[D8936AAN], Letter from Chicago Edison Co, Frank Sanford Gorton to Thomas Alva Edison, April 23rd, 1889
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Title
[D8936AAN], Letter from Chicago Edison Co, Frank Sanford Gorton to Thomas Alva Edison, April 23rd, 1889
Editor's Notes
The Chicago Edison Co., Chicago April 23rd, 1889####Mr. E. Edison, My Dear Edison--####[note scrawled across the top: Gorton= Just want a little if I get a chance there will be some [pain?]####In the C.B. & Q. Test on lamps, I learn that the "Perkins lamp" was first, our lamps was third, that at the end of 600 hours our lamp fell to 9 candles. This matter is going to be made public. When I was at the annual meeting, in Borgmann & Co's office, Hutchinson, showed me a letter from their agent, giving different cases where lamps were unsatisfactory. I told them that it was his duty to let you know these things, and the trouble with many of your employees was, that they would not tell you anything that was unpl.easant, even though it were true, so that you could have remedied any faults in lamps or apparatus.####The "T. & H. Co." make a very good Dynamo, and will sell them at less by 10 per cent than we can buy from the Machine Works. The business is increasing. We have always taken the lead, and should hold it, and sell more plants every year, than the previous year, and by increase business should be able to make the apparatus cheaper. I wrote Insull a long letter yesterday, whih he will probably show to you. My territory consists of this county alone, and I want to sell every incandescent plant + lamp that is used here. We made our cut on lamps to $.60 just the right time. The Perkins Co., have on the way here, a large stock of lamps and they propose going in and capture the lamp business of the West.####There should be a Head Quarters here of the Edison Business and a Manager who had his heart and soul in the Edison interest to pursue an aggressive policy of capturing all the business.####My idea, would be, to make districts of the country, and district managers all under salary, whose duty it was to overy the country with plants. The trouble has been and is, with the agencies as some of them have been run. The agent was first, and if he could not make anything, he did not care. By the [distinct?] and aggressive policy system, we could double our out put of the shops and the Edison Co., owing the shops,m would make more money than they ever have. Holding up the price of the lamps, without an absolute monopoly has been suicidal, and if it had never been done, there would have been fewer lamp makers to-day in the field.####Very respectfully, F.S Gorton####[name mentions: Bergmann & Co., Hutchinson, Thomson Houston Co.]
Recipient
Mentioned
Date
1889-04-23
Type
Folder/Volume ID
D8936-F
Microfilm ID
126:317
Document ID
D8936AAN
Publisher
Thomas A. Edison Papers, School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers University