was Sigmund Bergmann, for a time partner with Edison in his lighting
developments in the United States, and now head and principal owner
of electrical works in Berlin, employing ten thousand men. The next
man adjacent was John Kruesi, afterward engineer of the great General
Electric Works at Schenectady. A third was Schuckert, who left the
bench to settle up his father's little estate at Nuremberg, stayed
there and founded electrical factories which became the third largest
in Germany, their proprietor dying very wealthy.
"I gave them a good training as to working hours and hustling," says
Edison. And this is equally true as applied to many scores of others
who have worked with him.
X
A BUSY YOUNG INVENTOR
Edison had now plunged into the intensely active life that has never
since ceased. Some idea of his activity may be gained from the fact
that he started no fewer than three manufacturing shops in Newark
during 1870-71. All of these he directed personally, besides busying
himself with many of his own schemes.
Speaking of those days, he says: "Soon after starting the large shop
(10 and 12 Ward Street, Newark), I rented shop-room to the inventor
of a new rifle. I think it was the Berdan. In any event, it was a
rifle which was subsequently adopted by the British army. The inventor
employed a tool-maker who was the finest and best I had ever seen. I
noticed that he worked pretty near the whole of the twenty-four hours.
This kind of application I was looking for. He was getting $21.50 a
week, and was also paid for overtime. I asked him if he could run the
shop. 'I don't know; try me!' he said. 'All right, I will give you
sixty dollars a week to run both shifts.' He went at it. His executive
ability was greater than that of any other man I have yet seen. His
memory was prodigious, conversation laconic, and movements rapid.
He doubled the production inside three months, without materially
increasing the pay-roll, by increasing the cutting speed of tools and
by the use of various devices. When in need of rest he would lie down
on a work-bench, sleep twenty or thirty minutes, and wake up fresh.
As this was just what I could do, I naturally conceived a great pride
in having such a man in charge of my work. But almost everything has
trouble connected with it. He disappeared one day, and, although I
sent men everywhere that it was likely he could be found, he was not
discovered. After two weeks he came into the factory in a terrible
condition as to clothes and face. He sat down, and, turning to me,
said: 'Edison, it's no use, this is the third time; I can't stand
prosperity. Put my salary back and give me a job.' I was very sorry
to learn that it was whisky that spoiled such a career. I gave him an
inferior job and kept him for a long time."
Those were indeed busy days, when, at one time, Edison, besides
directing the work of his shops, was working on no less than forty-five
separate inventions of his own. He had thus entered definitely upon
that career as an inventor which has left so deep an imprint on the
records of the Patent Office.
Soon after he commenced manufacturing he was engaged by the Automatic
Telegraph Company, of New York, to help it out of its difficulties. An
Englishman named George Little had brought over a system of automatic
telegraphy which worked well on a short line, but was a failure when
put upon the longer circuits, for which automatic methods are best
adapted.
This principle of automatic telegraphy, briefly described, was somewhat
as follows: A narrow paper ribbon was perforated with groups of holes
corresponding to Morse characters. This ribbon was passed over a
cylinder, and a metallic pen was so connected that it would drop into
the holes as they passed. The pen and cylinder being connected with
the telegraph line, a current would pass over the line whenever the
pen touched the cylinder. At the other end of the line the electrical
impulses passed through another metallic pen, which rested upon another
ribbon of paper chemically prepared, and, through electro-chemical
action, would mark dots and dashes upon the paper.
There were a great many very serious difficulties to be overcome in
order to make this system practical on long lines, but Edison applied
himself to the work with tremendous energy. His laboratory note-books
of the period show many thousands of experiments in the three years
that he was working on his problem, and during this time he also took
out a long list of patents on the subject.
So successful were his efforts that with his apparatus it became
possible to send and record one thousand words a minute between New
York and Washington, and thirty-five hundred words a minute between New
York and Philadelphia.
Later on, Edison improved this system by further inventions, by means
of which the message at the receiving end was automatically printed
upon the paper ribbon in Roman letters instead of dots and dashes.
Thus, the paper on which the message was received could be torn off
and sent out immediately to the person for whom it was intended. This
saved time and expense, for under the previous system a clerk must
first translate the dots and dashes into words and write it out before
delivery. The apparatus worked so perfectly that three thousand words
a minute were sent between New York and Philadelphia and recorded in
Roman letters.
After Edison's automatic system was put into successful use in America
by the Automatic Telegraph Company, an arrangement was made for a
trial of the system in England, involving its probable adoption if
successful. Edison went to England in 1873 to make the demonstration.
He was to report there to Col. George E. Gouraud, through whom the
arrangement had been made.
With one small satchel of clothes, three large boxes of instruments,
and a bright fellow-telegrapher named Jack Wright, he took voyage on
the _Jumping Java_, as she was humorously known, of the Cunard line.
The voyage was rough, and the little _Java_ justified her reputation
by jumping all over the ocean. "At the table," says Edison, "there
were never more than ten or twelve people. I wondered at the time how
it could pay to run an ocean steamer with so few people; but when we
got into calm water and could see the green fields, I was astounded
to see the number of people who appeared. There were certainly two or
three hundred. Only two days could I get on deck, and on one of these a
gentleman had a bad scalp wound from being thrown against the iron wall
of a small smoking-room erected over a freight hatch."
Arrived in London, Edison set up his apparatus at the Telegraph Street
headquarters, and sent his companion to Liverpool with the instruments
for that end. The condition of the test was that he was to record at
the rate of one thousand words a minute, five hundred words to be sent
every half hour for six hours. Edison was given a wire and batteries to
operate with, but a preliminary test soon showed that he was going to
fail. Both wire and batteries were poor, and one of the men detailed by
the authorities to watch the test remarked quietly, in a friendly way:
"You are not going to have much show. They are going to give you an old
Bridgewater Canal wire that is so poor we don't work it, and a lot of
'sand batteries' at Liverpool."[1]
The situation was rather depressing to the young American, but "I
thanked him," says Edison, "and hoped to reciprocate somehow. I knew I
was in a hole. I had been staying at a little hotel in Covent Garden
called the Hummums, and got nothing but roast beef and flounders, and
my imagination was getting into a coma. What I needed was pastry.
That night I found a French pastry shop in High Holborn Street and
filled up. My imagination got all right. Early in the morning I saw
Gouraud, stated my case, and asked if he would stand for the purchase
of a powerful battery to send to Liverpool. He said 'Yes.' I went
immediately to Apps, on the Strand, and asked if he had a powerful
battery. He said he hadn't; that all that he had was Tyndall's Royal
Institution battery, which he supposed would not serve. I saw it--one
hundred cells--and getting the price--one hundred guineas--hurried to
Gouraud. He said 'Go ahead.' I telegraphed to the man in Liverpool. He
came on, and got the battery to Liverpool, set up and ready just two
hours before the test commenced. One of the principal things that made
the system a success was that the line was put to earth at the sending
end through a magnet, and the extra current from this passed to the
line served to sharpen the recording waves. This new battery was strong
enough to pass a powerful current through the magnet without materially
diminishing the strength of the current." The test under these more
favorable circumstances was a success. "The record was as perfect as
copper plate, and not a single remark was made in the 'time lost'
column." Edison was now asked if he thought he could get a better speed
through submarine cables with this system, and replied that he would
like a chance to try it. For this purpose twenty-two hundred miles of
cable stored under water in tanks was placed at his disposal from 8
P.M. until 6 A.M. He says: "This just suited me, as I preferred night
work. I got my apparatus down and set up, and then to get a preliminary
idea of what the distortion of the signal would be I sent a single dot,
which should have been recorded upon my automatic paper by a mark about
one thirty-second of an inch long. Instead of that it was twenty-seven
feet long. If I ever had any conceit, it vanished from my boots up! I
worked on this cable more than two weeks, and the best I could do was
two words per minute, which was only one-seventh of what the guaranteed
speed of the cable should be when laid. What I did not know at the time
was that a coiled cable, owing to induction, was infinitely worse than
when laid out straight, and that my speed was as good as, if not better
than, the regular system, but no one told me this."
After a short stay in England Edison returned to America. He states
that the automatic was finally adopted in England and used for many
years; indeed, it is still in use there. But they took whatever they
needed from his system, and he "has never had a cent from them."
On arriving home he resumed arduous work on many of his
inventions--chiefly those relating to duplex telegraphy. This subject
had interested him at various times for four or five years previously,
and he now returned to it with great vigor.
Many inventors had been working on multiple transmission, and at this
period a system of sending two messages in opposite directions at the
same time over one wire had been invented by Joseph Stearns, and had
then lately come into use.
The subject of multiple transmission gave plenty of play for ingenuity
and was one that had great fascination for Edison. He worked out
many plans, and in April, 1873, two applications for patents. One of
these covered an invention by which not only could two messages be
sent in opposite directions over one wire at the same time, but, if
desired, two separate messages could be sent simultaneously _in the
same direction_ over a single wire. The former method was called the
"duplex," and the latter the "diplex."
Duplexing was accomplished by varying the _strength_ of the current,
and diplexing by _also_ varying the _direction_ of the current. In
this invention there was the germ of the quadruplex, and now Edison
redoubled his efforts toward completing the latter system, for, while
duplexing doubled the capacity of a line, the quadruplex would increase
it four times.
He was working also on other inventions, but the quadruplex claimed
most of his attention. He says: "This problem was of the most difficult
and complicated kind, and I bent all my energies toward its solution.
It required a peculiar effort of the mind, such as the imagining of
eight different things moving simultaneously on a mental plane without
anything to demonstrate their efficiency."
It is, perhaps, hardly to be wondered at that, when notified he would
have to pay twelve and one-half per cent, extra if his taxes in Newark
were not at once paid, he actually forgot his own name when asked for
it suddenly at the City Hall, and lost his place in the line!
He succeeded, however, in inventing a successful quadruplex system by
a skilful combination of the duplex and diplex with other ingenious
devices. The immense value of this invention may be realized when it is
stated that it has been estimated to have saved from fifteen million to
twenty million dollars in the cost of line construction in America. But
Mr. Edison received only a small amount for it. We will let him tell
the story in his own words:
"About this time I invented the quadruplex. I wanted to interest the
Western Union Telegraph Company in it, with a view of selling it, but
was unsuccessful until I made an arrangement with the chief electrician
of the company, so that he could be known as a joint inventor and
receive a portion of the money. At that time I was very short of money,
and needed it more than glory. This electrician appeared to want glory
more than money, so it was an easy trade. I brought my apparatus over
and was given a separate room with a marble-tiled floor--which, by the
way, was a very hard kind of floor to sleep on--and started in putting
on the finishing touches.
"After two months of very hard work I got a detail at regular times of
eight operators, and we got it working nicely from one room to another
over a wire which ran to Albany and back. Under certain conditions of
weather one side of the quadruplex would work very shakily, and I had
not succeeded in ascertaining the cause of the trouble. On a certain
day, when there was a board meeting of the company, I was to make an
exhibition test. The day arrived. I had picked the best operators in
New York, and they were familiar with the apparatus. I arranged that,
if a storm occurred and the bad side got shaky, they should do the best
they could and draw freely on their imaginations. They were sending old
messages. About twelve o'clock everything went wrong, as there was a
storm somewhere near Albany, and the bad side got shaky. Mr. Orton, the
president, and William H. Vanderbilt and the other directors came in.
I had my heart trying to climb up around my œsophagus. I was paying a
sheriff five dollars a day to withhold execution of judgment which had
been entered against me in a case which I had paid no attention to; and
if the quadruplex had not worked before the president I knew I was to
have trouble and might lose my machinery. The New York _Times_ came out
next day with a full account. I was given five thousand dollars as part
payment for the invention, which made me easy, and I expected the whole
thing would be closed up. But Mr. Orton went on an extended tour just
about that time. I had paid for all the experiments on the quadruplex
and exhausted the money, and I was again in straits. In the meantime I
had introduced the apparatus on the lines of the company, where it was
very successful.
"At that time the general superintendent of the Western Union was Gen.
T. T. Eckert (who had been Assistant Secretary of War with Stanton).
Eckert was secretly negotiating with Gould to leave the Western Union
and take charge of the Atlantic and Pacific--Gould's company. One
day Eckert called me into his office and made inquiries about money
matters. I told him Mr. Orton had gone off and left me without means,
and I was in straits. He told me I would never get another cent, but
that he knew a man who would buy it. I told him of my arrangement with
the electrician, and said I could not sell it as a whole to anybody;
but if I got enough for it I would sell all my interest in any share
I might have. He seemed to think his party would agree to this. I had
a set of quadruplex over in my shop, 10 and 12 Ward Street, Newark,
and he arranged to bring him over next evening to see the apparatus.
So the next day Eckert came over with Jay Gould and introduced him
to me. This was the first time I had ever seen him. I exhibited and
explained the apparatus, and they departed. The next day Eckert sent
for me, and I was taken up to Gould's house, which was near the Windsor
Hotel, Fifth Avenue. In the basement he had an office. It was in the
evening, and we went in by the servants' entrance, as Eckert probably
feared that he was watched. Gould started in at once and asked me how
much I wanted. I said, 'Make me an offer.' Then he said, 'I will give
you thirty thousand dollars.' I said, 'I will sell any interest I may
have for that money,' which was something more than I thought I could
get. The next morning I went with Gould to the office of his lawyers,
Sherman & Sterling, and received a check for thirty thousand dollars,
with a remark by Gould that I had got the steamboat _Plymouth Rock_, as
he had sold her for thirty thousand dollars, and had just received the
check. There was a big fight on between Gould's company and the Western
Union, and this caused litigation. The electrician, on account of the
testimony involved, lost his glory. The judge never decided the case,
but went crazy a few months afterward."
Mr. Gould controlled the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company and was
aiming to get control of the Western Union Company, and his purchase
of Edison's share in the quadruplex was an important move in this
direction.
Having learned of the success of Edison's automatic system, mentioned
in the early part of this chapter, Mr. Gould's next move was to get
control of that. It was owned by Mr. Edison and his associates of
the Automatic Telegraph Company, and that company was bought by Mr.
Gould under an agreement to pay four million dollars in stock. As to
this, Mr. Edison says: "After this, Gould wanted me to help install
the automatic system in the Atlantic and Pacific Company, of which
General Eckert had been elected president, the company having bought
the Automatic Telegraph Company. I did a lot of work for this company
making automatic apparatus in my shop at Newark."
Unfortunately for the inventor and his associates, the terms of the
contract have never been carried out. Mr. Edison remarks in regard to
this: "He" (Gould) "took no pride in building up an enterprise. He
was after money, and money only. Whether the company was a success
or a failure mattered not to him. After he had hammered the Western
Union through his opposition company and had tired out Mr. Vanderbilt,
the latter retired from control, and Gould went in and consolidated
his company and controlled the Western Union. He then repudiated the
contract with the Automatic Telegraph people, and they never received
a cent for their wires or patents, and I lost three years of very hard
labor. But I never had any grudge against him, because he was so able
in his line, and as long as my part was successful the money with me
was a secondary consideration. When Gould got the Western Union I knew
no further progress in telegraphy was possible, and I went into other
lines."
One of the most remarkable suits in the history of American
jurisprudence arose out of this transaction. Mr. Edison and his
associates sued Mr. Gould in 1876 for the recovery of the contract
price of these inventions, and, at this writing, thirty-five years
later, the suit has not been finally decided. It is now on appeal to
the United States Supreme Court.
A busier shop than that of the young inventor during the years 1870 to
1874 would be difficult to find. Not only was he and it engaged on the
tremendous problems of the automatic and quadruplex systems, but the
shop was also busy making stock tickers. The hours were endless; and on
one occasion when an order was on hand for a large quantity of these
instruments Edison locked the men in until the job had been finished of
making the machine perfect, and "all the bugs taken out," which meant
sixty hours of hard work before the difficulties were overcome.
In addition to all this work, Edison gave attention to many other
things. One of them was the first typewriter. In the early 'seventies
Mr. D. N. Craig, who was interested in the automatic, brought with him
from Milwaukee a Mr. Sholes, who had a wooden model of a machine to
which had been given the then new and unfamiliar name of "typewriter."
Mr. Craig was interested in the machine and put the model in Edison's
hands to perfect.
"This typewriter proved a difficult thing," says Edison, "to make
commercial. The alignment of the letters was awful. One letter would
be one-sixteenth of an inch above the others, and all the letters
wanted to wander out of line. I worked on it till the machine gave
fair results. Some were made and used in the office of the Automatic
Company. Craig was very sanguine that some day all business letters
would be written on a typewriter. He died before that took place;
but it gradually made its way. The typewriter I got into commercial
shape is now known as the Remington. I now had five shops, and with
experimenting on this new scheme I was pretty busy--at least I did not
have ennui."
Later on, after the automatic was completed, and Edison was installing
the system for the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Company he says:
"About this time I invented a district messenger call-box system, and
organized a company called the Domestic Telegraph Company, and started
in to install the system in New York. I had great difficulty in getting
subscribers, having tried several canvassers, who, one after the other,
failed to get subscribers. When I was about to give it up a test
operator named Brown, who was on the Automatic Telegraph wire between
New York and Washington, which passed through my Newark shop, asked
permission to let him try and see if he couldn't get subscribers. I had
very little faith in his ability to get any, but I thought I would give
him a chance, as he felt certain of his ability to succeed. He started
in, and the results were surprising. Within a month he had procured two
hundred subscribers, and the company was a success. I have never quite
understood why six men should fail absolutely, while the seventh man
should succeed. Perhaps hypnotism would account for it. This company
was sold out to the Atlantic and Pacific Company."
This was not the first time that Edison had worked on district
messenger signal boxes, for as far back as 1872 he had applied for a
patent on a device of this kind. Although he was not the first, he was
a very early inventor in this field.
It will be seen, therefore, that not all of his problems and inventions
were connected with telegraphy. He seemed to find relief in working
on several lines that were quite different and distinct, but all
were useful and capable of wide application. For instance, when we
take a piece of paraffin paper off candy, chocolate, chewing-gum or
other articles, we scarcely realize that it owes its introduction to
Mr. Edison. Yet such is the fact, and we relate it in his own modest
words: "Toward the latter part of 1875, in the Newark shop, I invented
a device for multiplying copies of letters, which I sold to Mr. A.
B. Dick, of Chicago, and in the years since it has been introduced
universally throughout the world. It is called the mimeograph. I also
invented devices for making, and introduced, paraffin paper, now used
universally for wrapping up candy, etc."
In the mimeograph a stencil is prepared by writing with a pointed
pencil-like stylus on a tough prepared paper placed on a finely grooved
steel plate. The pressure of the stylus causes the letters to be
punctured in the sheet by a series of minute perforations, thus forming
a stencil from which hundreds of copies can be made.
Edison accomplished the same perforating result by two other
inventions, one a pneumatic and the other an electric motor. The latter
was the one which came into extensive use, and was called the "Edison
electric pen." A tiny electric motor was mounted on a pencil-like tube
in which a pointed stylus (connected to the motor) traveled to and fro
at a very high rate of speed. Current from a battery was supplied to
the motor through a flexible cord, and the tube was held and used like
a pencil, as in the other case. As many as three thousand copies have
been made from such a stencil.