Privileges Sold by Mrs. B. Moore; Letter to C. B. Collier
She Writes a Letter in Which She Discusses Certain Recent Transactions and Rumors.
PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 8.—In answer to a letter from Charles B. Collier, for many years counsel of John E. W. Keely, the inventor, Mrs. Bloomfield Moore has addressed a letter to that gentleman in which she makes some interesting statements regarding recent events bearing on the Keely Motor Company. After referring to a late publication in which the transfer of her privileges to a wealthy syndicate was alluded to, she says:
It was this word “privileges" which was construed by you all to mean my share in the inventions of the air-ship propeller and the railway traction engine, leading to the giving of information which was most incorrect, as no effort has ever been made to buy my interests.
Had Mr. Brewster asked me to make a proposition to them after I had refused his proposition on Nov. 7 I was prepared, on the same condition Col. Astor had accepted from me Oct. 23, to place under their control the “privileges” that I acquire from my contract with Mr. Keely.
When, on Nov. 5, the unauthorized and untrue statements of Col. Astor's transaction were made public I said that plans formed to have a scientific value of Mr. Keely's discoveries acknowledged publicly before commercial success is attained had been refuted for the third time: within five years. I then despaired of accomplishing these aims, and Nov. 7, all negotiations with the financiers were abruptly brought to a close.
The privileges I value now as I never valued them before. To be relieved of all business transaction would have been such a priceless boon that I would then have given the half interest in Mr. Keely's inventions which he offered and I refused if they would have held the gift of the good of the masses, for the progress of humanity, for the research in new fields and not for selfish aggrandizement. Now, there is nothing that could induce me to place these privileges in the hands of “financiers.”
Barren of results as it has been for science, should Mr. Keely not recover from the attack which has kept him from his workshop for the last two weeks, nearly, what will be the verdict of posterity upon men who, having contemplated the raising of $10,000,000 for a scheme of their own to float a company bringing out a new invention in a city, allowed this delay solely for financial ends, falling to stand by the agreement made that within two weeks the scientific world would see by the announcement that their syndicate was to employ apergy instead of electricity as the motive power, and no announcement made?
Mrs. Moore has made public this letter to Mr. Collier, her theory being that the public, is interested in the matters to which it refers.
Published: December 9, 1895
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