The Electric War

by Mike Winchell

  In the prison, Alfred P. Southwick did not finish the victory speech he’d started some fifteen minutes prior. Just as he knew Thomas Edison would accept the news, the inventor of the electric chair knew this was a vicious defeat. Despite a legal mandate limiting the press from reporting details on the execution, Southwick knew word would spread like fire. Both the electric chair and alternating current would be seen as failures, severely harming their public reputation and perception.

  Numerous doctors, including Dr. Spitzka, later claimed they were certain the first jolt had killed Kemmler. Although Southwick considered the execution a great success (though he’d admit the initial charge should have been left on longer), he knew this was a blaze he could not contain on his own.

  Alfred P. Southwick, the dentist-turned-executioner, desperately hoped Thomas Edison had the means to extinguish the bonfire before it destroyed all they had worked so hard to create.

  14 IN KEMMLER’S WAKE

  In modern times, social media allows the immediate broadcast of news and an equally immediate reaction from the masses. Unlike in the late 1800s, today there is no wait time needed for the facts to be gathered, the report to be written, the article to be printed, and the publication to be distributed by hand. News circulated much slower in the late nineteenth century. But the news of Kemmler’s botched electrocution spread swiftly, finding its way into every major publication within hours, and the days that followed brought forth reactions from all sides.

  George Westinghouse’s statement was one of understandable horror. “It has been a brutal affair,” he said publicly, though one can’t be sure if he was referring to the execution as “brutal,” or the entire back-and-forth battle between himself and Edison. Perhaps he meant both. “They could have done better with an ax.” Historians would later debate whether Westinghouse intentionally tied the death to Kemmler’s mode of murder by mentioning an ax. After all, Kemmler was known as the “hatchet fiend” to the general public. “My predictions have been verified,” Westinghouse added. “The public will lay the blame where it belongs and it will not be on us. I regard the manner of the killing as a complete vindication of all our claims.”

  Bourke Cockran, Kemmler’s defense lawyer, echoed the sentiments of Westinghouse: “It is a sort of ghastly triumph for me. The experts against me on the trial figured it all out that such a shocking thing [an electric execution gone horribly wrong] was impossible and yet it has just happened.” Cockran wrongly predicted that “no other state will adopt the electrical execution law.” Ohio would later adopt the method as common practice in 1896, followed by Massachusetts in 1898. By 1913, twelve states had adopted the electric chair for capital punishment. That total would rise to twenty-six by 1949 when West Virginia joined the group.

  In contrast to Cockran and Westinghouse, dentist Alfred P. Southwick viewed the first electrical execution as a great success. Sure, he admitted, this particular execution had had some problems. But, he reasoned, that was to be expected, given the fact that this was the maiden voyage of the chair. “I tell you,” Southwick said to reporters, “this is a grand thing, and is destined to become the system of legal death throughout the world.” His words, in retrospect, were surprisingly prophetic.

  Thomas Edison understood the press—he’d had ample experience with it over the years—and he knew how the news would be received by the public. Using his tactful approach, Edison responded to the New York Times at his home in Llewellyn Park, New Jersey, by stating he wished not to discuss the particulars until he had had time to review the reports. That gave him some time to craft a reply. Once he did respond, Edison explained—with a calm and composed demeanor—that Kemmler undoubtedly died instantly. He added that the excitement of the moment surely had an effect on those in charge of the execution process, and on witnesses. With his signature confidence, he claimed that the next to die in the chair would do so without incident.

  Nikola Tesla, unlike the others, could not be reached for immediate comment. After a year working with Westinghouse in Pittsburgh on alternating current, Tesla had decided to leave the laboratory. Tesla still supported and respected George Westinghouse, but he no longer worked with the Westinghouse team. So when reporters tried to contact him for comment, Nikola Tesla was nowhere to be found. It would not be until some forty years later that Tesla commented that the very idea of electrocution was wrong because “an individual under such conditions, while wholly bereft of the consciousness of the lapse of time, retains a keen sense of pain, and a minute of agony is equivalent to that through all eternity.”

  In one of the most mysterious disappearances in American history, Harold P. Brown—writer of vehement letters to the editor, experimenter of animal electrocution, and challenger of electric duels—vanished following the execution. Brown was an apparition, appearing from out of nowhere to write the letter to the editor and bring down alternating current and then retreating back to nowhere once he’d accomplished what he’d set out to do.

  * * *

  The year leading up to the first execution had included a series of relative victories for Thomas Edison, the first of which was alternating current being termed the “executioner’s current.”

  In early 1889, with the economy tightening on Edison, financiers J. P. Morgan and Anthony J. Drexel proposed a merger between Edison Electric Light Company and Drexel, Morgan and Company. On April 24, 1889, this agreement resulted in the creation of Edison General Electric Company.

  More good news followed when the price of copper, which direct current needed an ample supply of to run its system, came down in 1889 after Hyacinth Secretan realized he had misjudged the uniform willpower of the electric world. When the price had been pushed so high, the executives of the electric companies simply refused—across the board—to pay the outrageous price Secretan had hung on his copper monopoly. Edison and the rest of the field had called the copper syndicate’s bluff.

  Edison’s long-standing light bulb patent court case, which essentially charged that every existing incandescent bulb model was owing to his design, was ruled in his favor on October 4 of that year, by Justice Bradley. The United States Circuit Court had considered the case for more than a few years, only to rule that these “patent pirates” had one man—and one design—to thank for any subsequent model: Thomas Edison.

  Even with the William Kemmler fiasco at Auburn Prison, Thomas Edison’s business was soaring.

  * * *

  In a similar manner, George Westinghouse’s business boomed in 1890.

  Even with alternating current firmly linked to the electric chair, the months that followed the Kemmler debacle were stellar for Westinghouse Electric. In October of that year, Baltimore, Maryland, had come through with the purchase of a six-thousand-light alternating current system, one of the largest to date. Another order was put in for 1,500 lights in two different states, in southern New York and Nebraska. Like dominoes, large orders continued to fall into place for George Westinghouse.

  Things had been so good, in fact, that Westinghouse had extended his business interests to electric streetcars and arc lighting, the sales of which also took off that year.

  By the end of 1890, Westinghouse Electric Company was bringing in a whopping four million dollars in annual sales.

  * * *

  All good things come to an end, they say, and this was no more evident than at the tail end of 1890, when the economy crashed in London, England, threatening a collapse in the US as well.

  In mid-November 1890, the world’s most prestigious banking house, London-based Baring Brothers & Company, was rumored to be filing for bankruptcy. This panic related to risky Baring Brothers investments with Argentina, which was itself enduring a recession. Although a consortium of prominent banks would band together to create a fund and guarantee the Barings’ debts, the effects in the US were monumental, leading all major investors and creditors to begin calling in their loans. In turn, Edison General Electric and Westinghouse Electric both got caught in the Barings
Brothers panic crossfire, forcing both electric pioneers to make drastic moves to save their respective livelihoods.

  Edison GE president Henry Villard had his finger on the pulse of the world’s economic state and knew that the North American Bank—a major source of Edison capital—had collapsed. Villard quickly discussed a possible merger with Charles Coffin of Thomson-Houston, which had also discussed a possible merger with Westinghouse Electric. Thomas Edison, of course, would hear no talk of a possible merger.

  In February 1891, Edison turned to his chief financier, J. P. Morgan, who sided with Edison. “I do not see myself how the two things [Edison Electric and Thomson-Houston] can be brought together,” Morgan concluded about the possible merger.

  On into 1892, Edison Electric board members urged Thomas Edison to consider switching to alternating current. Villard broke it down in monetary terms, suggesting that the amount of money lost when sticking to the long-distance direct current system was crippling them financially. Edison was a stubborn mule who wouldn’t budge, no matter how much Villard and the others tried to convince him.

  Then, on February 5, 1892, Thomas Edison was told by his personal secretary, Alfred O. Tate, that the merger was going to go through. “His complexion naturally was pale,” Tate later said in his memoirs, “a clear healthy paleness, but following my announcement it turned as white as his collar.”

  In the end, post-merger Edison shareholders controlled even less of the company than Thomson-Houston. Thomas Edison had lost so much he held only 10 percent of Edison General Electric Company stock, putting him in a precarious situation. Edison made claims that he had grown tired of the business and could not “waste my time over electric-lighting matters” because he had “a lot more new material on which to work.” His statements painted the picture of a man who wanted to lower his stock in the company, not of a man who had lost so much in his battle with Westinghouse and his stubborn stance to stick with DC. Edison had not only lost control of his company, but the company itself lost Edison’s name, changing from Edison General Electric to simply General Electric.

  Edison himself, the consummate showman, put on a proud face, claiming he was on board with the merger, while also claiming electricity wasn’t his only concern. “Electric lights are too old for me,” Edison stated. The great wizard stayed on and championed direct current, for he had vested so much in and fought so hard for the system, but his marginalization bruised his pride, along with his wallet.

  George Westinghouse was not immune to the Baring Brothers panic. Upon the first report of the Baring Brothers rumors, Westinghouse immediately sat down and ran the numbers, determining he needed half a million dollars to pay off his creditors and retain Westinghouse Electric. Westinghouse approached his own stockholders to raise the money needed, but the great panic was so strong the effort fell short of reaching the magic number. He was ever the cherished boss, and a group of his employees came together and offered to work for half wages until the crisis had been averted. Westinghouse, proud of his company for the gesture, declined the offer.

  The next course of action was to appeal to the prominent bankers in his home city of Pittsburgh and ask them to stand with him at this critical time. When the committee of bankers heard his pleas, Westinghouse showed his sense of confidence that the crisis would pass by offering his mansion, which he called “Solitude,” as collateral. The committee agreed to review the proposal and go over the figures at once.

  Then, on December 10, the board of directors of Westinghouse Electric agreed to raise the required half million by creating and selling preferred stock. In the successive days, a slew of businessmen and banks offered up varying amounts of funds, and traded for stock at an inflated price. All seemed well, until a rogue banker decided George Westinghouse was on the ropes and suggested they had the opportunity to seize operating control of the company due to the inventor’s dire state. Westinghouse, though, simply said that was impossible. Then he got up, smiled at the collection of moneymen, told a few jokes, thanked them for their consideration and time, and left. This was his company. That would never change, not while he still lived and breathed.

  In 1891, Westinghouse continued to turn over all stones to solve his looming financial dependency. When he met August Belmont, of Wall Street investment house August Belmont & Company, Westinghouse believed he might have found a match. The tentative plan that was proposed with Belmont involved selling a chunk of stock by having existing shareholders turn in 40 percent of their stock and accept a much lower value, and then turning around and paying the greedy creditors with the new preferred stock. This would work, Westinghouse knew, but one stipulation remained that might ruin the deal. According to the terms, Westinghouse had to eliminate “doubtful values and the book value of patents.” In the end, the major issue was Nikola Tesla’s patent royalty deal, which was sucking vast sums of money from the company.

  Though he’d remained in contact and advised Westinghouse Electric whenever possible, Nikola Tesla had been away from the Pittsburgh lab for more than a year, spending most of his time living in hotels and eating out, habits that would remain a constant for the rest of his life. He’d traveled to Europe, met with experts in many fields of science, and then returned to New York, where he started a new laboratory on Fifth Avenue, dipping his toes into many different electric experiments, including a protofluorescent bulb that was filament- and wire-free. His wealth from his Westinghouse deal had afforded him to live a life that was essentially free of material want and spend money carelessly, knowing his deal would continue to churn out profits throughout his life.

  In early 1891, George Westinghouse paid a visit to Tesla’s lab. After hearing about and seeing Tesla’s latest discoveries, his old boss shared the news about the company’s financial crisis. In Westinghouse’s signature no-nonsense mode, he inquired with Tesla about the possibility of terminating his AC patent contract and waiving his present and future royalties.

  Tesla asked what would happen if he refused, to which Westinghouse said he would lose control of the company to the banks. It would no longer be his company to run.

  “If I give up the contract,” Tesla said, “you will save your company and retain control? You will proceed with your plans to give my polyphase system to the world?”

  Westinghouse nodded and did him one better, telling the Serbian genius what he would do even if he lost control of the company. “I believe your polyphase system is the greatest discovery in the field of electricity … I intend to continue, no matter what happens, to proceed with my original plans to put the country on an alternating current basis.”

  Nikola Tesla, seeing the future of alternating current hanging in the balance, didn’t hesitate in weighing the value of financial gain against the survival and utilization of his alternating current system.

  “The benefits that will come to civilization from my polyphase system mean more to me than the money involved.” Tesla stood and grinned at his friend. Then he held up two documents. “Here is your contract and here is my contract—I will tear both of them to pieces and you will no longer have any troubles from my royalties.” Nikola Tesla had given up a fortune to see his vision—his flash of light—become a reality.

  In July 1891—with Tesla’s contract no longer an issue—a new board was organized to help stabilize Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company, with George Westinghouse in operational control. He had done it.

  15 ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE

  During the Gilded Age, the world was beginning to come together in terms of communication. Improvements to the telegraph and the advent of the telephone allowed people to communicate over long distances. Postal carriers and railways allowed items to be delivered across the country with more ease than in the past. News communication via telegraph allowed current events to be disseminated in various print publications more easily than in previous decades. But even with these new innovations, the world of the late 1800s was nothing like it is today, where the average citizen can
immediately connect with anyone else anywhere on the globe.

  One major event that united people from different countries all over was called the world’s fair. Held every few years, the tradition can be credited to the French, who would routinely put on national exhibitions that featured the best the nation had to offer related to a specific theme, like the 1844 Industrial Exhibition in Paris, which focused on the most exciting industrial and technological developments in the country. This tradition spread to a worldwide fair, which moved from one nation to another, with different themes. Each was like a worldwide all-star extravaganza that revolved around the given theme.

  These world’s fairs, with the collection of esteemed people from so many nations, served as the place to show off whatever was new and exciting. It was the only way, in fact, to display an innovation for a diverse audience at one given time. In a way, the world’s fairs of the past were like today’s internet because they showcased a device to widely disparate eyes at one time.

  In 1893, a new world’s fair was coming to the United States, and dignitaries from all over would be in Chicago, Illinois, for what was being called the World’s Columbian Exposition. Of course, with electricity as the most prominent of sciences of the time, inventors and businessmen knew that gaining the right to power the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago would be the ultimate showcase of their system. This set up a showdown between Westinghouse and AC, and General Electric and DC. Whichever company could win the contract to power the new world’s fair would have the attention of all the most important people in the world. The ultimate stage had welcomed our key players.

  * * *

  May 16, 1892

  Rookery Building, Chicago, Illinois

  All eyes stared at the iron box atop the long, sturdy table. The box was black and had been polished to a dull sheen. It had no markings or decoration. Just a large box, it appeared, so plain and unassuming that it would seem nothing of value could be contained within. But that was far from the truth, since inside were the bids from General Electric and Westinghouse Electric to light and power the upcoming 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago.