Dear Tesla,
When that Nobel Prize comes, remember that I am holding on to my house by the skin of my teeth and desperately in need of cash!
No apology for mentioning the matter.
Yours faithfully,
RUJ1
On November 6, 1915, the New York Times published on its front page that Tesla and Edison were to share the Nobel Prize in physics that year. The source for the report was “the Copenhagen correspondent of the [London] Daily Telegraph.” Although Tesla himself forwarded to J. P. Morgan Jr. original copies of the announcement (which were also carried in a number of other journals),2 neither Tesla nor Edison ever received the Nobel Prize.
In trying to ascertain what happened, Tesla biographers Inez Hunt and Wanetta Draper wrote in the early 1960s to Dr. Rudberg of the Royal Academy of Science of Sweden. Rudberg, referring to an event which took place a half century before, replied, “Any rumor that a person has not been given a Nobel Prize because he has made known his intention to refuse the reward is ridiculous.” Thus, they concluded that the affair was “a sardonic joke.”3
Curiously, this same Times article listed four other people for Nobel Prizes in literature and chemistry who also did not receive the award that year, although three of them eventually obtained it. The fourth, Troeln Lund, like Tesla and Edison, never received the honor.4
Although the announcement came in November 1915, the nomination process actually was concluded nine months earlier. There were nineteen scientists on the physics committee, each allowed two bids. Out of the thirty-eight possible bids, two were made for inventors in wireless, E. Branly and A. Righi; two were for the quantum physicist Max Planck; Tom Edison received one bid; and the Braggs took four. According to the Royal Academy’s records, Nikola Tesla was not nominated that year. (However, two bids, nos. 33 and 34, were missing from their files.) A week after the Times announcement, on November 14, Stockholm announced that Prof. William H. Bragg and his son would share the award in physics.
The man who nominated Edison, Henry Fairfield Osborn, president of Columbia University (who, twenty years before, had awarded Tesla an honorary doctorate), apologized to the committee for offering up Edison’s name. “Although somewhat out of the line of previous nominations,” Osborn wrote, qualifying his decision,” I would [like to] suggest the name of Mr. Thomas A. Edison…who is through his inventions, one of the great benefactors of mankind.” Tesla would not be nominated until 1937 (by F. Ehrenhaft of Wien, who had previously nominated Albert Einstein).5
Certainly, both Tesla and Edison deserved such an award, and it is nothing short of astounding that (1) neither of them ever received it and (2) no one at the time discovered the reason behind this curious quirk of history.
O’Neill, having interviewed Tesla on the subject, stated that Tesla “made a definite distinction between the inventor, who refined preexisting technology, and the discoverer who created new principles…Tesla declared himself a discoverer and Edison an inventor; and he held the view that placing the two in the same category would completely destroy all sense of the relative value of the two accomplishments.”6
Support for this interpretation can be found in a letter Tesla wrote to the Light House Board in Washington from his Colorado Springs Experimental Station in 1899. The navy had written Tesla that they would “prefer” to give their impending wireless contract to an American rather than to Marconi.
“Gentleman,” Tesla responded curtly. “Much as I value your advances I am compelled to say, in justice to myself, that I would never accept a preference on any ground…as I would be competing against some of those who are following in my path…Any pecuniary advantage which I might derive by availing myself of the privilege, is a matter of the most absolute indifference to me.”7 If no one else would recognize his genius, Tesla certainly did. He would not think twice about giving up mere cash when faced with the prospect of being compared, in this case to Marconi.
The following letter to Johnson, which the inventor took the time to rewrite in a careful hand, was penned just four days after the announcement and four days before Sweden’s decision to give the award to the Braggs.
Thank you for your congratulations…To a man of your consuming ambition such a distinction means much. In a thousand years there will be many thousand recipients of the Nobel Prize. But I have not less than four dozen of my creations identified with my name in technical literature. These are honors real and permanent which are bestowed not by a few who are apt to err, but by the whole world which seldom makes a mistake, and for any of these I would give all the Nobel Prizes which will be distributed during the next thousand years.8
This passage was contained in its entirety in the Hunt and Draper text; however, they incorrectly concluded that this “sober” message was overshadowed by “jubilation” because of the announcement.9 Johnson also incorrectly understood the full implication of the letter, because in March 1916 he refers to the award, fully expecting Tesla to receive it.10
In the New York Times interview on the day following their announcement, Tesla stated that Edison was “worthy of a dozen Nobel Prizes.” The various Tesla biographers assumed that this was a public statement congratulating Edison when, in fact, it was a piquant snub to the Nobel committee. Tesla was stating between the lines that the Nobel committee recognized only small accomplishments rather than truly original conceptualizations.
“A man puts in here [in my Tesla coil] a kind of gap—he gets a Nobel Prize for doing it…I cannot stop it.”11 Thus, Edison’s many “better mousetraps” could all be honored, but none of them, in Tesla’s opinion, concerned the creation of new principles. They were simply refinements of existing apparatus.
Edison would probably have agreed with Tesla on this point, for most of his inventions were actually further developments of other people’s work. However, Edison did have a number of original discoveries and creations. In his own opinion, his most important contribution was the phonograph, which certainly was the work of genius, even by Tesla’s criteria, and deserving of a Nobel Prize. Furthermore, Edison’s unparalleled success in bringing promising creations to fruition was exactly Tesla’s failure, and that, too, was a gift placing Edison in a category all by himself.
Quite possibly a letter much like the one sent to Johnson or the Light House Board could also have been wired to the Nobel committee. If this hypothesis is correct, a prejudice would have persisted against Tesla and Edison, and this would explain the indefensible position of the Swedish Royal Academy in never honoring either of these two great scientists.
Inventor Testifies He Owes the Waldorf
Hasn’t a Cent in Bank12
As 1915 was drawing to a close, Tesla began to find himself in deeper and deeper financial straits. Although an efficient water fountain which he designed that year was received favorably,13 his overhead was still too high. Expenses included outlays for the turbine work at the Edison Station, his office space at the Woolworth Building, salaries to his assistants and Mrs. Skerritt, his new secretary, past debts to such people as the Johnsons and George Scherff, maintenance costs for Wardenclyffe, legal expenses on wireless litigation, and his accommodations at the Waldorf-Astoria.
Some of the costs were deferred, particularly by the hotel, but Mr. Boldt’s patience had reached its limit. Tesla’s uncanny elusiveness and noble air had worn thin. Rumors began circulating of peculiar odors and cackling sounds emanating from the inventor’s suite. The maids were complaining that there was an inordinate amount of pigeon excrement on the windowsills. Boldt sent Tesla a bill for the total rent due, nearly $19,000. Simultaneously, Tesla was hit with a suit for $935 for taxes still owed on Wardenclyffe.
Tesla signed over the Wardenclyffe property to Boldt just as he was called into the state supreme court. Before Justice Finch, the inventor revealed that “he possessed no real estate or stocks and that his belongings, all told, were negligible.” Under oath, Tesla revealed that he lived at the prestigious Waldorf “mostly on credit,” that his company “had no assets but is receiving enough royalties on patents to pay expenses,” and that most of his patents were sold or assigned to other companies. When asked if he owned an automobile or horses, the inventor responded no.
“Well, haven’t you got any jewelry?”
“No jewelry; I abhor it.”11
This embarrassing article was published for all to see in the World. Yet, as was his custom with any article about himself, the inventor had his secretary paste the mea culpa in the latest volume of press clippings. Looking much like a multivolume encyclopedia, this text, along with his other records and correspondence, would provide for posterity an accurate account of the inventor’s rich and complicated life. The inventor had chosen his words carefully when speaking under oath to the judge. As much as he loathed being in a debtor’s position, he wanted the Morgans, Marconis, Franklin Roosevelts, and Woodrow Wilsons to know of his plight, for in the final analysis this shame would be theirs as much as his. Even T. C. Martin had turned against him, writing petty letters to Elihu Thomson at this time, complaining of how Tesla chiseled money out of him for the opus he had created of the inventor’s collected works a generation ago.15
Attempting to raise funds in a variety of ways, Tesla continued to try to market his speedometer, push to get monies from American firms for the bladeless turbines, and collect royalty payments from Lowenstein and Telefunken for the Tuckerton and Sayville plants. The elder statesman of invention also continued to write newspaper articles for the World and the Sun for ready cash, and he also moved to exploit other creations, such as his electrotherapeutic machines, with Dr. Morrell. Tesla wrote Scherff that he expected the medical market to be $3-$4 million.16
The publication of his wretched state in the public forum and the transfer of Wardenclyffe to another party produced in Tesla a deep sense of anger and corresponding shame; for now the world had officially branded him a dud. If success is measured in a material way, it was clear that Tesla was the ultimate failure.
On the exterior, the inventor kept up appearances, but this event would mark the turning point in his life. Now he began the slow but steady turning away from society. Simultaneously, he traveled to live in other states, in part to conduct business in a fresh atmosphere and in part to remove himself from a hostile environment. He wrote a letter to Henry Ford in Detroit, hoping, finally, that the auto magnate would recognize the great advantages of his steam engine.
“I can tell, any day, that Ford is going to contact me, and take me out of all my worries,” Tesla confidently predicted to Julius Czito, Coleman’s son, who was now working for him. “Sure enough, one fine morning a body of engineers from the Ford Motor Company presented themselves with the request of discussing with me an important project,” Tesla revealed a few years later.
“Didn’t I tell you,” the prophet remarked triumphantly.
“You are amazing, Mr. Tesla,” Julius responded. “Everything is coming out just as you predicted.”
“As soon as these hardheaded men were seated,” Tesla continued, “I, of course, immediately began to extol the wonderful features of my turbine, when the spokesmen interrupted me and said, ‘We know all about this, but we are on a special errand. We have formed a psychological society for the investigation of psychic phenomena and we want you to join us in this undertaking.’” Flabbergasted, Tesla contained his indignation long enough to escort the wayward explorers to the street.17
Suffering from an attack of the grippe throughout the first month of 1916, Tesla made the newspapers by posing for a portrait for the provocative painter Princess Vilna Lwoff-Parlaghy. Daughter of Baroness von Zollerndorff and married and divorced from Prince Lwoff of Russia, Vilna had painted the portraits of such greats as Field Marshall von Moltke, Bismarck, the Baroness Rothschild, Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, and Teddy Roosevelt. Reluctant at first to sit because of superstitious feelings of foreboding, Tesla soon acquiesced and found a comfortable chair among Her Highness’s various pets, which included, at one time or another, “two dogs, an Angora cat, a bear, lion cub, alligator, ibis and two falcons.” Recently kicked out of the Plaza for unpaid bills totaling $12,000, perhaps the princess shared a good laugh with the Serbian nobleman, who himself was in a similar predicament. The painting was reproduced in Electrical Experimenter in 1919 and, once again, on the cover of Time for Tesla’s seventy-fifth birthday, in 1931.18
This time period also saw the arrival of Tesla’s sister’s son, Nicholas Trbojevich, himself an inventor who wanted to work as Tesla’s assistant. Apparently, Tesla was unable to spend much time with his nephew. Feeling rebuked, Trbojevich turned to the local Serbian community, where he found a willing Prof. Michael Pupin, who took the lad “under his wing” and on a tour of the city. Trbojevich endeared himself to the great professor and they became friends. Trbojevich would come to develop, in the 1920s and 1930s the hypoid gear and several sophisticated improvements in steering for the automotive industry. Working with mathematical principles, this inventor designed an elegant way to lower the driveshaft, running from the motor to the rear axle, nearly a foot. This advance enabled running boards to be eliminated, thereby allowing the car to become more streamlined. Simultaneously, it earned Trbojevich a tidy sum. Moving to Detroit in the late 1920s, Trbojevich continued to correspond with Uncle Nikki, who also came to visit around the time of the Great Depression.19
In February, Tesla received a letter from ardent admirer John (Jack) O’Neill, who was now working as a news correspondent for a Long Island daily and about to transfer jobs to the Herald Tribune. The young man reminded him of their 1907 encounter in the subway and enclosed the following poem, “To Nikola Tesla,” as an “infinitesimal tribute to [the inventor’s] greatness”:
Most glorious man of all ages
Thou wert born to forecast greater days
Where the wonders thy magic presages
Shall alter our archaic ways.Your coils with their juice oscillating
Sent electrical surges through the earth
Sent great energies reverberating
From the center to the outermost girth.Is thy mind a power omnipresent
That fathoms the depths of all space
That speaks to an adolescent
The future triumphs of the race?20
Tesla sent the youngster a letter in return “thanking him heartily,” although “your opinion of me is immensely exaggerated.” Enigmatically, he also suggested that O’Neill write a poem for J. Pierpont Morgan, “one man today on whom the world is depending more than any other.” Should O’Neill do this, “it might be instrumental in putting [him] in possession of a check.”21 Considering that Pierpont was dead, this was a rather peculiar recommendation.
The Edison Medal
Were we to seize and to eliminate from our industrial world the results of Mr. Tesla’s work, the wheels of industry would cease to turn, our towns would be dark, our mills would be dead and idle. Ye[s], so far reaching is this work, that it has become the warp and woof of industry.
B. A. Behrend, 191722
To those with eyes for the truth, Tesla’s state of crisis cut deep. One engineer in particular, Bernard A. Behrend, the Swiss émigré who had refused to testify against him during the malevolent AC-patent litigation days, felt the urgency to act. Clearly, it was Behrend’s goal to help restore the reputation of his spiritual benefactor. Having devoted a large measure of his life to refining Tesla’s invention of the induction motor, Behrend informed his mentor that he, Tesla, had been nominated to receive the Edison Medal. In fact, it had been Behrend who had proposed the idea to the committee. Winners from the past had included Alexander Graham Bell, Elihu Thomson, and George Westinghouse.
That Tesla would be nominated by an organization dwelling under the banner of the Edison name was shocking enough to the brooding Serb. Edison himself must have allowed the presentation to be made. It does not appear that Edison, having just turned seventy, was plagued by the reciprocal feeling of animosity that Tesla exhibited. It is more likely that the thought of giving Tesla the medal brought a broad smirk to the Menlo Park Wizard’s visage.
Tesla’s first reaction was abhorrence, and he flatly rejected the offer, but Behrend persisted. Here was an opportunity to recognize a worthy recipient alone for his singular contributions. “Who do you want remembered as the author of your power system?” Behrend inquired. “Ferraris, Shallenberger, Stillwell, or Steinmetz?” Tesla reluctantly capitulated.
The presentation of the Edison Medal was made on May 18, 1917, just two months before Tesla found out by telephone that vandals had broken into his Wardenclyffe laboratory and wrecked equipment valued at $68,000 and that “the Tower [was] to be destroyed by dynamite.”23 Many familiar faces dotted the crowd.The Johnsons and Miss Merrington attended, as did Charles Scott and Edward Dean Adams, the man most responsible for recommending Tesla for the Niagara Falls enterprise.
The opening speech was delivered by A. E. Kennelly, former Edison crony, who was now teaching at Harvard. Long a Tesla adversary, having been active in executing animals with AC current during the heated Battle of the Currents in the early 1890s, Kennelly spoke for fifteen minutes. During this time, the good professor managed to not mention Tesla’s name even once.
“Many people,” Professor Kennelly began, “suppose that the Edison Medal is presented by Mister Edison, but that is a mistake. In fact, Tom Edison has been so busy during his life receiving medals that he has not time to dispense any.” The speaker droned on, making Tesla more nervous with each obsequious sentence. “Every time a worthy recipient is honored with this Medal, Thomas Edison is also honored. In fact,” the Edison man continued, “We may look forward to a time, say a thousand years hence, when like this evening the one thousand and seventh recipient will receive the Edison Medal, and once again Edison’s achievements will be honored.”24
As legend has it, Tesla disappeared from the room. Panic-stricken, Behrend ran out of the building to look for him, while Charles Terry, a prominent executive from the Westinghouse Corporation, reviewed Tesla’s great accomplishments. According to the story, Behrend found the lonely inventor across the street by the library, feeding his precious pigeons.25
During Behrend’s introduction, he stated, perhaps to counter Kennelly’s opening speech, “The name of Tesla runs no more risk of oblivion than does that of Faraday or Edison. What can a man desire more than this. It occurs to me to paraphrase Pope describing Newton, ‘Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night. God said, “Let Tesla be,” and all was light.’”
“Ladies and gentleman,” Tesla began, “I wish to thank you heartily for your kind appreciation. I am not deceiving myself in the fact of which you must be aware that the speakers have greatly magnified my modest achievements. Inspired with the hope and conviction that this is just a beginning, a forerunner of still greater accomplishments, I am determined to continue developing my plans and undertake new endeavors.
“I am deeply religious at heart, and give myself to the constant enjoyment of believing that the greatest mysteries of our being are still to be fathomed. Evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, death itself may not be the termination of the wonderful metamorphosis we witness. In this way I manage to maintain an undisturbed peace of mind, to make myself proof against adversity, and to achieve contentment and happiness to a point of extracting some satisfaction even from the darker side of life, the trials and tribulations of existence.”
The electrical savant would go on to review much of his life—an anecdote from his childhood about a gander who almost pulled his umbilical cord out, his early meetings with Edison and work with Westinghouse, lectures in Europe, success at Niagara, and future plans in wireless.
“I have fame and untold wealth, more than this,” the inventor concluded, “and yet—how many articles have been written in which I was declared to be an impractical unsuccessful man, and how many poor, struggling writers have called me a visionary. Such is the folly and shortsightedness of the world!”26
Tesla was aghast that Boldt had not protected Wardenclyffe adequately, for it was valued at a minimum of at least $150,000. Even though he had signed it over to the hotel, he had done so, according to his understanding, to honor his debt “until [his] plans matured.” As the property, when completed, would yield $20,000 or $30,000 a day, Tesla was simply flabbergasted that Boldt would move to destroy the place. Boldt or “the Hotel Management” saw Wardenclyffe now as theirs, free and clear, even though Tesla offered as proof “a chattel mortgage” on the machinery that the inventor had placed at his own expense. The hotel’s insurance was only $5,000, whereas Tesla’s coverage for the machinery was valued at $68,000. Why would Tesla independently seek to protect the property if he didn’t still have an interest in it? Tesla saw the contract as “a security pledge,” but the paper he signed did not specify any such contingency. According to the Hotel’s lawyer, Frank Hutchins of Baldwin & Hutchins, “it was bill of sale with the deed duly recorded two years ago. We fail to see what interest you have,” Hutchins callously concluded.27
Storming into their offices on Pine Street, Tesla demanded to find out firsthand what was to happen.
“You will have to ask Smiley Steel Company. They are the ones in charge of salvage operations.”
J. B. Smiley informed Tesla that indeed the tower was to be taken down, its parts sold to cover outstanding debts. “A great wrong has been done,” the inventor wrote in reply, “but I am confident that justice will prevail.”28
“Pay no attention to Tesla whatsoever, but proceed immediately with wrecking as contracted,” Smiley told his wrecking crew after conferring with Hutchins.29
July 12, 1917
Gentlemen:
I have received reports which have completely dumbfounded me all the more so as I am now doing important work for the Government with a view of putting the plant to a special use of great moment…
I trust that you will appreciate the seriousness of the situation and will see that the property is taken good care of and that all apparatus is carefully preserved.
Very truly yours,
N. Tesla30
The wizard decided that the only way to save Wardenclyffe was to extol its virtues as a potential defensive weapon for the protection of the country. Capitalizing on the excellent Nobel Prize publicity, the inventor once again strained the reader’s credulity with another startling vision.
Tesla’s New Device
Like Bolts of ThorHe Seeks to Patent Wireless
Engine for Destroying Navies
by Pulling a LeverTo Shatter Armies Also
Nikola Tesla, the inventor, winner of the 1915 Nobel Physics Prize, has filed patent applications on the essential parts of a machine the possibilities of which test a layman’s imagination and promise a parallel to Thor’s shooting thunderbolts from the sky to punish those who had angered the gods. Dr. Tesla insists there is nothing sensational about it…
“It is perfectly practicable to transmit electrical energy without wires and produce destructive effects at a distance. I have already constructed a wireless transmitter which makes this possible.”
“Ten miles or a thousand miles, it will be all the same to the machine,” the inventor says. Straight to the point, on land or on sea, it will be able to go with precision, delivering a blow that will paralyze or kill, as it is desired. A man in a tower on Long Island could shield New York against ships or army by working a lever, if the inventor’s anticipations become realizations.31
Tesla would not draw up an official paper on the particle-beam weapon, or “death ray,” for another twenty years yet it is clear that he had conceived the machine by this time, probably creating prototypes as far back as 1896, when he was bombarding targets with Roentgen rays.
In “a serious plight,” with nowhere else to turn, the inventor contacted Morgan once again to ask for assistance. This was his last chance to protect his wireless patents and save the tower. “Words cannot express how much I have deplored the cruel necessity which compelled me to appeal to you again,” the inventor explained, but it was to no avail.32 He still owed Jack $25,000 plus interest; the financier ignored the entreaty and quietly placed Tesla’s account in a bad-debt file.
In February 1917, the United States broke off all relations with Germany and seized the wireless plant at Sayville. “Thirty German employees of the German-owned station were suddenly forced to leave, and enlisted men of the American Navy have filled their places.”33 Guards were placed around the plant as the high command decided what to do with the remaining broadcasting stations lying along the coast. Articles began springing up like early crocus to announce the potential “existence of [yet another] concealed wireless station [able] to supply information to German submarines regarding the movements of ships.”34
19 More Taken as German Spies
Dr. Karl George Frank, Former
Head of Sayville Wireless
Among Those Detained35
On April 6, 1917, President Wilson issued a proclamation “seiz[ing] all radio stations. Enforcement of the order was delegated to Secretary Daniels…It is understood that all plants for which no place can be found in the navy’s wireless system, including amateur apparatus, for which close search will be made, are to be put out of commission immediately.”36 Clearly, an overt decision had to be made about the fate of Wardenclyffe.
Tesla’s expertise was well known to Secretary Daniels and Assistant Secretary Franklin Roosevelt, as they were actively using the inventor’s scientific legacy as ammunition against Marconi in the patent suit. Coupled with the inventor’s astonishing proclamation that his tower could provide an electronic aegis against potential invasions, Wardenclyffe must have been placed in a special category. However, there were two glaring strikes against it. The first was that Tesla had already turned over the property to Mr. Boldt to cover his debt at the Waldorf; and the second was the transmitter’s record of accomplishment: nonexistent. What better indication of the folly of Tesla’s dream could there be then the tower’s own perpetual state of repose. To many, Wardenclyffe was merely a torpid monument to the bombastic prognostications of a not very original mind gone astray. From the point of view of the navy, Tesla may have been the original inventor of the radio, but he was clearly not the one who made the apparatus work.
In 1899 the U.S. Navy, via Rear Admiral Francis J. Higginson, requested Tesla to place “a system of wireless telegraphy upon Light-Vessel No. 66 [on] Nantucket Shoals, Mass, which lies 60 miles south of Nantucket Island.”37 Tesla was on his way to Colorado and was unable to comply. Moreover, the navy did not want to pay for the equipment, but rather wanted Tesla to lay out the funds himself. Considering the great wealth of the country, Tesla feigned astonishment at the penurious position of John D. Long, secretary of the navy, via Commander Perry, who brazenly forwarded the financial disclaimer on U.S. Treasury Department stationery.
Upon Tesla’s return to New York in 1900, he wrote again of his interest in placing the equipment aboard their ships. Rear Admiral Higginson, chairman of the Light House Board, wrote back that his committee would meet in October to discuss with Congress “the estimates of cost.”38 Higginson, who had visited Tesla in his lab in the late 1890s, wanted to help, but he had been placed in the embarrassing position of withdrawing his offer of financial remuneration because of various levels of bureaucratic inanity. Tesla spent the time to go down to Washington to confer face-to-face with the high command—Hobson also negotiated on his friends behalf—but Telsa was essentially ignored and returned to New York empty handed and disgusted with the way he was treated.
From the point of view of the navy, wireless telegraphy was an entirely new field, and they were unsure what to do. Furthermore, they may have been turned off by Tesla’s haughty manner, particularly when it came to being “compared” to Marconi, which had always enraged Tesla. (Keep in mind, however, that the navy took over ten years to recompense Hammond for his work on radio-guided missiles, and even then they almost didn’t come through. Tesla was by no means the only one to get the runaround from the military, and Hammond had the best connections possible through his influential father.)
In 1902 the Office of Naval Intelligence called Comdr. F. M. Barber, who had been in retirement in France, back to the States and put him in charge of the acquisition of wireless apparatus for testing. Although still taking a frugal position, the navy came up with approximately $12,000 for the purchase of wireless sets from different European companies. Orders were placed with Slaby-Arco and Braun-Siemans-Halske of Germany and Popoff, Ducretet and Rochefort of France. Bids were also requested from De Forest, Fessenden, and Tesla in America and Lodge-Muirhead in England. Marconi was excluded because he arrogantly coveted an all-or-nothing deal.39
Fessenden was angry with the navy for obtaining equipment outside the United States and so did not submit a bid. Tesla was probably too upset with his treatment from the past and too involved with Wardenclyffe, which was under active construction at that time, to get involved, and so the navy purchased additional sets from De Forest and Lodge-Muirhead.
In 1903 a mock battle with the North Atlantic fleet was held five hundred miles off the coast of Cape Cod. With the “White Squadron” commanded by Rear Adm. J. H. Sands and the “Blue Squadron” by Rear Admiral Higginson, Tesla’s ally, the use of wireless played a key role in determining the victor. Commander Higginson, who won the maneuver, commented, “To me, the great lesson of the search we ended today is the absolute need of wireless in the ships of the Navy. Do you know we are three years behind the times in the adoption of wireless?”40
Based on comparison testing, it was determined that the Slaby-Arco system outperformed all others, and the navy ordered twenty more sets. Simultaneously, they purchased an eleven-year lease on the Marconi patents.41
With the onset of World War I, the use of wireless became a necessity for organizing troop movements, surveillance, and intercontinental communication. While the country was still neutral, the navy was able to continue their use of the German equipment—until sentiments began to shift irreversibly to the British side. Via the British navy, Marconi had his transmitters positioned in Canada, Bermuda, Jamaica, Columbia, the Falkland Islands, North and South Africa, Ceylon, Australia, Singapore, and Hong Kong. His was a mighty operation. In the United States, the American Marconi division, under the directorship of the politically powerful John Griggs, former governor of New Jersey and attorney general under President McKinley, had transmitters located in New York, Massachusetts, and Illinois.42 One key problem, however, was that the Marconi equipment was still using the outmoded spark-gap method.
In April 1917, the U.S. Navy completed the seizure of all wireless stations, including those of their allies, the British. At the same time, Marconi was in the process of purchasing the Alexanderson alternator, which was, in essence, a refinement of the Tesla oscillator. Simultaneously, the Armstrong feedback circuit was becoming an obvious necessity for any wireless instrumentation. However, the Armstrong invention created a judicial nightmare, not only because it used as its core the De Forest audion but also because De Forest’s invention was overturned in the courts in favor of an electronic tube developed by Fessenden. Never mind that Tesla, as far back as 1902, had beaten Fessenden in the courts for this development. With the Fessenden patent now under the control of Marconi, the courts would come to rule that no one could use the Armstrong feedback circuit without the permission of the other players.
The most important ruling, concerning the true identity of the inventor of the radio, became neatly sidestepped by the War Powers Act of President Wilson, calling for the suspension of all patent litigation during the time of the war. France had already recognized Tesla’s priority by their high court, and Germany recognized him by Slaby’s affirmations and Telefunken’s decision to pay royalties; but in America, the land of Tesla’s home, the government backed off and literally prevented the courts from sustaining a decision. The Marconi syndicate, in touch with kings from two countries, with equipment instituted on six continents, was simply too powerful.
With the suspension of all patent litigation and the country in the midst of a world war, Franklin Roosevelt, assistant secretary of the navy, penned the famous Farragut letter. This document allowed such major companies as AT&T, Westinghouse, and American Marconi the right to pool together to produce each other’s equipment without concern for compensating rightful inventors. Furthermore, it “assured contractors that the Government would assume liability in infringement suits.”43
On July 1, 1918, Congress passed a law making the United States financially responsible for any use of “an invention described in and covered by a patent of the United States.” By 1921, the U.S. government had spent $40 million on wireless equipment, a far cry from Secretary Long’s policy of refusing to pay a few thousand dollars for Tesla’s equipment eighteen years before. Thus, the Interdepartmental Radio Board met to decide various claims against it. Nearly $3 million in claims were paid out. The big winners were Marconi Wireless, which received $1.2 million for equipment and installations taken over (but not for their patents). International Radio Telegraph received $700,000; AT&T, $600,000; and Edwin Armstrong, $89,000. Tesla received a minuscule compensation through Lowenstein, who was awarded $23,000.44
In 1921 the navy published a list of all the inventors in wireless who received compensation from them. The list contained only patents granted after 1902. Inventors included Blockmen, Braun, Blondel, De Forest, Fuller, Hahnemann, Logwood, Meissner, Randahl, Poulsen, Schiessler, von Arco, and Watkins. Note that both Tesla’s and Marconi’s names are missing.45 Marconi’s could be missing either because his patents had lapsed or, more likely, because they were viewed as invalid from the point of view of the government. In the case of Tesla, all of his twelve key radio patents had “expired and [were] now common property.”46 However, Tesla had renewed one fundamental patent in 1914,47 and this should have been on the list, as should have Armstrong’s feedback patent.
The U.S. government, through Franklin Roosevelt, knew that Marconi had infringed upon Tesla’s fundamental patents. They knew the details of Tesla’s rightful claims through their own files and through the record at the patent office. In point of fact, it was Tesla’s proven declaration which was the basis and central argument that the government had against Marconi when Marconi sued in the first place, and it was this same claim, and the same Navy Light House Board files, that would eventually be used by the U.S. Supreme Court to vindicate Tesla three months after he died, nearly twenty-five years later, in 1943.
Rather than deal with the truth and with a difficult genius whose present work appeared to be in a realm above and beyond the operation of simple radio telephones and wireless transmitters, Roosevelt, Daniels, President Wilson, and the U.S. Navy, in the midst of war, took no interest in protecting Tesla’s tower.
In July 1917, Tesla packed his bags and said goodbye to the Waldorf-Astoria. Having lived there for nearly twenty years, he talked George Boldt Jr. into allowing him to keep a large part of his personal effects in the basement of the hotel until he found a suitable place for transferring them. “I was sorry to hear about your father,” Tesla told the new manager, George Boldt Sr. having died just a few months before.
Preparing to move to Chicago to work on his bladeless turbines, Tesla was invited to the Johnsons for a farewell dinner. Robert was now directing the affairs of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an organization which counted among its ranks Daniel Chester French, Charles Dana Gibson, Winslow Homer, Henry James and his brother William, Charles McKim, Henry Cabot Lodge, Teddy Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson. Katharine had been in bed for over a week with the grippe, but this evening was too important, and she dragged herself out of bed and put on her best gown.
Dressed in straw hat, cane, white gloves, and his favorite green suede high-tops, Tesla arrived with a large bouquet of flowers and a check for Johnson.
“Kate’s been ill,” Robert managed to say before the lady of the house appeared.
Taking center stage, as she always tried to do when “He” was around, Kate radiated an intense glow of amorous pride as she held back the flood of tears while she chatted on an on about “how crazy [she was] about all of her grandchildren.”48
Taking a weekend train to Chicago, Tesla moved into the Blackstone Hotel, alongside the University of Chicago. On Monday morning the inventor hired a limousine to drop him at the headquarters of Pyle National Corporation. Having already shipped prototypes to give them a head start, he would now work at an intense pace in an entirely new setting, his goal being the perfection of his revolutionary bladeless turbines.49
At night he liked to walk down the street from his hotel to the Museum of Arts and Sciences, the only building remaining from the World’s Fair of 1893. There he could stand by the great columns and think back to a time when, daily, hundreds of thousands would stream into a magical city powered by his vision. One Saturday, in the heat of summer, he took the mile walk along Lake Michigan, past the Midway, to a series of small lakes and a park which was once the Court of Honor. There, at the entranceway, to a place that once was, he found, to his delight, the Statue of the Republic still standing, its gold plating all worn away. With him was a letter from George Scherff.
August 20, 1917
Dear Mr. Tesla,
I was deeply grieved and shocked when I read the enclosed, but I have the supreme confidence that more glorious work will arise from the ruins.
I trust that your work in Chicago is progressing to your satisfaction.
Yours respectfully,
George Scherff50
At the height of the world conflagration, the Smiley Steel Company’s explosives expert had circled the gargantuan transmitter to place a charge around each major strut and nail the coffin shut on Tesla’s dream. With the Associated Press recording the event and military personnel apparently present, the magnifying transmitter was leveled, the explosion alarming many of the Shoreham residents.
And with the death of the World Telegraphy Center came the birth of the Radio Broadcasting Corporation, a unique conglomerate of private concerns under the auspices of the U.S. government. Meetings were held behind closed doors in Washington between President Wilson, who wanted America to gain “radio supremacy,”51 Navy Secretary Daniels, his assistant Franklin Roosevelt, and representatives from GE, American Marconi, AT&T, and the Westinghouse Corporation. With J. P. Morgan & Company on the board of directors and the Marconi patents as the backbone of the organization, RCA was formed. It would combine resources from these megacorporations, all of which had cross-licensing agreements with each other and co-owned the company.52 (Cross-licensing agreements also existed with the government, which also owned some wireless patents.) Here was another entente cordiale reminiscent of the AC polyphase days, which was not so for the originator of the invention. It was a second major time Tesla would be carved from his creation,53 a secret deal probably concocted which absolved the government from paying any licensing fee to Marconi in lieu of their burying their Tesla archives. David Sarnoff, as managing director, would soon take over the reins of the entire operation.
The New York Sun inaccurately reported:
U.S. Blows Up Tesla Radio Tower
Suspecting that German spies were using the big wireless tower erected at Shoreham, L.I., about twenty years ago by Nikola Tesla, the Federal Government ordered the tower destroyed and it was recently demolished with dynamite. During the past month several strangers had been seen lurking about the place.54
The destruction of Nikola Tesla’s famous tower…shows forcibly the great precautions being taken at this time to prevent any news of military importance of getting to the enemy.55
At the end of the war President Wilson returned all remaining confiscated radio stations to their rightful owners. American Marconi, now RCA, of course, was the big beneficiary.56
In 1920 the Westinghouse Corporation was granted the right to “manufacture, use and sell apparatus covered by the [Marconi] patents.”57 Westinghouse also formed an independent radio station which became as prominent as RCA. At the end of the year, Tesla wrote a letter to E. M. Herr, president of the company, offering his wireless expertise and equipment.
November 16, 1920
Dear Mr. Tesla,
I regret that under the present circumstances we cannot proceed further with any developments of your activities.58
A few months later, Westinghouse requested that Tesla “speak to our ‘invisible audience’ some Thursday night in the near future [over our…] radiotelephone broadcasting station.”59
November 30, 1921
Gentleman,
Twenty-one years ago I promised a friend, the late J. Pierpont Morgan, that my world-system, then under construction…would enable the voice of a telephone subscriber to be transmitted to any point of the globe…
I prefer to wait until my project is completed before addressing an invisible audience and beg you to excuse me.
Very truly yours,
N. Tesla60