Tesla, The Great (Nov. 14, 1898)

Tesla’s grievance is that the war with Spain came to an end too soon. In another fortnight, he says, he would have had a chance to prove the wonders of his newest invention. This is a little machine for transmitting power for propelling a ship, or a missile at any required rate of speed, in any direction and to any distance, without the use of wires or other medium save only the atmosphere. From a station on shore, the inventor says, he can, by the mere manipulation of a key, send out torpedoes with which to wreck the greatest fleet, then boats to pick up the pieces or even other fleets to carry an army into any port.

Thus the most powerful navies (belonging to the enemy) become useless; no defenses are adequate; no Gibraltar is secure; no fortified town immune; war, in a word, becomes impossible because too horrible and all the existing machinery of war, whether for offense or defense, is no better than so much refuse and scrap iron.

But the machine is equally potent for the purposes of peace. It is considered passing wonderful at present that power can be transmitted over twenty or twenty-five miles of wire, from the point whereat it is generated, sufficient to turn the wheels of a mill or a factory. Tesla proposes to operate a machine at the Paris Exposition in 1900 with power transmitted from his shop in New York City, using no wires or other medium than the salty airs that overhang the Atlantic. In a word he has destroyed distance, made all dynamos his slave and hired the forces of nature on a long contract at his own price.

Tesla is the very greatest that ever was and he admits it. He frankly confesses that his brain reels at the contemplation of his own genius. As for other folk — plain, matter-of-fact people, they have only one suggestion and that is that, up to now, at least, the Great Nikola’s performances have fallen somewhat short of his promises. They are ready to join him in a paean of praise and admiration of himself; only they ask him to make good on one — any one — of his propositions. Meanwhile Edison, the doer, seems to rank Tesla, the talker.