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diff --git a/819-h/819-h.htm b/819-h/819-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..823dfcb --- /dev/null +++ b/819-h/819-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6050 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="us-ascii"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + The History of the Telephone, by Herbert N. Casson + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +Project Gutenberg's The History of the Telephone, by Herbert N. Casson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The History of the Telephone + +Author: Herbert N. Casson + +Release Date: August 5, 2008 [EBook #819] +Last Updated: January 26, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF THE TELEPHONE *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Keller, and David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + THE HISTORY OF THE TELEPHONE + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + By Herbert N. Casson + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PREFACE + </h2> + <p> + Thirty-five short years, and presto! the newborn art of telephony is + fullgrown. Three million telephones are now scattered abroad in foreign + countries, and seven millions are massed here, in the land of its birth. + </p> + <p> + So entirely has the telephone outgrown the ridicule with which, as many + people can well remember, it was first received, that it is now in most + places taken for granted, as though it were a part of the natural + phenomena of this planet. 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 life. The disadvantage of being deaf and dumb to all + absent persons, which was universal in pre-telephonic days, has now + happily been overcome; and I hope that this story of how and by whom it + was done will be a welcome addition to American libraries. + </p> + <p> + It is such a story as the telephone itself might tell, if it could speak + with a voice of its own. It is not technical. It is not statistical. It is + not exhaustive. It is so brief, in fact, 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 men, for instance, as William R. Driver, who has signed more + telephone cheques and larger ones than any other man; Geo. S. Hibbard, + Henry W. Pope, and W. D. Sargent, three veterans who know telephony in all + its phases; George Y. Wallace, the last survivor of the Rocky Mountain + pioneers; Jasper N. Keller, of Texas and New England; W. T. Gentry, the + central figure of the Southeast, and the following presidents of telephone + companies: Bernard E. Sunny, of Chicago; E. B. Field, of Denver; D. Leet + Wilson, of Pittsburg; L. G. Richardson, of Indianapolis; Caspar E. Yost, + of Omaha; James E. Caldwell, of Nashville; Thomas Sherwin, of Boston; + Henry T. Scott, of San Francisco; H. J. Pettengill, of Dallas; Alonzo + Burt, of Milwaukee; John Kilgour, of Cincinnati; and Chas. S. Gleed, of + Kansas City. + </p> + <p> + I am deeply indebted to most of these men for the information which is + herewith presented; and also to such pioneers, now dead, as O. E. Madden, + the first General Agent; Frank L. Pope, the noted electrical expert; C. H. + Haskins, of Milwaukee; George F. Ladd, of San Francisco; and Geo. F. + Durant, of St. Louis. + </p> + <p> + H. N. C. PINE HILL, N. Y., June 1, 1910. + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + Contents + </h2> + <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto"> + <tr> + <td> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> THE HISTORY OF THE TELEPHONE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. THE BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. THE BUILDING OF THE BUSINESS + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. THE HOLDING OF THE BUSINESS + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ART </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. THE EXPANSION OF THE BUSINESS + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. NOTABLE USERS OF THE TELEPHONE + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. THE TELEPHONE AND NATIONAL + EFFICIENCY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. THE TELEPHONE IN FOREIGN + COUNTRIES </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. THE FUTURE OF THE TELEPHONE + </a> + </p> + </td> + </tr> + </table> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h1> + THE HISTORY OF THE TELEPHONE + </h1> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER I. THE BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE + </h2> + <p> + In that somewhat distant year 1875, when the telegraph and the Atlantic + cable were the most wonderful things in the world, a tall young professor + of elocution was desperately busy in a noisy machine-shop that stood in + one of the narrow streets of Boston, not far from Scollay Square. It was a + very hot afternoon in June, but the young professor had forgotten the heat + and the grime of the workshop. He was wholly absorbed in the making of a + nondescript machine, a sort of crude harmonica with a clock-spring reed, a + magnet, and a wire. It was a most absurd toy in appearance. It was unlike + any other thing that had ever been made in any country. The young + professor had been toiling over it for three years and it had constantly + baffled him, until, on this hot afternoon in June, 1875, he heard an + almost inaudible sound—a faint TWANG—come from the machine + itself. + </p> + <p> + For an instant he was stunned. He had been expecting just such a sound for + several months, but it came so suddenly as to give him the sensation of + surprise. His eyes blazed with delight, and he sprang in a passion of + eagerness to an adjoining room in which stood a young mechanic who was + assisting him. + </p> + <p> + "Snap that reed again, Watson," cried the apparently irrational young + professor. There was one of the odd-looking machines in each room, so it + appears, and the two were connected by an electric wire. Watson had + snapped the reed on one of the machines and the professor had heard from + the other machine exactly the same sound. It was no more than the gentle + TWANG of a clock-spring; but it was the first time in the history of the + world that a complete sound had been carried along a wire, reproduced + perfectly at the other end, and heard by an expert in acoustics. + </p> + <p> + That twang of the clock-spring was the first tiny cry of the newborn + telephone, 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 newcomer. There, amidst flying belts and jarring wheels, the baby + telephone was born, as feeble and helpless as any other baby, and "with no + language but a cry." + </p> + <p> + The professor-inventor, who had thus rescued the tiny foundling of + science, was a young Scottish American. His name, now known as widely as + the telephone itself, was Alexander Graham Bell. He was a teacher of + acoustics and a student of electricity, possibly the only man in his + generation who was able to focus a knowledge of both subjects upon the + problem of the telephone. To other men that exceedingly faint sound would + have been as inaudible as silence itself; but to Bell it was a + thunder-clap. It was a dream come true. It was an impossible thing which + had in a flash become so easy that he could scarcely believe it. Here, + without the use of a battery, with no more electric current than that made + by a couple of magnets, all the waves of a sound had been carried along a + wire and changed back to sound at the farther end. It was absurd. It was + incredible. It was something which neither wire nor electricity had been + known to do before. But it was true. + </p> + <p> + No discovery has ever been less accidental. It was the last link of a long + chain of discoveries. It was the result of a persistent and deliberate + search. Already, for half a year or longer, Bell had known the correct + theory of the telephone; but he had not realized that the feeble + undulatory current generated by a magnet was strong enough for the + transmission of speech. He had been taught to undervalue the incredible + efficiency of electricity. + </p> + <p> + Not only was Bell himself a teacher of the laws of speech, so highly + skilled that he was an instructor in Boston University. His father, also, + his two brothers, his uncle, and his grandfather had taught the laws of + speech in the universities of Edinburgh, Dublin, and London. For three + generations the Bells had been professors of the science of talking. They + had even helped to create that science by several inven-tions. The first + of them, Alexander Bell, had invented a system for the correction of + stammering and similar defects of speech. The second, Alexander Melville + Bell, was the dean of British elocutionists, a man of creative brain and a + most impressive facility of rhetoric. He was the author of a dozen + text-books on the art of speaking correctly, and also of a most ingenious + sign-language which he called "Visible Speech." Every letter in the + alphabet of this language represented a certain action of the lips and + tongue; so that a new method was provided for those who wished to learn + foreign languages or to speak their own language more correctly. And the + third of these speech-improving Bells, the inventor of the telephone, + inherited the peculiar genius of his fathers, both inventive and + rhetorical, to such a degree that as a boy he had constructed an + artificial skull, from gutta-percha and India rubber, which, when + enlivened by a blast of air from a hand-bellows, would actually pronounce + several words in an almost human manner. + </p> + <p> + The third Bell, the only one of this remarkable family who concerns us at + this time, was a young man, barely twenty-eight, at the time when his ear + caught the first cry of the telephone. But he was already a man of some + note on his own account. He had been educated in Edinburgh, the city of + his birth, and in London; and had in one way and another picked up a + smattering of anatomy, music, electricity, and telegraphy. Until he was + sixteen years of age, he had read nothing but novels and poetry and + romantic tales of Scottish heroes. Then he left home to become a teacher + of elocution in various British schools, and by the time he was of age he + had made several slight discoveries as to the nature of vowel-sounds. + Shortly afterwards, he met in London two distinguished men, Alexander J. + Ellis and Sir Charles Wheatstone, who did far more than they ever knew to + forward Bell in the direction of the telephone. + </p> + <p> + Ellis was the president of the London Philological Society. Also, he was + the translator of the famous book on "The Sensations of Tone," written by + Helmholtz, who, in the period from 1871 to 1894 made Berlin the + world-centre for the study of the physical sciences. So it happened that + when Bell ran to Ellis as a young enthusiast and told his experiments, + Ellis informed him that Helmholtz had done the same things several years + before and done them more completely. 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-magnets, and blended the tones of + several tuning-forks together to produce the complex quality of the human + voice. + </p> + <p> + Now, Helmholtz had not been trying to invent a telephone, nor any sort of + message-carrier. His aim was to point out the physical basis of music, and + nothing more. But this fact that an electro-magnet would set a tuning-fork + humming was new to Bell and very attractive. It appealed at once to him as + a student of speech. If a tuning-fork could be made to sing by a magnet or + an electrified wire, why would it not be possible to make a musical + telegraph—a telegraph with a piano key-board, so that many messages + could be sent at once over a single wire? Unknown to Bell, there were + several dozen inven-tors then at work upon this problem, which proved in + the end to be very elusive. But it gave him at least a starting-point, and + he forthwith commenced his quest of the telephone. + </p> + <p> + As he was then in England, his first step was naturally to visit Sir + Charles Wheatstone, the best known English expert on telegraphy. Sir + Charles had earned his title by many inventions. He was a simple-natured + scientist, and treated Bell with the utmost kindness. He showed him an + ingenious talking-machine that had been made by Baron de Kempelin. At this + time Bell was twenty-two and unknown; Wheatstone was sixty-seven and + famous. 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 life. + </p> + <p> + From this summit of glorious ambition he was thrown, several months later, + into the depths of grief and despondency. The White Plague had come to the + home in Edinburgh and taken away his two brothers. More, it had put its + mark upon the young inventor himself. Nothing but a change of climate, + said his doctor, would put him out of danger. And so, to save his life, he + and his father and mother set sail from Glasgow and came to the small + Canadian town of Brantford, where for a year he fought down his tendency + to consumption, and satisfied his nervous energy by teaching "Visible + Speech" to a tribe of Mohawk Indians. + </p> + <p> + By this time it had become evident, both to his parents and to his + friends, that young Graham was destined to become some sort of a creative + genius. He was tall and supple, with a pale complexion, large nose, full + lips, jet-black eyes, and jet-black hair, brushed high and usually rumpled + into a curly tangle. In temperament he was a true scientific Bohemian, + with the ideals of a savant and the disposition of an artist. He was + wholly a man of enthusiasms, more devoted to ideas than to people; and + less likely to master his own thoughts than to be mastered by them. He had + no shrewdness, in any commercial sense, and very little knowledge of the + small practical details of ordinary living. He was always intense, always + absorbed. When he applied his mind to a problem, it became at once an + enthralling arena, in which there went whirling a chariot-race of ideas + and inventive fancies. + </p> + <p> + He had been fascinated from boyhood by his father's system of "Visible + Speech." 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" characters. While he was living in London + his most absorbing enthusiasm was the instruction of a class of + deaf-mutes, who could be trained to talk, he believed, by means of the + "Visible Speech" alphabet. He was so deeply impressed by the progress made + by these pupils, and by the pathos of their dumbness, 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 + telegraph. + </p> + <p> + At this point, and before Bell had begun to experiment with his telegraph, + the scene of the story shifts from Canada to Massachusetts. It appears + that his father, while lecturing in Boston, had mentioned Graham's + exploits with a class of deaf-mutes; and soon afterward the Boston Board + of Education wrote to Graham, 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 recently. The young man joyfully agreed, + and on the first of April, 1871, crossed the line and became for the + remainder of his life an American. + </p> + <p> + For the next two years his telegraphic work was laid aside, if not + forgotten. His success as a teacher of deaf-mutes was sudden and + overwhelming. It was the educational sensation of 1871. It won him a + professorship in Boston University; and brought so many pupils around him + that he ventured to open an ambitious "School of Vocal Physiology," which + became at once a profitable enterprise. For a time there seemed to be + little hope of his escaping from the burden of this success and becoming + an inventor, when, by a most happy coincidence, 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 received. + </p> + <p> + One of these pupils was a little deaf-mute tot, five years of age, named + Georgie Sanders. Bell had agreed to give him a series of private lessons + for $350 a year; and as the child lived with his grandmother in the city + of Salem, sixteen miles from Boston, it was agreed that Bell should make + his home with the Sanders family. Here he not only found the keenest + interest and sympathy in his air-castles of invention, but also was given + permission to use the cellar of the house as his workshop. + </p> + <p> + For the next three years this cellar was his favorite retreat. He littered + it with tuning-forks, magnets, batteries, coils of wire, tin trumpets, and + cigar-boxes. No one outside of the Sanders family was allowed to enter it, + as Bell was nervously afraid of having his ideas stolen. He would even go + to five or six stores to buy his supplies, for fear that his intentions + should be discovered. Almost with the secrecy of a conspirator, he worked + alone in this cellar, usually at night, and quite oblivious of the fact + that sleep was a necessity to him and to the Sanders family. + </p> + <p> + "Often in the middle of the night Bell would wake me up," said Thomas + Sanders, the father of Georgie. "His black eyes would be blazing with + excitement. Leaving me to go down to the cellar, he would rush wildly to + the barn and begin to send me signals along his experimental wires. If I + noticed any improvement in his machine, he would be delighted. He would + leap and whirl around in one of his `war-dances' and then go contentedly + to bed. But if the experiment was a failure, he would go back to his + workbench and try some different plan." + </p> + <p> + The second pupil who became a factor—a very considerable factor—in + Bell's career was a fifteen-year-old girl named Mabel Hubbard, who had + lost her hearing, and consequently her speech, through an attack of + scarlet-fever when a baby. She was a gentle and lovable girl, and Bell, in + his ardent and headlong way, lost his heart to her completely; and four + years later, he had the happiness of making her his wife. Mabel Hubbard + did much to encourage Bell. She followed each step of his progress with + the keenest interest. She wrote his letters and copied his patents. She + cheered him on when he felt himself beaten. And through her sympathy with + Bell and his ambitions, she led her father—a widely known Boston + lawyer named Gardiner G. Hubbard—to become Bell's chief spokesman + and defender, a true apostle of the telephone. + </p> + <p> + Hubbard first became aware of Bell's inventive efforts one evening when + Bell was visiting at his home in Cambridge. Bell was illustrating some of + the mysteries of acoustics by the aid of a piano. "Do you know," he said + to Hubbard, "that if I sing the note G close to the strings of the piano, + that the G-string will answer me?" "Well, what then?" asked Hubbard. "It + is a fact of tremendous importance," replied Bell. "It is an evidence that + we may some day have a musical telegraph, which will send as many messages + simultaneously over one wire as there are notes on that piano." + </p> + <p> + Later, Bell ventured to confide to Hubbard his wild dream of sending + speech over an electric wire, but Hubbard laughed him to scorn. "Now you + are talking nonsense," he said. "Such a thing never could be more than a + scientific toy. You had better throw that idea out of your mind and go + ahead with your musical telegraph, which if it is successful will make you + a millionaire." + </p> + <p> + But the longer Bell toiled at his musical telegraph, the more he dreamed + of replacing the telegraph and its cumbrous sign-language by a new machine + that would carry, not dots and dashes, but the human voice. "If I can make + a deaf-mute talk," he said, "I can make iron talk." For months he wavered + between the two ideas. He had no more than the most hazy conception of + what this voice-carrying machine would be like. At first he conceived of + having a harp at one end of the wire, and a speaking-trumpet at the other, + so that the tones of the voice would be reproduced by the strings of the + harp. + </p> + <p> + Then, in the early Summer of 1874, while he was puzzling over this harp + apparatus, the dim outline of a new path suddenly glinted in front of him. + He had not been forgetful of "Visible Speech" all this while, but had been + making experiments with two remarkable machines—the phonautograph + and the manometric capsule, by means of which the vibrations of sound were + made plainly visible. If these could be im-proved, he thought, then the + deaf might be taught to speak by SIGHT—by learning an alphabet of + vibrations. He mentioned these experiments to a Boston friend, Dr. + Clarence J. Blake, and he, being a surgeon and an aurist, naturally said, + "Why don't you use a REAL EAR?" + </p> + <p> + Such an idea never had, and probably never could have, occurred to Bell; + but he accepted it with eagerness. Dr. Blake cut an ear from a dead man's + head, together with the ear-drum and the associated bones. 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 other. Thus, when + Bell spoke loudly into the ear, the vibrations of the drum made tiny + markings upon the glass. + </p> + <p> + It was one of the most extraordinary incidents in the whole history of the + telephone. To an uninitiated onlooker, nothing could have been more + ghastly or absurd. How could any one have interpreted the gruesome joy of + this young professor with the pale face and the black eyes, who stood + earnestly singing, whispering, and shouting into a dead man's ear? What + sort of a wizard must he be, or ghoul, or madman? And in Salem, too, the + home of the witchcraft superstition! Certainly it would not have gone well + with Bell had he lived two centuries earlier and been caught at such black + magic. + </p> + <p> + What had this dead man's ear to do with the invention of the telephone? + Much. Bell noticed how small and thin was the ear-drum, and yet how + effectively it could send thrills and vibrations through heavy bones. "If + this tiny disc can vibrate a bone," he thought, "then an iron disc might + vibrate an iron rod, or at least, an iron wire." In a flash the conception + of a membrane telephone was pictured in his mind. He saw in imagination + two iron discs, or ear-drums, far apart and connected by an electrified + wire, catching the vibrations of sound at one end, and reproducing them at + the other. At last he was on the right path, and had a theoretical + knowledge of what a speaking telephone ought to be. What remained to be + done was to construct such a machine and find out how the electric current + could best be brought into harness. + </p> + <p> + Then, as though Fortune suddenly felt that he was winning this stupendous + success too easily, Bell was flung back by an avalanche of troubles. + Sanders and Hubbard, who had been paying the cost of his experiments, + abruptly announced that they would pay no more unless he confined his + attention to the musical telegraph, and stopped wasting his time on + ear-toys that never could be of any financial value. What these two men + asked could scarcely be denied, as one of them was his best-paying patron + and the other was the father of the girl whom he hoped to marry. "If you + wish my daughter," said Hubbard, "you must abandon your foolish + telephone." Bell's "School of Vocal Physiology," too, from which he had + hoped so much, had come to an inglorious end. He had been too much + absorbed in his experiments to sustain it. His professorship had been + given up, and he had no pupils except Georgie Sanders and Mabel Hubbard. + He was poor, much poorer than his associates knew. And his mind was torn + and distracted by the contrary calls of science, poverty, business, and + affection. Pouring out his sorrows in a letter to his mother, he said: "I + am now beginning to realize the cares and anxieties of being an inventor. + I have had to put off all pupils and classes, for flesh and blood could + not stand much longer such a strain as I have had upon me." + </p> + <p> + While stumbling through this Slough of Despond, he was called to + Washington by his patent lawyer. Not having enough money to pay the cost + of such a journey, he borrowed the price of a return ticket from Sanders + and arranged to stay with a friend in Washington, to save a hotel bill + that he could not afford. At that time Professor Joseph Henry, who knew + more of the theory of electrical science than any other American, was the + Grand Old Man of Washington; and poor Bell, in his doubt and desperation, + resolved to run to him for advice. + </p> + <p> + Then came a meeting which deserves to be historic. For an entire afternoon + the two men worked together over the apparatus that Bell had brought from + Boston, just as Henry had worked over the telegraph before Bell was born. + Henry was now a veteran of seventy-eight, with only three years remaining + to his credit in the bank of Time, while Bell was twenty-eight. There was + a long half-century between them; but the youth had discovered a New Fact + that the sage, in all his wisdom, had never known. + </p> + <p> + "You are in possession of the germ of a great invention," said Henry, "and + I would advise you to work at it until you have made it complete." + </p> + <p> + "But," replied Bell, "I have not got the electrical knowledge that is + necessary." + </p> + <p> + "Get it," responded the aged scientist. + </p> + <p> + "I cannot tell you how much these two words have encouraged me," said Bell + afterwards, in describing this interview to his parents. "I live too much + in an atmosphere of discouragement for scientific pursuits; and such a + chimerical idea as telegraphing VOCAL SOUNDS would indeed seem to most + minds scarcely feasible enough to spend time in working over." + </p> + <p> + By this time Bell had moved his workshop from the cellar in Salem to 109 + Court Street, Boston, where he had rented a room from Charles Williams, a + manufacturer of electrical supplies. Thomas A. Watson was his assistant, + and both Bell and Watson lived nearby, in two cheap little bedrooms. The + rent of the workshop and bedrooms, and Watson's wages of nine dollars a + week, were being paid by Sanders and Hubbard. Consequently, when Bell + returned from Washington, he was compelled by his agreement to devote + himself mainly to the musical telegraph, although his heart was now with + the telephone. For exactly three months after his interview with Professor + Henry, he continued to plod ahead, along both lines, until, on that + memorable hot afternoon in June, 1875, the full TWANG of the clock-spring + came over the wire, and the telephone was born. + </p> + <p> + From this moment, Bell was a man of one purpose. He won over Sanders and + Hubbard. He converted Watson into an enthusiast. He forgot his musical + telegraph, his "Visible Speech," his classes, his poverty. He threw aside + a profession in which he was already locally famous. And he grappled with + this new mystery of electricity, as Henry had advised him to do, + encouraging himself with the fact that Morse, who was only a painter, had + mastered his electrical difficulties, and there was no reason why a + professor of acoustics should not do as much. + </p> + <p> + The telephone was now in existence, but it was the youngest and feeblest + thing in the nation. It had not yet spoken a word. It had to be taught, + developed, and made fit for the service of the irritable business world. + All manner of discs had to be tried, some smaller and thinner than a dime + and others of steel boiler-plate as heavy as the shield of Achilles. In + all the books of electrical science, there was nothing to help Bell and + Watson in this journey they were making through an unknown country. They + were as chartless as Columbus was in 1492. Neither they nor any one else + had acquired any experience in the rearing of a young telephone. No one + knew what to do next. There was nothing to know. + </p> + <p> + For forty weeks—long exasperating weeks—the telephone could do + no more than gasp and make strange inarticulate noises. Its educators had + not learned how to manage it. Then, on March 10, 1876, IT TALKED. It said + distinctly— + </p> + <p> + "MR. WATSON, COME HERE, I WANT YOU." Watson, who was at the lower end of + the wire, in the basement, dropped the receiver and rushed with wild joy + up three flights of stairs to tell the glad tidings to Bell. "I can hear + you!" he shouted breathlessly. "I can hear the WORDS." + </p> + <p> + It was not easy, of course, for the weak young telephone to make itself + heard in that noisy workshop. No one, not even Bell and Watson, was + familiar with its odd little voice. Usually Watson, who had a remarkably + keen sense of hearing, did the listening; and Bell, who was a professional + elocutionist, did the talking. And day by day the tone of the baby + instrument grew clearer—a new note in the orchestra of civilization. + </p> + <p> + On his twenty-ninth birthday, Bell received his patent, No. 174,465—"the + most valuable single patent ever issued" in any country. He had created + something so entirely new that there was no name for it in any of the + world's languages. In describing it to the officials of the Patent Office, + he was obliged to call it "an improvement in telegraphy," when, in truth, + it was nothing of the kind. It was as different from the telegraph as the + eloquence of a great orator is from the sign-language of a deaf-mute. + </p> + <p> + Other inventors had worked from the standpoint of the telegraph; and they + never did, and never could, get any better results than signs and symbols. + But Bell worked from the standpoint of the human voice. He + cross-fertilized the two sciences of acoustics and electricity. His study + of "Visible Speech" had trained his mind so that he could mentally SEE the + shape of a word as he spoke it. He knew what a spoken word was, and how it + acted upon the air, or the ether, that carried its vibrations from the + lips to the ear. He was a third-generation specialist in the nature of + speech, 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 impulses." + </p> + <p> + Bell knew just enough about electricity, and not too much. He did not know + the possible from the impossible. "Had I known more about electricity, and + less about sound," he said, "I would never have invented the telephone." + What he had done was so amazing, so foolhardy, that no trained electrician + could have thought of it. It was "the very hardihood of invention," and + yet it was not in any sense a chance discovery. It was the natural output + of a mind that had been led to assemble just the right materials for such + a product. + </p> + <p> + As though the very stars in their courses were working for this young + wizard with the talking wire, the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia + opened its doors exactly two months after the telephone had learned to + talk. Here was a superb opportunity to let the wide world know what had + been done, and fortunately Hubbard was one of the Centennial + Commissioners. By his influence a small table was placed in the Department + of Education, in a narrow space between a stairway and a wall, and on this + table was deposited the first of the telephones. + </p> + <p> + Bell had no intention of going to the Centennial himself. He was too poor. + Sanders and Hubbard had never done more than pay his room-rent and the + expense of his experiments. For his three or four years of inventing he + had received nothing as yet—nothing but his patent. In order to + live, he had been compelled to reorganize his classes in "Visible Speech," + and to pick up the ravelled ends of his neglected profession. + </p> + <p> + But one Friday afternoon, toward the end of June, his sweetheart, Mabel + Hubbard, was taking the train for the Centennial; and he went to the depot + to say good-bye. Here Miss Hubbard learned for the first time that Bell + was not to go. She coaxed and pleaded, without effect. Then, as the train + was starting, leaving Bell on the platform, the affectionate young girl + could no longer control her feelings and was overcome by a passion of + tears. At this the susceptible Bell, like a true Sir Galahad, dashed after + the moving train and sprang aboard, without ticket or baggage, oblivious + of his classes and his poverty and of all else except this one maiden's + distress. "I never saw a man," said Watson, "so much in love as Bell was." + </p> + <p> + As it happened, this impromptu trip to the Centennial proved to be one of + the most timely acts of his life. On the following Sunday after-noon the + judges were to make a special tour of inspection, and Mr. Hubbard, after + much trouble, had obtained a promise that they would spend a few minutes + examining Bell's telephone. By this time it had been on exhibition for + more than six weeks, without attracting the serious attention of anybody. + </p> + <p> + When Sunday afternoon arrived, Bell was at his little table, nervous, yet + confident. But hour after hour went by, and the judges did not arrive. The + day was intensely hot, and they had many wonders to examine. There was the + first electric light, and the first grain-binder, and the musical + telegraph of Elisha Gray, and the marvellous exhibit of printing + telegraphs shown by the Western Union Company. By the time they came to + Bell's table, through a litter of school-desks and blackboards, the hour + was seven o'clock, and every man in the party was hot, tired, and hungry. + Several announced their intention of returning to their hotels. One took + up a telephone receiver, looked at it blankly, and put it down again. He + did not even place it to his ear. Another judge made a slighting remark + which raised a laugh at Bell's expense. Then a most marvellous thing + happened—such an incident as would make a chapter in "The Arabian + Nights Entertainments." + </p> + <p> + Accompanied by his wife, the Empress Theresa, and by a bevy of courtiers, + the Emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro de Alcantara, walked into the room, + advanced with both hands outstretched to the bewildered Bell, and + exclaimed: "Professor Bell, I am delighted to see you again." The judges + at once forgot the heat and the fatigue and the hunger. Who was this young + inventor, with the pale complexion and black eyes, that he should be the + friend of Emperors? They did not know, and for the moment even Bell + himself had forgotten, that Dom Pedro had once visited Bell's class of + deaf-mutes at Boston University. He was especially interested in such + humanitarian work, and had recently helped to organize the first Brazilian + school for deaf-mutes at Rio de Janeiro. And so, with the tall, + blond-bearded Dom Pedro in the centre, the assembled judges, and + scientists—there were fully fifty in all—entered with unusual + zest into the proceedings of this first telephone exhibition. + </p> + <p> + A wire had been strung from one end of the room to the other, and while + Bell went to the transmitter, Dom Pedro took up the receiver and placed it + to his ear. It was a moment of tense expectancy. No one knew clearly what + was about to happen, when the Emperor, with a dramatic gesture, raised his + head from the receiver and exclaimed with a look of utter amazement: "MY + GOD—IT TALKS!" + </p> + <p> + Next came to the receiver the oldest scientist in the group, the venerable + Joseph Henry, whose encouragement to Bell had been so timely. He stopped + to listen, and, as one of the bystanders afterwards said, no one could + forget the look of awe that came into his face as he heard that iron disc + talking with a human voice. "This," said he, "comes nearer to overthrowing + the doctrine of the conservation of energy than anything I ever saw." + </p> + <p> + Then came Sir William Thomson, latterly known as Lord Kelvin. It was + fitting that he should be there, for he was the foremost electrical + scientist at that time in the world, and had been the engineer of the + first Atlantic Cable. He listened and learned what even he had not known + before, that a solid metallic body could take up from the air all the + countless varieties of vibrations produced by speech, and that these + vibrations could be carried along a wire and reproduced exactly by a + second metallic body. He nodded his head solemnly as he rose from the + receiver. "It DOES speak," he said emphatically. "It is the most wonderful + thing I have seen in America." + </p> + <p> + So, one after another, this notable company of men listened to the voice + of the first telephone, and the more they knew of science, the less they + were inclined to believe their ears. The wiser they were, the more they + wondered. To Henry and Thomson, the masters of electrical magic, this + instrument was as surprising as it was to the man in the street. And both + were noble enough to admit frankly their astonishment in the reports which + they made as judges, when they gave Bell a Certificate of Award. "Mr. Bell + has achieved a result of transcendent scientific interest," wrote Sir + William Thomson. "I heard it speak distinctly several sentences.... I was + astonished and delighted.... It is the greatest marvel hitherto achieved + by the electric telegraph." + </p> + <p> + Until nearly ten o'clock that night the judges talked and listened by + turns at the telephone. Then, next morning, they brought the apparatus to + the judges' pavilion, where for the remainder of the summer it was mobbed + by judges and scientists. Sir William Thomson and his wife ran back and + forth between the two ends of the wire like a pair of delighted children. + 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 Centennial. It had + been given no more than eighteen words in the official catalogue, and here + it was acclaimed as the wonder of wonders. It had been conceived in a + cellar and born in a machine-shop; and now, of all the gifts that our + young American Republic had received on its one-hundredth birthday, the + telephone was honored as the rarest and most welcome of them all. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER II. THE BUILDING OF THE BUSINESS + </h2> + <p> + After the telephone had been born in Boston, baptized in the Patent + Office, and given a royal reception at the Philadelphia Centennial, it + might be supposed that its life thenceforth would be one of peace and + pleasantness. But as this is history, and not fancy, there must be set + down the very surprising fact that the young newcomer received no welcome + and no notice from the great business world. "It is a scientific toy," + said the men of trade and commerce. "It is an interesting instrument, of + course, for professors of electricity and acoustics; but it can never be a + practical necessity. As well might you propose to put a telescope into a + steel-mill or to hitch a balloon to a shoe-factory." + </p> + <p> + Poor Bell, instead of being applauded, was pelted with a hailstorm of + ridicule. He was an "impostor," a "ventriloquist," a "crank who says he + can talk through a wire." The London Times alluded pompously to the + telephone as the latest American humbug, and gave many profound reasons + why speech could not be sent over a wire, because of the intermittent + nature of the electric current. Almost all electricians—the men who + were supposed to know—pronounced the telephone an impossible thing; + and those who did not openly declare it to be a hoax, believed that Bell + had stumbled upon some freakish use of electricity, which could never be + of any practical value. + </p> + <p> + Even though he came late in the succession of inventors, Bell had to run + the gantlet of scoffing and adversity. By the reception that the public + gave to his telephone, he learned to sympathize with Howe, whose first + sewing-machine was smashed by a Boston mob; with McCormick, whose first + reaper was called "a cross between an Astley chariot, a wheelbarrow, and a + flying-machine"; with Morse, whom ten Congresses regarded as a nuisance; + with Cyrus Field, whose Atlantic Cable was denounced as "a mad freak of + stubborn ignorance"; and with Westinghouse, who was called a fool for + proposing "to stop a railroad train with wind." + </p> + <p> + The very idea of talking at a piece of sheet-iron was so new and + extraordinary that the normal mind repulsed it. Alike to the laborer and + the scientist, it was incomprehensible. It was too freakish, too bizarre, + to be used outside of the laboratory and the museum. No one, literally, + could understand how it worked; and the only man who offered a clear + solution of the mystery was a Boston mechanic, who maintained that there + was "a hole through the middle of the wire." + </p> + <p> + People who talked for the first time into a telephone box had a sort of + stage fright. They felt foolish. To do so seemed an absurd performance, + especially when they had to shout at the top of their voices. Plainly, + whatever of convenience there might be in this new contrivance was far + outweighed by the loss of personal dignity; and very few men had + sufficient imagination to picture the telephone as a part of the machinery + of their daily work. The banker said it might do well enough for grocers, + but that it would never be of any value to banking; and the grocer said it + might do well enough for bankers, but that it would never be of any value + to grocers. + </p> + <p> + As Bell had worked out his invention in Salem, one editor displayed the + headline, "Salem Witchcraft." The New York Herald said: "The effect is + weird and almost supernatural." The Providence Press said: "It is hard to + resist the notion that the powers of darkness are somehow in league with + it." And The Boston Times said, in an editorial of bantering ridicule: "A + fellow can now court his girl in China as well as in East Boston; but the + most serious aspect of this invention is the awful and irresponsible power + it will give to the average mother-in-law, who will be able to send her + voice around the habitable globe." + </p> + <p> + There were hundreds of shrewd capitalists in American cities in 1876, + looking with sharp eyes in all directions for business chances; but not + one of them came to Bell with an offer to buy his patent. Not one came + running for a State contract. And neither did any legislature, or city + council, come forward to the task of giving the people a cheap and + efficient telephone service. As for Bell himself, he was not a man of + affairs. In all practical business matters, he was as incompetent as a + Byron or a Shelley. He had done his part, 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 world. + </p> + <p> + The first man to undertake this work was Gardiner G. Hubbard, who became + soon afterwards the father-in-law of Bell. He, too, was a man of + enthusiasm rather than of efficiency. He was not a man of wealth or + business experience, but he was admirably suited to introduce the + telephone to a hostile public. His father had been a judge of the + Massachusetts Supreme Court; and he himself was a lawyer whose practice + had been mainly in matters of legislation. He was, in 1876, a man of + venerable appearance, with white hair, worn long, and a patriarchal beard. + He was a familiar figure in Washington, and well known among the public + men of his day. A versatile and entertaining companion, by turns + prosperous and impecunious, and an optimist always, Gardiner Hubbard + became a really indispensable factor as the first advance agent of the + telephone business. + </p> + <p> + No other citizen had done more for the city of Cambridge than Hubbard. It + was he who secured gas for Cambridge in 1853, and pure water, and a + street-railway to Boston. He had gone through the South in 1860 in the + patriotic hope that he might avert the impending Civil War. He had induced + the legislature to establish the first public school for deaf-mutes, the + school that drew Bell to Boston in 1871. And he had been for years a most + restless agitator for improvements in telegraphy and the post office. So, + as a promoter of schemes for the public good, Hubbard was by no means a + novice. His first step toward capturing the attention of an indifferent + nation was to beat the big drum of publicity. He saw that this new idea of + telephoning must be made familiar to the public mind. He talked telephone + by day and by night. Whenever he travelled, he carried a pair of the + magical instruments in his valise, and gave demonstrations on trains and + in hotels. He buttonholed every influential man who crossed his path. He + was a veritable "Ancient Mariner" of the telephone. No possible listener + was allowed to escape. + </p> + <p> + Further to promote this campaign of publicity, Hubbard encouraged Bell and + Watson to perform a series of sensational feats with the telephone. A + telegraph wire between New York and Boston was borrowed for half an hour, + and in the presence of Sir William Thomson, Bell sent a tune over the + two-hundred-and-fifty-mile line. "Can you hear?" he asked the operator at + the New York end. "Elegantly," responded the operator. "What tune?" asked + Bell. "Yankee Doodle," came the answer. Shortly afterwards, while Bell was + visiting at his father's house in Canada, he bought up all the stove-pipe + wire in the town, and tacked it to a rail fence between the house and a + telegraph office. Then he went to a village eight miles distant and sent + scraps of songs and Shakespearean quotations over the wire. + </p> + <p> + There was still a large percentage of people who denied that spoken words + could be transmitted by a wire. When Watson talked to Bell at public + demonstrations, there were newspaper editors who referred sceptically to + "the supposititious Watson." So, to silence these doubters, Bell and + Watson planned a most severe test of the telephone. They borrowed the + telegraph line between Boston and the Cambridge Observatory, and attached + a telephone to each end. Then they maintained, for three hours or longer, + the FIRST SUSTAINED conversation by telephone, each one taking careful + notes of what he said and of what he heard. These notes were published in + parallel columns in The Boston Advertiser, October 19, 1876, and proved + beyond question that the telephone was now a practical success. + </p> + <p> + After this, one event crowded quickly on the heels of another. A series of + ten lectures was arranged for Bell, at a hundred dollars a lecture, which + was the first money payment he had received for his invention. His opening + night was in Salem, before an audience of five hundred people, and with + Mrs. Sand-ers, the motherly old lady who had sheltered Bell in the days of + his experiment, sitting proudly in one of the front seats. A pole was set + up at the front of the hall, supporting the end of a telegraph wire that + ran from Salem to Boston. And Watson, who became the first public talker + by telephone, sent messages from Boston to various members of the + audience. An account of this lecture was sent by telephone to The Boston + Globe, which announced the next morning— + </p> + <p> + "This special despatch of the Globe has been transmitted by telephone in + the presence of twenty people, who have thus been witnesses to a feat + never before attempted—the sending of news over the space of sixteen + miles by the human voice." + </p> + <p> + This Globe despatch awoke the newspaper editors with an unexpected jolt. + For the first time they began to notice that there was a new word in the + language, and a new idea in the scientific world. No newspaper had made + any mention whatever of the telephone for seventy-five days after Bell + received his patent. Not one of the swarm of reporters who thronged the + Philadelphia Centennial had regarded the telephone as a matter of any + public interest. But when a column of news was sent by telephone to The + Boston Globe, the whole newspaper world was agog with excitement. A + thousand pens wrote the name of Bell. Requests to repeat his lecture came + to Bell from Cyrus W. Field, the veteran of the Atlantic Cable, from the + poet Longfellow, and from many others. + </p> + <p> + As he was by profession an elocutionist, Bell was able to make the most of + these opportunities. His lectures became popular entertainments. They were + given in the largest halls. At one lecture two Japanese gentlemen were + induced to talk to one another in their own language, via the telephone. + At a second lecture a band played "The Star-Spangled Banner," in Boston, + and was heard by an audience of two thousand people in Providence. At a + third, Signor Ferranti, who was in Providence, sang a selection from "The + Marriage of Figaro" to an audience in Boston. At a fourth, an exhortation + from Moody and a song from Sankey came over the vibrating wire. And at a + fifth, in New Haven, Bell stood sixteen Yale professors in line, hand in + hand, and talked through their bodies—a feat which was then, and is + to-day, almost too wonderful to believe. + </p> + <p> + Very slowly these lectures, and the tireless activity of Hubbard, pushed + back the ridicule and the incredulity; and in the merry month of May, + 1877, a man named Emery drifted into Hubbard's office from the near-by + city of Charlestown, and leased two telephones for twenty actual dollars—the + first money ever paid for a telephone. This was the first feeble sign that + such a novelty as the telephone business could be established; and no + money ever looked handsomer than this twenty dollars did to Bell, Sanders, + Hubbard, and Watson. It was the tiny first-fruit of fortune. + </p> + <p> + Greatly encouraged, they prepared a little circular which was the first + advertisement of the telephone business. It is an oddly simple little + document to-day, but to the 1877 brain it was startling. It modestly + claimed that a telephone was superior to a telegraph for three reasons: + </p> + <p> + "(1) No skilled operator is required, but direct communication may be had + by speech without the intervention of a third person. + </p> + <p> + "(2) The communication is much more rapid, the average number of words + transmitted in a minute by the Morse sounder being from fifteen to twenty, + by telephone from one to two hundred. + </p> + <p> + "(3) No expense is required, either for its operation or repair. It needs + no battery and has no complicated machinery. It is unsurpassed for economy + and simplicity." + </p> + <p> + The only telephone line in the world at this time was between the + Williams' workshop in Boston and the home of Mr. Williams in Somerville. + But in May, 1877, a young man named E. T. Holmes, who was running a + burglar-alarm business in Boston, proposed that a few telephones be linked + to his wires. He was a friend and customer of Williams, and suggested this + plan half in jest and half in earnest. Hubbard was quick to seize this + opportunity, and at once lent Holmes a dozen telephones. Without asking + permission, Holmes went into six banks and nailed up a telephone in each. + Five bankers made no protest, but the sixth indignantly ordered "that + playtoy" to be taken out. The other five telephones could be connected by + a switch in Holmes's office, and thus was born the first tiny and crude + Telephone Exchange. Here it ran for several weeks as a telephone system by + day and a burglar-alarm by night. No money was paid by the bankers. The + service was given to them as an exhibition and an advertisement. The + little shelf with its five telephones was no more like the marvellous + exchanges of to-day than a canoe is like a Cunarder, but it was + unquestionably the first place where several telephone wires came together + and could be united. + </p> + <p> + Soon afterwards, Holmes took his telephones out of the banks, and started + a real telephone business among the express companies of Boston. But by + this time several exchanges had been opened for ordinary business, in New + Haven, Bridgeport, New York, and Philadelphia. Also, a man from Michigan + had arrived, with the hardihood to ask for a State agency—George W. + Balch, of Detroit. He was so welcome that Hubbard joyfully gave him + everything he asked—a perpetual right to the whole State of + Michigan. Balch was not required to pay a cent in advance, except his + railway fare, and before he was many years older he had sold his lease for + a handsome fortune of a quarter of a million dollars, honestly earned by + his initiative and enterprise. + </p> + <p> + By August, when Bell's patent was sixteen months old, there were 778 + telephones in use. This looked like success to the optimistic Hubbard. He + decided that the time had come to organize the business, so he created a + simple agreement which he called the "Bell Telephone Association." This + agreement gave Bell, Hubbard and Sanders a three-tenths interest apiece in + the patents, and Watson one-tenth. THERE WAS NO CAPITAL. There was none to + be had. The four men had at this time an absolute monopoly of the + telephone business; and everybody else was quite willing that they should + have it. + </p> + <p> + The only man who had money and dared to stake it on the future of the + telephone was Thomas Sanders, and he did this not mainly for business + reasons. Both he and Hubbard were attached to Bell primarily by sentiment, + as Bell had removed the blight of dumbness from Sanders's little son, and + was soon to marry Hubbard's daughter. + </p> + <p> + Also, Sanders had no expectation, at first, that so much money would be + needed. He was not rich. His entire business, which was that of cutting + out soles for shoe manufacturers, was not at any time worth more than + thirty-five thousand dollars. Yet, from 1874 to 1878, he had advanced + nine-tenths of the money that was spent on the telephone. He had paid + Bell's room-rent, and Watson's wages, and Williams's expenses, and the + cost of the exhibit at the Centennial. The first five thousand telephones, + and more, were made with his money. And so many long, expensive months + dragged by before any relief came to Sanders, that he was compelled, much + against his will and his business judgment, to stretch his credit within + an inch of the breaking-point to help Bell and the telephone. Desperately + he signed note after note until he faced a total of one hundred and ten + thousand dollars. If the new "scientific toy" succeeded, which he often + doubted, he would be the richest citizen in Haverhill; and if it failed, + which he sorely feared, he would be a bankrupt. + </p> + <p> + 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 commerce. It was a toy, a plaything, a scientific wonder, + but not a necessity to be bought and used for ordinary purposes by + ordinary people. Capitalists treated it exactly as they treated the + Atlantic Cable project when Cyrus Field visited Boston in 1862. They + admired and marvelled; but not a man subscribed a dollar. Also, Sanders + very soon learned that it was a most unpropitious time for the setting + afloat of a new enterprise. It was a period of turmoil and suspicion. What + with the Jay Cooke failure, the Hayes-Tilden deadlock, and the bursting of + a hundred railroad bubbles, there was very little in the news of the day + to encourage investors. + </p> + <p> + It was impossible for Sanders, or Bell, or Hubbard, to prepare any + definite plan. No matter what the plan might have been, they had no money + to put it through. They believed that they had something new and + marvellous, which some one, somewhere, would be willing to buy. Until this + good genie should arrive, they could do no more than flounder ahead, and + take whatever business was the nearest and the cheapest. So while Bell, in + eloquent rhapsodies, painted word-pictures of a universal telephone + service to applauding audiences, Sanders and Hubbard were leasing + telephones two by two, to business men who previously had been using the + private lines of the Western Union Telegraph Company. + </p> + <p> + This great corporation was at the time their natural and inevitable enemy. + It had swallowed most of its competitors, and was reaching out to + monopolize all methods of communication by wire. The rosiest hope that + shone in front of Sanders and Hubbard was that the Western Union might + conclude to buy the Bell patents, just as it had already bought many + others. In one moment of discouragement they had offered the telephone to + President Orton, of the Western Union, for $100,000; and Orton had refused + it. "What use," he asked pleasantly, "could this company make of an + electrical toy?" + </p> + <p> + But besides the operation of its own wires, the Western Union was + supplying customers with various kinds of printing-telegraphs and dial + telegraphs, some of which could transmit sixty words a minute. These + accurate instruments, it believed, could never be displaced by such a + scientific oddity as the telephone. 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 telephones. + </p> + <p> + At once the Western Union awoke from its indifference. Even this tiny + nibbling at its business must be stopped. It took action quickly and + organized the "American Speaking-Telephone Company," with $300,000 + capital, and with three electrical inventors, Edison, Gray, and Dolbear, + on its staff. With all the bulk of its great wealth and prestige, it swept + down upon Bell and his little bodyguard. It trampled upon Bell's patent + with as little concern as an elephant can have when he tramples upon an + ant's nest. To the complete bewilderment of Bell, it coolly announced that + it had "the only original telephone," and that it was ready to supply + "superior telephones with all the latest improvements made by the original + inventors—Dolbear, Gray, and Edison." + </p> + <p> + The result was strange and unexpected. The Bell group, instead of being + driven from the field, were at once lifted to a higher level in the + business world. The effect was as if the Standard Oil Company were to + commence the manufacture of aeroplanes. In a flash, the telephone ceased + to be a "scientific toy," and became an article of commerce. It began for + the first time to be taken seriously. And the Western Union, in the + endeavor to protect its private lines, became involuntarily a bell-wether + to lead capitalists in the direction of the telephone. + </p> + <p> + Sanders's relatives, who were many and rich, came to his rescue. Most of + them were well-known business men—the Bradleys, the Saltonstalls, + Fay, Silsbee, and Carlton. These men, together with Colonel William H. + Forbes, who came in as a friend of the Bradleys, were the first + capitalists who, for purely business reasons, invested money in the Bell + patents. Two months after the Western Union had given its weighty + endorsement to the telephone, these men organized a company to do business + in New England only, and put fifty thousand dollars in its treasury. + </p> + <p> + In a short time the delighted Hubbard found himself leasing telephones at + the rate of a thousand a month. He was no longer a promoter, but a general + manager. Men were standing in line to ask for agencies. Crude little + telephone exchanges were being started in a dozen or more cities. There + was a spirit of confidence and enterprise; and the next step, clearly, was + to create a business organization. None of the partners were competent to + undertake such a work. Hubbard had little aptitude as an organizer; Bell + had none; and Sanders was held fast by his leather interests. Here, at + last, after four years of the most heroic effort, were the raw materials + out of which a telephone business could be constructed. But who was to be + the builder, and where was he to be found? + </p> + <p> + One morning the indefatigable Hubbard solved the problem. "Watson," he + said, "there's a young man in Washington who can handle this situation, + and I want you to run down and see what you think of him." Watson went, + reported favorably, and in a day or so the young man received a letter + from Hubbard, offering him the position of General Manager, at a salary of + thirty-five hundred dollars a year. "We rely," Hubbard said, "upon your + executive ability, your fidelity, and unremitting zeal." The young man + replied, in one of those dignified letters more usual in the nineteenth + than in the twentieth century. "My faith in the success of the enterprise + is such that I am willing to trust to it," he wrote, "and I have + confidence that we shall establish the harmony and cooperation that is + essential to the success of an enterprise of this kind." One week later + the young man, Theodore N. Vail, took his seat as General Manager in a + tiny office in Reade Street, New York, and the building of the business + began. + </p> + <p> + This arrival of Vail at the critical moment emphasized the fact that Bell + was one of the most fortunate of inventors. He was not robbed of his + invention, as might easily have happened. One by one there arrived to help + him a number of able men, with all the various abilities that the changing + situation required. There was such a focussing of factors that the whole + matter appeared to have been previously rehearsed. No sooner had Bell + appeared on the stage than his supporting players, each in his turn, + received his cue and took part in the action of the drama. There was not + one of these men who could have done the work of any other. Each was + distinctive and indispensable. Bell invented the telephone; Watson + constructed it; Sanders financed it; Hubbard introduced it; and Vail put + it on a business basis. + </p> + <p> + The new General Manager had, of course, no experience in the telephone + business. Neither had any one else. But he, like Bell, came to his task + with a most surprising fitness. He was a member of the historic Vail + family of Morristown, New Jersey, which had operated the Speedwell Iron + Works for four or five generations. His grand-uncle Stephen had built the + engines for the Savannah, the first American steamship to cross the + Atlantic Ocean; and his cousin Alfred was the friend and co-worker of + Morse, the inventor of the telegraph. Morse had lived for several years at + the Vail homestead in Morristown; and it was here that he erected his + first telegraph line, a three-mile circle around the Iron Works, in 1838. + He and Alfred Vail experimented side by side in the making of the + telegraph, and Vail eventually received a fortune for his share of the + Morse patent. + </p> + <p> + Thus it happened that young Theodore Vail learned the dramatic story of + Morse at his mother's knee. As a boy, he played around the first telegraph + line, and learned to put messages on the wire. His favorite toy was a + little telegraph that he constructed for himself. At twenty-two he went + West, in the vague hope of possessing a bonanza farm; then he swung back + into telegraphy, and in a few years found himself in the Government Mail + Service at Washington. By 1876, he was at the head of this Department, + which he completely reorganized. He introduced the bag system in postal + cars, and made war on waste and clumsiness. By virtue of this position he + was the one man in the United States who had a comprehensive view of all + railways and telegraphs. He was much more apt, consequently, than other + men to develop the idea of a national telephone system. + </p> + <p> + While in the midst of this bureaucratic house-cleaning he met Hubbard, who + had just been appointed by President Hayes as the head of a commission on + mail transportation. He and Hubbard were constantly thrown together, on + trains and in hotels; and as Hubbard invariably had a pair of telephones + in his valise, the two men soon became co-enthusiasts. Vail found himself + painting brain-pictures of the future of the telephone, and by the time + that he was asked to become its General Manager, he had become so + confident that, as he said afterwards, he "was willing to leave a + Government job with a small salary for a telephone job with no salary." + </p> + <p> + So, just as Amos Kendall had left the post office service thirty years + before to establish the telegraph business, Theodore N. Vail left the post + office service to establish the telephone business. He had been in + authority over thirty-five hundred postal employees, and was the developer + of a system that covered every inhabited portion of the country. + Consequently, he had a quality of experience that was immensely valuable + in straightening out the tangled affairs of the telephone. Line by line, + he mapped out a method, a policy, a system. He introduced a larger view of + the telephone business, and swept off the table all schemes for selling + out. He persuaded half a dozen of his post office friends to buy stock, so + that in less than two months the first "Bell Telephone Company" was + organized, with $450,000 capital and a service of twelve thousand + telephones. + </p> + <p> + Vail's first step, naturally, was to stiffen up the backbone of this + little company, and to prevent the Western Union from frightening it into + a surrender. He immediately sent a copy of Bell's patent to every agent, + with orders to hold the fort against all opposition. "We have the only + original telephone patents," he wrote; "we have organized and introduced + the business, and we do not propose to have it taken from us by any + corporation." To one agent, who was showing the white feather, he wrote: + </p> + <p> + "You have too great an idea of the Western Union. If it was all massed in + your one city you might well fear it; but it is represented there by one + man only, and he has probably as much as he can attend to outside of the + telephone. For you to acknowledge that you cannot compete with his + influence when you make it your special business, is hardly the thing. + There may be a dozen concerns that will all go to the Western Union, but + they will not take with them all their friends. I would advise that you go + ahead and keep your present advantage. We must organize companies with + sufficient vitality to carry on a fight, as it is simply useless to get a + company started that will succumb to the first bit of opposition it may + encounter." + </p> + <p> + Next, having encouraged his thoroughly alarmed agents, Vail proceeded to + build up a definite business policy. He stiffened up the contracts and + made them good for five years only. He confined each agent to one place, + and reserved all rights to connect one city with another. He established a + department to collect and protect any new inventions that concerned the + telephone. He agreed to take part of the royalties in stock, when any + local company preferred to pay its debts in this way. And he took steps + toward standardizing all telephonic apparatus by controlling the factories + that made it. + </p> + <p> + These various measures were part of Vail's plan to create a national + telephone system. His central idea, from the first, was not the mere + leasing of telephones, but rather the creation of a Federal company that + would be a permanent partner in the entire telephone business. Even in + that day of small things, and amidst the confusion and rough-and-tumble of + pioneering, he worked out the broad policy that prevails to-day; 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 combined. + </p> + <p> + Vail arrived very much as Blucher did at the battle of Waterloo—a + trifle late, but in time to prevent the telephone forces from being routed + by the Old Guard of the Western Union. He was scarcely seated in his + managerial chair, when the Western Union threw the entire Bell army into + confusion by launching the Edison transmitter. Edison, who was at that + time fairly started in his career of wizardry, had made an instrument of + marvellous alertness. 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's." This, of course, could + not be had in a moment, and the five months that followed were the darkest + days in the childhood of the telephone. + </p> + <p> + How to compete with the Western Union, which had this superior + transmitter, a host of agents, a network of wires, forty millions of + capital, and a first claim upon all newspapers, hotels, railroads, and + rights of way—that was the immediate problem that confronted the new + General Manager. Every inch of progress had to be fought for. Several of + his captains deserted, and he was compelled to take control of their + unprofitable exchanges. There was scarcely a mail that did not bring him + some bulletin of discouragement or defeat. + </p> + <p> + In the effort to conciliate a hostile public, the telephone rates had + everywhere been made too low. Hubbard had set a price of twenty dollars a + year, for the use of two telephones on a private line; and when exchanges + were started, the rate was seldom more than three dollars a month. There + were deadheads in abundance, mostly officials and politicians. In St. + Louis, one of the few cities that charged a sufficient price, nine-tenths + of the merchants refused to become subscribers. In Boston, the first + pay-station ran three months before it earned a dollar. Even as late as + 1880, when the first National Telephone Convention was held at Niagara + Falls, one of the delegates expressed the general situation very correctly + when he said: "We were all in a state of enthusiastic uncertainty. We were + full of hope, yet when we analyzed those hopes they were very airy indeed. + There was probably not one company that could say it was making a cent, + nor even that it EXPECTED to make a cent." + </p> + <p> + Especially in the largest cities, where the Western Union had most power, + the lives of the telephone pioneers were packed with hardships and + adventures. In Philadelphia, for instance, a resolute young man named + Thomas E. Cornish was attacked as though he had suddenly become a public + enemy, when he set out to establish the first telephone service. No + official would grant him a permit to string wires. His workmen were + arrested. The printing-telegraph men warned him that he must either quit + or be driven out. When he asked capitalists for money, they replied that + he might as well expect to lease jew's-harps as telephones. Finally, he + was compelled to resort to strategy where argument had failed. He had + received an order from Colonel Thomas Scott, who wanted a wire between his + house and his office. Colonel Scott was the President of the Pennsylvania + Railroad, and therefore a man of the highest prestige in the city. So as + soon as Cornish had put this line in place, he kept his men at work + stringing other lines. When the police interfered, he showed them Colonel + Scott's signature and was let alone. In this way he put fifteen wires up + before the trick was discovered; and soon afterwards, with eight + subscribers, he founded the first Philadelphia exchange. + </p> + <p> + As may be imagined, such battling as this did not put much money into the + treasury of the parent company; and the letters written by Sanders at this + time prove that it was in a hard plight. + </p> + <p> + The following was one of the queries put to Hubbard by the overburdened + Sanders: + </p> + <p> + "How on earth do you expect me to meet a draft of two hundred and + seventy-five dollars without a dollar in the treasury, and with a debt of + thirty thousand dollars staring us in the face?" "Vail's salary is small + enough," he continued in a second letter, "but as to where it is coming + from I am not so clear. Bradley is awfully blue and discouraged. Williams + is tormenting me for money and my personal credit will not stand + everything. I have advanced the Company two thousand dollars to-day, and + Williams must have three thousand dollars more this month. His pay-day has + come and his capital will not carry him another inch. If Bradley throws up + his hand, I will unfold to you my last desperate plan." + </p> + <p> + And if the company had little money, it had less credit. Once when Vail + had ordered a small bill of goods from a merchant named Tillotson, of 15 + Dey Street, New York, the merchant replied that the goods were ready, and + so was the bill, which was seven dollars. By a strange coincidence, the + magnificent building of the New York Telephone Company stands to-day on + the site of Tillotson's store. + </p> + <p> + Month after month, the little Bell Company lived from hand to mouth. No + salaries were paid in full. Often, for weeks, they were not paid at all. + In Watson's note-book there are such entries during this period as "Lent + Bell fifty cents," "Lent Hubbard twenty cents," "Bought one bottle beer—too + bad can't have beer every day." More than once Hubbard would have gone + hungry had not Devonshire, the only clerk, shared with him the contents of + a dinner-pail. Each one of the little group was beset by taunts and + temptations. Watson was offered ten thousand dollars for his one-tenth + interest, and hesitated three days before refusing it. Railroad companies + offered Vail a salary that was higher and sure, if he would superintend + their mail business. And as for Sanders, his folly was the talk of + Haverhill. One Haverhill capitalist, E. J. M. Hale, stopped him on the + street and asked, "Have n't you got a good leather business, Mr. Sanders?" + "Yes," replied Sanders. "Well," said Hale, "you had better attend to it + and quit playing on wind instruments." Sanders's banker, too, became + uneasy on one occasion and requested him to call at the bank. "Mr. + Sanders," he said, "I will be obliged if you will take that telephone + stock out of the bank, and give me in its place your note for thirty + thousand dollars. I am expecting the examiner here in a few days, and I + don't want to get caught with that stuff in the bank." + </p> + <p> + Then, in the very midnight of this depression, poor Bell returned from + England, whither he and his bride had gone on their honeymoon, and + announced that he had no money; that he had failed to establish a + telephone business in England; and that he must have a thousand dollars at + once to pay his urgent debts. He was thoroughly discouraged and sick. As + he lay in the Massachusetts General Hospital, he wrote a cry for help to + the embattled little company that was making its desperate fight to + protect his patents. "Thousands of telephones are now in operation in all + parts of the country," he said, "yet I have not yet received one cent from + my invention. On the contrary, I am largely out of pocket by my + researches, as the mere value of the profession that I have sacrificed + during my three years' work, amounts to twelve thousand dollars." + </p> + <p> + Fortunately, there came, in almost the same mail with Bell's letter, + another letter from a young Bostonian named Francis Blake, with the good + news that he had invented a transmitter as satisfactory as Edison's, and + that he would prefer to sell it for stock instead of cash. If ever a man + came as an angel of light, that man was Francis Blake. The possession of + his transmitter instantly put the Bell Company on an even footing with the + Western Union, in the matter of apparatus. It encouraged the few + capitalists who had invested money, and it stirred others to come forward. + The general business situation had by this time become more settled, and + in four months the company had twenty-two thousand telephones in use, and + had reorganized into the National Bell Telephone Company, with $850, 000 + capital and with Colonel Forbes as its first President. Forbes now picked + up the load that had been carried so long by Sanders. As the son of an + East India merchant and the son-in-law of Ralph Waldo Emerson, he was a + Bostonian of the Brahmin caste. He was a big, four-square man who was both + popular and efficient; and his leadership at this crisis was of immense + value. + </p> + <p> + This reorganization put the telephone business into the hands of competent + business men at every point. It brought the heroic and experimental period + to an end. From this time onwards the telephone had strong friends in the + financial world. It was being attacked by the Western Union and by rival + inventors who were jealous of Bell's achievement. It was being + half-starved by cheap rates and crippled by clumsy apparatus. It was being + abused and grumbled at by an impatient public. But the art of making and + marketing it had at last been built up into a commercial enterprise. It + was now a business, fighting for its life. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER III. THE HOLDING OF THE BUSINESS + </h2> + <p> + For seventeen months no one disputed Bell's claim to be the original + inventor of the telephone. All the honor, such as it was, had been given + to him freely, and no one came forward to say that it was not rightfully + his. No one, so far as we know, had any strong desire to do so. No one + conceived that the telephone would ever be any more than a whimsical + oddity of science. It was so new, so unexpected, that from Lord Kelvin + down to the messenger boys in the telegraph offices, it was an + incomprehensible surprise. But after Bell had explained his invention in + public lectures before more than twenty thousand people, after it had been + on exhibition for months at the Philadelphia Centennial, after several + hundred articles on it had appeared in newspapers and scientific + magazines, and after actual sales of telephones had been made in various + parts of the country, there began to appear such a succession of claimants + and infringers that the forgetful public came to believe that the + telephone, like most inventions, was the product of many minds. + </p> + <p> + Just as Morse, who was the sole inventor of the American telegraph in + 1837, was confronted by sixty-two rivals in 1838, so Bell, who was the + sole inventor in 1876, found himself two years later almost mobbed by the + "Tichborne claimants" of the telephone. The inventors who had been his + competitors in the attempt to produce a musical telegraph, persuaded + themselves that they had unconsciously done as much as he. Any possessor + of a telegraphic patent, who had used the common phrase "talking wire," + had a chance to build up a plausible story of prior invention. 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 air." + </p> + <p> + This babel of inventors and pretenders amazed Bell and disconcerted his + backers. But it was no more than might have been expected. 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 mechanic. The making of a telephone was like + the trick of Columbus standing an egg on end. Nothing was easier to those + who knew how. And so it happened that, 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 evade, there sprang up inevitably + around it the most costly and persistent Patent War that any country has + ever known, continuing for eleven years and comprising SIX HUNDRED + LAWSUITS. + </p> + <p> + The first attack upon the young telephone business was made by the Western + Union Telegraph Company. It came charging full tilt upon Bell, driving + three inventors abreast—Edison, Gray, and Dolbear. It expected an + easy victory; in fact, the disparity between the two opponents was so + evident, that there seemed little chance of a contest of any kind. "The + Western Union will swallow up the telephone people," said public opinion, + "just as it has already swallowed up all improvements in telegraphy." + </p> + <p> + At that time, it should be remembered, the Western Union was the only + corporation that was national in its extent. It was the most powerful + electrical company in the world, and, as Bell wrote to his parents, + "probably the largest corporation that ever existed." It had behind it not + only forty millions of capital, but the prestige of the Vanderbilts, and + the favor of financiers everywhere. Also, it met the telephone pioneers at + every point because it, too, was a WIRE company. It owned rights-of-way + along roads and on house-tops. It had a monopoly of hotels and railroad + offices. No matter in what direction the Bell Company turned, the live + wire of the Western Union lay across its path. + </p> + <p> + From the first, the Western Union relied more upon its strength than upon + the merits of its case. Its chief electrical expert, Frank L. Pope, had + made a six months' examination of the Bell patents. He had bought every + book in the United States and Europe that was likely to have any reference + to the transmission of speech, and employed a professor who knew eight + languages to translate them. He and his men ransacked libraries and patent + offices; they rummaged and sleuthed and interviewed; and found nothing of + any value. In his final report to the Western Union, Mr. Pope announced + that there was no way to make a telephone except Bell's way, and advised + the purchase of the Bell patents. "I am entirely unable to discover any + apparatus or method anticipating the invention of Bell as a whole," he + said; "and I conclude that his patent is valid." But the officials of the + great corporation refused to take this report seriously. They threw it + aside and employed Edison, Gray, and Dolbear to devise a telephone that + could be put into competition with Bell's. + </p> + <p> + As we have seen in the previous chapter, there now came a period of + violent competition which is remembered as the Dark Ages of the telephone + business. The Western Union bought out several of the Bell exchanges and + opened up a lively war on the others. As befitting its size, it claimed + everything. It introduced Gray as the original inventor of the telephone, + and ordered its lawyers to take action at once against the Bell Company + for infringement of the Gray patent. This high-handed action, it hoped, + would most quickly bring the little Bell group into a humble and + submissive frame of mind. Every morning the Western Union looked to see + the white flag flying over the Bell headquarters. But no white flag + appeared. On the contrary, the news came that the Bell Company had secured + two eminent lawyers and were ready to give battle. + </p> + <p> + The case began in the Autumn of 1878 and lasted for a year. Then it came + to a sudden and most unexpected ending. The lawyer-in-chief of the Western + Union was George Gifford, who was perhaps the ablest patent attorney of + his day. He was versed in patent lore from Alpha to Omega; and as the + trial proceeded, he became convinced that the Bell patent was valid. He + notified the Western Union confidentially, of course, that its case could + not be proven, and that "Bell was the original inventor of the telephone." + The best policy, he suggested, was to withdraw their claims and make a + settlement. This wise advice was accepted, and the next day the white flag + was hauled up, not by the little group of Bell fighters, who were huddled + together in a tiny, two-room office, but by the mighty Western Union + itself, which had been so arrogant when the encounter began. + </p> + <p> + A committee of three from each side was appointed, and after months of + disputation, a treaty of peace was drawn up and signed. By the terms of + this treaty the Western Union agreed— + </p> + <p> + (1) To admit that Bell was the original inventor. + </p> + <p> + (2) To admit that his patents were valid. + </p> + <p> + (3) To retire from the telephone business. + </p> + <p> + The Bell Company, in return for this surrender, agreed— + </p> + <p> + (1) To buy the Western Union telephone system. + </p> + <p> + (2) To pay the Western Union a royalty of twenty per cent on all telephone + rentals. + </p> + <p> + (3) To keep out of the telegraph business. + </p> + <p> + This agreement, which was to remain in force for seventeen years, was a + master-stroke of diplomacy on the part of the Bell Company. It was the + Magna Charta of the telephone. It transformed a giant competitor into a + friend. It added to the Bell System fifty-six thousand telephones in + fifty-five cities. 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 share. + </p> + <p> + The Western Union had lost its case, for several very simple reasons: It + had tried to operate a telephone system on telegraphic lines, a plan that + has invariably been unsuccessful, it had a low idea of the possibilities + of the telephone business; and its already busy agents had little time or + knowledge or enthusiasm to give to the new enterprise. With all its power, + it found itself outfought by this compact body of picked men, who were + young, zealous, well-handled, and protected by a most invulnerable patent. + </p> + <p> + The Bell Telephone now took its place with the Telegraph, the Railroad, + the Steamboat, the Harvester, and the other necessities of a civilized + country. Its pioneer days were over. There was no more ridicule and + incredulity. Every one knew that the Bell people had whipped the Western + Union, and hastened to join in the grand Te Deum of applause. Within five + months from the signing of the agreement, there had to be a + reorganization; and the American Bell Telephone Company was created, with + six million dollars capital. In the following year, 1881, twelve hundred + new towns and cities were marked on the telephone map, and the first + dividends were paid—$178,500. And in 1882 there came such a + telephone boom that the Bell System was multiplied by two, with more than + a million dollars of gross earnings. + </p> + <p> + At this point all the earliest pioneers of the telephone, except Vail, + pass out of its history. Thomas Sanders sold his stock for somewhat less + than a million dollars, and presently lost most of it in a Colorado gold + mine. His mother, who had been so good a friend to Bell, had her fortune + doubled. Gardiner G. Hubbard withdrew from business life, and as it was + impossible for a man of his ardent temperament to be idle, he plunged into + the National Geographical Society. He was a Colonel Sellers whose dream of + millions (for the telephone) had come true; and when he died, in 1897, he + was rich both in money and in the affection of his friends. Charles + Williams, in whose workshop the first telephones were made, sold his + factory to the Bell Company in 1881 for more money than he had ever + expected to possess. Thomas A. Watson resigned at the same time, finding + himself no longer a wage-worker but a millionaire. Several years later he + established a shipbuilding plant near Boston, which grew until it employed + four thousand workmen and had built half a dozen warships for the United + States Navy. + </p> + <p> + As for Bell, the first cause of the telephone business, he did what a true + scientific Bohemian might have been expected to do; he gave all his stock + to his bride on their marriage-day and resumed his work as an instructor + of deaf-mutes. Few kings, if any, had ever given so rich a wedding + present; and certainly no one in any country ever obtained and tossed + aside an immense fortune as incidentally as did Bell. When the Bell + Company offered him a salary of ten thousand dollars a year to remain its + chief inventor, he refused the offer cheerfully on the ground that he + could not "invent to order." In 1880, the French Government gave him the + Volta Prize of fifty thousand francs and the Cross of the Legion of Honor. + He has had many honors since then, and many interests. He has been for + thirty years one of the most brilliant and picturesque personalities in + American public life. But none of his later achievements can in any degree + compare with what he did in a cellar in Salem, at twenty-eight years of + age. + </p> + <p> + They had all become rich, these first friends of the telephone, but not + fabulously so. There was not at that time, nor has there been since, any + one who became a multimillionaire by the sale of telephone service. If the + Bell Company had sold its stock at the highest price reached, in 1880, it + would have received less than nine million dollars—a huge sum, but + not too much to pay for the invention of the telephone and the building up + of a new art and a new industry. It was not as much as the value of the + eggs laid during the last twelve months by the hens of Iowa. + </p> + <p> + But, as may be imagined, when the news of the Western Union agreement + became known, the story of the telephone became a fairy tale of success. + Theodore Vail was given a banquet by his old-time friends in the + Washington postal service, and toasted as "the Monte Cristo of the + Telephone." It was said that the actual cost of the Bell plant was only + one-twenty-fifth of its capital, and that every four cents of investment + had thus become a dollar. Even Jay Gould, carried beyond his usual caution + by these stories, ran up to New Haven and bought its telephone company, + only to find out later that its earnings were less than its expenses. + </p> + <p> + Much to the bewilderment of the Bell Company, it soon learned that the + troubles of wealth are as numerous as those of poverty. It was beset by a + throng of promoters and stock-jobbers, who fell upon it and upon the + public like a swarm of seventeen-year locusts. In three years, one hundred + and twenty-five competing companies were started, in open defiance of the + Bell patents. The main object of these companies was not, like that of the + Western Union, to do a legitimate telephone business, but to sell stock to + the public. The face value of their stock was $225,000,000, although few + of them ever sent a message. One company of unusual impertinence, without + money or patents, had capitalized its audacity at $15,000,000. + </p> + <p> + How to HOLD the business that had been established—that was now the + problem. None of the Bell partners had been mere stock-jobbers. At one + time they had even taken a pledge not to sell any of their stock to + outsiders. They had financed their company in a most honest and simple + way; and they were desperately opposed to the financial banditti whose + purpose was to transform the telephone business into a cheat and a gamble. + At first, having held their own against the Western Union, they expected + to make short work of the stock-jobbers. But it was a vain hope. These + bogus companies, they found, did not fight in the open, as the Western + Union had done. + </p> + <p> + All manner of injurious rumors were presently set afloat concerning the + Bell patent. Other inventors—some of them honest men, and some + shameless pretenders—were brought forward with strangely concocted + tales of prior invention. The Granger movement was at that time a strong + political factor in the Middle West, and its blind fear of patents and + "monopolies" was turned aggressively against the Bell Company. A few + Senators and legitimate capitalists were lifted up as the figureheads of + the crusade. 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 bubbles. + </p> + <p> + The most plausible and persistent of all the various inventors who + snatched at Bell's laurels, was Elisha Gray. He refused to abide by the + adverse decision of the court. Several years after his defeat, he came + forward with new weapons and new methods of attack. He became more hostile + and irreconcilable; and until his death, in 1901, never renounced his + claim to be the original inventor of the telephone. + </p> + <p> + The reason for this persistence is very evident. Gray was a professional + inventor, a highly competent man who had begun his career as a + blacksmith's apprentice, and risen to be a professor of Oberlin. He made, + during his lifetime, over five million dollars by his patents. In 1874, he + and Bell were running a neck-and-neck race to see who could first invent a + musical telegraph—when, presto! Bell suddenly turned aside, because + of his acoustical knowledge, and invented the telephone, while Gray kept + straight ahead. Like all others who were in quest of a better telegraph + instrument, Gray had glimmerings of the possibility of sending speech by + wire, 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 patent. Bell + had arrived first. As the record book shows, the fifth entry on that day + was: "A. G. Bell, $15"; and the thirty-ninth entry was "E. Gray, $10." + </p> + <p> + There was a vast difference between Gray's caveat and Bell's application. + A caveat is a declaration that the writer has NOT invented a thing, but + believes that he is about to do so; while an APPLICATION is a declaration + that the writer has already perfected the invention. But Gray could never + forget that he had seemed to be, for a time, so close to the golden prize; + and seven years after he had been set aside by the Western Union + agreement, he reappeared with claims that had grown larger and more + definite. + </p> + <p> + When all the evidence in the various Gray lawsuits is sifted out, there + appear to have been three distinctly different Grays: first, Gray the + SCOFFER, who examined Bell's telephone at the Centennial and said it was + "nothing but the old lover's telegraph. It is impossible to make a + practical speaking telephone on the principle shown by Professor Bell.... + The currents are too feeble"; second, Gray the CONVERT, who wrote frankly + to Bell in 1877, "I do not claim the credit of inventing it"; and third, + Gray the CLAIMANT, who endeavored to prove in 1886 that he was the + original inventor. His real position in the matter was once well and + wittily described by his partner, Enos M. Barton, who said: "Of all the + men who DIDN'T invent the telephone, Gray was the nearest." + </p> + <p> + It is now clearly seen that the telephone owes nothing to Gray. There are + no Gray telephones in use in any country. Even Gray himself, as he + admitted in court, failed when he tried to make a telephone on the lines + laid down in his caveat. The final word on the whole matter was recently + spoken by George C. Maynard, who established the telephone business in the + city of Washington. Said Mr. Maynard: + </p> + <p> + "Mr. Gray was an intimate and valued friend of mine, but it is no + disrespect to his memory to say that on some points involved in the + telephone matter, he was mistaken. No subject was ever so thoroughly + investigated as the invention of the speaking telephone. No patent has + ever been submitted to such determined assault from every direction as + Bell's; and no inventor has ever been more completely vindicated. Bell was + the first inventor, and Gray was not." + </p> + <p> + After Gray, the weightiest challenger who came against Bell was Professor + Amos E. Dolbear, of Tufts College. He, like Gray, had written a letter of + applause to Bell in 1877. "I congratulate you, sir," he said, "upon your + very great invention, and I hope to see it supplant all forms of existing + telegraphs, and that you will be successful in obtaining the wealth and + honor which is your due." But one year later, Dolbear came to view with an + opposition telephone. It was not an imitation of Bell's, he insisted, but + an improvement upon an electrical device made by a German named Philip + Reis, in 1861. + </p> + <p> + Thus there appeared upon the scene the so-called "Reis telephone," which + was not a telephone at all, in any practical sense, but which served well + enough for nine years or more as a weapon to use against the Bell patents. + Poor Philip Reis himself, the son of a baker in Frankfort, Germany, had + hoped to make a telephone, but he had failed. His machine was operated by + a "make-and-break" current, and so could not carry the infinitely delicate + vibrations made by the human voice. It could transmit the pitch of a + sound, but not the QUALITY. At its best, it could carry a tune, but never + at any time a spoken sentence. Reis, in his later years, realized that his + machine could never be used for the transmission of conversation; and in a + letter to a friend he tells of a code of signals that he has invented. + </p> + <p> + Bell had once, during his three years of experimenting, made a Reis + machine, although at that time he had not seen one. But he soon threw it + aside, as of no practical value. As a teacher of acoustics, Bell knew that + the one indispensable requirement of a telephone is that it shall transmit + the WHOLE of a sound, and not merely the pitch of it. Such scientists as + Lord Kelvin, Joseph Henry, and Edison had seen the little Reis instrument + years before Bell invented the telephone; but they regarded it as a mere + musical toy. It was "not in any sense a speaking telephone," said Lord + Kelvin. And Edison, when trying to put the Reis machine in the most + favorable light, admitted humorously that when he used a Reis transmitter + he generally "knew what was coming; and knowing what was coming, even a + Reis transmitter, pure and simple, reproduces sounds which seem almost + like that which was being transmitted; but when the man at the other end + did not know what was coming, it was very seldom that any word was + recognized." + </p> + <p> + In the course of the Dolbear lawsuit, a Reis machine was brought into + court, and created much amusement. It was able to squeak, but not to + speak. Experts and professors wrestled with it in vain. It refused to + transmit one intelligible sentence. "It CAN speak, but it WON'T," + explained one of Dolbear's lawyers. It is now generally known that while a + Reis machine, when clogged and out of order, would transmit a word or two + in an imperfect way, it was built on wrong lines. It was no more a + telephone than a wagon is a sleigh, even though it is possible to chain + the wheels and make them slide for a foot or two. Said Judge Lowell, in + rendering his famous decision: + </p> + <p> + "A century of Reis would never have produced a speaking telephone by mere + improvement of construction. 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 done. ... Bell discovered a new art—that + of transmitting speech by electricity, and his claim is not as broad as + his invention.... To follow Reis is to fail; but to follow Bell is to + succeed." + </p> + <p> + After the victory over Dolbear, the Bell stock went soaring skywards; and + the higher it went, the greater were the number of infringers and blowers + of stock bubbles. To bait the Bell Company became almost a national sport. + Any sort of claimant, with any sort of wild tale of prior invention, could + find a speculator to support him. On they came, a motley array, "some in + rags, some on nags, and some in velvet gowns." One of them claimed to have + done wonders with an iron hoop and a file in 1867; a second had a + marvellous table with glass legs; a third swore that he had made a + telephone in 1860, but did not know what it was until he saw Bell's + patent; 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 Racine, in + 1851. + </p> + <p> + This comic opera phase came to a head in the famous Drawbaugh case, which + lasted for nearly four years, and filled ten thousand pages with its + evidence. Having failed on Reis, the German, the opponents of Bell now + brought forward an American inventor named Daniel Drawbaugh, and opened up + a noisy newspaper campaign. To secure public sympathy for Drawbaugh, it + was said that he had invented a complete telephone and switchboard before + 1876, but was in such "utter and abject poverty" that he could not get + himself a patent. Five hundred witnesses were examined; and such a general + turmoil was aroused that the Bell lawyers were compelled to take the + attack seriously, and to fight back with every pound of ammunition they + possessed. + </p> + <p> + The fact about Drawbaugh is that he was a mechanic in a country village + near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He was ingenious but not inventive; and + loved to display his mechanical skill before the farmers and villagers. He + was a subscriber to The Scientific American; and it had become the fixed + habit of his life to copy other people's inventions and exhibit them as + his own. He was a trailer of inventors. More than forty instances of this + imitative habit were shown at the trial, and he was severely scored by the + judge, who accused him of "deliberately falsifying the facts." His ruling + passion of imitation, apparently, was not diminished by the loss of his + telephone claims, as he came to public view again in 1903 as a trailer of + Marconi. + </p> + <p> + Drawbaugh's defeat sent the Bell stock up once more, and brought on a + Xerxes' army of opposition which called itself the "Overland Company." + Having learned that no one claim-ant could beat Bell in the courts, this + company massed the losers together and came forward with a scrap-basket + full of patents. Several powerful capitalists undertook to pay the + expenses of this adventure. Wires were strung; stock was sold; and the + enterprise looked for a time so genuine that when the Bell lawyers asked + for an injunction against it, they were refused. This was as hard a blow + as the Bell people received in their eleven years of litigation; and the + Bell stock tumbled thirty-five points in a few days. Infringing companies + sprang up like gourds in the night. And all went merrily with the + promoters until the Overland Company was thrown out of court, as having no + evidence, except "the refuse and dregs of former cases—the heel-taps + found in the glasses at the end of the frolic." + </p> + <p> + But even after this defeat for the claimants, the frolic was not wholly + ended. They next planned to get through politics what they could not get + through law; they induced the Government to bring suit for the annulment + of the Bell patents. It was a bold and desperate move, and enabled the + promoters of paper companies to sell stock for several years longer. The + whole dispute was re-opened, from Gray to Drawbaugh. Every battle was + re-fought; and in the end, of course, the Government officials learned + that they were being used to pull telephone chestnuts out of the fire. The + case was allowed to die a natural death, and was informally dropped in + 1896. + </p> + <p> + In all, the Bell Company fought out thirteen lawsuits that were of + national interest, and five that were carried to the Supreme Court in + Washington. It fought out five hundred and eighty-seven other lawsuits of + various natures; and with the exception of two trivial contract suits, IT + NEVER LOST A CASE. + </p> + <p> + Its experience is an unanswerable indictment of our system of protecting + inventors. No inventor had ever a clearer title than Bell. The Patent + Office itself, in 1884, made an eighteen-months' investigation of all + telephone patents, and reported: "It is to Bell that the world owes the + possession of the speaking telephone." Yet his patent was continuously + under fire, and never at any time secure. Stock companies whose paper + capital totalled more than $500,000,000 were organized to break it down; + 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 + business. + </p> + <p> + Fortunately for Bell and the men who upheld him, they were defended by two + master-lawyers who have seldom, if ever, had an equal for team work and + efficiency—Chauncy Smith and James J. Storrow. These two men were + marvellously well mated. Smith was an old-fashioned attorney of the + Websterian sort, dignified, ponderous, and impressive. By 1878, when he + came in to defend the little Bell Company against the towering Western + Union, Smith had become the most noted patent lawyer in Boston. He was a + large, thick-set man, a reminder of Benjamin Franklin, with clean-shaven + face, long hair curling at the ends, frock coat, high collar, and beaver + hat. + </p> + <p> + Storrow, on the contrary, was a small man, quiet in manner, conversational + in argument, and an encyclopedia of definite information. He was so + thorough that, when he became a Bell lawyer, he first spent an entire + summer at his country home in Petersham, studying the laws of physics and + electricity. He was never in the slightest degree spectacular. Once only, + during the eleven years of litigation, did he lose control of his temper. + He was attacking the credibility of a witness whom he had put on the + stand, but who had been tampered with by the opposition lawyers. "But this + man is your own witness," protested the lawyers. "Yes," shouted the + usually soft-speaking Storrow; "he WAS my witness, but now he is YOUR + LIAR." + </p> + <p> + The efficiency of these two men was greatly increased by a third—Thomas + D. Lockwood, who was chosen by Vail in 1879 to establish a Patent + Department. Two years before, Lockwood had heard Bell lecture in + Chickering Hall, New York, and was a "doubting Thomas." But a closer study + of the telephone transformed him into an enthusiast. Having a memory like + a filing system, and a knack for invention, Lockwood was well fitted to + create such a department. He was a man born for the place. And he has seen + the number of electrical patents grow from a few hundred in 1878 to eighty + thousand in 1910. + </p> + <p> + These three men were the defenders of the Bell patents. As Vail built up + the young telephone business, they held it from being torn to shreds in an + orgy of speculative competition. Smith prepared the comprehensive plan of + defence. By his sagacity and experience he was enabled to mark out the + general principles upon which Bell had a right to stand. Usually, he + closed the case, and he was immensely effective as he would declaim, in + his deep voice: "I submit, Your Honor, that the literature of the world + does not afford a passage which states how the human voice can be + electrically transmitted, previous to the patent of Mr. Bell." His death, + like his life, was dramatic. He was on his feet in the courtroom, battling + against an infringer, when, in the middle of a sentence, he fell to the + floor, overcome by sickness and the responsibilities he had carried for + twelve years. Storrow, in a different way, was fully as indispensable as + Smith. It was he who built up the superstructure of the Bell defence. He + was a master of details. His brain was keen and incisive; and some of his + briefs will be studied as long as the art of telephony exists. He might + fairly have been compared, in action, to a rapid-firing Gatling gun; while + Smith was a hundred-ton cannon, and Lockwood was the maker of the + ammunition. + </p> + <p> + Smith and Storrow had three main arguments that never were, and never + could be, answered. Fifty or more of the most eminent lawyers of that day + tried to demolish these arguments, and failed. The first was Bell's clear, + straightforward story of HOW HE DID IT, which rebuked and confounded the + mob of pretenders. 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 marvellous," said Tyndall. 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 old. + </p> + <p> + The patent itself, too, was a remarkable document. It was a Gibraltar of + security to the Bell Company. For eleven years it was attacked from all + sides, and never dented. It covered an entire art, yet it was sustained + during its whole lifetime. Printed in full, it would make ten pages of + this book; but the core of it is in the last sentence: "The method of, and + apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically, by + causing electrical undulations, similar in form to the vibrations of the + air accompanying the said vocal or other sounds." These words expressed an + idea that had never been written before. It could not be evaded or + overcome. There were only thirty-two words, but in six years these words + represented an investment of a million dollars apiece. + </p> + <p> + Now that the clamor of this great patent war has died away, it is evident + that Bell received no more credit and no more reward than he deserved. + There was no telephone until he made one, and since he made one, no one + has found out any other way. Hundreds of clever men have been trying for + more than thirty years to outrival Bell, and yet every telephone in the + world is still made on the plan that Bell discovered. + </p> + <p> + No inventor who preceded Bell did more, in the invention of the telephone, + than to help Bell indirectly, 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 Columbus. Bell was helped by his father, who taught him + the laws of acoustics; by Helmholtz, who taught him the influence of + magnets upon sound vibrations; by Koenig and Leon Scott, who taught him + the infinite variety of these vibrations; by Dr. Clarence J. Blake, who + gave him a human ear for his experiments; and by Joseph Henry and Sir + Charles Wheatstone, who encouraged him to persevere. In a still more + indirect way, he was helped by Morse's invention of the telegraph; by + Faraday's discovery of the phenomena of magnetic induction; by Sturgeon's + first electro-magnet; and by Volta's electric battery. All that scientists + had achieved, from Galileo and Newton to Franklin and Simon Newcomb, + helped Bell in a general way, by creating a scientific atmosphere and + habit of thought. But in the actual making of the telephone, there was no + one with Bell nor before him. He invented it first, and alone. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IV. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ART + </h2> + <p> + Four wire-using businesses were already in the field when the telephone + was born: the fire-alarm, burglar-alarm, telegraph, and messenger-boy + service; and at first, as might have been expected, the humble little + telephone was huddled in with these businesses as a sort of poor relation. + To the general public, it was a mere scientific toy; but there were a few + men, not many, in these wire-stringing trades, who saw a glimmering chance + of creating a telephone business. They put telephones on the wires that + were then in use. As these became popular, they added others. Each of + their customers wished to be able to talk to every one else. And so, + having undertaken to give telephone service, 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 service. + </p> + <p> + The first of these men was Thomas A. Watson, the young mechanic who had + been hired as Bell's helper. He began a work that to-day requires an army + of twenty-six thousand people. He was for a couple of years the total + engineering and manufacturing department of the telephone business, and by + 1880 had taken out sixty patents for his own suggestions. It was Watson + who took the telephone as Bell had made it, really a toy, with its + diaphragm so delicate that a warm breath would put it out of order, and + toughened it into a more rugged machine. Bell had used a disc of fragile + gold-beaters' skin with a patch of sheet-iron glued to the centre. He + could not believe, for a time, that a disc of all-iron would vibrate under + the slight influence of a spoken word. But he and Watson noticed that when + the patch was bigger the talking was better, and presently they threw away + the gold-beaters' skin and used the iron alone. + </p> + <p> + Also, it was Watson who spent months experimenting with all sorts and + sizes of iron discs, so as to get the one that would best convey the + sound. If the iron was too thick, he discovered, the voice was shrilled + into a Punch-and-Judy squeal; and if it was too thin, the voice became a + hollow and sepulchral groan, as if the speaker had his head in a barrel. + Other months, too, were spent in finding out the proper size and shape for + the air cavity in front of the disc. And so, after the telephone had been + perfected, IN PRINCIPLE, a full year was required to lift it out of the + class of scientific toys, and another year or two to present it properly + to the business world. + </p> + <p> + Until 1878 all Bell telephone apparatus was made by Watson in Charles + Williams's little shop in Court Street, Boston—a building long since + transformed into a five-cent theatre. But the business soon grew too big + for the shop. Orders fell five weeks behind. Agents stormed and fretted. + Some action had to be taken quickly, so licenses were given to four other + manufacturers to make bells, switchboards, and so forth. By this time the + Western Electric Company of Chicago had begun to make the infringing + Gray-Edison telephones for the Western Union, so that there were soon six + groups of mechanics puzzling their wits over the new talk-machinery. + </p> + <p> + By 1880 there was plenty of telephonic apparatus being made, but in too + many different varieties. Not all the summer gowns of that year presented + more styles and fancies. The next step, if there was to be any degree of + uniformity, was plainly to buy and consolidate these six companies; and by + 1881 Vail had done this. It was the first merger in telephone history. It + was a step of immense importance. Had it not been taken, the telephone + business would have been torn into fragments by the civil wars between + rival inventors. + </p> + <p> + From this time the Western Electric became the headquarters of telephonic + apparatus. It was the Big Shop, all roads led to it. No matter where a new + idea was born, sooner or later it came knocking at the door of the Western + Electric to receive a material body. Here were the skilled workmen who + became the hands of the telephone business. And here, too, were many of + the ablest inventors and engineers, who did most to develop the cables and + switchboards of to-day. + </p> + <p> + In Boston, Watson had resigned in 1882, and in his place, a year or two + later stood a timely new arrival named E. T. Gilliland. This really + notable man was a friend in need to the telephone. He had been a + manufacturer of electrical apparatus in Indianapolis, until Vail's policy + of consolidation drew him into the central group of pioneers and + pathfinders. For five years Gilliland led the way as a developer of better + and cheaper equipment. He made the best of a most difficult situation. He + was so handy, so resourceful, that he invariably found a way to unravel + the mechanical tangles that perplexed the first telephone agents, and + this, too, without compelling them to spend large sums of capital. He took + the ideas and apparatus that were then in existence, and used them to + carry the telephone business through the most critical period of its life, + when there was little time or money to risk on experiments. He took the + peg switchboard of the telegraph, for in-stance, and developed it to its + highest point, to a point that was not even imagined possible by any one + else. It was the most practical and complete switchboard of its day, and + held the field against all comers until it was superseded by the modern + type of board, vastly more elaborate and expensive. + </p> + <p> + By 1884, gathered around Gilliland in Boston and the Western Electric in + Chicago, there came to be a group of mechanics and high-school graduates, + very young men, mostly, who had no reputations to lose; and who, partly + for a living and mainly for a lark, plunged into the difficulties of this + new business that had at that time little history and less prestige. These + young adventurers, most of whom are still alive, became the makers of + industrial history. They were unquestionably the founders of the present + science of telephone engineering. + </p> + <p> + The problem that they dashed at so lightheartedly was much larger than any + of them imagined. It was a Gibraltar of impossibilities. It was on the + face of it a fantastic nightmare of a task—to weave such a web of + wires, with interlocking centres, as would put any one telephone in touch + with every other. There was no help for them in books or colleges. Watson, + who had acquired a little knowledge, had become a shipbuilder. Electrical + engineering, as a profession, was unborn. And as for their telegraphic + experience, while it certainly helped them for a time, it started them in + the wrong direction and led them to do many things which had afterwards to + be undone. + </p> + <p> + The peculiar electric current that these young pathfinders had to deal + with is perhaps the quickest, feeblest, and most elusive force in the + world. It is so amazing a thing that any description of it seems + irrational. It is as gentle as a touch of a baby sunbeam, and as swift as + the lightning flash. It is so small that the electric current of a single + incandescent lamp is greater 500,000,000 times. Cool a spoonful of hot + water just one degree, and the energy set free by the cooling will operate + a telephone for ten thousand years. Catch the falling tear-drop of a + child, and there will be sufficient water-power to carry a spoken message + from one city to another. + </p> + <p> + Such is the tiny Genie of the Wire that had to be protected and trained + into obedience. It was the most defenceless of all electric sprites, and + it had so many enemies. Enemies! The world was populous with its enemies. + There was the lightning, its elder brother, striking at it with murderous + blows. There were the telegraphic and light-and-power currents, its strong + and malicious cousins, chasing and assaulting it whenever it ventured too + near. There were rain and sleet and snow and every sort of moisture, lying + in wait to abduct it. There were rivers and trees and flecks of dust. 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 Bell. + </p> + <p> + All that these young men had received from Bell and Watson was that part + of the telephone that we call the receiver. This was practically the sum + total of Bell's invention, and remains to-day as he made it. It was then, + and is yet, the most sensitive instrument that has ever been put to + general use in any country. It opened up a new world of sound. It would + echo the tramp of a fly that walked across a table, or repeat in New + Orleans the prattle of a child in New York. This was what the young men + received, and this was all. There were no switchboards of any account, no + cables of any value, no wires that were in any sense adequate, no theory + of tests or signals, no exchanges, NO TELEPHONE SYSTEM OF ANY SORT + WHATEVER. + </p> + <p> + As for Bell's first telephone lines, they were as simple as clothes-lines. + Each short little wire stood by itself, with one instrument at each end. + There were no operators, switchboards, or exchanges. But there had now + come a time when more than two persons wanted to be in the same + conversational group. This was a larger use of the telephone; and while + Bell himself had foreseen it, he had not worked out a plan whereby it + could be carried out. Here was the new problem, and a most stupendous one—how + to link together three telephones, or three hundred, or three thousand, or + three million, so that any two of them could be joined at a moment's + notice. + </p> + <p> + And that was not all. These young men had not only to battle against + mystery and "the powers of the air"; they had not only to protect their + tiny electric messenger, and to create a system of wire highways along + which he could run up and down safely; they had to do more. 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 + experience. They had to educate Bell's Genie of the Wire so that he would + not only obey his masters, but anybody—anybody who could speak to + him in any language. + </p> + <p> + No doubt, if the young men had stopped to consider their life-work as a + whole, some of them might have turned back. But they had no time to + philosophize. They were like the boy who learns how to swim by being + pushed into deep water. Once the telephone business was started, it had to + be kept going; and as it grew, there came one after another a series of + congestions. Two courses were open; either the business had to be kept + down to suit the apparatus, or the apparatus had to be developed to keep + pace with the business. The telephone men, most of them, at least, chose + development; and the brilliant inventions that afterwards made some of + them famous were compelled by sheer necessity and desperation. + </p> + <p> + The first notable improvement upon Bell's invention was the making of the + transmitter, in 1877, by Emile Berliner. This, too, was a romance. + Berliner, as a poor German youth of nineteen, had landed in Castle Garden + in 1870 to seek his fortune. He got a job as "a sort of bottle-washer at + six dollars a week," he says, in a chemical shop in New York. At nights he + studied science in the free classes of Cooper Union. Then a druggist named + Engel gave him a copy of Muller's book on physics, which was precisely the + stimulus needed by his creative brain. In 1876 he was fascinated by the + telephone, and set out to construct one on a different plan. Several + months later he had succeeded and was overjoyed to receive his first + patent for a telephone transmitter. He had by this time climbed up from + his bottle-washing to be a clerk in a drygoods store in Washington; but he + was still poor and as unpractical as most inventors. Joseph Henry, the + Sage of the American scientific world, was his friend, though too old to + give him any help. Consequently, when Edison, two weeks later, also + invented a transmitter, the prior claim of Berliner was for a time wholly + ignored. Later the Bell Company bought Berliner's patent and took up his + side of the case. 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 Berliner, and not Edison, was the original + inventor of the transmitter. + </p> + <p> + From first to last, the transmitter has been the product of several minds. + Its basic idea is the varying of the electric current by varying the + pressure between two points. Bell unquestionably suggested it in his + famous patent, when he wrote of "increasing and diminishing the + resistance." Berliner was the first actually to construct one. Edison + greatly improved it by using soft carbon instead of a steel point. A + Kentucky professor, David E. Hughes, started a new line of development by + adapting a Bell telephone into a "microphone," a fantastic little + instrument that would detect the noise made by a fly in walking across a + table. Francis Blake, of Boston, changed a microphone into a practical + transmitter. The Rev. Henry Hunnings, an English clergyman, hit upon the + happy idea of using carbon in the form of small granules. And one of the + Bell experts, named White, improved the Hunnings transmitter into its + present shape. Both transmitter and receiver seem now to be as complete an + artificial tongue and ear as human ingenuity can make them. They have + persistently grown more elaborate, until today a telephone set, as it + stands on a desk, contains as many as one hundred and thirty separate + pieces, as well as a saltspoonful of glistening granules of carbon. + </p> + <p> + Next after the transmitter came the problem of the MYSTERIOUS NOISES. This + was, perhaps, the most weird and mystifying of all the telephone problems. + The fact was that the telephone had brought within hearing distance a new + wonder-world of sound. All wires at that time were single, and ran into + the earth at each end, making what was called a "grounded circuit." And + this connection with the earth, which is really a big magnet, caused all + manner of strange and uncouth noises on the telephone wires. + </p> + <p> + Noises! Such a jangle of meaningless noises had never been heard by human + ears. There were spluttering and bubbling, jerking and rasping, whistling + and screaming. There were the rustling of leaves, the croaking of frogs, + the hissing of steam, and the flapping of birds' wings. There were clicks + from telegraph wires, scraps of talk from other telephones, and curious + little squeals that were unlike any known sound. The lines running east + and west were noisier than the lines running north and south. The night + was noisier than the day, and at the ghostly hour of midnight, for what + strange reason no one knows, the babel was at its height. Watson, who had + a fanciful mind, suggested that perhaps these sounds were signals from the + inhabitants of Mars or some other sociable planet. But the matter-of-fact + young telephonists agreed to lay the blame on "induction"—a hazy + word which usually meant the natural meddlesomeness of electricity. + </p> + <p> + Whatever else the mysterious noises were, they were a nuisance. The poor + little telephone business was plagued almost out of its senses. It was + like a dog with a tin can tied to its tail. No matter where it went, it + was pursued by this unearthly clatter. "We were ashamed to present our + bills," said A. A. Adee, one of the first agents; "for no matter how + plainly a man talked into his telephone, his language was apt to sound + like Choctaw at the other end of the line." + </p> + <p> + All manner of devices were solemnly tried to hush the wires, and each one + usually proved to be as futile as an incantation. What was to be done? + Step by step the telephone men were driven back. They were beaten. There + was no way to silence these noises. Reluctantly, they agreed that the only + way was to pull up the ends of each wire from the tainted earth, and join + them by a second wire. This was the "metallic circuit" idea. It meant an + appalling increase in the use of wire. It would compel the rebuild-ing of + the switchboards and the invention of new signal systems. But it was + inevitable; and in 1883, while the dispute about it was in full blast, one + of the young men quietly slipped it into use on a new line between Boston + and Providence. The effect was magical. "At last," said the delighted + manager, "we have a perfectly quiet line." + </p> + <p> + This young man, a small, slim youth who was twenty-two years old and + looked younger, was no other than J. J. Carty, now the first of telephone + engineers and almost the creator of his profession. Three years earlier he + had timidly asked for a job as operator in the Boston exchange, at five + dollars a week, and had shown such an aptitude for the work that he was + soon made one of the captains. At thirty years of age he became a central + figure in the development of the art of telephony. + </p> + <p> + What Carty has done is known by telephone men in all countries; but the + story of Carty himself—who he is, and why—is new. First of + all, he is Irish, pure Irish. His father had left Ireland as a boy in + 1825. During the Civil War his father made guns in the city of Cambridge, + where young John Joseph was born; and afterwards he made bells for church + steeples. He was instinctively a mechanic and proud of his calling. He + could tell the weight of a bell from the sound of it. Moses G. Farmer, the + electrical inventor, and Howe, the creator of the sewing-machine, were his + friends. + </p> + <p> + At five years of age, little John J. Carty was taken by his father to the + shop where the bells were made, and he was profoundly impressed by the + magical strength of a big magnet, that picked up heavy weights as though + they were feathers. At the high school his favorite study was physics; 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 house. Here they had a "Tom Thumb" telegraph, a telephone + which they had ventured to improve, and a hopeless tangle of wires. + Whenever they could afford to buy more wires and batteries, they went to a + near-by store which supplied electrical apparatus to the professors and + students of Harvard. This store, with its workshop in the rear, seemed to + the two boys a veritable wonderland; and when Carty, a youth of eighteen, + was compelled to leave school because of his bad eyesight, he ran at once + and secured the glorious job of being boy-of-all-work in this store of + wonders. So, when he became an operator in the Boston telephone exchange, + a year later, he had already developed to a remarkable degree his natural + genius for telephony. + </p> + <p> + Since then, Carty and the telephone business have grown up together, he + always a little distance in advance. No other man has touched the + apparatus of telephony at so many points. He fought down the flimsy, + clumsy methods, which led from one snarl to another. He found out how to + do with wires what Dickens did with words. "Let us do it right, boys, and + then we won't have any bad dreams"—this has been his motif. And, as + the crown and climax of his work, he mapped out the profession of + telephone engineering on the widest and most comprehensive lines. + </p> + <p> + In Carty, the engineer evolved into the educator. His end of the American + Telephone and Telegraph Company became the University of the Telephone. He + was himself a student by disposition, with a special taste for the + writings of Faraday, the forerunner; Tyndall, the expounder; and Spencer, + the philosopher. And in 1890, 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 men. + </p> + <p> + The next problem that faced the young men of the telephone, as soon as + they had escaped from the clamor of the mysterious noises, was the + necessity of taking down the wires in the city streets and putting them + underground. At first, they had strung the wires on poles and roof-tops. + They had done this, not because it was cheap, but because it was the only + possible way, so far as any one knew in that kindergarten period. A + telephone wire required the daintiest of handling. To bury it was to + smother it, to make it dull or perhaps entirely useless. But now that the + number of wires had swollen from hundreds to thousands, the overhead + method had been outgrown. Some streets in the larger cities had become + black with wires. Poles had risen to fifty feet in height, then sixty—seventy—eighty. + Finally the highest of all pole lines was built along West Street, New + York—every pole a towering Norway pine, with its top ninety feet + above the roadway, and carrying thirty cross-arms and three hundred wires. + </p> + <p> + From poles the wires soon overflowed to housetops, until in New York alone + they had overspread eleven thousand roofs. These roofs had to be kept in + repair, and their chimneys were the deadly enemies of the iron wires. Many + a wire, in less than two or three years, was withered to the merest shred + of rust. As if these troubles were not enough, there were the storms of + winter, which might wipe out a year's revenue in a single day. The sleet + storms were the worst. Wires were weighted down with ice, often three + pounds of ice per foot of wire. And so, what with sleet, and corrosion, + and the cost of roof-repairing, and the lack of room for more wires, the + telephone men were between the devil and the deep sea—between the + urgent necessity of burying their wires, and the inexorable fact that they + did not know how to do it. + </p> + <p> + Fortunately, by the time that this problem arrived, the telephone business + was fairly well established. It had outgrown its early days of ridicule + and incredulity. It was paying wages and salaries and even dividends. + Evidently it had arrived on the scene in the nick of time—after the + telegraph and before the trolleys and electric lights. Had it been born + ten years later, it might not have been able to survive. 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 1886, if it + had not first found out a way of hiding safely underground. + </p> + <p> + The first declaration in favor of an underground system was made by the + Boston company in 1880. "It may be expedient to place our entire system + underground," said the sorely perplexed manager, "whenever a practicable + method is found of accomplishing: it." All manner of theories were afloat + but Theodore N. Vail, who was usually the man of constructive imagination + in emergencies, began in 1882 a series of actual experiments at + Attleborough, Massachusetts, to find out exactly what could, and what + could not, be done with wires that were buried in the earth. + </p> + <p> + A five-mile trench was dug beside a railway track. The work was done + handily and cheaply by the labor-saving plan of hitching a locomotive to a + plough. Five ploughs were jerked apart before the work was finished. Then, + into this trench were laid wires with every known sort of covering. Most + of them, naturally, were wrapped with rubber or gutta-percha, after the + fashion of a submarine cable. When all were in place, the willing + locomotive was harnessed to a huge wooden drag, which threw the ploughed + soil back into the trench and covered the wires a foot deep. It was the + most professional cable-laying that any one at that time could do, and it + succeeded, not brilliantly, but well enough to encourage the telephone + engineers to go ahead. + </p> + <p> + Several weeks later, the first two cables for actual use were laid in + Boston and Brooklyn; and in 1883 Engineer J. P. Davis was set to grapple + with the Herculean labor of putting a complete underground system in the + wire-bound city of New York. This he did in spite of a bombardment of + explosions from leaky gas-pipes, and with a woeful lack of experts and + standard materials. All manner of makeshifts had to be tried in place of + tile ducts, which were not known in 1883. Iron pipe was used at first, + then asphalt, concrete, boxes of sand and creosoted wood. As for the + wires, they were first wrapped in cotton, and then twisted into cables, + usually of a hundred wires each. And to prevent the least taint of + moisture, which means sudden death to a telephone current, these cables + were invariably soaked in oil. + </p> + <p> + This oil-filled type of cable carried the telephone business safely + through half a dozen years. But it was not the final type. It was + preliminary only, the best that could be made at that time. Not one is in + use to-day. In 1888 Theodore Vail set on foot a second series of + experiments, to see if a cable could be made that was better suited as a + highway for the delicate electric currents of the telephone. A young + engineer named John A. Barrett, who had already made his mark as an + expert, by finding a way to twist and transpose the wires, was set apart + to tackle this problem. Being an economical Vermonter, Barrett went to + work in a little wooden shed in the backyard of a Brooklyn foundry. In + this foundry he had seen a unique machine that could be made to mould hot + lead around a rope of twisted wires. This was a notable discovery. It + meant TIGHT COVERINGS. It meant a victory over that most troublesome of + enemies—moisture. Also, it meant that cables could henceforth be + made longer, with fewer sleeves and splices, and without the oil, which + had always been an unmitigated nuisance. + </p> + <p> + Next, having made the cable tight, Barrett set out to produce it more + cheaply and by accident stumbled upon a way to make it immensely more + efficient. All wires were at that time wrapped with cotton, and his plan + was to find some less costly material that would serve the same purpose. + One of his workmen, a Virginian, suggested the use of paper twine, which + had been used in the South during the Civil War, when cotton was scarce + and expensive. Barrett at once searched the South for paper twine and + found it. He bought a barrel of it from a small factory in Richmond, but + after a trial it proved to be too flimsy. If such paper could be put on + flat, he reasoned, it would be stronger. Just then he heard of an erratic + genius who had an invention for winding paper tape on wire for the use of + milliners. + </p> + <p> + Paper-wound bonnet-wire! Who could imagine any connection between this and + the telephone? Yet this hint was exactly what Barrett needed. He + experimented until he had devised a machine that crumpled the paper around + the wire, instead of winding it tightly. This was the finishing touch. For + a time these paper-wound cables were soaked in oil, but in 1890 Engineer + F. A. Pickernell dared to trust to the tightness of the lead sheathing, + and laid a "dry core" cable, the first of the modern type, in one of the + streets of Philadelphia. This cable was the event of the year. It was not + only cheaper. It was the best-talking cable that had ever been harnessed + to a telephone. + </p> + <p> + What Barrett had done was soon made clear. By wrapping the wire with loose + paper, he had in reality cushioned it with AIR, which is the best possible + insulator. Not the paper, but the air in the paper, had improved the + cable. More air was added by the omission of the oil. And presently + Barrett perceived that he had merely reproduced in a cable, as far as + possible, the conditions of the overhead wires, which are separated by + nothing but air. + </p> + <p> + By 1896 there were two hundred thousand miles of wire snugly wrapped in + paper and lying in leaden caskets beneath the streets of the cities, and + to-day there are six million miles of it owned by the affiliated Bell + companies. Instead of blackening the streets, the wire nerves of the + telephone are now out of sight under the roadway, and twining into the + basements of buildings like a new sort of metallic ivy. 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-place. As + many as twelve hundred wires are often bunched into one sheath, and each + cable lies loosely in a little duct of its own. 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 telephones. + </p> + <p> + Out in the open country there are still the open wires, which in point of + talking are the best. In the suburbs of cities there are neat green posts + with a single gray cable hung from a heavy wire. Usually, a telephone pole + is made from a sixty-year-old tree, a cedar, chestnut, or juniper. It + lasts twelve years only, so that the one item of poles is still costing + the telephone companies several millions a year. The total number of poles + now in the United States, used by telephone and telegraph companies, once + covered an area, before they were cut down, as large as the State of Rhode + Island. + </p> + <p> + But the highest triumph of wire-laying came when New York swept into the + Skyscraper Age, and when hundreds of tall buildings, as high as the fall + of the waters of Niagara, grew up like a range of magical cliffs upon the + precious rock of Manhattan. Here the work of the telephone engineer has + been so well done that although every room in these cliff-buildings has + its telephone, there is not a pole in sight, not a cross-arm, not a wire. + Nothing but the tip-ends of an immense system are visible. No sooner is a + new skyscraper walled and roofed, than the telephones are in place, at + once putting the tenants in touch with the rest of the city and the + greater part of the United States. In a single one of these monstrous + buildings, the Hudson Terminal, there is a cable that runs from basement + to roof and ravels out to reach three thousand desks. This mighty geyser + of wires is fifty tons in weight and would, if straightened out into a + single line, connect New York with Chicago. Yet it is as invisible as the + nerves and muscles of a human body. + </p> + <p> + During this evolution of the cable, even the wire itself was being remade. + Vail and others had noticed that of all the varieties of wire that were + for sale, not one was exactly suitable for a telephone system. The first + telephone wire was of galvanized iron, which had at least the primitive + virtue of being cheap. Then came steel wire, stronger but less durable. + But these wires were noisy and not good conductors of electricity. An + ideal telephone wire, they found, must be made of either silver or copper. + Silver was out of the question, and copper wire was too soft and weak. It + would not carry its own weight. + </p> + <p> + The problem, therefore, was either to make steel wire a better conductor, + or to produce a copper wire that would be strong enough. Vail chose the + latter, and forthwith gave orders to a Bridgeport manufacturer to begin + experiments. A young expert named Thomas B. Doolittle was at once set to + work, and presently appeared the first hard-drawn copper wire, made + tough-skinned by a fairly simple process. Vail bought thirty pounds of it + and scattered it in various parts of the United States, to note the effect + upon it of different climates. One length of it may still be seen at the + Vail homestead in Lyndonville, Vermont. Then this hard-drawn wire was put + to a severe test by being strung between Boston and New York. This line + was a brilliant success, and the new wire was hailed with great delight as + the ideal servant of the telephone. + </p> + <p> + Since then there has been little trouble with copper wire, except its + price. It was four times as good as iron wire, and four times as + expensive. Every mile of it, doubled, weighed two hundred pounds and cost + thirty dollars. On the long lines, where it had to be as thick as a lead + pencil, the expense seemed to be ruinously great. When the first pair of + wires was strung between New York and Chicago, for instance, it was found + to weigh 870,000 pounds—a full load for a twenty-two-car freight + train; and the cost of the bare metal was $130,000. So enormous has been + the use of copper wire since then by the telephone companies, that fully + one-fourth of all the capital invested in the telephone has gone to the + owners of the copper mines. + </p> + <p> + For several years the brains of the telephone men were focussed upon this + problem—how to reduce the expenditure on copper. One uncanny device, + which would seem to be a mere inventor's fantasy if it had not already + saved the telephone companies four million dollars or more, is known as + the "phantom circuit." It enables three messages to run at the same time, + where only two ran before. A double track of wires is made to carry three + talk-trains running abreast, a feat made possible by the whimsical + disposition of electricity, and which is utterly inconceivable in + railroading. This invention, which is the nearest approach as yet to + multiple telephony, was conceived by Jacobs in England and Carty in the + United States. + </p> + <p> + But the most copper money has been saved—literally tens of millions + of dollars—by persuading thin wires to work as efficiently as thick + ones. This has been done by making better transmitters, by insulating the + smaller wires with enamel instead of silk, and by placing coils of a + certain nature at intervals upon the wires. The invention of this last + device startled the telephone men like a flash of lightning out of a blue + sky. 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 earlier. From this professor, Michael J. Pupin, + came the idea of "loading" a telephone line, in such a way as to reinforce + the electric current. It enabled a thin wire to carry as far as a thick + one, and thus saved as much as forty dollars a wire per mile. As a reward + for his cleverness, a shower of gold fell upon Pupin, and made him in an + instant as rich as one of the grand-dukes of his native land. + </p> + <p> + It is now a most highly skilled occupation, supporting fully fifteen + thousand families, to put the telephone wires in place and protect them + against innumerable dangers. This is the profession of the wire chiefs and + their men, a corps of human spiders, endlessly spinning threads under + streets and above green fields, on the beds of rivers and the slopes of + mountains, massing them in cities and fluffing them out among farms and + villages. To tell the doings of a wire chief, in the course of his + ordinary week's work, would in itself make a lively book of adventures. + Even a washerwoman, with one lone, non-electrical clothes-line of a + hundred yards to operate, has often enough trouble with it. 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 States; and these lines are not punctuated with clothespins, but + with the most delicate of electrical instruments. + </p> + <p> + The wire chiefs must detect trouble under a thousand disguises. Perhaps a + small boy has thrown a snake across the wires or driven a nail into a + cable. Perhaps some self-reliant citizen has moved his own telephone from + one room to another. Perhaps a sudden rainstorm has splashed its fatal + moisture upon an unwiped joint. Or perhaps a submarine cable has been sat + upon by the Lusitania and flattened to death. But no matter what the + trouble, a telephone system cannot be stopped for repairs. It cannot be + picked up and put into a dry-dock. It must be repaired or improved by a + sort of vivisection while it is working. It is an interlocking unit, a + living, conscious being, half human and half machine; and an injury in any + one place may cause a pain or sickness to its whole vast body. + </p> + <p> + And just as the particles of a human body change every six or seven years, + without disturb-ing the body, so the particles of our telephone systems + have changed repeatedly without any interruption of traffic. The constant + flood of new inventions has necessitated several complete rebuildings. + Little or nothing has ever been allowed to wear out. The New York system + was rebuilt three times in sixteen years; and many a costly switchboard + has gone to the scrap-heap at three or four years of age. What with + repairs and inventions and new construction, the various Bell companies + have spent at least $425,000,000 in the first ten years of the twentieth + century, without hindering for a day the ceaseless torrent of electrical + conversation. + </p> + <p> + The crowning glory of a telephone system of to-day is not so much the + simple telephone itself, nor the maze and mileage of its cables, but + rather the wonderful mechanism of the Switchboard. This is the part that + will always remain mysterious to the public. It is seldom seen, and it + remains as great a mystery to those who have seen it as to those who have + not. Explanations of it are futile. 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 it. It is not like anything else that either man + or Nature has ever made. It defies all metaphors and comparisons. It + cannot be shown by photography, not even in moving-pictures, because so + much of it is concealed inside its wooden body. And few people, if any, + are initiated into its inner mysteries except those who belong to its own + cortege of inventors and attendants. + </p> + <p> + A telephone switchboard is a pyramid of inventions. If it is full-grown, + it may have two million parts. It may be lit with fifteen thousand tiny + electric lamps and nerved with as much wire as would reach from New York + to Berlin. It may cost as much as a thousand pianos or as much as three + square miles of farms in Indiana. The ten thousand wire hairs of its head + are not only numbered, but enswathed in silk, and combed out in so + marvellous a way that any one of them can in a flash be linked to any + other. Such hair-dressing! Such puffs and braids and ringlet relays! + Whoever would learn the utmost that may be done with copper hairs of + Titian red, must study the fantastic coiffure of a telephone Switchboard. + </p> + <p> + If there were no switchboard, there would still be telephones, but not a + telephone system. To connect five thousand people by telephone requires + five thousand wires when the wires run to a switchboard; but without a + switchboard there would have to be 12,497,500 wires—4,999 to every + telephone. As well might there be a nerve-system without a brain, as a + telephone system without a switchboard. If there had been at first two + separate companies, one owning the telephone and the other the + switchboard, neither could have done the business. + </p> + <p> + Several years before the telephone got a switchboard of its own, it made + use of the boards that had been designed for the telegraph. These were as + simple as wheelbarrows, and became absurdly inadequate as soon as the + telephone business began to grow. Then there came adaptations by the + dozen. Every telephone manager became by compulsion an inventor. There was + no source of information and each exchange did the best it could. Hundreds + of patents were taken out. And by 1884 there had come to be a fairly + definite idea of what a telephone switchboard ought to be. + </p> + <p> + The one man who did most to create the switchboard, who has been its + devotee for more than thirty years, is a certain modest and little known + inventor, still alive and busy, named Charles E. Scribner. Of the nine + thousand switchboard patents, Scribner holds six hundred or more. Ever + since 1878, when he devised the first "jackknife switch," Scribner has + been the wizard of the switchboard. It was he who saw most clearly its + requirements. Hundreds of others have helped, but Scribner was the one man + who persevered, who never asked for an easier job, and who in the end + became the master of his craft. + </p> + <p> + It may go far to explain the peculiar genius of Scribner to say that he + was born in 1858, in the year of the laying of the Atlantic Cable; and + that his mother was at the time profoundly interested in the work and + anxious for its success. His father was a judge in Toledo; but young + Scribner showed no aptitude for the tangles of the law. He preferred the + tangles of wire and system in miniature, which he and several other boys + had built and learned to operate. These boys had a benefactor in an old + bachelor named Thomas Bond. He had no special interest in telegraphy. He + was a dealer in hides. But he was attracted by the cleverness of the boys + and gave them money to buy more wires and more batteries. One day he + noticed an invention of young Scribner's—a telegraph repeater. + </p> + <p> + "This may make your fortune," he said, "but no mechanic in Toledo can make + a proper model of it for you. You must go to Chicago, where telegraphic + apparatus is made." The boy gladly took his advice and went to the Western + Electric factory in Chicago. Here he accidentally met Enos M. Barton, the + head of the factory. Barton noted that the boy was a genius and offered + him a job, which he accepted and has held ever since. Such is the story of + the entrance of Charles E. Scribner into the telephone business, where he + has been well-nigh indispensable. + </p> + <p> + His monumental work has been the development of the MULTIPLE Switchboard, + a much more brain-twisting problem than the building of the Pyramids or + the digging of the Panama Canal. The earlier types of switchboard had + become too cumbersome by 1885. They were well enough for five hundred + wires but not for five thousand. In some exchanges as many as half a dozen + operators were necessary to handle a single call; and the clamor and + confusion were becoming unbearable. Some handier and quieter way had to be + devised, and thus arose the Multiple board. The first crude idea of such a + way had sprung to life in the brain of a Chicago man named L. B. Firman, + in 1879; but he became a farmer and forsook his invention in its infancy. + </p> + <p> + In the Multiple board, as it grew up under the hands of Scribner, the + outgoing wires are duplicated so as to be within reach of every operator. + A local call can thus be answered at once by the operator who receives it; + and any operator who is overwhelmed by a sudden rush of business can be + helped by her companions. Every wire that comes into the board is + tasselled out into many ends, and by means of a "busy test," invented by + Scribner, only one of these ends can be put into use at a time. The normal + limit of such a board is ten thousand wires, and will always remain so, + unless a race of long-armed giantesses should appear, who would be able to + reach over a greater expanse of board. At present, a business of more than + ten thousand lines means a second exchange. + </p> + <p> + The Multiple board was enormously expensive. It grew more and more + elaborate until it cost one-third of a million dollars. The telephone men + racked their brains to produce something cheaper to take its place, and + they failed. The Multiple boards swallowed up capital as a desert swallows + water, but THEY SAVED TEN SECONDS ON EVERY CALL. This was an unanswerable + argument in their favor, and by 1887 twenty-one of them were in use. + </p> + <p> + Since then, the switchboard has had three or four rebuildings. There has + seemed to be no limit to the demands of the public or the fertility of + Scribner's brain. Persistent changes were made in the system of + signalling. The first signal, used by Bell and Watson, was a tap on the + diaphragm with the finger-nail. Soon after-wards came a "buzzer," and then + the magneto-electric bell. In 1887 Joseph O'Connell, of Chicago, conceived + of the use of tiny electric lights as signals, a brilliant idea, as an + electric light makes no noise and can be seen either by night or by day. + In 1901, J. J. Carty invented the "bridging bell," a way to put four + houses on a single wire, with a different signal for each house. This idea + made the "party line" practicable, and at once created a boom in the use + of the telephone by enterprising farmers. + </p> + <p> + In 1896 there came a most revolutionary change in switchboards. All things + were made new. Instead of individual batteries, one at each telephone, a + large common battery was installed in the exchange itself. This meant + better signalling and better talking. It reduced the cost of batteries and + put them in charge of experts. It established uniformity. It introduced + the federal idea into the mechanism of a telephone system. Best of all, it + saved FOUR SECONDS ON EVERY CALL. The first of these centralizing + switchboards was put in place at Philadelphia; and other cities followed + suit as fast as they could afford the expense of rebuilding. Since then, + there have come some switchboards that are wholly automatic. Few of these + have been put into use, for the reason that a switchboard, like a human + body, must be semi-automatic only. To give the most efficient service, + there will always need to be an expert to stand between it and the public. + </p> + <p> + As the final result of all these varying changes in switchboards and + signals and batteries, there grew up the modern Telephone Exchange. This + is the solar plexus of the telephone body. It is the vital spot. It is the + home of the switchboard. It is not any one's invention, as the telephone + was. It is a growing mechanism that is not yet finished, and may never be; + but it has already evolved far enough to be one of the wonders of the + electrical world. There is probably no other part of an American city's + equipment that is as sensitive and efficient as a telephone exchange. + </p> + <p> + The idea of the exchange is somewhat older than the idea of the telephone + itself. There were communication exchanges before the invention of the + telephone. Thomas B. Doolittle had one in Bridgeport, using telegraph + instruments Thomas B. A. David had one in Pittsburg, using + printing-telegraph machines, which required little skill to operate. And + William A. Childs had a third, for lawyers only, in New York, which used + dials at first and afterwards printing machines. These little exchanges + had set out to do the work that is done to-day by the telephone, and they + did it after a fashion, in a most crude and expensive way. They helped to + prepare the way for the telephone, by building up small constituencies + that were ready for the telephone when it arrived. + </p> + <p> + Bell himself was perhaps the first to see the future of the telephone + exchange. In a letter written to some English capitalists in 1878, he + said: "It is possible to connect every man's house, office or factory with + a central station, so as to give him direct communication with his + neighbors.... It is conceivable that cables of telephone wires could be + laid underground, or suspended overhead, connecting by branch wires with + private dwellings, shops, etc., and uniting them through the main cable + with a central office." This remarkable prophecy has now become stale + reading, as stale as Darwin's "Origin of Species," or Adam Smith's "Wealth + of Nations." But at the time that it was written it was a most fanciful + dream. + </p> + <p> + When the first infant exchange for telephone service was born in Boston, + in 1877, it was the tiny offspring of a burglar-alarm business operated by + E. T. Holmes, a young man whose father had originated the idea of + protecting property by electric wires in 1858. Holmes was the first + practical man who dared to offer telephone service for sale. He had + obtained two telephones, numbers six and seven, the first five having gone + to the junk-heap; and he attached these to a wire in his burglar-alarm + office. For two weeks his business friends played with the telephones, + like boys with a fascinating toy; then Holmes nailed up a new shelf in his + office, and on this shelf placed six box-telephones in a row. These could + be switched into connection with the burglar-alarm wires and any two of + the six wires could be joined by a wire cord. Nothing could have been + simpler, but it was the arrival of a new idea in the business world. + </p> + <p> + The Holmes exchange was on the top floor of a little building, and in + almost every other city the first exchange was as near the roof as + possible, partly to save rent and partly because most of the wires were + strung on roof-tops. As the telephone itself had been born in a cellar, so + the exchange was born in a garret. Usually, too, each exchange was an + off-shoot of some other wire-using business. It was a medley of + makeshifts. Almost every part of its outfit had been made for other uses. + In Chicago all calls came in to one boy, who bawled them up a + speaking-tube to the operators. In another city a boy received the calls, + wrote them on white alleys, and rolled them to the boys at the + switchboard. There was no number system. Every one was called by name. + Even as late as 1880, when New York boasted fifteen hundred telephones, + names were still in use. And as the first telephones were used both as + transmitters and receivers, there was usually posted up a rule that was + highly important: "Don't Talk with your Ear or Listen with your Mouth." + </p> + <p> + To describe one of those early telephone exchanges in the silence of a + printed page is a wholly impossible thing. Nothing but a language of noise + could convey the proper impression. An editor who visited the Chicago + exchange in 1879 said of it: "The racket is almost deafening. Boys are + rushing madly hither and thither, 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 geese." In the same year E. J. Hall wrote from Buffalo + that his exchange with twelve boys had become "a perfect Bedlam." By the + clumsy methods of those days, from two to six boys were needed to handle + each call. And as there was usually more or less of a cat-and-dog squabble + between the boys and the public, with every one yelling at the top of his + voice, it may be imagined that a telephone exchange was a loud and frantic + place. + </p> + <p> + Boys, as operators, proved to be most complete and consistent failures. + Their sins of omission and commission would fill a book. What with + whittling the switchboards, swearing at subscribers, playing tricks with + the wires, and roaring on all occasions like young bulls of Bashan, the + boys in the first exchanges did their full share in adding to the troubles + of the business. Nothing could be done with them. They were immune to all + schemes of discipline. Like the MYSTERIOUS NOISES they could not be + controlled, and by general consent they were abolished. In place of the + noisy and obstreperous boy came the docile, soft-voiced girl. + </p> + <p> + If ever the rush of women into the business world was an unmixed blessing, + it was when the boys of the telephone exchanges were superseded by girls. + Here at its best was shown the influence of the feminine touch. The quiet + voice, pitched high, the deft fingers, the patient courtesy and + attentiveness—these qualities were precisely what the gentle + telephone required in its attendants. Girls were easier to train; they did + not waste time in retaliatory conversation; they were more careful; and + they were much more likely to give "the soft answer that turneth away + wrath." + </p> + <p> + A telephone call under the boy regime meant Bedlam and five minutes; + afterwards, under the girl regime, it meant silence and twenty seconds. + Instead of the incessant tangle and tumult, there came a new species of + exchange—a quiet, tense place, in which several score of young + ladies sit and answer the language of the switchboard lights. Now and + then, not often, the signal lamps flash too quickly for these expert + phonists. During the panic of 1907 there was one mad hour when almost + every telephone in Wall Street region was being rung up by some desperate + speculator. The switchboards were ablaze with lights. A few girls lost + their heads. One fainted and was carried to the rest-room. But the others + flung the flying shuttles of talk until, in a single exchange fifteen + thousand conversations had been made possible in sixty minutes. There are + always girls in reserve for such explosive occasions, and when the hands + of any operator are seen to tremble, and she has a warning red spot on + each cheek, she is taken off and given a recess until she recovers her + poise. + </p> + <p> + These telephone girls are the human part of a great communication machine. + They are weaving a web of talk that changes into a new pattern every + minute. How many possible combinations there are with the five million + telephones of the Bell System, or what unthinkable mileage of + conversation, no one has ever dared to guess. 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 life. + </p> + <p> + In 1902 the New York Telephone Company started a school, the first of its + kind in the world, for the education of these telephone girls. This school + is hidden amid ranges of skyscrapers, but seventeen thousand girls + discover it in the course of the year. It is a most particular and + exclusive school. It accepts fewer than two thousand of these girls, and + rejects over fifteen thousand. Not more than one girl in every eight can + measure up to its standards; and it cheerfully refuses as many students in + a year as would make three Yales or Harvards. + </p> + <p> + This school is unique, too, in the fact that it charges no fees, pays + every student five dollars a week, and then provides her with a job when + she graduates. But it demands that every girl shall be in good health, + quick-handed, clear-voiced, and with a certain poise and alertness of + manner. Presence of mind, which, in Herbert Spencer's opinion, ought to be + taught in every university, is in various ways drilled into the + temperament of the telephone girl. She is also taught the knack of + concentration, so that she may carry the switchboard situation in her + head, as a chess-player carries in his head the arrangement of the + chess-men. And she is much more welcome at this strange school if she is + young and has never worked in other trades, where less speed and vigilance + are required. + </p> + <p> + No matter how many millions of dollars may be spent upon cables and + switchboards, the quality of telephone service depends upon the girl at + the exchange end of the wire. It is she who meets the public at every + point. She is the despatcher of all the talk trains; she is the ruler of + the wire highways; and she is expected to give every passenger-voice an + instantaneous express to its destination. More is demanded from her than + from any other servant of the public. Her clients refuse to stand in line + and quietly wait their turn, as they are quite willing to do in stores and + theatres and barber shops and railway stations and everywhere else. They + do not see her at work and they do not know what her work is. They do not + notice that she answers a call in an average time of three and a half + seconds. They are in a hurry, or they would not be at the telephone; and + each second is a minute long. Any delay is a direct personal affront that + makes a vivid impression upon their minds. And they are not apt to + remember that most of the delays and blunders are being made, not by the + expert girls, but by the careless people who persist in calling wrong + numbers and in ignoring the niceties of telephone etiquette. + </p> + <p> + 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 perfection. To + give the young lady her due, we must acknowledge that she has done more + than any other person to introduce courtesy into the business world. She + has done most to abolish the old-time roughness and vulgarity. She has + made big business to run more smoothly than little business did, half a + century ago. She has shown us how to take the friction out of + conversation, and taught us refinements of politeness which were rare even + among the Beau Brummels of pre-telephonic days. Who, for instance, until + the arrival of the telephone girl, appreciated the difference between "Who + are you?" and "Who is this?" Or who else has so impressed upon us the + value of the rising inflection, as a gentler habit of speech? This + propaganda of politeness has gone so far that to-day the man who is + profane or abusive at the telephone, is cut off from the use of it. He is + cast out as unfit for a telephone-using community. + </p> + <p> + And now, so that there shall be no anticlimax in this story of telephone + development, 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 Electric. The mother factory of this + globe-trotting business is the biggest thing in the spacious back-yard of + Chicago, and there are eleven smaller factories—her children—scattered + over the earth from New York to Tokio. To put its totals into a sentence, + it is an enterprise of 26,000-man-power, and 40,000,000-dollar-power; and + the telephonic goods that it produces in half a day are worth one hundred + thousand dollars—as much, by the way, as the Western Union REFUSED + to pay for the Bell patents in 1877. + </p> + <p> + The Western Electric was born in Chicago, in the ashes of the big fire of + 1871; and it has grown up to its present greatness quietly, without + celebrating its birthdays. At first it had no telephones to make. None had + been invented, so it made telegraphic apparatus, burglar-alarms, electric + pens, and other such things. But in 1878, when the Western Union made its + short-lived attempt to compete with the Bell Company, the Western Electric + agreed to make its telephones. Three years later, when the brief spasm of + competition was ended, the Western Electric was taken in hand by the Bell + people and has since then remained the great workshop of the telephone. + </p> + <p> + The main plant in Chicago is not especially remarkable from a + manufacturing point of view. Here are the inevitable lumber-yards and + foundries and machine-shops. Here is the mad waltz of the spindles that + whirl silk and cotton threads around the copper wires, very similar to + what may be seen in any braid factory. Here electric lamps are made, five + thousand of them in a day, in the same manner as elsewhere, except that + here they are so small and dainty as to seem designed for fairy palaces. + </p> + <p> + The things that are done with wire in the Western Electric factories are + too many for any mere outsider to remember. Some wire is wrapped with + paper tape at a speed of nine thousand miles a day. Some is fashioned into + fantastic shapes that look like absurd sea-monsters, but which in reality + are only the nerve systems of switchboards. And some is twisted into + cables by means of a dozen whirling drums—a dizzying sight, as each + pair of drums revolve in opposite directions. Because of the fact that a + cable's inevitable enemy is moisture, each cable is wound on an immense + spool and rolled into an oven until it is as dry as a cinder. Then it is + put into a strait-jacket of lead pipe, sealed at both ends, and trundled + into a waiting freight car. + </p> + <p> + No other company uses so much wire and hard rubber, or so many tons of + brass rods, as the Western Electric. Of platinum, too, which is more + expensive than gold, it uses one thousand pounds a year in the making of + telephone transmitters. This is imported from the Ural Mountains. The silk + thread comes from Italy and Japan; the iron for magnets, from Norway; the + paper tape, from Manila; the mahogany, from South America; and the rubber, + from Brazil and the valley of the Congo. At least seven countries must + cooperate to make a telephone message possible. + </p> + <p> + Perhaps the most extraordinary feature in the Western Electric factories + is the multitude of its inspectors. No other sort of manufacturing, not + even a Government navy-yard, has so many. Nothing is too small to escape + these sleuths of inspection. They test every tiny disc of mica, and throw + away nine out of ten. They test every telephone by actual talk, set up + every switchboard, and try out every cable. A single transmitter, by the + time it is completed, has had to pass three hundred examinations; and a + single coin-box is obliged to count ten thousand nickels before it + graduates into the outer world. Seven hundred inspectors are on guard in + the two main plants at Chicago and New York. This is a ruinously large + number, from a profit-making point of view; but the inexorable fact is + that in a telephone system nothing is insignificant. It is built on such + altruistic lines that an injury to any one part is the concern of all. + </p> + <p> + As usual, when we probe into the history of a business that has grown + great and overspread the earth, we find a Man; and the Western Electric is + no exception to this rule. Its Man, still fairly hale and busy after forty + years of leadership, is Enos M. Barton. His career is the typical American + story of self-help. He was a telegraph messenger boy in New York during + the Civil War, then a telegraph operator in Cleveland. In 1869 his salary + was cut down from one hundred dollars a month to ninety dollars; whereupon + he walked out and founded the Western Electric in a shabby little + machine-shop. Later he moved to Chicago, took in Elisha Gray as his + partner, and built up a trade in the making of telegraphic materials. + </p> + <p> + When the telephone was invented, Barton was one of the sceptics. "I well + remember my disgust," he said, "when some one told me it was possible to + send conversation along a wire." Several months later he saw a telephone + and at once became one of its apostles. By 1882 his plant had become the + official workshop of the Bell Companies. It was the headquarters of + invention and manufacturing. Here was gathered a notable group of young + men, brilliant and adventurous, who dared to stake their futures on the + success of the telephone. And always at their head was Barton, as a sort + of human switchboard, who linked them all together and kept them busy. + </p> + <p> + In appearance, Enos M. Barton closely resembles ex-President Eliot, of + Harvard. He is slow in speech, simple in manner, and with a rare sagacity + in business affairs. He was not an organizer, in the modern sense. His + policy was to pick out a man, put him in a responsible place, and judge + him by results. Engineers could become bookkeepers, and bookkeepers could + become engineers. Such a plan worked well in the earlier days, when the + art of telephony was in the making, and when there was no source of + authority on telephonic problems. Barton is the bishop emeritus of the + Western Electric to-day; and the big industry is now being run by a group + of young hustlers, with H. B. Thayer at the head of the table. Thayer is a + Vermonter who has climbed the ladder of experience from its lower rungs to + the top. He is a typical Yankee—lean, shrewd, tireless, and with a + cold-blooded sense of justice that fits him for the leadership of + twenty-six thousand people. + </p> + <p> + So, as we have seen, the telephone as Bell invented it, was merely a + brilliant beginning in the development of the art of telephony. It was an + elfin birth—an elusive and delicate sprite that had to be nurtured + into maturity. It was like a soul, for which a body had to be created; and + no one knew how to make such a body. Had it been born in some less + energetic country, it might have remained feeble and undeveloped; but not + in the United States. Here in one year it had become famous, and in three + years it had become rich. Bell's invincible patent was soon buttressed by + hundreds of others. An open-door policy was adopted for invention. Change + followed change to such a degree that the experts of 1880 would be lost + to-day in the mazes of a telephone exchange. + </p> + <p> + The art of the telephone engineer has in thirty years grown from the most + crude and clumsy of experiments into an exact and comprehensive + profession. As Carty has aptly said, "At first we invariably approached + every problem from the wrong end. If we had been told to load a herd of + cattle on a steamer, our method would have been to hire a Hagenbeck to + train the cattle for a couple of years, so that they would know enough to + walk aboard of the ship when he gave the signal; but to-day, if we had to + ship cattle, we would know enough to make a greased chute and slide them + on board in a jiffy." + </p> + <p> + The telephone world has now its own standards and ideals. It has a + language of its own, a telephonese that is quite unintelligible to + outsiders. It has as many separate branches of study as medicine or law. + There are few men, half a dozen at most, who can now be said to have a + general knowledge of telephony. And no matter how wise a telephone expert + may be, he can never reach perfection, because of the amazing variety of + things that touch or concern his profession. + </p> + <p> + "No one man knows all the details now," said Theodore Vail. "Several days + ago I was walking through a telephone exchange and I saw something new. I + asked Mr. Carty to explain it. He is our chief engineer; but he did not + understand it. We called the manager. He did n't know, and called his + assistant. He did n't know, and called the local engineer, who was able to + tell us what it was." + </p> + <p> + To sum up this development of the art of tele-phony—to present a + bird's-eye view—it may be divided into four periods: + </p> + <p> + 1. Experiment. 1876 to 1886. This was the period of invention, in which + there were no experts and no authorities. Telephonic apparatus consisted + of makeshifts and adaptations. It was the period of iron wire, imperfect + transmitters, grounded circuits, boy operators, peg switchboards, local + batteries, and overhead lines. + </p> + <p> + 2. Development. 1886 to 1896. In this period amateurs became engineers. + The proper type of apparatus was discovered, and was improved to a high + point of efficiency. In this period came the multiple switchboard, copper + wire, girl operators, underground cables, metallic circuit, common + battery, and the long-distance lines. + </p> + <p> + 3. Expansion. 1896 to 1906. This was the era of big business. It was an + autumn period, in which the telephone men and the public began to reap the + fruits of twenty years of investment and hard work. It was the period of + the message rate, the pay station, the farm line, and the private branch + exchange. + </p> + <p> + 4. Organization. 1906—. With the success of the Pupin coil, there + came a larger life for the telephone. It became less local and more + national. It began to link together its scattered parts. It discouraged + the waste and anarchy of duplication. It taught its older, but smaller + brother, the telegraph, to cooperate. It put itself more closely in touch + with the will of the public. And it is now pushing ahead, along the two + roads of standardization and efficiency, toward its ideal of one universal + telephone system for the whole nation. The key-word of the telephone + development of to-day is this—organization. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER V. THE EXPANSION OF THE BUSINESS + </h2> + <p> + The telephone business did not really begin to grow big and overspread the + earth until 1896, but the keynote of expansion was first sounded by + Theodore Vail in the earliest days, when as yet the telephone was a babe + in arms. In 1879 Vail said, in a letter written to one of his captains: + </p> + <p> + "Tell our agents that we have a proposition on foot to connect the + different cities for the purpose of personal communication, and in other + ways to organize a GRAND TELEPHONIC SYSTEM." + </p> + <p> + This was brave talk at that time, when there were not in the whole world + as many telephones as there are to-day in Cincinnati. It was brave talk in + those days of iron wire, peg switchboards, and noisy diaphragms. Most + telephone men regarded it as nothing more than talk. They did not see any + business future for the telephone except in short-distance service. But + Vail was in earnest. His previous experience as the head of the railway + mail service had lifted him up to a higher point of view. He knew the need + of a national system of communication that would be quicker and more + direct than either the telegraph or the post office. + </p> + <p> + "I saw that if the telephone could talk one mile to-day," he said, "it + would be talking a hundred miles to-morrow." And he persisted, in spite of + a considerable deal of ridicule, in maintaining that the telephone was + destined to connect cities and nations as well as individuals. + </p> + <p> + Four months after he had prophesied the "grand telephonic system," he + encouraged Charles J. Glidden, of world-tour fame, to build a telephone + line between Boston and Lowell. This was the first inter-city line. It was + well placed, as the owners of the Lowell mills lived in Boston, and it + made a small profit from the start. This success cheered Vail on to a + master-effort. He resolved to build a line from Boston to Providence, and + was so stubbornly bent upon doing this that when the Bell Company refused + to act, he picked up the risk and set off with it alone. He organized a + company of well-known Rhode Islanders—nicknamed the "Governors' + Company"—and built the line. It was a failure at first, and went by + the name of "Vail's Folly." But Engineer Carty, by a happy thought, + DOUBLED THE WIRE, and thus in a moment established two new factors in the + telephone business—the Metallic Circuit and the Long Distance line. + </p> + <p> + At once the Bell Company came over to Vail's point of view, bought his new + line, and launched out upon what seemed to be the foolhardy enterprise of + stringing a double wire from Boston to New York. This was to be not only + the longest of all telephone lines, strung on ten thousand poles; it was + to be a line de luxe, built of glistening red copper, not iron. Its cost + was to be seventy thousand dollars, which was an enormous sum in those + hardscrabble days. There was much opposition to such extravagance, and + much ridicule. "I would n't take that line as a gift," said one of the + Bell Company's officials. + </p> + <p> + But when the last coil of wire was stretched into place, and the first + "Hello" leaped from Boston to New York, the new line was a victorious + success. It carried messages from the first day; and more, it raised the + whole telephone business to a higher level. It swept away the prejudice + that telephone service could become nothing more than a neighborhood + affair. "It was the salvation of the business," said Edward J. Hill. It + marked a turning-point in the history of the telephone, when the day of + small things was ended and the day of great things was begun. No one man, + no hundred men, had created it. It was the final result of ten years of + invention and improvement. + </p> + <p> + While this epoch-making line was being strung, Vail was pushing his "grand + telephonic system" policy by organizing The American Telephone and + Telegraph Company. This, too, was a master-stroke. It was the introduction + of the staff-and-line method of organization into business. It was doing + for the forty or fifty Bell Companies what Von Moltke did for the German + army prior to the Franco-Prussian War. It was the creation of a central + company that should link all local companies together, and itself own and + operate the means by which these companies are united. This central + company was to grapple with all national problems, to own all telephones + and long-distance lines, to protect all patents, and to be the + headquarters of invention, information, capital, and legal protection for + the entire federation of Bell Companies. + </p> + <p> + Seldom has a company been started with so small a capital and so vast a + purpose. It had no more than $100,000 of capital stock, in 1885; but its + declared object was nothing less than to establish a system of wire + communication for the human race. Here are, in its own words, the marching + orders of this Company: "To connect one or more points in each and every + city, town, or place an the State of New York, with one or more points in + each and every other city, town, or place in said State, and in each and + every other of the United States, and in Canada, and Mexico; and each and + every of said cities, towns, and places is to be connected with each and + every other city, town, or place in said States and countries, and also by + cable and other appropriate means with the rest of the known world." + </p> + <p> + So ran Vail's dream, and for nine years he worked mightily to make it come + true. He remained until the various parts of the business had grown + together, and until his plan for a "grand telephonic system" was under way + and fairly well understood. Then he went out, into a series of picturesque + enterprises, until he had built up a four-square fortune; and recently, in + 1907, he came back to be the head of the telephone business, and to + complete the work of organization that he started thirty years before. + </p> + <p> + When Vail said auf wiedersehen to the telephone business, it had passed + from infancy to childhood. It was well shaped but not fully grown. Its + pioneering days were over. It was self-supporting and had a little money + in the bank. But it could not then have carried the load of traffic that + it carries to-day. It had still too many problems to solve and too much + general inertia to overcome. It needed to be conserved, drilled, educated, + popularized. And the man who was finally chosen to replace Vail was in + many respects the appropriate leader for such a preparatory period. + </p> + <p> + Hudson—John Elbridge Hudson—was the name of the new head of + the telephone people. He was a man of middle age, born in Lynn and bred in + Boston; a long-pedigreed New Englander, whose ancestors had smelted iron + ore in Lynn when Charles the First was King. He was a lawyer by profession + and a university professor by temperament. His specialty, as a man of + affairs, had been marine law; and his hobby was the collection of rare + books and old English engravings. He was a master of the Greek language, + and very fond of using it. On all possible occasions he used the language + of Pericles in his conversation; and even carried this preference so far + as to write his business memoranda in Greek. He was above all else a + scholar, then a lawyer, and somewhat incidentally the central figure in + the telephone world. + </p> + <p> + 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 calibre. + </p> + <p> + He gave it tone and prestige. He built up its credit. He kept it clean and + clear above all suspicion of wrong-doing. He held fast whatever had been + gained. And he prepared the way for the period of expansion by borrowing + fifty millions for improvements, and by adding greatly to the strength and + influence of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. + </p> + <p> + Hudson remained at the head of the telephone table until his death, in + 1900, and thus lived to see the dawn of the era of big business. Under his + regime great things were done in the development of the art. The business + was pushed ahead at every point by its captains. Every man in his place, + trying to give a little better service than yesterday—that was the + keynote of the Hudson period. There was no one preeminent genius. Each + important step forward was the result of the cooperation of many minds, + and the prodding necessities of a growing traffic. + </p> + <p> + By 1896, when the Common Battery system created a new era, the telephone + engineer had pretty well mastered his simpler troubles. He was able to + handle his wires, no matter how many. By this time, too, the public was + ready for the telephone. A new generation had grown up, without the + prejudices of its fathers. People had grown away from the telegraphic + habit of thought, which was that wire communications were expensive + luxuries for the few. The telephone was, in fact, a new social nerve, so + new and so novel that very nearly twenty years went by before it had fully + grown into place, and before the social body developed the instinct of + using it. + </p> + <p> + Not that the difficulties of the telephone engineers were over, for they + were not. They have seemed to grow more numerous and complex every year. + But by 1896 enough had been done to warrant a forward movement. For the + next ten-year period the keynote of telephone history was EXPANSION. Under + the prevailing flat-rate plan of payment, all customers paid the same + yearly price and then used their telephones as often as they pleased. This + was a simple method, and the most satisfactory for small towns and farming + regions. But in a great city such a plan grew to be suicidal. In New York, + for instance, the price had to be raised to $240, which lifted the + telephone as high above the mass of the citizens as though it were a piano + or a diamond sunburst. Such a plan was strangling the business. It was + shutting out the small users. It was clogging the wires with deadhead + calls. It was giving some people too little service and others too much. + It was a very unsatisfactory situation. + </p> + <p> + How to extend the service and at the same time cheapen it to small users—that + was the Gordian knot; and the man who unquestionably did most to untie it + was Edward J. Hall. Mr. Hall founded the telephone business in Buffalo in + 1878, and seven years afterwards became the chief of the long-distance + traffic. He was then, and is to-day, one of the statesmen of the + telephone. For more than thirty years he has been the "candid friend" of + the business, incessantly suggesting, probing, and criticising. Keen and + dispassionate, with a genius for mercilessly cutting to the marrow of a + proposition, Hall has at the same time been a zealot for the improvement + and extension of telephone service. It was he who set the agents free from + the ball-and-chain of royalties, allowing them to pay instead a percentage + of gross receipts. And it was he who "broke the jam," as a lumberman would + say, by suggesting the MESSAGE RATE system. + </p> + <p> + By this plan, which U. N. Bethell developed to its highest point in New + York, a user of the telephone pays a fixed minimum price for a certain + number of messages per year, and extra for all messages over this number. + The large user pays more, and the little user pays less. It opened up the + way to such an expansion of telephone business as Bell, in his rosiest + dreams, had never imagined. In three years, after 1896, there were twice + as many users; in six years there were four times as many; in ten years + there were eight to one. What with the message rate and the pay station, + the telephone was now on its way to be universal. It was adapted to all + kinds and conditions of men. A great corporation, nerved at every point + with telephone wires, may now pay fifty thousand dollars to the Bell + Company, while at the same time a young Irish immigrant boy, just arrived + in New York City, may offer five coppers and find at his disposal a fifty + million dollar telephone system. + </p> + <p> + When the message rate was fairly well established, Hudson died—fell + suddenly to the ground as he was about to step into a railway carriage. In + his place came Frederick P. Fish, also a lawyer and a Bostonian. Fish was + a popular, optimistic man, with a "full-speed-ahead" temperament. He + pushed the policy of expansion until he broke all the records. He borrowed + money in stupendous amounts—$150,000,000 at one time—and flung + it into a campaign of red-hot development. More business he demanded, and + more, and more, until his captains, like a thirty-horse team of galloping + horses, became very nearly uncontrollable. + </p> + <p> + It was a fast and furious period. The whole country was ablaze with a + passion of prosperity. After generations of conflict, the men with large + ideas had at last put to rout the men of small ideas. The waste and folly + of competition had everywhere driven men to the policy of cooperation. + Mills were linked to mills and factories to factories, in a vast mutualism + of industry such as no other age, perhaps, has ever known. And as the + telephone is essentially the instrument of co-working and interdependent + people, it found itself suddenly welcomed as the most popular and + indispensable of all the agencies that put men in touch with each other. + </p> + <p> + To describe this growth in a single sentence, we might say that the Bell + telephone secured its first million of capital in 1879; its first million + of earnings in 1882; its first million of dividends in 1884; its first + million of surplus in 1885. It had paid out its first million for legal + expenses by 1886; began first to send a million messages a day in 1888; + had strung its first million miles of wire in 1900; and had installed its + first million telephones in 1898. By 1897 it had spun as many cobwebs of + wire as the mighty Western Union itself; by 1900 it had twice as many + miles of wire as the Western Union, and in 1905 FIVE TIMES as many. Such + was the plunging progress of the Bell Companies in this period of + expansion, that by 1905 they had swept past all European countries + combined, not only in the quality of the service but in the actual number + of telephones in use. This, too, without a cent of public money, or the + protection of a tariff, or the prestige of a governmental bureau. + </p> + <p> + By 1892 Boston and New York were talking to Chicago, Milwaukee, Pittsburg, + and Washington. One-half of the people of the United States were within + talking distance of each other. The THOUSAND-MILE TALK had ceased to be a + fairy tale. Several years later the western end of the line was pushed + over the plains to Nebraska, enabling the spoken word in Boston to be + heard in Omaha. Slowly and with much effort the public were taught to + substitute the telephone for travel. A special long-distance salon was + fitted up in New York City to entice people into the habit of talking to + other cities. Cabs were sent for customers; and when one arrived, he was + escorted over Oriental rugs to a gilded booth, draped with silken + curtains. This was the famous "Room Nine." By such and many other + allurements a larger idea of telephone service was given to the public + mind; until in 1909 at least eighteen thousand New York-Chicago + conversations were held, and the revenue from strictly long-distance + messages was twenty-two thousand dollars a day. + </p> + <p> + By 1906 even the Rocky Mountain Bell Company had grown to be a + ten-million-dollar enterprise. It began at Salt Lake City with a hundred + telephones, in 1880. Then it reached out to master an area of four hundred + and thirteen thousand square miles—a great Lone Land of undeveloped + resources. Its linemen groped through dense forests where their poles + looked like toothpicks beside the towering pines and cedars. They girdled + the mountains and basted the prairies with wire, until the lonely places + were brought together and made sociable. They drove off the Indians, who + wanted the bright wire for ear-rings and bracelets; and the bears, which + mistook the humming of the wires for the buzzing of bees, and persisted in + gnawing the poles down. With the most heroic optimism, this Rocky Mountain + Company persevered until, in 1906, it had created a seventy-thousand-mile + nerve-system for the far West. + </p> + <p> + Chicago, in this year, had two hundred thou-sand telephones in use, in her + two hundred square miles of area. The business had been built up by + General Anson Stager, who was himself wealthy, and able to attract the + support of such men as John Crerar, H. H. Porter, and Robert T. Lincoln. + Since 1882 it has paid dividends, and in one glorious year its stock + soared to four hundred dollars a share. The old-timers—the men who + clambered over roof-tops in 1878 and tacked iron wires wherever they could + without being chased off—are still for the most part in control of + the Chicago company. + </p> + <p> + But as might have been expected, it was New York City that was the + record-breaker when the era of telephone expansion arrived. Here the flood + of big business struck with the force of a tidal wave. The number of users + leaped from 56,000 in 1900 up to 810,000 in 1908. In a single year of + sweating and breathless activity, 65,000 new telephones were put on desks + or hung on walls—an average of one new user for every two minutes of + the business day. + </p> + <p> + Literally tons, and hundreds of tons, of telephones were hauled in drays + from the factory and put in place in New York's homes and offices. More + and more were demanded, until to-day there are more telephones in New York + than there are in the four countries, France, Belgium, Holland, and + Switzerland combined. As a user of telephones New York has risen to be + unapproachable. Mass together all the telephones of London, Glasgow, + Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffleld, Bristol, and Belfast, + and there will even then be barely as many as are carrying the + conversations of this one American city. + </p> + <p> + In 1879 the New York telephone directory was a small card, showing two + hundred and fifty-two names; but now it has grown to be an + eight-hundred-page quarterly, with a circulation of half a million, and + requiring twenty drays, forty horses, and four hundred men to do the work + of distribution. There was one shabby little exchange thirty years ago; + but now there are fifty-two exchanges, as the nerve-centres of a vast + fifty-million-dollar system. Incredible as it may seem to foreigners, it + is literally true that in a single building in New York, the Hudson + Terminal, there are more telephones than in Odessa or Madrid, more than in + the two kingdoms of Greece and Bulgaria combined. + </p> + <p> + Merely to operate this system requires an army of more than five thousand + girls. Merely to keep their records requires two hundred and thirty-five + million sheets of paper a year. Merely to do the writing of these records + wears away five hundred and sixty thousand lead pencils. And merely to + give these girls a cup of tea or coffee at noon, compels the Bell Company + to buy yearly six thousand pounds of tea, seventeen thousand pounds of + coffee, forty-eight thousand cans of condensed milk, and one hundred and + forty barrels of sugar. + </p> + <p> + The myriad wires of this New York system are tingling with talk every + minute of the day and night. They are most at rest between three and four + o'clock in the morning, although even then there are usually ten calls a + minute. Between five and six o'clock, two thousand New Yorkers are awake + and at the telephone. Half an hour later there are twice as many. Between + seven and eight twenty-five thousand people have called up twenty-five + thousand other people, so that there are as many people talking by wire as + there were in the whole city of New York in the Revolutionary period. Even + this is only the dawn of the day's business. By half-past eight it is + doubled; by nine it is trebled; by ten it is multiplied sixfold; and by + eleven the roar has become an incredible babel of one hundred and eighty + thousand conversations an hour, with fifty new voices clamoring at the + exchanges every second. + </p> + <p> + This is "the peak of the load." It is the topmost pinnacle of talk. It is + the utmost degree of service that the telephone has been required to give + in any city. And it is as much a world's wonder, to men and women of + imagination, as the steel mills of Homestead or the turbine leviathans + that curve across the Atlantic Ocean in four and a half days. + </p> + <p> + As to the men who built it up: Charles F. Cutler died in 1907, but most of + the others are still alive and busy. Union N. Bethell, now in Cutler's + place at the head of the New York Company, has been the operating chief + for eighteen years. He is a man of shrewdness and sympathy, with a rare + sagacity in solving knotty problems, a president of the new type, who + regards his work as a sort of obligation he owes to the public. And just + as foreigners go to Pittsburg to see the steel business at its best; just + as they go to Iowa and Kansas to see the New Farmer, so they make + pilgrimages to Bethell's office to learn the profession of telephony. + </p> + <p> + This unparalleled telephone system of New York grew up without having at + any time the rivalry of competition. But in many other cities and + especially in the Middle West, there sprang up in 1895 a medley of + independent companies. The time of the original patents had expired, and + the Bell Companies found themselves freed from the expense of litigation + only to be snarled up in a tangle of duplication. In a few years there + were six thousand of these little Robinson Crusoe companies. And by 1901 + they had put in use more than a million telephones and were professing to + have a capital of a hundred millions. + </p> + <p> + Most of these companies were necessary and did much to expand the + telephone business into new territory. They were in fact small mutual + associations of a dozen or a hundred farmers, whose aim was to get + telephone service at cost. But there were other companies, probably a + thousand or more, which were organized by promoters who built their hopes + on the fact that the Bell Companies were unpopular, and on the myth that + they were fabulously rich. Instead of legitimately extending telephone + lines into communities that had none, these promoters proceeded to inflict + the messy snarl of an overlapping system upon whatever cities would give + them permission to do so. + </p> + <p> + In this way, masked as competition, the nuisance and waste of duplication + began in most American cities. The telephone business was still so young, + it was so little appreciated even by the telephone officials and + engineers, that the public regarded a second or a third telephone system + in one city as quite a possible and desirable innovation. "We have two + ears," said one promoter; "why not therefore have two telephones?" + </p> + <p> + This duplication went merrily on for years before it was generally + discovered that the telephone is not an ear, but a nerve system; and that + such an experiment as a duplicate nerve system has never been attempted by + Nature, even in her most frivolous moods. Most people fancied that a + telephone system was practically the same as a gas or electric light + system, which can often be duplicated with the result of cheaper rates and + better service. They did not for years discover that two telephone + companies in one city means either half service or double cost, just as + two fire departments or two post offices would. + </p> + <p> + Some of these duplicate companies built up a complete plant, and gave good + local service, while others proved to be mere stock bubbles. Most of them + were over-capitalized, depending upon public sympathy to atone for + deficiencies in equipment. One which had printed fifty million dollars of + stock for sale was sold at auction in 1909 for four hundred thousand + dollars. All told, there were twenty-three of these bubbles that burst in + 1905, twenty-one in 1906, and twelve in 1907. So high has been the + death-rate among these isolated companies that at a recent convention of + telephone agents, the chairman's gavel was made of thirty-five pieces of + wood, taken from thirty-five switchboards of thirty-five extinct + companies. + </p> + <p> + 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-system, and that where the second system is put in, every fifth + user is obliged to pay for two telephones. The rates are alike, whether a + city has one or two systems. Duplicating companies raised their rates in + sixteen cities out of the twenty-seven, and reduced them in one city. + Taking the United States as a whole, there are to-day fully two hundred + and fifty thousand people who are paying for two telephones instead of + one, an economic waste of at least ten million dollars a year. + </p> + <p> + A fair-minded survey of the entire independent telephone movement would + probably show that it was at first a stimulant, followed, as stimulants + usually are, by a reaction. It was unquestionably for several years a spur + to the Bell Companies. But it did not fulfil its promises of cheap rates, + better service, and high dividends; it did little or nothing to improve + telephonic apparatus, producing nothing new except the automatic + switchboard—a brilliant invention, which is now in its experimental + period. In the main, perhaps, it has been a reactionary and troublesome + movement in the cities, and a progressive movement among the farmers. + </p> + <p> + By 1907 it was a wave that had spent its force. It was no longer rolling + along easily on the broad ocean of hope, but broken and turned aside by + the rocks of actual conditions. One by one the telephone promoters learned + the limitations of an isolated company, and asked to be included as + members of the Bell family. In 1907 four hundred and fifty-eight thousand + independent telephones were linked by wire to the nearest Bell Company; + and in 1908 these were followed by three hundred and fifty thousand more. + After this landslide to the policy of consolidation, there still remained + a fairly large assortment of independent companies; but they had lost + their dreams and their illusions. + </p> + <p> + As might have been expected, the independent movement produced a number of + competent local leaders, but none of national importance. The Bell + Companies, on the other hand, were officered by men who had for a quarter + of a century been surveying telephone problems from a national point of + view. At their head, from 1907 onwards, was Theodore N. Vail, who had + returned dramatically, at the precise moment when he was needed, to finish + the work that he had begun in 1878. He had been absent for twenty years, + developing water-power and building street-railways in South America. In + the first act of the telephone drama, it was he who put the enterprise + upon a business basis, and laid down the first principles of its policy. + In the second and third acts he had no place; but when the curtain rose + upon the fourth act, Vail was once more the central figure, standing + white-haired among his captains, and pushing forward the completion of the + "grand telephonic system" that he had dreamed of when the telephone was + three years old. + </p> + <p> + Thus it came about that the telephone business was created by Vail, + conserved by Hudson, expanded by Fish, and is now in process of being + consolidated by Vail. It is being knit together into a stupendous Bell + System—a federation of self-governing companies, united by a central + company that is the busiest of them all. It is no longer protected by any + patent monopoly. Whoever is rich enough and rash enough may enter the + field. But it has all the immeasurable advantages that come from long + experience, immense bulk, the most highly skilled specialists, and an + abundance of capital. "The Bell System is strong," says Vail, "because we + are all tied up together; and the success of one is therefore the concern + of all." + </p> + <p> + The Bell System! Here we have the motif of American telephone development. + Here is the most comprehensive idea that has entered any telephone + engineer's brain. Already this Bell System has grown to be so vast, so + nearly akin to a national nerve system, that there is nothing else to + which we can compare it. It is so wide-spread that few are aware of its + greatness. It is strung out over fifty thousand cities and communities. + </p> + <p> + If it were all gathered together into one place, this Bell System, it + would make a city of Telephonia as large as Baltimore. It would contain + half of the telephone property of the world. Its actual wealth would be + fully $760,000,000, and its revenue would be greater than the revenue of + the city of New York. + </p> + <p> + Part of the property of the city of Telephonia consists of ten million + poles, as many as would make a fence from New York to California, or put a + stockade around Texas. If the Telephonians wished to use these poles at + home, they might drive them in as piles along their water-front, and have + a twenty-five thousand-acre dock; or if their city were a hundred square + miles in extent, they might set up a seven-ply wall around it with these + poles. + </p> + <p> + Wire, too! Eleven million miles of it! This city of Telephonia would be + the capital of an empire of wire. Not all the men in New York State could + shoulder this burden of wire and carry it. Throw all the people of + Illinois in one end of the scale, and put on the other side the + wire-wealth of Telephonia, and long before the last coil was in place, the + Illinoisans would be in the air. + </p> + <p> + What would this city do for a living? It would make two-thirds of the + telephones, cables, and switchboards of all countries. Nearly one-quarter + of its citizens would work in factories, while the others would be busy in + six thousand exchanges, making it possible for the people of the United + States to talk to one another at the rate of SEVEN THOUSAND MILLION + CONVERSATIONS A YEAR. + </p> + <p> + The pay-envelope army that moves to work every morning in Telephonia would + be a host of one hundred and ten thousand men and girls, mostly girls,—as + many girls as would fill Vassar College a hundred times and more, or + double the population of Nevada. Put these men and girls in line, march + them ten abreast, and six hours would pass before the last company would + arrive at the reviewing stand. In single file this throng of Telephonians + would make a living wall from New York to New Haven. + </p> + <p> + Such is the extraordinary city of which Alexander Graham Bell was the only + resident in 1875. It has been built up without the backing of any great + bank or multi-millionaire. There have been no Vanderbilts in it, no + Astors, Rockefellers, Rothschilds, Harrimans. There are even now only four + men who own as many as ten thousand shares of the stock of the central + company. This Bell System stands as the life-work of unprivileged men, who + are for the most part still alive and busy. With very few and trivial + exceptions, every part of it was made in the United States. No other + industrial organism of equal size owes foreign countries so little. Alike + in its origin, its development, and its highest point of efficiency and + expansion, the telephone is as essentially American as the Declaration of + Independence or the monument on Bunker Hill. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VI. NOTABLE USERS OF THE TELEPHONE + </h2> + <p> + What we might call the telephonization of city life, for lack of a simpler + word, has remarkably altered our manner of living from what it was in the + days of Abraham Lincoln. It has enabled us to be more social and + cooperative. It has literally abolished the isolation of separate + families, and has made us members of one great family. It has become so + truly an organ of the social body that by telephone we now enter into + contracts, give evidence, try lawsuits, make speeches, propose marriage, + confer degrees, appeal to voters, and do almost everything else that is a + matter of speech. + </p> + <p> + In stores and hotels this wire traffic has grown to an almost bewildering + extent, as these are the places where many interests meet. 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 Spain. In + an average year they send six million messages. The Waldorf-Astoria alone + tops all residential buildings with eleven hundred and twenty telephones + and five hundred thousand calls a year; while merely the Christmas Eve + orders that flash into Marshall Field's store, or John Wanamaker's, have + risen as high as the three thousand mark. + </p> + <p> + Whether the telephone does most to concentrate population, or to scatter + it, is a question that has not yet been examined. It is certainly true + that it has made the skyscraper possible, and thus helped to create an + absolutely new type of city, such as was never imagined even in the fairy + tales of ancient nations. The skyscraper is ten years younger than the + telephone. It is now generally seen to be the ideal building for business + offices. It is one of the few types of architecture that may fairly be + called American. And its efficiency is largely, if not mainly, due to the + fact that its inhabitants may run errands by telephone as well as by + elevator. + </p> + <p> + There seems to be no sort of activity which is not being made more + convenient by the telephone. It is used to call the duck-shooters in + Western Canada when a flock of birds has arrived; and to direct the + movements of the Dragon in Wagner's grand opera "Siegfried." At the last + Yale-Harvard football game, it conveyed almost instantaneous news to fifty + thousand people in various parts of New England. At the Vanderbilt Cup + Race its wires girdled the track and reported every gain or mishap of the + racing autos. And at such expensive pageants as that of the Quebec + Tercentenary in 1908, where four thousand actors came and went upon a + ten-acre stage, every order was given by telephone. + </p> + <p> + Public officials, even in the United States, have been slow to change from + the old-fashioned and more dignified use of written documents and + uniformed messengers; but in the last ten years there has been a sweeping + revolution in this respect. Government by telephone! This is a new idea + that has already arrived in the more efficient departments of the Federal + service. And as for the present Congress, that body has gone so far as to + plan for a special system of its own, in both Houses, so that all official + announcements may be heard by wire. + </p> + <p> + Garfield was the first among American Presidents to possess a telephone. + An exhibition instrument was placed in his house, without cost, in 1878, + while he was still a member of Congress. Neither Cleveland nor Harrison, + for temperamental reasons, used the magic wire very often. Under their + regime, there was one lonely idle telephone in the White House, used by + the servants several times a week. But with McKinley came a new order of + things. To him a telephone was more than a necessity. It was a pastime, an + exhilarating sport. He was the one President who really revelled in the + comforts of telephony. In 1895 he sat in his Canton home and heard the + cheers of the Chicago Convention. Later he sat there and ran the first + presidential telephone campaign; talked to his managers in thirty-eight + States. Thus he came to regard the telephone with a higher degree of + appreciation than any of his predecessors had done, and eulogized it on + many public occasions. "It is bringing us all closer together," was his + favorite phrase. + </p> + <p> + To Roosevelt the telephone was mainly for emergencies. He used it to the + full during the Chicago Convention of 1907 and the Peace Conference at + Portsmouth. But with Taft the telephone became again the common avenue of + conversation. He has introduced at least one new telephonic custom a + long-distance talk with his family every evening, when he is away from + home. Instead of the solitary telephone of Cleveland-Harrison days, the + White House has now a branch exchange of its own—Main 6—with a + sheaf of wires that branch out into every room as well as to the nearest + central. + </p> + <p> + Next to public officials, bankers were perhaps the last to accept the + facilities of the telephone. They were slow to abandon the fallacy that no + business can be done without a written record. James Stillman, of New + York, was first among bankers to foresee the telephone era. As early as + 1875, while Bell was teaching his infant telephone to talk, Stillman + risked two thousand dollars in a scheme to establish a crude dial system + of wire communication, which later grew into New York's first telephone + exchange. At the present time, the banker who works closest to his + telephone is probably George W. Perkins, of the J. P. Morgan group of + bankers. "He is the only man," says Morgan, "who can raise twenty millions + in twenty minutes." The Perkins plan of rapid transit telephony is to + prepare a list of names, from ten to thirty, and to flash from one to + another as fast as the operator can ring them up. Recently one of the + other members of the Morgan bank proposed to enlarge its telephone + equipment. "What will we gain by more wires?" asked the operator. "If we + were to put in a six-hundred pair cable, Mr. Perkins would keep it busy." + </p> + <p> + The most brilliant feat of the telephone in the financial world was done + during the panic of 1907. At the height of the storm, on a Saturday + evening, the New York bankers met in an almost desperate conference. They + decided, as an emergency measure of self-protection, not to ship cash to + Western banks. At midnight they telephoned this decision to the bankers of + Chicago and St. Louis. These men, in turn, conferred by telephone, and on + Sunday afternoon called up the bankers of neighboring States. And so the + news went from 'phone to 'phone, until by Monday morning all bankers and + chief depositors were aware of the situation, and prepared for the + team-play that prevented any general disaster. + </p> + <p> + As for stockbrokers of the Wall Street species, they transact practically + all their business by telephone. In their stock exchange stand six hundred + and forty one booths, each one the terminus of a private wire. A firm of + brokers will count it an ordinary year's talking to send fifty thousand + messages; and there is one firm which last year sent twice as many. Of all + brokers, the one who finally accomplished most by telephony was + unquestionably E. H. Harriman. In the mansion that he built at Arden, + there were a hundred telephones, sixty of them linked to the long-distance + lines. What the brush is to the artist, what the chisel is to the + sculptor, the telephone was to Harriman. He built his fortune with it. It + was in his library, his bathroom, his private car, his camp in the Oregon + wilder-ness. No transaction was too large or too involved to be settled + over its wires. He saved the credit of the Erie by telephone—lent it + five million dollars as he lay at home on a sickbed. "He is a slave to the + telephone," wrote a magazine writer. "Nonsense," replied Harriman, "it is + a slave to me." + </p> + <p> + The telephone arrived in time to prevent big corporations from being + unwieldy and aristocratic. The foreman of a Pittsburg coal company may now + stand in his subterranean office and talk to the president of the Steel + Trust, who sits on the twenty-first floor of a New York skyscraper. The + long-distance talks, especially, have grown to be indispensable to the + corporations whose plants are scattered and geographically misplaced—to + the mills of New England, for instance, that use the cotton of the South + and sell so much of their product to the Middle West. To the companies + that sell perishable commodities, an instantaneous conversation with a + buyer in a distant city has often saved a carload or a cargo. Such + caterers as the meat-packers, who were among the first to realize what + Bell had made possible, have greatly accelerated the wheels of their + business by inter-city conversations. For ten years or longer the Cudahys + have talked every business morning between Omaha and Boston, via fifteen + hundred and seventy miles of wire. + </p> + <p> + In the refining of oil, the Standard Oil Company alone, at its New York + office, sends two hundred and thirty thousand messages a year. In the + making of steel, a chemical analysis is made of each caldron of molten + pig-iron, when it starts on its way to be refined, and this analysis is + sent by telephone to the steelmaker, so that he will know exactly how each + potful is to be handled. In the floating of logs down rivers, instead of + having relays of shouters to prevent the logs from jamming, there is now a + wire along the bank, with a telephone linked on at every point of danger. + In the rearing of skyscrapers, it is now usual to have a temporary wire + strung vertically, 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 air. And in the electric light business, the current is + distributed wholly by telephoned orders. 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 telephones. All the + power that creates this artificial daylight is generated at a single + station, and let flow to twenty-five storage centres. Minute by minute, + its flow is guided by an expert, who sits at a telephone exchange as + though he were a pilot at the wheel of an ocean liner. + </p> + <p> + The first steamship line to take notice of the telephone was the Clyde, + which had a wire from dock to office in 1877; and the first railway was + the Pennsylvania, which two years later was persuaded by Professor Bell + himself to give it a trial in Altoona. Since then, this railroad has + become the chief beneficiary of the art of telephony. It has one hundred + and seventy-five exchanges, four hundred operators, thirteen thousand + telephones, and twenty thousand miles of wire—a more ample system + than the city of New York had in 1896. + </p> + <p> + To-day the telephone goes to sea in the passenger steamer and the warship. + Its wires are waiting at the dock and the depot, so that a tourist may sit + in his stateroom and talk with a friend in some distant office. It is one + of the most incredible miracles of telephony that a passenger at New York, + who is about to start for Chicago on a fast express, may telephone to + Chicago from the drawing-room of a Pullman. He himself, on the swiftest of + all trains, will not arrive in Chicago for eighteen hours; but the flying + words can make the journey, and RETURN, while his train is waiting for the + signal to start. + </p> + <p> + In the operation of trains, the railroads have waited thirty years before + they dared to trust the telephone, just as they waited fifteen years + before they dared to trust the telegraph. In 1883 a few railways used the + telephone in a small way, but in 1907, when a law was passed that made + telegraphers highly expensive, there was a general swing to the telephone. + Several dozen roads have now put it in use, some employing it as an + associate of the Morse method and others as a complete substitute. It has + already been found to be the quickest way of despatching trains. It will + do in five minutes what the telegraph did in ten. And it has enabled + railroads to hire more suitable men for the smaller offices. + </p> + <p> + In news-gathering, too, much more than in railroading, the day of the + telephone has arrived. The Boston Globe was the first paper to receive + news by telephone. Later came The Washington Star, which had a wire strung + to the Capitol, and thereby gained an hour over its competitors. To-day + the evening papers receive most of their news over the wire a la Bell + instead of a la Morse. This has resulted in a specialization of reporters—one + man runs for the news and another man writes it. Some of the runners never + come to the office. They receive their assignments by telephone, and their + salaries by mail. There are even a few who are allowed to telephone their + news directly to a swift linotype operator, who clicks it into type on his + machine, without the scratch of a pencil. This, of course, is the ideal + method of news-gathering, which is rarely possible. + </p> + <p> + A paper of the first class, such as The New York World, has now an outfit + of twenty trunk lines and eighty telephones. Its outgoing calls are two + hundred thousand a year and its incoming calls three hundred thousand, + which means that for every morning, evening, or Sunday edition, there has + been an average of seven hundred and fifty messages. The ordinary + newspaper in a small town cannot afford such a service, but recently the + United Press has originated a cooperative method. It telephones the news + over one wire to ten or twelve newspapers at one time. In ten minutes a + thousand words can in this way be flung out to a dozen towns, as quickly + as by telegraph and much cheaper. + </p> + <p> + But it is in a dangerous crisis, when safety seems to hang upon a second, + that the telephone is at its best. It is the instrument of emergencies, a + sort of ubiquitous watchman. When the girl operator in the exchange hears + a cry for help—"Quick! The hospital!" "The fire department!" "The + police!" she seldom waits to hear the number. She knows it. She is trained + to save half-seconds. And it is at such moments, if ever, that the users + of a telephone can appreciate its insurance value. No doubt, if a King + Richard III were worsted on a modern battlefield, his instinctive cry + would be, "My Kingdom for a telephone!" + </p> + <p> + When instant action is needed in the city of New York, a General Alarm can + in five minutes be sent by the police wires over its whole vast area of + three hundred square miles. When, recently, a gas main broke in Brooklyn, + 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 danger. When the + ill-fated General Slocum caught fire, a mechanic in a factory on the + water-front saw the blaze, and had the presence of mind to telephone the + newspapers, the hospitals, and the police. When a small child is lost, or + a convict has escaped from prison, or the forest is on fire, or some + menace from the weather is at hand, the telephone bells clang out the + news, just as the nerves jangle the bells of pain when the body is in + danger. In one tragic case, the operator in Folsom, New Mexico, refused to + quit her post until she had warned her people of a flood that had broken + loose in the hills above the village. Because of her courage, nearly all + were saved, though she herself was drowned at the switchboard. Her name—Mrs. + S. J. Rooke—deserves to be remembered. + </p> + <p> + If a disaster cannot be prevented, it is the telephone, usually, that + brings first aid to the injured. After the destruction of San Francisco, + Governor Guild, of Massachusetts, sent an appeal for the stricken city to + the three hundred and fifty-four mayors of his State; and by the courtesy + of the Bell Company, which carried the messages free, they were delivered + to the last and furthermost mayors in less than five hours. After the + destruction of Messina, an order for enough lumber to build ten thousand + new houses was cabled to New York and telephoned to Western lumbermen. So + quickly was this order filled that on the twelfth day after the arrival of + the cablegram, the ships were on their way to Messina with the lumber. + After the Kansas City flood of 1903, when the drenched city was without + railways or street-cars or electric lights, it was the telephone that held + the city together and brought help to the danger-spots. And after the + Baltimore fire, the telephone exchange was the last force to quit and the + first to recover. Its girls sat on their stools at the switchboard until + the window-panes were broken by the heat. Then they pulled the covers over + the board and walked out. Two hours later the building was in ashes. Three + hours later another building was rented on the unburned rim of the city, + and the wire chiefs were at work. In one day there was a system of wires + for the use of the city officials. In two days these were linked to + long-distance wires; and in eleven days a two-thousand-line switchboard + was in full working trim. This feat still stands as the record in + rebuilding. + </p> + <p> + In the supreme emergency of war, the telephone is as indispensable, very + nearly, as the cannon. This, at least, is the belief of the Japanese, who + handled their armies by telephone when they drove back the Russians. Each + body of Japanese troops moved forward like a silkworm, leaving behind it a + glistening strand of red copper wire. At the decisive battle of Mukden, + the silk-worm army, with a million legs, crept against the Russian hosts + in a vast crescent, a hundred miles from end to end. By means of this + glistening red wire, the various batteries and regiments were organized + into fifteen divisions. Each group of three divisions was wired to a + general, and the five generals were wired to the great Oyama himself, who + sat ten miles back of the firing-line and sent his orders. Whenever a + regiment lunged forward, one of the soldiers carried a telephone set. If + they held their position, two other soldiers ran forward with a spool of + wire. In this way and under fire of the Russian cannon, one hundred and + fifty miles of wire were strung across the battlefield. As the Japanese + said, it was this "flying telephone" that enabled Oyama to manipulate his + forces as handily as though he were playing a game of chess. It was in + this war, too, that the Mikado's soldiers strung the costliest of all + telephone lines, at 203 Metre Hill. When the wire had been basted up this + hill to the summit, the fortress of Port Arthur lay at their mercy. But + the climb had cost them twenty-four thousand lives. + </p> + <p> + Of the seven million telephones in the United States, about two million + are now in farmhouses. Every fourth American farmer is in telephone touch + with his neighbors and the market. Iowa leads, among the farming States. + In Iowa, not to have a telephone is to belong to what a Londoner would + call the "submerged tenth" of the population. Second in line comes + Illinois, with Kansas, Nebraska, and Indiana following closely behind; and + at the foot of the list, in the matter of farm telephones, are Connecticut + and Louisiana. + </p> + <p> + The first farmer who discovered the value of the telephone was the market + gardener. Next came the bonanza farmer of the Red River Valley—such + a man, for instance, as Oliver Dalrymple, of North Dakota, who found that + by the aid of the telephone he could plant and harvest thirty thousand + acres of wheat in a single season. Then, not more than half a dozen years + ago, there arose a veritable Telephone Crusade among the farmers of the + Middle West. Cheap telephones, yet fairly good, had by this time been made + possible by the improvements of the Bell engineers; and stories of what + could be done by telephone became the favorite gossip of the day. One + farmer had kept his barn from being burned down by telephoning for his + neighbors; another had cleared five hundred dollars extra profit on the + sale of his cattle, by telephoning to the best market; a third had rescued + a flock of sheep by sending quick news of an approaching blizzard; a + fourth had saved his son's life by getting an instantaneous message to the + doctor; and so on. + </p> + <p> + How the telephone saved a three million dollar fruit crop in Colorado, in + 1909, is the story that is oftenest told in the West. Until that year, the + frosts in the Spring nipped the buds. No farmer could be sure of his + harvest. But in 1909, the fruit-growers bought smudge-pots—three + hundred thousand or more. These were placed in the orchards, ready to be + lit at a moment's notice. Next, an alliance was made with the United + States Weather Bureau so that whenever the Frost King came down from the + north, a warning could be telephoned to the farmers. Just when Colorado + was pink with apple blossoms, the first warning came. "Get ready to light + up your smudge-pots in half an hour." Then the farmers telephoned to the + nearest towns: "Frost is coming; come and help us in the orchards." + Hundreds of men rushed out into the country on horseback and in wagons. In + half an hour the last warning came: "Light up; the thermometer registers + twenty-nine." The smudge-pot artillery was set ablaze, and kept blazing + until the news came that the icy forces had retreated. And in this way + every Colorado farmer who had a telephone saved his fruit. + </p> + <p> + In some farming States, the enthusiasm for the telephone is running so + high that mass meetings are held, with lavish oratory on the general theme + of "Good Roads and Telephones." And as a result of this Telephone Crusade, + there are now nearly twenty thousand groups of farmers, each one with a + mutual telephone system, and one-half of them with sufficient enterprise + to link their little webs of wires to the vast Bell system, so that at + least a million farmers have been brought as close to the great cities as + they are to their own barns. + </p> + <p> + What telephones have done to bring in the present era of big crops, is an + interesting story in itself. To compress it into a sentence, we might say + that the telephone has completed the labor-saving movement which started + with the McCormick reaper in 1831. It has lifted the farmer above the + wastefulness of being his own errand-boy. The average length of haul from + barn to market in the United States is nine and a half miles, so that + every trip saved means an extra day's work for a man and team. Instead of + travelling back and forth, often to no purpose, the farmer may now stay at + home and attend to his stock and his crops. + </p> + <p> + As yet, few farmers have learned to appreciate the value of quality in + telephone service, as they have in other lines. The same man who will pay + six prices for the best seed-corn, and who will allow nothing but + high-grade cattle in his barn, will at the same time be content with the + shabbiest and flimsiest telephone service, without offering any other + excuse than that it is cheap. But this is a transient phase of farm + telephony. The cost of an efficient farm system is now so little—not + more than two dollars a month, 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 things. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VII. THE TELEPHONE AND NATIONAL EFFICIENCY + </h2> + <p> + The larger significance of the telephone is that it completes the work of + eliminating the hermit and gypsy elements of civilization. In an almost + ideal way, it has made intercommunication possible without travel. It has + enabled a man to settle permanently in one place, and yet keep in personal + touch with his fellows. + </p> + <p> + Until the last few centuries, much of the world was probably what Morocco + is to-day—a region without wheeled vehicles or even roads of any + sort. There is a mythical story of a wonderful speaking-trumpet possessed + by Alexander the Great, by which he could call a soldier who was ten miles + distant; but there was probably no substitute for the human voice except + flags and beacon-fires, or any faster method of travel than the gait of a + horse or a camel across ungraded plains. The first sensation of rapid + transit doubtless came with the sailing vessel; but it was the play-toy of + the winds, and unreliable. When Columbus dared to set out on his famous + voyage, he was five weeks in crossing from Spain to the West Indies, his + best day's record two hundred miles. The swift steamship travel of to-day + did not begin until 1838, when the Great Western raced over the Atlantic + in fifteen days. + </p> + <p> + As for organized systems of intercommunication, they were unknown even + under the rule of a Pericles or a Caesar. There was no post office in + Great Britain until 1656—a generation after America had begun to be + colonized. There was no English mail-coach until 1784; and when Benjamin + Franklin was Postmaster General at Philadelphia, an answer by mail from + Boston, when all went well, required not less than three weeks. There was + not even a hard-surface road in the thirteen United States until 1794; nor + even a postage stamp until 1847, the year in which Alexander Graham Bell + was born. In this same year Henry Clay delivered his memorable speech on + the Mexican War, at Lexington, Kentucky, and it was telegraphed to The New + York Herald at a cost of five hundred dollars, thus breaking all previous + records for news-gathering enterprise. Eleven years later the first cable + established an instantaneous sign-language between Americans and + Europeans; and in 1876 there came the perfect distance-talking of the + telephone. + </p> + <p> + No invention has been more timely than the telephone. It arrived at the + exact period when it was needed for the organization of great cities and + the unification of nations. The new ideas and energies of science, + commerce, and cooperation were beginning to win victories in all parts of + the earth. The first railroad had just arrived in China; the first + parliament in Japan; the first constitution in Spain. Stanley was moving + like a tiny point of light through the heart of the Dark Continent. The + Universal Postal Union had been organized in a little hall in Berne. The + Red Cross movement was twelve years old. An International Congress of + Hygiene was being held at Brussells, and an International Congress of + Medicine at Philadelphia. De Lesseps had finished the Suez Canal and was + examining Panama. Italy and Germany had recently been built into nations; + France had finally swept aside the Empire and the Commune and established + the Republic. And what with the new agencies of railroads, steamships, + cheap newspapers, cables, and telegraphs, the civilized races of mankind + had begun to be knit together into a practical consolidation. + </p> + <p> + To the United States, especially, the telephone came as a friend in need. + After a hundred years of growth, the Republic was still a loose + confederation of separate States, rather than one great united nation. It + had recently fallen apart for four years, with a wide gulf of blood + between; and with two flags, two Presidents, and two armies. In 1876 it + was hesitating halfway between doubt and confidence, between the old + political issues of North and South, and the new industrial issues of + foreign trade and the development of material resources. The West was + being thrown open. The Indians and buffaloes were being driven back. There + was a line of railway from ocean to ocean. The population was gaining at + the rate of a million a year. Colorado had just been baptized as a new + State. And it was still an unsolved problem whether or not the United + States could be kept united, whether or not it could be built into an + organic nation without losing the spirit of self-help and democracy. + </p> + <p> + It is not easy for us to realize to-day how young and primitive was the + United States of 1876. Yet the fact is that we have twice the population + that we had when the telephone was invented. We have twice the wheat crop + and twice as much money in circulation. We have three times the railways, + banks, libraries, newspapers, exports, farm values, and national wealth. + We have ten million farmers who make four times as much money as seven + million farmers made in 1876. We spend four times as much on our public + schools, and we put four times as much in the savings bank. We have five + times as many students in the colleges. And we have so revolutionized our + methods of production that we now produce seven times as much coal, + fourteen times as much oil and pig-iron, twenty-two times as much copper, + and forty-three times as much steel. + </p> + <p> + There were no skyscrapers in 1876, no trolleys, no electric lights, no + gasoline engines, no self-binders, no bicycles, no automobiles. There was + no Oklahoma, and the combined population of Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and + Arizona was about equal to that of Des Moines. It was in this year that + General Custer was killed by the Sioux; that the flimsy iron railway + bridge fell at Ashtabula; that the "Molly Maguires" terrorized + Pennsylvania; that the first wire of the Brooklyn Bridge was strung; and + that Boss Tweed and Hell Gate were both put out of the way in New York. + </p> + <p> + The Great Elm, under which the Revolutionary patriots had met, was still + standing on Boston Common. Daniel Drew, the New York financier, who was + born before the American Constitution was adopted, was still alive; so + were Commodore Vanderbilt, Joseph Henry, A. T. Stewart, Thurlow Weed, + Peter Cooper, Cyrus McCormick, Lucretia Mott, Bryant, Longfellow, and + Emerson. Most old people could remember the running of the first railway + train; people of middle age could remember the sending of the first + telegraph message; and the children in the high schools remembered the + laying of the first Atlantic Cable. + </p> + <p> + The grandfathers of 1876 were fond of telling how Webster opposed taking + Texas and Oregon into the Union; how George Washington advised against + including the Mississippi River; 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 monarchy." They told how + Abraham Lincoln, when he was postmaster of New Salem, used to carry the + letters in his coon-skin cap and deliver them at sight; how in 1822 the + mails were carried on horseback and not in stages, so as to have the + quickest possible service; and how the news of Madison's election was + three weeks in reaching the people of Kentucky. When the telegraph was + mentioned, they told how in Revolutionary days the patriots used a system + of signalling called "Washington's Tele-graph," consisting of a pole, a + flag, a basket, and a barrel. + </p> + <p> + So, the young Republic was still within hearing distance of its childhood, + in 1876. Both in sentiment and in methods of work it was living close to + the log-cabin period. Many of the old slow ways survived, the ways that + were fast enough in the days of the stage-coach and the tinder-box. There + were seventy-seven thousand miles of railway, but poorly built and in + short lengths. There were manufacturing industries that employed two + million, four hundred thousand people, but every trade was broken up into + a chaos of small competitive units, each at war with all the others. There + were energy and enterprise in the highest degree, but not efficiency or + organization. Little as we knew it, in 1876 we were mainly gathering + together the plans and the raw materials for the building up of the modern + business world, with its quick, tense life and its national structure of + immense coordinated industries. + </p> + <p> + In 1876 the age of specialization and community of interest was in its + dawn. The cobbler had given place to the elaborate factory, in which + seventy men cooperated to make one shoe. The merchant who had hitherto + lived over his store now ventured to have a home in the suburbs. No man + was any longer a self-sufficient Robinson Crusoe. He was a fraction, a + single part of a social mechanism, who must necessarily keep in the + closest touch with many others. + </p> + <p> + A new interdependent form of civilization was about to be developed, and + the telephone arrived in the nick of time to make this new civilization + workable and convenient. It was the unfolding of a new organ. Just as the + eye had become the telescope, and the hand had become machinery, and the + feet had become railways, so the voice became the telephone. It was a new + ideal method of communication that had been made indispensable by new + conditions. The prophecy of Carlyle had come true, when he said that "men + cannot now be bound to men by brass collars; you will have to bind them by + other far nobler and cunninger methods." + </p> + <p> + Railways and steamships had begun this work of binding man to man by + "nobler and cunninger methods." The telegraph and cable had gone still + farther and put all civilized people within sight of each other, so that + they could communicate by a sort of deaf and dumb alphabet. And then came + the telephone, giving direct instantaneous communication and putting the + people of each nation within hearing distance of each other. It was the + completion of a long series of inventions. It was the keystone of the + arch. It was the one last improvement that enabled interdependent nations + to handle themselves and to hold together. + </p> + <p> + To make railways and steamboats carry letters was much, in the evolution + of the means of communication. To make the electric wire carry signals was + more, because of the instantaneous transmission of important news. But to + make the electric wire carry speech was MOST, because it put all + fellow-citizens face to face, and made both message and answer + instantaneous. The invention of the telephone taught the Genie of + Electricity to do better than to carry mes-sages in the sign language of + the dumb. It taught him to speak. As Emerson has finely said: + </p> + <p> + "We had letters to send. Couriers could not go fast enough, nor far + enough; broke their wagons, foundered their horses; bad roads in Spring, + snowdrifts in Winter, heat in Summer—could not get their horses out + of a walk. But we found that the air and the earth were full of + electricity, and always going our way, just the way we wanted to send. + WOULD HE TAKE A MESSAGE, Just as lief as not; had nothing else to do; + would carry it in no time." + </p> + <p> + As to the exact value of the telephone to the United States in dollars and + cents, no one can tell. One statistician has given us a total of three + million dollars a day as the amount saved by using telephones. This sum + may be far too high, or too low. It can be no more than a guess. The only + adequate way to arrive at the value of the telephone is to consider the + nation as a whole, to take it all in all as a going concern, and to note + that such a nation would be absolutely impossible without its telephone + service. Some sort of a slower and lower grade republic we might have, + with small industrial units, long hours of labor, lower wages, and + clumsier ways. The money loss would be enormous, but more serious still + would be the loss in the QUALITY OF THE NATIONAL LIFE. Inevitably, an + untelephoned nation is less social, less unified, less progressive, and + less efficient. It belongs to an inferior species. + </p> + <p> + How to make a civilization that is organized and quick, instead of a + barbarism that was chaotic and slow—that is the universal human + problem, not wholly solved to-day. And how to develop a science of + intercommunication, which commenced when the wild animals began to travel + in herds and to protect themselves from their enemies by a language of + danger-signals, 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 telephone. + </p> + <p> + With the use of the telephone has come a new habit of mind. The slow and + sluggish mood has been sloughed off. The old to-morrow habit has been + superseded by "Do It To-day"; and life has become more tense, alert, + vivid. The brain has been relieved of the suspense of waiting for an + answer, which is a psychological gain of great importance. It receives its + reply at once and is set free to consider other matters. There is less + burden upon the memory and the WHOLE MIND can be given to each new + proposition. + </p> + <p> + A new instinct of speed has been developed, much more fully in the United + States than elsewhere. "No American goes slow," said Ian Maclaren, "if he + has the chance of going fast; he does not stop to talk if he can talk + walking; and he does not walk if he can ride." He is as pleased as a child + with a new toy when some speed record is broken, when a pair of shoes is + made in eleven minutes, when a man lays twelve hundred bricks in an hour, + or when a ship crosses the Atlantic in four and a half days. Even seconds + are now counted and split up into fractions. The average time, for + instance, taken to reply to a telephone call by a New York operator, is + now three and two-fifth seconds; and even this tiny atom of time is being + strenuously worn down. + </p> + <p> + As a witty Frenchman has said, one of our most lively regrets is that + while we are at the telephone we cannot do business with our feet. 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 second. Instead of saying, as the + Spanish do, "Life is too short; what can one person do?" an American is + more apt to say, "Life is too short; therefore I must do to-day's work + to-day." To pack a lifetime with energy—that is the American plan, + and so to economize that energy as to get the largest results. To get a + question asked and answered in five minutes by means of an electric wire, + instead of in two hours by the slow trudging of a messenger boy—that + is the method that best suits our passion for instantaneous service. + </p> + <p> + It is one of the few social laws of which we are fairly sure, that a + nation organizes in proportion to its velocity. We know that a + four-mile-an-hour nation must remain a huge inert mass of peasants and + villagers; or if, after centuries of slow toil, it should pile up a great + city, the city will sooner or later fall to pieces of its own weight. In + such a way Babylon rose and fell, and Nineveh, and Thebes, and Carthage, + and Rome. Mere bulk, unorganized, becomes its own destroyer. It dies of + clogging and congestion. But when Stephenson's Rocket ran twenty-nine + miles an hour, and Morse's telegraph clicked its signals from Washington + to Baltimore, and Bell's telephone flashed the vibrations of speech + between Boston and Salem, a new era began. In came the era of speed and + the finely organized nations. In came cities of unprecedented bulk, 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 Congo. + </p> + <p> + That the telephone is now doing most of all, in this binding together of + all manner of men, is perhaps not too much to claim, when we remember that + there are now in the United States seventy thousand holders of Bell + telephone stock and ten million users of telephone service. There are two + hundred and sixty-four wires crossing the Mississippi, in the Bell system; + and five hundred and forty-four crossing Mason and Dixon's Line. It is the + telephone which does most to link together cottage and skyscraper and + mansion and factory and farm. It is not limited to experts or college + graduates. It reaches the man with a nickel as well as the man with a + million. It speaks all languages and serves all trades. It helps to + prevent sectionalism and race feuds. It gives a common meeting place to + capitalists and wage-workers. It is so essentially the instrument of all + the people, in fact, that we might almost point to it as a national + emblem, as the trade-mark of democracy and the American spirit. + </p> + <p> + In a country like ours, where there are eighty nationalities in the public + schools, the telephone has a peculiar value as a part of the national + digestive apparatus. It prevents the growth of dialects and helps on the + process of assimilation. Such is the push of American life, that the + humble immigrants from Southern Europe, before they have been here half a + dozen years, have acquired the telephone habit and have linked on their + small shops to the great wire network of intercommunication. In the one + community of Brownsville, for example, settled several years ago by an + overflow of Russian Jews from the East Side of New York, there are now as + many telephones as in the kingdom of Greece. And in the swarming East Side + itself, there is a single exchange in Orchard Street which has more wires + than there are in all the exchanges of Egypt. + </p> + <p> + There can be few higher ideals of practical democracy than that which + comes to us from the telephone engineer. His purpose is much more + comprehensive than the supplying of telephones to those who want them. It + is rather to make the telephone as universal as the water faucet, to bring + within speaking distance every economic unit, to connect to the social + organism every person who may at any time be needed. Just as the click of + the reaper means bread, and the purr of the sewing-machine means clothes, + and the roar of the Bessemer converter means steel, and the rattle of the + press means education, so the ring of the telephone bell has come to mean + unity and organization. + </p> + <p> + Already, by cable, telegraph, and telephone, no two towns in the civilized + world are more than one hour apart. We have even girdled the earth with a + cablegram in twelve minutes. We have made it possible for any man in New + York City to enter into conversation with any other New Yorker in + twenty-one seconds. We have not been satisfied with establishing such a + system of transportation that we can start any day for anywhere from + anywhere else; neither have we been satisfied with establishing such a + system of communication that news and gossip are the common property of + all nations. We have gone farther. We have established in every large + region of population a system of voice-nerves that puts every man at every + other man's ear, and which so magically eliminates the factor of distance + that the United States becomes three thousand miles of neighbors, side by + side. + </p> + <p> + This effort to conquer Time and Space is above all else the instinct of + material progress. To shrivel up the miles and to stretch out the minutes—this + has been one of the master passions of the human race. And thus the larger + truth about the telephone is that it is vastly more than a mere + convenience. It is not to be classed with safety razors and piano players + and fountain pens. It is nothing less than the high-speed tool of + civilization, gearing up the whole mechanism to more effective social + service. It is the symbol of national efficiency and cooperation. + </p> + <p> + All this the telephone is doing, at a total cost to the nation of probably + $200,000,000 a year—no more than American farmers earn in ten days. + We pay the same price for it as we do for the potatoes, or for one-third + of the hay crop, or for one-eighth of the corn. Out of every nickel spent + for electrical service, one cent goes to the telephone. We could settle + our telephone bill, and have several millions left over, if we cut off + every fourth glass of liquor and smoke of tobacco. Whoever rents a + typewriting machine, or uses a street car twice a day, or has his shoes + polished once a day, may for the same expense have a very good telephone + service. Merely to shovel away the snow of a single storm in 1910 cost the + city government of New York as much as it will pay for five or six years + of telephoning. + </p> + <p> + This almost incredible cheapness of telephony is still far from being + generally perceived, mainly for psychological reasons. A telephone is not + impressive. It has no bulk. It is not like the Singer Building or the + Lusitania. Its wires and switchboards and batteries are scattered and + hidden, and few have sufficient imagination to picture them in all their + complexity. If only it were possible to assemble the hundred or more + telephone buildings of New York in one vast plaza, 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 banners, then, perhaps, + there might be the necessary quality of impressiveness by which any large + idea must always be imparted to the public mind. + </p> + <p> + For lack of a seven and one-half cent coin, there is now five-cent + telephony even in the largest American cities. For five cents whoever + wishes has an entire wire-system at his service, a system that is kept + waiting by day and night, so that it will be ready the instant he needs + it. This system may have cost from twenty to fifty millions, yet it may be + hired for one-eighth the cost of renting an automobile. Even in + long-distance telephony, the expense of a message dwindles when it is + compared with the price of a return railway ticket. A talk from New York + to Philadelphia, for instance, costs seventy-five cents, while the railway + fare would be four dollars. From New York to Chicago a talk costs five + dollars as against seventy dollars by rail. As Harriman once said, "I + can't get from my home to the depot for the price of a talk to Omaha." + </p> + <p> + To say what the net profits have been, to the entire body of people who + have invested money in the telephone, will always be more or less of a + guess. The general belief that immense fortunes were made by the lucky + holders of Bell stock, is an exaggeration that has been kept alive by the + promoters of wildcat companies. No such fortunes were made. "I do not + believe," says Theodore Vail, "that any one man ever made a clear million + out of the telephone." 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 franchises. On the contrary, up to 1897, the holders of + stock in the Bell Companies had paid in four million, seven hundred + thousand dollars more than the par value; and in the recent consolidation + of Eastern companies, under the presidency of Union N. Bethell, the new + stock was actually eight millions less than the stock that was retired. + </p> + <p> + Few telephone companies paid any profits at first. They had undervalued + the cost of building and maintenance. Denver expected the cost to be two + thousand, five hundred dollars and spent sixty thousand dollars. Buffalo + expected to pay three thousand dollars and had to pay one hundred and + fifty thousand dollars. Also, they made the unwelcome discovery that an + exchange of two hundred costs more than twice as much as an exchange of + one hundred, because of the greater amount of traffic. Usually a dollar + that is paid to a telephone company is divided as follows: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Rent............ 4c + Taxes........... 4c + Interest........ 6c + Surplus......... 8c + Maintenance.... 16c + Dividends...... 18c + Labor.......... 44c + —— $1.00 +</pre> + <p> + Most of the rate troubles (and their name has been legion) have arisen + because the telephone business was not understood. In fact, until + recently, it did not understand itself. It persisted in holding to a local + and individualistic view of its business. It was slow to put telephones in + unprofitable places. It expected every instrument to pay its way. In many + States, both the telephone men and the public overlooked the most vital + fact in the case, which is that the members of a telephone system are + above all else INTERDEPENDENT. + </p> + <p> + One telephone by itself has no value. It is as useless as a reed cut out + of an organ or a finger that is severed from a hand. It is not even + ornamental or adaptable to any other pur-pose. It is not at all like a + piano or a talking-machine, which has a separate existence. It is useful + only in proportion to the number of other telephones it reaches. AND EVERY + TELEPHONE ANYWHERE ADDS VALUE TO EVERY OTHER TELEPHONE ON THE SAME SYSTEM + OF WIRES. That, in a sentence, is the keynote of equitable rates. + </p> + <p> + Many a telephone, for the general good, must be put where it does not earn + its own living. At any time some sudden emergency may arise that will make + it for the moment priceless. Especially since the advent of the + automobile, there is no nook or corner from which it may not be supremely + necessary, now and then, to send a message. This principle was acted upon + recently in a most practical way by the Pennsylvania Railroad, which at + its own expense installed five hundred and twenty-five telephones in the + homes of its workmen in Altoona. In the same way, it is clearly the social + duty of the telephone company to widen out its system until every point is + covered, and then to distribute its gross charges as fairly as it can. The + whole must carry the whole—that is the philosophy of rates which + must finally be recognized by legislatures and telephone companies alike. + It can never, of course, be reduced to a system or formula. It will always + be a matter of opinion and compromise, requiring much skill and much + patience. But there will seldom be any serious trouble when once its basic + principles are understood. + </p> + <p> + Like all time-saving inventions, like the railroad, the reaper, and the + Bessemer converter, the telephone, in the last analysis, COSTS NOTHING; IT + IS THE LACK OF IT THAT COSTS. THE NATION THAT MOST IS THE NATION WITHOUT + IT. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VIII. THE TELEPHONE IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES + </h2> + <p> + The telephone was nearly a year old before Europe was aware of its + existence. It received no public notice of any kind whatever until March + 3, 1877, when the London Athenaeum mentioned it in a few careful + sentences. It was not welcomed, except by those who wished an evening's + entertainment. And to the entire commercial world it was for four or five + years a sort of scientific Billiken, that never could be of any service to + serious people. + </p> + <p> + One after another, several American enthusiasts rushed posthaste to + Europe, with dreams of eager nations clamoring for telephone systems, and + one after another they failed. Frederick A. Gower was the first of these. + He was an adventurous chevalier of business who gave up an agent's + contract in return for a right to become a roving propagandist. Later he + met a prima donna, fell in love with and married her, forsook telephony + for ballooning, and lost his life in attempting to fly across the English + Channel. + </p> + <p> + Next went William H. Reynolds, of Providence, who had bought five-eights + of the British patent for five thousand dollars, and half the right to + Russia, Spain, Portugal, and Italy for two thousand, five hundred dollars. + How he was received may be seen from a letter of his which has been + preserved. "I have been working in London for four months," he writes; "I + have been to the Bank of England and elsewhere; and I have not found one + man who will put one shilling into the telephone." + </p> + <p> + Bell himself hurried to England and Scotland on his wedding tour in 1878, + with great expectations of having his invention appreciated in his native + land. But from a business point of view, his mission was a total failure. + He received dinners a-plenty, but no contracts; and came back to the + United States an impoverished and disheartened man. Then the optimistic + Gardiner G. Hubbard, Bell's father-in-law, threw himself against the + European inertia and organized the International and Oriental Telephone + Companies, which came to nothing of any importance. In the same year even + Enos M. Barton, the sagacious founder of the Western Electric, went to + France and England to establish an export trade in telephones, and failed. + </p> + <p> + These able men found their plans thwarted by the indifference of the + public, and often by open hostility. "The telephone is little better than + a toy," said the Saturday Review; "it amazes ignorant people for a moment, + but it is inferior to the well-established system of air-tubes." "What + will become of the privacy of life?" asked another London editor. "What + will become of the sanctity of the domestic hearth?" Writers vied with + each other in inventing methods of pooh-poohing Bell and his invention. + "It is ridiculously simple," said one. "It is only an electrical + speaking-tube," said another. "It is a complicated form of + speaking-trumpet," said a third. No British editor could at first conceive + of any use for the telephone, except for divers and coal miners. The + price, too, created a general outcry. Floods of toy telephones were being + sold on the streets at a shilling apiece; and although the Government was + charging sixty dollars a year for the use of its printing-telegraphs, + people protested loudly against paying half as much for telephones. As + late as 1882, Herbert Spencer writes: "The telephone is scarcely used at + all in London, and is unknown in the other English cities." + </p> + <p> + The first man of consequence to befriend the telephone was Lord Kelvin, + then an untitled young scientist. He had seen the original telephones at + the Centennial in Philadelphia, and was so fascinated with them that the + impulsive Bell had thrust them into his hands as a gift. At the next + meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Lord + Kelvin exhibited these. He did more. He became the champion of the + telephone. He staked his reputation upon it. He told the story of the + tests made at the Centennial, and assured the sceptical scientists that he + had not been deceived. "All this my own ears heard," he said, "spoken to + me with unmistakable distinctness by this circular disc of iron." + </p> + <p> + The scientists and electrical experts were, for the most part, split up + into two camps. Some of them said the telephone was impossible, while + others said that "nothing could be simpler." Almost all were agreed that + what Bell had done was a humorous trifle. But Lord Kelvin persisted. He + hammered the truth home that the telephone was "one of the most + interesting inventions that has ever been made in the history of science." + He gave a demonstration with one end of the wire in a coal mine. He stood + side by side with Bell at a public meeting in Glasgow, and declared: + </p> + <p> + "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 + voice. They were in fact electrical claps; while Bell conceived the idea—THE + WHOLLY ORIGINAL AND NOVEL IDEA—of giving continuity to the shocks, + so as to perfectly reproduce the human voice." + </p> + <p> + One by one the scientists were forced to take the telephone seriously. At + a public test there was one noted professor who still stood in the ranks + of the doubters. He was asked to send a message. He went to the instrument + with a grin of incredulity, and thinking the whole exhibition a joke, + shouted into the mouthpiece: "Hi diddle diddle—follow up that." Then + he listened for an answer. The look on his face changed to one of the + utmost amazement. "It says—`The cat and the fiddle,'" he gasped, and + forthwith he became a convert to telephony. By such tests the men of + science were won over, and by the middle of 1877 Bell received a + "vociferous welcome" when he addressed them at their annual convention at + Plymouth. + </p> + <p> + Soon afterwards, The London Times surrendered. It whirled right-about-face + and praised the telephone to the skies. "Suddenly and quietly the whole + human race is brought within speaking and hearing distance," it exclaimed; + "scarcely anything was more desired and more impossible." The next paper + to quit the mob of scoffers was the Tatler, which said in an editorial + peroration, "We cannot but feel im-pressed by the picture of a human child + commanding the subtlest and strongest force in Nature to carry, like a + slave, some whisper around the world." + </p> + <p> + Closely after the scientists and editors came the nobility. The Earl of + Caithness led the way. He declared in public that "the telephone is the + most extraordinary thing I ever saw in my life." And one wintry morning in + 1878 Queen Victoria drove to the house of Sir Thomas Biddulph, in London, + and for an hour talked and listened by telephone to Kate Field, who sat in + a Downing Street office. Miss Field sang "Kathleen Mavourneen," and the + Queen thanked her by telephone, saying she was "immensely pleased." She + congratulated Bell himself, who was present, and asked if she might be + permitted to buy the two telephones; whereupon Bell presented her with a + pair done in ivory. + </p> + <p> + This incident, as may be imagined, did much to establish the reputation of + telephony in Great Britain. A wire was at once strung to Windsor Castle. + Others were ordered by the Daily News, the Persian Ambassador, and five or + six lords and baronets. Then came an order which raised the hopes of the + telephone men to the highest heaven, from the banking house of J. S. + Morgan & Co. It was the first recognition from the "seats of the + mighty" in the business and financial world. A tiny exchange, with ten + wires, was promptly started in London; and on April 2d, 1879, Theodore + Vail, the young manager of the Bell Company, sent an order to the factory + in Boston, "Please make one hundred hand telephones for export trade as + early as possible." The foreign trade had begun. + </p> + <p> + Then there came a thunderbolt out of a blue sky, a wholly unforeseen + disaster. Just as a few energetic companies were sprouting up, the + Postmaster General suddenly proclaimed that the telephone was a species of + telegraph. According to a British law the telegraph was required to be a + Government monopoly. This law had been passed six years before the + telephone was born, but no matter. The telephone men protested and argued. + Tyndall and Lord Kelvin warned the Government that it was making an + indefensible mistake. But nothing could be done. Just as the first + railways had been called toll-roads, so the telephone was solemnly + declared to be a telegraph. Also, to add to the absurd humor of the + situation, Judge Stephen, of the High Court of Justice, spoke the final + word that compelled the telephone legally to be a telegraph, and sustained + his opinion by a quotation from Webster's Dictionary, which was published + twenty years before the telephone was invented. + </p> + <p> + Having captured this new rival, what next? The Postmaster General did not + know. He had, of course, no experience in telephony, and neither had any + of his officials in the telegraph department. There was no book and no + college to instruct him. His telegraph was then, as it is to-day, a + business failure. It was not earning its keep. Therefore he did not dare + to shoulder the risk of constructing a second system of wires, and at last + consented to give licenses to private companies. + </p> + <p> + But the muddle continued. In order to compel competition, according to the + academic theories of the day, licenses were given to thir-teen private + companies. As might have been expected, the ablest company quickly + swallowed the other twelve. If it had been let alone, this company might + have given good service, but it was hobbled and fenced in by jealous + regulations. It was compelled to pay one-tenth of its gross earnings to + the Post Office. It was to hold itself ready to sell out at six months' + notice. And as soon as it had strung a long-distance system of wires, the + Postmaster General pounced down upon it and took it away. + </p> + <p> + Then, in 1900, the Post Office tossed aside all obligations to the + licensed company, and threw open the door to a free-for-all competition. + It undertook to start a second system in London, and in two years + discovered its blunder and proposed to cooperate. It granted licenses to + five cities that demanded municipal ownership. These cities set out + bravely, with loud beating of drums, plunged from one mishap to another, + and finally quit. Even Glasgow, the premier city of municipal ownership, + met its Waterloo in the telephone. It spent one million, eight hundred + thousand dollars on a plant that was obsolete when it was new, ran it for + a time at a loss, and then sold it to the Post Office in 1906 for one + million, five hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. + </p> + <p> + So, from first to last, the story of the telephone in Great Britain has + been a "comedy of errors." There are now, in the two islands, not six + hundred thousand telephones in use. London, with its six hundred and forty + square miles of houses, has one-quarter of these, and is gaining at the + rate of ten thousand a year. No large improvements are under way, as the + Post Office has given notice that it will take over and operate all + private companies on New Year's Day, 1912. The bureaucratic muddle, so it + seems, is to continue indefinitely. + </p> + <p> + In Germany there has been the same burden of bureaucracy, but less backing + and filling. There is a complete government monopoly. Whoever commits the + crime of leasing telephone service to his neighbors may be sent to jail + for six months. Here, too, the Postmaster General has been supreme. He has + forced the telephone business into a postal mould. The man in a small city + must pay as high a rate for a small service, as the man in a large city + pays for a large service. There is a fair degree of efficiency, but no + high speed or record-breaking. The German engineers have not kept in close + touch with the progress of telephony in the United States. They have + preferred to devise methods of their own, and so have created a + miscellaneous assortment of systems, good, bad, and indifferent. All told, + there is probably an investment of seventy-five million dollars and a + total of nine hundred thousand telephones. + </p> + <p> + Telephony has always been in high favor with the Kaiser. It is his custom, + when planning a hunting party, to have a special wire strung to the forest + headquarters, so that he can converse every morning with his Cabinet. He + has conferred degrees and honors by telephone. Even his former Chancellor, + Von Buelow, received his title of Count in this informal way. But the + first friend of the telephone in Germany was Bismarck. The old Unifier saw + instantly its value in holding a nation together, and ordered a line + between his palace in Berlin and his farm at Varzin, which lay two hundred + and thirty miles apart. This was as early as the Fall of 1877, and was + thus the first long-distance line in Europe. + </p> + <p> + In France, as in England, the Government seized upon the telephone + business as soon as the pioneer work had been done by private citizens. In + 1889 it practically confiscated the Paris system, and after nine years of + litigation paid five million francs to its owners. With this reckless + beginning, it floundered from bad to worse. It assembled the most complete + assortment of other nations' mistakes, and invented several of its own. + Almost every known evil of bureaucracy was developed. The system of rates + was turned upside down; the flat rate, which can be profitably permitted + in small cities only, was put in force in the large cities, and the + message rate, which is applicable only to large cities, was put in force + in small places. The girl operators were entangled in a maze of civil + service rules. They were not allowed to marry without the permission of + the Postmaster General; and on no account might they dare to marry a + mayor, a policeman, a cashier, or a foreigner, lest they betray the + secrets of the switchboard. + </p> + <p> + There was no national plan, no standardization, no staff of inventors and + improvers. Every user was required to buy his own telephone. As George Ade + has said, "Anything attached to a wall is liable to be a telephone in + Paris." And so, what with poor equipment and red tape, the French system + became what it remains to-day, the most conspicuous example of what NOT to + do in telephony. + </p> + <p> + There are barely as many telephones in the whole of France as ought + normally to be in the city of Paris. There are not as many as are now in + use in Chicago. The exasperated Parisians have protested. They have + presented a petition with thirty-two thousand names. They have even + organized a "Kickers' League"—the only body of its kind in any + country—to demand good service at a fair price. The daily loss from + bureaucratic telephony has become enormous. "One blundering girl in a + telephone exchange cost me five thousand dollars on the day of the panic + in 1907," said George Kessler. But the Government clears a net profit of + three million dollars a year from its telephone monopoly; and until 1910, + when a committee of betterment was appointed, it showed no concern at the + discomfort of the public. + </p> + <p> + There was one striking lesson in telephone efficiency which Paris received + in 1908, when its main exchange was totally destroyed by fire. "To build a + new switchboard," said European manufacturers, "will require four or five + months." A hustling young Chicagoan appeared on the scene. "We 'll put in + a new switchboard in sixty days," he said; "and agree to forfeit six + hundred dollars a day for delay." Such quick work had never been known. + But it was Chicago's chance to show what she could do. Paris and Chicago + are four thousand, five hundred miles apart, a twelve days' journey. The + switchboard was to be a hundred and eighty feet in length, with ten + thousand wires. Yet the Western Electric finished it in three weeks. It + was rushed on six freight-cars to New York, loaded on the French steamer + La Provence, and deposited at Paris in thirty-six days; so that by the + time the sixty days had expired, it was running full speed with a staff of + ninety operators. + </p> + <p> + Russia and Austria-Hungary have now about one hundred and twenty-five + thousand telephones apiece. They are neck and neck in a race that has not + at any time been a fast one. In each country the Government has been a + neglectful stepmother to the telephone. It has starved the business with a + lack of capital and used no enterprise in expanding it. Outside of Vienna, + Budapest, St. Petersburg, and Moscow there are no wire-systems of any + consequence. The political deadlock between Austria and Hungary shuts out + any immediate hope of a happier life for the telephone in those countries; + but in Russia there has recently been a change in policy that may open up + a new era. Permits are now being offered to one private company in each + city, in return for three per cent of the revenue. By this step Russia has + unexpectedly swept to the front and is now, to telephone men, the freest + country in Europe. + </p> + <p> + In tiny Switzerland there has been government ownership from the first, + but with less detriment to the business than elsewhere. Here the officials + have actually jilted the telegraph for the telephone. They have seen the + value of the talking wire to hold their valley villages together; and so + have cries-crossed the Alps with a cheap and somewhat flimsy system of + telephony that carries sixty million conversations a year. Even the monks + of St. Bernard, who rescue snowbound travellers, have now equipped their + mountain with a series of telephone booths. + </p> + <p> + The highest telephone in the world is on the peak of Monte Rosa, in the + Italian Alps, very nearly three miles above the level of the sea. It is + linked to a line that runs to Rome, in order that a queen may talk to a + professor. In this case the Queen is Margherita of Italy and the professor + is Signor Mosso, the astronomer, who studies the heavens from an + observatory on Monte Rosa. At her own expense, the Queen had this wire + strung by a crew of linemen, who slipped and floundered on the mountain + for six years before they had it pegged in place. The general situation in + Italy is like that in Great Britain. The Government has always monopolized + the long-distance lines, and is now about to buy out all private + companies. There are only fifty-five thousand telephones to thirty-two + million people—as many as in Norway and less than in Denmark. And in + many of the southern and Sicilian provinces the jingle of the telephone + bell is still an unfamiliar sound. + </p> + <p> + The main peculiarity in Holland is that there is no national plan, but + rather a patchwork, that resembles Joseph's coat of many colors. Each city + engineer has designed his own type of apparatus and had it made to order. + Also, each company is fenced in by law within a six-mile circle, so that + Holland is dotted with thumb-nail systems, no two of which are alike. In + Belgium there has been a government system since 1893, hence there is + unity, but no enterprise. The plant is old-fashioned and too small. Spain + has private companies, which give fairly good service to twenty thousand + people. Roumania has half as many. Portugal has two small companies in + Lisbon and Oporto. Greece, Servia, and Bulgaria have a scanty two thousand + apiece. The frozen little isle of Iceland has one-quarter as many; and + even into Turkey, which was a forbidden land under the regime of the old + Sultan, the Young Turks are importing boxes of telephones and coils of + copper wire. + </p> + <p> + There is one European country, and only one, which has caught the + telephone spirit—Sweden. Here telephony had a free swinging start. + It was let alone by the Post Office; and better still, it had a Man, a + business-builder of remarkable force and ability, named Henry Cedergren. + Had this man been made the Telephone-Master of Europe, there would have + been a different story to tell. By his insistent enterprise he made + Stockholm the best telephoned city outside of the United States. He pushed + his country forward until, having one hundred and sixty-five thousand + telephones, it stood fourth among the European nations. Since his death + the Government has entered the field with a duplicate system, and a war + has been begun which grows yearly more costly and absurd. + </p> + <p> + Asia, as yet, with her eight hundred and fifty million people, has fewer + telephones than Philadelphia, and three-fourths of them are in the tiny + island of Japan. The Japanese were enthusiastic telephonists from the + first. They had a busy exchange in Tokio in 1883. This has now grown to + have twenty-five thousand users, and might have more, if it had not been + stunted by the peculiar policy of the Government. The public officials who + operate the system are able men. They charge a fair price and make ten per + cent profit for the State. But they do not keep pace with the demand. It + is one of the oddest vagaries of public ownership that there is now in + Tokio a WAITING LIST of eight thousand citizens, who are offering to pay + for telephones and cannot get them. And when a Tokian dies, his franchise + to a telephone, if he has one, is usually itemized in his will as a + four-hundred-dollar property. + </p> + <p> + India, which is second on the Asiatic list, has no more than nine thousand + telephones—one to every thirty-three thousand of her population! Not + quite so many, in fact, as there are in five of the skyscrapers of New + York. The Dutch East Indies and China have only seven thousand apiece, but + in China there has recently come a forward movement. A fund of twenty + million dollars is to be spent in constructing a national system of + telephone and telegraph. Peking is now pointing with wonder and delight to + a new exchange, spick and span, with a couple of ten-thousand-wire + switchboards. Others are being built in Canton, Hankow, and Tien-Tsin. + Ultimately, the telephone will flourish in China, as it has done in the + Chinese quarter in San Francisco. The Empress of China, after the siege of + Peking, commanded that a telephone should be hung in her palace, within + reach of her dragon throne; and she was very friendly with any + representative of the "Speaking Lightning Sounds" business, as the Chinese + term telephony. + </p> + <p> + In Persia the telephone made its entry recently in true comic-opera + fashion. A new Shah, in an outburst of confidence, set up a wire between + his palace and the market-place in Teheran, and invited his people to talk + to him whenever they had grievances. And they talked! They talked so + freely and used such language, that the Shah ordered out his soldiers and + attacked them. He fired upon the new Parliament, and was at once chased + out of Persia by the enraged people. From this it would appear that the + telephone ought to be popular in Persia, although at present there are not + more than twenty in use. + </p> + <p> + South America, outside of Buenos Ayres, has few telephones, probably not + more than thirty thousand. Dom Pedro of Brazil, who befriended Bell at the + Centennial, introduced telephony into his country in 1881; but it has not + in thirty years been able to obtain ten thousand users. Canada has exactly + the same number as Sweden—one hundred and sixty-five thousand. + Mexico has perhaps ten thousand; New Zealand twenty-six thousand; and + Australia fifty-five thousand. + </p> + <p> + Far down in the list of continents stands Africa. Egypt and Algeria have + twelve thousand at the north; British South Africa has as many at the + south; and in the vast stretches between there are barely a thousand more. + Whoever pushes into Central Africa will still hear the beat of the wooden + drum, which is the clattering sign-language of the natives. One strand of + copper wire there is, through the Congo region, placed there by order of + the late King of Belgium. To string it was probably the most adventurous + piece of work in the history of telephone linemen. There was one seven + hundred and fifty mile stretch of the central jungle. There were white + ants that ate the wooden poles, and wild elephants that pulled up the iron + poles. There were monkeys that played tag on the lines, and savages that + stole the wire for arrow-heads. But the line was carried through, and + to-day is alive with conversations concerning rubber and ivory. + </p> + <p> + So, we may almost say of the telephone that "there is no speech nor + language where its voice is not heard." There are even a thousand miles of + its wire in Abyssinia and one hundred and fifty miles in the Fiji Islands. + Roughly speaking, there are now ten million telephones in all countries, + employing two hundred and fifty thousand people, requiring twenty-one + million miles of wire, representing a cost of fifteen hundred million + dollars, and carrying fourteen thousand million conversations a year. All + this, and yet the men who heard the first feeble cry of the infant + telephone are still alive, and not by any means old. + </p> + <p> + No foreign country has reached the high American level of telephony. The + United States has eight telephones per hundred of population, while no + other country has one-half as many. Canada stands second, with almost four + per hundred; and Sweden is third. Germany has as many telephones as the + State of New York; and Great Britain as many as Ohio. Chicago has more + than London; and Boston twice as many as Paris. In the whole of Europe, + with her twenty nations, there are one-third as many telephones as in the + United States. In proportion to her population, Europe has only + one-thirteenth as many. + </p> + <p> + The United States writes half as many letters as Europe, sends one-third + as many telegrams, and talks twice as much at the telephone. The average + European family sends three telegrams a year, and three letters and one + telephone message a week; while the average American family sends five + telegrams a year, and seven letters and eleven telephone messages a week. + This one na-tion, which owns six per cent of the earth and is five per + cent of the human race, has SEVENTY per cent of the telephones. And fifty + per cent, or one-half, of the telephony of the world, is now comprised in + the Bell System of this country. + </p> + <p> + There are only six nations in Europe that make a fair showing—the + Germans, British, Swedish, Danes, Norwegians, and Swiss. The others have + less than one telephone per hundred. Little Denmark has more than Austria. + Little Finland has better service than France. The Belgian telephones have + cost the most—two hundred and seventy-three dollars apiece; and the + Finnish telephones the least—eighty-one dollars. But a telephone in + Belgium earns three times as much as one in Norway. In general, the lesson + in Europe is this, that the telephone is what a nation makes it. Its + usefulness depends upon the sense and enterprise with which it is handled. + It may be either an invaluable asset or a nuisance. + </p> + <p> + Too much government! That has been the basic reason for failure in most + countries. Before the telephone was invented, the telegraph had been made + a State monopoly; and the tele-phone was regarded as a species of + telegraph. The public officials did not see that a telephone system is a + highly complex and technical problem, much more like a piano factory or a + steel-mill. And so, wherever a group of citizens established a telephone + service, the government officials looked upon it with jealous eyes, and + usually snatched it away. The telephone thus became a part of the + telegraph, which is a part of the post office, which is a part of the + government. It is a fraction of a fraction of a fraction—a mere twig + of bureaucracy. Under such conditions the telephone could not prosper. The + wonder is that it survived. + </p> + <p> + Handled on the American plan, the telephone abroad may be raised to + American levels. There is no racial reason for failure. The slow service + and the bungling are the natural results of treating the telephone as + though it were a road or a fire department; and any nation that rises to a + proper conception of the telephone, that dares to put it into competent + hands and to strengthen it with enough capital, can secure as alert and + brisk a service as heart can wish. Some nations are already on the way. + China, Japan, and France have sent delegations to New York City—"the + Mecca of telephone men," to learn the art of telephony in its highest + development. Even Russia has rescued the telephone from her bureaucrats + and is now offering it freely to men of enterprise. + </p> + <p> + In most foreign countries telephone service is being steadily geared up to + a faster pace. The craze for "cheap and nasty" telephony is passing; and + the idea that the telephone is above all else a SPEED instrument, is + gaining ground. A faster long-distance service, at double rates, is being + well patronized. Slow-moving races are learning the value of time, which + is the first lesson in telephony. Our reapers and mowers now go to + seventy-five nations. Our street cars run in all great cities. Morocco is + importing our dollar watches; Korea is learning the waste of allowing nine + men to dig with one spade. And all this means telephones. + </p> + <p> + In thirty years, the Western Electric has sold sixty-seven million + dollars' worth of telephonic apparatus to foreign countries. But this is + no more than a fair beginning. To put one telephone in China to every + hundred people will mean an outlay of three hundred million dollars. To + give Europe as fit an equipment as the United States now has, will mean + thirty million telephones, with proper wire and switchboards to match. And + while telephony for the masses is not yet a live question in many + countries, sooner or later, in the relentless push of civilization, it + must come. + </p> + <p> + Possibly, in that far future of peace and goodwill among nations, when + each country does for all the others what it can do best, the United + States may be generally recognized as the source of skill and authority on + telephony. It may be called in to rebuild or operate the telephone systems + of other countries, in the same way that it is now supplying oil and steel + rails and farm machinery. Just as the wise buyer of to-day asks France for + champagne, Germany for toys, England for cottons, and the Orient for rugs, + so he will learn to look upon the United States as the natural home and + headquarters of the telephone. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IX. THE FUTURE OF THE TELEPHONE + </h2> + <p> + In the Spring of 1907 Theodore N. Vail, a rugged, ruddy, white-haired man, + was superintending the building of a big barn in northern Vermont. His + house stood near-by, on a balcony of rolling land that overlooked the town + of Lyndon and far beyond, across evergreen forests to the massive bulk of + Burke Mountain. His farm, very nearly ten square miles in area, lay back + of the house in a great oval of field and woodland, with several dozen + cottages in the clearings. His Welsh ponies and Swiss cattle were grazing + on the May grass, and the men were busy with the ploughs and harrows and + seeders. It was almost thirty years since he had been called in to create + the business structure of telephony, and to shape the general plan of its + development. Since then he had done many other things. The one city of + Buenos Ayres had paid him more, merely for giving it a system of trolleys + and electric lights, than the United States had paid him for putting the + telephone on a business basis. He was now rich and retired, free to enjoy + his play-work of the farm and to forget the troubles of the city and the + telephone. + </p> + <p> + But, as he stood among his barn-builders, there arrived from Boston and + New York a delegation of telephone directors. Most of them belonged to the + "Old Guard" of telephony. They had fought under Vail in the pioneer days; + and now they had come to ask him to return to the telephone business, + after twenty years of absence. Vail laughed at the suggestion. + </p> + <p> + "Nonsense," he said, "I'm too old. I'm sixty-two years of age." The + directors persisted. They spoke of the approaching storm-cloud of panic + and the need of another strong hand at the wheel until the crisis was + over, but Vail still refused. They spoke of old times and old memories, + but he shook his head. "All my life," he said, "I have wanted to be a + farmer." + </p> + <p> + Then they drew a picture of the telephone situation. They showed him that + the "grand telephonic system" which he had planned was unfinished. He was + its architect, and it was undone. The telephone business was energetic and + prosperous. Under the brilliant leadership of Frederick P. Fish, it had + grown by leaps and bounds. But it was still far from being the SYSTEM that + Vail had dreamed of in his younger days; and so, when the directors put + before him his unfinished plan, he surrendered. The instinct for + completeness, which is one of the dominating characteristics of his mind, + compelled him to consent. It was the call of the telephone. + </p> + <p> + Since that May morning, 1907, great things have been done by the men of + the telephone and telegraph world. The Bell System was brought through the + panic without a scratch. When the doubt and confusion were at their worst, + Vail wrote an open letter to his stock-holders, in his practical, + farmer-like way. He said: + </p> + <p> + "Our net earnings for the last ten months were $13,715,000, as against + $11,579,000 for the same period in 1906. We have now in the banks over + $18,000,000; and we will not need to borrow any money for two years." + </p> + <p> + Soon afterwards, the work of consolidation began. Companies that + overlapped were united. Small local wire-clusters, several thousands of + them, were linked to the national lines. A policy of publicity superseded + the secrecy which had naturally grown to be a habit in the days of patent + litigation. Visitors and reporters found an open door. Educational + advertisements were published in the most popular magazines. The corps of + inventors was spurred up to conquer the long-distance problems. And in + return for a thirty million check, 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 Company. + </p> + <p> + From what has been done, therefore, we may venture a guess as to the + future of the telephone. This "grand telephonic system" which had no + existence thirty years ago, except in the imagination of Vail, seems to be + at hand. The very newsboys in the streets are crying it. And while there + is, of course, no exact blueprint of a best possible telephone system, we + can now see the general outlines of Vail's plan. + </p> + <p> + There is nothing mysterious or ominous in this plan. It has nothing to do + with the pools and conspiracies of Wall Street. No one will be squeezed + out except the promoters of paper companies. 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 ponies, instead of + half a dozen small uncomfortable sheds. He has never been a "high + financier" to juggle profits out of other men's losses. He is merely + applying to the telephone business the same hard sense that any farmer + uses in the management of his farm. He is building a Big Barn, + metaphorically, for the telephone and telegraph. + </p> + <p> + Plainly, the telephone system of the future will be national, so that any + two people in the same country will be able to talk to one another. It + will not be competitive, for the reason that no farmer would think for a + moment of running his farm on competitive lines. It will have a + staff-and-line organization, to use a military phrase. Each local company + will continue to handle its own local affairs, and exercise to the full + the basic virtue of self-help. But there will also be, as now, a central + body of experts to handle the larger affairs that are common to all + companies. No separateness or secession on the one side, nor bureaucracy + on the other—that is the typically American idea that underlies the + ideal telephone system. + </p> + <p> + The line of authority, in such a system, will begin with the local + manager. From him it will rise to the directors of the State company; then + higher still to the directors of the national company; and finally, above + all corporate leaders to the Federal Government itself. The failure of + government ownership of the telephone in so many foreign countries does + not mean that the private companies will have absolute power. Quite the + reverse. 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 department. But it is an axiom of + democracy that no company, however well conducted, will be permitted to + control a public convenience without being held strictly responsible for + its own acts. As politics becomes less of a game and more of a + responsibility, the telephone of the future will doubtless be supervised + by some sort of public committee, which will have power to pass upon + complaints, and to prevent the nuisance of duplication and the swindle of + watering stock. + </p> + <p> + As this Federal supervision becomes more and more efficient, the present + fear of monopoly will decrease, just as it did in the case of the + railways. It is a fact, although now generally forgotten, that the first + railways of the United States were run for ten years or more on an + anti-monopoly plan. The tracks were free to all. Any one who owned a cart + with flanged wheels could drive it on the rails and compete with the + locomotives. There was a happy-go-lucky jumble of trains and wagons, all + held back by the slowest team; and this continued on some railways until + as late as 1857. By that time the people saw that com-petition on a + railway track was absurd. They allowed each track to be monopolized by one + company, and the era of expansion began. + </p> + <p> + No one, certainly, at the present time, regrets the passing of the + independent teamster. He was much more arbitrary and expensive than any + railroad has ever dared to be; and as the country grew, he became + impossible. He was not the fittest to survive. For the general good, he + was held back from competing with the railroad, and taught to cooperate + with it by hauling freight to and from the depots. This, to his surprise, + he found much more profitable and pleasant. He had been squeezed out of a + bad job into a good one. And by a similar process of evolution, the United + States is rapidly outgrowing the small independent telephone companies. + These will eventually, one by one, rise as the teamster did to a higher + social value, by clasping wires with the main system of telephony. + </p> + <p> + Until 1881 the Bell System was in the hands of a family group. It was a + strictly private enterprise. The public had been asked to help in its + launching, and had refused. But after 1881 it passed into the control of + the small stock-holders, and has remained there without a break. It is now + one of our most democratized businesses, scattering either wages or + dividends into more than a hundred thousand homes. It has at times been + exclusive, but never sordid. It has never been dollar-mad, nor frenzied by + the virus of stock-gambling. There has always been a vein of sentiment in + it that kept it in touch with human nature. Even at the present time, each + check of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company carries on it a + picture of a pretty Cupid, sitting on a chair upon which he has placed a + thick book, and gayly prattling into a telephone. + </p> + <p> + Several sweeping changes may be expected in the near future, now that + there is team-play between the Bell System and the Western Union. Already, + by a stroke of the pen, five million users of telephones have been put on + the credit books of the Western Union; and every Bell telephone office is + now a telegraph office. Three telephone messages and eight telegrams may + be sent AT THE SAME TIME over two pairs of wires: that is one of the + recent miracles of science, and is now to be tried out upon a gigantic + scale. Most of the long-distance telephone wires, fully two million miles, + can be used for telegraphic purposes; and a third of the Western Union + wires, five hundred thousand miles, may with a few changes be used for + talking. + </p> + <p> + The Western Union is paying rent for twenty-two thousand, five hundred + offices, all of which helps to make telegraphy a luxury of the few. It is + employing as large a force of messenger-boys as the army that marched with + General Sherman from Atlanta to the sea. Both of these items of expense + will dwindle when a Bell wire and a Morse wire can be brought to a common + terminal; and when a telegram can be received or delivered by telephone. + There will also be a gain, perhaps the largest of all, in removing the + trudging little messenger-boy from the streets and sending him either to + school or to learn some useful trade. + </p> + <p> + The fact is that the United States is the first country that has succeeded + in putting both telephone and telegraph upon the proper basis. + </p> + <p> + Elsewhere either the two are widely apart, or the telephone is a mere + adjunct of a telegraphic department. According to the new American plan, + the two are not competitive, but complementary. The one is a supplement to + the other. The post office sends a package; the telegraph sends the + contents of the package; but the telephone sends nothing. It is an + apparatus that makes conversation possible between two separated people. + Each of the three has a distinct field of its own, so that there has never + been any cause for jealousy among them. + </p> + <p> + To make the telephone an annex of the post office or the telegraph has + become absurd. There are now in the whole world very nearly as many + messages sent by telephone as by letter; and there are THIRTY-TWO TIMES as + many telephone calls as telegrams. In the United States, the telephone has + grown to be the big brother of the telegraph. It has six times the net + earnings and eight times the wire. And it transmits as many messages as + the combined total of telegrams, letters, and railroad passengers. + </p> + <p> + 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 come. How to get the benefits of organization without its + losses, to become strong without losing quickness, to become systematic + without losing the dash and dare of earlier days, to develop the working + force into an army of high-speed specialists without losing the bird's-eye + view of the whole situation,—these are the riddles of the new type, + for which the telephonists of the next generation must find the answers. + They illustrate the nature of the big jobs that the telephone has to offer + to an ambitious and gifted young man of to-day. + </p> + <p> + "The problems never were as large or as complex as they are right now," + says J. J. Carty, the chief of the telephone engineers. 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 IS. There is still the + race to break records. Already the girl at the switchboard can find the + person wanted in thirty seconds. This is one-tenth of the time that was + taken in the early centrals; but it is still too long. It is one-half of a + valuable minute. It must be cut to twenty-five seconds, or twenty or + fifteen. + </p> + <p> + There is still the inventors' battle to gain miles. The distance over + which conversations can be held has been increased from twenty miles to + twenty-five hundred. But this is not far enough. There are some civilized + human beings who are twelve thousand miles apart, and who have interests + in common. During the Boxer Rebellion in China, for instance, there were + Americans in Peking who would gladly have given half of their fortune for + the use of a pair of wires to New York. + </p> + <p> + In the earliest days of the telephone, Bell was fond of prophesying that + "the time will come when we will talk across the Atlantic Ocean"; but this + was regarded as a poetical fancy until Pupin invented his method of + automatically propelling the electric current. Since then the most + conservative engineer will discuss the problem of transatlantic telephony. + And as for the poets, they are now dreaming of the time when a man may + speak and hear his own voice come back to him around the world. + </p> + <p> + The immediate long-distance problem is, of course, to talk from New York + to the Pacific. The two oceans are now only three and a half days apart by + rail. Seattle is clamoring for a wire to the East. San Diego wants one in + time for her Panama Canal Exposition in 1915. The wires are already strung + to San Francisco, but cannot be used in the present stage of the art. 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 Vermont. + </p> + <p> + "I can see a universal system of telephony for the United States in the + very near future," says Carty. "There is a statue of Seward standing in + one of the streets of Seattle. The inscription upon it is, `To a United + Country.' But as an Easterner stands there, he feels the isolation of that + Far Western State, and he will always feel it, until he can talk from one + side of the United States to the other. For my part," continues Carty, "I + believe we will talk across continents and across oceans. Why not? Are + there not more cells in one human body than there are people in the whole + earth?" + </p> + <p> + Some future Carty may solve the abandoned problem of the single wire, and + cut the copper bill in two by restoring the grounded circuit. He may + transmit vision as well as speech. He may perfect a third-rail system for + use on moving trains. He may conceive of an ideal insulating material to + supersede glass, mica, paper, and enamel. He may establish a universal + code, so that all persons of importance in the United States shall have + call-numbers by which they may instantly be located, as books are in a + library. + </p> + <p> + Some other young man may create a commercial department on wide lines, a + work which telephone men have as yet been too specialized to do. Whoever + does this will be a man of comprehensive brain. He will be as closely in + touch with the average man as with the art of telephony. He will know the + gossip of the street, the demands of the labor unions, and the policies of + governors and presidents. The psychology of the Western farmer will + concern him, and the tone of the daily press, and the methods of + department stores. It will be his aim to know the subtle chemistry of + public opinion, and to adapt the telephone service to the shifting moods + and necessities of the times. HE WILL FIT TELEPHONY LIKE A GARMENT AROUND + THE HABITS OF THE PEOPLE. + </p> + <p> + Also, now that the telephone business has become strong, its next anxiety + must be to develop the virtues, and not the defects, of strength. Its + motto must be "Ich dien"—I serve; and it will be the work of the + future statesmen of the telephone to illustrate this motto in all its + practical variations. They will cater and explain, and explain and cater. + They will educate and educate, until they have created an expert public. + They will teach by pictures and lectures and exhibitions. They will have + charts and diagrams hung in the telephone booths, so that the person who + is waiting for a call may learn a little and pass the time more + pleasantly. They will, in a word, attend to those innumerable trifles that + make the perfection of public service. + </p> + <p> + Already the Bell System has gone far in this direction by organizing what + might fairly be called a foresight department. Here is where the + fortune-tellers of the business sit. When new lines or exchanges are to be + built, these men study the situation with an eye to the future. They + prepare a "fundamental plan," outlining what may reasonably be expected to + happen in fifteen or twenty years. Invariably they are optimists. They + make provision for growth, but none at all for shrinkage. By their advice, + there is now twenty-five million dollars' worth of reserve plant in the + various Bell Companies, waiting for the country to grow up to it. Even in + the city of New York, one-half of the cable ducts are empty, in + expectation of the greater city of eight million population which is + scheduled to arrive in 1928. There are perhaps few more impressive + evidences of practical optimism and confidence than a new telephone + exchange, with two-thirds of its wires waiting for the business of the + future. + </p> + <p> + Eventually, this foresight department will expand. It may, if a leader of + genius appear, become the first real corps of practical sociologists, + which will substitute facts for the present hotch-potch of theories. It + will prepare a "fundamental plan" of the whole United States, showing the + centre of each industry and the main runways of traffic. It will act upon + the basic fact that WHEREVER THERE IS INTERDEPENDENCE, THERE IS BOUND TO + BE TELEPHONY; and it will therefore prepare maps of interdependence, + showing the widely scattered groups of industry and finance, and the lines + that weave them into a pattern of national cooperation. + </p> + <p> + As yet, no nation, not even our own, has seen the full value of the + long-distance telephone. Few have the imagination to see what has been + made possible, and to realize that an actual face-to-face conversation may + take place, even though there be a thousand miles between. Neither can it + seem credible that a man in a distant city may be located as readily as + though he were close at hand. It is too amazing to be true, and possibly a + new generation will have to arrive before it will be taken for granted and + acted upon freely. Ultimately, there can be no doubt that long-distance + telephony will be regarded as a national asset of the highest value, for + the reason that it can prevent so much of the enormous economic waste of + travel. + </p> + <p> + Nothing that science can say will ever decrease the marvel of a + long-distance conversation, and there may come in the future an + Interpreter who will put it before our eyes in the form of a + moving-picture. He will enable us to follow the flying words in a talk + from Boston to Denver. We will flash first to Worcester, cross the Hudson + on the high bridge at Poughkeepsie, swing southwest through a dozen coal + towns to the outskirts of Philadelphia, leap across the Susquehanna, + zigzag up and down the Alleghenies into the murk of Pittsburg, cross the + Ohio at Wheeling, glance past Columbus and Indianapolis, over the Wabash + at Terre Haute, into St. Louis by the Eads bridge, through Kansas City, + across the Missouri, along the corn-fields of Kansas, and then on—on—on + with the Sante Fe Railway, across vast plains and past the brink of the + Grand Canyon, to Pueblo and the lofty city of Denver. Twenty-five hundred + miles along a thousand tons of copper wire! From Bunker Hill to Pike's + Peak IN A SECOND! + </p> + <p> + Herbert Spencer, in his autobiography, alludes to the impressive fact that + while the eye is reading a single line of type, the earth has travelled + thirty miles through space. But this, in telephony, would be slow + travelling. It is simple everyday truth to say that while your eye is + reading this dash,—, a telephone sound can be carried from New York + to Chicago. + </p> + <p> + There are many reasons to believe that for the practical idealists of the + future, the supreme study will be the force that makes such miracles + possible. Six thousand million dollars—one-twentieth of our national + wealth—is at the present time invested in electrical development. + The Electrical Age has not yet arrived; but it is at hand; and no one can + tell how brilliant the result may be, when the creative minds of a nation + are focussed upon the subdual of this mysterious force, which has more + power and more delicacy than any other force that man has been able to + harness. + </p> + <p> + As a tame and tractable energy, Electricity is new. It has no past and no + pedigree. It is younger than many people who are now alive. Among the wise + men of Greece and Rome, few knew its existence, and none put it to any + practical use. The wisest knew that a piece of amber, when rubbed, will + attract feathery substances. But they regarded this as poetry rather than + science. 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 love, and each bead of amber was highly + prized. It was worn as an amulet and a symbol of purity. Not for two + thousand years did any one dream that within its golden heart lay hidden + the secret of a new electrical civilization. + </p> + <p> + Not even in 1752, when Benjamin Franklin flew his famous kite on the banks + of the Schuylkill River, and captured the first CANNED LIGHTNING, was + there any definite knowledge of electrical energy. His lightning-rod was + regarded as an insult to the deity of Heaven. It was blamed for the + earthquake of 1755. And not until the telegraph of Morse came into general + use, did men dare to think of the thunder-bolt of Jove as a possible + servant of the human race. + </p> + <p> + Thus it happened that when Bell invented the telephone, he surprised the + world with a new idea. He had to make the thought as well as the thing. No + Jules Verne or H. G. Wells had foreseen it. The author of the Arabian + Nights fantasies had conceived of a flying carpet, but neither he nor any + one else had conceived of flying conversation. In all the literature of + ancient days, there is not a line that will apply to the telephone, except + possibly that expressive phrase in the Bible, "And there came a voice." In + these more privileged days, the telephone has come to be regarded as a + commonplace fact of everyday life; and we are apt to forget that the + wonder of it has become greater and not less; and that there are still + honor and profit, plenty of both, to be won by the inventor and the + scientist. + </p> + <p> + The flood of electrical patents was never higher than now. There are + literally more in a single month than the total number issued by the + Patent Office up to 1859. The Bell System has three hundred experts who + are paid to do nothing else but try out all new ideas and inventions; and + before these words can pass into the printed book, new uses and new + methods will have been discovered. There is therefore no immediate danger + that the art of telephony will be less fascinating in the future than it + has been in the past. It will still be the most alluring and elusive + sprite that ever led the way through a Dark Continent of mysterious + phenomena. + </p> + <p> + There still remains for some future scientist the task of showing us in + detail exactly what the telephone current does. Such a man will study + vibrations as Darwin studied the differentiation of species. He will + investigate how a child's voice, speaking from Boston to Omaha, can + vibrate more than a million pounds of copper wire; and he will invent a + finer system of time to fit the telephone, which can do as many different + things in a second as a man can do in a day, transmitting with every tick + of the clock from twenty-five to eighty thousand vibrations. He will deal + with the various vibrations of nerves and wires and wireless air, that are + necessary in conveying thought between two separated minds. He will make + clear how a thought, originating in the brain, passes along the + nerve-wires to the vocal chords, and then in wireless vibration of air to + the disc of the transmitter. At the other end of the line the second disc + re-creates these vibrations, which impinge upon the nerve-wires of an ear, + and are thus carried to the consciousness of another brain. + </p> + <p> + And so, notwithstanding all that has been done since Bell opened up the + way, the telephone remains the acme of electrical marvels. No other thing + does so much with so little energy. No other thing is more enswathed in + the unknown. Not even the gray-haired pioneers who have lived with the + telephone since its birth, can understand their protege. As to the why and + the how, there is as yet no answer. It is as true of telephony to-day as + it was in 1876, that a child can use what the wisest sages cannot + comprehend. + </p> + <p> + Here is a tiny disc of sheet-iron. I speak—it shudders. It has a + different shudder for every sound. It has thousands of millions of + different shudders. There is a second disc many miles away, perhaps + twenty-five hundred miles away. Between the two discs runs a copper wire. + As I speak, a thrill of electricity flits along the wire. This thrill is + moulded by the shudder of the disc. It makes the second disc shudder. And + the shudder of the second disc reproduces my voice. That is what happens. + But how—not all the scientists of the world can tell. + </p> + <p> + The telephone current is a phenomenon of the ether, say the theorists. But + what is ether? No one knows. Sir Oliver Lodge has guessed that it is + "perhaps the only substantial thing in the material universe"; but no one + knows. There is nothing to guide us in that unknown country except a + sign-post that points upwards and bears the one word—"Perhaps." The + ether of space! Here is an Eldorado for the scientists of the future, and + whoever can first map it out will go far toward discovering the secret of + telephony. + </p> + <p> + Some day—who knows?—there may come the poetry and grand opera + of the telephone. Artists may come who will portray the marvel of the + wires that quiver with electrified words, and the romance of the + switchboards that tremble with the secrets of a great city. Already Puvis + de Chavannes, by one of his superb panels in the Boston Library, has + admitted the telephone and the telegraph to the world of art. He has + embodied them as two flying figures, poised above the electric wires, and + with the following inscription underneath: "By the wondrous agency of + electricity, speech dashes through space and swift as lightning bears + tidings of good and evil." + </p> + <p> + But these random guesses as to the future of the telephone may fall far + short of what the reality will be. In these dazzling days it is idle to + predict. The inventor has everywhere put the prophet out of business. Fact + has outrun Fancy. When Morse, for instance, was tacking up his first + little line of wire around the Speedwell Iron Works, who could have + foreseen two hundred and fifty thousand miles of submarine cables, by + which the very oceans are all aquiver with the news of the world? When + Fulton's tiny tea-kettle of a boat steamed up the Hudson to Albany in two + days, who could have foreseen the steel leviathans, one-sixth of a mile in + length, that can in the same time cut the Atlantic Ocean in halves? And + when Bell stood in a dingy workshop in Boston and heard the clang of a + clock-spring come over an electric wire, who could have foreseen the + massive structure of the Bell System, built up by half the telephones of + the world, and by the investment of more actual capital than has gone to + the making of any other industrial association? Who could have foreseen + what the telephone bells have done to ring out the old ways and to ring in + the new; to ring out delay, and isolation and to ring in the efficiency + and the friendliness of a truly united people? + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The History of the Telephone, by Herbert N. 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