NEW SOLIDARITY December 30, 1982 Page 8

How the New York Times Blacked Out Edison's Light Bulb (And Told the Wright Brothers to Fly a Kite)

by Robert Zubrin

Thomas Edison's first commercially used electric lamp. The Times said it might be a gas light in disguise.

Last week a New York Times editorial denounced the artificial heart doctors have given to Barney Clark. When the Times lit into the medical profession for "prolonging death" instead of awarding Dr. Clark a right to die he didn't want, (see Crimes of the Times, p.7) it was hardly the first time this journal of enlightenment had volunteered to burn a scientist or inventor at the stake. For more than a hundred years, the Times has consistently sabotaged, ridiculed and slandered anyone committed to improving the human condition through technological progress. The record speaks for itself.

Case No. 1The Times versus Edison's Electric Light

On Dec. 31, 1879, Thomas Edison demonstrated to the world his newly invented electric light bulb. Three thousand people were brought down on special trains from New York City to the Edison lab at Menlo Park., N.J., and when the hours grew dark, the master inventor threw the switch, and instantly not one, but 80 light bulbs, shone forth to brightly illuminate the gala New Year's Eve festivities that went on through the night.

This world-historic event received no coverage whatsoever in the New York Times.But on Jan. 4, 1880, an editorial appeared entitled "Edison and the Skeptics." It began as a typically "balanced" piece of Times journalism:

"Mr. Edison is a sanguine youth, and has more than once indulged in sowing visions of the magic result of his own ingenuity which now appear to have no chance of realization, and has been in too much haste to announce success as assured before his experiments have been completed. With some of his zealous devotees the wish holds a paternal relation to the thought and gives them an attachment for it which is not consistent with cool reasoning. The skeptics, on the other hand, rely too much on purely theoretical conclusions in a field where much remains for practical demonstration. . . ."

Thereupon, the Times favored its readers with a list of all the things that might go wrong with the electric light—less efficient and more expensive than gaslight, dangerous to the eyes, undependable—before getting to the real point: slandering Edison's invention as a swindler's hoax.

"There is an Edison Electric Light Company, and it has shares of stock in which there is a wild speculation . . . a suspicion arises that much of the appearance of success may be factitious and intended for stock-jobbing uses. . . . Sensible people will not throw away their gas stock or rush into speculation in electric stock. . . ."

Edison was, of course, doing his best to raise capital to commercialize his invention, by establishing his first generating station in lower Manhattan. The Times did not appear to want to help. On Jan. 6, the Times published a 2000-word article "proving" that electric light could never compete with gaslight. It takes one generator to power eight light bulbs, the Times argued, so at least 250,000 generators would be needed to light New York. At $3,000 per generator, this implied a mammoth investment of $750 million that was obviously out of reach. . .

Times Experts Extraordinary

Apparently the Times feared this would not be enough to stop the redoubtable inventor. Ten days later, on Jan. 16, appeared a front-page "expose" of Edison. A Times "investigative reporter" had, it seemed, visited Edison's lab and discovered numerous "discrepancies." There were only 32 light bulbs burning. Some might have burnt out; others, the journalist contended, might be gas lamps in disguise. Edison's system, he asserted, could never be expanded to include more than 32 bulbs.

Then that device of Times journalism so familiar to modern readers, the "anonymous expert," duly made his appearance. A "noted electrician," the intrepid

Times reporter confided, had made a prediction before the New Year's illumination at Menlo Park that "sensational accounts" of the first night would never be confirmed, and that "after a few more flashes in the pan, we shall hear very little more of Edison or his electric lamp. Every claim he makes has been tested and proved impracticable."

The article concluded with a new financial report on the obviously unsound Edison Electric: "The stock of the company named after the inventor is also feeling the effects of deferred expectations . . . the stock which in consequence of recent sensational publications went up to $3300 per share on Dec. 30, 1879, was yesterday quoted at $1500."

(Above) Artist's rendering of Edison and his associates developing the light bulb at the Menlo Park laboratory. The Times sent a veterinarian to review the lab, who complained Edison's work was sloppy.

(Below) Thomas A. Edison

Still, Edison was not throwing in the towel. So three weeks later, a "noted Cleveland electrician" arrived on page three of the Times to recount his journey to

Menlo Park. "Edison has simply resurrected a lot of scientific lumber with a design to dazzling the public which has forgotten the experience of a like bewildering character 30 years ago. . . . He appears to have made no advance whatever."

Even if Edison had built a working electric light, the Times added, "success would be as hopelessly far off as ever. A question of economy would at once arise, and here the real difficulty would begin. . . ." The question of the 250,000 generators arise, and so on. Edison couldn't build vacuum pumps either, the Times finished up.

Only eleven days later, the Times finally delivered its definitive, absolutely ironclad-expert 3,000-word refutation of Edison by the noted scientist F.G. Fairfield, Ph.D. from the New York College of Veterinary Surgeons. The Times advertised its veterinarian in the headlines as "a Visitor Who Went to Menlo Park Equipped for His Task." Fairfield hauled out the Times tale of the 250,000 generators, and then swung into high gear:

"The work of the laboratory appears to be carried out by Mr. Edison and his assistants with a conspicuous disregard of exact measurement and registration of results, optical and electrical, as well as economical. . . . Mr. Edison is at so little pains to verify his statements . . . amazing lack of precise demonstration . . . his lack of precision usually tells to his own favor.

"Mr. Edison's new lamp is by no means superior . . . exaggerated descriptions of it may serve a speculative purpose for those who hold stock in the company he represents . . . it is but an ingeniously constructed toy, and there is a conspicuous insincerity in its claims that it is final and in asking capitalists to invest in its practical introduction. . . .

"The Edison system in its present state could never successfully compete with gas, even if the capitalists could be found . . . to give it a fair trial in the City of New York. Mr. Edison is fully aware of this fact. . . .

"It is not quite fair to call Edison a quack. . . . But he is not a scientific man in any sense of the term . . . his ponderous tomes of experimental researches are comparatively valueless."

It all added up, after a news blackout on Edison's initial demonstration, to five major smear and slander efforts in as many weeks. Somehow, in spite of it, Edison

raised the money to go ahead. By the fall of 1881, he had opened up generating stations providing electricity to parts of New York and Philadelphia.

Three Mile Island—100 Years Ago

Since electric light could now be seen by some 4 million New Yorkers illuminating Broadway, the Times was more or less compelled to abandon its obsessive insistence that Edison's invention was a hoax. Instead, in a manner that will be readily recognized by those familiar with the Times current coverage of the "dangers" of nuclear energy, it tried to stop the spread of electrification by claiming it was unsafe.

On Oct. 28, 1881 a Times editorial warned its readers of the dangers of fire from electric lamps which had caused "the disaster that was but narrowly escaped at the Germania Theatre" (but which, like the Three Mile Island "disaster," did not actually occur).

"The sources of peril are two," the Times grandly announced. "First, the insulation may be worn away, and the conductor, coming in contact with woodwork, almost instantaneously ignite; or secondly, by reason of overlooked defect at any particular point, heating to the degree of fusion may occur, and the timber be ignited by the spontaneous formation of a transitory Voltaic arc. . . . There is doubtless power enough in any pair of conductors lighting Broadway at the present juncture to destroy life by instantaneous shock, were the wires to be placed in the hands of a person sufficiently venturesome to try the experiment. The insulation furnishes some protection against accidents of this kind from careless handling, but very severe shocks may be experienced even where it is unbroken."

Having proclaimed a generic risk in electrification proof against any precaution, the Times went on to insist that the low-amperage/high-voltage currents in use then and now be replaced with a high-amperage/low-voltage system, a proposal which, had it been implemented, would have made impossible long-distance transmission of electricity and relegated Edison's invention to the status of the curiosity the Times had so insistently proclaimed it to be.

Forecasting that electric light would soon "have its hard won popularity suddenly extinguished by a thrilling disaster in theatre, manufactory, dry-goods store, or possibly on board ship in mid-ocean," the Times soon found its predictions miraculously "coming true." In December 1881, a telegraph set in Philadelphia shorted out as a result of accidental contact of the telegraph wire with an electric

line. With a page-one headline "Danger From the Electric Light," the Times reported in a tone of hysteria worthy of the Last Days of Pompeii: "Ever since the electric light wires were strung across Chestnut Street, there have been many predictions of fearful disasters. . . . A slight accident which occurred last Friday evening has so far fulfilled these predictions as to cause much alarm. . . . "

By this time, however, it was too late; the genie was out of the bottle. Before long the Times was reduced to sounding the alarm over a possible danger to birds from high tension wires. . . .

The light bulb was here to stay.

Case No. 2The Wright Brothers, Samuel Langley, and the First Airplane

In the early years of this century, the U.S. Army's aeronautic research was headed by Professor Samuel Langley, secretary of the Smithsonian and a noted astronomer and mathematician. Convinced that powered heavier-than-air flight was possible, Langley investigated the multitude of mathematical and engineering problems associated with wing and engine design, and actually built a 15-foot model powered airplane which worked. Unfortunately for Langley, his full-sized machine was flawed in its construction, and after a successful takeoff, broke apart in midair, dumping the scientist into a cold bath in the Potomac.

The New York Times was johnny-on-the-spot. On Dec. 10, 1903 the Times declared on the basis of Langley's experiment an end to powered heavier-than-air flight, "Professor Langley is no mechanician, and . . . his mathematics are better adapted to calculations of astronomical interest than to determining the strength of materials in mechanical construction. . . . Probably that happened in this instance which is liable to happen in all mechanical constructions, the materials did not conform to the data on which the calculations were based. They never will. . . . That 'there is always some where that weakest spot' is why the factor of safety is allowed. To allow it in an aeroplane would be to weight it so that it would be too heavy for its purpose."

For good measure, the Times threw in a few threats. "We hope that Professor Langley will not put his substantial greatness as a scientist in further peril by continuing to waste his time, and the money involved, in further airship experiments. Life is short . . . there are more useful employments, with fewer

Kitty Hawk: the Wright brothers' own photo of the first airplane flight, at the moment of lift-off. The Times called it a "box kite machine."

disappointments and mortifications than have been the portion of aerial navigators since the days of Icarus."

In short, if God had wanted man to fly, he would have given him wings.

Exactly seven days after this editorial was published, on Dec. 17, 1903, the Wright brothers, basing themselves in large part on Langley's work, after correspondence with the Smithsonian, made their dramatic maiden flight at Kitty Hawk, N.C.

'No Thoroughfare'

Naturally, the Wright brothers were blacked out; the New York Times did not see fit to cover man's first airplane flight.

But on Dec. 26, 1903, nine days later, the Times informed its readers, in a 200-word article which did not even mention the Wright brothers by name, that "Inventors of North Carolina Box Kite Machine Want Government to Purchase It."

Was the Times afraid that Sam Langley's army program would provide the funds and scientific capabilities to turn the Wright brothers' infant flying machine into a mature airplane?

On Jan. 21, 1904, after more than a month of successful flights by the Wright brothers—all blacked out by the Times—there appeared an editorial headlined "No Thoroughfare."

"The insistence of one of the speakers at the dinner of those interested in aerial navigation that no one was privileged to write upon the pathway of mankind 'No thoroughfare' was . . . not exactly convincing as applied to the pathway of the balloonatic. . . . Professor Langley, who has given many years of conspicuously brilliant life to building flying machines, has made the discovery that for him, at least, this particular path is 'No Thoroughfare' . . . He recognizes that life is not long enough to solve the problem."

As a matter of fact, the Times was lying about Langley's admission of defeat. And that wasn't all. Other aeronautics enthusiasts were misquoted, and completely blacked out of the Times' account of the dinner were remarks in support of aeronautics research given by a descendant of the famous John Adams family, Charles Francis Adams.

Eventually, of course, the Times let the cat out of the bag, in objecting to a statement by John Brissen Walker that airplanes would be the safest form of travel in 25 years. "To limit the life of existing railroads, steamship lines, and wheeled vehicles to 25 years would be disquieting to investors if they believed it"The next day, "fiscal conservatives" in Congress began a virulent campaign to shut down the aeronautics program, which began with a series of speeches attacking Langley.

"House Stirred Over Novels and Airships; Charge Made That War Department Wastes Money on Them," headlined the Times.

"It has become a scandal that Langley's airship has cost the government over $200,000 . . . wasted on this scientific aerial navigation experiment that never had any utility, because some man, perchance a professor, wandering in his dreams, sought to impress. . . . This money . . . was sunk in the bottom of the Potomac River by Professor Langley."

The majority of the House supported the continuation of the aeronautics program. None of the speeches nor statements supporting the majority position were reported that day in the New York Times.

And were Professor Sam Langley, Orville and Wilbur Wright alive today in this day and age they would hardly have been surprised to read the New York Times editorial of April 15, 1981 that complained of the first Space Shuttle flight: "The danger of the shuttle's success is that it will tempt America to contrive tasks for it simply because it exists."

Just because a certain amount of technological progress has taken place so far in the 20th century, don't blame the New York Times. If the Times had its way, mankind would still be in the dark.