Edison and the Electric Chair_ A Story of Light and Death - Mark Essig [90]
Edison's statement—in its concern for the business rather than the customer—may appear to neglect the human costs of electrical accidents, but business meant more than money to Edison. In 1886 his lawyers had proposed merging the English branch of the Edison company with the firm of Joseph Swan, with the new company to bear both men's names. Edison was outraged: "The company shall be called the Edison Electric Light Company, Ltd., or at least shall be distinguished by my name without the name of any other inventor in its title," Edison wrote. "I am bound by pride of reputation, by pride and interest in my work. You will hardly expect me to remain interested, to continue working to build up my new inventions and improvements for a business in which my identity has been lost."17
Edison ultimately agreed that the new company would be known as Edison & Swan United Electric, but his attitude toward the merger reveals what drove him. Although he would make the same amount of money regardless of the company's name, it was not simply a question of economics; it was one of "pride" and "identity." After years of passionate labor, Edison "tamed the thunderbolt"—as the reporters phrased it—and created a system that safely brought electric light into people's homes. Thanks to that achievement, the terms Edison and electricity became virtually interchangeable in the American imagination, as well as in Edison's own mind. He vowed to protect his own good name and the reputation of the light he had invented.18
WHEN EDISON RETURNED from Paris on October 6, 1889, e received word that the U.S. Circuit Court had invalidated the paper-filament lamp patent—once owned by Consolidated Electric but by then controlled by Westinghouse—and dismissed Westinghouse's suit against Edison. (The other major lawsuit, in which Edison Electric was suing Westinghouse for violation of its basic lamp patent, was still unresolved.) Westinghouse planned to appeal this latest ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the lower-court decision nonetheless constituted an important victory for Edison.19
"Westinghouse simply grabbed fifty-four of my patents and started into business, saying that he could sell his manufactures cheaper because he did not have to pay out money experimenting," Edison told the New York Herald on October 7. He added, "Westinghouse used to be a pretty solid fellow, but he has lately taken to shystering."
The day the article ran, a top Edison lieutenant ran into Westinghouse over lunch and reported the encounter to his boss: "Mr. Westing-house remarked to me that he felt very much hurt by your calling him a 'shyster' in this morning's 'Herald.' He was really cut up about it."20
Rather than apologizing to his rival, Edison went on the attack, instructing his agents in Pittsburgh to gather all available information about Westinghouse's railroad air brake business. Since Westinghouse had invaded his territory in incandescent lighting, Edison considered turning the tables by striking at the heart of the Westinghouse empire. Although this plan was abandoned rather quickly, Edison soon found fresh grounds for assailing his rival.21
Three days after the decision in the patent case, a lineman for an electric company received a fatal shock atop a pole on Grand Street. In September two others had died in electrical accidents: A worker at East River Electric had lost his balance, grabbed a switchboard, and fell dead, and an Italian fruit vender slipped while cleaning the roof of his shed, fell against a wire owned by the United States Illuminating Company,