02 May 2005
A top-notch electrical engineer from Edison's Paris facility, Tesla's ideas have been rudely rejected in Europe. Now waiting in a chair before the desk of the great THOMAS EDISON, letter of introduction in hand, it becomes apparent why there are sirens in the distance. A SECRETARY barges in screaming, "A curtain has caught fire in Mrs. Vanderbilt's mansion and she wants you to remove your electrical contraptions immediately." But Edison is on the phone handling another crisis, as Tesla patiently waits, "The horse was electrocuted where? Corner of Pearl and Nassau? The carter is nowhere to be found?" Another phone rings. Edison impulsively grabs it, anything to avoid the current problems. It's the MANAGER of the SS Oregon: "Mr. Edison, do you have any plans to get your dynamos on my ship repaired so I can stay in business?"
By now the tall Serbian is thinking he should come back later when Edison gruffly waves him to hand over the letter, probably thinking, "what's one more thing on my plate."
Tesla hands Edison the letter of introduction from his old boss at Edison Paris. After promising to have the dynamo fixed by Tuesday, Edison hangs up and reads Tesla's letter out loud: "I know of two great men. You are one of them and the gentleman standing before you is the other." Seeing an opportunity to find out if this is true, Edison asks Tesla if he can handle the crisis on board the SS Oregon. Tesla is confident he can, but this is not his mission. His mission is to construct an entirely new system of safe electricity, electricity that will replace the direct current (DC) system used by Edison and thus eradicate future fires. He shows Edison the schematic he was polishing on the park bench. Edison bristles at the dreamer's arrogance and tells him to "Go fix the generators on the SS Oregon, if you can. Then we'll talk about alternating current, Mr. Tesla."
That day, Tesla boards the SS Oregon and works all night. Early the next morning, as Edison is boarding the ship with a group of ASSOCIATES, he runs into Tesla who is disembarking to catch some sleep. Edison, ever the morning person, pipes up: "A ha! Here's our Parisian running around all night." Tesla informs him that he has completed the repairs on both generators and the SS Oregon is now ship-shape and the client is happy. Edison just stares in disbelief, but as he walks away, Tesla's telescopic ears hear him mutter to his associates, "Now THAT is a damn good man."
During the next year, Tesla establishes a reputation for being a crack engineer. One day the famous actress, SARA BERNHARDT, comes into the lab to immortalize her voice on Edison's first phonograph. While there, she notices the good-looking Serbian working diligently and tries to flirt with him. But Tesla is impervious to her advances.
As Tesla's accomplishments mount, his confidence soars to the point where he wagers Edison $50,000 that he can completely redesign and upgrade his sputtering, dangerous DC generators within a year. Edison, confident that Tesla is still dreaming, takes him up on the wager. But when Tesla actually delivers, an incredulous Edison reneges on payment and dismisses the matter as a joke: "Tesla, unfortunately you don't yet understand our American humor".
Insulted at being cheated and ridiculed, Tesla, quits on the spot. Edison warns him that future engineering jobs may be slim, but Tesla takes his chances and walks out the door. Unfortunately, Edison was right. Tesla finds himself working in a ditch, ironically a ditch burying cable for Edison's inferior DC power system. But, due to Tesla's burgeoning reputation, SEVERAL ENTREPRENEURS approach him one day and persuade him to go into a venture building arc lamps. Enticing him further by allowing him to call the company, The Tesla Electric Light Company, Tesla figures this is better than digging ditches and accepts the deal. In no time, a lab in Rahway, New Jersey is established and Tesla is at work designing and building arc lamps. Although he eventually files 7 patents, it soon becomes clear that his new partners ONLY want to manufacture arc lamps and could care less about Tesla's dream of developing safe alternating current. Once again, Tesla has a falling out and resigns.
Finding himself back in the same ditch, Tesla continues to daydream about a polyphase system of universal alternating current -- as he shovels dirt. While taking lunch one day, he is chatting to a small group of FELLOW WORKERS about his vision, when the FOREMAN approaches with a new set of INVESTORS who want to put up $500,000. This time it will be for the Tesla Electric Company, where the "poet of science" will finally be free to pursue his life-long dream of delivering safe and inexpensive alternating current to the world.
Meanwhile, Edison, with the financial backing of J.P. MORGAN (and half of Wall Street), continues installing direct current with abandon. New York is now a twisted nest of dangerous wires and fire-prone generating stations. With an expensive generating station required every mile or so, Edison and his STOCKHOLDERS are happily making a killing on Wall Street, figuratively and literally, as DC is not only inefficient, but extremely dangerous.
Nevertheless, as his new company gets going, Tesla embarks on a series of lectures explaining the merits of AC and how it can be safely transmitted hundreds of miles instead of requiring an expensive generating station every mile or so. Not surprisingly, Tesla's AC system begins to attract serious attention, especially after a lecture to the
American Institute of Electrical Engineers in May of 1888. After this event, Tesla's reputation as a preeminent electrical engineer is firmly acknowledged by his peers. Also at this lecture, one of the most important men in the industrial world, GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE, takes note. By this time, Tesla has filed forty patents for his AC polyphase system. Seeing great potential in Tesla's work, Westinghouse offers Tesla $60,000 for these patents, of which $5,000 is in cash and the balance in 150 shares of Westinghouse stock. Tesla accepts. Westinghouse also gives Tesla a royalty contract granting him $2.50 for each horsepower his new system of alternating current generates, a sum that would be worth a staggering fortune decades later.
Still yet, invitations to prestigious social events are beginning to come in from MEMBERS of New York's wealthy "400 Club". For the first time in his life, Nikola Tesla is not only rich beyond his dreams, but famous and respected.
What becomes known as the War of the Currents is now in full swing as the first electrocution of a prisoner, WILLIAM KEMMLER, takes place on August 6, 1890 -- a stunt to make Westinghouse look bad -- because unbeknownst to Westinghouse, Edison has purchased an AC generator and had it installed in the state prison. After a grizzly execution, where the prisoner has to be given jolt after jolt to finally kill him (because AC is not as dangerous as DC), Edison calls a news briefing. He maliciously points out that the prisoner was "Westinghoused with AC electricity" and again asks the question, "Is THIS the kind of electricity you want in YOUR house, near YOUR children?"
However, thanks to the staunch support of Westinghouse and prestigious engineers, such as Professor ANTHONY at Cornell and Professor PUPIN at Columbia, Edison's black PR campaign is exposed as the fraud it is. The tides finally turn in favor of AC. Tesla becomes more popular than ever. In fact, one day, he even comes to the attention of ANNE MORGAN, daughter of J.P. Morgan, while JP is cursing the young "poet of science" as he reads falling stock quotes coming off the morning ticker on his Edison investments. Morgan NOW understands what Edison was trying to tell him about AC.
Unaware of the love and hate developing around him, Tesla moves to Pittsburgh and works for Westinghouse full-time. One day he gets into a passionate argument with STAFF ENGINEERS to change their 133-cycle standard to a 60-cycle standard. Finally, the engineers see what Tesla is talking about and agree to change the design. Almost the entire world will now run on Tesla technology.
That afternoon Sara Bernhardt calls and asks Tesla if he would like to have dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York to celebrate his becoming an American Citizen. Tesla accepts on the condition she wears no pearl jewelry.
Over dinner, Tesla explains why he does not like pearls and why he uses so many napkins to polish the silverware. Being acutely sensitive to, not only the future, but the present, Tesla realizes that turn-of-the-century New York is what it is: a filthy, germ-ridden cesspool. Thus the heat he generates by rapidly polishing his silverware is designed to sterilize the utensils. As for pearls, those porous remains of tormented sea creatures, Tesla is convinced they absorb and retain sweat long after it has putrefied and stinks to high-heaven on a woman's ears and chest. This is why Tesla does not care for them. And being a non-smoker, his sense of smell is all the more keen, thus he finds pearl jewelry all the more objectionable.
Tesla's visit to the Waldorf not only gives him an idea of where he would like to live someday, but makes him downright homesick for New York. Thus, soon thereafter, he wraps up his chores in Pittsburgh and moves back to New York to begin work on what becomes known as the Tesla Coil, a device that contains the underlying principles of, not only radio, but the transmission of electrical power through air and ground. As research and development continue, Tesla lectures to additional prestigious organizations across the United States and Europe, including the Institution of Electrical Engineers, The Royal Society, The Society of Electrical Engineers and The French Society of Physics. In these lectures, Tesla relates his discoveries with the Tesla Coil and its potential for transmitting electrical power through radio waves.
The House of Morgan, which has been the lead investor in many of Edison's DC ventures, is becoming more frustrated than ever, if not downright revenge-prone over the newly arrived genius-inventor who rocks boats and crashes financial empires. Thus, through the person of CHARLES COFFIN, the BOARD decides to "Morganize" (take over) the whole lot of electrical companies, starting with the Thomas-Houston Company. The plan is to acquire an initial company and then use that as a vehicle to wage price wars. These wars will ultimately make it difficult for competitors to raise money on Wall Street due to slimmer profit margins and weaker balance sheets.
Even Edison himself is effected by the price wars and is eventually forced to consolidate his company with the Thomas-Houston Company thus forming a new entity called the General Electric Company, such under control of Morgan and his CRONIES. GE and the House of Morgan then turn on Westinghouse by floating rumors on Wall Street that George Westinghouse is mismanaging his company and thus doomed unless he merges with GE. Westinghouse's stock crashes and, since he is over-extended from the War of the Currents, his INVESTMENT BANKERS urge him to merge with Morgan's conglomerate. But he refuses, instead opting to merge with several smaller companies, including U.S. Electric and Consolidated Light Company. Thus the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company is founded.
Due to the superior nature of Tesla's system of polyphase alternating current, Westinghouse is able to underbid all his "Morganized" competitors, especially General Electric, and win the contract to supply electricity to the Columbian Exposition at the World's Fair in Chicago -- the first World's Fair to have electricity. After this grand event, Tesla is now subjectively AND objectively at the height of his power and prestige. Millions now openly recognize the young Serbian inventor, not only publicly on the covers of prestigious magazines, but privately. Anne Morgan is one of the many women who has become increasingly intrigued, if not totally infatuated, with this gorgeous and brilliant man.
Before the new Westinghouse company can be capitalized, the investment bankers urge Westinghouse to rescind the lucrative royalty contract he has granted to Tesla for each watt generated by the polyphase AC generator. Out of appreciation for Westinghouse's support, Tesla tears up the agreement and accepts a mere $216,600 for the outright purchase of all his precious AC patents, an act of unprecedented generosity, if not poor business judgment. Had Tesla retained these royalties he and heirs would be mega-billionaires in the coming decades (because the world now uses over 14 trillion watts of AC electricity each year, all generated on Tesla generators under the 60-cycle standard). Instead of receiving $2.50 per watt under the Westinghouse contract, Tesla tragically begins sinking into a slow financial ruin while the crooks around him flourish and prosper.
One fortuitous day George Westinghouse calls to inform Tesla that he just received notice from the Commission that electrical power may be tapped from Niagara Falls and he will be using none other than Tesla's AC generators at the new hydroelectric facility. Quickly, the first three of an eventual ten 5,000 horse-power generators are built. These successfully supply alternating current to the City of Niagara Falls and Buffalo, an unprecedented 23 miles away. When Morgan reads of this in his morning paper, he realizes that his huge investments in DC are down the drain. Many OTHER INVESTORS, who followed Morgan's lead, also realize this and they are now quite upset with their guru.
By now Edison is also aware of the loss and foaming at the mouth over the deeds of the Poet. In fact, two of his overly-zealous STAFF EMPLOYEES over-hear him shouting to one of the SECRETARIES: "I wish that bastard's lab would burn to the ground." Mysteriously, one night around 2:30AM, the lab that gave birth to AC, does just that. A fire starts on the first floor of 35 South 5th Avenue and, as heavy machinery crashes through the incinerated ceilings, Tesla's exquisite plans for an energy-starved world's new system of free electrical power are destroyed. Standing in the ashes of his uninsured lab, a white dove lands on Tesla's shoulder. Taking this as an omen of better times, Tesla is confident he will rebuild and be successful no matter what.
Good friends, among which are ROBERT & KATHARINE JOHNSON, B.A. BERNARD and MARK TWAIN introduce Tesla to INVESTORS who are eager to re-capitalize his company. Several months later a new lab emerges on East Houston Street. Tesla now returns his full attention to the idea that radio waves can transmit electrical power. To prove this, he broadcasts a signal from his lab to a remote-controlled miniature boat 20 miles up the Hudson River.
While describing this achievement and his dream of transmitting electrical energy to a REPORTER from Electrical Review, Tesla is asked if he will ever marry and raise a family. Since this question is often asked of him, Tesla decides to go public with his feelings on women and love. He relates that he does indeed believe in marriage for people of artistic temperament, "An artist, yes. A musician yes. A writer, yes. But for an inventor, no. The first three must gain inspiration from a woman's influence and be led by their love to finer achievement, but . . . I do not think you can name many great inventions that have been made by married men. It's a pity, too, for sometimes we feel so lonely." Anne Morgan, reading this last in a paper that picked up the story, is now challenged to persuade the poet of science that loneliness is not the way. She thus implores her father to introduce her to Tesla. Edison, a married man, after reading the same article, slaps it on the desk and yells for his NEW SECRETARY to get Morgan on the phone.
Back in the lab, Tesla is on the phone with JOSEPHUS DANIELS trying to interest the Navy in his robot boat, which has now been developed into a remote-controlled submarine. He tells Daniels he can, not only send radio waves to control its direction, but transmit electricity to power its motor from a distance. The Navy, feeling there is no future in robots, passes on the invention. Tesla, as a last resort, calls Morgan. Morgan says he will finance the venture if Tesla will get his daughter out of his hair by marrying her, settling down and working in one of his companies. "I read your article about women Nickie, and it's all crap. Shape up and fly right son. Put down your cocky ways and I'll give you a job."
Tesla says that he will think about it and returns a call to ADMIRAL VON TIRPITZ of the German High Command. The Germans seem to be the only ones smart enough to see merit in Tesla's ultra sophisticated turbines, so he makes a deal with them and begins receiving royalties. That night, to celebrate, Mark Twain comes over to the lab . . . late, as usual. The two sit up until the wee hours of the morning talking, joking, drinking and discussing their theories of women and the universe, equally mysterious phenomena. All the while Tesla is running experiments from a new pulsating coil which he says transmits electricity into the ground in the form of standing waves. Suddenly a small detachment of POLICE burst into the lab. They inform Tesla that the buildings downtown are shaking and ask, "Do you have any idea what's happening, Mr. Tesla?" Mark Twain, by now drunk out of his skull, assures the police that he knows exactly what's happening, "A damn good year for bourbon; that's what's happening."
Confident that he's onto a major breakthrough for humanity, and to avoid disturbing his fellow New Yorkers again, Tesla moves to a sparsely populated area in Colorado near Colorado Springs to continue his experiments into the wireless transmission of electricity. One day, while doing his final experiment with a 52-foot coil, he sends 135-foot bolts of man-made lightning through the air and creates screaming claps of thunder that can be heard for 15 miles. This little stunt ends up blowing out the power station's generators and blacks out the entire town of Colorado Springs. The OFFICIALS and TOWNSFOLK are not pleased, and Tesla is sued for damages.
While all this is happening in Colorado Springs, the mice are gnawing away at the wires back in New York. Edison and Pupin are now in a meeting with GUGLIELMO MARCONI and financier, ANDREW CARNEGIE. They have all just voted to join forces. Conspiring to never again allow the Serbian "poet," or Westinghouse, to get the upper hand, they succeed in getting Carnegie to co-finance Marconi's competing system of wireless communication.
Tired and low on money, not only from the Colorado Springs expedition but several expiring patents, Tesla moves back to New York and takes residence in the expensive and posh, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Here, dressed impeccably as usual, he spends time hob-knobbing with GORGEOUS WOMEN and SAVVY FINANCIERS who hang out after a hard day on the Street. In this environment, where the women are constantly making a play for him and the investors are a dime a dozen, Tesla is even more confident he'll be back to financial health in short order. Then it will be a short step to consummating his life-long dream: the construction of what he now calls the "World System."
The World System, more conservatively known as "Wardenclyffe," is conceived as a huge broadcasting tower extending 178 feet into the air and 420 feet into the ground. On top of the tower sits a hemispherical steel dome weighing 55 tons. A sophisticated laboratory accompanies the tower 350 feet away to avoid electrical shocks. To build this, Tesla purchases 200 acres of farming country near Shoreham, Long Island and hires architect STANFORD WHITE to get started on the plans. After roughing it for nearly a year at the site, Tesla moves back to Manhattan and opens offices at the Metropolitan Tower. He does this to support promotional efforts that will hopefully raise additional money for his dream. During this period, Tesla dines and mingles with DISTINGUISHED PEOPLE at, not only the Waldorf, but the Players Club, where he gets together with Mark Twain often and tries to avoid various INFATUATED WOMEN as often as possible. Unfortunately his attempts to find investors, other than COLONEL ASTOR, seem to be waning due to a recent Wall Street panic. Even George Westinghouse has to "pass" on the World System deal, saying one night while playing cards, "The project is too grandiose Nick. The economy is too shaky, no doubt due to that bastard Morgan who has been advocating fiat money to impede capital formation."
Oblivious to the nasty environment shaping up around him, Tesla writes a promotional article for Century Magazine entitled, "The Problem of Increasing Human Energy." Fortunately or unfortunately, this visionary article catches the attention of J.P. Morgan, who, by now, is sipping a very stiff cocktail of fear and disdain for the young inventor who has trampled his plans for a DC empire, and worse, commandeered his daughter's heart without reciprocating. Seeing a way to reel in this "poet of science" once and for all, Morgan gives Tesla a call and lets him know that if he doesn't want to marry his daughter, "that's fine, but regardless, this idea of wireless communication is very interesting. Might it allow me to more easily communicate with my overseas exchanges and banks?" Tesla assures him that it will. After the call, Morgan tells Anne that the only reason he's going to invest in Tesla is to hedge his bets that this idiot poet might develop radio before Marconi. All Anne hears is the word "poet."
Although Tesla really needs in excess of a million dollars, he naively accepts the bait of $150,000 that Morgan offers and gets started on the construction of the "World System of Broadcasting" (basically the same concept we know as the World Wide Web today). As construction proceeds, Tesla is invited over to Morgan's house a number of times for dinner -- whereby Anne Morgan finally gets to meet and acquaint herself with him. Anne's infatuation grows as she realizes how exquisite this tall, handsome genius is. But every time the plump, but pretty, heiress make an advance, Tesla moves away or changes the subject to esoteric engineering or some social cause she's involved with. Nevertheless, not wishing to totally alienate her, more importantly, alienate her powerful father, Tesla asks Ann Morgan if she would like to join him at the Players Club sometime.
As construction on Wardenclyffe continues, Morgan, away on a European vacation, is forced to return early due to the growing severity of the Panic. While on board his ship, the Corsair, on a cold December in 1901, Morgan receives news that Marconi has just radioed the letter "S" across the Atlantic from Cornwall, England to Newfoundland. This announcement galvanizes, not only Morgan, but INVESTORS around the world and begins the process which eventually undermines Tesla's credibility.
At the Player's Club, Tesla is explaining the real purpose of his World System -- the transmission of radio AND electricity A without wires -- to Mark Twain while Anne Morgan languishes with a BUNCH OF LADIES at the far end of the lounge. Tesla foolishly relates that he's unconcerned about Marconi, saying, "Let Marconi proceed, he is using 12 of my patents."
Disappointed with Tesla's progress, Morgan calls a meeting with his ACCOUNTANTS, LAWYERS and DETECTIVES to address the question of why Tesla's Wardenclyffe project is anticipated to cost so much when Marconi's wireless feat was done on the relative cheap? At this meeting, the detectives inform Morgan about Tesla's goal to transmit electricity through the air and ground. The lawyers then reason that, if this turns out to be more than a pipe dream, Tesla's AC technology could once again place their financial interests in jeopardy. The accountants then place the cherry on the pie by reminding Morgan that his railroads carry a lot of coal, a business that would cease to have much commercial value in a world of freely-transmitted electrical energy.
Unaware of the machinations around him as usual, Tesla attends a Saturday night party given by his good friends, Robert and Catharine Johnson, to promote for investors and have a good time. Sensing that he could have treated Anne Morgan better at the Player's Club, he invites her to go with him. But before long, Tesla becomes more interested debating the nuances of poetic meter with RUDYARD KIPLING and drifting to piano strains of the lovely MARGUERITE MERINGTON, the only woman who actually seems to make an impression on the asexual electrician.
It's a lousy day at the office the following Monday because Stanford White informs Tesla that Wardenclyffe, as now drawn in his plans, will cost much more than anticipated. To make things worse, Marconi's cost-effective success, combined with Tesla's apparent rejection of Anne Morgan's advances, have made her father's financial advances arrive increasingly slower.
Finally, in a desperate, if not stupid, attempt to expedite things and rekindle support, the genius, true to form, makes yet another business blunder and confirms to Morgan in grandiose, if not unbelievable, terms, his plans to "transform the entire globe into a sentient brain where mass communication and trillions of electrical instruments can be operated for virtually nothing through his World System." With this very real financial threat (or pie-in-the-sky nonsense) impinging on one side of his brain, AND his daughter's love-sick whining on the other, Morgan senses the perfect time to ameliorate his disdain for the "poet of science" once and for all. To this end he sends Tesla a letter coldly withdrawing financial support. Morgan, now having control over other potentially profitable companies, such as GE and AT&T, simply does NOT WANT to give the world unlimited amounts of electrical power which he can't meter. Nor does Morgan want a repeat of the debacle Tesla caused in connection with his Edison investments in DC.
Undaunted, Tesla seeks support from a series of other Wall Street investors, like THOMAS RYAN (a corporate head), HENRY CLAY FRICK (Andrew Carnegie's former partner) and COL. OLIVER PAYNE (John D. Rockefeller's partner), but to no avail. None invest. Soon it dawns on Tesla that he has been blackballed by the Wall Street cattle that follow Morgan's every financial dumping. Angry, Tesla fires a letter off to Morgan saying ". . . you are a big man but your work is wrought in passing form. Mine is immortal."
Mark Twain arrives at Wardenclyffe with Marguerite Merington to cheer Tesla up and help him bury his worries in a bottle of whisky and a few boxes of fire works. But Tesla has his own fireworks in mind as he and his associate, GEORGE SCHERFF, fire up a powerful oscillator that causes very strange events to happen to the SHOREHAM INHABITANTS by mid-evening. Every time someone puts a key in a door, or touches a grounded metal object (such as a fire hydrant or lamp pole), sparks jump the gap. Stranger still, the hair on CATS and DOGS around the town is literally standing on end . . . and glowing. Mark Twain, who has gone out to get some more booze, is dying with laughter as he returns and sees Tesla cornered by Sara Bernhardt, who has shown up unannounced . . . with her hair standing on end and glowing as well.
Finally, Tesla manages to get construction on Wardenclyffe completed by bootstrapping, going into serious debt and avoiding Mark Twain and women. Behind the scenes his competitors, more like enemies by now, continue to machinate and plot in a heated board-room circus. The upshot is Morgan now joins forces with Edison and Marconi and forms Marconi America which will later be renamed Radio Corporation of America. At the meeting, Morgan decides to call in a favor with one of his CRONIES down at the patent office with whom he has shared a few investment tips over the years. Shortly after, the patent office suddenly and "mysteriously" reverses itself and grants Marconi the underlying patents for wireless telegraphy -- even though he's using Tesla's ideas and patents.
As if corporate treachery were not enough, Tesla now struggles to pay even his personal rent. Patents on his AC induction motor are expiring and Tesla's enemies take advantage of the situation by more intensively portraying him as an unsound visionary and worse . . . a poet.
Finally, when Tesla can no longer pay his rent, his WORKERS or even afford coal to fire up the Wardenclyffe boilers, he's forced to close the lab, referring to the loss as what would have been "not a dream, but a simple feat of scientific electrical engineering, only expensive -- blind, fainthearted, doubting world."
At subsequent meetings and through strategic phone calls, Morgan continues his campaign to optimize his holdings in GE and RCA, and in the process stigmatizes all of Wall Street to participation in any future Tesla ventures. Tesla literally has a breakdown for about 6 months, but like the Road Runner, gets back on his feet and announces development of a bladeless turbine, an invention he hopes is practical enough to earn back the respect and financing he desperately needs to re-open Wardenclyffe. Unfortunately, this "better mousetrap" ends up threatening yet another Morganized company, the bladed turbines built by Curtis and Parsons under contract by GE and even Westinghouse. A new "War of the Turbines" is in the making.
While ROBERT PEARY is engaged in his second attempt to reach the North Pole, Tesla decides to test the "big coil" at Wardenclyffe in a major way. He calls Peary and lets him know that he will try to contact him somehow while he is near the North Pole and asks him if he will report back the details of anything that happens. On the evening of June 30, 1908, Tesla and George Scherff, on top of Wardenclyffe tower, aim the transmitter across the Atlantic to the North Pole at a spot Tesla calculates is due west of Peary's expedition. Tesla switches on the device but is uncertain whether anything is happening until an OWL flies in the path of the beam and is instantly disintegrated.
Tesla, upon hearing no news from Peary, concludes that the experiment is nevertheless a failure, but then news arrives several days later that, on June 30, 1908, the exact day Tesla sent his transmission to Peary, a massive explosion had taken out 500,000 square miles of forest in Tunguska, a remote area in the Siberian wilderness. This, the most powerful explosion ever made by humans, equivalent to 15 megatons of TNT, was heard over 620 miles away. Even though the news report also said that no one was killed, Tesla decides to dismantle his "death ray" deeming it far too dangerous for the human race in the event it had anything to do with the Tungusta incident.
Concomitant with the unconscionable indignities to date, the "Establishment" awards Marconi and CARL F. BRAUN of Germany, a Nobel Prize in physics for their development of wireless telegraphy (radio). But Tesla, more desperate for capital than ever, yet more positive than ever that his energy transmitter works, pays little attention. He decides he will step up his plan to re-capitalize Wardenclyffe by earning money from his new bladeless turbine. To this end he buries his pride and stoops to testing the new device at the Edison Waterside Power Station in New York City.
On the most unfriendly turf possible, Tesla's revolutionary invention is literally laughed at by a GROUP OF ENGINEERS when he claims it will reach 16,000 RPMs, a feat it actually accomplishes upon testing with a tachometer. Nevertheless, the hostile Edison PR machine has already written its report even before Tesla walks in the door. Then, as if nothing worse could possibly happen, Tesla's best dreaming and drinking buddy, Mark Twain, dies.
Desperate for a friend, a break, a million dollars, Tesla goes to his old financial mentor, George Westinghouse. Westinghouse not only turns him and his bladeless turbine down, but is irritable in his older age and files a complaint against the inventor to have some $23,500 worth of machinery lent to Wardenclyffe returned. It seems to Tesla that Westinghouse has finally been Morganized along with all the rest. Nevertheless MISS DOROTHY SKERRITT, who has joined Tesla's firm at 8 West 40th Street across from the New York Public Library, is loyal and compassionate as she notices the kind, broken man feeding pigeons in the park more and more often, referring to them as "my sincere little friends."
The man who gave the world cheap, safe and reliable electricity as well as radio, next takes his turbine to Allis Chalmers Manufacturing in Milwaukee who reports that the disks distort due to their super-high rotational velocity. Tesla, incredulous and more weary than ever, walks out muttering "Of course there will be problems, they would not build the turbines as I wished."
Meanwhile, several bittersweet events happen: J.P. Morgan dies (and is quickly replaced by the Federal Reserve System a few days before Congress takes its Christmas recess) and George Westinghouse dies (as if feeling too guilty to live any longer in a world electrified by Tesla's genius).
Tesla moves into a modest office in the Woolworth Building but again falls behind in rent. Though waning in money, patents and credibility, Tesla is published in the December 1914 edition of the New York Sun where he originates the idea that "the duration of a war is proportionate to the magnitude of the armies plus the number of combatants." He elucidates that war can be "reduced to zero" with a weapon of "sufficient magnitude" (an idea that ultimately becomes the strategic defense policy of the United States in its cold war with the Soviet Union: mutual assured destruction. The weapons of "sufficient magnitude" to "reduce war to zero" are the atomic and hydrogen bombs).
Eventually Tesla's financial problems become so bad he's forced to turn the deed to Wardenclyffe over to GEORGE C. BOLDT, owner of the Waldorf-Astoria, as payment of long, overdue bills. The same week, The New York Times announces that the Nobel Prize committee has listed Tesla and Edison as candidates to share the Nobel Prize in physics but when Tesla becomes indignant, the Nobel Foundation claims the award is slated to go to William Bragg and his son. Further, they deny that they would even think of changing an award merely because a recipient would not wish to accept it.
Tesla, now frustrated and angry at the world, files a lawsuit against what he believes to be the source of his problems, Marconi, stating the obvious infringement on his radio patents. Unfortunately he has too little money to sustain his action against the Italian nobleman (who has by now joined forces with the likes of Edison, Carnegie and Morgan). Thus it's not long before Tesla has to abandon his case. Now, in even greater frustration (and perhaps with a mind predisposed to think only thoughts of destruction), the once gentle "poet of science" decides to announce to the world the results of his "super weapon" research -- the death ray he visualizes/hopes MAY have blown out 500,000 square miles of forest in Tunguska.
Wall Street, poisoned by Morgan, is still unimpressed and convinced, more than ever, that these are the ravings of a madman. It offers no investment. Ironically, the scientific community, being less ignorant and greedy than the money-mentality infesting the country at the turn of the century, recommends Tesla for the prestigious Edison Medal of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers just as he is forced to file bankruptcy to ward off creditors (an embarrassing act gleefully reported by the Establishment mouthpiece, The New York Times, on 18 March 1916).
As he did over the impending Nobel Award, Tesla becomes indignant, firing off a letter saying: "You propose to honor me with a medal which I could pin upon my coat and strut for a vain hour before the members and guests of your Institute. You would decorate my body and continue to let it starve for failure to supply recognition of my mind and its creative products which have supplied the foundation upon which the major portion of your Institute exists. And then you would go through the vacuous pantomime of honoring Tesla, but it would be Edison, who has previously shared unearned glory from every previous recipient of this metal."
After the pre-planned sinking of the Lusitania by German U-boats, President Wilson finally persuades Congress to declare war on Germany April 2, 1917 so that future bank notes issued by the House of Morgan, an agent for Rothschild interests in Europe, can be collateralized by the American taxpayer. Tesla chooses to forfeit income from his German royalties for the turbine, least he be charged with treason. This is his last and only source of substantial income.
Then in a fit of bravado, if not greed or stupidity, the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America sues the United States government for using "its" wireless patents -- you know, the ones "stolen" from Tesla.
Tesla's caring colleague, B.A. Bernard, nevertheless persists in encouraging Tesla to accept the Edison Medal because he feels it might help him get back on his feet with a shot of much-needed recognition, recognition that might lead to financial support. Reluctantly Tesla decides to accept the award and attends the banquet in his honor on May 18, 1917. But just moments before Tesla is scheduled to appear on stage, he is nowhere to be found. On a hunch provided by Miss Dorothy Skerritt, Bernard finds him feeding his "sincere little friends" in Bryant Park behind the public library. Barely making it to the stage, Tesla delivers an expansive and riveting speech, after which H. OTIS POND, a distinguished engineer who worked with both Edison and Westinghouse, exclaims that Tesla is "the greatest inventive genius of all time."
Regardless, Tesla's mortgage holder, George Boldt, doesn't care if Tesla is a genius, he just wants his $20,000 hotel bill paid. So, in order to do this, he decides to sell Wardenclyffe. But in order to give Tesla's property better "curb appeal," he decides to dynamite the "offensive" 178-foot phallic tower. Boldt "justifies" his insensitive greed by claiming that rumors of German spies using the abandoned tower for surveillance against Allied operations along the coast are true. Thus, WORKERS dynamite the tower on July 4th, 1917. . . but nothing happens. Again they blast it, but the 187-foot structure remains standing. Presciently, a DEMOLITION WORKER exclaims, "This Tesla thing just won't die." But a new team of DEMOLITION EXPERTS come back the next day and are eventually successful in blasting one of the legs out from under the tower. The 55-ton steel sphere crashes to the ground, but is hardly scratched. Only a few pages of Tesla's potentially world-changing schematics are torn, as they can be seen gently blowing in the wind.
But to hedge his bets against a possible failure of the bladeless turbine, Tesla again contacts Josephus Daniels to offer the Navy a new invention: a sending station that can emit exploratory waves thus enabling its operators to determine the exact location of a distant object. In other words: radar. The War Department "passes" on Tesla's proposal as absurd (yet a generation later, this exact invention helps the Allies win World War II). Of course the rejection would have been no surprise had Tesla known that none other than Thomas Edison sat on the War Department's advisory board.
Still undaunted, Tesla decides to go public with a technical description of radar in an article entitled, "Tesla's Views on Electricity and the War," which first appears in the Electrical Experimenter magazine of August 1917. Other than interviews for various publications, Tesla becomes more reclusive and eccentric than ever, no doubt over his loss of Wardenclyffe and shabby treatment by Wall Street. His phobias (such as aversions to pearls, dirty hair, ungloved hands and now billiard balls) intensify. He avoids people and keeps but a tiny office in the Metropolitan Tower where he offers his services as a humble consultant. His last loyal secretaries, Miss Skerritt and MISS ARBUS, keep the blinds drawn so the maestro can work in the low light he prefers.
More desperate than ever, Tesla files a barrage of patents for various inventions, hoping that at least one will generate money or credibility. Among these patents are variations on his fluid propulsion turbines, an automobile speedometer, a frequency meter, an electric water fountain, a ship's log and a flow meter -- all successful inventions in their own right -- but inventions nowhere near the level of his hopes and dreams for the World System. Several projects look promising, such as his bladeless turbine work for Allis Chalmers and The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, but, as is the case with all the others, a financed project never gets off the ground. By now Tesla has been so blackballed by the likes of Morgan, Edison and Marconi he is virtually a non-entity to the business world.
Ever the loyal and concerned (if not now the weird and estranged) American citizen, Tesla announces, in Electrical Experimenter of February 1919 his futuristic concept of guided ballistic missiles which can deliver a "super weapon" long distances. Fortunately or unfortunately, the War Department sees no need for long range ballistic missiles (later built and called ICBMs) as the peace treaty at Versailles has just been signed and World War I is over -- a war to end all wars.
Tesla turns his attention back to more "realistic" inventions, such as an extremely efficient gasoline version of his bladeless turbine, an invention which finally catches the attention of the Ford Motor Company. But when EXECUTIVES of Ford meet with the eager Tesla, all they really want from the curioso is for him to join an in psychic phenomena. Tesla, humiliated and infuriated, kicks them out of his hotel-office. Only the white dove, which lands on its usual resting place at the windowsill, can comfort him.
Tesla, now 65 years old, is broken and stripped of his dreams, if not his mind, when POLICE show up to strip him of even his office furniture. Ever the promoter, Tesla talks them into a reprieve, but it's not long before the genius is so impecunious he can no longer pay his secretaries. He devilishly offers each of them a chopped-in-half piece of his Edison Medal, which they graciously decline. No longer able to count on even the patronage of John Astor (because he's gone down on the Titanic), Tesla has to move from the expensive and nice Waldorf-Astoria (where he has lived for over 20 years) to the cheaper and not-as-nice Hotel St. Regis. Increasingly, he visits local parks, in particular Bryant Park, feeding and rescuing injured pigeons, which he brings back to his room. Unable to build his dream, Tesla now builds pigeon cages and becomes quite popular and respected by his loyal little friends.
Tesla moves to Philadelphia for a year to work for Budd National. But that falls through and now, unable to afford even the Hotel St. Regis, he moves down another notch to the Hotel New Yorker where the Great Depression begins to unfold, both in the streets and in his mind. Thankfully the number of pigeons has doubled to keep him company in the desert of rejection and solitude between birthdays.
But indeed, once a year on his birthday, Tesla DOES remember his human friends, mostly THE PRESS, and invites them over for tea and ices. Managing to arrive at his 78th "celebration," Tesla tells a GUEST REPORTER his plans for an invincible "death beam" which has the potential to generate 50 million volts, enough power to instantly vaporize 10,000 airplanes or 1,000,000 soldiers. After the guests leave somewhat bedazzled, Tesla suddenly realizes he's late for an important appointment: a pigeon-feed at Brant Park. While rushing to the park, he's struck by a taxi cab. Barely able to walk (because of 3 broken ribs and a wrenched spine), Tesla crawls back to his room to make an important phone call to WILLIAM KERRIGAN, a messenger with Postal Telegraph service. Mr. Kerrigan is instructed to finish his errand of feeding the pigeons -- that day, and everyday, Tesla remains in bed healing.
Seeing an opportunity to ridicule Tesla some more, The New York Times of 22 September 1940, runs an article stating, "Tesla stands ready to divulge to the United States Government the secret of his 'teleforce,' with which, he said, airplane motors would be melted at a distance of 250 miles, so that an invisible Chinese Wall of Defense would be built around the country. This new type of force, Mr. Tesla said, would operate through a beam one hundred-millionth of a square centimeter in diameter, and could be generated from a special plant that would cost no more than $2,000,000 and would take only about three months to construct."
Now feeling better (but never back to 100% because he realizes he's been turned into a laughing stock by the Morgan-infested Establishment press), Tesla devotes his remaining years to pondering the Universe and dramatizing the proceeds of his thought to his most LOYAL INDEPENDENT REPORTERS who continue to visit him every year on his birthday: the 9th or 10th of July, whichever day Tesla feels the best on that particular year. When the human reporters are not present, Tesla sits back in his big black mohair chair and talks to his little fowl weather friends, which now number in the hundreds. But during each thunderstorm he sits in the dark alone, applauding bolts of lightning "with the rapture and relish of one artist appreciating the work of an equal."
On his 86th birthday in July 1942, a REPORTER learns that the "poet of science" plans on living for another 39 years (even though he's still complaining about what seems to be the same illness from two birthdays back). Tesla explains that he soon plans on committing his life story, and scientific principles, neatly to paper. But, after the party, he just puts the "Do Not Disturb" sign back on the door and retires to bed. Early in the morning of January 8th, 1943 Nikola Tesla dies in his sleep, as the white dove silently watches, motionlessly on the windowsill.
Several days later, the FBI storms into Tesla's room, now occupied by nothing more than 5 filing cabinets, a safe and neglected pigeons. The HOTEL MAID removes the "Do Not Disturb" sign and tells the officials that "On January 4th he complained of chest pains during an experiment and returned to his room." Alone as always without a permanent home, literally and figuratively heartsick, Tesla fended off human aid and love to the tragic end, this time by placing a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the very door that separated him from the world he toiled so desperately to help and cherish.
* * *
BLACK AND WHITE NEWS FOOTAGE:
As is often the case with a great and unselfish being, their true value is not appreciated fully during their lifetime. The 2,000 people that attended the funeral of Nikola Tesla at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan remind us of this point. Various Nobel laureates sent accolades, President Roosevelt sent a testimonial and the mayor of New York, Fiorello La Guardia, read a eulogy on the radio: "Tesla once said, 'let the future tell the truth and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs, the future, for which I really worked, is mine.'"
FADE OUT
The below TITLE ROLL superimposes over a high shot back at Tesla's windowsill where the white dove, still sitting motionlessly, suddenly comes to life and flies up and away as CAMERA follows. New York City of 1943 turns to color and morphs into a beautiful, futuristic city, blazing with an electrical presence as the dove flies away, far as the eye can see. This is Tesla's legacy.
TITLE ROLL:
On June 21, 1943, in case #369, the United States Supreme Court ruled that Nikola Tesla had invented radio because his 4-tuned circuits (as described in patents 645,576 and 649,621) predated any relevant patents Marconi, or his corporate sponsors, may have filed.
Yugoslavia made Tesla a national hero and established the Tesla Museum in Belgrade after World War II.
Tesla was a recipient of the John Scott Medal and the Edison Medal as well as various honorary degrees from American and foreign universities, including Columbia and Yale.
In 1960, The International Commission for Electrical Engineering, at its session in Philadelphia, recognized Nikola Tesla posthumously by deciding that the unit of magnetic induction, more specifically described by the formula T = Wb/m^2, shall be known as the "tesla." Thus Nikola Tesla joins the exclusive ranks of about 15 men, some of the most outstanding scientists ever, among which are Watt, Volta, Ampere, Coulomb, Joule, Faraday, Kelvn and Newton.
In 1975, Tesla became an inductee into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
To this day, the world runs on the standard set by Nikola Tesla of 60-cycles per second alternating current. By the year 2100, it is estimated the world will use 200 terawatts of power of each year.
FADE OUT
Wires everywhere, sometimes 13 tiers deep. Welcome to New York City, 1884. A plume of smoke rises from the Vanderbilt Mansion on 5th Avenue, one of the first houses to be electrified by the Edison generating station on Pearl Street. In the distance, fire engine sirens grow louder as we see NIKOLA TESLA (a tall, handsome Serbian with wavy dark hair, blue eyes and a mustache), sitting on a park bench putting the finishing touches on an electronic schematic. Into this age of innocence and crises, the twenty-seven year old Tesla, with but 4 cents and a letter of introduction, has arrived in America seeking employment with the home office of Thomas Edison.
But when Edison hears about Westinghouse's deal with Tesla, he becomes furious and immediately calls J.P. Morgan, who is his number-one investor. Morgan, as is the case with most Wall Street investors of the time, has no idea what the difference between AC and DC is and so has little concern for the inventor's ranting. So Edison decides to take matters into his own hands. To this end he cranks up his PR MACHINE and puts out a non-stop series of newspaper and magazine articles, press interviews and demonstrations to falsely characterize AC as dangerous. To facilitate the demonstrations, Edison hires SEVERAL THUGS to steal PETS from local neighborhoods. These pets are then ruthlessly electrocuted before small crowds of people who are then asked, "Is this AC the type of electricity you want in YOUR house?"
Tesla is now a broken man, his very soul blowing in the wind. He moves away to Chicago to bury himself in work on his bladeless turbine for the Pyle National Company. More than ever, Tesla's remaining hope is to generate money and credibility from the bladeless turbine and then build an even better World System tower.
FADE IN
Copyright 1988 - 2005
by James R. Jaeger II
All Rights Reserved
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