by Marc Seifer
“You are a strange man indeed. All right, it’s a deal. After the papers are drawn up, you may draw on the House of Morgan as the need arises for the full limit.”31
January 3, 1901
My dear Colonel Astor,
Hearty wishes for the new Century…Mr. Morgan’s generous backing, for which I shall be grateful all my life, secures me my triumphs in wireless telegraphy and telephony, but I am still unable to put my completed inventions [oscillators, fluorescent lights] on the market. I can hardly believe that you, my friend since years, should hesitate to join me in introducing them when I can offer you ten times better returns on your investment than anyone else.
Yours sincerely,
N. Tesla32
The Fine Print
March 5, 1901
Dear Mr. Tesla,
I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter of the first instant together with assignments of an interest in various patents as shown upon the schedule and assignments handed me therewith and to confirm the understanding therein expressed.
Very truly yours,
J. Pierpont Morgan33
The octopus was not content with creating a simple partnership in wireless. Unbeknownst to the inventor, Morgan wanted the lighting concern as well and control of Tesla’s patents. Boldly, these were added to the agreement. Tesla was now placed in a difficult situation, since Astor was the principal backer in the other enterprise and the inventor had not planned to include the actual patents as part of his collateral. “When I received your formal letter,” Tesla wrote three years later, “it specified an interest in fifty-one percent in patents on these inventions. That was different though my share was the same. It was a simple sale. The terms were entirely immaterial to me and I said nothing, for fear of offending you. You have repeatedly referred to some stock, and it is just possible, that a mistake was made.”34 Rather than confronting his new benefactor head-on, Tesla acquiesced.
February 18, 1901
Dear Mr. Stedleg [Morgan’s intermediary],
…I need scarcely say that I would sign any document approved by Mr. Morgan, but believe that there exists a misunderstanding in regards to my system of lighting which was not included in the original proposition.
Rather than try to amend the agreement to remove this vital concern, which, in Tesla’s words in the same letter, “will create an industrial revolution,” the inventor pointed out the great advantages of the lighting venture and included a promotional announcement entitled “Tesla’s Artificial Daylight.” He concluded by stating that “besides myself, Col. Astor is interested…[Thus] it will be necessary for me to comply with a formality before making the assignments. I shall attend to this matter at the earliest possible moment.”35
A month before, perhaps in anticipation of this problem, Tesla had appealed once again to his original benefactor:
January 11, 1901
My dear Colonel Astor,
Since Mr. Adams and his associates are entirely out, I have practically nobody but you and Mr. Morgan with me…Please let me hear from you…With me you are not with some wild syndicate, but with a man to whom your name, credit and interest are sacred.36
Astor called on the telephone a week later. He told the inventor that he was concerned that Tesla did not have fundamental patents and that other inventors might have priority, particularly on the wireless enterprise.
“Do not be misled by what the papers say, Colonel, I have the controlling rights. Why not come in with Mr. Morgan and myself.”37
Astor avoided making any definitive statements, and so Tesla apparently simply attached the lighting concern to the wireless deal with the commodore.38 Now Morgan controlled the fundamentals behind two completely independent new industries. Tesla could hardly complain; he had agreed to the proposal. All he had to do was succeed with the capital now provided.
March 5, 1901
Dear Mr. Steele [another Morgan intermediary]:
Now that all dangers of conveying a wrong impression to Mr. Morgan is removed by his kind acceptance of my proposal, I would call to his attention that I consider my fundamental patents on methods and apparatus for the wireless transmission of energy as the most valuable patents of modern times and as to my system of lighting, I am convinced that it constitutes one of the most important advances and is of enormous commercial value.
Yours sincerely,
N. Tesla39
On the thirteenth of the month, always a favored day for the superstitious wizard, Tesla paid Westinghouse back a note for $3,045. He was out of debt and on his way.40
30
WORLD TELEGRAPHY CENTER (1901)
Dear Mr. Morgan,
How can I begin to thank you in the name of my profession and my own, great generous man! My work will proclaim loudly your name to the world. You will soon see that not only am I capable of appreciating deeply the nobility of your action, but also of making your primarily philanthropic investment worth a hundred times the sum you have put at my disposal in such a magnanimous and princely way!
With many many wishes from all my heart for your happiness and welfare, believe me.
Ever yours most faithfully,
N. Tesla1
In March 1900 there was a fire in the East Houston Street building that housed Tesla’s laboratory. “The Jews on the lower floor [were] burned out…[and this] frightened me nearly to death,” Tesla wrote the Johnsons. “It was a close shave, and if the misfortune had happened, it would have been probably the last of your friend Nikola.”2 Throughout this period the onslaught by the press also continued in an unbridled fashion.
February 25, 1901
My dear Mr. Tesla,
We never forget old friends and defend them against all malicious assailants at all hazards.
Yours truly,
Earnest Heinrich
One of the old guard from the Westinghouse corporation, Heinreich, included a newspaper clipping which he had written. “Anyone who is ignorant,” Heinreich wrote, “…does not know that Tesla stands in the front rank of electrical inventors by what he has actually accomplished.”3
Another who came to Tesla’s defense was T. C. Martin, who authored a word of praise in Science. “The ship was off its course,” Tesla wrote, “but I always had faith in the captain.”4
December 13, 1900
My dear Tesla,
I am delighted to get your kind favor of Dec. 12. I know of no change whatever in my sentiments towards you these many years from the beginning until now. I shall always be very proud
of my modest association with your earlier work…
As ever,
T. C. Martin5
Unfortunately, there was also bickering between Tesla and Martin about the previous editorial attacking Tesla in Martin’s journal and about Tesla’s slow progress on his other inventions. Concerning the vacuum lamps, Martin wrote: “I should be delighted to see you or any other man give us the commercial art.” Perturbed, Tesla cut off his correspondence, and so the friendship remained impaired.6
Just three months later, in March 1901, Tesla invited an admirer and disciple of Swami Vivekananda, Miss Emma C. Thursby, to his laboratory. “My light will then be permanently installed and you and your friends—Miss Farmer in particular—will be most welcome to see it.”7
Tesla’s New Surprise
Julian Hawthorne
Great preparations for an experiment upon a stupendous scale are being made at the wizard’s laboratory on East Houston Street…An unannounced visitor gained entrance today by chance. Tesla was not there. But what the visitor saw chained him to the spot.
A Wonderful Color
From a stout beam [from] the…ceiling hung three dazzling, pulsating clots of purple-violet light. The room glowed with the warmth of a strange, unearthly rich color—a hue that is not listed in the spectrum. Above and below the beams twisted long glass spirals closely coiled—snakes of beating violet flame…
Sudden Darkness
One of Tesla’s work
man found the unannounced visitor spellbound. A quick spring to the wall, a concealed button touched, and darkness.
Those who knew say this violet light is the wizard Tesla’s new flash signal to the Martians. He will reveal it to the world soon. It is even hinted around the corner of Mulberry St. at Police Headquarters that Tesla has already wig-wagged the red planet and had a response.8
Hawthorne was living in Yonkers and often took a train down to Manhattan, dining with Tesla at the beginning of the year.9 They shared a number of common friends, including Stanford White, whose father, Richard Grant White, had confessed to Hawthorne once “among other sacred confidences of a woman whom he had found and loved in New York.” The rumor, in essence, was that he had been essentially a bigamist, maintaining one home for his family and one for his concubine.10 Perhaps this explained Stanny’s penchant for philandering. The son, however, easily surpassed the father, as he was able to maintain five or six retreats, including an estate on Long Island, an apartment in Gramercy Park, the Garden Tower suite, “the Morgue” on West Fifty-fifth Street, which he and his compatriots, like Saint-Gaudens, “used in a pinch,” and his “most infamous haunt,” at 22 West Twenty-fourth St.11
In March, Stanford became smitten by the exotic charms of the sixteen-year-old Floradora siren, Evelyn Nesbit, who had been featured as a Gibson centerfold for Colliers and as a nearly bare-breasted Spanish dancer in a popular musical on Broadway. White watched her perform night after night for many weeks before he was able to arrange a rendezvous, which first took place in the heat of the summer at the Twenty-fourth Street studio.12
“Stanford had me put in an electric door,” the inventor told Hawthorne. “You press a button, and it automatically opens.”
White had decorated his bachelor den in shades of red, with velvet curtains on the windows, soft cushions on the floor, and tapestries, statues, and paintings, mostly nudes all around. In his loft, with the room set like a small forest, lit with a bright skylight, could be found a red velvet swing hanging from the ceiling, like one of Chaucer’s toys, with green ropes trailing down from the seat, like vines from a tree.13
Besides meeting with the mystical son of the renowned Gothic author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Tesla dined with Stanford White and sometimes Mark Twain at the Players’ Club, or with Spanish-American War hero, Richmond Hobson, Rudyard Kipling, or, of course, the Johnsons throughout this period. Katharine was caught up in her interest in spiritualism and tried an experiment in thought transference without the inventor knowing. In jest, Tesla wrote back:
My dear Mrs. Johnson,
There was no telepathic influence this time. I never thought of you even for a moment.
Sincerely,
Millionaire Kid!14
Rooted in his materialistic philosophy, the superstitious “wizard who talks with other worlds”15 continued to repudiate the notion that human minds could interact by extrasensory means, even though he had recently saved some friends from a train wreck because of a premonition.16 Overtly, however, he would maintain that psychic phenomena was poppycock. Katharine would not only be teased for her mystical bent but also over possession of Hobson and over her looks.
My dear Luka,
When Mrs. Filipov is out of town I think of Mrs. de Kay as the most charming lady of my experience. It would be advisable, Luka, to keep both ladies in ignorance of this. A word to the wise is sufficient.17
Considered much like an uncle to the family, Tesla also expressed his continuing affection for the Johnson children. For Agnes, he would sign a New Year’s card “Nikola Hobson,” and for Owen, he took the time to read the youngster’s first novel, The Arrow of the Almighty. He also congratulated Owen on his impending marriage. Agnes would also later marry, and she would inherit the vast Johnson correspondence, much of which was donated to Columbia University. According to the present Mrs. Robert Underwood Johnson, the wife of Owen’s son (named after the grandfather), Agnes was “awful. I didn’t like her at all. Her daughter, however, was very beautiful. Paderewski felt that Ann had great talent…Owen was very dashing and attractive, and had a lot of his mother’s qualities. As a writer, he authored the Lawrenceville series and made a good living as a novelist.”
The present Mrs. Johnson stated that Katharine had “an Irish personality.” She could be “gay and lively and fun loving, but also depressive underneath.” The present Robert Underwood Johnson lived with his grandparents. “They had two Irish servants, Josie and Norah. Katharine would go into one of her moods, and just stay in her room and wouldn’t come down even for meals. Her depression became more severe…after World War I.” She said that Robert was considered to be “boring, very formal with old world manners…a fine old gentleman. Katharine was attracted to Tesla because he was imaginative and exciting from a European point of view. He might have brought more gaiety into the house.”18
Wardenclyffe
“Inventor Nikola Tesla has purchased a 200-acre tract at Wardenclyffe on the Sound, nine miles east of Port Jefferson for the establishment of a wireless telegraphy plant. The land and improvements will cost $150,000.”19
On March 1, 1901, Tesla officially signed his contract with Morgan. He was now able to begin construction of his laboratory and tower on Long Island, sixty-five miles from New York City. Two days later, Morgan officially announced the creation of U.S. Steel. No such announcement was made about the Tesla Company. The above article, which appeared in a local paper, the Long Island Democrat, was perhaps the only one to make reference to the correct figure of $150,000, which Morgan provided. When John O’Neill wrote his biography in 1944, he did not know the details of the Morgan-Tesla relationship, even though he had personally known Tesla for over thirty years. The inventor, whose papers were still under lock and key at the time of the completion of the biography, had told O’Neill that the financier provided the funds in his capacity as a philanthropist, although this was not the case at all. It was a simple business partnership.
Tesla celebrated the new connection by giving a large party at the Waldorf-Astoria. He had discussed with Oscar the details of the menu and participated in tasting the various sauces. Impeccably dressed, he reserved one of the smaller banquet halls, requesting his guests to arrive at seventhirty sharp. White was probably there, along with the Johnsons, Hobson, and perhaps Miss Merrington or Vivekananda acolytes Miss Thursby or Miss Farmer or Anne Morgan. As legend tells it, when it came time for dinner to be served, the maître d’ was forced to call Tesla aside to inform him that he owed the hotel back bills totaling more than $900. He was under orders. Dinner could not be served unless the matter was straightened out first. With an ace up his sleeve, Tesla nonchalantly welcomed his guests and then eased out to see the manager. Mr. Boldt was cordial but insistent, so Tesla made a call and put him on the phone with Morgan. Flustered, Boldt was nevertheless able to hold his ground. A check was sent immediately, and the inventor was saved from embarrassment.20
Soon after, Tesla met with real estate mogul Charles R. Flint, who arranged a meeting with James Warden, director of the North Shore Industrial Company. Warden, who was in control of an eighteen-hundredacre potato farm on Long Island Sound, in Suffolk County, provided Tesla with two hundred acres adjacent to what is today called Route 25A. The inventor was also given the option to purchase the remaining parcel. Perhaps to sweeten the deal or in lieu of certain other arrangements, the cite was named Wardenclyffe, after the owner, and a post office under that appellation was established on April 2. Five years later, in 1906, the name was officially changed to the Village of Shoreham.21
Electrical World & Engineer reported: “The company is offering its stock for sale at $100 per share, expecting to pay 15 per cent dividends…The Wardenclyffe Building Company shall have the first right
and privilege to do all building and make all constructional improvements…and shall have the first right of purchase of any additional land offered by it for sale.” Warden, who was interviewed for the article, predicted that “large prof
its will be realized in the future.” Describing Tesla as “the foremost electrician of the age, whose achievements in electrical science eclipse in practical importance all other discoveries of the century,” Warden noted that the inventor “has just closed a contract to expend…a very large sum of money in constructing electrical laboratories and the main station for his wireless telegraphy system of communication with Europe and Australasia. This development will require a large number of houses for the accommodation of the several hundreds of people whom Mr. Tesla will employ.”22
Tesla’s ultimate plan was to construct a “World Telegraphy Center,” with a laboratory, wireless transmitter, and production facilities for manufacturing his oscillators and vacuum tubes. He had negotiated with Morgan the first step, that is, to build the laboratory and a simple tower for reporting yacht races, signaling ocean steamers, and sending Morse-coded messages to England. Simultaneously, he discussed with McKim, Mead & White the construction of an entire metropolis, “a model city,” using the eighteen-hundred acres available, with homes, stores, and buildings to house upwards of twenty-five hundred workers.23 “Wardenclyffe will be the largest operation of its kind in the world,” Tesla told the local newspapers. “The laboratory will draw men from the highest scientific circles and their presence will benefit all of Long Island…24 With a staff of 75 draftsmen, the eminent architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White is well suited to the task,” Tesla concluded. They billed him $1,168 for blueprints.25
White, it appears, was placed in a precarious position: Morgan still had reservations about his connection with the flamboyant engineer. In his capacity as interior decorator, White, in February, had located a statue in London which he knew the financier was interested in. “My dear Commodore,” the engaging redhead wrote, “it is really like parting with a piece
