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The Suppression of Fuel Savers and Alternate Energy Resources 423
Tesla was squeezed out of the picture by the force of corporate interests.
"David Sarnoff was Marconi's front man, and Sarnoff created RCA
and NBC and purposely kept Tesla's patents out of the loop," Seifer said.
"So when people like Hammond and Marconi were getting $500,000 at
a clip for their wireless patents, Tesla got nothing."
RADIO CORPORATION ELBOWS HIM OUT
The picture of corporate ruthlessness is reinforced by the experience of
the late Philo T. Farnsworth, an inventor of television. In Philo's biography,
Elma G. Farnsworth told about Sarnoff's treatment of her husband,
and about the early 1930s when RCA dominated the radio industry to the
point where no one could make broadcasting or receiving equipment without
paying patent royalties to RCA. "RCA's policy regarding patents,
licenses, and royalties was very simple: the company was formed to collect
patent royalties. It never paid them." Elma Farnsworth added that corporations
have always been ambivalent toward inventors and patents.
"Although they regard patents as a huge bulwark when protecting their
own monopolies, they see the patent system as a great nuisance when it
upholds the rights of an individual." She gives the example of two pioneers
of radio who battled RCA for their rights unsuccessfully. Dr. Lee
DeForest died bankrupt and Major Howard Armstrong put on his coat, hat
and gloves and walked out the high window of his New York Apartment.
Tesla never threatened suicide, but he did admit to despairing. Before he
could make much progress with the bladeless turbine, his dream of saving
the Wardenclyffe structure began to crumble. For one thing, the new owner
saw no value in the project and did not post guards on the property. Since the
businessman believed that Tesla was just a vain dreamer, he did not try to
protect the contents of the laboratory and it was vandalized and stripped.
The Wardenclyffe tower was dynamited in 1917, but not by the government
as some legends would have it. Instead it was torn down to be
sold as scrap metal. After this dramatic turning point in Tesla's career, he
began to disappear from public view.
HOPES PINNED ON TURBINE
Perhaps partly to run away from the sight of the ruined Wardenclyffe
structure, the inventor travelled to Chicago. That city held memories of
earlier, more triumphant, times such as the World's Fair of 1893 which
showcased his AC technologies. Now he spent time with biographer Hugo
Gernsback as well as worked on technical problems with the round disks
in his bladeless turbine. In his day the available steel was not strong
enough far anything moving at such a high speed. (Again, he was ahead
of his time and in the 1990s engineers are beginning to catch up and even