Tribute to Tesla

Judge Townsend of the Federal Bench Praises the Electrician in an Opinion.

New Haven, Conn. Aug. 20. — In the United States District Court yesterday Judge Townsend handed down a decision in an electrical case of great importance. It is a case which had in question the inventions of Nikola Tesla. It related to three inventions by Tesla, one of an electric magnetic motor, another on the electrical transmission of power and the third for specific construction of a motor embodying the invention of the other two patents. The main point of the invention is that by the Tesla inventions there is not the waste of electric energy that there was under the old arrangement.

The title of the case is the Westinghouse Electric Manufacturing Co. against the New England Granite Co. of Hartford and others. The defendants have been using Tesla's invention in mining and other operations. Judge Townsend upholds Tesla and supports his invention in the following praise, rare in a Judicial opinion.

"A careful study of the evidence shows that Tesla has made a brilliant discovery. It remained to the genius of Tesla to capture the unruly, unrestrained and hitherto opposing elements in the field of nature and art and to harness them to draw the machines of man. It was he who first showed how to transform the toy of Arago into an engine of power: the laboratory experiment of Bailey into a practically successful motor: the indicator into a driver. He first conceived the idea that the very impediments of reversal in direction, the contradictions of alternatives might be transformed into power, producing rotations, a whirling field of force. What others looked upon as only invincible barriers, impassable currents and contradictory forces he seized and by harmonizing their directions utilized in practical motors in distant cities the power of Niagara.

"A decree may be entered for an injunction and an accounting as to all the claims in suit."

The opinion then goes on to describe the elements involved in the case.