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 Morgan1
Mr. 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. Tesla5
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.
In a situation that paralleled the Northern Pacific fiasco, Morgan fought for the Equitable on one side against Harriman and his broker, Jacob Schiff, another financier who almost went into the Tesla deal. The end result was an obscure maneuver whereby Thomas Fortune Ryan was able to purchase the controlling shares of Equitable for a paltry $2.5 million. Young Hyde moved to France, where he remained for a quarter century.
Rumors of mismanagement of the funds of a few million investors continued, however, and Ryan’s picture, throughout the summer of 1905, was slapped on the front pages of every newspaper in town. Drawn as a rapacious spider in his web, clutching his prey of the Equitable in one political cartoon, Ryan was described by southern banker and critic John Skelton Williams in a scathing article that appeared in the World: “Mr. Ryan has the tendencies which, if his lines had been cast in a humble and contracted sphere probably would have made him a kleptomaniac. His strongest impulse is to acquire money, and his one robust passion is to keep it…Ryan is simply an acquiring machine and operates himself for the purpose of getting what others have.”23
Although Morgan, as head of a rival insurance company, supposedly had no interest in Equitable, Herbert Satterlee, his son-in-law, uncharacteristically revealed that Ryan was actually controlled by Morgan, stating that Morgan “was entirely conversant with Mr. Ryan’s plans…They had his thorough approval and possibly his financial backing.”24
During the government investigations that continued relentlessly throughout the first decade of this century, it was discovered that dummy loans totaling $1.8 million were made to a fifteen-year-old Negro messenger boy in Morgan’s New York Life Insurance Company.25 Ryan also sold his 51 percent interest in Equitable to Morgan for $3 million in 1910. Testimony from the investigation explains quite clearly Ryan’s role as a Morgan puppet.
Q: Untermeyer: Did Mr. Ryan offer this stock to you?
A: Morgan: I asked him to sell it to me.
Q: Untermeyer: Did you tell him why you wanted it?
A: Morgan: No; I told him it was a good thing for me to have…He hesitated about it, and finally sold it.
Taken from Wheeler’s Pierpont Morgan: Anatomy of a Myth, the author ended the passage as follows: “During the Panic of 1907, Morgan, in his 71st year, truly manipulated vast sums and groups of men [including President Theodore Roosevelt] in commanding fashion.”26
As “the power behind the throne,” clearly Morgan dominated the conversation when Ryan came to invest in Wardenclyffe. Morgan redirected his new chess piece into the insurance arena, but this still does not answer the question as to why. If Tesla’s enterprise were perceived to have become potentially profitable, having Ryan put in another $100,000 to complete it would have been an easy thing to do. We can therefore conclude that Morgan deliberately scuttled the Tesla venture.
Aside from being annoyed with the difficult inventor, Morgan was concerned about Tesla’s suggestion that he could transmit “unlimited power” by means of wireless. Tesla was boasting here, since he assured Morgan in future letters that Wardenclyffe would only be able to transmit “feeble amounts” of energy.
We come to a juncture here where the decisions of individuals redirected the course of history. As John Stewart Mill has noted, individuals make the history, and here is a clear instance of this proposition. For all intents and purposes, Morgan made the decision in October 1903 to do his best to ensure the inventor’s defeat.
Morgan, however, was opposed philosophically to Tesla’s overall scheme. It has been suggested that Morgan felt pressure from other Wall Street moguls, such as Bernard Baruch, Thomas Fortune Ryan’s young and highly successful stockbroker. One day, Baruch had mistakenly suggested that Morgan, like him, was a gambler. Morgan was reported to reply, “I never gamble,” and, indeed, may have backed down from the Tesla deal for fear of taking a chance that the controversial inventor might fail or that he might succeed in a way detrimental to existing corporate structures.
The following quotation is from physician and inventor Andrija (Henry) Puharich, a man of Yugoslavian heritage who was tangentially involved in helping ship Tesla’s papers to the Tesla Museum in Belgrade in the early 1950s27 and who personally knew John O’Neill, Tesla’s first major biographer: “Now, I [Puharich] always got this second hand; you won’t find it anywhere in print, but Jack O’Neill gave me this information as the official biographer of Nikola Tesla. He said that Bernard Baruch told J. P. Morgan, ‘Look, this guy is going crazy. What he is doing is he wants to give free electrical power to everybody and we can’t put meters on that. We are just going to go broke supporting this guy.’ And suddenly, over-night, Tesla’s support was cut off, the work was never finished.”28
From a technical and economic point of view, Morgan could not understand how free information and/or power could yield returns. And whether it was Baruch or not who warned Morgan, Tesla himself had voiced the opinion boldly, a decade earlier in the Sunday World, that by providing a reservoir of electrical energy throughout the earth through his apparatus, “all monopolies” that depend on conventional means of energy distribution—that is, through wires, “will come to a sudden end.”29
As the ultimate capitalist, Morgan’s existence was greatly defined by controlling the price and distribution of energy and maintaining a working class to support the giant corporate monopolies (called “public” utilities). Thus, he simply could not support a system where wireless information and power could be tapped by anyone with a receiving instrument and machines would replace the work force. Reorganizing existing power, lighting, and telephone industries to please the vision of a somewhat eccentric inventor was certainly an unlikely undertaking for the cautious Wall Street financier. “All those businesses who would [no longer] need loans [would] then [no longer] deposit the[ir] profits in his bank.”30 Tesla, as the quintessential iconoclast, had struck a bargain with the wrong king.31
In 1903, Bernard Baruch, just thirty-three years old and one of the wealthiest men on Wall Street, retired from the firm he had worked for, for over a decade, to set up his own office. One of his first major clients were the Guggenheim brothers. Their interest lay in metals, so Baruch met with the miners Darius Ogden Mills and John Hays Hammond Sr. to seek advice and gain investments. Mills suggested that Baruch go west and purchase mines himself, and Hammond was hired by the Guggenheims to act as an adviser and acquire silver mines in Mexico. One of Baruch’s first acquisitions was the Utah Copper Company, for “he knew that there would always be a need for copper in the world.”32 Tesla’s wireless enterprise clearly threatened the Baruch-Guggenheim investment that Morgan was trying to involve himself in.
By 1905 the Utah Copper Company was producing copper and other metals at a rate in excess of $100 million per year, and this was a pace which maintained itself for another twenty-five years!33 In later years, John Hays Hammond would claim that “the development of the electrical and automotive industries were possible…‘only with assured large supply of copper.’”34 Unfortunately for Tesla, his ultimate world plan was perceived as a threat on quite a number of key fronts.
Tesla waited through the first weeks of December for a positive sign from the meeting between Ryan and Morgan, but none came. With no choice left, he was forced to confront the financial potentate eyeball to eyeball. He decided to take a pragmatic approach. “Will you permit me to call this or any other evening,” Tesla wrote, “[I wish] to bring a small instrument along to show you one or two experiments with my ‘daylight’?…The shark who will come after me will get the contract for lighting your home.”35
Timing his visit to coincide with the holiday, Tesla purposefully chose this opportune occasion to try and pierce the financier’s stalwart exterior. But at the same time, he used the symbol of the shark in his letter, as this was an animal which ate big fish. Anne Morgan was one of his allies. She met him at the door. Having recently become “a founder of the Colony Club, the first American ladies’ [society], patterned after a British gentlemen’s club” and designed by Stanford White, Anne had entered into the midst of an androgenous theater crowd with ties to the infamous homosexual author Oscar Wilde. With Tesla’s sexual orientation perpetually an enigma and Anne about to dabble in a lesbian fling,36 their bond transcended the surface amenities. Before meeting with her father, Anne was able to corral the avowed celibate and discuss with him the emerging view of the new women.
“Mr. Tesla, I believe that it is absurd that in this day of enlightenment, women do not yet have the right to vote.”
“I concur wholeheartedly, Anne. I also believe that this struggle of the human female toward sex equality will end up in a new sex order, with the females superior.”
“Indeed?” Anne responded, the pupils of her eyes widening into large black pools. “I would have considered the sexes equal,” she said as her hand reached out to touch the inventor.
“The modern woman, who anticipates in merely superficial phenomenon the advancement of her sex, is but a surface symptom of something deeper and more potent fomenting in the bosom of the race. It is not in the shallow physical imitation of men that women will assert first their equality and later their superiority, but in the awakening of the intellect of women. As generations ensue, the average woman will be as well educated as the average man, and then better educated, for the dormant faculties of her brain will be stimulated into an activity that will be all the more intense because of centuries of repose.”37
“Mr. Morgan will see you now,” the butler interrupted.
“Mr. Tesla.”
“Mr. Morgan, thank you for seeing me. My enemies have been so successful in representing me as a poet and visionary that it is absolutely imperative for me to put out something commercial without delay. If you will only help me to do this you will preserve a property of immense value.”
“I am sorry, Mr. Tesla, as I said before…”
“Won’t you enable me to complete the work and show you that you have not made a mistake in giving me a checkbook to draw on your honored house. If you will imagine that I have found the stone of the philosophers you will be not far from the truth. My invention will cause a revolution so great that almost all values and all human relations will be profoundly modified.”
“Had you simply achieved what I had asked, you would not be in this predicament.”
“Mr. Morgan, I beg to call again to your attention that my patents control absolutely all essential features and that my work is in such a shape that whenever you tell me to go ahead, I shall girdle the globe in three months as surely as my name is Tesla. I have promised to the St. Louis people to open the door of the Exposition with power transmitted from here. It is a great opportunity, Mr. Morgan. I can easily do it, but if you do not aid me soon, it will be too late. Please think for a moment what this means for me. What I have told you long ago has happened. My competitors have collapsed, since their wholesale attempts [at practicable wireless transmission] has not succeeded. Now is the time to aid me. You know this better than anyone else.”
“I have done my part. There are many other businessmen out there with the capital to complete your project.”
“But you, sir, are the controlling partner. Should I obtain a commitment from another, will you consider a renegotiation.”
“I will think it over.”38
Having met with Morgan in December, Tesla not only came away empty-handed; he also came away with the distinct feeling that his partner was not going to facilitate finding new investors. Avoiding Katharine at Christmastime was one way to telegraph the bad news. Using a full range of her feminine charms, the coquettish Mrs. Filipov issued one more of her provocative missives.
December 20, 1903
Dear Mr. Tesla,
You are most unkind…dear friend! Why do you not come to see ME instead of always dropping into The Century to see Robert.39 I must have done something to offend you, but what?
How can you be indifferent to such devotion?…If you are unhappy and disappointed and down on your luck, then all the more reason why you should seek the companionship and support of your loyal friends.
Indeed, if the whole world were against you, the more firmly would they cling to you.
Faithfully yours,
Katharine Johnson40
Aware of Morgan’s trepidation concerning the potential for his equipment to usurp the need for existing electrical power companies, the inventor wrote explicitly in attempts to allay these fears:
January 13, 1904
Dear Mr. Morgan,
The Canadian Niagara Company will agree in writing to furnish me 10,000 H.P. for 20 years without charge, if I put a plant there to transmit this power without wires to other parts of the world…As I outlined [earlier] I would use the energy not for industrial purposes, but for operating clocks, stock tickers and other apparatus which there are millions now in use, requir[ing on average] not more than 1/10 of the H.P. for each instrument…
Will you help me on any terms you choose and enable me to insure and develop a great property which will ultimately yield hundredfold returns. Please do not do me an injustice in believing me incapable simply because a certain sum of money was not sufficient to carry out my undetaking…You may see that my work remains uncompleted because of a lack of funds, but you will never see that machinery which I construct does not fulfill the purposes for which it was designed.
Tesla ended the letter with “hearty wishes for the new year.”41 How could he know that Morgan did not doubt that Tesla could succeed. He feared it.
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. Tesla42
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