The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-06-20
.MARCONl TELLS HIS
 LIFE STORY M- COURT
Had Germ Of Wireless Idea When a
 Boy and Worked. to Develop It.

Guglielmo Marcon1 .testtfyfnS yes 1 terday in 1ew York in rebuttal ia the Injunction and damage suit brought ! by the NTarconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America against the Ma tional Electric Signalling Company, briefly szetched the remarkabIe career that made wireless te1egraphy and the name Marconi practically SYNONYMOUS.
 It was the ufe story of well to do Italian lad who had expanded the
 germ Of an idea to worldwide propor- Gtons. From a mere toy that gpdOt- tered feebly across the length of a dining room table he had 1aboriousfy 1 evolved the miracle worker of the present day which sends its message jumping acroSs 5000 miles.
 The idea was not entirely new, he | said. but he insisted that the develop
 ments covered by his patents had made wireless practicable, had lifted
 1t out Of the c1as9 of scientific freaks Ito a place among the commercial utI1- I 1tieS~that are now almost 5udisDensa-
 ble. He denied that he had taken
 his best ideas from either Popo6 or
 Herz.
 | INVENTOR. A GOOD WITNESS. Marconi made good witness. He Twas as shrewd fn appra1sing the Ques- ttons Of the patent lawyers as he was
 in weighing and framing his replies. l"de IS g. man of medium height and build, dark of co1or1ng, and the slight 1 NERVOUSNESS he manifested seemed characteristic rather than the result
 of the swiftly shifting and sharp at
 tacka he was subjected to in cross examination.
 i At one time he was accused of talk ing his idea Of grounding wires from the German scientist PopoR, this alIe- fgation being based on the fact that newspaper reports at the time pat
 ents were pending contained no ref
 erence to this vital improvement in
 apparatus. The lawyers for the de-
 fence took this to mean that the Idea
 of grounding came to him after he had
 applied for patents Popom suggested time.
 Certainly not" Marconi replied.
 tDo you think would be fool enoug gh
 to give away one of my very best ideas before had patented 1t?' Marcon1 is 3S years old, although his appearance would indicate that more
 than eleven years had elapsed since
 he came over. a mere boy in appear
 ance and enthusiasm. to demonstrate the pracficabiIity of his apparatus to country. His mustaG1e is gone, but E seriousness has taken its place. He seems to have aged even more than
 the passing of time would warrant. \ Cares have multiplied prodigiously for
 the young naan Cthen less than POD who in, 1894 read of. the experiments o1 
 Herz; the German wireless inventor and was fired to new experiments with
 the apparatus he had toyed with as g schoolboy.
 XPERINlEHJTER FROM BOYHOOD Most Of the earlier experiments were mode on his fathers country estate ir ItaIX, which Marconi described as xwc and one-half miles long and half g mile wide He had been interested 1T physics and electricity from boyhood he testified, and naturally paid most 1 attention to studies bearing upon the \ subject. His education along these hnes had not been exhaustive, how. ever, except in so far as he taught himself, and 1t is to this self-teaoains that he owes his title of electrical en- gineer. From the time he was 20 he
 stuck persistantly to the study an6 practical application of wireless, though frequetn1y discouraged, and finally stumped for time.
 Ell It was not until he had elevated h1G conductors and grounded his connec' tions that he was able to send over 2 third of a mile. After that it was ar almost uninterrupted march to fame
 and fortune extending from the Eng . fish post office experiments in 189' down to the present day. The British
 navy was the first to take 1t up; ther
 the Italian navy. The American navy
 has @ system of its own which vii | be put out of business the defendant
 Jzs