March 20, 1890
Samuel Insull, Esq.,
#44 Wall Street,
New York City.
Dear Sir:-
Referring to the attached letter from Mr. MacGruther, under date February 21st, 1890, addressed to yourself, the same being a reply to a communication written by you in London, in which you complained of a lack of proper advices covering shipments forwarded on Col. Gouraud's orders, and in which Mr. Mac Gruther says: "On behalf of the Phonograph Works and myself I reply to your favor of the 6th instant, although I do not see that they are, or I am, in any way implicated." I beg to say that during the past week I have had occasion to make a very thorough investigation of Cole Gouraud's relations with the Laboratory, the Edison Phonograph Works, and I have found that up to about the 1st of May, 1889, all Col. Gouraud's orders for material were addressed to the Laboratory, and our records show that advices of these shipments were promptly forwarded to the London office. After that time, the orders were sent direct to the Edison Phonograph Works, and the only advice the Laboratory received the existence of such orders, were the bills rendered against Mr. Edison by the Works. While I was in London the people in Col. Gouraud's office complained to me of the nonreceipt of advices of shipments, the same as they did to you, and upon my return from Europe. I made inquiry and found that the Laboratory understood that the Phonograph Works were advising their own shipments, and that the Phonograph Works had equal confidence in the Laboratory. From the period of my return from Europe our letter books again show that shipping advices were forwarded immediately we received invoices from the Phonograph Works. In the set of bills which I sent to London, I attached to each invoice a copy of the advice which had been sent and these are complete before the 1st of May, 1889 and after 15th of October, or thereabouts. I found at the Works that all Col. Gouraud's orders for material had been filed in a most unsystematic manner, in their letter files, and that the letters from Hamilton and others in Col. Gouraud's office, asking for information generally were pigeonholed in Mr. English's desk. Until I commenced this investigation I was totally unaware of the justice of the complaints made by Col. Gouraud's people of their inability to obtain information from us. Their usual method of addressing their letters was, "The Manager of the Edison Phonograph Works, Orange." These letters never reached the Laboratory but went direct to the Works, where they appear to have been systematically neglected. From the very commencement of Mr. Edison's relations with Col. Gouraud, I have been very careful of the manner in which his direct business with us was conducted, and there is not a single communication from Col. Gouraud's office, addressed to the Laboratory, but which was replied to as fully as was possible. From a remark you made when in my office yesterday. I think you have an idea that the letters from Col. Gouraud's office were handled by Mr. Edison or someone else to the Phonograph Works to be replied there. This is not so. The correspondence which was neglected was addressed direct to the Works and this office had no knowledge of it until I commenced my recent investigation. Mr. MacGruther, personally, is entirely blameless, but the same cannot be said of the Phonograph Works. The trouble has been their utter lack of system.
Yours very truly,
A.O. Tate

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