The Last Days of Night, page 33
“And look: They all got what they wanted. Because they wanted such different things. I’ve been trying so hard, all this time, to understand them, and what I understand now is that I never will. Because I’m not like them.”
“You wanted to win,” said Agnes.
“Yes. And I did. It was the same as losing. Edison gets the audience. Westinghouse gets the excellence. Tesla gets the ideas. But all I really want is you.”
She smiled. In the years to come, Paul would see many of these smiles. He would come to know well their shapes, their shadings, their infinite variety of splendors. And yet of all the million smiles that she would show him, it would be this particular one, grinned on that particular afternoon, that would forever be his favorite.
“You’re getting better at the speeches,” she said.
The game of science is, in principle, without end. He who decides one day that scientific statements do not call for any further test, and that they can be regarded as finally verified, retires from the game.
—KARL POPPER
PAUL MARRIED AGNES Huntington in a ceremony at St. Thomas Church. They moved to an apartment on Fifty-eighth Street, one block from Central Park. Agnes soon stopped singing professionally, but never stopped singing at home. Sometimes Paul imagined that her voice had seeped so deeply into the apartment’s bright wood that the walls would reverberate ever on with the sound of her arias. Their daughter, Vera, was born in 1895. She looked the spitting image of her mother. Fannie Huntington lived close by.
Together, Paul and Agnes participated in the founding of the Council on Foreign Relations, and Paul became one of its officers. Paul served as corporate counsel for the Metropolitan Opera, and then the chairman of its board. In time, he would be a director of the Philharmonic, a trustee of the Juilliard School of Music, the chairman of the board of Fisk University, the president of the Italy America Society, and an official of the India Society of America. Paul and Agnes became among the greatest of Manhattan’s philanthropists.
And yet the name of Nikola Tesla would always haunt their marriage. Paul’s sins against the man would be recalled whenever they struggled both to do well and to do good, and whenever they fought behind closed doors.
In the years that followed, the Westinghouse Electric Company’s system became the national standard for generating and harnessing electrical power. By way of its licensing arrangement with the newly christened General Electric, Westinghouse provided the power to light the country from coast to coast using alternating current. At the same time, GE itself switched standards and sold many times more bulbs. Under Charles Coffin its profitability tripled. Both companies grew to be among the largest in the world.
Paul remained the lead counsel for the Westinghouse Electric Company for a while, until he was able to transition the company into hiring an in-house counsel. Paul chose the young man himself and remained on retainer as a consultant. It was time for him to move on.
Paul and Westinghouse remained cordial business associates, if not close ones. Paul never asked him about the fire. There was nothing Paul could do about it, and nothing, even if Westinghouse did admit it, that he could prove. No one would benefit from an argument. Their relationship cooled, but never froze. Westinghouse was not the father that Paul wanted. He had his own. Erastus Cravath even visited New York every now and again to see his granddaughter.
To be sure, those years saw their share of intrigue. J. P. Morgan attempted a hostile takeover of Westinghouse, failed, and then tried it again. The effective monopoly created by the licensing partnership didn’t suit his balance sheets quite so well as would a literal one. But Westinghouse, with Paul at his side, saw these attacks coming. Morgan was kept at bay, and the Westinghouse Electric Company remained free of outside ownership. Paul became known for his cunning, not merely on the lawyerly blocks of Broadway, but on Wall Street as well.
Paul founded a new firm with his associates. His success as Westinghouse’s chief counsel served as no small advertisement to future clients. He soon had dozens. Most were household names. Paul eventually took over William Seward’s old firm, originally founded decades before its name partner had successfully negotiated the Alaska Purchase. Paul soon brought on Hoyt Moore, an expert in the new field of taxation law, which was becoming more important to the firm’s larger corporate clients. Eventually, Paul would promote his own protégé to a partnership: Bob Swaine, a bright young man only a few years out from Harvard Law. (No one’s perfect.) Moreover, the pyramidal structure he had developed to handle the light-bulb suit proved useful on other cases as well. He wrote of his “Cravath system” in various journals. Its method was that each suit was overseen by a partner at the firm, below which a team of associates handled the daily drudgery of legal work. The associates ascended through a hierarchy of their own, based on the length of time they’d been with the firm—first years, second years, and so forth, on and on up the totem pole until one day, if they were quite lucky, they might become partners themselves. The system rivaled Westinghouse’s factories for efficiency of production.
Paul had turned the practice of law from a craft into an industry. As attorneys from Washington to San Francisco had learned of his system, they’d begun adopting his methods. If only, he thought, one were able to patent the practice of law as one might patent the devices the law protected.
Even Nikola Tesla prospered on and off. While Tesla saw not a cent of income from his work on alternating current, the enterprise he founded with J. P. Morgan’s money did not go bankrupt until 1903. His personal wealth, while nothing compared to Edison’s or Westinghouse’s, was enough for him to take a room at the Waldorf Astoria. It was a short walk from there to Delmonico’s, where Tesla would dine every single night, without fail. The manager gave him his own table, which they set each evening especially for him.
The writer Robert Underwood Johnson and his wife, Katharine, made it their sworn mission to find Tesla a suitable mate. Though the couple introduced him to all the most eligible women in New York, and some even took a fancy to the tall, commanding genius, he never reciprocated their affections.
Paul saw him around the city a few times, at dinner and a number of parties. Agnes made sure to attend every event at which she knew he’d be present. She kept close watch over him at first, but over time they grew distant. The fame that she had given up openly delighted him. For a time his name was spread almost as wide as Edison’s. Journalists lined up to profile him. He became one of the city’s great characters—a mysterious and eccentric sage. A ganglier oracle at Delphi. Paul and Agnes watched as Tesla enjoyed the show. His black suits, Agnes pointed out, were always immaculate. Ever alone in his own world, Tesla had learned to pause and occasionally savor the delicacies of this one.
Paul would never know it, but Nikola Tesla would outlive them all. He died quite penniless in 1943, having had to trade the Waldorf Astoria for a single-occupancy hotel.
Tesla never did invent the non-infringing light bulb that Paul had once so desperately needed; Westinghouse’s engineering team did. Under Westinghouse’s leadership, they worked methodically to modify the old Sawyer and Man patent. Instead of a single piece of glass surrounding the filament, they used two. Called the “double-stopper lamp,” it was mass-produced in Westinghouse’s own air-brake factory just in time to light the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. The courts instantly and unequivocally ruled that this light bulb was fundamentally different from Edison’s. Arguably the most lucrative invention of the entire current war did not arrive in any grand spark of individual genius, but rather flowed from a simple, painstakingly achieved modification to a decade-old British design performed over three years by a team of organized experts. Westinghouse held the patent on the double-stopper lamp, but no one person could quite claim to have “invented” it.
And then, of course, there was perhaps the greatest irony of the age: the curious and unexpected fate of U.S. Letters Patent No. 223,898.
Paul and his associates pursued the case vigorously. So did Morgan and Coffin, who could use the victory to bludgeon a number of smaller electrical companies into either bankruptcy or more-profitable licensing arrangements. Westinghouse, flush from success, was happy to spend the legal fees in order to defend his good name. For Paul, it was all a matter of pride. This was the largest patent-infringement case in the world. The attorney who litigated it successfully would secure a place in history.
And so it was that Paul found himself arguing before the Supreme Court of the United States. He argued brilliantly, defending himself against Justice Fuller’s quick barbs. He did his work well, and it was a sight to behold. It was the capstone to any lawyer’s career.
A few weeks later Paul found out the result. He lost.
And no one much cared.
Edison v. Westinghouse had become an undead lawsuit. It had lived on far past the point that either of its named litigants cared about its result. By the time Edison’s patent was upheld in court, it was soon to expire. Westinghouse’s double-stopper lamps were already on the market, so he was forbidden from manufacturing a bulb that he’d already stopped making. The few minor electrical companies that had continued using designs similar to Edison’s, in the hopes of a Westinghouse victory, were duly sent out of business. In some quiet, smoky room somewhere, Morgan crossed another victory off a long list.
It was, Paul realized, the fate of lawyers that they might lose the case but win the war.
In the rest of Paul Cravath’s life, he would see Thomas Edison on only one more occasion.
My model for business is the Beatles. They were four guys who kept each other’s…negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other and the total was greater than the sum of the parts. That’s how I see business: Great things in business are never done by one person. They’re done by a team of people.
—STEVE JOBS
ON THE DAY that he would last see Thomas Edison, Paul watched 100 million gallons of white water pour over the great lip of Niagara Falls. A twenty-nine-ton turbine used the raw force of those tumbling gallons to spin a generator that converted it into enough alternating current to power tens of thousands of household light bulbs.
Paul was there for a gala reception to mark the opening of the largest electrical-power generator in the world. It had been built by Westinghouse, designed based on Tesla’s ideas, and would power lamps across the East Coast that had been manufactured by Edison’s former company, GE. The unveiling was a ceremony of a size as unprecedented as the plant itself. Every figure of any prominence in the American electrical community was in attendance.
Which meant, so Paul realized as he stood at the falls, that Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and Nikola Tesla would for one evening all be in the same place. To Paul’s amazement, this had never happened before. He knew that it would almost certainly never happen again.
It was after the dull, formal ceremony that Paul stood in the open air, sipping from a flute of champagne as he watched the churning waters. It was nice to be reminded that of all the fantastic things he’d seen in his life, of all the man-made inventions he’d witnessed, none held the power that Niagara did. Or rather that even Westinghouse’s perfect current depended upon nature for its power. The God of Paul’s father still powered the devices of Paul’s client.
From the corner of his eye, Paul saw Edison leaning against the railing over the water. To Paul’s surprise, Westinghouse was with him. As was Tesla. They were talking.
Paul didn’t know whether to approach the group, but Edison caught a glimpse of him and waved him over.
“Mr. Cravath,” said Edison. “I didn’t know if you’d be here.”
Paul nodded. What was there to say to this man whose life had once so dominated his own?
“Mr. Bell sends his greetings,” said Edison.
“…Excuse me?”
“Mr. Bell says hello. I was at dinner with him in Nova Scotia just the other month. He told me the story of your visit.”
Paul was startled. “He said he was helping me for your sake.”
Edison nodded. “It worked. I’ll have to have you down to my new laboratory sometime. I’ve been working on motion pictures.”
Paul’s face made clear he had no clue as to what the phrase “motion pictures” might refer.
“You should see, Mr. Paul Cravath,” added Tesla. “Many photographs all in a row. It creates an appearance of a real thing moving.”
“How have you seen it?” asked Paul.
“My laboratory on Fifth Avenue, New York, has gotten crowded. I broke some items.” Tesla shook his head sadly. “I am clumsy, it is possible, with my things. Mr. Thomas Edison offered a space for working to myself. While some unnecessaries were cleaned away.”
“It’s actually quite nice to have Nikola around,” said Edison. “It’s been a pleasure to bounce ideas off him, see what he thinks of the new cameras. My boys are very much in awe. I’ve built the camera lab next to Tesla’s; Black Maria, I call it. A ‘motion picture’ studio. It’s fun. All in all, these years have been…well, they’ve been the happiest of my life. So whatever part you played in that, Mr. Cravath, I just wanted to say…you didn’t do so badly.”
Paul stared. After a long moment of silence, he laughed. Of all the things he’d imagined that Thomas Edison might ever say to him, he’d never imagined that.
He extended his hand, and Edison shook it.
All four men turned their attention to Niagara. Together they gazed out at the froth. The wet spray rose up from the waterfall, a mist rising up to the heavens. The effect was hypnotizing. As they stared, Paul noticed that Tesla’s eyes went elsewhere. To somewhere that none of the others could see.
“Wonder,” said Edison.
Paul turned. “What’s that?”
“Wonder,” said Edison again. “I fear it’s soon out.”
“It won’t ever go out,” said Westinghouse.
“Wonder?” asked Paul, not quite following along.
“Our age of invention,” explained Edison. “These days of handcrafted miracles…they won’t last much longer. Does that ever worry any of you? Light bulbs. Electricity. It seems likely that ours will be the last generation to ever gaze, wide-eyed, at something truly novel. That our kind will be the last to ever stare in disbelief at a man-made thing that could not possibly exist. We made wonders, boys. I only wonder how many of them are left to make.”
“The study of science,” said Tesla, “it is not ever to end.”
Edison nodded. “That’s true. But it won’t be like this. It will be more…technical. Inside the magic box, not outside it. A light bulb is intuitive; an X-ray is practically alchemy. The machines are becoming so infernally complicated that barely a soul can even conceptualize how they work. And moreover, they won’t need to in order to use the things. From here we can only build incrementally. Improvements. Not revolutions. No new colors, only new hues. Do you remember the first time you saw a light bulb at work?”
“I practically fainted,” said Westinghouse. “I didn’t think it was possible. That was barely fifteen years ago.”
“Exactly,” said Edison. “And when was the last time you saw anything that made you feel that way?”
“I always saw it,” said Tesla. The men turned to him. “The electrical bulbs. I have seen them always.” He tapped his fingertips twice against the side of his head. “Here.”
Westinghouse and Edison both laughed.
“We know,” said Westinghouse. “And we’re grateful for it.”
Edison asked, “Have you met that young fellow—what’s his name…Ford?”
“I gave him his first job,” said Westinghouse.
“I must have given him his second,” said Edison. “He’s probably younger than Mr. Cravath here. It’s depressing. I like Henry Ford, I honestly do. But he’s not…well, he’s just cut of a newer cloth, that’s all. So damned professional. Everything done to perfection. His career planned out from the start. He knows exactly where he’s going: what sort of company he wants to start, how to run it, what they’ll work on. Can you imagine? In our day all you had was a few stray strips of wire and—if you were really lucky—enough pennies for a stamp to mail a sketch to the patent office. Ford has a goddamned business plan.”
“A professional inventor,” said Westinghouse.
“A professional scientist,” said Edison. “Darwin never made a cent off what he did. Neither did Newton. Hooke. The whole of the Royal Society lot—they simply found things out. Invented things because they could. Not because there was money in it. We got wealthy doing what they did for fun.”
“And now a whole generation is setting out to grow rich from their idle fiddling.”
“And so there will be little fiddling that remains purely idle.”
The irony in Edison’s speech made Paul smile, but he kept his amusement to himself. This newfangled marriage of business and science that would birth technology was precisely what Edison himself had created. It was his greatest invention. And, like all progeny, it was now going to leave its maker behind.
