GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
HIS LIFE AND ACHIEVEMENTS
GEORGE WEST1NGHOUSE
GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
His Life and Achievements
BY
FRANCIS E. LEUPP
Illustrated from Photographs
BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1919
Copyright, 1918,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY All rights reserved
Norfooon
Set up and electrotyped by J. S. Gushing Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. Presswork by S. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, Mass., U.S.A.
TO MY DEAR OLD FRIEND
THE HONORABLE MARTIN A. KNAPP,
WHO HAS LABORED FOR THE RAILWAYS
ON THEIR ECONOMIC SIDE
AS GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE DID FOR THEIR PHYSICAL STRENGTH AND SAFETY
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PREFACE
ALTHOUGH George Westinghouse was, in the broadest sense, a public servant, my own acquaint- ance with him was only social. As he left behind him no diaries, no files of personal correspondence, and scarcely any other sources of supply on which the biographer of a political or military celebrity depends for much interesting material, I have been obliged to rely, in the main, on the memories of the friends of Mr. Westinghouse, local tradition and gossip in neighborhoods where he had lived, the records of courts and minutes of public meetings, corporate reports and partnership account books, old volumes of newspapers and magazines, mis- cellaneous scrapbooks, and the like. One day, let us hope, we may have from the pen of some well- known expert in technology an adequate summary of what the whole world's industrial advancement owes to the work of the eminent inventor. The mission of the present volume is simply human. It will have been accomplished if it conveys to the young man of today a sense that his career will depend for success less on the splendor of its start than on the spirit in which he pursues it ; far less on capital than on courage, on worry than on watch- fulness, on "pull" than on persistence.
vii
viii PREFACE
Of the gentlemen to whom I am indebted for as- sistance in this task, I beg here to return thanks to Mr. Ernest H. Heinrichs, who for some years was attached to the personal staff in the Westinghouse office in Pittsburgh, and who passed over to me the copious notes he had made with a view to a possible biography of his chief ; to Mr. H. C. Tener, the last private secretary of Mr. Westinghouse ; to Mr. Alexander G. Uptegraff, who for a long period was a member of the family circle and represented Mrs. Westinghouse in many of her social and char- itable projects ; to Mr. George W. Jones, a relative who is still engaged in business at the old head- quarters of "G. Westinghouse & Co." in Schenec- tady, New York ; to the authors of the excellent books and magazine articles from which I have drawn facts or inspiration ; and to a number of interesting men and women whom I have quoted in my narrative. In an effort to avoid errors, I have, as far as practicable, submitted doubtful passages to various persons whose criticism would be valuable, and in all cases where their opinions disagreed I have exercised my own discretion. I am making this statement as a matter of fairness to every one concerned.
F. E. L. WASHINGTON, D. C., July i, 1918.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
PREFACE vii
I "Ax FIRST, THE INFANT" i
II "THE AGE TWIXT BOY AND YOUTH" . . .13
III SOLDIER AND SAILOR, STUDENT AND SWAIN . . 29
IV OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR .... 47 V DOUBT CHANGED TO CERTAINTY 62
VI "NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS" .... 76
VII THE BATTLE OF THE BRAKES 91
VIII OPENING A MINE OF GASEOUS WEALTH . . . 106
IX WHAT THE GAS DID FOR PITTSBURGH . . .119
X THE CONTEST OF THE CURRENTS . . . .131
XI THE STRUGGLE IN NEW YORK . . . . .143
XII ORIGIN OF THE "STOPPER" LAMP .... 156
XIII FROM NIAGARA TO THE NAVY 171
XIV "BLUSHING HONORS THICK UPON HIM" . . .188 XV A SECOND FINANCIAL ORDEAL 204
XVI AIR SPRINGS AND ADDRESSES 219
XVII A BIG MAN'S HUMAN SIDE 232
XVIII "THE OLD MAN" AND His EMPLOYEES . . .246
XIX A TRIO OF HOMES 259
XX INSIGNIA OF CHARACTER 274
XXI "LAST SCENE OF ALL" 290
INDEX 3QI
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
George Westinghouse . . . Frontispiece in Photogravure
The Mother and Father of George Westinghouse FACING PAGE 4
Birthplace at Central Bridge, N. Y. . . . " " 10
George Westinghouse. From a War-Time Portrait " " 30
George Westinghouse and Mrs. Westinghouse
during their Earlier Days of Wedded Life . " " 46
The First Westinghouse Air Brake Factory . " 72
Locomotive and Passenger Car That Constituted a Part of the First Train Used for a Public Ex- hibition of the Brake " "76
"Solitude," the Westinghouse Home at Pittsburgh " " 122
Marguerite Erskine Westinghouse . " 134
George Westinghouse at Work . " " 180
Erskine Manor, the Lenox Residence ..." " 264
GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
CHAPTER I "Ax FIRST, THE INFANT"
IN the northeast corner of Schoharie County, New York, lies the village of Central Bridge. To most travelers on the railroad that skirts its border it is only a way station, to students of the map a dot ; but to it our country owes a debt, for out of it came one of those uncommon men whose achievements have shed luster upon the American name in all parts of the earth, and whose character is a precious herit- age to younger generations in search of an exemplar. He was not a military hero, though he tasted war ; he was not a statesman, though counting Presidents and Kings among his friends ; he was master of no magic arts, yet his clever hands, responsive to a fertile mind, were always busy converting prophecy into history. He gloried in the fact that he was simply a man among men, with sturdy muscles and an active brain, whose so-called genius consisted of the broadest of human sympathies and the keenest sense of future possibilities harnessed to a tireless perseverance.
i GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
Central Bridge, which is not yet a large community, was in the earlier half of the last century the heart of a back-country farming district. Its aboriginal pos- sessors were the Mohegan Indians, who opened sev- eral trails from the Hudson and Mohawk valleys into the Schoharie valley, and made some primitive ef- forts at agriculture. Its first permanent white settle- ment appears to have been by the German Palatine immigrants after their dispersion from the Livingston Manor. They arrived in a condition of great pov- erty, bearing all their worldly goods bound to their shoulders, and endured every kind of discouraging experience while they were making the wilderness habitable. There was something infectious in their stubborn refusal to be crushed by hardships. It spread to the new neighbors who gradually moved into the valley, which, though suffering not a little from raids in the war of the Revolution, gradually blossomed forth with fertile and well-tilled farms, and became dotted here and there with churches, schools, mills, and small factories, the latter run by the local water powers. It is because the resolute spirit of those early days had in it a quality of presage that I have drawn upon them for a background to the opening scenes of my story.
There are now, strictly speaking, two villages of Central Bridge, five minutes' walk apart. The old Central Bridge of the histories lies in the opening of the V-shaped point made by the junction of Cobles- kill Creek with the Schoharie River, and is separated from its modern namesake by the Creek. The new village has grown up around the station since the
"AT FIRST, THE INFANT" 3
railroad was run through the valley. To the old village came, about 1836, one George Westinghouse, bred a farmer, self-trained a mechanic, with a special taste for carpentry. He represented the second generation of the name in this country. Born and reared near North Pownal, Vermont, he had been stirred by what he heard of the newly opened West, and removed soon after his marriage in 1831, to a farm on the banks of the Cuyahoga River in Ohio, not far from Cleveland. The climate, however, did not prove to his liking or to his wife's ; so after a rather short stay they returned to the East, settling first at Minaville, in Montgomery County, New York. It is believed to have been there that the bent was given to his mind which shaped his whole after career.
One of his neighbors had acquired a threshing ma- chine, and this, being a novelty thereabout, interested Westinghouse, who soon fell to planning means for improving its efficiency. The subject haunted his thoughts continually, and his leisure moments were often employed with pencil and paper, sketching little designs for parts which he conceived could be re- modeled with advantage. His wife encouraged him in this new departure, and warmly approved his sug- gestion that he might change his occupation and become a maker of machinery. But Minaville, they both felt certain, was no place for a factory of the sort he contemplated : it was far from a base of sup- plies. He had heard of Central Bridge, with its two abundant water courses, its system of highways radiating in every direction, and its convenient dis-
4 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
tance from the growing town of Schenectady. A visit of inspection satisfied him that it was the site he was looking for, and he lost no time in making the move.
Too conservative a manager to give up farming till he was entirely assured of the success of his manu- facturing experiment, he bought a fair-sized tract of bottom land where the river and the creek meet. Here stood already a few buildings, one of which he expanded into a shop, where he could repair the ma- chinery of a brace of mills that were near by, and work out in wood some of the designs he had sketched.
Before long it became plain that he must choose definitely between his two occupations and devote his attention exclusively to one, and, as a patent he had taken out had begun to bring returns, he made over most of his farm work to hired hands and spent his days at the bench. His mechanical operations grad- ually outgrew the original shop, and an extension had to be added. This, in its turn, meant more capital and more help, both of which were forthcoming from the neighborhood, where the people had come to recognize in him a man of more than ordinary ability. His inventions included improvements not only in threshing machines, but in winnowing appliances, endless-chain horse powers, and several allied de- vices, as well as a seed-scraper for broom corn which attracted notice by its ingenuity.
Mrs. Westinghouse, born Emmeline Vedder, was of Dutch-English stock. She was a woman of strong common sense, with a considerable imaginative fac- ulty. Though she knew too little of the mechanic
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"AT FIRST, THE INFANT " 5
arts to enter into her husband's plans in detail, she had unbounded faith in him, and helped him where she could. By this time they had six children, three boys and three girls — healthy, active, noisy little folk, whom often it was hard to keep from get- ting under foot in their father's shop.
One autumn evening Mr. Westinghouse came in looking unusually tired, but with a light in his eye which his wife interpreted as meaning that he had caught a glimmer of hope through a tangle of per- plexities which he had attempted to explain to her the day before. His thoughts were so immersed in the subject with which they had been struggling all day that he almost failed to recognize an elderly woman from the village who was stirring about in- doors, and whom he vaguely remembered to have seen there on one or two former occasions, lending a hand at the household work and looking after the children. The supper table was set, and his wife was in her chair at her accustomed end, but not eat- ing. She did not rise as he entered, nor did she offer to assist as the neighbor helped the hungry children into their places.
The meal was eaten almost in silence. The hus- band was abstracted in manner, the children were repressed by the presence of an outsider, the wife was reticent as became her attitude toward these occa- sional moods of his, which she knew portended some development of consequence. When an opening came she inquired, half timidly :
" Has it been a good day for you ?"
"It's too soon to speak positively," he answered,
6 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
"but I'm pretty sure I've got that connection to work. There are two or three things I must figure out still."
"You'll have those by to-morrow night," she said, in the hopeful tone he knew so well. "I'm glad you're near the end."
"I shall have all the figuring done before I go to bed," he declared. " I've reached a point now where I couldn't sleep if I tried, and I shan't try."
She made no attempt to argue with him as to the wisdom of his stealing some rest : she knew too well what this manner signified. As soon as supper was finished she took the children with her to the upper story, while the neighbor rapidly cleared the table, spread it with its colored cover, set the lamp on it, and withdrew. The man of the house went out to his shop, and presently came back bearing a handful of papers, chiefly rough pencil drawings and scraps covered with mathematical calculations. These he laid out in a certain order on the table, drew up a chair, and two minutes later was sketching and figur- ing, and otherwise dead to the world. His first re- lease from the spell was when the clock struck four. Then he looked up, stretched himself, and with a great sigh of relief blew out the light and lay down on the sofa with his eyes closed. He felt that he could afford to take a brief recess now, for he had brought the last of his calculations to the desired conclusion, and it would do him good to think them over at his ease, preparatory to laying hold of his tools with the coming of daylight and translating his theoretical results into a concrete piece of machinery.
"AT FIRST, THE INFANT " 7
It was after six o'clock when he reopened his eyes with a start and sat up. The sun was lazily playing on the leaves of a lilac bush that fringed the window. He looked about him, still too stupid with sleep to realize fully where he was or how he chanced to be there. The papers scattered over the table, however, recalled his night's work and reminded him that he must hasten now to the shop. The October morning had a tang of frost in it, and, as the kettle was on the back of the kitchen stove, he made a fire and had a cup of hot coffee to drink with the hasty breakfast for which he foraged while gathering up his litter from the dining room. He tried to tiptoe out of the house, but was arrested by his wife's voice at the head of the stairs, softly calling his name.
"Yes?" he called back, somewhat startled. " What's the matter?"
"Are you going out? You haven't been to bed."
" No, I've been working all night on those drawings and specifications. Can I do anything for you?"
Obviously there was nothing, for a negative was implied in a brief pause ; and then —
"What day is this?"
"Tuesday, the sixth. Why ? "
"Oh" --with just a shade of hesitancy — "never mind. You won't wait for breakfast?"
" I've had a little — all I need. Don't wait dinner for me; I'll be home as soon as I can drop things."
He felt a slight pang of discomfort at leaving her thus abruptly, for somehow she did not seem quite herself; but this was quickly crowded out by a thought of the shop and the task which awaited him
8 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
there. The last trace of uncertainty passed with her cheery response :
"Well, good luck to the new invention !"
It was a busy day. The morning sped and noon came, but he forgot dinner and everything else except the job in progress on the bench. The afternoon wore away — one o'clock, two o'clock, three — at last ! It was almost four when, the final touches having been given to the working model, he strode out of the shop with the glad step of a prisoner set at liberty. As he approached the cottage he missed the usual sound of the children at play in the yard. Opening the door, he was about to shout upstairs to announce his accomplishment, when he came face to face with the neighbor, who held her finger to her lips.
"Speak low, please," she admonished him. "I've sent the children over to my son's to get rid of their noise. She's been asleep about an hour now. And," noting his look of alarm, " the baby's a boy, and a big one. He came at twenty minutes past eleven. The doctor got here just in time. They're both all right."
The baby ! The word fell upon his ear with a sort of shock, like the sudden sound which rouses one from a dream. It was followed by a flood of wonder at his own wooden indifference, as the events of the last twenty-four hours moved in panoramic review through his memory. Of course — here was the ex- planation of so many things which had made only a shadowy impression on his mind as he noticed them : his wife's comparative inactivity, the uncommon quiet of the house, the presence of the elderly neigh-
"AT FIRST, THE INFANT" 9
bor, the generous, self-effacing thought for him which prevented any suggestion of the nearness of the crisis lest it might distract his mind from the problem on the eve of solution !
He crept stealthily up the stairs to the chamber in which the mother was lying in bed, very still. She had just awakened, and looked up at him with a curious smile playing over her face.
"How does the machine come on?"
"It's finished, and it works."
"Good!"
Her eyes followed him as he gently drew aside the topmost fold of a flannel wrapping that swathed a formless bundle in a crib by the bedside.
"Aren't you pleased that it's a boy?" she whis- pered.
"I'm glad it's all over, and that you have come through so well," he answered in a noncommittal way, "though I thought you were hoping for a girl."
" I was, at first ; but ever since you began this last machine I have had it in my mind night and day - you seemed so wrapped up in it. And then I began to hope we might have another boy, so that he could help you with your work, and in course of time take it up where you leave it. He is born on the very day of your triumph, George, and I want him to be named for you."
In vain the father protested that one George West- inghouse was enough in the family : the mother would listen to no counter proposal. And thus George Westinghouse, Junior, made his bow to the world on the sixth of October, 1846.
io GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
The childhood of this latest addition to the family was not distinguished from the life of other lads in the village by anything that seemed to point to the mark he was one day to make in the world. On the contrary, he was noted chiefly for his continual revolt against the confinement of the schoolroom, his dis- taste for textbooks and routine study, and his pug- nacious disposition. He entered more or less into the sports of his schoolmates, but ordinary games did not attract him strongly. The one place in which he would rather be than anywhere else was his father's shop. His father was resolved that he should apply himself to his studies, and used to forbid him the shop during school hours ; but George was not in- clined to yield to such indirect compulsion, and, if he had made up his mind on a given morning not to go to school, go he would not, but would stubbornly stretch himself on the grass somewhere and play for hours with a few pieces of wood, whittling them into mechanical shapes and pivoting them together with bent pins, so that they would interplay like the jointed members of a piece of machinery. Not a few of the adult villagers used to look upon him with an air of pity, and wonder what was to become of so ill-promising a boy when he grew up.
Discriminating observers might have read in some of his traits which were then regarded as least ami- able the signs of a masterful quality. If he felt any specially strong desire, he would not brook the slight- est opposition to his efforts to gratify it. When persistent demands were unavailing, he would fly into a rage which was terrifying to behold. Old
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"AT FIRST, THE INFANT" 11
neighbors of the family still remember these parox- ysms, which took the form first of screaming and stamping, and then of throwing himself flat and bang- ing his head against any hard surface that came most convenient — the floor, the wall of a room, the side of a house. Near the family cottage was a large flat stone on which he repeatedly thus tried conclusions with his skull. If every one about him remained obdurate, he would keep up the disturbance till his strength was utterly exhausted. Usually, however, some older member of the household, unable to en- dure the demonstration longer, would yield the point at issue, and his tears, cries, and self-torture would cease as suddenly as they had begun. In either event there was no aftermath of sullenness, but his return to normality was complete. Speaking in later years of these outbursts, he remarked with whimsical hu- mor: "I had a fixed notion that what I wanted I must have. Somehow, that idea has not entirely deserted me throughout my life. I have always known what I wanted, and how to get it. As a child, I got it by tantrums ; in mature years, by hard work." An old lady is still living who saw a good deal of the Westinghouse family during their residence in Central Bridge, and for whom George, at the age of six, conceived a strong attachment. "I remember just how he looked then," she said the other day. " I can see still his earnest little face, with its wrinkle between the blue eyes as if he were already solving problems, and the way he would turn it up to mine when he asked some trifling favor. It is true that he was a tempestuous child, and would fly now and
12 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
then into a fearful passion ; but I suspect that he was not so much to blame for this as were his older brothers and the hired men about the place. They all seemed to take delight in teasing him, to see what he would do.
" He had a strong side, nevertheless, which showed itself even then, and at times when you would least expect it. One day when he had committed some mischief his father called him into an inner room and whipped him with a switch cut from a tree. The switch broke in two or three places, and with a ges- ture of impatience Mr. Westinghouse threw it aside, exclaiming: 'Pshaw! This is good for nothing.' George, who had been crying lustily, desisted long enough to point to a leather whip which hung from a hook on the wall, and say: 'There's a better one, Father.' His apparent interest in having the thing done properly if it must be done at all proved too much for his father's sobriety, and he was spared further punishment."
CHAPTER II AGE TWIXT BOY AND YOUTH "
NOT long after George's birth, Mr. and Mrs. West- inghouse, finding themselves somewhat cramped for room in the house where they were living, removed to a larger one a little farther down the point. On the new premises stood a sawmill and a gristmill, the conduct of which devolved upon Mr. Westing- house, so that he had to hire more workmen. In the new home three boys were born : two, Henry and Herman, died in infancy ; the third, Henry Herman, generally known as Herman, was named in memory of them. Increased domestic expenses, together with a business competition which was already mak- ing itself felt, led Mr. Westinghouse to consider means of reducing the cost of his machines. Though he could make the wooden parts in his shop and do the assembling there, he had to buy all his metal castings in Schenectady and haul them over by wagon - a tedious and expensive process when the roads were out of repair. When, therefore, his business had sufficiently expanded, he decided to remove both factory and family to Schenectady, and in 1856 the change was made. Two partners named Clute hav- ing joined him, the firm bought a building formerly used as a cement mill, on the south bank of the Erie
i4 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
Canal near the junction of Washington Avenue and the River Road, and turned it into a shop. The main part of this is still standing, though almost hidden by the pretentious structures which have grown up around it ; and one can trace from a neigh- boring elevation what the elements have left of the old sign, "G. Westinghouse & Co.", painted in black letters on the rough limestone surface of the eastern gable end.
During their residence in Schenectady, the family lived in three houses successively. That in which they finally settled down about 1860 is now known as Number 16 State Street. It is a substantial dwell- ing built of brick with stone and iron trimmings, and has of late years received additions which about double its original capacity. Here the older boys grew to manhood, all developing the individuality to be expected of the sons of so masterful a father. As soon as they reached suitable ages, Mr. Westing- house took them, one by one, into his shop, for a drill in the rudiments of mechanical work. Jay, the eld- est, was also given a course at the Polytechnic In- stitute in Troy ; but on his return it soon became obvious that his most appropriate place was else- where than at the bench. He had executive ability and a wise discernment, including a bent for managing men without friction, which would have made their mark in a larger field ; and before long he was trans- ferred to a desk in the office, where he met customers, engaged workmen, and kept the accounts. John, next in age, had mechanical gifts of a high order, coupled later in life with a marked religious instinct
"THE AGE 'TWIXT BOY AND YOUTH" 15
which led him to devote much of his spare time to what we should now call "social work" among the less favored elements in the community. He was particularly successful in rescuing "gang" boys from a life of crime and starting them on paths toward use- ful citizenship. In the shop he found metal-working more to his taste than carpentry, so he handled the iron parts of the machines for which the wooden parts were constructed under his father's supervision. Albert, the third son, showed from the outset less taste for mechanics, his chief natural inclinations being toward books. He enjoyed good literature, and argued ingeniously any question which arose in the domestic circle. In the opinion of family friends, he might have had a brilliant career if edu- cated for the bar.
Young George, though he waked up more after the removal to Schenectady, did not expand mentally in the direction his father had hoped. He was sent to school, but took only a languid interest in his studies, though he profited somewhat by his more enlivening companionship. Of this, however, he could not reap the fullest advantage, as his father was able to see little virtue in play, regarding it simply as a form of idleness, and preferring that George should come into the shop every day after school hours and learn how tools were used by skilled hands. But here came again the sense of constraint against which every fiber of the boy's nature had always re- volted. To stand at the elbow of a mature man for an hour and watch the plying of saw and plane, the boring of holes, and the driving of screws was a dreary
i6 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
occupation for him. When, for a change, he was shifted over to the neighborhood of his brother John, and looked on at the latter's handling of the metal parts, he felt more at liberty to criticize, and before five minutes had elapsed the two lads would be in a heated controversy, in which the temper of each would oc- casionally break bounds. If, on the other hand, he was taken away from all the rest of the workers and set at a bench by himself, with a pattern before him and the material and tools at hand for making a du- plicate of it, his attention would soon wander from his fixed task and he would become immersed in some mechanism of his own contriving — a little engine, or a miniature water wheel with fanciful connections, or what not.
Tinkering in this fashion, sometimes alone and sometimes in company with a schoolmate of similar tastes, he gradually accumulated a collection of in- complete machines, which his conservative father denounced as " trumpery" and would from time to time consign to the scrap heap. Most of the work- men found something amusing in this conflict of wills ; but one day when Mr. Westinghouse had broken up and thrown out an apparatus in the con- struction of which George had displayed uncommon ingenuity, a good-natured foreman whose sympathies had been going out more and more strongly toward the lad stayed after closing time, and, without his employer's knowledge, fitted up a small den in the loft of the building. This he turned over to George for an amateur workshop, and in it the young inventor passed many happy hours, and, near the end of his
"THE AGE TWIXT BOY AND YOUTH" 17
occupancy, designed and built a model for a rotary engine.
After hanging about the shop for a year or two in an irregular way, George had a serious talk with his father. Mr. Westinghouse had been remon- strating with him for his waste of time, and con- trasting his indifference with the earnestness of most of the working force, when George unexpect- edly retorted :
" Those men are paid for whatever they do for you. What I do brings me in nothing.5*
It was the first sign he had ever given of a thrifty spirit, and Mr. Westinghouse improved the oppor- tunity to ask :
"What do you consider your services worth?**
"I don't know; but they must be worth some- thing."
"Well, George, I'll give you a chance to show what you can do. Beginning next Monday, I'll pay you fifty cents for every full day you put in here on some- thing useful. Saturdays, as there is no school, you'll be able to work all day ; other afternoons, you can charge up your work by the hour till you have made a whole day. How will that suit you?*'
"I'm ready to try it."
The bargain was struck on the spot, and recorded at the cashier's desk. But George was not yet four- teen years old, and had not lost his liking for a play- spell now and then ; so one Saturday when several of his mates were going off for a frolic and urged him to accompany them, he went to his father to serve notice that he should not be at his post that after-
i8 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
noon. Mr. Westinghouse recognized this as a proper occasion for impressing a lesson.
"A good citizen who makes an agreement to put in his time working," said he solemnly, " doesn't shirk it at the first temptation. I had a job laid out, that I expected you to start today."
He led the way to a pile of pipe which he wished cut, and gave his son full instructions how to cut it.
'This is hard work and will take you some time," he added- "perhaps all your spare hours for the first half of next week. I'm going out of town for a few days, and when I come back I hope to find the job about finished."
George uttered no protest. While his father had been talking his own mind had leaped to a plan, and before noon he had rigged up a combination of tools which, attached to a power machine, would feed the pipe and do the cutting automatically. Then, after a few words of explanation to the friendly foreman, who promised to keep an eye on things in his absence, he threw off his overalls and joined his comrades for their outing. When he came home he ran over to the shop and found all the pipe cut as directed. Until his father returned, therefore, he was free to do what he pleased.
While naturally gratified at this exhibition of the inventive faculty, Mr. Westinghouse became almost hopeless of converting so volatile a boy into a steady mechanic. One day he mentioned the matter to a neighbor, a clergyman, who suggested that perhaps the lad might do better at something which would call into play his unusually lively imagination.
" THE AGE TWIXT BOY AND YOUTH" 19
"I've tried him at all sorts of things," answered Mr. Westinghouse, with a shade of disappointment in his tone, "but his one desire seems to be to avoid work ; and you know as well as I do that no young man will ever amount to anything who won't work."
11 It would take a good deal to convince me," said the other, "that the laziest boy in the world couldn't be interested in something, if you gave him a wide enough range of choice."
"You'd like to make a preacher of him, perhaps?"
The minister ignored the seeming irony of the suggestion.
"No, I shouldn't try to 'make' him that or any- thing else. If I have measured him correctly he isn't the kind of boy you can shape against his will. I think you will save time if you let him do his own shap- ing, and confine yourself to encouraging him when he finds out what he is best fitted to do."
He was moving away, but Mr. Westinghouse de- tained him by laying a hand on his shoulder.
"Look here, Dominie, all I want is to do what is right, and not to make a mistake which we'll feel sorry for later. Now, you've started me thinking. Tell me what you'd do if the boy were yours."
"Well, I suppose I should not press him into spend- ing all his leisure time in the shop. Let him get out and play more. That will free his mind, and by and by he'll lay hold of an idea that fascinates him, and he'll follow it till it lands him somewhere ; he merely hasn't yet found his place in the world. Shall you send him to college?"
"He can go if he cares to."
20 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
"That's right. I'd even advise him, if I were you, to take a course. College is sometimes a great eye opener."
From that day forward George was allowed a little more time to spend as he chose. To his father's sur- prise, he did not waste it absolutely in doing nothing, though he fell into what was, in the elder's eyes, the next worst thing — a habit of tinkering for hours to- gether on some toy device. His most ambitious amusement, perhaps, was playing with a little boat which he launched on the canal, equipped with a screw propeller engine built almost wholly by his own hands. Though it was never evident to his father or brothers just what he was trying to do with this craft, there appeared to be lurking in his own mind some conception of a more efficient motor than that which had served him as a model. Now and then his evolutions with his boat would result in its tipping over, but he never suffered any damage more severe than a soaking, for he had learned to take care of himself pretty well in the water. And thereby hangs a tale which we may as well recall in passing.
One of the young men in the Westinghouse works was William Ratcliffe, with whom for some time George worked at the same bench. They grew to be fast friends, and used to put in their infrequent holi- days at some job of their own concocting. Mr. Rat- cliffe still owns a sleigh which they built thus in part- nership, and which is as good today as on the day they put it together. They also took a fancy at one time to make violins. George had studied the mechanism of one, and believed that he could not only construct
"THE AGE TWIXT BOY AND YOUTH" 21
an instrument but learn to play it if he could find the right teacher. A few practical efforts in that line, however, convinced him that he had no ear, and he gave up the notion.
Ratcliffe was fond of swimming and soon taught George the art ; and in the warm weather the pair used to frequent a spot in the Mohawk which was a favorite with the town boys, who varied their frolics in the water with a few on land, like tying one an- other's clothes into hard knots, or spiriting them away and leaving the owners to prowl around for a half- hour unclad. To guard against such tricks, the more prudent of the bathers fell into the way of hiding their garments in remote places. George became so enthusiastic about swimming and diving that dur- ing the season his mind was full of these sports when- ever not immediately occupied with the work he had in hand. One night his parents were awakened by a sound as of some heavy body falling in an adjoining chamber. Running in there, they found George squirming about on the floor stark naked. Their questions at first evoked only a stupid attempt at response ; but, as his mind gradually cleared, he ex- plained that he had been dreaming of being on the river bank, and, divesting himself of his scant rai- ment, he had dived from his bed into what he imag- ined was deep water, and by a narrow chance had escaped without broken bones. Then came a search for his nightgown, which, under the spell of his dream, he had taken pains to hide from his prankish play- mates. All over the upper story of the house prowled father, mother, and son, peering into every nook and
22 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
cranny which seemed likely to have attracted him, but in vain : and it was not till several days after- ward that the missing garment was accidentally dis- covered, squeezed behind a trunk which stood flat against the wall.
The school George attended was in a building at the corner of Union and College streets, which, hav- ing passed through a half-century of vicissitudes, had little about it to gratify the eye or stimulate the am- bition of the young people under its roof. To his father's suggestion that he prepare for college, George had assented less because it appealed to him than because he had no particular argument to raise against it. A few of his schoolfellows of this period are still living in Schenectady, and remember George as a rather inept pupil. It was not that his mind was dull ; but the books he was required to study failed as a rule to stir his imagination, and he had only an indifferent gift of self-expression. However good an understanding he might have of a subject, as soon as he was called to his feet before his class, his power of translating thought into words seemed to suffer a temporary paralysis, and he would stumble through the exercise as if he were trusting wholly to guesswork. Penmanship and spelling gave him a deal of trouble, and he found grammar a deadly burden. This puz- zled most of his teachers, because his logical faculties, when applied to something which had captured his fancy, struck them as considerably above the average. He was also keen as to everything mathematical, and in free-hand drawing he excelled all competitors with circles that were round, and lines that were
"THE AGE TWIXT BOY AND YOUTH" 23
straight, and angles that measured the required num- ber of degrees.
Only one member of the school faculty appears to have fully comprehended him. This was a woman who combined unusual skill as an instructor with a most attractive personality and a sympathetic man- ner. George surrendered himself unreservedly to her gentle sway. She seemed to recognize in him a certain quality not found in the other boys she taught, and to have an intuitive sense of the reasons why he hated one thing and liked another with such intensity ; and she adapted her treatment of him to these peculiarities. As a result, he was almost ro- mantic in his attachment to her, and the impress she made on his life was always gratefully acknowl- edged by him, his appreciation manifesting itself in many kindnesses he was able to extend to her in later years.
In the midst of his preparatory schooling came on the Civil War, and George, though only fourteen years of age, was smitten with the prevalent martial fever. So were two of his brothers, Albert and John. Mr. Westinghouse was an ardent patriot, but he knew little of the spirit with which the Southern States had entered the Confederacy, and believed, like so many other loyalists in the North, that the hostilities would not last long after the Government had made a real show of strength. Hence, when the older boys expressed their purpose to enlist, he advised them to wait a while, and they reluctantly consented. John persisted, however, in hovering about the recruiting officers who came that way, and
24 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
used to regale George, as they worked together on Saturdays, with a rehearsal of the war stories gleaned from these men. George had gradually developed a preference for working in metals over working in wood ; John had encouraged this tendency, and they had formed a habit of cooperating in various small- scale engineering enterprises. Their talks about sol- diering had stimulated George to a degree where he was ready to do something desperate for the sake of getting a taste of the real experience. In his own mind he reasoned out the situation about like this : Albert and John both wished to go to war but were prevented because they had been so imprudent as to mention the subject in the family circle ; his wise plan, therefore, would be to avoid interference by holding his tongue till the psychological moment, and then running away.
He was tall for his age, and uncommonly mature of countenance ; and though his figure was spare, his large bones and good muscles indicated that he would in due time acquire a sturdy build. Unfor- tunately for his project, he was by nature too candid to be a successful secret-keeper; and this trait, as well as a boyish craving for companionship, led him to take half a dozen of his best friends into his con- fidence and propose that they all run away together and not return till they had distinguished themselves by deeds of valor on the battlefield. The suggestion was not generally received with warmth ; many of the boys agreed that it would be a great lark, but did not dare invite the parental wrath by so bold a de- fiance ; others thought they might try it later, after
"THE AGE TWIXT BOY AND YOUTH" 25
they saw how their home-folk took the news of some other fellow's escapade. When the time for a final decision arrived, only one comrade was ready to go with him the whole length, and at once.
One morning Mrs. Westinghouse had occasion to call upon George to do an errand for her, but was unable to find him anywhere about the house. She felt sure that he had not gone to school, for his strap- ful of books still lay where he had tossed it the after- noon before. Having looked for him upstairs and down, and called his name repeatedly from front windows and back, she gave up the search. A neigh- bor came in breathless, with the information that George had been seen that morning walking toward the railroad station with a carpetbag in his hand, and apparently trying to avoid observation.
"Are you positive it was my George?" demanded the mother, too astonished to trust her hearing.
" There is no question about it," the visitor assured her; "and one of the boys next door says George has been telling him for some time that he was watch- ing his chance to run away and go to war."
In another minute Mrs. Westinghouse had dis- patched her housemaid to the Works with a message to her husband, apprising him of these unexpected developments. The good man did not seem at all upset, but, with a quick glance at the clock, reached for his hat and quitted the building.
George, meanwhile, having put into a carpetbag a few essential articles of clothing, had slipped away soon after breakfast and taken his course through back streets and alleys to the station, where an ac-
26 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
commodation train was made up daily for the East. He found his co-conspirator already on hand, though not quite so enthusiastic as at their latest previous meeting, and, as they had a few minutes to wait, George improved the time by pumping fresh vigor into the other boy's resolution ; then, the train having drawn up on the track in front of them, they were able to enter the nearest car and settle down in a forward seat headed for their hearts' desire. The minutes lagged like hours while the adult passengers climbed on one by one, and George had considerable difficulty in keeping his back turned toward the rear of the car in such a way as to elude recognition by any of his parents' friends who might be traveling that morning.
At last the fateful instant came. The conductor sounded his brisk warning outside, "All aboard!", entered the car in which the boys sat, and promptly reached for the bell rope. Before he had a chance to pull it, however, appeared another actor on the scene. He was a man about fifty years of age, of stalwart frame, clad in a gray cloth suit and a soft hat, and wearing an expression on his face which was certainly serious and perhaps a trifle stern. Boarding the train as if he owned it, he called to the conductor to wait a moment. Everybody in the car turned to see who thus peremptorily held it back — everybody, that is, except George : he did not need to turn, for he had recognized the voice, and a sudden chill had run down his spine as he heard it. He was conscious that the newcomer was taking long strides through the car from rear to front ; then he glanced up to see
"THE AGE TWIXT BOY AND YOUTH" 27
his father standing before him, with a beckoning finger outstretched. Mr. Westinghouse was not at all excited in manner, or apparently out of breath, though he had been obliged to hurry more than was his wont. He uttered no reproaches, he did not even raise his voice above its ordinary pitch as he said: " George, I guess you'd better come back home !"
As was customary with any one to whom Mr. Westinghouse began a suggestion with his charac- teristic "I guess you'd better," no time was wasted about complying. There was no debate, no ques- tioning, no explanation or other dilatory recourse. George, thoroughly crestfallen, fished out his carpet- bag from under the seat and followed his father to the rear door and down the platform steps, looking to neither right nor left. He was dimly aware that his martial-minded companion was treading closely on his heels, and that the feet of the trio were barely firm on the ground before the belated bell rang, the whistle responded, and the train which was to have borne him to glory was off without him.
Mr. Westinghouse walked home with his son and saw him start for school, where a tardy mark was waiting for him ; this he did not mind very much, but there was also a sardonic grin on the faces of some of the mates to whom he had confided his plans, and this he did mind a good deal. However, his feelings were considerably salved when he met his family at the noonday meal and observed their general dis- position to ignore the incident till, just before they were leaving the table, his father said: " Perhaps,
28 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
George, when you are old enough to know your own mind and understand what it all means — if the war lasts till then — you may be free to go. But don't count on it too surely. I hope there'll be an end to the fighting long before that."
CHAPTER III SOLDIER AND SAILOR, STUDENT AND SWAIN
BY the summer of 1862, Mr. Westinghouse had changed his mind about the duration of the war, and in August Albert enlisted in the Sixth New York Volunteer Cavalry. During the ill-fated advance toward Richmond in the spring of 1863 he was taken prisoner at Spottsylvania Court House, but was paroled a few days later, and in September was trans- ferred to the Second New York Veteran Volunteer Cavalry, with a lieutenant's commission. Mean- while conscription had begun, a drawing was an- nounced to be held in Schenectady, and John was able to face his father with the fact that the only alternative now lay between offering his services to the Government voluntarily and taking his chance of having to render them under compulsion. Mr. Westinghouse admitted that this was true, and with- drew all further objection to his volunteering. He therefore took immediate advantage of an offer, made him some time before, of an appointment as an Acting Third Assistant Engineer in the navy, and set off for Washington to see about it.
George, spurred to fresh activity by John's ex- ample, reopened the subject with his father by a
30 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
reminder that he was now nearly seventeen, sound and strong, and presumably as well able as he would be later to judge for himself in such matters.
"Perhaps you are right, my son," assented Mr. Westinghouse, and that afternoon George packed his effects for the next move.
As John had procured his commission through his father's partners, one of whom possessed consider- able influence with their Representative in Congress, George went to them to find out whether they could not get for him also an appointment to a position where he would have machinery to handle, and an assignment to the same ship on which John was serv- ing. When they told him that that was out of the question, he decided to try for the army instead, in the hope that by some good luck he might find his way to where his brother Albert was. Accordingly, he sought a recruiting station in New York, where he laid his desires before the officer in charge.
"I'm afraid," remarked that gentleman, eyeing him critically, and with a half-repressed smile which George could not then understand, "we can't do all you wish right away. Just now it looks as if Lee's army may break through into Pennsylvania, and we are busy enlisting an emergency force to drive him back if he attempts it. You've never served before, you say?"
"No," said George, "I'm only seventeen, and my father's kept me back till now."
The officer's face sobered again, and his voice was very kindly as he replied :
"I see — I see. Well, how would you like to try
GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE From a War Time Portrait
SOLDIER, SAILOR, STUDENT, AND SWAIN 31
the thirty-days' service for a start ? It will give you a little experience, and show you how well soldiering agrees with you. We're trying to fill up the Twelfth. Will you sign?"
" What position can I get in the regiment, if I do ?"
" I fancy you will have to take a gun and a knap- sack, my boy, until you've proved what's in you. Once in the field, it will depend on yourself how far up you climb."
"All right. That suits me."
George signed the roll and dropped into his place at the tail of a squad who were about to be looked over by the surgeon. Two days later he was off for the front.
At the end of his brief experimental term, which was marked by no exciting episode, he was more de- sirous than ever of seeing some real soldier life ; so he offered himself as a three-years' recruit for the Sixteenth New York Volunteer Cavalry. Here he renewed his inquiry about a commission.
"You are rather young to shoulder the responsi- bilities of an officer," was the answer.
''But I've already been broken in," he pleaded, "and I've learned a thing or two about taking care of men."
" Why don't your raise a company of your own, then, and command it?"
" I would in a minute, if I had the chance."
"That can be managed, I dare say, as far as the chance is concerned. Where would you go for your men?"
"Back in Schoharie County, where I was born.
32 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
I know lots of fellows out there who'd enlist if we only got hold of them the right way."
To his surprise and pleasure, George received the next morning an assignment to recruiting duty in the district he had named, coupled with the condition that, if he brought back fifty acceptable men, he would be recommended for a lieutenancy. He went off in high spirits, visiting first his old home, Central Bridge, which he found pretty well stripped of avail- able material, though two men promised to join his troop. At Schoharie, Middleburg, and other well- settled points in the county, he discovered a like state of affairs. Then he pushed for the outlying country. A favorite resort of his boyhood had been the picturesque neighborhood of Fultonham, where Lorenzo Stewart, an old and valued employee of his father's, was living. Stewart took a lively interest in George's errand, but held out few hopes of success.
"I suspect this part of the county is short of the kind of young men you are after," he explained, going over the names, one by one, of the farmer boys they both knew. Most of the eligibles, it appeared, had already gone south with the I34th New York.
"All right," said George, "then I'll try my luck with the slouters."
"Slouters" was the cant term used locally to desig- nate a thriftless class of people who lived back among the hills, subsisting ordinarily nobody knew how, and descending into the valleys only when cold or hunger forced them to seek a short job of work.
"It will do you no good to go there, either," Stewart assured him. "John Cater has got ahead
SOLDIER, SAILOR, STUDENT, AND SWAIN 33
of you. He came back from the army, all dressed up and sleek-looking, and carried off every slouter in sight."
But George was out for game, and would not let himself be diverted from his quest. Stewart stood by him manfully, and took pains to see that he should be included in all the "apple cuts" and other rustic merrymakings held thereabout during his stay. The fine-looking young soldier in his smart uniform created no slight flutter among the assembled maidens, and put their swains to the blush for some excuse for not themselves wearing the blue. George thoroughly enjoyed his visit among the scenes of his childhood, now that he had become a person of more consequence. It was a sore disappointment, how- ever, that he could pick up only his two recruits at Central Bridge and fifteen elsewhere in the county ; but with this small contingent he reported at head- quarters, nursing the hope that a commission might be issued to him in view of all he had tried to do.
"Too bad, my boy, but you can't turn seventeen into fifty," was the good-humored but positive re- sponse to all his arguments. Back to the war, there- fore, went George again as a private soldier. Of what he did and how he fared in his second term of service, not much is known, beyond the fact that the experience was in some respects disappointing. He had joined the cavalry expecting that it would be easier to ride than to walk, but was disillusioned by the discovery that he would have to take care of his horse every night before getting any rest for himself. His campaigning was confined to northern Virginia ;
34 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
it consisted chiefly of scouting duty, designed to out- wit the tricks of Mosby's guerrillas and involving a maximum of hard work for a minimum of glory.
Although in later years he enjoyed his participation in the war as a reminiscence, he never volunteered it as a topic of conversation. When some other veteran of the citizen soldiery was dining with him they would exchange recollections, or when some of his more youthful guests would question him he would talk most pleasantly about his army life, telling how he and his camp mates soaked their hard-tack in frying- pan grease to make it eatable, and cooked bacon and chicken in the open fire wrapped in. paper and smothered in clay ; how they captured a pig against orders ; how he once made a bread pudding with his own hands and how good it tasted ; what happened to him on picket duty, and the like. To all who heard him tell these stories, it was a subject of regret that during his military service he kept no diary or other personal memoranda. He was not fond of composition, and only a few fragments of his sparse correspondence are still preserved.
From a letter sent home in December by a Sche- nectady boy in the Second New York Veteran Cav- alry, we learn that George had recently been at Camp Stoneman, near Washington, to visit his brother Albert, then a lieutenant with a splendid record for gallantry and efficiency. From the same note it appears that a man-of-war had just arrived at the Washington Navy Yard with John Westinghouse aboard, and that the brothers were to have a reunion. Odds and ends of information, gathered from various
SOLDIER, SAILOR, STUDENT, AND SWAIN 35
sources and pieced together, indicate that all three boys were furloughed to spend Christmas with their friends in the North. A family gathering was to be held at the house of a relative in New York, and the brothers, with a young cousin, were on the way to it when, as they passed the barracks in City Hall Park, Albert left his companions to enter the building for a brief errand. He rejoined them in a few minutes with an air of deep concern.
" I can't go with you, after all," he said. " I must return to camp at once." With that he shook hands all round in farewell and reentered the barracks. Their glimpse of his receding figure as the door closed behind him was the last any of the party ever saw of him. A little later he and his men sailed for New Orleans.
On Christmas day, 1864, just one year after the marred festivity, it fell to Herman, then a lad of eleven, to break to his parents the news of Albert's death in the battle of McLeod's Mills, Louisiana. He received it from a neighbor who had lost a son in the same fight. Mr. Westinghouse bore the blow with the stoic resignation of a man who had long ago counted the cost ; Mrs. Westinghouse was terribly broken by it, and was never the same woman after- ward. Albert had been distinctly the " mother's boy " of the little group.
A few months before this, George, who still had a yearning to try his hand at marine engineering, had decided to shift from the army to the navy. Soon after joining the cavalry he had risen to be a corporal, but promotion beyond that threatened to be slow;
36 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
and on December I, 1864, by virtue of his good mili- tary record, and of an examination which, thanks to his mechanical training, he passed with marked credit, he was appointed an Acting Third Assistant Engineer, and ordered at once to duty on the ship Muscoota. Later he served on the Stars and Stripes, and in the Potomac flotilla. His friend Ratcliffe, loyal to their youthful companionship, lent him a lathe to keep on shipboard, and with its aid he improved his odd hours in building a small model of a sawbuck engine.
The next year the war ended. George came home in the summer, and John, who meanwhile had been promoted one grade, followed late in the autumn. George showed a marked improvement as the result of his experience in the armed service. Before leav- ing home he had been considerably developed on his social side and learned to control his temper, through his association with so many boys of his own age at the high school. To this his discipline as soldier and sailor had added the habit of standing straighter and bearing himself with dignity, and of applying a keener observation to everything. He never seemed to be seeking for new ideas, but absorbed them wher- ever he went, and after they had been duly digested they always bore fruit in experiment. His father was pleased with his increased manliness and quick- ened senses, but did not understand his mental pro- cesses much better than of old ; to all his family, indeed, he still seemed a good deal of a dreamer.
It was doubtless this conception which prompted his father to remind him, within a few days of his return, of his agreement to take a college course. He
SOLDIER, SAILOR, STUDENT, AND SWAIN 37
did not need the reminder, having already begun preparation for his academic martyrdom by taking some of his old school textbooks from the shelf on which they had lain untouched during his absence, and running over a few subjects on which he felt un- certain. The records of Union College show that he was admitted to the scientific department, sopho- more class, on the fifteenth of September, 1865. The college then contained one hundred and ninety students, all of whom, according to the published rules, were expected to live on the campus, though in George's case this requirement was relaxed at his father's solicitation so that he could live at home.
Of the personality of George at this period we glean a hint here and there which shows that it must have impressed the minds of his mates rather deeply in order to have enabled them to remember it as well as some of them do after the lapse of a half century. The Reverend Walter Scott of Boston, for example, pictures him as a tall, well-proportioned young man, with an air of self-reliance and an unusually mature appearance. "I recall," says Mr. Scott, "his ener- getic walk across the campus to the engineering rooms. He had the manner of a man with a definite purpose, pursuing a straight course toward that end. I think he mingled little with the students, owing probably to his absorption in mechanical studies and also to the fact that he had no room in the college buildings."
Other contemporaries bear like witness, though none whom I have been able to reach has gone much into detail as to George's mode of life before and after his working hours, his associations, or his
38 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
nontechnical tastes. One reason for this perhaps lies in the shortness of his collegiate career, for he left about the Christmas holidays. His class register gives him a mark of 12.50 for the fall term, the highest mark won by any one for the year being 25.50. These figures are not especially enlightening, as the scale on which they were based cannot now be ascertained; but the weight of evidence indicates that he did not distinguish himself in the sphere of book-learning. He was repeatedly absent with no better excuse than his desire to look on at some me- chanical operation then in progress in the town or neighborhood, appearing quite oblivious of the fact that college classes could not be conducted on a basis of haphazard attendance.
The lines of study pursued during the fall term were the French and German languages, solid geom- etry, and English rhetoric, essays, and vocal train- ing. In the geometry sessions he seems to have had no difficulty in keeping his attention fixed, but the English branches were tiresome to him. For the foreign tongues he had neither taste nor talent, and made no secret of the fact. Professor William Wells, who taught them, used to declare as the frviit of a long experience that it was folly to attempt to proph- esy the man from the boy, citing the case of young Westinghouse as his most potent illustration. "He was my despair/' Doctor Wells would explain. " Not only was it impossible to stir his active interest in the work of the class, but, while the other boys were struggling with German syntax or French pronuncia- tion, he would amuse himself making pencil drawings
SOLDIER, SAILOR, STUDENT, AND SWAIN 39
on his wristbands. His sketches were always of locomotives, stationary engines, or something of that sort."
In view of the way he had spent so much of his time, George was not greatly surprised at receiving a message one day from Doctor Hickok, the acting head of the college, asking him to call at the presi- dent's office, and he responded in expectation of a severe scolding if nothing worse. It did surprise him to have the Doctor greet him in the pleasantest manner, invite him to be seated, and open their con- versation with the inquiry :
" Westinghouse, how do you like college, now that you have given it a little trial?"
For a moment George was at a loss for an answer ; he could not honestly say that he liked it, though on the other hand he was fair-minded enough to realize that this was less the fault of the college than his own.
"I dare say I should like it very well," he said, after a short pause, "if I had time to give my mind to my studies." He then proceeded to explain at length certain inventions he was engaged in trying to develop.
It was now Doctor Hickok's turn to be taken at a disadvantage ; he had not looked for such frankness, or for so lucid an exposition of the mechanical prin- ciples involved in George's plans.
" After what you have told me," said he, "it is plain that you would be wasting your time and your gifts in staying here and pursuing studies in which you have no heart. I will see your father at once, and put your case before him."
40 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
George drew a deep sigh of relief. If so high an authority as Doctor Hickok advised his following his natural bent, he felt sure of being released from his compact and allowed to return to the occupations he loved. This assumption proved correct, though Mr. Westinghouse shook his head sadly over the collapse of his hope of making George a scholar — a hope born of his fancied discovery that his son would never be good for much of anything else ! But, pitiful as the admission of failure might be, he granted it with the best grace he could, and told George he might go to work at the bench. George hesitated.
"Well, what's the matter ?" asked Mr. Westing- house.
"We might as well settle the wage now, Father. "
"You can have the same pay you were getting when you left off — a dollar a day, wasn't it?"
"Nine shillings. That was enough for the boy I was before I went away ; but I am practically a man now, and if I am worth anything I am worth a man's wages. Give me two dollars a day and I stay here ; otherwise I go where I can get that."
" I had intended, George, to start you again at the old figure and give you an opportunity to show how much more you were worth to the business. If you had done well, you would have earned promotion soon. However, I am willing to give you a trial at two dollars, on the understanding that if you fall short of what is expected of you we go back to nine shillings."
Apparently George laid himself out to prove his
SOLDIER, SAILOR, STUDENT, AND SWAIN 41
value to his father, lending a hand wherever he could be useful. Regardless of what he might be doing, however, his mind was busy with one special topic, of which the suggestion had grown out of his service in the navy. Before he left home he had built a rotary engine, which was novel enough in some of its features to secure a patent. His life on ship- board, though short, had enabled him to study marine engineering on its practical side, and all his investigations had tended to confirm his original belief that in this field, if not everywhere, the rotary principle was bound to supersede the reciprocating in the construction of motive machinery. Now and then his restlessness would get the better of him, and he would grasp at the chance of going away from Schenectady to transact an outside negotiation for the firm.
It was while returning from one such expedition to Albany that he was held up by an accident of not infrequent occurrence in those days of small rails and light rolling stock. Two rear cars of a train running just ahead of his had jumped the track, and all traffic on that section was blocked for two hours. George and a fellow traveler spent most of the time watching the wrecking crew as they grappled with one car after another, painfully prying it back, inch by inch, till it could be finally jacked over to its place on the track. As the work neared its end, George, who had been unusually silent for several minutes, remarked with some impatience : "That was a poorly handled job ! "
"It was tedious, " admitted his friend, "but that couldn't be helped. "
42 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
"Yes, it could. They could have done the whole thing in fifteen minutes by clamping a pair of rails to the track, and running them off at an angle like a frog, so as to come up even against the wheels of the nearest derailed car. Then, by hitching an engine to the car, they could have shunted it back into place. In fact, it wouldn't be a bad idea for a railroad com- pany to put together a car-replacer on that principle, and have it on hand for use in emergencies."
"Why don't you make one and sell it to the railroads?"
"That's a good idea. I'll do it."
Before he went to bed that night George had thought out his plan. The next morning he made his drawings, and as soon as he had prepared a model he carried it to his father. Mr. Westinghouse examined it, but without expressing great enthusiasm.
"It will cost money to carry out that scheme," he said as he handed back the model. " If it's worth anything, somebody will steal your idea — "
"I shall patent it, of course," George broke in.
"Yes, yes, I know. But you will have to pay the Government's charges and your lawyer's fees, and then will come the expense of manufacturing and marketing. You'll let yourself in for a pretty penny before you're through ; and where's the money coming from ?"
"I thought probably you'd lend it to me."
"My son, if I have learned one lesson in life, it is, to stick to things I know something about. Now, I do know threshing machines, and horse powers, and all that, but I don't know railroads. Neither
SOLDIER, SAILOR, STUDENT, AND SWAIN 43
do you. If you are bound to go into this business, I don't suppose I can stop you ; but you will have to make my share a very small one."
George realized that when his father took such a stand it was time thrown away to argue the question. But his belief that he had a good idea had not been weakened by the discussion, and, with his father's little contribution in his pocket, he seized his first opportunity to call upon several men in the city who were recognized as shrewd investors and laid his plan before them. Some put him aside with slight atten- tion, but two of his business acquaintances were willing to risk small sums in his venture. A part- nership was thus formed, each of the two capitalists contributing five thousand dollars and George his father's modicum of money and the right to use his patent. Under their contract, also, he was to travel for the concern.
The work done on this device had brought him into contact with other problems of railway construction and operation, among them being the making of a more durable frog than the cast-iron ones then in use. This part of a railroad track is subjected to severe service, and the wear upon it is so great that frequent replacing of the frogs was necessary, in- volving a heavy cost for material and labor and seri- ous interference with traffic during replacement. The remedy Westinghouse proposed was the em- ployment of cast steel instead of cast iron and the making of the frog reversible, so that when one side was worn out it could be turned over. By the com- bined use of the more durable metal and the feature
44 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
of reversal, the life of the frog was increased more than twentyfold, resulting in its very extended em- ployment. The right to use his patent on this in- vention he assigned to the firm, as he had his replacer patent.
In connection with this development, it is inter- esting to record the fact that Westinghouse was probably the first man, in our country at least, and possibly in the world, to produce steel castings, as that term is now applied. This is an art that has very slowly developed through many difficulties until it has attained a most important status in metal- lurgical production. He knew nothing about the subject except what he had picked up by scant oppor- tunities for observation in early attempts to have his car-replacers and frogs made at existing steel plants ; but he saw no reason why steel castings could not be produced, and so went ahead with his plans to the extent that was necessary for his particular purpose.
The experimental car-replacers and frogs were made at Troy, New York, and at Pompton, New Jersey. It was after he had invented the frog, but before his patent on it had been issued, that, having been to Pompton to ascertain what arrangements he could make for its manufacture, he was starting for home from New York by the Hudson River Railroad, when he met with an adventure which gave a fresh zest to his life. His train was crowded with pas- sengers. He could have found a seat in the smoking car, but as he did not smoke he preferred trying his fortune elsewhere. Not until he reached the last car did he find a vacant place, and that was beside
SOLDIER, SAILOR, STUDENT, AND SWAIN 45
a young woman whose appearance attracted him instantly. In a few minutes he had engaged her in conversation and drawn forth the information that her home was in Roxbury, New York, but that she had friends in Brooklyn, and was now on her way to visit relatives in Kingston. Shortly before she reached her destination, he expressed the hope that she would allow him to continue their acquaintance. The modest hesitancy with which she received the suggestion reminded him that she knew nothing about him except what he had incidentally let fall in the course of their chat ; and, with characteristic resourcefulness, he tore a page from his notebook and scribbled on it the addresses of three or four substantial persons who could answer any questions concerning his antecedents and character. She ap- peared to be reassured by his manner, for she con- sented to his calling upon her, and when he re- mounted the car platform after helping her off he was as jubilant as if he had won a great triumph. The first thing he did on reaching Schenectady was to seek the pastor of the church he attended, and ask him to write a letter to the young lady, stating who he was, and the standing of the Westinghouses in the community.
His family was struck with his light-heartedness when he came to the tea table that evening, and one of his sisters rallied him a little on it.
11 You look as if you had won a prize in a lottery," she said.
"I am not sure that I have won it yet," he re- sponded, "but I think I have a good chance."
46 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
Mr. and Mrs. Westinghouse exchanged quick glances. Both disapproved strongly of anything in the nature of gambling, and were somewhat startled at his confession. He let the whole party puzzle over his case for a few minutes before he explained :
"I've met the woman I am going to marry."
Mr. Westinghouse regarded him with a quizzical air.
'The woman you are going to marry, eh?" he commented, with mock seriousness. "And are you proposing to support her, or is she to support you ?"
"I've no fear that I can't take care of a wife," was George's self-sufficient answer.
''You haven't built your house yet, I suppose?"
"No, we may come here for a while and build the house later."
"Ah!"
That was all anybody said at the time, but that George was in earnest was evident when, after two visits to Kingston and three to Roxbury, he an- nounced to his mother that he was the accepted lover of Marguerite Erskine Walker ; that they had de- cided to be married in Brooklyn on the eighth of the following August, and that he would like to bring his wife home till they could find a house suited to their needs and purse.
GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE AND MRS. WESTINGHOUSE DURING THEIR EARLIER DAYS OF WEDDED LIFE
CHAPTER IV OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR
To the reader whose traveling days have fallen within the last quarter-century, the air brake in use on the modern railroad is so much a matter of course that it might have existed from the beginning of time. How recent an invention it is, and what a revolution it has accomplished, can be appreciated only by those of us who can remember the conditions that prevailed before its coming.
Hand-braking was both difficult and dangerous. A brakeman stood between every two cars on a pas- senger train, and, at a point about half a mile from the next stopping place, he would begin to turn a horizontal handwheel on one platform so as to tighten slowly a chain that set the brakes on a single pair of wheels. When he had wound the chain taut he would step across to the opposite platform and repeat the operation on the handwheel there. No matter how skilled all the brakemen on a train might be, their work was always uneven, for no two cars would respond to the brake with the same promptness, and the slower ones would bump into the quicker, adding to the hazards of the task. A freight train was harder to care for than a passenger train, because
48 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
the brakemen had to ride on top of the cars in all weathers, with the liability of being knocked off by a low bridge, frozen in midwinter, or, on windy or slippery nights, missing their footing and falling between the cars.
These possibilities and others were brought vividly before the mind of young Westinghouse one day when he was on his way from Schenectady to Troy to meet an engagement at the Bessemer Steel Works. His train coming to a sudden standstill midway be- tween stations, he got off, with several fellow pas- sengers, to ascertain the cause of the delay. A short distance ahead the distorted hulks of two loco- motives, and a stretch of track strewn with over- turned or broken cars and the remains of what had been a solid cargo of merchandise, told their story : two heavily loaded freight trains had come together with a crash. The day was clear, the roadbed at that point was level, the track was well railed and smooth and straight ; it seemed as if a collision could hardly have occurred except through gross careless- ness. Westinghouse suggested as much to one of the company's employees who was standing near, supervising the clearing of the track.
"No/* answered the man, "the engineers saw each other, and both tried their best to stop, but they couldn't."
"Why not? Wouldn't the brakes work?"
"Oh, yes, but there wasn't time. You can't stop a train in a moment."
This remark rang in the young man's ears the rest of the day. Fortunately, no lives had been lost in
OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR 49
the wreck, but his train was delayed so long that he missed his appointment, and the annoyance gave pungency to questions which kept rising in his mind : They hadn't time? Why not? Suppose one of those trains had been full of passengers instead of freight ? Suppose it had been the train he was riding on ? Here was a subject even better worth studying than the replacement of derailed cars, which had commanded so much of his attention as the result of an earlier accident.
Obviously, the key to the collision lay in the lapse of time between the "down brakes" whistle and the clamping of the brake shoes on the wheels. The engineers doubtless acted quickly enough when they apprehended the danger ; but, if, instead of sounding a signal to several other men, these two had been able to apply the brakes instantly themselves, the possibilities of damage would at least have been re- duced to a minimum. How could this be made practicable ?
The first idea that occurred to him was to connect the brakes on the several cars with the coupling mechanism in such a way that when the steam was shut off and the brakes were set on the locomotive by the engineer, the consequent closing-up of the cars would automatically set their brakes also. A few experiments, however, with a miniature ap- paratus rigged up in his father's shop, convinced him that the scheme would be quite unworkable if the ounces of his little model were translated into the tons of a real train. Walking one Sunday afternoon past a siding on which stood a few idle freight cars,
50 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
another thought came to him : Why would it not be perfectly feasible to extend underneath the whole train a long brake chain, which could be suddenly drawn taut by some device close to the hand of the engineer, and thus bring all the brakes into action? While he was still pondering this question, business called him to Chicago. Here he was talking one day with Superintendent Towne of the Chicago, Bur- lington and Quincy Railroad, when the conversation turned upon increasing the safety of trains by better braking facilities.
"Come in tomorrow afternoon," he said to West- inghouse, as they parted, "and we'll go down to the yard where they make up our prize train, the Aurora Accommodation. We've put a brake on that which seems to do all that can be done in the brake line. I'll have the inventor over to meet you, and we'll inspect the train together. You'll find him an in- teresting fellow, and he'll talk brake with you from morning till night if you'll let him."
Westinghouse gladly accepted the invitation. He found the inventor sociability itself, but when he let drop a remark that he, too, was thinking over a braking contrivance, it was not very hospitably received.
"You are throwing away your time, young man," the inventor presently asserted, with an air of finality. "I went all over the ground before completing my invention, and my patents are broad enough to cover everything."
But Westinghouse was not to be so easily fright- ened off. The brake, as he noted on examination,
OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR 51
consisted of a windlass on the locomotive, which could be revolved by pressing a grooved wheel against the flange of the driving wheel, so as to wind up a chain that ran underneath the entire train, just as he had tentatively figured. That the two men should have hit upon the same fundamental feature was not strange, if we reflect that up to that hour no road in the United States used a brake which was not moved by a chain.
The chain of the apparatus was carried along its course by running over a series of rollers connected with the brake levers of every car in such a manner that, as soon as the chain was tightened, the brakes came instantly against the wheels. To Westinghouse the windlass arrangement seemed clumsy, incapable of accurate control, and subject to rapid deteriora- tion under wear. For this, he believed a steam cylinder might be substituted, placed beneath and supplied with steam from the engine, its piston being so connected as to draw the chain taut when desired. Then arose a troublesome question. The Burlington train which was undergoing demonstration consisted of only four or five cars, whereas what he was aiming to devise was a cab-controlled brake system for a train made up of two or three times as many cars and requiring a chain of correspondingly greater length ; and where was the locomotive which could carry a cylinder capable of taking up so much slack ?
To meet this difficulty, he conceived the idea of supplying all the cars with separate cylinders, fed from the engine by connections between the cars. But here came in the factor of temperature ; for even
52 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
in warm weather the steam would be condensed be- fore it had reached the hindmost car, while in winter the condensed steam would freeze. Plainly, he would have to seek some other agency than steam for transmitting power from the cab.
"Opportunity," says the familiar maxim, "knocks once at every man's door." The guise in which it knocked at George Westinghouse's door is worthy of a place among the romances of invention.
It was the noon hour in the office of the Westing- house Works on the canal bank. The heads of the concern had gone home for dinner, and the under- lings who had brought their lunches with them were gathered in groups, talking. Apart from the rest sat George Westinghouse at a table, but looking out of the window as he turned over and over in his mind the most puzzling features of his brake problem. In the midst of his meditations he became vaguely con- scious of the presence of some one close to his elbow. Whoever it was had apparently been standing there some time. Looking up suddenly, his eyes encoun- tered those of a young woman whom he now recalled having noticed when she entered the office, with a somewhat older companion, just after the noon whistle blew. In her hand she carried a brown- covered pamphlet that looked like a magazine. She held this toward him at once.
" I am trying to raise a little money," she explained, "by taking subscriptions for the Living Age. May I show it to you?"
"No, I never read magazines," he answered, waving her away.
OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR 53
"I thought, maybe — " she ventured timidly.
"Try some of those fellows over there," he in- terrupted, motioning toward a table around which four or five young men were gathered in conversation.
"I have tried them," pleaded the girl, "but they all put me off in the same way. It is discouraging." And in response to a beckoning touch from her com- panion she started slowly toward the door. Some- thing in her gentle appearance and manner moved him to repent a little of his brusqueness, and he reached out for the magazine she had proffered him. Opening it at random, and passing over a few pages of fiction and miscellaneous essays, his eye was caught by an article entitled "In the Mont Cenis Tunnel." It looked interesting.
"What are you trying to earn money for?" he inquired.
"I am studying to be a teacher," she said, "and I haven't the means to finish my course. I didn't know what else to do, so I took an agency for the magazine in the hope -
"How far will this go toward a subscription?" he interrupted again. He had fished a bank note from his pocket.
"Two dollars? That will pay for three months."
With a smile, he put down his signature and ad- dress in her order-book. She hesitated, and held out her hand.
"My magazine, please. It's my only sample copy."
"Well, begin my subscription with that number. There's something in it I want to read."
54 GEORGE WESTING HOUSE
She promised and withdrew. He never saw her again, to his knowledge ; but their brief interview was to have momentous consequences.
The magazine came in due time ; in the interval, other matters had become pressing, and it lay un- opened for a few days among his papers at home. Then, one evening, having an hour to spare, he picked it up and turned to the article which had first at- tracted his attention. The author, a recent visitor to the Mont Cenis tunnel, then in course of con- struction, described in picturesque phrases the moun- tain chain, the surrounding country, the approaches. All very well, of course, but what Westinghouse wanted came further on. The engineers in charge, he read, had first considered following the usual prac- tice of sinking vertical shafts or wells from the upper surface at convenient distances apart, and cutting through horizontally from one of these to another; but all the shafts would have been of enormous depth, and one of them, it was estimated, would have re- quired nearly forty years to bore, so that plan had to be abandoned, and the tunnel opened from its opposite ends, the respective gangs working their way toward each other. If they did this by hand, fifty or sixty years must pass before they could meet in the heart of the mountain. Steam machinery might be used for boring; but steam requires fire, and fire feeds on air, and when a gang of laborers had penetrated three miles into the bowels of the earth they would need all the air they could get for their own lungs.
An English engineer had invented an apparatus
OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR 55
which by steam power would drive a drill like a battering-ram against the face of the rock and make holes for blasting. About the same time three Italian engineers, who had been experimenting with com- pressed air as a motor for driving a railway train up a steep incline in the Apennines, conceived the idea that the combination of the air motor with the drilling machine would solve the tunnel-boring prob- lem. The power would cost nothing, and, instead of consuming air, would supply it to the workmen. "The result," the article continued, "has been a perforating machine, moved by common air com- pressed to one sixth its natural bulk, and conse- quently, when set free, exercising an expansive force equal to six atmospheres."
With a triumphant ejaculation, Westinghouse sprang from his chair, and threw the open magazine down on the table. At last he had the answer to his riddle ! If compressed air could be conveyed through three thousand feet of pipe and yet retain enough efficiency to drive a drill through the solid stone heart of a mountain chain, it could certainly be carried the length of a railroad train and still exert the force required to set the brakes on the hindmost car. The discovery was his last waking thought that night, and the first thing to welcome his return- ing consciousness the next morning ; and at once he began making working drawings of the machinery necessary for his purpose.
His brief encounter with the Chicago inventor had taught our young friend prudence, and he scrupu- lously kept his own counsel on the new turn he was
56 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
taking. He still went on his travels from time to time to sell his earlier inventions ; but it had become plain that for the present there was little more money to be made from his reversible frog. This was not because the frog was not as useful as ever, but, since it was made of cast steel, it was so durable that the roads rarely renewed their supply. His partners became restless under the prospect of reduced income, and, after proposing one and another im- practicable scheme for cutting down expenses, they summoned him to a confidential council one day, announcing that they had a matter of grave im- portance to call up.
It was a dismal afternoon when the three men met in the little wooden house which they had adopted as headquarters for their business. The sky, shrouded in dark, threatening clouds, and a cold rain, swept by heavy gusts of wind against the grimy window panes and keeping up a constant fusillade on the roof, united to make a theatrical setting for the scene which followed. Westinghouse was scarcely more than a boy. His partners were men of mature years, recognized in the community as persons of substance. After a few minutes' general discussion of the way sales had declined and the reasons therefor, one of the older men broached the topic which had inspired their desire for a meeting. 'The business," said he, "has become too small for three partners. As two of us have furnished all the capital, while the third has put in merely his time, it seems the logical thing to split right on that line. In other words, you" — addressing Westing-
OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR 57
house — "should either buy us out, or else retire and turn over the whole thing to us."
The young inventor's indignation was stirred by this summary treatment.
"You know very well," he answered, "that I am in no position to buy you out, so what's the use of talking about that?"
"Well," the other reminded him, "we left open an alternative."
"If I retire, what do you propose to pay me for my patents?"
"Nothing. You have had the use of our money from the start, in return for your services as salesman. If necessary, we can hire an outside traveling man to take your place, and lay him off when trade is dull."
By this time George was worked up to a fine fit of temper.
"So you expect me to make you a present of my patent rights?" he cried. "Well, you have missed your guess, for I don't intend to. We'll break up this business here and now, if you say so ; but from the moment you and I part company, you make no further use of my patents without paying me as you would a stranger!"
"We'll see !" sneered the spokesman for the other side.
"We will !" retorted George, hotly, as he buttoned his overcoat about him and strode out into the storm.
The two older men had been prepared for a rather trying interview with their youthful partner, but had not counted on his ending it in this defiant style. With a bride to support and no visible means with
58 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
which to do it, they had looked to see him surrender at discretion. Probably they would have been still more astonished had they heard him, at his father's table that evening, announce his intention of going to Pittsburgh.
"How long shall you be away ? " asked his mother.
"I don't know -- perhaps I'll stay there, if I like it," said George.
This note of confidence delighted his young wife, who declared that nothing would please her better than to live in Pittsburgh, which she had heard was a growing city and interesting. Then George ex- plained that, a few weeks ago, he had learned of a steel-making plant in Pittsburgh which, with its superior facilities, could unquestionably make his replacement apparatus much cheaper than it could be made in mills nearer home, and he had been in correspondence with the concern on the subject, with the intention of laying the matter before his partners as soon as there were definite data to report. Now he was absolved from any obligation to them and could go ahead on his sole responsibility.
He made his journey according to program, with the purpose of arranging for the firm of Anderson and Cook to manufacture the replacer at their own cost and employ him as a traveling salesman. Never having been in Pittsburgh before, he left his luggage at the station on his arrival, and started out to find his way to the office of the firm, which, his notebook told him, was at the corner of Second Avenue and Try Street. He was slowly walking away from the station, hoping to discover some signs to guide him,
OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR 59
when he saw coming toward him a young man of about his own age, tall, good-looking, and well dressed. The stranger espied him at the same moment, and the attraction seemed to be mutual, for they halted, facing each other. Westinghouse explained where he wished to go, and inquired the way. The young man not only pointed it out, but volunteered to go along for a short distance. In a few minutes they had exchanged names, and were chatting like old friends.
The stranger, it appeared, was Ralph Baggaley, a member of one of the most prominent families in Pittsburgh, and the general manager of a local foundry. He had received a part of his education in Germany, and took a keen interest in technical matters. Thus guided, Westinghouse presently found himself at the office of Anderson and Cook, and closeted with the senior partner, who soon ar- ranged with him to start on the road at once and solicit orders from the railroad companies.
Of this opportunity Westinghouse made the most. He filed immediately in the Patent Office at Washing- ton a caveat on his air brake ; and from that day forward every railroad officer with whom he discussed the replacer and frog was required later to listen to an exposition of the brake. It was uphill work. One would feign attention, perhaps, only to show by his questions at the end of the monologue that he had not grasped more than half that his caller had been saying. Another would excuse himself for lack of time before the talk had proceeded far. Among those approached was "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt, who proved a good-enough listener, but
6o GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
then, in the direct manner for which he was famous, dismissed the whole project as too imaginative for serious consideration.
From time to time, Westinghouse would return to Pittsburgh to report progress with his sales. On one of these visits he encountered Baggaley again, and, after an evening's exchange of experiences and opinions, confided to him the air brake scheme. Baggaley was polite, but by no means enthusiastic ; it was plain that, in spite of his friendship for the in- ventor, he regarded the invention as ingenious but visionary. As Westinghouse warmed to his theme, however, and grew not only eloquent, but convincing in his reasoning, Baggaley became infected with his spirit and began to conjure up in his own mind the great possibilities of the device. As he was leaving he said: "Westinghouse, we must lose no time in putting this thing before some of the big men in the railroad world."
The other's face fell.
"I could launch it without much difficulty," said he, "if I had a little capital. I have seen several railroad men already. They have no way of answer- ing my arguments about the value of the invention if it will work, but I haven't found one yet who was willing to stand the expense of giving it a trial."
"Then a man who has money to risk would be of more use to you just now than one who knows railroading?"
"That's it."
"Perhaps your father would help you now, if you put the case before him in that way."
OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS AT THE DOOR 61
Once more George approached his father in the hope of inducing him to buy a fractional interest in the patent ; but, in the correspondence which fol- lowed, Mr. Westinghouse manifested more strongly than ever his distaste for what he still regarded as a pure speculation.
CHAPTER V DOUBT CHANGED TO CERTAINTY
IN spite of his air of confidence, Westinghouse had begun to wonder, after his series of rebuffs, whether there might not be some technical feature of his in- vention which made men of broader training and experience than his suspicious of it. None of them had suggested such a thing, though he had given them plenty of openings ; possibly, he reflected, they were too considerate of his feelings to tell him the truth to his face. He resolved therefore to ob- tain one verdict on which he could depend as un- biased even by courtesy. Baggaley had announced an intention to back the venture with a few thousand dollars he was able to command, so that they could be prepared to take instant advantage of any pro- posal that might suddenly come to them for an ex- periment ; but Westinghouse was reluctant to let his friend assume such a risk till both felt sure that they were on solid ground.
"We are wasting time with so much hesitation," declared Baggaley one day. "Let me put all the drawings, directions, and claims into the hands of a man I know, the most highly skilled mechanical expert in the city of Pittsburgh, and have him pass
DOUBT CHANGED TO CERTAINTY 63
on them. It will cost something, for he gets good fees for his opinions, but I think it will pay in the end."
Westinghouse consenting, this was done. The expert gave the subject his careful scrutiny, and in the course of a fortnight handed back a written opinion, which his young client read with feverish eagerness. It was a sweeping condemnation of the whole scheme as not only unsound but nonsensical. Baggaley hurried with the paper to Westinghouse, who went over it twice before handing it back. The rising color in his face showed that he was angry, but he gave no immediate vent to his feelings.
"How much did your expert charge you for that death sentence?" he asked, after a little.
"One hundred dollars."
"Well, what are you going to do about it?"
"Watch me and see." And Baggaley, setting his teeth hard, tore the manuscript into ribbons and threw it into the grate. As it did not catch at once, he struck a match and lighted the little pile, standing over it till the last fragment of paper had been turned into ashes, and the smoke from it had disappeared up the chimney.
"That's a nice way to treat an expert's report," remarked Westinghouse with grim humor, as he followed the other's motions with his eyes. "Ap- parently you don't consider the fellow's opinion worth so much now as you did before you got it?"
" It was worth the hundred dollars I paid for it — every cent : it has taught me a lesson that I could not have bought otherwise for ten times the money.
64 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
Hereafter I back my own judgment and let outsiders go. George, I'll put up your common sense against the special education of any expert in Christendom ! Now let's get to work, so as to be ready for the show that somebody is sure to give us soon."
Both took fresh heart and plunged in with a will. Although it was an expensive undertaking, Westing- house, with Baggaley's support, prepared the ap- paratus for an experiment as elaborately as if they had a train of cars already at the door, waiting to be equipped. But even the railroad managers to whom the subject was presented in its new light were dis- posed to fight shy of it. Their rolling-stock was already supplied with brakes, they argued, and, while it was always possible that something better than they had might come along, they felt that, if they had procured the best outfit at that time in general use, they had done their duty to the public, and spent as much of their stockholders' money as they had a right to. Now and then one would concede a half-promise that he would lay the question before his directors at their next meeting ; but either he failed to do so, or the directors declined to look into it, and the weeks slipped by till the autumn of 1868 was at hand. In the meantime Westinghouse had brought his wife from Schenectady, and they had established themselves in Pittsburgh in a very modest way.
Then came upon the scene Robert Pitcairn, local superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad, who promptly took a strong fancy to Westinghouse. After lending a sympathetic ear to the usual ex-
DOUBT CHANGED TO CERTAINTY 65
planation of the brake and prophecies of its future importance, "If I can get my people interested," said he, "I believe there is enough in the invention to be worth a fair trial."
The flagging hopes of the young men sprang up with a bound. A few days later, at Mr. Pitcairn's instigation, Superintendent Williams came on from Altoona accompanied by Andrew J. Cassatt, then assistant superintendent of motive power for the company and already recognized as one of its coming notables. The two looked the apparatus over with great particularity, and interrogated its sponsors with an intelligence no one else except Mr. Pitcairn had thus far displayed. This carried the matter a stage further than anything that had preceded it ; they were frank enough to say that they regarded the invention as having more than ordinary merit, but — and here followed the old, familiar reaction - they were not prepared to recommend that their company shoulder the entire expense of a practical demonstration. Could not the young men arrange to bear this, provided the company would furnish the track and the train, the engineer and the crew, free of charge?
No, the young men did not see their way clear to do so. They were sorry, but, in constructing a com- plete equipment for a locomotive and one car, they had already gone to as heavy expense as they felt justified in incurring. Could not the company meet them on a little more advantageous ground? Mr. Cassatt and his companion expressed their serious doubts. If they could individually do just what
66 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
they wished to without consulting any one else, they would be entirely willing to offer more liberal terms for the sake of an experiment. The most they could do was to promise that they would think everything over conscientiously and make a perfectly well- balanced report, but they would hold out no encour- agement to look for a more favorable decision from headquarters.
In the midst of the brief depression which followed this rapid rise and fall of his anticipations, Westing- house received one day an unheralded visit from Superintendent W. W. Card of the Steubenville division of the Panhandle Railroad.
"I understand," said he, "that you have invented a remarkable brake ? "
Westinghouse, hardly able to trust his ears, as- sured Mr. Card that this was the fact, and proceeded to expatiate on the special excellences of his invention. Instead of the polite repression he had learned to expect from railroad officers when he opened his floodgates of panegyric, he met with incitements to go on from one point to another. And not only that, but his extraordinary visitor, after listening atten- tively to all he had to say, examined the sample apparatus, part by part, with an appraising eye, accompanying the inspection with comments which showed that not a word of the explanation had been lost upon him.
"If this will do all it appears capable of," was his summing-up, as he surveyed the mechanism once more in perspective, "you have opened a gold mine, Mr. Westinghouse. The railroads have been waiting
DOUBT CHANGED TO CERTAINTY 67
a long time for a really good brake. What we have now will answer only so long as we can find nothing better in the market. When the right one comes along, it will find the roads all ready for it.'*
A few days later he called again, bringing with him the purchasing agent of his company, who was as much impressed as he had been with the promise the new device held forth ; but, in spite of Card's urgent appeal that he order an experimental outfit and make a practical test at the company's cost, the agent de- clined, on the ground that he dared not take so material a step without authority from the directors. He would, he added, go before the board with Mr. Card and put the case to them as strongly as he could.
He was as good as his word. The directors, how- ever, balked at the proposed outlay, and the net result of the whole negotiation was a written order from the president of the company, Thomas L. Jewett, that the use of a train for a trial trip be placed at the disposal of the inventor, conditioned on the latter's contracting to equip it at his own expense and to reimburse the company for any damage done to locomotive or cars by the attachment of the appa- ratus.
This was no better, really, than the Pitcairn-Cas- satt proposal, but the young men were tired of al- ternate hopes and disappointments, and grasped at it rather than wait longer. They differed only on one point. Westinghouse, with his fervid imagina- tion in full action, was willing to run into almost any debt for the money needed to get ready ; Baggaley,
68 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
who had had some experience in handling funds, insisted that they must keep every expenditure down to the lowest practicable figure. With what they had already done in the way of building a specimen brake apparatus, it took them a comparatively short time to complete their preparations, and on the day appointed they had on hand their air pump, their main reservoir for the locomotive, cylinders for four cars — the maximum length of the accommodation train on which the test was to be made — and the piping and hose connections required to connect the locomotive reservoir with the car cylinders. On the morning fixed for the trial trip, the rear car of the train was reserved for a party of invited guests, in- cluding those officers of the Panhandle company who were not too timid to risk life and limb with an un- tried device, and a few magnates of other companies who seemed to have an open mind on the subject of the new brake.
Daniel Tate, the engineer, was a bright young fel- low, and it did not take Westinghouse a great while to give him the final instructions about the brake so that he felt perfectly confident of his ability to make it work. Westinghouse, as he descended from the cab, grasped Tate's hand and wrung it with warmth.
"All I ask of you, Dan," said he earnestly, "is to give this thing a fair show. Good luck to you !"
Dan nodded a promise, and reached for his bell rope. As he did so, something dropped from his hand, the one Westinghouse had been shaking. It was a little paper wad, which, when he had picked it up and smoothed it out, proved to be a fifty-dollar
DOUBT CHANGED TO CERTAINTY 69
note. Acting on quick impulse to restore what he feared was lost money, he leaned out of the cab and looked down the train ; Westinghouse was just boarding the hindmost car. Their eyes met, and Tate held up the bill. Westinghouse smiled, but motioned him to put it into his pocket. Tate did so, well pleased with the generosity of the gift, but little suspecting that it contained the last dollar the young man had in purse or in prospect.
Within a short distance of the Panhandle station was a tunnel about one sixth of a mile long, piercing Grant Hill and emerging at Fourth Avenue, where accommodation trains were accustomed to halt to pick up passengers. As this trial train was not to stop there, Tate rapidly increased its speed till it was moving at the rate of about thirty miles an hour. Abundant precaution was supposed to have been taken to prevent pedestrians or vehicles from getting upon the track at the two surface crossings between there and the bridge spanning the Monongahela River, beyond which the Panhandle ran into the open coun- try. But, of course, " a fool there was" in the person of a drayman on Second Avenue who disregarded all warnings and pushed ahead till, as his horses stepped into the space between the rails, he saw bearing down upon him, only two blocks away, the big, black front of a locomotive. It was too late to pull back, and in a frenzy of terror he laid the lash with all his might over the animals' flanks. The horses were as badly demoralized as he, and their first response was to plunge forward with a motion which loosened the crosswise plank he was using for
70 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
a seat, and threw him to the ground with his body across one of the rails.
The whole thing had happened in barely an instant of time, and a tragedy was averted only by the quick wit of the engineer. Tate, who had just been turn- ing over in his mind the most effective way of bring- ing the train to a standstill at the first station where it was to halt, reached instinctively for the brake valve and gave it a mighty twist. The air rushed out of the compressor through the pipes into the cylinders beneath the cars, and the pistons brought the brake shoes with force against the wheels. There was a grating sound and a sudden jar as the train came to a stop with the cowcatcher of the locomotive only four feet on the safe side of the unhappy driver.
In the flash of an eye Tate had swung himself out of the cab and was helping the man to his feet. Then, leaving his fireman in charge of the engine, he ran back to see how the stop had affected the train gen- erally. He was met by Westinghouse and a number of the invited guests, most of whom were rubbing their heads or their shins, or pressing their battered hats into shape as they limped along. Every one was eager to know what the matter was, and the pleasure of all at learning that the spasmodic appli- cation of the brakes had saved a human life, was a salve to the discomfort they had suffered from being hurled without warning out of their seats and strewn over the floor of their car, which, as the tail of the train, had received the worst shock. When they had first alighted they had been almost in fighting mood ; but as they climbed back the general verdict
DOUBT CHANGED TO CERTAINTY 71
was that the air brake was capable of doing what its inventor claimed for it. A question was raised whether, having witnessed such a demonstration, they should reverse the train and return to Pitts- burgh ; but the proposal was unanimously voted down, and the whole party proceeded to Steuben- ville as originally planned. Tate treated them, on the way, to several tests which were as satisfying, even if not quite so drastic, as the initial one. He was as pleased with the apparatus as a child with a new toy, and took the utmost pride in showing how easily, and with what varied effects, it could be handled.
When the return trip was ended, Westinghouse, full of elation over his triumph, shook hands with his guests and started for home to tell his wife the news. But before he got many steps away from the station he paused and reentered it, hastening to the telegraph office, where he filed the following despatch to his father in Schenectady :
" My air brake had practical trial today on passen- ger train on Panhandle Railroad and proved a great success. GEORGE. "
He was still sanguine enough to hope that, in the face of such a fulfillment of prophecy, the old gentle- man would experience a change of heart and volunteer an offer to finance the next stage of the business. But nothing of the sort was forthcoming. Mr. West- inghouse was evidently in no haste to make a princely fortune. His only response to the telegram was a short and characteristic letter expressing in prudent
72 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
phraseology his pleasure at reading so favorable a report, and remarking that, the brake having al- ready "proved a great success," of course there would be no further difficulty in procuring all the money needed for manufacturing and marketing it.
The first air brake patent was issued to Westing- house on the thirteenth of April, 1869. But mean- while he had not been idle. Feeling that he now could afford to resign his place as salesman for Anderson and Cook and devote his entire time to the promotion of his new enterprise, he laid certain plans before Baggaley, who gladly joined forces with him. The firm with which Baggaley had been con- nected was dissolved, and its foundry was converted temporarily into a plant for the manufacture of air brakes. Some of the leading officers of the Penn- sylvania Railroad Company, having recovered from their first apathy and being anxious to make up for lost time, fitted out an exhibition train to run to Altoona, primarily to show the working of the new brake to the directors of their corporation, but in- cidentally to perform an important service in pub- licity. A number of newspaper writers were taken along, and in a few days the press everywhere was furnished with the story of the invention.
In Philadelphia, Westinghouse used the same train for demonstration purposes, with many prominent railroad men from various parts of the country as witnesses; among the rest was the general super- intendent of the Chicago and Northwestern system, who was so impressed with what he saw that he in- vited the inventor to bring the train to Chicago and
DOUBT CHANGED TO CERTAINTY 73
exhibit it. This was done, with the effect of intro- ducing the brake to the notice of a number of Western railroad managers who had not yet seen it work. From Chicago Westinghouse was invited to St. Louis, where the same thing was repeated. From that point the brake made its own way without the ex- penditure of any extraordinary effort, and orders began to come in from quarters where the inventor had but recently seen only the cold shoulder turned toward his advances.
In July, 1869, the Westinghouse Air Brake Com- pany was organized under a Pennsylvania charter with a capitalization of five hundred thousand dollars. In these days when we talk of all considerable enter- prises in terms of millions, this seems like a modest start, but measured by the standards of half a cen- tury ago it was regarded as a very heavy responsi- bility for a comparative youth of unknown antece- dents to shoulder. The board of directors was wisely chosen from among the group of men who were familiar with the air brake mechanism and had wit- nessed the experimental tests of its efficiency, and whose names, for the most part, stood for something in the railroad world. These were Robert Pitcairn, W. W. Card, Andrew J. Cassatt, Edward H. Williams, G. D. Whitcomb, Ralph Baggaley, and, of course, Westinghouse, who became first president of the corporation. John Caldwell was elected treasurer.
Everything seemed to be moving along as satis- factorily as could be hoped, when the directors, at one of their meetings, were treated to a shock. A patent expert whom they had engaged to go through
74 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
all the railway brake literature of this and other coun- tries, and ascertain for them just what relation the Westinghouse invention bore to previous essays in the same field, brought in a report that, about thirty years before, essentially the same device had been patented in England, but proved so unpractical that the patent expired before any use had been made of it. The consternation which reigned for a little while was dispelled when Westinghouse, by an analy- sis of the terms of the British patent, showed that the mechanism it covered was unworkable in emer- gencies because, before the brake could be applied, the locomotive driver was required to turn steam into a pump for compressing the air, whereas his own apparatus had the air already stored in a compressor on the locomotive.
The discomforting suggestion conveyed in the report, however, promptly bore good fruit ; for the always lively imagination of young Westinghouse was spurred by it to the question: ''If the English railways are still unequipped with a first-rate air brake, why not sell them mine?" As usual with him, action was quick to follow thought. The Pitts- burgh works had got well under way during the winter of 1869 and 1870, and by the autumn of the latter year he was ready for his invasion of the old world. Although he took his wife with him, it cost him something of a wrench to cut loose from the scene of his first large activities, for he had recently bought a house and lot at Homewood, on the eastern edge of the city, christened the little estate " Solitude ", and Gettled down to his first real experience as lord
DOUBT CHANGED TO CERTAINTY 75
of a domestic establishment. But if he were made a trifle homesick by the prospect of leaving everything on which he had fixed his heart's desire on this side of the water, he felt more so when he reached the other side and found himself in the chilliest atmos- phere he had ever encountered.
CHAPTER VI, "NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS "
AMERICANS who know England and the English only on the hospitable side they present to our coun- try and its people today will have some difficulty in appreciating the situation existing when George Westinghouse made his first entry into London. Up to that time there had not been established any of the reciprocity of cordial sentiment which has characterized the intercourse of the two nations dur- ing the last twenty years. On our part, we were still cherishing the hostile traditions of 1776 and 1812, and resentful memories of the privateering episodes of the early '6o's ; on theirs, there was a sense of rancor at our encouragement, for political purposes, of Irish insurgency and almost everything else that was notoriously anti-English. Moreover, in those days, whatever was associated with American rail- roading was under more or less suspicion in England, owing to several well-advertised misfortunes suffered by English investors in wildcat projects here. The era of corporate inflation opened by our Civil War, the launching of the first crude schemes for trans- continental rail routes, the abuse of the Erie system as a football of professional stock gamblers, and the struggle continually going on between rival specu-
"NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS" 77
lative rings for the control of a few valuable properties for questionable purposes had combined to give the more conservative element in English business circles a notion of American affairs generally as disagreeable as it was unjust.
In view of these conditions, it appeared to West- inghouse a wise precaution to ascertain the feeling of the scientific periodicals toward such an invention as his before attempting to place it in the hands of any of the carrying companies. He made overtures in one or two quarters where, as soon as he announced his nationality, he met with a repulse. The last journal he approached was Engineering, a weekly which he had seen now and then at home, where its original editor, Zerah Colburn, was well known. Two editors had since succeeded Mr. Colburn — Messrs. W. H. Maw and J. Dredge. It so happened that when he made his first call Mr. Maw was out of the office, and he was received by Mr. Dredge, who seemed, in spite of the customary English re- serve, to take an instant liking to him. In a few minutes Westinghouse was deep in his exposition of his air brake. Dredge listened curiously, but gave him no immediate sign of encouragement. At the close of their talk, Westinghouse left with the editor a copy of his patent, with some additional drawings and a popular description prepared by himself. Mr. Dredge consented to examine the documents carefully as soon as he could command the necessary time, and, if he found them satisfactory, to publish his impressions.
"But I warn you, Mr. Westinghouse/' he said
78 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
good-naturedly, as he fastened the folio and laid it among his more important papers, "you have put your head into the lion's mouth, and will have no one but yourself to blame if it is bitten off."
"I'll take my chances," laughed Westinghouse. "Of course, it makes a world of difference if you know the habits of your lion."
The whimsical challenge, though taken up so blithely on the spot, recurred to the inventor's mind several times between this interview and the appear- ance of the next issue of Engineering, through which he looked in vain for any comment on his brake. Every time he thought of it, it had taken on a little more serious significance, till he had begun to wonder whether he might not, after all, have made a mistake in coming to a periodical of so high standing before making a practical test of his brake somewhere in Great Britain. The notion was strengthened when, after a considerable interval, he called upon Mr. Dredge again, to inquire what prospect there was of an article at an early date. The editor handed him a sheet of proof to read, with the remark: "I have been favorably impressed with your brake, from the literature about it which you left me. I am keeping that for future use if an occasion offers itself. Just now, however, the thing for you to do is to place your brake on one of our railways and give a public ex- hibition of its working. The readers of Engineering will take far more interest in a statement of what we have seen with our own eyes than in any suggestion we might print, founded on nothing more substantial than your patent and claims."
"NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS" 79
"My brake/' argued Westinghouse, "is already in constant use on several American roads."
"Doubtless," assented Dredge; "and yet you will appreciate the fact that our people are a bit skep- tical about the operations of American railways un- less they have evidence of a very convincing char- acter."
"What do you wish? Shall I give you a list of the roads in the United States which use my brake, and let you write to the managers and learn for your- self whether my pretensions are justified?"
"That's not a bad idea. Incidentally, however, I have put into your hands the rough draft of some- thing I shall say in Engineering apropos of the gen- eral subject of air brakes. If your invention proves to be all that you say it is, this demand of mine will make a very good form of introduction for what I may wish to write later. Mind you, I am not saying that all you claim may not be absolutely well founded. I merely intend to take reasonable means of assuring myself."
Westinghouse withdrew, bearing with him Dredge's proof sheet, which he read with interest at the first opportunity. It was a broad plea for a better brake than any then in use on British railways, and it gave a catalogue of the qualities which the editor con- sidered essential to a satisfactory continuous braking system for trains, about as follows :
First, the brakes must be applicable with equal facility by either the locomotive-driver or the guards who might be in various parts of a train ;
Second, the act of applying the brakes must call
8o GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
for only a slight exertion on the part of the person performing it ;
Third, the application must be capable of either instantaneous or gradual performance, according to the peculiar character of the exigency ;
Fourth, if a part of the train breaks loose from the rest, the brakes must come automatically into play ;
Fifth, the system must permit carriages, whether fitted with the brakes or not, to be attached to, or detached from, the train ;
Sixth, when a train is divided, the brakes on every division must be capable of working independently ;
Seventh, the failure of the brake apparatus on one or more carriages must not interfere with the action of the brakes on the rest of the train ;
Eighth, the brake mechanism must be of very simple character, easy to maintain, and not liable to derangement by rough use, or disuse and neglect.
At a first reading, these conditions struck Westing- house as rather severe, but he was cheerfulness itself when next he called upon Dredge and offered to return the borrowed proof.
"Oh, keep it, if it interests you," said the editor, with a wave of the hand. "Are you prepared now to tell me that your brake meets all my require- ments?"
"By no means," answered Westinghouse. "But it is still in its infancy, and I am quite certain that before I get through with it you will have no fault to find with its operation."
"You are still working on it?"
"I don't suppose I shall ever stop."
"By Jove!" Dredge brought his flat palm down upon a pile of papers before him. "You speak like
"NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS" 81
a man of spirit. I like that. Although you are an inventor, you're not blinded by your own genius."
"No, I can still see well enough to discover the faults in your catalogue of requisites."
"For example — ?" the editor was all attention.
"For a first criticism, you are indiscriminate. You apparently recognize no distinction between the needs of a train making long runs and one that has a short route and stops every few minutes — what we call in America an ' accommodation.' Don't you see that the chances are all against having to divide a train, attach and detach cars, and so forth where the stations are only eight or ten miles apart at most ? "
"That is a fair criticism as far as it goes." Dredge made a few notes in pencil on a memorandum sheet. "What next?"
"Why, perhaps I should take an exception also to your fourth demand, when applied to local trains. With fast running, there is always the liability that a coupling may break under the strain, and your train be cut in two ; whereas, at any speed ever reached between stations almost within gunshot of each other, the possibility of such an accident is reduced to a minimum."
"Nevertheless, you admit that it exists?"
"Of course. But don't you see that the forward fragment of your train would reach the next station so soon that there would really be no danger to life or property before the missing part could be picked up and reattached?"
" There it is! You Americans are always calcu- lating probabilities — taking chances."
82 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
"And you Britishers go to the other extreme, which is just as bad, or worse. I wonder you ever dare lay out a program for tomorrow ; who knows that it will come?"
Dredge, so far from being nettled by the retort, chuckled audibly.
"Very well, Young America, I've made a note of your criticisms and will give them due consideration. I still stand by my first proposition, however, that Engineering had better wait until you have placed your brake on an experimental train in this country, as you did at the start in the United States. Then, whatever we print will have weight/'
There being nothing left to discuss, Westinghouse took his leave, and the next morning entered upon a systematic campaign among the railway companies. He had brought with him, from men of standing in the transportation business in America, letters of introduction to some of their English brethren ; but in spite of such an armament he found it no easy matter to pierce the wall of form and ceremony with which these magnates had surrounded themselves. As illustrative of the common attitude, he used to enjoy, later in life, telling the story of his visit to the managing director of one great railway, whom he asked, by way of opening conversation, whether he had read a little pamphlet that had been mailed him a few days before, descriptive of the new brake.
"No," was the frigid response. "I receive many pamphlets in my mail, but I rarely read them."
"Neither do I," said Westinghouse; "most of them would not pay me for my time. But as this
"NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS" 83
one contains information about a new thing in your special field — "
"So many new things/' interrupted the manager, "are worthless, that as a rule they have ceased to interest me."
"Well, here is one which will, I am sure." West- inghouse drew a duplicate from his pocket. "With your permission, I will give you a brief abstract of its contents." And he plunged, as he had so often while his invention was still untried, into a recitation of its points of especial merit, concluding his speech with an account of the actual tests it had met so creditably on American railroads. At the close of his exposition he asked permission to equip a loco- motive, tender and car on this gentleman's road, and prove beyond question what the apparatus could do.
"Let you use our property for such a purpose?" ejaculated the astounded manager. "I really could not think of it for a moment ! "
"But I am ready to attach my apparatus at my own expense," pleaded the visitor.
"Oh, quite so, quite so; I take that for granted. It makes no difference, however. We have not a locomotive, a tender or a carriage to spare for your experiments."
'Then could I not hire the necessary vehicles, equip them with my brake, and give an exhibition in the presence of any number of gentlemen you care to invite?"
"No, no. You positively must take my refusal as final. In the plainest terms, we do not wish to rent any of our rolling stock for you to use in your
84 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
demonstration. " By this time the railroad man's manner was very impatient, and his face was grow- ing purple. In spite of so threatening a symptom the inventor persisted.
" Possibly you will consent, then, to sell me a train ? All I really need is a locomotive, a tender and four passenger coaches. What is your price for such an outfit over here?"
If this irrepressible young Yankee had struck him with a bludgeon, the Englishman could hardly have appeared more dazed. It took him a full minute to realize what he had heard, and to make sure that his visitor was in earnest, before he answered :
"You will have to give me a little time to consider that question. It is too extraordinary to be settled in an instant. I can probably give you an answer in about a week. But I assume you understand that, even if we consent to sell you a train, such a concession would not include permission to run over our tracks with your machinery. We must stop short of that, you know."
Rising with a bow which announced as distinctly as words that the interview was at an end, the man of fifty dismissed the youth of twenty- five quite without a thought that the next time they met for a negotiation the man would be making the bid and the youth taking time to consider it.
But this is what happened, though it was a good while in coming. In March, 1872, the London and North-Western Railway Company gave Westing- house permission to exhibit his brake on its line be- tween Stafford and Crewe, and, about the same time,
"NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS" 85
he was allowed to equip a train of twelve passenger coaches and two freight cars for a series of tests on the Caledonian Railway between Glasgow and Wemyss Bay. In each instance the demonstration was successful. A little later several trials were made on the South-Eastern Railway with a train consisting of a locomotive, tender, and six cars, and the witnesses were free with their praise of the way the apparatus acted. Still, neither these corporations, nor any others whose representatives were present at the tests, were willing to prove their satisfaction at once by formally adopting the Westinghouse brake as their standard. The first real step forward was taken by the Metropolitan District Railway in London in January, 1873. Eighteen months afterward the British Board of Trade conducted a series of brake trials in which chain, hydraulic, and vacuum brakes competed with the air brake. In 1875 another series of tests was made under the auspices of the British Railways Accident Commission. In all these the Westinghouse proved itself the most efficient con- tinuous brake on the market. Everybody except the vacuum brake manufacturers seemed willing to concede its superiority, but many of the railroad managers complained that it was too expensive. This brought Engineering again to the fore with evidence gathered from a host of American experts that the original cost of equipping their lines with Westinghouse brakes was more than made up by the saving on repairs.
At first Westinghouse had fancied that the reluc- tance manifested in England to accepting his brake
86 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
outright might be due to the local railways having already some sufficiently good apparatus of which he had not learned. To see for himself the actual con- ditions, he engaged a man familiar with local railway operations to travel with him throughout Great Britain. Speaking afterward of these trips he said : "I found that there were no continuous brakes in use except on a few trains on the London and North- Western and the North London railways. These were fitted with Clark's chain brakes, operated by a guard from the brake van, and not connected or at- tached to the locomotive. I failed to find a single continuous brake in which power was communicated throughout the train through lines of pipe, except what was known as Barker's hydraulic system, which was then in process of trial. There never had been any compressed air brakes in successful operation in England. The London, Chatham, and Dover Rail- way had tried one on a train running between the Crystal Palace and Victoria station, but had aban- doned it as unsatisfactory ; and the locomotive superintendent of the Great Northern Railway had had some sort of experience with one which convinced him that the underlying principle was impracticable, so that for a long time I could not obtain even a hearing in that quarter. With these exceptions I could find no evidence that air brakes of any kind had ever even been tried."
Not all the period covered by this outline was passed continuously in England. Between 1871 and 1 88 1 Westinghouse crossed the ocean repeatedly, keeping thus in close touch with his American com-
"NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS" 87
pany. He also made several fruitful visits to the Continental capitals, where the air brake met with a much warmer reception than among English railway managers. In Belgium, for example, a royal com- mission of engineers, after a thorough comparison of his brake with all others which had been brought to their attention, adopted it as the standard equip- ment for the state railways ; and from other sources there gradually came limited orders which, though obviously only experimental, gave him a feeling that his invention was making its way in the old world in spite of its apparently unpromising start. To fa- cilitate the handling of his European business, he organized a British corporation and established a large plant for the manufacture of the brake, with executive offices in London. His most formidable competitor was a vacuum brake company ; and it is significant of the conservatism bred into the flesh and bone of even the most intelligent class of English- men that, though the rest of the world has for the most part adopted the air brake as by far the most satisfactory device yet invented, many of the British railroads are still committed to the vacuum brake and resist all movements for a change.
Meanwhile, instead of resenting criticisms which often were hard to bear, Westinghouse had turned them to profit by studying out the improvements they called for in one and another feature, culminat- ing in the invention of the now familiar automatic brake, which he patented in 1872, and which fulfilled in every respect the ideal requirements proposed by Mr. Dredge. The original non-automatic or
88 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
" straight-air" brake had consisted of a very simple steam-actuated air pump placed on the side of the locomotive, and a reservoir in which the compressed air could be stored. A pipe line from the reservoir was carried through the length of the train, connec- tions between vehicles being made by means of hose and couplings. Every vehicle was provided with a simple cast-iron cylinder, the piston rod of which was connected with the brake rigging in such a way that when the air was admitted to the cylinder the piston was forced out, and the brakes were thereby applied. In the engineer's cab there was placed in the pipe line a three-way cock, by means of which compressed air could be admitted to the pipe line and thus to the cylinder on every car; or the air already in the cylinders and pipe line could be dis- charged to the atmosphere, releasing the brakes.
Excellent as this apparatus was by comparison with any predecessor in the same line, it lacked certain desirable features and was liable to prove inoperative in some emergency when it would be most needed, from the bursting of the hose under pressure, the parting of the train or other rupture of the system. In order to obviate such perilous pos- sibilities, Westinghouse brought out what is now known as the automatic brake. Its essential differ- ence from the " straight-air" brake consisted in the installation of supplementary or auxiliary reservoirs for the storage of compressed air on the cars in addi- tion to the main reservoir on the locomotive ; thus every vehicle carried its own source of power, and the employment of an ingenious valve mechanism
11 NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE SUCCESS" 89
to cause the application of the brake by the reduction of air pressure in the train-pipe — no matter whether the reduction were made intentionally or by accident - so that a ruptured hose or a serious air leakage from whatever source would stop the train. This device was called a " triple valve", because of its threefold function of applying a brake, releasing it, and charging its auxiliary reservoir. As a product of pure invention it is probable that the automatic brake system represented in the highest degree West- inghouse's capacity as an inventor.
It was not merely in large matters that Westing- house found his progress impeded by insular preju- dice during his early British campaign, but in lesser details as well. In a speech he made in London in 1903 before a distinguished body of scientific men, he was able to take a laughing glance backward at these annoyances, time having vindicated his fore- sight.
"I came here first," said he, "about thirty years ago, and for ten years I was here half my time. At that time it was very difficult to get anything done in England, as I could get no one to believe in any- thing I proposed. I wanted in those early days to try an iron brake shoe, because, on account of the rapid wear, we could not keep the wooden shoes adjusted. I had to beg and plead to be permitted to put a set of metal brake shoes on one tender of the Caledonian Railway. Finally I succeeded. Of course, you all know that nowadays all the railway brake shoes or blocks are made of cast iron or other metal and are used upon all the wheels of the train."
90 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
By the fall of 1881 the Westinghouse automatic air brake was in use on over 3164 locomotives and 17,290 cars in various foreign countries, ranging from over 1087 locomotives and 7719 cars in Great Britain, and 1416 locomotives and 7193 cars in France, down to one locomotive and six cars in Sweden. In the United States, 3435 locomotives and 12,790 cars were equipped with it. Of the fourteen British rail- ways employing it, the largest patrons were the North-Eastern, the London, Brighton, and South Coast, the Great Eastern, the North British, the Caledonian, and the Glasgow and South- Western systems. The statistics, here given, moreover, do not include the straight-air brakes, of which a very large number were still in use on railways which had bought them before the automatic brake came into general notice. As a fitting conclusion to the cata- logue of ten years' achievements, Europe was dotted with manufacturing establishments where hundreds of mechanics were busy producing Westinghouse brake apparatus, with a combined capacity for equipping an average of three hundred locomotives and twelve hundred cars every month. And all this had been evolved from the brain and hand of an American just turned thirty-five, who, obliged to hew his own way without the aid of power- ful allies, had by sheer energy and pluck already raised himself from obscurity to eminence and a steadily improving bank account.
CHAPTER VII THE BATTLE OF THE BRAKES
UP to 1880 the use of power brakes was confined wholly to passenger service ; but some railroads in the mountainous regions of the West had grades so steep as to render the conduct of their freight traffic very hazardous, and this led to their adopt- ing presently a straight-air brake, and later an auto- matic brake specially designed for their use. At that time the freight trains on lines west of the Mis- souri River were comparatively short, and there was little interchange of cars between them, so that every road used the equipment best suited to its needs, practically without reference to the equipment of its neighbors. In the East, however, the length of the trains was continually on the increase, and the interchange of cars was so general that the intro- duction of power brakes for freight traffic had not yet been attempted. Meanwhile, as trains grew longer and loads heavier, accidents to human life, goods in transit, and rolling stock occurred with more and more frequency, emphasizing the need of some kind of automatic coupling to replace the old link and pin, the substitution of power brakes for hand brakes, and the establishment of a uniform
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standard of mechanisms in both instances, so that a car of any one line could be inserted in a train of any other and be operated under the same control. An efficient coupler was finally developed and adopted, but the determination of a standard power brake presented greater difficulties. There were several inventions in the field, and the Master Car Builders' Association decided to clear the situation by designating a committee to conduct a series of competitive tests between them at Burlington, Iowa. The first meet was fixed for the spring of 1886, and, although every brake manufacturer in the country was invited to take part with a train of fifty cars fitted with his own apparatus, this trial was to all intents an elimination contest, since only the automatic air and the vacuum brakes made a showing on which any reasonable hope could be based. The committee reported that the opera- tion of the automatic air brake met the ordinary requirements of service work, but that its action was unsatisfactory in emergencies because of the slow passage of the power from the front to the rear of a long train. With the sudden stoppage from low speeds of such a train, by the application of the brakes with full force, the cars at the front end would come to an almost instant standstill, those further back banging successively into them till the influence exerted from the locomotive had reached the last car. Animals in the cattle cars were liable to be wounded or killed by being hurled into heaps, the forward end of a heavy car might smash the rear end of a light one and ruin every-
THE BATTLE OF THE BRAKES 93
thing fragile carried therein, and train hands were in danger of being thrown into the spaces between cars and crushed to death or permanently crippled.
Another trial was accordingly set for the spring of the following year, at the same place. Between the two trials Westinghouse bent his entire thought upon studying out a means of increasing the emer- gency speed of action of his brake in the parts of the train furthest from the locomotive, and this he accomplished.
Six competitors took part in the fresh test. One brake was operated by electricity alone ; a second by compressed air alone ; a third by electricity and a vacuum ; while Westinghouse and one other manufacturer contributed brakes combining com- pressed air and electricity. The electric appliances used by Westinghouse were very simple, and not required on every car ; two or three of them, in- serted between the hose couplings in various parts of a long train, sufficed to produce the desired results. The arrangement was such that when the brakes were set electrically the pneumatic application was made also, and in the event of an electrical failure the train would still be stopped pneumatically ; whereas the other electrically-operated brakes had complicated and delicate mechanisms on every car, and if the electric operation failed the engineer lost control of the train. The improvements Westing- house had recently made in the triple valve conveyed the braking force from the locomotive to the last car on a fifty-car freight train more than twice as
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quickly as this had ever been done before ; yet the lapse of time between the first and final applications was still distinctly measurable, and the enhanced efficiency of the individual brakes increased rather than lessened the shock evil.
In the trials of 1887 an instrument called a slide- ometer was used to determine the relative violence of the shocks produced by sudden stopping under various conditions. It consisted of a wooden trough, fourteen feet long by six inches wide, made of clear white pine smoothly planed. This was screwed fast to the center of the rear car, and in it would slide, in either direction, a wrought iron disc weigh- ing a trifle more than sixteen pounds. Crude as the device appeared, it answered its purpose well. Shocks in the ordinary handling of trains with slack couplings, over sags or hogbacks, or working in yards, would move the disc from two to eight inches ; twelve inches indicated a shock sufficient to injure live stock and equipment ; while repeated blows registering from twelve to twenty inches would start the loads at the rear of the train through the ends of the cars. It was soon evident that not all the improvement yet made in the automatic air brake had carried it past the danger point, as the sudden stoppage of a train moving at a speed of twenty miles an hour, under some conditions, caused the disc to slide more than one hundred and twenty inches ; only when electricity was employed to oper- ate the air valves were the results satisfactory. The committee's report, therefore, was generally favorable to a brake operated by air, having valves
THE BATTLE OF THE BRAKES 95
actuated by electricity — practically a verdict against brakes operated by air alone.
Among the technically trained observers who attended these trials, probably the only one who did not read in this turn of affairs an end to the dominance of Westinghouse in his special field was Westinghouse himself. To a friend who attempted to say something comforting, he turned a face which, though serious, was entirely cheerful.
"What are you going to do now?" asked the friend.
"What I have left undone hitherto," he answered — "perfect my air brake."
To this task he addressed his attention with the same industry that had characterized his previous undertakings. He felt that the electric factor must be eliminated if possible, because of the perils of depending upon an agency so liable to accident from uncontrollable conditions. As the improved triple valve had proved that it was based on a correct principle, he devoted his first thought to various accessories, of which the details of construction in any wise influenced the flow of air in the apparatus. The ports of the triple valve were also enlarged, and this, with succeeding modifications of kindred na- ture, enabled him, within three months after the apparent collapse of his supremacy, to produce the device now known as the quick-acting brake, which completely reversed the verdict just reached. Occa- sional hints would filter through the engineering press that there would soon be some important news to record, but not the most imaginative writer
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would have ventured a guess at what actually hap- pened ; for, though the final product was still the Westinghouse brake already known all over the world, it had been reorganized by such changes as reduced the time of the serial action of the brakes on a fifty-car freight train to a little more than two seconds, and enabled the locomotive driver to stop the train, while speeding at forty miles an hour down a steep grade, in less than half its own length, not only without a sensible shock, but with not even the slightest disturbance of the slideometer !
An illuminating incident occurred during this last test at Burlington. The performance of elec- trically-operated brakes had been so brilliant that the local atmosphere was highly charged with elec- tric sentiment as related to the brake question. It happened that, in the midst of the tests, one of the business cars of the Burlington road, with sev- eral officers of the company aboard, anchored for a night on the trial field. These gentlemen were, of course, informed of the latest developments, and when Westinghouse and some of his associates made a social call on them, the conversation naturally turned on the subject of greatest interest. Plainly the visitors believed that the days of the automatic air brake were numbered, and they expressed this idea in sympathetic terms, doubtless with a view of letting Westinghouse down gently. He, how- ever, combated the notion that electricity, with its uncertainty of action, could safely be depended upon in a matter so vital as the braking of a train ; the results obtained in the tests, he admitted, were
THE BATTLE OF THE BRAKES 97
interesting as experiments, but he regarded the devices used as impracticable in the then existing state of the braking and electrical arts. He was deep in this phase of the discussion when one of his hosts, thinking to order refreshments, pushed an electric button for the steward. There was no response, the bell refusing to ring. Instantly West- inghouse forced home his argument, declaring that the failure of the bell illustrated the untrustwor- thiness of electricity as a dependence in emergencies ; if it could not be relied on to summon a waiter, how could we afford to confide to it the braking of a heavy train ! l
The confidence Westinghouse had expressed to his friend at the close of the public trials had not been mere vaunting ; in the very hour when the shadows of defeat seemed closing in about him he had seen the point of weakness in his mechanism as it stood, and forecast a possible remedy. But in spite of all his knowledge and his faith, it was a
1 As a matter of record it should be said that the brake which depended wholly upon electric operation of the air valves, after a splendid showing at Burlington, failed entirely in its last attempt to make a stop ; the acci- dent was due to the rupture of a conducting wire, and the train was brought to a standstill by gravity. The circumstances connected with the elec- trical phase of the Burlington trials well exemplified the foresight of West- inghouse in dealing with new problems. He was the original inventor of electro-pneumatic brakes, and presented at Burlington a simple method of providing electric actuation of the air valves ; but, as we have seen, he perfectly realized the great practical difficulties which would be encoun- tered in an attempt to use electricity as it would have to be employed in brake service, and felt sure that the electric art had not yet reached a stage of development which would justify its adoption for that purpose. He lived, however, to witness its successful application on subway trains in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, the most critical and complex system of passenger transportation in the world.
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giant's job to which he laid his hand. The cars on which the trials of 1886 and 1887 had been made were the property of his company ; and he pro- ceeded to arrange with the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad management for the use of such locomotives and tracks as would enable him to experiment under the same conditions and on the same ground as those of the public trials. All the resources and all the employees available he kept at work day and night without cessation ; the ma- terials required from time to time, in every instance covering more than a carload, he ordered shipped from Pittsburgh to Burlington by express instead of freight, so that no time should be lost ; and the experimental train of fifty cars had to be refitted, from stem to stern, not less than three times before he was satisfied with its work. But when, toward the close of September, the hindmost brake on the train clutched its wheel substantially the instant after the engineer's movement of his valve, his triumph made up for all the trouble he had under- gone ; for the last ground of criticism against the use of compressed air unaided by electricity in the operation of power brakes on long freight trains was disposed of.
Nor does the story end here. As the experiments outlined above had been wholly unofficial, and hence could not be formally authenticated by the committee of the Master Car Builders' Association, it was feared that inaccurate accounts might leak out and bias the judgment of interested parties. The Westinghouse Air Brake Company therefore
THE BATTLE OF THE BRAKES 99
decided to repeat the Burlington experiments in a number of important railroad centers like St. Paul, Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Buffalo, Albany, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Wash- ington, and Pittsburgh. To do this it was necessary to run the entire train of fifty cars from point to point, requiring two engines and in a few instances three, and involving operation under all the handicaps incidental to regular traffic. The fact that the train was nearly a half-mile long added to its diffi- culties, as it had to be conveyed over many roads the grades of which limited the length of trains to a much smaller number of cars.
One of the experiments which demonstrated the effectiveness of the latest improvements was dramatically interesting. With a fifty-car train at rest, observers were stationed at its rear end, and at a prearranged signal the engineer applied the brakes on the locomotive and blew the whistle at the same instant ; and the sound of the whistle and the noise of the application of the brakes on the fiftieth car, about two thousand feet away, were practically simultaneous, showing that the transmission of power through the train was approxi- mately at the speed of a sound wave.
Wherever a demonstration was made, invitations were extended to all local railroad men and others interested, and nearly every one was accepted. The final exhibition was at Pittsburgh in November, and was the concluding act in a development of the art of train braking carried on for a year at a total expense of probably not less than two hundred
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thousand dollars. The result obtained at so heavy a cost brought in immediately, however, large orders for the new brakes. The great trunk lines like the New York Central and Pennsylvania systems, adopt- ing the quick-action brake as their standard, applied it not only to all the new cars they built, but also to their old cars that required general repairs.
The Master Car Builders' Association proceed- ings of 1888 included a report of its committee on freight- train brakes to this effect :
In our report to the Convention last year the main conclusion we arrived at was that the best type of brake for freight service was one operated by air, and in which the valves were actuated by electricity. Since that time your committee has not made any further trial of brakes, but the aspect of the ques- tion has been much changed by the remarkable results achieved in non-official trials which have taken place in various parts of the country, and have been witnessed by many of the members of this association. These trials show that there is now a brake on the market which can be relied on as efficient in any condition of freight service. The present position of the freight-train brake is briefly as follows :
" First. Brakes can be, practically speaking, simultaneously applied without electricity through- out a train of fifty freight cars.
" Second. Other inventors are working at the problem of making an air brake which will be rapid in action and suitable for service on freight trains. We also understand that inventors are working at buffer and electric friction brakes, but we have no reason to hope that brakes upon these principles can successfully compete with air brakes."
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In view of these conditions, your committee does not recommend the adoption of any particular brake, but considers that a freight train brake should fulfill the following conditions :
" First. It shall work with air of seventy pounds pressure. A reduction of eight pounds shall set the brakes lightly, and a restoration of pressure shall release the brakes.
" Second. It shall work without shock on a train of fifty cars.
"Third. It shall stop a train of fifty empty freight cars when running at twenty miles per hour within two hundred feet on a level.
"Fourth. When tried on a train of fifty cars it shall maintain an even speed of fifteen miles an hour down a grade of fifty-three feet per mile without variation of more than five miles per hour above or below that speed at any time during the descent.
"Fifth. The brakes shall be capable of being applied, released, and graduated on the whole train by the engineer, without any assistance from the brakemen or conductor.
"Sixth. The hose coupling shall couple with the present Westinghouse coupling."
That ended what has been picturesquely styled "the battle of the brakes," for, though it was lit- erally true that the report contained the recommenda- tion of no particular brake by name, its list of condi- tions which the ideal brake must meet could be ful- filled by no invention except Westinghouse's. The committee was discharged with the thanks of the Association after three years of arduous and pains- taking investigation, of which by no means the least important outcome was an effective stirring of the public conscience on the subject of saving
102 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
the lives and limbs of trainmen. Before the Bur- lington trials the subject of legislation making com- pulsory the use of power brakes on freight trains, though agitated by several benevolent persons and societies, had received but scant practical consideration, probably because it would have been futile to attempt to compel the use of a device not yet invented. Since the introduction of the quick- action brake, however, Congress has imposed the use of power brakes on all railways engaged in in- terstate commerce.
It must not be assumed that either his extraordi- nary activity in building up his air-brake industry in this country, or his frequent visits to Europe, had driven all other topics out of the mind of young Westinghouse. As early as 1875, during a stay in England, his curiosity was excited by some experiments in progress there with devices for rail- road switching and signaling. It does not appear that at that time he undertook any improvements on the apparatus then under test ; but his growing interest in the subject was preparing to bear prac- tical fruit later, for we find him looking into the state of the art in the United States, and presently purchasing enough stock to give him control of the Interlocking Switch and Signal Company of Harris- burg, Pennsylvania, which owned a number of highly important patents on switching devices such as are used in steering a multitude of trains into and out of a great terminal station without confu- sion. His next move was to turn over his control of the company, together with a similar control
THE BATTLE OF THE BRAKES 103
he had acquired in the management of a Massachu- setts company manufacturing electric signal appa- ratus, to a corporation styled the Union Switch and Signal Company, originally chartered in Con- necticut but later in Pennsylvania. The Massa- chusetts member of the combination, it may be remarked in passing, was the first to employ the method of controlling signals by using the rails as electric conductors on the closed circuit principle - probably the most important single contribution to the art of signaling.
Meanwhile the busy mind of Westinghouse had been working out sundry details which took pal- pable form in a series of patents covering hydro- pneumatic and electro-pneumatic signaling — obvi- ously the outgrowth of the familiarity gained with the properties and potentialities of compressed air during his long study of his braking problems. The first of these was issued on February I, 1881, and between then and 1891 there were fifteen issues in his name. He also was a liberal buyer of other men's patents which in his judgment possessed essential merit. His first experimental mechanisms seem to have been hydro-pneumatic, but soon these were discarded in favor of electro-pneumatic devices, which have been tersely described by a distinguished engineer as " using compressed air for the heavy work, and electricity to pull the trigger. "
A block system of safety signals was by no means a new idea at the time Westinghouse entered the field. Leading railways had for many years been dividing their trackage into sections or blocks from
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a half-mile to four miles in length, and establishing at every junction of two blocks a signal station with a man in charge. This man would set a danger signal against coming trains until the man at the station next ahead telegraphed him that the track between them was clear of trains ; then he would set an "all right" signal, and engineers were for- bidden to pass from one block to another till this signal appeared. The arrangement was admirable as far as it went ; but, as is always the case where mechanisms require human ' intelligence and mus- cular effort to manage them, it involved a margin of uncertainty. A watchman on night duty might drop asleep, or one on day duty might be suddenly overcome with illness, or any of a dozen conceivable mishaps might break the human link in the chain of operation and open the way for disaster. It was therefore deemed desirable to substitute automatic for human energy wherever practicable. In the electro-pneumatic system, as developed since West- inghouse entered the field, electricity has been made to do the watching and compressed air the signaling.
The chief and fundamental advantage of the auto- matic electric system over that into which a human agency must enter, is that, if a switch is turned or a rail broken, the continuity of the rails on that block, which carry the electric current that operates the signals, is broken, and the danger signal is set automatically. Many other ingenious devices have been put forth by this company, with the same electro-pneumatic cooperation for a basis, including
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one that automatically sets the brakes if a train passes a danger signal unheeded.
In the department of railroading we have just been considering, not less than in that to which he first addressed himself, the paramount object West- inghouse always held in view was to obtain the utmost utility in service compatible with the mini- mum peril to life and limb.
CHAPTER VIII OPENING A MINE OF GASEOUS WEALTH
THE winter of 1883-1884 was passed by Mr. and Mrs. Westinghouse in New York City, where, early in the new year, a great happiness came to them with the birth of a son. It had been their desire to return to Pittsburgh as soon thereafter as would be prudent for mother and child, and with the coming of spring the family moved back.
In the home newspapers which had reached Mr. Westinghouse in New York had appeared so many references to the development of natural gas in Murrysville, a suburb of Pittsburgh, that his at- tention was strongly drawn to this subject. It had been known for all of fifty years that in vari- ous parts of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, gas was to be had for the boring ; still, no scientific estimates had been made of its abundance, and only a few manufacturers had seriously attempted to harness it for industrial purposes. As is so often the case with a product which has been evolved as one of the incidentals to a familiar operation, this gas was regarded as an interesting but not very valuable by-product of oil development, and those persons who did anything at all with it treated
OPENING A MINE OF GASEOUS WEALTH 107
it more or less like a toy. But a balance had re- cently been struck in some experiments made at one large factory, the figures of which had caught the eye of Mr. Westinghouse and held it by their showing that in this plant the work performed by gas, besides being as satisfactory as that of any other fuel that had been tried, had effected a sav- ing of a good many thousand dollars in a single year. If this were possible on a small scale, he asked himself, what might not be accomplished for the public profit and convenience if such a fuel could be made universally available ?
As the train drew them nearer home, he opened the subject in conversation with his wife.
"You'd soon get as much absorbed in natural gas as you used to be in brakes when we first married/' she answered in a jesting way; "but the brakes had one advantage over gas — you could always work out your problems at home, instead of running off to Murrysville every day."
"I can work out my problems at home just the same," he laughed in response; "that is, if you don't mind my boring a well through your flower beds. But don't charge me too much for the privi- lege. I dare say it will cost me five thousand dol- lars just to sink the hole and pipe it."
To the friends who heard gossipy echoes of this conversation, it seemed merely an exchange of harmless pleasantries; but those who passed the premises soon afterward realized that there had been something more than fun behind it. For there, not in the flower garden to be sure but back
io8 GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
by the stable, stood the tangible evidences of an intention to probe the bowels of the earth, and a gang of men were already at work taking away the cut sod and stacking close at hand the neces- sary piping.
Day after day the chug-chug of the engine and the muffled stroke of the drill as it buried itself deeper and deeper in the earth kept the air in the neighborhood of the Westinghouse place vibrating, and furnished a text for a running fire of comment from the neighbors, some of it technically critical or inquisitive, some skeptical or semi-satirical. As a rule the people of Pittsburgh had already learned better than to question too boldly the probabilities of any large enterprise into which George Westing- house went with a show of confidence, but a good many still were of open mind as to the practical value of such operations as he was conducting on his private grounds. An occasional glimpse could be caught of him at night, clad in overalls and standing near the men, watching every new develop- ment with the keenest concern ; now giving an order, now consulting with the gang-boss, but never taking his eyes or his mind off whatever was in progress as long as he remained close at hand.
Nearly three weeks had been expended on the work, and a few of the ultra-wise heads had been shaken in doubt, when the foreman in charge one evening reported that he had detected traces of gas.
"How far down are you now?" asked Mr. West- inghouse.
OPENING A MINE OF GASEOUS WEALTH 109
" About 1 560 feet."
"Are the signs of gas strong?"
"No, sir, weak; but I'm perfectly sure that a good supply is there, or not far away."
"The only way to find out is to go on. Perhaps by tomorrow we shall get results that amount to something. Only, go slow --feel your way along. Be very careful of the men, and warn them to take no risks."
That night Mr. Westinghouse went to bed late, fell into his usual sound sleep, and did not even dream of his gas well till, just before sunrise, he was roused with such suddenness that he sat bolt upright in an instant, wide-awake and staring around him. He was dimly conscious that what had startled him must have been an explosion of some sort; and --was that a continuing roar, or an echo from a former volume of sound which was still rumbling in his ears ?
He was out of bed in a flash, and a few minutes later in the open air, not far from the spot where he had been talking with the foreman the night before. But what a change had come over the scene ! All about him and for many yards around, the lawn looked like a ragged seabeach after a storm. Gravel, sand, mud, dirty water, were everywhere, blanket- ing the once trim sward and well-kept paths under an indescribable mass of filth. The big, burly derrick that stood over the well opening had evi- dently received a severe blow, and a part of the pulley tackle at its top was gone. The drilling appa- ratus was nowhere to be seen at the moment, being
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hidden beneath debris. The engine had been tossed aside like a squeezed orange, and lay some distance away, looking as if it had been rolled over and over in reaching its final resting place.
All these things he could make out only dimly. There was a hint in the east of the approaching dawn, and by holding his watch close to his eyes he could discern that it was about twenty minutes after three. Out of the mouth of the well a muddy geyser was still spouting into the air, with a loud noise that was between a hurricane roar and an angry volcanic rumble.
After the first effect of what he was witnessing had lost its vividness, he swept his surroundings with his glance, wondering at the absence of the men he had left there when he went to bed. A little later they emerged from the shadows one by one, like ghosts returning to a world from which they had been suddenly banished. Strangers came, too — persons who, within a mile radius, had been sleeping as calmly as he till roused by the explosion and set quaking with a nameless dread.
Item by item, in broken bits of explanation and conversation, the facts came out. Acting on his suggestion, the foreman had cautioned the work- men to proceed slowly and with care, and the drill- ing had gone on with such deliberateness that only a matter of fifteen feet had been accomplished before a savage growl issuing from the hole caused them to drop everything and run for their lives. They were not a minute too soon. Behind them as they fled for cover rose a great boom and roar, and then
OPENING A MINE OF GASEOUS WEALTH in
a shower of water, mud, and gravel which the light breeze spread about. Nobody had waited to see what more was coming, and the next thing they noted was the appearance of the master of the estab- lishment on the scene.
The first expression of Mrs. Westinghouse as she looked out upon the spectacle of devastation a few minutes later was one of comic dismay. Her hus- band smiled inquiringly as her eyes met his.
" All things considered," said he, "are you satisfied with the experiment?"
"Oh, very well," she answered cheerfully. "The house still has a roof on it, and the kitchen isn't wrecked."
Breakfast was not much of a meal that morning : both husband and wife were too absorbed with the newest phenomenon.
The day was given up to devising ways and means for clearing away the rubbish. This had to be done at a disadvantage, because nobody about the premises, including the drill-gang, could feel positive as to what was coming next. The men had drilled a good many wells, first and last, but not one with the startling results of this performance.
Meanwhile the fountain of water and sand had subsided, and been succeeded by a stream of pure gas, which after a little lost its terrors as a novelty and provoked the spectators to various experiments. One man brought a chunk of coal weighing seven or eight pounds, and swinging it back and forth to get a tentative measure of distance, tossed it so that, if not intercepted, it would strike the exposed top
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of the piping. It went straight as directed, but, instead of alighting on the aperture, it was caught by the ascending jet of gas and lifted into the air like a chip in a gale, striking one of the beams of the derrick with great force and being smashed to pieces. Another adventurer, with the aid of a friend, dragged a heavy spruce plank to where they could push it crosswise over the opening. The stream of gas treated it as if it had been a strip of lath, breaking it in twain and entirely splintering a frag- ment that fell back so as partly to overhang the hole. Then somebody suggested that the derrick might be brought into play again to lower a big weight directly into the mouth of the well. A rope was attached to the upper rigging, and its loose end made fast to a stone that weighed perhaps a hundred pounds, and this was swung around so as to over- hang the hole. The gas played with the intruder like a straw, shaking the weight free, and then lift- ing the loose rope into the air and holding it upright there, as straight and stiff as a flagstaff.
For nearly a week thereafter there was little sleep in the neighborhood, the well continuing to roar unceasingly night and day. But the resource- ful mind of the inventor had been at work, and out of its cogitations emerged finally a stopcock which was a triumph of indirection in application and operation. By degrees the force of the flow was abated till it was shut off altogether, and the normal slumbers of the inhabitants of that part of the town were resumed not to be broken again for several nights. Then came some experiments in
OPENING A MINE OF GASEOUS WEALTH 113
the evenings to test the illuminating quality of the gas. A pipe about sixty feet high had been built up from the mouth of the well, with a pulley fastened to its top, carrying a wire rope, the extremities of which dangled on the ground. To one of these extremities was attached a bundle of rags saturated with oil.
When all was ready, at a given signal the stopcock was turned so as to let the gas into the overhead pipe, and at the same time a match was applied to the rags and workmen began pulling on the free end of the rope. The burning torch ascended slowly till it reached almost the top of the rigging. Then a sudden strong pull finished its ascent, and a faint bluish flame was observed surrounding the rim of the pipe. The next instant, like a lightning flash connecting heaven and earth, a pillar of fire shot a hundred feet upward into the sky and was followed by a steady fountain of flame that was a marvelous study in colors. At its base was a jet of blue, brightening into pale yellow as it ascended, then becoming a dazzling white, and expanding like a tubular fan, the outer edges passing through vari- ous shades of yellow and orange into a sort of Indian red. The gas lamps of the city dwindled to little points of light, and persons in the street not less than a mile away were able to read distinctly the finest newspaper print by the light of the gigantic natural flambeau on the heights of ''Solitude.'*
Unhappily the roaring noise which had so dis- turbed the repose of the neighbors at the outset was resumed while the gas was burning. It was
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not so bad as at first, but it was a serious enough nuisance to demand moderating. So, after the experiments had been repeated, with variations of detail, till the possibilities of the illuminant had been pretty well canvassed, the evening performances ceased, and Mr. Westinghouse announced that he was perfecting plans to connect his well with a sys- tem of city mains and dispense light and heat, and incidentally power, over a considerable area. The gas, he was satisfied, was of a quality markedly superior to anything produced by artificial processes, yet capable of being sold at a low price with a good profit. One of the large manufacturing concerns in Pittsburgh which was already using* natural gas with fine effect was compelled to bring every foot of its supply from Murrysville, twenty miles away, at a cost of one hundred and twenty thousand dol- lars a year, and in a single ward a local company was collecting three hundred thousand dollars a year in gas bills. In yet other ways the Westing- house discovery promised to work wonders for Pittsburgh ; in none more potent than in changing a notoriously dirty city into a clean one.
But along with the bright prospects of the new enterprise came some decided drawbacks to be reck- oned with. One of these was the exaggerated spontaneity of the supply, making it difficult to pinion it down to the work required of it. Gas artificially produced could of course be artificially regulated as well, but nature was a less compliant servant. The pressure she furnished was not meas- ured by the immediate needs of the consumer or
OPENING A MINE OF GASEOUS WEALTH 115
the peculiar exigencies of a situation : it came al- ways and everywhere with unrestrained force, and the problem now before Westinghouse was how to make it obedient to the will of its employer. This demand was emphasized by the appearance in the newspapers, almost daily, of accounts of explosions or other accidents due to ill-regulated pressure, or popular ignorance of the best way of managing the unfamiliar fluid. Being invisible and almost odor- less, it was always a menace, and its tremendous pressure forced it through every minute crevice, where, even if it were escaping from a carefully sunken main, it was liable to find its way through the softer spots in the soil. An accident resulting from this cause, which excited a great commotion in Pittsburgh and set everybody talking of the perils one must face in using natural gas, occurred in one of the large stables where a hostler struck a match one evening to light his lantern. A terrific explosion followed. The man was blown thirty feet through the air, a valuable horse was instantly killed, and the building was set afire and wrecked. It was then recalled that the stable stood on made ground ; and as this was the case with most of the mills along the river front, there was, for a while, something like a suppressed panic in local manu- facturing circles.
The underwriting companies, too, took a hand in the discussion, threatening to raise their rates to what would have been substantially prohibitory figures, unless changes were made in the method of transporting so dangerous an explosive. Some went
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to the length of actually serving notice of the can- cellation of certain outstanding contracts at a given future date. The first thing Westinghouse did, therefore, after arranging for the organization of a company for the distribution and sale of the gas from his well, was to invent a system of transporta- tion. His initial improvement was to use two pipes, one inside of the other. The inner pipe received the gas from the original source, and carried it to the entrances of the manufacturing establishments, where its pressure remained nearly as at the well. On the way, however, it was subject to constant leakage, the pressure forcing infinitesimal jets through the interstices in the joints of the pipe. But this leakage, instead of passing into the earth, and so on to cellars or other confined places where it was dangerous, was caught in the outer pipe and then permitted to escape to the atmosphere at a point of safety. In later practice the joints of the convey- ing pipe only were inclosed with a protecting cover, which was equivalent to the double pipe and greatly reduced the cost as compared with using two com- plete lines of piping. Westinghouse also, in order to reduce the cost of piping and dangers from undue pressure, and make the ultimate product more amenable to control for industrial purposes, arranged a system of pipes of graded capacities, so that the smallest took the gas directly from the well and the larger ones allowed it an opportunity for expansion till, by the time it was furnished to the consumer, it was as easy to manage as gas produced from coal by the ordinary process.
OPENING A MINE OF GASEOUS WEALTH 117
One of the details he had to work out gave West- inghouse a good deal of trouble, and not a few of his friends predicted that he would never be able to devise a satisfactory apparatus. Their skepticism merely stimulated him to fresh effort, which ulti- mately led to the production of a mechanism chiefly employed for domestic purposes and so arranged as to prevent a class of explosive accidents that had resulted in several fatalities.
For unavoidable reasons, the supply of gas was not infrequently interrupted without notice to users, and in such instances the fires would go out. When the gas was again turned on in the mains, if the outlets had not been closed, there would be an escape of gas which often, on account of its lack of odor, was not noticed until an attempt was made to re- light the fire. If there was an accumulation of gas, as was commonly the case, disastrous results would follow, and it became increasingly evident that some precaution was necessary, more effective than a mere admonition to the users to exercise great care. The problem was solved by the invention of a cut-off valve device, located in the supply pipe where gas was taken from the street mains into the building, and so organized that if, for any reason, gas was shut off from the mains, the valve automatically closed and could not be opened again until all the connec- tions in the building had been cut off.
The many advantages of gas for fuel purposes, as demonstrated on a vast scale in the natural gas development in Pittsburgh, at once awakened in the mind of Mr. Westinghouse great interest in the
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problem of the production of an artificial fuel gas that could be made available for localities removed from the natural gas fields. In cooperation with noted gas engineers he undertook a series of experi- ments extending over many years and involving large expenditures, hoping that a process for manu- facturing gas might be developed that would make its general use for fuel purposes commercial. The net result of his investigations, though not ma- terially advancing the art, led incidentally to the development of a producer for making gas from bituminous coal, that was a marked improvement upon similar devices then on the market. Its manu- facture is still successfully continued.
CHAPTER IX WHAT THE GAS DID FOR PITTSBURGH
THE difficulties of the situation were not confined to the solution of the problems already described. In order to carry gas from his well to the consumers, it was necessary for Westinghouse to obtain per- mission from the city authorities to lay pipes under the streets, and this meant tearing up pavements and more or less other disturbance of the routine of traffic. At once arose a commotion. Certain local dispensers of illuminating gas saw a peril to their business in the threatened invasion of the field by this "amateur", as they styled him, and their friends in the municipal Councils and on the press were encouraged to throw all sorts of obstacles into his way. He took pains at the outset to make it plain that he had no intentidn of asking a conces- sion from the city without giving something in re- turn, and his first application embraced an offer, if allowed to lay his pipes as indicated, to furnish the fire-engine houses and police stations with gas free of cost.
He was careful also to declare that he had no ambition to hold the sole control of the commodity, to make exorbitant profits, or to dictate arbitrary
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terms to any manufacturing interest, but would prefer a cooperative arrangement, whereby the business concerns that were likely to derive most advantage from the use of the gas should go in with him and share the advantages of his enterprise. "What I am seeking now," he said, "is to distribute the benefits of this discovery, receiving merely a fair compensation for my property -- nothing
more."
The first objection raised was that to grant to one person or company a privilege which was not thrown open on similar terms to whoever desired it would lead to all sorts of abuses, for the only way in which such a grant could be kept from putting the whole community under the yoke of a monopoly was to give to every applicant a permit to rip the highway to pieces, and for eminently practical reasons that seemed out of the question. A struggle of several weeks in the Councils ensued, the bone of contention being an ordinance so drawn, with the approval of Mr. Westinghouse, as to hinge his grant on the condition that he would undertake to convey the gas of any other producer through his pipes up to their capacity, the charge for such service to be arranged between him and his customers, and any disagreement referred to a trio of arbitrators. With every fresh outburst of opposition the reporters would run to him for an interview, evidently hoping to draw forth something in the way of a sensational denunciation ; but he remained perfectly equable in mind and temper.
The old apprehensions excited by the explosive
WHAT THE GAS DID FOR PITTSBURGH 121
quality of the gas were revived from time to time by some casualty, of which the hostile combination could always be trusted to make the most strenuous use. One such occurred at "Solitude" which would have given his opponents a fine weapon if they had not fallen into the blunder of gross exaggeration in their first accounts of it and thus invited an anti- climax in its popular effect. Two workmen employed to remove the outer pipe or casing at the mouth of the pioneer well and substitute another encountered a refractory joint, and ran a steel drill down beside it to loosen it. As nearly as they could remember the details later, they kept the drill wet all the time ; but the impact of the metals apparently produced a spark which ignited a jet of escaping gas, and in an instant they were in the midst of a sheet of flame and almost suffocated. The blaze burned their eyes, faces, necks, shoulders and hands. With a cry they staggered back and threw themselves into a bed of long grass, while other men working near by rushed to their assistance. An alarm was sent to the nearest engine houses, and two hose compa- nies were presently on the spot and playing streams upon the combustibles about the well, and, with the aid of a length of pipe and some wet blankets, the fire was suppressed. The speed with which everything was done doubtless saved the day ; but it did not prevent the wide circulation of a rumor that some laborers had been killed by gas on the Westinghouse place, and within an hour the yard was swarming with citizens and newspaper emis- saries. Instead of the tragedy for which they were
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looking, they found Mrs. Westinghouse taking care of two badly scorched workmen, for whom she had summoned her family physician. And thus an episode which the opposition at first counted upon to stir up public sentiment against further encour- agement to the natural gas industry in Pittsburgh came to naught.
In due course, the Councils passed the desired ordinance, substantially as at first proposed. Mean- while Mr. Westinghouse had organized a number of small companies, designed to divide between them the territory in which they should be the first comers in the field. There were not lacking, in the well on the "Solitude" estate, certain disquieting symp- toms, which he interpreted to mean that he could not afford to rely upon that alone for his supply if he were going into the gas business on the scale he had in mind ; so he drilled two or three more wells on his own premises and bought easements on many other pieces of property in the Murrysville district and elsewhere, and it was for handling these and making them tributary to the central concern that he organized his group of lesser companies.
But how was he to acquire the powers necessary to a corporation of the magnitude he wished to build up? It would have to procure rights of way by either purchase or condemnation before it could lay its pipes across private property anywhere. Besides that it must find, in Pittsburgh proper, some means of getting around an obstacle. The Fuel Gas Company, the head and soul of the opposi- tion, had organized under an old law of Pennsyl-
WHAT THE GAS DID FOR PITTSBURGH 123
vania which conferred upon the public utility cor- poration of this character that was first to enter any given municipality a monopoly of its business there. Soon after the enactment of this statute there had been a tremendous activity in the creation of corporations, but a multitude of these mushroom affairs had since collapsed under the withering effect of a statute which conserved the life only of those that had been regularly organized to do business before its passage. John Dalzell, then engaged in the private practice of law in Pittsburgh and later a member of Congress, was Mr. Westinghouse's attorney, and to him Mr. Westinghouse turned in this emergency. Mr. Dalzell recalled the fact that several companies had taken out charters and gone into business under the old system, had bridged over the gap between the old and the new, and later had ceased to be active. As the capital of the State was the place where the records covering such matters were most likely to be -available, he hastened to Harrisburg, where he laid the matter before an old professional friend who promptly announced : "I can put my hand upon the very thing you wish. Tom Scott procured from the legislature years ago a special charter for a corporation called the Philadelphia Company. He wanted it for the pur- pose of building a branch railroad tributary to the Pennsylvania system, but never used it, and in time it passed into other hands. This charter was so drawn that under it you can do almost anything you care to except engage in the business of bank- ing. You can run a railroad, furnish a city with
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water, conduct a public cemetery, develop an oil- field - "
"Or produce and distribute natural gas?" sug- gested Dalzell.
"Surely."
"Then how does it come to be now on the market ? Why isn't some one using it?"
"Well, that's hard to say. Whoever got hold of it finally proved a delinquent taxpayer, and the charter was sold under the hammer. I bid it in ; and as the rights conveyed by it pass unimpaired to the purchaser at a tax sale, the charter is as good today as it was on the day the Governor signed it."
"How much can we get it for?"
"Thirty-five thousand dollars."
Dalzell whistled, but as his friend declined to consider any lower terms he carried the offer back to Pittsburgh with some misgivings. Mr. West- inghouse, instead of being irritated at the price named, received the news with apparent satisfaction, remarking :
" If the charter is all that is represented, I'll buy it. Go over it carefully and give me your written opinion."
Dalzell did so, reported in favor of the charter, and the money passed. Equipped now with all the weapons necessary for his fight with his confed- erated rivals, Westinghouse proceeded to launch the Philadelphia Company in its new domain.
Two special conditions contributed largely to hamper this undertaking. Not long before the com- pany announced itself ready for business, the Penn Bank, a financial institution of supposed soundness
WHAT THE GAS DID FOR PITTSBURGH 125
in which a great many Pittsburghers were deposi- tors, had suddenly collapsed, and a series of mer- cantile failures occurred in and about the city. In these circumstances, few people were favorably inclined toward new and untested lines of invest- ment. Then, also, a popular doubt had sprung up, industriously cultivated by the hostile combina- tion, as to how long the supply of natural gas would continue sufficient in quantity to meet the extraordi- nary drafts which would be made upon it if all the mills in the Pittsburgh district were to substitute gas for coal. One statistician whose opinion was generally regarded as reliable published an estimate that the total consumption, including both manu- facturing establishments and houses, but excluding blast furnaces, would run as high as thirty million feet a day. The local population, not accustomed to figures of this magnitude, were taken by surprise, and they had not yet fully recovered their breath when Mr. Westinghouse, to whom the estimate had been carried for criticism, met it, not with denials or evasions, but with the still more startling declara- tion that the probabilities pointed to nearer four hundred million feet. His own idea was that the frankness of this announcement would tend to re- store confidence rather than shake it further. He discussed the matter on this basis with an old friend whom he often consulted about financing problems, and who presently inquired: "At what capitaliza- tion do you purpose starting your company ?"
"In view of all the chances we must take," he answered, "I don't believe we can afford to have
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less than six million dollars to begin with. How does it look to you?"
"Your scheme is grand. If you had the wealth of the Indies to draw upon for making it go, you would rank with the world's great benefactors. But when you reflect that you have got to woo every one of those dollars from the purse of some one whose fright over recent events has made a dollar within reach look bigger than ten dollars he will have to wait for, you are tackling no light job."
"'Woo7? 'Fright'?" echoed Westinghouse. "Why, man, you don't know what you are talking about. There isn't a manufacturer in Pittsburgh so blind as not to be able to see what the future has in store for us here. When we announce that we are ready for subscriptions to our stock, there will be a rush for shares such as you have never seen or dreamed of. I shouldn't wonder if we had to engage a squad of police to keep order !"
In the Pittsburgh newspapers of August 4, 1884, appeared an advertisement filling between three and four columns, setting forth the prospectus of the Philadelphia Company, naming as its officers George Westinghouse, Junior, president, Robert Pitcairn, vice president, John Caldwell, secretary and treasurer. The board of directors included with these officers H. H. Westinghouse and John Dalzell. T. A. Gillespie also was mentioned as a stockholder, but with no office. The company, it appeared, owned all the gas rights on the "Soli- tude" property and sundry other tracts where it had already drilled wells or might thereafter drill
WHAT THE GAS DID FOR PITTSBURGH 127
them, as well as Westinghouse's patent Number 301,191, for a " system for conveying and utilizing gas under pressure", covering the features referred to in a previous chapter.
Possibly his consultation with his old friend was responsible for a slight change in the original plan, for we find that the capital stock of the company was fixed, for the time being, at only one hundred thousand dollars, although the advertisement an- nounces an intention to increase this to five million dollars, " so that funds may be secured to operate largely in the distribution and supply of natural gas at whatever points, within the Commonwealth or without, there may be demand therefor." With the increase of capital, the gas wells and potentially productive territory controlled by Westinghouse, his patent on pipes for transporting gas, and the charter of the company, were to be put in at a valua- tion of two million, five hundred and fifty thousand dollars, the remainder of the five million dollars stock being offered to the public for subscription. This advertisement was repeated four times at later dates.
It is scarcely necessary to say that the expected rush did not materialize, and that the banks which had undertaken to receive subscriptions were able to go on with their ordinary routine of daily trade. After waiting long enough to satisfy himself that his fellow citizens generally did not share his glowing anticipations, Westinghouse made a canvass among his circle of personal friends, reinforcing the pros- pects held out in print with a running commentary
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of his own. As always happened at close contact, his enthusiasm proved infectious. In blocks rang- ing from a hundred shares to several thousand, he disposed of as much of the stock of the new corpora- tion as was necessary to enable it to begin business, and before very long the rumors that it was turning out a money-maker caused a lively speculation in its shares. Its first dividends were at the rate of one per cent a month, but later it was thought prudent to reduce this to eight per cent a year. While Westinghouse was still its principal figure, his company put up a splendid office building in the heart of the business center of Pittsburgh, where, from the upper windows, he could look over at the strip of railroad track on which he made his first demonstration of the practical operation of his air brake.
In course of time, as some of the less hopeful prophets had predicted, the local use of natural gas for manufacturing was materially reduced. This was due partly to the diminished product of the near-by wells, which necessitated bringing in a supply from distant fields and at an increased cost, and partly to the comparative cheapness of the coal mined almost at the doors of the city, which experts have pronounced the finest manufacturing coal in the world. But natural gas is still used almost universally in Pittsburgh and its neighborhood for domestic purposes, and to a considerable extent in industrial lines.
While the direct results of the natural gas develop- ment in the Pittsburgh district were vast in their
WHAT THE GAS DID FOR PITTSBURGH 129
financial aspect, the indirect consequences are more difficult to comprehend or estimate. At about the time when the availability of gas for manufacturing purposes was demonstrated, the question of the best location for the economical production of iron and steel was receiving most serious consideration. Iron ores had theretofore been brought from the Northwest by lake and rail to Pittsburgh, because of the presence there of an ample and cheap supply of fuel necessary for the production of iron and steel. Some point on the shores of Lake Erie where the fuel and iron would meet, and thus save transshipment of the ore, appeared to offer inducements in the way of low production costs. The introduction of nat- ural gas, however, for the time so changed condi- tions as to induce the establishment in the vicinity of Pittsburgh of many new large steel and iron industries that otherwise would probably have been located elsewhere. These have now become permanent, and, though the increased cost of nat- ural gas has restored the fuel and iron ore situation to something like that which preceded the gas development, there is no reason to apprehend that the recognized availability of the Pittsburgh dis- trict for steel and iron manufacture will be dis- turbed.
Let it not be forgotten, either, that Pittsburgh learned for a while what it meant to be clean. Dur- ing the natural gas regime, the pall of soot which had hung over the city for years, showering dirt on everything, was lifted, and many householders celebrated the relief by painting their dwellings
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white. The soot has now come back in sufficient quantity to be a nuisance, but ingenious minds are working on devices to get finally rid of it, as they would not have worked if the people had not enjoyed one refreshing draught of something better. Mean- while the Philadelphia Company has expanded beyond recognition, adding one asset after another to its possessions, till today it controls substantially all the public utilities in the city and immediate suburbs.
CHAPTER X THE CONTEST OF THE CURRENTS
THE Westinghouse Machine Company was or- ganized in 1880, originally to build high-speed en- gines of a type invented by Herman Westinghouse. A contract having been made with the Brush Elec- tric Company to furnish it with these engines for use with direct-driven dynamos in its system of arc lighting, Herman had occasion to make a night trip from New York to Boston, and in the smoking room of his sleeper fell into conversation about his errand with a young man who dropped the remark that he, too, was interested in electric illumination, but in a more immediate way, having recently in- vented a self-regulating dynamo which he believed would solve one of the most vexatious problems in incandescent lighting. Up to that time the dynamos made by the Edison Company, the leading concern in the incandescent field, had required regulation by hand in order to keep the current suitably propor- tioned to the drafts made upon it ; without this, the extinction of one lamp would throw an addi- tional force into all the others drawing upon the same