Аннотация: The Fairy Tale about the Ilf and Petrov's question to President Roosevelt, Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla
The Fairy Tale about the Ilf and Petrov's question to President Roosevelt, Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla
Ilf and Petrov came to America and went to the White House for the press conference of U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt.
"Before us", - writers remembered, - "in the depth of a round office on which walls the old lithographs representing the Mississippi steamships hung, and in small niches there were models of frigates - Franklin Roosevelt sat behind a desk of average size, with the smoking cigar in a hand and in Chekhovian pince-nee on a big beautiful nose ...
Questions have begun. Correspondents asked, the president answered".
It was the turn of Ilf and Petrov.
- Mr. President, - they have asked a question, - the United States is a big country. And the Soviet Union, and China are large countries. There are other big countries. Europe is not a small region. But the volume of production of weapons and other products in the United States before and after beginning the World War II is impressive. The General impression is that the USA in this direction has no competitors..
- The volume of production is really great, - the president Franklin Roosevelt has agreed. - The size of the territory, the population are important factors ... I'll ask my press service to organize for you a meeting with Mr. Thomas Edison.
M.Ya. Lapirov-Skoblo joined to writers. He was in a business trip in the USA. He has acted as a tour guide.
- The Edison's laboratory in West Orange is in sixty kilometers from New York. Here we are at Edison's estate. You hear beeps of the factories and plants located in West Orange and engaged in the mass production of a variety of items - Edison's inventions.
To the right of the gate-a large three-storey house. Large, high library of Edison, where about 60 thousand books and magazines that Edison collected throughout his long life.
The exact figures characterizing the volume of finances of Edison, I have not met, but I think that he can be called a very wealthy man.
I visited Thomas Edison earlier as part of a delegation. He said:
"I received much, but what remained to me, makes approximately annual salary of the chairman of the railway company, needless to say, of the chairman of the big railway company. Money at me thaws in hands because during all my life I did experiences, and on it the incredible quantity of dollars a year leaves. I spend for laboratory annually at least one million dollars".
Edison became a kind of trendsetter in the field of culture of organization of inventive, intellectual, creative activity.
There are no signs of Edison's addiction to luxury items in the photos or in the biographies.
It can be assumed that after the introduction into the public consciousness of the "cultural stereotypes" of Edison, a belonging to the intellectual sphere was little combined with a passion for luxury goods.
Idealizing a little, we can formulate the impression of the type of person - "electrical engineer"-which appears in some photographs of Thomas Edison.
He is well dressed, looks good. He is vigorous, improved, in good vitality, his face reflects a positive spirit, positive emotions. He is intellectual. Photos show a jacket (a suit), a tie, a white shirt. The hat and a vest are sometimes visible. According to poses and looks of characters it is visible that the clothes for them are comfortable.
Generally, it is a type of the successful, cultural, intellectual person.
Naturally, such photos perform a certain lacquering function, it is not always the working conditions, for example, the conditions of experiments, allow you to dress in this way. But, nevertheless, the general style is manifested itself.
The laboratories of Thomas Edison and his contemporaries - presented in photographs, in the memories of eyewitnesses - formed an idealized idea of some design standards. Modern, "fresh" building. Spacious, usually bright room. In some cases, high ceilings are visible. Garbage is a relative concept; for some reason there is an impression that inside the room is clean. When we see a General view of the building with some details of the environment, you may get the impression that is described by the term "spaciousness" (lack of constraint).
The workshop "grows" nearby the Edison's laboratory. After a certain time, the workshop is a scientific and technical enterprise.
Naturally, both the laboratory with the workshop and the scientific and technical (electrical) enterprise are not possible without "collectivity".
Thomas Edison has told us: "... I don't need usual joys of rich men. I don't need neither horses, nor yachts, on all this I have no time. I need a workshop!"
During the life of the Edison the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued to him 1093 patents. Such quantity was never received by any one person.
In this extraordinary creative productivity - obtaining 1093 patents - does not hide whether the answer to your question about the origins of the industrial power of the United States, dear writers?
Ilf and Petrov wondered.
At this moment the door in library has opened, and someone from Thomas Edison's employees has invited them to enter.
After short greetings Thomas Edison has told:
- According to my today's schedule at me now - an important action. But I have detained arrived to me for acquaintance of the seafarer to whom I talked before a meeting with you.
The famous seaman William Willis was from Europe. He has moved to America and at the final stage the lives has carried out two swimmings on rafts through the Pacific Ocean.
He did not become Ilf, Petrov and Lapirov-Skoblo to talk about his famous journeys on rafts, but for some clarity told about the beginning of his marine career.
- I was employed as the cabin boy for three years with a salary of 5 marks in a month on a four-mast bark "Henriette" with the displacement of three thousand tons. "Henriette" should go around Cape Horn to Santa Rosalia in the Gulf of California.
Among the sailors, "Henriette" was known as the God damned ship, and it was not easy to recruit a team. During the last swimming the captain, the avaricious person, has died of blood poisoning near Cape Horn. Many days he has lain in the cabin helpless, without any care, and when has died, his body was thrown overboard without proper honors.The assistant took command. He dressed the uniform of the deceased and was walking around the deck with an important look. He ended up going crazy. Threatening sailors with a six-charging revolver, he has forced them to rise onto yards and tried to shoot down...
In the morning my mother has come to say goodbye - for the next day we went out to sea. There was a hot summer day. I stacked in the wheelhouse coal for a galley. The hard work had to be done lying on his back to properly fill the space between the beams. I have crept out outside. My hands have been covered with callosities from a shovel, knees - I hit them against crossbeams more than once - bled, sweat streams flew down on the dirt covering me from legs to the head. Mother hasn't recognized me.
- Mother! - I called out to her, coming very close.
Her eyes were filled with tears.
The captain's assistant, the huge big fellow, approached me.
- Remember one thing, if you do not like something, you can jump overboard, - he said icily.
And I, for three years tied to the "Henriette" and captain's assistant, felt myself like a prisoner.
For the hundred sixty ninth day we have dropped an anchor in Santa Rosalia - small Mexican port on the Californian peninsula. The next morning we have started coal unloading - it intended for the melting enterprise of the big copper mine. All week, except Sunday, we worked from six in the morning till six in the evening. In about two months all coal was unloaded and have aboard taken ballast.
At night when all slept, I have thrust the things into the old patched bag, a gift of the Hamburg ragman, and, trying not to make noise, left premises for team.
Leaving the bag in the forecastle of an English sailing ship, standing in front of the "Henriette", I crossed the sleepy town and hid among the hills: the captain could tell about my flight to the police. In such case I would be detained and in shackles delivered aboard ...
I was so tired of walking on the hot hills that I immediately fell into a deep sleep. I woke up because someone's strong arm was clutching my shoulder and pulled me off the bed. In the dim light of a kerosene lamp hanging from the ceiling, I saw four unfamiliar sailors. It turned out that they are from "Bermuda" the English four-mast ship which in the morning had to go to sea. There was one sailor missing off this ship, so they came for me.
I was offered the position of a first-class sailor with a salary of twenty times more than "Henriette". It has solved problems.
There was a very different situation than at "Henriette". Each was his own master, did his job as he saw fit, said what he wanted. No one was watching the discipline, people did not feel the iron hand, a sharp eye, which noticing every movement, not afraid that they would be scolded or punished. Sailors, funny guys, loved and knew how to work. All of them went many years on sailing vessels. The team consisted mainly of Scandinavians, British and Germans, and there were two Americans - one from Chicago, used to swim in the Great lakes, and the other, a half-breed Indian, worked in the copper mines in Santa Rosalia, a young Australian and a Finn carpenter. "Henriette" was like a prison. Here I enjoyed a full freedom and, importantly, a respect. I also didn't assume that I can be so happy during period of floating.
In Hamburg have paid off us. I left the English Consulate, tinkling by gold coins in my pocket ...
I am not going to do generalizations, dear writers! At everyone the personal destiny and the personal circumstances of life. But whether it seems to you strange that I have "suddenly" felt the happy, free person? That "suddenly" the payment of my work has increased twenty times? Even if to consider the described circumstances as a casual and a single, then anyway they draw attention to themselves and induce to think.
- Is your story an indicative? "Henriette" was the English ship, but not American, - writers have expressed doubt.
Edison and Willis have slightly smiled.
- Pay attention to the structure of crew ..., - Willis has noticed.
Then Thomas Edison took a serious look and reported:
- Now I'm in a hurry at the previously scheduled case. Who can answer Your question better than Nikola Tesla? I'll ask my staff to arrange a meeting with him through the Society of electrical engineers.
After some time, Ilf and Petrov arrived to Nikola Tesla.
- After dismissal from the company of Edison and the sad experience of participation in the joint-stock company, I worked hard in the street repair crews in new York, barely earned to survive. Later, I rarely recalled my painful life experience. (Margaret Cheney briefly wrote about this period in her biographical book about me).
But unexpectedly my destiny has taken a new turn. Having learned about my induction motor, one of his acquaintances at former work has arranged to me a meeting with A.K. Brown, the managing director of the Western Union company. Brown not only knew about alternating current, but also has been personally interested in realization of this new idea.
Brown has distinctly seen the grandiose future of new technology. With his help one more company under the name of Tesla has been created. The electric company of Tesla had the special purpose - to develop the system of alternating current which the inventor "has seen" in the park of Budapest in 1882.
The electric company of Tesla, with the capital in half a million dollars, has opened the business in April, 1887. For me, the inventor, who was so long expecting this moment, it was implementation of a cherished dream.
I started working like one of my Dynamo machines, day and night. Without any rest.
Since all the designs were kept in my memory, it took me only a few months to start the patent process for a multiphase alternating current system.
My multiphase systems were so original and all-encompassing that they stood out from the competition.
The news from United States Patent Office of such a perfect system shocked Wall Street, as well as industrial, and scientific spheres.
My patents were the "key" that Mr. George Westinghouse was waiting for.
Mr. Westinghouse has visited me in my laboratory.
Records show that for his forty patents Tesla received from the firm of Westinghouse about 60 thousand dollars. Including $ 5,000 in cash and 150 shares of fixed capital.
However, it was significant that I had to get $ 2.5 for each sold horsepower. In a few years, such deductions were to be a huge sum of money - millions of dollars.
I have agreed to work as the consultant for Westinghouse with a salary of 2,000 dollars a month, refining single-phase electric current system.
George Westinghouse experienced a super intensity in its desire to transfer the entire country to the alternating current system.
Payments from sold products to Tesla for his patents, thanks to the generous agreement of Westinghouse, according to bankers-investors - business partners of Westinghouse, could "sink any ship."
Mr. George Westinghouse had to address to me with the arisen difficult situation.
I said, "Mr. Westinghouse, you were my friend, you believed in me when others didn't have any faith, you showed courage in moving forward when the others backslid. You supported me, when even your own engineers didn't have a vision of the grandiose things, and I saw, you remained my friend... You plan to continue development of my inventions. Here your copy of the contract, and here mine - I will tear both of them, and you will have no difficulties with percent to me any more. Whether it is enough of it?"
The annual report of the Westinghouse Company of 1897 states that to Tesla was paid $ 216,600 for the final purchase of his patents to avoid paying him interest on sales.
- What are your conclusions, Mr. Tesla? - Ilf and Petrov asked a question.
Nikola Tesla's response was unexpected:
- It's all about the general cultural orientation, the mentality. What is the attitude to the abilities, talents, creativity of a person? Bored, indifferent? Spiteful and jealous and hostile? Or positive encouraging? In Russia, you have Maxim Gorky, who is trying to create a positive atmosphere for creative people. This is a person with a lot of life experience and broad views. He knows Russia well. He spent almost half of his adult life abroad of Russia. My personal life experience allows me to say: in America (I recently received American citizenship), a positive attitude to creative people "outweighs" the negative attitude. If we use the image of Maxim Gorky, then we have not one Gorky, but, so to speak, a mass, collective Maxim Gorky.
This is my answer!
You can reproduce my answer in your journalist report!
Ilf and Petrov came out of Nikola Tesla's laboratory, discussing how best to present the information.
In one of the newsstands they saw a newspaper. In newspaper a news was published:" Maxim Gorky is on treatment! Exacerbation of the disease!"
"Urgently we go to Russia! Until alive Gorky!" "We will write during the way!"- writers have decided and have urgently gone home.
August 7, 2018 13:03
Translation from Russian into English: August 19, 2018 - August 20, 2018.
Владимир Владимирович Залесский 'Сказка о вопросе Ильфа и Петрова Президенту Рузвельту, Томасу Эдисону и Николе Тесле'.