Wonder of the Worlds

by Sesh Heri

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  The first story was entitled “Handsome Cyril; or, The Messenger Boy with the Warm Feet.” In this story, Houdini, who was once a messenger boy, is burlesqued as the character “Cyril” and Tesla is “Alexander.” Ade has the villain’s henchmen in the story bind and gag “Cyril” with ropes and throw him in the river. “Cyril” escapes and thwarts the villain. I might also note here that the day for the St. Cyril who was archbishop of Alexandria is Febru- ary 9th, the same as George Ade’s birthday. This was the same St. Cyril who made no effort to stop the murder of the Neo-Platonic philosopher Hypatia who was clubbed to death by a mob of Christian fanatics in the year 415 A.D. I believe that George Ade, in giving Houdini the fictitious name of “Cyril,” was making a statement about not only Houdini and himself, but all the rest of us who traveled to Mars on Tesla’s airship. I think he was saying that just like St. Cyril, we, too, have stood by and allowed the ancient knowl- edge to be suppressed.

  The next story Ade wrote was: “Clarence Allen, the Hypnotic Boy Journal- ist.” “Clarence” is a burlesque of Ade himself, with elements of Tesla thrown in. “Clarence” pursues a thief who has stolen $37,000 worth of government bonds. He uses “bloodhounds” to track the thief. The final story of the series was entitled: “Rollo Johnson, the Boy Inven- tor.” “Johnson” was a code name for Tesla in that Mr. and Mrs. Robert Underwood Johnson are Tesla’s closest friends. Of the three stories written by Ade, “Rollo Johnson” was the most transparent reference to the “Incident of ‘93”. In the story, “Rollo” is the inventor of a “Demon Bicycle,” the fictional counterpart of Tesla’s airship. “Rollo” explains the secret of how his “Demon Bicycle” works to “Paul Jefferson” (“Pool-Cue” or “Pool” was Tesla’s nickname for Joseph Jefferson, thus, “Pool” = “Paul”). “Paul Jefferson” says to “Rollo” upon the completion of the bicycle, “After four years of incessant toil, you are to be rewarded.” Tesla’s airship was built in four years, 1889-1893. “Rollo” uses electricity to run his bicycle and as the power for a gun which shoots lightning bolts. The secret plans for “Rollo’s” electric bicycle are stolen by a villain. “Rollo” escapes the villain and his cohorts by riding his bicycle through the air and eventually retrieves his secret plans. The villain escapes, but “is never again seen in Chicago.”

  Thus, George Ade did write about Tesla’s airship, but in the form of a literary cipher. A few of us recognized the meaning of his stories. As I said, we who had become acquainted aboard Tesla’s airship were supposed to pretend we never met, but on three different occasions I did cross paths with some of my fellow airship crew mates. I saw George Ade again on two different occasions. The first time was in 1902. After President McKinley was assassinated, I was contacted by a secret government commission. They wanted me to tell them the whole story of what had happened to me in 1893, just as I had experienced it.

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  Well, nine years had passed, a very hard nine years. I felt that I could not supply all the detail they were looking for and tried to direct them to Tesla and the others. They said they were contacting all of us, but they wanted my version as best as I could recall. I suggested that if I were given notes from Tesla and all the others concerning their remembrances of our journey and battle, it might help my own recollections. As it turned out, everyone was agreeable to this plan with the exception of George Ade, who, for reasons of his own, distrusted releasing anything to any messenger. He would only agree to deliver his notes to me in person. The committee did not like this idea at all. Then it occurred to me that my personal physician, Dr. Clarence Rice, was also acquainted with George Ade. I suggested to the committee that I could arrange a meeting with Ade through Dr. Rice, a meeting that would seem quite simple and natural and ordinary—just two authors meeting for an infor- mal chat. Thus it was that George Ade and Dr. Rice came up to visit me at Riverdale, New York. Ade and Dr. Rice came up to the house one afternoon and we sat on the veranda and talked for several hours, Ade talking about his books and his plays being produced on Broadway, and I talking about the Mississippi River Valley and the future of the American Midwest. As Ade and Dr. Rice were leaving, Ade passed to me a package bound in paper and said, “I thought you might find this of interest.” Later, when I opened the package, I found it contained not only George Ade’s secret notes, but those of Nikola Tesla, Kolman Czito, Lillie West, and Harry Houdini. At present, I still have these notes in my possession and have referred to them to refresh my memory while relating this account. I only saw George Ade one other time. When my seventieth birthday party was being planned, it was decided that all the literary luminaries should at- tend, and I made it known that I wanted George Ade and John T. McCutcheon to be invited. I wasn’t able to speak to Ade that evening, but while I was delivering my after-dinner speech, I saw Ade sitting at a table across the room. At that moment I was saying that I would be satisfied if my fame reached to Neptune. As everyone else laughed, Ade and I nodded slightly to each other. I doubt any of the others noticed, but even if they did, they could not have understood that Ade and I knew that it was possible that somebody may have read one of my books on Mars. I happened to see Harry Houdini again just one time. One Sunday in 1905, while I was walking down Fifth Avenue, I had just passed the Waldorf Astoria and crossed over 34th Street when I spied Houdini coming toward me from out of the throng. He was accompanied by two ladies whom I assumed were his wife and mother. He said nothing to me, and I said nothing to him, but I am certain that he recognized me and that he knew that I recognized him. He was no longer a boy, but a very broad-shouldered man. I nodded to him slightly, just as I had done with Ade, and he nodded back, just as Ade had

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  done with me. He did not turn his head, but just kept looking at me out of the corner of his eyes as we passed. His wife and mother were talking to each other and passed by without seeing me.

  After Hall and I left Chicago on April 24th, 1893, I managed to finally get up to Elmira, New York, to see my sister-in-law, Susan Crane, and then set off for Europe. When I reached Villa Viviani in the hills above Florence, my daughters Susy and Jean came bounding out of the old mausoleum to greet me. My wife, Livy, appeared in the doorway, pale and smiling. They all threw their arms around me and into the house we went. I was home.

  Did I say a word to any of them about what happened to me in Chicago? No, I kept my mouth shut. Nobody would have believed me anyway. I would not have believed me. I’d like to say that from there on out all was well and we all lived happily ever after. That is the way it goes in fiction; in fact, “happily ever after” is the ultimate fiction, for nothing in life is “happily ever after.” That fall I had to return to America. The creditors for my publishing company were circling us like wolves that had been put on a strict diet. I now thought of Cleveland’s words to me about the money powers throwing me out a safety net. I decided to make a quick trip down to Washington to see Cleveland. When I got to the President’s mansion, Cleveland’s wife showed me into his bedroom. I stopped in the doorway and took a sharp breath. The man who had been so big to me now lay before me reduced to a ghostly scarecrow. The left side of Cleveland’s face had sunken inward forming a horrific cavern beneath his cheek. He reached over to a table next to his bed, removed a rubber plug from a jar of water, and shoved it into his mouth. Gagging and coughing, he adjusted the plug, and his caved-in left cheek ballooned back out to its normal appearance. Cleveland said, “They operated on me. Twice. They damn near killed me.” The President described what had happened to him in detail, the discovery of his cancer, the secret operation on board the yacht Oneida while she stood out at anchor in New York Harbor, and the second operation in which he had almost died. Since then, he had conducted business from his bed, while the actor who was his double moved about the country on fishing trips with News- paper reporters tagging along at a distance. “Did they get it all out?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Cleveland said, “finally. The doctors have told me that I will live. I’ll be
able to finish out my term. But from now on—for the rest of my life—I will have to wear this damn rubber plug in the roof of my mouth. What brings you here, Clemens? Something happening with the Martians?”

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  “No, Your Excellency, nothing like that. Just my own troubles. I feel ashamed to bother you with them after what you’ve gone through.” “It’s your finances.”

  “My creditors want payment. I have nothing to pay them with. I am, in fact, hours away from financial ruin. In Chicago last spring you said something. Something about the big money men throwing me out a safety net if I ever needed it. Did you really mean that?” “I did.”

  “Well, I need that net now. Badly.” “I’ll wire Henry Rogers about your situation. You know Rogers, don’t you?” “I met him once about two years ago. He seemed to me a likable fellow.” “He and his family adore your books. I’ll wire him that you’ll be coming to see him.”

  “If you could, please wire him that my lawyer will see him tomorrow in New York. I believe my lawyer is fairly well acquainted with Rogers. And if it ever comes up with anyone, I’ll tell them my physician, Dr. Rice, introduced me to Rogers, for Dr. Rice knows Rogers too.” Everything happened as Cleveland said it would. Through my lawyer, I was introduced to Rogers. The three of us sat down and my lawyer painted the bleak picture of my finances, and when he finished, Rogers said: ”You are in a serious situation. It is good that you turned to me. We must act swiftly. I’ll immediately issue the Mount Morris Bank a check. That will set things aright for the moment. But we must begin developing a strategy for the future. You and I, Clemens, will depart for Chicago immediately to see Paige.” Rogers and I became fast friends. He seemed to be familiar with all my books and he knew a good deal about me, my wife, and my family. After a short while, I began to feel as if I had known him all my life. We took Roger’s private car to Chicago. There we met with Paige and the Chicago investors.

  Paige was his usual self, which is to say, a louse. He refused to release any more of his stock for sale to investors. Rogers told me this would make it difficult for us to attract the right kind of investors in New York. It was finally agreed that Paige and the mechanics would build an entirely new model of the typesetter. If this model passed all its test runs, we would pursue further inves- tors. With these things decided, I returned to my family in Florence, Italy. In the spring of 1894 my publishing house, Webster & Co., declared bankruptcy. As troubling as this was to me, it was a cause for deep shame in my wife who considered bankruptcy to be a moral failure. I was determined to set things right, and put all my hope and faith in Henry Rogers. By fall the new typesetter was completed, and through that fall and early winter I received letters from Rogers, informing me of how the machine was doing on its test runs. Things would seem promising, then not so good. Finally, during the Christmas season of 1894, I received a letter from Rogers. The typesetter had

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  failed its test runs. The News hit me like a thunderclap. I wandered about that Italian villa in a stupor, trying to make sense of what had just happened. The typesetter had failed! Our last hope out of financial ruin was gone—nothing was left but the thin air of my own delusions. In March of 1895 I sailed for New York again. As soon as I got off the ship, I went straight to Rogers’ office in the Standard Oil Building at 26 Broadway. I went up to the 11th floor and Rogers’ secretary took me into Roger’s office and left me there to wait. I stood at the window, looking out across New York Harbor to the Colossus of Liberty Enlightening the World. Then Rogers en- tered the room, and I said: “Rogers, just before I left Italy, I received this letter from Paige. I want to read it to you.”

  “All right,” Rogers said, gesturing for me to sit down. I sat beside his desk and Roger’s sat down in his chair to listen. I began:

  Dear Mr. Clemens,

  It has just come to my attention that Mr. Henry Rogers of Standard Oil has been sending you adverse reports about the performance of the typesetter. I must protest and state emphatically that these reports are, at the least, gross distortions of the facts. While it is true, two or three changes have had to be made in the new machine, it has, during its test runs at the Chicago Herald, delivered more corrected live matter, per operator employed, than any one of the 32 Linotype machines operated by that Newspaper.

  If you do not choose to believe my word, then ask Charles Davis, our mechanical engineer. He will give you the facts, for I know Rogers’ and Morgan’s agents have not been able to bribe or threaten him into submission. Yours,

  James W. Paige

  Rogers sat for a moment, and then rose and went to the window and looked out at the city and the harbor beyond. He said nothing for a long while, but I could tell he was thinking carefully. Finally he said: “What Paige writes is true—as far as it goes. It is part of the truth, but only part. And often part of the truth is no better than a lie. The machine has performed just as he writes. What he leaves out is the number of repairs that had to be made during those tests, repairs effected by Paige and Davis, expert mechanics and engineers who have spent years working with the machine, who know it backwards and forwards, inside and out. With such men standing by to make any repair at a moment’s notice, the Paige typesetter will operate

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  and produce more than the Linotype. But where shall we find such men in sufficient numbers to run the Paige typesetter on an industrial scale? Can we find ten thousand such men in America? No. But we would need more than that to industrialize printing with the Paige typesetter. As long as it requires constant, expert attention and repair, the Paige typesetter is not a commer- cial proposition.” “But,” I said feebly, “Paige says he has corrected the f laws.”

  “Yes,” Rogers said, “and how many times has he made that claim to you in the past?” “More times than I can count,” I said.

  Rogers said, “Let’s say he has corrected all the flaws, which I don’t believe for a moment, I should add. Let’s say the machine will work indefinitely with- out an expert repairman standing by its side. The Paige typesetter still is not a commercial proposition.” “But why?” I asked. “You have seen it operate! It sets type like it was done by the hand of an artist—by the hand of an angel!” “Yes,” Rogers said, “I don’t deny that it produces beautiful work, exquisite work. But industrial printing does not need beautiful, exquisite work. Most printed matter is for people who only need legibility. A man reading a News- paper does not care whether the letters in a word are spaced properly or are all jammed together on one line and all spread out in gaps on another. The man just wants to read his paper. The average man could not appreciate—or even notice—the difference between quality printing and rough work, and, in indus- trial production, it is the needs of the average man multiplied in great numbers that determines whether a thing is a commercial concern or a money pit. So for this reason alone, the Paige typesetter’s elegant work is no edge in its competition with the Linotype.”

  Rogers sat down in a chair directly in front of me and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and the fingertips of his right and left hands touching together, and said in a low tone: “Then there is the matter of Paige refusing to release his stock. Unless he does so, J.P. Morgan and his associates will not invest in the typesetter. Morgan isn’t interested in merely making a profit, but gaining control. Without a major- ity of shares in a company, the direction of its development cannot be con- trolled. And this is Morgan’s only aim: control of industrial, political, and social development. What he cannot control, he destroys.” “That is quite clear,” I said. “He has nearly destroyed the American economy. And now I see that Cleveland has surrendered to him and sold him sixty-two million dollars worth of government bonds.” “I wouldn’t characterize the President’s action as surrender,” Rogers said. “Morgan orchestrated Cleveland’s second term in office precisely for the pur- pose of executing this bond deal. Cleveland was working with Lamont on

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  purchasing the gold before he even took of
fice. The President has served Morgan’s interests and Paige must now serve Morgan’s interests, if he is to survive in business.” Rogers stood up and went to the window and looked out again. He said: “Paige faces the same choice that I had to make some years ago when Rockefeller consumed my oil business. I knew I could not fight them; they were too powerful. Instead, I made myself useful to them, made myself a necessary part of their organization. And so I have survived and even f lour- ished. Paige might be able to do the same. I say ‘might’ because Morgan has already invested heavily in the Mergenthaler-Linotype Company. Morgan would be willing to absorb Paige into his organization, if Paige would release his stock, and if the Paige typesetter could be commercially merged with the Linotype into a single system. But Morgan does not deal in ‘ifs’.” Rogers turned to face me, and said, “Finally, and most importantly, the Paige typesetter does not serve the plan of the money powers.” “How so?” I asked warily. “You’re a Freemason,” Rogers said. “As such, you know that history is too important a matter to be left to chance. For the Great Work to be accom- plished there must be a Plan.” “And you think Paige’s machine doesn’t serve the Plan?”

  Rogers said, “Paige speaks of ushering in an Age of Information with his typesetter. Well, that Age will come some day, but not for decades, perhaps not for another century, and certainly not with Paige’s machine. You see, the Paige typesetter is mechanical; it is a thing of cogwheels and levers. Such a thing, no matter how cleverly arranged, can ever operate fast enough to be a true thinking machine. Oh yes, Paige can make some improvements, but the speed of the cogwheel, screw, and inclined plane will shortly bring his developments to a deadlock. Mere mechanism cannot work. Has it ever occurred to you why Tesla has remained silent about the Paige typesetter? He has for a very good reason. He knows it cannot be developed into a thinking machine, and he knows why. The secret to making a true thinking machine is the problem of a rapid switching system. The human brain is an extremely complex switching system, and it is electrical in nature. Tesla has invented precisely the kind of switches that could be used in an artificial brain, a thinking machine, and we believe he is trying to create just such a thing. But the time is not right for such a development. The Age of Information can only be allowed to dawn when other factors—social and political—are in place. But when that age comes, it will not come from the spin of a cogwheel, but from the flash of an electrical impulse.” I held Paige’s letter in the tips of my fingers, looking at it. “So,” Rogers asked, “what are you going to do with that?” I looked at Rogers, then back to Paige’s letter. I brought out a Lucifer match from my vest pocket and struck it on the heel of my shoe. The match flared up