The original scan for this article is at: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1906-11-20/ed-1/seq-9/
New-York Tribune, November 20, 1906, page 9:
NO WIRELESS MERGER.
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John W. Griggs Says Marconi Companies Will Not Support Plan.
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John W. Griggs, president of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America, yesterday denied published reports of the entrance of the Marconi companies into a merger of English and American wireless telegraph companies. His statement follows:
The directors of Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company, Limited, of England, as well as the directors of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America, have had their attention called to advertisements of the United Wireless Telegraph Company, a corporation purporting to have been organized under the laws of Maine, in which advertisement it is declared that that company was organized for the purpose of uniting the American and foreign systems of wireless telegraph, including the Marconi and American De Forest systems. The attention of the directors of the two Marconi companies has also been called to interviews and statements in various newspapers purporting to have been authorized by Abraham White, president of the United Wireless Telegraph Company, asserting in effect that the latter company has acquired control of the whole Marconi system and that the Marconi companies were to pass into the merger and come into the control of the United Wireless Telegraph Company through the control of the latter company of more than 51 per cent of the stock of the parent company.
The managers of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, Limited, and of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America, deem it their duty to the public to deny absolutely and unequivocally that the United Wireless Telegraph Company has secured control of more than 51 per cent of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, Limited, and to deny that the United Wireless Telegraph Company controls a majority of the stock of Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America. The managers, directors and a majority of the stockholders of both the Marconi companies are not interested in any wise in the United Wireless Telegraph Company, the latter company has no agreement or prospect of agreement by which it will obtain control of either of the Marconi companies, and the scheme of merger announced by Mr. White is antagonistic and repugnant to the interests of both of the Marconi companies.
The Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America has for several years been prosecuting and is still prosecuting suits for infringements against the various De Forest companies, and believes that whatever of value is utilized in the operations of the De Forest companies is an infringement of the Marconi patents. Further than this, we are notified by James A. Allen, attorney of Henry B. Snyder and others, the stockholders of the De Forest Wireless Telegraph Company, that suits are now pending, brought by Snyder and others, in the Supreme Court of New York, and in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Maine and for the Eastern Division of the Eastern District of Missouri, against the De Forest Wireless Telegraph Company, the American De Forest Wireless Telegraph Company, the Atlantic De Forest Wireless Telegraph Company and the De Forest Occidental and Oriental Wireless Telegraph Company, and Abraham White and others, for the purpose of setting aside the transfer of the De Forest Wireless telegraph patents, inventions and other property of the De Forest Wireless Telegraph Company, including its laboratory and stations at Coney Island, Jersey City, and on the seacoast of the United States and the Great Lakes, and for an injunction against the further transfer of any of said property, and that in the suit in the United States Circuit Court for Maine Judge Putnam has granted an injunction against the transfer and encumbrance of a large number of its letters patent and of the laboratory and stations on the Atlantic seacoast, and that any such consolidation as is described in the announcement of the United Wireless Telegraph Company in the New York daily journals will be a violation of the injunction of the court and a contempt, and will be set aside.