,,the ,,history ,,of ,,the ,,telephone  
,by ,herbert ,n4 ,casson     ,,preface  
,thirty-five short years1 and presto6   
the newborn art of telephony is         
fullgrown4 ,three million telephones are
 now scattered abroad in foreign        
countries1 and seven millions are massed
 here1 in the land of its birth4  ,so   
entirely has the telephone outgrown the 
ridicule with which1 as many people can 
well remember1 it was first received1   
that it is now in most places taken for 
granted1 as though it were a part of the
 natural phenomena of this planet4 ,it  
has so marvellously extended the        
facilities of conversation--that art in 
which a man has all mankind for         
competitors--that it is now an          
indispensable help to whoever would live
 the convenient life4 ,the disadvantage 
of being deaf and dumb to all absent    
persons1 which was universal in         
pre-telephonic days1 has now happily    
been overcome2 and ,i hope that this    
story of how and by whom it was done    

will be a welcome addition to ,american 
libraries4  ,it is such a story as the  
telephone itself might tell1 if it could
 speak with a voice of its own4 ,it is  
not technical4 ,it is not statistical4  
,it is not exhaustive4 ,it is so brief1 
in fact1 that a second volume could     
readily be made by describing the       
careers of telephone leaders whose names
 ,i find have been omitted              
unintentionally from this book--such    
indispensable men1 for instance1 as     
,william ,r4 ,driver1 who has signed    
more telephone cheques and larger ones  
than any other man2 ,geo4 ,s4 ,hibbard1 
,henry ,w4 ,pope1 and ,w4 ,d4 ,sargent1 
three veterans who know telephony in all
 its phases2 ,george ,y4 ,wallace1 the  
last survivor of the ,rocky ,mountain   
pioneers2 ,jasper ,n4 ,keller1 of ,texas
 and ,new ,england2 ,w4 ,t4 ,gentry1 the
 central figure of the ,southeast1 and  
the following presidents of telephone   
companies3 ,bernard ,e4 ,sunny1 of      
,chicago2 ,e4 ,b4 ,field1 of ,denver2   

,d4 ,leet ,wilson1 of ,pittsburg2 ,l4   
,g4 ,richardson1 of ,indianapolis2      
,caspar ,e4 ,yost1 of ,omaha2 ,james ,e4
 ,caldwell1 of ,nashville2 ,thomas      
,sherwin1 of ,boston2 ,henry ,t4 ,scott1
 of ,san ,francisco2 ,h4 ,j4            
,pettengill1 of ,dallas2 ,alonzo ,burt1 
of ,milwaukee2 ,john ,kilgour1 of       
,cincinnati2 and ,chas4 ,s4 ,gleed1 of  
,kansas ,city4  ,i am deeply indebted to
 most of these men for the information  
which is herewith presented2 and also to
 such pioneers1 now dead1 as ,o4 ,e4    
,madden1 the first ,general ,agent2     
,frank ,l4 ,pope1 the noted electrical  
expert2 ,c4 ,h4 ,haskins1 of ,milwaukee2
 ,george ,f4 ,ladd1 of ,san ,francisco2 
and ,geo4 ,f4 ,durant1 of ,st4 ,louis4  
,h4 ,n4 ,c4 ,,pine ,,hill1 ,n4 ,y41     
,june #a1 #aiaj4    ,,contents          
,,chapter       ,i    ,,the ,,birth ,,of
 ,,the ,,telephone       ,,ii   ,,the   
,,building ,,of ,,the ,,business        
,,iii  ,,the ,,holding ,,of ,,the       
,,business       ,,iv   ,,the           

,,development ,,of ,,the ,,art       ,v 
,,the ,,expansion ,,of ,,the ,,business 
,,vi   ,,notable ,,users ,,of ,,the     
,,telephone       ,,vii ,,the           
,,telephone ,,and ,,national            
,,efficiency       ,,viii ,,the         
,,telephone ,,in ,,foreign ,,countries  
,,ix ,,the ,,future ,,of ,,the          
,,telephone     ,,the ,,history ,,of    
,,the ,,telephone    ,,chapter ,i4 ,,the
 ,,birth ,,of ,,the ,,telephone  ,in    
that somewhat distant year #ahge1 when  
the telegraph and the ,atlantic cable   
were the most wonderful things in the   
world1 a tall young professor of        
elocution was desperately busy in a     
noisy machine-shop that stood in one of 
the narrow streets of ,boston1 not far  
from ,scollay ,square4 ,it was a very   
hot afternoon in ,june1 but the young   
professor had forgotten the heat and the
 grime of the workshop4 ,he was wholly  
absorbed in the making of a nondescript 
machine1 a sort of crude harmonica with 
a clock-spring reed1 a magnet1 and a    

wire4 ,it was a most absurd toy in      
appearance4 ,it was unlike any other    
thing that had ever been made in any    
country4 ,the young professor had been  
toiling over it for three years and it  
had constantly baffled him1 until1 on   
this hot afternoon in ,june1 #ahge1 he  
heard an almost inaudible sound--a faint
 ,,twang--come from the machine itself4 
,for an instant he was stunned4 ,he had 
been expecting just such a sound for    
several months1 but it came so suddenly 
as to give him the sensation of         
surprise4 ,his eyes blazed with delight1
 and he sprang in a passion of eagerness
 to an adjoining room in which stood a  
young mechanic who was assisting him4   
,snap that reed again1 ,watson1 cried   
the apparently irrational young         
professor4 ,there was one of the        
odd-looking machines in each room1 so it
 appears1 and the two were connected by 
an electric wire4 ,watson had snapped   
the reed on one of the machines and the 
professor had heard from the other      

machine exactly the same sound4 ,it was 
no more than the gentle ,,twang of a    
clock-spring2 but it was the first time 
in the history of the world that a      
complete sound had been carried along a 
wire1 reproduced perfectly at the other 
end1 and heard by an expert in          
acoustics4  ,that twang of the          
clock-spring was the first tiny cry of  
the newborn telephone1 uttered in the   
clanging din of a machine-shop and      
happily heard by a man whose ear had    
been trained to recognize the strange   
voice of the little newcomer4 ,there1   
amidst flying belts and jarring wheels1 
the baby telephone was born1 as feeble  
and helpless as any other baby1 and with
 no language but a cry4  ,the           
professor-inventor1 who had thus rescued
 the tiny foundling of science1 was a   
young ,scottish ,american4 ,his name1   
now known as widely as the telephone    
itself1 was ,alexander ,graham ,bell4   
,he was a teacher of acoustics and a    
student of electricity1 possibly the    

only man in his generation who was able 
to focus a knowledge of both subjects   
upon the problem of the telephone4 ,to  
other men that exceedingly faint sound  
would have been as inaudible as silence 
itself2 but to ,bell it was a           
thunder-clap4 ,it was a dream come true4
 ,it was an impossible thing which had  
in a flash become so easy that he could 
scarcely believe it4 ,here1 without the 
use of a battery1 with no more electric 
current than that made by a couple of   
magnets1 all the waves of a sound had   
been carried along a wire and changed   
back to sound at the farther end4 ,it   
was absurd4 ,it was incredible4 ,it was 
something which neither wire nor        
electricity had been known to do before4
 ,but it was true4  ,no discovery has   
ever been less accidental4 ,it was the  
last link of a long chain of            
discoveries4 ,it was the result of a    
persistent and deliberate search4       
,already1 for half a year or longer1    
,bell had known the correct theory of   

the telephone2 but he had not realized  
that the feeble undulatory current      
generated by a magnet was strong enough 
for the transmission of speech4 ,he had 
been taught to undervalue the incredible
 efficiency of electricity4  ,not only  
was ,bell himself a teacher of the laws 
of speech1 so highly skilled that he was
 an instructor in ,boston ,university4  
,his father1 also1 his two brothers1 his
 uncle1 and his grandfather had taught  
the laws of speech in the universities  
of ,edinburgh1 ,dublin1 and ,london4    
,for three generations the ,bells had   
been professors of the science of       
talking4 ,they had even helped to create
 that science by several inven-tions4   
,the first of them1 ,alexander ,bell1   
had invented a system for the correction
 of stammering and similar defects of   
speech4 ,the second1 ,alexander         
,melville ,bell1 was the dean of        
,british elocutionists1 a man of        
creative brain and a most impressive    
facility of rhetoric4 ,he was the author

 of a dozen text-books on the art of    
speaking correctly1 and also of a most  
ingenious sign-language which he called 
,visible ,speech4 ,every letter in the  
alphabet of this language represented a 
certain action of the lips and tongue2  
so that a new method was provided for   
those who wished to learn foreign       
languages or to speak their own language
 more correctly4 ,and the third of these
 speech-improving ,bells1 the inventor  
of the telephone1 inherited the peculiar
 genius of his fathers1 both inventive  
and rhetorical1 to such a degree that as
 a boy he had constructed an artificial 
skull1 from gutta-percha and ,india     
rubber1 which1 when enlivened by a blast
 of air from a hand-bellows1 would      
actually pronounce several words in an  
almost human manner4  ,the third ,bell1 
the only one of this remarkable family  
who concerns us at this time1 was a     
young man1 barely twenty-eight1 at the  
time when his ear caught the first cry  
of the telephone4 ,but he was already a 

man of some note on his own account4 ,he
 had been educated in ,edinburgh1 the   
city of his birth1 and in ,london2 and  
had in one way and another picked up a  
smattering of anatomy1 music1           
electricity1 and telegraphy4 ,until he  
was sixteen years of age1 he had read   
nothing but novels and poetry and       
romantic tales of ,scottish heroes4     
,then he left home to become a teacher  
of elocution in various ,british        
schools1 and by the time he was of age  
he had made several slight discoveries  
as to the nature of vowel-sounds4       
,shortly afterwards1 he met in ,london  
two distinguished men1 ,alexander ,j4   
,ellis and ,sir ,charles ,wheatstone1   
who did far more than they ever knew to 
forward ,bell in the direction of the   
telephone4  ,ellis was the president of 
the ,london ,philological ,society4     
,also1 he was the translator of the     
famous book on ,the ,sensations of      
,tone1 written by ,helmholtz1 who1 in   
the period from #ahga to #ahid made     

,berlin the world-centre for the study  
of the physical sciences4 ,so it        
happened that when ,bell ran to ,ellis  
as a young enthusiast and told his      
experiments1 ,ellis informed him that   
,helmholtz had done the same things     
several years before and done them more 
completely4 ,he brought ,bell to his    
house and showed him what ,helmholtz had
 done--how he had kept tuning-forks in  
vibration by the power of               
electro-magnets1 and blended the tones  
of several tuning-forks together to     
produce the complex quality of the human
 voice4  ,now1 ,helmholtz had not been  
trying to invent a telephone1 nor any   
sort of message-carrier4 ,his aim was to
 point out the physical basis of music1 
and nothing more4 ,but this fact that an
 electro-magnet would set a tuning-fork 
humming was new to ,bell and very       
attractive4 ,it appealed at once to him 
as a student of speech4 ,if a           
tuning-fork could be made to sing by a  
magnet or an electrified wire1 why would

 it not be possible to make a musical   
telegraph--a telegraph with a piano     
key-board1 so that many messages could  
be sent at once over a single wire8     
,unknown to ,bell1 there were several   
dozen inven-tors then at work upon this 
problem1 which proved in the end to be  
very elusive4 ,but it gave him at least 
a starting-point1 and he forthwith      
commenced his quest of the telephone4   
,as he was then in ,england1 his first  
step was naturally to visit ,sir        
,charles ,wheatstone1 the best known    
,english expert on telegraphy4 ,sir     
,charles had earned his title by many   
inventions4 ,he was a simple-natured    
scientist1 and treated ,bell with the   
utmost kindness4 ,he showed him an      
ingenious talking-machine that had been 
made by ,baron de ,kempelin4 ,at this   
time ,bell was twenty-two and unknown2  
,wheatstone was sixty-seven and famous4 
,and the personality of the veteran     
scientist made so vivid a picture upon  
the mind of the impressionable young    

,bell that the grand passion of science 
became henceforth the master-motif of   
his life4  ,from this summit of glorious
 ambition he was thrown1 several months 
later1 into the depths of grief and     
despondency4 ,the ,white ,plague had    
come to the home in ,edinburgh and taken
 away his two brothers4 ,more1 it had   
put its mark upon the young inventor    
himself4 ,nothing but a change of       
climate1 said his doctor1 would put him 
out of danger4 ,and so1 to save his     
life1 he and his father and mother set  
sail from ,glasgow and came to the small
 ,canadian town of ,brantford1 where for
 a year he fought down his tendency to  
consumption1 and satisfied his nervous  
energy by teaching ,visible ,speech to a
 tribe of ,mohawk ,indians4  ,by this   
time it had become evident1 both to his 
parents and to his friends1 that young  
,graham was destined to become some sort
 of a creative genius4 ,he was tall and 
supple1 with a pale complexion1 large   
nose1 full lips1 jet-black eyes1 and    

jet-black hair1 brushed high and usually
 rumpled into a curly tangle4 ,in       
temperament he was a true scientific    
,bohemian1 with the ideals of a savant  
and the disposition of an artist4 ,he   
was wholly a man of enthusiasms1 more   
devoted to ideas than to people2 and    
less likely to master his own thoughts  
than to be mastered by them4 ,he had no 
shrewdness1 in any commercial sense1 and
 very little knowledge of the small     
practical details of ordinary living4   
,he was always intense1 always absorbed4
 ,when he applied his mind to a problem1
 it became at once an enthralling arena1
 in which there went whirling a         
chariot-race of ideas and inventive     
fancies4  ,he had been fascinated from  
boyhood by his father's system of       
,visible ,speech4 ,he knew it so well   
that he once astonished a professor of  
,oriental languages by repeating        
correctly a sentence of ,sanscrit that  
had been written in ,visible ,speech    
characters4 ,while he was living in     

,london his most absorbing enthusiasm   
was the instruction of a class of       
deaf-mutes1 who could be trained to     
talk1 he believed1 by means of the      
,visible ,speech alphabet4 ,he was so   
deeply impressed by the progress made by
 these pupils1 and by the pathos of     
their dumbness1 that when he arrived in 
,canada he was in doubt as to which of  
these two tasks was the more            
important--the teaching of deaf-mutes or
 the invention of a musical telegraph4  
,at this point1 and before ,bell had    
begun to experiment with his telegraph1 
the scene of the story shifts from      
,canada to ,massachusetts4 ,it appears  
that his father1 while lecturing in     
,boston1 had mentioned ,graham's        
exploits with a class of deaf-mutes2 and
 soon afterward the ,boston ,board of   
,education wrote to ,graham1 offering   
him five hundred dollars if he would    
come to ,boston and introduce his system
 of teaching in a school for deaf-mutes 
that had been opened recently4 ,the     

young man joyfully agreed1 and on the   
first of ,april1 #ahga1 crossed the line
 and became for the remainder of his    
life an ,american4  ,for the next two   
years his telegraphic work was laid     
aside1 if not forgotten4 ,his success as
 a teacher of deaf-mutes was sudden and 
overwhelming4 ,it was the educational   
sensation of #ahga4 ,it won him a       
professorship in ,boston ,university2   
and brought so many pupils around him   
that he ventured to open an ambitious   
,school of ,vocal ,physiology1 which    
became at once a profitable enterprise4 
,for a time there seemed to be little   
hope of his escaping from the burden of 
this success and becoming an inventor1  
when1 by a most happy coincidence1 two  
of his pupils brought to him exactly the
 sort of stimulation and practical help 
that he needed and had not up to this   
time received4  ,one of these pupils was
 a little deaf-mute tot1 five years of  
age1 named ,georgie ,sanders4 ,bell had 
agreed to give him a series of private  

lessons for #cej a year2 and as the     
child lived with his grandmother in the 
city of ,salem1 sixteen miles from      
,boston1 it was agreed that ,bell should
 make his home with the ,sanders family4
 ,here he not only found the keenest    
interest and sympathy in his air-castles
 of invention1 but also was given       
permission to use the cellar of the     
house as his workshop4  ,for the next   
three years this cellar was his favorite
 retreat4 ,he littered it with          
tuning-forks1 magnets1 batteries1 coils 
of wire1 tin trumpets1 and cigar-boxes4 
,no one outside of the ,sanders family  
was allowed to enter it1 as ,bell was   
nervously afraid of having his ideas    
stolen4 ,he would even go to five or six
 stores to buy his supplies1 for fear   
that his intentions should be           
discovered4 ,almost with the secrecy of 
a conspirator1 he worked alone in this  
cellar1 usually at night1 and quite     
oblivious of the fact that sleep was a  
necessity to him and to the ,sanders    

family4  ,often in the middle of the    
night ,bell would wake me up1 said      
,thomas ,sanders1 the father of         
,georgie4 ,his black eyes would be      
blazing with excitement4 ,leaving me to 
go down to the cellar1 he would rush    
wildly to the barn and begin to send me 
signals along his experimental wires4   
,if ,i noticed any improvement in his   
machine1 he would be delighted4 ,he     
would leap and whirl around in one of   
his war-dances' and then go contentedly 
to bed4 ,but if the experiment was a    
failure1 he would go back to his        
workbench and try some different plan4  
,the second pupil who became a factor--a
 very considerable factor--in ,bell's   
career was a fifteen-year-old girl named
 ,mabel ,hubbard1 who had lost her      
hearing1 and consequently her speech1   
through an attack of scarlet-fever when 
a baby4 ,she was a gentle and lovable   
girl1 and ,bell1 in his ardent and      
headlong way1 lost his heart to her     
completely2 and four years later1 he had

 the happiness of making her his wife4  
,mabel ,hubbard did much to encourage   
,bell4 ,she followed each step of his   
progress with the keenest interest4 ,she
 wrote his letters and copied his       
patents4 ,she cheered him on when he    
felt himself beaten4 ,and through her   
sympathy with ,bell and his ambitions1  
she led her father--a widely known      
,boston lawyer named ,gardiner ,g4      
,hubbard--to become ,bell's chief       
spokesman and defender1 a true apostle  
of the telephone4  ,hubbard first became
 aware of ,bell's inventive efforts one 
evening when ,bell was visiting at his  
home in ,cambridge4 ,bell was           
illustrating some of the mysteries of   
acoustics by the aid of a piano4 ,do you
 know1 he said to ,hubbard1 that if ,i  
sing the note ,g close to the strings of
 the piano1 that the ,g-string will     
answer me8 ,well1 what then8 asked      
,hubbard4 ,it is a fact of tremendous   
importance1 replied ,bell4 ,it is an    
evidence that we may some day have a    

musical telegraph1 which will send as   
many messages simultaneously over one   
wire as there are notes on that piano4  
,later1 ,bell ventured to confide to    
,hubbard his wild dream of sending      
speech over an electric wire1 but       
,hubbard laughed him to scorn4 ,now you 
are talking nonsense1 he said4 ,such a  
thing never could be more than a        
scientific toy4 ,you had better throw   
that idea out of your mind and go ahead 
with your musical telegraph1 which if it
 is successful will make you a          
millionaire4  ,but the longer ,bell     
toiled at his musical telegraph1 the    
more he dreamed of replacing the        
telegraph and its cumbrous sign-language
 by a new machine that would carry1 not 
dots and dashes1 but the human voice4   
,if ,i can make a deaf-mute talk1 he    
said1 ,i can make iron talk4 ,for months
 he wavered between the two ideas4 ,he  
had no more than the most hazy          
conception of what this voice-carrying  
machine would be like4 ,at first he     

conceived of having a harp at one end of
 the wire1 and a speaking-trumpet at the
 other1 so that the tones of the voice  
would be reproduced by the strings of   
the harp4  ,then1 in the early ,summer  
of #ahgd1 while he was puzzling over    
this harp apparatus1 the dim outline of 
a new path suddenly glinted in front of 
him4 ,he had not been forgetful of      
,visible ,speech all this while1 but had
 been making experiments with two       
remarkable machines--the phonautograph  
and the manometric capsule1 by means of 
which the vibrations of sound were made 
plainly visible4 ,if these could be     
im-proved1 he thought1 then the deaf    
might be taught to speak by ,,sight--by 
learning an alphabet of vibrations4 ,he 
mentioned these experiments to a ,boston
 friend1 ,dr4 ,clarence ,j4 ,blake1 and 
he1 being a surgeon and an aurist1      
naturally said1 ,why don't you use a    
,,real ,,ear8  ,such an idea never had1 
and probably never could have1 occurred 
to ,bell2 but he accepted it with       

eagerness4 ,dr4 ,blake cut an ear from a
 dead man's head1 together with the     
ear-drum and the associated bones4 ,bell
 took this fragment of a skull and      
arranged it so that a straw touched the 
ear-drum at one end and a piece of      
moving smoked glass at the other4 ,thus1
 when ,bell spoke loudly into the ear1  
the vibrations of the drum made tiny    
markings upon the glass4  ,it was one of
 the most extraordinary incidents in the
 whole history of the telephone4 ,to an 
uninitiated onlooker1 nothing could have
 been more ghastly or absurd4 ,how could
 any one have interpreted the gruesome  
joy of this young professor with the    
pale face and the black eyes1 who stood 
earnestly singing1 whispering1 and      
shouting into a dead man's ear8 ,what   
sort of a wizard must he be1 or ghoul1  
or madman8 ,and in ,salem1 too1 the home
 of the witchcraft superstition6        
,certainly it would not have gone well  
with ,bell had he lived two centuries   
earlier and been caught at such black   

magic4  ,what had this dead man's ear to
 do with the invention of the telephone8
 ,much4 ,bell noticed how small and thin
 was the ear-drum1 and yet how          
effectively it could send thrills and   
vibrations through heavy bones4 ,if this
 tiny disc can vibrate a bone1 he       
thought1 then an iron disc might vibrate
 an iron rod1 or at least1 an iron wire4
 ,in a flash the conception of a        
membrane telephone was pictured in his  
mind4 ,he saw in imagination two iron   
discs1 or ear-drums1 far apart and      
connected by an electrified wire1       
catching the vibrations of sound at one 
end1 and reproducing them at the other4 
,at last he was on the right path1 and  
had a theoretical knowledge of what a   
speaking telephone ought to be4 ,what   
remained to be done was to construct    
such a machine and find out how the     
electric current could best be brought  
into harness4  ,then1 as though ,fortune
 suddenly felt that he was winning this 
stupendous success too easily1 ,bell was

 flung back by an avalanche of troubles4
 ,sanders and ,hubbard1 who had been    
paying the cost of his experiments1     
abruptly announced that they would pay  
no more unless he confined his attention
 to the musical telegraph1 and stopped  
wasting his time on ear-toys that never 
could be of any financial value4 ,what  
these two men asked could scarcely be   
denied1 as one of them was his          
best-paying patron and the other was the
 father of the girl whom he hoped to    
marry4 ,if you wish my daughter1 said   
,hubbard1 you must abandon your foolish 
telephone4 ,bell's ,school of ,vocal    
,physiology1 too1 from which he had     
hoped so much1 had come to an inglorious
 end4 ,he had been too much absorbed in 
his experiments to sustain it4 ,his     
professorship had been given up1 and he 
had no pupils except ,georgie ,sanders  
and ,mabel ,hubbard4 ,he was poor1 much 
poorer than his associates knew4 ,and   
his mind was torn and distracted by the 
contrary calls of science1 poverty1     

business1 and affection4 ,pouring out   
his sorrows in a letter to his mother1  
he said3 ,i am now beginning to realize 
the cares and anxieties of being an     
inventor4 ,i have had to put off all    
pupils and classes1 for flesh and blood 
could not stand much longer such a      
strain as ,i have had upon me4  ,while  
stumbling through this ,slough of       
,despond1 he was called to ,washington  
by his patent lawyer4 ,not having enough
 money to pay the cost of such a        
journey1 he borrowed the price of a     
return ticket from ,sanders and arranged
 to stay with a friend in ,washington1  
to save a hotel bill that he could not  
afford4 ,at that time ,professor ,joseph
 ,henry1 who knew more of the theory of 
electrical science than any other       
,american1 was the ,grand ,old ,man of  
,washington2 and poor ,bell1 in his     
doubt and desperation1 resolved to run  
to him for advice4  ,then came a meeting
 which deserves to be historic4 ,for an 
entire afternoon the two men worked     

together over the apparatus that ,bell  
had brought from ,boston1 just as ,henry
 had worked over the telegraph before   
,bell was born4 ,henry was now a veteran
 of seventy-eight1 with only three years
 remaining to his credit in the bank of 
,time1 while ,bell was twenty-eight4    
,there was a long half-century between  
them2 but the youth had discovered a    
,new ,fact that the sage1 in all his    
wisdom1 had never known4  ,you are in   
possession of the germ of a great       
invention1 said ,henry1 and ,i would    
advise you to work at it until you have 
made it complete4  ,but1 replied ,bell1 
,i have not got the electrical knowledge
 that is necessary4  ,get it1 responded 
the aged scientist4  ,i cannot tell you 
how much these two words have encouraged
 me1 said ,bell afterwards1 in          
describing this interview to his        
parents4 ,i live too much in an         
atmosphere of discouragement for        
scientific pursuits2 and such a         
chimerical idea as telegraphing ,,vocal 

,,sounds would indeed seem to most minds
 scarcely feasible enough to spend time 
in working over4  ,by this time ,bell   
had moved his workshop from the cellar  
in ,salem to #aji ,court ,street1       
,boston1 where he had rented a room from
 ,charles ,williams1 a manufacturer of  
electrical supplies4 ,thomas ,a4 ,watson
 was his assistant1 and both ,bell and  
,watson lived nearby1 in two cheap      
little bedrooms4 ,the rent of the       
workshop and bedrooms1 and ,watson's    
wages of nine dollars a week1 were being
 paid by ,sanders and ,hubbard4         
,consequently1 when ,bell returned from 
,washington1 he was compelled by his    
agreement to devote himself mainly to   
the musical telegraph1 although his     
heart was now with the telephone4 ,for  
exactly three months after his interview
 with ,professor ,henry1 he continued to
 plod ahead1 along both lines1 until1 on
 that memorable hot afternoon in ,june1 
#ahge1 the full ,,twang of the          
clock-spring came over the wire1 and the

 telephone was born4  ,from this moment1
 ,bell was a man of one purpose4 ,he won
 over ,sanders and ,hubbard4 ,he        
converted ,watson into an enthusiast4   
,he forgot his musical telegraph1 his   
,visible ,speech1 his classes1 his      
poverty4 ,he threw aside a profession in
 which he was already locally famous4   
,and he grappled with this new mystery  
of electricity1 as ,henry had advised   
him to do1 encouraging himself with the 
fact that ,morse1 who was only a        
painter1 had mastered his electrical    
difficulties1 and there was no reason   
why a professor of acoustics should not 
do as much4  ,the telephone was now in  
existence1 but it was the youngest and  
feeblest thing in the nation4 ,it had   
not yet spoken a word4 ,it had to be    
taught1 developed1 and made fit for the 
service of the irritable business world4
 ,all manner of discs had to be tried1  
some smaller and thinner than a dime and
 others of steel boiler-plate as heavy  
as the shield of ,achilles4 ,in all the 

books of electrical science1 there was  
nothing to help ,bell and ,watson in    
this journey they were making through an
 unknown country4 ,they were as         
chartless as ,columbus was in #adib4    
,neither they nor any one else had      
acquired any experience in the rearing  
of a young telephone4 ,no one knew what 
to do next4 ,there was nothing to know4 
,for forty weeks--long exasperating     
weeks--the telephone could do no more   
than gasp and make strange inarticulate 
noises4 ,its educators had not learned  
how to manage it4 ,then1 on ,march #aj1 
#ahgf1 ,,it ,,talked4 ,it said          
distinctly--  ,,mr4 ,,watson1 ,,come    
,,here1 ,i ,,want ,,you4 ,watson1 who   
was at the lower end of the wire1 in the
 basement1 dropped the receiver and     
rushed with wild joy up three flights of
 stairs to tell the glad tidings to     
,bell4 ,i can hear you6 he shouted      
breathlessly4 ,i can hear the ,,words4  
,it was not easy1 of course1 for the    
weak young telephone to make itself     

heard in that noisy workshop4 ,no one1  
not even ,bell and ,watson1 was familiar
 with its odd little voice4 ,usually    
,watson1 who had a remarkably keen sense
 of hearing1 did the listening2 and     
,bell1 who was a professional           
elocutionist1 did the talking4 ,and day 
by day the tone of the baby instrument  
grew clearer--a new note in the         
orchestra of civilization4  ,on his     
twenty-ninth birthday1 ,bell received   
his patent1 ,no4 #agd1dfe--the most     
valuable single patent ever issued in   
any country4 ,he had created something  
so entirely new that there was no name  
for it in any of the world's languages4 
,in describing it to the officials of   
the ,patent ,office1 he was obliged to  
call it an improvement in telegraphy1   
when1 in truth1 it was nothing of the   
kind4 ,it was as different from the     
telegraph as the eloquence of a great   
orator is from the sign-language of a   
deaf-mute4  ,other inventors had worked 
from the standpoint of the telegraph2   

and they never did1 and never could1 get
 any better results than signs and      
symbols4 ,but ,bell worked from the     
standpoint of the human voice4 ,he      
cross-fertilized the two sciences of    
acoustics and electricity4 ,his study of
 ,visible ,speech had trained his mind  
so that he could mentally ,,see the     
shape of a word as he spoke it4 ,he knew
 what a spoken word was1 and how it     
acted upon the air1 or the ether1 that  
carried its vibrations from the lips to 
the ear4 ,he was a third-generation     
specialist in the nature of speech1 and 
he knew that for the transmission of    
spoken words there must be a pulsatory  
action of the electric current which is 
the exact equivalent of the aerial      
impulses4  ,bell knew just enough about 
electricity1 and not too much4 ,he did  
not know the possible from the          
impossible4 ,had ,i known more about    
electricity1 and less about sound1 he   
said1 ,i would never have invented the  
telephone4 ,what he had done was so     

amazing1 so foolhardy1 that no trained  
electrician could have thought of it4   
,it was the very hardihood of invention1
 and yet it was not in any sense a      
chance discovery4 ,it was the natural   
output of a mind that had been led to   
assemble just the right materials for   
such a product4  ,as though the very    
stars in their courses were working for 
this young wizard with the talking wire1
 the ,centennial ,exposition in         
,philadelphia opened its doors exactly  
two months after the telephone had      
learned to talk4 ,here was a superb     
opportunity to let the wide world know  
what had been done1 and fortunately     
,hubbard was one of the ,centennial     
,commissioners4 ,by his influence a     
small table was placed in the           
,department of ,education1 in a narrow  
space between a stairway and a wall1 and
 on this table was deposited the first  
of the telephones4  ,bell had no        
intention of going to the ,centennial   
himself4 ,he was too poor4 ,sanders and 

,hubbard had never done more than pay   
his room-rent and the expense of his    
experiments4 ,for his three or four     
years of inventing he had received      
nothing as yet--nothing but his patent4 
,in order to live1 he had been compelled
 to reorganize his classes in ,visible  
,speech1 and to pick up the ravelled    
ends of his neglected profession4  ,but 
one ,friday afternoon1 toward the end of
 ,june1 his sweetheart1 ,mabel ,hubbard1
 was taking the train for the           
,centennial2 and he went to the depot to
 say good-bye4 ,here ,miss ,hubbard     
learned for the first time that ,bell   
was not to go4 ,she coaxed and pleaded1 
without effect4 ,then1 as the train was 
starting1 leaving ,bell on the platform1
 the affectionate young girl could no   
longer control her feelings and was     
overcome by a passion of tears4 ,at this
 the susceptible ,bell1 like a true ,sir
 ,galahad1 dashed after the moving train
 and sprang aboard1 without ticket or   
baggage1 oblivious of his classes and   

his poverty and of all else except this 
one maiden's distress4 ,i never saw a   
man1 said ,watson1 so much in love as   
,bell was4  ,as it happened1 this       
impromptu trip to the ,centennial proved
 to be one of the most timely acts of   
his life4 ,on the following ,sunday     
after-noon the judges were to make a    
special tour of inspection1 and ,mr4    
,hubbard1 after much trouble1 had       
obtained a promise that they would spend
 a few minutes examining ,bell's        
telephone4 ,by this time it had been on 
exhibition for more than six weeks1     
without attracting the serious attention
 of anybody4  ,when ,sunday afternoon   
arrived1 ,bell was at his little table1 
nervous1 yet confident4 ,but hour after 
hour went by1 and the judges did not    
arrive4 ,the day was intensely hot1 and 
they had many wonders to examine4 ,there
 was the first electric light1 and the  
first grain-binder1 and the musical     
telegraph of ,elisha ,gray1 and the     
marvellous exhibit of printing          

telegraphs shown by the ,western ,union 
,company4 ,by the time they came to     
,bell's table1 through a litter of      
school-desks and blackboards1 the hour  
was seven o'clock1 and every man in the 
party was hot1 tired1 and hungry4       
,several announced their intention of   
returning to their hotels4 ,one took up 
a telephone receiver1 looked at it      
blankly1 and put it down again4 ,he did 
not even place it to his ear4 ,another  
judge made a slighting remark which     
raised a laugh at ,bell's expense4 ,then
 a most marvellous thing happened--such 
an incident as would make a chapter in  
,the ,arabian ,nights ,entertainments4  
,accompanied by his wife1 the ,empress  
,theresa1 and by a bevy of courtiers1   
the ,emperor of ,brazil1 ,dom ,pedro de 
,alcantara1 walked into the room1       
advanced with both hands outstretched to
 the bewildered ,bell1 and exclaimed3   
,professor ,bell1 ,i am delighted to see
 you again4 ,the judges at once forgot  
the heat and the fatigue and the hunger4

 ,who was this young inventor1 with the 
pale complexion and black eyes1 that he 
should be the friend of ,emperors8 ,they
 did not know1 and for the moment even  
,bell himself had forgotten1 that ,dom  
,pedro had once visited ,bell's class of
 deaf-mutes at ,boston ,university4 ,he 
was especially interested in such       
humanitarian work1 and had recently     
helped to organize the first ,brazilian 
school for deaf-mutes at ,rio de        
,janeiro4 ,and so1 with the tall1       
blond-bearded ,dom ,pedro in the centre1
 the assembled judges1 and              
scientists--there were fully fifty in   
all--entered with unusual zest into the 
proceedings of this first telephone     
exhibition4  ,a wire had been strung    
from one end of the room to the other1  
and while ,bell went to the transmitter1
 ,dom ,pedro took up the receiver and   
placed it to his ear4 ,it was a moment  
of tense expectancy4 ,no one knew       
clearly what was about to happen1 when  
the ,emperor1 with a dramatic gesture1  

raised his head from the receiver and   
exclaimed with a look of utter          
amazement3 ,,my ,,god--,,it ,,talks6    
,next came to the receiver the oldest   
scientist in the group1 the venerable   
,joseph ,henry1 whose encouragement to  
,bell had been so timely4 ,he stopped to
 listen1 and1 as one of the bystanders  
afterwards said1 no one could forget the
 look of awe that came into his face as 
he heard that iron disc talking with a  
human voice4 ,this1 said he1 comes      
nearer to overthrowing the doctrine of  
the conservation of energy than anything
 ,i ever saw4  ,then came ,sir ,william 
,thomson1 latterly known as ,lord       
,kelvin4 ,it was fitting that he should 
be there1 for he was the foremost       
electrical scientist at that time in the
 world1 and had been the engineer of the
 first ,atlantic ,cable4 ,he listened   
and learned what even he had not known  
before1 that a solid metallic body could
 take up from the air all the countless 
varieties of vibrations produced by     

speech1 and that these vibrations could 
be carried along a wire and reproduced  
exactly by a second metallic body4 ,he  
nodded his head solemnly as he rose from
 the receiver4 ,it ,,does speak1 he said
 emphatically4 ,it is the most wonderful
 thing ,i have seen in ,america4  ,so1  
one after another1 this notable company 
of men listened to the voice of the     
first telephone1 and the more they knew 
of science1 the less they were inclined 
to believe their ears4 ,the wiser they  
were1 the more they wondered4 ,to ,henry
 and ,thomson1 the masters of electrical
 magic1 this instrument was as          
surprising as it was to the man in the  
street4 ,and both were noble enough to  
admit frankly their astonishment in the 
reports which they made as judges1 when 
they gave ,bell a ,certificate of       
,award4 ,mr4 ,bell has achieved a result
 of transcendent scientific interest1   
wrote ,sir ,william ,thomson4 ,i heard  
it speak distinctly several             
sentences4444 ,i was astonished and     

delighted4444 ,it is the greatest marvel
 hitherto achieved by the electric      
telegraph4  ,until nearly ten o'clock   
that night the judges talked and        
listened by turns at the telephone4     
,then1 next morning1 they brought the   
apparatus to the judges' pavilion1 where
 for the remainder of the summer it was 
mobbed by judges and scientists4 ,sir   
,william ,thomson and his wife ran back 
and forth between the two ends of the   
wire like a pair of delighted children4 
,and thus it happened that the crude    
little instrument that had been tossed  
into an out-of-the-way corner became the
 star of the ,centennial4 ,it had been  
given no more than eighteen words in the
 official catalogue1 and here it was    
acclaimed as the wonder of wonders4 ,it 
had been conceived in a cellar and born 
in a machine-shop2 and now1 of all the  
gifts that our young ,american ,republic
 had received on its one-hundredth      
birthday1 the telephone was honored as  
the rarest and most welcome of them all4

    ,,chapter ,,ii4 ,,the ,,building    
,,of ,,the ,,business  ,after the       
telephone had been born in ,boston1     
baptized in the ,patent ,office1 and    
given a royal reception at the          
,philadelphia ,centennial1 it might be  
supposed that its life thenceforth would
 be one of peace and pleasantness4 ,but 
as this is history1 and not fancy1 there
 must be set down the very surprising   
fact that the young newcomer received no
 welcome and no notice from the great   
business world4 ,it is a scientific toy1
 said the men of trade and commerce4 ,it
 is an interesting instrument1 of       
course1 for professors of electricity   
and acoustics2 but it can never be a    
practical necessity4 ,as well might you 
propose to put a telescope into a       
steel-mill or to hitch a balloon to a   
shoe-factory4  ,poor ,bell1 instead of  
being applauded1 was pelted with a      
hailstorm of ridicule4 ,he was an       
impostor1 a ventriloquist1 a crank who  
says he can talk through a wire4 ,the   

,london ,times alluded pompously to the 
telephone as the latest ,american       
humbug1 and gave many profound reasons  
why speech could not be sent over a     
wire1 because of the intermittent nature
 of the electric current4 ,almost all   
electricians--the men who were supposed 
to know--pronounced the telephone an    
impossible thing2 and those who did not 
openly declare it to be a hoax1 believed
 that ,bell had stumbled upon some      
freakish use of electricity1 which could
 never be of any practical value4  ,even
 though he came late in the succession  
of inventors1 ,bell had to run the      
gantlet of scoffing and adversity4 ,by  
the reception that the public gave to   
his telephone1 he learned to sympathize 
with ,howe1 whose first sewing-machine  
was smashed by a ,boston mob2 with      
,mc,cormick1 whose first reaper was     
called a cross between an ,astley       
chariot1 a wheelbarrow1 and a           
flying-machine2 with ,morse1 whom ten   
,congresses regarded as a nuisance2 with

 ,cyrus ,field1 whose ,atlantic ,cable  
was denounced as a mad freak of stubborn
 ignorance2 and with ,westinghouse1 who 
was called a fool for proposing to stop 
a railroad train with wind4  ,the very  
idea of talking at a piece of sheet-iron
 was so new and extraordinary that the  
normal mind repulsed it4 ,alike to the  
laborer and the scientist1 it was       
incomprehensible4 ,it was too freakish1 
too bizarre1 to be used outside of the  
laboratory and the museum4 ,no one1     
literally1 could understand how it      
worked2 and the only man who offered a  
clear solution of the mystery was a     
,boston mechanic1 who maintained that   
there was a hole through the middle of  
the wire4  ,people who talked for the   
first time into a telephone box had a   
sort of stage fright4 ,they felt        
foolish4 ,to do so seemed an absurd     
performance1 especially when they had to
 shout at the top of their voices4      
,plainly1 whatever of convenience there 
might be in this new contrivance was far

 outweighed by the loss of personal     
dignity2 and very few men had sufficient
 imagination to picture the telephone as
 a part of the machinery of their daily 
work4 ,the banker said it might do well 
enough for grocers1 but that it would   
never be of any value to banking2 and   
the grocer said it might do well enough 
for bankers1 but that it would never be 
of any value to grocers4  ,as ,bell had 
worked out his invention in ,salem1 one 
editor displayed the headline1 ,salem   
,witchcraft4 ,the ,new ,york ,herald    
said3 ,the effect is weird and almost   
supernatural4 ,the ,providence ,press   
said3 ,it is hard to resist the notion  
that the powers of darkness are somehow 
in league with it4 ,and ,the ,boston    
,times said1 in an editorial of         
bantering ridicule3 ,a fellow can now   
court his girl in ,china as well as in  
,east ,boston2 but the most serious     
aspect of this invention is the awful   
and irresponsible power it will give to 
the average mother-in-law1 who will be  

able to send her voice around the       
habitable globe4  ,there were hundreds  
of shrewd capitalists in ,american      
cities in #ahgf1 looking with sharp eyes
 in all directions for business chances2
 but not one of them came to ,bell with 
an offer to buy his patent4 ,not one    
came running for a ,state contract4 ,and
 neither did any legislature1 or city   
council1 come forward to the task of    
giving the people a cheap and efficient 
telephone service4 ,as for ,bell        
himself1 he was not a man of affairs4   
,in all practical business matters1 he  
was as incompetent as a ,byron or a     
,shelley4 ,he had done his part1 and it 
now remained for men of different       
abilities to take up his telephone and  
adapt it to the uses and conditions of  
the business world4  ,the first man to  
undertake this work was ,gardiner ,g4   
,hubbard1 who became soon afterwards the
 father-in-law of ,bell4 ,he1 too1 was a
 man of enthusiasm rather than of       
efficiency4 ,he was not a man of wealth 

or business experience1 but he was      
admirably suited to introduce the       
telephone to a hostile public4 ,his     
father had been a judge of the          
,massachusetts ,supreme ,court2 and he  
himself was a lawyer whose practice had 
been mainly in matters of legislation4  
,he was1 in #ahgf1 a man of venerable   
appearance1 with white hair1 worn long1 
and a patriarchal beard4 ,he was a      
familiar figure in ,washington1 and well
 known among the public men of his day4 
,a versatile and entertaining companion1
 by turns prosperous and impecunious1   
and an optimist always1 ,gardiner       
,hubbard became a really indispensable  
factor as the first advance agent of the
 telephone business4  ,no other citizen 
had done more for the city of ,cambridge
 than ,hubbard4 ,it was he who secured  
gas for ,cambridge in #ahec1 and pure   
water1 and a street-railway to ,boston4 
,he had gone through the ,south in #ahfj
 in the patriotic hope that he might    
avert the impending ,civil ,war4 ,he had

 induced the legislature to establish   
the first public school for deaf-mutes1 
the school that drew ,bell to ,boston in
 #ahga4 ,and he had been for years a    
most restless agitator for improvements 
in telegraphy and the post office4 ,so1 
as a promoter of schemes for the public 
good1 ,hubbard was by no means a novice4
 ,his first step toward capturing the   
attention of an indifferent nation was  
to beat the big drum of publicity4 ,he  
saw that this new idea of telephoning   
must be made familiar to the public     
mind4 ,he talked telephone by day and by
 night4 ,whenever he travelled1 he      
carried a pair of the magical           
instruments in his valise1 and gave     
demonstrations on trains and in hotels4 
,he buttonholed every influential man   
who crossed his path4 ,he was a         
veritable ,ancient ,mariner of the      
telephone4 ,no possible listener was    
allowed to escape4  ,further to promote 
this campaign of publicity1 ,hubbard    
encouraged ,bell and ,watson to perform 

a series of sensational feats with the  
telephone4 ,a telegraph wire between    
,new ,york and ,boston was borrowed for 
half an hour1 and in the presence of    
,sir ,william ,thomson1 ,bell sent a    
tune over the two-hundred-and-fifty-mile
 line4 ,can you hear8 he asked the      
operator at the ,new ,york end4         
,elegantly1 responded the operator4     
,what tune8 asked ,bell4 ,yankee        
,doodle1 came the answer4 ,shortly      
afterwards1 while ,bell was visiting at 
his father's house in ,canada1 he bought
 up all the stove-pipe wire in the town1
 and tacked it to a rail fence between  
the house and a telegraph office4 ,then 
he went to a village eight miles distant
 and sent scraps of songs and           
,shakespearean quotations over the wire4
  ,there was still a large percentage of
 people who denied that spoken words    
could be transmitted by a wire4 ,when   
,watson talked to ,bell at public       
demonstrations1 there were newspaper    
editors who referred sceptically to the 

supposititious ,watson4 ,so1 to silence 
these doubters1 ,bell and ,watson       
planned a most severe test of the       
telephone4 ,they borrowed the telegraph 
line between ,boston and the ,cambridge 
,observatory1 and attached a telephone  
to each end4 ,then they maintained1 for 
three hours or longer1 the ,,first      
,,sustained conversation by telephone1  
each one taking careful notes of what he
 said and of what he heard4 ,these notes
 were published in parallel columns in  
,the ,boston ,advertiser1 ,october #ai1 
#ahgf1 and proved beyond question that  
the telephone was now a practical       
success4  ,after this1 one event crowded
 quickly on the heels of another4 ,a    
series of ten lectures was arranged for 
,bell1 at a hundred dollars a lecture1  
which was the first money payment he had
 received for his invention4 ,his       
opening night was in ,salem1 before an  
audience of five hundred people1 and    
with ,mrs4 ,sand-ers1 the motherly old  
lady who had sheltered ,bell in the days

 of his experiment1 sitting proudly in  
one of the front seats4 ,a pole was set 
up at the front of the hall1 supporting 
the end of a telegraph wire that ran    
from ,salem to ,boston4 ,and ,watson1   
who became the first public talker by   
telephone1 sent messages from ,boston to
 various members of the audience4 ,an   
account of this lecture was sent by     
telephone to ,the ,boston ,globe1 which 
announced the next morning--   ,this    
special despatch of the ,globe has been 
transmitted by telephone in the presence
 of twenty people1 who have thus been   
witnesses to a feat never before        
attempted--the sending of news over the 
space of sixteen miles by the human     
voice4   ,this ,globe despatch awoke the
 newspaper editors with an unexpected   
jolt4 ,for the first time they began to 
notice that there was a new word in the 
language1 and a new idea in the         
scientific world4 ,no newspaper had made
 any mention whatever of the telephone  
for seventy-five days after ,bell       

received his patent4 ,not one of the    
swarm of reporters who thronged the     
,philadelphia ,centennial had regarded  
the telephone as a matter of any public 
interest4 ,but when a column of news was
 sent by telephone to ,the ,boston      
,globe1 the whole newspaper world was   
agog with excitement4 ,a thousand pens  
wrote the name of ,bell4 ,requests to   
repeat his lecture came to ,bell from   
,cyrus ,w4 ,field1 the veteran of the   
,atlantic ,cable1 from the poet         
,longfellow1 and from many others4  ,as 
he was by profession an elocutionist1   
,bell was able to make the most of these
 opportunities4 ,his lectures became    
popular entertainments4 ,they were given
 in the largest halls4 ,at one lecture  
two ,japanese gentlemen were induced to 
talk to one another in their own        
language1 via the telephone4 ,at a      
second lecture a band played ,the       
,star-,spangled ,banner1 in ,boston1 and
 was heard by an audience of two        
thousand people in ,providence4 ,at a   

third1 ,signor ,ferranti1 who was in    
,providence1 sang a selection from ,the 
,marriage of ,figaro to an audience in  
,boston4 ,at a fourth1 an exhortation   
from ,moody and a song from ,sankey came
 over the vibrating wire4 ,and at a     
fifth1 in ,new ,haven1 ,bell stood      
sixteen ,yale professors in line1 hand  
in hand1 and talked through their       
bodies--a feat which was then1 and is   
to-day1 almost too wonderful to believe4
  ,very slowly these lectures1 and the  
tireless activity of ,hubbard1 pushed   
back the ridicule and the incredulity2  
and in the merry month of ,may1 #ahgg1 a
 man named ,emery drifted into          
,hubbard's office from the near-by city 
of ,charlestown1 and leased two         
telephones for twenty actual            
dollars--the first money ever paid for a
 telephone4 ,this was the first feeble  
sign that such a novelty as the         
telephone business could be established2
 and no money ever looked handsomer than
 this twenty dollars did to ,bell1      

,sanders1 ,hubbard1 and ,watson4 ,it was
 the tiny first-fruit of fortune4       
,greatly encouraged1 they prepared a    
little circular which was the first     
advertisement of the telephone business4
 ,it is an oddly simple little document 
to-day1 but to the #ahgg brain it was   
startling4 ,it modestly claimed that a  
telephone was superior to a telegraph   
for three reasons3   7#a7 ,no skilled   
operator is required1 but direct        
communication may be had by speech      
without the intervention of a third     
person4   7#b7 ,the communication is    
much more rapid1 the average number of  
words transmitted in a minute by the    
,morse sounder being from fifteen to    
twenty1 by telephone from one to two    
hundred4   7#c7 ,no expense is required1
 either for its operation or repair4 ,it
 needs no battery and has no complicated
 machinery4 ,it is unsurpassed for      
economy and simplicity4   ,the only     
telephone line in the world at this time
 was between the ,williams' workshop in 

,boston and the home of ,mr4 ,williams  
in ,somerville4 ,but in ,may1 #ahgg1 a  
young man named ,e4 ,t4 ,holmes1 who was
 running a burglar-alarm business in    
,boston1 proposed that a few telephones 
be linked to his wires4 ,he was a friend
 and customer of ,williams1 and         
suggested this plan half in jest and    
half in earnest4 ,hubbard was quick to  
seize this opportunity1 and at once lent
 ,holmes a dozen telephones4 ,without   
asking permission1 ,holmes went into six
 banks and nailed up a telephone in     
each4 ,five bankers made no protest1 but
 the sixth indignantly ordered that     
playtoy to be taken out4 ,the other five
 telephones could be connected by a     
switch in ,holmes's office1 and thus was
 born the first tiny and crude          
,telephone ,exchange4 ,here it ran for  
several weeks as a telephone system by  
day and a burglar-alarm by night4 ,no   
money was paid by the bankers4 ,the     
service was given to them as an         
exhibition and an advertisement4 ,the   

little shelf with its five telephones   
was no more like the marvellous         
exchanges of to-day than a canoe is like
 a ,cunarder1 but it was unquestionably 
the first place where several telephone 
wires came together and could be united4
  ,soon afterwards1 ,holmes took his    
telephones out of the banks1 and started
 a real telephone business among the    
express companies of ,boston4 ,but by   
this time several exchanges had been    
opened for ordinary business1 in ,new   
,haven1 ,bridgeport1 ,new ,york1 and    
,philadelphia4 ,also1 a man from        
,michigan had arrived1 with the         
hardihood to ask for a ,state           
agency--,george ,w4 ,balch1 of ,detroit4
 ,he was so welcome that ,hubbard       
joyfully gave him everything he asked--a
 perpetual right to the whole ,state of 
,michigan4 ,balch was not required to   
pay a cent in advance1 except his       
railway fare1 and before he was many    
years older he had sold his lease for a 
handsome fortune of a quarter of a      

million dollars1 honestly earned by his 
initiative and enterprise4  ,by ,august1
 when ,bell's patent was sixteen months 
old1 there were #ggh telephones in use4 
,this looked like success to the        
optimistic ,hubbard4 ,he decided that   
the time had come to organize the       
business1 so he created a simple        
agreement which he called the ,bell     
,telephone ,association4 ,this agreement
 gave ,bell1 ,hubbard and ,sanders a    
three-tenths interest apiece in the     
patents1 and ,watson one-tenth4 ,,there 
,,was ,,no ,,capital4 ,there was none to
 be had4 ,the four men had at this time 
an absolute monopoly of the telephone   
business2 and everybody else was quite  
willing that they should have it4  ,the 
only man who had money and dared to     
stake it on the future of the telephone 
was ,thomas ,sanders1 and he did this   
not mainly for business reasons4 ,both  
he and ,hubbard were attached to ,bell  
primarily by sentiment1 as ,bell had    
removed the blight of dumbness from     

,sanders's little son1 and was soon to  
marry ,hubbard's daughter4  ,also1      
,sanders had no expectation1 at first1  
that so much money would be needed4 ,he 
was not rich4 ,his entire business1     
which was that of cutting out soles for 
shoe manufacturers1 was not at any time 
worth more than thirty-five thousand    
dollars4 ,yet1 from #ahgd to #ahgh1 he  
had advanced nine-tenths of the money   
that was spent on the telephone4 ,he had
 paid ,bell's room-rent1 and ,watson's  
wages1 and ,williams's expenses1 and the
 cost of the exhibit at the ,centennial4
 ,the first five thousand telephones1   
and more1 were made with his money4 ,and
 so many long1 expensive months dragged 
by before any relief came to ,sanders1  
that he was compelled1 much against his 
will and his business judgment1 to      
stretch his credit within an inch of the
 breaking-point to help ,bell and the   
telephone4 ,desperately he signed note  
after note until he faced a total of one
 hundred and ten thousand dollars4 ,if  

the new scientific toy succeeded1 which 
he often doubted1 he would be the       
richest citizen in ,haverhill2 and if it
 failed1 which he sorely feared1 he     
would be a bankrupt4  ,a disheartening  
series of rebuffs slowly forced the     
truth in upon ,sanders's mind that the  
business world refused to accept the    
telephone as an article of commerce4 ,it
 was a toy1 a plaything1 a scientific   
wonder1 but not a necessity to be bought
 and used for ordinary purposes by      
ordinary people4 ,capitalists treated it
 exactly as they treated the ,atlantic  
,cable project when ,cyrus ,field       
visited ,boston in #ahfb4 ,they admired 
and marvelled2 but not a man subscribed 
a dollar4 ,also1 ,sanders very soon     
learned that it was a most unpropitious 
time for the setting afloat of a new    
enterprise4 ,it was a period of turmoil 
and suspicion4 ,what with the ,jay      
,cooke failure1 the ,hayes-,tilden      
deadlock1 and the bursting of a hundred 
railroad bubbles1 there was very little 

in the news of the day to encourage     
investors4  ,it was impossible for      
,sanders1 or ,bell1 or ,hubbard1 to     
prepare any definite plan4 ,no matter   
what the plan might have been1 they had 
no money to put it through4 ,they       
believed that they had something new and
 marvellous1 which some one1 somewhere1 
would be willing to buy4 ,until this    
good genie should arrive1 they could do 
no more than flounder ahead1 and take   
whatever business was the nearest and   
the cheapest4 ,so while ,bell1 in       
eloquent rhapsodies1 painted            
word-pictures of a universal telephone  
service to applauding audiences1        
,sanders and ,hubbard were leasing      
telephones two by two1 to business men  
who previously had been using the       
private lines of the ,western ,union    
,telegraph ,company4  ,this great       
corporation was at the time their       
natural and inevitable enemy4 ,it had   
swallowed most of its competitors1 and  
was reaching out to monopolize all      

methods of communication by wire4 ,the  
rosiest hope that shone in front of     
,sanders and ,hubbard was that the      
,western ,union might conclude to buy   
the ,bell patents1 just as it had       
already bought many others4 ,in one     
moment of discouragement they had       
offered the telephone to ,president     
,orton1 of the ,western ,union1 for     
#ajj1jjj2 and ,orton had refused it4    
,what use1 he asked pleasantly1 could   
this company make of an electrical toy8 
,but besides the operation of its own   
wires1 the ,western ,union was supplying
 customers with various kinds of        
printing-telegraphs and dial telegraphs1
 some of which could transmit sixty     
words a minute4 ,these accurate         
instruments1 it believed1 could never be
 displaced by such a scientific oddity  
as the telephone4 ,and it continued to  
believe this until one of its subsidiary
 companies--the ,gold and               
,stock--reported that several of its    
machines had been superseded by         

telephones4  ,at once the ,western      
,union awoke from its indifference4     
,even this tiny nibbling at its business
 must be stopped4 ,it took action       
quickly and organized the ,american     
,speaking-,telephone ,company1 with     
#cjj1jjj capital1 and with three        
electrical inventors1 ,edison1 ,gray1   
and ,dolbear1 on its staff4 ,with all   
the bulk of its great wealth and        
prestige1 it swept down upon ,bell and  
his little bodyguard4 ,it trampled upon 
,bell's patent with as little concern as
 an elephant can have when he tramples  
upon an ant's nest4 ,to the complete    
bewilderment of ,bell1 it coolly        
announced that it had the only original 
telephone1 and that it was ready to     
supply superior telephones with all the 
latest improvements made by the original
 inventors--,dolbear1 ,gray1 and        
,edison4  ,the result was strange and   
unexpected4 ,the ,bell group1 instead of
 being driven from the field1 were at   
once lifted to a higher level in the    

business world4 ,the effect was as if   
the ,standard ,oil ,company were to     
commence the manufacture of aeroplanes4 
,in a flash1 the telephone ceased to be 
a scientific toy1 and became an article 
of commerce4 ,it began for the first    
time to be taken seriously4 ,and the    
,western ,union1 in the endeavor to     
protect its private lines1 became       
involuntarily a bell-wether to lead     
capitalists in the direction of the     
telephone4  ,sanders's relatives1 who   
were many and rich1 came to his rescue4 
,most of them were well-known business  
men--the ,bradleys1 the ,saltonstalls1  
,fay1 ,silsbee1 and ,carlton4 ,these    
men1 together with ,colonel ,william ,h4
 ,forbes1 who came in as a friend of the
 ,bradleys1 were the first capitalists  
who1 for purely business reasons1       
invested money in the ,bell patents4    
,two months after the ,western ,union   
had given its weighty endorsement to the
 telephone1 these men organized a       
company to do business in ,new ,england 

only1 and put fifty thousand dollars in 
its treasury4  ,in a short time the     
delighted ,hubbard found himself leasing
 telephones at the rate of a thousand a 
month4 ,he was no longer a promoter1 but
 a general manager4 ,men were standing  
in line to ask for agencies4 ,crude     
little telephone exchanges were being   
started in a dozen or more cities4      
,there was a spirit of confidence and   
enterprise2 and the next step1 clearly1 
was to create a business organization4  
,none of the partners were competent to 
undertake such a work4 ,hubbard had     
little aptitude as an organizer2 ,bell  
had none2 and ,sanders was held fast by 
his leather interests4 ,here1 at last1  
after four years of the most heroic     
effort1 were the raw materials out of   
which a telephone business could be     
constructed4 ,but who was to be the     
builder1 and where was he to be found8  
,one morning the indefatigable ,hubbard 
solved the problem4 ,watson1 he said1   
there's a young man in ,washington who  

can handle this situation1 and ,i want  
you to run down and see what you think  
of him4 ,watson went1 reported          
favorably1 and in a day or so the young 
man received a letter from ,hubbard1    
offering him the position of ,general   
,manager1 at a salary of thirty-five    
hundred dollars a year4 ,we rely1       
,hubbard said1 upon your executive      
ability1 your fidelity1 and unremitting 
zeal4 ,the young man replied1 in one of 
those dignified letters more usual in   
the nineteenth than in the twentieth    
century4 ,my faith in the success of the
 enterprise is such that ,i am willing  
to trust to it1 he wrote1 and ,i have   
confidence that we shall establish the  
harmony and cooperation that is         
essential to the success of an          
enterprise of this kind4 ,one week later
 the young man1 ,theodore ,n4 ,vail1    
took his seat as ,general ,manager in a 
tiny office in ,reade ,street1 ,new     
,york1 and the building of the business 
began4  ,this arrival of ,vail at the   

critical moment emphasized the fact that
 ,bell was one of the most fortunate of 
inventors4 ,he was not robbed of his    
invention1 as might easily have         
happened4 ,one by one there arrived to  
help him a number of able men1 with all 
the various abilities that the changing 
situation required4 ,there was such a   
focussing of factors that the whole     
matter appeared to have been previously 
rehearsed4 ,no sooner had ,bell appeared
 on the stage than his supporting       
players1 each in his turn1 received his 
cue and took part in the action of the  
drama4 ,there was not one of these men  
who could have done the work of any     
other4 ,each was distinctive and        
indispensable4 ,bell invented the       
telephone2 ,watson constructed it2      
,sanders financed it2 ,hubbard          
introduced it2 and ,vail put it on a    
business basis4  ,the new ,general      
,manager had1 of course1 no experience  
in the telephone business4 ,neither had 
any one else4 ,but he1 like ,bell1 came 

to his task with a most surprising      
fitness4 ,he was a member of the        
historic ,vail family of ,morristown1   
,new ,jersey1 which had operated the    
,speedwell ,iron ,works for four or five
 generations4 ,his grand-uncle ,stephen 
had built the engines for the ,savannah1
 the first ,american steamship to cross 
the ,atlantic ,ocean2 and his cousin    
,alfred was the friend and co-worker of 
,morse1 the inventor of the telegraph4  
,morse had lived for several years at   
the ,vail homestead in ,morristown2 and 
it was here that he erected his first   
telegraph line1 a three-mile circle     
around the ,iron ,works1 in #ahch4 ,he  
and ,alfred ,vail experimented side by  
side in the making of the telegraph1 and
 ,vail eventually received a fortune for
 his share of the ,morse patent4  ,thus 
it happened that young ,theodore ,vail  
learned the dramatic story of ,morse at 
his mother's knee4 ,as a boy1 he played 
around the first telegraph line1 and    
learned to put messages on the wire4    

,his favorite toy was a little telegraph
 that he constructed for himself4 ,at   
twenty-two he went ,west1 in the vague  
hope of possessing a bonanza farm2 then 
he swung back into telegraphy1 and in a 
few years found himself in the          
,government ,mail ,service at           
,washington4 ,by #ahgf1 he was at the   
head of this ,department1 which he      
completely reorganized4 ,he introduced  
the bag system in postal cars1 and made 
war on waste and clumsiness4 ,by virtue 
of this position he was the one man in  
the ,united ,states who had a           
comprehensive view of all railways and  
telegraphs4 ,he was much more apt1      
consequently1 than other men to develop 
the idea of a national telephone system4
  ,while in the midst of this           
bureaucratic house-cleaning he met      
,hubbard1 who had just been appointed by
 ,president ,hayes as the head of a     
commission on mail transportation4 ,he  
and ,hubbard were constantly thrown     
together1 on trains and in hotels2 and  

as ,hubbard invariably had a pair of    
telephones in his valise1 the two men   
soon became co-enthusiasts4 ,vail found 
himself painting brain-pictures of the  
future of the telephone1 and by the time
 that he was asked to become its        
,general ,manager1 he had become so     
confident that1 as he said afterwards1  
he was willing to leave a ,government   
job with a small salary for a telephone 
job with no salary4  ,so1 just as ,amos 
,kendall had left the post office       
service thirty years before to establish
 the telegraph business1 ,theodore ,n4  
,vail left the post office service to   
establish the telephone business4 ,he   
had been in authority over thirty-five  
hundred postal employees1 and was the   
developer of a system that covered every
 inhabited portion of the country4      
,consequently1 he had a quality of      
experience that was immensely valuable  
in straightening out the tangled affairs
 of the telephone4 ,line by line1 he    
mapped out a method1 a policy1 a system4

 ,he introduced a larger view of the    
telephone business1 and swept off the   
table all schemes for selling out4 ,he  
persuaded half a dozen of his post      
office friends to buy stock1 so that in 
less than two months the first ,bell    
,telephone ,company was organized1 with 
#dej1jjj capital and a service of twelve
 thousand telephones4  ,vail's first    
step1 naturally1 was to stiffen up the  
backbone of this little company1 and to 
prevent the ,western ,union from        
frightening it into a surrender4 ,he    
immediately sent a copy of ,bell's      
patent to every agent1 with orders to   
hold the fort against all opposition4   
,we have the only original telephone    
patents1 he wrote2 we have organized and
 introduced the business1 and we do not 
propose to have it taken from us by any 
corporation4 ,to one agent1 who was     
showing the white feather1 he wrote3    
,you have too great an idea of the      
,western ,union4 ,if it was all massed  
in your one city you might well fear it2

 but it is represented there by one man 
only1 and he has probably as much as he 
can attend to outside of the telephone4 
,for you to acknowledge that you cannot 
compete with his influence when you make
 it your special business1 is hardly the
 thing4 ,there may be a dozen concerns  
that will all go to the ,western ,union1
 but they will not take with them all   
their friends4 ,i would advise that you 
go ahead and keep your present          
advantage4 ,we must organize companies  
with sufficient vitality to carry on a  
fight1 as it is simply useless to get a 
company started that will succumb to the
 first bit of opposition it may         
encounter4   ,next1 having encouraged   
his thoroughly alarmed agents1 ,vail    
proceeded to build up a definite        
business policy4 ,he stiffened up the   
contracts and made them good for five   
years only4 ,he confined each agent to  
one place1 and reserved all rights to   
connect one city with another4 ,he      
established a department to collect and 

protect any new inventions that         
concerned the telephone4 ,he agreed to  
take part of the royalties in stock1    
when any local company preferred to pay 
its debts in this way4 ,and he took     
steps toward standardizing all          
telephonic apparatus by controlling the 
factories that made it4  ,these various 
measures were part of ,vail's plan to   
create a national telephone system4 ,his
 central idea1 from the first1 was not  
the mere leasing of telephones1 but     
rather the creation of a ,federal       
company that would be a permanent       
partner in the entire telephone         
business4 ,even in that day of small    
things1 and amidst the confusion and    
rough-and-tumble of pioneering1 he      
worked out the broad policy that        
prevails to-day2 and this goes far to   
explain the fact that there are in the  
,united ,states twice as many telephones
 as there are in all other countries    
combined4  ,vail arrived very much as   
,blucher did at the battle of           

,waterloo--a trifle late1 but in time to
 prevent the telephone forces from being
 routed by the ,old ,guard of the       
,western ,union4 ,he was scarcely seated
 in his managerial chair1 when the      
,western ,union threw the entire ,bell  
army into confusion by launching the    
,edison transmitter4 ,edison1 who was at
 that time fairly started in his career 
of wizardry1 had made an instrument of  
marvellous alertness4 ,it was beyond all
 argument superior to the telephones    
then in use and the lessees of ,bell    
telephones clamored with one voice for a
 transmitter as good as ,edison's4      
,this1 of course1 could not be had in a 
moment1 and the five months that        
followed were the darkest days in the   
childhood of the telephone4  ,how to    
compete with the ,western ,union1 which 
had this superior transmitter1 a host of
 agents1 a network of wires1 forty      
millions of capital1 and a first claim  
upon all newspapers1 hotels1 railroads1 
and rights of way--that was the         

immediate problem that confronted the   
new ,general ,manager4 ,every inch of   
progress had to be fought for4 ,several 
of his captains deserted1 and he was    
compelled to take control of their      
unprofitable exchanges4 ,there was      
scarcely a mail that did not bring him  
some bulletin of discouragement or      
defeat4  ,in the effort to conciliate a 
hostile public1 the telephone rates had 
everywhere been made too low4 ,hubbard  
had set a price of twenty dollars a     
year1 for the use of two telephones on a
 private line2 and when exchanges were  
started1 the rate was seldom more than  
three dollars a month4 ,there were      
deadheads in abundance1 mostly officials
 and politicians4 ,in ,st4 ,louis1 one  
of the few cities that charged a        
sufficient price1 nine-tenths of the    
merchants refused to become subscribers4
 ,in ,boston1 the first pay-station ran 
three months before it earned a dollar4 
,even as late as #ahhj1 when the first  
,national ,telephone ,convention was    

held at ,niagara ,falls1 one of the     
delegates expressed the general         
situation very correctly when he said3  
,we were all in a state of enthusiastic 
uncertainty4 ,we were full of hope1 yet 
when we analyzed those hopes they were  
very airy indeed4 ,there was probably   
not one company that could say it was   
making a cent1 nor even that it         
,,expected to make a cent4  ,especially 
in the largest cities1 where the        
,western ,union had most power1 the     
lives of the telephone pioneers were    
packed with hardships and adventures4   
,in ,philadelphia1 for instance1 a      
resolute young man named ,thomas ,e4    
,cornish was attacked as though he had  
suddenly become a public enemy1 when he 
set out to establish the first telephone
 service4 ,no official would grant him a
 permit to string wires4 ,his workmen   
were arrested4 ,the printing-telegraph  
men warned him that he must either quit 
or be driven out4 ,when he asked        
capitalists for money1 they replied that

 he might as well expect to lease       
jew's-harps as telephones4 ,finally1 he 
was compelled to resort to strategy     
where argument had failed4 ,he had      
received an order from ,colonel ,thomas 
,scott1 who wanted a wire between his   
house and his office4 ,colonel ,scott   
was the ,president of the ,pennsylvania 
,railroad1 and therefore a man of the   
highest prestige in the city4 ,so as    
soon as ,cornish had put this line in   
place1 he kept his men at work stringing
 other lines4 ,when the police          
interfered1 he showed them ,colonel     
,scott's signature and was let alone4   
,in this way he put fifteen wires up    
before the trick was discovered2 and    
soon afterwards1 with eight subscribers1
 he founded the first ,philadelphia     
exchange4  ,as may be imagined1 such    
battling as this did not put much money 
into the treasury of the parent company2
 and the letters written by ,sanders at 
this time prove that it was in a hard   
plight4  ,the following was one of the  

queries put to ,hubbard by the          
overburdened ,sanders3  ,how on earth do
 you expect me to meet a draft of two   
hundred and seventy-five dollars without
 a dollar in the treasury1 and with a   
debt of thirty thousand dollars staring 
us in the face8 ,vail's salary is small 
enough1 he continued in a second letter1
 but as to where it is coming from ,i am
 not so clear4 ,bradley is awfully blue 
and discouraged4 ,williams is tormenting
 me for money and my personal credit    
will not stand everything4 ,i have      
advanced the ,company two thousand      
dollars to-day1 and ,williams must have 
three thousand dollars more this month4 
,his pay-day has come and his capital   
will not carry him another inch4 ,if    
,bradley throws up his hand1 ,i will    
unfold to you my last desperate plan4   
,and if the company had little money1 it
 had less credit4 ,once when ,vail had  
ordered a small bill of goods from a    
merchant named ,tillotson1 of #ae ,dey  
,street1 ,new ,york1 the merchant       

replied that the goods were ready1 and  
so was the bill1 which was seven        
dollars4 ,by a strange coincidence1 the 
magnificent building of the ,new ,york  
,telephone ,company stands to-day on the
 site of ,tillotson's store4  ,month    
after month1 the little ,bell ,company  
lived from hand to mouth4 ,no salaries  
were paid in full4 ,often1 for weeks1   
they were not paid at all4 ,in ,watson's
 note-book there are such entries during
 this period as ,lent ,bell fifty cents1
 ,lent ,hubbard twenty cents1 ,bought   
one bottle beer--too bad can't have beer
 every day4 ,more than once ,hubbard    
would have gone hungry had not          
,devonshire1 the only clerk1 shared with
 him the contents of a dinner-pail4     
,each one of the little group was beset 
by taunts and temptations4 ,watson was  
offered ten thousand dollars for his    
one-tenth interest1 and hesitated three 
days before refusing it4 ,railroad      
companies offered ,vail a salary that   
was higher and sure1 if he would        

superintend their mail business4 ,and as
 for ,sanders1 his folly was the talk of
 ,haverhill4 ,one ,haverhill capitalist1
 ,e4 ,j4 ,m4 ,hale1 stopped him on the  
street and asked1 ,have n't you got a   
good leather business1 ,mr4 ,sanders8   
,yes1 replied ,sanders4 ,well1 said     
,hale1 you had better attend to it and  
quit playing on wind instruments4       
,sanders's banker1 too1 became uneasy on
 one occasion and requested him to call 
at the bank4 ,mr4 ,sanders1 he said1 ,i 
will be obliged if you will take that   
telephone stock out of the bank1 and    
give me in its place your note for      
thirty thousand dollars4 ,i am expecting
 the examiner here in a few days1 and ,i
 don't want to get caught with that     
stuff in the bank4  ,then1 in the very  
midnight of this depression1 poor ,bell 
returned from ,england1 whither he and  
his bride had gone on their honeymoon1  
and announced that he had no money2 that
 he had failed to establish a telephone 
business in ,england2 and that he must  

have a thousand dollars at once to pay  
his urgent debts4 ,he was thoroughly    
discouraged and sick4 ,as he lay in the 
,massachusetts ,general ,hospital1 he   
wrote a cry for help to the embattled   
little company that was making its      
desperate fight to protect his patents4 
,thousands of telephones are now in     
operation in all parts of the country1  
he said1 yet ,i have not yet received   
one cent from my invention4 ,on the     
contrary1 ,i am largely out of pocket by
 my researches1 as the mere value of the
 profession that ,i have sacrificed     
during my three years' work1 amounts to 
twelve thousand dollars4  ,fortunately1 
there came1 in almost the same mail with
 ,bell's letter1 another letter from a  
young ,bostonian named ,francis ,blake1 
with the good news that he had invented 
a transmitter as satisfactory as        
,edison's1 and that he would prefer to  
sell it for stock instead of cash4 ,if  
ever a man came as an angel of light1   
that man was ,francis ,blake4 ,the      

possession of his transmitter instantly 
put the ,bell ,company on an even       
footing with the ,western ,union1 in the
 matter of apparatus4 ,it encouraged the
 few capitalists who had invested money1
 and it stirred others to come forward4 
,the general business situation had by  
this time become more settled1 and in   
four months the company had twenty-two  
thousand telephones in use1 and had     
reorganized into the ,national ,bell    
,telephone ,company1 with #hej1 #jjj    
capital and with ,colonel ,forbes as its
 first ,president4 ,forbes now picked up
 the load that had been carried so long 
by ,sanders4 ,as the son of an ,east    
,india merchant and the son-in-law of   
,ralph ,waldo ,emerson1 he was a        
,bostonian of the ,brahmin caste4 ,he   
was a big1 four-square man who was both 
popular and efficient2 and his          
leadership at this crisis was of immense
 value4  ,this reorganization put the   
telephone business into the hands of    
competent business men at every point4  

,it brought the heroic and experimental 
period to an end4 ,from this time       
onwards the telephone had strong friends
 in the financial world4 ,it was being  
attacked by the ,western ,union and by  
rival inventors who were jealous of     
,bell's achievement4 ,it was being      
half-starved by cheap rates and crippled
 by clumsy apparatus4 ,it was being     
abused and grumbled at by an impatient  
public4 ,but the art of making and      
marketing it had at last been built up  
into a commercial enterprise4 ,it was   
now a business1 fighting for its life4  
,,chapter ,,iii4 ,,the ,,holding ,,of   
,,the ,,business  ,for seventeen months 
no one disputed ,bell's claim to be the 
original inventor of the telephone4 ,all
 the honor1 such as it was1 had been    
given to him freely1 and no one came    
forward to say that it was not          
rightfully his4 ,no one1 so far as we   
know1 had any strong desire to do so4   
,no one conceived that the telephone    
would ever be any more than a whimsical 

oddity of science4 ,it was so new1 so   
unexpected1 that from ,lord ,kelvin down
 to the messenger boys in the telegraph 
offices1 it was an incomprehensible     
surprise4 ,but after ,bell had explained
 his invention in public lectures before
 more than twenty thousand people1 after
 it had been on exhibition for months at
 the ,philadelphia ,centennial1 after   
several hundred articles on it had      
appeared in newspapers and scientific   
magazines1 and after actual sales of    
telephones had been made in various     
parts of the country1 there began to    
appear such a succession of claimants   
and infringers that the forgetful public
 came to believe that the telephone1    
like most inventions1 was the product of
 many minds4  ,just as ,morse1 who was  
the sole inventor of the ,american      
telegraph in #ahcg1 was confronted by   
sixty-two rivals in #ahch1 so ,bell1 who
 was the sole inventor in #ahgf1 found  
himself two years later almost mobbed by
 the ,tichborne claimants of the        

telephone4 ,the inventors who had been  
his competitors in the attempt to       
produce a musical telegraph1 persuaded  
themselves that they had unconsciously  
done as much as he4 ,any possessor of a 
telegraphic patent1 who had used the    
common phrase talking wire1 had a chance
 to build up a plausible story of prior 
invention4 ,and others came forward with
 claims so vague and elusive that ,bell 
would scarcely have been more surprised 
if the heirs of ,goethe had demanded a  
share of the telephone royalties on the 
ground that ,faust had spoken of making 
a bridge through the moving air4  ,this 
babel of inventors and pretenders amazed
 ,bell and disconcerted his backers4    
,but it was no more than might have been
 expected4 ,here was a patent--the most 
valuable single patent ever issued--and 
yet the invention itself was so simple  
that it could be duplicated easily by   
any smart boy or any ordinary mechanic4 
,the making of a telephone was like the 
trick of ,columbus standing an egg on   

end4 ,nothing was easier to those who   
knew how4 ,and so it happened that1 as  
the crude little model of ,bell's       
original telephone lay in the ,patent   
,office open and unprotected except by a
 few phrases that clever lawyers might  
evade1 there sprang up inevitably around
 it the most costly and persistent      
,patent ,war that any country has ever  
known1 continuing for eleven years and  
comprising ,,six ,,hundred ,,lawsuits4  
,the first attack upon the young        
telephone business was made by the      
,western ,union ,telegraph ,company4 ,it
 came charging full tilt upon ,bell1    
driving three inventors                 
abreast--,edison1 ,gray1 and ,dolbear4  
,it expected an easy victory2 in fact1  
the disparity between the two opponents 
was so evident1 that there seemed little
 chance of a contest of any kind4 ,the  
,western ,union will swallow up the     
telephone people1 said public opinion1  
just as it has already swallowed up all 
improvements in telegraphy4  ,at that   

time1 it should be remembered1 the      
,western ,union was the only corporation
 that was national in its extent4 ,it   
was the most powerful electrical company
 in the world1 and1 as ,bell wrote to   
his parents1 probably the largest       
corporation that ever existed4 ,it had  
behind it not only forty millions of    
capital1 but the prestige of the        
,vanderbilts1 and the favor of          
financiers everywhere4 ,also1 it met the
 telephone pioneers at every point      
because it1 too1 was a ,,wire company4  
,it owned rights-of-way along roads and 
on house-tops4 ,it had a monopoly of    
hotels and railroad offices4 ,no matter 
in what direction the ,bell ,company    
turned1 the live wire of the ,western   
,union lay across its path4  ,from the  
first1 the ,western ,union relied more  
upon its strength than upon the merits  
of its case4 ,its chief electrical      
expert1 ,frank ,l4 ,pope1 had made a six
 months' examination of the ,bell       
patents4 ,he had bought every book in   

the ,united ,states and ,europe that was
 likely to have any reference to the    
transmission of speech1 and employed a  
professor who knew eight languages to   
translate them4 ,he and his men         
ransacked libraries and patent offices2 
they rummaged and sleuthed and          
interviewed2 and found nothing of any   
value4 ,in his final report to the      
,western ,union1 ,mr4 ,pope announced   
that there was no way to make a         
telephone except ,bell's way1 and       
advised the purchase of the ,bell       
patents4 ,i am entirely unable to       
discover any apparatus or method        
anticipating the invention of ,bell as a
 whole1 he said2 and ,i conclude that   
his patent is valid4 ,but the officials 
of the great corporation refused to take
 this report seriously4 ,they threw it  
aside and employed ,edison1 ,gray1 and  
,dolbear to devise a telephone that     
could be put into competition with      
,bell's4  ,as we have seen in the       
previous chapter1 there now came a      

period of violent competition which is  
remembered as the ,dark ,ages of the    
telephone business4 ,the ,western ,union
 bought out several of the ,bell        
exchanges and opened up a lively war on 
the others4 ,as befitting its size1 it  
claimed everything4 ,it introduced ,gray
 as the original inventor of the        
telephone1 and ordered its lawyers to   
take action at once against the ,bell   
,company for infringement of the ,gray  
patent4 ,this high-handed action1 it    
hoped1 would most quickly bring the     
little ,bell group into a humble and    
submissive frame of mind4 ,every morning
 the ,western ,union looked to see the  
white flag flying over the ,bell        
headquarters4 ,but no white flag        
appeared4 ,on the contrary1 the news    
came that the ,bell ,company had secured
 two eminent lawyers and were ready to  
give battle4  ,the case began in the    
,autumn of #ahgh and lasted for a year4 
,then it came to a sudden and most      
unexpected ending4 ,the lawyer-in-chief 

of the ,western ,union was ,george      
,gifford1 who was perhaps the ablest    
patent attorney of his day4 ,he was     
versed in patent lore from ,alpha to    
,omega2 and as the trial proceeded1 he  
became convinced that the ,bell patent  
was valid4 ,he notified the ,western    
,union confidentially1 of course1 that  
its case could not be proven1 and that  
,bell was the original inventor of the  
telephone4 ,the best policy1 he         
suggested1 was to withdraw their claims 
and make a settlement4 ,this wise advice
 was accepted1 and the next day the     
white flag was hauled up1 not by the    
little group of ,bell fighters1 who were
 huddled together in a tiny1 two-room   
office1 but by the mighty ,western      
,union itself1 which had been so        
arrogant when the encounter began4  ,a  
committee of three from each side was   
appointed1 and after months of          
disputation1 a treaty of peace was drawn
 up and signed4 ,by the terms of this   
treaty the ,western ,union agreed--     

7#a7 ,to admit that ,bell was the       
original inventor4  7#b7 ,to admit that 
his patents were valid4  7#c7 ,to retire
 from the telephone business4   ,the    
,bell ,company1 in return for this      
surrender1 agreed--  7#a7 ,to buy the   
,western ,union telephone system4  7#b7 
,to pay the ,western ,union a royalty of
 twenty per cent on all telephone       
rentals4  7#c7 ,to keep out of the      
telegraph business4   ,this agreement1  
which was to remain in force for        
seventeen years1 was a master-stroke of 
diplomacy on the part of the ,bell      
,company4 ,it was the ,magna ,charta of 
the telephone4 ,it transformed a giant  
competitor into a friend4 ,it added to  
the ,bell ,system fifty-six thousand    
telephones in fifty-five cities4 ,and it
 swung the valiant little company up to 
such a pinnacle of prosperity that its  
stock went skyrocketing until it touched
 one thousand dollars a share4  ,the    
,western ,union had lost its case1 for  
several very simple reasons3 ,it had    

tried to operate a telephone system on  
telegraphic lines1 a plan that has      
invariably been unsuccessful1 it had a  
low idea of the possibilities of the    
telephone business2 and its already busy
 agents had little time or knowledge or 
enthusiasm to give to the new           
enterprise4 ,with all its power1 it     
found itself outfought by this compact  
body of picked men1 who were young1     
zealous1 well-handled1 and protected by 
a most invulnerable patent4  ,the ,bell 
,telephone now took its place with the  
,telegraph1 the ,railroad1 the          
,steamboat1 the ,harvester1 and the     
other necessities of a civilized        
country4 ,its pioneer days were over4   
,there was no more ridicule and         
incredulity4 ,every one knew that the   
,bell people had whipped the ,western   
,union1 and hastened to join in the     
grand ,te ,deum of applause4 ,within    
five months from the signing of the     
agreement1 there had to be a            
reorganization2 and the ,american ,bell 

,telephone ,company was created1 with   
six million dollars capital4 ,in the    
following year1 #ahha1 twelve hundred   
new towns and cities were marked on the 
telephone map1 and the first dividends  
were paid--#agh1ejj4 ,and in #ahhb there
 came such a telephone boom that the    
,bell ,system was multiplied by two1    
with more than a million dollars of     
gross earnings4  ,at this point all the 
earliest pioneers of the telephone1     
except ,vail1 pass out of its history4  
,thomas ,sanders sold his stock for     
somewhat less than a million dollars1   
and presently lost most of it in a      
,colorado gold mine4 ,his mother1 who   
had been so good a friend to ,bell1 had 
her fortune doubled4 ,gardiner ,g4      
,hubbard withdrew from business life1   
and as it was impossible for a man of   
his ardent temperament to be idle1 he   
plunged into the ,national ,geographical
 ,society4 ,he was a ,colonel ,sellers  
whose dream of millions 7for the        
telephone7 had come true2 and when he   

died1 in #ahig1 he was rich both in     
money and in the affection of his       
friends4 ,charles ,williams1 in whose   
workshop the first telephones were made1
 sold his factory to the ,bell ,company 
in #ahha for more money than he had ever
 expected to possess4 ,thomas ,a4       
,watson resigned at the same time1      
finding himself no longer a wage-worker 
but a millionaire4 ,several years later 
he established a shipbuilding plant near
 ,boston1 which grew until it employed  
four thousand workmen and had built half
 a dozen warships for the ,united       
,states ,navy4  ,as for ,bell1 the first
 cause of the telephone business1 he did
 what a true scientific ,bohemian might 
have been expected to do2 he gave all   
his stock to his bride on their         
marriage-day and resumed his work as an 
instructor of deaf-mutes4 ,few kings1 if
 any1 had ever given so rich a wedding  
present2 and certainly no one in any    
country ever obtained and tossed aside  
an immense fortune as incidentally as   

did ,bell4 ,when the ,bell ,company     
offered him a salary of ten thousand    
dollars a year to remain its chief      
inventor1 he refused the offer          
cheerfully on the ground that he could  
not invent to order4 ,in #ahhj1 the     
,french ,government gave him the ,volta 
,prize of fifty thousand francs and the 
,cross of the ,legion of ,honor4 ,he has
 had many honors since then1 and many   
interests4 ,he has been for thirty years
 one of the most brilliant and          
picturesque personalities in ,american  
public life4 ,but none of his later     
achievements can in any degree compare  
with what he did in a cellar in ,salem1 
at twenty-eight years of age4  ,they had
 all become rich1 these first friends of
 the telephone1 but not fabulously so4  
,there was not at that time1 nor has    
there been since1 any one who became a  
multimillionaire by the sale of         
telephone service4 ,if the ,bell        
,company had sold its stock at the      
highest price reached1 in #ahhj1 it     

would have received less than nine      
million dollars--a huge sum1 but not too
 much to pay for the invention of the   
telephone and the building up of a new  
art and a new industry4 ,it was not as  
much as the value of the eggs laid      
during the last twelve months by the    
hens of ,iowa4  ,but1 as may be         
imagined1 when the news of the ,western 
,union agreement became known1 the story
 of the telephone became a fairy tale of
 success4 ,theodore ,vail was given a   
banquet by his old-time friends in the  
,washington postal service1 and toasted 
as the ,monte ,cristo of the ,telephone4
 ,it was said that the actual cost of   
the ,bell plant was only                
one-twenty-fifth of its capital1 and    
that every four cents of investment had 
thus become a dollar4 ,even ,jay ,gould1
 carried beyond his usual caution by    
these stories1 ran up to ,new ,haven and
 bought its telephone company1 only to  
find out later that its earnings were   
less than its expenses4  ,much to the   

bewilderment of the ,bell ,company1 it  
soon learned that the troubles of wealth
 are as numerous as those of poverty4   
,it was beset by a throng of promoters  
and stock-jobbers1 who fell upon it and 
upon the public like a swarm of         
seventeen-year locusts4 ,in three years1
 one hundred and twenty-five competing  
companies were started1 in open defiance
 of the ,bell patents4 ,the main object 
of these companies was not1 like that of
 the ,western ,union1 to do a legitimate
 telephone business1 but to sell stock  
to the public4 ,the face value of their 
stock was #bbe1jjj1jjj1 although few of 
them ever sent a message4 ,one company  
of unusual impertinence1 without money  
or patents1 had capitalized its audacity
 at #ae1jjj1jjj4  ,how to ,,hold the    
business that had been established--that
 was now the problem4 ,none of the ,bell
 partners had been mere stock-jobbers4  
,at one time they had even taken a      
pledge not to sell any of their stock to
 outsiders4 ,they had financed their    

company in a most honest and simple way2
 and they were desperately opposed to   
the financial banditti whose purpose was
 to transform the telephone business    
into a cheat and a gamble4 ,at first1   
having held their own against the       
,western ,union1 they expected to make  
short work of the stock-jobbers4 ,but it
 was a vain hope4 ,these bogus          
companies1 they found1 did not fight in 
the open1 as the ,western ,union had    
done4  ,all manner of injurious rumors  
were presently set afloat concerning the
 ,bell patent4 ,other inventors--some of
 them honest men1 and some shameless    
pretenders--were brought forward with   
strangely concocted tales of prior      
invention4 ,the ,granger movement was at
 that time a strong political factor in 
the ,middle ,west1 and its blind fear of
 patents and monopolies was turned      
aggressively against the ,bell ,company4
 ,a few ,senators and legitimate        
capitalists were lifted up as the       
figureheads of the crusade4 ,and a loud 

hue-and-cry was raised in the newspapers
 against high rates and monopoly to     
distract the minds of the people from   
the real issue of legitimate business   
versus stock-company bubbles4  ,the most
 plausible and persistent of all the    
various inventors who snatched at       
,bell's laurels1 was ,elisha ,gray4 ,he 
refused to abide by the adverse decision
 of the court4 ,several years after his 
defeat1 he came forward with new weapons
 and new methods of attack4 ,he became  
more hostile and irreconcilable2 and    
until his death1 in #aija1 never        
renounced his claim to be the original  
inventor of the telephone4  ,the reason 
for this persistence is very evident4   
,gray was a professional inventor1 a    
highly competent man who had begun his  
career as a blacksmith's apprentice1 and
 risen to be a professor of ,oberlin4   
,he made1 during his lifetime1 over five
 million dollars by his patents4 ,in    
#ahgd1 he and ,bell were running a      
neck-and-neck race to see who could     

first invent a musical telegraph--when1 
presto6 ,bell suddenly turned aside1    
because of his acoustical knowledge1 and
 invented the telephone1 while ,gray    
kept straight ahead4 ,like all others   
who were in quest of a better telegraph 
instrument1 ,gray had glimmerings of the
 possibility of sending speech by wire1 
and by one of the strangest of          
coincidences he filed a caveat on the   
subject on the ,,same ,,day that ,bell  
filed the application for a patent4     
,bell had arrived first4 ,as the record 
book shows1 the fifth entry on that day 
was3 ,a4 ,g4 ,bell1 #ae2 and the        
thirty-ninth entry was ,e4 ,gray1 #aj4  
,there was a vast difference between    
,gray's caveat and ,bell's application4 
,a caveat is a declaration that the     
writer has ,,not invented a thing1 but  
believes that he is about to do so2     
while an ,,application is a declaration 
that the writer has already perfected   
the invention4 ,but ,gray could never   
forget that he had seemed to be1 for a  

time1 so close to the golden prize2 and 
seven years after he had been set aside 
by the ,western ,union agreement1 he    
reappeared with claims that had grown   
larger and more definite4  ,when all the
 evidence in the various ,gray lawsuits 
is sifted out1 there appear to have been
 three distinctly different ,grays3     
first1 ,gray the ,,scoffer1 who examined
 ,bell's telephone at the ,centennial   
and said it was nothing but the old     
lover's telegraph4 ,it is impossible to 
make a practical speaking telephone on  
the principle shown by ,professor       
,bell4444 ,the currents are too feeble2 
second1 ,gray the ,,convert1 who wrote  
frankly to ,bell in #ahgg1 ,i do not    
claim the credit of inventing it2 and   
third1 ,gray the ,,claimant1 who        
endeavored to prove in #ahhf that he was
 the original inventor4 ,his real       
position in the matter was once well and
 wittily described by his partner1 ,enos
 ,m4 ,barton1 who said3 ,of all the men 
who ,,didn',t invent the telephone1     

,gray was the nearest4  ,it is now      
clearly seen that the telephone owes    
nothing to ,gray4 ,there are no ,gray   
telephones in use in any country4 ,even 
,gray himself1 as he admitted in court1 
failed when he tried to make a telephone
 on the lines laid down in his caveat4  
,the final word on the whole matter was 
recently spoken by ,george ,c4 ,maynard1
 who established the telephone business 
in the city of ,washington4 ,said ,mr4  
,maynard3   ,mr4 ,gray was an intimate  
and valued friend of mine1 but it is no 
disrespect to his memory to say that on 
some points involved in the telephone   
matter1 he was mistaken4 ,no subject was
 ever so thoroughly investigated as the 
invention of the speaking telephone4 ,no
 patent has ever been submitted to such 
determined assault from every direction 
as ,bell's2 and no inventor has ever    
been more completely vindicated4 ,bell  
was the first inventor1 and ,gray was   
not4   ,after ,gray1 the weightiest     
challenger who came against ,bell was   

,professor ,amos ,e4 ,dolbear1 of ,tufts
 ,college4 ,he1 like ,gray1 had written 
a letter of applause to ,bell in #ahgg4 
,i congratulate you1 sir1 he said1 upon 
your very great invention1 and ,i hope  
to see it supplant all forms of existing
 telegraphs1 and that you will be       
successful in obtaining the wealth and  
honor which is your due4 ,but one year  
later1 ,dolbear came to view with an    
opposition telephone4 ,it was not an    
imitation of ,bell's1 he insisted1 but  
an improvement upon an electrical device
 made by a ,german named ,philip ,reis1 
in #ahfa4  ,thus there appeared upon the
 scene the so-called ,reis telephone1   
which was not a telephone at all1 in any
 practical sense1 but which served well 
enough for nine years or more as a      
weapon to use against the ,bell patents4
 ,poor ,philip ,reis himself1 the son of
 a baker in ,frankfort1 ,germany1 had   
hoped to make a telephone1 but he had   
failed4 ,his machine was operated by a  
make-and-break current1 and so could not

 carry the infinitely delicate          
vibrations made by the human voice4 ,it 
could transmit the pitch of a sound1 but
 not the ,,quality4 ,at its best1 it    
could carry a tune1 but never at any    
time a spoken sentence4 ,reis1 in his   
later years1 realized that his machine  
could never be used for the transmission
 of conversation2 and in a letter to a  
friend he tells of a code of signals    
that he has invented4  ,bell had once1  
during his three years of experimenting1
 made a ,reis machine1 although at that 
time he had not seen one4 ,but he soon  
threw it aside1 as of no practical      
value4 ,as a teacher of acoustics1 ,bell
 knew that the one indispensable        
requirement of a telephone is that it   
shall transmit the ,,whole of a sound1  
and not merely the pitch of it4 ,such   
scientists as ,lord ,kelvin1 ,joseph    
,henry1 and ,edison had seen the little 
,reis instrument years before ,bell     
invented the telephone2 but they        
regarded it as a mere musical toy4 ,it  

was not in any sense a speaking         
telephone1 said ,lord ,kelvin4 ,and     
,edison1 when trying to put the ,reis   
machine in the most favorable light1    
admitted humorously that when he used a 
,reis transmitter he generally knew what
 was coming2 and knowing what was       
coming1 even a ,reis transmitter1 pure  
and simple1 reproduces sounds which seem
 almost like that which was being       
transmitted2 but when the man at the    
other end did not know what was coming1 
it was very seldom that any word was    
recognized4  ,in the course of the      
,dolbear lawsuit1 a ,reis machine was   
brought into court1 and created much    
amusement4 ,it was able to squeak1 but  
not to speak4 ,experts and professors   
wrestled with it in vain4 ,it refused to
 transmit one intelligible sentence4 ,it
 ,,can speak1 but it ,,won',t1 explained
 one of ,dolbear's lawyers4 ,it is now  
generally known that while a ,reis      
machine1 when clogged and out of order1 
would transmit a word or two in an      

imperfect way1 it was built on wrong    
lines4 ,it was no more a telephone than 
a wagon is a sleigh1 even though it is  
possible to chain the wheels and make   
them slide for a foot or two4 ,said     
,judge ,lowell1 in rendering his famous 
decision3   ,a century of ,reis would   
never have produced a speaking telephone
 by mere improvement of construction4   
,it was left for ,bell to discover that 
the failure was due not to workmanship  
but to the principle which was adopted  
as the basis of what had to be done4 444
 ,bell discovered a new art--that of    
transmitting speech by electricity1 and 
his claim is not as broad as his        
invention4444 ,to follow ,reis is to    
fail2 but to follow ,bell is to succeed4
   ,after the victory over ,dolbear1 the
 ,bell stock went soaring skywards2 and 
the higher it went1 the greater were the
 number of infringers and blowers of    
stock bubbles4 ,to bait the ,bell       
,company became almost a national sport4
 ,any sort of claimant1 with any sort of

 wild tale of prior invention1 could    
find a speculator to support him4 ,on   
they came1 a motley array1 some in rags1
 some on nags1 and some in velvet gowns4
 ,one of them claimed to have done      
wonders with an iron hoop and a file in 
#ahfg2 a second had a marvellous table  
with glass legs2 a third swore that he  
had made a telephone in #ahfj1 but did  
not know what it was until he saw       
,bell's patent2 and a fourth told a     
vivid story of having heard a bullfrog  
croak via a telegraph wire which was    
strung into a certain cellar in ,racine1
 in #ahea4  ,this comic opera phase came
 to a head in the famous ,drawbaugh     
case1 which lasted for nearly four      
years1 and filled ten thousand pages    
with its evidence4 ,having failed on    
,reis1 the ,german1 the opponents of    
,bell now brought forward an ,american  
inventor named ,daniel ,drawbaugh1 and  
opened up a noisy newspaper campaign4   
,to secure public sympathy for          
,drawbaugh1 it was said that he had     

invented a complete telephone and       
switchboard before #ahgf1 but was in    
such utter and abject poverty that he   
could not get himself a patent4 ,five   
hundred witnesses were examined2 and    
such a general turmoil was aroused that 
the ,bell lawyers were compelled to take
 the attack seriously1 and to fight back
 with every pound of ammunition they    
possessed4  ,the fact about ,drawbaugh  
is that he was a mechanic in a country  
village near ,harrisburg1 ,pennsylvania4
 ,he was ingenious but not inventive2   
and loved to display his mechanical     
skill before the farmers and villagers4 
,he was a subscriber to ,the ,scientific
 ,american2 and it had become the fixed 
habit of his life to copy other people's
 inventions and exhibit them as his own4
 ,he was a trailer of inventors4 ,more  
than forty instances of this imitative  
habit were shown at the trial1 and he   
was severely scored by the judge1 who   
accused him of deliberately falsifying  
the facts4 ,his ruling passion of       

imitation1 apparently1 was not          
diminished by the loss of his telephone 
claims1 as he came to public view again 
in #aijc as a trailer of ,marconi4      
,drawbaugh's defeat sent the ,bell stock
 up once more1 and brought on a ,xerxes'
 army of opposition which called itself 
the ,overland ,company4 ,having learned 
that no one claim-ant could beat ,bell  
in the courts1 this company massed the  
losers together and came forward with a 
scrap-basket full of patents4 ,several  
powerful capitalists undertook to pay   
the expenses of this adventure4 ,wires  
were strung2 stock was sold2 and the    
enterprise looked for a time so genuine 
that when the ,bell lawyers asked for an
 injunction against it1 they were       
refused4 ,this was as hard a blow as the
 ,bell people received in their eleven  
years of litigation2 and the ,bell stock
 tumbled thirty-five points in a few    
days4 ,infringing companies sprang up   
like gourds in the night4 ,and all went 
merrily with the promoters until the    

,overland ,company was thrown out of    
court1 as having no evidence1 except the
 refuse and dregs of former cases--the  
heel-taps found in the glasses at the   
end of the frolic4  ,but even after this
 defeat for the claimants1 the frolic   
was not wholly ended4 ,they next planned
 to get through politics what they could
 not get through law2 they induced the  
,government to bring suit for the       
annulment of the ,bell patents4 ,it was 
a bold and desperate move1 and enabled  
the promoters of paper companies to sell
 stock for several years longer4 ,the   
whole dispute was re-opened1 from ,gray 
to ,drawbaugh4 ,every battle was        
re-fought2 and in the end1 of course1   
the ,government officials learned that  
they were being used to pull telephone  
chestnuts out of the fire4 ,the case was
 allowed to die a natural death1 and was
 informally dropped in #ahif4  ,in all1 
the ,bell ,company fought out thirteen  
lawsuits that were of national interest1
 and five that were carried to the      

,supreme ,court in ,washington4 ,it     
fought out five hundred and eighty-seven
 other lawsuits of various natures2 and 
with the exception of two trivial       
contract suits1 ,,it ,,never ,,lost ,a  
,,case4  ,its experience is an          
unanswerable indictment of our system of
 protecting inventors4 ,no inventor had 
ever a clearer title than ,bell4 ,the   
,patent ,office itself1 in #ahhd1 made  
an eighteen-months' investigation of all
 telephone patents1 and reported3 ,it is
 to ,bell that the world owes the       
possession of the speaking telephone4   
,yet his patent was continuously under  
fire1 and never at any time secure4     
,stock companies whose paper capital    
totalled more than #ejj1jjj1jjj were    
organized to break it down2 and from    
first to last the success of the        
telephone was based much less upon the  
monopoly of patents than upon the       
building up of a well organized         
business4  ,fortunately for ,bell and   
the men who upheld him1 they were       

defended by two master-lawyers who have 
seldom1 if ever1 had an equal for team  
work and efficiency--,chauncy ,smith and
 ,james ,j4 ,storrow4 ,these two men    
were marvellously well mated4 ,smith was
 an old-fashioned attorney of the       
,websterian sort1 dignified1 ponderous1 
and impressive4 ,by #ahgh1 when he came 
in to defend the little ,bell ,company  
against the towering ,western ,union1   
,smith had become the most noted patent 
lawyer in ,boston4 ,he was a large1     
thick-set man1 a reminder of ,benjamin  
,franklin1 with clean-shaven face1 long 
hair curling at the ends1 frock coat1   
high collar1 and beaver hat4  ,storrow1 
on the contrary1 was a small man1 quiet 
in manner1 conversational in argument1  
and an encyclopedia of definite         
information4 ,he was so thorough that1  
when he became a ,bell lawyer1 he first 
spent an entire summer at his country   
home in ,petersham1 studying the laws of
 physics and electricity4 ,he was never 
in the slightest degree spectacular4    

,once only1 during the eleven years of  
litigation1 did he lose control of his  
temper4 ,he was attacking the           
credibility of a witness whom he had put
 on the stand1 but who had been tampered
 with by the opposition lawyers4 ,but   
this man is your own witness1 protested 
the lawyers4 ,yes1 shouted the usually  
soft-speaking ,storrow2 he ,,was my     
witness1 but now he is ,,your ,,liar4   
,the efficiency of these two men was    
greatly increased by a third--,thomas   
,d4 ,lockwood1 who was chosen by ,vail  
in #ahgi to establish a ,patent         
,department4 ,two years before1         
,lockwood had heard ,bell lecture in    
,chickering ,hall1 ,new ,york1 and was a
 doubting ,thomas4 ,but a closer study  
of the telephone transformed him into an
 enthusiast4 ,having a memory like a    
filing system1 and a knack for          
invention1 ,lockwood was well fitted to 
create such a department4 ,he was a man 
born for the place4 ,and he has seen the
 number of electrical patents grow from 

a few hundred in #ahgh to eighty        
thousand in #aiaj4  ,these three men    
were the defenders of the ,bell patents4
 ,as ,vail built up the young telephone 
business1 they held it from being torn  
to shreds in an orgy of speculative     
competition4 ,smith prepared the        
comprehensive plan of defence4 ,by his  
sagacity and experience he was enabled  
to mark out the general principles upon 
which ,bell had a right to stand4       
,usually1 he closed the case1 and he was
 immensely effective as he would        
declaim1 in his deep voice3 ,i submit1  
,your ,honor1 that the literature of the
 world does not afford a passage which  
states how the human voice can be       
electrically transmitted1 previous to   
the patent of ,mr4 ,bell4 ,his death1   
like his life1 was dramatic4 ,he was on 
his feet in the courtroom1 battling     
against an infringer1 when1 in the      
middle of a sentence1 he fell to the    
floor1 overcome by sickness and the     
responsibilities he had carried for     

twelve years4 ,storrow1 in a different  
way1 was fully as indispensable as      
,smith4 ,it was he who built up the     
superstructure of the ,bell defence4 ,he
 was a master of details4 ,his brain was
 keen and incisive2 and some of his     
briefs will be studied as long as the   
art of telephony exists4 ,he might      
fairly have been compared1 in action1 to
 a rapid-firing ,gatling gun2 while     
,smith was a hundred-ton cannon1 and    
,lockwood was the maker of the          
ammunition4  ,smith and ,storrow had    
three main arguments that never were1   
and never could be1 answered4 ,fifty or 
more of the most eminent lawyers of that
 day tried to demolish these arguments1 
and failed4 ,the first was ,bell's      
clear1 straightforward story of ,,how   
,,he ,,did ,,it1 which rebuked and      
confounded the mob of pretenders4 ,the  
second was the historical fact that the 
most eminent electrical scientists of   
,europe and ,america had seen ,bell's   
telephone at the ,centennial and had    

declared it to be ,,new--not only new   
but marvellous1 said ,tyndall4 ,and the 
third was the very significant fact that
 no one challenged ,bell's claim to be  
the original inventor of the telephone  
until his patent was seventeen months   
old4  ,the patent itself1 too1 was a    
remarkable document4 ,it was a          
,gibraltar of security to the ,bell     
,company4 ,for eleven years it was      
attacked from all sides1 and never      
dented4 ,it covered an entire art1 yet  
it was sustained during its whole       
lifetime4 ,printed in full1 it would    
make ten pages of this book2 but the    
core of it is in the last sentence3 ,the
 method of1 and apparatus for1          
transmitting vocal or other sounds      
telegraphically1 by causing electrical  
undulations1 similar in form to the     
vibrations of the air accompanying the  
said vocal or other sounds4 ,these words
 expressed an idea that had never been  
written before4 ,it could not be evaded 
or overcome4 ,there were only thirty-two

 words1 but in six years these words    
represented an investment of a million  
dollars apiece4  ,now that the clamor of
 this great patent war has died away1 it
 is evident that ,bell received no more 
credit and no more reward than he       
deserved4 ,there was no telephone until 
he made one1 and since he made one1 no  
one has found out any other way4        
,hundreds of clever men have been trying
 for more than thirty years to outrival 
,bell1 and yet every telephone in the   
world is still made on the plan that    
,bell discovered4  ,no inventor who     
preceded ,bell did more1 in the         
invention of the telephone1 than to help
 ,bell indirectly1 in the same way that 
,fra ,mauro and ,toscanelli helped in   
the discovery of ,america by making the 
map and chart that were used by         
,columbus4 ,bell was helped by his      
father1 who taught him the laws of      
acoustics2 by ,helmholtz1 who taught him
 the influence of magnets upon sound    
vibrations2 by ,koenig and ,leon ,scott1

 who taught him the infinite variety of 
these vibrations2 by ,dr4 ,clarence ,j4 
,blake1 who gave him a human ear for his
 experiments2 and by ,joseph ,henry and 
,sir ,charles ,wheatstone1 who          
encouraged him to persevere4 ,in a still
 more indirect way1 he was helped by    
,morse's invention of the telegraph2 by 
,faraday's discovery of the phenomena of
 magnetic induction2 by ,sturgeon's     
first electro-magnet2 and by ,volta's   
electric battery4 ,all that scientists  
had achieved1 from ,galileo and ,newton 
to ,franklin and ,simon ,newcomb1 helped
 ,bell in a general way1 by creating a  
scientific atmosphere and habit of      
thought4 ,but in the actual making of   
the telephone1 there was no one with    
,bell nor before him4 ,he invented it   
first1 and alone4    ,,chapter ,,iv4    
,,the ,,development ,,of ,,the ,,art    
,four wire-using businesses were already
 in the field when the telephone was    
born3 the fire-alarm1 burglar-alarm1    
telegraph1 and messenger-boy service2   

and at first1 as might have been        
expected1 the humble little telephone   
was huddled in with these businesses as 
a sort of poor relation4 ,to the general
 public1 it was a mere scientific toy2  
but there were a few men1 not many1 in  
these wire-stringing trades1 who saw a  
glimmering chance of creating a         
telephone business4 ,they put telephones
 on the wires that were then in use4 ,as
 these became popular1 they added       
others4 ,each of their customers wished 
to be able to talk to every one else4   
,and so1 having undertaken to give      
telephone service1 they presently found 
themselves battling with the most       
intricate and baffling engineering      
problem of modern times--the            
construction around the tele-phone of   
such a mechanism as would bring it into 
universal service4  ,the first of these 
men was ,thomas ,a4 ,watson1 the young  
mechanic who had been hired as ,bell's  
helper4 ,he began a work that to-day    
requires an army of twenty-six thousand 

people4 ,he was for a couple of years   
the total engineering and manufacturing 
department of the telephone business1   
and by #ahhj had taken out sixty patents
 for his own suggestions4 ,it was       
,watson who took the telephone as ,bell 
had made it1 really a toy1 with its     
diaphragm so delicate that a warm breath
 would put it out of order1 and         
toughened it into a more rugged machine4
 ,bell had used a disc of fragile       
gold-beaters' skin with a patch of      
sheet-iron glued to the centre4 ,he     
could not believe1 for a time1 that a   
disc of all-iron would vibrate under the
 slight influence of a spoken word4 ,but
 he and ,watson noticed that when the   
patch was bigger the talking was better1
 and presently they threw away the      
gold-beaters' skin and used the iron    
alone4  ,also1 it was ,watson who spent 
months experimenting with all sorts and 
sizes of iron discs1 so as to get the   
one that would best convey the sound4   
,if the iron was too thick1 he          

discovered1 the voice was shrilled into 
a ,punch-and-,judy squeal2 and if it was
 too thin1 the voice became a hollow and
 sepulchral groan1 as if the speaker had
 his head in a barrel4 ,other months1   
too1 were spent in finding out the      
proper size and shape for the air cavity
 in front of the disc4 ,and so1 after   
the telephone had been perfected1 ,,in  
,,principle1 a full year was required to
 lift it out of the class of scientific 
toys1 and another year or two to present
 it properly to the business world4     
,until #ahgh all ,bell telephone        
apparatus was made by ,watson in        
,charles ,williams's little shop in     
,court ,street1 ,boston--a building long
 since transformed into a five-cent     
theatre4 ,but the business soon grew too
 big for the shop4 ,orders fell five    
weeks behind4 ,agents stormed and       
fretted4 ,some action had to be taken   
quickly1 so licenses were given to four 
other manufacturers to make bells1      
switchboards1 and so forth4 ,by this    

time the ,western ,electric ,company of 
,chicago had begun to make the          
infringing ,gray-,edison telephones for 
the ,western ,union1 so that there were 
soon six groups of mechanics puzzling   
their wits over the new talk-machinery4 
,by #ahhj there was plenty of telephonic
 apparatus being made1 but in too many  
different varieties4 ,not all the summer
 gowns of that year presented more      
styles and fancies4 ,the next step1 if  
there was to be any degree of           
uniformity1 was plainly to buy and      
consolidate these six companies2 and by 
#ahha ,vail had done this4 ,it was the  
first merger in telephone history4 ,it  
was a step of immense importance4 ,had  
it not been taken1 the telephone        
business would have been torn into      
fragments by the civil wars between     
rival inventors4  ,from this time the   
,western ,electric became the           
headquarters of telephonic apparatus4   
,it was the ,big ,shop1 all roads led to
 it4 ,no matter where a new idea was    

born1 sooner or later it came knocking  
at the door of the ,western ,electric to
 receive a material body4 ,here were the
 skilled workmen who became the hands of
 the telephone business4 ,and here1 too1
 were many of the ablest inventors and  
engineers1 who did most to develop the  
cables and switchboards of to-day4  ,in 
,boston1 ,watson had resigned in #ahhb1 
and in his place1 a year or two later   
stood a timely new arrival named ,e4 ,t4
 ,gilliland4 ,this really notable man   
was a friend in need to the telephone4  
,he had been a manufacturer of          
electrical apparatus in ,indianapolis1  
until ,vail's policy of consolidation   
drew him into the central group of      
pioneers and pathfinders4 ,for five     
years ,gilliland led the way as a       
developer of better and cheaper         
equipment4 ,he made the best of a most  
difficult situation4 ,he was so handy1  
so resourceful1 that he invariably found
 a way to unravel the mechanical tangles
 that perplexed the first telephone     

agents1 and this1 too1 without          
compelling them to spend large sums of  
capital4 ,he took the ideas and         
apparatus that were then in existence1  
and used them to carry the telephone    
business through the most critical      
period of its life1 when there was      
little time or money to risk on         
experiments4 ,he took the peg           
switchboard of the telegraph1 for       
in-stance1 and developed it to its      
highest point1 to a point that was not  
even imagined possible by any one else4 
,it was the most practical and complete 
switchboard of its day1 and held the    
field against all comers until it was   
superseded by the modern type of board1 
vastly more elaborate and expensive4    
,by #ahhd1 gathered around ,gilliland in
 ,boston and the ,western ,electric in  
,chicago1 there came to be a group of   
mechanics and high-school graduates1    
very young men1 mostly1 who had no      
reputations to lose2 and who1 partly for
 a living and mainly for a lark1 plunged

 into the difficulties of this new      
business that had at that time little   
history and less prestige4 ,these young 
adventurers1 most of whom are still     
alive1 became the makers of industrial  
history4 ,they were unquestionably the  
founders of the present science of      
telephone engineering4  ,the problem    
that they dashed at so lightheartedly   
was much larger than any of them        
imagined4 ,it was a ,gibraltar of       
impossibilities4 ,it was on the face of 
it a fantastic nightmare of a task--to  
weave such a web of wires1 with         
interlocking centres1 as would put any  
one telephone in touch with every other4
 ,there was no help for them in books or
 colleges4 ,watson1 who had acquired a  
little knowledge1 had become a          
shipbuilder4 ,electrical engineering1 as
 a profession1 was unborn4 ,and as for  
their telegraphic experience1 while it  
certainly helped them for a time1 it    
started them in the wrong direction and 
led them to do many things which had    

afterwards to be undone4  ,the peculiar 
electric current that these young       
pathfinders had to deal with is perhaps 
the quickest1 feeblest1 and most elusive
 force in the world4 ,it is so amazing a
 thing that any description of it seems 
irrational4 ,it is as gentle as a touch 
of a baby sunbeam1 and as swift as the  
lightning flash4 ,it is so small that   
the electric current of a single        
incandescent lamp is greater            
#ejj1jjj1jjj times4 ,cool a spoonful of 
hot water just one degree1 and the      
energy set free by the cooling will     
operate a telephone for ten thousand    
years4 ,catch the falling tear-drop of a
 child1 and there will be sufficient    
water-power to carry a spoken message   
from one city to another4  ,such is the 
tiny ,genie of the ,wire that had to be 
protected and trained into obedience4   
,it was the most defenceless of all     
electric sprites1 and it had so many    
enemies4 ,enemies6 ,the world was       
populous with its enemies4 ,there was   

the lightning1 its elder brother1       
striking at it with murderous blows4    
,there were the telegraphic and         
light-and-power currents1 its strong and
 malicious cousins1 chasing and         
assaulting it whenever it ventured too  
near4 ,there were rain and sleet and    
snow and every sort of moisture1 lying  
in wait to abduct it4 ,there were rivers
 and trees and flecks of dust4 ,it      
seemed as if all the known and unknown  
agencies of nature were in conspiracy to
 thwart or annihilate this gentle little
 messenger who had been conjured into   
life by the wizardry of ,alexander      
,graham ,bell4  ,all that these young   
men had received from ,bell and ,watson 
was that part of the telephone that we  
call the receiver4 ,this was practically
 the sum total of ,bell's invention1 and
 remains to-day as he made it4 ,it was  
then1 and is yet1 the most sensitive    
instrument that has ever been put to    
general use in any country4 ,it opened  
up a new world of sound4 ,it would echo 

the tramp of a fly that walked across a 
table1 or repeat in ,new ,orleans the   
prattle of a child in ,new ,york4 ,this 
was what the young men received1 and    
this was all4 ,there were no            
switchboards of any account1 no cables  
of any value1 no wires that were in any 
sense adequate1 no theory of tests or   
signals1 no exchanges1 ,,no ,,telephone 
,,system ,,of ,,any ,,sort ,,whatever4  
,as for ,bell's first telephone lines1  
they were as simple as clothes-lines4   
,each short little wire stood by itself1
 with one instrument at each end4 ,there
 were no operators1 switchboards1 or    
exchanges4 ,but there had now come a    
time when more than two persons wanted  
to be in the same conversational group4 
,this was a larger use of the telephone2
 and while ,bell himself had foreseen   
it1 he had not worked out a plan whereby
 it could be carried out4 ,here was the 
new problem1 and a most stupendous      
one--how to link together three         
telephones1 or three hundred1 or three  

thousand1 or three million1 so that any 
two of them could be joined at a        
moment's notice4  ,and that was not all4
 ,these young men had not only to battle
 against mystery and the powers of the  
air2 they had not only to protect their 
tiny electric messenger1 and to create a
 system of wire highways along which he 
could run up and down safely2 they had  
to do more4 ,they had to make this      
system so simple and fool-proof that    
every one--every one except the deaf and
 dumb--could use it without any previous
 experience4 ,they had to educate       
,bell's ,genie of the ,wire so that he  
would not only obey his masters1 but    
anybody--anybody who could speak to him 
in any language4  ,no doubt1 if the     
young men had stopped to consider their 
life-work as a whole1 some of them might
 have turned back4 ,but they had no time
 to philosophize4 ,they were like the   
boy who learns how to swim by being     
pushed into deep water4 ,once the       
telephone business was started1 it had  

to be kept going2 and as it grew1 there 
came one after another a series of      
congestions4 ,two courses were open2    
either the business had to be kept down 
to suit the apparatus1 or the apparatus 
had to be developed to keep pace with   
the business4 ,the telephone men1 most  
of them1 at least1 chose development2   
and the brilliant inventions that       
afterwards made some of them famous were
 compelled by sheer necessity and       
desperation4  ,the first notable        
improvement upon ,bell's invention was  
the making of the transmitter1 in #ahgg1
 by ,emile ,berliner4 ,this1 too1 was a 
romance4 ,berliner1 as a poor ,german   
youth of nineteen1 had landed in ,castle
 ,garden in #ahgj to seek his fortune4  
,he got a job as a sort of bottle-washer
 at six dollars a week1 he says1 in a   
chemical shop in ,new ,york4 ,at nights 
he studied science in the free classes  
of ,cooper ,union4 ,then a druggist     
named ,engel gave him a copy of         
,muller's book on physics1 which was    

precisely the stimulus needed by his    
creative brain4 ,in #ahgf he was        
fascinated by the telephone1 and set out
 to construct one on a different plan4  
,several months later he had succeeded  
and was overjoyed to receive his first  
patent for a telephone transmitter4 ,he 
had by this time climbed up from his    
bottle-washing to be a clerk in a       
drygoods store in ,washington2 but he   
was still poor and as unpractical as    
most inventors4 ,joseph ,henry1 the     
,sage of the ,american scientific world1
 was his friend1 though too old to give 
him any help4 ,consequently1 when       
,edison1 two weeks later1 also invented 
a transmitter1 the prior claim of       
,berliner was for a time wholly ignored4
 ,later the ,bell ,company bought       
,berliner's patent and took up his side 
of the case4 ,there was a seemingly     
endless succession of delays--fourteen  
years of the most vexatious             
delays--until finally the ,supreme      
,court of the ,united ,states ruled that

 ,berliner1 and not ,edison1 was the    
original inventor of the transmitter4   
,from first to last1 the transmitter has
 been the product of several minds4 ,its
 basic idea is the varying of the       
electric current by varying the pressure
 between two points4 ,bell              
unquestionably suggested it in his      
famous patent1 when he wrote of         
increasing and diminishing the          
resistance4 ,berliner was the first     
actually to construct one4 ,edison      
greatly improved it by using soft carbon
 instead of a steel point4 ,a ,kentucky 
professor1 ,david ,e4 ,hughes1 started a
 new line of development by adapting a  
,bell telephone into a microphone1 a    
fantastic little instrument that would  
detect the noise made by a fly in       
walking across a table4 ,francis ,blake1
 of ,boston1 changed a microphone into a
 practical transmitter4 ,the ,rev4      
,henry ,hunnings1 an ,english clergyman1
 hit upon the happy idea of using carbon
 in the form of small granules4 ,and one

 of the ,bell experts1 named ,white1    
improved the ,hunnings transmitter into 
its present shape4 ,both transmitter and
 receiver seem now to be as complete an 
artificial tongue and ear as human      
ingenuity can make them4 ,they have     
persistently grown more elaborate1 until
 today a telephone set1 as it stands on 
a desk1 contains as many as one hundred 
and thirty separate pieces1 as well as a
 saltspoonful of glistening granules of 
carbon4  ,next after the transmitter    
came the problem of the ,,mysterious    
,,noises4 ,this was1 perhaps1 the most  
weird and mystifying of all the         
telephone problems4 ,the fact was that  
the telephone had brought within hearing
 distance a new wonder-world of sound4  
,all wires at that time were single1 and
 ran into the earth at each end1 making 
what was called a grounded circuit4 ,and
 this connection with the earth1 which  
is really a big magnet1 caused all      
manner of strange and uncouth noises on 
the telephone wires4  ,noises6 ,such a  

jangle of meaningless noises had never  
been heard by human ears4 ,there were   
spluttering and bubbling1 jerking and   
rasping1 whistling and screaming4 ,there
 were the rustling of leaves1 the       
croaking of frogs1 the hissing of steam1
 and the flapping of birds' wings4      
,there were clicks from telegraph wires1
 scraps of talk from other telephones1  
and curious little squeals that were    
unlike any known sound4 ,the lines      
running east and west were noisier than 
the lines running north and south4 ,the 
night was noisier than the day1 and at  
the ghostly hour of midnight1 for what  
strange reason no one knows1 the babel  
was at its height4 ,watson1 who had a   
fanciful mind1 suggested that perhaps   
these sounds were signals from the      
inhabitants of ,mars or some other      
sociable planet4 ,but the matter-of-fact
 young telephonists agreed to lay the   
blame on induction--a hazy word which   
usually meant the natural meddlesomeness
 of electricity4  ,whatever else the    

mysterious noises were1 they were a     
nuisance4 ,the poor little telephone    
business was plagued almost out of its  
senses4 ,it was like a dog with a tin   
can tied to its tail4 ,no matter where  
it went1 it was pursued by this         
unearthly clatter4 ,we were ashamed to  
present our bills1 said ,a4 ,a4 ,adee1  
one of the first agents2 for no matter  
how plainly a man talked into his       
telephone1 his language was apt to sound
 like ,choctaw at the other end of the  
line4  ,all manner of devices were      
solemnly tried to hush the wires1 and   
each one usually proved to be as futile 
as an incantation4 ,what was to be done8
 ,step by step the telephone men were   
driven back4 ,they were beaten4 ,there  
was no way to silence these noises4     
,reluctantly1 they agreed that the only 
way was to pull up the ends of each wire
 from the tainted earth1 and join them  
by a second wire4 ,this was the metallic
 circuit idea4 ,it meant an appalling   
increase in the use of wire4 ,it would  

compel the rebuild-ing of the           
switchboards and the invention of new   
signal systems4 ,but it was inevitable2 
and in #ahhc1 while the dispute about it
 was in full blast1 one of the young men
 quietly slipped it into use on a new   
line between ,boston and ,providence4   
,the effect was magical4 ,at last1 said 
the delighted manager1 we have a        
perfectly quiet line4  ,this young man1 
a small1 slim youth who was twenty-two  
years old and looked younger1 was no    
other than ,j4 ,j4 ,carty1 now the first
 of telephone engineers and almost the  
creator of his profession4 ,three years 
earlier he had timidly asked for a job  
as operator in the ,boston exchange1 at 
five dollars a week1 and had shown such 
an aptitude for the work that he was    
soon made one of the captains4 ,at      
thirty years of age he became a central 
figure in the development of the art of 
telephony4  ,what ,carty has done is    
known by telephone men in all countries2
 but the story of ,carty himself--who he

 is1 and why--is new4 ,first of all1 he 
is ,irish1 pure ,irish4 ,his father had 
left ,ireland as a boy in #ahbe4 ,during
 the ,civil ,war his father made guns in
 the city of ,cambridge1 where young    
,john ,joseph was born2 and afterwards  
he made bells for church steeples4 ,he  
was instinctively a mechanic and proud  
of his calling4 ,he could tell the      
weight of a bell from the sound of it4  
,moses ,g4 ,farmer1 the electrical      
inventor1 and ,howe1 the creator of the 
sewing-machine1 were his friends4  ,at  
five years of age1 little ,john ,j4     
,carty was taken by his father to the   
shop where the bells were made1 and he  
was profoundly impressed by the magical 
strength of a big magnet1 that picked up
 heavy weights as though they were      
feathers4 ,at the high school his       
favorite study was physics2 and for a   
time he and another boy named           
,rolfe--now a distinguished man of      
science--carried on electrical          
experiments of their own in the cellar  

of the ,rolfe house4 ,here they had a   
,tom ,thumb telegraph1 a telephone which
 they had ventured to improve1 and a    
hopeless tangle of wires4 ,whenever they
 could afford to buy more wires and     
batteries1 they went to a near-by store 
which supplied electrical apparatus to  
the professors and students of ,harvard4
 ,this store1 with its workshop in the  
rear1 seemed to the two boys a veritable
 wonderland2 and when ,carty1 a youth of
 eighteen1 was compelled to leave school
 because of his bad eyesight1 he ran at 
once and secured the glorious job of    
being boy-of-all-work in this store of  
wonders4 ,so1 when he became an operator
 in the ,boston telephone exchange1 a   
year later1 he had already developed to 
a remarkable degree his natural genius  
for telephony4  ,since then1 ,carty and 
the telephone business have grown up    
together1 he always a little distance in
 advance4 ,no other man has touched the 
apparatus of telephony at so many       
points4 ,he fought down the flimsy1     

clumsy methods1 which led from one snarl
 to another4 ,he found out how to do    
with wires what ,dickens did with words4
 ,let us do it right1 boys1 and then we 
won't have any bad dreams--this has been
 his motif4 ,and1 as the crown and      
climax of his work1 he mapped out the   
profession of telephone engineering on  
the widest and most comprehensive lines4
  ,in ,carty1 the engineer evolved into 
the educator4 ,his end of the ,american 
,telephone and ,telegraph ,company      
became the ,university of the           
,telephone4 ,he was himself a student by
 disposition1 with a special taste for  
the writings of ,faraday1 the           
forerunner2 ,tyndall1 the expounder2 and
 ,spencer1 the philosopher4 ,and in     
#ahij1 he gathered around him a winnowed
 group of college graduates--he has     
sixty of them on his staff to-day--so   
that he might bequeath to the telephone 
an engineering corps of loyal and       
efficient men4  ,the next problem that  
faced the young men of the telephone1 as

 soon as they had escaped from the      
clamor of the mysterious noises1 was the
 necessity of taking down the wires in  
the city streets and putting them       
underground4 ,at first1 they had strung 
the wires on poles and roof-tops4 ,they 
had done this1 not because it was cheap1
 but because it was the only possible   
way1 so far as any one knew in that     
kindergarten period4 ,a telephone wire  
required the daintiest of handling4 ,to 
bury it was to smother it1 to make it   
dull or perhaps entirely useless4 ,but  
now that the number of wires had swollen
 from hundreds to thousands1 the        
overhead method had been outgrown4 ,some
 streets in the larger cities had become
 black with wires4 ,poles had risen to  
fifty feet in height1 then              
sixty--seventy--eighty4 ,finally the    
highest of all pole lines was built     
along ,west ,street1 ,new ,york--every  
pole a towering ,norway pine1 with its  
top ninety feet above the roadway1 and  
carrying thirty cross-arms and three    

hundred wires4  ,from poles the wires   
soon overflowed to housetops1 until in  
,new ,york alone they had overspread    
eleven thousand roofs4 ,these roofs had 
to be kept in repair1 and their chimneys
 were the deadly enemies of the iron    
wires4 ,many a wire1 in less than two or
 three years1 was withered to the merest
 shred of rust4 ,as if these troubles   
were not enough1 there were the storms  
of winter1 which might wipe out a year's
 revenue in a single day4 ,the sleet    
storms were the worst4 ,wires were      
weighted down with ice1 often three     
pounds of ice per foot of wire4 ,and so1
 what with sleet1 and corrosion1 and the
 cost of roof-repairing1 and the lack of
 room for more wires1 the telephone men 
were between the devil and the deep     
sea--between the urgent necessity of    
burying their wires1 and the inexorable 
fact that they did not know how to do   
it4  ,fortunately1 by the time that this
 problem arrived1 the telephone business
 was fairly well established4 ,it had   

outgrown its early days of ridicule and 
incredulity4 ,it was paying wages and   
salaries and even dividends4 ,evidently 
it had arrived on the scene in the nick 
of time--after the telegraph and before 
the trolleys and electric lights4 ,had  
it been born ten years later1 it might  
not have been able to survive4 ,so      
delicate a thing as a baby telephone    
could scarcely have protected itself    
against the powerful currents of        
electricity that came into general use  
in #ahhf1 if it had not first found out 
a way of hiding safely underground4     
,the first declaration in favor of an   
underground system was made by the      
,boston company in #ahhj4 ,it may be    
expedient to place our entire system    
underground1 said the sorely perplexed  
manager1 whenever a practicable method  
is found of accomplishing3 it4 ,all     
manner of theories were afloat but      
,theodore ,n4 ,vail1 who was usually the
 man of constructive imagination in     
emergencies1 began in #ahhb a series of 

actual experiments at ,attleborough1    
,massachusetts1 to find out exactly what
 could1 and what could not1 be done with
 wires that were buried in the earth4   
,a five-mile trench was dug beside a    
railway track4 ,the work was done       
handily and cheaply by the labor-saving 
plan of hitching a locomotive to a      
plough4 ,five ploughs were jerked apart 
before the work was finished4 ,then1    
into this trench were laid wires with   
every known sort of covering4 ,most of  
them1 naturally1 were wrapped with      
rubber or gutta-percha1 after the       
fashion of a submarine cable4 ,when all 
were in place1 the willing locomotive   
was harnessed to a huge wooden drag1    
which threw the ploughed soil back into 
the trench and covered the wires a foot 
deep4 ,it was the most professional     
cable-laying that any one at that time  
could do1 and it succeeded1 not         
brilliantly1 but well enough to         
encourage the telephone engineers to go 
ahead4  ,several weeks later1 the first 

two cables for actual use were laid in  
,boston and ,brooklyn2 and in #ahhc     
,engineer ,j4 ,p4 ,davis was set to     
grapple with the ,herculean labor of    
putting a complete underground system in
 the wire-bound city of ,new ,york4     
,this he did in spite of a bombardment  
of explosions from leaky gas-pipes1 and 
with a woeful lack of experts and       
standard materials4 ,all manner of      
makeshifts had to be tried in place of  
tile ducts1 which were not known in     
#ahhc4 ,iron pipe was used at first1    
then asphalt1 concrete1 boxes of sand   
and creosoted wood4 ,as for the wires1  
they were first wrapped in cotton1 and  
then twisted into cables1 usually of a  
hundred wires each4 ,and to prevent the 
least taint of moisture1 which means    
sudden death to a telephone current1    
these cables were invariably soaked in  
oil4  ,this oil-filled type of cable    
carried the telephone business safely   
through half a dozen years4 ,but it was 
not the final type4 ,it was preliminary 

only1 the best that could be made at    
that time4 ,not one is in use to-day4   
,in #ahhh ,theodore ,vail set on foot a 
second series of experiments1 to see if 
a cable could be made that was better   
suited as a highway for the delicate    
electric currents of the telephone4 ,a  
young engineer named ,john ,a4 ,barrett1
 who had already made his mark as an    
expert1 by finding a way to twist and   
transpose the wires1 was set apart to   
tackle this problem4 ,being an          
economical ,vermonter1 ,barrett went to 
work in a little wooden shed in the     
backyard of a ,brooklyn foundry4 ,in    
this foundry he had seen a unique       
machine that could be made to mould hot 
lead around a rope of twisted wires4    
,this was a notable discovery4 ,it meant
 ,,tight ,,coverings4 ,it meant a       
victory over that most troublesome of   
enemies--moisture4 ,also1 it meant that 
cables could henceforth be made longer1 
with fewer sleeves and splices1 and     
without the oil1 which had always been  

an unmitigated nuisance4  ,next1 having 
made the cable tight1 ,barrett set out  
to produce it more cheaply and by       
accident stumbled upon a way to make it 
immensely more efficient4 ,all wires    
were at that time wrapped with cotton1  
and his plan was to find some less      
costly material that would serve the    
same purpose4 ,one of his workmen1 a    
,virginian1 suggested the use of paper  
twine1 which had been used in the ,south
 during the ,civil ,war1 when cotton was
 scarce and expensive4 ,barrett at once 
searched the ,south for paper twine and 
found it4 ,he bought a barrel of it from
 a small factory in ,richmond1 but after
 a trial it proved to be too flimsy4 ,if
 such paper could be put on flat1 he    
reasoned1 it would be stronger4 ,just   
then he heard of an erratic genius who  
had an invention for winding paper tape 
on wire for the use of milliners4       
,paper-wound bonnet-wire6 ,who could    
imagine any connection between this and 
the telephone8 ,yet this hint was       

exactly what ,barrett needed4 ,he       
experimented until he had devised a     
machine that crumpled the paper around  
the wire1 instead of winding it tightly4
 ,this was the finishing touch4 ,for a  
time these paper-wound cables were      
soaked in oil1 but in #ahij ,engineer   
,f4 ,a4 ,pickernell dared to trust to   
the tightness of the lead sheathing1 and
 laid a dry core cable1 the first of the
 modern type1 in one of the streets of  
,philadelphia4 ,this cable was the event
 of the year4 ,it was not only cheaper4 
,it was the best-talking cable that had 
ever been harnessed to a telephone4     
,what ,barrett had done was soon made   
clear4 ,by wrapping the wire with loose 
paper1 he had in reality cushioned it   
with ,,air1 which is the best possible  
insulator4 ,not the paper1 but the air  
in the paper1 had improved the cable4   
,more air was added by the omission of  
the oil4 ,and presently ,barrett        
perceived that he had merely reproduced 
in a cable1 as far as possible1 the     

conditions of the overhead wires1 which 
are separated by nothing but air4  ,by  
#ahif there were two hundred thousand   
miles of wire snugly wrapped in paper   
and lying in leaden caskets beneath the 
streets of the cities1 and to-day there 
are six million miles of it owned by the
 affiliated ,bell companies4 ,instead of
 blackening the streets1 the wire nerves
 of the telephone are now out of sight  
under the roadway1 and twining into the 
basements of buildings like a new sort  
of metallic ivy4 ,some cables are so    
large that a single spool of cable will 
weigh twenty-six tons and require a     
giant truck and a sixteen-horse team to 
haul it to its resting-place4 ,as many  
as twelve hundred wires are often       
bunched into one sheath1 and each cable 
lies loosely in a little duct of its    
own4 ,it is reached by manholes where it
 runs under the streets and in little   
switching-boxes placed at intervals it  
is frayed out into separate pairs of    
wires that blossom at length into       

telephones4  ,out in the open country   
there are still the open wires1 which in
 point of talking are the best4 ,in the 
suburbs of cities there are neat green  
posts with a single gray cable hung from
 a heavy wire4 ,usually1 a telephone    
pole is made from a sixty-year-old tree1
 a cedar1 chestnut1 or juniper4 ,it     
lasts twelve years only1 so that the one
 item of poles is still costing the     
telephone companies several millions a  
year4 ,the total number of poles now in 
the ,united ,states1 used by telephone  
and telegraph companies1 once covered an
 area1 before they were cut down1 as    
large as the ,state of ,rhode ,island4  
,but the highest triumph of wire-laying 
came when ,new ,york swept into the     
,skyscraper ,age1 and when hundreds of  
tall buildings1 as high as the fall of  
the waters of ,niagara1 grew up like a  
range of magical cliffs upon the        
precious rock of ,manhattan4 ,here the  
work of the telephone engineer has been 
so well done that although every room in

 these cliff-buildings has its          
telephone1 there is not a pole in sight1
 not a cross-arm1 not a wire4 ,nothing  
but the tip-ends of an immense system   
are visible4 ,no sooner is a new        
skyscraper walled and roofed1 than the  
telephones are in place1 at once putting
 the tenants in touch with the rest of  
the city and the greater part of the    
,united ,states4 ,in a single one of    
these monstrous buildings1 the ,hudson  
,terminal1 there is a cable that runs   
from basement to roof and ravels out to 
reach three thousand desks4 ,this mighty
 geyser of wires is fifty tons in weight
 and would1 if straightened out into a  
single line1 connect ,new ,york with    
,chicago4 ,yet it is as invisible as the
 nerves and muscles of a human body4    
,during this evolution of the cable1    
even the wire itself was being remade4  
,vail and others had noticed that of all
 the varieties of wire that were for    
sale1 not one was exactly suitable for a
 telephone system4 ,the first telephone 

wire was of galvanized iron1 which had  
at least the primitive virtue of being  
cheap4 ,then came steel wire1 stronger  
but less durable4 ,but these wires were 
noisy and not good conductors of        
electricity4 ,an ideal telephone wire1  
they found1 must be made of either      
silver or copper4 ,silver was out of the
 question1 and copper wire was too soft 
and weak4 ,it would not carry its own   
weight4  ,the problem1 therefore1 was   
either to make steel wire a better      
conductor1 or to produce a copper wire  
that would be strong enough4 ,vail chose
 the latter1 and forthwith gave orders  
to a ,bridgeport manufacturer to begin  
experiments4 ,a young expert named      
,thomas ,b4 ,doolittle was at once set  
to work1 and presently appeared the     
first hard-drawn copper wire1 made      
tough-skinned by a fairly simple        
process4 ,vail bought thirty pounds of  
it and scattered it in various parts of 
the ,united ,states1 to note the effect 
upon it of different climates4 ,one     

length of it may still be seen at the   
,vail homestead in ,lyndonville1        
,vermont4 ,then this hard-drawn wire was
 put to a severe test by being strung   
between ,boston and ,new ,york4 ,this   
line was a brilliant success1 and the   
new wire was hailed with great delight  
as the ideal servant of the telephone4  
,since then there has been little       
trouble with copper wire1 except its    
price4 ,it was four times as good as    
iron wire1 and four times as expensive4 
,every mile of it1 doubled1 weighed two 
hundred pounds and cost thirty dollars4 
,on the long lines1 where it had to be  
as thick as a lead pencil1 the expense  
seemed to be ruinously great4 ,when the 
first pair of wires was strung between  
,new ,york and ,chicago1 for instance1  
it was found to weigh #hgj1jjj pounds--a
 full load for a twenty-two-car freight 
train2 and the cost of the bare metal   
was #acj1jjj4 ,so enormous has been the 
use of copper wire since then by the    
telephone companies1 that fully         

one-fourth of all the capital invested  
in the telephone has gone to the owners 
of the copper mines4  ,for several years
 the brains of the telephone men were   
focussed upon this problem--how to      
reduce the expenditure on copper4 ,one  
uncanny device1 which would seem to be a
 mere inventor's fantasy if it had not  
already saved the telephone companies   
four million dollars or more1 is known  
as the phantom circuit4 ,it enables     
three messages to run at the same time1 
where only two ran before4 ,a double    
track of wires is made to carry three   
talk-trains running abreast1 a feat made
 possible by the whimsical disposition  
of electricity1 and which is utterly    
inconceivable in railroading4 ,this     
invention1 which is the nearest approach
 as yet to multiple telephony1 was      
conceived by ,jacobs in ,england and    
,carty in the ,united ,states4  ,but the
 most copper money has been             
saved--literally tens of millions of    
dollars--by persuading thin wires to    

work as efficiently as thick ones4 ,this
 has been done by making better         
transmitters1 by insulating the smaller 
wires with enamel instead of silk1 and  
by placing coils of a certain nature at 
intervals upon the wires4 ,the invention
 of this last device startled the       
telephone men like a flash of lightning 
out of a blue sky4 ,it came from        
outside--from the quiet laboratory of a 
,columbia professor who had arrived in  
the ,united ,states as a young          
,hungarian immigrant not many years     
earlier4 ,from this professor1 ,michael 
,j4 ,pupin1 came the idea of loading a  
telephone line1 in such a way as to     
reinforce the electric current4 ,it     
enabled a thin wire to carry as far as a
 thick one1 and thus saved as much as   
forty dollars a wire per mile4 ,as a    
reward for his cleverness1 a shower of  
gold fell upon ,pupin1 and made him in  
an instant as rich as one of the        
grand-dukes of his native land4  ,it is 
now a most highly skilled occupation1   

supporting fully fifteen thousand       
families1 to put the telephone wires in 
place and protect them against          
innumerable dangers4 ,this is the       
profession of the wire chiefs and their 
men1 a corps of human spiders1 endlessly
 spinning threads under streets and     
above green fields1 on the beds of      
rivers and the slopes of mountains1     
massing them in cities and fluffing them
 out among farms and villages4 ,to tell 
the doings of a wire chief1 in the      
course of his ordinary week's work1     
would in itself make a lively book of   
adventures4 ,even a washerwoman1 with   
one lone1 non-electrical clothes-line of
 a hundred yards to operate1 has often  
enough trouble with it4 ,but the wire   
chiefs of the ,bell telephone have      
charge of as much wire as would make    
,,two ,,hundred ,,million               
,,clothes-,,lines--ten apiece to every  
family in the ,united ,states2 and these
 lines are not punctuated with          
clothespins1 but with the most delicate 

of electrical instruments4  ,the wire   
chiefs must detect trouble under a      
thousand disguises4 ,perhaps a small boy
 has thrown a snake across the wires or 
driven a nail into a cable4 ,perhaps    
some self-reliant citizen has moved his 
own telephone from one room to another4 
,perhaps a sudden rainstorm has splashed
 its fatal moisture upon an unwiped     
joint4 ,or perhaps a submarine cable has
 been sat upon by the ,lusitania and    
flattened to death4 ,but no matter what 
the trouble1 a telephone system cannot  
be stopped for repairs4 ,it cannot be   
picked up and put into a dry-dock4 ,it  
must be repaired or improved by a sort  
of vivisection while it is working4 ,it 
is an interlocking unit1 a living1      
conscious being1 half human and half    
machine2 and an injury in any one place 
may cause a pain or sickness to its     
whole vast body4  ,and just as the      
particles of a human body change every  
six or seven years1 without disturb-ing 
the body1 so the particles of our       

telephone systems have changed          
repeatedly without any interruption of  
traffic4 ,the constant flood of new     
inventions has necessitated several     
complete rebuildings4 ,little or nothing
 has ever been allowed to wear out4 ,the
 ,new ,york system was rebuilt three    
times in sixteen years2 and many a      
costly switchboard has gone to the      
scrap-heap at three or four years of    
age4 ,what with repairs and inventions  
and new construction1 the various ,bell 
companies have spent at least           
#dbe1jjj1jjj in the first ten years of  
the twentieth century1 without hindering
 for a day the ceaseless torrent of     
electrical conversation4  ,the crowning 
glory of a telephone system of to-day is
 not so much the simple telephone       
itself1 nor the maze and mileage of its 
cables1 but rather the wonderful        
mechanism of the ,switchboard4 ,this is 
the part that will always remain        
mysterious to the public4 ,it is seldom 
seen1 and it remains as great a mystery 

to those who have seen it as to those   
who have not4 ,explanations of it are   
futile4 ,as well might any one expect to
 learn ,sanscrit in half an hour as to  
understand a switchboard by making a    
tour of investigation around it4 ,it is 
not like anything else that either man  
or ,nature has ever made4 ,it defies all
 metaphors and comparisons4 ,it cannot  
be shown by photography1 not even in    
moving-pictures1 because so much of it  
is concealed inside its wooden body4    
,and few people1 if any1 are initiated  
into its inner mysteries except those   
who belong to its own cortege of        
inventors and attendants4  ,a telephone 
switchboard is a pyramid of inventions4 
,if it is full-grown1 it may have two   
million parts4 ,it may be lit with      
fifteen thousand tiny electric lamps and
 nerved with as much wire as would reach
 from ,new ,york to ,berlin4 ,it may    
cost as much as a thousand pianos or as 
much as three square miles of farms in  
,indiana4 ,the ten thousand wire hairs  

of its head are not only numbered1 but  
enswathed in silk1 and combed out in so 
marvellous a way that any one of them   
can in a flash be linked to any other4  
,such hair-dressing6 ,such puffs and    
braids and ringlet relays6 ,whoever     
would learn the utmost that may be done 
with copper hairs of ,titian red1 must  
study the fantastic coiffure of a       
telephone ,switchboard4  ,if there were 
no switchboard1 there would still be    
telephones1 but not a telephone system4 
,to connect five thousand people by     
telephone requires five thousand wires  
when the wires run to a switchboard2 but
 without a switchboard there would have 
to be #ab1dig1ejj wires--#d1iii to every
 telephone4 ,as well might there be a   
nerve-system without a brain1 as a      
telephone system without a switchboard4 
,if there had been at first two separate
 companies1 one owning the telephone and
 the other the switchboard1 neither     
could have done the business4  ,several 
years before the telephone got a        

switchboard of its own1 it made use of  
the boards that had been designed for   
the telegraph4 ,these were as simple as 
wheelbarrows1 and became absurdly       
inadequate as soon as the telephone     
business began to grow4 ,then there came
 adaptations by the dozen4 ,every       
telephone manager became by compulsion  
an inventor4 ,there was no source of    
information and each exchange did the   
best it could4 ,hundreds of patents were
 taken out4 ,and by #ahhd there had come
 to be a fairly definite idea of what a 
telephone switchboard ought to be4  ,the
 one man who did most to create the     
switchboard1 who has been its devotee   
for more than thirty years1 is a certain
 modest and little known inventor1 still
 alive and busy1 named ,charles ,e4     
,scribner4 ,of the nine thousand        
switchboard patents1 ,scribner holds six
 hundred or more4 ,ever since #ahgh1    
when he devised the first jackknife     
switch1 ,scribner has been the wizard of
 the switchboard4 ,it was he who saw    

most clearly its requirements4 ,hundreds
 of others have helped1 but ,scribner   
was the one man who persevered1 who     
never asked for an easier job1 and who  
in the end became the master of his     
craft4  ,it may go far to explain the   
peculiar genius of ,scribner to say that
 he was born in #aheh1 in the year of   
the laying of the ,atlantic ,cable2 and 
that his mother was at the time         
profoundly interested in the work and   
anxious for its success4 ,his father was
 a judge in ,toledo2 but young ,scribner
 showed no aptitude for the tangles of  
the law4 ,he preferred the tangles of   
wire and system in miniature1 which he  
and several other boys had built and    
learned to operate4 ,these boys had a   
benefactor in an old bachelor named     
,thomas ,bond4 ,he had no special       
interest in telegraphy4 ,he was a dealer
 in hides4 ,but he was attracted by the 
cleverness of the boys and gave them    
money to buy more wires and more        
batteries4 ,one day he noticed an       

invention of young ,scribner's--a       
telegraph repeater4  ,this may make your
 fortune1 he said1 but no mechanic in   
,toledo can make a proper model of it   
for you4 ,you must go to ,chicago1 where
 telegraphic apparatus is made4 ,the boy
 gladly took his advice and went to the 
,western ,electric factory in ,chicago4 
,here he accidentally met ,enos ,m4     
,barton1 the head of the factory4       
,barton noted that the boy was a genius 
and offered him a job1 which he accepted
 and has held ever since4 ,such is the  
story of the entrance of ,charles ,e4   
,scribner into the telephone business1  
where he has been well-nigh             
indispensable4  ,his monumental work has
 been the development of the ,,multiple 
,switchboard1 a much more brain-twisting
 problem than the building of the       
,pyramids or the digging of the ,panama 
,canal4 ,the earlier types of           
switchboard had become too cumbersome by
 #ahhe4 ,they were well enough for five 
hundred wires but not for five thousand4

 ,in some exchanges as many as half a   
dozen operators were necessary to handle
 a single call2 and the clamor and      
confusion were becoming unbearable4     
,some handier and quieter way had to be 
devised1 and thus arose the ,multiple   
board4 ,the first crude idea of such a  
way had sprung to life in the brain of a
 ,chicago man named ,l4 ,b4 ,firman1 in 
#ahgi2 but he became a farmer and       
forsook his invention in its infancy4   
,in the ,multiple board1 as it grew up  
under the hands of ,scribner1 the       
outgoing wires are duplicated so as to  
be within reach of every operator4 ,a   
local call can thus be answered at once 
by the operator who receives it2 and any
 operator who is overwhelmed by a sudden
 rush of business can be helped by her  
companions4 ,every wire that comes into 
the board is tasselled out into many    
ends1 and by means of a busy test1      
invented by ,scribner1 only one of these
 ends can be put into use at a time4    
,the normal limit of such a board is ten

 thousand wires1 and will always remain 
so1 unless a race of long-armed         
giantesses should appear1 who would be  
able to reach over a greater expanse of 
board4 ,at present1 a business of more  
than ten thousand lines means a second  
exchange4  ,the ,multiple board was     
enormously expensive4 ,it grew more and 
more elaborate until it cost one-third  
of a million dollars4 ,the telephone men
 racked their brains to produce         
something cheaper to take its place1 and
 they failed4 ,the ,multiple boards     
swallowed up capital as a desert        
swallows water1 but ,,they ,,saved ,,ten
 ,,seconds ,,on ,,every ,,call4 ,this   
was an unanswerable argument in their   
favor1 and by #ahhg twenty-one of them  
were in use4  ,since then1 the          
switchboard has had three or four       
rebuildings4 ,there has seemed to be no 
limit to the demands of the public or   
the fertility of ,scribner's brain4     
,persistent changes were made in the    
system of signalling4 ,the first signal1

 used by ,bell and ,watson1 was a tap on
 the diaphragm with the finger-nail4    
,soon after-wards came a buzzer1 and    
then the magneto-electric bell4 ,in     
#ahhg ,joseph ,o',connell1 of ,chicago1 
conceived of the use of tiny electric   
lights as signals1 a brilliant idea1 as 
an electric light makes no noise and can
 be seen either by night or by day4 ,in 
#aija1 ,j4 ,j4 ,carty invented the      
bridging bell1 a way to put four houses 
on a single wire1 with a different      
signal for each house4 ,this idea made  
the party line practicable1 and at once 
created a boom in the use of the        
telephone by enterprising farmers4  ,in 
#ahif there came a most revolutionary   
change in switchboards4 ,all things were
 made new4 ,instead of individual       
batteries1 one at each telephone1 a     
large common battery was installed in   
the exchange itself4 ,this meant better 
signalling and better talking4 ,it      
reduced the cost of batteries and put   
them in charge of experts4 ,it          

established uniformity4 ,it introduced  
the federal idea into the mechanism of a
 telephone system4 ,best of all1 it     
saved ,,four ,,seconds ,,on ,,every     
,,call4 ,the first of these centralizing
 switchboards was put in place at       
,philadelphia2 and other cities followed
 suit as fast as they could afford the  
expense of rebuilding4 ,since then1     
there have come some switchboards that  
are wholly automatic4 ,few of these have
 been put into use1 for the reason that 
a switchboard1 like a human body1 must  
be semi-automatic only4 ,to give the    
most efficient service1 there will      
always need to be an expert to stand    
between it and the public4  ,as the     
final result of all these varying       
changes in switchboards and signals and 
batteries1 there grew up the modern     
,telephone ,exchange4 ,this is the solar
 plexus of the telephone body4 ,it is   
the vital spot4 ,it is the home of the  
switchboard4 ,it is not any one's       
invention1 as the telephone was4 ,it is 

a growing mechanism that is not yet     
finished1 and may never be2 but it has  
already evolved far enough to be one of 
the wonders of the electrical world4    
,there is probably no other part of an  
,american city's equipment that is as   
sensitive and efficient as a telephone  
exchange4  ,the idea of the exchange is 
somewhat older than the idea of the     
telephone itself4 ,there were           
communication exchanges before the      
invention of the telephone4 ,thomas ,b4 
,doolittle had one in ,bridgeport1 using
 telegraph instruments ,thomas ,b4 ,a4  
,david had one in ,pittsburg1 using     
printing-telegraph machines1 which      
required little skill to operate4 ,and  
,william ,a4 ,childs had a third1 for   
lawyers only1 in ,new ,york1 which used 
dials at first and afterwards printing  
machines4 ,these little exchanges had   
set out to do the work that is done     
to-day by the telephone1 and they did it
 after a fashion1 in a most crude and   
expensive way4 ,they helped to prepare  

the way for the telephone1 by building  
up small constituencies that were ready 
for the telephone when it arrived4      
,bell himself was perhaps the first to  
see the future of the telephone         
exchange4 ,in a letter written to some  
,english capitalists in #ahgh1 he said3 
,it is possible to connect every man's  
house1 office or factory with a central 
station1 so as to give him direct       
communication with his neighbors4444 ,it
 is conceivable that cables of telephone
 wires could be laid underground1 or    
suspended overhead1 connecting by branch
 wires with private dwellings1 shops1   
etc41 and uniting them through the main 
cable with a central office4 ,this      
remarkable prophecy has now become stale
 reading1 as stale as ,darwin's ,origin 
of ,species1 or ,adam ,smith's ,wealth  
of ,nations4 ,but at the time that it   
was written it was a most fanciful      
dream4  ,when the first infant exchange 
for telephone service was born in       
,boston1 in #ahgg1 it was the tiny      

offspring of a burglar-alarm business   
operated by ,e4 ,t4 ,holmes1 a young man
 whose father had originated the idea of
 protecting property by electric wires  
in #aheh4 ,holmes was the first         
practical man who dared to offer        
telephone service for sale4 ,he had     
obtained two telephones1 numbers six and
 seven1 the first five having gone to   
the junk-heap2 and he attached these to 
a wire in his burglar-alarm office4 ,for
 two weeks his business friends played  
with the telephones1 like boys with a   
fascinating toy2 then ,holmes nailed up 
a new shelf in his office1 and on this  
shelf placed six box-telephones in a    
row4 ,these could be switched into      
connection with the burglar-alarm wires 
and any two of the six wires could be   
joined by a wire cord4 ,nothing could   
have been simpler1 but it was the       
arrival of a new idea in the business   
world4  ,the ,holmes exchange was on the
 top floor of a little building1 and in 
almost every other city the first       

exchange was as near the roof as        
possible1 partly to save rent and partly
 because most of the wires were strung  
on roof-tops4 ,as the telephone itself  
had been born in a cellar1 so the       
exchange was born in a garret4 ,usually1
 too1 each exchange was an off-shoot of 
some other wire-using business4 ,it was 
a medley of makeshifts4 ,almost every   
part of its outfit had been made for    
other uses4 ,in ,chicago all calls came 
in to one boy1 who bawled them up a     
speaking-tube to the operators4 ,in     
another city a boy received the calls1  
wrote them on white alleys1 and rolled  
them to the boys at the switchboard4    
,there was no number system4 ,every one 
was called by name4 ,even as late as    
#ahhj1 when ,new ,york boasted fifteen  
hundred telephones1 names were still in 
use4 ,and as the first telephones were  
used both as transmitters and receivers1
 there was usually posted up a rule that
 was highly important3 ,don't ,talk with
 your ,ear or ,listen with your ,mouth4 

,to describe one of those early         
telephone exchanges in the silence of a 
printed page is a wholly impossible     
thing4 ,nothing but a language of noise 
could convey the proper impression4 ,an 
editor who visited the ,chicago exchange
 in #ahgi said of it3 ,the racket is    
almost deafening4 ,boys are rushing     
madly hither and thither1 while others  
are putting in or taking out pegs from a
 central framework as if they were      
lunatics engaged in a game of fox and   
geese4 ,in the same year ,e4 ,j4 ,hall  
wrote from ,buffalo that his exchange   
with twelve boys had become a perfect   
,bedlam4 ,by the clumsy methods of those
 days1 from two to six boys were needed 
to handle each call4 ,and as there was  
usually more or less of a cat-and-dog   
squabble between the boys and the       
public1 with every one yelling at the   
top of his voice1 it may be imagined    
that a telephone exchange was a loud and
 frantic place4  ,boys1 as operators1   
proved to be most complete and          

consistent failures4 ,their sins of     
omission and commission would fill a    
book4 ,what with whittling the          
switchboards1 swearing at subscribers1  
playing tricks with the wires1 and      
roaring on all occasions like young     
bulls of ,bashan1 the boys in the first 
exchanges did their full share in adding
 to the troubles of the business4       
,nothing could be done with them4 ,they 
were immune to all schemes of           
discipline4 ,like the ,,mysterious      
,,noises they could not be controlled1  
and by general consent they were        
abolished4 ,in place of the noisy and   
obstreperous boy came the docile1       
soft-voiced girl4  ,if ever the rush of 
women into the business world was an    
unmixed blessing1 it was when the boys  
of the telephone exchanges were         
superseded by girls4 ,here at its best  
was shown the influence of the feminine 
touch4 ,the quiet voice1 pitched high1  
the deft fingers1 the patient courtesy  
and attentiveness--these qualities were 

precisely what the gentle telephone     
required in its attendants4 ,girls were 
easier to train2 they did not waste time
 in retaliatory conversation2 they were 
more careful2 and they were much more   
likely to give the soft answer that     
turneth away wrath4  ,a telephone call  
under the boy regime meant ,bedlam and  
five minutes2 afterwards1 under the girl
 regime1 it meant silence and twenty    
seconds4 ,instead of the incessant      
tangle and tumult1 there came a new     
species of exchange--a quiet1 tense     
place1 in which several score of young  
ladies sit and answer the language of   
the switchboard lights4 ,now and then1  
not often1 the signal lamps flash too   
quickly for these expert phonists4      
,during the panic of #aijg there was one
 mad hour when almost every telephone in
 ,wall ,street region was being rung up 
by some desperate speculator4 ,the      
switchboards were ablaze with lights4 ,a
 few girls lost their heads4 ,one       
fainted and was carried to the          

rest-room4 ,but the others flung the    
flying shuttles of talk until1 in a     
single exchange fifteen thousand        
conversations had been made possible in 
sixty minutes4 ,there are always girls  
in reserve for such explosive occasions1
 and when the hands of any operator are 
seen to tremble1 and she has a warning  
red spot on each cheek1 she is taken off
 and given a recess until she recovers  
her poise4  ,these telephone girls are  
the human part of a great communication 
machine4 ,they are weaving a web of talk
 that changes into a new pattern every  
minute4 ,how many possible combinations 
there are with the five million         
telephones of the ,bell ,system1 or what
 unthinkable mileage of conversation1 no
 one has ever dared to guess4 ,but      
whoever has once seen the long line of  
white arms waving back and forth in     
front of the switchboard lights must    
feel that he has looked upon the very   
pulse of the city's life4  ,in #aijb the
 ,new ,york ,telephone ,company started 

a school1 the first of its kind in the  
world1 for the education of these       
telephone girls4 ,this school is hidden 
amid ranges of skyscrapers1 but         
seventeen thousand girls discover it in 
the course of the year4 ,it is a most   
particular and exclusive school4 ,it    
accepts fewer than two thousand of these
 girls1 and rejects over fifteen        
thousand4 ,not more than one girl in    
every eight can measure up to its       
standards2 and it cheerfully refuses as 
many students in a year as would make   
three ,yales or ,harvards4  ,this school
 is unique1 too1 in the fact that it    
charges no fees1 pays every student five
 dollars a week1 and then provides her  
with a job when she graduates4 ,but it  
demands that every girl shall be in good
 health1 quick-handed1 clear-voiced1 and
 with a certain poise and alertness of  
manner4 ,presence of mind1 which1 in    
,herbert ,spencer's opinion1 ought to be
 taught in every university1 is in      
various ways drilled into the           

temperament of the telephone girl4 ,she 
is also taught the knack of             
concentration1 so that she may carry the
 switchboard situation in her head1 as a
 chess-player carries in his head the   
arrangement of the chess-men4 ,and she  
is much more welcome at this strange    
school if she is young and has never    
worked in other trades1 where less speed
 and vigilance are required4  ,no matter
 how many millions of dollars may be    
spent upon cables and switchboards1 the 
quality of telephone service depends    
upon the girl at the exchange end of the
 wire4 ,it is she who meets the public  
at every point4 ,she is the despatcher  
of all the talk trains2 she is the ruler
 of the wire highways2 and she is       
expected to give every passenger-voice  
an instantaneous express to its         
destination4 ,more is demanded from her 
than from any other servant of the      
public4 ,her clients refuse to stand in 
line and quietly wait their turn1 as    
they are quite willing to do in stores  

and theatres and barber shops and       
railway stations and everywhere else4   
,they do not see her at work and they do
 not know what her work is4 ,they do not
 notice that she answers a call in an   
average time of three and a half        
seconds4 ,they are in a hurry1 or they  
would not be at the telephone2 and each 
second is a minute long4 ,any delay is a
 direct personal affront that makes a   
vivid impression upon their minds4 ,and 
they are not apt to remember that most  
of the delays and blunders are being    
made1 not by the expert girls1 but by   
the careless people who persist in      
calling wrong numbers and in ignoring   
the niceties of telephone etiquette4    
,the truth about the ,american telephone
 girl is that she has become so highly  
efficient that we now expect her to be a
 paragon of perfection4 ,to give the    
young lady her due1 we must acknowledge 
that she has done more than any other   
person to introduce courtesy into the   
business world4 ,she has done most to   

abolish the old-time roughness and      
vulgarity4 ,she has made big business to
 run more smoothly than little business 
did1 half a century ago4 ,she has shown 
us how to take the friction out of      
conversation1 and taught us refinements 
of politeness which were rare even among
 the ,beau ,brummels of pre-telephonic  
days4 ,who1 for instance1 until the     
arrival of the telephone girl1          
appreciated the difference between ,who 
are you8 and ,who is this8 ,or who else 
has so impressed upon us the value of   
the rising inflection1 as a gentler     
habit of speech8 ,this propaganda of    
politeness has gone so far that to-day  
the man who is profane or abusive at the
 telephone1 is cut off from the use of  
it4 ,he is cast out as unfit for a      
telephone-using community4  ,and now1 so
 that there shall be no anticlimax in   
this story of telephone development1 we 
must turn the spot-light upon that      
immense aggregation of workshops in     
which have been made three-fifths of the

 telephone apparatus of the world--the  
,western ,electric4 ,the mother factory 
of this globe-trotting business is the  
biggest thing in the spacious back-yard 
of ,chicago1 and there are eleven       
smaller factories--her                  
children--scattered over the earth from 
,new ,york to ,tokio4 ,to put its totals
 into a sentence1 it is an enterprise of
 #bf1jjj-man-power1 and                 
#dj1jjj1jjj-;dollar-power2 and the      
telephonic goods that it produces in    
half a day are worth one hundred        
thousand dollars--as much1 by the way1  
as the ,western ,union ,,refused to pay 
for the ,bell patents in #ahgg4  ,the   
,western ,electric was born in ,chicago1
 in the ashes of the big fire of #ahga2 
and it has grown up to its present      
greatness quietly1 without celebrating  
its birthdays4 ,at first it had no      
telephones to make4 ,none had been      
invented1 so it made telegraphic        
apparatus1 burglar-alarms1 electric     
pens1 and other such things4 ,but in    

#ahgh1 when the ,western ,union made its
 short-lived attempt to compete with the
 ,bell ,company1 the ,western ,electric 
agreed to make its telephones4 ,three   
years later1 when the brief spasm of    
competition was ended1 the ,western     
,electric was taken in hand by the ,bell
 people and has since then remained the 
great workshop of the telephone4  ,the  
main plant in ,chicago is not especially
 remarkable from a manufacturing point  
of view4 ,here are the inevitable       
lumber-yards and foundries and          
machine-shops4 ,here is the mad waltz of
 the spindles that whirl silk and cotton
 threads around the copper wires1 very  
similar to what may be seen in any braid
 factory4 ,here electric lamps are made1
 five thousand of them in a day1 in the 
same manner as elsewhere1 except that   
here they are so small and dainty as to 
seem designed for fairy palaces4  ,the  
things that are done with wire in the   
,western ,electric factories are too    
many for any mere outsider to remember4 

,some wire is wrapped with paper tape at
 a speed of nine thousand miles a day4  
,some is fashioned into fantastic shapes
 that look like absurd sea-monsters1 but
 which in reality are only the nerve    
systems of switchboards4 ,and some is   
twisted into cables by means of a dozen 
whirling drums--a dizzying sight1 as    
each pair of drums revolve in opposite  
directions4 ,because of the fact that a 
cable's inevitable enemy is moisture1   
each cable is wound on an immense spool 
and rolled into an oven until it is as  
dry as a cinder4 ,then it is put into a 
strait-jacket of lead pipe1 sealed at   
both ends1 and trundled into a waiting  
freight car4  ,no other company uses so 
much wire and hard rubber1 or so many   
tons of brass rods1 as the ,western     
,electric4 ,of platinum1 too1 which is  
more expensive than gold1 it uses one   
thousand pounds a year in the making of 
telephone transmitters4 ,this is        
imported from the ,ural ,mountains4 ,the
 silk thread comes from ,italy and      

,japan2 the iron for magnets1 from      
,norway2 the paper tape1 from ,manila2  
the mahogany1 from ,south ,america2 and 
the rubber1 from ,brazil and the valley 
of the ,congo4 ,at least seven countries
 must cooperate to make a telephone     
message possible4  ,perhaps the most    
extraordinary feature in the ,western   
,electric factories is the multitude of 
its inspectors4 ,no other sort of       
manufacturing1 not even a ,government   
navy-yard1 has so many4 ,nothing is too 
small to escape these sleuths of        
inspection4 ,they test every tiny disc  
of mica1 and throw away nine out of ten4
 ,they test every telephone by actual   
talk1 set up every switchboard1 and try 
out every cable4 ,a single transmitter1 
by the time it is completed1 has had to 
pass three hundred examinations2 and a  
single coin-box is obliged to count ten 
thousand nickels before it graduates    
into the outer world4 ,seven hundred    
inspectors are on guard in the two main 
plants at ,chicago and ,new ,york4 ,this

 is a ruinously large number1 from a    
profit-making point of view2 but the    
inexorable fact is that in a telephone  
system nothing is insignificant4 ,it is 
built on such altruistic lines that an  
injury to any one part is the concern of
 all4  ,as usual1 when we probe into the
 history of a business that has grown   
great and overspread the earth1 we find 
a ,man2 and the ,western ,electric is no
 exception to this rule4 ,its ,man1     
still fairly hale and busy after forty  
years of leadership1 is ,enos ,m4       
,barton4 ,his career is the typical     
,american story of self-help4 ,he was a 
telegraph messenger boy in ,new ,york   
during the ,civil ,war1 then a telegraph
 operator in ,cleveland4 ,in #ahfi his  
salary was cut down from one hundred    
dollars a month to ninety dollars2      
whereupon he walked out and founded the 
,western ,electric in a shabby little   
machine-shop4 ,later he moved to        
,chicago1 took in ,elisha ,gray as his  
partner1 and built up a trade in the    

making of telegraphic materials4  ,when 
the telephone was invented1 ,barton was 
one of the sceptics4 ,i well remember my
 disgust1 he said1 when some one told me
 it was possible to send conversation   
along a wire4 ,several months later he  
saw a telephone and at once became one  
of its apostles4 ,by #ahhb his plant had
 become the official workshop of the    
,bell ,companies4 ,it was the           
headquarters of invention and           
manufacturing4 ,here was gathered a     
notable group of young men1 brilliant   
and adventurous1 who dared to stake     
their futures on the success of the     
telephone4 ,and always at their head was
 ,barton1 as a sort of human            
switchboard1 who linked them all        
together and kept them busy4  ,in       
appearance1 ,enos ,m4 ,barton closely   
resembles ex-,president ,eliot1 of      
,harvard4 ,he is slow in speech1 simple 
in manner1 and with a rare sagacity in  
business affairs4 ,he was not an        
organizer1 in the modern sense4 ,his    

policy was to pick out a man1 put him in
 a responsible place1 and judge him by  
results4 ,engineers could become        
bookkeepers1 and bookkeepers could      
become engineers4 ,such a plan worked   
well in the earlier days1 when the art  
of telephony was in the making1 and when
 there was no source of authority on    
telephonic problems4 ,barton is the     
bishop emeritus of the ,western         
,electric to-day2 and the big industry  
is now being run by a group of young    
hustlers1 with ,h4 ,b4 ,thayer at the   
head of the table4 ,thayer is a         
,vermonter who has climbed the ladder of
 experience from its lower rungs to the 
top4 ,he is a typical ,yankee--lean1    
shrewd1 tireless1 and with a            
cold-blooded sense of justice that fits 
him for the leadership of twenty-six    
thousand people4  ,so1 as we have seen1 
the telephone as ,bell invented it1 was 
merely a brilliant beginning in the     
development of the art of telephony4 ,it
 was an elfin birth--an elusive and     

delicate sprite that had to be nurtured 
into maturity4 ,it was like a soul1 for 
which a body had to be created2 and no  
one knew how to make such a body4 ,had  
it been born in some less energetic     
country1 it might have remained feeble  
and undeveloped2 but not in the ,united 
,states4 ,here in one year it had become
 famous1 and in three years it had      
become rich4 ,bell's invincible patent  
was soon buttressed by hundreds of      
others4 ,an open-door policy was adopted
 for invention4 ,change followed change 
to such a degree that the experts of    
#ahhj would be lost to-day in the mazes 
of a telephone exchange4  ,the art of   
the telephone engineer has in thirty    
years grown from the most crude and     
clumsy of experiments into an exact and 
comprehensive profession4 ,as ,carty has
 aptly said1 ,at first we invariably    
approached every problem from the wrong 
end4 ,if we had been told to load a herd
 of cattle on a steamer1 our method     
would have been to hire a ,hagenbeck to 

train the cattle for a couple of years1 
so that they would know enough to walk  
aboard of the ship when he gave the     
signal2 but to-day1 if we had to ship   
cattle1 we would know enough to make a  
greased chute and slide them on board in
 a jiffy4  ,the telephone world has now 
its own standards and ideals4 ,it has a 
language of its own1 a telephonese that 
is quite unintelligible to outsiders4   
,it has as many separate branches of    
study as medicine or law4 ,there are few
 men1 half a dozen at most1 who can now 
be said to have a general knowledge of  
telephony4 ,and no matter how wise a    
telephone expert may be1 he can never   
reach perfection1 because of the amazing
 variety of things that touch or concern
 his profession4  ,no one man knows all 
the details now1 said ,theodore ,vail4  
,several days ago ,i was walking through
 a telephone exchange and ,i saw        
something new4 ,i asked ,mr4 ,carty to  
explain it4 ,he is our chief engineer2  
but he did not understand it4 ,we called

 the manager4 ,he did n't know1 and     
called his assistant4 ,he did n't know1 
and called the local engineer1 who was  
able to tell us what it was4  ,to sum up
 this development of the art of         
tele-phony--to present a bird's-eye     
view--it may be divided into four       
periods3  #a4 ,experiment4 #ahgf to     
#ahhf4 ,this was the period of          
invention1 in which there were no       
experts and no authorities4 ,telephonic 
apparatus consisted of makeshifts and   
adaptations4 ,it was the period of iron 
wire1 imperfect transmitters1 grounded  
circuits1 boy operators1 peg            
switchboards1 local batteries1 and      
overhead lines4  #b4 ,development4 #ahhf
 to #ahif4 ,in this period amateurs     
became engineers4 ,the proper type of   
apparatus was discovered1 and was       
improved to a high point of efficiency4 
,in this period came the multiple       
switchboard1 copper wire1 girl          
operators1 underground cables1 metallic 
circuit1 common battery1 and the        

long-distance lines4  #c4 ,expansion4   
#ahif to #aijf4 ,this was the era of big
 business4 ,it was an autumn period1 in 
which the telephone men and the public  
began to reap the fruits of twenty years
 of investment and hard work4 ,it was   
the period of the message rate1 the pay 
station1 the farm line1 and the private 
branch exchange4  #d4 ,organization4    
#aijf--4 ,with the success of the ,pupin
 coil1 there came a larger life for the 
telephone4 ,it became less local and    
more national4 ,it began to link        
together its scattered parts4 ,it       
discouraged the waste and anarchy of    
duplication4 ,it taught its older1 but  
smaller brother1 the telegraph1 to      
cooperate4 ,it put itself more closely  
in touch with the will of the public4   
,and it is now pushing ahead1 along the 
two roads of standardization and        
efficiency1 toward its ideal of one     
universal telephone system for the whole
 nation4 ,the key-word of the telephone 
development of to-day is                

this--organization4    ,,chapter ,v4    
,,the ,,expansion ,,of ,,the ,,business 
,the telephone business did not really  
begin to grow big and overspread the    
earth until #ahif1 but the keynote of   
expansion was first sounded by ,theodore
 ,vail in the earliest days1 when as yet
 the telephone was a babe in arms4 ,in  
#ahgi ,vail said1 in a letter written to
 one of his captains3  ,tell our agents 
that we have a proposition on foot to   
connect the different cities for the    
purpose of personal communication1 and  
in other ways to organize a ,,grand     
,,telephonic ,,system4  ,this was brave 
talk at that time1 when there were not  
in the whole world as many telephones as
 there are to-day in ,cincinnati4 ,it   
was brave talk in those days of iron    
wire1 peg switchboards1 and noisy       
diaphragms4 ,most telephone men regarded
 it as nothing more than talk4 ,they did
 not see any business future for the    
telephone except in short-distance      
service4 ,but ,vail was in earnest4 ,his

 previous experience as the head of the 
railway mail service had lifted him up  
to a higher point of view4 ,he knew the 
need of a national system of            
communication that would be quicker and 
more direct than either the telegraph or
 the post office4  ,i saw that if the   
telephone could talk one mile to-day1 he
 said1 it would be talking a hundred    
miles to-morrow4 ,and he persisted1 in  
spite of a considerable deal of         
ridicule1 in maintaining that the       
telephone was destined to connect cities
 and nations as well as individuals4    
,four months after he had prophesied the
 grand telephonic system1 he encouraged 
,charles ,j4 ,glidden1 of world-tour    
fame1 to build a telephone line between 
,boston and ,lowell4 ,this was the first
 inter-city line4 ,it was well placed1  
as the owners of the ,lowell mills lived
 in ,boston1 and it made a small profit 
from the start4 ,this success cheered   
,vail on to a master-effort4 ,he        
resolved to build a line from ,boston to

 ,providence1 and was so stubbornly bent
 upon doing this that when the ,bell    
,company refused to act1 he picked up   
the risk and set off with it alone4 ,he 
organized a company of well-known ,rhode
 ,islanders--nicknamed the ,governors'  
,company--and built the line4 ,it was a 
failure at first1 and went by the name  
of ,vail's ,folly4 ,but ,engineer       
,carty1 by a happy thought1 ,,doubled   
,,the ,,wire1 and thus in a moment      
established two new factors in the      
telephone business--the ,metallic       
,circuit and the ,long ,distance line4  
,at once the ,bell ,company came over to
 ,vail's point of view1 bought his new  
line1 and launched out upon what seemed 
to be the foolhardy enterprise of       
stringing a double wire from ,boston to 
,new ,york4 ,this was to be not only the
 longest of all telephone lines1 strung 
on ten thousand poles2 it was to be a   
line de luxe1 built of glistening red   
copper1 not iron4 ,its cost was to be   
seventy thousand dollars1 which was an  

enormous sum in those hardscrabble days4
 ,there was much opposition to such     
extravagance1 and much ridicule4 ,i     
would n't take that line as a gift1 said
 one of the ,bell ,company's officials4 
,but when the last coil of wire was     
stretched into place1 and the first     
,hello leaped from ,boston to ,new      
,york1 the new line was a victorious    
success4 ,it carried messages from the  
first day2 and more1 it raised the whole
 telephone business to a higher level4  
,it swept away the prejudice that       
telephone service could become nothing  
more than a neighborhood affair4 ,it was
 the salvation of the business1 said    
,edward ,j4 ,hill4 ,it marked a         
turning-point in the history of the     
telephone1 when the day of small things 
was ended and the day of great things   
was begun4 ,no one man1 no hundred men1 
had created it4 ,it was the final result
 of ten years of invention and          
improvement4  ,while this epoch-making  
line was being strung1 ,vail was pushing

 his grand telephonic system policy by  
organizing ,the ,american ,telephone and
 ,telegraph ,company4 ,this1 too1 was a 
master-stroke4 ,it was the introduction 
of the staff-and-line method of         
organization into business4 ,it was     
doing for the forty or fifty ,bell      
,companies what ,von ,moltke did for the
 ,german army prior to the              
,franco-,prussian ,war4 ,it was the     
creation of a central company that      
should link all local companies         
together1 and itself own and operate the
 means by which these companies are     
united4 ,this central company was to    
grapple with all national problems1 to  
own all telephones and long-distance    
lines1 to protect all patents1 and to be
 the headquarters of invention1         
information1 capital1 and legal         
protection for the entire federation of 
,bell ,companies4  ,seldom has a company
 been started with so small a capital   
and so vast a purpose4 ,it had no more  
than #ajj1jjj of capital stock1 in      

#ahhe2 but its declared object was      
nothing less than to establish a system 
of wire communication for the human     
race4 ,here are1 in its own words1 the  
marching orders of this ,company3 ,to   
connect one or more points in each and  
every city1 town1 or place an the ,state
 of ,new ,york1 with one or more points 
in each and every other city1 town1 or  
place in said ,state1 and in each and   
every other of the ,united ,states1 and 
in ,canada1 and ,mexico2 and each and   
every of said cities1 towns1 and places 
is to be connected with each and every  
other city1 town1 or place in said      
,states and countries1 and also by cable
 and other appropriate means with the   
rest of the known world4  ,so ran       
,vail's dream1 and for nine years he    
worked mightily to make it come true4   
,he remained until the various parts of 
the business had grown together1 and    
until his plan for a grand telephonic   
system was under way and fairly well    
understood4 ,then he went out1 into a   

series of picturesque enterprises1 until
 he had built up a four-square fortune2 
and recently1 in #aijg1 he came back to 
be the head of the telephone business1  
and to complete the work of organization
 that he started thirty years before4   
,when ,vail said auf wiedersehen to the 
telephone business1 it had passed from  
infancy to childhood4 ,it was well      
shaped but not fully grown4 ,its        
pioneering days were over4 ,it was      
self-supporting and had a little money  
in the bank4 ,but it could not then have
 carried the load of traffic that it    
carries to-day4 ,it had still too many  
problems to solve and too much general  
inertia to overcome4 ,it needed to be   
conserved1 drilled1 educated1           
popularized4 ,and the man who was       
finally chosen to replace ,vail was in  
many respects the appropriate leader for
 such a preparatory period4             
,hudson--,john ,elbridge ,hudson--was   
the name of the new head of the         
telephone people4 ,he was a man of      

middle age1 born in ,lynn and bred in   
,boston2 a long-pedigreed ,new          
,englander1 whose ancestors had smelted 
iron ore in ,lynn when ,charles the     
,first was ,king4 ,he was a lawyer by   
profession and a university professor by
 temperament4 ,his specialty1 as a man  
of affairs1 had been marine law2 and his
 hobby was the collection of rare books 
and old ,english engravings4 ,he was a  
master of the ,greek language1 and very 
fond of using it4 ,on all possible      
occasions he used the language of       
,pericles in his conversation2 and even 
carried this preference so far as to    
write his business memoranda in ,greek4 
,he was above all else a scholar1 then a
 lawyer1 and somewhat incidentally the  
central figure in the telephone world4  
,but it was of tremendous value to the  
telephone business at that time to have 
at its head a man of ,hudson's          
intellectual and moral calibre4  ,he    
gave it tone and prestige4 ,he built up 
its credit4 ,he kept it clean and clear 

above all suspicion of wrong-doing4 ,he 
held fast whatever had been gained4 ,and
 he prepared the way for the period of  
expansion by borrowing fifty millions   
for improvements1 and by adding greatly 
to the strength and influence of the    
,american ,telephone and ,telegraph     
,company4  ,hudson remained at the head 
of the telephone table until his death1 
in #aijj1 and thus lived to see the dawn
 of the era of big business4 ,under his 
regime great things were done in the    
development of the art4 ,the business   
was pushed ahead at every point by its  
captains4 ,every man in his place1      
trying to give a little better service  
than yesterday--that was the keynote of 
the ,hudson period4 ,there was no one   
preeminent genius4 ,each important step 
forward was the result of the           
cooperation of many minds1 and the      
prodding necessities of a growing       
traffic4  ,by #ahif1 when the ,common   
,battery system created a new era1 the  
telephone engineer had pretty well      

mastered his simpler troubles4 ,he was  
able to handle his wires1 no matter how 
many4 ,by this time1 too1 the public was
 ready for the telephone4 ,a new        
generation had grown up1 without the    
prejudices of its fathers4 ,people had  
grown away from the telegraphic habit of
 thought1 which was that wire           
communications were expensive luxuries  
for the few4 ,the telephone was1 in     
fact1 a new social nerve1 so new and so 
novel that very nearly twenty years went
 by before it had fully grown into      
place1 and before the social body       
developed the instinct of using it4     
,not that the difficulties of the       
telephone engineers were over1 for they 
were not4 ,they have seemed to grow more
 numerous and complex every year4 ,but  
by #ahif enough had been done to warrant
 a forward movement4 ,for the next      
ten-year period the keynote of telephone
 history was ,,expansion4 ,under the    
prevailing flat-rate plan of payment1   
all customers paid the same yearly price

 and then used their telephones as often
 as they pleased4 ,this was a simple    
method1 and the most satisfactory for   
small towns and farming regions4 ,but in
 a great city such a plan grew to be    
suicidal4 ,in ,new ,york1 for instance1 
the price had to be raised to #bdj1     
which lifted the telephone as high above
 the mass of the citizens as though it  
were a piano or a diamond sunburst4     
,such a plan was strangling the         
business4 ,it was shutting out the small
 users4 ,it was clogging the wires with 
deadhead calls4 ,it was giving some     
people too little service and others too
 much4 ,it was a very unsatisfactory    
situation4  ,how to extend the service  
and at the same time cheapen it to small
 users--that was the ,gordian knot2 and 
the man who unquestionably did most to  
untie it was ,edward ,j4 ,hall4 ,mr4    
,hall founded the telephone business in 
,buffalo in #ahgh1 and seven years      
afterwards became the chief of the      
long-distance traffic4 ,he was then1 and

 is to-day1 one of the statesmen of the 
telephone4 ,for more than thirty years  
he has been the candid friend of the    
business1 incessantly suggesting1       
probing1 and criticising4 ,keen and     
dispassionate1 with a genius for        
mercilessly cutting to the marrow of a  
proposition1 ,hall has at the same time 
been a zealot for the improvement and   
extension of telephone service4 ,it was 
he who set the agents free from the     
ball-and-chain of royalties1 allowing   
them to pay instead a percentage of     
gross receipts4 ,and it was he who broke
 the jam1 as a lumberman would say1 by  
suggesting the ,,message ,,rate system4 
,by this plan1 which ,u4 ,n4 ,bethell   
developed to its highest point in ,new  
,york1 a user of the telephone pays a   
fixed minimum price for a certain number
 of messages per year1 and extra for all
 messages over this number4 ,the large  
user pays more1 and the little user pays
 less4 ,it opened up the way to such an 
expansion of telephone business as      

,bell1 in his rosiest dreams1 had never 
imagined4 ,in three years1 after #ahif1 
there were twice as many users2 in six  
years there were four times as many2 in 
ten years there were eight to one4 ,what
 with the message rate and the pay      
station1 the telephone was now on its   
way to be universal4 ,it was adapted to 
all kinds and conditions of men4 ,a     
great corporation1 nerved at every point
 with telephone wires1 may now pay fifty
 thousand dollars to the ,bell ,company1
 while at the same time a young ,irish  
immigrant boy1 just arrived in ,new     
,york ,city1 may offer five coppers and 
find at his disposal a fifty million    
dollar telephone system4  ,when the     
message rate was fairly well            
established1 ,hudson died--fell suddenly
 to the ground as he was about to step  
into a railway carriage4 ,in his place  
came ,frederick ,p4 ,fish1 also a lawyer
 and a ,bostonian4 ,fish was a popular1 
optimistic man1 with a full-speed-ahead 
temperament4 ,he pushed the policy of   

expansion until he broke all the        
records4 ,he borrowed money in          
stupendous amounts--#aej1jjj1jjj at one 
time--and flung it into a campaign of   
red-hot development4 ,more business he  
demanded1 and more1 and more1 until his 
captains1 like a thirty-horse team of   
galloping horses1 became very nearly    
uncontrollable4  ,it was a fast and     
furious period4 ,the whole country was  
ablaze with a passion of prosperity4    
,after generations of conflict1 the men 
with large ideas had at last put to rout
 the men of small ideas4 ,the waste and 
folly of competition had everywhere     
driven men to the policy of cooperation4
 ,mills were linked to mills and        
factories to factories1 in a vast       
mutualism of industry such as no other  
age1 perhaps1 has ever known4 ,and as   
the telephone is essentially the        
instrument of co-working and            
interdependent people1 it found itself  
suddenly welcomed as the most popular   
and indispensable of all the agencies   

that put men in touch with each other4  
,to describe this growth in a single    
sentence1 we might say that the ,bell   
telephone secured its first million of  
capital in #ahgi2 its first million of  
earnings in #ahhb2 its first million of 
dividends in #ahhd2 its first million of
 surplus in #ahhe4 ,it had paid out its 
first million for legal expenses by     
#ahhf2 began first to send a million    
messages a day in #ahhh2 had strung its 
first million miles of wire in #aijj2   
and had installed its first million     
telephones in #ahih4 ,by #ahig it had   
spun as many cobwebs of wire as the     
mighty ,western ,union itself2 by #aijj 
it had twice as many miles of wire as   
the ,western ,union1 and in #aije ,,five
 ,,times as many4 ,such was the plunging
 progress of the ,bell ,companies in    
this period of expansion1 that by #aije 
they had swept past all ,european       
countries combined1 not only in the     
quality of the service but in the actual
 number of telephones in use4 ,this1    

too1 without a cent of public money1 or 
the protection of a tariff1 or the      
prestige of a governmental bureau4  ,by 
#ahib ,boston and ,new ,york were       
talking to ,chicago1 ,milwaukee1        
,pittsburg1 and ,washington4 ,one-half  
of the people of the ,united ,states    
were within talking distance of each    
other4 ,the ,,thousand-,,mile ,,talk had
 ceased to be a fairy tale4 ,several    
years later the western end of the line 
was pushed over the plains to ,nebraska1
 enabling the spoken word in ,boston to 
be heard in ,omaha4 ,slowly and with    
much effort the public were taught to   
substitute the telephone for travel4 ,a 
special long-distance salon was fitted  
up in ,new ,york ,city to entice people 
into the habit of talking to other      
cities4 ,cabs were sent for customers2  
and when one arrived1 he was escorted   
over ,oriental rugs to a gilded booth1  
draped with silken curtains4 ,this was  
the famous ,room ,nine4 ,by such and    
many other allurements a larger idea of 

telephone service was given to the      
public mind2 until in #aiji at least    
eighteen thousand ,new ,york-,chicago   
conversations were held1 and the revenue
 from strictly long-distance messages   
was twenty-two thousand dollars a day4  
,by #aijf even the ,rocky ,mountain     
,bell ,company had grown to be a        
ten-million-dollar enterprise4 ,it began
 at ,salt ,lake ,city with a hundred    
telephones1 in #ahhj4 ,then it reached  
out to master an area of four hundred   
and thirteen thousand square miles--a   
great ,lone ,land of undeveloped        
resources4 ,its linemen groped through  
dense forests where their poles looked  
like toothpicks beside the towering     
pines and cedars4 ,they girdled the     
mountains and basted the prairies with  
wire1 until the lonely places were      
brought together and made sociable4     
,they drove off the ,indians1 who wanted
 the bright wire for ear-rings and      
bracelets2 and the bears1 which mistook 
the humming of the wires for the buzzing

 of bees1 and persisted in gnawing the  
poles down4 ,with the most heroic       
optimism1 this ,rocky ,mountain ,company
 persevered until1 in #aijf1 it had     
created a seventy-thousand-mile         
nerve-system for the far ,west4         
,chicago1 in this year1 had two hundred 
thou-sand telephones in use1 in her two 
hundred square miles of area4 ,the      
business had been built up by ,general  
,anson ,stager1 who was himself wealthy1
 and able to attract the support of such
 men as ,john ,crerar1 ,h4 ,h4 ,porter1 
and ,robert ,t4 ,lincoln4 ,since #ahhb  
it has paid dividends1 and in one       
glorious year its stock soared to four  
hundred dollars a share4 ,the           
old-timers--the men who clambered over  
roof-tops in #ahgh and tacked iron wires
 wherever they could without being      
chased off--are still for the most part 
in control of the ,chicago company4     
,but as might have been expected1 it was
 ,new ,york ,city that was the          
record-breaker when the era of telephone

 expansion arrived4 ,here the flood of  
big business struck with the force of a 
tidal wave4 ,the number of users leaped 
from #ef1jjj in #aijj up to #haj1jjj in 
#aijh4 ,in a single year of sweating and
 breathless activity1 #fe1jjj new       
telephones were put on desks or hung on 
walls--an average of one new user for   
every two minutes of the business day4  
,literally tons1 and hundreds of tons1  
of telephones were hauled in drays from 
the factory and put in place in ,new    
,york's homes and offices4 ,more and    
more were demanded1 until to-day there  
are more telephones in ,new ,york than  
there are in the four countries1        
,france1 ,belgium1 ,holland1 and        
,switzerland combined4 ,as a user of    
telephones ,new ,york has risen to be   
unapproachable4 ,mass together all the  
telephones of ,london1 ,glasgow1        
,liverpool1 ,manchester1 ,birmingham1   
,leeds1 ,sheffleld1 ,bristol1 and       
,belfast1 and there will even then be   
barely as many as are carrying the      

conversations of this one ,american     
city4  ,in #ahgi the ,new ,york         
telephone directory was a small card1   
showing two hundred and fifty-two names2
 but now it has grown to be an          
eight-hundred-page quarterly1 with a    
circulation of half a million1 and      
requiring twenty drays1 forty horses1   
and four hundred men to do the work of  
distribution4 ,there was one shabby     
little exchange thirty years ago2 but   
now there are fifty-two exchanges1 as   
the nerve-centres of a vast             
fifty-million-dollar system4 ,incredible
 as it may seem to foreigners1 it is    
literally true that in a single building
 in ,new ,york1 the ,hudson ,terminal1  
there are more telephones than in       
,odessa or ,madrid1 more than in the two
 kingdoms of ,greece and ,bulgaria      
combined4  ,merely to operate this      
system requires an army of more than    
five thousand girls4 ,merely to keep    
their records requires two hundred and  
thirty-five million sheets of paper a   

year4 ,merely to do the writing of these
 records wears away five hundred and    
sixty thousand lead pencils4 ,and merely
 to give these girls a cup of tea or    
coffee at noon1 compels the ,bell       
,company to buy yearly six thousand     
pounds of tea1 seventeen thousand pounds
 of coffee1 forty-eight thousand cans of
 condensed milk1 and one hundred and    
forty barrels of sugar4  ,the myriad    
wires of this ,new ,york system are     
tingling with talk every minute of the  
day and night4 ,they are most at rest   
between three and four o'clock in the   
morning1 although even then there are   
usually ten calls a minute4 ,between    
five and six o'clock1 two thousand ,new 
,yorkers are awake and at the telephone4
 ,half an hour later there are twice as 
many4 ,between seven and eight          
twenty-five thousand people have called 
up twenty-five thousand other people1 so
 that there are as many people talking  
by wire as there were in the whole city 
of ,new ,york in the ,revolutionary     

period4 ,even this is only the dawn of  
the day's business4 ,by half-past eight 
it is doubled2 by nine it is trebled2 by
 ten it is multiplied sixfold2 and by   
eleven the roar has become an incredible
 babel of one hundred and eighty        
thousand conversations an hour1 with    
fifty new voices clamoring at the       
exchanges every second4  ,this is the   
peak of the load4 ,it is the topmost    
pinnacle of talk4 ,it is the utmost     
degree of service that the telephone has
 been required to give in any city4 ,and
 it is as much a world's wonder1 to men 
and women of imagination1 as the steel  
mills of ,homestead or the turbine      
leviathans that curve across the        
,atlantic ,ocean in four and a half     
days4  ,as to the men who built it up3  
,charles ,f4 ,cutler died in #aijg1 but 
most of the others are still alive and  
busy4 ,union ,n4 ,bethell1 now in       
,cutler's place at the head of the ,new 
,york ,company1 has been the operating  
chief for eighteen years4 ,he is a man  

of shrewdness and sympathy1 with a rare 
sagacity in solving knotty problems1 a  
president of the new type1 who regards  
his work as a sort of obligation he owes
 to the public4 ,and just as foreigners 
go to ,pittsburg to see the steel       
business at its best2 just as they go to
 ,iowa and ,kansas to see the ,new      
,farmer1 so they make pilgrimages to    
,bethell's office to learn the          
profession of telephony4  ,this         
unparalleled telephone system of ,new   
,york grew up without having at any time
 the rivalry of competition4 ,but in    
many other cities and especially in the 
,middle ,west1 there sprang up in #ahie 
a medley of independent companies4 ,the 
time of the original patents had        
expired1 and the ,bell ,companies found 
themselves freed from the expense of    
litigation only to be snarled up in a   
tangle of duplication4 ,in a few years  
there were six thousand of these little 
,robinson ,crusoe companies4 ,and by    
#aija they had put in use more than a   

million telephones and were professing  
to have a capital of a hundred millions4
  ,most of these companies were         
necessary and did much to expand the    
telephone business into new territory4  
,they were in fact small mutual         
associations of a dozen or a hundred    
farmers1 whose aim was to get telephone 
service at cost4 ,but there were other  
companies1 probably a thousand or more1 
which were organized by promoters who   
built their hopes on the fact that the  
,bell ,companies were unpopular1 and on 
the myth that they were fabulously rich4
 ,instead of legitimately extending     
telephone lines into communities that   
had none1 these promoters proceeded to  
inflict the messy snarl of an           
overlapping system upon whatever cities 
would give them permission to do so4    
,in this way1 masked as competition1 the
 nuisance and waste of duplication began
 in most ,american cities4 ,the         
telephone business was still so young1  
it was so little appreciated even by the

 telephone officials and engineers1 that
 the public regarded a second or a third
 telephone system in one city as quite a
 possible and desirable innovation4 ,we 
have two ears1 said one promoter2 why   
not therefore have two telephones8      
,this duplication went merrily on for   
years before it was generally discovered
 that the telephone is not an ear1 but a
 nerve system2 and that such an         
experiment as a duplicate nerve system  
has never been attempted by ,nature1    
even in her most frivolous moods4 ,most 
people fancied that a telephone system  
was practically the same as a gas or    
electric light system1 which can often  
be duplicated with the result of cheaper
 rates and better service4 ,they did not
 for years discover that two telephone  
companies in one city means either half 
service or double cost1 just as two fire
 departments or two post offices would4 
,some of these duplicate companies built
 up a complete plant1 and gave good     
local service1 while others proved to be

 mere stock bubbles4 ,most of them were 
over-capitalized1 depending upon public 
sympathy to atone for deficiencies in   
equipment4 ,one which had printed fifty 
million dollars of stock for sale was   
sold at auction in #aiji for four       
hundred thousand dollars4 ,all told1    
there were twenty-three of these bubbles
 that burst in #aije1 twenty-one in     
#aijf1 and twelve in #aijg4 ,so high has
 been the death-rate among these        
isolated companies that at a recent     
convention of telephone agents1 the     
chairman's gavel was made of thirty-five
 pieces of wood1 taken from thirty-five 
switchboards of thirty-five extinct     
companies4  ,a study of twelve          
single-system cities and twenty-seven   
double-system cities shows that there   
are about eleven per cent more          
telephones under the double-system1 and 
that where the second system is put in1 
every fifth user is obliged to pay for  
two telephones4 ,the rates are alike1   
whether a city has one or two systems4  

,duplicating companies raised their     
rates in sixteen cities out of the      
twenty-seven1 and reduced them in one   
city4 ,taking the ,united ,states as a  
whole1 there are to-day fully two       
hundred and fifty thousand people who   
are paying for two telephones instead of
 one1 an economic waste of at least ten 
million dollars a year4  ,a fair-minded 
survey of the entire independent        
telephone movement would probably show  
that it was at first a stimulant1       
followed1 as stimulants usually are1 by 
a reaction4 ,it was unquestionably for  
several years a spur to the ,bell       
,companies4 ,but it did not fulfil its  
promises of cheap rates1 better service1
 and high dividends2 it did little or   
nothing to improve telephonic apparatus1
 producing nothing new except the       
automatic switchboard--a brilliant      
invention1 which is now in its          
experimental period4 ,in the main1      
perhaps1 it has been a reactionary and  
troublesome movement in the cities1 and 

a progressive movement among the        
farmers4  ,by #aijg it was a wave that  
had spent its force4 ,it was no longer  
rolling along easily on the broad ocean 
of hope1 but broken and turned aside by 
the rocks of actual conditions4 ,one by 
one the telephone promoters learned the 
limitations of an isolated company1 and 
asked to be included as members of the  
,bell family4 ,in #aijg four hundred and
 fifty-eight thousand independent       
telephones were linked by wire to the   
nearest ,bell ,company2 and in #aijh    
these were followed by three hundred and
 fifty thousand more4 ,after this       
landslide to the policy of              
consolidation1 there still remained a   
fairly large assortment of independent  
companies2 but they had lost their      
dreams and their illusions4  ,as might  
have been expected1 the independent     
movement produced a number of competent 
local leaders1 but none of national     
importance4 ,the ,bell ,companies1 on   
the other hand1 were officered by men   

who had for a quarter of a century been 
surveying telephone problems from a     
national point of view4 ,at their head1 
from #aijg onwards1 was ,theodore ,n4   
,vail1 who had returned dramatically1 at
 the precise moment when he was needed1 
to finish the work that he had begun in 
#ahgh4 ,he had been absent for twenty   
years1 developing water-power and       
building street-railways in ,south      
,america4 ,in the first act of the      
telephone drama1 it was he who put the  
enterprise upon a business basis1 and   
laid down the first principles of its   
policy4 ,in the second and third acts he
 had no place2 but when the curtain rose
 upon the fourth act1 ,vail was once    
more the central figure1 standing       
white-haired among his captains1 and    
pushing forward the completion of the   
grand telephonic system that he had     
dreamed of when the telephone was three 
years old4  ,thus it came about that the
 telephone business was created by      
,vail1 conserved by ,hudson1 expanded by

 ,fish1 and is now in process of being  
consolidated by ,vail4 ,it is being knit
 together into a stupendous ,bell       
,system--a federation of self-governing 
companies1 united by a central company  
that is the busiest of them all4 ,it is 
no longer protected by any patent       
monopoly4 ,whoever is rich enough and   
rash enough may enter the field4 ,but it
 has all the immeasurable advantages    
that come from long experience1 immense 
bulk1 the most highly skilled           
specialists1 and an abundance of        
capital4 ,the ,bell ,system is strong1  
says ,vail1 because we are all tied up  
together2 and the success of one is     
therefore the concern of all4  ,the     
,bell ,system6 ,here we have the motif  
of ,american telephone development4     
,here is the most comprehensive idea    
that has entered any telephone          
engineer's brain4 ,already this ,bell   
,system has grown to be so vast1 so     
nearly akin to a national nerve system1 
that there is nothing else to which we  

can compare it4 ,it is so wide-spread   
that few are aware of its greatness4 ,it
 is strung out over fifty thousand      
cities and communities4  ,if it were all
 gathered together into one place1 this 
,bell ,system1 it would make a city of  
,telephonia as large as ,baltimore4 ,it 
would contain half of the telephone     
property of the world4 ,its actual      
wealth would be fully #gfj1jjj1jjj1 and 
its revenue would be greater than the   
revenue of the city of ,new ,york4      
,part of the property of the city of    
,telephonia consists of ten million     
poles1 as many as would make a fence    
from ,new ,york to ,california1 or put a
 stockade around ,texas4 ,if the        
,telephonians wished to use these poles 
at home1 they might drive them in as    
piles along their water-front1 and have 
a twenty-five thousand-acre dock2 or if 
their city were a hundred square miles  
in extent1 they might set up a seven-ply
 wall around it with these poles4       
,wire1 too6 ,eleven million miles of it6

 ,this city of ,telephonia would be the 
capital of an empire of wire4 ,not all  
the men in ,new ,york ,state could      
shoulder this burden of wire and carry  
it4 ,throw all the people of ,illinois  
in one end of the scale1 and put on the 
other side the wire-wealth of           
,telephonia1 and long before the last   
coil was in place1 the ,illinoisans     
would be in the air4  ,what would this  
city do for a living8 ,it would make    
two-thirds of the telephones1 cables1   
and switchboards of all countries4      
,nearly one-quarter of its citizens     
would work in factories1 while the      
others would be busy in six thousand    
exchanges1 making it possible for the   
people of the ,united ,states to talk to
 one another at the rate of ,,seven     
,,thousand ,,million ,,conversations ,a 
,,year4  ,the pay-envelope army that    
moves to work every morning in          
,telephonia would be a host of one      
hundred and ten thousand men and girls1 
mostly girls1--as many girls as would   

fill ,vassar ,college a hundred times   
and more1 or double the population of   
,nevada4 ,put these men and girls in    
line1 march them ten abreast1 and six   
hours would pass before the last company
 would arrive at the reviewing stand4   
,in single file this throng of          
,telephonians would make a living wall  
from ,new ,york to ,new ,haven4  ,such  
is the extraordinary city of which      
,alexander ,graham ,bell was the only   
resident in #ahge4 ,it has been built up
 without the backing of any great bank  
or multi-millionaire4 ,there have been  
no ,vanderbilts in it1 no ,astors1      
,rockefellers1 ,rothschilds1 ,harrimans4
 ,there are even now only four men who  
own as many as ten thousand shares of   
the stock of the central company4 ,this 
,bell ,system stands as the life-work of
 unprivileged men1 who are for the most 
part still alive and busy4 ,with very   
few and trivial exceptions1 every part  
of it was made in the ,united ,states4  
,no other industrial organism of equal  

size owes foreign countries so little4  
,alike in its origin1 its development1  
and its highest point of efficiency and 
expansion1 the telephone is as          
essentially ,american as the            
,declaration of ,independence or the    
monument on ,bunker ,hill4    ,,chapter 
,,vi4 ,,notable ,,users ,,of ,,the      
,,telephone  ,what we might call the    
telephonization of city life1 for lack  
of a simpler word1 has remarkably       
altered our manner of living from what  
it was in the days of ,abraham ,lincoln4
 ,it has enabled us to be more social   
and cooperative4 ,it has literally      
abolished the isolation of separate     
families1 and has made us members of one
 great family4 ,it has become so truly  
an organ of the social body that by     
telephone we now enter into contracts1  
give evidence1 try lawsuits1 make       
speeches1 propose marriage1 confer      
degrees1 appeal to voters1 and do almost
 everything else that is a matter of    
speech4  ,in stores and hotels this wire

 traffic has grown to an almost         
bewildering extent1 as these are the    
places where many interests meet4 ,the  
hundred largest hotels in ,new ,york    
,city have twenty-one thousand          
telephones--nearly as many as the       
continent of ,africa and more than the  
kingdom of ,spain4 ,in an average year  
they send six million messages4 ,the    
,waldorf-,astoria alone tops all        
residential buildings with eleven       
hundred and twenty telephones and five  
hundred thousand calls a year2 while    
merely the ,christmas ,eve orders that  
flash into ,marshall ,field's store1 or 
,john ,wanamaker's1 have risen as high  
as the three thousand mark4  ,whether   
the telephone does most to concentrate  
population1 or to scatter it1 is a      
question that has not yet been examined4
 ,it is certainly true that it has made 
the skyscraper possible1 and thus helped
 to create an absolutely new type of    
city1 such as was never imagined even in
 the fairy tales of ancient nations4    

,the skyscraper is ten years younger    
than the telephone4 ,it is now generally
 seen to be the ideal building for      
business offices4 ,it is one of the few 
types of architecture that may fairly be
 called ,american4 ,and its efficiency  
is largely1 if not mainly1 due to the   
fact that its inhabitants may run       
errands by telephone as well as by      
elevator4  ,there seems to be no sort of
 activity which is not being made more  
convenient by the telephone4 ,it is used
 to call the duck-shooters in ,western  
,canada when a flock of birds has       
arrived2 and to direct the movements of 
the ,dragon in ,wagner's grand opera    
,siegfried4 ,at the last ,yale-,harvard 
football game1 it conveyed almost       
instantaneous news to fifty thousand    
people in various parts of ,new         
,england4 ,at the ,vanderbilt ,cup ,race
 its wires girdled the track and        
reported every gain or mishap of the    
racing autos4 ,and at such expensive    
pageants as that of the ,quebec         

,tercentenary in #aijh1 where four      
thousand actors came and went upon a    
ten-acre stage1 every order was given by
 telephone4  ,public officials1 even in 
the ,united ,states1 have been slow to  
change from the old-fashioned and more  
dignified use of written documents and  
uniformed messengers2 but in the last   
ten years there has been a sweeping     
revolution in this respect4 ,government 
by telephone6 ,this is a new idea that  
has already arrived in the more         
efficient departments of the ,federal   
service4 ,and as for the present        
,congress1 that body has gone so far as 
to plan for a special system of its own1
 in both ,houses1 so that all official  
announcements may be heard by wire4     
,garfield was the first among ,american 
,presidents to possess a telephone4 ,an 
exhibition instrument was placed in his 
house1 without cost1 in #ahgh1 while he 
was still a member of ,congress4        
,neither ,cleveland nor ,harrison1 for  
temperamental reasons1 used the magic   

wire very often4 ,under their regime1   
there was one lonely idle telephone in  
the ,white ,house1 used by the servants 
several times a week4 ,but with         
,mc,kinley came a new order of things4  
,to him a telephone was more than a     
necessity4 ,it was a pastime1 an        
exhilarating sport4 ,he was the one     
,president who really revelled in the   
comforts of telephony4 ,in #ahie he sat 
in his ,canton home and heard the cheers
 of the ,chicago ,convention4 ,later he 
sat there and ran the first presidential
 telephone campaign2 talked to his      
managers in thirty-eight ,states4 ,thus 
he came to regard the telephone with a  
higher degree of appreciation than any  
of his predecessors had done1 and       
eulogized it on many public occasions4  
,it is bringing us all closer together1 
was his favorite phrase4  ,to ,roosevelt
 the telephone was mainly for           
emergencies4 ,he used it to the full    
during the ,chicago ,convention of #aijg
 and the ,peace ,conference at          

,portsmouth4 ,but with ,taft the        
telephone became again the common avenue
 of conversation4 ,he has introduced at 
least one new telephonic custom a       
long-distance talk with his family every
 evening1 when he is away from home4    
,instead of the solitary telephone of   
,cleveland-,harrison days1 the ,white   
,house has now a branch exchange of its 
own--,main #f--with a sheaf of wires    
that branch out into every room as well 
as to the nearest central4  ,next to    
public officials1 bankers were perhaps  
the last to accept the facilities of the
 telephone4 ,they were slow to abandon  
the fallacy that no business can be done
 without a written record4 ,james       
,stillman1 of ,new ,york1 was first     
among bankers to foresee the telephone  
era4 ,as early as #ahge1 while ,bell was
 teaching his infant telephone to talk1 
,stillman risked two thousand dollars in
 a scheme to establish a crude dial     
system of wire communication1 which     
later grew into ,new ,york's first      

telephone exchange4 ,at the present     
time1 the banker who works closest to   
his telephone is probably ,george ,w4   
,perkins1 of the ,j4 ,p4 ,morgan group  
of bankers4 ,he is the only man1 says   
,morgan1 who can raise twenty millions  
in twenty minutes4 ,the ,perkins plan of
 rapid transit telephony is to prepare a
 list of names1 from ten to thirty1 and 
to flash from one to another as fast as 
the operator can ring them up4 ,recently
 one of the other members of the ,morgan
 bank proposed to enlarge its telephone 
equipment4 ,what will we gain by more   
wires8 asked the operator4 ,if we were  
to put in a six-hundred pair cable1 ,mr4
 ,perkins would keep it busy4  ,the most
 brilliant feat of the telephone in the 
financial world was done during the     
panic of #aijg4 ,at the height of the   
storm1 on a ,saturday evening1 the ,new 
,york bankers met in an almost desperate
 conference4 ,they decided1 as an       
emergency measure of self-protection1   
not to ship cash to ,western banks4 ,at 

midnight they telephoned this decision  
to the bankers of ,chicago and ,st4     
,louis4 ,these men1 in turn1 conferred  
by telephone1 and on ,sunday afternoon  
called up the bankers of neighboring    
,states4 ,and so the news went from     
'phone to 'phone1 until by ,monday      
morning all bankers and chief depositors
 were aware of the situation1 and       
prepared for the team-play that         
prevented any general disaster4  ,as for
 stockbrokers of the ,wall ,street      
species1 they transact practically all  
their business by telephone4 ,in their  
stock exchange stand six hundred and    
forty one booths1 each one the terminus 
of a private wire4 ,a firm of brokers   
will count it an ordinary year's talking
 to send fifty thousand messages2 and   
there is one firm which last year sent  
twice as many4 ,of all brokers1 the one 
who finally accomplished most by        
telephony was unquestionably ,e4 ,h4    
,harriman4 ,in the mansion that he built
 at ,arden1 there were a hundred        

telephones1 sixty of them linked to the 
long-distance lines4 ,what the brush is 
to the artist1 what the chisel is to the
 sculptor1 the telephone was to         
,harriman4 ,he built his fortune with   
it4 ,it was in his library1 his         
bathroom1 his private car1 his camp in  
the ,oregon wilder-ness4 ,no transaction
 was too large or too involved to be    
settled over its wires4 ,he saved the   
credit of the ,erie by telephone--lent  
it five million dollars as he lay at    
home on a sickbed4 ,he is a slave to the
 telephone1 wrote a magazine writer4    
,nonsense1 replied ,harriman1 it is a   
slave to me4  ,the telephone arrived in 
time to prevent big corporations from   
being unwieldy and aristocratic4 ,the   
foreman of a ,pittsburg coal company may
 now stand in his subterranean office   
and talk to the president of the ,steel 
,trust1 who sits on the twenty-first    
floor of a ,new ,york skyscraper4 ,the  
long-distance talks1 especially1 have   
grown to be indispensable to the        

corporations whose plants are scattered 
and geographically misplaced--to the    
mills of ,new ,england1 for instance1   
that use the cotton of the ,south and   
sell so much of their product to the    
,middle ,west4 ,to the companies that   
sell perishable commodities1 an         
instantaneous conversation with a buyer 
in a distant city has often saved a     
carload or a cargo4 ,such caterers as   
the meat-packers1 who were among the    
first to realize what ,bell had made    
possible1 have greatly accelerated the  
wheels of their business by inter-city  
conversations4 ,for ten years or longer 
the ,cudahys have talked every business 
morning between ,omaha and ,boston1 via 
fifteen hundred and seventy miles of    
wire4  ,in the refining of oil1 the     
,standard ,oil ,company alone1 at its   
,new ,york office1 sends two hundred and
 thirty thousand messages a year4 ,in   
the making of steel1 a chemical analysis
 is made of each caldron of molten      
pig-iron1 when it starts on its way to  

be refined1 and this analysis is sent by
 telephone to the steelmaker1 so that he
 will know exactly how each potful is to
 be handled4 ,in the floating of logs   
down rivers1 instead of having relays of
 shouters to prevent the logs from      
jamming1 there is now a wire along the  
bank1 with a telephone linked on at     
every point of danger4 ,in the rearing  
of skyscrapers1 it is now usual to have 
a temporary wire strung vertically1 so  
that the architect may stand on the     
ground and confer with a foreman who    
sits astride of a naked girder three    
hundred feet up in the air4 ,and in the 
electric light business1 the current is 
distributed wholly by telephoned orders4
 ,to give ,new ,york the seven million  
electric lights that have abolished     
night in that city requires twelve      
private exchanges and five hundred and  
twelve telephones4 ,all the power that  
creates this artificial daylight is     
generated at a single station1 and let  
flow to twenty-five storage centres4    

,minute by minute1 its flow is guided by
 an expert1 who sits at a telephone     
exchange as though he were a pilot at   
the wheel of an ocean liner4  ,the first
 steamship line to take notice of the   
telephone was the ,clyde1 which had a   
wire from dock to office in #ahgg2 and  
the first railway was the ,pennsylvania1
 which two years later was persuaded by 
,professor ,bell himself to give it a   
trial in ,altoona4 ,since then1 this    
railroad has become the chief           
beneficiary of the art of telephony4 ,it
 has one hundred and seventy-five       
exchanges1 four hundred operators1      
thirteen thousand telephones1 and twenty
 thousand miles of wire--a more ample   
system than the city of ,new ,york had  
in #ahif4  ,to-day the telephone goes to
 sea in the passenger steamer and the   
warship4 ,its wires are waiting at the  
dock and the depot1 so that a tourist   
may sit in his stateroom and talk with a
 friend in some distant office4 ,it is  
one of the most incredible miracles of  

telephony that a passenger at ,new      
,york1 who is about to start for        
,chicago on a fast express1 may         
telephone to ,chicago from the          
drawing-room of a ,pullman4 ,he himself1
 on the swiftest of all trains1 will not
 arrive in ,chicago for eighteen hours2 
but the flying words can make the       
journey1 and ,,return1 while his train  
is waiting for the signal to start4  ,in
 the operation of trains1 the railroads 
have waited thirty years before they    
dared to trust the telephone1 just as   
they waited fifteen years before they   
dared to trust the telegraph4 ,in #ahhc 
a few railways used the telephone in a  
small way1 but in #aijg1 when a law was 
passed that made telegraphers highly    
expensive1 there was a general swing to 
the telephone4 ,several dozen roads have
 now put it in use1 some employing it as
 an associate of the ,morse method and  
others as a complete substitute4 ,it has
 already been found to be the quickest  
way of despatching trains4 ,it will do  

in five minutes what the telegraph did  
in ten4 ,and it has enabled railroads to
 hire more suitable men for the smaller 
offices4  ,in news-gathering1 too1 much 
more than in railroading1 the day of the
 telephone has arrived4 ,the ,boston    
,globe was the first paper to receive   
news by telephone4 ,later came ,the     
,washington ,star1 which had a wire     
strung to the ,capitol1 and thereby     
gained an hour over its competitors4    
,to-day the evening papers receive most 
of their news over the wire a la ,bell  
instead of a la ,morse4 ,this has       
resulted in a specialization of         
reporters--one man runs for the news and
 another man writes it4 ,some of the    
runners never come to the office4 ,they 
receive their assignments by telephone1 
and their salaries by mail4 ,there are  
even a few who are allowed to telephone 
their news directly to a swift linotype 
operator1 who clicks it into type on his
 machine1 without the scratch of a      
pencil4 ,this1 of course1 is the ideal  

method of news-gathering1 which is      
rarely possible4  ,a paper of the first 
class1 such as ,the ,new ,york ,world1  
has now an outfit of twenty trunk lines 
and eighty telephones4 ,its outgoing    
calls are two hundred thousand a year   
and its incoming calls three hundred    
thousand1 which means that for every    
morning1 evening1 or ,sunday edition1   
there has been an average of seven      
hundred and fifty messages4 ,the        
ordinary newspaper in a small town      
cannot afford such a service1 but       
recently the ,united ,press has         
originated a cooperative method4 ,it    
telephones the news over one wire to ten
 or twelve newspapers at one time4 ,in  
ten minutes a thousand words can in this
 way be flung out to a dozen towns1 as  
quickly as by telegraph and much        
cheaper4  ,but it is in a dangerous     
crisis1 when safety seems to hang upon a
 second1 that the telephone is at its   
best4 ,it is the instrument of          
emergencies1 a sort of ubiquitous       

watchman4 ,when the girl operator in the
 exchange hears a cry for help--,quick6 
,the hospital6 ,the fire department6    
,the police6 she seldom waits to hear   
the number4 ,she knows it4 ,she is      
trained to save half-seconds4 ,and it is
 at such moments1 if ever1 that the     
users of a telephone can appreciate its 
insurance value4 ,no doubt1 if a ,king  
,richard ,,iii were worsted on a modern 
battlefield1 his instinctive cry would  
be1 ,my ,kingdom for a telephone6  ,when
 instant action is needed in the city of
 ,new ,york1 a ,general ,alarm can in   
five minutes be sent by the police wires
 over its whole vast area of three      
hundred square miles4 ,when1 recently1 a
 gas main broke in ,brooklyn1 sixty     
girls were at once called to the        
centrals in that part of the city to    
warn the ten thousand families who had  
been placed in danger4 ,when the        
ill-fated ,general ,slocum caught fire1 
a mechanic in a factory on the          
water-front saw the blaze1 and had the  

presence of mind to telephone the       
newspapers1 the hospitals1 and the      
police4 ,when a small child is lost1 or 
a convict has escaped from prison1 or   
the forest is on fire1 or some menace   
from the weather is at hand1 the        
telephone bells clang out the news1 just
 as the nerves jangle the bells of pain 
when the body is in danger4 ,in one     
tragic case1 the operator in ,folsom1   
,new ,mexico1 refused to quit her post  
until she had warned her people of a    
flood that had broken loose in the hills
 above the village4 ,because of her     
courage1 nearly all were saved1 though  
she herself was drowned at the          
switchboard4 ,her name--,mrs4 ,s4 ,j4   
,rooke--deserves to be remembered4  ,if 
a disaster cannot be prevented1 it is   
the telephone1 usually1 that brings     
first aid to the injured4 ,after the    
destruction of ,san ,francisco1         
,governor ,guild1 of ,massachusetts1    
sent an appeal for the stricken city to 
the three hundred and fifty-four mayors 

of his ,state2 and by the courtesy of   
the ,bell ,company1 which carried the   
messages free1 they were delivered to   
the last and furthermost mayors in less 
than five hours4 ,after the destruction 
of ,messina1 an order for enough lumber 
to build ten thousand new houses was    
cabled to ,new ,york and telephoned to  
,western lumbermen4 ,so quickly was this
 order filled that on the twelfth day   
after the arrival of the cablegram1 the 
ships were on their way to ,messina with
 the lumber4 ,after the ,kansas ,city   
flood of #aijc1 when the drenched city  
was without railways or street-cars or  
electric lights1 it was the telephone   
that held the city together and brought 
help to the danger-spots4 ,and after the
 ,baltimore fire1 the telephone exchange
 was the last force to quit and the     
first to recover4 ,its girls sat on     
their stools at the switchboard until   
the window-panes were broken by the     
heat4 ,then they pulled the covers over 
the board and walked out4 ,two hours    

later the building was in ashes4 ,three 
hours later another building was rented 
on the unburned rim of the city1 and the
 wire chiefs were at work4 ,in one day  
there was a system of wires for the use 
of the city officials4 ,in two days     
these were linked to long-distance      
wires2 and in eleven days a             
two-thousand-line switchboard was in    
full working trim4 ,this feat still     
stands as the record in rebuilding4  ,in
 the supreme emergency of war1 the      
telephone is as indispensable1 very     
nearly1 as the cannon4 ,this1 at least1 
is the belief of the ,japanese1 who     
handled their armies by telephone when  
they drove back the ,russians4 ,each    
body of ,japanese troops moved forward  
like a silkworm1 leaving behind it a    
glistening strand of red copper wire4   
,at the decisive battle of ,mukden1 the 
silk-worm army1 with a million legs1    
crept against the ,russian hosts in a   
vast crescent1 a hundred miles from end 
to end4 ,by means of this glistening red

 wire1 the various batteries and        
regiments were organized into fifteen   
divisions4 ,each group of three         
divisions was wired to a general1 and   
the five generals were wired to the     
great ,oyama himself1 who sat ten miles 
back of the firing-line and sent his    
orders4 ,whenever a regiment lunged     
forward1 one of the soldiers carried a  
telephone set4 ,if they held their      
position1 two other soldiers ran forward
 with a spool of wire4 ,in this way and 
under fire of the ,russian cannon1 one  
hundred and fifty miles of wire were    
strung across the battlefield4 ,as the  
,japanese said1 it was this flying      
telephone that enabled ,oyama to        
manipulate his forces as handily as     
though he were playing a game of chess4 
,it was in this war1 too1 that the      
,mikado's soldiers strung the costliest 
of all telephone lines1 at #bjc ,metre  
,hill4 ,when the wire had been basted up
 this hill to the summit1 the fortress  
of ,port ,arthur lay at their mercy4    

,but the climb had cost them twenty-four
 thousand lives4  ,of the seven million 
telephones in the ,united ,states1 about
 two million are now in farmhouses4     
,every fourth ,american farmer is in    
telephone touch with his neighbors and  
the market4 ,iowa leads1 among the      
farming ,states4 ,in ,iowa1 not to have 
a telephone is to belong to what a      
,londoner would call the submerged tenth
 of the population4 ,second in line     
comes ,illinois1 with ,kansas1          
,nebraska1 and ,indiana following       
closely behind2 and at the foot of the  
list1 in the matter of farm telephones1 
are ,connecticut and ,louisiana4  ,the  
first farmer who discovered the value of
 the telephone was the market gardener4 
,next came the bonanza farmer of the    
,red ,river ,valley--such a man1 for    
instance1 as ,oliver ,dalrymple1 of     
,north ,dakota1 who found that by the   
aid of the telephone he could plant and 
harvest thirty thousand acres of wheat  
in a single season4 ,then1 not more than

 half a dozen years ago1 there arose a  
veritable ,telephone ,crusade among the 
farmers of the ,middle ,west4 ,cheap    
telephones1 yet fairly good1 had by this
 time been made possible by the         
improvements of the ,bell engineers2 and
 stories of what could be done by       
telephone became the favorite gossip of 
the day4 ,one farmer had kept his barn  
from being burned down by telephoning   
for his neighbors2 another had cleared  
five hundred dollars extra profit on the
 sale of his cattle1 by telephoning to  
the best market2 a third had rescued a  
flock of sheep by sending quick news of 
an approaching blizzard2 a fourth had   
saved his son's life by getting an      
instantaneous message to the doctor2 and
 so on4  ,how the telephone saved a     
three million dollar fruit crop in      
,colorado1 in #aiji1 is the story that  
is oftenest told in the ,west4 ,until   
that year1 the frosts in the ,spring    
nipped the buds4 ,no farmer could be    
sure of his harvest4 ,but in #aiji1 the 

fruit-growers bought smudge-pots--three 
hundred thousand or more4 ,these were   
placed in the orchards1 ready to be lit 
at a moment's notice4 ,next1 an alliance
 was made with the ,united ,states      
,weather ,bureau so that whenever the   
,frost ,king came down from the north1 a
 warning could be telephoned to the     
farmers4 ,just when ,colorado was pink  
with apple blossoms1 the first warning  
came4 ,get ready to light up your       
smudge-pots in half an hour4 ,then the  
farmers telephoned to the nearest towns3
 ,frost is coming2 come and help us in  
the orchards4 ,hundreds of men rushed   
out into the country on horseback and in
 wagons4 ,in half an hour the last      
warning came3 ,light up2 the thermometer
 registers twenty-nine4 ,the smudge-pot 
artillery was set ablaze1 and kept      
blazing until the news came that the icy
 forces had retreated4 ,and in this way 
every ,colorado farmer who had a        
telephone saved his fruit4  ,in some    
farming ,states1 the enthusiasm for the 

telephone is running so high that mass  
meetings are held1 with lavish oratory  
on the general theme of ,good ,roads and
 ,telephones4 ,and as a result of this  
,telephone ,crusade1 there are now      
nearly twenty thousand groups of        
farmers1 each one with a mutual         
telephone system1 and one-half of them  
with sufficient enterprise to link their
 little webs of wires to the vast ,bell 
system1 so that at least a million      
farmers have been brought as close to   
the great cities as they are to their   
own barns4  ,what telephones have done  
to bring in the present era of big      
crops1 is an interesting story in       
itself4 ,to compress it into a sentence1
 we might say that the telephone has    
completed the labor-saving movement     
which started with the ,mc,cormick      
reaper in #ahca4 ,it has lifted the     
farmer above the wastefulness of being  
his own errand-boy4 ,the average length 
of haul from barn to market in the      
,united ,states is nine and a half      

miles1 so that every trip saved means an
 extra day's work for a man and team4   
,instead of travelling back and forth1  
often to no purpose1 the farmer may now 
stay at home and attend to his stock and
 his crops4  ,as yet1 few farmers have  
learned to appreciate the value of      
quality in telephone service1 as they   
have in other lines4 ,the same man who  
will pay six prices for the best        
seed-corn1 and who will allow nothing   
but high-grade cattle in his barn1 will 
at the same time be content with the    
shabbiest and flimsiest telephone       
service1 without offering any other     
excuse than that it is cheap4 ,but this 
is a transient phase of farm telephony4 
,the cost of an efficient farm system is
 now so little--not more than two       
dollars a month1 that the present trashy
 lines are certain sooner or later to go
 to the junk-heap with the sickle and   
the flail and all the other cheap and   
unprofitable things4    ,,chapter ,,vii4
 ,,the ,,telephone ,,and ,,national     

,,efficiency  ,the larger significance  
of the telephone is that it completes   
the work of eliminating the hermit and  
gypsy elements of civilization4 ,in an  
almost ideal way1 it has made           
intercommunication possible without     
travel4 ,it has enabled a man to settle 
permanently in one place1 and yet keep  
in personal touch with his fellows4     
,until the last few centuries1 much of  
the world was probably what ,morocco is 
to-day--a region without wheeled        
vehicles or even roads of any sort4     
,there is a mythical story of a         
wonderful speaking-trumpet possessed by 
,alexander the ,great1 by which he could
 call a soldier who was ten miles       
distant2 but there was probably no      
substitute for the human voice except   
flags and beacon-fires1 or any faster   
method of travel than the gait of a     
horse or a camel across ungraded plains4
 ,the first sensation of rapid transit  
doubtless came with the sailing vessel2 
but it was the play-toy of the winds1   

and unreliable4 ,when ,columbus dared to
 set out on his famous voyage1 he was   
five weeks in crossing from ,spain to   
the ,west ,indies1 his best day's record
 two hundred miles4 ,the swift steamship
 travel of to-day did not begin until   
#ahch1 when the ,great ,western raced   
over the ,atlantic in fifteen days4  ,as
 for organized systems of               
intercommunication1 they were unknown   
even under the rule of a ,pericles or a 
,caesar4 ,there was no post office in   
,great ,britain until #afef--;a         
generation after ,america had begun to  
be colonized4 ,there was no ,english    
mail-coach until #aghd2 and when        
,benjamin ,franklin was ,postmaster     
,general at ,philadelphia1 an answer by 
mail from ,boston1 when all went well1  
required not less than three weeks4     
,there was not even a hard-surface road 
in the thirteen ,united ,states until   
#agid2 nor even a postage stamp until   
#ahdg1 the year in which ,alexander     
,graham ,bell was born4 ,in this same   

year ,henry ,clay delivered his         
memorable speech on the ,mexican ,war1  
at ,lexington1 ,kentucky1 and it was    
telegraphed to ,the ,new ,york ,herald  
at a cost of five hundred dollars1 thus 
breaking all previous records for       
news-gathering enterprise4 ,eleven years
 later the first cable established an   
instantaneous sign-language between     
,americans and ,europeans2 and in #ahgf 
there came the perfect distance-talking 
of the telephone4  ,no invention has    
been more timely than the telephone4 ,it
 arrived at the exact period when it was
 needed for the organization of great   
cities and the unification of nations4  
,the new ideas and energies of science1 
commerce1 and cooperation were beginning
 to win victories in all parts of the   
earth4 ,the first railroad had just     
arrived in ,china2 the first parliament 
in ,japan2 the first constitution in    
,spain4 ,stanley was moving like a tiny 
point of light through the heart of the 
,dark ,continent4 ,the ,universal       

,postal ,union had been organized in a  
little hall in ,berne4 ,the ,red ,cross 
movement was twelve years old4 ,an      
,international ,congress of ,hygiene was
 being held at ,brussells1 and an       
,international ,congress of ,medicine at
 ,philadelphia4 ,de ,lesseps had        
finished the ,suez ,canal and was       
examining ,panama4 ,italy and ,germany  
had recently been built into nations2   
,france had finally swept aside the     
,empire and the ,commune and established
 the ,republic4 ,and what with the new  
agencies of railroads1 steamships1 cheap
 newspapers1 cables1 and telegraphs1 the
 civilized races of mankind had begun to
 be knit together into a practical      
consolidation4  ,to the ,united ,states1
 especially1 the telephone came as a    
friend in need4 ,after a hundred years  
of growth1 the ,republic was still a    
loose confederation of separate ,states1
 rather than one great united nation4   
,it had recently fallen apart for four  
years1 with a wide gulf of blood        

between2 and with two flags1 two        
,presidents1 and two armies4 ,in #ahgf  
it was hesitating halfway between doubt 
and confidence1 between the old         
political issues of ,north and ,south1  
and the new industrial issues of foreign
 trade and the development of material  
resources4 ,the ,west was being thrown  
open4 ,the ,indians and buffaloes were  
being driven back4 ,there was a line of 
railway from ocean to ocean4 ,the       
population was gaining at the rate of a 
million a year4 ,colorado had just been 
baptized as a new ,state4 ,and it was   
still an unsolved problem whether or not
 the ,united ,states could be kept      
united1 whether or not it could be built
 into an organic nation without losing  
the spirit of self-help and democracy4  
,it is not easy for us to realize to-day
 how young and primitive was the ,united
 ,states of #ahgf4 ,yet the fact is that
 we have twice the population that we   
had when the telephone was invented4 ,we
 have twice the wheat crop and twice as 

much money in circulation4 ,we have     
three times the railways1 banks1        
libraries1 newspapers1 exports1 farm    
values1 and national wealth4 ,we have   
ten million farmers who make four times 
as much money as seven million farmers  
made in #ahgf4 ,we spend four times as  
much on our public schools1 and we put  
four times as much in the savings bank4 
,we have five times as many students in 
the colleges4 ,and we have so           
revolutionized our methods of production
 that we now produce seven times as much
 coal1 fourteen times as much oil and   
pig-iron1 twenty-two times as much      
copper1 and forty-three times as much   
steel4  ,there were no skyscrapers in   
#ahgf1 no trolleys1 no electric lights1 
no gasoline engines1 no self-binders1 no
 bicycles1 no automobiles4 ,there was no
 ,oklahoma1 and the combined population 
of ,montana1 ,wyoming1 ,idaho1 and      
,arizona was about equal to that of ,des
 ,moines4 ,it was in this year that     
,general ,custer was killed by the      

,sioux2 that the flimsy iron railway    
bridge fell at ,ashtabula2 that the     
,molly ,maguires terrorized             
,pennsylvania2 that the first wire of   
the ,brooklyn ,bridge was strung2 and   
that ,boss ,tweed and ,hell ,gate were  
both put out of the way in ,new ,york4  
,the ,great ,elm1 under which the       
,revolutionary patriots had met1 was    
still standing on ,boston ,common4      
,daniel ,drew1 the ,new ,york financier1
 who was born before the ,american      
,constitution was adopted1 was still    
alive2 so were ,commodore ,vanderbilt1  
,joseph ,henry1 ,a4 ,t4 ,stewart1       
,thurlow ,weed1 ,peter ,cooper1 ,cyrus  
,mc,cormick1 ,lucretia ,mott1 ,bryant1  
,longfellow1 and ,emerson4 ,most old    
people could remember the running of the
 first railway train2 people of middle  
age could remember the sending of the   
first telegraph message2 and the        
children in the high schools remembered 
the laying of the first ,atlantic       
,cable4  ,the grandfathers of #ahgf were

 fond of telling how ,webster opposed   
taking ,texas and ,oregon into the      
,union2 how ,george ,washington advised 
against including the ,mississippi      
,river2 and how ,monroe warned ,congress
 that a country that reached from the   
,atlantic to the ,middle ,west was too  
extensive to be governed but by a       
despotic monarchy4 ,they told how       
,abraham ,lincoln1 when he was          
postmaster of ,new ,salem1 used to carry
 the letters in his coon-skin cap and   
deliver them at sight2 how in #ahbb the 
mails were carried on horseback and not 
in stages1 so as to have the quickest   
possible service2 and how the news of   
,madison's election was three weeks in  
reaching the people of ,kentucky4 ,when 
the telegraph was mentioned1 they told  
how in ,revolutionary days the patriots 
used a system of signalling called      
,washington's ,tele-graph1 consisting of
 a pole1 a flag1 a basket1 and a barrel4
  ,so1 the young ,republic was still    
within hearing distance of its          

childhood1 in #ahgf4 ,both in sentiment 
and in methods of work it was living    
close to the log-cabin period4 ,many of 
the old slow ways survived1 the ways    
that were fast enough in the days of the
 stage-coach and the tinder-box4 ,there 
were seventy-seven thousand miles of    
railway1 but poorly built and in short  
lengths4 ,there were manufacturing      
industries that employed two million1   
four hundred thousand people1 but every 
trade was broken up into a chaos of     
small competitive units1 each at war    
with all the others4 ,there were energy 
and enterprise in the highest degree1   
but not efficiency or organization4     
,little as we knew it1 in #ahgf we were 
mainly gathering together the plans and 
the raw materials for the building up of
 the modern business world1 with its    
quick1 tense life and its national      
structure of immense coordinated        
industries4  ,in #ahgf the age of       
specialization and community of interest
 was in its dawn4 ,the cobbler had given

 place to the elaborate factory1 in     
which seventy men cooperated to make one
 shoe4 ,the merchant who had hitherto   
lived over his store now ventured to    
have a home in the suburbs4 ,no man was 
any longer a self-sufficient ,robinson  
,crusoe4 ,he was a fraction1 a single   
part of a social mechanism1 who must    
necessarily keep in the closest touch   
with many others4  ,a new interdependent
 form of civilization was about to be   
developed1 and the telephone arrived in 
the nick of time to make this new       
civilization workable and convenient4   
,it was the unfolding of a new organ4   
,just as the eye had become the         
telescope1 and the hand had become      
machinery1 and the feet had become      
railways1 so the voice became the       
telephone4 ,it was a new ideal method of
 communication that had been made       
indispensable by new conditions4 ,the   
prophecy of ,carlyle had come true1 when
 he said that men cannot now be bound to
 men by brass collars2 you will have to 

bind them by other far nobler and       
cunninger methods4  ,railways and       
steamships had begun this work of       
binding man to man by nobler and        
cunninger methods4 ,the telegraph and   
cable had gone still farther and put all
 civilized people within sight of each  
other1 so that they could communicate by
 a sort of deaf and dumb alphabet4 ,and 
then came the telephone1 giving direct  
instantaneous communication and putting 
the people of each nation within hearing
 distance of each other4 ,it was the    
completion of a long series of          
inventions4 ,it was the keystone of the 
arch4 ,it was the one last improvement  
that enabled interdependent nations to  
handle themselves and to hold together4 
,to make railways and steamboats carry  
letters was much1 in the evolution of   
the means of communication4 ,to make the
 electric wire carry signals was more1  
because of the instantaneous            
transmission of important news4 ,but to 
make the electric wire carry speech was 

,,most1 because it put all              
fellow-citizens face to face1 and made  
both message and answer instantaneous4  
,the invention of the telephone taught  
the ,genie of ,electricity to do better 
than to carry mes-sages in the sign     
language of the dumb4 ,it taught him to 
speak4 ,as ,emerson has finely said3    
,we had letters to send4 ,couriers could
 not go fast enough1 nor far enough2    
broke their wagons1 foundered their     
horses2 bad roads in ,spring1 snowdrifts
 in ,winter1 heat in ,summer--could not 
get their horses out of a walk4 ,but we 
found that the air and the earth were   
full of electricity1 and always going   
our way1 just the way we wanted to send4
 ,,would ,,he ,,take ,a ,,message1 ,just
 as lief as not2 had nothing else to do2
 would carry it in no time4   ,as to the
 exact value of the telephone to the    
,united ,states in dollars and cents1 no
 one can tell4 ,one statistician has    
given us a total of three million       
dollars a day as the amount saved by    

using telephones4 ,this sum may be far  
too high1 or too low4 ,it can be no more
 than a guess4 ,the only adequate way to
 arrive at the value of the telephone is
 to consider the nation as a whole1 to  
take it all in all as a going concern1  
and to note that such a nation would be 
absolutely impossible without its       
telephone service4 ,some sort of a      
slower and lower grade republic we might
 have1 with small industrial units1 long
 hours of labor1 lower wages1 and       
clumsier ways4 ,the money loss would be 
enormous1 but more serious still would  
be the loss in the ,,quality ,,of ,,the 
,,national ,,life4 ,inevitably1 an      
untelephoned nation is less social1 less
 unified1 less progressive1 and less    
efficient4 ,it belongs to an inferior   
species4  ,how to make a civilization   
that is organized and quick1 instead of 
a barbarism that was chaotic and        
slow--that is the universal human       
problem1 not wholly solved to-day4 ,and 
how to develop a science of             

intercommunication1 which commenced when
 the wild animals began to travel in    
herds and to protect themselves from    
their enemies by a language of          
danger-signals1 and to democratize this 
science until the entire nation becomes 
self-conscious and able to act as one   
living being--that is the part of this  
universal problem which finally         
necessitated the invention of the       
telephone4  ,with the use of the        
telephone has come a new habit of mind4 
,the slow and sluggish mood has been    
sloughed off4 ,the old to-morrow habit  
has been superseded by ,do ,it ,to-day2 
and life has become more tense1 alert1  
vivid4 ,the brain has been relieved of  
the suspense of waiting for an answer1  
which is a psychological gain of great  
importance4 ,it receives its reply at   
once and is set free to consider other  
matters4 ,there is less burden upon the 
memory and the ,,whole ,,mind can be    
given to each new proposition4  ,a new  
instinct of speed has been developed1   

much more fully in the ,united ,states  
than elsewhere4 ,no ,american goes slow1
 said ,ian ,maclaren1 if he has the     
chance of going fast2 he does not stop  
to talk if he can talk walking2 and he  
does not walk if he can ride4 ,he is as 
pleased as a child with a new toy when  
some speed record is broken1 when a pair
 of shoes is made in eleven minutes1    
when a man lays twelve hundred bricks in
 an hour1 or when a ship crosses the    
,atlantic in four and a half days4 ,even
 seconds are now counted and split up   
into fractions4 ,the average time1 for  
instance1 taken to reply to a telephone 
call by a ,new ,york operator1 is now   
three and two-fifth seconds2 and even   
this tiny atom of time is being         
strenuously worn down4  ,as a witty     
,frenchman has said1 one of our most    
lively regrets is that while we are at  
the telephone we cannot do business with
 our feet4 ,we regard it as a victory   
over the hostility of nature when we do 
an hour's work in a minute or a minute's

 work in a second4 ,instead of saying1  
as the ,spanish do1 ,life is too short2 
what can one person do8 an ,american is 
more apt to say1 ,life is too short2    
therefore ,i must do to-day's work      
to-day4 ,to pack a lifetime with        
energy--that is the ,american plan1 and 
so to economize that energy as to get   
the largest results4 ,to get a question 
asked and answered in five minutes by   
means of an electric wire1 instead of in
 two hours by the slow trudging of a    
messenger boy--that is the method that  
best suits our passion for instantaneous
 service4  ,it is one of the few social 
laws of which we are fairly sure1 that a
 nation organizes in proportion to its  
velocity4 ,we know that a               
four-mile-an-hour nation must remain a  
huge inert mass of peasants and         
villagers2 or if1 after centuries of    
slow toil1 it should pile up a great    
city1 the city will sooner or later fall
 to pieces of its own weight4 ,in such a
 way ,babylon rose and fell1 and        

,nineveh1 and ,thebes1 and ,carthage1   
and ,rome4 ,mere bulk1 unorganized1     
becomes its own destroyer4 ,it dies of  
clogging and congestion4 ,but when      
,stephenson's ,rocket ran twenty-nine   
miles an hour1 and ,morse's telegraph   
clicked its signals from ,washington to 
,baltimore1 and ,bell's telephone       
flashed the vibrations of speech between
 ,boston and ,salem1 a new era began4   
,in came the era of speed and the finely
 organized nations4 ,in came cities of  
unprecedented bulk1 but held together so
 closely by a web-work of steel rails   
and copper wires that they have become  
more alert and cooperative than any tiny
 hamlet of mud huts on the banks of the 
,congo4  ,that the telephone is now     
doing most of all1 in this binding      
together of all manner of men1 is       
perhaps not too much to claim1 when we  
remember that there are now in the      
,united ,states seventy thousand holders
 of ,bell telephone stock and ten       
million users of telephone service4     

,there are two hundred and sixty-four   
wires crossing the ,mississippi1 in the 
,bell system2 and five hundred and      
forty-four crossing ,mason and ,dixon's 
,line4 ,it is the telephone which does  
most to link together cottage and       
skyscraper and mansion and factory and  
farm4 ,it is not limited to experts or  
college graduates4 ,it reaches the man  
with a nickel as well as the man with a 
million4 ,it speaks all languages and   
serves all trades4 ,it helps to prevent 
sectionalism and race feuds4 ,it gives a
 common meeting place to capitalists and
 wage-workers4 ,it is so essentially the
 instrument of all the people1 in fact1 
that we might almost point to it as a   
national emblem1 as the trade-mark of   
democracy and the ,american spirit4  ,in
 a country like ours1 where there are   
eighty nationalities in the public      
schools1 the telephone has a peculiar   
value as a part of the national         
digestive apparatus4 ,it prevents the   
growth of dialects and helps on the     

process of assimilation4 ,such is the   
push of ,american life1 that the humble 
immigrants from ,southern ,europe1      
before they have been here half a dozen 
years1 have acquired the telephone habit
 and have linked on their small shops to
 the great wire network of              
intercommunication4 ,in the one         
community of ,brownsville1 for example1 
settled several years ago by an overflow
 of ,russian ,jews from the ,east ,side 
of ,new ,york1 there are now as many    
telephones as in the kingdom of ,greece4
 ,and in the swarming ,east ,side       
itself1 there is a single exchange in   
,orchard ,street which has more wires   
than there are in all the exchanges of  
,egypt4  ,there can be few higher ideals
 of practical democracy than that which 
comes to us from the telephone engineer4
 ,his purpose is much more comprehensive
 than the supplying of telephones to    
those who want them4 ,it is rather to   
make the telephone as universal as the  
water faucet1 to bring within speaking  

distance every economic unit1 to connect
 to the social organism every person who
 may at any time be needed4 ,just as the
 click of the reaper means bread1 and   
the purr of the sewing-machine means    
clothes1 and the roar of the ,bessemer  
converter means steel1 and the rattle of
 the press means education1 so the ring 
of the telephone bell has come to mean  
unity and organization4  ,already1 by   
cable1 telegraph1 and telephone1 no two 
towns in the civilized world are more   
than one hour apart4 ,we have even      
girdled the earth with a cablegram in   
twelve minutes4 ,we have made it        
possible for any man in ,new ,york ,city
 to enter into conversation with any    
other ,new ,yorker in twenty-one        
seconds4 ,we have not been satisfied    
with establishing such a system of      
transportation that we can start any day
 for anywhere from anywhere else2       
neither have we been satisfied with     
establishing such a system of           
communication that news and gossip are  

the common property of all nations4 ,we 
have gone farther4 ,we have established 
in every large region of population a   
system of voice-nerves that puts every  
man at every other man's ear1 and which 
so magically eliminates the factor of   
distance that the ,united ,states       
becomes three thousand miles of         
neighbors1 side by side4  ,this effort  
to conquer ,time and ,space is above all
 else the instinct of material progress4
 ,to shrivel up the miles and to stretch
 out the minutes--this has been one of  
the master passions of the human race4  
,and thus the larger truth about the    
telephone is that it is vastly more than
 a mere convenience4 ,it is not to be   
classed with safety razors and piano    
players and fountain pens4 ,it is       
nothing less than the high-speed tool of
 civilization1 gearing up the whole     
mechanism to more effective social      
service4 ,it is the symbol of national  
efficiency and cooperation4  ,all this  
the telephone is doing1 at a total cost 

to the nation of probably #bjj1jjj1jjj a
 year--no more than ,american farmers   
earn in ten days4 ,we pay the same price
 for it as we do for the potatoes1 or   
for one-third of the hay crop1 or for   
one-eighth of the corn4 ,out of every   
nickel spent for electrical service1 one
 cent goes to the telephone4 ,we could  
settle our telephone bill1 and have     
several millions left over1 if we cut   
off every fourth glass of liquor and    
smoke of tobacco4 ,whoever rents a      
typewriting machine1 or uses a street   
car twice a day1 or has his shoes       
polished once a day1 may for the same   
expense have a very good telephone      
service4 ,merely to shovel away the snow
 of a single storm in #aiaj cost the    
city government of ,new ,york as much as
 it will pay for five or six years of   
telephoning4  ,this almost incredible   
cheapness of telephony is still far from
 being generally perceived1 mainly for  
psychological reasons4 ,a telephone is  
not impressive4 ,it has no bulk4 ,it is 

not like the ,singer ,building or the   
,lusitania4 ,its wires and switchboards 
and batteries are scattered and hidden1 
and few have sufficient imagination to  
picture them in all their complexity4   
,if only it were possible to assemble   
the hundred or more telephone buildings 
of ,new ,york in one vast plaza1 and if 
the two thousand clerks and three       
thousand maintenance men and six        
thousand girl operators were to march to
 work each morning with bands and       
banners1 then1 perhaps1 there might be  
the necessary quality of impressiveness 
by which any large idea must always be  
imparted to the public mind4  ,for lack 
of a seven and one-half cent coin1 there
 is now five-cent telephony even in the 
largest ,american cities4 ,for five     
cents whoever wishes has an entire      
wire-system at his service1 a system    
that is kept waiting by day and night1  
so that it will be ready the instant he 
needs it4 ,this system may have cost    
from twenty to fifty millions1 yet it   

may be hired for one-eighth the cost of 
renting an automobile4 ,even in         
long-distance telephony1 the expense of 
a message dwindles when it is compared  
with the price of a return railway      
ticket4 ,a talk from ,new ,york to      
,philadelphia1 for instance1 costs      
seventy-five cents1 while the railway   
fare would be four dollars4 ,from ,new  
,york to ,chicago a talk costs five     
dollars as against seventy dollars by   
rail4 ,as ,harriman once said1 ,i can't 
get from my home to the depot for the   
price of a talk to ,omaha4  ,to say what
 the net profits have been1 to the      
entire body of people who have invested 
money in the telephone1 will always be  
more or less of a guess4 ,the general   
belief that immense fortunes were made  
by the lucky holders of ,bell stock1 is 
an exaggeration that has been kept alive
 by the promoters of wildcat companies4 
,no such fortunes were made4 ,i do not  
believe1 says ,theodore ,vail1 that any 
one man ever made a clear million out of

 the telephone4 ,there are not apt to be
 any get-rich-quick for-tunes made in   
corporations that issue no watered stock
 and do not capitalize their franchises4
 ,on the contrary1 up to #ahig1 the     
holders of stock in the ,bell ,companies
 had paid in four million1 seven hundred
 thousand dollars more than the par     
value2 and in the recent consolidation  
of ,eastern companies1 under the        
presidency of ,union ,n4 ,bethell1 the  
new stock was actually eight millions   
less than the stock that was retired4   
,few telephone companies paid any       
profits at first4 ,they had undervalued 
the cost of building and maintenance4   
,denver expected the cost to be two     
thousand1 five hundred dollars and spent
 sixty thousand dollars4 ,buffalo       
expected to pay three thousand dollars  
and had to pay one hundred and fifty    
thousand dollars4 ,also1 they made the  
unwelcome discovery that an exchange of 
two hundred costs more than twice as    
much as an exchange of one hundred1     

because of the greater amount of        
traffic4 ,usually a dollar that is paid 
to a telephone company is divided as    
follows3       ,rent444444444444 #d;c   
,taxes44444444444 #d;c                  
,interest44444444 #f;c                  
,surplus444444444 #h;c                  
,maintenance4444 #af;c                  
,dividends444444 #ah;c                  
,labor4444444444 #dd;c                  
----                   #a4jj   ,most of 
the rate troubles 7and their name has   
been legion7 have arisen because the    
telephone business was not understood4  
,in fact1 until recently1 it did not    
understand itself4 ,it persisted in     
holding to a local and individualistic  
view of its business4 ,it was slow to   
put telephones in unprofitable places4  
,it expected every instrument to pay its
 way4 ,in many ,states1 both the        
telephone men and the public overlooked 
the most vital fact in the case1 which  
is that the members of a telephone      
system are above all else               

,,interdependent4  ,one telephone by    
itself has no value4 ,it is as useless  
as a reed cut out of an organ or a      
finger that is severed from a hand4 ,it 
is not even ornamental or adaptable to  
any other pur-pose4 ,it is not at all   
like a piano or a talking-machine1 which
 has a separate existence4 ,it is useful
 only in proportion to the number of    
other telephones it reaches4 ,,and      
,,every ,,telephone ,,anywhere ,,adds   
,,value ,,to ,,every ,,other ,,telephone
 ,,on ,,the ,,same ,,system ,,of        
,,wires4 ,that1 in a sentence1 is the   
keynote of equitable rates4  ,many a    
telephone1 for the general good1 must be
 put where it does not earn its own     
living4 ,at any time some sudden        
emergency may arise that will make it   
for the moment priceless4 ,especially   
since the advent of the automobile1     
there is no nook or corner from which it
 may not be supremely necessary1 now and
 then1 to send a message4 ,this         
principle was acted upon recently in a  

most practical way by the ,pennsylvania 
,railroad1 which at its own expense     
installed five hundred and twenty-five  
telephones in the homes of its workmen  
in ,altoona4 ,in the same way1 it is    
clearly the social duty of the telephone
 company to widen out its system until  
every point is covered1 and then to     
distribute its gross charges as fairly  
as it can4 ,the whole must carry the    
whole--that is the philosophy of rates  
which must finally be recognized by     
legislatures and telephone companies    
alike4 ,it can never1 of course1 be     
reduced to a system or formula4 ,it will
 always be a matter of opinion and      
compromise1 requiring much skill and    
much patience4 ,but there will seldom be
 any serious trouble when once its basic
 principles are understood4  ,like all  
time-saving inventions1 like the        
railroad1 the reaper1 and the ,bessemer 
converter1 the telephone1 in the last   
analysis1 ,,costs ,,nothing2 ,,it ,,is  
,,the ,,lack ,,of ,,it ,,that ,,costs4  

,,the ,,nation ,,that ,,most ,,is ,,the 
,,nation ,,without ,,it4    ,,chapter   
,,viii4 ,,the ,,telephone ,,in ,,foreign
 ,,countries  ,the telephone was nearly 
a year old before ,europe was aware of  
its existence4 ,it received no public   
notice of any kind whatever until ,march
 #c1 #ahgg1 when the ,london ,athenaeum 
mentioned it in a few careful sentences4
 ,it was not welcomed1 except by those  
who wished an evening's entertainment4  
,and to the entire commercial world it  
was for four or five years a sort of    
scientific ,billiken1 that never could  
be of any service to serious people4    
,one after another1 several ,american   
enthusiasts rushed posthaste to ,europe1
 with dreams of eager nations clamoring 
for telephone systems1 and one after    
another they failed4 ,frederick ,a4     
,gower was the first of these4 ,he was  
an adventurous chevalier of business who
 gave up an agent's contract in return  
for a right to become a roving          
propagandist4 ,later he met a prima     

donna1 fell in love with and married    
her1 forsook telephony for ballooning1  
and lost his life in attempting to fly  
across the ,english ,channel4  ,next    
went ,william ,h4 ,reynolds1 of         
,providence1 who had bought five-eights 
of the ,british patent for five thousand
 dollars1 and half the right to ,russia1
 ,spain1 ,portugal1 and ,italy for two  
thousand1 five hundred dollars4 ,how he 
was received may be seen from a letter  
of his which has been preserved4 ,i have
 been working in ,london for four       
months1 he writes2 ,i have been to the  
,bank of ,england and elsewhere2 and ,i 
have not found one man who will put one 
shilling into the telephone4  ,bell     
himself hurried to ,england and         
,scotland on his wedding tour in #ahgh1 
with great expectations of having his   
invention appreciated in his native     
land4 ,but from a business point of     
view1 his mission was a total failure4  
,he received dinners a-plenty1 but no   
contracts2 and came back to the ,united 

,states an impoverished and disheartened
 man4 ,then the optimistic ,gardiner ,g4
 ,hubbard1 ,bell's father-in-law1 threw 
himself against the ,european inertia   
and organized the ,international and    
,oriental ,telephone ,companies1 which  
came to nothing of any importance4 ,in  
the same year even ,enos ,m4 ,barton1   
the sagacious founder of the ,western   
,electric1 went to ,france and ,england 
to establish an export trade in         
telephones1 and failed4  ,these able men
 found their plans thwarted by the      
indifference of the public1 and often by
 open hostility4 ,the telephone is      
little better than a toy1 said the      
,saturday ,review2 it amazes ignorant   
people for a moment1 but it is inferior 
to the well-established system of       
air-tubes4 ,what will become of the     
privacy of life8 asked another ,london  
editor4 ,what will become of the        
sanctity of the domestic hearth8        
,writers vied with each other in        
inventing methods of pooh-poohing ,bell 

and his invention4 ,it is ridiculously  
simple1 said one4 ,it is only an        
electrical speaking-tube1 said another4 
,it is a complicated form of            
speaking-trumpet1 said a third4 ,no     
,british editor could at first conceive 
of any use for the telephone1 except for
 divers and coal miners4 ,the price1    
too1 created a general outcry4 ,floods  
of toy telephones were being sold on the
 streets at a shilling apiece2 and      
although the ,government was charging   
sixty dollars a year for the use of its 
printing-telegraphs1 people protested   
loudly against paying half as much for  
telephones4 ,as late as #ahhb1 ,herbert 
,spencer writes3 ,the telephone is      
scarcely used at all in ,london1 and is 
unknown in the other ,english cities4   
,the first man of consequence to        
befriend the telephone was ,lord        
,kelvin1 then an untitled young         
scientist4 ,he had seen the original    
telephones at the ,centennial in        
,philadelphia1 and was so fascinated    

with them that the impulsive ,bell had  
thrust them into his hands as a gift4   
,at the next meeting of the ,british    
,association for the ,advancement of    
,science1 ,lord ,kelvin exhibited these4
 ,he did more4 ,he became the champion  
of the telephone4 ,he staked his        
reputation upon it4 ,he told the story  
of the tests made at the ,centennial1   
and assured the sceptical scientists    
that he had not been deceived4 ,all this
 my own ears heard1 he said1 spoken to  
me with unmistakable distinctness by    
this circular disc of iron4  ,the       
scientists and electrical experts were1 
for the most part1 split up into two    
camps4 ,some of them said the telephone 
was impossible1 while others said that  
nothing could be simpler4 ,almost all   
were agreed that what ,bell had done was
 a humorous trifle4 ,but ,lord ,kelvin  
persisted4 ,he hammered the truth home  
that the telephone was one of the most  
interesting inventions that has ever    
been made in the history of science4 ,he

 gave a demonstration with one end of   
the wire in a coal mine4 ,he stood side 
by side with ,bell at a public meeting  
in ,glasgow1 and declared3  ,the things 
that were called telephones before ,bell
 were as different from ,bell's         
telephone as a series of hand-claps are 
different from the human voice4 ,they   
were in fact electrical claps2 while    
,bell conceived the idea--,,the ,,wholly
 ,,original ,,and ,,novel ,,idea--of    
giving continuity to the shocks1 so as  
to perfectly reproduce the human voice4 
,one by one the scientists were forced  
to take the telephone seriously4 ,at a  
public test there was one noted         
professor who still stood in the ranks  
of the doubters4 ,he was asked to send a
 message4 ,he went to the instrument    
with a grin of incredulity1 and thinking
 the whole exhibition a joke1 shouted   
into the mouthpiece3 ,hi diddle         
diddle--follow up that4 ,then he        
listened for an answer4 ,the look on his
 face changed to one of the utmost      

amazement4 ,it says--,the cat and the   
fiddle1' he gasped1 and forthwith he    
became a convert to telephony4 ,by such 
tests the men of science were won over1 
and by the middle of #ahgg ,bell        
received a vociferous welcome when he   
addressed them at their annual          
convention at ,plymouth4  ,soon         
afterwards1 ,the ,london ,times         
surrendered4 ,it whirled                
right-about-face and praised the        
telephone to the skies4 ,suddenly and   
quietly the whole human race is brought 
within speaking and hearing distance1 it
 exclaimed2 scarcely anything was more  
desired and more impossible4 ,the next  
paper to quit the mob of scoffers was   
the ,tatler1 which said in an editorial 
peroration1 ,we cannot but feel         
im-pressed by the picture of a human    
child commanding the subtlest and       
strongest force in ,nature to carry1    
like a slave1 some whisper around the   
world4  ,closely after the scientists   
and editors came the nobility4 ,the     

,earl of ,caithness led the way4 ,he    
declared in public that the telephone is
 the most extraordinary thing ,i ever   
saw in my life4 ,and one wintry morning 
in #ahgh ,queen ,victoria drove to the  
house of ,sir ,thomas ,biddulph1 in     
,london1 and for an hour talked and     
listened by telephone to ,kate ,field1  
who sat in a ,downing ,street office4   
,miss ,field sang ,kathleen ,mavourneen1
 and the ,queen thanked her by          
telephone1 saying she was immensely     
pleased4 ,she congratulated ,bell       
himself1 who was present1 and asked if  
she might be permitted to buy the two   
telephones2 whereupon ,bell presented   
her with a pair done in ivory4  ,this   
incident1 as may be imagined1 did much  
to establish the reputation of telephony
 in ,great ,britain4 ,a wire was at once
 strung to ,windsor ,castle4 ,others    
were ordered by the ,daily ,news1 the   
,persian ,ambassador1 and five or six   
lords and baronets4 ,then came an order 
which raised the hopes of the telephone 

men to the highest heaven1 from the     
banking house of ,j4 ,s4 ,morgan  ,co4  
,it was the first recognition from the  
seats of the mighty in the business and 
financial world4 ,a tiny exchange1 with 
ten wires1 was promptly started in      
,london2 and on ,april #b;d1 #ahgi1     
,theodore ,vail1 the young manager of   
the ,bell ,company1 sent an order to the
 factory in ,boston1 ,please make one   
hundred hand telephones for export trade
 as early as possible4 ,the foreign     
trade had begun4  ,then there came a    
thunderbolt out of a blue sky1 a wholly 
unforeseen disaster4 ,just as a few     
energetic companies were sprouting up1  
the ,postmaster ,general suddenly       
proclaimed that the telephone was a     
species of telegraph4 ,according to a   
,british law the telegraph was required 
to be a ,government monopoly4 ,this law 
had been passed six years before the    
telephone was born1 but no matter4 ,the 
telephone men protested and argued4     
,tyndall and ,lord ,kelvin warned the   

,government that it was making an       
indefensible mistake4 ,but nothing could
 be done4 ,just as the first railways   
had been called toll-roads1 so the      
telephone was solemnly declared to be a 
telegraph4 ,also1 to add to the absurd  
humor of the situation1 ,judge ,stephen1
 of the ,high ,court of ,justice1 spoke 
the final word that compelled the       
telephone legally to be a telegraph1 and
 sustained his opinion by a quotation   
from ,webster's ,dictionary1 which was  
published twenty years before the       
telephone was invented4  ,having        
captured this new rival1 what next8 ,the
 ,postmaster ,general did not know4 ,he 
had1 of course1 no experience in        
telephony1 and neither had any of his   
officials in the telegraph department4  
,there was no book and no college to    
instruct him4 ,his telegraph was then1  
as it is to-day1 a business failure4 ,it
 was not earning its keep4 ,therefore he
 did not dare to shoulder the risk of   
constructing a second system of wires1  

and at last consented to give licenses  
to private companies4  ,but the muddle  
continued4 ,in order to compel          
competition1 according to the academic  
theories of the day1 licenses were given
 to thir-teen private companies4 ,as    
might have been expected1 the ablest    
company quickly swallowed the other     
twelve4 ,if it had been let alone1 this 
company might have given good service1  
but it was hobbled and fenced in by     
jealous regulations4 ,it was compelled  
to pay one-tenth of its gross earnings  
to the ,post ,office4 ,it was to hold   
itself ready to sell out at six months' 
notice4 ,and as soon as it had strung a 
long-distance system of wires1 the      
,postmaster ,general pounced down upon  
it and took it away4  ,then1 in #aijj1  
the ,post ,office tossed aside all      
obligations to the licensed company1 and
 threw open the door to a free-for-all  
competition4 ,it undertook to start a   
second system in ,london1 and in two    
years discovered its blunder and        

proposed to cooperate4 ,it granted      
licenses to five cities that demanded   
municipal ownership4 ,these cities set  
out bravely1 with loud beating of drums1
 plunged from one mishap to another1 and
 finally quit4 ,even ,glasgow1 the      
premier city of municipal ownership1 met
 its ,waterloo in the telephone4 ,it    
spent one million1 eight hundred        
thousand dollars on a plant that was    
obsolete when it was new1 ran it for a  
time at a loss1 and then sold it to the 
,post ,office in #aijf for one million1 
five hundred and twenty-five thousand   
dollars4  ,so1 from first to last1 the  
story of the telephone in ,great        
,britain has been a comedy of errors4   
,there are now1 in the two islands1 not 
six hundred thousand telephones in use4 
,london1 with its six hundred and forty 
square miles of houses1 has one-quarter 
of these1 and is gaining at the rate of 
ten thousand a year4 ,no large          
improvements are under way1 as the ,post
 ,office has given notice that it will  

take over and operate all private       
companies on ,new ,year's ,day1 #aiab4  
,the bureaucratic muddle1 so it seems1  
is to continue indefinitely4  ,in       
,germany there has been the same burden 
of bureaucracy1 but less backing and    
filling4 ,there is a complete government
 monopoly4 ,whoever commits the crime of
 leasing telephone service to his       
neighbors may be sent to jail for six   
months4 ,here1 too1 the ,postmaster     
,general has been supreme4 ,he has      
forced the telephone business into a    
postal mould4 ,the man in a small city  
must pay as high a rate for a small     
service1 as the man in a large city pays
 for a large service4 ,there is a fair  
degree of efficiency1 but no high speed 
or record-breaking4 ,the ,german        
engineers have not kept in close touch  
with the progress of telephony in the   
,united ,states4 ,they have preferred to
 devise methods of their own1 and so    
have created a miscellaneous assortment 
of systems1 good1 bad1 and indifferent4 

,all told1 there is probably an         
investment of seventy-five million      
dollars and a total of nine hundred     
thousand telephones4  ,telephony has    
always been in high favor with the      
,kaiser4 ,it is his custom1 when        
planning a hunting party1 to have a     
special wire strung to the forest       
headquarters1 so that he can converse   
every morning with his ,cabinet4 ,he has
 conferred degrees and honors by        
telephone4 ,even his former ,chancellor1
 ,von ,buelow1 received his title of    
,count in this informal way4 ,but the   
first friend of the telephone in        
,germany was ,bismarck4 ,the old        
,unifier saw instantly its value in     
holding a nation together1 and ordered a
 line between his palace in ,berlin and 
his farm at ,varzin1 which lay two      
hundred and thirty miles apart4 ,this   
was as early as the ,fall of #ahgg1 and 
was thus the first long-distance line in
 ,europe4  ,in ,france1 as in ,england1 
the ,government seized upon the         

telephone business as soon as the       
pioneer work had been done by private   
citizens4 ,in #ahhi it practically      
confiscated the ,paris system1 and after
 nine years of litigation paid five     
million francs to its owners4 ,with this
 reckless beginning1 it floundered from 
bad to worse4 ,it assembled the most    
complete assortment of other nations'   
mistakes1 and invented several of its   
own4 ,almost every known evil of        
bureaucracy was developed4 ,the system  
of rates was turned upside down2 the    
flat rate1 which can be profitably      
permitted in small cities only1 was put 
in force in the large cities1 and the   
message rate1 which is applicable only  
to large cities1 was put in force in    
small places4 ,the girl operators were  
entangled in a maze of civil service    
rules4 ,they were not allowed to marry  
without the permission of the           
,postmaster ,general2 and on no account 
might they dare to marry a mayor1 a     
policeman1 a cashier1 or a foreigner1   

lest they betray the secrets of the     
switchboard4  ,there was no national    
plan1 no standardization1 no staff of   
inventors and improvers4 ,every user was
 required to buy his own telephone4 ,as 
,george ,ade has said1 ,anything        
attached to a wall is liable to be a    
telephone in ,paris4 ,and so1 what with 
poor equipment and red tape1 the ,french
 system became what it remains to-day1  
the most conspicuous example of what    
,,not to do in telephony4  ,there are   
barely as many telephones in the whole  
of ,france as ought normally to be in   
the city of ,paris4 ,there are not as   
many as are now in use in ,chicago4 ,the
 exasperated ,parisians have protested4 
,they have presented a petition with    
thirty-two thousand names4 ,they have   
even organized a ,kickers' ,league--the 
only body of its kind in any country--to
 demand good service at a fair price4   
,the daily loss from bureaucratic       
telephony has become enormous4 ,one     
blundering girl in a telephone exchange 

cost me five thousand dollars on the day
 of the panic in #aijg1 said ,george    
,kessler4 ,but the ,government clears a 
net profit of three million dollars a   
year from its telephone monopoly2 and   
until #aiaj1 when a committee of        
betterment was appointed1 it showed no  
concern at the discomfort of the public4
  ,there was one striking lesson in     
telephone efficiency which ,paris       
received in #aijh1 when its main        
exchange was totally destroyed by fire4 
,to build a new switchboard1 said       
,european manufacturers1 will require   
four or five months4 ,a hustling young  
,chicagoan appeared on the scene4 ,we   
'll put in a new switchboard in sixty   
days1 he said2 and agree to forfeit six 
hundred dollars a day for delay4 ,such  
quick work had never been known4 ,but it
 was ,chicago's chance to show what she 
could do4 ,paris and ,chicago are four  
thousand1 five hundred miles apart1 a   
twelve days' journey4 ,the switchboard  
was to be a hundred and eighty feet in  

length1 with ten thousand wires4 ,yet   
the ,western ,electric finished it in   
three weeks4 ,it was rushed on six      
freight-cars to ,new ,york1 loaded on   
the ,french steamer ,la ,provence1 and  
deposited at ,paris in thirty-six days2 
so that by the time the sixty days had  
expired1 it was running full speed with 
a staff of ninety operators4  ,russia   
and ,austria-,hungary have now about one
 hundred and twenty-five thousand       
telephones apiece4 ,they are neck and   
neck in a race that has not at any time 
been a fast one4 ,in each country the   
,government has been a neglectful       
stepmother to the telephone4 ,it has    
starved the business with a lack of     
capital and used no enterprise in       
expanding it4 ,outside of ,vienna1      
,budapest1 ,st4 ,petersburg1 and ,moscow
 there are no wire-systems of any       
consequence4 ,the political deadlock    
between ,austria and ,hungary shuts out 
any immediate hope of a happier life for
 the telephone in those countries2 but  

in ,russia there has recently been a    
change in policy that may open up a new 
era4 ,permits are now being offered to  
one private company in each city1 in    
return for three per cent of the        
revenue4 ,by this step ,russia has      
unexpectedly swept to the front and is  
now1 to telephone men1 the freest       
country in ,europe4  ,in tiny           
,switzerland there has been government  
ownership from the first1 but with less 
detriment to the business than          
elsewhere4 ,here the officials have     
actually jilted the telegraph for the   
telephone4 ,they have seen the value of 
the talking wire to hold their valley   
villages together2 and so have          
cries-crossed the ,alps with a cheap and
 somewhat flimsy system of telephony    
that carries sixty million conversations
 a year4 ,even the monks of ,st4        
,bernard1 who rescue snowbound          
travellers1 have now equipped their     
mountain with a series of telephone     
booths4  ,the highest telephone in the  

world is on the peak of ,monte ,rosa1 in
 the ,italian ,alps1 very nearly three  
miles above the level of the sea4 ,it is
 linked to a line that runs to ,rome1 in
 order that a queen may talk to a       
professor4 ,in this case the ,queen is  
,margherita of ,italy and the professor 
is ,signor ,mosso1 the astronomer1 who  
studies the heavens from an observatory 
on ,monte ,rosa4 ,at her own expense1   
the ,queen had this wire strung by a    
crew of linemen1 who slipped and        
floundered on the mountain for six years
 before they had it pegged in place4    
,the general situation in ,italy is like
 that in ,great ,britain4 ,the          
,government has always monopolized the  
long-distance lines1 and is now about to
 buy out all private companies4 ,there  
are only fifty-five thousand telephones 
to thirty-two million people--as many as
 in ,norway and less than in ,denmark4  
,and in many of the southern and        
,sicilian provinces the jingle of the   
telephone bell is still an unfamiliar   

sound4  ,the main peculiarity in        
,holland is that there is no national   
plan1 but rather a patchwork1 that      
resembles ,joseph's coat of many colors4
 ,each city engineer has designed his   
own type of apparatus and had it made to
 order4 ,also1 each company is fenced in
 by law within a six-mile circle1 so    
that ,holland is dotted with thumb-nail 
systems1 no two of which are alike4 ,in 
,belgium there has been a government    
system since #ahic1 hence there is      
unity1 but no enterprise4 ,the plant is 
old-fashioned and too small4 ,spain has 
private companies1 which give fairly    
good service to twenty thousand people4 
,roumania has half as many4 ,portugal   
has two small companies in ,lisbon and  
,oporto4 ,greece1 ,servia1 and ,bulgaria
 have a scanty two thousand apiece4 ,the
 frozen little isle of ,iceland has     
one-quarter as many2 and even into      
,turkey1 which was a forbidden land     
under the regime of the old ,sultan1 the
 ,young ,turks are importing boxes of   

telephones and coils of copper wire4    
,there is one ,european country1 and    
only one1 which has caught the telephone
 spirit--,sweden4 ,here telephony had a 
free swinging start4 ,it was let alone  
by the ,post ,office2 and better still1 
it had a ,man1 a business-builder of    
remarkable force and ability1 named     
,henry ,cedergren4 ,had this man been   
made the ,telephone-,master of ,europe1 
there would have been a different story 
to tell4 ,by his insistent enterprise he
 made ,stockholm the best telephoned    
city outside of the ,united ,states4 ,he
 pushed his country forward until1      
having one hundred and sixty-five       
thousand telephones1 it stood fourth    
among the ,european nations4 ,since his 
death the ,government has entered the   
field with a duplicate system1 and a war
 has been begun which grows yearly more 
costly and absurd4  ,asia1 as yet1 with 
her eight hundred and fifty million     
people1 has fewer telephones than       
,philadelphia1 and three-fourths of them

 are in the tiny island of ,japan4 ,the 
,japanese were enthusiastic telephonists
 from the first4 ,they had a busy       
exchange in ,tokio in #ahhc4 ,this has  
now grown to have twenty-five thousand  
users1 and might have more1 if it had   
not been stunted by the peculiar policy 
of the ,government4 ,the public         
officials who operate the system are    
able men4 ,they charge a fair price and 
make ten per cent profit for the ,state4
 ,but they do not keep pace with the    
demand4 ,it is one of the oddest        
vagaries of public ownership that there 
is now in ,tokio a ,,waiting ,,list of  
eight thousand citizens1 who are        
offering to pay for telephones and      
cannot get them4 ,and when a ,tokian    
dies1 his franchise to a telephone1 if  
he has one1 is usually itemized in his  
will as a four-hundred-dollar property4 
,india1 which is second on the ,asiatic 
list1 has no more than nine thousand    
telephones--one to every thirty-three   
thousand of her population6 ,not quite  

so many1 in fact1 as there are in five  
of the skyscrapers of ,new ,york4 ,the  
,dutch ,east ,indies and ,china have    
only seven thousand apiece1 but in      
,china there has recently come a forward
 movement4 ,a fund of twenty million    
dollars is to be spent in constructing a
 national system of telephone and       
telegraph4 ,peking is now pointing with 
wonder and delight to a new exchange1   
spick and span1 with a couple of        
ten-thousand-wire switchboards4 ,others 
are being built in ,canton1 ,hankow1 and
 ,tien-,tsin4 ,ultimately1 the telephone
 will flourish in ,china1 as it has done
 in the ,chinese quarter in ,san        
,francisco4 ,the ,empress of ,china1    
after the siege of ,peking1 commanded   
that a telephone should be hung in her  
palace1 within reach of her dragon      
throne2 and she was very friendly with  
any representative of the ,speaking     
,lightning ,sounds business1 as the     
,chinese term telephony4  ,in ,persia   
the telephone made its entry recently in

 true comic-opera fashion4 ,a new ,shah1
 in an outburst of confidence1 set up a 
wire between his palace and the         
market-place in ,teheran1 and invited   
his people to talk to him whenever they 
had grievances4 ,and they talked6 ,they 
talked so freely and used such language1
 that the ,shah ordered out his soldiers
 and attacked them4 ,he fired upon the  
new ,parliament1 and was at once chased 
out of ,persia by the enraged people4   
,from this it would appear that the     
telephone ought to be popular in        
,persia1 although at present there are  
not more than twenty in use4  ,south    
,america1 outside of ,buenos ,ayres1 has
 few telephones1 probably not more than 
thirty thousand4 ,dom ,pedro of ,brazil1
 who befriended ,bell at the            
,centennial1 introduced telephony into  
his country in #ahha2 but it has not in 
thirty years been able to obtain ten    
thousand users4 ,canada has exactly the 
same number as ,sweden--one hundred and 
sixty-five thousand4 ,mexico has perhaps

 ten thousand2 ,new ,zealand twenty-six 
thousand2 and ,australia fifty-five     
thousand4  ,far down in the list of     
continents stands ,africa4 ,egypt and   
,algeria have twelve thousand at the    
north2 ,british ,south ,africa has as   
many at the south2 and in the vast      
stretches between there are barely a    
thousand more4 ,whoever pushes into     
,central ,africa will still hear the    
beat of the wooden drum1 which is the   
clattering sign-language of the natives4
 ,one strand of copper wire there is1   
through the ,congo region1 placed there 
by order of the late ,king of ,belgium4 
,to string it was probably the most     
adventurous piece of work in the history
 of telephone linemen4 ,there was one   
seven hundred and fifty mile stretch of 
the central jungle4 ,there were white   
ants that ate the wooden poles1 and wild
 elephants that pulled up the iron      
poles4 ,there were monkeys that played  
tag on the lines1 and savages that stole
 the wire for arrow-heads4 ,but the line

 was carried through1 and to-day is     
alive with conversations concerning     
rubber and ivory4  ,so1 we may almost   
say of the telephone that there is no   
speech nor language where its voice is  
not heard4 ,there are even a thousand   
miles of its wire in ,abyssinia and one 
hundred and fifty miles in the ,fiji    
,islands4 ,roughly speaking1 there are  
now ten million telephones in all       
countries1 employing two hundred and    
fifty thousand people1 requiring        
twenty-one million miles of wire1       
representing a cost of fifteen hundred  
million dollars1 and carrying fourteen  
thousand million conversations a year4  
,all this1 and yet the men who heard the
 first feeble cry of the infant         
telephone are still alive1 and not by   
any means old4  ,no foreign country has 
reached the high ,american level of     
telephony4 ,the ,united ,states has     
eight telephones per hundred of         
population1 while no other country has  
one-half as many4 ,canada stands second1

 with almost four per hundred2 and      
,sweden is third4 ,germany has as many  
telephones as the ,state of ,new ,york2 
and ,great ,britain as many as ,ohio4   
,chicago has more than ,london2 and     
,boston twice as many as ,paris4 ,in the
 whole of ,europe1 with her twenty      
nations1 there are one-third as many    
telephones as in the ,united ,states4   
,in proportion to her population1       
,europe has only one-thirteenth as many4
  ,the ,united ,states writes half as   
many letters as ,europe1 sends one-third
 as many telegrams1 and talks twice as  
much at the telephone4 ,the average     
,european family sends three telegrams a
 year1 and three letters and one        
telephone message a week2 while the     
average ,american family sends five     
telegrams a year1 and seven letters and 
eleven telephone messages a week4 ,this 
one na-tion1 which owns six per cent of 
the earth and is five per cent of the   
human race1 has ,,seventy per cent of   
the telephones4 ,and fifty per cent1 or 

one-half1 of the telephony of the world1
 is now comprised in the ,bell ,system  
of this country4  ,there are only six   
nations in ,europe that make a fair     
showing--the ,germans1 ,british1        
,swedish1 ,danes1 ,norwegians1 and      
,swiss4 ,the others have less than one  
telephone per hundred4 ,little ,denmark 
has more than ,austria4 ,little ,finland
 has better service than ,france4 ,the  
,belgian telephones have cost the       
most--two hundred and seventy-three     
dollars apiece2 and the ,finnish        
telephones the least--eighty-one        
dollars4 ,but a telephone in ,belgium   
earns three times as much as one in     
,norway4 ,in general1 the lesson in     
,europe is this1 that the telephone is  
what a nation makes it4 ,its usefulness 
depends upon the sense and enterprise   
with which it is handled4 ,it may be    
either an invaluable asset or a         
nuisance4  ,too much government6 ,that  
has been the basic reason for failure in
 most countries4 ,before the telephone  

was invented1 the telegraph had been    
made a ,state monopoly2 and the         
tele-phone was regarded as a species of 
telegraph4 ,the public officials did not
 see that a telephone system is a highly
 complex and technical problem1 much    
more like a piano factory or a          
steel-mill4 ,and so1 wherever a group of
 citizens established a telephone       
service1 the government officials looked
 upon it with jealous eyes1 and usually 
snatched it away4 ,the telephone thus   
became a part of the telegraph1 which is
 a part of the post office1 which is a  
part of the government4 ,it is a        
fraction of a fraction of a fraction--a 
mere twig of bureaucracy4 ,under such   
conditions the telephone could not      
prosper4 ,the wonder is that it         
survived4  ,handled on the ,american    
plan1 the telephone abroad may be raised
 to ,american levels4 ,there is no      
racial reason for failure4 ,the slow    
service and the bungling are the natural
 results of treating the telephone as   

though it were a road or a fire         
department2 and any nation that rises to
 a proper conception of the telephone1  
that dares to put it into competent     
hands and to strengthen it with enough  
capital1 can secure as alert and brisk a
 service as heart can wish4 ,some       
nations are already on the way4 ,china1 
,japan1 and ,france have sent           
delegations to ,new ,york ,city--the    
,mecca of telephone men1 to learn the   
art of telephony in its highest         
development4 ,even ,russia has rescued  
the telephone from her bureaucrats and  
is now offering it freely to men of     
enterprise4  ,in most foreign countries 
telephone service is being steadily     
geared up to a faster pace4 ,the craze  
for cheap and nasty telephony is        
passing2 and the idea that the telephone
 is above all else a ,,speed instrument1
 is gaining ground4 ,a faster           
long-distance service1 at double rates1 
is being well patronized4 ,slow-moving  
races are learning the value of time1   

which is the first lesson in telephony4 
,our reapers and mowers now go to       
seventy-five nations4 ,our street cars  
run in all great cities4 ,morocco is    
importing our dollar watches2 ,korea is 
learning the waste of allowing nine men 
to dig with one spade4 ,and all this    
means telephones4  ,in thirty years1 the
 ,western ,electric has sold sixty-seven
 million dollars' worth of telephonic   
apparatus to foreign countries4 ,but    
this is no more than a fair beginning4  
,to put one telephone in ,china to every
 hundred people will mean an outlay of  
three hundred million dollars4 ,to give 
,europe as fit an equipment as the      
,united ,states now has1 will mean      
thirty million telephones1 with proper  
wire and switchboards to match4 ,and    
while telephony for the masses is not   
yet a live question in many countries1  
sooner or later1 in the relentless push 
of civilization1 it must come4          
,possibly1 in that far future of peace  
and goodwill among nations1 when each   

country does for all the others what it 
can do best1 the ,united ,states may be 
generally recognized as the source of   
skill and authority on telephony4 ,it   
may be called in to rebuild or operate  
the telephone systems of other          
countries1 in the same way that it is   
now supplying oil and steel rails and   
farm machinery4 ,just as the wise buyer 
of to-day asks ,france for champagne1   
,germany for toys1 ,england for cottons1
 and the ,orient for rugs1 so he will   
learn to look upon the ,united ,states  
as the natural home and headquarters of 
the telephone4    ,,chapter ,,ix4 ,,the 
,,future ,,of ,,the ,,telephone  ,in the
 ,spring of #aijg ,theodore ,n4 ,vail1 a
 rugged1 ruddy1 white-haired man1 was   
superintending the building of a big    
barn in northern ,vermont4 ,his house   
stood near-by1 on a balcony of rolling  
land that overlooked the town of ,lyndon
 and far beyond1 across evergreen       
forests to the massive bulk of ,burke   
,mountain4 ,his farm1 very nearly ten   

square miles in area1 lay back of the   
house in a great oval of field and      
woodland1 with several dozen cottages in
 the clearings4 ,his ,welsh ponies and  
,swiss cattle were grazing on the ,may  
grass1 and the men were busy with the   
ploughs and harrows and seeders4 ,it was
 almost thirty years since he had been  
called in to create the business        
structure of telephony1 and to shape the
 general plan of its development4 ,since
 then he had done many other things4    
,the one city of ,buenos ,ayres had paid
 him more1 merely for giving it a system
 of trolleys and electric lights1 than  
the ,united ,states had paid him for    
putting the telephone on a business     
basis4 ,he was now rich and retired1    
free to enjoy his play-work of the farm 
and to forget the troubles of the city  
and the telephone4  ,but1 as he stood   
among his barn-builders1 there arrived  
from ,boston and ,new ,york a delegation
 of telephone directors4 ,most of them  
belonged to the ,old ,guard of          

telephony4 ,they had fought under ,vail 
in the pioneer days2 and now they had   
come to ask him to return to the        
telephone business1 after twenty years  
of absence4 ,vail laughed at the        
suggestion4  ,nonsense1 he said1 ,i'm   
too old4 ,i'm sixty-two years of age4   
,the directors persisted4 ,they spoke of
 the approaching storm-cloud of panic   
and the need of another strong hand at  
the wheel until the crisis was over1 but
 ,vail still refused4 ,they spoke of old
 times and old memories1 but he shook   
his head4 ,all my life1 he said1 ,i have
 wanted to be a farmer4  ,then they drew
 a picture of the telephone situation4  
,they showed him that the grand         
telephonic system which he had planned  
was unfinished4 ,he was its architect1  
and it was undone4 ,the telephone       
business was energetic and prosperous4  
,under the brilliant leadership of      
,frederick ,p4 ,fish1 it had grown by   
leaps and bounds4 ,but it was still far 
from being the ,,system that ,vail had  

dreamed of in his younger days2 and so1 
when the directors put before him his   
unfinished plan1 he surrendered4 ,the   
instinct for completeness1 which is one 
of the dominating characteristics of his
 mind1 compelled him to consent4 ,it was
 the call of the telephone4  ,since that
 ,may morning1 #aijg1 great things have 
been done by the men of the telephone   
and telegraph world4 ,the ,bell ,system 
was brought through the panic without a 
scratch4 ,when the doubt and confusion  
were at their worst1 ,vail wrote an open
 letter to his stock-holders1 in his    
practical1 farmer-like way4 ,he said3   
,our net earnings for the last ten      
months were #ac1gae1jjj1 as against     
#aa1egi1jjj for the same period in      
#aijf4 ,we have now in the banks over   
#ah1jjj1jjj2 and we will not need to    
borrow any money for two years4  ,soon  
afterwards1 the work of consolidation   
began4 ,companies that overlapped were  
united4 ,small local wire-clusters1     
several thousands of them1 were linked  

to the national lines4 ,a policy of     
publicity superseded the secrecy which  
had naturally grown to be a habit in the
 days of patent litigation4 ,visitors   
and reporters found an open door4       
,educational advertisements were        
published in the most popular magazines4
 ,the corps of inventors was spurred up 
to conquer the long-distance problems4  
,and in return for a thirty million     
check1 the control of the historic      
,western ,union was transferred from the
 children of ,jay ,gould to the thirty  
thousand stock-holders of the ,american 
,telephone and ,telegraph ,company4     
,from what has been done1 therefore1 we 
may venture a guess as to the future of 
the telephone4 ,this grand telephonic   
system which had no existence thirty    
years ago1 except in the imagination of 
,vail1 seems to be at hand4 ,the very   
newsboys in the streets are crying it4  
,and while there is1 of course1 no exact
 blueprint of a best possible telephone 
system1 we can now see the general      

outlines of ,vail's plan4  ,there is    
nothing mysterious or ominous in this   
plan4 ,it has nothing to do with the    
pools and conspiracies of ,wall ,street4
 ,no one will be squeezed out except the
 promoters of paper companies4 ,the     
simple fact is that ,vail is organizing 
a complete ,bell ,system for the same   
reason that he built one big comfortable
 barn for his ,swiss cattle and his     
,welsh ponies1 instead of half a dozen  
small uncomfortable sheds4 ,he has never
 been a high financier to juggle profits
 out of other men's losses4 ,he is      
merely applying to the telephone        
business the same hard sense that any   
farmer uses in the management of his    
farm4 ,he is building a ,big ,barn1     
metaphorically1 for the telephone and   
telegraph4  ,plainly1 the telephone     
system of the future will be national1  
so that any two people in the same      
country will be able to talk to one     
another4 ,it will not be competitive1   
for the reason that no farmer would     

think for a moment of running his farm  
on competitive lines4 ,it will have a   
staff-and-line organization1 to use a   
military phrase4 ,each local company    
will continue to handle its own local   
affairs1 and exercise to the full the   
basic virtue of self-help4 ,but there   
will also be1 as now1 a central body of 
experts to handle the larger affairs    
that are common to all companies4 ,no   
separateness or secession on the one    
side1 nor bureaucracy on the other--that
 is the typically ,american idea that   
underlies the ideal telephone system4   
,the line of authority1 in such a       
system1 will begin with the local       
manager4 ,from him it will rise to the  
directors of the ,state company2 then   
higher still to the directors of the    
national company2 and finally1 above all
 corporate leaders to the ,federal      
,government itself4 ,the failure of     
government ownership of the telephone in
 so many foreign countries does not mean
 that the private companies will have   

absolute power4 ,quite the reverse4 ,the
 lesson of thirty years' experience     
shows that a private telephone company  
is apt to be much more obedient to the  
will of the people than if it were a    
,government department4 ,but it is an   
axiom of democracy that no company1     
however well conducted1 will be         
permitted to control a public           
convenience without being held strictly 
responsible for its own acts4 ,as       
politics becomes less of a game and more
 of a responsibility1 the telephone of  
the future will doubtless be supervised 
by some sort of public committee1 which 
will have power to pass upon complaints1
 and to prevent the nuisance of         
duplication and the swindle of watering 
stock4  ,as this ,federal supervision   
becomes more and more efficient1 the    
present fear of monopoly will decrease1 
just as it did in the case of the       
railways4 ,it is a fact1 although now   
generally forgotten1 that the first     
railways of the ,united ,states were run

 for ten years or more on an            
anti-monopoly plan4 ,the tracks were    
free to all4 ,any one who owned a cart  
with flanged wheels could drive it on   
the rails and compete with the          
locomotives4 ,there was a happy-go-lucky
 jumble of trains and wagons1 all held  
back by the slowest team2 and this      
continued on some railways until as late
 as #aheg4 ,by that time the people saw 
that com-petition on a railway track was
 absurd4 ,they allowed each track to be 
monopolized by one company1 and the era 
of expansion began4  ,no one1 certainly1
 at the present time1 regrets the       
passing of the independent teamster4 ,he
 was much more arbitrary and expensive  
than any railroad has ever dared to be2 
and as the country grew1 he became      
impossible4 ,he was not the fittest to  
survive4 ,for the general good1 he was  
held back from competing with the       
railroad1 and taught to cooperate with  
it by hauling freight to and from the   
depots4 ,this1 to his surprise1 he found

 much more profitable and pleasant4 ,he 
had been squeezed out of a bad job into 
a good one4 ,and by a similar process of
 evolution1 the ,united ,states is      
rapidly outgrowing the small independent
 telephone companies4 ,these will       
eventually1 one by one1 rise as the     
teamster did to a higher social value1  
by clasping wires with the main system  
of telephony4  ,until #ahha the ,bell   
,system was in the hands of a family    
group4 ,it was a strictly private       
enterprise4 ,the public had been asked  
to help in its launching1 and had       
refused4 ,but after #ahha it passed into
 the control of the small stock-holders1
 and has remained there without a break4
 ,it is now one of our most democratized
 businesses1 scattering either wages or 
dividends into more than a hundred      
thousand homes4 ,it has at times been   
exclusive1 but never sordid4 ,it has    
never been dollar-mad1 nor frenzied by  
the virus of stock-gambling4 ,there has 
always been a vein of sentiment in it   

that kept it in touch with human nature4
 ,even at the present time1 each check  
of the ,american ,telephone and         
,telegraph ,company carries on it a     
picture of a pretty ,cupid1 sitting on a
 chair upon which he has placed a thick 
book1 and gayly prattling into a        
telephone4  ,several sweeping changes   
may be expected in the near future1 now 
that there is team-play between the     
,bell ,system and the ,western ,union4  
,already1 by a stroke of the pen1 five  
million users of telephones have been   
put on the credit books of the ,western 
,union2 and every ,bell telephone office
 is now a telegraph office4 ,three      
telephone messages and eight telegrams  
may be sent ,,at ,,the ,,same ,,time    
over two pairs of wires3 that is one of 
the recent miracles of science1 and is  
now to be tried out upon a gigantic     
scale4 ,most of the long-distance       
telephone wires1 fully two million      
miles1 can be used for telegraphic      
purposes2 and a third of the ,western   

,union wires1 five hundred thousand     
miles1 may with a few changes be used   
for talking4  ,the ,western ,union is   
paying rent for twenty-two thousand1    
five hundred offices1 all of which helps
 to make telegraphy a luxury of the few4
 ,it is employing as large a force of   
messenger-boys as the army that marched 
with ,general ,sherman from ,atlanta to 
the sea4 ,both of these items of expense
 will dwindle when a ,bell wire and a   
,morse wire can be brought to a common  
terminal2 and when a telegram can be    
received or delivered by telephone4     
,there will also be a gain1 perhaps the 
largest of all1 in removing the trudging
 little messenger-boy from the streets  
and sending him either to school or to  
learn some useful trade4  ,the fact is  
that the ,united ,states is the first   
country that has succeeded in putting   
both telephone and telegraph upon the   
proper basis4  ,elsewhere either the two
 are widely apart1 or the telephone is a
 mere adjunct of a telegraphic          

department4 ,according to the new       
,american plan1 the two are not         
competitive1 but complementary4 ,the one
 is a supplement to the other4 ,the post
 office sends a package2 the telegraph  
sends the contents of the package2 but  
the telephone sends nothing4 ,it is an  
apparatus that makes conversation       
possible between two separated people4  
,each of the three has a distinct field 
of its own1 so that there has never been
 any cause for jealousy among them4  ,to
 make the telephone an annex of the post
 office or the telegraph has become     
absurd4 ,there are now in the whole     
world very nearly as many messages sent 
by telephone as by letter2 and there are
 ,,thirty-,,two ,,times as many         
telephone calls as telegrams4 ,in the   
,united ,states1 the telephone has grown
 to be the big brother of the telegraph4
 ,it has six times the net earnings and 
eight times the wire4 ,and it transmits 
as many messages as the combined total  
of telegrams1 letters1 and railroad     

passengers4  ,this universal trend      
toward consolidation has introduced a   
variety of problems that will engage the
 ablest brains in the telephone world   
for many years to come4 ,how to get the 
benefits of organization without its    
losses1 to become strong without losing 
quickness1 to become systematic without 
losing the dash and dare of earlier     
days1 to develop the working force into 
an army of high-speed specialists       
without losing the bird's-eye view of   
the whole situation1--these are the     
riddles of the new type1 for which the  
telephonists of the next generation must
 find the answers4 ,they illustrate the 
nature of the big jobs that the         
telephone has to offer to an ambitious  
and gifted young man of to-day4  ,the   
problems never were as large or as      
complex as they are right now1 says ,j4 
,j4 ,carty1 the chief of the telephone  
engineers4 ,the eternal struggle remains
 between the large and little           
ideas--between the men who see what     

might be and the men who only see what  
,,is4 ,there is still the race to break 
records4 ,already the girl at the       
switchboard can find the person wanted  
in thirty seconds4 ,this is one-tenth of
 the time that was taken in the early   
centrals2 but it is still too long4 ,it 
is one-half of a valuable minute4 ,it   
must be cut to twenty-five seconds1 or  
twenty or fifteen4  ,there is still the 
inventors' battle to gain miles4 ,the   
distance over which conversations can be
 held has been increased from twenty    
miles to twenty-five hundred4 ,but this 
is not far enough4 ,there are some      
civilized human beings who are twelve   
thousand miles apart1 and who have      
interests in common4 ,during the ,boxer 
,rebellion in ,china1 for instance1     
there were ,americans in ,peking who    
would gladly have given half of their   
fortune for the use of a pair of wires  
to ,new ,york4  ,in the earliest days of
 the telephone1 ,bell was fond of       
prophesying that the time will come when

 we will talk across the ,atlantic      
,ocean2 but this was regarded as a      
poetical fancy until ,pupin invented his
 method of automatically propelling the 
electric current4 ,since then the most  
conservative engineer will discuss the  
problem of transatlantic telephony4 ,and
 as for the poets1 they are now dreaming
 of the time when a man may speak and   
hear his own voice come back to him     
around the world4  ,the immediate       
long-distance problem is1 of course1 to 
talk from ,new ,york to the ,pacific4   
,the two oceans are now only three and a
 half days apart by rail4 ,seattle is   
clamoring for a wire to the ,east4 ,san 
,diego wants one in time for her ,panama
 ,canal ,exposition in #aiae4 ,the wires
 are already strung to ,san ,francisco1 
but cannot be used in the present stage 
of the art4 ,and ,vail's captains are   
working now with almost breathless haste
 to give him a birthday present of a    
talk across the continent from his farm 
in ,vermont4  ,i can see a universal    

system of telephony for the ,united     
,states in the very near future1 says   
,carty4 ,there is a statue of ,seward   
standing in one of the streets of       
,seattle4 ,the inscription upon it is1  
,to a ,united ,country4' ,but as an     
,easterner stands there1 he feels the   
isolation of that ,far ,western ,state1 
and he will always feel it1 until he can
 talk from one side of the ,united      
,states to the other4 ,for my part1     
continues ,carty1 ,i believe we will    
talk across continents and across       
oceans4 ,why not8 ,are there not more   
cells in one human body than there are  
people in the whole earth8  ,some future
 ,carty may solve the abandoned problem 
of the single wire1 and cut the copper  
bill in two by restoring the grounded   
circuit4 ,he may transmit vision as well
 as speech4 ,he may perfect a third-rail
 system for use on moving trains4 ,he   
may conceive of an ideal insulating     
material to supersede glass1 mica1      
paper1 and enamel4 ,he may establish a  

universal code1 so that all persons of  
importance in the ,united ,states shall 
have call-numbers by which they may     
instantly be located1 as books are in a 
library4  ,some other young man may     
create a commercial department on wide  
lines1 a work which telephone men have  
as yet been too specialized to do4      
,whoever does this will be a man of     
comprehensive brain4 ,he will be as     
closely in touch with the average man as
 with the art of telephony4 ,he will    
know the gossip of the street1 the      
demands of the labor unions1 and the    
policies of governors and presidents4   
,the psychology of the ,western farmer  
will concern him1 and the tone of the   
daily press1 and the methods of         
department stores4 ,it will be his aim  
to know the subtle chemistry of public  
opinion1 and to adapt the telephone     
service to the shifting moods and       
necessities of the times4 ,,he ,,will   
,,fit ,,telephony ,,like ,a ,,garment   
,,around ,,the ,,habits ,,of ,,the      

,,people4  ,also1 now that the telephone
 business has become strong1 its next   
anxiety must be to develop the virtues1 
and not the defects1 of strength4 ,its  
motto must be ,ich dien--,i serve2 and  
it will be the work of the future       
statesmen of the telephone to illustrate
 this motto in all its practical        
variations4 ,they will cater and        
explain1 and explain and cater4 ,they   
will educate and educate1 until they    
have created an expert public4 ,they    
will teach by pictures and lectures and 
exhibitions4 ,they will have charts and 
diagrams hung in the telephone booths1  
so that the person who is waiting for a 
call may learn a little and pass the    
time more pleasantly4 ,they will1 in a  
word1 attend to those innumerable       
trifles that make the perfection of     
public service4  ,already the ,bell     
,system has gone far in this direction  
by organizing what might fairly be      
called a foresight department4 ,here is 
where the fortune-tellers of the        

business sit4 ,when new lines or        
exchanges are to be built1 these men    
study the situation with an eye to the  
future4 ,they prepare a fundamental     
plan1 outlining what may reasonably be  
expected to happen in fifteen or twenty 
years4 ,invariably they are optimists4  
,they make provision for growth1 but    
none at all for shrinkage4 ,by their    
advice1 there is now twenty-five million
 dollars' worth of reserve plant in the 
various ,bell ,companies1 waiting for   
the country to grow up to it4 ,even in  
the city of ,new ,york1 one-half of the 
cable ducts are empty1 in expectation of
 the greater city of eight million      
population which is scheduled to arrive 
in #aibh4 ,there are perhaps few more   
impressive evidences of practical       
optimism and confidence than a new      
telephone exchange1 with two-thirds of  
its wires waiting for the business of   
the future4  ,eventually1 this foresight
 department will expand4 ,it may1 if a  
leader of genius appear1 become the     

first real corps of practical           
sociologists1 which will substitute     
facts for the present hotch-potch of    
theories4 ,it will prepare a fundamental
 plan of the whole ,united ,states1     
showing the centre of each industry and 
the main runways of traffic4 ,it will   
act upon the basic fact that ,,wherever 
,,there ,,is ,,interdependence1 ,,there 
,,is ,,bound ,,to ,,be ,,telephony2 and 
it will therefore prepare maps of       
interdependence1 showing the widely     
scattered groups of industry and        
finance1 and the lines that weave them  
into a pattern of national cooperation4 
,as yet1 no nation1 not even our own1   
has seen the full value of the          
long-distance telephone4 ,few have the  
imagination to see what has been made   
possible1 and to realize that an actual 
face-to-face conversation may take      
place1 even though there be a thousand  
miles between4 ,neither can it seem     
credible that a man in a distant city   
may be located as readily as though he  

were close at hand4 ,it is too amazing  
to be true1 and possibly a new          
generation will have to arrive before it
 will be taken for granted and acted    
upon freely4 ,ultimately1 there can be  
no doubt that long-distance telephony   
will be regarded as a national asset of 
the highest value1 for the reason that  
it can prevent so much of the enormous  
economic waste of travel4  ,nothing that
 science can say will ever decrease the 
marvel of a long-distance conversation1 
and there may come in the future an     
,interpreter who will put it before our 
eyes in the form of a moving-picture4   
,he will enable us to follow the flying 
words in a talk from ,boston to ,denver4
 ,we will flash first to ,worcester1    
cross the ,hudson on the high bridge at 
,poughkeepsie1 swing southwest through a
 dozen coal towns to the outskirts of   
,philadelphia1 leap across the          
,susquehanna1 zigzag up and down the    
,alleghenies into the murk of           
,pittsburg1 cross the ,ohio at          

,wheeling1 glance past ,columbus and    
,indianapolis1 over the ,wabash at      
,terre ,haute1 into ,st4 ,louis by the  
,eads bridge1 through ,kansas ,city1    
across the ,missouri1 along the         
corn-fields of ,kansas1 and then        
on--on--on with the ,sante ,fe ,railway1
 across vast plains and past the brink  
of the ,grand ,canyon1 to ,pueblo and   
the lofty city of ,denver4 ,twenty-five 
hundred miles along a thousand tons of  
copper wire6 ,from ,bunker ,hill to     
,pike's ,peak ,,in ,a ,,second6         
,herbert ,spencer1 in his autobiography1
 alludes to the impressive fact that    
while the eye is reading a single line  
of type1 the earth has travelled thirty 
miles through space4 ,but this1 in      
telephony1 would be slow travelling4 ,it
 is simple everyday truth to say that   
while your eye is reading this dash1--1 
a telephone sound can be carried from   
,new ,york to ,chicago4  ,there are many
 reasons to believe that for the        
practical idealists of the future1 the  

supreme study will be the force that    
makes such miracles possible4 ,six      
thousand million dollars--one-twentieth 
of our national wealth--is at the       
present time invested in electrical     
development4 ,the ,electrical ,age has  
not yet arrived2 but it is at hand2 and 
no one can tell how brilliant the result
 may be1 when the creative minds of a   
nation are focussed upon the subdual of 
this mysterious force1 which has more   
power and more delicacy than any other  
force that man has been able to harness4
  ,as a tame and tractable energy1      
,electricity is new4 ,it has no past and
 no pedigree4 ,it is younger than many  
people who are now alive4 ,among the    
wise men of ,greece and ,rome1 few knew 
its existence1 and none put it to any   
practical use4 ,the wisest knew that a  
piece of amber1 when rubbed1 will       
attract feathery substances4 ,but they  
regarded this as poetry rather than     
science4 ,there was a pretty legend     
among the ,phoenicians that the pieces  

of amber were the petrified tears of    
maidens who had thrown themselves into  
the sea because of unrequited love1 and 
each bead of amber was highly prized4   
,it was worn as an amulet and a symbol  
of purity4 ,not for two thousand years  
did any one dream that within its golden
 heart lay hidden the secret of a new   
electrical civilization4  ,not even in  
#ageb1 when ,benjamin ,franklin flew his
 famous kite on the banks of the        
,schuylkill ,river1 and captured the    
first ,,canned ,,lightning1 was there   
any definite knowledge of electrical    
energy4 ,his lightning-rod was regarded 
as an insult to the deity of ,heaven4   
,it was blamed for the earthquake of    
#agee4 ,and not until the telegraph of  
,morse came into general use1 did men   
dare to think of the thunder-bolt of    
,jove as a possible servant of the human
 race4  ,thus it happened that when     
,bell invented the telephone1 he        
surprised the world with a new idea4 ,he
 had to make the thought as well as the 

thing4 ,no ,jules ,verne or ,h4 ,g4     
,wells had foreseen it4 ,the author of  
the ,arabian ,nights fantasies had      
conceived of a flying carpet1 but       
neither he nor any one else had         
conceived of flying conversation4 ,in   
all the literature of ancient days1     
there is not a line that will apply to  
the telephone1 except possibly that     
expressive phrase in the ,bible1 ,and   
there came a voice4 ,in these more      
privileged days1 the telephone has come 
to be regarded as a commonplace fact of 
everyday life2 and we are apt to forget 
that the wonder of it has become greater
 and not less2 and that there are still 
honor and profit1 plenty of both1 to be 
won by the inventor and the scientist4  
,the flood of electrical patents was    
never higher than now4 ,there are       
literally more in a single month than   
the total number issued by the ,patent  
,office up to #ahei4 ,the ,bell ,system 
has three hundred experts who are paid  
to do nothing else but try out all new  

ideas and inventions2 and before these  
words can pass into the printed book1   
new uses and new methods will have been 
discovered4 ,there is therefore no      
immediate danger that the art of        
telephony will be less fascinating in   
the future than it has been in the past4
 ,it will still be the most alluring and
 elusive sprite that ever led the way   
through a ,dark ,continent of mysterious
 phenomena4  ,there still remains for   
some future scientist the task of       
showing us in detail exactly what the   
telephone current does4 ,such a man will
 study vibrations as ,darwin studied the
 differentiation of species4 ,he will   
investigate how a child's voice1        
speaking from ,boston to ,omaha1 can    
vibrate more than a million pounds of   
copper wire2 and he will invent a finer 
system of time to fit the telephone1    
which can do as many different things in
 a second as a man can do in a day1     
transmitting with every tick of the     
clock from twenty-five to eighty        

thousand vibrations4 ,he will deal with 
the various vibrations of nerves and    
wires and wireless air1 that are        
necessary in conveying thought between  
two separated minds4 ,he will make clear
 how a thought1 originating in the      
brain1 passes along the nerve-wires to  
the vocal chords1 and then in wireless  
vibration of air to the disc of the     
transmitter4 ,at the other end of the   
line the second disc re-creates these   
vibrations1 which impinge upon the      
nerve-wires of an ear1 and are thus     
carried to the consciousness of another 
brain4  ,and so1 notwithstanding all    
that has been done since ,bell opened up
 the way1 the telephone remains the acme
 of electrical marvels4 ,no other thing 
does so much with so little energy4 ,no 
other thing is more enswathed in the    
unknown4 ,not even the gray-haired      
pioneers who have lived with the        
telephone since its birth1 can          
understand their protege4 ,as to the why
 and the how1 there is as yet no answer4

 ,it is as true of telephony to-day as  
it was in #ahgf1 that a child can use   
what the wisest sages cannot comprehend4
  ,here is a tiny disc of sheet-iron4 ,i
 speak--it shudders4 ,it has a different
 shudder for every sound4 ,it has       
thousands of millions of different      
shudders4 ,there is a second disc many  
miles away1 perhaps twenty-five hundred 
miles away4 ,between the two discs runs 
a copper wire4 ,as ,i speak1 a thrill of
 electricity flits along the wire4 ,this
 thrill is moulded by the shudder of the
 disc4 ,it makes the second disc        
shudder4 ,and the shudder of the second 
disc reproduces my voice4 ,that is what 
happens4 ,but how--not all the          
scientists of the world can tell4  ,the 
telephone current is a phenomenon of the
 ether1 say the theorists4 ,but what is 
ether8 ,no one knows4 ,sir ,oliver      
,lodge has guessed that it is perhaps   
the only substantial thing in the       
material universe2 but no one knows4    
,there is nothing to guide us in that   

unknown country except a sign-post that 
points upwards and bears the one        
word--,perhaps4 ,the ether of space6    
,here is an ,eldorado for the scientists
 of the future1 and whoever can first   
map it out will go far toward           
discovering the secret of telephony4    
,some day--who knows8--there may come   
the poetry and grand opera of the       
telephone4 ,artists may come who will   
portray the marvel of the wires that    
quiver with electrified words1 and the  
romance of the switchboards that tremble
 with the secrets of a great city4      
,already ,puvis de ,chavannes1 by one of
 his superb panels in the ,boston       
,library1 has admitted the telephone and
 the telegraph to the world of art4 ,he 
has embodied them as two flying figures1
 poised above the electric wires1 and   
with the following inscription          
underneath3 ,by the wondrous agency of  
electricity1 speech dashes through space
 and swift as lightning bears tidings of
 good and evil4  ,but these random      

guesses as to the future of the         
telephone may fall far short of what the
 reality will be4 ,in these dazzling    
days it is idle to predict4 ,the        
inventor has everywhere put the prophet 
out of business4 ,fact has outrun       
,fancy4 ,when ,morse1 for instance1 was 
tacking up his first little line of wire
 around the ,speedwell ,iron ,works1 who
 could have foreseen two hundred and    
fifty thousand miles of submarine       
cables1 by which the very oceans are all
 aquiver with the news of the world8    
,when ,fulton's tiny tea-kettle of a    
boat steamed up the ,hudson to ,albany  
in two days1 who could have foreseen the
 steel leviathans1 one-sixth of a mile  
in length1 that can in the same time cut
 the ,atlantic ,ocean in halves8 ,and   
when ,bell stood in a dingy workshop in 
,boston and heard the clang of a        
clock-spring come over an electric wire1
 who could have foreseen the massive    
structure of the ,bell ,system1 built up
 by half the telephones of the world1   

and by the investment of more actual    
capital than has gone to the making of  
any other industrial association8 ,who  
could have foreseen what the telephone  
bells have done to ring out the old ways
 and to ring in the new2 to ring out    
delay1 and isolation and to ring in the 
efficiency and the friendliness of a    
truly united people8