“When the history of his discoveries and inventions come to be written there will be no more pathetic story in the annals of genius than that of John Worrell Keely. The world hereafter will find it hard to believe that in the last quarter of the 19th century a man with an insight into the secret workings of nature, and a knowledge of her subtler forces, which, whenever it is utilized, will relieve mankind from much of the grinding toil that now makes bitter the existence of the vast majority, that such a man should have been left unaided, because in all the ranks of science there was not found one man capable of understanding his colossal work—because in all the ranks of religion there was not found one man able to realize the enlarged conception of Deity immanent in Keely’s great thoughts—because in all the ranks of commerce, of speculation, of literature, of art, there was not found one man large enough, generous enough, unselfish enough, to furnish money for a purpose that did not promise an immediate dividend.”
Again in 1888, more than ever was Keely held up to ridicule by all those men who possess the instinct of the brute to hound down its prey, and his supporters came in for their share of abuse. Among this class, or of it, were men so ignorant of Keely’s claims, and of the object of his researches, that they represented him as “a seeker of the impossible,” a “perpetual motion crank,” throwing upon his character other odium which the speculating managers of “The Keely Motor Company” were justly responsible for. One of these communications alone is enough to show the quality of the weapons used against him. It appeared in The New York Daily Tribune.
THE KEELY MOTOR CRAZE.
A Donkey-Cabbage Race.
HOW MUCH LONGER WILL THE CLEVER JUGGLER BE ABLE TO DELUDE HIS VICTIMS?
To the Editor of “The Tribune.”
Sir,—The success with which Keely has deluded his victims by appealing to their credulity with a mystery, and to their cupidity with a promise of “all the kingdoms of the earth,” which would not be of greater value than the monopoly of infinite power without cost, which he dangles before their astonished vision, makes him and his antics subjects of unusual interest. His last performance appears to be an issue of 5,000,000 dols. of new stock representing a new discovery veiled in mystery, which is to far outstrip his former one, on which 5,000,000 dols. of stock was issued and is now held by his dupes. Two of these new millions are to go to the old holders as a compensation to them for their disappointment in not realizing perpetual motion under the old discovery; two more to go to Keely to be sold to the public; and the remaining one million is in the treasury to be sold for the benefit of Keely and the others, half and half.
For fifteen years the donkey has been ridden by Keely with the cabbage on a pole held just in front of his hungry mouth, and now the donkey is told that the cabbage after all is only sham, but that the new cabbage is real, and if he will only consent to run fast enough and far enough he certainly will reach it and grow fat.
It would seem that the donkey ought to pause and consider before he begins another fifteen-year race after perpetual motion, and it is here proposed to assist him in his reflections by a few facts. More than fifteen years ago Keely made himself known to the public by exhibiting an apparatus in which a great pressure was manifested, which, he said, resulted from the discovery by him of a new force the nature of which was his secret. Several people, as usual, were astonished at the show, and bought and paid for shares in the patent which was promised. To give colour to the pretence, Keely applied for a patent before 1876, but did not assign to the purchasers their shares; whereupon some of them protested against the issue of the patent unless their shares were recognized in the grant. The Patent Office replied to these protests that it could not recognize the rights claimed unless there was a written assignment filed in the office, which the claimants did not have. The Commissioner, however, called upon Keely to furnish a “working model” of his invention, which, of course, he could not do, and his application was rejected. The specification and drawings of this apparatus show a very silly form of the common perpetual motion machine, of which there are thousands. It was open to the public for some years, when, under a new rule of the office, it, along with all other rejected applications, was withdrawn from inspection; but it is in the office, together with the protests of those who had paid Keely for a share in it. I examined it years ago, and informed Mr. Lamson, and others of Keely’s stockholders, of it. Mr. Lamson told me that he had charged Keely with deception, because he had always said that he never had applied for a patent, and that Keely explained it by saying that he had purposely concealed his invention from the Patent Office in that application to which he had made oath.
Keely, however, finding the perpetual motion trick profitable, extended his operations and became well known to many influential people by his exhibitions. In the winter of 1875–76 he produced two metallic spheres, one about thirty inches in diameter, hung like an ordinary terrestrial globe, which, he said, would revolve with a force equal to two horse-power, and would continue to run when once started as long as the Centennial Exhibition should be open, and until the thing was worn out by friction. In starting it Keely used to have a blackboard in the room, on which he would write a few figures in chalk in the presence of his dupes, and would say that at a certain time the globe would start—and it did, and would revolve as long as the lookers-on remained to see it. Keely pretended to explain this phenomenon by a string of unintelligible jargon; but the point of it all was that he said the thing ran in consequence of its internal mechanical arrangement—or, in other words, that by combining pieces of metal in a certain way power was generated without any other expense than that required to construct the apparatus. Naturally he refused to show the interior construction which did the miracle; but if his statements were true, it existed inside of that globe, and could be produced indefinitely with the result of producing an indefinite amount of horse-power without current expense.
The stock about this time rose to a great price—about 600 per cent.—as it well might if this ball was an “honest ghost.” Some of the stockholders had sense enough to see that if Keely’s story were true, nothing more could be desired, for it must at once supersede coal and all other means of producing power, and its novelty could not be doubted. It was in effect, “all the kingdoms of the earth,” which Satan once offered. But, on the other hand, if Keely’s story were not true, then he was simply an impostor who had been defrauding the stockholders out of their money; and they demanded of Keely that he should proceed at once to patent this miraculous machine, which could create power by a peculiar-shaped hole in a sphere of iron. Of course Keely refused to comply with this reasonable request, and many of his stockholders sold out and left him; since which time the stock has gradually declined down to the present time, when its value is admitted to be nothing.
In view of these facts the curious question is why the donkey goes on any further. The revolving ball is a fact known to hundreds of the stockholders. It is either a real cabbage capable of feeding the donkey with a perpetual feast, like the widow’s cruse of oil, or it is only a sham such as any good mechanic could construct and operate as Keely did. Why doesn’t the donkey balk and insist on biting into the cabbage? If it is real the Keely stock is worth untold millions. It would put an end to steam engines and electric batteries for ever. One of those balls in the corner of a room would make all the heat and light which could be used, and have power to sell; and all that would be needed would be to learn Keely’s cabalistic signs on the blackboard in order to make it start, and to stop it when it had done enough. But if the ball is only a trick, then, of course, Keely could be sent to prison, and his victims could close their accounts and be sure that they would lose no more by him.
Without going any further into the history of this remarkable delusion, which is full of similar tricks too numerous to mention now, it seems clear that these facts ought to be used to bring to an end in one way or the other the Keely craze.
Edward N. Dickerson.
New York, Nov. 30, 1888.
It is difficult to understand how anyone could concoct and put together such a tissue of fabrications as this, when the sole foundation for such a tissue lay in the fact that it was at this juncture that Keely made the announcement that he had proved the uselessness of building engines to employ the ether as a motive power; which could only be used as the medium for the power which he had discovered, namely, a condition of sympathetic vibration, associated both positively and negatively with the polar stream.
The statement made of the issue of new stock is absolutely untrue. The revolving globe was never created to be “the source of power,” and the representation of the manner in which the globe was made to revolve, and that Keely affirmed he could produce with it “an indefinite amount of horse power without current expense,” is denied. The suggestion that Keely could be sent to prison was welcomed by those who eventually acted upon it, with the result that Judge Finletter committed Keely to Moyamensing Prison, for contempt of court, but not for fraud. Mr. Keely, at that time, wrote of those who called him a perpetual motion seeker:—“I console myself by thinking that if they were not ignorant of the grand truths which I am devoting my life to develop into a system, they could never bring forward such an absurd charge. Perpetual motion is against nature, and it is only by following nature’s laws that I can ever hope to reach the goal I am aiming to reach.”
The Supreme Court reversed and set aside the order of the court committing Keely for contempt, and released him from custody, upon the writ of habeas corpus taken out on his behalf, within three days of his commitment.
The Chief Justice, in delivering his opinion, made some remarks which fully vindicated Mr. Keely’s character. After alluding to the proper procedure which ought to have been taken in the court below, the Judge continued:—
“Instead of so proceeding, a commission of experts was appointed to examine the defendant’s machine, and the order of April 7th was made, by which the defendant, in advance of any issue, was not only required to exhibit his machine, but also to operate it and explain the mode of its construction and operation, although it clearly appeared that it would require considerable expense to clean the machine, put it together and operate it. The defendant appears to have been willing to exhibit it, and in point of fact did so. That he might have been compelled to do so at a proper stage of the case is conceded. But to make an order not only to exhibit it, but to operate it, the practical effect of which was to wring from him his defence in advance of any issue joined, was an improvident and excessive exercise of Chancery powers. We are of opinion that the order was improvidently made. It follows that the learned court had no power to enforce it by attachment. The relator is discharged.”
It was in this year, 1888, that a woman, interested in all branches of science, who had proved to her own satisfaction the value to humanity, as well as to science, of Keely’s discoveries, was deprived of legal and maternal rights on account of the delusions that she was very generally believed to be under. A journalist, wishing to obtain information concerning Keely’s work, called upon this woman, by appointment, and at the close of the interview said,—
“May I venture to ask you if it is true that you have furnished Mr. Keely with large sums of money as rumour declares; and that you have invested largely in the stock?”
“Were I not glad of the opportunity to answer this question in justice to Mr. Keely, I might have said that this is a subject which is of no interest to the public; but I have heard the amount estimated as nearly 100,000l. too often not to be willing to have the truth made known. What I have given to Mr. Keely has been saved by economies in my expenses; and, if not given to him, would have been given to others; as I believe in those who have the most doing all that lies in their power for those who have less. In regard to investments in Keely Motor stock, I have bought no stock excepting to give away.”
“There is one other question I should like to ask you,” said our representative, “Is Mr. Keely a spiritualist? I use the word in its ordinary sense. Does he claim that he has bridged the gulf between the finite and the infinite?”
“When Mr. Keely first commenced his wonderful investigations he would have scouted the idea of being in any way whatever associated with so-called spiritualism, but of recent years, and especially during the last few months, he has made such startling progress that he now admits—as I told him a long time ago he would come to admit—that if not in actual experiment, at least in theory he has passed into the world of spirit.”
The interview being ended, our representative took his departure, after expressing his thanks for the information so willingly given. How far this lady’s anticipations of the inventor’s success will be realized, or how far her confidence in his integrity is justified, we must leave our readers to judge for themselves. The whole subject is enveloped in much mystery, but it is full of interest, and if half that is narrated of Mr. Keely be true, he is indeed a wonderful man!—The Tatler.