Tesla Says Edison Rose At Psychological Moment

Inventor Mourns Passing of a ‘Napoleonic Individuality'

(Reprinted from yesterday's extra edition)

Nikola Tesla, electrician and inventor, notified of Mr. Edison's death, said:

"The news of Edison's death will be received throughout the world like the report of some great calamity. For more than half a century his name was a household word everywhere. He came at a psychological moment when Franklin and Faraday had aroused interest in the mysterious agent called electricity and Morse had evolved his system of telegraphy which was to establish a link of understanding between all peoples of the earth.

"This achievement fired the inventive genius of young Edison and he made important improvement in quick succession. He leaped into fame when he brought out the incandescent lamp, and his photography, coming after a series of remarkable inventions, took the world by storm. From that time on no limit was set to his performances and miracles were ever expected from him.

"Edison was the very embodiment of practical inventive genius, a commercializer of tremendous force, who had the rare power of embodying scientific facts and principles in workable devices and making them available for general use. Like Morgan and Westinghouse, he will be remembered in the realm of business as a man of gigantic stature, commensurate to the greatness of his land of opportunities, an offspring and growth of America, impossible elsewhere. Much of Edison's work will be engulfed in the ever-increasing front of technical advances, but a few inventions, bearing the unmistakeable stamp of his Napoleonic individuality, will survive and be helpful in the progress of civilization for many generations to come.”