The same month that Tesla visited Bloomfield-Moore in Philadelphia, he also met with Astor. He did so, writes Tesla's latest biographer, in his "progress of netting more millionaires,"25 hoping to amass enough funds for his experiments. This uncovers yet another layer of Tesla's disinterest in Keely's work while at the same time keeping a fascination with Bloomfield-Moore, Keely's loyal and ardent supporter. For Bloomfield-Moore not only knew Astor intimately since at least 1882 when they mingled in the highest diplomatic and noble circles in Italy, but she writes that "...the mother of Mr. Astor (had) been a connection of my relatives, the Wollcotts."26
One time, Astor visited her to offer her "a paper for the New Scientific Review," Bloomfield-Moore writes, "before he went over to New York for the yacht races... I corrected and sent back my proof — Spiro Vortex Action."27
She also mentions one instance when she had been on board the Nourmahal, Astor's steam-driven three-masted schooner that measured an impressive hundred yards and was equipped with four machine-guns to frighten off potential pirates. Bloomfield-Moore wrote about this occasion: "...on Sunday, August 4th, while on board the Nourmahal I agreed to go with Mr. Astor and the electrician who invented the dynamo plates a patent for which he has taken out.... Now I can only say that Mr. Samuels has given up electricity and is going to study Keely's system under Keely's instruction, thoroughly convinced after witnessing the operation of drawing forces from space, the action of the test mediums and the levitation of the weights in the jar."28
What, if any, advice Bloomfield-Moore gave Tesla in his hopes of obtaining a funding from Astor, if he ever sought her help in this matter, is not known. Bloomfield-Moore was a highly intelligent and kind-hearted woman, and her conversations with the genius Tesla must have been stimulating and interesting for both of them. In the end, Astor remained elusive and kept his ambiguous attitude towards Tesla. Tesla wrote Astor several letters after Astor met with Keely in Philadelphia, asking him for financial funding29 and inviting him and his wife to visit his laboratory.30
In 1899 Astor finally agreed to fund Tesla, but not for his grandiose ideas, nor for a large or generous amount of money. During a meeting the year before the agreement, Tesla painted to Astor the possibilities of his teleautomaton. Astoundingly Astor, who four years before had published his book that also showed no limits in visionary concepts, replied coolly that, "You are taking too many leaps for me. Let us stick to oscillators and cold lights. Let me see some success in the marketplace with these two enterprises, before you go off saving the world with an invention of an entirely different order, and then I will commit more than my good wishes. Stop in again when you have a sound proposal or call me on the telephone."31
So when the agreement was made, Tesla was forced to limit himself to oscillators and fluorescent light bulbs, and on January 10, 1899, papers were signed whereby Astor gave Tesla $100,000 for 500 shares of the Tesla Electric Company, a rather insignificant sum compared with the "several millions" with which Astor and others were originally planning to support Keely. Astor was also elected director of the board of the Tesla Electric Company. At the same time, Tesla moved into Astor's hotel, the Waldorf-Astoria.32 Tesla would not exploit his oscillators and fluorescent lights, but went to Colorado Springs instead, to embark upon another of his grandiose projects. After that, their relationship became strained. "Tesla had deceived him," writes Seiffer in his biography. "As wealthy as he was, Astor wanted to invest in a sure thing."33
History is left with an uncomfortable mystery. Astor's reluctance to invest in Tesla's most brilliant ideas, and in the end only giving a mere fraction of what he had at his disposal for one of Tesla's lesser inventions, is interpreted as shrewd and keen businessmanship, bent on investing only in what is sure. At the same time Astor was described as being very gullible. His willingness to support Keely with a far greater sum is not understood, since the weight of argument is shifted towards that fraction of Keely's contemporaries who were merely interested in depicting him as a fraud.
But this contradiction in the descriptions of Astor's character and motives fails to explain why he appeared so disinterested in Tesla's visionary ideas, while he himself had published a book overflowing with fantastic technological extrapolations. Or why he, not an entirely unsuccessful inventor himself and having at least some specialized knowledge, at the same time preferred to erect a Keely Power Company and together with other millionaires finance it with several millions, based on Keely's own fantastic discoveries.
Possibly Astor, having invented a flying machine, was more impressed with the prospects of Keely's proposed concepts of aerial navigation than Tesla's futuristic plans, for aerial navigation was a field of invention that concerned Tesla only at random. Aerial navigation also fascinated Astor's acquaintance Bloomfield-Moore. It very likely may have been she who pointed Astor's attention towards Keely's discoveries.
Perhaps Astor was involved in an intricate financial plan, design or intrigue based on division and domination. Whatever his reasons, Astor took these with him to a watery and ice cold grave. After he died in 1912 during the tragic Titanic disaster, only those 500 shares of the Tesla Electric Company were found. In all the years, Astor had never even taken the trouble to increase the stock.34
As a side effect of the negotations between Keely, Bloomfield-Moore and Astor and his rich allies, interest in Keely and his discoveries renewed itself somewhat, and the usual interview appeared occasionally in the Philadelphia press. In one of these, a puzzled reporter tried to describe one of Keely's avant-garde devices. "A disk-shaped apparatus was shown, about 18 inches in diameter and two inches thick, covered with brass, and divided into segments. Upon its face were three tuning forks, with heavy tines, two of the same pitch, and the third a half note below. On the lower edge was a small detachable piece of brass, with two small narrow strips of steel fastened to it. A brass cap, like the top of a fruit jar, filled even full with an amalgam paste, which Mr. Keely said he had studied three years to produce, was attracted to these steel strips, and hanging to the cap (or disk as it might be called) was an iron weight of 140 pounds." The reporter also witnessed a levitation experiment, similar to the one Leidy saw, involving disks and metal balls "the size of an orange," held in glass jars filled with water. Keely also confided to the reporter that he expected "to build his railway engine at once and have it ready for operation some time during the next year."35
Yet again, towards the end of 1895, notwithstanding earlier statements that Keely would commence the construction of the railway engine, nothing of any substance was reached. In November, a newspaper wrote that the rumors that Keely would exhibit an engine to "New York capitalists," were not true. "It was learned that no engine has yet been built; that the New York parties will not be here, and that, by particular request Mr. Keely had decided to give no exhibition of any kind at present."36
On December 11, the usual annual meeting of the stockholders of the Keely Motor Company was held. A newspaper ironically remarked that this time the meeting would likely "be one of more than usual interest, on account of the reported efforts of well-known capitalists to obtain an interest in Keely's inventions." But the most important reason for this more than unusual interest was that it somehow was discovered that the Keely Motor Company actually had no real basis of existence; "the New York parties who are said to have been looking into the matter have discovered that the Motor Company has no legal claim upon the results of the work that Keely has been engaged on for the last five years." This shattering conclusion was based upon the ground that "the terms of the contract binding Keely to turn over to the Motor Company all the inventions of whatever nature he may make during his life are illegal and cannot be enforced."37
If that was the case, the Keely Motor Company was without assets, since no patents were taken out, and no specifications of Keely's devices were ever drawn. "In fact," it continued, "Keely gave up the attempt to harness the power, and directed his investigations to the discovery of a means fo
r utilizing the force which he believes to exist in the vibrations of the universal ether." Keely, however, was "willing to give the old company a minority interest in the new enterprise when formed, not as a matter of legal right," it was pointed out, "but as an equitable adjustment of all matters between him and the company."38
In the meantime, Bloomfield-Moore answered a letter to Collier in which she made it clear that no effort was made to buy her share in "the invention of the airship propeller and the railway traction engine."
She furthermore stated that, "had the Keely Motor Company made such a proposition to her, after she had refused theirs, she was "prepared to place her share under their control." But now, she valued her shares "as I never valued them before," although she admitted that she would have given her shares away if "they would have held the gift for the good of the masses, for the progress of humanity, for research in new fields, and not for selfish aggrandizement." An indication of what she must have thought of the true intentions of the Keely Motor Company also lay in her following statement: "Now there is nothing that could induce me to place these privileges in the hands of financiers," and she made a strange remark: "Had the negotiations been completed," she said, "within two weeks the scientific world would be set ablaze by the announcement that their syndicate was to employ apergy instead of electricity as the motive power."39
Nothing came of the negotiations between Keely, Bloomfield-Moore and Astor and his allies. In the meantime, Tesla was still in pursuit of the millionaire's support, even though a slight connection between Astor and Keely still remained. The next month, Keely announced that he would impart with some of his learning. He would instruct Zak Samuels, "Astor's expert," who had met Bloomfield-Moore on Astor's imposing ship, "in the taking up of dead lines and in the sensitizing of metal so that it is acted upon by radiation on the same principle as in the human brain." This apparently could not be done immediately; when Keely was ready, he declared, he would "notify Mr. Samuels (who is the only man I will have time to instruct) and this at the earliest possible moment."40
On the same day, a far more important statement was issued to the press: a dark herald of the dramatic event that would unfold the following year. But the statement was not only a herald; it was also an indication of what the true cause of that event was. It all began on December 14, when the Philadelphia press got a glimpse of the sordid family affairs of Keely's most loyal supporter; Clara Bloomfield-Moore. Bloomfield-Moore had accused her son, Clarence B. Moore, of having wasted the money of his father's estate of which he had been the sole acting executor since 1878. Of course, Moore denied this: "The answer of Clarence B. Moore, the son of Mrs. Bloomfield-Moore, to her petition to have him dismissed as executor of his father's estate, was filed today by his counsel, C. Berkely Taylor and John G. Johnson." Moore vehemently added: "He denies mismanagement of the estate, tells a detailed story, alleging his mother's persecution of him, and asserts that she is insane."41
But this sudden, poisonous outburst withered away as quickly as it sprung up. Far more urgent affairs were taking place; Bloomfield-Moore, under her nom-de-plume of H.O. Ward, was giving out long statements to the press regarding what she held was the nature of Keely's discoveries, which somehow hinted to a less passive role for her in her relation with Keely than was generally assumed: "In 1894, when I made the suggestion to Mr. Keely, he began with his first attempts to vibrate hydrogen, with the result that he is now able to show the correctness of my random conjecture."42
On Monday, December 11, The Keely Motor Company had its usual chaotic assembly during its first stockholder meeting in five years. During the meeting the "harmonizing of conflicting interests" was attempted and a reorganization was announced. All in all, some fifty people were present in the hall at the southeast corner of Eight and Walnut Streets.
After the election and re-election of company members of the Board, a special three-member committee was appointed, consisting of Collier, treasurer Sylvester Snyder and Lancaster Thomas, vice president of the Keely Motor Company. This team conferred and formulated a plan of reorganization of the company, which was then submitted to Keely. Naturally a part of the plan was that Keely should apply for patents. Ackerman presented his annual report, which in part related that "more than a year ago Keely undertook to instruct his patent attorney, Mr. Charles B. Collier, relative to his inventions, including the sensitizing process, to enable Collier to take out patents. One of the members of the Board, Mr. Lancaster Thomas, was present during the sensitizing of several disks and assisted in its performance, and both gentlemen stated that it was absolutely new." Collier, the report stated, had told the Board that "this as well as Keely's other structures were capable of being protected by letters having the broadest scope known to our patent system."
But one year ago, Keely, "for some reason not known to the Board nor understood by Mr. Collier," ceased all communication with Collier and gave him no further information regarding his inventions. Instead, Keely sent out his two circulars in regard to reorganization of which the Board did not approve. The Board announced that "reorganization would be effected as soon as Keely operates a large commercial engine and enters again into the matter of procuring patents to cover his inventions."43
On December 24, almost two weeks later, Bloomfield-Moore made a statement to the press that Keely had abandoned all ideas of patenting his inventions, but that he would adopt a system of royalties for the commercial use of his discoveries. Keely decided upon this course because he was fed up with the delay of the stockholders of the old Keely Motor Company in accepting his terms for a reorganization of interests that he had announced almost a year before.
According to her there were "twenty or thirty instruments to be patented, covering the various branches of the system." Among these she enumerates the "spiro-vibrophonic" which would require eight or ten patents; the "resonating" four or five more; the "vitalizing" six, and that before these could be prepared, or commenced even, a "vibratory dynamo" must be set up, which would require weeks to set up and graduate. The "sympathetic transmission" system also would require months to put into a patentable shape, also the "sympathetic governor."44
With Keely's plans to form a new company, the ensuing reorganization of the old company, and Astor's attention towards him, the year 1895 ended undecided. In February 1896, the committee members of the Keely Motor Company were studying a counter proposition that Keely submitted.
Keely met with an accident on February 11, the day after he demonstrated his Vibratory Dynamo to the members of the Board. He was run over by either a car or a runaway horse on Chestnut Street.45 The accident shook him up severely and confined him to his house, so the whole reorganization plans were halted until he had time to recover. The stockholders met again on March 2, following the adjournment of their last meeting on December 11 of the previous year, an adjournment that was effected to "allow time for the preparation of a satisfactory plan of reorganization which should harmonize all conflicting interests." At the meeting of March 2, nothing of any substance was decided. Due to Keely's accident another adjournment was taken. A new date was set and the new meeting was planned for April 2.46
On the day before his accident, Keely demonstrated his Vibratory Dynamo Machine, that he also called a First-circuit Engine.47 The demonstration was successful; power was transmitted from an engine to a dynamo by means of a belt. The members of the Board who witnessed this test run thought that he had "obtained such control over his discovery as to entitle him to letters of patent broadly covering his process, and the machinery employed conducting it." The reorganization plans of the committee would be based upon his application for patents "at the earliest practicable period," wrote Ackermann, president of the Keely Motor Company.48
This letter, written some three weeks after Keely's accident, and the reorganization plans that were put forward with a sudden elan, were partly a response to the bitter statement made the previous year quoting that Keely had decided to "take out no patents."<
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On April 2, during a somewhat stormy meeting, the report of the appointed committee was read. The plan was to secure to the Keely Motor Company the exclusive rights in the territory covered by former agreements, Keely's two systems of producing power. The plan also stipulated that no reorganization should be made until Keely had produced a practicable machine and had applied for patents. A letter from Keely, dated March 31, was also read. He agreed to this plan, while remarking that he believed that he was safe in assuming that those present at his demonstration of the First-circuit Engine were satisfied that he had indeed attained "substantial control of my power, and that complete success in a commercial form of engine is clearly in sight and a question of but a few months at furthest."49
The report of the committee recited the agreements made between Keely and the company, and acknowledged the ownership of his new system that he discovered in 1882 and of which he claimed that the Keely Motor Company had no rights whatsoever. The report stated that Keely's claim "seems to be a valid one, and the directors evidently took that view in 1887, as also did the stockholders, as shown by the minutes of the annual meetings." The proposition was therefore to reorganize the company for the purpose of acquiring the rights to his other discovery "within the territorial limits of the company."50
There were still some loose ends. The report noticed that one of the outcomes of the suit against him made in 1882, namely a decree of the Court that specifically directed him to file with the Court the necessary specifications for taking out patents on the inventions owned by the company, had not been done. Keely insisted that another clause in the decree, namely to provide him with "a proper amount of money for his maintenance and for perfecting his inventions," also had not been done. He then explained that, in order to procure means, he had been obliged to make agreements, called "assignments," that could be converted into stock of "any new company that may be formed." He also claimed that the agreement called for the use of 100,000 shares of the Keely Motor Company's stock as a working capital, to "which use it had not been put." The committee concluded that "there was matter of difference enough between the parties to litigate upon for a generation," and that the best thing to do was to "wipe out the past and start with a fresh deal."51
Free Energy Pioneer- John Worrell Keely Page 13
