Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1913-06-28
MARCONI TELLS
HIS LIFE STORY
Inventor, In Court, States How
Wireless Idea Grew.
SUES FOR INFRINGEMENT.

Dreamed Of the Possibilities Of His In
vention When Boy and Worked to
Develop lt--AIleees National Signal
ing Company Is Using Theories
Which He Patented.
Guglielino Marconi. testifying in New
York In the injunction and damage
suit brought by the Marconi Wireless
Telegraph Company OF America against
the National Electric Signaling com
pany. briefly sketched the remarkable
career that made wireless telegrphy
and the name Marconi practically syn
onymous.
II was the life story of well to do
Italian lad who had expanded the germ
of an idea to worldwide proportions.
From a mere toy that spluttered feebly
across the length OF a dining room ta-
BILE be had laboriously evolved the mira
Gle worker of the present day, which
sends its message jumping across 6.oO0
miles.
The idea was not entirely new, he
said, but he insisted that the develop
ments covered by his patents had made
wireless practicable and lifted 1t out
of the class OF scientific freaks to a
place among the commercial utilities
that are now almost Indispensable. He
denied that he had taken his best ideas
from either Popoff or Hertz.
inventor Good Witness.
Marconi made good witness. He
was as shrewd in iappraising the ques-
lions of the patent lawyers as he was
in weighing and framing his replies.
He is man Of medium Height and
build, dark or coloring. andpthe slight
nervousness he manifested seemed
characteristic rather than the result of
the swiftly shifting and sharp attacks
he was subjected to in cross examina-
ton.
At one point he was accused of TAX
ing his idea for grounding wires from
the German scientist Popoff, this ale
cation being based on the fact that
newspaper reports at the time patents
were pending contained no reference
to this vital improvement in apparatus
The lawyers for the defense took this
to mean that the idea of grounding
came to him after he had applied for
patents. Popoff suggested such an Inn
provement just about that time.
certainly not" Afarconi replied
DO you think would be fool enough
to give away one of my very best ideas
before | had patented it;'
Marconi is thirty-eight years old. al
though his appearance would indicate
that more than eleven years have
elapsed since he came over, a mere
boy in appearance and enthusiasm. to
demonstrate the practicability of his
apparatus to the government and PEG.
Pile of this country. His mustache is
gone. but seriousness has taken its
place He seems to have aged even
more than the passing of time would
warrant. Cares have multiplied pro-
digiously for the young man then less
than twenty who in 1894 read Of the
experiments Of Hertz. the German
wireless inventor, aud was fred to new
experiments with the apparatus he
had toyed with as a schoolboy.
Experimental From Boyhood.
Most of the earlier experiments were
made on his fathers country estate in
Italy, which Marconi described as two
and one-half miles long and half a
mile wide He had been interested in
physics and electricity from boyhood,
he testified, and naturally paid most
attention TO studies bearing upon the
subject His education along these
lines had not been exhaustive, how
ever, except in so far as he taught
himself. and 1t is to tlds self teaching
that he owes his title of electrical en-
gineer From the time he was twenty
he stuck persistently to the study and
practical application Of wireless,
though frequently discouraged and
finally stumped for time.
1t was not until he had elevated his
conductors and grounded his connec-
lions that he was able to send over a
third of a mile. After that it was an
almost uninterrupted march to fame
and fortune. extending from the Eng
lish postofiice experiments in 1897
down to the present day. The Brit
ish navy was the FIRST to take 1t up,
then the Italian navy. The American
navy has a system of its own which
will be put out of business, the de-
PENDANTS say. If the Marconi people
a., fhaf,. e,.fk