When Hollywood Comes Knocking (Don't Answer the Door)

This post is about Paula Gosling's first novel, A Running Duck, 1978, MacMillan. This book has several claims to fame:

1. It won the John Creasey Award for best first novel.
2. It ranks 63rd on the Crime Writers' Association's list of all-time great mystery novels.
3. It was adapted by Hollywood twice, in both instances as howlingly bad movies that had little to do with the material.

If you have seen the movies you might be shocked to learn that they had been adapted from the same source.

Cobra (1986) Sylvester Stallone and Brigitte Nielsen.
Fair Game (1995) William Baldwin and Cindy Crawford.

A Running Duck

The Hollywood Monster.

What would you do if Hollywood ruined your book?

• I would laugh all the way to the bank.
• I would cry all the way to the bank.
• I would be found, sitting on the curb, laughing and crying, unable to get to the bank.

In the nineties, I went to an Edna Buchanan book signing. She spoke a bit about the film adaptation of "The Corpse Had a Familiar Face," saying that the producers brought her to the film site to act as a consultant. During her time there, the only person whom she encountered who had actually read her book was a clerk at her hotel.

Sadly, all of Paula Gosling's books are out-of-print and currently unavailable as ebooks. I bought a copy of A Running Duck from an online bookseller (early edition, I didn't want the movie tie-in out of fear something had changed). She is an excellent writer. Her prose is crisp and lucid. She has an enviable way of phrasing a very short sentence that makes a vivid, surprising, and yet apt observation. Her dialogue is fantastic: sharp and witty.

The story plays out like a Hollywood-ready script. Clare Rendell is a young, independent-minded woman who works as a copywriter at an advertising agency. One day in the park, while agonizing over her response to her boyfriend's proposal, she sees a tall man drop a piece of paper. She calls out to him and gets a good look at his face. This small incident sends her life into a tailspin. She had witnessed a dangerous hitman walking away from a nearby murder.

From this moment on, the story gains pace as the killer, known as Edison, tries to kill Clare, while San Francisco Police Lieutenant Mike Malchek, an ex-Vietnam sniper, tries to keep her safe and capture Edison.

This was one the most "muscular" books I've read, calling to mind "Rogue Male" by Geoffrey Householder. If there is any fault to the book, it is that I wanted to know more about Clare, while the book shifts its focus to Malchek, his personal demons and his redemption.

Sylvester Stallone took on the book "adaptation" after helping to write Beverly Hills Cop, then abandoning that project to Eddie Murphy, because Stallone wanted something more serious and action-oriented. What he made was . . . I'm the kind who has little tolerance for films that are so over-the-top that fans argue the films are acting as some sort of meta-commentary on violence and . . . I can't finish these sentences.

Cobra, written by Stallone, starred Stallone and his concrete-statuesque wife, Brigitte Nielsen. It originally received an X-rating for its violence. The more sadistic scenes were cut, along with most every scene that didn't have Stallone sneering and snarling (and sometime sneerling) while acting as judge, jury and executioner, dispatching one by one a band of super-Manson Family fiends. Stallone played Lt. Marion Cobretti, code-named Cobra, because that is the sort of code that no one in the movie would be smart enough to crack. In his role, he displayed the full range of emotions from revenge to vengeance, along the way inventing a new emotion: "revengeance." Nielsen plays a businesswoman/model (because aren't all businesswomen models?). Actual dialogue:

  Supermarket Killer: Get back! I got a bomb here! I'll blow this whole place up!
  Marion Cobretti: Go ahead. I don't shop here.

  Cobretti: Hey dirtbag, you're a lousy shot. I don't like lousy shots. You wasted a kid... for nothing. Now I think it's time to waste you!

People Magazine interviewed Paula Gosling shortly before Cobra debuted. She had such hope.

Her first novel, 1978's A Running Duck, which she had optioned to Warner Bros, for a "mid-five-figure" sum and seemingly forgotten about, is the basis for Stallone's Cobra. Whatever the movie rakes in at the box office, Gosling will get "a small percentage" of the take, and given Stallone's track record, that's certain to be a tidy bundle. "I haven't really taken it in yet," says Gosling, 44, a transplanted American. "It's all very exciting." (Writer Paula Gosling Hits a Bull's-Eye, Thanks to Sly Stallone's Latest Blockbluster, Cobra, People Magazine, June 30, 1986.)

First presented in 1981, the anti-Oscars, the Razzies, recognize the worst Hollywood has to offer. Cobra received six nominations, including two for Stallone (actor and writer), one for Nielsen (actress) and one for worst picture. The only items remotely related to the source material were that the film retained the name of one of the characters from the book, Sergeant Gonzales, and its title maintained the animal theme, duck being replaced by cobra.


Fair Game (1995), the second adaptation of the book, moved the setting to Miami and starred Cindy Crawford and that Baldwin from Backdraft. Crawford plays a high-powered lawyer who uncovers an undisclosed asset: a rusty boat with computer super-hackers run by the Russian mafia.

There are a lot of wonderful human beings who can't act. In fact, there are enough great actors who are assholes that I can say, without fear of being correct, that there must be a correlation between bad acting and saintliness. By these standards, Cindy Crawford should be beatified. She punctuates her every line with "and I memorized them words." They should have given Baldwin's role to a gay man, because when he is in a scene with Crawford, her beauty powers seem to leave him completely confuzzled.

The dialogue attempts to be snappy in the face of death.

  Max: Who's ever after you are real pros.
  Kate: I guess I should be proud, it would be embarrassing to be killed by an amateur.

  Kate: No one tried to kill me! This is Miami. I'm local. We only shoot the tourists.

Crawford received Razzie nominations for Worst Actress, Worst New Actress and, with Baldwin, Worst Screen Couple. They lost. It was the year of Showgirls.

It's not just the fact that these are terrible movies. They're terrible in that Hollywood hyper-evil way of too much violence, stylized leering sexuality, catchphrases passing for dialogue, and non-actors stealing jobs from robots.

Did Hollywood kill her spirit? Paula Gosling appears to have retired from writing. She is probably sitting on top of a pile of cash, somewhere in England, knitting socks in the Village of the Darned.

-----

Nikola Tesla, Arthur Conan Doyle and Dr. Henry H. Holmes are all characters in my thriller, A Predator's Game.

A Predator's Game is available in soft-cover and ebook through Amazon and other online retailers.

A Predator's Game, now available, Rook's Page Publishing.

 -----------------------

Back page blurb.

Manhattan, 1896.

When the author Arthur Conan Doyle meets Nikola Tesla he finds a tall, thin genius with a photographic memory and a keen eye, and recognizes in the eccentric inventor the embodiment of his creation, Sherlock. Together, they team up to take on an "evil Holmes." Multi-murderer Dr. Henry H. Holmes has escaped execution and is unleashing a reign of terror upon the metropolis. Set in the late nineteenth century in a world of modern marvels, danger and invention, Conan Doyle and Tesla engage the madman in a deadly game of wits.

Martin Hill Ortiz, also writing under the name, Martin Hill, is the author of A Predatory Mind. Its sequel, set in 1890s Manhattan and titled A Predator's Game, features Nikola Tesla as detective.

Continue reading →

The Modern Wonders of the World, Circa 1912-1914

I've always been fascinated by old surveys. They were neither rigorous in their sampling techniques nor authoritative in their findings, but they do provide a window into the mind-set of a specific period of time.

August 1912, Popular Mechanics

In their August 1912 issue, Popular Mechanics presented a poll of 1000 scientists as to the seven greatest achievements of the modern world. Fifty-six options were presented. Those that scored the highest:

1. Wireless telegraphy.
2. Telephone.
3. Aeroplane.
4. Radium.
5. Antiseptics and antitoxins.
6. Spectrum analysis.
7. X-ray.

The runners-up were also noted.
8. Panama Canal. (incomplete at that time).
9. Anesthesia.
10. Synthetic chemistry.

Comments: Radium showed up in all the polls presented here. At the time, the element was considered to have almost magical powers. Beyond being a substance which exuded warmth and light, radiation was shown to be legitimately useful in treating several diseases. Its curing powers proved to be greatly exaggerated and its dangers underestimated. The value of spectrum analysis was far-sighted, an important discovery for several fields. The aeroplane which showed up in all these polls, must have come across as a marvel, although it was hardly practical at the time. Among these, Tesla made important contributions to "the wireless" and to X-rays.

The promise of radium

In February, 1914 (well before the drumbeats of war), the Berlin newspaper Local Anzeiger ran a readership poll of the top seven wonders of the modern world.

They received 150,000 votes. They chose:

1. Wireless.
2. Panama Canal.
3. Dirigible.
4. Aeroplane.
5. Radium.
6. Motion pictures.
7. The passenger ship, Imperator.

A couple of notes. German pride shows up in the dirigible and the Imperator. The latter had been launched in June, 1913 and was for a brief period the longest ship in the world.

One month later, in March, 1914, the Paris newspaper, Le Martin, had a similar poll. The results, as reported in The New York Times:

1. Aeroplane.
2. Wireless.
3. Radium.
4. Locomotive.
5. Grafts of human bones and organs.
6. Diphtheria serum.
7. Electric dynamo.

Runners up, in order:
8. Telephone.
9. Cinematograph.
10. X-rays.
11. Telegraph.
12. Eiffel Tower.
13. Cold storage.
14. Antiseptic surgery.
15. Reaching the North and South Pole.

Notes: Due to organ rejection, the grafting of human bones and organs was not successful until the 1950s. One prominent doctor who worked in this field, Alexis Carrel, won a Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1912 mostly for his work in developing techniques to suture blood vessels. Many of the other choices were insightful and easily underappreciated, such as cold storage and antiseptic surgery. Beyond contributions to other fields, Tesla is represented in this list for the electric dynamo. (from: Modern World Wonders. March 15, 1914, New York Times, p. C2)

In November 1913, Scientific American presented the results of a contest soliciting the best essay which described the ten most important inventions. Although limited to devices and patentable discoveries of last 25 years, these rules were broken, some are more than 25 years old and some were not patentable. Along with the winning essays, the selections from all entries were ranked by the percent of lists in which they were included.

1. Wireless telegraphy 97%
2. Aeroplane 75%
3. X-ray machine 74%
4. Automobile 66%
5. Motion pictures 63%
6. Reinforced concrete 37%
6. Phonograph 37%
8. Incandescent electric lamp 35%
9. Steam turbine 34%
10. Electric car 34%
11. Calculating machine 33%
12. Internal combustion machine 33%
13. Radium 27%
14. Submarine boats 24%
14. Picture telegraphy 24%
16. Electric furnace 21%
17. Diesel engine 18%
18. Color photography 17%
19. Dictograph 16%
20. Composing machine 15%
20. Transmission and transforming of alternating current 15%
20. Pneumatic tire 15%
23. Dirigible 13%
23. Photo-engraving 13%
24. Tungsten lightbulb 11%
25. Electric welding 10%
25. High speed steel 10%

The first-place essay listed the Tesla induction motor as being eighth among ten choices, saying, "This epoch-making invention is mainly responsible for the present large and increasing use of electricity in the industries."

The complete list in the winning essay.

1. The electric furnace (1889).
2. The steam turbine (1884) Charles Parsons.
3. The gasoline-powered automobile (1889) Gottlieb Daimler.
4. The moving picture, attributed to Edison.
5. The airplane.
6. Wireless telegraphy.
7. The cyanide process for extracting gold.
8. The Tesla induction motor.
9. The Linotype machine, Ottmar Mergenthaler.
10. The electric welder, attributed to Elihu Thomson.

(This list was derived from the 2013 revisiting of the original article as presented by The Scientific American.)

Note: Although not the Scientific American, some of these lists asked for the wonders of the modern world. By that standard I would choose the Linotype machine. It was monstrous, crazy in its complexity, and changed printing more than any other invention since Gutenberg. It was a typewriter which boiled its own lead to cast printed text into lines to make printing plates. It allowed newspapers to expand beyond eight pages.

These lists are fascinating in that they give context to Tesla's work. The electric furnace needed lots of cheap energy to be generally useful. That energy was provide by the Tesla A/C generator, quite often in combination with the Parsons steam turbine. The availability of electric energy contributed to the success of electric welding, the Linotype machine and, of course, the induction motor.

Linotype Machine

-----

Nikola Tesla, Arthur Conan Doyle and Dr. Henry H. Holmes are all characters in my thriller, A Predator's Game.

A Predator's Game is available in soft-cover and ebook through Amazon and other online retailers.

A Predator's Game, now available, Rook's Page Publishing.

 -----------------------

Back page blurb.

Manhattan, 1896.

When the author Arthur Conan Doyle meets Nikola Tesla he finds a tall, thin genius with a photographic memory and a keen eye, and recognizes in the eccentric inventor the embodiment of his creation, Sherlock. Together, they team up to take on an "evil Holmes." Multi-murderer Dr. Henry H. Holmes has escaped execution and is unleashing a reign of terror upon the metropolis. Set in the late nineteenth century in a world of modern marvels, danger and invention, Conan Doyle and Tesla engage the madman in a deadly game of wits.

Martin Hill Ortiz, also writing under the name, Martin Hill, is the author of A Predatory Mind. Its sequel, set in 1890s Manhattan and titled A Predator's Game, features Nikola Tesla as detective.

Continue reading →

Tesla Versus Hitler

Tesla could be imperious and condescending. In his later years he spoke favorably of eugenics. Although he regularly spoke favorably of all mankind, he made occasional anti-Semitic remarks.  He was, however, consistently anti-Nazi, supporting the anti-Nazi leaders of his homeland.

Tesla was born in what was then a part of Austrian-Hungarian empire. Like many Serbians, he did not have a fondness for the emperor. When he was drafted, he skipped out, hiding in the hills. He would later state his father had taught him a hatred toward war.

The Austrian-Hungarian empire dissolved during World War I. After the war, in 1918, the treaty of Versailles created the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. In 1929, King Alexander I assumed power and renamed the country, Yugoslavia. Alexander opposed the actions of the rising powers of Italy, Germany and the Soviet Union. He was killed by Croatian fascists in 1934. At the time of this assassination, Tesla wrote to the New York Times describing King Alexander as “both the Washington and Lincoln of the Yugoslavs." His son, King Peter II, was the official heir to the throne but only eleven years old so in the interim Prince Paul, head of the regency council, held sway. This continued until March 25, 1941 when Prince Paul signed a treaty supporting Hitler and offering his countrymen as soldiers for military service. Two days later, Prince Paul was thrown out in a coup and replaced by the then 17-year-old, King Peter II.

Tesla's homeland paid dearly for standing up to the fascists. Beginning April 6th, the Luftwaffe attacked Belgrade killing 25,000 civilians. After eleven days, Yugoslavia fell and 300,000 soldiers were taken prisoner. In attacking Yugoslavia, Hitler postponed Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of Russia. This delay may have helped prevent Germany from achieving victory before the onset of the Russian winter. Yugoslavia acted as a sacrificial lamb.

In July 1942, a sickly Tesla met with King Peter II, the latter in exile.

King Peter, of Jugoslavia, 19 [sic, 18], and Nikola Tesla, 86 [sic, 84, turning 85], a fellow-countryman and world-famous scientist credited with 700 inventions, wept over the fate of their country when they met yesterday. (King, Scientist Weep Over Jugoslavia. July 9, 1942, Richmond Times Dispatch, p. 2)

The Down-Side of Tesla

Tesla's anti-Semitic remarks.

One quote attributed to Tesla is: "Never trust a Jew." This comes from Margaret Cheney's Man Out of Time. It is said to have been whispered to a secretary. Cheney comments, "Tesla's anti-Semitism appears sporadic and was unusual among gentiles of his time," perhaps meaning, unusual in only being sporadic. (Man Out of Time, Margaret Cheney, Touchstone, 2001, p. 165)

George Sylvester Viereck

In 1915, one year after the beginning of World War I, a newspaper interviewed fourteen individuals including military experts, experts in international affairs, editors, and inventors as to when they believed the war would end. (Salt Lake Telegram, July 29, 1915, p. 10) Among these, Nikola Tesla made the closest estimation, saying four years. The war would last another three years and three months.

Among the others interviewed was George S. Viereck, described as "Editor of 'The Fatherland' and ardent promoter of the German-American point of view." At this time, America was not at war, so his propaganda was not illegal. He predicted three more months for the conflict.

George Sylvester Viereck has been described as a playboy, gadabout, poet, journalist, and editor. He was the author of a popular vampire novel. He was most famous, however, for two things: German propaganda and latching on to the famous.

From the 1920s on through the 1930s Viereck interviewed a number of the best-known individuals of the time, including Hitler, Mussolini, Ford, Freud and Einstein. If that seems like an incongruous group, it is even more remarkable that Viereck promoted these individuals with equal enthusiasm.

Viereck's interactions went beyond journalism. So, while he did interview Einstein both for a book (Glimpses of the Great, Macauley, April 1930) and a newspaper story (Einstein Explains the Fourth Dimension, Cleveland Plain Dealer, December 21, 1930, p. 30), he also accompanied Einstein to the opera during Einstein's 1930 visit to New York (Einstein Praised from Half Dozen New York Pulpits, Tampa Tribune, December 15, 1930. p. 7). Viereck stated that he had an ongoing correspondence with Einstein. While it is most likely that Einstein did not know of Viereck's history or predilections, Viereck clearly did.

Was Viereck a shape-shifting groupie? He certainly seemed to be the ultimate name-dropper. In an interview with Arthur Conan Doyle, he mentions his conversations with Einstein, George Bernard Shaw, (Nobel Prize-winning poet) Gerhart Hauptmann, and Henry Ford. In the interview with Hitler:

Hitler: "Moral and physical health are synonymous."
"Mussolini," I [Viereck] interjected, "said the same to me." Hitler beamed.

As to where Viereck's sympathies lay, a story from 1934 removed any doubt:

"George Sylvester Viereck noted journalist and friend of former German Kaiser, is sworn in as witness at congressional committee hearing in New York into Nazi activities in U.S. Viereck admitted payments for propaganda advice and expressed great admiration for Chancellor Hitler." (Admires Hitler. The Evening Tribune, San Diego, July 18, 1934, p. 10).

In his late seventies Nikola Tesla gave an interview with Viereck. In it, Tesla expressed support for eugenics. He recommended that the "unfit" not be allowed to marry or breed, but did not detail who the unfit were. "Certainly no one who is not a desirable parent should be permitted to produce progeny." (February 9, 1935, Liberty Magazine)

The anti-Semitic remarks and the eugenic remarks sadden me. Tesla through his life in 99% of opportunities made declarations expressing a love for humanity, indeed, of dedicating his life's work to humankind. In the Liberty Magazine interview, I would like to think he was an old man manipulated by Viereck, a master manipulator, but maybe I'm bending too far in wishful esteem for Tesla.

During World War II, Viereck was tried and convicted for his ongoing efforts at Nazi propaganda. In one of his schemes, he used $250,000 in Congressional franking privileges (free mailing allowed to members of Congress) to send out German propaganda. The Congressmen, including the isolationist Hamilton Fish, said that they did not know of his efforts and he had put words into their mouths, placing Senator Lundeen's (MN) name on Viereck's writing. (Viereck, Nazi Agent, Guilty, March 6, 1942, Boston Herald)

George S. Viereck

And, Of Course, a Dig at Edison.

It does not excuse Tesla, but as part of the great Edison-Tesla debate, Edison spoke favorably and at much greater length about eugenics and, in his later years, expressed an admiration for Mussolini.

 "I [Edison] understand that a chair of eugenics has been established in one of the Eastern schools, and I think this is a wise move. The people should know more on that subject. Society must certainly protect itself. Science is doing much to this end." (The American to Be the Perfect World Type September 8, 1911 Seattle Daily Times, p. 19)

"There are three means which lie ready at hand; three sciences which lend themselves to our task; three tools with which we shape the Super Race. They are: 1. Eugenics -- the science of race culture. 2. Social adjustment -- the science of molding institutions. 3. Education -- the science of human development." (Americans of the Future to be the "Super Race," March 31, 1912. Portland Oregonian, p. 3)

And, from 1931, in the midst of the Depression, "Mr. Edison declared Prohibition was succeeding and asserted that the administration of President Hoover was a success. . . . "Mussolini is a man of great executive ability and probably a great man for the Italians." (Edison Sees Better Times. Boston Herald, February 12, 1931, p. 17)

 -----

Nikola Tesla, Arthur Conan Doyle and Dr. Henry H. Holmes are all characters in my thriller, A Predator's Game.

A Predator's Game is available in soft-cover and ebook through Amazon and other online retailers.

A Predator's Game, now available, Rook's Page Publishing.

 -----------------------

Back page blurb.

Manhattan, 1896.

When the author Arthur Conan Doyle meets Nikola Tesla he finds a tall, thin genius with a photographic memory and a keen eye, and recognizes in the eccentric inventor the embodiment of his creation, Sherlock. Together, they team up to take on an "evil Holmes." Multi-murderer Dr. Henry H. Holmes has escaped execution and is unleashing a reign of terror upon the metropolis. Set in the late nineteenth century in a world of modern marvels, danger and invention, Conan Doyle and Tesla engage the madman in a deadly game of wits.

Martin Hill Ortiz, also writing under the name, Martin Hill, is the author of A Predatory Mind. Its sequel, set in 1890s Manhattan and titled A Predator's Game, features Nikola Tesla as detective.

Continue reading →

Tesla Versus Edison

In the past months, I have written a series of Tesla Versus . . . posts. And now for the biggie:

Tesla Versus Edison.

Previously:

• Tesla Vs. the Nobel Prize.
• Tesla Vs. the Martians.
• Tesla Vs. Einstein
• Tesla Vs. Adrian Monk
• Tesla Vs. Sherlock Holmes
• Tesla and the Alienist

I have avoided Tesla versus Edison, in part because the subject matter is huge. A hefty book could be written and several medium-sized books have been written about "The Current Wars" of the late 1880s and early 1890s.


In this entry, I will attempt to provide the major events in the history of the rivalry between Tesla and Edison, toss in a few well-known and some less-commonly cited anecdotes and offer my opinion on the subject.

Background.

Thomas Alva Edison was born on February 11, 1847 in Milan, Ohio. He began inventing while working as a telegraph operator, creating automated telegraph devices. He later said that he had begun 18 hour work days from the age of twenty. In an interview at age 46, he described himself as 84 years old, having worked double the hours of others from the past 26 years. (Future Work of Edison. February 5, 1893 Omaha World-Herald, p. 5 - interestingly, he would die at 84.) Long hours were a key to his success, relentlessly tackling his creations with a blunt force and a well-staffed laboratory.

He considered his greatest creation to be the phonograph and he was probably correct in this. His patents for electric light-bulbs and many other inventions were incremental or moderate leaps forward. The phonograph was wholly original.

Nikola Tesla was born July 10, 1857 in what is now Croatia. He shared Edison's philosophy of long hours and little sleep. In nearly all other matters they were opposites. While Tesla dressed elegantly, spoke appreciatively of poetry and arts and became a toast of society, Edison slept in his clothes on a bench nearby his work, seeing no need for the pleasantries of life. Tesla imagined his inventions and strove to first perfect them in his mind. Edison had no patience for that, instead tinkering with them until something worked.

Tesla was an idealist. Edison was the ultimate pragmatist. Tesla made a poor businessman; Edison helped found General Electric (originally Edison General Electric) and one of the first motion picture companies (among many other endeavors).

The 1880s: Collaboration and Rivalry.

Nikola Tesla began working at the Société Electric Edison while in Paris in 1882, designing dynamos for Edison lighting systems (Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age, W. Bernard Carlson, 2013, p. 64). Tesla's work there was appreciated but he could not gain support for creating his own dynamo.

Tesla received a letter of introduction to Edison from Tivadar Puskás, the man entrusted to introduce Edison's patents to Europe. He wrote: "I know two great men and you are one of them; the other is this young man." (Carlson, p. 61)

Having been robbed on his way over, on June 6, 1884, Tesla arrived in New York penniless. When he passed immigration, a clerk told him: "Kiss the Bible. Twenty cents!" (Carlson p. 69)

Tesla began his American career at Edison Machine Works. Within the month, Edison had patented an arc lighting system based mainly on Tesla's work. Tesla described his time there in his autobiography:

For nearly a year my regular hours were from 10:30 A.M. until 5 o'clock the next morning without a day's exception. Edison said to me, "I have had many hard working assistants, but you take the cake." During this period I designed twenty-four different types of standard machines with short cores and uniform pattern, which replaced the old ones. The Manager had promised me fifty thousand dollars on the completion of this task, but it turned out to be a practical joke. This gave me a painful shock and I resigned my position. (My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla. Nikola Tesla and Ben Johnston. 1919)

After Tesla quit, he spent 1885 working for a company redesigning arc light systems. For his efforts, he was left with worthless stock. In the coming winter of 1885/1886, he dug ditches.

In 1886, the foreman of the ditch diggers introduced him to two men who would become sponsors for his ideas to create alternating current generators: Alfred S. Brown and Charles F. Peck. In 1887, the Tesla Electric Company was formed and over the coming year two of his greatest patents were completed: the A/C generator and the A/C motor.

While both were revolutionary, this contemporary description of the A/C motor describes the wonderment:

D.J. Cable, a well-known electrician of this city, examine the completed motor. He was very much pleased, and in speaking of it to a reporter, said: "Mr. Tesla deserves credit for all he has accomplished. He has worked out what no other man has before him, and has produced in fact a motor which some eminent electricians claimed was impractical and beyond reason. ...

"Its simplicity and cheapness are remarkable. Any number of them with great capacity to do work can be attached to an electric light line, if the dynamos are large enough. With two simple wires connecting the motor with the wire that supplies a common electric light, a manufacturer will have power enough to run his machinery, and the steam engine he uses now can be relegated to back to obscurity. It is a great saving of time, labor and money." (A New Motor. San Francisco Chronicle, August 23, 1888)

Tesla's A/C system was better than the system of DC generators and batteries Edison's company put forward. George Westinghouse took note. Westinghouse bought out Tesla and his inventions at a high price. A contemporary report summed up the consolidations and oncoming rivalry:

The Westinghouse company was incorporated in 1886 and absorbed the Tesla Motor company, the Waterhouse Electric Company and leased the Sawyer & Man company, which owned the fundamental patents on incandescent lights.

"As matters now stand," continued Mr. Curtis [lawyer for Westinghouse], "there are only two great companies face to face in this country now. These are the Westinghouse and the Edison." (Absorbed by Westinghouse. February 12, 1889. New York Herald, p. 11)

Edison saw Tesla's system as dangerous and impractical and "not worth the attention of practical men." (Carlson p. 90)

On April 24, 1889, Edison's several companies merged through the financing of Anthony J. Drexel and J.P. Morgan to form Edison General Electric.

Even as the mergers were finalized, the electric current wars were underway.

The Electric Current Wars.

In retrospect, powering a major city by batteries seems ludicrous. Even then, it was impractical, but Edison had invested a lot of money in this scheme.

Edison undertook a variety of underhanded means to persuade the public that direct current was the only reasonable and safe way to go. He lobbied state legislators and regulatory agencies asking to ban or limit A/C. He sponsored public electrocutions of animals. He helped promote the electric chair as a means of executing criminals emphasizing its lethality while claiming that it was pain-free.

On June 5, 1888, Harold J. Brown, a freelance electrical engineer of no great renown, wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Evening Post warning of the great dangers of alternating current. He quickly became Edison's surrogate electrocutionist. Although Brown claimed his crusade "represented no company and no financial interest," Edison made available to Brown a work-space in his laboratory and provided the services of Arthur Kennelly, Edison's chief electrician, for Brown's demonstrations. (the quotes and story in this section are from Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse and the Race to Electrify the World. Jill Jonnes, 2003.)

Brown declared he would prove the dangers of alternating current and sent out engraved invitations to a presentation at the Columbia College, School of Mines, for the evening of July 30, 1888. This "proof" came in the form of electrocuting a dog, first with several levels of DC in which the dog writhed in agony, then by AC which killed off the dog. The audience was horrified: not by the fearsome power of AC, but by the cruelty of the demonstrator. Some walked out. A reporter stood up and called out his objection to the torture. Brown declared the demonstration a success and said "the only places where an alternating current ought to be used were the dog pound, the slaughter house, and the state prison."

Four days later, Brown repeated the demonstration, this time with three dogs. One of them took four minutes of electric shock to die.

Then Edison and Brown upped the ante. They decided to execute large animals to establish that alternating current was the most efficient means of electrocuting humans to carry out executions.

On December 5, 1888, Brown rigged an electrocution pen at the Edison research complex in West Orange, New Jersey. Along with representatives of the New York State Death Commission and American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Edison himself attended. They executed two calves and a full-grown horse. Brown was soon hired to construct an electric chair.

A Victim of the Current Wars

The first criminal set to be executed by electricity was the murderer Harry Kemmler. The novel means of his execution became a basis for appeals and Edison testified in court as to the instantaneous and painless nature of electrocution, while also providing lurid descriptions of what alternating current could do to a human (and at the same time making it clear he didn't know what he was talking about). He said that several thousand horsepower would be sufficient to carbonize a man. "His temperature would rise 3 or 4 degrees above the normal and after a while he'd be mummified. . . . The heat would evaporate all the fluids in his body and he'd be mummyized."


On August 6, 1890, Kemmler was executed in what proved to be a horrifying mess, with the victim being pronounced dead then found alive. The current was turned on a second time trying to instill death. All in all, it took eight minutes. Westinghouse commented. "They could have done it better with an axe."

What ultimately doomed the Edison side is that their system was more prone to fires, it was more expensive and less generally useful. It could not transport electricity for anything but short distances.

In February of 1892, the Edison General Electric company merged with Thomson-Houston Electric and the Thomson-Houston management took over. Edison's name was dropped from the company, now becoming General Electric. J.P. Morgan financed this takeover, not bothering to notify Edison that he was about to be removed. Morgan had screwed Edison the way he would later become a nemesis of Tesla.

Edison spent much of the rest of the 1890s working on his most futile long-term venture: mining iron ore in New Jersey.

The New Edison.

By the mid-1890s the current wars had ended. Tesla who had spent the winter of 1886 digging ditches had defeated the most prominent inventor of his generation (and perhaps the most prominent American). Tesla was the toast of the town, indeed, the toast of the nation.

A new Edison has appeared in the person Nikola Tesla, who has come to the United States from Servia to work still greater revolutions in the wonderful application of electricity. (A New Edison. March 21, 1894 Tacoma Daily News, p. 2)

Beyond the Current Wars.

Although Edison did not write an autobiography, his official biography came at age 60. In it, Tesla was only mentioned in passing, first in a pair of anecdotes, one mentioning how hard Tesla worked and one mentioning how much Tesla ate at a meal. Tesla was also mentioned  in the recounting of play that parodied Edison and Tesla and how they might approach the Spanish-American war.

 From: Clank—Clank, the Cranks are Clanking.

"Mr. Edison (proudly): 'It is done! I have filled these lobsters so full of electricity that they buzz when they move. When the Spanish warships come in sight I will turn 'em loose in the bay, and then you'll see what you will see. These lobsters will establish a current with a line of electric eels that I have stationed at Sandy Hook, and the haughty hidalgos will get a shock that will make 'em look like twenty-nine cents marked down from forty.'

"The Crowd: 'Hooray! Cuba libre!'

"Mr. Tesla (interrupting the demonstration): 'That scheme won't do at all. Now, I have a fan here that is charged with four billion volts of Franklin's best brand of bottled lightning, and when this fan gets fanning the results are astounding. Not ten minutes ago I fanned a fly from off Emperor William's nose, and fluted the whiskers of the King of Siam. Now, when the Spaniards come up the bay I'll just climb a tree and pour a broadside of vibrations at 'em. Say, I'll fan 'em off the earth in not more than a minute and a half.' (As related in: Thomas Alva Edison: Sixty years of an inventor's life. By Francis Arthur Jones, 1907. p; 366-7.)

As has been noted in another post, a false report came out that Tesla and Edison were to share the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics;

In 1916, Tesla became the seventh recipient of the Edison Medal, given out by the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. Cognizant of their long-term rivalry, at first Tesla was reluctant to accept the award. He acceded.

In his speech he contrasted his method of inventing with that of Edison and praised Edison for his single-mindedness.

I could do it all in my mind, and I did.  In this way I have unconsciously evolved what I consider a new method of materializing inventive concepts and ideas, which is exactly opposite to the purely experimental of which undoubtedly Edison is the greatest and most successful exponent. ...

[Of their first meeting:] I met Edison, and the effect he produced upon me was extraordinary.  When I saw this wonderful man, who had had no theoretical training at all, no advantages, who did all himself, getting great results by virtue of his industry and application, I felt mortified that I had squandered my life.  I had studied a dozen languages, delved in literature and art and had spent my best years in ruminating through libraries and reading all sorts of stuff that fell into my hands.  I thought to myself, what a terrible thing it was to have wasted my life in those useless efforts. (Excerpted from Nikola Tesla acceptance speech at the ceremony for the 1916 Edison award, May 18, 1917 as presented on the website, Twenty-First Century books)

Edison did not attend the ceremony.

In the 20s and 30s, having lived through the time of the devastation of the First World War, Edison and Tesla both considered what must be done to prevent another.

 "We should experiment with the most deadly gases and the biggest guns," he [Edison] said. "Not that we will ever make use of them, but so that we may be prepared in case some other nation, through rascality, should attack us. I want all nations to be prepared so that it will be so terrible that game is up."

(Edison, at 75, Says 15 More Birthdays Are Coming to Him. February 12, 1922. Philadelphia Inquirer, p. 12.)

Keep the nations of the world from obtaining money to prepare for "the next war." If this is done–and America has the power to do it–President Harding will succeed in the conference he has called for limitation of armament.

In that manner the situation was summed up today by Thomas A. Edison, Henry Ford and H.S. Firestone as they sat on the shady bank of a rippling West Virginia mountain brook, munched sandwiches, frizzled bacon and talked about disarmament, prosperity and golf.  (Advise Poverty As Only War Remedy. August 2, 1921. Salt Lake Telegram, p 20)

Tesla, in contrast, came to believe that defensive means were the only way to end war.

I inherited from my father, an erudite man who labored hard for peace, an ineradicable hatred of war. Like other inventors, I believed at one time that war could he stopped by making it more destructive. But I found that I was mistaken. I underestimated man's combative instinct, which it will take more than a century to breed out. We cannot abolish war by outlawing it. We cannot end it by disarming the strong. War can be stopped, not by making the strong weak but by making every nation, weak or strong, able to defend itself. (A Machine to End War. Liberty, February 1937 by Nikola Tesla as told to George Sylvester Viereck.)

End Note.

As I said at the beginning, this conflict could make up a very long book and some good ones have been written with parts of the tale. Many take Tesla's side as the battered idealist. Many see Edison as the evil opposite of Tesla.

I believe such a point of view is simplistic: Tesla was not a saint. Edison, however, did show himself in their battles to be petty. Between the two and considering their contributions to the modern age, I favor Tesla.

Other popular links which take Tesla or Edison's side:

Why Nikola Tesla was the greatest geek ever.
The response in Forbes:
Nikola Tesla wasn't God and Thomas Edison wasn't the devil.
and, for those interested:
The Tesla Vs. Edison Board Game.
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Nikola Tesla, Arthur Conan Doyle and Dr. Henry H. Holmes are all characters in my thriller, A Predator's Game.

A Predator's Game is available in soft-cover and ebook through Amazon and other online retailers.

A Predator's Game, now available, Rook's Page Publishing.

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Back page blurb.

Manhattan, 1896.

When the author Arthur Conan Doyle meets Nikola Tesla he finds a tall, thin genius with a photographic memory and a keen eye, and recognizes in the eccentric inventor the embodiment of his creation, Sherlock. Together, they team up to take on an "evil Holmes." Multi-murderer Dr. Henry H. Holmes has escaped execution and is unleashing a reign of terror upon the metropolis. Set in the late nineteenth century in a world of modern marvels, danger and invention, Conan Doyle and Tesla engage the madman in a deadly game of wits.

Martin Hill Ortiz, also writing under the name, Martin Hill, is the author of A Predatory Mind. Its sequel, set in 1890s Manhattan and titled A Predator's Game, features Nikola Tesla as detective.

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