The First Edison Central Station- 3

The First Edison Central Station- 3

 The "road to yesterday" back to Edison and his insistence on underground wires is a long

one, but the preceding paragraph traces it. Even admitting that the size and weight of his

low-tension conductors necessitated putting them underground, this argues nothing

against the propriety and sanity of his methods. He believed deeply and firmly in the

analogy between electrical supply and that for water and gas, and pointed to the trite fact

that nobody hoisted the water and gas mains into the air on stilts, and that none of the

pressures were inimical to human safety. The arc-lighting methods were unconsciously

and unwittingly prophetic of the latter-day long-distance transmissions at high pressure

that, electrically, have placed the energy of Niagara at the command of Syracuse and

Utica, and have put the power of the falling waters of the Sierras at the disposal of San

Francisco, two hundred miles away. But within city limits overhead wires, with such

space-consuming potentials, are as fraught with mischievous peril to the public as the

dynamite stored by a nonchalant contractor in the cellar of a schoolhouse. As an offset,

then, to any tendency to depreciate the intrinsic value of Edison's lighting work, let the

claim be here set forth modestly and subject to interference, that he was the father of

under- ground wires in America, and by his example outlined the policy now dominant in

every city of the first rank. Even the comment of a cynic in regard to electrical

development may be accepted: "Some electrical companies wanted all the air; others

apparently had use for all the water; Edison only asked for the earth."

The late Jacob Hess, a famous New York Republican politician, was a member of the

commission appointed to put the wires underground in New York City, in the "eighties."

He stated that when the commission was struggling with the problem, and examining all

kinds of devices and plans, patented and unpatented, for which fabulous sums were often

asked, the body turned to Edison in its perplexity and asked for advice. Edison said: "All

you have to do, gentlemen, is to insulate your wires, draw them through the cheapest

thing on earth--iron pipe--run your pipes through channels or galleries under the street,

and you've got the whole thing done." This was practically the system adopted and in use

to this day. What puzzled the old politician was that Edison would accept nothing for his

advice.

Another story may also be interpolated here as to the underground work done in New

York for the first Edison station. It refers to the "man higher up," although the phrase had

not been coined in those days of lower public morality. That a corporation should be

"held up" was accepted philosophically by the corporation as one of the unavoidable

incidents of its business; and if the corporation "got back" by securing some privilege

without paying for it, the public was ready to condone if not applaud. Public utilities were

in the making, and no one in particular had a keen sense of what was right or what was

wrong, in the hard, practical details of their development. Edison tells this illuminating

story: "When I was laying tubes in the streets of New York, the office received notice

from the Commissioner of Public Works to appear at his office at a certain hour. I went

up there with a gentleman to see the Commissioner, H. O. Thompson. On arrival he said

to me: `You are putting down these tubes. The Department of Public Works requires that

you should have five inspectors to look after this work, and that their salary shall be $5

per day, payable at the end of each week. Good-morning.' I went out very much

crestfallen, thinking I would be delayed and harassed in the work which I was anxious to

finish, and was doing night and day. We watched patiently for those inspectors to appear.

The only appearance they made was to draw their pay Saturday afternoon."