BUT HIS SOUL GOES MARCHING ON

One article, by two U. of Wisconsin professors, tells of the fierce and bitter controversy that raged in the 1880's between the advocates and critics of alternating current. Today we know that both are equally dangerous at high voltages and equally harmless at low ones, but at the time the underlying issue seems to have been the threat of George Westinghouse to drive Thomas Edison out of business by a better product. Edison's company worked with 240V DC, which required thicker wire all the way from power station to consumer, whereas Westinghouse used 1000V AC for long distance transmission, then stepping it down to 50V AC for distribution; except for the numerical values, the system we use today.

Westinghouse thus had a slightly safer method, but while safety was used to catch the ears of the public, the real point seems to have been copper, expensive in those days, and a major part of capital costs. The world was, of course, coming to an end because resources were running out, and when in the late 1880's copper prices rose sharply because a French syndicate had cornered much of the world's copper production, the AC critics found themselves in a predicament and let out the time-honored yell of "Safety!"

Does all that have a familiar ring? It's about to become unmistakable. A scare-mongering campaign against AC was unleashed; its leader was one Harold P. Brown, who preached that AC was deadly and dangerous, while low-voltage DC was perfectly safe. "AC," wrote this Ralph Nader of the 1880's, "can be described by no adjective less forcible than damnable."

Like Ralph, Brown was a gifted publicity stuntman. He secured a Westinghouse AC generator, persuaded New York State that AC was far deadlier than DC, and over Westinghouse's vehement opposition managed to have it used for the first execution in the electric chair on August 6, 1890, "demonstrating" the dangers of AC, much like Ralph "demonstrates" the dangers of nuclear power by linking it to the Hiroshima bomb. But his hysteria was no match for the advantages of AC we have in our homes to this day, and by 1895, when the Niagara Falls began to deliver AC power, the controversy was effectively over.

There was personal tragedy for Thomas Alva Edison in this. He stubbornly persisted in his opposition to AC, which was the main reason why by 1895 the world's most prolific inventor had lost all influence over the American electrical power industry, which he had helped to create. His company was saved by a merger, and he lost all connection with the emerging new company, General Electric (which used AC, of course).

"As for Brown," conclude the authors, "he was one of those figures seen occasionally in the course of history, who rises suddenly from obscurity, enjoys a few fleeting moments of notoriety, and then returns to whence he came.ns

Or does he? Hal Brown's body lies a-mould'ring in the grave, but...