and patents was taken over bodily into Atlantic & Pacific
hands, and never again left them. Attempts at settlement were made in
their behalf, and dragged wearily, due apparently to the fact that
the plans were blocked by General Eckert, who had in some manner taken
offence at a transaction effected without his active participation in
all the details. Edison, who became under the agreement the electrician
of the Atlantic & Pacific Telegraph Company, has testified to the
unfriendly attitude assumed toward him by General Eckert, as president.
In a graphic letter from Menlo Park to Mr. Gould, dated February 2,
1877, Edison makes a most vigorous and impassioned complaint of
his treatment, "which, acting cumulatively, was a long, unbroken
disappointment to me"; and he reminds Mr. Gould of promises made to
him the day the transfer had been effected of Edison's interest in the
quadruplex. The situation was galling to the busy, high-spirited young
inventor, who, moreover, "had to live"; and it led to his resumption of
work for the Western Union Telegraph Company, which was only too glad to
get him back. Meantime, the saddened and perplexed Automatic group was
left unpaid, and it was not until 1906, on a bill filed nearly thirty
years before, that Judge Hazel, in the United States Circuit Court
for the Southern District of New York, found strongly in favor of the
claimants and ordered an accounting. The court held that there had been
a most wrongful appropriation of the patents, including alike those
relating to the automatic, the duplex, and the quadruplex, all being
included in the general arrangement under which Mr. Gould had held put
his tempting bait of $4,000,000. In the end, however, the complainant
had nothing to show for all his struggle, as the master who made the
accounting set the damages at one dollar!

Aside from the great value of the quadruplex, saving millions of
dollars, for a share in which Edison received $30,000, the automatic
itself is described as of considerable utility by Sir William Thomson in
his juror report at the Centennial Exposition of 1876, recommending it
for award. This leading physicist of his age, afterward Lord Kelvin, was
an adept in telegraphy, having made the ocean cable talk, and he saw in
Edison's "American Automatic," as exhibited by the Atlantic & Pacific
company, a most meritorious and useful system. With the aid of Mr. E.
H. Johnson he made exhaustive tests, carrying away with him to