horse-power can operate hundreds of millions of instruments, the system will have a virtually infinite working capacity…

The first of these central plants would have been already completed had it not been for unforseen delays which, fortunately, have nothing to do with its purely technical features. [This delay may prove] after all to be blessing in disguise…

For the work done so far I am indebted to the noble generosity of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, which was all the more welcome as it was extended at a time when those, who have since promised most, were the greatest of doubters. I have also to thank my friend, Stanford White, for much unselfish assistance. This work is now far advanced, and though the results may be tardy, they are sure to come.
⁴⁴

I have observed in the House of Morgan a largeness, nobility and firmness of character the like of which is very scarce indeed. I can only smile when I read of the attempts to find something discreditable in the transactions of J. P. Morgan & Co. Not a hundred of such investigations will ever uncover anything which an unprejudiced judge would not consider honorable, fair, decent and in every way conforming to the high ideals and ethical standards of business. I would be willing to stake my life on it.

N
IKOLA
T
ESLA
¹

S
ociologist Karl Mannheim suggests that the psychohistorian should attempt to reconstruct both the subject’s
Weltanschauung
and the spirit of the age in question. Irrational components should be recognized. Thus, and in this sense, history is paradoxical; it is contradictory, dynamic, multileveled, and dialectic.
²
Tesla’s worldview involved a philosophy based on the work of Wolfgang von Goethe. His inventions were for him not true creations in the sense that they stemmed from nothing. They evolved from the work of others and from uncovering secret mechanisms lying within hidden laws of nature.

Was it God who wrote each sign?
Which, all my inner tumult stilling,
And this poor heart with rapture filling,
Reveals to me, by a force divine,
Great Nature’s energies around and through me
thrilling?
Am I a God? It grows so bright to me!
Each character on which my eye reposes
Nature in act before my soul discloses.

This idea can clearly be found in Goethe’s
Faust,
Tesla’s favorite poem, which he memorized in its entirety and which he referred to throughout his life.
³
It was
Faust
which he recited in Budapest during his salad days, when he uncovered the secret to the rotating magnetic field, and it was a Faustian paradigm to which he adhered when he linked the invention of the world telegraphy system to the discovery of the Holy Grail.

There manifests itself in the fully developed being—Man—a desire mysterious, inscrutable and irresistible: to imitate nature, to create, to work himself the wonders he perceives…He subdues and puts to his service the fierce, devastating spark of Prometheus, the titanic forces of the waterfall, the wind and the tide. He tames the thundering bolt of Jove and annihilates time and space. He makes the great Sun itself his obedient toiling slave…

Can man control this grandest, most awe-inspiring of all processes in nature? Can he harness her inexhaustible energies to perform all their functions at his bidding?…If he could do this, he would have powers almost unlimited and supernatural…

[This] would be the supreme manifestation of the power of Man’s mind, his most complete triumph over the physical world, his crowning achievement, which would place him beside his Creator, make him fulfill his ultimate destiny. Nikola Tesla
⁴

Two major themes which run through Goethe’s poem are that (1) secrets of nature can be revealed and harnessed to human needs and that (2) humans are enticed by satanic forces. Clearly, Tesla was driven by both tenets. In the second case, consciously or unconsciously, Morgan was sought out for the very reason that he was a demigod, a superhuman, whose life transcended that of mere mortals. Just as Faust was tempted by Mephistopheles, Tesla was lured by the House of Morgan. In the financier’s “strong hands” Tesla willingly, and alas irrationally, handed over the 51 percent control, insisting on it. Knowing that the contract involved relinquishing his cornucopia of past and future patent applications, the inventor still sealed the Faustian pact, as “the terms were immaterial” to him.

M
EPHISTOPHELES
:
Whatever promise on your Books find entry, we strictly carry into act…for the present I entreat Most urgently your kind dismission.

F
AUST
:
Do stay but just one moment longer then, tell me good news, and I’ll release thee.

Dear Mr. Morgan,

Since many years I have known one side of your character intimately. I believe that in my first approach to you I have given you evidence of this knowledge…You have already put aside the money necessary to complete the work begun—in your thoughts—and that is as good as done. But I did not understand you as a businessman until lately.

I have worked for results carrying with them a dignity and force such as to deserve your attention. What you wanted was a simple result. Will you let me profit by this later knowledge and give me an opportunity to rehabilitate myself in your opinion as a businessman?
⁵

In October 1903, fully two months before Orville and Wilbur Wright made aviation history, Prof. Sameul P. Langley launched a heavier-than-air ship from the roof of a houseboat situated on the Potomac. With photographers from the Smithsonian Institution present, the craft was slingshot “over the 70 foot rails and in a moment was free upon air. Then it wavered. Down the aerodrome sank…with its daring navigator [emerging from]…the disaster…suffering only a ducking.” The press called Langley’s airplane “a failure,”
⁶
but Tesla rallied to Langley’s defense. “Langley has perceived a great truth,” Tesla wrote in the
New York Herald,
namely, that “a machine heavier than air could be made to fly…Such a man should be provided with the necessary means to complete his work, great honor attaches to this achievement, [and] also great practical utility which this country can ill afford to lose.”
⁷

Tesla started off 1904 on the offensive with his manifesto and striking publications. Work on the wireless operation was suspended, and essential components were stripped from the tower and returned to digruntled creditors. A skeleton crew kept up appearances and continued the development of his lamps and oscillators. But as his Wardenclyffe notes reveal, there were no theoretical writings during this period;
⁸
all of Tesla’s energies were concentrated in one avenue: raising the funds to resurrect the project. Tesla’s attorneys had located a manufacturer in Connecticut to “make all the metal parts” of his oscillators, but there was still the problem of distribution, and the revenues would not enable him to reopen the Wardenclyffe plant. Another predicament had to do with Mr. Warden himself. Apparently he had not conducted a title search when he purchased the land, and a legal shadow had fallen on the property. Tesla used the entanglement to further delay payment of the mortgage.
⁹

“One consideration,” he wrote Scherff, “is that the Edison-Pupin-Marconi combination, who have given me so much trouble, are in a worse fix.”
¹⁰

In February, Tesla attended a musical recital and party in Gramercy Park hosted by Stanford White and his wife, Bessie, for 350 of his friends, with dinner afterward at Sherry’s.
¹¹
Most likely the inventor crossed paths with Morgan as well as other potential investors. The following month, the inventor conferred with the CEO (chief executive officer) of GE, Charles Coffin. “If [the GE people] refuse they are simply snoosers,” he wrote Scherff.
¹²
Nothing came of the meeting, but in April a solid lead came via John S. Barnes, a well-connected financier who had read Tesla’s article in
Electrical World & Engineer.
An associate of Col. Oliver Payne’s from the Rockefeller clique, Barnes had invited Tesla to his home for dinner and to discuss the inventor’s plans.

“I have always had the highest regard for Col. Payne, and would be happy indeed should he ever deem me worthy of his association.”

“We are curious as to the details of the Commodore’s bestowal,” Barnes interjected.

“Mr. Morgan has not made a generous donation as you might have inferred from my article,” Tesla craftily retorted. “He is a man with a great brain and has seen that [by forming a business partnership instead] he can make an extremely profitable investment.”
¹³

Although hesitant to make a commitment, Barnes nevertheless suggested that Tesla have his lawyers write up their evaluation of his patent applications.

Because of his link to Colonel Payne, Tesla took the suggestion very seriously. A multimillionaire from the city of Cleveland, Payne had made his fortune as a partner of John D. Rockefeller; the duo had earned fifty cents per barrel for every barrel of oil that was shipped by rail. This enormous kickback had been set up as a rebate for their own crude and as a tariff for every competitor. With their vast holdings and Rockefeller’s ferretlike spirit, they had simply bullied the railroads into this contractual arrangement.
¹⁴

Known as a haughty fellow and “kin of God,” Payne never did take to John D., but he did maintain the partnership. He had a residence in New York and was a friend and financial benefactor of Stanford White, whom he commissioned to purchase art for him while in Europe and design his nephew’s mansion, Payne Whitney, in the city.

White, who was in an awful fix, nearly three-quarters of a million dollars in debt, mainly from the Northern Pacific fiasco, informed Tesla that Payne had provided him with notable assistance to help ease his burden. White was also disheartened because his girlfriend, young Evelyn Nesbit, had now begun dating a deranged multimillionaire from Pittsburgh, Harry Thaw. “I have heard stories from the Floradora girls that he whipped one of them in bed with a cat-of-nine tails.”

Ironically, White held no ill feelings for Morgan, even though the
financier was directly responsible for the market crash. At the close of 1903, White and his wife, Bessie, joined the commodore on the
Corsair
to watch the yacht races, and White’s partner, Charles McKim, was still busily involved in constructing the Morgan Library. One wonders how Morgan might have felt when he boated up to Newport or Bar Harbor and looked to the eastern horizon and saw Tesla’s mushroom-shaped behemoth. “Do you think he will ever reconsider?” the inventor inquired.

“With Morgan, anything is possible” came the architect’s reply. “However, I think at this stage, Colonel Payne is a safer bet.”

A Yankee cornerstone, the good colonel was connected to the highest echelons in government. Through the marriage of his sister, he was linked to William C. Whitney, secretary of the navy, and also to John Hay, secretary of state; Payne’s father, Henry Payne, was a well-known senator, often discussed as a potential candidate for president of the United States.
¹⁵
This was not a lead to take lightly.

As a favor to this Ohio nobleman, Tesla opened up his storehouse to the
Cleveland Leader
and conferred with Kerr, Page & Cooper for a way to create a legal document which would delineate the scope and fundamental might of his arsenal of patents. In a comprehensive article entitled “Harnessing the Lightning,” journalist Alfred Cowles noted that the inventor’s prognostications “were so startling that had they come from another source, one would naturally consider them the vagaries of a wandering mind. If he can accomplish what he is undertaking, his fame will, in future centuries, overshadow the greatest names of the past.”

Echoing sentiments Tesla had expressed during their interview, Cowles concluded, “Real inventions are only possible when the mental creation of the inventor proves to be in harmony with natural law; and such inventions, when they are necessities, are in themselves a part of the evolutionary process, where development is an adjustment to environment.”
¹⁶

How all one whole harmonious weaves,
Each in the other works and lives!
See heavenly powers ascending and descending
The golden buckets, one long line extending.

Tesla presented to Barnes and Payne a comprehensive lawyers’ brief delineating essentially every feature of his master plan. Included were patent specifications and plans for “distributing electric energy without wires for telegraphic, telephonic and industrial purposes,” for storing the energy, localizing transmissions, insuring non-interferability, and for creating separate channels. Also included was Tesla’s work in telautomatics, means for creating high frequencies, his oscillators, and “a method for insulating electric mains by refrigeration to very low temperature…By
[this] means, power can be conveyed to great distances cheaply, and literally, without any loss.” The plan also suggested the “perfect solution of the problem of underground distribution in cities and populated districts.” Thus, the ultimate scheme would involve both wireless and conventional means of distributing the electrical energy. Analyzing the viability of each of the twenty-three patents, lawyers Kerr, Page & Cooper concluded, “We know of nothing to anticipate the claims and are of the opinion that they are valid.”
¹⁷

The report was also circulated to other major players, including Fortune Ryan and Pierpont Morgan. “I
SWEAR
,” Tesla wrote to Scherff, “if I ever get out of this hole, nobody will catch me without cash!” Simultaneously, he haggled with the coal company to maintain fuel deliveries and with the telephone company to keep his line at Wardenclyffe open. “I am now sure that the two lamps as proposed will be
a perfect success
and you know that after that I can draw on the U.S. Treasury.”
¹⁸
Problems with the lamp persisted, however, and it would never be marketed under Tesla’s name.

October 28, 1958
Westinghouse Announcement

Lamp Division

The Westinghouse Corporation [is pleased to] announce [that] a “flat light bulb” which has no filaments, which produces no heat, which is glare free, and which will burn night and day for a year for less than a penny…has been introduced…This marks the first time the public has been able to purchase an electroluminescent lamp as a light source for the home.
¹⁹

As the Colonel Payne deal fell through, Tesla wrote to Morgan from Wardenclyffe, “I hope the unfortunate misunderstanding, the cause of which I have been vainly trying to discover will be removed…and that you will recognize that my work is the kind that passes into history and worthy of your support.”
²⁰