The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1894-10-17
FIVE YOUNG MEN.
They Are Responsible For = Remarkable
Engineering and Financial Enterprise


RTFFAIO Oct $40 work depend
ing upon scientific knowledge, engineer
ing skill and great capital for its develop
ment has caused so great an amount of in
teresting sketches as well a more technical
writing since the discovery OF the telephone
as the stupendous plant now being finish
Ell at Niagara falls for the conversion OF
some Of that power into electrical energy.
But with the Niagara falls power devel-
opment there have been associated a group
of five men, all Of them young and some
very young TO undertake the solution OF
such profound problem.
OF course many engineers have suggest
ed that an enormous power went 10 waste
over Niagara falls, and capital had even
developed some of IL, But IL was a young
lawyer Of Niagara Falls, Mr.. William b.
Rankine, who took seriously the sugges-
tions of the engineers, and when he was
only a law student used 10 spend ell Of his
time that he could spare in thinking about
these things, often spending hours watch
ing the falls trying in his youthful way TO
solve the mysteries
AT last Mr. Rankine decided that dream
ing would never accomplish anything So
he went 10 men who had WHIST he had not
luE "a Ab4lA lAil.t NAt1buN
success. Finally he went TO New York city
and was there brought into association
with group of comparatively young men,
whom he at last interested in the work.
Mr.. Rankine persuaded young lawyer
of New York, young in comparison with
the veterans-Mr Francis Lynde Stetson,
who is known TO the country as the law
partner of President Cleveland Up To
that time Mr.. Stetson had been since his
admission TO the bar completely absorb
ed in his practice, but he became fascinated
with the idea of controlling the falls So
that they would be compelled TO deliver as
much as 4JO, 600 horsepower, and he went
about among the capitalists.
One of those whom he first saw was Mr.
Edward ID. Adams. He is young man
about 40 years of age whose name, while
il is not familiar 10 the general public,
is well known tn the great railway CAPT
talists of the United States. lie is one Of
those who, though born in comparative
poverty, beginning life without "a dollar
revealed such powers OF organization and
capacity for constructive energy that long
before he had reached his thirty fifth year
he had accumulated fortune Mr. Ad-
ans and Mr.. StetsOn went 10 some Of the
greater capitalists, men whose achieve
ments have been rodigious, like Pierpont
Morgan, the Seligmans and the Wander
bits, and securing their interest the mil
lions We're pledged which were necessary
to develop this work
Later two other young men were associ-
ated with IL, one Of them NikOis Tesla.
1t is Mr.. Tesla who has shown these
capitalists how they can take the enor-
nous currents Of electricity generated at
the falls and carry them over wires for
miles and miles, distributing light and
electric power 10 cities even as far away as
800 miles.
Another young man now only 36 who
has been prominently associated with this
work is Frank w, Hawley He it was who
appeared before the committee Of the con-
stitutional convention recently in New
York state and made brilliant demonstra-
tion Of his belief that the electric power
generated at the falls would in ten years
be found driving the locomotives on the
railways that bisect New York state, serv-
ing the trolley roads, propelling the canal
boats and delivering power for the manu-
factories in "a district within radius OF
300 miles from the falls Hawlcy, too, he
gan with nothing and only few years
ago was a reporter upon a Rochester Ia
Ter. VA. r MERRILL