“I saw smoke curling in the window and heard a sputtering sound,” an employee inside the building commented later on. Soon after spotting the wisp of smoke, workers found Murray dead beside an electric wire that was partially cut, the insulating material actively burning at the severed spot. Murray had failed to wear the required rubber gloves and had paid for the lapse in judgment with his life.
When others attempted to grab him and pull him from the cornice, they too were shocked by the live current. It took multiple sheets of rubber wrapped around Murray before the man’s charred body could be helped off the cornice.
Newspapers broadcast the tragic story, adding to the building worry of common citizens everywhere.
* * *
June 5, 1888
201 West Forty-Fourth Street, New York, New York
He had written the letter on May 24. It had taken some time, but now, almost two weeks later, Harold Pitney Brown—a little-known electrical engineer—held open a copy of the New York Evening Post. He looked down his substantial nose, over his swollen handlebar mustache, and smiled as his eyes moved swiftly left to right.
“The death of the poor boy Streiffer,” the letter began, “who touched a straggling telegraph wire on East Broadway on April 15, and was instantly killed, is closely followed by the death of Mr. Witte in front of 200 Bowery and of William [Thomas] Murray at 616 Broadway on May 11, and any day may add new victims to the list.” Brown nodded as he read. He lifted a hand and touched the part in his hair with his index finger. “If the pulsating current is ‘dangerous,’ then the ‘alternating’ current can be described by no adjective less forcible than damnable.”
Brown focused intently as he read the portion that dealt with weakly insulated wire. “Among electric lighting men it is appropriately called ‘undertaker’s wire,’ and the frequent fatalities it causes justify the name.”
His eyes skipped to the end, where he demanded alternating current over three hundred volts be outlawed to save human lives from the same fate as Moses Streiffer, Fred Witte (who died on April 28 after touching a United States Company lamp), and Thomas H. Murray (who Brown had referred to as “William” Murray in his letter). Earlier in Brown’s letter, he had stated that “if the death of these three men can effect the adoption and enforcement of regulations similar to the following, they will not have died in vain.” Brown reviewed his list of recommended regulations, nodding as he read about a limit of fifty lights on the same circuit, the necessity of a waterproof covering for outdoor arc light circuits, and ending with “no alternating current with a higher electromotive force than three hundred volts shall be used.”
Harold P. Brown closed his paper and grinned. His opinion had been validated by at least one publication, the New York Evening Post, which was owned by one Henry Villard, who would one day happen to find himself president of Edison Electric Light Company.
* * *
Only a few days later, Harold P. Brown was invited to attend a New York City Board of Electrical Control meeting on June 8, where his letter would be read word-for-word into the record before the board and then captured in the meeting’s minutes and passed along to a host of respected electric companies and electricians, with George Westinghouse included.
Near the same time Brown’s letter was being read before the Board of Electrical Control, George Westinghouse was in the process of writing his own letter, dated June 7, 1888—a letter addressed to none other than Thomas Alva Edison. In this letter, Westinghouse offered to come together and talk like adults and perhaps reach an agreement and form a truce between them. “I have a lively recollection of the pains that you took to show me through your works at Menlo Park when I was in pursuit of a plant for my house, and before you were ready for business … it would be a pleasure to me if you should find it convenient to make me a visit here in Pittsburgh when I will be glad to reciprocate the attention shown me by you.”
Five days later, Thomas Edison responded in kind, declining the Westinghouse invitation with a curt written message: “My laboratory consumes the whole of my time.” The following weeks found Edison and company claiming far and wide to the press that George Westinghouse was lying about his alternating current results.
Left with no hope for peace, Westinghouse knew he had to respond, but he did so by sticking to the facts related to alternating current, shedding light on the success and safety he had thus far exhibited. At the next New York City Board of Electrical Control meeting on July 16, Westinghouse presented a letter to the board, explaining that he had—in conjunction with Thomson-Houston—established 127 central stations in two years’ time, while his Pittsburgh plant was the “largest incandescent lighting station in the world.” He made it clear that when it came to safety, the numbers spoke for themselves. Not one of his 127 stations had experienced a fire, while a number of the 125 direct current stations had reported fires, three of which had completely destroyed the DC central stations. In regards to Thomas Edison’s smear campaign, Westinghouse announced that he was taken aback by the “method of attack which has been more unmanly, discreditable and untruthful than any competition which has ever come to my knowledge.”
It was clear, by way of written letters and through actions, that there would be no truce. Both sides knew: this was war. And it was just getting started.
* * *
Just as he had done with Alfred P. Southwick (who was at that very moment still in the process of getting the next method of execution turned over to alternating current), Thomas Edison seized the chance to have someone else spearhead his fight against George Westinghouse. Instead of having his own face and name in opposition to his rival, here fate had handed him Harold P. Brown, a man who was a born fighter and who had come right out and called alternating current “damnable.” Edison realized he wouldn’t even need to do the discrediting himself; Brown would do the dirty work for him.
Late June 1888 found Harold P. Brown being called on by electricians and board members to actually prove his claims, while early July of the same year found Brown in the new West Orange laboratory of Thomas Edison attempting to do just that. Brown would later say it was he who had contacted Edison—although many would claim it was the opposite—in hopes of borrowing some equipment to aid in his experiments. “To my surprise,” said Brown, “Mr. Edison at once invited me to make experiments at his private laboratory, and placed all necessary apparatus at my disposal.”
Harold P. Brown set up shop in Edison’s fancy laboratory for much of July, where he even had the full cooperation and assistance of Edison employee Arthur Kennelly and Edison’s most trusted colleague, Charles Batchelor.
By the end of July, Brown was confident that he had gathered enough evidence to prove alternating current was deadly beyond any semblance of a doubt. After issuing invitations to all Board of Electrical Control members, representatives from all electric light companies, prominent members of the electrical fraternity, and members of the press, Brown greeted just over seventy guests at Columbia College. He was intent to prove his case.
* * *
July 30, 1888
Professor Chandler’s Lecture Room,
Columbia College, New York, New York
Harold P. Brown stood upright before his esteemed audience. Each person watching him knew his name, and now everyone knew what he looked like. He raised his hand to his slicked hair and ran his open palm over his head.
“I represent no company and no commercial or financial interest,” he said with a serious stare. That point made, Brown explained the fundamental differences between alternating and direct current, making eye contact with the many electricians in attendance, as if to say, “This part isn’t for you, my friends. I only detail the differences for the layperson who is otherwise unaware.”
Noticing some expressions of disinterest, Brown quickly walked to the middle of the room and stood beside a large wooden cage with copper wires woven between the bars. “Over the last few weeks, I have proved by repeated experiments that
a living creature could stand shocks from a continuous current much better.” Brown lowered his hand to the cage beside him. People in the audience shifted in their seats, reporters looking at the electricians in the room, searching for answers, the electricians shrugging and scratching their heads.
Brown suddenly disappeared into another room. A moment later, he walked back into the room holding a leash connected to a large black retriever. Tugging on the leash, Brown led the dog to the cage and forced it inside. After strapping the dog inside, Brown slammed the barred door and locked it. Gasps and sighs could be heard from the audience; a nervous chattering wafted over the area as people wondered what this man was doing.
Brown did not keep them guessing. Instead, he announced that the dog—which weighed seventy-six pounds—was in good health and had no inclinations to hostility. Brown nodded to two men at the side of the room, Arthur Kennelly and Dr. Frederick Peterson, who scurried to the cage and held the dog in place while electrodes were attached to its right foreleg and left hind leg.
Brown called for three hundred volts and Arthur Kennelly flicked a switch and turned a dial and the dog shimmied left and right in the cage. The chattering in the audience grew silent. Eyes widened.
Brown gave the order for four hundred volts, then seven hundred.
The sound of scraping claws reverberated around the room, and the dog whined between bursts of movement. It broke free of the restraints, and Brown’s team of “scientists” were forced to open the cage and reattach the straps. More and more people voiced their displeasure about the spectacle before them.
Brown demanded a thousand volts and all whining and yelping ceased and was replaced by a clenched snout that shook like a leaf in a hurricane. Some guests dashed from the room; others begged Brown to have mercy.
Harold P. Brown gestured for Kennelly to stop.
“Now,” said Brown with a sly grin, “he will have less trouble when we try the alternating current.” Kennelly and Peterson assisted Brown in hooking the dog and the cage up to a Siemens Brothers alternator.
Brown stepped a few feet away from the cage as Kennelly looked at him curiously. Brown called for three hundred volts and Kennelly set the current as commanded and turned it on. The dog shifted left and right briefly before collapsing inside the cage.
Dead.
As Brown smiled again, satisfied, he gave Kennelly the signal to turn off the current.
Agent Hankinson, a member of the ASPCA, stepped forward and forbade Brown from experimenting on any other animal.
One after another, audience members rushed from the lecture hall. While some voiced their disgust with the cruelty of the exhibition, others made a point of contention that it wasn’t so much the alternating current that had done the dog in, but instead it was the extended torture with direct current that had considerably weakened the dog’s state.
A smug Brown assured the dissenting audience that he had plenty of other dogs that he had experimented on in the past month, claiming the “treachery” of alternating current was to blame for the quick death of the dog. It was later discovered that Brown had enlisted local neighborhood boys to gather up stray dogs by applying a bounty of twenty-five cents per canine. Before saying farewell to his guests, Brown announced that the fatality threshold for the many dogs he’d experimented on had been three hundred volts for alternating current and over a thousand volts for direct current. Before his visitors left, they received Brown’s final thoughts that the “only places where an alternating current ought to be used were the dog pound, the slaughter house, and the state prison.”
* * *
August 3, 1888
Professor Chandler’s Lecture Room,
Columbia College, New York, New York
Harold P. Brown looked around at the audience, a more condensed group than he’d welcomed a few days ago, but then again, this time he had been more selective. This crowd contained most of his colleagues, a few experts in the field of electricity, a handful of public health officials, and a generous helping of reporters.
“All of the physicians present,” Brown announced as he stood next to three cages that already housed captive dogs, “expressed the opinion that a dog had a higher vitality than a man, and that, therefore, a current which killed a dog would be fatal to a man.”
Without further delay, Brown started the display with a sixty-one-pound dog in cage number one, which he disposed of in short order with three hundred volts of alternating current. There was no struggle. No whining. No yelping. No mess. Just a few seconds’ time and a dead dog where a live one once sat.
Not to be outdone by dog number one, Brown moved on to the second cage, which held a ninety-one-pound Newfoundland. Only eight seconds were needed for an equally clean execution of this larger dog.
Pleased with the results thus far, Brown smiled as he moved on to the final cage. Inside was a fifty-three-pound mutt. But Brown’s smile soon faded when the dog lasted a whopping four minutes—suffering, whining, and struggling—before keeling over for good.
With his second presentation complete, Harold P. Brown regained his smile and bid his guests a fond farewell.
* * *
In the month following Brown’s three-dog display, Thomas Edison met more good fortune when the New York state legislature, thanks to Alfred P. Southwick’s guidance, officially designated electrocution as its new mode of capital punishment.
The state legislature created a new committee to secure advice from people who were knowledgeable about the deadly impact of electricity. This committee appointed Dr. Frederick Peterson as its chairperson. Peterson was one of Edison’s men, and the same man who had helped Brown with both his displays at Columbia College.
Teaming up once again, Brown and Peterson happily accepted the generous offer of Thomas Edison to use his West Orange laboratory to continue their “research” on how best to kill living creatures with electricity. Soon after, at a summative meeting on November 15, Dr. Peterson told the rest of the committee that both currents would kill but that alternating current was the preferable and recommended choice.
The committee announced that it would make its decision official on December 12 at its next meeting, but Harold P. Brown wasn’t about to leave this matter with any uncertainty. Instead, he organized yet another electrical demonstration that would make it 100 percent clear that alternating current was the only option.
Brown knew what he needed: to show how larger animals reacted to alternating current.
* * *
December 5, 1888
Edison Laboratory, West Orange, New Jersey
Harold P. Brown had pitched it as a “matter of great importance” to his esteemed audience, made up of several reporters, employees of Edison Electric, physicians from the Medico-Legal Society, and two members of the newly formed Gerry Commission (the “Death Commission”), Alfred P. Southwick and Elbridge T. Gerry.
Among this well-respected and highly regarded group, one man stood out and brought great value to the group as a whole: Thomas Edison. Up to this point, Edison had only been a supplier of space and material for Brown’s experiments. He’d remained silent as to Brown’s research with animals. But now here he was in plain sight. With his mere presence he’d legitimized the entire spectacle. Reporters now looked to Brown with a newfound sense of respect, as did the members of the Gerry Commission and the Medico-Legal attendees.
Brown began his demonstration by revealing a calf, which took only thirty seconds to be done away with. Brown followed this by disposing of a larger calf and then did the same with a horse.
The next day, the New York Times declared that what had been witnessed in West Orange had proven that alternating current was the “most deadly force known to science, and that less than half the pressure used in this city for electric lighting [1,500–2,000 volts] by this system is sufficient to cause instant death.” In this one statement, Thomas Edison had achieved what he’d hoped for, in that it was now on record that alternating current was the
“death current.” On the flip side, direct current now looked like a safe mode of delivering electricity to the public—far more safe and reliable than a system that was now synonymous with death.
A few days later, the Medico-Legal Society officially adopted “death by alternating current” and listed its recommendations for how to administer the current to criminals. Edison must have been doubly giddy to add “executioner’s current” to alternating current’s list of nicknames. Adding even more fuel to the fire, Edison would recommend that executing someone with electricity should be referred to as being “Westinghoused.”
In response to Harold P. Brown’s assertion that he’d proven without any doubt that three hundred volts of alternating current was deadly, George Westinghouse told numerous New York papers that “a large number of persons can be produced who have received a one-thousand-volt shock from alternating current without injury.” He summed up his company’s rebuttal by stating, “We have no hesitation in charging that the objects of these experiments is not in the interest of science or safety.” While some in his camp wanted him to return the smear campaign with similar methods, Westinghouse refused to fight dirty. When asked why he didn’t go after Edison by returning his vicious attack, Westinghouse explained he had learned that you “don’t play the other fellow’s game.” When Ernest H. Heinrichs, a newspaper reporter Westinghouse hired to promote his company in a positive manner, implied that perhaps that was what was needed, Westinghouse firmly refused. “By letting the others do all the talking,” Westinghouse told Heinrichs, “we shall make more friends in the end than if we lower ourselves to the level of our assailants.”
Harold P. Brown, though, did not appreciate Westinghouse’s statement that he was not being truthful about the deadly nature of alternating current. In a surreal turn of events, Brown essentially challenged Westinghouse to a sort of electric duel straight out of an old Western movie: “I challenge Mr. Westinghouse to meet me in the presence of competent electrical experts and take through his body the alternating current while I take through mine a continuous [direct] current.” In multiple publications, Brown explained his electric game of chicken in great detail, making it clear he was completely serious. “We will commence with 100 volts, and will gradually increase the pressure 50 volts at a time … until either one or the other has cried enough, and publicly admits his error.”
The Electric War Page 10
