nd made a splendid outlet for the product of the factories. A few
years later came the consolidation with the Thomson-Houston interests
in the General Electric Company, which under the brilliant and vigorous
management of President C. A. Coffin has become one of the greatest
manufacturing institutions of the country, with an output of apparatus
reaching toward $75,000,000 annually. The net result of both financial
operations was, however, to detach Edison from the special field of
invention to which he had given so many of his most fruitful years; and
to close very definitely that chapter of his life, leaving him free to
develop other ideas and interests as set forth in these volumes.

It might appear strange on the surface, but one of the reasons that most
influenced Edison to regrets in connection with the "big trade" of 1889
was that it separated him from his old friend and ally, Bergmann, who,
on selling out, saw a great future for himself in Germany, went
there, and realized it. Edison has always had an amused admiration for
Bergmann, and his "social side" is often made evident by his love of
telling stories about those days of struggle. Some of the stories were
told for this volume. "Bergmann came to work for me as a boy," says
Edison. "He started in on stock-quotation printers. As he was a rapid
workman and paid no attention to the clock, I took a fancy to him, and
gave him piece-work. He contrived so many little tools to cheapen the
work that he made lots of money. I even helped him get up tools until
it occurred to me that this was too rapid a process of getting rid of
my money, as I hadn't the heart to cut the price when it was originally
fair. After a year or so, Bergmann got enough money to start a small
shop in Wooster Street, New York, and it was at this shop that the
first phonographs were made for sale. Then came the carbon telephone
transmitter, a large number of which were made by Bergmann for the
Western Union. Finally came the electric light. A dynamo was installed
in Bergmann's shop to permit him to test the various small devices which
he was then making for the system. He rented power from a Jew who owned
the building. Power was supplied from a fifty-horse-power engine to
other tenants on the several floors. Soon after the introduction of the
big dynamo machine, the landlord appeared in the shop and insisted that
Bergmann was using more power than he was paying for, and said that
lately the belt on