by Marc Seifer
Rivaling snake-oil salesmen in the ability to “humbug” the public, Keely, a former “circus sleight-of-hand performer,” had formed a company in 1874, capitalized with $100,000 of stock in order to sell his motor, and had been successfully doing so for nearly fifteen years, until 1889, when his work was questioned.
Public Opinion wrote that, “Engineers, scientific men, and capitalists made frequent pilgrimages to Keely’s Philadelphia laboratory to see the ‘Keely motor mote.’ Sometimes it moted and sometimes it didn’t, but Keely always had a great tale to tell. Keely’s chief accomplishment was a ready use of jargon of scientific and unscientific terms. He talked about ‘triune currents of polar flow of force,’ the ‘reflex action of gravity,’ ‘chords of mass,’ ‘sympathetic outreaches of distance,’ ‘depolar etheric waves’ and a lot of other things which didn’t mean anything, but [he] never told why his motor moted and [why he] never took a patent” (although he did have them drawn up).14
T. Carpenter Smith, writing in Engineering Magazine described an eyewitness account with the “inventor” at work: “Mr. Keely proceeded to produce the force by striking a large tuning-fork with a fiddle-bow and then touching the generator with the fork. After two or three attempts, which he said failed by reason of not getting the ‘chord of the mass,’ he turned a small valve on the top of the generator. When a slight hiss was heard, loud cheers greeted his announcement that he had ‘got it.’…The state of mind of the audience may be imagined when the shout of one enthusiast ‘Keely, you are next to God Almighty!’ seemed only a natural expression.”15
This mountebank inventor headlined the New York dailies with his newest creations and also the accompanying cry of fraud. Factions of the public demanded he be jailed, the court giving Keely sixty days to “divulge his secret,”16 but Keely held fast. Threatening to stop work on his inventions unless the court dropped its suit,17 Keely was held in contempt of court and in November of 1888, he was placed in jail.18
Shortly thereafter, through his counsel, Keely revealed that the “missing link” was a “copper tube in the form of a hoop,” and he was released on bail a few days later. He argued that he had indeed “obeyed all orders of the court” in explaining his invention in detail and the suit against him was overturned!19
Like Edison, who promised and gave the world the “Lamp of Aladdin,” and Tesla, who discovered and harnessed a purported alternating current perpetual-motion machine, Keely billed his own invention as the “greatest scientific discovery of the century.”
Apparently vindicated, Keely proceeded with his deception. In 1890 the world celebrity and palmist Count Louis Hamon, better known as Cheiro, visited the Keely lab; and by 1895, John Jacob Astor became an investor.
Unfortunately for Tesla, however, like Keely, he, too, was gaining a reputation for making outlandish claims. For instance, Tesla said that his system could “place 100,000 horse-power on a wire” and send it hundreds of miles with almost no loss of power when the prevailing technology could only send a few hundred volts one mile, and in that case, with power dropping off markedly with distance.20 Never mind that this prognostication came true just a few years later; Tesla’s style was that of a visionary, and the claim seemed ridiculous. To the unimaginative, the uninformed, or people who listened only to the opposition, he was little different from Keely, and so he suffered through guilt by association.21
As far back as 1884, Scientific American had published an exposé on the Keely motor, speculating that its source of power was a secret chamber of compressed air. This was confirmed in 1898, after Keely’s death, in an investigation of his laboratory conducted by Mrs. Bloomfield-Moore’s son Clarence. Having waited for his mother, an ardent Keely admirer, to pass on before he tore the place apart, Moore discovered in the cellar a large tank and a series of pipes leading up through the floor above where the demonstrations took place. Keely’s “‘etheric force’ was nothing more than compressed air [released by]…the pressure of his foot tapping on a concealed spring valve.”22
Other bogus inventors of the day included Gaston Bulmar, who tried to sell General Electric (GE) special pills that turned water into gasoline; Walter Honenau, who derived free energy from an H2O “hydro-atomizer” and “King Con,” Victor “the Count” Lustig, who was eventually arrested for devising and selling a special money machine that cranked out crisp twenty-dollar bills from inserted white paper.23
In an age of new marvels that almost daily transformed society in irreversible ways, the public was “ripe for picking”; naive investors were often bilked by promises of impossible schemes. Thus, the inventor was perceived in contradictory ways, as executioner or light bearer, con man or wizard.
When Tesla returned from Europe, he wanted nothing better than to have his AC invention placed in the hands of its new rightful owner so that he could proceed with other burgeoning interests. Naturally, he would continue to aid Westinghouse in any way that he could, by continually offering advice to Scott, Schmid, or Lamme or stopping by at Pittsburgh to provide hands-on expertise. Throughout the 1890s, whenever the opportunity presented itself, Tesla would also introduce eminent prospective clients to the Westinghouse concern. As was his custom and style, Tesla never considered a commission for this service, although he did obtain vital equipment for his laboratory, which at first was provided without cost.
And as with Keely, Bulwer-Lytton’s electrical-like energy called “vril power” had also been attached to Tesla by this time as well, via a letter from a lady in 1890, who “dreamed that if I [Tesla] would read the ‘Coming Race’ of Bulwer, I would discover great things which would advance [my work considerably].” But Tesla would not pursue the mystical treatise for a decade, and therefore it appears that although the inventions discussed in the story bore great similarities to some of Tesla’s later creations, the reader must not say afterward that “the beautiful things which I shall invent were suggested by Bulwer.”24 Nevertheless, the similarities remain, and one wonders whether or not Tesla actually read the book at the time or knew of its contents.
8
SOUTH FIFTH AVENUE (1890-91)
At one bound [Tesla] placed himself abreast such men as Edison, Brush, Elihu Thomson, and Alexander Graham Bell…His performance touched on the marvelous.
JOSEPH WETZLER IN HARPER’S WEEKLY, JULY 11, 18911
Tesla returned from Paris during the summer of 1889 to his new laboratory near Bleecker Street. Down the road from one of Edison’s showrooms, the lab took up the entire fourth floor of a six-story building located at 33-35 South Fifth Avenue (which today is called West Broadway). At the same time, he toured the hotels, moving into the Astor House, a posh five-story establishment situated by a trolley line in the heart of the city.
Over the summer, Tesla’s “best friend,” Anthony Szegeti, passed away. He wrote home to notify his family. “I feel alienated,” he told Uncle Pajo, “and it is difficult [for me to adapt to the American lifestyle].”2
Now part of the nouveau riche, and also the star of the family, the inventor began sending money home to his mother and sisters and also to some of the cousins. Addressing the letters mostly to his sisters’ husbands, all of whom were priests, Tesla wrote Uncle Pajo, “Somehow it is hard to correspond with the ladies.”3 Although occasionally he did write his sisters, mostly he just sent checks, and each of them would repeatedly write back to try and get a more personal word from “the only brother that we have.”4 Throughout the 1890s, Tesla sent several thousand forints, at 150 forints a clip, which was an amount equivalent to six months’ rent at a well-to-do home or six months salary for a Serbian workman. Some of the funds were given as gifts, some to pay back his uncles for their aid in funding his education and sojourn to the New World, and other funds, which were partially obtained through European royalties, were used as investments.5 To Uncle Petar, who had advanced to become a Metropolitan (Cardinal) in Bosnia, Tesla revealed that he was receiving many letters from dignitaries and also such respect that it was difficul
t for him to describe.6
Uncle Pajo occasionally shipped European bottles of wine to his finicky nephew, unhappy with the selection in the United States. Impatiently waiting for these bottles was, for Tesla, like “waiting for the messiah.”7
As Tesla’s fame grew, and reports of his successes made the headlines in their local papers, Tesla became a virtual demigod to the Serbian and Croatian people, and a noble, though distant benefactor to his family. “We think about you even in [our] dreams,” one of his brothers-in-law wrote.8
Except for occasional dinners with such friends as T. C. Martin or necessary trips to Pittsburgh, the inventor spent virtually all of his waking existence at the lab. His partner, Alfred S. Brown, would stop by to help when needed, but mostly Tesla worked with either one or two assistants or alone. As was his custom, he could labor seven days a week and around the clock, stopping only to freshen up at the hotel or for a necessary appointment. Monastic by choice and compelled by an all-consuming desire to be a major player in the burgeoning new age, the wizard preferred working through the night, when distractions could be minimized and concentration could be intensified.
Now free, he began his investigations along a number of separate but interrelated lines. As an experimental physicist, he began to study the difference between electromagnetic and electrostatic phenomena, and also the relationship of the structure of the ether to that of electricity, matter, and light. As an inventor, he began to design equipment for generating extremely high frequencies and voltages and for transforming direct into alternating current, or vice versa, and for creating uniform oscillations. Tesla also wanted to devise ways to manufacture light and to explore the concept of wireless communication. Already concerned about the fragility of the earth’s natural resources, the finite supply of timber and coal, Tesla spent endless hours in contemplation, reviewing and replicating the findings of others, criticizing or improving upon their inventions, and also designing completely original creations. His goal was influenced by an evolutionary perspective and pragmatic considerations: He wanted to devise mechanical means for doing away with needless tasks of physical labor so that humans could spend more time in creative endeavors.
Unlike Karl Marx, who saw the worker becoming “an appendage of the machine,”9 Tesla realized that machines could liberate the worker.
The inventor, in Tesla’s eyes, had always been and always would be the light giver of the species, guiding its future through advanced technology. The masses, in turn, would benefit because machines would perform menial tasks so that they could pursue more intellectual occupations. With increased technology, cultural evolution would proceed at ever faster rates. “Conversely,” Tesla warned, “everything that is against the teachings of religion and law of hygiene…tend[s] to decrease [human energy].”10 Impure drinking water, in particular, was one of the greatest dangers.
Within the next eighteen months Tesla initiated most of the inventions that would occupy him for the next half century. During the last weeks of 1889, Martin met with him on several occasions in order to finalize his article on the Serb’s heritage and plans for the future. The inventor would talk late into the night about his youth and the incessant struggle of his ancestors to fight off the diabolical Turks. As Martin took notes, Tesla outlined some of his inventions, particularly his work with high frequencies and his original theories on the relationship between electromagnetism and the structure of light. Martin tried to talk the inventor into presenting his ideas before the AIEE, but Tesla evaded a direct response. “Suppose I were to obtain for you Lord Kelvin’s lectures? I know they are a bit wearisome, and somewhat beyond solution, but I believe that you, Samson like, can wrestle the honey from this lion’s jaw.”11
“Perhaps” was Tesla’s reply.
On January 21, 1890, Professor Anthony took over the presidency of the AIEE from Elihu Thomson (who followed T. C. Martin) and opened the year with his own lecture on new electrical theories.12 Happy to see the professor again, Tesla attended the seminar and was elected vice president. Participating in the discussion which followed, he was joined by Irish mathematician Arthur Kennelly of the Edison Company and Michael Pupin, a physics teacher and fellow Serb.
Having just returned from Helmholtz’s laboratory in Germany, Pupin was unaware of the extent of the animosity that existed between the Edison and Westinghouse camps.
Pupin was from Idvor, a Serbian town north of Belgrade. His father had been a knez, or village leader, much like Tesla’s father, but unlike Milutin Tesla, Mr. Pupin was an illiterate peasant and not part of the clerical aristocracy. Many of Pupin’s relatives, like Tesla’s, were war heroes who had fought off the Turks to protect the empire; and, like Tesla, Pupin had avoided military service.
Michael Pupin emigrated to the United States in 1874. After working at odd jobs, he entered Columbia College in New York in 1878. Graduating in 1884 with a keen interest in electrical theory and with honors, Pupin received a fellowship to study abroad. He wanted to go to Cambridge to learn under James Clerk Maxwell, but he found upon his arrival that Maxwell had been dead for four years.13 This tendency to overlook the obvious appears to be a theme that runs through Pupin’s life. After Cambridge, he went on to the University of Berlin, where he received a doctorate in physics. In 1889 he returned to New York to become an instructor at Columbia College.
In February 1890, the full-page Martin article on Tesla was published in Electrical World accompanied by a very prominent photograph of the youthful-looking engineer. For Tesla it was excellent publicity, the first major essay to appear portraying the up-and-coming inventor.
A meeting of the AIEE, devoted entirely to the new Tesla AC system, was planned for the following month. In particular, the conference had been sparked by a number of important developments; most notably plans coming from Switzerland and Germany for a proposed long-distance AC power-transmission experiment,14 the impending success of the Westinghouse Company in instituting a hydroelectric plant utilizing the Tesla AC system at a mining camp in Telluride, Colorado, and the announcement of an International Niagara Commission to look into the best way to harness Niagara Falls.
At the March AIEE meeting, Prof. Louis Duncan was the main speaker; his lecture began with a mathematical dissection of the workings of “the novel and admirable little machine invented by Mr. Tesla.” A former officer from the U.S. Naval Academy, Duncan had recently transferred from the South Pacific to Johns Hopkins University, where he stayed on to teach. An important ally, he gave the Tesla invention academic credibility. “The great advantage of the motor,” Duncan said, “lies in the fact that it has no commutator and it permits the use of very high voltages. In the future, power will be transmitted electrically at voltages that will make machines with the commutator next to useless.” After the lecture, there was a discussion, and Tesla participated.15
Pupin, who spoke that summer in Boston and again in New York the following year on “Alternating Current Theory,” was fast becoming an admirer of Tesla’s work. However, at the same time, Pupin was also becoming embroiled in the controversy as to who was the real author of the AC polyphase system, and from Tesla’s vantage point, Pupin made the mistake of befriending the wrong people.
At the Boston meeting, Pupin “noticed that my audience was divided into two distinct groups; one group was cordial and appreciative, but the other was as cold as ice. The famous electrical engineer and inventor, Elihu Thomson, was in the friendly group, and he looked me up after the address and congratulated me cordially. That was a great encouragement and I felt happy.” Other prominent individuals, however, tried to have Pupin fired from the electrical engineering department at Columbia because of his adherence to AC,16 but Pupin overrode the controversy and at the same time increased his friendship with Thomson.
Unbeknown to Pupin, Thomson himself was in a quandary because he now recognized the clear advantage of the Tesla system, but he was locked out of its use because Westinghouse owned the patents.
Although t
he Thomson-Houston Electric Company was extremely profitable, the concern faced certain doom if it was unable to use efficient AC machinery. As Elihu Thomson had worked with AC for over a decade, he felt fully justified in adapting a Tesla-like system, especially because there were other engineers who also claimed legitimate priorities of aspects of the system, notably Shallenberger and Ferraris. Furthermore, Thomson himself had come close to conceiving a similar workable plan. That Tesla held fundamental patents on a completely revolutionary invention was continually overlooked by Thomson as he sought ways to rationalize his position while working at his company, presiding at the AIEE, and writing in the electrical journals. He had successfully circumvented the Edison lightbulb patents by paying Sawyer for a license to produce the stopper lamp, (an exhausted light bulb similar to Edison’s which used a rubber plug—stopper—to hold in the vacuum) and so he sought a similar tack with AC.
During a heated series of articles in Electrical World between Thomson and Tesla, it appears that Thomson admits to some of his distaste for his rival when he writes, “I confess that my statement as to the motive of my critical remarks may have been out of place. They were elicited, however, by Mr. Tesla having on a former occasion misunderstood my motives.”17 And so Pupin’s feelings for his Serbian brother became undermined as his friendship with Thomson grew.