The Wizard of Menlo Park (33 page)

Turning aside a request from a stranger was one thing; from a member of his own staff or own roster of musical talent, another. Edison had his secretary, William Meadowcroft, do his best in 1916 to mollify Alice Verlet, a singer who recorded for Edison’s label and had sought a letter of introduction to Ford. Meadowcroft explained that Edison and Ford “preserve a strict neutrality in regard to each other’s business affairs, and never give these letters of introduction” for which they were frequently asked. He also said that the intertwining of the business and personal lives was “of a very delicate nature,” and the two were “exceedingly punctilious” in keeping the two domains separate. Edison’s company had bought fifty automobiles from Ford’s, paying the same price as “absolute strangers to Mr. Ford or his Company.” Conversely, Ford had not received any discount when purchasing Edison phonographs or records.

Edison brushed aside countless requests like Verlet’s. But a few years later, in 1919, he relented in one case involving a distant associate whom he had not personally met. The petitioner was one Lemuel Calvert Curlin, proprietor of Curlin’s Drug Company, of Waxahachie, Texas, whose store sold Edison phonographs, in addition to chocolates, typewriters, silver and china, rings, lamps, and Kodak cameras. (Curlin was ecumenical about brands: he sold Victor Victrolas, too.) Curlin had written Ford Motor directly to apply for a Ford dealership and asked if Edison would write a letter on his behalf, testifying to the soundness of his record. “I would not trouble a busy man like you,” Curlin wrote Edison, “but for the fact that your organization knows my ability and Mr. Ford’s organization does not.” The previous year, Curlin’s company had purchased $40,000 worth of Edison phonographs and records, even though the cotton crop was poor and the influenza epidemic had hit his territory hard, keeping prospective customers home. Curlin was respectful, without fawning. He had a track record with Edison, and asked for nothing more than a letter documenting it.

When it arrived, Curlin’s letter caught the eye of Meadowcroft (who overlooked the Victrolas). “Mr. Edison,” Meadowcroft wrote in a corner of the letter. “Shall you break your rule in this case?” Edison responded positively, directing that it be passed on to Ford’s secretary. “Say I send it because I want to make myself solid with one of our hustling dealers.” The choice of adjective, “hustling,” brings to mind Edison’s wish, expressed many years earlier, to hear the voice of Napoléon rather than that of Jesus Christ because “I like a hustler.”

When Meadowcroft dispatched Curlin’s letter to Ernest Liebold, his cover letter called attention to how “Mr. Edison rarely, if ever” wrote to Ford in a matter that concerned Ford’s business affairs. Liebold received the request favorably and wrote Curlin immediately (though no deal was arranged before Curlin’s sudden death in 1922). Liebold also wrote Meadowcroft with reassuring words, “We understand the many situations which arise as a result of the widely known friendship between Mr. Ford and Mr. Edison.” He said Ford would be happy to consider whatever business-related requests Edison chose to send his way. Nevertheless, Edison continued to screen and deflect almost every request that asked him to open the door to Ford’s office.

Family members, however, enjoyed special status automatically. Thomas Edison Jr. knew this and attempted repeatedly to strike business deals with Ford, writing Ford and Liebold directly. If he were not the son of Ford’s friend but merely a correspondent with unending requests, he would not have received any response. But Ford and Liebold felt they could not ignore him, no matter what he asked for, so they humored him as best they could. They were also discreet; there is no evidence that they ever divulged to Edison their tribulations in dealing with this son.

In June 1914, shortly after receiving the news that he would receive a new car from Ford, Tom Jr. had the opportunity of meeting Ford for the first time, and thanking him in person, at the wedding of his half sister, Madeleine, at Glenmont. At that point, his car was being prepared at the factory for shipment. When it finally was shipped out, Liebold wrote Tom Jr. to expect it, and wrote him a second time about two weeks later to see if it had arrived in good condition. Tom Jr. had picked the new car up but failed to write Liebold back.

William Bee, who served as the principal liaison between the Edison interests and Ford Motor Company, got an earful from Liebold about Tom Jr.’s perplexing behavior. Tom Jr. had merely been slow in attending to the basic courtesies. On the same day that Liebold was unloading his complaints in a letter to Bee—and before Bee could pass those on to Tom Jr.—Tom Jr. sent a thank-you letter to Liebold, opening with an apology: “I have been so very enthusiastic over my new ‘Ford Car’ which arrived a day or two ago that apparently I have neglected everything.” He said that his wife complained that he “simply cannot leave its side long enough to come in the house and eat.”

Tom Jr.’s letter did not contain anything untoward, but it did not bring a gratifying end to the ministory of Henry Ford’s gift of a new car to Thomas Edison’s eldest son. A little complication remained to be resolved. Ford Motor Company provided the new car with the understanding that it would be exchanged for Tom Jr.’s old Ford. The company took possession, planning to recondition it and find uses for it as a demonstrator model. When Tom Jr. said he did not want to relinquish it, a game of tug-of-war began: Ford Motor Company, one of the largest corporations in the country, was pulling from one direction, and Tom Jr., seemingly ungrateful recipient of a new car, was pulling from the other. At stake was a banged-up car with more than sixty thousand miles on it.

Tom Jr. did make a good case for holding on to the older car, even if he risked appearing ungrateful. As he explained to Bee, the car had been given to him by his father and he held on to every gift his father had ever provided for sentimental reasons. Having two cars would allow him to continue his experiments in carburetion on one when the other was needed to go into town on errands. Bee served as his advocate, forwarding Tom Jr.’s letter to Liebold and adding an offer to buy back the older car that was now in the hands of Ford Motor Company. This offer appears to have embarrassed Liebold, who hastened to accommodate Tom Jr. He told Bee that he would gladly return the car to Tom Jr., once it had been fixed up in “first-class shape.” Liebold would be glad to drive it out personally.

When Liebold agreed that Tom Jr. was “fully justified in asking to return” his old car, he said that he understood how highly prized it was as an object of sentimental value. He did not say anything about Tom Jr.’s work with carburetors, which Liebold knew from previous correspondence was work that Tom Jr. thought was destined to have great commercial value to Ford Motor Company. Though living on a peach farm, Tom Jr. was still pursuing his dream of becoming a world-renowned inventor—now, however, he was determined to make his mark in the automotive world. Liebold, as the principal gatekeeper guarding the inner sanctum of Ford’s office, had to manage Tom Jr. with delicacy, being warm to the person, the son of Thomas Edison, but blocking the unproven inventor from interfering with Ford Motor Company’s actual operations.

Managing Tom Jr. was made all the more difficult because of his behavior, which increasingly became erratic. In January 1915, he wrote to Henry Ford, appealing for donations in the form of spark plugs and other supplies that would help him perfect a “device,” left unnamed, “which I hope might prove of mutual benefit to us both.” At this point, before his mental decline had incapacitated him, Tom Jr. still understood, at least in the recesses of his consciousness, that Henry Ford was surrounded by layers of protection designed to shield him from requests such as this. “Mr. Ford dont [
sic
] think I am trying to take advantage of you, my dearest and best friend on Earth.” He reassured Ford that he had Ford’s interests at heart. Later in the year, he addressed Ford as “almost a Parent.” He said he was overjoyed when he read that Ford had attended the Panama Pacific fair so that the masses could “see the one and only Mr. Ford.” In the next sentence, he said, “At no time am I away from you because my thoughts keep me with you and your many gifts to me keep us companionship.” In 1917, after visiting Ford in Detroit, Tom Jr. wrote Ford to thank him for the “infinite love you tendered me” and begged Ford for his photograph, whose place Tom Jr. had marked out in advance on the wall, next to his father’s.

The work on his gadget, intended to save fuel and named the “Ecometer,” was hampered by Tom Jr.’s progressively worsening illness. His wife, Beatrice, described to Liebold in 1919 her husband’s increasingly severe headaches, culminating in a “collapse” that prevented him from getting out of bed. His Ecometer attached to the air inlet of the carburetor and, according to Tom Jr., increased fuel efficiency by 20 to 50 percent. Ford’s engineers, however, were unable to duplicate these results. Both Tom Jr. and Beatrice attempted for years to persuade the company to purchase the Ecometer for factory installation in all Ford cars, but their lobbying efforts did not produce an order. The disappointment appears to have exacerbated Tom Jr.’s incapacitating depression.

Tom Jr. could have taken some solace from the fact that his father’s plans to make his mark in the automotive field and win sales to Ford Motor Company were no more successful than his own. Edison worked on many facets simultaneously: a battery and related electrical equipment for a car equipped with an internal combustion engine, and, separately, a battery for an electric car. In late 1913, Edison excitedly notified Ford that he had successfully run in his laboratory a stock Ford engine, removed from a car chassis and equipped with his new electrical system, for 130 continuous hours. The next year, however, when Edison sent his batteries and equipment to Detroit for testing outside of his laboratory, they performed poorly. Liebold installed one of the Edison alkaline batteries in his own car and discovered that it was insufficient to power the car’s lights, let alone a starter motor.

As the sales manager responsible for the Edison storage battery, William Bee did his best in April 1914 to convince Liebold and Ford to give Edison and his battery researchers more time. The performance of the batteries at this point was so embarrassing that Bee could do little but commiserate with Liebold, telling his own stories of how the batteries had let Bee down, too. Recently, he had put his car in a paint shop for a few hours and when he returned to retrieve it, “I couldn’t start it to save my life.” Another time, a company-owned Ford had broken down on Broadway and had had to be towed a couple of blocks before the engine would catch. Essentially conceding that the batteries were not close to being ready for commercial use, Bee said, “Everything has got to be in apple pie order” for the batteries to work at all.

Bee could confirm the fatal flaws of the current generation of batteries because he also had an excellent excuse: Edison had been too busy at work on phonograph records and had neglected work on them. The next month, Bee wrote Henry Ford with the happy news that Edison would devote more time to the battery project. “When Mr. Edison finds out that the present battery will not do the work,” Bee said in another letter, “HE WILL MAKE A BATTERY WHICH WILL DO THE WORK.”

Edison was unable, however, to deliver on the promise. When the newest versions of his batteries were sent to Ford in the summer of 1914, Henry Ford showed impatience with their deficiencies. Ford also complained that Bee was leaking confidential information to others. Bee avowed his innocence and reported that a starter motor he had installed in his own car powered by an Edison battery had never failed to start. The battery had also powered two headlights, two side lights, a taillight, a meter light, an odometer light, and a Klaxon horn, and the battery had never failed to maintain its charge. He wrote Liebold that these were “absolutely straight facts and my battery has not been tampered with.”

Ford placed considerable trust in Liebold’s opinions, and Liebold, by the end of 1914, had lost patience with Bee and the Edison alkaline battery. On a frosty December morning, he had given the battery one final chance to prove its reliability in cold weather. Liebold had had at his command factory mechanics to charge up the battery in his car and make sure that all the equipment was in proper adjustment. When Liebold came by the factory to pick up the car, he wrote Bee, “You can imagine my surprise to get nothing more than a groan out of the battery.” When he finally got under way, the engine quit four or five times during the morning’s drive, and he had to rely on the hand crank to restart it, as “there was no juice obtainable.” At the end of the day, Liebold directed the factory mechanics to disassemble the car and return the Edison battery and starter to New Jersey.

Eventually, another company, Gray & Davis, would win the contract to supply Ford Motor with starters and generators for Ford cars. So that its equipment would work with Edison batteries, it invested in a refrigeration plant to simulate cold conditions and its staff tried to engineer an electrical system that could accommodate the battery’s shortcomings. The experiments ended without success; the task of making the Edison battery work was declared “impossible.” Ford dealers also registered their negative feelings about the Edison battery, telling Gray & Davis that if Ford equipped cars at the factory with Edison batteries, the dealers could not in good faith sell the cars to customers without first taking on the new expense of replacing the factory batteries.

Throughout the process of evaluating options, Henry Ford stood apart, maintaining an agnostic attitude until the test results were definitive. He did not intervene when Liebold, the company engineers, and the dealers all agreed that the Edison battery was woefully underpowered and unsuitable. By having Liebold serve as liaison between his company and Edison’s, Henry Ford was able to protect his personal relationship with Edison. For his part, Edison also valued the personal relationship and did not ask Ford to reconsider when the company selected other suppliers and technology. By the time of the 1914 fire, Ford and his staff no longer regarded the Edison battery as a viable candidate for use in Fords. Edison did not share his disappointment with others and harbored no ill feelings toward Ford himself.