Edison and the Electric Chair_ A Story of Light and Death - Mark Essig [81]
"Yes." Alfred Southwick pushed electricity from the start, Gerry explained, but he had resisted that method until the committee received advice from a man that he considered the "greatest electrician of modern times."
"That was Mr. Edison?" Cockran asked.
"Thomas A. Edison."
"Did you consider he was the greatest medical man?"
"No, the greatest electrician."
"Even then did you consider he was a good authority to tell you what would destroy human life?"
"Yes."
Cockran continued: "You have a very great confidence in electricity?"
"I have more confidence in the ability of certain electricians—Thomas A. Edison."
"And you think Edison somewhat of an oracle, do you not?" Cockran said.
"Yes."
"You think he knows more about it than anyone in the United States?"
"Yes, and I haven't seen any foreigner that knows as much about the subject."
"And it was in that way that you came to report that bill?"
"Yes, sir; that was one of the main reasons."
"You finally decided that where Edison spoke there was no room for doubt, and you recommended the bill?"
"I certainly had no doubt after hearing his statement."24
A FEW DAYS AFTER the hearings began, Harold Brown wrote to Samuel Insull, the vice president of Edison General Electric, urging him to persuade Edison to testify. "There has been so much absurdity in the testimony of Mr. Westinghouse's witnesses, that Mr. Edison could dispose of by a word," Brown wrote. "Mr. Johnson [Edison General's president] thinks this important." Referee Becker was so anxious to hear Edison's views that he offered to take the hearings to Edison if Edison could not come to the hearings. The inventor made things easier by appearing in the hearing room on the morning of July 23. Despite the crowded hearing room and the sultry weather, the inventor appeared cool in his black suit and wore an easy smile, with an unlighted cigar between his teeth. He offered $100 to Carpenter Smith, the Westinghouse man who claimed to have survived several 1,000-volt shocks, on the condition that he take an alternating-current shock of just 100 volts, with the money "paid to his heirs or assigns if necessary." Smith did not respond to the challenge.25
Edison was introduced to Cockran and shook hands with him cordially, then took the witness chair. Attorney General Poste, compensating for Edison's deafness, shouted his questions so loudly they could be heard out on Broadway.26
"Will you explain generally the difference between a continuous and alternating current of electricity?" the attorney general asked.
"A continuous current is one that flows like water through a pipe," Edison said. "The intermittent [alternating] current is the same as if the same body of water was allowed to flow for a given time through the pipe, and then the direction was reversed and it flowed in the opposite direction for a given time."
"Now, what kind of current is produced by the Westinghouse dynamo?"
"The reverse current—the alternating."27
Edison explained that although his company owned the U.S. patent rights for an alternating system used widely in Europe, it had decided not to sell it in the United States.
"Why don't you use it in this country, Mr. Edison?"
"I don't like it."
"Do you think it is dangerous?"
"Yes."
Edison told Poste that alternating current of 1,000 volts would produce rapid death without suffering. That opinion, he said, was based on experiments at his laboratory.
"The experiments made by Mr. Brown and Mr. Kennelly?"
"Some of them," Edison said. "I only saw one or two."
"Has Harold P. Brown any business connection with yourself or the Edison company?"
"Not that I know of," Edison replied.28
Poste concluded his examination and turned the witness over to Cockran. Edison was sitting in a corner of the room, and Cockran paced the room's center, speaking rapidly. The inventor had trouble hearing, so he dragged his chair into the middle of the room, and the lawyer poured out his questions into the inventor's good ear.29
"Are you a pathologist, Mr. Edison?"
"No, sir."
"Do you understand anything