Warfare is Declared Among the Electricians

Tesla, Inventor, and Martin, Editor, Unsheath Their Pens Over the Publication by the Editor of an Editorial Reflecting on the Inventor.

Nikola Tesla has become involved in a row with T. Commerford Martin, editor of the Electrical Engineer, as a result of his most recent expressions of revolutionizing ideas in the development of electricity. Nikola Tesla has struck and Martin has parried. The next move is awaited with an anxious interest by the electrical fraternity in particular and the public in general.

The trouble grew out of an editorial published in the Electrical Engineer in its edition of November 17, together with a five-page paper on "High Frequency Oscillators for Electro-Therapeutics and Other Purposes." The paper related to entirely new, complex electrical actions and methods for medical practice and was read at the eighth annual meeting of the American Electro-Therapeutic Association in Buffalo on September 15. The Electrical Engineer published it exclusively.

In the editorial referred to Mr. Martin treated that subject as well as several others of Nikola Tesla's advanced theories in a delicately light vein. He opened by giving Nikola Tesla full credit for his practical achievements in electricity in the past and by stating that his journal cannot be numbered among those who are impatient with Nikola Tesla's tendency to let imagination outrun achievement. Then he goes on to say:

TESLA AND THE CZAR.

"Nikola Tesla fools himself. If he fools anybody, when he launches forth into the dazzling theories and speculations associated with his name. That he should desire to benefit the human race in ways now unknown, and should avow out loud belief in his capacity to do so, is surely not discreditable, any more than it is unworthy in the head of his own poetic Slavic race to propose the disarmament of the world. Granted that there will still be wars and granted that all these wonderful visions of new arts in peace do not fructify without the work of a score of later geniuses, why find fault without the Czar or with Mr. Tesla?"

Mr. Martin suggests that he should have been glad to see Nikola Tesla finish up some of the many other things that have occupied his energies for the last ten years, but none of which now claims any place. He then takes up, in turn, the renowned electrician's schemes for new methods of power generation, to wipe out all present means; for transmission of currents through aerial strata; for manipulating torpedoes at will without wires and, finally, his most recent suggestions for the saving of human life, conveyed in the paper read before the Electro-Therapeutic Association.

CHANCE FOR FUTURITY.

In each case the subject is treated courteously, with a slight undercurrent of doubt as to its practicability. In conclusion, Mr. Martin says: "No man has finished his work till he is dead, and even then there are long, long centuries in which his ideas can prove themselves true. The visionaries are thus often, in the end, the most sordid of realists — something Nikola Tesla will never be."

All this gave offense to Nikola Tesla. He wrote a letter to the editor of the Electrical Engineer, reciting his grievances and demanding a complete and humble apology. In his letter, under date of November 18, he writes:

"By publishing my recent contribution to the Electro-Therapeutic Society you have succeeded — after many vain attempts made during a number of years — in causing me a serious injury. It has cost me great pains to write that paper, and I have expected to see it appear among other dignified contributors of its kind, and I confess the wound is deep. But you will have no opportunity for inflicting a similar one, as I propose to take better care of my papers in the future. In what manner you have injured this one in advance of other electrical periodicals who had an equal right to the same, rests with the secretary of the society to explain."

Mr. Tesla says that the editorial comment would not concern him were it not for the duty to take note of it. "On more than one occasion," he writes, "you have offended me. But in my qualities, both as a Christian and philosopher, I have always forgiven you and only pitied you for your errors. This time, though, your offense is graver than the previous ones, for you have dared to cast a shadow on my honor." in referring to the quotations of illustrious men mentioned by Mr. Martin, Mr. Tesla demands tangible proof regarding the statement reflecting on his honesty. "In the absence of such proofs," he concludes, "which would put me in the position to seek redress elsewhere, I require that you publish instead a complete and humble apology for your insulting remark which reflects on me, as well as on those who honor me."

Mr. Tesla's letter, from which the above extracts are quoted, appears in full in the current issue of the Electrical Engineer. Following it is a detailed explanation of that journal's attitude in the matter and a statement as to how the manuscript of Mr. Tesla's address came into the editor's hands. Mr. Martin writes that for ten years past his paper has done all it could to bring Nikola Tesla forward and secure for him the recognition that was duly his. "The man, whoever he be, who says we have ever in word or deed or thought tried to do Nikola Tesla any sort of injury lies.

"Within the last year or two Nikola Tesla has, it seems to us, gone far beyond the possible in the ideas he has put forth, and he has to-day behind him a long trail of beautiful but unfinished inventions. By mild criticism and milder banter, not being able to lend Nikola Tesla the cordial support of earlier years of real achievement, we have only lately endeavored to express our doubts and to urge him to the completion of some one of the many desirable or novel things promised. We believe this to be true friendship."

In justification Mr. Martin quotes from Nikola Tesla's latest and furthest enlargement of his newest idea to dispense with artillery of the present type the following passage:

TESLA'S LATEST IDEA.

"We shall be able, availing ourselves of this advance, to send a projectile at much greater distance. It will not be limited in any way by weight or amount of explosive charge. We shall be able to submerge it at command, to arrest it in its flight and call it back, and to send it out again and explode it at will — and, more than this, it will never make a miss."

Mr. Martin refuses point blank to accept such an utterance in silence, and says he is willing to take the consequences. The Electrical Engineer's past admiration for Mr. Tesla's real, tangible work is on record, but it draws the line at such things as these. In explaining why the Electrical Engineer published exclusively the paper prepared by Nikola Tesla for the Electro-Therapeutic Association, Mr. Martin reproduces two letters from officers of that association to the editors of the Electrical Engineer. The second of these is from Dr. Robert Newman, chairman, dated October 20, and says:

"We have now the necessary vote for your publishing Nikola Tesla's paper in the Electrical Engineer, you lending us the cuts in proper size for our transactions. • • • If our secretary is not dilatory you will receive the manuscript and illustrations at once."

Mr. Martin adds that before publishing the paper he referred Dr. Newman to technical publishers, who refused to print the matter in book form because there was not, in their estimation, sufficient demand for it among scientific men. Failing in that he was glad to give it space in the pages of his paper, deeming it to be good "copy."

In its edition of November 26, the Scientific American says editorially:

"The facts of Mr. Tesla's invention (the control of submarine torpedoes without wires) are as few and simple as the fancies which have been woven around it are many and extravagant. The principles of the invention are not new, nor was Nikola Tesla even their original discoverer. While the present application of these principles is novel, there is nothing whatever in the device to warrant the sweeping claims which have been made in regard to its destructive powers. The connecting cable in the dirigible torpedo is only one of many insuperable obstacles to its success. Mr. Tesla has removed, or rather believes that he has, this one defect; let him now apply himself to mastering the others. Before he announces his ability to blot the navies of the world out of existence, let him answer a few pertinent questions, as follows:

"If the torpedo must be seen to be controlled, and is scarcely visible at a distance of over a mile, even in a calm sea, how, in view of the great range, rapidity and accuracy of modern rifles, is the operator to keep within striking distance of the enemy? If the course of the torpedo can with difficulty be followed in calm weather, how will it be traced when the surface is disturbed even by a moderate sea, to say nothing of more boisterous water? Furthermore, what becomes of its accuracy in thick or foggy weather? The apparatus employed by Nikola Tesla is extremely sensitive to shock; how, then, will it fare amid the terrific concussion of a modern sea fight? If one of these weapons should be lost sight of in its course, does it not at once threaten friend and foe alike, and is not the operator himself in danger of being incontinently 'hoist with his own petard'?"

"Lastly, and most pertinent question of all: What is to prevent the enemy from installing a transmitter on his own ship and himself sending out waves to act upon the receiver in the torpedo? We fail to find any provision made for this contingency, either in the patent or in any of the published interviews of the inventor. With a transmitter in the hands of the enemy the proper sequence of the motions of the torpedo could be destroyed, and the control of it prevented."