Miracles and Massacres Page 10

  “You’re wrong Nikola. Now good night.”

  “You are not going to pay me?”

  “I already paid you—the eighteen dollars a week we agreed to.”

  “Then you leave me no alternative but to resign.”

  Edison removed the cigar from his mouth and, after a heartbeat, waved it dismissively. “Then go.”

  Edison stood by the window and watched Tesla leave his office. He was sure that Tesla would reconsider the second he stepped out of his headquarters and onto Fifth Avenue. But Edison, his mind always racing, quickly realized the flaw in his thinking: Tesla was far too stubborn and fanatical; he would never be dissuaded from pursuing alternating current. Edison wondered if he should run downstairs and stop Tesla from leaving the brownstone. Perhaps, he wondered, the old adage about keeping enemies close might apply here.

  Edison shoved his cigar back in his mouth, his decision made. He plopped back into his chair and spun it toward his cluttered desk.

  No. It was best that Tesla leave and never return.

  Great Barrington, Massachusetts

  March 1886

  George Westinghouse tugged the lapels of his coat until the finely woven fabric snugged properly against his broad shoulders. He licked his fingers and smoothed his expansive handlebar mustache. He was pleased with his reflection in the mirror.

  A voice came from behind him. “We should alert the newspapers.”

  William Stanley had invented an alternating current transformer. His outsized ambition, along with his oversized ego, made him eager to make a name for himself. A story in the newspapers would help.

  “No. Alerting newspapers also alerts Edison and his backers,” Westinghouse said. “It’s better that reporters cover the story as just another electrification.” He used the fingers of both hands to fluff his mutton-chops.

  “Engineers will be impressed that we are making a leap in technology,” Stanley said. “This is a major breakthrough—we both know that. We’re changing the direction of electricity, after all. What do we gain by introducing it so quietly?”

  Westinghouse turned from the mirror to face Stanley directly. “Edison likes to shout about his accomplishments from the rooftops. I prefer to simply deliver on my commitments. My ambition is to provide employees an opportunity to make their lives better. That is the reason I build large companies. I pay living wages that are higher than other manufacturers, and my companies are pioneers in safety, benefits, and pensions. Personal glory is not among my concerns.”

  Westinghouse saw by Stanley’s expression that he didn’t like his answer.

  After a silent moment, Stanley gently took him by the elbow and guided him toward the window. There was a large crowd gathering below. “Mr. Westinghouse, this twilight will soon turn to dark, and then we’ll turn that darkness back into light. Those people think it’s magic, or nearly so.”

  “Then why should we disillusion them? There is nothing wrong with magic. Besides, we’ll only incite our competitors if we crow about this evening.”

  Westinghouse knew he was not nearly as famous as the flamboyant Wizard of Menlo Park. Edison had a carefully crafted image as a disheveled genius who lived off apple pie. Reporters lionized him as a selfless giant dedicated to changing the world.

  Westinghouse, on the other hand, was just another Pittsburgh inventor and manufacturer. He refused interviews. He didn’t make good copy. He was dull. Sure, he was successful and rich, but his wealth came from arcane industries that received little public attention. Electricity, however, was different. Unlike trains, telegraphs, or steam engines, electricity came into the home and made everyday life easier, cleaner, and less expensive. Electric light was soft, odor-free, flicker-free, clean, cool, and soundless—all the things gaslights were not. People believed it was magic.

  Electricity was becoming so popular that small companies were formed almost every day in almost every city in the nation. Most were doomed to fail, especially those run by electrical neophytes. So, on January 8, 1886, when Westinghouse incorporated his fifth business, the Westinghouse Electric Company, no one took much notice. He believed it was in his interest to keep it that way.

  Tonight, they were going to illuminate the town of Great Barrington with electricity generated many miles away. This was an important milestone because the direct current used elsewhere needed to be generated within a half mile of where it was used due to heat and energy loss. This was somewhat workable in cities, but in a rambling town like Great Barrington, it meant that each business and home would need to install a private generator. Whether placed in the basement or down the block, these generators spewed coal dust, smoke, and noise.

  Westinghouse’s alternating current technology made it possible for power stations to be located close to their fuel source, well outside of neighborhoods. It wasn’t hard to see the vision: Westinghouse would build large generating facilities far from population centers and then sell that electricity to the citizens of each city. It would be cleaner, quieter, safer, and far more efficient.

  Westinghouse patted Stanley on the shoulder. “Now, let’s go give these fine people a magic show.”

  West Orange, New Jersey

  December 1887

  “Here are today’s copper prices.”

  The aide handed Edison the ticker tape and scurried out of his office, indicating the tape carried bad news. Up another penny! Damn the French! He threw the tape into the ash can.

  A French consortium had cornered the copper market and driven the price from ten cents a pound to sixteen cents. Even for short distances, direct current required expensive, thick copper wire. He looked at the budget for his latest proposal. Every penny increase would cost him an additional three thousand dollars for copper wire on this one contract alone. He didn’t need another headache right now.

  Westinghouse had come out of nowhere to invade his territory. He was making far too much headway with his alternating current schemes and now, because his method used far less copper, the increasing prices were pushing the edge even further in his favor. Edison knew that Westinghouse, through no effort of his own, was gaining an economic advantage.

  Edison had fought off competitors like gnats when he’d first electrified Wall Street five years earlier. After he had emerged supreme his name became synonymous with the fastest-growing industry in the world: electrification. His businesses had grown so large so fast that he no longer knew the names of all the people he employed. Was it possible that everything could now be at risk? He had never felt fear like this before. He tried to shake it off, but the foreboding lingered.

  Westinghouse’s companies were thriving and he was expanding his electrification reach almost every day. Westinghouse had concentrated on delivering power outside the large metropolitan areas, but he recently captured New Orleans, the tenth-largest city in the country. Edison’s salesmen were now writing letters to headquarters, pleading for help. Westinghouse had to be stopped.

  Edison believed he understood Westinghouse because they had followed similar paths, each of them having invented a vital component for one of the two most important industries in the nation. Edison created the Quadruplex Telegraph, and Westinghouse developed air brakes for railcars. Both were fine inventions, but telegraphs and trains were no longer on the technical or financial frontier. Now Wall Street was rushing to invest in electricity, an industry Edison practically owned until Westinghouse had invaded his arena. He knew he had to do something about it.

  Edison picked up a letter that had been sitting on his desk and made a decision.

  • • •

  Last November, Thomas Edison had received a letter from Alfred P. Southwick, a dentist who had been appointed to the Commission on Humane Executions for the state of New York. Southwick wanted Edison’s opinion about execution by electricity. Because of his opposition to capital punishment, Edison had declined to offer advice, but Southwick would not be put off. When Edison received a follow-up letter, he began to think about the question mor
e deeply.

  Electricity was, by its very nature, dangerous. New York City, for example, was a web of overhead electric lines. Dangerous lines. When they fell, pedestrians were at risk of electric shock.

  When Edison entered the New York market, he had insisted on burying his electric wiring in iron pipes. Trenching had been costly and slow, but safety was of utmost importance—and his focus on it ultimately helped him to win popular support. In the end, his competitors went under, retreated to a remote corner of the electricity business, or were forced to move to an entirely different industry.

  Now he would use the same strategy—a singular focus on safety—to destroy Westinghouse.

  He began to compose a letter back to Southwick, the dentist.

  The best appliance for humane execution is one that will perform its work in the shortest space of time, and inflict the least amount of suffering upon its victim. This I believe can be accomplished by the use of electricity and the most suitable apparatus for the purpose is that class of dynamo-electric machine which employs intermittent currents.

  The most effective of these are known as “alternating machines,” manufactured principally in this country by Mr. Geo. Westinghouse, Pittsburgh.

  Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

  June 1888

  Westinghouse seethed. He read aloud the line again. “Just as certain as death, Westinghouse will kill a customer within 6 months after he puts in a system of any size.”

  Nikola Tesla stood very still, his hands folded in front of him. “He wrote that to the president of Edison Electric with full knowledge that the prediction would get whispered around until it became public.”

  Westinghouse threw the newspaper onto his desk. “Edison’s trying to paint me as a killer.”

  “Precisely,” Tesla said.

  “Why is he using such underhanded tactics?” Westinghouse asked. “Why not just come out and say it directly? It’s not as though he doesn’t have access to the newspapers.”

  Tesla moved his arms and re-clasped his hands behind his back. “He is wrong about alternating current . . . and at some level he knows it. He’s afraid his preeminence will fade.” He shook his head. “I warned him about this years ago.”

  “Nikola, do you have advice for me?”

  “Do not underestimate Tom Edison. He’s clever, and he has a knack for grabbing headlines. He used a thousand-volt Westinghouse generator to kill dogs, horses, and even cows. It is impious, but he claims he is researching the relative dangers of direct and alternating current. He says his only interest is in protecting the public, especially children.”

  “I meant advice on what action to take,” Westinghouse said, with more irritation than he’d intended.

  “You must defend alternating current. You must be its champion. Call reporters and tell them our side of the story. The newspapers sensationalize human deaths from alternating current, but they’ve all occurred from obsolete outdoor arc lighting. There has never been a death associated with Westinghouse Electric.”

  “Except for dogs!”

  “Mr. Westinghouse, I understand your disgust with what he is doing to animals, but he will not stop there. There are rumors he is helping New York State use electricity for capital punishment.” Tesla paused for dramatic effect. “He intends to use alternating current.”

  Westinghouse paced his office. Edison had started this damn war between direct and alternating current and there was no need for it. There was enough business for both of them. The whole world needed electricity.

  He understood Edison’s desire to protect his investment; Westinghouse had a similar motivation. He had recently paid Tesla $60,000, plus royalties of $2.50 per horsepower of electrical capacity sold, to use his patents. Westinghouse had further invested in factories, salesmen, and research dedicated to alternating current. He and Edison both had a lot to protect—and Westinghouse had come a long way.

  After only two years, Westinghouse had over half as many generating stations as Edison, but mostly in smaller markets. Edison had New York City; he had Buffalo. Westinghouse had commercialized alternating current so electricity would become more than an urban luxury, but now he needed to expand into those larger urban areas as well—which was one reason he had bid below cost to win New Orleans.

  “Thank you, Nikola.”

  That was a dismissal, but Tesla did not move. “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  “I’m not going to fight this war in the press. Not yet anyway. Please give me some privacy so I can compose a letter.”

  “You will not dissuade Edison with a letter.”

  “Nikola, need I be rude?”

  Tesla nodded gently and departed.

  Westinghouse struggled with the proper tone for the letter to his nemesis. He decided the best approach was to pretend that Edison was not personally behind this seedy campaign. It would offer him a way out. They could both be disgusted that someone was trying to impugn the safety of something they’d each invested so much in.

  I believe there has been a systemic attempt on the part of some people to do a great deal of mischief and create as great a difference as possible between the Edison Company and The Westinghouse Electric Co., when there ought to be an entirely different condition of affairs.

  As he sealed the letter and flipped the envelope into his mailbox, Westinghouse realized that Tesla had once again been right. In all likelihood, Edison’s response would not come via letter, but instead via another headline in the newspaper. This vicious competition, Westinghouse understood, would not end with a letter or with a partnership; it would only end when one of them emerged as the clear victor.

  This was to be a war.

  West Orange, New Jersey

  July 1888

  “You wrote a fine letter,” Thomas Edison said, holding up the weeks-old newspaper so that Harold Brown could see it.

  On June 5, Brown had sent a letter to the New York Post describing an accident where a boy had died after touching an exposed wire operating on alternating current. At the time, Brown had been a salesman for Brush Electric Company—basically a nobody in the electrical industry—but he had made such an effective argument against alternating current that Edison kept the newspaper on his desk to read aloud to any and all visitors.

  “The only excuse for the use of the fatal alternating current,” Brown wrote, “is that it saves the company operating it from spending a larger sum of money for the heavier copper wires which are required by the safe incandescent systems. That is, the public must submit to constant danger from sudden death, in order that a corporation may pay a little larger dividend.”

  The letter went on to recommend a new law to limit alternating current transmissions to 300 volts. This restriction would remove alternating current’s advantage of transmitting high voltage to customers who lived a good distance away from a power plant.

  Shortly after the letter was published, Edison had secretly hired Brown and given him use of his lab so he could continue experimenting with electricity on animals.

  “Thank you, sir,” said Brown, attempting to stifle a grin.

  “I also want to compliment you on the demonstration at Columbia.”

  Brown had proven himself to be a zealous executioner. Along with his assistant, Dr. Fred Peterson, Brown had demonstrated the lethal characteristics of alternating current at Columbia University by administering a series of 1,000-volt direct current shocks to a large Newfoundland dog. The dog writhed in agony but quickly recovered after the electric current was shut off. Brown finished the demonstration by killing the dog with an alternating current of only 330 volts. The raucous display in an academic setting had garnered national publicity.

  “I apologize it didn’t go better. Some of the audience left in disgust.”

  “Nonsense. That only made it bigger news. You and Dr. Peterson showed that direct current only induced pain but that alternating current killed, and at much lower voltage levels. The pain may be pitiful to inflict, but there is no
permanent damage. I heard there was some heckling, but don’t let it worry you—it all added to the theater.” Edison chuckled. “I also heard that the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals won a reprieve for a second dog. Splendid.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard that as well,” Brown said. He seemed to relax after hearing that Edison had not brought him here for a reprimand, but he kept respectfully silent.

  Edison continued: “Harold, as you know, the legislature passed an electric execution law. In the same session, they set up a committee to decide between using direct current or alternating current. My friends have gotten Dr. Peterson appointed as chair of the committee. I presume you’ve heard.”

  “Yes. It shouldn’t take too much of Dr. Peterson’s time. We can continue our research.”

  “Good. We need more newspaper articles to get our legislators off their duffs. First, we mold public opinion, then we use government power to squash Westinghouse and Tesla.”

  “It will be my pleasure,” Brown responded.

  “Yes, I believe it will.” Edison made a backward wave with his hand. “You may go. I’m sure you have important duties awaiting your attention.”

  After Brown left, Edison fingered another paper he kept on the top of his desk. It was a letter from Westinghouse. Edison had taken the letter as a sign of weakness and had, of course, immediately rejected his rival’s feeble peace proposal. Westinghouse is crumbling, Edison thought. Now it was time to send him back to the simple world of railcars.

  Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

  New Year’s Day, 1889

  “The New York electrocution law goes into effect today,” Tesla said.

  George Westinghouse frowned. “Not the best start of a new year, but we’re winning in the marketplace.”

  “That is not enough,” Tesla countered.

  “It is. Edison’s costs are high. City property is expensive. I build my generators on cheap land. Copper alone may bring him down.” Westinghouse paced his spacious office, speaking hurriedly as he walked. “That’s why he’s attacking me on safety. He needs a nonfinancial reason for cities to reject alternating current.”