by Marc Seifer
In the heart of winter, in early 1895, White invited Tesla “for a little supper [for] the artist, Ned Abbey, in my room in the Tower,” and Tesla “sharpened his appetite for the occasion.”8 There, in White’s sanctuary, where one’s mind could spin a thousand tales, the duo gazed out over the entire city. This moment symbolized the pinnacle of social achievement, for only the elite could enter White’s chamber and only the imagination of the outsiders could discern what might transpire. A month later, the inventor reciprocated by asking White, his wife, Bessie, and their son, Lawrence, to his den.
March 2, 1895
My dear Tesla,
I cannot thank you too much for your kindness in showing all your wonderful experiments the other day. They made a deep impression on me, as they did everyone, and I am going to see them again someday, if you will let me.
Sincerely yours,
Stanford White9
A fortnight later, the laboratory was in cinders, but for the electronic savant, it was almost as if he were simply shifting gears. In the spring he received a risqué invitation to White’s outrageous “Girl-in-the-Pie Banquet.” As the story goes, and there are a number of versions, a dozen scantily clad maidens served a twenty-course meal at the notorious photography studio of Jimmy Breese at 5 West Sixteenth Street, the dinners having been shipped from Sherry’s. Attending the clandestine affair were other friends of White’s, including artists August Saint-Gaudens and Robert Reid, and the inventor Peter Cooper Hewitt. At the culmination of the feast, with the band playing, the young ladies returned in even more provocative outfits, singing and wheeling out a pie the size of a small automobile. To the tune of “Four and Twenty Blackbirds,” the crust burst open with the flutter of a flock of canaries, and out popped a topless young woman. Mum was the word until sketchy details were published in the World.10
Tesla became privy to the architect’s salacious activities and may have partaken himself in discreet entanglements, although it is just as likely that his phobia for germs or monastic inclinations would have inhibited him. White admired Tesla, as each, in his own way, was a sculptor of the New Age. Meeting occasionally for a round of pool at the Players’ Club or at a boxing match, perhaps with Twain, at the Garden, Tesla also accompanied White for sailing jaunts out at Southhampton with a dozen members of the clique.
On one occasion, White asked Tesla to join him for an outing with Mr. William Astor Chamber, an African explorer. As usual, Tesla was busy at work, but after some tactful prodding, he relented. “I am so delighted that you have decided to tear yourself away from your laboratory,” White said. “I would sooner have you on board than the Emperor of Germany or the Queen of England.”11
The year 1895 was a peculiar one. The U.S. government was nearing bankruptcy. In the Panic of 1893 bondholders had wished to secure gold instead of paper money, and the mint had made good by depleting its reserves. By January 1895 the United States was within days of being unable to meet its debts. Quietly, President Cleveland had asked August Belmont, a wealthy Jewish businessman (and backer of the Westinghouse Company), to meet with the European Rothschilds to secure replacement gold reserves. The reality of the day, however, included an unfortunate worldwide wave of anti-Semitism. Only the year before, in a famous trial in France, the Jewish captain Alfred Dreyfus had been convicted on a “trumped up charge of treason.” The Rothschilds were Jewish. How would it look to have Jewish financiers bail out an entire nation? It was for this reason, according to Morgan biographer George Wheeler, that J. Pierpont Morgan, an upstanding Episcopalian, was brought into the picture.12 Morgan, with Belmont’s help, was able to secure $60 million in foreign gold reserves, and the country was saved from insolvency. The incident also marked the anointment of Morgan as King of Wall Street.
In October, a twenty-two-year-old, well-mannered stenographer named George Scherff walked into Tesla’s laboratory and applied for a job.13 The inventor reviewed the secretary’s credentials and hired him. Although Scherff knew nothing about electrical engineering, Tesla was impressed with his demeanor and intelligence, and within a matter of days the youth was busy at work transcribing papers and taking over the general management of the office.
In the same month, Tesla forwarded a book on Buddhism to Luka, whom he hadn’t seen since the end of the summer. Johnson had traveled with his wife to Italy to receive a decoration from King Humbert for his work on securing a law for international copyright and during this period, Tesla had taken some time to attend lectures in Brooklyn on Buddhism by Swami Vivekananda.14. “My dear Friend and faithful stranger,” Johnson wrote back, “I am touched by your remembrance of me in sending the book…[I’ll] drop into your laboratory some day for old acquaintance’s sake.”15
“Glad to know that you are again in town and established in the beautiful Johnson Mansion,” Tesla wrote Mrs. Filipov. “I cannot say as much for my laboratory which is [still in need of] furnishing.”16
Tesla reported the local gossip, such as how Stanford had difficulty deciding between which of two beautiful sisters to spend an evening with; the gist of swami Vivekananda’s lectures on the external nature of God and the transmigration of souls, and of his progress in netting more millionaires. He was meeting with railroad magnate and U.S. senator Chauncey DePew; J. Beavor Webb, a fleet captain, shipbuilder, and Morgan man; Darius Ogden Mills, a stock market manipulator and principal in GE; and John Jacob Astor.
The wealthiest of the crew, except for Astor, was undoubtedly Mills, who had made his fortune in San Francisco during the California gold rush. Owner of the New York Tribune, and a palace on Fifth Avenue “opposite St. Patrick’s Cathedral…of which a Shah of Persia might have been proud,”17 Mills had been the second private citizen in history, after J. Pierpont Morgan, to have his abode illuminated by electricity. As Herbert Satterlee tells the story, Mills was so impressed with the Edison invention that he insisted on becoming a partner in the company. “Only if for every share of Edison stock you purchase for yourself, you purchase one for me,” Morgan replied, and Mills agreed.18 Tesla had much to tell his European traveling friends.
At the end of the year, Tesla began to apply more pressure on Edward Dean Adams to influence John Jacob Astor. The Colonel, as he was now called, was funding, of all people, mountebank John Worrell Keely. This was a situation that had to be changed. Keely’s motor hadn’t motored in twenty years; Tesla’s had turned the world. Martin wrote the inventor of his astonishment at Astor’s gullibility;19 Tesla pressed Astor for a commitment.
Attempting, perhaps, to capitalize on the Christmas spirit, Tesla met with Astor and his nautical counselor, J. Beavor Webb, on December 19 and pitched his cause. “I am impressed with your endeavor, Mr. Tesla,” Astor commented, “although, as I understand it, your latest inventions are yet to reach the point of being marketed. Nevertheless, I’ll speak to Mr. Adams. By all means, let’s keep the door open.”
Tesla telephoned Adams that afternoon and wrote Astor the following day:
My dear Mr. Astor,
[Adams] would be only too glad to have you with us. We agreed that we would jointly provide from 500-1000 shares of the Parent Company for yourself and Mr. Webb at the price of $95 a share of a par value of $100 each.
The Parent Company owns my patents…[and rights in foreign and domestic markets, which I believe] will profoundly affect the present state of the mechanical and electrical arts, and will create a greater revolution in their applications than my ideas on the transmission of power which are at present, generally adopted.20
Christmas was drawing near, and with it the renewal of the Serb’s link to his adopted American family. The invitation from the Johnsons was wholeheartedly welcomed. “My dear Luka,” Tesla wrote, “I am, as you know, very fond of millionaires, but the inducements you offer are so great that I shall set [them] aside…to partake in the splendid lunch which Mme. Filipov will [prepare]…[For] Christmas, I want to be at home—327 Lexington Avenue—with my friends, my dear friends—the Johnsons. If you w
ill prepare a dinner for a half dozen and invite nobody, it will suit me…We shall talk of bless[ed] peace and be merry until then.”21
Tesla did his best to overlook the erotic tension emanating from Katharine as she directed the servants, with Agnes, to set the dinner table and Tesla talked shop with Robert and his son, Owen. Katharine could never be part of the bond that existed between Tesla and Robert. Her heart ached for what it could not have and yet, simultaneously, was filled with what it now possessed.
With Robert out of the room, Katharine was too intense. She claimed a telepathic link to the wizard, her breast palpitated when he was near, hormones gushed. On one occasion she edged them to the line. He had no choice but to withdraw.
On the last day of the year, Stanford dropped off a note. He wanted Tesla to hire a promising lad, the son of his friend Charley Barney, a banker with ties to Whitney and Vanderbilt. “My dear Mr. White,” Tesla wrote back, “I heartily agree that the young fellow who has two awfully pretty sisters, ought to be helped by all means. Unfortunately,” Tesla continued, he still had the responsibility of “carrying three superfluous [work]men” who were not really working because of the delay caused by the fire.22
As the relationship with the Johnsons became more intimate, there may have been rivalries between them over which one had the greater access to “Him.” Tesla wrote after the new year: “My dear Luka, I am glad to know you shall love me, but I am much disappointed to learn that the boil has bothered you so much. I doubt, however, that you are a hero, because heroes do not go to bed on account of a boil.”23
Although Katharine had seen Tesla twice in December, it only served to ignite her passion even more. Torn between loving a professorial and delightful gentleman, who could count among his friends Mark Twain, John Muir, Rudyard Kipling, and Teddy Roosevelt, even if he did suffer from boils, and an exotic internationally known virtuoso whose singular talents promised to transform an entire world, Katharine wanted “to feel herself en rapport’” with the wizard so that she could discuss their psychic link:
February 12, 1896
Dear Mr. Tesla,
I have had such a wonderful experience the past three years. So much of it is already [gone?] that I sometimes fear it will all pass away with me and you of all persons ought to know something of it for you could not fail to have a scientific interest in it. I call it thought transference for want of a better word. Perhaps it is not at all that. I have often wished and meant to speak to you of this, but when I am with you I never say the things I had intended to say. I seem to be only capable of one thing. Do come tomorrow.
Sincerely yours,
Katharine Johnson
Stanford may have been able to leave his wife on Long Island while he courted young starlets at his bachelor pad at Gramercy Park or his private loft atop the Garden Tower, but “dear Mr. Tesla” was cut from different cloth. He would often dine with women and tantalize with his eyes, but that would have to be the extent of a relationship.
Apparently Tesla undertook a self-imposed vow of chastity, having been influenced in part by Swami Vivekananda, who preached chastity as the path to self-transformation and enlightenment.
Tesla met the Swami on February 13, 1896, at a dinner with Sarah Bernhardt after one of her performances in the play Iziel. As with the rest of the world, Tesla had first heard of the Swami during the summer of 1893 when the “Hindoo” gained overnight prominence after speaking at the Congress of World Religions, which had been held at the Chicago World’s Fair. As Tesla had been in Chicago within a month of the talk, it is conceivable that he met or saw the Swami speak at that time.
Vivekananda told “the great electrician” about “Vendantic Prâna [life force] and Akâsa [ether], which according to [Tesla], are the only theories modern science can entertain.”
Having studied Madam Blavatsky’s theosophical teachings, Tesla was already versed in the idea of Akâsa and the Akâshic Records, which are, in essence, the records of all historical events existing in some vibratory state in this ether.
“The Brahmâ, or Universal Mind,” the Swami continued, “produces Akâsa and Prâna.”
Tesla agreed with the essential premise of this Buddhist view, replying that the theory could be “proved mathematically by demonstrating that force and matter are reducible to potential energy,” and then the inventor invited Swami Vivekananda, some of his devotees, and Sarah Bernhardt to his laboratory for the following week to demonstrate through experiments this principle.
After Tesla showed the swami some of his “creations,” the swami advised that pure creation, in the sense that “something” was born from “nothing” was not possible. To Swami Vivekananda, creation was a process of combining existing elements into a new synthesis. This idea of the eternal nature of existence with no beginning and no ending was appealing to Tesla, and he later referred to this and related concepts in some of his writings. Today, this theory in cosmology refers to the steady-state theory of eternal creation, which would oppose the more generally accepted big-bang theory, which hypothesizes a particular date for the beginning of time. The reason that the big-bang theory is the more generally accepted one is because the universe is expanding. Working backward, it appears logical that all matter in the universe was together at one time in one location. Current estimates place the big bang at about 15 billion years ago.24
How Astor could be taken in by Keely, was a mystery to Tesla, for the financier declined at this time to partake in the venture. He had taken a month to consider the proposal:
January 18, 1896
Dear Mr. Tesla,
Your letter offering me some of your oscillator stock received…95 seems rather a high price; for though the inventions covered by the stock will doubtless bring about great changes, they may not pay for some time as yet, and, of course, there are always a good many risks.
Wishing the oscillator as much success as I could if financially interested, and hoping soon to be able to use one myself,
[I remain] Yours sincerely,
John Jacob Astor25
Although a rejection, the letter was not a complete denial. It was going to take one or two more go-arounds to land this big fish.
The oscillators, for Tesla, of course, were never ends in and of themselves. Tesla’s goal was to send energy into the earth and use it as a conduit to transmit messages and power. Details of the plan, however, were such a tightly held secret that even his workers were not completely confided in. Somewhat surreptitiously, Tesla took a train to Colorado Springs in late February 1896 to look over a prospective site for a new laboratory and also to conduct the kinds of wireless experiments he had wanted to undertake before his laboratory burned to the ground. Tesla instructed a colleague, perhaps a local engineering professor, to transmit a musical song on an autoharp through Pikes Peak to his receiving equipment, which included another autoharp, attuned to the first, four miles away, on the other side of the mountain.
The experiment was a success; the song “Ben Bolt,” played on one side of the mountain, was picked up by means of a resonant earth frequency on the other. Tesla, however, completely confounded the details of the instrumentation involved. By implying to the press that the energy utilized derived from the earth and not from one of his oscillators, Tesla also succeeded in generating hyperbolic headlines as well.
Based on this false premise, page 1 of the March 8, 1896, Sunday magazine section of the World announced not only Tesla’s historic wireless achievement but also the supposed experimental verification that the earth was imbued with “free energy” of essentially unlimited amounts. By tapping this reservoir, the future was clear: “Electricity would be as free as air…The end has come to telegraph, telephone companies…and other monopolies…with a crash.”
19
SHADOWGRAPHS (1896)
The rising claims of the inventors revives an incident in connection with the discovery of the Roentgen ray…Oliver Lodge [announced] apparatus by which he saw through a man. A few day
s later Mr. Edison [proclaimed] that he had apparatus with which he had seen through two men. Within a week, Mr. Tesla produced rays of such penetrating power that they went clear through three men. When this was shown to Mr. Edison, the great man, who hasn’t a spark of jealousy in his nature, smiled and said, “Well, let’s stop it at three. What do you say? I think three men will do as well and prove as much as a regiment.”
NEW YORK MAIL & EXPRESS1
Afew days before the New Year, the scientific world was shaken by the remarkable discovery by Wilhelm Roentgen of a queer, unknown energy that he called X rays, which emanated from his Lenard and Crookes tubes. Michael Pupin wrote, “No other discovery within my lifetime had ever aroused the interest of the world as did the discovery of the X-rays. Every physicist dropped his own problems and rushed headlong into the research.” Astonishingly, Pupin added, “To the best of my knowledge I was at that time the only physicist here who had had any laboratory experience with vacuum-tube research…I obtained the first X-ray photograph in America on January 2, 1896, two weeks after the discovery was announced in Germany.”2 As Pupin could so neatly do, he foreswore any mention of his compatriot. To Pupin, Tesla was a nonperson.
Roentgen gained world recognition virtually overnight with his announcement that he had discovered a new energy emanating from cathode-ray tubes that could illuminate light-sensitive chemicals at the far end of a room, penetrate solid objects, and photograph the internal organs and bones of living beings. As Pupin noted, scientists from all over the world dropped their current projects to join in this exciting new venture. Tesla himself wrote no fewer than nine articles on the topic in a two-year period. Although Tesla may have noticed these rays and their effects on photographic paper years earlier,3 he did not pursue the investigations and left no doubt that the discoverer of what he liked to call “shadowgraphs” was Wilhelm Roentgen.
