Tesla's Wireless Telegraph - Absolutely Private, Absolutely Original, Working to Great Distances

Nikola Tesla was asked in his laboratory yesterday afternoon about a report touching his immediate intentions as to the transmission of wireless messages, which the inventor pronounced to be a mistake. Mr. Tesla said that his plans were made up long ago, but that he was not in a position to speak of them as yet. He was asked about the progress of his work and he replied: 

"Since the Sun made the first announcement of my undertaking, the work has been steadily progressing. Some delays have of course occurred, but they have been only for the better. And I am more confident than ever that when it is completed I shall give to the world as the first result of my labors in the transmission of power without wires to great distances, a system of telegraphy capable of infinite expansion, and securing the absolute privacy of the messages. I shall shortly make known a novel principle which will to a large degree remove the popular belief that it is impossible to attain that degree of secrecy which is practicable with cables."

When Mr. Tesla was asked whether there was any similarity between his own and other systems he smiled:

"I respect rigorously the rights of others," he said, "and when I give my system to the world I shall ask the entire technical profession to point to any feature of my system — the transmitter, the receiver, the means and methods of recording, the means and methods of producing the requisite electrical energy, and the means and methods of securing absolute privacy and noninterference — which is not of my own creation. I admire skill and enterprise, and my best wishes for success accompany those who sell ready made shoes; but I myself prefer not to use them. They are cheap, but they raise corns and bunions."

The Tesla patents in connection with Instruments and principles involved in the transmission of wireless messages, or wireless electrical energy, date from 1896 and 1897,