Considering the probabilities in the case even if the chances were a 100,000 to 1 against Mr. Tesla the odds would still be largely in favor of taking a chance of spending $2000,000. In the opinion of the writer, who has known Mr. Tesla for many years and can testify he still retains full intellectual vigor, the authorities in charge of building national defense should at once look into the matter. The sum is insignificant compared to the magnitude of  the stake.
 
        

Such a Device "Invaluable"

After all $2,000,000 would be relatively a very  small sum compared with what is at stake. If  Mr. Tesla really fulfills his promise the results achieved would be truly staggering. Now only would it save billions now planned for air         defense, by making the country absolutely impregnable against any air attack, but it also would save many more billions in property that would otherwise be surely destroyed no matter how strong the defenses are as witness   current events in England.
Take, for example, the Panama Canal. No matter how strong the defense, a suicide squadron of dive bombers, according to some experts, might succeed in getting through and cause such damage that would make the Canal unusable, in which our Navy might find it self bottled up.

In ordinary times such a condition would very likely interpose an insuperable obstacle. But times being what they are, and with the nation getting ready to spend billions on national defense, at the same time taking in consideration the reputation of Mr. Tesla as an inventor who always was many years ahead of his time, the question arises whether it may not be advisable to take Mr. Tesla at his word    and commission him to go ahead with his "teleforce"  plant.

The voltage for propelling the beam to its objective, according  to the inventor, will attain a potential of 80,000,000 volts.  With this enormous voltage, he said, microscopic electrical particles of matter will be catapulted on their mission of defensive       destruction. He has been working on this invention,  he added, for many years and has made a number of improvements on it.
Mr. Tesla makes one important stipulation. Should the government decide to take up his offer, he would go to work on it at once, but they would have to trust him. He would suffer "no interference from experts."

The beam, he states, involves four new inventions, two of which already have been tested. One of these is a method and apparatus eliminating the need for a "high vacuum;" a second is a process for      producing "very great electrical force;" third is a method of amplifying this force, and the fourth is a new method for producing "a tremendous repelling electrical force."  This would be the projector, or the gun of the system.

A dozen such plants, located at strategic points along the coast, according to Mr. Tesla,  would be enough to defend the country  against all aerial attack.  The beam would melt  any engine, whether  diesel or gasoline driven,  and would also ignite the   explosives aboard any bomber. No possible
defense against it could be devised, he asserts, as  the beam would be all penetrating.  
High Vacuum Eliminated
 
 
 

This "teleforce" is based on an entirely new
principle of physics, that "no one has ever
dreamed about," different  from the principles embodied in the in his  inventions relating to the transmission of electrical power from a distance,  for which he has  received a number of  basic patents. This new  type of force Mr. Tesla     said, would operate through a beam one-      hundred-millionth of a square centimeter in diameter, and could be generated from a special plant that would cost no more then $2,000,000 and would take only about three months to construct.

Nikola Tesla, one of the truly great inventors who celebrated his eighty-fourth
birthday on July, 10 tells the writer that he stands ready to divulge to the United States   government the secret of  his "teleforce," of which he said,"  airplane motors would be  melted at a distance of  250 miles, so that an invisible 'Chinese Wall of  Defense' would be built around the country  against any enemy attack  by an enemy air force, no   matter how large.