Announcement

**Ernst** · 11-07-2015, 09:27 AM

# 0052

The Waldorf-Astoria, New York
Oct. 13, 1903.
Dear Mr. Morgan,
Please excuse me for troubling you at this time when,
much as you may disdain the small doings of your enemies, you must
be deeply pained to see the progress of your great economic ideas
retarded. But it is precisely for this reason that I beg you now
to hear me.
I have never attempted, Mr. Morgan, to tell you even a
hundredth of what can be readily accomplished by the use of certain
principles I have discovered. If you will imagine that I have found
the stone of the philosophers you will not be far from the truth.
They will cause a revolution so great that almost all values and
all human relations will be profoundly modified. These new develop-
ments do not concern any country in particular, but the whole world
and they are in line with your efforts. The commercial possi-
bilities they offer are simply infinite, and you are the only man
today who possesses the genius and power to compel the universal
adoption of these ideas and that is why I approached you two years
ago. If I am only aided to reach the first result � the most in-
significant of those to which I allude, yet very valuable � to
girdle the globe with wireless messages, you will become interested
and convinced. With my present experiences and knowledge of the
wonderful appliances identified with my name this task is so easy,
that it is for me no effort at all.
I have had a long talk with Mr. Th. F. Ryan last night
and he will see you in regard to providing the money still necessa-
ry. He is a great admirer and loyal friend of yours and for this
reason as well as on account of his ability I am very anxious to
enlist his cooperation. I have told him that one hundred thousand
dollars will be sufficient to reach the first commercial results,
which will pave the way to other and much greater successes. Know-
ing your generous spirit, I have told Mr. Ryan that any terms you
may decide upon will be satisfactory to me.

Yours very respectfully,

N. Tesla.

Copy.

**Ernst** · 11-07-2015, 09:28 AM

# 0054

The Waldorf-Astoria, New York,
Dec. 11Th, 1903.

Dear Mr. Morgan:-
Will you enable me to complete this work and show you,
that you have not made a mistake in giving me a checkbook to draw
on your honored house? It is my honest believe that I am a century
ahead in the fields in which I am working, and that is just the
trouble which confronts every pioneer. You see how your own ad-
vanced ideas are hampered.
My enemies have been so successful in representing me as
a poet and visionary, that it is absolutely imperative for me to
put out something commercial without delay. If you will only help
me to do this, you will preserve a property of immense value.
As regards the wireless project, I beg to call again to
your attention that my patents control absolutely all essential
features and that my work is in such shape, that whenever you
tell me to go ahead I shall girdle the globe within three months,
as surely as my name is Tesla. I have promised the St. Louis Expo-
sition people to open the door of the Exposition with power trans-
mitted from here. It is a great opportunity, Mr. Morgan. I can
easily do it, but if you do not aid me soon it will be too late.
Please think for a moment what this means for me. What I have told
you long ago has happened. My competitors have collapsed, since
wholesale appropriations as they have attempted do not go. Now
is the time to aid me, you know this better than anybody else.
Yours most faithfully,
N. Tesla.

**Ernst** · 11-07-2015, 09:29 AM

# 0056

Copy.

Dear Mr. Morgan:-
When this work is completed you will have something of
incalculable value. As it now stands, I could be in three months
in a position to establish communication with the chief cities of
the world. This in itself would insure the realisation of the fi-
nancial plan as outlined in Mr. Steele's letter to me of Oct. 21,
1902. In two months more I would be able to demonstrate that power
can be transmitted by my wireless system, regardless of distance,
without appreciable loss. Think only, Mr. Morgan, what this means in
you hands. You can not permit that such a marvelous opportunity
is lost, after what you have already done.
Would you be willing to advance the money if the Nikola
Tesla Company were to authorize a bond issue for the amount. You
could attach to this any condition you consider fair. My work is
thorough, Mr. Morgan, it may seem long to complete, but I assure
you that the ultimate results will be very gratifying to you.

(no date)

**Ernst** · 11-07-2015, 09:29 AM

# 0059

Jan 1st04

My dear Sir,
In reply to your note
I regret to say that I
should not be willing
to advance any further
amounts of money
as I have already told
you. Of course I
wish you every success
in your undertaking.
Yours very truly
J.P. Morgan

N. Tesla, Esq,
Waldorf-Astoria

**Ernst** · 11-07-2015, 09:31 AM

# 0060

The Waldorf-Astoria, New York,
Jan. 14th, 1904.

Dear Mr. Morgan:-
That was a nice letter to receive on my New Year! Had
you at least waited till to-day, bad news travel fast enough. You
wish me success! It is in your hands, how can you wish it?
We start on a proposition, everything duly calculated it
is financially frail. You engage in impossible operations, you
make me pay double, yes, make me wait ten months for machinery. On
the top of that you produce a panic. When after putting in all I
could scrape together I come to show you that I have done the best
that could be done you fire me out like an office boy and roar so
that you are heard six blocks away not a cent. It is spread all
over town, I am discredited, the laughing stock of my enemies.
It is just fourteen months that the constructive work on
my plant was stopped. If I would have been helped at that time
three months more with a good force of men would have completed it
and now it would be paying ten thousand dollars a day. More than
this, I would have secured contracts from governments for a number
of similar plants. I am the discoverer of the principles and the
inventor of all the essential devices and no one would have had the
slightest chance in a competition with me. You have favored the
schemers who have no knowledge or skill, but merely the cursing
sense of fraud to fool the world and to hurt my work more by
their incompetent attempts and far more than they ever could by
success.
Now when I have practically removed all obstacles skill-
fully put in my way and need only little more to save a great
property, which would pay you ten million dollars as surely as one
cent, you refuse me help in a trouble brought on by your own doings!
Twenty-five thousand dollars would enable me:
1) to start the manufacture of oscillators, which would
make my undertaking with you self-supporting and insure the ulti-
mate success of my plans;
2) to put my light on the market;
3) to form a lighting company and realize the cash still necessary to complete my plant;
4) the completion of this plant will put me in the posi-
tion of carrying through the plan at Niagara;
5) my office will naturally facilitate all this and yield
a permanent income.
This would be to reach success in a slow and painful way.
If I had now what I need to complete the plant, that would be
different!
I am as anxious to success on your account as mine.
What a dreadful thing it would be to have the
papers come with your name
in red letters It would be telegraphed all
over the globe. You may not care for it, Mr. Morgan, men are
like flies to you. But I would have to work five years to repair
the damage, if reparable at all. I have told you all. Please do
not write to refuse.
I am pained enough as it is.

Yours sorrowfully,
N. Tesla.

**Ernst** · 11-07-2015, 09:33 AM

# 0062

The Waldorf-Astoria, New York,
Jan. 22nd, 1904.

Dear Mr. Morgan:-
Are you going to leave me in a hole?!!
I have made a thousand powerful enemies on your account,
because I have told them that xxxxxxxxxxx I value one of your shoe-
strings more than all of them.
Do not grow old and as weak men do. You are
good for another twenty years, if you hold on to life, to your
people and young ideas.
Could I not pledge you in my plant a while
for twenty-five thousand dollars I need to carry out the plan out-
lined in my last letter? If it is not worth that much, I am not an
engineer of world repute, but a chump.
The better way, however, would be to enable me to com-
plete the plant at once. This would mean for you many millions of
dollars, and, what is more important still, a power which you could
use effectively. I hope that you never for a moment confound my
art with the incompetent efforts of my imitators. I could do bet-
ter than any of them, if ninety-nine parts of me were paralyzed.
In a hundred years from now this country would give much for the
first honors of transmitting power without wires. It must be done
by my methods and apparatus and I should be aided to do it first
myself.

Yours most faithfully,
N. Tesla.

**Ernst** · 11-07-2015, 09:33 AM

# 0063

Copy. The Waldorf-Astoria, New York,
April 1rst, 1904.

Dear Mr. Morgan:-
I have solved the greatest industrial problem which has
confronted humanity since ages. My success is absolutely certain.
I can deliver power in any desired amounts to any distance without
wire, in a practical and most economical manner. This will be of
incalculable consequence on the cost of necessities and commodities.
The prices of oil and coal in particular will be greatly affected,
merely by the moral effect of the first public demonstrations.
I am tired of speaking to pusillanimous people who be-
come scared, when I ask them to invest five thousand dollars, and
get the diarrhoea when I call for ten. Will you aid me to complete
this great work? I have managed to advance it considerably. A
little more and I shall have practical results which will give you
the basis for a business of a magnitude such as the world has
never seen before.

Yours most faithfully,
N. Tesla.

**Ernst** · 11-07-2015, 09:34 AM

# 0064

The Waldorf-Astoria, New York,
April 6th, 1904.

Dear Mr. Morgan:-
Please accept my best wishes for a happy journey.
The books I forward are great, but a thousand libraries
of such books will not be valued in a few years from now the ar-
ticle I enclose.
Yours most faithfully,
N. Tesla.

J.P. Morgan, Esq.

Copy.

**Ernst** · 11-07-2015, 09:38 AM

# 0065

New York, April 24, 1904.

Dear Mr. Morgan:-
Have you ever read the book of Job? If you will put
my mind in place of his body you will find the sufferings accurately
described. I have put all the money I could scrape together in
this plant. With fifty thousand dollars more it is completed, and
I have an inmortal crown and an immense fortune.
Yours most faithfully,
N. Tesla.

Copy.

**Ernst** · 11-07-2015, 09:39 AM

# 0066

T E S L A L A B O R A T O R Y ,
Wardenclyffe, Long Island, N.Y.

July 22nd, 1904.

J. P. Morgan, Esq.,
New York City.
Dear Mr. Morgan:-
I hope the unfortunate misunderstanding, the cause of
which I have been vainly trying to discover, will be removed and
that you will recognize that my work is of the kind that passes
into history and worthy of your support. My plant here, when com-
pleted, will enable you to talk from your office to any part of
the world as clearly and distinctly as across your table, and it
will make possible the transmission of telegraphic messages to all
points of the globe with a speed and precision surpassing by far
those practicable through wires, and its capacity of transmission
will be greater than that of the entire cable system of the world
combined. What is still needed can now be very closely estimated.
Three months would suffice to complete the work, which has now been
cruelly delayed for eighteen months. If you will aid me to the end,
my country will be grateful to you.
Yours most faithfully,

**Ernst** · 11-07-2015, 09:40 AM

# 0067 (difficult to read...)

New York, Sept. 9, 1904.

Dear Mr. Morgan:-
... you interested you..... it e that I
... Despite of the unfor-
tunate delay, I shall fulfil my promise to the letter, if you will
aid me to complete the work. Kindly ..... or that your ..... has
returns ly of the ...ture
from my original proposition. This plant will transmit
telegraphs and telephonic messages to any part of the world and
its earning power will be enormous, certainly not less than ten
thousand dollars a day, as I have already stated before, and be-
sides, it will insure the universal adoption of my system. I am
also assured of contracts for several .... plants in England and
Russia. This is a work with which you will not be displeased to be
associated.

Yours most faithfully,
N. Tesla.

We know now that the a.......ments of transatlantic
messages were not founded on fact, but on this point I ....
to say more.

Copy.

**Ernst** · 11-07-2015, 09:41 AM

# 0068

New York, October 13th, 1904.

J.P. Morgan Esq.
New York City.

Dear Mr. Morgan:-

I would beg you, in all earnestness, to peruse the follow-
ing statement of facts which I have brought separately to your at-
tention.

1. Five years ago, (as you may have gathered from from
my original announcement in the Century of June 1900, copy of a
patent specification filed May 16, 1900, and article in the Elec-
trical World and Engineer of March 5, 1904) I succeeded in encircl-
ing the Earth with electrical waves. What gave to this result, far-
reaching in itself, a tremendous significance, was the observation
that in their passage, from Colorado Springs to the diametrically
opposite region of the globe and return, the waves suffered no per-
ceptible diminution of intensity, thus affording an absolute ex-
perimental evidence, that by my system power in unlimited amounts
can be transmitted, without wire, to any distance and, virtually,
without loss.

2. I recorded my discoveries in the Patent Office and
secured broad and uncontested rights in Patents, some of which I am
still keeping back, for reasons which it is unnecessary to explain.
When they appear they will create a profound impression.

3. I was, even then, firmly convinced that these advances
would prove of greater importance than the steam engine, the tele-
graph, the telephone and my multiphase motor combined, for they of-
fered an ideal solution of the problem s of fuel, transportation,
and intelligence-transmission, in all their ramifications.

4. Desiring to obtain a support such as this work was
deserving, more for the good of the world than my own, I approached
you, naturally enough with the easily realizable project of es-
tablishing communication across the Atlantic, which required a
smaller investment.

5. I was fortunate to enlist your interest, but not
quite on the lines of my own suggestion. I contemplated the forma-
tion of one or two companies, to which all my inventions in wire-
less telegraphy and telephony and in my system of lighting were,
respectively, to be assigned, and proposed that you take fifty-one

J.P.M.,-2.

Percent. Of the stock (not fifty, as you yourself said in our first
conversation, because then you would not control), the remainder to
go to my Parent Company. But when I received your formal letter
it specified an interest of fifty-one percent. in patents on these
inventions. That was different though my share was the same. It
was a simple sale. The terms were entirely immaterial to meand I
said nothing, for fear of offending you. Your have repeatedly re-
ferred to some stock and it is just possible, that a mistake was made, and that you intended to take exactly what I proposed, and
what would have been, for many reasons, greatly to my advantage.

6. Your participation called for a careful revision of
my plans. I could not develope the business slowly in grocery shop
fashion. I could not report yacht races or signal incoming steam-ers. There was no money in this. This was no business for a man
of your position and importance. Perhaps you have never fully ap-
preciated the sense of this obligation.

7. When I discovered, rather accidentally,, that others,
who openly cast ridicule on what I had undertaken and discredited
my apparatus, were secretly employing it, evidently bent on the
same task, I found myself confronted with wholly unforseen condi-
tions. How to meet them was the question. Of course I could not
enjoin the infringers. In Canada, almost midway,,I had no rights.
My patents on the art of individualization, insuring non-interfer-
ence and non-interferability, were not as yet granted in England
and the United States. Suppose I was anticipated in this inven-
tion? Then I would have to rely on ordinary tuning. This was in
a measure, satisfactory so long as I was alone, but shrewd competi-
tors, with the advantage they had, could make me fall short, as the
capital I had at disposal was only sufficient for two small plants.
Once I failed with you in the first attempt, you would not listen
to any other proposition. Once I lost your support I could not be-
cause of your personality and character of our agreement, interest
anybody else, at least not for several years, until,the business
would be developed and the commercial value of my patents recogniz-
ed. But there was one way, the only way, of meeting every possi-
ble emergency, and making the ultimate success perfectly certain.

8. Here I must add a purely explanatory paragraph. Sup-
pose a plants is constructed capable of sending signals within a
given radius, and consider an extension to twice this distance.
The area being then four times as large the returns will be, rough-ly, fourfold on account of this alone. The messages, however, will
become more valuable. Approximately computed, the average price
will be tripled. This means that a plant with a radius of activity
twice as large will earn twelve times as much. But it will cost

J. P. M.,-3.

Scarcely twice as much. Hence in investing a certain sum destined
for two small plants into a single one, the earnings will be six-
fold increased. The greater the distance the greater the gain un-
til, when the plant can transmit signals to the uttermost confines
of the Earth, its earning power becomes, so to speak, unlimited.

9. The way to do was to construct such a plant. It
would yield the greatest returns, not only for the reasons just
mentioned, but also because every other plant erected anywhere in
the world, by anyone, was sure to be turned into a source of income
It would give the greatest force to my Patents and insure a mono-
poly. It would make certain the acceptance of my system by all
governments. It discounted in advance all possible drawbacks, as
anticipation of the results by thee trespassers of my rights and
delay. It offered possibilities for a business on a large, digni-
fied scale, commensurate with your position in life and mine as a
pioneer in this art, who has originated all its essential princi-ples.

10. The practicability of such an undertaking I had al-
ready demonstrated in Colorado, but to make those feeble effects,
barely detectable by delicate instruments, commercially available
all over the Earth, required a very large sum of money. You had
told me from the outset that I should not ask for more, but the
work was of such transcending importance and it was of such enor-
mous value in your hands, that I undertook to explain to you the
state of things on your first return from abroad. You seemed to
misunderstand me. That was most unfortunate. Had I obtained your
hearing, your enemies would not had succeeded in inflicting you
injuries, for the first motor or lamp operated across the Pacific,
would have delivered them in your power. To achieve a great re-
sult is one thing, to achieve it at the right moment is another.
That favorable moment is gone forever. Your popularity has suffer-
ed, the moral force of my work has been weakened by delay, the
audacious schemers who have dared to fool the crowned heads of
Europe, the President of the United States, and even His Holiness
the Pope, have discredited the art by incompetent attempts and
spoiled the public by false promises which it cannot distinguish
from those sure of fulfillment, based on knowledge and skill and
legitimate right. That is what pains me the most.

11. Still, in spite of all this, Mr. Morgan, I can
realize what I have held out to you when you yourself said to me
that �you had no doubt�. I know you must be sceptical about get-
ting hundredfold returns, but if you will help me to the end you
will soon see that my judgement is true. Once my first plant is
completed I can place a dozen of such at once. I do not need to
wait for returns from subscribers. There are one thousand million
J. P. M.,-4.

Dollars invested in submarine cables alone. This immense property
is threatened with destruction because just as soon as people find
that messages for, say, five cents a word can be transmitted to any
distance, nothing will stop the demand for the cheaper and quicker
means of communication. The investment in cables is too large to
pay on this low basis and the only chance the Companies have is to
take hold of the new advances. My patents control every essential
element of the art. They are impregnable. In your hands, and
backed by these great results, they should be of enormous value.

12. My work is now so far advanced and could be finished
quickly. I have expened about $250,000 in all and a much smaller
sum separates me from a great triumph. If you have lost faith in
me have you not someone in whose knowledge and ability you have
greater confidence than in mine, and to whom I could explain?
Seventy-five thousand dollars would certainly complete the plant
and then I would have no difficulty whatever in getting all the
capital necessary for the further commercial expansion.

13. Since a year, Mr. Morgan, there has been hardly a
night when my pillow was not bathed in tears, but you must not
think me a weak man for that. I am perfectly sure to finish my
task, come what may. I am only sorry that after mastering all the
difficulties which seemed insuperable, and acquiring a special
knowledge and ability which I now alone possess, and which, if ap-
plied effectively, would advance the world a century, I must see my
work delayed.

In the hope of hearing from you favorably, I remain,

Yours most faithfully,

**Ernst** · 11-07-2015, 09:43 AM

# 0072

23 WALL STREET

New York, Oct.15th,1904.

Mr. Nicola Tesla,
Waldorf-Astoria,
New York City.

Dear Sir:-

Referring to your letter of

13th October, Mr. J. P. Morgan wishes

me to inform you that it will be impos-

sible for him to do anything more in

the matter.

Yours truly,

Private Secretary.

**Ernst** · 11-07-2015, 09:44 AM

# 0073

New York, Oct. 17th, 1904.

Dear Mr. Morgan:-

You are a man like Bismarck, great but uncontrollable.
I wrote pruposely last week, hoping that your recent association
might have rendered you more susceptible to a softer influence.
But you are no Christian at all, you are a fanatic .us..lman. Once
you say no, come what may, it is no. May the gravitation repel
instead of attract, may right become wrong, every consideration, no
matter what it be, must founder on the rock of your brutal resolve.

It is incredible. A year and a half ago I could have
delivered a lecture ...., which would have been listened to by all
the academics of the world, in the tone of my voice! That would
have been the time to thank you.
You let me struggle on, weakened by shrewd enemies, dis-
heartened, by .......y friends financially .yka.ated, trying to
overcome obstacles which you yourself have piled up before me.
I know, Rankine told me what a time they had in placing
the Niagara bonds. And what a time must I have?! �If this is a
good thing, why does not Morgan see you through?!� �Morgan is the
very last man to let a good thing go!� .. it has been going on for
two years. I advance, but how? Like a man swimming against a
stream that carries him down.
Will you not listen to anything at all? Are you to let
me perhaps succomb, loose an immortal crown, will you let a pro-
perty of immense value be depreciated, let it be said that your own
judgement was defective, simply because you had once said no. Can

not I make you a new proposition to overcome the difficulty? I

tell you I shall return your money a hundredfold.

Yours faithfully,

N. Tesla.

Announcement

Tesla microfilm letters

Tesla microfilm letters

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